I was very moved by Erin’s kaddish for the old Bay Bridge — which, of course, wasn’t about the bridge at all. And I thought, oy, what a can of worms this kaddish has opened. Daily kaddish may well be harmful to the health, I thought. Every day you are in mourning, focusing on that…
Category: essays
Mira and Erin writing on themes of death, dying, grief, ritual, music, listening, Kaddish, Lev Kogan’s “Kaddish,” and so on.
a kaddish for harry potter 7.2 — and the mum who inspired it all
The very last Harry Potter film ever opened today. And yes — I saw it. And I’ll see it again tomorrow. The ritual of seeing HP movies on opening day with friends is apparently sacred. And I blew it saying yes to one friend and oops to the other. My attempt at a save is…
a kaddish for summer dreams
All year long I dream of all I’m going to get done in the summer. This happens every single year. I have a stack of books to read that I’m really excited about. After all, I’ve waited all year for this. Add to my summer reading, the reading that I managed not to read last…
a kaddish for trout … and mosquitos
Our most recent kaddish meditation was for fly fisherman Syl Nemes. The original article about him was in Erin’s dad’s blog, and his first paragraph caught my attention. In there, he mentioned at one point encouraging people to share their experiences with fly fishing. And so — I’m going to share mine. I know, I…
daily kaddish: for Syl Nemes, Mr. Soft-Hackle
Today’s Kaddish is for trout-fishing and in particular soft-hackle wet-fly flyfishing eminence Syl Nemes, and it’s a partial response to @Kaia Fahrenholz’s question about not feeling sad about death.
yahrtzeit for the moshiach
So. The moshiach died on this day. He actually died on June 12, 1994 — but that’s the wrong calendar. On the Jewish calendar, it was 3 Tammuz, 5754. Which this year works out to July 5th — today. I got an invite from Chabad of the East Bay to come to their Farbrengen and…
the letters
Clearing out biofather’s house. Inventory of everything imaginable. Mostly art, of course — but there’s all the detritus. Up in the studio, where the paintbrushes lived. And the rolls of silk paper and chops and engraving materials. Chemicals. Chinese watercolors. Favorite everythings: scissors, cameras, even silk cord. That was all upstairs. But then I ventured…
I’m all kaddished-out, she said… — the real secret of mourning rituals…
I know I brought this up on my last post — the one on suicides — about just feeling all kaddished-out. And then, hearing of Randy’s suicide, feeling that there was more to say. Much more. But then even that was not sustainable. I mean, here am I — Dr. Doom, as my housemate calls…
a kaddish for Randy — guest post from Tim Lavalli
A good friend died this week. He took his own life. We are all shocked and saddened by his passing and we are all asking ourselves – why? Which is to say, we are having the normal human reaction to such an unnecessary loss. I am not going to praise him here, you did not…
on suicide
Just when I was feeling all kadished-out. Just when I thought I couldn’t write another thing about death, death and dying, loss, grief, the ones I love, terrible events … Just when I thought that the kaddish project — our kaddish in two-part harmony — had done its job a few months shy of a…