Friday Dispatch: The Blinking Cursor

From chaos to now

Friday greetings,

How’s this for meta?

Most Fridays, that’s where I start. Here, in front of a white screen with a blinking cursor.

Blinking to adjust to the dark.

Blinking to adjust to the changing light.

Blinking with bewilderment.

Blinking with anticipation.

What came before?

Where am I now?

What will come next?

Most Fridays, and many other days, too but especially Fridays, I sit at this table, made from old attic beams by the father of a woman we never met. The table has a history of its own, the wood an even older history.

Joy Harjo’s poem floats to mind: Perhaps the world ends here.

Each day, someone’s world does end. We are steeped in calamity. We are steeped in bureaucracy and bigotry.

Still, I return to this table to see what will come after the blinking. Today, the table is here. Today, I am here. Today, you are here. We are also steeped in blessings.

What came before? Yesterday, my mom and I went to Lehrhaus, a Jewish tavern and house of learning in Somerville, Mass. Rabbi Adina Allen, cofounder and creative director of the Jewish Studio Project, had come to do a talk with Lehrhaus founder Joshua Foer about her wonderful book, The Place of All Possibility.

We ate tuna sandwiches and chips in the car on the way there and listened to the amazing soundtrack of Hadestown.

That's what I'm workin' on
A song to fix what's wrong
Take what's broken, make it whole
A song so beautiful
It brings the world back into tune
Back into time
And all the flowers will bloom

Among many other evocative and inspiring things, Adina spoke about “chaos and void” as potent sources of creation. If God created the world from chaos and void and we are creating in the divine image, then it follows that we, too, are endowed with the innate capacity to create from chaos and void.

When faced with a blinking cursor, where do we begin?

What existed before? Before God created light. Before light existed as distinct from its counterpart, darkness. Before all that God declared good. before form. Before flora and fauna, before mountains and rivers, before… us.

Chaos. Void. Darkness. God sweeping, hovering, over the water. Hovering. Hummingbird comes to mind. Or a protective mama bird. Or a hand, resting on the keys, before the words come.

Hover.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

I think I need to take a sip of coffee.

OK, I’m back.

Tell me, have you heard the word “chaos” ad nauseam these past 10 days?

Yesterday, the families of 67 souls received a call that delivered the end of the world. Yesterday, my mom and drove in and out of Boston without a hitch to a place that celebrates learning and community. Yesterday, on our way back to the Pike, we passed a street that was closed off and saw dozens of emergency vehicles not a block away. We didn’t know what had happened. This morning, I happened to see a post in a Facebook group of Seven Sisters alumnae from a recent college grad whose Cambridge apartment is uninhabitable after a building-wide electrical fire. Oof.

Proximity. Degrees of separation. The illusion of safety. The illusion of separateness. Chaos. Void. The depths of the icy Potomac. That phone call. Ancient wisdom. Such good scones. Inquiry and curiosity. Creation. The sourdough starter M.J. is feeding. Nourishment. My daughter called after she left work just to say hi on her way to the train. The other night we had a nice long catch-up, the kind I remember her having with my mom when she was a toddler wandering the house with the cordless phone. I had received yet another generous offering of Jewish books, this time from a fellow congregant who is moving out-of-state and ready to part with this considerable collection. As I arranged them on the shelves in my home office, we chatted about writing and prompts and who knows what else. “I delight in you,” I said before we hung up. “I delight in you, too,” she said, surprising me and doubling my delight. Later, a goodnight text from my son with our infinite game of “love you more.”

While sifting through this last gifting of books, I found a treasure – this volume from Warsaw, 1923. Whoaaaa. Every day, we find ourselves in spaces between ever-moving bookends (no pun intended) of what came before and what comes after. Whose book was this I now hold in my hands, the paper yellowed and fragile? Can we speak to each other somehow, across space and time?

I turn to Pirke Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers), where Rabbi Tarfon’s wisdom from Pirke Avot calls to me with a resounding “yes.”

You may be familiar with the oft-quoted first two lines, or perhaps the first four, or the first seven, or just the final four words. Or maybe you are intimately familiar with the whole teaching. What struck me most about it when I read it last night on the couch was the repetition of “now.” Have a read:

We are always called back to the present moment. And it is by doing this that we can learn from and honor the past as well as write the songs that may, God willing, bring the world back into tune.

This is a tall order sometimes. Scratch that. It’s a tall order, period. So it’s no wonder so many faith traditions emphasize this in some way, as if every great sage ever understood that the inevitable overwhelm of the world would throw us into chaos.

(Side note: Some people want chaos. Some people revel in it. Create it on purpose. Spread it like a plague. Beware such people.)

The simplest practice I know, when I’m daunted, when I’m unsure of how to proceed, is this: Come back, come back.

To the table. To the blinking cursor. To the hovering. To the moment just before. To the during. To the now, now, now Rabbi Tarfon calls us to heed. I find his instructions to be both all-encompassing and utterly granular. Both are helpful to me. Maybe they can be helpful to you, too?

And remember: “I don’t know” is always a potent place to start. Just ask the Talmud! Imagine if certain so-called leaders would be willing to employ those wise words more often.

Let me close today by reminding you to order your copy of my newly published book!

Fierce Encouragement: 201 Writing Prompts for Staying Grounded in Fragile Times is an invitation to move from blinking cursor to words and thoughts unfurling.

It can be really hard to get started. It can also be really easy. Which will you choose?

Today is the last day to get 20% off using the coupon code FIERCE.

Shabbat Shalom and love,

Jena

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