Family friends in their 80s just came over to visit. It was perhaps their first time at our house in a year or so. They\u2019ve been busy. They had a family member move back to Winnipeg, there\u2019s been a pandemic and, well, we\u2019ve been busy, too, with kids on summer break, work obligations, visits from relatives, and home renovation.<\/p>\n
When they first visited, our new (to us) historic home was empty. While the house had great character, original workmanship and many good points, it also needed a ton of work. We\u2019ve had it all, from asbestos and electricity to plumbing, insulation, and so many other repairs. It didn\u2019t have a single bathroom that worked.<\/p>\n
When they walked in today, they said, \u201cOh wow!\u00a0 It looks like you\u2019re home!\u00a0 It looks like you really live here now.\u201d My kids then took our friends on a grand tour. They were amazed and impressed by all that\u2019s happened. They saw such big improvements and wanted to know what we\u2019d done ourselves, what our contractors had completed, and when and how it had happened. It was wonderfully reassuring, and also strange. We hadn\u2019t realized how long it had been.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t pin down when last they\u2019d visited, even though I looked at the calendar. Then I also noticed that it\u2019s Elul, the Jewish month where we\u2019re supposed to wake ourselves up. We hear the shofar each day if going to morning minyan, a way to remind ourselves that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are coming. We need to look inward, do teshuvah<\/em>, which is usually translated into English as repentance. Another way of understanding this word is to read it as return.<\/p>\n I have heard sermons or read things that entreat me, as a Jewish person, to start repenting \u2013 it\u2019s time to apologize, repair relationships and become a better person. We need the reminder that repairing relationships and apologizing for things we\u2019ve done wrong is important all the time. It\u2019s also a specific ritual to prepare for the High Holidays.<\/p>\n Even as we enter this teshuvah season, I\u2019m thinking of that other definition, the notion of return. Our household has been working hard to cope, in good humour, through an entire year of living through a house under renovation.<\/p>\n We\u2019re lucky \u2013 we have a home! It\u2019s mostly been warm and comfortable. Still, we\u2019re all sleeping in temporary places. I\u2019ve had my clothing \u201corganized\u201d in a laundry hamper for the entire year. We\u2019ve had times with one functional bathroom and no kitchen. During this year, there have been days when getting to my chest of drawers or my oven has been an impossibility. We\u2019ve moved and lost things multiple times. We\u2019ve had days without water or heat. Other times, my kids are going to sleep or practising piano or doing homework with contractors working and making noise in the background.<\/p>\n When I see the house through my friends\u2019 eyes, it\u2019s a huge undertaking. This renovation is, in some ways, helping return this home to its best self. When it\u2019s complete, we will have opened up windows and doors that were closed off for 40-some years or more. Things will be safe, full of warmth, light and air, with electricity that\u2019s up to code and even the installation of a much-needed structural beam.<\/p>\n Seeing this house change through my friends\u2019 eyes made me think about this return concept. When we return to ourselves, and hear our inner voice again, it means several things. Our teshuvah\/return helps us be the best we can be. First, perhaps we\u2019ve lost our way, but, as the morning liturgy reminds us, we were created in the divine image. It\u2019s like an old house. We have good bones! Maybe we need to do some upkeep, work to stay up to date. Returning to our best selves might require us to listen, pay attention to our gut feelings, do some renovation.<\/p>\n Also, the teshuvah or returning work might be different from year to year. To make a new year a fresh start, we might well have to return to our core values and strengths, open up disused spaces that had been blocked off in ourselves. Sometimes, we start by apologizing to ourselves, too. We all underestimate how far we\u2019ve come and how much we\u2019ve grown and changed. I know our family is guilty of forgetting how much we\u2019ve dealt with over the last year. Although we do remind each other of the changes we\u2019ve experienced, change feels like the only constant right now, as walls move, windows and doors are repaired, and the light comes in again. Through this, we never know which piece of furniture will need moving or what we\u2019ll have to clean (again) because of construction dust.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also about being grateful. Having a kitchen to cook in this summer has been a celebration. How lucky it is to have all this garden produce and to have a place to cook it in. So many don\u2019t have a kitchen or a garden. Maybe they lost it to fire or a bombing. Every day, I feel grateful even as I\u2019m exhausted by my new garden\u2019s potential zucchini and squash crop.<\/p>\n This return work must be grounded in a bigger reality. More than one person has remarked to me that they couldn\u2019t do what we\u2019re doing. In context, though, I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s such a big deal to renovate an old house. People are fleeing wildfires, losing their homes and families, and suffering from war, famine and disease across the world. Living in the middle of a renovation doesn\u2019t feel like too much. It\u2019s a privilege to have a home and have the resources to undertake this repair.<\/p>\n When I\u2019m considering my gut feelings, I know I have high (perhaps unreasonable) expectations of myself and others. I suspect others may approach self-improvement this way, too. Perhaps the biggest teshuvah is remembering that we return to ourselves, while understanding that others might be elsewhere on this path \u2026 and that\u2019s OK. Wishing you everything good as we begin 5784!<\/p>\n Joanne Seiff<\/strong> has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including <\/em>From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner<\/a> or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Family friends in their 80s just came over to visit. It was perhaps their first time at our house in a year or so. They\u2019ve been busy. They had a family member move back to Winnipeg, there\u2019s been a pandemic and, well, we\u2019ve been busy, too, with kids on summer break, work obligations, visits from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1802,218,8302,7394],"class_list":["post-42107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-high-holidays","tag-judaism","tag-lifestyle","tag-teshuvah"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}