Blog Posts

Waiting . . .

4/30/2017

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming
And the signs said,
"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence.”

 from The Sound of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel

Waiting

I am the space between

yitkadal

v’yitkadash

I am the mouth
open between
     curse or blessing

the deer’s lifted hoof
frozen between
     stay or flee

I am cool it between thunder and the ear
sit tight between lightning and the eye
vamp ’til ready
and bide one’s time between

tick

tock

the havdalah that separates

Tekiah

Shevraim

Teruah

I am the empty bowl between
breathing out

     and

     breathing in

the soul between
rattle

and

sigh

before the thread b r e a k s

I am ellipse . . .
comma,
the end-stopped line.

I am silence
before

Amen


      copyright 2017 Ozzie Nogg

To Everything, There is a Season

4/24/2017

Yesterday was a really crappy one. I woke up with a stiff neck, a stuffed head, and a quick-rising Grumpy Index. By afternoon, I’d decided that every woman in the world had a more thoughtful husband, more attentive children, more accomplished grandchildren, more sympathetic friends, more Eileen Fisher in her closet and better hair. Not to mention more money and a live-in cook named Leonardo who I deliberately mention because that’s what people always say when they say they’re not going to mention, or when they say it goes without saying. I mean, if people aren’t going to mention or say, then why do they? (As I write this, a vestige of yesterday’s hissy fit remains . . .)

Now. If one of those women with more money woke up with a stiff neck that quickly morphed into a mini-nervous-breakdown, she’d check her shattered soul into a
Condé-Nast Top Ten Spa to relax, re-align her spine, stop feeling sad and learn to sleep like a baby again. At the very least, she’d retreat to her boudoir, slip into something sheer, buzz the kitchen, ask Leonardo to whip up his Tiramisu and serve it to her in bed.

Me? I stomped out of the house and went shopping at Goodwill.

Those of you who follow this blog know I’ve written lovingly of my used clothing purchases. This past September I posted a veritable rhapsody to a mended cotton shirt, comparing it — and its continued usefulness —to me, my husband, our friends, all of whom are old but not dead yet. (Get it? Get it?)

But yesterday, with my bitchiness in full bloom, Goodwill was not the wisest destination. Yesterday, every shirt, vase, dish, book, chair, shoe, purse, kettle, cup, trouser and scarf looked threadbare, faded, dented, scratched, broken and old. Very old. Yesterday, I stood among the stuff others had discarded and felt as useless as the blue-tagged,
99 cent hoodie with a busted zipper.

*

On April 15, 2017, Emma Morano died peacefully in Verbania, Italy. She was 117 years, 137 days, 16 hours and some minutes old. At the time of her death, Emma Morano was the world’s oldest person, a woman who credited her longevity to the lack of a husband (she divorced in 1938) and the three eggs - two of them raw - that she ate everyday for nearly a century. She lived in a tiny, two-room church-owned apartment, cooked for herself until she was 112, and laid out a single place setting on her kitchen table for every meal. Her worldly possessions were few. Photos of her parents and eight siblings, a small statue of the Virgin Mary, two rosaries, a few housedresses, several shawls,
and (inside the drawer of her night table) a supermarket anti-aging cream that she applied every evening before going to sleep.

“Her simplicity is sculptural and out of step with modernity,” said Rev. Giuseppe Masseroni who spoke at Emma Morano’s funeral. “We have too many things, too many distractions, too many items offered to us, too many messages.” Ms. Morano was buried in the local cemetery, in the family tomb. A photograph of her only child,
a baby boy who lived from January to August, 1937, was buried with her, according to her wishes.

*

The Shaker song teaches -
Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
      And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

  When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.

This morning I made oatmeal, changed the linens, took a long shower and came ‘round right. (A valium helped, too, but that goes without saying.) My hissy fit over, I put on my big girl pants and am trying like crazy to be OK with the fact that I’ve grown old. (Just as I’m trying like crazy to give myself permission to miss what once was.) Yes, old age is not only where I am, it’s the place I ought to be. After eighty-two years, where else would I be? Ah. Forget I asked that question . . .

One more thing.

Even though the Shaker song suggests that when we come round right we shan’t be asham'd, right now I am ashamed. Ashamed that I indulge myself so often in self-pity and grouse about growing old. But I’m especially ashamed on this Yom HaShoah -
this day when we honor the men, women, children and precious babies whose lives were snuffed out as easily as the candles we light in their memory.

   copyright Ozzie Nogg 2017

Passover at Biloxi Beach

4/18/2017

Passover at Biloxi Beach:
(or, you can’t dance at two weddings with one tuchas . . .)

The first Passover after her mother’s death, Our Heroine -
still hugely pissed at Whoever-Is-In-Charge-Of-The-System -
still in turmoil, ceaselessly seething,
refuses to make the seder on her own and decides, instead, to run away from home.

She cares not about the opinion of family and friends.
It doesn't matter what other people think, they seldom do,
says her Evil Inclination.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should,
says her Good Inclination.
Screw you both, says Our Heroine and flies the coop, a study in Don’t. Grow. Up.

The April wind on Biloxi Beach blows close to her ear, asking,
Where’s your sweater, girl?
You chicks from up north think it’s warm here in April.
Shoulda stayed in Egypt.
Our Heroine does not respond.
She knows sometimes its better to just remain silent, and smile.
To heed Juana’s warning,
     En la boca cerrada, no entran moscas.

On Biloxi Beach this Passover, gulls stand in groups on the sand.
Our Heroine, behind her shades, sees what she sees.
College girls on spring break dash from cabanas in bikinis shrieking,
How do I look?
You'll pass, in a crowd.
Such damning-with-faint-praise, a souvenir from Gramma Davey who, every Thursday, beheaded chickens in the shed.
The girls stand on thin legs at the water’s edge, hopping from foot to foot.
Which one, Our Heroine wonders, will be Nachshon?

Colossal yellow caterpillars inch along Biloxi Beach. Their bodies heave over the sand. Their tracks are giant zippers, deep and long, pulverizing shells, pushing slimy feathers, making the beach bigger for the folks who come in summer to drink beer at the faded pink and turquoise Hurricane Shack.

This is not the Red Sea.
This is not the Hebrews wandering the desert.
This is not matzah balls and gefilte fish.
This is Crawfish Festival,
fried, etouffee, smoked in burgers, stuffed in pies.
This is K99 Country, Mel Tillis,
and yes, Ruby took her love to town and broke your heart,
but this is my foot, and it still hurts, goddammit.

At the Quality Inn, Our Heroine sticks her finger in the eye of tradition
and breakfasts on pancakes, waffles, French toast.
She eavesdrops on other diners.
   Pregnant? Damn. Ya just never know what the future holds.
   He’s leaving you for LuAnne? I imagine you said (inaudible).
At Lillie's Asian Noodle House, her fortune cookie reads,
In life, to give is to get.
A collaboration, surely, between Confucious and the Talmud.

The balcony of her motel room overlooks a parking lot. She squints her eyes,
tries to trick the Harleys, vans and pick-ups into papyrus feluccas sailing down the Nile.
On her left, on her right, polyester migrants from Michigan and Iowa sit, leaning
toward the sea. Their butts on white plastic K-Mart chairs, flip-flopped feet propped on the iron rail, their bourbon in styrofoam cups. Marlboro ash on shirtfronts in a lacework of coherence.

Oops.

This is not bitter herbs or shank bone. This is not four cups, four sons, four matriarchs. This is one little kid still scared by the Angel of Death. This is the simple child with questions she does not know how to ask, who never loved her mother more than right this very minute.

   copyright 2017 Ozzie Nogg

Passover and Joseph's Bones

4/9/2017

According to the book of Genesis, there came a time when Jacob received word that
his son, Joseph, was alive and ruling over the whole of Egypt. Then Jacob and his entire family came down from Canaan to live in Egypt, and Joseph treated his father and brothers with love and generosity.

For seventeen years, Jacob lived with Joseph in great happiness. And when Jacob’s end was near, he blessed his sons and said, Soon I will be gathered to my fathers. Take me up from this strange place and bury me in the land of Canaan in the cave of Machpelah alongside Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca and Leah.

And Joseph replied, I will do as you ask.

Then Jacob breathed his last and was gathered to his people, and Joseph and his brothers took their father up to Canaan and buried him with his ancestors.

The family saga continues.

Joseph and his brothers returned to Egypt where Joseph lived to see the third generation of his children’s children. And when he was one hundred and ten years old, Joseph said to his brothers, I am about to die. But God will surely remember you,
and take you out of this land to the land he promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And Joseph made his brothers promise that when God redeemed the Hebrews
and returned them to the Promised Land, his bones would not be left behind.
On his deathbed, Joseph made his family swear, saying, God will surely remember you, and then you shall carry up my bones from here with you.

Then Joseph died and was placed in a coffin in Egypt.

Legend has it that Joseph’s bones lay in that coffin during more than four hundred years of Egyptian slavery, until the night of the Exodus. In their frantic dash to freedom, the Children of Israel hastily strapped on their sandals and stuffed provisions into sacks. But Moses (more loyal to the past than to possessions, and determined to honor the promise given to his ancestor centuries earlier) took precious time to search for Joseph’s coffin. After all, he reasoned, commitments to others aren’t cancelled by the grave. But how, after all these years, could Moses find where Joseph was buried?

Enter Serah bat Asher, who, it is said, came down from Canaan to Egypt with Jacob,
her grandfather. On the eve of the Exodus, Serah was an old, wise woman — a teller of stories, a keeper of memories. Immortal, a survivor, she alone had spanned the generations from Jacob to Joseph to Moses. She alone held the secret of where
Joseph’s bones were buried.

Moses, my master, she whispered. Joseph’s iron casket lies sunk in the depths of the Nile, hidden there by Egyptians wizards. And Moses stood at the river’s edge and called,
Joseph, Joseph, the hour of redemption has come. The waters belched and bubbled,
and when the coffin bobbed to the surface, we are told that Moses seized it, in joy,
and took the bones of Joseph with him.

During the forty years of wandering in the desert, the story continues.
It tells of the two arks that the Children of Israel carried with them. One ark contained the Ten Commandments — the words that teach us how to live — and the other contained Joseph’s bones — the remains of an ancestor long dead.
And for all the years it took our people to come back home,
the bones were carefully guarded and treated with respect.

Now before Moses died, he handed them to Joshua. And Joseph’s bones, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the piece of land
that Jacob bought for one hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor,
father of Shechem. And this became the inheritance of Joseph’s descendants.

And there you have it.
The backstory to my book of personal family stories titled Joseph’s Bones.
A symbol of continuity, memory and promises kept.
A metaphor linking one generation to another.

And so,
at this Passover season,
I think of our children and grandchildren both near and far —

Kathy, Larry, Zachary and Seth,
Marsha and Shari,
Alexandra, Natalie, Mike, and the memory of our dear Shelly,
Tony, Patty and Olivia --

and ask only that wherever you go,
please take my stories,
like Joseph’s bones,
and carry them with you.

XooXOOX

Ma

adapted from Joseph's Bones, copyright 2004 Ozzie Nogg

Cold Water Washes Out Rabbi Shefa Gold

4/2/2017

Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.
William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)

*

We woke this Sunday morning to no hot water.
A trip to the basement revealed a
drip drip drip mini-flood,
on-a-counta-what our Sears Kenmore Power Miser 6
gas water heater had sprung a leak.

So while my guy called 24/7 double-time-on-the-weekend plumbers,
I -- in my P.J.s and Crocs -- swept water down the floor drain.

I’ll spare you the details,
but by the time the problem was solved,
I’d missed my chance to hear Rabbi Shefa Gold
at Temple
lead a Sunday morning workshop on
The Magic of Hebrew Chant: Healing the Spirit,
Transforming the Mind, Deepening Love.

I was beyond disappointed.
I mean, how often does Shefa Gold visit Omaha, Nebraska?
I’d been anticipating this experience for weeks,
looking forward to sharing the same space with
Rabbi Gold,
to have her voice, her incantations, smooth my brow,
soothe my soul.
And now the opportunity was literally down the drain.

Aaaaargh.

Man plans. God laughs.
Yup.
Even on April 2, He plays April Fool's Day jokes.

So.

In honor of National Poetry Month 2017,
and because his words sort of mirror
my screwed up Sunday morning,
I give you this verse by Howard Nemerov,
U.S. Poet Laureate, 1963 - 64 and 1988 - 90;
Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry, 1978.

Poetics

You know the old story Ann Landers tells
About the housewife in her basement doing the wash?
She's wearing her nightie, and she thinks, "Well, hell,
I might's well put this in as well," and then
Being dripped on by a leaky pipe puts on
Her son's football helmet; whereupon
The meter reader happens to walk through
and "Lady," he gravely says, "I sure hope your team wins.”

A story many times told in many ways,
The set of random accidents redeemed
By one more accident, as though chaos
Were the order that was before the creation came.
That is the way things happen in the world:
A joke, a disappointment satisfied,
As we walk through doing our daily round,
Reading the meter, making things add up.

copyright Ozzie Nogg 2017 (not the Nemerov poem, of course . . . )

All I Want is for Them to be Safe. Is it Possible?

3/26/2017

Dreaming of Home

We want so much to be in
     that place
where we are respected
   and cherished,
protected, acknowledged,
nurtured, encouraged,
heard.

And seen, seen
in all our loveliness,
in all our fragile strength.

And safe, safe in all our
   trembling
vulnerability. Where we
   are known
and safe, safe and known --
is it possible?
Merle Feld

  *

So here’s what I’m thinking.

I’ll buy a remote island
(you’d be surprised how many remote islands are for sale)
and I’ll pack up my husband,
our son and daughters and their spouses,
their partners,
along with our grandsons and granddaughters
and their significant others
and we’ll all move to that remote island
where nothing scary can find us
and there we’ll be safe.
Of course, living so close to the water
we’d have to remain alert for riptides and tsunamis,
sharks, too,
though the odds of being eaten by a shark
are roughly 1 in 264 million
so maybe I can cross that particular worry off my list.
   Yes. We’ll move to the island and there we will be safe.

Or instead of the island,
it might be more effective to lock my family in their houses.
But first, I’ll hide all sharp objects
and toss out packaged or canned food
with expired use-by dates.
I’ll sweep bird’s nests from chimneys,
install new batteries in carbon monoxide detectors,
fill fire extinguishers,
put pain meds on the highest shelves
and make sure everyone knows the Heimlich Maneuver
which, over the years, has saved an estimated 50,000 lives in the U.S.
so maybe I can cross choking-on-a-chicken-bone off my worry list, too.
Finally, I’ll hide all car keys,
remove spark plugs from motorcycles,
and de-activate garage door openers.
   Yes. if they never leave their houses, my family will be safe

Bull shit.

Ah, my babies.
You're on a journey.
And even if I cocoon you in layers of bubble wrap
like Bubbie’s china,
I know your fragile hearts will be broken along the way,
your very souls will not be protected from harm.
If I cradle you in soft straw like Zayda’s etrog,
you will still be bruised.

So, here’s what I’m thinking.

We will not move to a remote island
or lock ourselves in our houses.
We will continue this journey together.
You, guided by maps totally unfamiliar to me.
Me, wearing amulets and red strings,
listening for sirens,
afraid the phone will ring,
praying you be saved from hidden snares,
that angels carry you in their palms,
wanting nothing more than for you to remain safe.

Is it possible?

   copyright 2017 Ozzie Nogg

Outside. Inside. The. Box.

3/20/2017

We’ve all heard the advice. When you want to find a novel solution to a problem, Think. Outside. The. Box.
I have no idea who came up with the phrase, but its popularity grew from the nine-dot puzzle which challenges people to connect three rows of three dots each, using only four straight lines, without lifting the pencil from the paper.

That’s the pickle I find myself in each time I sit down to write this blog. How to connect the dots. How to express my scatter-shot thoughts creatively and tease the muse into action when she’d rather snooze.

For me, trying to think outside the box, week after week, gets stressful.
So today, I take solace - and inspiration - from folks who think inside the box.

1. Each Tuesday, in Rotorua, New Zealand, a group of 120 retired friends — the D.I.Y. Kiwi Coffin Club — meets in a makeshift workshop to build coffins. The meetings are held against background noises — whirring power tools, the hammering of nails, the soft swish of paint brushes. Dues are $7 a year. Members range in age from mid-70s to ninety-four. The club dubbed their coffins Fine and Affordable Underground Furniture. On a recent Tuesday, Coffin Club President Roger Terry welcomed new members, Eleanor Mahony and Jean Meux-Hunter. The following exchange is part of the minutes of that meeting:

Eleanor Mahony: So, after I make my coffin, what do I do with it until it’s, like, you know, needed?
     Grace Terry (Roger Terry’s wife): Do whatever floats your boat. Put book shelves inside it. Use it to store wine.
     Jean Meux-Hunter: I have a shoe and handbag fetish so is it okay if I decorate my coffin with pictures of shoes and handbags?
     Unidentified member: Bloody good idea.
     Ruth Whateley: I’m getting measured up today. When I’ve finished my coffin I think I’ll cover it with photos of my dogs.
     Grace Terry: Good on you, Ruth. My coffin is painted mauve and decorated with deep purple hydrangea blooms and it’s sitting right in our front parlor, next to Roger’s recliner, waiting to be lined.
     Roger Terry: I’ve seen people come alive making their own coffins. We have a heap of fun, preparing for the inevitable. If you don’t have humour, then you may as well nail the coffin lid down now.

2. When it comes to thinking inside the box, the D.I.Y. Kiwi Coffin Club is not unique. Every year, Tokyo hosts the Shukatsu Festival. Shukatsu means preparing for one’s end, and the event annually attracts 5,000 people. During this try-before-you-die gala, participants choose their funeral outfit, put it on, and lie down in a flower-filled casket. Should you have a yen for a more soulful experience, an attendant applies deathly pallor make-up, covers you with white blankets, and takes your picture. “That way,” say the festival organizers, “people can see exactly what they’ll look like at their funeral.” Want the attendant to close the lid of the coffin while you’re inside? Ask, and you got it.

3. To the D.I.Y. Kiwi Coffin Club and the Shukatsu Festival, let’s add a service offered by a clinic in Shenyang, China, where over 1,000 patients have so far been ‘reborn’ by pretending they’re dead. Tang Yulong, a consultant at the clinic, says, “People who suffer from psychological problems can be helped by simulating death. We take them into a ‘death experience room’ where they write down their last words and crawl into a coffin. After five minutes of serene time, the sound of a crying baby breaks the silence, a consultant opens the coffin and with this rebirth people get a new outlook on life.”

4. Going one step further, Professor Qiu Daneng of Taiwan’s Rende Medical College, buries his students alive in coffins in the floor of his classroom - for at least 10 minutes - to make them appreciate every second of their lives. And, hopefully, treat their future patients with more empathy.

5. Finally. We add Ukraine, where coffin-maker Stepan Piryanyk offers people the chance to lie down in one of his comfortable coffins in order to get used to the afterlife. “When you lay in the box,” Piryanyk says, “it feels just like a bed. It’s the same sheets, the same pillow. After a hard day’s work you can come in and just relax for fifteen minutes. It’s great.”

6. I wanted to include the story of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai who faked his own death and had his students schlepp him in a coffin all the way from besieged Jerusalem to General Vespasian’s tent, but that was waaaaay too many dots to connect.
Maybe another time.

So this, my friends, is what happens when I think inside the box.
Truth be told, these days I think inside the box a lot.
May sound grim, but don’t worry.
I’m well aware of time passing,
but not ready to stand on a street corner with a sign that reads:

The. End. Is. Near.

On Building Tabernacles, with a Small Personal Story Plus a Nod to Purim . . .

3/12/2017

Sonnet 1: Exodus, chapter 25-27

Then God decreed: Now make for Me a home
where I, among the Israelites, will dwell.
And bring My tabernacle when you roam
so I may join you on the path as well.

Each tribe brought offerings as they were told.
Fine jewels, the hair of goats and purple thread.
They built God’s house with silver, bronze and gold.
Acacia wood and skin of rams dyed red.

But why must space for God be so ornate?
May I not say Sh'ma among the trees?
May I not worship as I wash a plate
or dance my Hallelujah by the seas?

We build God’s tabernacles at great cost.
Yet pay no heed when holiness is lost.

*

A Story

My father’s first pulpit was in Kurkliai, an off-the beaten-path shtetl in Lithuania. The year was 1919, and the little wooden shul - with its small tower, peaked roof and stairs that led to the women’s gallery - resembled 18th century Polish wooden synagogues, none of which remain. The modest sanctuary served the few Jews who lived in Kurkliai. Poor villagers lacking gold, silver, bronze or onyx stones with which to grace their house of prayer. The scraps of blue, purple and scarlet linen in the Kurkliai shul - tallis bags, Torah covers, a curtain for the Ark - were lovingly woven by Basha Freydeh, the wife of Yudel the tailor, and clumsily embroidered by their daughter, Mereleh, who was, according to my Poppa, by then a spinster without charm or skill.

Eligible suitors did not visit remote Kurkliai, and my Poppa, the rabbi, was the only single man for miles around. The tailor and his wife often invited him to their home for Sabbath meals, where Mereleh spilled Kiddush wine, served challah, dry and burnt. By candlelight, my Poppa read the message in the spinster’s glance. You are my only chance, come lay with me. Wisely, he packed his bag and escaped temptation before the village yentas could wag their tongues.

*

Sonnet 2: Duluth 1937

She was a widow with a new-born child.
His wife had died. He had two sons to raise.
She was a beauty, obstinate and wild
who measured grief in cubits, set ablaze.

He wooed her with the passion of his youth.
He offered Song of Songs and David’s psalms.
Did she return his love? I have no proof.
’Twas his two boys who soothed her breast like balm.

But who can say where we will find our bliss?
We build our houses, praying they will last.
The widower, who craved a morning kiss.
The widow, sleeping, dwelling in the past.

Both needed what the other could not give.
They wore their masks not to deceive, but live.


     copyright 2017 Ozzie Nogg

Ozzie Nogg

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