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Bringing the Pieces Together
Today has been a very strange day. It probably has something to do with being on a vacation - a true, real, relax and don't worry about things vacation. Suddenly, a bunch of things are starting to seem within reach that up to now had been on my mind but somehow had been too much effort to explore and implement. I guess it technically started yesterday, when I had an idea for a story - a very rare occurrence for me, and I carefully hoard what ideas I had. This one is for a Regency, Jane Austen-style romance. Pretty vanilla stuff, but fun to research and fun to write. Then, earlier today, I had another idea for a story. I usually get about one idea a year (and I've not been writing hardly at all of late anyway) and now I've had two in two days - the second for a series of mysteries set in the Civil War. Sure, it stands to reason that these the areas where my thoughts would tend - I recently went on a Jane Austen kick and reread some of her stuff, and all of my other leisure reading recently has been....books about the Civil War, and mysteries. Shocking. But still - they're definitely real, solid ideas - kernels of characters waiting for me to set them loose in a world, which is typically how my ideas come (I don't generally think of plots, I think of people).
From there, I finally found the energy this evening to do some research on the interweb about three things that have been on my mind: drum lessons, photography classes, and joining a synagogue. And what I found was...the information is out there, the options are within reach, and all it takes is me putting in the time to learn about them. Whether I have the money for the first two is one question; whether the third is something I really, really want to do is another question. As for money, I'm inclined to think that if those are things I'd like to do, they are well within reach. To the other question, I'm far less certain. My relationship with Judaism as an organized religion has always been tenuous at best. On the one hand, I've been in a couple of synagogues in the past year and have found the experience rejuvenating, pleasant, and alluring. How that speaks to my own desire to try to forge myself a place in a community by similar means, that I'm less sure of. But I did some research anyway, and it ends up that there's a very promising looking synagogue which is a ten minute walk from my apartment. It's Reform, it has a young rabbi (always a good sign, imo) and it seems to have an active membership and relatively forward thinking classes and such. It would be a way for me to meet people in my neighborhood, build some relationships, get involved - especially in community service type stuff, which is always a component of synagogues, but it will force me to confront the simple fact that I don't believe in organized religion as such. Now, believe it or not, I don't think that that fact means I shouldn't do this. I'm very drawn to my heritage precisely because it's my heritage. I'm just not sure if the way for me to explore that is to join a synagogue. At the moment, though, I'm leaning towards just jumping in and seeing how I like it. I can always leave if it's not the place for me, and either join another synagogue or move on and consider it a lesson learned.
Then, after I did all that research, I wandered over to Facebook and found that a friend had sent me an e-mail inviting me to join a D&D game. Despite some issues (the game is Jersey...) I'm strongly leaning towards doing it, and wrote back to that effect.
The net result is that it feels oddly like, out of the blue, some new life is coming together, that something is changing. I'm not quite sure what, but maybe like I'm finally managing to put together some kind of life for myself in NYC. For whatever reason, I've been very reticent to do this beyond the surface level and, for the most part, I haven't really been unhappy, either. A little lonely perhaps, but nothing more. Yet I've also felt rather incomplete. There were things in my life that I wanted, that I didn't - and don't - have, and I knew, kinda, what I had to do to get them, yet I couldn't bring myself to do it. Somewhat, what I was able to do in Japan - take a chance, meet some people, find a game - had proved too intimidating, daunting, overwhelming, unnecessary, or something, for me to attempt to do in NYC. In recent months, that's extended in to other areas - particularly writing, where, despite getting 120k in to a book between April and September, I've just not been able to find the energy and take another month or two and finish the damn thing, or to work on either of the projects that I've started in the past year. Even as I've continued to do many other things that matter to me, I've managed to erect internal, nigh-insurmountable barriers to doing some of the other things that I've known all along were absolutely necessary for me to become really happy. Whether the things that have come together today are those things, I have no way of knowing from my current vantage point, but I do know that I'll never find out if I don't start moving forward, but this bitchy inertia has been really hampering me.
But that it's all coming together in one 24 hour period is very, very odd - but rather liberating. I'm very daunted by how much work I have to do when I get home, and I know that adding new things to my schedule is probably the worst possible option, but even so, I feel like just maybe I've got a little momentum just now. I wonder how long it will last?
Well, that didn't come together in quite the way I expected it to, but I suppose for all that it accurately reflects things at the moment. I just feel...kind of odd. Ambivalent. Daunted. Determined. Very strange.
I'll write about the trip some other time. I'm having a great time, though! PR is beautiful. Postcards went out this morning... :)
From there, I finally found the energy this evening to do some research on the interweb about three things that have been on my mind: drum lessons, photography classes, and joining a synagogue. And what I found was...the information is out there, the options are within reach, and all it takes is me putting in the time to learn about them. Whether I have the money for the first two is one question; whether the third is something I really, really want to do is another question. As for money, I'm inclined to think that if those are things I'd like to do, they are well within reach. To the other question, I'm far less certain. My relationship with Judaism as an organized religion has always been tenuous at best. On the one hand, I've been in a couple of synagogues in the past year and have found the experience rejuvenating, pleasant, and alluring. How that speaks to my own desire to try to forge myself a place in a community by similar means, that I'm less sure of. But I did some research anyway, and it ends up that there's a very promising looking synagogue which is a ten minute walk from my apartment. It's Reform, it has a young rabbi (always a good sign, imo) and it seems to have an active membership and relatively forward thinking classes and such. It would be a way for me to meet people in my neighborhood, build some relationships, get involved - especially in community service type stuff, which is always a component of synagogues, but it will force me to confront the simple fact that I don't believe in organized religion as such. Now, believe it or not, I don't think that that fact means I shouldn't do this. I'm very drawn to my heritage precisely because it's my heritage. I'm just not sure if the way for me to explore that is to join a synagogue. At the moment, though, I'm leaning towards just jumping in and seeing how I like it. I can always leave if it's not the place for me, and either join another synagogue or move on and consider it a lesson learned.
Then, after I did all that research, I wandered over to Facebook and found that a friend had sent me an e-mail inviting me to join a D&D game. Despite some issues (the game is Jersey...) I'm strongly leaning towards doing it, and wrote back to that effect.
The net result is that it feels oddly like, out of the blue, some new life is coming together, that something is changing. I'm not quite sure what, but maybe like I'm finally managing to put together some kind of life for myself in NYC. For whatever reason, I've been very reticent to do this beyond the surface level and, for the most part, I haven't really been unhappy, either. A little lonely perhaps, but nothing more. Yet I've also felt rather incomplete. There were things in my life that I wanted, that I didn't - and don't - have, and I knew, kinda, what I had to do to get them, yet I couldn't bring myself to do it. Somewhat, what I was able to do in Japan - take a chance, meet some people, find a game - had proved too intimidating, daunting, overwhelming, unnecessary, or something, for me to attempt to do in NYC. In recent months, that's extended in to other areas - particularly writing, where, despite getting 120k in to a book between April and September, I've just not been able to find the energy and take another month or two and finish the damn thing, or to work on either of the projects that I've started in the past year. Even as I've continued to do many other things that matter to me, I've managed to erect internal, nigh-insurmountable barriers to doing some of the other things that I've known all along were absolutely necessary for me to become really happy. Whether the things that have come together today are those things, I have no way of knowing from my current vantage point, but I do know that I'll never find out if I don't start moving forward, but this bitchy inertia has been really hampering me.
But that it's all coming together in one 24 hour period is very, very odd - but rather liberating. I'm very daunted by how much work I have to do when I get home, and I know that adding new things to my schedule is probably the worst possible option, but even so, I feel like just maybe I've got a little momentum just now. I wonder how long it will last?
Well, that didn't come together in quite the way I expected it to, but I suppose for all that it accurately reflects things at the moment. I just feel...kind of odd. Ambivalent. Daunted. Determined. Very strange.
I'll write about the trip some other time. I'm having a great time, though! PR is beautiful. Postcards went out this morning... :)
no subject
I'm interested in hearing what you're thinking along these lines, too. For me, basically, there are two things that draw me to a church: one is that I do see some kind of spirituality in the world, but I'm not sure exactly how to define it. The other is that I would value some kind of community code or moral standard that is a bit tougher than one set by civil/secular society. (I don't think at all that civil society should set that kind of code by law, though. I'm thinking of a sort of higher aspiration that has to be willingly chosen. The stuff I was reading about Judaism might call it being a righteous gentile, which we're not bound to, of course.)
So yeah, I've been reading about what several of the big brand-name spiritual communities have to offer. Where I am right now, I figure, options are a good thing. You don't just have to be what you were raised in, if it doesn't ring true to you. But then, you do also lose the heritage/tradition thing, which does also have some value. I mean, I like going to church on Christmas Eve and having a Christmas tree because that's what my family has always done. But I'm finding looking at what other people out there believe and celebrate and value really useful at this stage. And in that light, it's cool to hear that if Judaism does actually line up well with what I believe in, I could potentially convert. And I want to read more about the Unitarians and Quakers too. The possibility of choosing to join a community is exciting, I think, even if I'm not ready to choose one yet.
So is the most important thing the specifics of what you literally believe? Or can that be vague as long as you're in a community that supports your values and generic spirituality? Or is belonging to the community that gave you your traditions the most important part? Hmmmm.
So yeah, options are both good and also daunting, as you noted. I'm totally with you on the trying and failing and trying again thing. I'd like to find something, but it will surely take lots and lots of effort. Sigh.
no subject
However, joking aside, for people like us, I don't think it can be a matter of literal belief. I've been known to refer to the bible as the greatest fantasy novel ever written. For me, it's a matter of community and spiritual support - because the things that I do believe in, while not logical, are definitely not my religion. The community is really what I'm most interested in, though - a group of people with whom I can engage in activities (secular and religious), in particular, community activism and service, which I'm having trouble getting involved in on my own.
There are some options that would be closed to us - but most of those are religious extremes that wouldn't appeal to us.
So what draws me to synagogue? The peaceful feeling I get when everyone gets quiet in the shul and the rabbi starts to sing. The way everyone supports each other and exchanges greetings and news while they settle in for shabbat. Being a group of people who drawn together from diverse backgrounds, all ages and professions and, to a lesser extent, social class, but who have at least one thing in common. The enforced relaxation time, a couple of hours of the week where I have nothing I have to do except sit on a slightly uncomfortable bench and reflect on what's going on in my head. Someone else organizing events like dinners and community service, which I would be open to participate in.
I think those are the parts that are most important to me.