Monthly Archives: June 2023

The New Car

Posted on June 24, 2023 by rachelmankowitz

            We were in a car accident a few weeks ago. I didn’t write about it at the time because Mom was shaken up and didn’t want her aunt to worry.

            Mom has been losing feeling in her feet for a few years now, and going to all of the doctor visits to try to figure out why and how to stop it, but nothing has worked. It has mostly impacted her balance, because she can’t feel the ground as well through her shoes, so more often than not, when she takes the dogs out for a walk, she goes out in her socks or bare feet.

“We go outside barefoot all the time. What’s weird about that?”

            For some reason, that evening, on our way to synagogue, she wore a pair of shoes she hadn’t worn in a while, and very early in the drive she realized her mistake, because she was having trouble feeling the brake pedal, but when I suggested that she pull over and let me drive, she said no, she was fine.

            But she wasn’t fine, and at a crucial moment, when she thought she was stepping on the brake, it turned out that she wasn’t.

            She could have had another career as a race car driver, so even without brakes Mom was able to maneuver through traffic to get to safety, with only minor damage to another car, but our little red Honda was basically totaled, not so much because the accident was terrible, but because the car had so many miles on it that the insurance company thought it wasn’t worth doing all the necessary repairs.

            Mom was in a daze after the accident, overwhelmed that she’d been the cause of it and frightened that the numbness in her feet might take away her independence. But as the days passed she decided that it really was that one pair of shoes, and with thinner soles she could still feel the brake pedal and drive as well as before. At least for now.

            We were both fine, physically, and to my surprise I really didn’t have much of a post-traumatic stress response like Mom did, so I did most of the driving, and emptied all of the gardening tools and grocery bags and random detritus out of the old car before the garage took it away. Thank God, Mom was up to making all of the phone calls with the garage and the insurance company and the rental car company.

“I hate phone calls.”

            As soon as we found out that the insurance company didn’t want to repair the Honda, we started to look for a replacement, and since Mom has been wanting a car that’s easier to get in and out of for a while now, she had a good idea of what she wanted. We went to the nearby Subaru dealer and found a lightly used charcoal grey Subaru Crosstrek, which also has some safety features we didn’t have in the Honda. It’s a good car, and comfortable, and has lots of trunk space, and the driver’s seat can be maneuvered every which way, to give Mom the best possible control over the pedals and view of the road, but it’s not red.

            And there’s this deep sense of loss. The little red Honda Civic has been part of our family for a long time, and I’m used to her. Switching to the rental car, a white KIA, with a push button start and rearview camera and lots of bells and whistles, took some adjustment, and the car didn’t smell like dogs and wet dirt from Mom’s gardening adventures, so it really was a stranger.

            I’m pretty sure the trunk of the new car will be filled with gardening equipment within the first few days, and there will be dog treats stuck into the cushions, and it will start to smell right. And it will be a relief to know that Mom can keep her independence and feel, and be, safer. And the car only has 25,000 miles on it, so we’ll probably be able to keep it for a long time, until it too becomes like family. But the loss is real. Things are changing.

“We don’t like change, Mommy.”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Longmire

Posted on June 17, 2023 by rachelmankowitz

My latest Netflix binge is a show called Longmire. It first aired on A&E (a basic cable channel in the US) and I really liked it back then, despite being anything but a Western fan, which was the genre the show seemed to fit into, though it’s also a crime drama. Walt Longmire (based on books by Craig Johnson) is a Sherriff in the fictional Absaroka County, Wyoming. His wife died the year before the show starts, seemingly of cancer, but we find out that no, she was murdered. We meet his best friend, Henry Standing Bear, from the nearby Cheyenne reservation, and his daughter, a lawyer, and his deputies, and we learn about the kinds of crimes that a Sherriff in Wyoming might have to deal with, and the politics, and so much more.

“Any dogs in the show?”

            After two or three seasons on A&E the show was cancelled, for having too old of an audience supposedly. I don’t know if I realized at the time that Longmire had been picked up by someone else, but since I didn’t have Netflix back then it was over for me, and I mourned the loss.

            Maybe I’m an old soul, as I have often been told, but a lot of the shows that have been designated as being for older people have been favorites of mine since childhood – like Murder, She Wrote and Matlock and Law & Order. The assumption that we all only watch shows that reflect our current age and situation in life is silly, and something that, if true, should be challenged.

            The sixth and final season of Longmire aired on Netflix back in 2017, so there’s really no hope of them going back and doing more seasons now, damn it, especially because the show’s final episode wrapped things up in a way that kind of cuts off the blood supply for possible future seasons. But all of those knots could be untied – like when you knit a sweater and realize it’s too short, so you pull out the last row or two and add on – and it could be done seamlessly. Almost. But for now, I only have these six seasons to watch and re-watch to try to figure out why it burrowed so deeply into my psyche in such a short amount of time.

On second viewing I’m noticing more details, more places where they foreshadowed the future plot twists, and how they used music to create tension, and how they developed certain themes on a slow burn. I thought it might be too soon to watch it all again and that I would get bored, but that just hasn’t happened. I feel like I’m getting to know these people better, and seeing how much more detail was there in the first place, helping me to understand how their minds work and where they are strong and where they are weak and what they know about themselves and what they don’t.

The relationships between the characters are so deeply explored, often through just the tone of voice or a look between two people. And I love that every strong character in the show has weaknesses and grey areas and confusions over what is right and wrong. And even the best of friends disagree about what’s right in any given situation.

I love Lou Diamond Phillips in his role as Henry Standing Bear. He’s able to capture the easy charm of a bartender, and the deep loyalty of a best friend, and the spirituality and anger of a Cheyenne warrior, all without seeming to pivot from one part of himself to another. And Vic, the female Sherriff’s deputy from Philadelphia who goes from flirty to sarcastic to frightened to defiant to deeply loyal with the same seamlessness.  

“She sounds like Cricket.”

And then there’s Walt, the strong, silent Sheriff, who can be childlike and confused and then strong and formidable, and whose moral compass is in constant motion, not always leading him in the right directions but showing us that he is always searching for what is right. His bravery and endurance feel almost unbelievable, the way he pushes himself to the brink to help other people, but we get to see all of the damage it causes and all of the pain he’s trying to hide and all of the disappointment and the fear, so that his strength seems deeply human after all.

Nothing is simple on Longmire, but instead of the last minute plot twists of a show like Law & Order, each surprising development in the plot has been laid into the fabric of the show and feels believable and even inevitable, though still shocking.

I love that I’m addicted to a show set in the cowboys and Indians world of Wyoming, a world I wasn’t really curious about before this. I can’t find myself in these places or these people and yet their stories resonate deeply with me, maybe because, bottom line, I trust their values. I trust them to care about me. I believe that Walt and Henry and Vic would care what happened to me, and find ways to protect me if I needed protection. Despite all of the violence and tension in their world, I feel safe with them.

            I wish I could write like this. I wish I could write the next season of the show and make the actors come back to shoot it. But maybe most of all, I want to be strong the way these people are strong, while always still acknowledging my fears and weaknesses and confusions. I want to be clear about my values and goals, while still being open to learning something new about the world and about myself. And I want to be able to stick to what is true for me, even while respecting what is true for someone else, unless they’re delusional, in which case, fuck them.

            I think Walt would agree.

“Watch your language, Mommy.”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Disarray

Posted on June 10, 2023 by rachelmankowitz

            I’m so disoriented. The synagogue school year ended and that means I can focus on my writing, so of course I’m at loose ends. Generally I need to spend a few weeks tying up those loose ends before I can find my footing, and maybe this is just the same as always, but it feels even looser than usual. My brain feels like a kaleidoscope, but the colored pieces of paper never land in any particular shape, they just keep swirling.

            I’ve started six or seven blog posts in the past few days and each one has ended with balled up paper in the garbage can (yes, I still write longhand on legal pads). I’m not quite sure why each essay self-destructs, sometimes it’s because I thought I had a new idea and two pages in I realize I’ve said it all before, and sometimes I get two paragraphs in and realize I really don’t want to look in that particular dark corner right now. Part of it is probably that I have a very long to-do list for the summer and I can’t figure out what to focus on first, or why. But really, I can’t focus at all. Usually, when I’m writing an essay I feel like I can find an invisible container for it in my head, and with palpable edges, so that I can write and edit within that general area, without feeling too overwhelmed.

“You should try pee mail, its the best form of communication.”

            But suddenly there are no available containers, or I forgot how to create one, because I feel like I’m just aimlessly writing words on a page, and I can’t sense the parameters of the idea, and the sentences just go on without shape or purpose. And if I can’t shape an essay, how can I even imagine shaping a novel, which requires a container bigger than anything else.

            I know I’ve felt this way before, but I don’t remember when, or why, or how I got out of it.

            I feel like I need to prepare for the next school year right now and solve every problem that came up over the past school year in order to think clearly, but I’m also taking another online Hebrew class, and going to new doctors, and planning for another oral surgery, and I feel like I should get back on track with seeing the eye doctor and foot doctor and dermatologist, which I’ve been putting off as non-essential for the past few years. And I have a pile of books that I’ve read over the past year, filled with little pieces of paper marking sections I want to read over and take notes on, and I have a new pile of books to mark up, and I need to get back on track with exercise, and go to choir practices to prepare for the high holidays, again, and I want to keep up with blog posts and therapy appointments, and all of that seems to come before working on the novels I expected to have finished by now.

            I can feel the looseness coming over me right now, and with it the desire to rip up pages, but I can’t keep writing and ripping and writing and ripping all the time. I need to land somewhere, so I am forcing myself to keep writing this essay, even if I can’t imagine the shape it will ultimately take. I am not comfortable in this state of mind, but I have to keep persisting and doing the work and writing the sentences I can write, until the shape and texture and purpose of the essay comes into being, or else I’ll never be able to move on to the bigger projects that are swirling in my brain.

“We’re going to rest while you do that.”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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The Oral History Interview That Wasn’t

Posted on June 3, 2023 by rachelmankowitz

            A few months ago, I was asked to be one of a small group of people to do oral history interviews for my synagogue, in order to capture the history of the synagogue, especially with so many of the founders already gone. I’d done a few historical articles about the founding of the synagogue for the monthly newsletter, a few years back, so I thought maybe they’d want my notes, or that they’d want me to tell the stories I’d been told. But it turned out that they wanted my own stories, whatever I wanted to focus on, from my eleven years as a member.

“What about me? I have stories too!”

            I was honored to be chosen, and overwhelmed with too many ideas of what to say, and scared to be on camera, but I was also busy teaching, and going to doctor visits, and I didn’t have time to wade through all of my ideas and come up with something to say at that moment, so I asked if they could wait until synagogue school was over for the year, and they said certainly, we’ll reach out in May.

            But when I got a follow up email a few weeks ago, it wasn’t to ask me when I’d be available to be recorded, it was to announce that they’d finished the filming and I could press on this link to see the videos. And, of course, I felt hurt. And relieved. And disappointed, and angry, and confused. For some reason I can’t have only one clear feeling at a time. It’s exhausting.

“Tell me about it.”

            I’d been gradually working through my ideas for what to say, in essay form, writing up each story to see which ones felt the most important, or the most tolerable to tell. Should I talk about being an unmarried, childless, disabled woman in a synagogue where young, wealthy families are the most coveted demographic? Or about the ways the synagogue has helped me to grow and to try out new roles and ideas in a safe place? Or should I talk about teaching in the synagogue school, or about learning with the clergy, or about how it was the older members of the congregation who embraced me from the beginning and it’s been so painful to watch them dying off or receding into nursing homes, or zoom? Or should I focus on the joy of the music and the consistent comfort of Friday night services, or about the frustration and disappointment I felt when it was the women in the synagogue who most rejected and dismissed the Me-Too movement, despite my efforts to let them know that I was a survivor of sexual abuse and needed their support?

            I had a lot to say. And a lot of fear of saying it on camera, and being seen, or being edited out, so I guess I’m relieved to be able to put it off.

            And, really, it’s possible that they decided to just go with the people who were ready to film right away and forgot to tell me that they wouldn’t need me. Or maybe they’re planning to do a second group later on, and assumed I’d figure that out, or that I’d been told. I don’t know. This oral history project is clearly still a work in progress, which is something I can relate to.          In the meantime, I’m still working on my essay version of what I’d want to say in the video, cutting and adding and organizing, so that, just in case they still want to hear from me, I’ll be ready with something to say.

“We’ll be ready too!”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

57 Comments

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