Friday Dispatch: Conjuring My Inner Mountain Goat
11 things regarding patience
Friday greetings,
1. “Expect the unexpected, and have a sense of humor.” These were Jude’s instructions to us as we boarded an Aeroflot flight to Moscow in April 1990, on the inaugural high-school exchange program between Amherst and Petrozavodsk. At 16, I’d been studying Russian with her since 1987 and had solidly fallen in love with the language, thanks in no small part to her passion and dedication. (Due to lack of use, my Russian has receded into some deep recess of my brain, so you can imagine how exciting it was to be able to understand much of the Russian dialogue in Heated Rivalry, which we binge-watched this week.)
2. Jude’s expert advice would carry me not only through a month-long homestay, but the rest of my life.
3. I just learned this tidbit: We forget 75% of what we learn within 48 hours of learning it. So if a person crams for an exam by studying for 10 hours straight, they’re going to a) forget the majority of what they took in, b) be disregulated and stressed, and c) likely also be mentally exhausted. A better approach is to prepare for one hour, ten days in a row.
4. This may seem neither here nor there, but I think in a way it applies to so much more than being a student. How many of us tend to be all-or-nothing in how we do things? Procrastinate or grind. Go all in or give up. If you can relate to this, hello! Slow and steady wins the race – maybe not as intense, sometimes less exciting, certainly less drama(tic), but ultimately, oh so much more sustainable.
5. This week was full of unexpected twists and turns, reminding us that we can plan and prepare, and then life happens. How we respond, of course, is always where the magic happens, though in the moment it might not feel magical but sometimes even maddening.
6. My mom and I raced across the pool. I won, but barely. We sat in the hot tub and looked out the big windows at the trees, searching for nests. My body looks more like hers with each passing year.
7. I scheduled a neurology appointment for August to initiate a cognition consult, with an eye towards genetic testing for Alzheimer’s.
8. Back in the apartment, I perused the cards propped up on her dresser while she got dressed. “See anything you like?” she asked. “Oh, it’s just neat to see what’s here,” I replied. She told me to choose one to take home.
9. “Of course, I love the Renoir,” I said, picking up the card. I opened it and laughed; of course, it was from me! I wrote it on her 47th birthday – five years younger than I am now. This was about eight months after the trip to the USSR.
10. This morning, I went down a rabbit hole. More literally, I went down to the basement, where the bins are. Bins mostly containing things from my kids’ childhoods – art, keepsakes, baby blankets, a treasure trove of PJ Library books. And one bin, exactly one, with contents from my past. For someone who kept dozens of journals (and is generally a packrat), this still strikes me. Over the years of moves, these are the things that made the cut. There is evidence that 1990 was a peak year for academic and creative awards and accolades in Russian, Spanish, Holocaust-related writings, and poetry. And it was also a low point for me personally, as my message to my mom reflects, riddled by loneliness, inner turmoil, and bulimia. “A complicated time of growth and question.” Makes me want to hug that girl.
11. I bought myself a birthday present this year. It’s a green sweatshirt with a flower across the back in white. The Hebrew word סבלנות is beneath the image. Savlanut. Patience. The root, s-v-l (ס-ב-ל), means “to bear” or “to suffer.” Rabbi Josh Levy elaborates on this connection: “What is so wonderful about this word is that it recognises that patience is not easy. That for some of us to be patient might come naturally, but for many, perhaps most, it is not something that just happens. It requires an effort of spirit. That to be patient can feel heavy. Like carrying a weight, carrying a burden.”
To exercise patience without the burden – that is so much of the challenge and the opportunity of being alive. Learning and growth take time. Bureaucratic systems interfere with human-centered needs. Expect the unexpected, and have a sense of humor. For real.
I am not a naturally patient person. I can be impulsive, excitable, and quick to speak, act, decide, and judge. Capricorn season is a perfect time to dig into this quality. Here’s to taking a page out of the mountain goat’s playbook and making our way up the mountain, one step at a time. May I save the racing for fun things like swimming with my 82-year-old mom!
Shabbat Shalom and love,
Jena
What a beautiful gift that your mother kept that card, and apparently others, all these years. And it's so interesting to contempate the connection between one Hebrew word and another.