In the past week my e, f, and s key have fallen from my keyboard.
It’s been days since my first interview for a job I really thought I wanted and I still haven’t heard from them.
I’m terrified of the way my menstrual cycle is affecting everything else in my body, and I know if I go to the doctor, I’ll be told that’s just how it is sometimes, or lose some weight, or, or, or.
Palestinians are dying and my rabbis are saying I have to believe in Israel, just like I have to believe in America. I don’t believe in America.
Doctors hate fat black people on medicaid.
I can’t afford to eat, or pay my (overdue) bills. My phone got cut off. Like, have to get a new phone number eventually, cut off.
I keep being overstimulated by my cats, who have done nothing wrong and only want to be with me.
I tried to watch the new Ninja Turtles movie yesterday, but cried ten minutes into it.
I’m learning about Reish Lakish and Rabbi Yochanan with Bee and being devastated by the language. They loved each other so much.
The community wide Simchat Torah gathering turned into a zionist rally, and I’m afraid tomorrow will be more of the same.
Poverty is not a moral failure, but the way I behave when I am poor may be.
It finally got cold.
I have two new Black Hebrew School students. They’re siblings. One of them asked me, “Are you Jewish?” and I smiled and said, “Yeah! Are you?” And they said yes and we smiled at each other.
I had new and old friends over for dinner last night.
I get the apartment to myself for two months.
One of my favorite babies can get out of her crib on her own.
I want to live to be one hundred and twenty. I want to love the people who love me. I want to laugh more, and feel joy and be unafraid. I want to sing and dance and jump around to songs that make me happy. I want to live in an apartment surrounded by my friends, and learn torah and gemara and halakha all day. i want to pray hard and with feeling. i want to hide less, share more.
As Tishrei ends, I’ve been thinking about who or what i am returning to this year. I don’t know. Maybe it is hope, aliveness, sincerity? Maybe it is truth (I named myself Emet for a reason).
this is a terrible way to return to writing a weekly newsletter (about…domesticity? lol) but here it is.