Season for Change

It has taken me a long time to reconcile myself with the fact that I did not become the great and famous writer I had planned to become when in my youth. In recent weeks, after swearing off social media, I find that I do not have the means by which to even vaguely deceive myself into thinking that my thoughts or words are of much consequence. Leaving social media has had a greater impact on my life than I had imagined it would. The psychology of the thing is insidiously misleading. Social media enables people to embrace the false perception that they are doing something in the world and that they are significant, when in fact they are not. Posting a link to a petition on Facebook is not the same as going to a demonstration to add to the numbers, writing postcards to congressional representatives, raising one’s voice, trading in a gas-guzzling car for an electric vehicle, eating vegan, engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience, or crossing the ocean in a solar racing yacht to demand that world leaders answer for the sin of failing to act to save the planet for future generations. It is not the same as actually doing something. It is nothing. I knew that. Now I feel it deep down. Social media gives people the false idea that the things they say on it have some kind of weight in the world.

It’s no crime to want to make a difference in the world. I think everyone yearns for that in ways great and small. We all want to leave a mark to show that we passed this way. We want to be remembered, to matter. But the hard truth is that precious few of us are all that significant. When I die, I will be mourned and remembered by my circle of friends and family, and not beyond. Then life will go on. I have never made the high level of sacrifice or risked all for the grand gesture necessary to have a largescale impact. I have not earned it. Posting my thoughts on Facebook does not make me immortal. In fact, when systems collapse, the internet will disappear. None of the trails we have left in cyberspace will remain. I understand the impulse. People fear obscurity. We fear the forgetting of it. The forgetting of ourselves. Disappearance. We fear the finality of death. This is what philosophers often refer to as “the human condition.” It is the poignant truth of our human lives; the grief we feel at every loss of life. Fortunately, we have joy to balance it out. If not for the joy, and the loss of it, then death would not bother us so much. Joy does not reside in a handheld device, however. It’s outside the window, beyond the borders of the screen, in the green, breathing, scented, sensual world.

Having recently crossed the threshold of 65 years on miraculous Earth, I have come to a place where I am at peace with how small I am. I only regret that it seems to be paralyzing me from determinedly pursuing publication of the many words I have already written from back when I still clung to the dream of being heard. I do wish I could publish my unpublished books and that my words might matter to others and ease, enlighten, and delight them on their journey. As it stands, my words have mostly only eased my own journey. I have hoped to use my gift as a wordsmith to benefit other travelers on the planet. I gather from what people have told me that a few of my words have done so from time to time, which is truly a fine thing and lifts my heart.

At this time, though, I find myself in the midst of a season of change. The changes are various and the details of them too close to the bone to share yet. I am trying to step into these changes gracefully, wisely, and bravely. A time of change is cause for sorrow over what is lost, but it is also cause for the glad excitement of new beginnings. How many times have I gone dashing headlong into the unknown to make a change in my life? I have always had a healthy sense of adventure and a willingness to shake things up, to take a chance. This attribute has usually served me well. My greatest leaps of faith have yielded great rewards. Honestly, at a fundamental level, getting married, having children, switching professions, or moving to a new community all require huge leaps of faith, which ordinary people like myself navigate all the time. So perhaps I am not that unusual in terms of taking chances, such as falling in love with a man from a culture dramatically different from my own or shooting the moon and moving from Berkeley to a 40-acre forest in a rural community to raise my children. Those who know me well can come to their own conclusions based on the trajectory of my life. Nowadays people like to broadcast the details of their life transitions on social media, as if that gives them greater import. It does not. But neither does it diminish the courage it takes to make those changes in the real world. Because there are no guarantees.

For the first time, I feel the shadow of old age approaching, with all that goes along with that. As a result, I believe that the time has come to make certain changes to my lifestyle, my thinking, my expectations, my priorities. What better time to contemplate such moves than this week, at the Jewish High Holidays? Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. One of the three pillars of the Jewish High Holidays is teshuvah, translated as “turning” or “changing.” In the context of the holidays, it refers to recognizing wrong actions and wrong directions in our lives and making a commitment to change, redirect. It is not enough to recognize our transgressions and atone for them. We are also charged with making a commitment to prevent them from happening again. This requires making changes in ourselves and our way of acting in the world. It requires personal growth, and thus teshuvah also refers to the overall process of transformation. More than a mere New Year’s resolution, it is a tectonic shift in being and a start in taking the small steps required to change, one after the other, one foot and then the next. It is a time for starting out on a path that leads to a new place. I have turned these thoughts over in my mind the way I might turn a precious stone over in my hands, and I have begun to embrace coming changes in my life. Some of these changes are a choice I make while others will happen whether I wish them to or not.

I lift a glass to courage as I contemplate the daring future. I am ever grateful to have my husband at my side, steady as always, and the blessing of my children and grandson to remind me of how fortunate I have been in my life so far. May my luck hold. May I make good decisions. May tragedy pass over, leaving my house untouched. I wish for a long life so full of joy that it breaks my heart to leave it in the end. And I wish all this for you too, friend, fellow traveler, whoever you are who continues to read my words. May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for a good and sweet year.