Honors and Healers

You may or may not know, to a certain level of detail, that over the past year I changed my status from "temporarily able bodied" to "not so much." I went from living on a mountain and easily walking the 700 ft incline over half a mile to and from school every day to not being able to walk 100 ft in a flat apartment. I suppose I'd actually been ill the whole time (year and and a half), but I would completely ignore it until I was in the hospital or Urgent Care (where I was a regular). No one could figure out what was wrong until this summer. 

The diagnosis wound up being my soaz muscle (giant muscle connecting your leg and torso) was badly injured and spasmed to the point where I would get paralyzed for hours at a time. Since it was an untreated injury, the damage spread to other parts of my body, such as my digestive tract which would occasionally just stop working for weeks at a time. The therapy and exercises which I have since been participating in have not always had an immediately positive effect; leaving me lying on the floor in pain for hours while the Little Bear sits on me, thinking me an amusing log. 

But this experience has probably taught me more than the eleventy-five years I've been in school. Things I've always taken for granted; like walking. And enjoying my days more or less pain free. I've learned how to ask for help, to even sometimes demand it. I've also been forced to slow down. When you can't help but appreciate things on longer time scales other than the instantaneous effects of regular 20-something-year olds, a strange appreciation comes. Perhaps it's an old appreciation that we aren't used to. I've learned to draw healing from people. Just the act of caring to ask what's wrong when you see someone (young) using a cane helps the person using the cane know they are not suffering alone. 

I am blessed, on top of that, to know serveral healers. People like The Photographer who turned me upside down and hung me from a bar which let my spine straighten. It straightened so much that I'm now half an inch taller. Or the Menonite Woman who gave the Dvar at shul on Friday night who reminded me that the greatest way to learn about a person is by asking.

But probably the best thing that happened in the past week was the rare occurance of conferring upon the title of Magid to my Saba (grandfather). 

[Perhaps it should be mentioned that I adopt family so if I refer to someone as kin, it's because they are kin, not necessarily that I grew up with them in my life.] 

I had read about synagouges of old having someone called a Magid, a storyteller, who kept the stories of the community. Almost like the Giver, in a way. A local, communal historian. I have never heard of anyone actually having this title because, maybe local history isn't as important anymore. This, however, is the perfect title for Saba. My shul wrote its own Siddur (prayerbook) because there was a need for an LGBTQ siddur and not one in existence. Saba wrote a goodly portion of this siddur, caputring the feelings of a community "double blessed instead of double cursed" (as the Rabbi says) with being both Jewish and Gay. He's also wrote a whole manner of books on the presence of queer people in Jewish history and texts.

But above all, he is a healer. When we did the ceremony, the Rabbi asked people to come forward whom Saba had just been there at the right moment for them. A good third of the congregation came forward. I'm so proud and happy for him to have figured out what his position is and been acknowledged as important by so many people.

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Food idea for the day, since figs are in season.

A bunch of ripe figs, best picked from tree or farmers market but Trader Joe's also has decent ones. Maybe 5-10.

Stinky cheese. Blue is on the milder end. We like Roqufort or anything with an indigo center. If you can't stand stinky cheese, something super sharp would work too.

To make: 

Preheat oven to 350 or so. Maybe 325? Cook time might be longer but easier to monitor.

Cut off the little hats at the top of the fig, down far enough that you get the open center. Cut up a bit of cheese, stuff inside. Put the hat back on top. Put on a dish with sides (like a casserole dish) and bake about 10 minutes. Let cool, is delicious.
Buy the ingredients on ZeBeDoo!

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In competely other news, I am now offically obsessed with this song, both for its content and its animation. It hails back to the Beatles while simultaneously using very new technology. And trumpets are always great.