Transitions 5/25/15

Since Erv and I married in 1945, we have moved seven times. For those who continue to live in the ancestral home, that is uncomfortable to even ponder. I learned early in our 63 years of marriage that home was always where we were together. Each time we took along the pictures, the mementos, the tiles and other child craft made in school, the bikes and the furniture that mattered. As a child I had never moved. Our parents were disoriented each time; we remained undaunted. Each change provided a new challenge.
Every home was different with its own unique ambiance and was never the same after we left. We left the special Herman stamp on it. First each of us moved from the family home, Erv from Baltimore and I from Rockaway, NY. Those two moves were humungous because we went from childhood to adulthood in one day. That certainly was the way our tearful parents saw it. The day we married, we took off for Cincinnati where Erv was still studying.
After four years of school for him and work for me, we faced a second big move to Winston-Salem, NC. In those days it was a quiet town. Erv was elected to serve as the rabbi of the small Jewish community of 125 families. In Winston we adopted our children: beautiful babies, Judi and Jeff became ours forever. We were finally adults.
Then as Erv moved from one big responsibility to the next bigger one, we stopped in Scranton, Pennsylvania for five years, after three years in Winston. From Scranton we moved to New Rochelle NY, first an apartment and later bought a home. We believed that we had sunk our roots and would remain there forever. Such luxury was not to be. In New York Erv had been elevated to a nation-wide position and when there was trouble in California, we moved “temporarily” to California to clean up the mess a young rabbi had inadvertently created. We had been in NY eleven years and expected to return.
We planned to be in California for our Judi’s high school career. At the end of one and a half years Judi and Jeff informed us, “If you go back to New York, you are going without us.” They had ganged up on us. Erv persuaded his boss that he could perform his national responsibilities from either coast. This proved to be so; he traveled from West to East as easily as he had done it the other way around.
We stayed on the West Coast and never regretted the decision. I continue to enjoy my visits to the East, but I am always delighted to come home to California. Our first home in California was a lovely rental that spoiled and pampered us with a gardener for the roses and a swimming pool almost at our front door. When the owner decided to sell the house, we could not afford it so we found our present home in Lions Gate, a wonderful small development in the same neighborhood.
There are friends and family members who believe I should move to a retirement facility, I have been alone for the past seven years. As long as I can sweep up the mess I frequently make in the kitchen, ultimately recall why I ran into the den, remember to turn off the stove when the oatmeal is done, I am planning to stay, my memories are right here to keep me company..

The SILENT SOUND OF COMMUNITY May 10, 2015

The Silent Sound of Community is right here, right now. I stole the phrase from a friend’s writing. It resonates with me; it is to me a perfect description of the ambiance of our development called Lions Gate. It is present and embracing all around us, in the concern we show for one another, in our shared pride of our community, in the greetings we exchange on the way to the mailbox. The aura and quiet of Lions Gate are precious to all of us. Uneven sidewalks, cracks in the road, trees that die might distract us but they never erode our joy in living here.

Years ago my brother visited, an escapee from the hubbub of Washington DC. He was impressed; he asked, “How can you sleep in all this quiet?” “Just try it…you will find out!” He did just that. He never stopped singing the praises of “Ag’s place.”

I have frequently thought that the size of our community enhances the special atmosphere, makes it possible. When as kids, my brother and I vied for the biggest share of dessert, we believed that big was beautiful, knew it was satisfying. Today as my physical stature shrinks, I believe that small is better. If that is why 47 homes surrounding three mailboxes are in unison, so be it! Hear the silent sound of community!