TIME: A DELICATE SAW

We are all familiar with the many instruments and calendars that are designed to measure time. Sun Dials were looked upon as reliable measures, and watched as we do clocks today.

However, how have we looked upon and considered the element of t-i-m-e?

I look at such as "the delicate saw of time". It works without anyone driving the long handle back and forth. It is on "automatic", a word used so frequently in modern times.

If we were to live out each day counting the minutes and hours with continual significant attention, we would tire of the monotony and drudgery of this demanding task.

And yet, if we do not plan adequately and keep a daily log, we will run scattered and partially aloof, turning our attention in too many directions at once. This could allow for spontaneity and surprises both welcome and unwelcome!

Maybe that is why vacation periods have been devised.

Now, I am looking at the size and edges of a large saw in my mind's eye. The teeth are sharp, the handle swift, the motion steady as it is wielded. Time can fly from its handle, or blow in tidbits, or stubbornly stick before flying. This is a microcosm of the time allotted to our lives.

I am including herein a poem I wrote at age 50 while living in Argentina. It is my view, review, and plea for expansion of time.

Please give it a read. Thank you,

BURY ME UP in the SKY

Oh this death business

Can be murky and cold,

Where no coffee is served

And birds are no longer aloft.

I want no part of it,

Yet each hour chimes its bludgeon

Don't give me Rest-in-Peace.

Give me boat rides to castles

Tipping the coffin

To varnish its hue.

Make ready the dirt bed,

To send me off to the skies?

Miss Rheingold

FROM TIC TO TOC!

The Clock Stops; Time cannot. Black to white, young to old, fresh to stale, warm to cold hits the body before the mind.

Would most of us choose to stop time if we could, or at least slow it down?

I am not sure about that, but I am sure as I feel my time diminishing, I would like to turn back the clock to have it advance at the same pace staring with at least ten years ago.

What would I do differently? What would I add or subtract from my current goings-on?

Not much, I muse. I retired from steady work or employment in my early 50's so that I could continue a life path not dominated by a boss or a clock.

I took the "road less traveled" and wandered and wondered far and wide continuing to find private employment as a teacher to private students and writing articles for an English language paper in Mexico as well as sporadic translation assignments  and editing people's manuscripts.

My employment as a Spanish teacher to adult foreign students in San Miguel, Mexico was a fine opportunity to create my own system and program which turned out to be a popular success!

I am continuing as a private foreign language teacher until this day in Israel.

So, tic toc---the clock is getting louder, and I may be growing softer. I am not without concern and some fear of how and when the curtain will drop. I am in amazement, however, how much the steady Yoga practice I enjoy with my husband keeps me vibrant and supple. I urge all of you to give it a go if you are not yet enrolled or have let it go.

The signs of use show up daily (outside of the Yoga classes!). We will all have a "go" at this preparation in our own manner, as we do and did for all of the time spent in it!

Until the next round,

MISS RHEINGOLD

CELLPHUN SLAVES

Ahhhh! The SELF---and the fun of PHONES! We no longer need to use our memory or, for that matter, much that has been buried in our brain for future connection.

I do not and will not possess an instrument that will allow me to forget my own phone number!

The love, charm, and sometimes anger or disappointment that has, in the past, been expressed by voice has now been replaced by a slave-cell to send a misspelled message by SMS.

I do find the whole episode a violent dismissal of human connection!

Here in Eilat, it may be even more rampant that elsewhere. On a bicycle with a baby attached, at the steering wheel, smoking a cigarette, the familiar pastime here --- (regardless of age or life station, this includes Rabbis), is the slave- to-cell that is above all else the important connection to a life force!

Crossing small or main streets with or against the right light, the conversation does not halt. The nausea of having to be witness to self preparation for the ubiquitous Selfies, on buses, bus depots, coffee shops, while driving, allows for no pause.

When the delivery rooms start to impose these self same selfies, we will know we are no longer fully bearing our role as fully developed human beings!

Children here find it hard to grasp adults' hands since between the lit cigarette and hand- held cell there is no place for the hand or the child's communication. At age two, or even younger, the little ones are supplied with their very own cell implement. This is usually their nearer of comic cartoons as they are strolled throughout the city and/or its malls.

Am I against progress? No, I do not believe so. I am against the overwhelming self aggrandizement that has become the norm. No more searching for the right answer, the right thought, the right word, the right number; it is all fed to your greedy eyes faster than a blink of same!

Where are we rushing to? What will be the brain without use? Atrophied? Swollen with forgetfulness?

Have you been experiencing CELLHELL instead of SELF HELP?

It is sad, obtrusive, and a threat to our very specialty---a human being with the gift of thought and speech!

Here's to coffee and conversation without cameras and cellslaves,

MISS RHEINGOLD

SUMMON the FAMILIAR

Last week I thought I had an original title: "The Tyranny of the Positive”...Days later, I learned that there is a somewhat similar current English expression: The Tyranny of the Familiar"---a surprise!

I suppose there is really no singular neologism, and as much as we would like to believe in our originality, mmmmm?

In any event, I learned this when I heard that many new immigrant arrivals to Israel do not choose to remain within our borders.

Why not? Simple response was that they cannot adjust to the new foods, and long for the foods and brands they are used to!

Nothing deep, like politics or language or difference in world outlook. Different manners, perhaps or simple habits that are missed.

I heard this from a non-Jewish American on a year's volunteer visa who explained this when I relayed my new blog title.

I, for one, do not and have not ever, that I can recall, long for the familiar. Au contraire, I have continued to long for the unknown and unfamiliar, not out of boredom, I suspect. I find delight in what may be a new slant on an old idea or concept, religion, philosophy, or something mundane as food or dress habits.

I choose to dismiss the "familiar", or at least suspend it, while in the midst of discovery. Expression in a new language drives me wild!

New aspects of expression or new connotations to a well worn word, for instance.

Now, when it comes to a partner, I do indulge in the familiar with grace and deep desire.

I will welcome your thought and feelings about this concept, either on today's title, or last week's, "The Tyranny of the Positive" from those who have not yet responded.

Much familiar feeling, MISS RHEINGOLD