HAIL TO OVER WHELMING HALE! (Hell---why not?)

OMG! An eventful trip and celebration to Tel Aviv. The second day, we were hit by a heavy hale storm (golf ball size) with flooding rain stopping all traffic and much footfare!  Finally located a last umbrella for sale.

It started at 4:30 p.m.-- one half hour before David's birth time!

An overwhelming occurrence---first time ever in Tel Aviv in any season!

There was much that day and the day before to warm the senses as well as each other.

Back to Day No1!

We casually bumped into two different people from Eilat half a block away from our  simple hotel.

One of them was a friend who gives voice and piano concerts just about everywhere! I met her while David took off for a short walk to the beach. She said to stop by her hotel where she donated her father's piano!

When we saw her the next day, she gave us a mini concert. She played my favorite request for "Sentimental Journey"that had been played throughout my childhood watching and listening to my dad play on his weekly visits to me at home. Tear fountains poured from my eyes warming both my heart and my cheeks. Lots.

The she said she was going to play a song for me. She rolled off CLAIR de LUNE as if it was a baby's rattle.

I asked, 'HOW DID YOU KNOW?" She said," I just did."

David jumped up to let her know that was the song responsible for my first marriage!

I had danced in a solo improvisation on a bare stage for at least 100 people at a Talent Show for a department store (Alexander's ---Bronx branch) and the coat buyer caught sight of me in a black leotard and flying wavy hair.
he was transfixed!

We met dear old friends ( after a three year hiatus) for a free lunch that I was being offered from Travel Advisor for the warm review I wrote on Travel Advisor! The following morning we had a free 2 hour Yoga class at the Sivananda Center of Tel Aviv. We are practitioners at the Sivananda Center in Eilat, so it all felt like family!

Great teacher, great class, perfect environment for a birthday celebration.

We sat through an all Russian evening talk by a recognized artist in a miniature Russian bookstore across from our hotel. I understood and David played along!

The days were criss- crossed---a bit star crossed as well, but a magnificent journey into the serendipity of life.

Make tomorrow jealous of today! Yeah!

All of what we seem to encounter allows for surprise. All we have to do is to recognize it!

We learned that Eilat had undergone a serious rain storm that last day we were returning home. A very rare occurrence in Eilat!

The storm on the road home had run wild flooding a Wadi two hours outside of Beer Sheva, drowning nine 18 year old pre- army recruits on a scheduled hike from their academy.

Another is still missing.Helicopters were shooting across the late afternoon sky  as we reached  the road two hours

outside of Tel Aviv.

An interesting trip for the beginning of a new personal year, indeed.
Best to all of you, Miss Rheingold

EVOL! EVOL!

What would it mean if love were to be spelled backwards?

I am not sure, but I am sure it would count for something. A very close friend in Los Angeles died two weeks ago, a sudden and horrid death after gross attempts to save him. I remain convinced that both birth and death can be the most painful moments in our lives whether or not we will be able to express such.

Upon reading the news, I felt EVOL---- and old love----and a gripping sadness and disbelief at the circumstances---

NO WARNING!

This was the third demise in a month entering my life---it became gripping--strangling--- untoward.

My belly cramped, my throat tightened, and tears froze in the corners of my eyes.

I continued a pressing life schedule, despite the additional physical pressure.

Now, in turning around the letters of a deep emotion, I recognized another side to love.

There are so many facets to love and EVOL------there is sexual love, of course, which seems at the beginning to be the strongest. Then the love of our children or those of others' children or for pets or for music or poetry or of life itself. There is also twisted love that can turn to hate before we  know why. Does love heighten once death is  involved? Do we forgive ore easily? There is love of a book we cannot forget, or wish to share with many others.

It may be that  EVOL grows out of LOVE.I do not think it can grow the other way around. We can grow tired of something we own, and wish to throw it out. The Japanese have a word for something you love just because it has aged and maybe even cracked.It can refer to a face or a vase or any other object:SABI......they do not want to discard, but rather save the old or worn object(s).

I often feel all of the kinds of love I have mentioned above. How about you?

With emotion,

Miss Rheingold

UP, Up, and AWAY !

Oliver Sacks wrote, in his beautiful  little book GRATITUDE,” There will be no one like us when we are gone, but there is no one like us, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate-the genetic and neural fate—of every human being to be unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.”

 

I read this about a week ago while still in emotional mourning for my dear friend of 50 years, who passed away recently, to whom I had been sending this weekly blog. This morning I read an email from my father-in-law, a recently retired medical doctor, (less than once a year does his name show up on our inbox).

It gave meticulous medical details of my mother-in-law’s near deadly weakened condition in the critical care unit of their local hospital in Maine. My mind swiftly returned to the Oliver Sacks’ quote. My husband and I took off for our regular Yoga practice with this knowledge in my head, and of which he yet remained ignorant.

 We arrived to find a new visiting teacher who gave a great class, and who had a very special manner of relaxed presentation. This is an awkward statement, since the whole purpose of Yoga is to relax every part of your body and mind! Sometimes though, the concept is translated into words, the right words, but the feeling is oblique. The teacher was visiting from Austria, and gave the class in English.

My husband took the news gracefully and with sparse emotion. I, however, was feeling ill at ease. They have not been close for a very long time now. I barely had a relationship with her, not for lack of trying.

This comes at a time when we expect to have a number of visitors during this week, all from various locations. There is also a planned delivery of our some of our furniture left behind in Tiberias two and a half years ago.

Death rings an echo for me, no matter to whom it pertains at this juncture in my life .A beckoning echo, a shrill echo, a tiresome echo, almost a screech!

In order for life to be repetitive, death must occur. All we can hope for is to be remembered.

Oliver’s quote came out of a recent book by Dylan Jones: DAVID BOWIE: A LIFE

I hear the sound of a metronome daily. There is no piano, however.

Up, up, and away!  To be remembered-------recalled-refound.

Love that which is alive, MISS RHEINGOLD

The BEGINNING portends the END......

Hello from the four corners of the East: Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia-----all from our balcony---well at least two of them, the other two just out of view!

The world is round, and life is linear. Some may think we do return in another form. Some may think we do go on in another sphere. I am witnessing several lives in this calendar one. As I change, so does the life I am leading.

The week long holiday of Passover bodes open festivity and vacation and family reunions. We celebrate the departure from Egypt, the desert crossing, the arrival into the land of milk and honey.

At this point in my life it seems that almost every day is a crossing and an arrival! I am, at times, sad to see the day end, yet elated to see a new one begin! I know that all life must end, and I am indeed part of that “all”. Having acted professionally, and having taught Drama, I had opportunities to change persona as well as life situations as well as to create such for my students. That may be just why actors choose that profession. I know it has been my pleasure.

There is a fine book I heartily recommend THE FIVE INVITATIONS   by Frank Ostaseski.

It encompasses what death can teach us about living fully. My latest feeling about this matter-—for the last year or so, has been that not only the proverbial cat has nine lives, but I do too.

I have not been a procrastinator, but even less so now as time shortens, I delight in the speed-up.

“Enjoy yourself! It’s Later Than You Think”, a good song to sing at holiday time when we naturally allow ourselves to mark special days on our calendars. How? What? When? Where?

With  Whom?

 “Give” had become the big adjective for me until very recently when “take” took the fore- ground. I had to seek financial help for my dental needs. Take is harder for me than Give is what I learned. I will now turn around to GIVE again.

Wheels turn, and we generally enjoy watching that activity. Life turns, and we hope to keep it in place .Funny, huh?

How about some dialogue regarding “give and take”? If you are up to it, that is, I would like to read some expressions of those verbs in your lives from you.

Meanwhile, Yoga classes keep me sane and fit to breathe!

Sending “I miss you” messages to all who receive this blog,

Miss Rheingold