Written on the patio at The Southside, August 31, 2001:

This week has been much harder than last and I’m not sure how to explain it.  From feeling like all was well with the world I’ve plummeted to worrying, worrying, worrying.  I know that this is useless behaviour, but I still haven’t figured out how to distract myself from worries when I don’t have to focus on work all day.

The heat has not let up at all this week … in more ways than one.  That sense of being frozen in time, stuck in a not-so-light place, has come to visit me again.  Somehow I’d convinced myself that what I had to do this week was work, work, work.  Finish prep for Nairobi.  Plan for a few meals to celebrate Rosh Hashana, with family and with friends.  Pack for NYC.  Do final draft of Ryerson grad course and get it posted … which comes fraught with other bureaucratic necessities of course since this is a large institution that I’m dealing with … and make sure there aren’t 40 students registered in my class this year as there were a week before we were to begin last year.  And get the work on the front sidewalk finished before the weather turns.  And figure out how to pack for Africa and Kosovo.  And book Wheel Trans for tomorrow.  And listen to one more news report about bed bugs.  And feel unwell … maybe connected to the Yellow Fever shot I had last week.

I went to an exercise class this morning but bailed half way through because I felt nauseous.  Then I spent a number of hours working on the Ryerson course set up … and watching a lot of TV.   Just as the day seemed to be getting away from me and I’d accomplished almost nothing – and I count feeling content as an accomplishment – I got an email from a friend in Dharamsala.   Through this email I felt my first real connection of the day.  Right smack in the middle of feeling lost came this email that reminded me why I was doing what I was doing.   It was a follow up to my volunteering to write some curriculum for a project being done at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin which opened just recently.  Here’s something from their home page:

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

- Albert Einstein, 1921

This is what I think that I’m striving for; this sense of being able to be connected.  Connected to the whole.  My friend (who has been busy travelling with the Dalai Lama) had a word at the end of his email that reached my heart.  The word is interdigitate.  Not sure what it meant I went to the internet of course and found out:  it means to join together the way fingers do when hands are clasped.  You know, joined in the way that it’s hard to tell where one hand ends and the next begins.  Who would have thought that what I was looking for in life was more interdigitation?  It’s definitely true though.

By 5 o’clock, after pondering interdigitation for a while, I just wanted to sit and soak in a bath and try to let the tension that I’d been feeling all day dissipate … so that’s what I did.  Sitting in a bath, reading a magazine, dreaming; that’s always something that helps me feel better.   Soon I was into a summer dress and taking the dog for a nice walk through the Cedarvale Ravine  to a restaurant (The Southside) in Spadina Village where I sat outside so that Isis (the dog) could sit nearby.  With my martini they brought me a little “amuse bouche” …. a small endive leaf with smoked trout and crème fraiche.  What could possibly be bad about that?  I’ve had a very nice martini (they do know how to make one here so that it doesn’t feel skimpy, but it would be much better if they’d stuff the olive with a good blue cheese) and soon another will arrive to go along with my Ahi Tuna Nicoise salad.

Ah – my salad has come.  The egg is perfectly cooked with just a touch of liquid left at the centre.  The ahi tuni tartare is fabulous with the French beans, black olives, cherry tomatoes, greens and new potato chips that come with it. I’m not sure yet about what will come next (likely some decadent desert like a creme brulee).   The temperature is slowly dropping, the food here is fabulous, and I can write by tethering my laptop to my iPhone.

Sitting here, sipping a martini, writing, and eating fabulous food with my lovely dog at my feet (sort of hidden away) I can’t help but think that life doesn’t get much better than this.  I know that something just isn’t working for me though right now.  I’m getting more used to just flowing with the ups and downs but I’m not pleased to be doing that so much.    Is it too much time alone?  Is it a lack of focus and at the same time a focus on too many things?  Not enough interdigitating happening?  Or maybe it’s just that summer is ending and a new school year is beginning.

David has just arrived (he’s been particularly absent this past week) and so I’m going to turn off my laptop, order him a coffee, and see if together we can sort this out.  We’ll soon be on our way to NYC for our anniversary weekend.  Thursday night we have tickets to see Next to Normal.  We’ll be able to go to services Friday night and Saturday morning at B’nai Jeshurun, absolutely my favorite community to pray with.  Saturday afternoon we’re seeing Memphis and then we’ll go back to B’nai Jeshurun for  Selichot  (a service of prayers asking for forgiveness that is held close to midnight at the end of the Sabbath before Rosh Hashana).  Add to that the walking we’ll do through Central Park and around town.  And the great guacamole at the Iguana.  I’m just hoping that Hurricane Earl doesn’t decide that it needs to celebrate with us.  If it does, it does.  I’m not a sugar cube and the rain won’t melt me.

Shana Tova to all of you who are celebrating the beginning of 5771.

To absolutely all of you, my best wishes for many opportunities to interdigitate!