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livI have always loved this time of year; when I was quite young I tried to change my name to September, though I didn't quite have the conviction to make it stick. Partly the cooler weather and the equinoctal day lengths (yes, darkness is coming, but these few weeks are just perfect for me), partly the sense of anticipation and renewal. The academic and Jewish new years coincide and that's always felt more rebirth-y to me than spring.
I have loved all seasons less since Covid, from the 2020 lockdown when we missed that year's spring altogether, to three summers of prematurely relaxing public health measures and seeing the predictable but scary consequences of increased cases and new variants, and I never used to dread winter in the Before Times as we have artificial light and heating and I'd just as rather be cozy indoors as not. Now winter means giving up the tiny sliver of relative safety I'd been clinging to by doing fun things outdoors as much as possible. Early autumn, though, this is the third autumn that has been, well, less bad than the other seasons for me. 2020 saw the advent of the legal concept of "bubbles" and I was able to re-connect with my partners whom I don't live with. 2021 we had that brief respite between getting most of the population vaccinated, and omicron showing up. Back to work in person (which has its downsides but at least felt like a tentative step towards normality), back to in person services at synagogue. Celebrating my mother's birthday in person with all the sibs.
This year,jack booked us a little mini-break in a cottage by the sea, in Norfolk. It was just perfect. We had a week of normal English summer weather, temperatures in the low 20s, occasional showers and blustery weather, such a relief after the terrifying but mercifully short-lived heatwave earlier in the summer. The accelerating visible climate problems have made me extra grateful for what little patches we still get of the weather I think of as "normal". There is green grass again! And travelling after the August bank holiday, we found a seaside town that's still lively and holiday-ish, but less crowded than it would have been in high season. Eating all our meals outdoors in courtyards and beer gardens and streetside tables and benches looking over the sea was no hardship.
We walked along the coast, nothing very challenging, just a few miles with glorious views. And we sat on the beach and spent time focusing on each other. And a morning at the small but lovely South American themed zoo on the way home, with lovely jaguars and adorable marmosets. There was a little drama in the middle where things got a little scary in the sea, andjack lost his glasses rescuing a child. Everybody was fine, (though it's hard not to dwell on how much worse that might have been) but the loss of glasses was very inconvenient. Most grateful to ghoti_mhic_uait who brought J's spare pair to us so he could drive home.
We returned in time to celebrate my parents' sapphire wedding anniversary, 45 years, with a special Shabbat service in their honour, followed by a garden party with lots of relatives and extremely tasty food. It was really nice to get both immediate and extended family together for a simcha, a happy occasion rather than a funeral. It's been a long time since any gathering on such a scale was possible, and with the weather being so favourable, it was almost possible to forget that we were actively avoiding going indoors.
Now I'm back and work is very very full-on, my Jewish community responsibilities are as intense as ever at this time of year. I'm optimistic on a small, local and personal scale, enjoying the planning, the throwing myself into new things, though very scared of the political-epidemiological situation. Some of my teaching was on break for the summer, some wasn't, but I had a really good first lesson of term with the group of young teens that has morphed from bar mitzvah class into GCSE Hebrew class.
The most exciting thing among several exciting things is that my dear friendhatam_soferet is in the process of moving to my city, after many years of living in a different continent. So my life is about to get a hundred times more awesome because we're going to be neighbours!
I have loved all seasons less since Covid, from the 2020 lockdown when we missed that year's spring altogether, to three summers of prematurely relaxing public health measures and seeing the predictable but scary consequences of increased cases and new variants, and I never used to dread winter in the Before Times as we have artificial light and heating and I'd just as rather be cozy indoors as not. Now winter means giving up the tiny sliver of relative safety I'd been clinging to by doing fun things outdoors as much as possible. Early autumn, though, this is the third autumn that has been, well, less bad than the other seasons for me. 2020 saw the advent of the legal concept of "bubbles" and I was able to re-connect with my partners whom I don't live with. 2021 we had that brief respite between getting most of the population vaccinated, and omicron showing up. Back to work in person (which has its downsides but at least felt like a tentative step towards normality), back to in person services at synagogue. Celebrating my mother's birthday in person with all the sibs.
This year,
jack booked us a little mini-break in a cottage by the sea, in Norfolk. It was just perfect. We had a week of normal English summer weather, temperatures in the low 20s, occasional showers and blustery weather, such a relief after the terrifying but mercifully short-lived heatwave earlier in the summer. The accelerating visible climate problems have made me extra grateful for what little patches we still get of the weather I think of as "normal". There is green grass again! And travelling after the August bank holiday, we found a seaside town that's still lively and holiday-ish, but less crowded than it would have been in high season. Eating all our meals outdoors in courtyards and beer gardens and streetside tables and benches looking over the sea was no hardship.We walked along the coast, nothing very challenging, just a few miles with glorious views. And we sat on the beach and spent time focusing on each other. And a morning at the small but lovely South American themed zoo on the way home, with lovely jaguars and adorable marmosets. There was a little drama in the middle where things got a little scary in the sea, and
jack lost his glasses rescuing a child. Everybody was fine, (though it's hard not to dwell on how much worse that might have been) but the loss of glasses was very inconvenient. Most grateful to ghoti_mhic_uait who brought J's spare pair to us so he could drive home. We returned in time to celebrate my parents' sapphire wedding anniversary, 45 years, with a special Shabbat service in their honour, followed by a garden party with lots of relatives and extremely tasty food. It was really nice to get both immediate and extended family together for a simcha, a happy occasion rather than a funeral. It's been a long time since any gathering on such a scale was possible, and with the weather being so favourable, it was almost possible to forget that we were actively avoiding going indoors.
Now I'm back and work is very very full-on, my Jewish community responsibilities are as intense as ever at this time of year. I'm optimistic on a small, local and personal scale, enjoying the planning, the throwing myself into new things, though very scared of the political-epidemiological situation. Some of my teaching was on break for the summer, some wasn't, but I had a really good first lesson of term with the group of young teens that has morphed from bar mitzvah class into GCSE Hebrew class.
The most exciting thing among several exciting things is that my dear friend
hatam_soferet is in the process of moving to my city, after many years of living in a different continent. So my life is about to get a hundred times more awesome because we're going to be neighbours!
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Date: 2022-09-06 03:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-06 08:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-06 09:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-07 12:40 am (UTC)