blind insight

A little humor from the tech-dazed.

This will make today my first three-post day since beginning this blog. But I wanted to share with you this message from my mother, the latest in a series of e-mails relating to this blog, my sources for its content, and the various technological niceties associated with navigating and commenting upon it:

"So now we have blogs and blawgs! Do doctors have blahgs (as in "say ah")? Do magicians have bloogs (the crowd went "oo")? And do debtors have blowegs?"

My mom may not think herself among the technorati, but she's still got that razor-sharp wit. Hopefully at least a bit of it got passed down in the gene pool . . . .

Scenes from a funeral.

I just got back from a funeral for the mother of one of my colleagues. I didn't know the woman who died, and I'm not terribly close to her daughter, but it seemed appropriate to attend. The funeral was held at a beautiful Catholic church in southeast Denver, and was pretty well-attended, especially for such a messy, snowy day.

Because I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code* on the plane home from New York, I found myself looking around the church and recognizing various symbols. I was particularly intrigued by the "balanced" cross on the priest's robes (which plays such an important role in the novel) and got caught up staring at it. I also was fascinated by the intensely ritualized service, which proceeded without any explanation to the uninitiated as to what was happening. One of my co-workers commented afterwards that at the Jewish life-cycle events she's attended, the rabbi explains everything, but at Catholic events, the priest never does. Yet because I didn't completely understand what was happening, I found myself focusing intently on the various elements of the rituals and trying to deduce their symbolism and significance.

I've been talking a lot about death recently with my friend Rebecca, whose grandmother recently died, and with Steve, whose grandfather is dying. The funeral today helped me crystalize some of the thoughts we've been sharing about death and the ways we process it within our families, cultures, and religions. The priest today spent a lot of time shouting at us about fire and brimstone, which I found terribly inappropriate, but he also spoke kindly and comfortingly about how lucky we are to share our lives with those we love, and that while we should comfort the family, who is suffering in mourning, we also should remember that their loved one died after a long and fulfilling life and is now freed from her own suffering.

The priest also spoke about the deceased woman having joined the Holy Father in Heaven. While this concept is utterly lost on me, another of my colleagues commented that the metaphor of God as the Father is powerful and comforting because it is a way of explaining the unknowable in the language of the familiar. I hadn't really thought about this before, but it makes sense that humans have long conceptualized the divine as parent or ruler, since these are readily understandable figures of authority and respect.

Listening to the priest speak warmly and personally about my colleague's mother also made me realize that one benefit of joining a spiritual community is to have someone who actually knows you officiate upon your passing. While this revelation wasn't enough to make me rethink my recent decision to terminate my synagogue membership, it did offer food for further contemplation.

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*I liked The Da Vinci Code quite a bit. I found the story and the history lesson deeply engrossing, and can't wait to go back to Europe to see some of the paintings and buildings discussed in the book. But Dan Brown's pedestrian writing style and sloppy loose-end tying detracted significantly from the book's overall quality, and the predictable and anticlimactic ending left me disappointed.

Back from the Big Apple.

I've been thinking about how to sum up the weekend in New York. Not surprisingly, the first word that comes to mind is "cold." But the trip has left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling that is not simply coming from the fabulous shearling coat my grandmother foisted upon my shivering self and generously allowed me to appropriate permanently. No, the glow results from the wonderful experience of "meeting" for the first time a group of people who truly are old friends.

From the first few moments of our initial rendez-vous (at a trendy bar on the Upper West Side) to a final goodbye shared with Kirstin (who was changing planes in Denver), our gathering was filled with camaraderie and easy conversation, empty of awkwardness or "getting to know you" pleasantries. And there was something powerfully liberating about roaming the City with a crowd of fellow deaf and hard-of-hearing people, laughing together as we shared the hassles of communication and navigation with which we each wrestle daily on our own.

I also wandered around New York on my own a bit, zipping around on the subway and strolling along the frozen streets. While I have no desire to live in New York, and find its concrete intensity draining after a while, it is the perfect weekend destination, particularly for someone who knows the City as well as I do. Whenever I spend time in New York, my senses are heightened by a barrage of visual, auditory, and olfactory stimuli. And for a non-driver like me, New York offers complete independence. On Saturday night, we left the apartment of one of the NY-based DeafGAers well after 2:00 a.m. After saying goodbye to the rest of the group, I walked alone the few blocks back to my grandmother's apartment. Even at that hour, the streets were well-lit and busy, as taxis whizzed down Broadway, elderly women in fur coats walked tiny dogs, groups of boisterous 20- and 30-somethings spilled out of the bars, and a black-hatted Hassidic man hurried past me carrying the Sunday New York Times. It was hugely empowering to be able to walk home alone at such an hour of the night without fear of darkness or danger.

Appropriately for a New York weekend, most of my time was spent eating. I enjoyed greasy fries and chicken fingers at Madison Square Garden while watching the Buffalo Sabres (and my favorite ex-Av Chris Drury) pound the NY Rangers. I shared tasty sushi in SoHo with the rest of the "girls" on Saturday afternoon (the boys ate pizza). I had eggs and a bagel at a classic Greek-owned diner for brunch on Sunday. And on Saturday night, my dear friend Karen and I had an exceptionally good meal at 50 Carmine, a new restaurant in the West Village that recently was profiled in the New York Times Magazine. On our way to the restaurant, I picked up some tasty gifts for Steve (and enjoyed some tastes myself) at renowned fromagier Murray's Cheese and olive-oil gourmand Oliviers & Co. As far as I'm concerned, New York is a gastronomic paradise, and every time I visit I wish I was a six-foot-seven NBA player capable of consuming the copious calories that call my name from every corner.

In addition to gathering with my DeafGA buddies, I spent some quality time with my grandmother, particularly over coffee and toast in the mornings. As always when I am with her, I was floored by her vitality and struck by how very much of her personality I see in myself.

And now I am home, where the sun is shining and the mountains sport a dusting of fresh snow. It's not exactly warm out here, but this morning's chill felt almost balmy after a weekend of 20-degree weather in New York. I'd forgotten how insidiously that east-coast cold creeps under your skin and chills your bones. That part of the weekend I won't be missing!

ET, phone home.

I was a bit of a teenage rebel -- mohawk and all -- but I'd like to think that I didn't cause my parents too much grief. Sure, my mother probably would have sold me to the highest bidder during my 15th year, but after that, I did most of my rebelling against my conformist peers, not against my parents. And whatever ummm... experimentation I did, I managed to keep safely concealed from the parental gaze.

But there were a couple of nights during high school when I would push the curfew envelope, or would simply forget to call to say I was coming home later than expected. I'd arrive home to find my mother in a panic. Yet as soon as she realized that I was home safe and sound, the panic disintegrated into anger, and then relief.

I never understood why she was so worried. After all, I was an honor student, youth group president, early-decision college admit, and all around solid kid, even if I wore 50 black bracelets on each arm, shaved my head, and had a rather odd-looking bunch of friends. And as long as I was driving, my folks knew I wouldn't be drinking (so of course they always let me take the car).

Over the past 15 hours, I think I've come a small ways closer to understanding what I put my parents through. Steve was supposed to finish his finals yesterday, and I expected I'd hear from him some time after he handed in his final project around 5:00. We'd talked about having dinner together, although with me sick as a dog and sticking to soup, that didn't seem likely. So when 6:00 rolled around, without a word from Steve, I didn't think much of it. But hen 7:00 passed . . . and by 8:00, I was starting to get annoyed. Sure, he had finals, but he had to be done with them by now, and I was sitting home sick and needing some TLC.

Finally, I called his cell (the only phone he uses). But instead of a ring -- or even his voicemail -- I got a recording from AT&T telling me that the number had been disconnected. At this point, a tiny pang of worry crept into my annoyance. I tried again. Same recording. Very strange.

I thought about it for a bit, and decided that in the throes of finals, he must have forgotten to pay his bills. But I figured he would at least have the courtesy to call me from another line, particularly since I was home with the flu. I called a girlfriend, who convinced me that being pissed off was better than being worried, and that Steve was probably out drinking to celebrate the end of exams. But I couldn't relax, and paced the house trying to figure out what might have happened.

I called Steve's roommate's number, but got voicemail, and left a panicky message. Finally, I tried to sleep, but left one hearing aid on just in case the phone rang. Which it did. Twice. Neither of which was Steve. Each time, I bolted out of bed and grabbed the receiver, then nearly burst into tears when I discovered someone else on the line. I eventually turned off my aids and drifted into a restless sleep, filled with horrible visions of Steve lying mangled and bloody in a snow bank somewhere off of Highway 93.

When I woke up, I hoped to find a message from Steve on my voicemail, since he often calls after I've gone to sleep (one of the perks of dating a hearing-aid wearer is that you can call late to leave a message without fear of waking her). Instead, his roommate had called to tell me that he hadn't seen Steve for days and didn't know where he might be. So much for alleviating my concern. Now I was truly panicked.

I called the area hospitals, which told me that no one by his name had been admitted. Then I called the Boulder and Golden police, which reported no contacts with him. While this news brought me some relief, it didn't bring me any closer to knowing where the hell he was, and whether he was OK. So I tried his cell again, and this time, his voicemail picked up immediately. Left a message, and started veering back into the angry camp and away from worry city.

Another couple of hours went by, with no word. His cell phone clearly was off, since voicemail kicked without a ring, and no one answered on the roommate's line. In addition to the dizziness and fatigue of the flu, I felt the slow burn of frustration begin to course through my body.

Finally, some time after 10:00 this morning, he finally called. I almost couldn't speak, I was so relieved, and angry, and relieved. Of course there was really nothing to the story, other than a marathon all-nighter in the engineering building, inexplicable phone problems, and some post-finals drinking with his classmates, followed by the first real sleep he'd had in days. And of course he was apologetic and sheepish about not calling me. And of course I was so very, very relieved to hear his voice that I couldn't stay angry for long.

So to my parents, I apologize for putting you through that kind of worry, and I hope never again to cause you such anxiety. And to all of you out there, don't forget to call home.

I want my mommy.

Clearly, I offended the gods of good health by thumbing my nose at the throngs of panicked people lined up for flu shots. For here I am, laid low by the vicious virus. I hate being sick. I don't really believe in it. Sick days are for skiing! But alas, I can barely hold my head up without feeling dizzy, so sliding down a mountain at high speed on a pair of wooden boards is probably out for me today.

Fortunately, I'm in a slow period at work while I wait for judges and opponents to take action in my various cases. I have one 10th Circuit brief to file soon, but I've gotten an extension and am well into my research, so a few days out of the office won't mean too much stress when I return. If I have to be sick, this isn't a bad week for it.

I don't get sick very often, but when illness does strike I am suddenly six years old, wanting to curl up in bed with hot tea and let my mommy take care of me. So when I called my mom this morning, she jumped instantly into Jewish Mother Mode, and within a couple of hours was on my doorstep with the makings of her delicious (vegetarian) chicken soup and a few other essentials. In the meantime, my computer had decided to join me in sickness, so I was feeling cut off from the world without e-mail and the 'net to keep me company. My mother, whose superhuman talents extend well beyond the kitchen, pulled open my CPU and poked around for a while, then made a few strategic phone calls, first to my fix-it-genius brother, then to CompUSA, where the tech confirmed my brother's diagnosis: my monitor was dead.

As technological difficulties go, a fritzed-out monitor is one of the easier and less expensive ones to remediate. While I crawled under a blanket in front of the TV, my mom zipped up to CompUSA, confirmed that the monitor was, indeed, beyond repair, and soon arrived back at my sickbed with a spankin' new screen.

I guess my needs are a little more complicated, expensive, and labor intensive than when I was six, but my mommy is still there to fill them for me!

Enough writing for now. I need to put my head down so the room will stop spinning, and then I need to eat some more of that delicious soup . . . .

Smile and the world smiles with you.

My Thanksgiving holiday was filled with family time. For us, that means a lot of loud, simultaneous talking, a lot of card-playing and board games, several incontrollable giggle fits, and loads of great food. With my baby nephew here for the holiday, the weekend revolved in many respects around his naps, bottles, baths, burps, and diaper changes. Yet Nathan did a lovely job of fitting himself into the family culture without really disrupting our normal rhythms. I can't say I'm convinced that having kids is for me (as I've earlier blogged), but spending some sustained time with a two-month-old was quite a bit more enjoyable than I'd imagined.
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What I really want to write about today, though, is the uplifting topic of depression. My friend Lily and I were catching up on the phone today, and spent a lot of time talking about the cycles of depression and how we each deal with them. I am fortunate not to battle depression as a regular part of my life, but even my normally happy attitude is sometimes marred by bouts of sadness and frustration. Lily, on the other hand, has accepted that being depressed, sometimes for extended periods, is part of who she is. Perhaps because my depressive periods are infrequent, they sometimes feel crippling. At first, I usually attribute my down-ness to job stress, PMS, seasonal change, medical issues, or relationship problems. But as Lily pointed out to me this morning, often none of these are at issue. Rather, there's a chemical reaction taking place in my brain and body that brings clouds to my usually sunny disposition. By attempting to pinpoint the cause, I may actually be creating problems where they don't exist, or getting worked up about aspects of my life that are, in reality, going quite nicely.

Lily, who deals with depression on a regular basis, takes a different approach. She simply accepts the cycles as part of her existence and attempts to minimize aggravators (lack of exercise, too much alcohol, low blood sugar, etc.) and to refuse to buy into the depression any more than is necessary. By not tying the depression to any particular factor in her life, she recognizes that the cause comes from within, and that the solution (however temporary and cyclical it may be) must also come from within.

I've just emerged from a minor funk, which I had chalked up to the shock of yet another birthday and some relatively minor medical frustration. I suspect that getting less exercise than usual for a week or so contributed to a sharper mood swing than is normal for me. But looking back on the down days, I think I probably could have pulled myself out of it faster and more effectively by adopting Lily's philosophy. Had I simply allowed myself to be depressed, instead of spending so much energy and emotion fighting it, kicking myself for feeling crappy, and trying to identify the source of my moodiness, I probably could have regained my characteristic happiness within a day or two.

One of the tangents on which Lily and I touched in our discussion was my difficulty acknowledging neediness. I've written here before about my ongoing struggle to let people know when I need help because of my hearing and visual disabilities. But I'm even worse at letting my friends and family know when I'm sad, and allowing them to be there for me when I'm feeling blue for whatever (or no particularly good) reason. I think I'm pretty good at providing a willing ear and a shoulder to cry on when my friends are depressed or otherwise emotionally needy, but I have an incredibly difficult time allowing them to reciprocate. Perhaps that's because by verbalizing my sadness it becomes real, and I can't vanquish it by analyzing it to death within my head. Or it may be that I like to fancy myself a pillar of strength for those around me, and thus hate to admit my own insecurities, fears, and inexplicable bouts of sadness.

But as Steve said to me a while ago, sometimes you have to let people know that you're human for them to feel really close to you. I'm certainly human, but I guess I've built up a pretty powerful facade of invincibility and perpetual cheer. As that annual time for taking stock and resolving self-improvement rolls around, this is something I need to think about more.

A woman of valor.

I made an important discovery this morning! Somehow, I managed to sleep through my vibrating alarm clock this morning (possibly the battery died, but more likely I shut it off and went back to sleep, obliterating the memory of being buzzed awake in the first place). I woke up with a jolt around 5:50, and realized that my doorbell alert system was flashing madly. I knew it had to be my swim-lesson buddy, Monica, who picks me up at 5:45 on Thursday mornings. So I jumped out of bed, cursing madly, grabbed one hearing aid, and tore down the stairs. Just before I opened the door, I realized I was almost naked, so grabbed a jacket and raced outside. I'd managed to pick up the right-ear hearing aid, which meant I couldn't hear a darn thing. Plus, while I could see Monica's car, it was still really dark out, so I couldn't figure out where she was standing. She finally tapped my arm, after she managed to control her hysterical laughing at near-naked, wild-haired, confused little me. Oy vey. But we made it to swimming and even had a decent workout. So what was my great discovery, you ask? Well, it was good to learn that my deaf-chick doorbell can actually wake me up!
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But my harrowing morning was not what I planned to write about today. This day, November 13, is the 94th birthday of my amazing and wonderful grandmother, Flora Mermelstein. My grandmother is a force to be reckoned with, and a constant source of inspiration to me. She lives every day of her life as fully and enthusiastically as she can, and she has never stopped learning, exploring, and challenging herself. At 94, she still works a few days a week as the bookkeeper for a prestigious entertainment law firm in Manhattan. She walks to the Fairway Market and Lincoln Center (and Filene's Basement, where she buys some of her always-stylish outfits). She has always been a fabulous cook, and she still makes delicious meals even when she is cooking only for herself. While she travels a bit less than she used to (her wonderful travel stories fuel my insatiable wanderlust), she continues her annual Rosh Hashana trek to Colorado. When she couldn't get here in 2001 (because 9/11 was just a week before the holiday), the sadness and disorientation we felt in the wake of the terrorist attacks were compounded by the strangeness of her absence.

My grandmother reads the New York Times every day, listens to NPR, and watches public television. She knows more about current events and international affairs than anyone I know (except maybe my father). She is a staunch liberal Democrat, and a vocal supporter of reproductive freedom, gay rights, church/state separation, free speech, and international human rights. Her charitable and philanthropic efforts have ranged from typing Braille documents for the blind back in the '70s (I loved playing with her Braille typewriter when I was a kid) to bringing meals to homebound AIDS patients in the '90s, to her generous financial support for my father's public interest human rights law firm, for the Foundation Fighting Blindness, for diabetes research, and more.

Grandma was the first in the family to use an Apple computer, and taught the rest of us about this strange gizmo known as a "mouse." She uses e-mail and has a cell phone, and is pretty savvy about the latest technology. Like most of my family members (perhaps this is where we get it from), she is a voracious reader, and her book recommendations are always superb. She is also a wonderful writer, with a sharp wit and a delightful flair for language. She writes book reviews and other essays for her Hadassah chapter newsletter, but her real talents shine through at important family celebrations, when she treats the honoree to a poem or song. At a recent gala dinner for the 80th birthday of Grandma's boss, a well-known theatre lawyer, the song my grandmother and aunt composed and sang brought down the house and earned kudos from all sorts of Broadway big shots.

I have been incredibly lucky to develop a close and unique relationship with my grandmother. When I was a little girl, my parents would sometimes leave me with her and my grandfather when they went on vacation, so despite the fact that we lived 2,000 miles apart, she and I were able to bond from the time I was very young. During my Vassar years, she gave me my own set of keys so that I could come and hang out in New York City whenever I wanted to. She never complained when I stayed out until the wee hours with friends, and we would have wonderful talks in the mornings over strong black coffee and thin slices of toasted bagel covered with pineapple cottage cheese. One of our most special times together was during my junior year, when I was living in Strasbourg, France. She traveled to France on an Elderhostel program, and we roamed the streets of Paris and Strasbourg together, drinking wine, eating great food, and having wonderful conversations.

My grandmother was (and still is) a beautiful woman, and she had many suitors. But she didn't marry until she was 30, pretty old for her generation, because she was holding out for the right man. She found him in my grandfather, who stole her heart and made her laugh like no one else. Since I reached adulthood, she has always told me never to settle, and to wait to get married until I meet the right man. Of course, since it became clear that I was actually following that advice, she's started pushing me a bit, saying that she doesn't want to live forever, only long enough to dance at my wedding. I joke back that my pickiness is really just a ploy to keep her around indefinitely, but the truth is, I can't imagine getting married without her there to share it with me.

So today, my Grandma Flora is 94 years old. I hope this year brings her great joy and good health and many new experiences. I am forever blessed to have her as my everlovin' G-ma.