NEW STORM, OLD LOVERS, AND ONGOING HAGGADAH

We are smack in the middle of a new storm. This one has so far given us rain instead of snow, which is good, but there are very high winds.  The wind is howling, the lights are flickering, the trees are swaying dangerously, occasional branches go past the window like javelins.  I hate to think what’s happening to the ocean beaches.  Waves are supposed to top out around 25 feet.  Goodbye, beach. Puck is standing on my between my face and the computer, so I can’t see what I’m typing.  We have seedlings in the bay widow [tender] and seedlings in the little greenhouse [hardy].  The ground is finally bare of snow and I stare at the green patches with greedy eyes. I have been going through old files for the University of Michigan graduate library.  They bought my papers some years ago with an ongoing contract that still has a few years to run.  Every 6 weeks or so, we mail off a box to the archive librarian.  These files were old lovers, a couple of would-bes and an ex-husband.  It was very strange.  One file was hilarious.  The guy really made up myths about me. They all were from the 50s through the 70s and in one case through the early 80s.  I couldn’t sleep last night after spending the evening going through them and putting them in order. One set of letters especially got to me.  That woman and I were very close, then estranged, then relatively good friends again.  We were both very involved in the women’s movement. Then nothing.  At the time she stopped writing, my mother had just died and I was dealing with financial troubles after my divorce from Robert.  I didn’t even notice for more than a year that she had stopped writing. I sent off a letter, which came back. She moved a lot and the forwarding had run out. I just did a search for her and got an email and a physical address that might or might not be her.  My email has gone down in the storm, so I am still mulling over my impulse to get in touch.  Do we still have a connection?  Would she be interested in communicating after so long and no attempt to reach me?  Is the address really her?  Sometimes you reach out to people who were once close, and there’s nothing there but bored chatter and lack of comprehension. After the death of my oldest cat Malkah, my second oldest Efi has become far more outgoing and affectionate. They had a lifelong intense lesbian relationship and were always together.  At first after Malkah died, Efi was depressed, withdrawn, lost weight.  But now she is with me a great deal and out with the other cats.  Sometimes the death of a partner shrinks one; sometimes instead you grow.  I have seen that often enough with women whose husbands have died.  Some give up and some become far more accessible and outgoing.  Some actually blossom. I am working on my haggadah for Pesach.  We’ll be going to two gigs in Ohio, one in Alliance and one in Youngstown, leaving about 10 days from now and just back in time to shop for the seder. I need to have my haggadah updated and print it out. I think I’ll only need 20 copies this year.  Pesach is so early that several people can’t come for it.  I’m putting in stuff about hunger this year and a little more about contemporary slavery.  I put in one new poem about hunger.  Every year I dicker with it, update it, remove parts that don’t work or are too prosy.  A lot of it is poetry.  Mine, plus a poem by Primo Levi I love. So hoping to survive this storm intact and preferably with power – light, heat, water.  Maybe my email will come back soon.