Monday, Monday

Good Morning.

It’s Monday. Most of us are home. And I am here to greet you with consolations.

The past twelve hours, in our house, have been filled with some semblance of normalcy. My little one woke me in the night when he couldn’t find his plush penguin, and then again when he decided he didn’t actually want the penguin: He wanted the sea otter.

I’m the first one awake this morning; it’s dark and still, and rainy — which feels right.

The kids will be up soon, we’ll eat breakfast, get dressed.

Record Scratch.

I told them to be ready for circle-time at 9:15Am — but it will just be the three of us sitting in a circle in our living room. (This did seem a lot more manageable before playdates were taken off the table!)

I’m reminded of the first anniversary of 9/11, and a walk through Washington Square Park on my way to work, in my business casual clothes - brown pin-striped pants and a sepia sweater, I remember it so clearly.

I stopped at a prayer vigil in the center of the park.

I pray every morning; I have since I was five-years-old when my grandmother taught me the Shema. But here I was with all of these other people praying. (A few years before I met Dan and I was not a member of any synagogue.)

The experience was new and astonishing; something that I did all along — alone — I was now joined by so many others — this sacrosanct moment in Greenwich Village — where the people in Washington Square Park who were not praying stood out.

I’ve had traces of this feeling as I’ve spoken to others over the past couple of days: Some of us — for various reasons: parenthood, illness, care-taking, remote-work — have been self-isolating for a long time— and it now feels like we are in the company of so many others — Well everyone actually.

And it’s wild - comforting, confusing.

None of us are sure how long this will continue. Some parents circulate detailed homeschool curriculums while we wait to hear from the teachers.

Me? I’ve lined up one craft project, and told my kids we’re not watching t.v. until 2:40 pm - when the school day ends. We’re all doing our best.

The consolations? I’m flooded with them (My first thought was to ration them out over the week) But I think we need them now so here goes:

After I posted suggestions for family movies, a congregant showed up on my doorstep - in a face mask - with old Disney VHS tapes (including a film I have never heard of starring Ricki Lake and talking cats, and I’m just sad I can’t have people over for a viewing party). Another bagged up the DVD collection which she told me comforted her kids during the second Israel intifada and left it for me — with a portable dvd player — on her stoop next to the bottle of hand sanitizer.

I have reconnected with friends from all over, our East Coast community joining in with our West Coast congregation live-feeds. People wanting to connect over teachings and continued rituals — even virtually.

And an abundance of offerings: It looks like I can integrate cooking lessons and yoga and breath-work into my open curriculum this week!

There’s tremendous goodwill and desire to channel it towards the most vulnerable among us, and I hope we’ll continue to take care of those in need after this crisis passes — which it will — eventually.

For now, my prayers are with the sick, the bereaved, and those with a lot less flexibility than myself.

And they’re also with all of you.

With all of us.

Whatever else is going on, our kids are still going to wake us because they want the penguin, and wake us again because they want the sea otter.

And that’s real and deserving of an Amen too.

Until Soon, friends.