Dear ones, This week I initiated a month-long Twitter hiatus, and I’ve been feeling the benefit of it. It’s the first full week of teaching this term; I teach three days a week and prep on the rest, and along with all the work of moving and keeping up with columns and other responsibilities, I need every spare ounce of attention.
That is a beautiful fire, Amal! Such a lovely serene scene. I'm working on my game, that counts as building I suppose. And cohousing, which is building in a very real sense. Helping to build this world back up, piece by piece.
I'm rearranging my office, moving my grandmother's 70yo roll-top desk and installing an electric fireplace. So it will be warm for the long pandemic winter.
For the last seven weeks I've been doing sefirat ha'binyan, a practice of counting the days from Tisha B'Av to Rosh Hashanah (a parallel to the sefirat ha'omer that goes from Passover to Shavuot). "Binyan" means "building" and refers to binyan ha'malchut, building sacredness within oneself. Malchut is linked to (or another name for) the Shechina, the in-dwelling presence of the divine that relates to the domestic and the feminine and the daily experience of earthly, embodied life. So I think of sefirat ha'binyan as something like building a sacred home for the new year to move into.
Tonight was the first night in 49 nights that I haven't stood in front of my calendar and said a blessing and marked the passage of time. I miss it already, and I'm pondering what kind of nightly spiritual practice I want to build to occupy that empty space in my evening.
And of course, for the next ten days I'm building community with my fellow Jews. We're all so desperate to be standing shoulder to shoulder, and cherishing any kind of connection we can make in lieu of that.
I'm so glad you got that moment of peace and togetherness.
I read about Audible wanting audio play submissions, so I dragged out my old one-act “Theatre of the Underground.” My memories of it are embarrassed, but the draft I read was strong. Not perfect, and problematic in some respects, but the bones are good and the tone is lively. The ideas are all there. What to do? Try to adapt it for audio theatre? Expand it to a full length. Explore the characters more? Get Mir to cast it, submit it? Idle thoughts.
Great fire. I love to hear you relaxing. I love when you take breaks from Twitter. Best.
That is a beautiful fire, Amal! Such a lovely serene scene. I'm working on my game, that counts as building I suppose. And cohousing, which is building in a very real sense. Helping to build this world back up, piece by piece.
Glad you're able to build something Amal. We missed you!
I got into the expensive hobby of mechanical keyboards so two days ago I managed to "build" a keyboard (my second one).
Hoping to build you a personalized keyboard one day (it's just that shipping it will be a challenge).
I'm rearranging my office, moving my grandmother's 70yo roll-top desk and installing an electric fireplace. So it will be warm for the long pandemic winter.
For the last seven weeks I've been doing sefirat ha'binyan, a practice of counting the days from Tisha B'Av to Rosh Hashanah (a parallel to the sefirat ha'omer that goes from Passover to Shavuot). "Binyan" means "building" and refers to binyan ha'malchut, building sacredness within oneself. Malchut is linked to (or another name for) the Shechina, the in-dwelling presence of the divine that relates to the domestic and the feminine and the daily experience of earthly, embodied life. So I think of sefirat ha'binyan as something like building a sacred home for the new year to move into.
Tonight was the first night in 49 nights that I haven't stood in front of my calendar and said a blessing and marked the passage of time. I miss it already, and I'm pondering what kind of nightly spiritual practice I want to build to occupy that empty space in my evening.
And of course, for the next ten days I'm building community with my fellow Jews. We're all so desperate to be standing shoulder to shoulder, and cherishing any kind of connection we can make in lieu of that.
I'm so glad you got that moment of peace and togetherness.
I read about Audible wanting audio play submissions, so I dragged out my old one-act “Theatre of the Underground.” My memories of it are embarrassed, but the draft I read was strong. Not perfect, and problematic in some respects, but the bones are good and the tone is lively. The ideas are all there. What to do? Try to adapt it for audio theatre? Expand it to a full length. Explore the characters more? Get Mir to cast it, submit it? Idle thoughts.