Hanukah

The last night of Hanukah has come and gone for this year.  Somehow, even though I wasn't with my family for the entire time or with all of my family this Hanukah was very special.  

It started with preparing a special box for my "little" sister who is living in Israel while going to school.  This year has been challenging for me because she is so far away and she had been so close last year.  Last year I got to see her about once a month and that was so wonderful.  It was fun to have my sister close enough to see.  Now, I get to see her on Skype and that's great... but just not the same.  So, for Hanukah I got 8 little presents together for her.  Wrapped them up with brown paper and the number of the night she should open them up.  Then, shipped it off to her and 10 days later she got it.  Shipping presents over seas is hard because you've got to fill out a customs form that gets pasted right on the outside of the package stating what's inside.  Kinda ruins the surprise, but I thought I'd covered my bases by letting Shawna know about the customs form and telling her "NOT to look at it!"  Well, she thought she would go one step further and ask the woman at the post-office to black out the label before she handed over the package.  But Shawna is still working on her Hebrew skills and the lady misunderstood her.  So her response when Shawna asked her to cover up the label was, "Oh yes, the t-shirt and candy?"  And my cover was blown, except I took a risk and didn't list quite everything on the customs form so... there were still a few surprises.  Shawna had fun opening one up each night and telling me on Skype what she got.  

The first 4 nights of Hanukah Lukas and I spent with my parents and brother up in Arcata.  We light candles, sang songs and gorged ourselves on latkes.  Then Lukas and I headed back to Santa Cruz to visit with his relative who had come into town for Christmas.  

The sixth and seventh nights of Hanukah I light candles with my family via Skype.  We sang songs together, seeing each other in our respective computer screens.  Laughing as the delay of the internet echoed our voices.  To be able to feel so close and yet be far away is amazing.  My dad enjoys marveling at the capabilities of the time that we live in.  

On the eighth night of Hanukah just as I was getting the candles ready for the menorah the power went out.  It was amazingly dark in the immediate seconds before my eyes started to adjust to the darkness.  How fitting, on the darkest night of Hanukah when the moon is new that it should be made even darker right before we were going to bring in the greatest light.  So in this great darkness we light the candles for the last night bringing in such a great glow.  Lukas and I got a couple tupperware contains and had a blast singing Hanukah songs and banging along on the tupperware.  And then my family called.  I couldn't get on Skype because of the loss of power, but they conferenced me in.  My brother was driving back to San Jose, they had my sister on the line at 5am in Israel and my parents were home.  Sitting in the dark I sang our favorite Hanukah song with my entire family.  Maybe our timing was a bit off due to delays on the phone line, but we sang our hearts out.  That's what Hanukah is to me - family.  

{ps. check out the Hanukah links to learn more about the holiday.}

{pps. I guess I must apologize for not posting daily through the alphabet.  Though I haven't been writing daily, this has been a great exercise for me and I will continue through the rest of the letters.}

Good Stuff

The day before the first night of Hanukkah we were out running errands with my dad.  It's fun on these trips around town with my dad.  He seems to know everyone everywhere we go and even if he doesn't he has something to say to everyone.  Our last stop took us to the small town music store right next door to our local bagel bakery.  My dad has a major, and by major I mean gigantic, sweet spot for chocolate chip cookies (or as they're known in my family - CCC's).  So of course we had to pop into the bakery for a little treat.  One chocolate chip cookie, snicker-doodle, and corn-lime cookie later Lukas and I thought we were heading home, but when we got outside we realized that we'd lost my dad somewhere inside the bagel shop.  Poking our heads back inside we found him talking to a man he knew.  They followed us outside talking excitedly.  All we could hear was my dad say, "You got some right here?"  The guy responded, "Yeah, well... it's at my shop.  You want some riiight now?"  "Yeah!  We've got to get the good stuff."  Then my dad tossed me the keys to the car and called over his shoulder, "Follow us over there."  The other guy offered a little bit more helpful direction, "We're just going down 10th street."  And then they were gone.  Bewildered, Lukas and I got in the car, watched them drive in the opposite direction and then proceed to drive down 10th street, because that's all the direction we had.  Finally as the road looked to be ending we pulled to the side wondering where they could be.  A glance in the rearview mirror showed them coming our way about a block away.  So a quick u-turn later we were pulling into the parking lot of a big mauve colored building with a sign for a hubcap store hanging above the door.  We all hoped out and followed our "tour guide" around to a side entrance and into another world.  Inside were big machines, bright lights and marimbas in many different stages of partial completion.  All very cool, but... what the heck were we doing in a marimba factory?!  In a rear corner of the shop we stopped at a pallet stacked with white boxes and our guide began to tell us a story.  He had sold some marimbas to someone in Greece a while back.  When it came time to finish up the payment the Greek didn't quite have enough cash to complete the payment.  Instead, he asked if the marimba guy would accept some of his award winning olive oil, "the good stuff".  And so our host said, "This is the best olive oil you'll ever try.  I'm going over to Greece in just a week to try to broker a deal importing this stuff.  So, how many cases do you want?"  Upon hearing the going rate for a bottle my dad figured it would be best to try one bottle first before selling the cow.  And this is how in a dark corner of a marimba shop we came to purchased our bottle of the best olive oil in what felt slightly like a drug deal.  Only the best for our first latkes of Hanukkah.  

Flying

I think that humans collectively have a fascination with flight.  I know personally, both my brother and father have gotten their pilot's license and my uncle owned an FBO.  We are interested in flying because it seems like it is impossible.  Even after college physics classes where you learn this to pass tests, you don't really understand what keeps an airplane up.  Really most of the time it seems like magic.  It works and we take off, going places we could never imagine going in our lifetimes otherwise.  And even still, in this age of high speed travel there are many many people that have never been on a plane.  Most of us understand this reality, but think this only applies to those living in developing countries.  I was surprised to find that my friend in high school had never been on a plane before we flew to Ghana.  That flight was something of a wonder.  It was by far the biggest plane I'd even been on - double-decker!  When my friend fell asleep on the long, overnight flight I spent the time looking out the window into the dark night.  Off in the distance I saw the clouds flashing sporadically with lightning.  On-off they flashed, as if someone was turning on and off the lights.  I glanced around me at all the sleeping strangers.  Was anyone else seeing this?  I don't remember seeing anyone looking out the window like me.  At the distance the storm was, I just watched in wonder and wasn't afraid.  It was like a dream.  

How many people have flying dreams?  It is an amazing sensation.  I can remember clearly pushing off with my feet and floating up in the air without effort.  Turning in any direction I wished, almost as if I was a deep swimming pool.  It is such a clear feeling and has stayed with me for years.  It's as if I actually was capable of flight at one time and have a distinct memory of this.  

Either way, flying takes us places - in our dreams or in our waking.  At swim practice I would look up at the planes overhead and dream of being on that plane instead of turning laps.  Flying gives us the potential to dream.  

Energy

I was walking in the woods the other day with my dad and he asked me, "Where does our energy come from?"  Sensing a trick question Lukas answered, "The sun!"  My dad chuckled, "Yes.  Ok you got me there.  But what's the simpler answer?"  "Well," I said, "it comes from the power plant."  Yep, that was the answer he was looking for, but there was more to it.  Where does the energy at the power plant come from?  My dad had gotten to thinking about this and so he called up our power plant to ask them.  At first they didn't want to answer, but finally he was told that they buy energy from some other company.  And, yes, eventually it all does trace back to the sun.  

Energy is one of those things that is hard to really understand.  We can see the effects of energy and the outcomes of things it effects.  Energy makes heat, boils water, warms your cup of tea.  Energy excites electrons or maybe it's excited electrons that make energy.  Energy seems to be all around us, but the tricky part is how do we bottle it up and use it?  I liked this definition of energy "ability to do work or to cause change".  Energy also can be transfered from one form to another and the total amount remains the same.  

So, indulge me for a moment on this tangent.  If energy was the ability to cause change - to change each other's lives for the better.  Then this energy could be transfered from one person to the next with none being lost.  We could generate an energetic chain of dominos.  Helping each other out, creating change, each of us acting as energy.  We have the ability to do work and create change.  We can be energy.   

Dream

I am a dreamer, both in the metaphorical sense and in the literal sense of the word.  I often wake up distinctly remembering that I had been dream.  Even when I don't remember what exactly I was dreaming about I know that I was dreaming.  It's a strange feeling to wake up to.  It is strange how the weirdest things are commonplace in dreams and actually are perfectly sensible in dream-land.  The world of dreaming is bound by the actual world and yet free from it at the same time.  It is in this world that you can be living underwater or instantaneously travel across the world and this would be completely "normal".  

To be awake and dreaming is to be wishing for grand things.  To have goals and hopes for the future.  And to believe that you are capable of amazing things.  The dreams I have when I am awake are bounded by the constraints of the physical world of "what is possible".  No, I shouldn't dream of that because there's no way for it to happen.  But, what if I didn't let my dreams be bound by the physical possibilities that I know?  What if I set seemingly impossible goals?  Then using dream-logic, find a way to reach those goals?  To be practical is good, but to accomplish amazing things one must dream big and stretch the possibilities.  

Count

On my old computer there is a quote stuck to it that I got from a fortune cookie. 

"Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is better."

It is interesting the many different meanings the word "count" has.  To simply count, one lists numbers in order.  But to say "I count" has more than one meaning.  Maybe you are saying "I can list the numbers in order."  Or maybe what you really mean is "I matter."  

How are these two concepts connected?  Numbers a sign value to an object.  A higher number connotes a higher value.  To say a person counts means that they have value.  So that when we are counting we could simply be looking at the amount of something or we are looking for the value.  When we are told "Count your blessings" often what is meant is to number them up.  See just how many blessings you have.  But what if what was really meant was "Look at the value of your blessings."  "Value the ways in which you have been blessed."

To say, "I am counting on you" is to say "I am depending on you."  But why use the word "counting"?  Because to count is to give value.  You are not simply depending on another person, you are depending on them because they are of value.  

To teach children to count we are giving them the ability to see what matters in the world.  

Brown

Mr. Brown was my godfather - born 80 years and 2 days before me.  He was an April Fools baby, a constant twinkle in his eye.  A wooden fence with step-stool stumps on either side separated our backyard from his.  We had ritz cracker and orange juice picnics in his backyard among the dahlias.  The rows of brightly colored flowers covered Mr. Brown's backyard and wrapped around his little white house.  Nasturtiums grew up twine creating a flower wall on the porch.  

A bush of these little roses grew right next to our stepping stumps.  I had always called them Mr. Brown's roses and think of him when I see them growing.  He would pick one every Sunday and wear it to church in the button hole of his jacket.  He would give the fragrant little rose to a new woman at church.  I bet for many, this gesture made their day.  The little things we do for each other, just because.  For no reason other than to make someone smile.  

Waiting for my mom one day after swimming a little boy, about 8 years old sat down next to me and smiled.  I smiled back and continued waiting.  He got up, left and a minute later came back with his hand outstretched.  In it was a little glass stone.  "You can have it."  "Oh, no.  That's yours."  "That's fine.  I have a bunch more at home."  So, I held out my hand.  A minute later his mom came out.  As he walked away holding her hand, he turned back and waved at me.  I smiled and waved and continued waiting, playing with the stone in my hand.  His gesture made me smile.  I have no idea why he choose to give me the little stone, but it made me smile.

Writing about Mr. Brown has made me think about simple kindnesses I can do for other people just to make them smile.  So much can start with just a smile.  

Apple 

I know what fresh apples smell like.  A big box of apples, fresh picked, smell sweet with mysterious spicy undertones.  I can close my eyes and bring up that scent.  It is amazing how smells can take us right back to a time or place.  Or they can simply connate emotions that float just beyond your consciousness.  Like reaching up for that apple above, just out of reach but much too close to get with the apple-picker.  

The apple trees explode with pink blossoms in spring.  They become entirely covered as if by the softest snow.  I have watched expectantly for the very first hint of green between the pink tinted white flowers.  This first green of the new leaves is almost technicolored.  The petals carpet the grass made green by months upon months of rain.  Then come the apples, loads and loads of apples.  So many apples that one tree gets completely neglected - it produces mushy apples.  So many apples that even the guys at the food banks get saucer-eyed when we drop off huge boxes that are only tiny fractions of what still hangs from the trees.  Apples get dried, go into pies and are boiled down into apple sauce.  My mom will pick and pick, coddle us into picking, but we don't get them all.  They fall off as the leaves fall off the trees.  And then the trees stand bare through the winter rains to explode again.  

{26 days of letters.  I have been wanting to challenge myself with some daily writing for a little bit.  I'd like to see if I can write each day for the next 26 days - one for every letter of the alphabet.  To give credit where credit is due - I've borrowed this idea from this blog.}