Not until 2033...

...will we see this again. Supermoon and Lunar Eclipse. And who knows where we will be in 2033. (I'd be 58. A horrifying thought.) So this is really exciting! The lunar eclipse started at 9:07 pm exactly and very soon after our shadow began to eat up the perfect whiteness on the edges of the moon. Clouds come an go, overshadowing even the Earth's shadow but for now, it's pretty clear. We are down to about a half moon. It's disappearing so fast...exciting! And makes me feel tiny and stupid.

"A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly behind the Earth into its shadow."
I read this on the NASA tumblr but I still feel like a primitive villager from way back when who just wants to sacrifice an animal and dance around a giant pyre to make the gods less mad.

10:15 pm. It is gone. We all go to sleep.

Yom Kippur - Frozen in Time

I didn't have much time or brain space to atone today even if I wanted to because of work and a minor head lice crisis in my household. (I noticed the creepy crawler in my hair in the mirror as I was brushing my teeth this morning. Many hours later, we hope to have rid ourselves of them, fingers crossed.)

I have been thinking of my mother lately. She has been gone for so long and months can pass without a real thought or image. And the image I have is frozen in time, in moments I have a hard time remembering, only coming alive in the telling; to my therapist, to Eli (sometimes), to myself, maybe a friend. We never talk about her with my brother or my sister, it's like she hasn't been in our lives in a real way and that makes me sad.

Now I have a friend (one of two real friends at work), S, who, at 26 seems very young to me, but is also mature, smart and pretty and gives me the illusion I can relive and repair my life all over again through her. That, of course, is silly and I just really like her for who she is. There are some similarities - she was not born in the US, although came here much younger than I; she is not fond of law firm life, she likes to read literature and more. We also recently discovered that both of our moms died of ovarian cancer at a pretty young age (hers at 49, mine 52) when we were 22. The loss for her, of course, is more recent, more raw. I remember crying much more often when I was her age; crying with abandon in moments of heartache or disappointment. Feeling like if only my mother was around, it would be easier to solve my problems, to make better choices. Then, over time, that abated and almost disappeared. She became those frozen images I almost never think of.

Because of S, as I was falling asleep those images came to life last night: my mother wrapping me in cold towels to bring down a high fever when I was really sick as a 4-year-old;  picking me up from a music theory class and bringing me a delicious chocolate pastry late on a cold Wednesday night when I was 13; telling me about love (and contraception) when I was 17 and didn't tell her about my first boyfriend I was going to sleep with but she knew anyway; bringing me tea and medicine when I had pneumonia and was lying motionless on the veranda of our weekend house barely breathing when I was 20; hugging me for the last time and telling a me I should try do everything the way she taught us to when I was 22 and she was about to die. I am silent in all these images, never able to thank her or even acknowledge her help. For this I atone, if only in my dreams.

What You Remember

I almost never listen to Garrison Keillor the (now retiring) host of Prairie Home Companion.
David told me he only started liking the show once he hit 40 and if I find myself paying attention to it, it would mean that I am old. Tonight I listened to it long enough to catch a monologue about knowing when your life is over. His will be over, he said, when he no longer remembers 1. the planets in the Solar system and 2. all the counties of Minnesota. Then he listed both. Minnesota has a lot of counties.

Then I got the urge to list the names of all the kids who were in my primary school class in Budapest, in alphabetical order.

(Bacsa, Balogh, Der, Fodor, Forgacs, Gal, Gombocz, Hendrei, Hornung, Hornyak, Kepes, Kovacs, Koszeg, Krassoi, Krall, Mayer, Mester, Milhoffer, Muranyi, Olah, Piller, Renfer, Ronai, Rozsa, Schiffer, Somoskuti, Szebehely, Sztrapko, Terek, Varga, Vago, Vertes,Voros.)

What else is there to hold on to?

A Grieg Waltz (played here on the internet by a little girl) as the only piece I've been able to play by heart since I was 10 years old whenever and wherever. (I won my only piano competition playing it.)

This beautiful poem by Petofi Sandor, as read by one of the best Hungarian actors ever.

And ok, the planets.