It’s the human condition. Often, conflicting ideas or facts have to cohabitate: the dark and light, the good and the bad, the mouth-watering and the fattening. Last night’s latest offering in the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival  was a documentary from Israel called, “The Worst Company in the World.” The dark: a family business that is failing terribly, a financial disaster area. The light: three middle aged men, two of whom are brothers and the third, a life-long friend, who delight in life and laugh their way through the day.

The moderated discussion after the movie bugged me. It felt like people were becoming polarized. Do you focus on the unsuccessful business or the human beings who were obviously a very happy gang? I didn’t want to have to choose, and members of the audience were taking sides. I didn’t feel like it was necessary to belabor the point that the business was a total disaster. My focus was on these three men. I liked them. I liked them a lot. I would have enjoyed sharing a bagel and a cup of coffee with them. They were silly, crazy, disorganized, delightful. If they were in my life, it would be a blessing. As it is, I happen to have a boyfriend with a sense of humor that hasn’t matured much since he was 12, and I like this. They are my kind of people. I can hold that life can be hard and challenging AND that life is fun.For me, what matters, is laughter, stupid belly laughter, the stuff that makes you cry and cross your legs (is that just a female issue?). OK, so sometimes it makes the brain short circuit to try to hold both, but that is a juggle worth doing. Don’t make me choose: I will not condemn their silliness because it has perhaps caused the downfall of their business.

Confucius says: One joy dispels a hundred cares.

Also from the Chinese, a proverb: You can not prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests  in your hair.

I agree that the family business was the “worst in the world,” but the company they kept: this was the best.

In Jewish mysticism, there is the belief that there are a minimum of 36 wise people on this planet at any given time, known at the “just souls.” If the number ever drops below 36, the world comes to an end. So they say. Whoever “they” are.

We are in the middle of a wonderful Jewish Film Festival here in the Pioneer Valley of Western Mass. Yesterday’s offering was a short locally created film called “Seeking the 36.” A teenaged girl, Nico Lanson, goes on her own quest to learn about the 36. She interviews persons-on-the-street as well as well known spiritual leaders.

What defines one as a Vamed Vov? In the movie, the question is asked, “Have you ever met someone who had something magical and wonderful about them?” I find it really fun to think about that. Someone posed that there might not be 36, but rather 3,600, or why not 36,000? After all, the world’s population was way smaller when this number was settled upon. Does it have to be a big name person like Ghandi or Martin Luther King, Jr, or Barack Obama? One man in the movie was asked this, and he very simply said: my wife. Wow. There was a flash of this little old shoemaker in Northampton. The reaction of the audience was hilarious. Everybody knows him and we all know he is a wise man in the disguise of a traditional old world shoemaker.

Does someone have to be magically wise all the time in order to qualify? What about that one kindness that someone did for you, that touched you, surprised you? Or your own act of generosity, of understanding, that time when you listened with perfect attention and someone felt truly heard? I like that the movie made me think about this. I would say that we all have the capacity to act as a Lamed Vov. Some show is more often than others. I know that my Aunt Mary was one. She was a light that shown brightly and startled people into waking up, whether a taxi driver or a diplomat. I sure see this brightness in the wisdom in my own daughter’s blog!

I will tell you a story and then shut up. Maybe Juliana remembers this, or remembers my telling this story. It was many years ago, a brown bag supper at the Unitarian Society. We were maybe 15 people around several tables pushed together. A stranger walked into our basement supper and stood at the doorway. There was a dignity about this homeless-looking man that we all took note of. He said he was just released from jail and needed money for bus fare; were we a church? could we help him? “I read my bible every day,” he said, as a way of giving himself validity in our eyes, I guess. We laughed and welcomed him in, told him we didn’t care about his bible reading, not a requirement for UU’s, was he hungry? Ross went into the kitchen and got him some soup and bread. Victoria, the minister, went upstairs to get him a bus voucher for his safe passage to his brother’s in Maine. We opened a place for him at the head of the table.

Then he started to ask us questions. What do you believe here? Turning to each of us, making eye contact, one at a time around the table: What do YOU believe? I know that I was not alone in feeling on the spot. UU’s don’t answer this readily. But there was this aura about the man that you knew you shouldn’t mess around. Answer the man, as well as you can! Pay attention. Be present. This matters.

He left after he ate. We all sat there. Stunned. We looked around and sort of rubbed our eyes like we were waking up. Who was that? Was that Elijah, come to test us, to see if we were worthy of the Messiah entering our midst? Was he one of the Lamed Vov? If he had evaporated after walking out the door, I would not have been at all surprised. Magic takes many forms. Stay awake. Keep your eyes open. This matters.

The expression is “at death’s door.” That is where Shirley is lingering. As someone in the middle of my life, it is hard to imagine what it might feel like on that edge of life/death. My Aunt Mary, when she was very close to death, called in all the family and had a Thanksgiving celebration, even if was September, even if she was no longer able to eat. We still had the feast with all the fixings. Now, my Aunt Mary was not an ordinary woman. She was excited about dying; she wanted to know what came next. There was no fear, just an almost childlike excitement.

Shirley, no longer eating, filled with cancer, so close to death, is perfectly at ease. I picture clutching, clinging, grabbing at the last of one’s life. Not so with Shirley. She is perfectly calm, making jokes with visitors, smiling, appreciative. She apologized for sticking around and being a bother to her family. I suggested that they want to fill her with loving while she is still around; she smiled and accepted that. It has seemed for a long time that Shirley had had enough of this life and wanted to get it over with. I guess she really meant it. I had written about my personal anxiety that had emerged with visiting someone who was dying. Shirley has helped me shift away from that. I go for a few minutes, scratch where she itches, give her some water, make her laugh, and leave there having caught her ease.

Have you ever eaten fresh horseradish? And, have you ever been in the room when fresh horseradish was being made? Fresh horseradish, a vital element of the Passover seder, when you have the real thing, your eyes instantly burst tears and your sinuses are clearer than you knew possible. But the making of it! Oy! I remember, as a kid, that my parents would make this poison in a blender, and my brother and I would completely vacate the house. I heard a story this week that my friend, Joe, now gone, when he was a kid, his mother would make him grate the horseradish out the kitchen window, leaning on the fire escape, with the window part way closed between him and the bowl! I am surprised I hadn’t heard this story before. Joe and Shirley would bring  horseradish to our communal seders. I miss Joe. He died about 7 years ago. Shirley may die today, or in the next few days.

Shirley is my friend, but not an easy friend. She has been depressed for a long time, much more so since Joe died. While her appreciation of what people do for her is lovely and bright, always, always, she sinks down into herself and fills the air with complaints. “Please fix me,” she says, but she has really been stuck for a long time. And going down hill. Wishing to die. Be careful what you wish for.

This morning I stopped by the hospital, as I have every day this week. Many friends have been by. Her family is gathering. She says she is amazed at all the attention (dig: where has everyone been when I needed them before?). Watching someone dying… this is not easy. We don’t walk into the room with a clean slate. We bring fears, lots of them, of our own mortality, of that of our parents (don’t parents live forever?).

I have been observing my own reactions to visiting Shirley. The first time, I left with a splitting headache. How tense was I to see this friend so close to death? The second day, I realized that while I was sitting on the bed with her, I didn’t reach out to touch her arm. I used to hug her all the time. What was different this time? The next day, I felt like I was starting to be present, for her, for her daughters, but with effort. It’s like I am pretending to be ok with her dying but not copping to what this brings up for me. My own mother, at 91, is a year older than Shirley and I know she can’t live forever, at least I know this intellectually. Shirley’s dying blows my cover. Mothers do die. My father is gone; somehow that was ok. But my mom? I just can’t let that concept in.

The Passover seder is approaching. Shirley sat at my table last year. She won’t be here this year. I refuse to make my own horseradish but I will buy some; that’s strong enough for me. And shed some horseradish tears for the elders who are no more.

 I am a dancer. I have dance bursting out of me, but it doesn’t show much these days. Physical limitations mean that I can’t do modern dance again, still hope to get back to contra dancing, international folk dance is mostly feasible. If I watch a dance performance where I could imagine myself as one of the dancers, it hurts my heart. I withdraw. But when I see a dance company that is fabulously, astoundingly beyond anything this body could have ever done, my heart soars!!!

Such was last night. “Black Grace” is an all male company (well, with female guest dancers) from New Zealand. This is the vision of Neil Ieremia, the sole choreographer, and Artistic Director, who also appears to be a sweet man. He introduced each piece, telling stories. Great smile. And love his accent.

The write up says it is an “explosive mix of rhythm, spirit and energy.” I sat with my mouth hanging open (we had great seats). The movements were precise, of rhythm and pattern, with stomping and slapping, but then superimpose grace and fluidity. Power: such power! As I try to write about this I realize that words really fail. So…. here is a clip from YouTube. The chanting in this piece is based on one of Neil’s chidhood songs, and listen for the bit of Sesame Street thrown in! It works!

You know how you get a thought stuck in your head? It goes round and round and gets pretty annoying in there. Put it down! Put it down on “paper,” and let it rest. A few days ago, my partner and I went to a remarkably wonderful fiddle concert at Amherst College, a free afternoon concert that was well attended. The music ranged from Irish dancing tunes to goose-bumpy melodic tunes. I was in heaven.

After intermission, I am sitting down and arranging my long down coat (it still being winter in New England). The collar, apparently, was over the back of the chair, not neatly tucked in on my side. An elderly man behind me starts in, without preamble, to yell at me. “How dare you put your coat into my space? Don’t you have any idea what you are doing? How dare you…?” Well, now, can I tell you I was shocked?

The place I go to when attacked, out of the blue, especially by men, or someone who exhibits male-energy (whatever that is), is 10th grade geometry, taught by Fat Harry Johnson, who hated me. I had loved, and excelled, at math until then. That was the end of the math-road for me.

So this old guy is in my face and I, as a middle-aged, reasonably together woman, was not going to show that I was having flashbacks of Fat Harry. I was shaking, but I started back in at him. “You know, sir, if you want something, there are ways to ask for it without attacking.” OK, so I didn’t say this in a calm peace-making manner. He kept at me; I fed it back. It wasn’t pretty. I finally sat down, with my coat on my side of the seat, and said quite rude things to my partner, intending it to be loud enough for him to hear. Then I sat there, trying to control my shaking, listening to the engaging music, and planning my comeback for after the concert. My best one: I feel sorry for you, to have achieved a venerated age, and feel so angry with the world, that you lack a basic understanding of civility.

I didn’t get to say this, not that it was all that profound.

But it has been on my mind… Everyone who knows me knows that I am about connections, good communication, being kind, and above all, perhaps, being respectful. This guy, he wasn’t like me. Coincidentally, I had just started a book by Hendrie Weisinger, whom we happened to meet at this little Thai restaurant in Boston the week before. In his Power of Positive Criticism, he right off talks about the purpose  and value of criticism. Know what you want to get out of it (could you move your coat?) and don’t ever, ever demean anyone. That will not get you what you want, unless you are an asshole, and then I hope I don’t have to interact with you. Dr. Weisinger, aka Hank, was describing something  basic to my philosophy, and especially, to how I raised my kids. If you need to tell someone to do something, or do something differently, be clear about what you want to say, absolutely do not belittle them, and just be kind.  My daughters are amazing, self-assured young women. I hope that my parenting has nurtured them more than squelched them.

Damn it: I still start to shake when I think about that grumpy old man.