Friday Dispatch: A Way Through

A little sun, a little fog, a lot of gratitude

Apr 19, 2024

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”

~ A. A. Milne

Friday greetings,

Truth be told, it’s Thursday evening as I sit down to write to you this week. I wanted to get something drafted tonight, since tomorrow I’ll be busy getting a quote for asbestos and mold abatement in the house we bought today (!!!). It was built in 1928 and has been lovingly cared for – the previous owners lived there for 22 years – but like any old house, it needs some TLC. As of this morning, we are, quite miraculously, its new stewards.

So I’m writing tonight, but I’m so tired that I am boring myself already and wonder if I will be able to muster anything Dispatch-worthy. (This is the part when I remind myself of the rest of the name of this Substack, Dispatches from DAILY LIFE. And daily life, even on days of great import like the one when we became homeowners together for the first time, doesn’t always make for the most riveting reading. Needless to say, it’s not for me to judge. I’m just going to do my part, which is to show up. Hi!)

One Rejection & Two Acceptances This Week

The rejection was from a literary prize with a judge whose name you’d likely recognize. The consolation was that the nature of the rejection, which was encouraging:

"We found your poetry to be highly accomplished... We received over four hundred submissions for this prize, which left us with the difficult position of having to decline eminently publishable works… I am very sorry to write with disappointing news. Please know that we have carefully considered your work and this is by no means a reflection of its quality. Thank you again for the opportunity to consider God Is Not Perfect: Poems for the Days of Awe for the prize. We wish you all the best in finding a suitable publisher."

One acceptance was of a short (750-word) personal essay called Soon Be Home, which will be published in the next issue of Emerge Literary Journal. I wrote this piece last month, sitting across the street from our soon-to-be new home in the wee hours of the morning after dropping Pearl at the airport. Here is the last paragraph:

Just as I carry my young self within, I carry those I love with me everywhere, in my thoughts, in my heart. I repeat the new address to myself like a mantra, to be sure I won’t get lost on the way home.

I’m particularly thankful to ELJ’s creative nonfiction editor Diane Gottlieb for her edits, which helped me pare the piece down to its essence.

The other acceptance was of four pieces, which now appear in Calling Out: Psalms for Today, an “emergency anthology” edited by Sarah Tuttle-Singer and Rabbi Menachem Creditor. (If you’d like to purchase a copy, it’s available on Amazon.)

The Story of Our People

Passover begins Monday at sundown. To be honest, I have not been able to wrap my head around it. How on earth do we practice remembering – which is the heart of the seder and telling the story of the exodus of the Jews from enslavement to liberation – with, well, everything (gestures wildly)?

Of course, it could be argued, one could argue, or, to be less passive or impersonal about it, I could argue that it’s precisely because of (gestures wildly – everything) that we must remember, that our story is so acutely relevant to these times that telling it as an opportunity to engage deeply with the most difficult, pressing, painful questions, as well as the most needed, if difficult to grasp, possibilities.

This is easier said than done when you’ve got people with Very Strong Feelings and Opinions and Beliefs across a Very Big Spectrum. All of this is to say, I am a little apprehensive and mostly a lot grateful that we get to sit down in my parents’ dining room next week with my father at the head of the table, to dip herbs in salt water, to remember the tears of our ancestors, to mix the sweetness with the bitter, to recall that even in times of the greatest constriction, we have found a way through.

We find a way through.

There must be a way through.

It might not yet be evident, but we keep the faith and keep going.

This – this is the Story of Our People. And “our people” has never, ever been a monolith; we are as varied and headstrong and heartstrong and multitudinous as we are relatively few.

So all I know for sure is that I love my family deeply, my immediate family, my extended family, my Jewish family, and my human family. And to love is to stay at the table, to give thanks, to bring respect and curiosity, and to also remember that one of the Passover commandments is to recline. We must balance the call to be vigilant in our inquiries and intentional in our conversations with the concurrent call to – quite literally – sit back and appreciate our blessings.

Apparently, that’s what I have to say about that for the moment. (This is what happens when I just sit down and show up. I have no idea what will come, and then I trust you by hitting “send” and we see what happens. It’s kind of wild and sometimes it feels intensely vulnerable and other times it’s super fun and mostly it’s both solid ground and high-wire walk and we’re just here being people living real lives together for a moment.)

Well, that was more than I expected to write or share, so I will pause here. I’ll close with one of the poems that appears in the “Psalms” anthology. I wrote it in October, in a moment when shock first gave way to searing pain and impossible questions, all of which I’m still swimming inside of.

A Way Through

{written in October 2023}

אין-אֹמֶר וְאֵין דְּבָרים
Ein omer, v'ein d'varim
There is no uttering, there are no words*

אין אין אין אין אין אין אין אין
Ein, ein, ein, ein, ein, ein, ein, ein

There is no there is no there is no
There is no there is no there is no
There no way past but through
There is no way
There is no way past
There is no way past but
There is no way past but through
There is no way past but there
has to be a way through

What is the way through
What is the way

What if
What if there is no
What if there is no way
What if there is no way through
What if there is no way past
What if

My soul is crying out
for a way through

*from Psalm 19

Shabbat Shalom and love,

Jena