Hanukkah

Whenever a holiday approaches, I feel my luck in living close to so many members of my family. My gratitude is mixed with some sadness, because of course not everyone I love lives so near. My grandmother, my aunt and uncles, many cousins, my brother, his wife and their newborn baby -- they all live in Israel. I also have family scattered around the United States. But my parents and my sister and her family live here, and their presence is a constant source of joy in my life.

Hanukkah is one of my favorite holidays. It lasts eight whole days and is full of lights, fabulous fatty foods, and songs. What could be better? I love to watch my sister’s three kids and my two, their faces lit with a childhood's wonderment and awe, as all of us sing the holiday songs together, bursting into laughter as we mess up, yet again, the canon “Mi yemalel gvurot yisrael,” or as someone forgets the right words to “Maoz tzur,” or as somebody burst into “Sevivon sov sov sov” just as all the rest begin with “Hanukiyya sheli.”

This Hanukkah my parents are in Israel, visiting my brother and my grandmother (who is turning 95!). For the first four days of the holidays my kids were with their dad. Dar and I lit the first candle together on the menorah that my grandfather had built and which my grandmother had used for many years in her home preschool. I taught Dar how to sing the blessings and started him on the complicated “Maoz Tzur.” I didn’t make latkes or the holiday doughnuts, but we watched the candles flickering and took pictures, and I sang the songs.

The second and fourth nights we celebrated with my sister’s family. My sister’s husband has a great voice and his mother was a school teacher, and the three of us sang all the songs, with some help from my sister (who I think was born with a unique sense of hearing that not everyone can appreciate), her kids and her husband’s father. We had latkes and sufganiyot and felt that it was really a holiday.

Tonight Uri and Eden will be with us as well, and then we’ll take our Hanukiyot with us and fly to Roatan Island in Honduras to continue the celebration there. I feel a little sad that our travel plans prevent us from fully celebrating the holiday as my perfect vision would have liked. But I am bringing the menorahs and enough candles with us, and a CD with all the songs to keep us in voice, and we’re going to have a great time.

I am not sure if our hotel on Roatan will have wifi, or if I will have time to blog in the busy schedule of having fun. I wish you all a happy Hanukkah and a happy new year, and I’ll see you again in 2012. Have a wonderful, fabulous, fantastic, great time!

Writaholic-ness

It occurred to me today that I am a writaholic, addicted to writing. Most people who are privy to my sporadic writing habits might raise their eyebrows at this idea. In fact, my own eyebrows rise at the very thought. But nonetheless I think it might be true.

My writaholic-ness is definitely not a workaholic-type obsession. I don’t write for long hours, neglecting both children and house work. Nor do I ever write into the wee hours of the night, leaning over my computer under the forlorn light of a solitary lamp. I rarely rush to my notebook in the middle of the night with a burning desire to write down an idea, though that did happen to me once fifteen years ago when I thought up a limerick dedication to my honor thesis advisor.

And yet I insist that I am a writaholic. The reason is this: when I write I am happy, content and relaxed. I feel confident and hopeful about the future. In contrast, when I don’t write I slowly become depressed, unhappy, and stressed.

Usually I feel that I need to be in the groove in order to write. If I feel depressed or my mind is busy then I can’t write. And yet, lately it has become clear to me that I need to write.

Take this weekend, for example. On Friday we celebrated my mother’s 70th birthday, and many members of my family came to spend the weekend with us. I appointed myself master of ceremonies. My sister and I cooked thanksgiving dinner for 20 people. My boyfriend organized a bus, and we took the whole group plus five to Point Lobos for a hike, then to Carmel for dinner. On Saturday we watched a movie about my mother that I had prepared with a friend’s talented son. We had brunch and ended the day with dinner and an opera. On Sunday we closed the ceremonies with a family zumba class and more food.

This full weekend left little time for writing. On Sunday, however, when we returned home the kids went to watch some television, and my boyfriend fell asleep on the sofa. More than anything else I wanted to write, but I felt too tired and not in the groove. Instead I idled by the ipad, played word games and filled out crossword puzzles in Hebrew. I slowly grew more tired and restless.

I think I would have been better able to relax and enjoy the festivities this weekend if I had used what free time I had for writing. This morning I woke up still tired, but now, with the keyboard under my fingers, my words springing on the screen and bringing my thoughts to life, I feel whole again. I hope that in the future, instead of waiting for the right mood to come, I will remember that I can rest in the writing. I will allow myself to "write" myself into the groove and become happy by doing what I love and do best. Which is exactly this.