It has been quite some time since I posted here. I realize the earth’s axis has not shifted as a result of my internet absence or anything but I decided to post a blog giving an update on things here at the Immune System Wars anyway.
I have been writing. That’s write! I have been writing like a woman possesed. I am working on another book but this one is not about me in any remote kind of way. It is a collection of midrash (a sort of Jewish tradition of writing Biblical fanfic). It is inspired by my desire to let the women of the Hebrew Bible or Torah, speak for themselves. Their voices and stories have been told by men, unsurpisingly. As a feminist theologian and a creative writer I feel inspired to study and then germinate and produce their stories in what I imagine is their voice.
The complete book will have the stories of one dozen women:
Lillith, Miriam, Naomi, Hannah, Esther, Emzara (wife of Noah), Deborah, Leah, Rebecca, Dinah,Abigail, Bathsheba, and possibly a baker’s dozen: Delilah..
I have been studying with Rebbe Dr. Raine Teller and she is my reader for this work and has been kind enough to find me a publisher. I can’t say how much that means. In any case, it has given me purpose and intellectual stimulation I have not had in a long time.
On the health front, things have not been perfect. But, then again, I don’t think they ever will be:). I have had to make some changes in my life that were difficult for me and my family. I stopped working this semester. I didn’t really want to but it became obvious that there simply wasn’t enough of me to go around and still have anything left if I were to work and maintain any balance at all in my life. My paycheck was not that large but it was helpful, so it sort of sucks. I also hate not being a breadwinner, but at this point, it is more important that I be healthy and alive than dragging around, barely making it one day to the next.
My son is a senior in college this year and he and his wife and all of our animals are living here in furry and feathery harmony but it all keeps me busy.
So, that is what I have been up to.
I pray daily for the health and welfare of our nation. I believe it and we as its citizens are at great peril. I feel helpless to stop what seems like a descent into dictatorship and hell. Living here in Texas only makes it worse. To that end my family is planning to join my daughter and her husband in Colorado after my son graduates in May. We will probably need up to six months to get ready and sell our home here so I am just taking it day by day. I am just hoping we can reunite as a family in a blue state. However, I am frustratated and angry that we have to make this decision. If circumstances were different we might all chose to leave the U.S. altogether and that is sad indeed.
It is a strange time to live in. However, I know that history goes on around us whether we like it or not. We are only little players against a giant backdrop of geopolitics where the games are played by people who seem to have no accountability to anyone but their own pocketbooks.
God help us all.