Invitation, Impetus

On Wednesday, just a few days ago, an acquaintance invited me to the so-called "Fantastic Hosts' Party", which she described as a "wild dance/food/drink/socialize party downtown full of artists, corporate execs, and 'burners' ". I had no idea what that last word means but was too embarrassed to ask for clarification. She even told me where to find an inexpensive party dress. Being in adventure mode, I said sure, even though it meant I'd need to come up with an outfit in 72 hours or less. Somehow I'd managed to arrive at my age with fewer than a handful of skirts and dresses combined, and none of what I had on hand was suitable for a mid-December evening party.


I had some misgivings about the event itself - normally I don't seek out large and most likely loud gatherings - but being in new in town I figured it couldn't hurt to be exposed to this new scene. Maybe I'd be pleasantly surprised; if not, I'd don my anthropologist's hat and take it all in. And I decided that even if the party was a disappointment, at least I had an impetus to update my wardrobe. With the economy in a shambles, I was hoping to find some good deals if not some real steals.


Early Wednesday evening I set out on my mission. First I headed to Ross, the store that this woman suggested. They had dresses galore, many for less than $50 and several for less than $15. Either they didn't fit or they were poorly made, looking as though they might not survive even a single evening intact. I headed over to Macy's and made a beeline for the clearance racks. Nada. Then my eyes glanced upon a simple, below-the-knee sleeveless dress with a deep V-neck that culminated in a twist of fabric. Unlike many of the strappy and skimpy outfits, this dress looked wearable and comfortable. It fit like a charm. I checked the tag - it, unlike the majority of the merchandise, was not on sale, not even just a little bit.


I hung onto it and continued browsing, finding a few pair of black pants that were marked down. Rather than spend the next two days hunting for a less expensive dress, I decided to spend the money on this one. I got in line at the cash register, where a customer was trying to use a coupon from the local paper on her purchase. The clerk rang her up and the customer offered the remaining coupons to me and and another woman. When it was my turn, the clerk tallied my three items and they came to just $1.62 more than the amount required to use a coupon for $50 off the total. I felt as if the Universe had conspired to help me find a reasonably priced dress in less than two hours, no mean feat for an indecisive and picky shopper like me. And wanting to bring my bill down even further, I opened a Macy's credit card to save another 20%.

The following day I realized that I didn't have an appropriate coat to wear over the dress. My Gore-tex and down jackets just wouldn't fly. Back to Macy's I went for a more thorough look. Bingo - I found a faux lambswool cropped evening jacket that, with my newly opened Macy's card, would also be 20% less. Done.

On Friday, although I had managed to pull together an outfit, my enthusiasm for attending this event was starting to fall apart. For one thing, there had not been subsequent communication from my acquaintance about how she or her boyfriend - he was one of the 18 "Fantastic Hosts" - were going to get me my invitation, required for entry. And not knowing the precise address of the party, I couldn't easily invite someone to go with me. I called this woman to check in.

She made it clear that it was her boyfriend's responsibility to physically deliver the invitation to me - she wasn't going to get involved beyond giving me his cell phone number. While I respected her need to create some boundaries for herself around his last minute behavior, I couldn't help but feel that she was blowing me off; after all, she was the one who had told me about the event. When I suggested that maybe we could all head over there together, and therefore he could simply hand me my ticket at that time, she said she wasn't sure what their schedule would be. In other words, maybe I'd see them there, or maybe I wouldn't.

Huh.

In the meantime, I had mentioned my dress quest to a few artists in my studio building and one of them recommended that I check out Colorado Mills, a group of outlet stores. Only a 15 minute drive away, and with nothing else on my calendar, I figured I'd do some more due diligence. Just as I pulled onto Highway 6 to head towards the stores, my cellphone rang. It was the boyfriend, asking me if I'd be at home in 20 minutes so he could give me this prized invitation. Sorry, I said, I'm heading West and will be gone a few hours. Then he suggested stopping by later that evening. I told him that I had to get up the next morning for a yoga class so he could swing by up until 11pm. He asked me if I do text messaging - I said my cellphone plan doesn't cover it and I'd prefer a quick phone call to let me know when he was on the way.

At the outlet stores - even Nieman Marcus and Saks - they were practically giving the clothing away. I had never seen so much couture for so little cash, relatively speaking. Dresses that normally sell for several hundreds were discounted to the low three digits. And there were a few luxury items whose prices had temporarily dipped into the double digits, thanks to special Friday evening offers. In that respect, I had chosen the perfect time to visit. A few hours later I left with a long knit skirt, some tights, a funky royal blue short-sleeve coat and some gifts. Back home, I went to sleep without hearing from the boyfriend.

On Saturday, the day of the party, I went to yoga, enjoyed a manicure, had some lunch and got ready to go to a "Change is Coming" meeting in my neighborhood. At around 3pm I called the boyfriend to let him know that I'd be turning off my phone for a few hours and that hopefully we'd connect somehow. He was good to his word - sometime between 4pm and 6pm he had managed to squeeze the invitation into my supposedly airtight mailbox. I checked out the address. I was in luck - this bash was within walking distance of my apartment. Being someone that prefers to speak to people over the phone, I called the boyfriend to thank him for the invite and to find out when he and my acquaintance might be arriving. He was non-committal, but later sent me a text message saying 10:30 p.m.

My inner reaction?

"Whatever."

Although I am only a few years older than this couple, I feel like I'm from a different generation if not another planet altogether. From what I've read about the contemporary 30-something social scene, it is perfectly acceptable to engage in dynamic, last-minute plan making and plan breaking, all possible with the aid of text messaging. I grew up with a different model for social interaction - you agree on a time and place and a way of getting in touch if something comes up. To me, this whole party situation felt non-committal, if not slightly rude. Indeed, this fellow was one of the Fantastic Hosts yet was not planning to make an appearance until after the party was underway.

I realized that if I wanted to salvage any fun from the evening I'd need to refrain from indulging in judgmental and negative thoughts and stay focused on the upside: a chance to dress up, check out the scene, enjoy some wine, meet people and dance. I also realized that I could simply choose not to go at all. Perhaps I'd already received the full benefits of the invitation: inexpensive yet high quality clothing that I'd enjoy for a long time.

In the end, I decided to go. As I suspected, the venue was loud and crowded and many people - including women - had chosen not to dress up at all. While I don't regret my purchases, I was a bit disappointed that my acquaintance had given me some inaccurate intelligence on what to wear. While waiting in the long line at the bar for a glass of red wine, I struck up a conversation with a woman named Molly who, it turned out, was also looking around for her friends. I had not spotted mine. When I mentioned that I had just moved to Denver she said, gesturing towards the crowd behind us, "Don't worry, not everyone in this city is a poser. There are some down to earth people in town, too."

Ah, posers.

Could it be that my new acquaintances were of that ilk, despite my hopes to the contrary?

At around 11:20 or so, amidst the din of this bash, located in a vacant multi-story building, I violated my no text messaging rule to contact the boyfriend to see if they had arrived. "Not yet," came the reply. As it approached midnight, snow began to fall and, with my acquaintances nowhere in sight, I decided to call it a night.

Instant Joy

This afternoon I went to my local post office to mail some mosaics and some show applications and to pick up a gift a friend had sent me. I arrived to find a long line of sullen looking people and only three clerks on duty. I passed some of the time by reading a copy of the neighborhood newspaper that had been left on the counter. As the line inched along it continued to expand behind me; by the time it was my turn the queue was nearly to the door.

I'm sure the people behind me were not pleased by the fact that I had four packages to mail, each requiring slightly different treatment and therefore additional conversation. The process was further slowed by the fact that the clerk was hearing impaired - so said the sign at the counter - and my effort to speak clearly didn't always succeed. Finally, after some repetition and clarification, all the packages had been metered and affixed with delivery confirmation stickers.

Then I presented the clerk with my slip of paper so she could retrieve the item my friend had mailed. I knew what it was, as my friend had e-mailed me the tracking information. After checking my ID the clerk went to the back, found the item, and returned to the counter bearing a hoola hoop, wrapped in brown paper for its postal journey, and with a diameter of more than three feet.

As I turned to leave, hoop in hand, I noticed big smiles on the faces of the people waiting patiently in the line behind me. Even one of the clerks broke into a grin. Seeing their reactions dissolved my own blah mood, and for a moment I was walking on air.

Intimacy

Walking into Denver's downtown this morning to do some errands it occurred to me that a possible way of looking at the cause of the financial crisis is through the lens of intimacy or, in this case, the lack thereof. As I strolled in the sunshine I was thinking of intimacy as meaning detailed knowledge of and deep familiarity with a thing or a person. That is simply what arose in my head.

Lenders were not intimate with their borrowers' financial condition. Borrowers, in many cases, were not intimate with the terms of their loans or with their own financial positions. Both borrowers and lenders may not have been intimate with themselves, ignoring their doubts or misgivings about what they were doing. Heads of banks and financial institutions were not intimate with what their organizations were doing.

In other words, maybe it all boils down to an entire culture not paying attention to details, glossing over unpleasant facts, realities and twinges of inner discomfort in the quest for monetary success.

I wonder if this crisis will help some people wake up and start tuning in and, in an intimacy-building way, turning inward.

Introducing another Blog

New situations demand new blogs, so I've created a blog in which to reflect upon certain aspects of my experiences in Colorado. Please visit Adventures with Altitude to read about cultural and climactic differences and the occasional quirky observation about life at 5,280 feet.

For a change of pace, on this new blog the titles of posts begin with a variety of letters, not just "I", and often contain more than just a word or two. Do check it out I will be keeping this blog, too, and cross referencing posts when it makes sense to do so.

Thanks for reading, and please don't be shy about leaving comments on either blog.

I-Ching, of the Torah

Tonight I celebrated Simchat Torah, which marks the completion of the yearly cycle of Torah reading, with congregation Nevei Kodesh in Boulder. In true Jewish Renewal style there was joyful dancing, praying and singing during each of the hakafot, or processionals. Except these weren't really processionals, where a select group of people carry the Torah scrolls around a synagogue. It was more like a casual prom where everyone got to dance with the popular partners which, in this case, were one of half a dozen Torah scrolls, one of which was a few hundred years old and had survived the Holocaust. Each hakafa had its own theme and accompanying music, ranging from Hassidic niggunim (chants) to a Jewish version of "My Dear Lord". Depending on the tune, some people waltzed, others sashayed, and some swayed slowly with their Torahs. Unlike last year, where I stood on the sidelines, I borrowed someone's tallis, embraced a Torah and did some shimmying myself.

After the hakafot we unfurled a Torah scroll around the edges of the room, each of us holding up a portion of the parchment so that we created a circle. In the middle, where the text was visible, several rabbis - including Reb Zalman - gathered to perform an I-Ching-like ritual. People holding the Torah would point to a passage on the parchment in front of them and one of the rabbis would translate the verse which, much like an oracle, would help us find guidance for the coming year. Since it is quite difficult to read Hebrew calligraphy upside down, let alone figure out where in the Torah a meaningful verse might be, the ritual was pretty random.

So imagine my delight when Reb Zalman himself came over to my section of the scroll, and then my complete surprise when he translated the verse to which I had randomly pointed. It turned out to be the same verse (Deuteronomy 30:19) that my father used to quote, part of which appears on his headstone. In brief, the message I received was: Choose Life.

OK, God! I think I am finally getting the message.

Incantations, Interpretations

This post has been simmering on this blog's back burner for a long time. So I wonder if I should not even post it, given that it refers to something that happened a few weeks ago, practically an eternity in blog time. Indeed, my observance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur seem like they were in another era. The weather was still summer-like for Rosh Hashanah and just days before I had begun moving into my apartment in Denver, my life change coinciding nicely with the change of seasons and the Jewish New Year.

I chose to spend these holidays with Nevei Kodesh, a Jewish renewal congregation in Boulder, about 35 minutes away. We worshipped in the town's Seventh Day Adventist Church, a spacious and sparsely decorated building that was easily converted into a synagogue for the Days of Awe. Congregants turned out in large numbers, filling the sanctuary with white or light-colored clothing for the holidays. Personalized tallitot, prayer shawls, added a bit of color, as did four chuppot, canopies, one in each corner of the large room.

Each of the chuppot, which were draped with brightly painted silk fabrics, represented one of each of the Four Worlds, or ways in which one can connect with holiness. There was the chuppa for Assiyah, the Physical World; another for Yetzirah, the Relational World; a third for Briyah, the World of the Mind; and finally for Atzilut, the Spiritual Realm Beyond Time and Space. Each canopy provided a semi-private space for silent meditation and prayer on the relevant subject matter. As someone who takes the High Holidays seriously and doesn't view services as primarily a time to socialize, I was grateful to have the option to be with the group but in a private space.

It turned out that I worshipped with like-minded souls and I never felt the need during services to duck under a chuppah to have some quiet, although I napped in Yetzirah during the mid-afternoon break on Yom Kippur. The rabbi offered plenty of opportunities in the services for silent contemplation in between the recitations and incantations of the ancient prayers, effectively hitting the pause button and allowing our own words and thoughts to sink in. And during the Torah service I was grateful for the group aliyot, the calling up to the Torah, based on creative psychologically-oriented interpretations of the ancient texts. For example, on Rosh Hashanah we read the tale of Sarah's late-in-life pregnancy with Isaac and her banishment of Hagar and Ishmael into the desert. When Sarah discovers that she will have a child, the Hebrew text uses a word that could be interpreted as laughter or mocking. Is Sarah laughing in delight or is she afraid of being mocked? For the reading of this passage the rabbi asked all of us to come up who were on the edge of faith, those of us who teeter between letting out belly laughs because we recognize that life has been unfolding in a way that supports and nurtures us, and between mocking or doubting the existence of a higher power. Since I probably teeter on this edge many times a week if not every day, I walked to the front of the room, as did a third of the congregation. Once the Torah reader had completed the passage the rabbi blessed all of us to find the kind of faith that would allow us to live fully and fully aware of the miraculousness of life itself.

I went up for a few more aliyot, as did many of the people there. Unlike in more traditional synagogues, in Jewish Renewal aliyot are not rationed or bestowed upon a handful of people, rendering the rest of the congregation observers rather than active participants in the service. The only exception to this was the final aliyah, where the rabbi called to the Torah and blessed Reb Zalman Schachter Shalomi, the 80-something year old founder of the Renewal Movement, referring to him as the wellspring of this fluorishing branch of Judaism. May he live to be a hundred and twenty.

Intact, Incense

Yesterday morning my relocube, a large metal storage unit containing most of my earthly possessions, was delivered to my parking spot near the apartment building I now live in. The driver, a man with pale skin, a white beard, twinkly eyes and a laid back manner, was the same person who had brought my studio relocube a few weeks earlier. Seeing him again was like seeing an old friend. As had happened previously, not only did he spend several minutes with me discussing the optimum positioning of my cube for easiest unloading, he also lingered for some small talk after he had used his forklift to deposit the cube in the perfect spot. Despite his full day of deliveries and pickups, this man did not act as if he were in a hurry. He seemed quite relaxed, unlike most delivery people I had encountered on the East Coast.

Then I got on Craigslist to find some movers to unload the cube. By mid-afternoon the crew showed up; the first guy to arrive, a 36-year old fellow with craggy good looks, a pack of cigarettes in the sleeve of his shirt and a prosthetic leg from a drunk-driving accident in his teens, apologized for his somewhat disheveled appearance, saying that he hadn't been planning to work that day. It didn't bother me that he showed up in jeans and a t-shirt (he's moving stuff, after all), but as he worked up a sweat carting boxes up to my apartment it became clear that he probably hadn't showered in the preceding few days. His exertions released an increasingly foul odor in my apartment. I turned the ceiling fan on the highest speed and opened all the windows, hoping that would help. This man was also ingratiatingly and somewhat aggressively polite, insisting on calling me Ma'am at every opportunity despite my protestations.

"Whatever you say, Ma'am"
"No problem, Ma'am"
"Where should I put this, Ma'am?"
"We'll take care of everything, Ma'am"
"Thank you, Ma'am"
"Ma'am, do you mind if I take this call?"

After being Ma'am-ed to death over the course of nearly three hours I wanted to strangle him...except that would have meant touching him.

Since then I've unpacked about two-thirds of the boxes and so far all of my belongings are intact, even if the containers they were in got somewhat bit bent out of shape. It's been a month since I've seen all of my stuff and in the meantime I had forgotten exactly what I had put in the relocube. Imagine my delight and relief a few minutes ago when I opened a box and discovered some cones of frangipani incense I purchased in Thailand a few years ago.

Things are starting to smell a lot better around here.