Friday Dispatch: Good Morning

To you and you and you

Friday greetings,

Good morning, moon and stars. Good morning, birdsong.

Good morning, dog snore. Good morning, darkness before the dawn. Good morning, disappointment. Good morning, coffee. Good morning, resilience. Good morning, courage.

Good morning, synchronicity. Good morning, tiny steps. Good morning, smushems and other pet names. Good morning, letters and numbers. Good morning, trunks and branches.

Good morning, total and utter disbelief. Good morning, world inside out and upside down. Good morning, horseshoe politics. Good morning, good luck with that.

Good morning, Duolingo streak. Good morning, screenshots. Good morning, delete key. Good morning, time lost to doomscrolling.

Good morning, voices in the wilderness. Good morning, lost and found bin.

Good morning, mothers and daughters. Good morning, grandfather and grandson. Good morning, nonbinary rockstar my love.

Good morning, old photos. Good morning, nuance. Good morning, tell it slant. Good morning, wow. Good morning, medicine cabinet. Good morning, expired prescriptions. Good morning, Goodwill.

Good morning, breathing in. Good morning, breathing out. Good morning, salvation of words on page.

Good morning, world gone mad. Good morning, head-exploding emoji. Good morning, actual history. Good morning, projection writ large.

Good morning, heart. Good morning, take heart. Good morning, stay. Good morning, gratitude. Good morning, Mom. Good morning, Dad. Good morning, sisters. Good morning, my babies.

Good morning, contractors. Good morning, telegram from Uncle Sam. Good morning, blessings. Good morning, song. Good morning, even this, and this, and this.

Good morning, friend. Good morning, highway.

Good morning, apple blossom offering. Good morning, aching world. Good morning, stillness in the swirl. Good morning, skin and bones and all systems go. Good morning, dayenu.

Good morning, fear. Good morning, faith. Good morning, first light. Good morning, begin again. Good morning, keep going.

Good morning, to you and you and you.

Shabbat Shalom and love,

Jena

*

p.s. My op-ed, Things I have not said, was published this week in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. You can read it here.

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New Publication

I’m honored to have four pieces in this new collection, Calling Out: Psalms for Today – An Emergency Anthology, which was listed as Amazon's top new release in Jewish Prayer Books last week. It’s a small volume that you can slip into a bag and carry with you. Purchase copies here.

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11 things about comparing

1. Sometimes I look at Instagram and see accounts of people whose work and businesses have unfolded in the same time period as mine. The comparing mind is oh so quick.

2. There've been so many junctures over the years of discerning where to place my energy. And sometimes, if I'm in the weeds, and especially when I'm tired, I can tell myself a story that I missed some boat or some window or some other thing a person can miss, and that I could've or should've been somewhere other than where I am right now, somewhere invariably bigger, better, and more.

3. By now, most of us know this song by heart. It's dull, like something that plays in the grocery store and then you get home and you're humming it but you can't even quite remember where you last heard it. It's just stuck in your head and you're humming the comparison song as you put away your groceries, rather than appreciating the fact that you are putting away groceries.

4. Comparison eclipses gratitude. Comparison distorts reality. Comparison diminishes. Comparison debilitates. Comparison dulls. Comparison should come with a lot of fine print about the numerous side effects, including, sometimes death, if only of the spirit.

5. This one's book and that one's house. This one's vacation and that one's relationship(s). This one's income and that one's art.

6. We (I) blame social media for this phenomenon. But it's nothing new. Just read Shakespeare's Sonnet #29.

7. Heck, go back to the last of the 10 Commandments. It's right there.

8. I will not lecture myself, or you, about gratitude, about counting your blessings. Nobody likes to be lectured.

9. In writing groups, I often remind folks that everyone always thinks everyone else is amazing, and most people exclude themselves from the amazing contingent. We place ourselves on the outside of some perceived inside, deeming what we create or contribute somehow less worthy.

10. (There is no outside.)

11. I printed up an email my Dad sent me about four years ago. It says, in all caps, YOU ARE DOING AN AMAZING FUCKING JOB. I printed it and taped it on the wall by my desk. I would now like to pass this encouragement along to you. YOU ARE DOING AN AMAZING FUCKING JOB.

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