Happy New Year

I have a confession to make:

This is the first time in my entire 22 years that I did not go to high holiday services. In fact, it was not until I opened my email/facebook yesterday that I realized it was September 17th at all. In my mind, I still had time to find a synagogue, contact the rabbi, let him conduct my background check, and be approved for worship.

Obviously, yesterday at 12:30pm, I did not.

However, I did buy an apple, some honey and said a blessing as well as the shehekianu.

I have a second confession to make:

These two and a half weeks in Paris have not been easy. In fact, they have been incredibly difficult. The reasons are not important, the difficulties are not worth discussing.

But, as in all times of trial, my difficulties have been equally matched with absolute delight and growth.

You see, for the past two weeks, I have debated writing a post about learning to look up when I walk to conduct an impossible errand and not stew in the task's futility; to at least enjoy my walk in this beautiful city. I have thought about writing about the times that I have forced myself out of the comfort of my apartment to go sightseeing by myself and embrace where I am and why I am here, instead of refreshing the stolen internet one more time (or 20) in hopes that I can reply to that one last email.

But, I decided, it would only be interesting to me and not worth any of y'all's time.

Then, yesterday, my Rabbi and friend sent me his High Holiday sermon to read before he had given it to review and enjoy and ponder while I watched Parisians from my window carry fresh baguettes under their arms, chewing on the ripped-off tip out of the bakery from across the street.

His topic: learning to look up. He begins by introducing a question printed in a Paris newspaper in 1922 (how appropriate!) asking how would human actions change if we knew that we would die relatively soon.

Marcel Proust, himself, responded to the newspaper with the following (it's so beautifully written, I had to include it)

"I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die as you say. Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it – our life – hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, delays them incessantly.

But let all this threaten to become impossible for however, how beautiful it would become again! Ah! If only the cataclysm doesn’t happen this time, we won’t miss visiting the new galleries of the Louvre, throwing ourselves at the feet of Miss X, making a trip to India.

The cataclysm doesn’t happen, we don’t do any of it, because we find ourselves back in the heart of normal life, where negligence deadens desire. And yet we shouldn’t have needed the cataclysm to love life today. It would have been enough to think that we are human.”

He also includes the story of the slaying of Isaac and how the angel had to shout at Abraham twice to engage the devoted man and keep him from butchering (also how appropriate, while gruesome) his son. It was then, when Abraham looked up that he saw the ram, which he would ultimately slaughter instead. 

It has always worked out well for me and my organized/compartmentalized mind that the Jewish New Year begins at the same time that the academic year does. It makes it easy to look back and judge a period of time, as in my life,  each school year has existed as its own entity; much more so than a calender year.

2011-2012 was one of those years that I will look back on for the rest of my life as being one of the greatest. It was also one of the hardest. I am no longer friends with past best-friends, but out of that hell, I found myself closer to my dearest friends and closer to myself. I met new people who I love now just as dearly. Oh, and I graduated from college in a whirlwind of assignments and hours in the library. But through the academic and personal hard-times, I learned how to place one foot in front of the other to keep going and make my problems seem smaller and more manageable as I proceeded forward instead of stewing. 

In this New Year, I would like to take that mentality of continually moving forward and add to it; to actually enjoy those and these hardest times by looking up; stalking children and couples at the gardens for a perfect picture; reading the Hunchback of Notre Dame in a Parisian cafe. In a sense, to look up- at whatever I may find there. 

So, as I type this without using my index finger (I chopped off a small portion of it today, instead of the carrot...), I am hoping that I can live up to this long manifesto that I thank you for reading (if you have made it this far without giving up and returning to Facebook- I won't hold it against you).

I also want to thank you because today this little blog reached over 1,000 page views (granted half of those are probably me trying to see if a post actually posted or my loving Bubbie). I am so incredibly humbled by everyone's support and feedback and interest. 

Happy New Year and lots of Love,

Elyssa

(Taking my own advice, I spent Rosh Hashanah eve listening to this man outside of Shakespeare and Co Bookstore. With a mix of Caribbean/American Folk and Blues/French and a beautiful voice, this man was the perfect way to enter into a new year. Next time, I'll advise him to add a shofar to the mix.)