WHO’S AN EXPERT?

 

In a world where complexity in all matters is the norm, we turn to experts to navigate what’s what.

 

But who are the experts?

 

To paraphrase Mark Twain, there are experts, “experts”, and know-little braggarts.

 

How are we to tell who’s who?

 

For that, Virginia, we need experts.

 

They are everywhere.

 

Over the interwebs, under the radar, over the airwaves, and under the table.

 

If almost everyone’s an expert, then hardly anyone is.

 

Which sends us back full circle and on an endless Möbius loop.

 

Go, figure. Better yet, know you’re unlikely to.

 

Me: an expert at diagnosing confusion.

Why Blog?

Fair question, that^.

This is my four-hundred-and fortieth post.

Despite the shrinking blogosphere, and the fact that (other than make-up and erotica themed blogs) blogs don’t sell what we make, I have continued my weekly Tuesday morning posts.

Why?

Because I still like doing it. I hope to always do things in life with this guiding light. Sure, sometimes we have to do somethings we don’t like.

Did I write “sometimes?” ^

I meant you could count on having to do things you don’t like but must do anyway. That’s a given.

But may the day never come when I stop doing something I like because it isn’t awash in likes from others.

Turns out, I like meeting you who visit here. Hope you come again.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Hebrew: Yom Hasho’ah- יוֹם הַשׁוֹאָה

Challenging times, such as we're enduring now,  befall humankind periodically. Unlike our current global trial, some are utterly of our own making.

Israel observes Holocaust Memorial Day on the anniversary of the brave and doomed Jewish uprising of those who remained in the Warsaw ghetto. The dates were April 19-May 23, 1943. It is an attempt to paint the catastrophe not only in terms of annihilation, but recognize the enormous heroism of the perished and the survivors. Thus, the day’s full name is Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day.

All over Israel, this commemoration happened today. Every year on this date, at eight in the morning and eight in the evening, the sirens blare and the country comes to a standstill. People bow their heads in silence.
My memory of this day when I grew up in Israel was that the air was unbearably heavy and even lifting my head was an effort. It was a very recent event then, even if to a child it already felt like history. It was also personal, as I’m the child of a sole survivor who had no living relatives on her father’s side.

Israel chose to put equal emphasis on the heroism of those dreadful years. Internationally, the day is commemorated on January 27, the date of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by the allied forces. Obviously, the international community puts emphasis on their act of triumph over this evil.

Personally, I never bought the heroism angle, nor the emphasis on the allies’ role. Most Jews didn’t rebel or survive, and the allies didn’t enlist to save Jews, but responded to a military aggression by the Germans and their alliance. Both choices of how to commemorate this chapter are attempts to re-paint this horrendous time with emphasis that serves the purpose of seeing ourselves as we wish to be seen.

For me, this day is a reminder of the ever-present human capacity for evil. Most days most folks don’t want to recognize it. I understand, because I am no different. I push away the notes of the darkest shadows of our species almost every day, choosing to not fully see it. But one day a year, there is no escape for me.

The Talmud says, “The greater a man is, the greater his capacity for evil.” So on this sad Remembrance Day I know the depth of darkness has a symmetry in how much we can also rise. But I will contemplate the side of light tomorrow. 

Today I reserve for unmitigated sadness.

Does It Take a Village?

Some months ago, a neighbor posted on the neighborhood board (called NextDoor) that a mother deer had two fawns in her back yard. But only a few days later, the mother and one of the fawns disappeared, likely moved themselves to a more discreet grazing area.

The thing was, they left one fawn behind. Despite not approaching it and waiting for the mother to return for it, the newborn fawn was still there and still alone.

The neighbors mobilized with advice. Call animal control. Don’t call animal control. Call a vet. Follow what the vet says. Get bottles and formula and feed it. Don’t feed it. Do. Don’t. Do.

The neighbor began feeding the fawn. The fawn seemed to gain strength. The neighbor posted pictures. Who doesn’t melt at the sight of Bambi? Turned out Bambi was a she, and we collectively named her Bambina. We looked for daily updates and photos, and cheered for every new morning light that showed Bambina was still there. Donations of blankets and formula and money poured, but mostly it was a steady stream of advice that flowed and made us a village.

And then she began to fail. She was clearly sick. More advice, prayers and tears.

Then one day, Bambina passed away to the great grazing field in the sky, and a whole neighborhood cried.

Only weeks ago, this happened again. Only this was an abandoned newborn feral kitten. This time, it was a he, and the rescuer named him Alfie. Many adoption offers and donations later, and the rescuer has made Alfie, now an energetic love-bug of a cat, part of her household.

There’s a saying that it takes a village to raise a child. These real neighborhood stories made me think of how these children made us a village, but it took one compassionate neighbor to do the work.

It, is, Yes it is---

Happy New Year

But then, it’s just a number, Right?

I think about it, and realize something. From now until the next new year, everything that happens will be recounted as “In the year of our lord two thousand and eighteen such and such took place.”

I never felt close to numbers. Unlike words, they are not my friends. But I know people who adore them, and some even love numerology.*

*Numerology: the branch of knowledge that deals with the occult significance of numbers.

One of the people I know who swears by numerology believes there’s significant information in something numerologists call the master number. You get this number by adding all the numbers of one’s birthday, or the date of an event, until they are reduced to a single digit. Then, each of those single digits imbues significance to one’s life path, or in this case, the coming year’s essential path. It is its “master number.”

In this case, it would be 2+0+1+8 = 11

And then 11 is further reduced 1+1= 2

And so this new year’s essential path is the number two.

{If this sounds like mumbo-jumbo hocus-pocus to you, I agree.]

But what’s the harm? It’s kind of fun. It gives a strange illusion of some control over the future, in the way that knowing where the stock market is headed gives a sense that you can navigate it.

(Disclaimer: even the experts do NOT know where the stock market is headed. Apparently, chimps have made predictions that were just as good or bad, and this was the conclusion of a scientific study.)

So what does numerology have to say about the life-path of the number 2?

Quite a lot, it turns out. 

Here’s one summary—

As the second of all numbers, 2's symbolism is the union of and peace between different entities. It seeks to end separateness and unite all for the greater good whether it be music, food or humanity.

That’s kind of nice. But it’s still just a number.

Let’s try to make it thus.

REMEMBRANCE

When my kids were ten and twelve, they had their first real loss to the great beyond. He was not even our cat, but the neighbor’s. But he thought he lived with us, and for as long as he lived, DD was adamant that we take in no other lest he stopped feeling at home. 

When Chester died, there was a period of profound mourning. The neighbors were even kind enough to invite us over for a remembrance, and shared some of his ashes with us. DD erected a memorial where she placed the ashes, and it’s still there today.

What stayed with me was something she said. “I’m so scared I will forget him.”

If we remember, they are not completely gone.

Today is a special day at my house. I remember three of the closest people to me who passed away on the same calendar day. They are gone from the blessings and tribulations of this world, but not forgotten. 

מילים: פניה ברגשטיין
לחן: דוד זהבי
שנת כתיבה: 1944
נִגּוּנִים / פניה ברגשטיין, 1944

שְׁתַלְתֶּם נִגּוּנִים בִּי, אִמִּי וְאָבִי,

נִגּוּנִים מִזְמוֹרִים שְׁכוּחִים.

גַּרְעִינִים; גַּרְעִינִים נְשָׂאָם לְבָבִי –

עַתָּה הֵם עוֹלִים וְצוֹמְחִים.

עַתָּה הֵם שׁוֹלְחִים פֹּארוֹת בְּדָמִי,

שָׁרְשֵׁיהֶם בְּעוֹרְקַי שְׁלוּבִים,

נִגּוּנֶיךָ, אָבִי, וְשִׁירַיִךְ אִמִּי,

בְּדָפְקִי נֵעוֹרִים וְשָׁבִים.

הִנֵּה אַאֲזִין שִׁיר עַרְשִׂי הָרָחוֹק

הִבִּיעַ פִּי אֵם אֱלֵי בַּת.

הִנֵּה לִי תִּזְהַרְנָה בְּדֶמַע וּשְׂחוֹק

"אֵיכָה" וּזְמִירוֹת שֶׁל שַׁבָּת.

כָּל הֶגֶה יִתַּם וְכָל צְלִיל יֵאָלֵם

בִּי קוֹלְכֶם הָרָחוֹק כִּי יֵהוֹם.

עֵינַי אֶעֱצֹם וַהֲרֵינִי אִתְּכֶם

מֵעַל לְחֶשְׁכַת הַתְּהוֹם.

You can hear it sung in this link:

http://www.zemereshet.co.il/song.asp?id=394

This Life is NOW

A few months ago someone I had some virtual contact with, mostly in years back, let her Facebook friends know she had just suffered a calamitous loss. On what should have been a joyous father-son bonding trip, half her family was wiped out. Her husband and older son died while hiking, likely from heatstroke.

In one cruel swoop she was a widow, and the mother of one surviving son.

This horrific event was on the news, local and national. I read the reports over and over, as if re-reading would tell a different story, maybe with a happier ending. I woke up the next day with that feeling most would recognize. It’s that did this really happen thought, and a feeling of reality descending but not quite hitting the ground.

This did not happen to me. I could go on with my day and the days to come with my routine intact. But it did shake me up. The opening words of Joan Didion’s Year of magical Thinking kept echoing—

Life changes in an instant.

It’s still a wake-up call for me. I tell my kitties I’m so happy they’re here. I look at people and places with gratitude. Nothing is permanent and most things are not for later, they are now.

Hugs, everyone.

Do You Have a Bucket-list?

The other day I realized my bucket-list is just about empty.

{Clarification: I count only the things I can significantly affect, not wishes like winning the lottery, publishing with a big-five house, or becoming the queen of England. I suppose I could take steps to make any of the above improbably possible, but my list had only the things I could do if I chose to do them.}

The few things that were left on my bucket-list just leaked out or evaporated, as in an open bucket left in the sun for days. A few I had actually accomplished, at least to my own satisfaction even if no one else knows it.

Among the wishes that turned to vapor were—

*Standing in Moscow’s Red Square as snow is falling in January. Think Doctor Zhivago.

{Somehow the romance of it has gone away, and I hear it is much nicer in summer, anyhow.}

*Staying at a five-star hotel or an English country estate for a week with nothing to do except have breakfast in bed and stroll by the river before afternoon high tea.

{The budget isn’t there for this, but neither is the charm. I’d rather watch Masterpiece Theatre with others doing it.}

*Spending a month in Kyoto, Japan, taking in the traditional aesthetic.

{Something of this remains in me, but it’s barely a whiff of a longing and I recognize it as wishing inner balance and peace, not a physical space.}

And so on.

Bit by bit my bucket has emptied. I don’t know if this is a good thing, or an ominous sign of folding it in.

Oh, and I did want to write a truly great novel. I’ve done that, and my agent is shopping it. So far no takers, but for myself that one got checked off: done.

Do you have a bucket-list? How have you gone about emptying it?

The Rich Man’s Omelette

A few days ago I wished my picture book critique group a good summer and sent this as a good omen for getting lots of reading done—

© Summer Reader by SHELAGH DUFFETT

One of my critique buddies  responded with, “I want to be where this gal^ is.”

I thought how I am exactly where this reader is.

I mean, almost.

I do have cats, and one of them will jump on my lap, though never when outdoors. She’s too dignified for that, I think.

I do have a view of the bay if I walk a few blocks up the hill.

I have good books to read. Maybe I would read more if the to-be-read pile by my bedside was not so dauntingly tall.

And when I’m sitting by the blooming plants, it’s not to read, but to weed. I told you it’s an almost.

I do have a tree in the backyard I lean against. I do so when I’m tired of yard work.

All of that got me thinking about the old story of the rich man’s omelette.

A poor man returned home and told his wife he’d had the most amazing meal at a rich man’s house. The wife, eager to replicate it, asked what it was.

“We’ll need some eggs,” the man began.

“We’ve got that!”

“And some butter,” said the man.

“Well, we don’t have butter. But I can use margarine.”

“And some French cheese, such as Boursin or Pont-l'Évêque, ” the man added.

 "We don't have anything like that, " the wife said.
"What do we have? " the husband asked.

“We’ll use Velveeta,” the wife said.

“And we'll need fresh shallots,” the man continued.

“Onion power will do fine,” the wife says.

As they sat to eat, they had to agree that it was, well, almost.

 

This made me resolve to at least now and then try and narrow the gap between the summer reader above, and my life.

Be nice to yourselves, out there.

HAVE Your Cake and EAT it, Too

Living in our world, in a nutshell, can be summed up by the title of this post, which is also a well-known cliché. But it’s a cliché for a reason.

We swallow these contradictions all the time. Literally.

 

We don’t want to meddle in the affairs of other, be they neighbors or nations. But if we don’t, aren’t we complicit in the wrong doings we witness?

 

We mustn’t compare our efforts or results to anyone else’s. But then, what does any sort of rating ever mean, be it on Yelp, Amazon, or an informal comment?

 

We want to keep a smiley face on not only for others, but to buoy our spirits. But we commit to truthful and honest interactions and encourage others to do the same.

 

When public good and private good collide, we rationalize. When we can’t rationalize, we declare reason overrated. Then we question others’ rating. Who says it’s so?

 

I woke up this morning with a strange realization: life is about managing contradictions.

 

 

Now I’m excited about fashioning a story that explores just that. No doubt, it will have a neat ending, suggesting a resolution after all was said and done.

 

But this, too, will be an oxymoron.

And so it goes. Told you.

 

 

 

International Women’s Day

Tomorrow, says my wall calendar, is International Women’s Day.

Blimey if I know what that means.

I mean, I’m a woman. I was born one, and never changed. I’m also inter-national. I hold dual citizenships, and I was born with that, also. I’ve lived in different countries, and I speak more than one language.

So it’s my day, right?

I dun’ know. Why am I not feeling it?

©Noam Nadav

It occurred to me that the powers who declared this celebration could have done a better job to mark it. For the likes of me, who would rather eat soap than go to rah-rah marches, here are some of the celebratory ways I could relate to:

*On International Women’s Day— all stores shall sell all products designed to be used by women at half the price. And you’d have to be a woman to buy such.

*On International Women’s Day— every person who is not a woman will salute every woman they pass. Better yet, they’d bow down.

*On International Women’s Day— it will be mandatory to have free chocolate truffles dispensaries at every street corner for women only, and you’d get fined using it if you don’t, at the very least, look the part.

Now that^ would be a day to celebrate being a woman.

Until, and when, those who declare holidays in the land come to see the wisdom of my suggestions, I will celebrate International HUMAN Day instead.

P.S.

Don’t mind me. Have fun.

STORIES and HISTORIES

Ever wonder about the backstory of pets or objects in your household?

Where was this antique embroidery before it came to rest on my dresser? Who was my kitty’s mother, and why was he left at the doorstep of the animal-shelter?

If I didn’t witnessed the birth, or in the case of an object— was there at its making, there’s a mysterious backstory I invariably find myself wondering about. And then...

I conjure a story.

Storytellers have this advantage. We can make up likely backstories, and even get so attached to the stories that we no longer know where our conjuring began, and when verifiable reality took over.

Thinking about this, it occurred to me that history is filled with the same: someone filled a gap in certain knowledge, someone then repeated it, while citing the source, then a third scholar cited both as verifying each other, and voila—conjured backstory became history.

Bet it happens more than we think it does.

Back to my perch, conjuring backstories, I think how enjoyable it is for writers. We get to leave no stone unturned. We get to explain it all. Everything can—and then does—make sense. Even if I can allow for the unexplained, unexplainable, or unknown— my beta readers will insist I fill in every gap. Otherwise, they’d say, “This part doesn’t make sense.”

Bio, About Me, and Stuff

Having just read yet another Bio page on someone’s website, it got me thinking.

Confession #1— that page is, invariably, my favorite page when I look someone up. I’m not referring to the people so famous there’s a Wiki page on them and books written about them. I’m thinking about the self-composed, let-me-tell-you-about-myself part of most folks’ websites. I get a lot from the personality of the narration (=voice) and the details chosen. Much more than a list of facts.

Confession #2— I’m disappointed if the page doesn’t contain a photo. Let me see your face, and you get to choose which picture you share. This is not a beauty contest. It is about revealing and sharing. Even what a website owner chooses for a bio photo tells me something.

Confession #3— I’m disappointed if instead of sharing pertinent and relevant information, you choose a list of “fun-facts.” The likes of “my favorite jelly bean flavor is cherry,” and “I once almost met the Queen of Sweden,” and nothing else, is not really a bio-fact, nor much fun. I conclude that you do not intend to give a real glimpse into what matters to you, and what makes you tick.

Confession #4— I’m never disappointed if while you told the truth and nothing but the truth, you didn’t tell the whole truth. The whole truth includes boring details and really, some things are not my business.

I tried to write a bio on my site that fits what I care to see on others. This, also, doesn’t make it right and the only way to do things. But it helped navigate this awkward task. I wrote it as if I were not the writer, nor the subject. I wrote it as if I were an interested reader.

Come to think of it, it’s how I write my stories and my blog posts.

The BEING of the Writer

A friend who is also a writer, maybe the most gifted one I know personally, was lamenting about all the things a writer must have. As she has taken care to have most of these things, her lament was born of experience.

She is, yet, unpublished, although if there is any smidgen of justice in this life, she will be. She has a website, a blog, a backyard cottage with a dedicated writing room, a critique group, and an agent. She has gone on writing retreats, some rather costly. She has attended workshops. She has travelled to conferences in New York (also costly) and has a taken a two-years-long MFA course resulting in a master’s degree.

And she’s got the most germane thing of them all of all— the time and means to dedicate to writing.

And now, she told me, she has realized that while all of the above have given her this thing called the writing life, none of them is necessary. Great novels were written and published without their creators having these.

We broke it down thus:

WEBSITE— Good to have, but not absolutely necessary.

BLOG— Ditto

WRITING COTTAGE— a dedicated space is really nice and helpful, but not a must

CRITIQUE GROUP— this isn’t for every writer, and many never belong to a group

AGENT— Helpful, but, again, not an absolute must

WRITING RETREATS— Lovely and romantic, but the act of writing requires only a periodic inner retreat, not an actual cottage in the woods

WORKSHOPS and CONFERENCES— Helpful for some, not a must

ACADEMIC DEGREES— these never make a writer, but they could make a teacher

TIME and MEANS— many have managed their first books without having either

All these are helpful, and some are immensely so. But not one makes a great or even fine writer. The “business around The Business” will make you think otherwise. But they are selling the above.

As we talked about it, and wound up dismissing one item after another, we found ourselves laughing giddily at the energy expended on the periphery of the creative vortex. It’s lovely and interesting to “be a writer,” but no substitute to, ahmm, writing.

It’s a funny thing about writing. Whether it’s cute ditties or the great American novel, we don’t need much, nor should we use not having much as a reason not to. We only need to buckle up and do it.

The Letter P

Two-thousand and sixteen has been a challenging year for me. Personally, professionally, and politically.

I got through it with persistence, perseverance, and prayer.

The first two are second nature to me. I’m a stick-to-it person. 

The last is hard. I’ve never had a home with ritual prayer, though the creator knows I’ve tried.
Attempting proscribed prayers left me emptier and feeling like a phony. Personal prayer leaves me feeling like a false friend—one who talks to you only when they have a need. prayer, like this whole last year, has been hard for me.

So here goes, anyway:

May two thousand and seventeen be the year of personal courage, professional clarity, and may our leaders be not clever and smart, (a given, if they got to where they are) but wise.

       * As they say on Sesame Street, this post was brought to you by the letter P *

The Bad, the Competent, the Good, and the GREAT

I took the title of this post from Stephen King’s book ON WRITING, a Memoire of the Craft.

Confession: I’m one of the few who has yet to read a Stephen King novel, though I know I have read one of his short stories a long time ago. This very good and uber-successful author writes horror stories. I don’t read horror. Ah, the horror!

But I got a strong recommendation to read his book on writing, and it turned out to be a delight. The writing advice is solid if standard fare, but the memoire parts are a testament to why he is the Stephen King— a vivid story teller of the first order.

Mr. King puts members of his profession into four categories.  He sees this classification much like the government’s food pyramid, with the bottom having a larger mass than the pinnacle top.

At the bottom are the Bad Writers. Mr. King hints that a few are commercially so successful they live a life of luxury in the Caribbean. (Who could he be talking about? I have my list)

Above them, in smaller numbers, are Competent writers, who comprise much of the work-for-hire, journalistic, and other pretty decent writing we encounter. Competent writers have the ear for cogent expression, but their stories lack wings.

Above the competent are the Good writers, and Mr. king suggests he is in that layer. Good writers have solid technique and tell good stories.

At the very top are The GREATS.  Think Shakespeare, Yeats, Faulkner, or Eudora Welty.

Mr. King believes that no amount of teaching will turn a bad writer into a competent one. They lack the ear, or they wouldn’t have been bad to begin with. He insists that no how-to course or mentoring will make a good writer into a GREAT. The Greats are divine accidents.

The teaching and coaching have a place in the middle of the pyramid. There, the competent, who, if they listen well, try hard, and work at it, could become good.

I tend to agree. I see this in all fields, though it’s most pronounced in artistic pursuits. It fits with a certain perception, one divergent from Malcolm Gladwell’s and his ten-thousand hours of work to any expertise.

But then I wonder: how wise or true is it to have rigid classifications? It organizes the mind, and is fun in its way, but how deeply true?

Here is my other confession for today: I really don’t know, and I know that I don’t. Organization and classification (like these pyramids) make for easy, comprehendible and jauntier stories.

I don’t know about the substance of King’s notions, but trusting some of the best readers I’ve known, Stephen King is nothing if not a Great storyteller.  Maybe his system is just another one of his stories, cooked for easy digestibility.

Take the Day

In the Jewish Home, where my mother passed her last eighteen months, I met one of most magical people ever. Ben was a marvel. He was a resident who, by the time my mother moved in, had been there a few years.

On set days and times, Ben played the pianos on every floor for other residents. It wasn’t official, but he had a job—making music for those who were not mobile and couldn’t leave their floor. Sometimes he played the grand piano at the common area on the first floor, right next to his room. He’d shuffle over carrying his sheet music, sit down at the keyboard, and make marvelous music just for himself, with the whole house watching.

He shared my mother’s birthday month, and at the luncheon for all the residents who had a birthday then, he sat next to my mother. She glowed. I did, too. Ben was not only handsome; he was radiant. Ben was beautiful.

Wanting to make conversation, but already suffering from dementia, my mother made a valiant effort to connect with him and make a friend. It must be a Jewish trait, for he answered every question with first repeating it. The conversation went something like this--

My mother: “Are you very old today?”

Ben: “Am I very old? Just old enough.”

My mother: “What is that?”

Ben: “What is that? Ninety-two.”

My mother: “That is too old.”

Ben: “Too old? Yes, it is.”

My mother: “How long will you live?”

Ben: “How long? They give me a day, I take it.”

This last line stayed with me. My mother lived for another year and four months, and passed away eight years ago. Ben still lives. He is one hundred-years-old.

 I try to begin each day by saying what he said. I’ll take it.