Interpretations, Intention

Yesterday was Erev Yom Kippur and I had planned to attend Kol Nidrei services at 7pm a Reconstructionist synagogue in Denver. I went for a walk in the late afternoon and returned home to eat a bit, drink a lot, shower and change into my all-white wardrobe for this most solemn of Jewish holidays. I even removed the bright red polish from my toe nails to be more in keeping with the spirit Yom Kippur. It is a day that we rehearse our deaths by wearing white, as if wrapping ourselves in a shroud, and refraining from eating, drinking, bathing, having sex and wearing leather. And it’s a day that even many lapsed Jews show up in synagogue for at least part of the time, not wishing to miss Kol Nidrei, which has some of the most poignant and moving liturgy of the entire Jewish calendar.

By 6:20pm I had accomplished my pre-holiday preparations and was ready to leave but could not find my car keys. The key and the remote are attached to a ring that has a large metal charm on it; this ensemble jangles and makes a sound if dropped. I’ve temporarily misplaced my keys before so, rather than panicking, I started to systematically look for them in all the usual places.

First I dumped out my purse. Nope.

Then I looked on my kitchen table – often I leave the keys there. Nothing. And they had not fallen to the ground, either. Perhaps I had put them in one of my backpacks accidentally? A quick check indicated that no, I had not.

Then I looked in the bathroom – perhaps I had brought the key ring in there after returning from my yoga class earlier in the day? I searched the top of my sink, the bathtub and the wall cabinet. Nada.

Maybe, when I had uncharacteristically made my bed that afternoon, the keys had gotten trapped between the blanket and the sheets? I checked my bed for lumps and did not find any. Nor were there any keys in my laundry basket, where I had tossed a towel and yoga clothes a few hours before.

What about my desk? There are always lots of things on my desk. Normally I don’t put the car keys there, but I figured I’d look anyway. I scoured the top of my desk and opened the drawers. No keys.

Quickly, I looked in my refrigerator and kitchen cabinets. At this point no place seemed too unlikely for the keys.

By this time it was 6:40pm and I was starting to feel a bit of panic.

I remembered that I had wrapped up and taken out the trash when I went for my walk. Had I accidentally tossed my keys in the trash?

Back outside I went to the dumpster. Unfortunately my bag of garbage was no longer sitting conveniently near the top and I could not grab it while standing on the ground. Wearing my Yom Kippur whites, I hoisted my left leg onto the dumpster’s handle so I could reach down and reclaim my bag. This was the closest I’ve ever come to dumpster diving. Garbage in hand, I jumped back to the ground.

Now I was in the bathroom again, picking through my personal compost. Corn husks and cobs, cantaloupe rind and a rotten zucchini had been sitting in a plastic bag for a few days, marinating with assorted liquids and other trash, creating a pungent perfume. I thought how this activity was, oddly enough, perfect for Yom Kippur, a day when we take an inventory of our inner world, vowing to discard or heal our psychological garbage while focusing on finding the keys to a good life.

My stinky and sticky search did not yield the keys to my Subaru. I returned the garbage to the dumpster and, this time, brought a flash light. Perhaps I had dropped the keys on the ground? Left them in my car?

There were no keys. For a second, I wondered if someone had picked them up and, at a moment unbeknownst to me, would be taking my car with them.

It was now after 7pm and I realized that I would be missing Kol Nidrei.

My Jewish self was frustrated and disappointed and burst into tears. My more Buddhist self recognized I had some choices: I could use this situation as an opportunity to blame and judge myself for having lost the keys, exacerbating my suffering, or I could have compassion for myself and try to salvage something from this experience, perhaps opening to something that would not have been available had I made it to services on time.

I lit two candles in the hopes of fostering some inner stillness and creating a sacred space; perhaps I could consider this a private Kol Nidrei with the Almighty? My intention was in the right place. I wondered if my keys' disappearance was some sort of a Yom Kippur wake-up call, to slow down even more and pay closer attention to my emotions, my living space, and my state of mind than I was already. If so, I thanked God for the fact that this call was a lot gentler than the message my sister-in-law received last year. While driving in the Bay Area just before Yom Tov, smoke began coming out of her car, unbeknownst to her. Another driver motioned for her to pull over and get out. Luckily she heeded this good Samaritan; moments after she left her vehicle, it burst into flames.

I started to chant the Kol Nidrei to myself, but only remembered a few lines. Recreating the service on my own, I realized, did not make much sense. Since I was home, I decided to make the best of it. Slowly and mindfully, I started to sort my belongings and organize my apartment, hoping that in the process of creating tranquility the keys would emerge. And part of me knew from past experience misplacing things that they often turn up, or appear in my sight, once I’m no longer in hot pursuit. Indeed, one of the interpretations of the akeda, Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac, is that Abraham, as he prepared to slaughter his son was in a trance state. The angels call out, “Abraham! Abraham!” to stop him, saying his name twice to get his attention for Abraham was not truly present. When he came to, and looked up, there was the ram to be sacrificed. Some scholars argue that the animal had been there all along but Abraham - so intent on following through with God's request - had been unable to see it.

I asked that God please reveal my keys to me, much as Hashem had revealed the ram to Abraham and water to Hagar as she wandered in the desert.

One of my father’s favorite sayings came to mind, “You’ll find whatever you’ve lost in the last place you look.” I managed a half-smile. As I placed some stray clothes on hangers I was reminded of another frantic search, for my father’s glasses. He had been rushed to the hospital and either he or his companion had grabbed his old eyeglasses, a pair from the 1980s with large lenses that resembled bug eyes. During one of my visits he had asked me to bring him his newest pair, a contemporary design with wireless rims, which he had left in the bedroom. I went to his house and looked for them. They were neither on his bed, on or in his chest of drawers or near the nightstand. Nor were they on the floor. Stymied, I told him I could not find them. He said not to worry but I felt like a failure, unable to fulfill such a simple request. He died unexpectedly a few days after that. As my brother and I cleaned out his house the glasses materialized; they had been in my father’s bedroom closet, where it had simply not occurred to me to look.

Where had it not occurred to me look for my keys?

I did not try to answer this question directly but continued with my tidying - gathering receipts, stacking books and picking things off the floor. With no car keys in sight, I started to wonder how I'd get to services the next day. The synagogue was just over three miles away. Walking would take more than an hour, or I could hop on my bicycle for a faster trip. In either case, it would probably not be wise for me to fast completely and risk dehydrating. And then, without getting too worried, I gently pondered how long it would take me to order a new set of car keys, how much that would cost, and how I’d arrange my life in the meantime.

At around 10:20pm I decided to go to sleep. As I very slowly made my way around the bed to my night stand so I could turn on my reading lamp, I paused by the small cast iron radiator below my window. For some reason I looked down. Between the radiator and the wall I noticed a black object wedged in that tiny gap. Bending over, I reached below the radiator and pulled out my car keys. I have no idea how they got there. But God did answer my prayer.

Intriguing, Intelligence

Over the years I've come to believe that there is an enormous intelligence operating in the universe that creates synchronicity, meaningful encounters and seemingly spontaneous connections. It's as if we're linked by a vast membrane, and if a person gently tugs or pokes that membrane then other people will sense it and respond, most likely at an unconscious level. When I was younger these events would feel quite magical to me, proof that there was more to the world than met the eye, that the hyper-rational outlook championed by my parents was insufficient to explain how life might actual work. My excitement at having sensed or experienced this invisible side to life was often met with an unimpressed, "That was just a coincidence."

Someone, or maybe a few people, must have been tugging pretty hard on the membrane yesterday because I overcome by a powerful urge to look up people I had met in Washington, D.C. while in graduate school for international relations many years ago. Over time, and as my life path took a different course, I had lost touch with them and for long stretches had not thought about my classmates at all, not even the person I dated while I was a student. In fact, I had forgotten many of their names. But with Google, Facebook and Flickr, it's not hard to find people. I typed in my ex's name and found some links, leading to images of him delivering a lecture in Europe last spring. He looked the same but seemed to have grown into his role as scholar, having dropped the playboy persona of his dissertation days. Suddenly I was back in time, remembering very specific details of my graduate school experience, including how another friend had a somewhat awkward body position when sitting on the grass in Dupont Circle. I thought most of these impressions, sights and sounds had been wiped out by the passage of time and by my willful focus on the "now". Instead, the longer I lingered in my memories of that time the more names my brain started to recall, as if all I had ever needed to do was prime the pump. After looking up a few more people I decided to go to sleep, thinking I might contact one or two of them today.

This morning, like most mornings, I logged into Google Analytics to quickly check the previous day's traffic on my website. The Analytics tools also allow me to see how people arrive at my site, either directly, by a referring website or by a key word search. And it turned out that yesterday someone had arrived at my website after entering my name AND the name of my graduate school in a search engine. While I don't know who had looked me up, I was glad to see that I was not the only person out there to feel and respond to the tug on the membrane.

Influenza

Last week, after nearly a year of living with good health in Denver, I finally scheduled my annual routine medical checkups. Aside from the annoyance at having to fill out three similar sets of paperwork - one set at each facility - the appointments went smoothly and there were no surprises. And to reward myself for having endured the discomfort of a mammogram and pelvic exam, I went for a pedicure, haircut and brow wax at a local beauty academy.

There I was, healthy as can be and looking a bit sharper than usual when, on Labor Day, WHAM! Without much warning I was hit with a fever, chills, cough and muscle aches. A quick Google search confirmed that my symptoms were flu-like; indeed, rapid onset is one of its hallmarks, unlike a cold which sneaks up on you gradually. I haven't had the flu in decades so, unlike my more familiar visits from colds and sinus infections, I was not quite sure what to do when this virus showed up, tornado-like, and destroyed my plans for the day. Lying down seemed like a good place to start, followed by some Ibuprofen for the fever and aches. I took a nap and a few hours later got up to get something to eat.

Just a few days earlier, in a renewed effort to take excellent care of myself by eating a tasty, varied and nutritious diet, I had gone to the grocery store armed, uncharacteristically, with an organized and comprehensive list of ingredients that would allow me to create some vegetarian recipes. I filled my formerly empty fridge with spinach, mushrooms, green onions, zucchini, cheeses, yogurt, fruit and assorted types of tofu. And some dark chocolate covered almonds. The next day I whipped up some spreads and made a so-called Green Velvet Soup, one of the most startlingly green dishes I've ever seen. And on Monday morning, just hours before the flu whacked me over the head and sent me crawling under the sheets, I had gone to pay for and pick up a bicycle that someone in my neighborhood was selling on Craigslist. The bike acquisition was also part of my attempt to improve the quality of my life by diversifying my exercise options.

While heating up some soup and boiling water for tea I recalled something my meditation teacher often says. She likes to remind her students that once a person has made a decision to take better care of themselves, whether this means changing their diets, getting a new job or choosing not to enable a loved one's destructive behavior, life often responds with an, "Oh, yeah?" and presents the person with a situation that challenges their commitment to their new intentions.

So, rather than kvetch about my sweat-producing fever and sporadic coughing, I will interpret this flu as an indication that I'm on the right track.

Iridescent

Last weekend I took a short but intense road trip to Southern Colorado. On Saturday I thought I'd be occupied all day hiking with the Colorado Mountain Club, but that outing lasted just a few hours so I decided to join a tour of Zapata Ranch, home to bison and, as it turned out, hummingbirds. I had an hour before the tour began so I sat at a picnic table near the ranch's main cluster of buildings and, while eating my hiker's lunch of PB&J, was mesmerized by the movements, colors and sheen of these hummingbirds. There must have been a dozen of them whizzing about, hovering in mid-air before dashing off in some new direction, sometimes in pairs but often alone. Their airborne behavior reminded me of that of the Golden Snitch in Harry Potter's Quidditch games, that little ball that would zip around, hover, and then zoom off again. The ranch had set up a hummingbird feeder (above) and I was lucky to grab this shot of three birds at once. They did not linger at the feeder, either, but would take a sip of nectar and then dash off, only to return for another quick pitstop.

Coincidentally, today I received a letter from the Nature Conservancy, which owns Zapata Ranch, asking me to support its efforts to protect the hummingbirds' habitats along their 2,000 mile migration route. Having witnessed how marvelous these creatures are, and how tiny - the birds are four inches, their wings 2.5 inches long - I did not hesitate a second before writing a check.