aging

Living is hard work

I have never been as old as I am today. I suppose that is true of everybody in the world who is alive. Nothing special, right? Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! It is special – special for everyone of us who are alive. Why is that? Well, aren’t you the lucky people, because I’m going to tell you why. Yes, I am. I know it’s a secret, and that nobody else has the answer – I know that because I just discovered it when I woke up from my afternoon nap. You may think I’m joking, but I’m not. This is deadly serious stuff.

This morning, a Friday, I went to exercises. I go to exercises three times a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I used to kind of enjoy doing that, but I don’t anymore. Lately, I kind of hate these days. And the day I hate the most is Friday. I hate exercising because it hurts, and the day that the exercises hurt the most is Friday. So, I must hate the people who are putting me through these exercises, through that pain, right? Wrong, again. Wrong, wrong, wrong! I love them because they are helping me stay alive.

So, what’s this all about? Am I stupid, or something? If something hurts when you do it, you stop doing it, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong! If I stop doing exercises, I will have less and less control over my body in doing the everyday things that allow me to live independently. These are a bunch of secrets I am telling you, no doubt.

So, as I said, today I am as old as I have ever been. For most of my life, I never gave a thought to such things. I’m not that old, thinking about Methuselah and Moses, and Saparman Sodimejo. Sodimejo claimed to be 146 years old when he died in Indonesia on April 30, 2017. Kane Tanaka of Japan is reportedly 118 years old. Bob Weighton, in the state of New Hampshire, is recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest living person, at 112. I’ll only be 88 on my birthday next April, so what’s the fuss?

The fuss is that staying alive is hard work. Some of the time, it hurts, particularly if you are trying to stay nimble and in possession of your faculties. If we don’t work at it, we just dry up and blow away, and it happens a lot sooner for most of us than it did for the guys I mentioned above.

Let’s face it, we are losing stuff as we fight the battle for longevity. I can no longer lift myself up to chin the bar like I used to. (The muscle mass vanished when I was looking the other way!) I need a pinch of spice to really enjoy some foods like I used to – I especially need more salt on my food or it seems tasteless. I sometimes need help with a name, and have to use my computer liberally to refresh my memory of things I used to know like the back of my hand. I’m really happy my kids remember my name and I have to be careful to remember all the birthdays and anniversaries. And did I tell you I take a regular regimen of pills, aside from the vitamins B, C, D and E that I ingest?

Today, my Bride asked me what’s on my bucket list. Surely, she said, you must have lots of things that you wanted to do but have not yet done. I thought about that for a moment, then I answered, I want to spend tomorrow with you, and the next day, and the day after that. That’s the real pinch of spice I need in my life.

Every day that we are alive, we are in a place we have never been before. In our world, everything within us, and everything outside us, is in a state of flux, essentially offering us a new experience every day. I intend to grab life by the throat, shake it and get the most out of it. To do that, I need all the strength I can muster. Exercise tomorrow? Hell, yes!

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

A death well-planned – an excerpt from Anne of Oasis

In Anne of Oasis, drawing on my many years as a physician psychotherapist, I tell the detailed, fictional story of what goes on in the therapy room when an eccentric, 70-year-old is obsessed with changing her life – or ending it. Anne bumbles through what she views as mysterious rituals with the therapist, explores secrets, re-jigs behaviours and, five years later, finds bliss. Here is the final chapter.

***

Chapter 26: June 2008

For two years, Doug heard sporadically from his mother and continued his requests for pearls. She made it clear to him and his brother she wasn’t coming out to Kelowna anymore. They occasionally visited her in Toronto, or in Golden, where she was staying with Eleanor for longer and longer periods of time.

When he received the phone call from a Toronto hospital, Doug asked if she’d fallen and busted her hip. They said it was more than that. They had found her unconscious on the street in Toronto with no ID, except for a piece of paper with Doug’s number on it as her next of kin. They admitted her as an Unknown Person and she was failing fast. If he wanted to see her alive, he had better come quickly.

He didn’t know what to do. He had promised to be there if she needed him for assistance in dying peacefully, but this was different. Yet how could he leave her to die on her own?

“She’s still your mother,” his wife offered.

He flew out as soon as he could. He arrived at the Toronto General Hospital, where Admitting confirmed there was no patient by the name of Anne Bishop. But a woman had been admitted as an Unknown Person. Doug wandered the halls searching for his mother.

“She was moved to a different floor.”

“She’s in ICU.”

“She’s not in ICU.”

Finally, he stepped into the Cardiac ICU and in the corner he saw a pile of breathing bones. Tube in mouth, IV in arm, sas-sas-sas of a respirator. Unknown Person at the foot of the bed.

“Is this her?” he asked the nurse at the desk.

“She was found with only this slip of paper on her.”

“That’s my name and number.”

“She apparently suffered a sudden, massive heart attack on the street.”

As Doug approached the bed, he recognized the bony lumps on her hands, the chewed-up fingernails, the crepe skin. It was definitely Mum. He gasped. His eyes filled, the lump in his throat tightened. He turned and rushed to the nursing station.

“Please, can the tubes be removed? She didn’t want heroics.”

“We barely know her name. We can’t follow any directives without proper ID and signed papers detailing her wishes.”

He took off uptown to retrieve the Dying With Dignity papers his mother had been talking about for years.

Stepping into his mother’s house, it felt haunted, full of yesterday’s glory. Dust everywhere. Her clothes neatly stashed, but neglect inhabited the place. He walked from room to room, observing photos everywhere – on window ledges, on kitchen counters, on the bedside table. Pictures of Jesse and Catherine and Doug and Bruce and Pam and Sue in every combination. Sitting next to each image was a shiny rock or pebble. He picked up each clear Plexiglass frame and stared. He was shocked to see how she surrounded herself with family. He began to sob.

He found the papers in the second drawer of his grandmother’s mahogany desk, exactly where his mother had said they’d be. Everything was perfectly organized and signed. He grabbed the requisite forms, glanced around at the family photos and returned to the hospital. They removed the tubes.

He returned to the house for a few hours’ sleep and arrived back at the hospital next morning, to find she had again sprouted pipes. The staff explained that overnight she had taken a turn for the worse and they tried to save her.

Angrily showing them the papers again, he repeated her wish to die quietly, and they removed the tubes a second time. He wrapped Mum in her favourite turquoise velour blanket he had brought from her home, took her in his arms and held her exactly as she held him as a sick boy on the farm. He noticed a flicker of a smile cross her face, then she took her last breath.

Just then, Eleanor appeared.

Through their tears, Doug and Eleanor awkwardly made their way to her house together. They expected to start planning how to say goodbye to Anne. But she beat them to it. She had detailed her every wish. They simply had to fulfil them.

“You know what?” Doug asked. “She knew what she was doing all those years ago around Dying With Dignity. We thought she was nuts, but it’s sure helping us now.”

“She was utterly determined in every aspect of her life,” Eleanor replied.

“What do you think we should do with the rocks? My brother thinks we should pitch them.”

“She schlepped them home from every spot she ever visited. Each and every one was special to her,” Eleanor sighed.

“I think we should leave some at the cemetery.”

Because Doug knew Mum hated missing appointments, he searched in her handwritten, dog-eared address book for Dr. C’s number.

“I’m so sorry,” Dr. C responded when he told her the news.

“It’s odd speaking to you in person after hearing about you for so long,” Doug said. “I’m happy to hear your voice. I need to tell you how important you were to my mother. Thank you for helping her.

“She was still difficult to deal with, but she seemed a lot happier. I also want to thank you for all the pearls of wisdom I received second-hand. Mum loved sharing them and they have been extremely helpful in my life.”

“We will all miss her.”

“As per her wishes, we are having a funeral service tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery. We would be honoured if you would come.”

“Thank you. It would be a privilege. I’ll see you there.”

Tuesday afternoon, at 2 p.m., under a blistering sun, Doug, Eleanor and Dr. C, along with a handful of grey-haired men and women, gathered as they lowered the casket into the ground. Doug pulled out a heavy purple velvet Crown Royal bag and spoke.

“When I called Dr. C to notify her of Mum’s death, I asked what we could do with the stones Mum collected on her travels. She informed me that according to Jewish tradition, leaving a stone on a loved one’s grave signifies you have been to visit. Because of Mum’s lifelong appreciation of all things Jewish, placing stones on her grave would be a mitzvah, or a blessed act of kindness.

“I am honoured to ask each of you to dig into this bag, which held my marbles as a kid, to take out a pebble and place it on Mum’s final resting place.”

Tears rolled down his face. Doug held the bag open. Eleanor, Dr. C and the others lined up. One by one they removed a rock and placed it on the earth as it was shovelled onto the casket.

For more information, visit sharonbaltman.com.

Sharing her inspiration

On Oct. 8, nonagenarian Gloria Levi was the featured speaker at the JSA Snider Foundation Virtual Empowerment Series session co-sponsored by Jewish Seniors Alliance and the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture. The topic was What Inspires Me at 90.

Gyda Chud, co-president of JSA and president of the Peretz Centre, welcomed the approximately 70 attendees and shared the background of JSA’s Empowerment series.

Fran Goldberg introduced Levi as a feminist, an activist, a COVID survivor, a gerontologist, a therapist, a social worker and a woman of tremendous confidence, who finds joy in even the darkest of moments.

From her talk, it seems that Levi does indeed find inspiration in everything around her, from rustling breezes and glistening sunsets to soulful self-discovery. She finds meaning in both everyday happenings and the larger matters of the heart and social justice. If we were to sum up Levi’s nuanced and profound wisdom in a word, it would be wholeness. She elevates the whole person with all their perfect imperfections.

To Levi, self-discovery and self-knowledge are paramount values. She illustrated the importance of being true to oneself with the charming story of Rabbi Zusia, who lamented to God, bemoaning his not being like Moses and Abraham. God advised him to be exactly who he is – Zusia. The goal in life is not to strive for perfection but to be authentically oneself.

Through Levi’s lens of wholeness, even a global disaster like COVID-19 has vital lessons. A COVID-19 survivor, Levi refers to the virus as the 11th plague, but also is passionate about the important issues that the pandemic has brought to light. For example, it revealed the discrepancy between the haves and the have nots: the ones who support our daily life – the grocery store clerks, hospital employees, delivery drivers and food workers, among others – in stark contrast with the wealthy. The pandemic has yielded an awakening, a heightened awareness that things need to change on numerous levels, both environmentally and socially, said Levi.

Along with her commitment to social justice, Levi draws connections and inspiration from Jewish sources; for example, she refers to Leviticus, in which God tells Moses to instruct the Israelites to give the land a rest. During the sabbath year, the land is to lie fallow and to be “released” from cultivation, she explained. Weaving rest and restoration into our physical and spiritual worlds is a much-needed change, she said.

In conclusion, Levi quoted Ecclesiastes and reminded us that “vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” Her advice: embrace life, enjoy meaningful relationships and small kindnesses – and find inspiration all around us.

Tamara Frankel is a member of the board of Jewish Seniors Alliance and of the editorial committee of Senior Line magazine. She is also a board member of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

We share same fate

Do you realize that everyone you know will die? Of course you do. All of us know that. But, most of the time, we don’t think about it. We forget about it insofar as it motivates our actions, our interactions with the people in our lives, and the people we meet. If we were wholly cognizant that some of these people were to be gone tomorrow, or next week, wouldn’t it result in some of our behaviours being modified?

We usually have no inkling of when our time will come, or that of our friends or neighbours. When tragedy strikes and we get the bad news, we often react in a drastic way. If we have hates on, we usually stifle them. If we care, we redouble our efforts to connect in ways that might be more useful to the object of our emotion. Even if we don’t have a real link to the person who has died, we may go out of our way to exhibit some form of kindness. We instinctively feel, there, but for the grace of God, go I. Imagining how we would feel in the same situation, we have the urge to do something, anything, to alleviate the pain, the fear, the horror, of the unknown forthcoming.

When the end comes unheralded, suddenly, without warning, it is a shock to the system. Somehow, that person’s passing puts us, ourselves, right in the target zone. The immediacy of something that could happen to anyone, the result of biology or chance, reminds us we are not ready to go. We are chastened by the event.

Attitudes to our final exit vary widely, and certainly evolve over time. When we see some of the reckless behaviour of young people, we have to believe they feel they are immortal. Many out there have the belief that this current “vale of tears” is but a temporary phenomenon, with the best of existence yet to come. My Jewish background and belief system offers no such panacea. We are enjoined to do all we can to get the most out of our current existence.

In my late 80s, I must, of course, accept that I am much closer to the exit scenario than many of the people on this planet. Acceptance is the closest emotion I can discern, having enjoyed a larger slice of life than most.

The people I know have very mixed feelings about the transition we all face. Many are apprehensive. Most of us are happy to do what we can to put off the “evil” day, worried about the experience, and more than reluctant to give up whatever shred of living that we may have in the now, all of our fleshly and mental pleasures, regardless of our pains, potential and real.

What exercises me much more than some of the above is the greediness I feel about engaging with the spirits of all those still around me. Knowing that the time we share is limited by circumstance, more than anything I want to reach out to those souls whose existence I value.

Many of the people I care about have not shared a word with me for decades. My fault, their fault, who knows what were the forces that caused us to drift apart. How strange might they feel about my making an uninvited approach, out of the blue?

If I were to write them a blog like this as a general invitation to reach out and make a contact, some might respond. We all share a common fate. Maybe we also share a sense of the value of our past contacts. Maybe some of you out there are thinking of doing the same thing, reaching out before it is too late? Every week there are some of my contacts that I must erase from my mailing list. So, here I go: how are things for you today? What’s the story? Will we make contact today before the unknown tomorrow comes?

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Making aging healthier

Shira Haas is the featured guest at the July 7 event organized by Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. (photo from CABGU)

Israeli actress Shira Haas, star of the popular Netflix series Shtisel and Unorthodox, has been busy in recent months. Not only is she preparing to take on the role of a young Golda Meir in the upcoming series Lioness, executive produced by Barbra Streisand, but she is also the featured guest at the Canadian national virtual gala in support of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) on July 7.

An “Unorthodox” National Virtual Gala for Brain Research, organized by Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University (CABGU), BGU’s Canadian fundraising arm, will raise money for the Canada Fund to Advance Brain Research.

“We are thrilled to share this exciting announcement with our community,” said Mitchell Oelbaum, national president of CABGU.

“According to the World Health Organization, there are approximately 50 million active cases of dementia worldwide, with an estimated 10 million new cases being added each year. Ten million people battle Parkinson’s each year globally. And, according to the World Stroke

Organization, 13 million people suffer from stroke annually. We wanted to do our part to help improve the chances of finding a cure for these debilitating diseases.”

The numbers are large, and there are no signs of a slowdown. That is why the fund was established by CABGU, with the goal of supporting groundbreaking and cutting-edge research for neurodegenerative diseases at the university’s Zlotowski Centre for Neuroscience.

“We are getting closer to determining the causes of age-related neurodegenerative diseases,” explained Dr. Debra Toiber of the department of life sciences in the faculty of natural sciences at BGU. “It’s an exciting time to be a scientist and uncovering the mechanisms of aging.”

Toiber is one of 67 researchers at the Zlotowski Centre. Her lab recently discovered that the SIRT6 protein is critical for the prevention of neurodegeneration, which can lead to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Colleague Dr. Shelly Levy-Tzedek’s lab studies the impact of age and disease on the control of body movement and how best to employ robotics to facilitate a fast and efficient rehabilitation process. Meanwhile, Dr. Claude Brodski, also with the Zlotowski Centre for Neuroscience, is currently conducting a study, albeit in its early stages, that may offer a disease-modified drug target to address the impact of Parkinson’s. While these findings are encouraging, more research needs to be conducted.

“CABGU launched the Canada Fund to Advance Brain Research at BGU in April,” said CABGU chief executive officer Mark Mendelson. “Our team has been hard at work ever since, and there is a strong appetite for this subject matter here in Canada. The sad reality is that we all know someone, whether it is a relative, a friend or a neighbour, who is struggling with one of these devastating brain diseases.”

The national virtual gala is already more than 50% sold out. To learn how to become a sponsor or to purchase tickets, head to bengurion.ca.

Chicken soup and life

I don’t know what the reason is, but I note a change in my attitudes, ideas and emotional makeup. Could it be my advancing age, or was what I’m feeling always there, hidden under the impedimenta of getting through life?

We all start out, when getting on our feet, stumbling about – in choosing our direction, determining a focus, finally forging the path or paths that will be the ones we follow through most of our lives. Our background cannot help but be important in that process and, for some people, it is the essence of who they are. For me, I never felt it was of much matter.

These days, however, as I advance toward the final curtain, with a burgeoning altered perspective, I become more and more certain that I am all about what I was when I started. This may mean nothing to so many of you out there who have re-made yourselves into the images of what you wanted to be, rather than that what you were, but this seems to be the truth for me. I am extremely conscious of this because I had a spouse who totally remade herself into what she wanted to be by conscious effort, but I find now that that was not to be for me.

I know that I am being arbitrary by appropriating the “chicken soup” theme as an ethnocentric symbol of my Jewish background. Surely it is available and present in the culinary arrays offered by so many cultural groups. Nevertheless, I have seized on it because of what it means to me and to so many of my co-religionists. How often was it a centrepiece of the Sabbath meal, when chicken was the only meat offering even in a spare week’s diet, in the shtetl and on the tables of recently arrived immigrants in the “new world”?

For me, no matter how important the item was in the diet, making the sparse stretch so much further, it has a context for me that goes much further, even beyond its important role as “Jewish penicillin.” For me, it speaks of home and hearth. For me, it speaks of a mother’s love for her children, her family and her home. It speaks to me of taking something small and making it into something big that had ramifications for a person all of their lives.

For many us, our lives are shaped by the happenstance of our early experiences. Child psychologists can confirm that the impressions we absorb in our early days can have important implications for the people we become in our later years. I believe that one of the important things parents can offer their children is to provide evidence to them of unconditional love. We absorb that into the essence of our beings unconsciously and it can set us up well for life.

Chicken soup speaks to me of unconditional love. Whoever we are, whatever it is, that love can impart a sense of self-confidence that can otherwise take years of positive experience to generate. It can give us the strength to try, and fail, and try again and again until we succeed, or choose to move on.

For me, the humble chicken soup speaks of that unconditional love. For me, in the Jewish home of my upbringing, that was the message I received. So, now, after many decades of pursuing a life in nonsectarian environments – for the most part, a Jew among non-Jews – I trace back my capacity to arrive and thrive, to the original environment from which I drew my strength.

Am I being too ethnocentric? Surely, working in an environment that was much more merit-based than the one my grandfather and father were born into made an enormous difference? All too true! And yet, for me, I feel the difference of how I grew up.

Whatever your background, from where do you draw the drive that powers you through life? Mine leads back to chicken soup.

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Sabbath of life

I am one of the fortunates who has achieved the treasured time of contemplation, a time to appreciate in the profoundest way some inkling of what it has meant to be alive. I am not unique; I do not claim that. There are many around us who share, and have shared, this gift. Usually, it comes to those who have added years to their time on earth.

We have survived the birthing process in the wider sense. We have learned what it takes to live among our fellows. We have found a trade to gain the resources to provide for our creature comforts. We have succeeded in making connections with others to ensure our emotional needs are met. Hopefully, we have made a contribution to others. These things are in our past although we may carry them on for our own pleasure. They seem to be necessary elements in arriving at a time of peace within ourselves.

No matter what your religious persuasion is, or if you are agnostic or an atheist, there is room for this idea within your consciousness. We can survive “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, to arrive at this state and spend some of our time contemplating the mysteries of life. Behind us are so many things we would do differently if only we could. Behind us are the many times of terror, threatening unknowns regarding our plans and projects. Behind us are our brushes with an untimely death for which we were not ready.

If we have been incredibly lucky, we may be leaving behind some material evidence of our passage – a child, a service, some indelible scratch in the wall of time, whether remembered by others or not. Some of us may still have a file folder full of plans, a list of to-do items on our agenda. Godspeed to you! But, if you recognize that this is your Sabbath time, you are now more than willing to pass the baton to others. You are now more than willing to accept that there will always be more things to be done. And you are ready to contemplate that others will be found to carry out and complete those tasks. You are ready to sit back for awhile in the sun, enjoy the beauties of nature, the bounties of nature, the beauty of your children and your children’s children. Or the beauty of other people’s accomplishments, the beauty of other people’s children!

Much remains to be fixed in the world and some of it hurts dreadfully to contemplate. It is not surprising that we sometimes feel overwhelmed. But there are blessings we can count on our fingers. There are things you can point to that you have been responsible for, some positives that you can take credit for. You can take a deep breath and hug yourself. You did good! Real good! You deserve to celebrate the Sabbath, a rest day for your soul.

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Scientific breakthroughs

Scanning Israeli news this week has a feel of a sci-fi fantasy. Most eye-catching of all is the assertion by a Tel Aviv University researcher, in a peer-reviewed article, that hyperbaric oxygen therapy can “reverse aging” by lengthening telomeres, the structures found at the ends of chromosomes, by more than 20% on average.

“This means we can start to look at aging as a reversible disease,” Prof. Shai Efrati said, as reported in the Times of Israel. Some gerontologists are skeptical of the claims and some suggest it could open a Pandora’s box of related health issues, but, from ancient times through the 16th-century conquistador Juan Ponce de León to, apparently, contemporary Israel, humankind has dreamed of and sought out a figurative or literal fountain of youth. Whether Efrati’s research will fulfil that dream will be watched closely.

And there are other scientific headlines this week.

Also coming out of Tel Aviv University is news that scientists have destroyed cancerous cells in mice by pinpointing affected cells with “tiny scissors,” while leaving everything around them intact and with no side effects. With trials possibly to begin in humans within two years, they are hopeful that this could be a revolution that could effectively cure cancer.

A third scientific bombshell comes from Israelis in Canada. Eliav Shaked and Roy Kirshon, expatriate biomedical engineers working in Toronto, are developing a speedy, non-invasive diagnostic for patients who are likely decades away from showing symptoms of dementia. While there is no cure yet for dementias like Alzheimer’s disease, the pair believe that an early diagnosis will not only permit individuals to prepare for eventual care but allow doctors to study the progression of the disease and thereby gain valuable insights.

In these pages, we frequently highlight Israeli technological and medical advancements but the news this week really seemed like a dream sequence from a futuristic utopia. Of course, none of these initiatives is a sure bet but they read like a hat trick against some of the most damning health challenges facing our generations.

Is it a coincidence that these are all emerging from Israel? It is no secret that the tiny state is a locus of a massively disproportionate amount of the world’s achievements in a range of fields.

Some books, like Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, and many other observers have posited that Israel’s successes are achieved not in spite of the adversities the country and its people have faced, but as a direct result of them. So many of the scientific, social and economic advances that have come out of Israel in recent decades are civilian benefits redounding from military research and development, though Israel is by no means the only country for which this is case.

No less significant are the social impacts of compulsory service in a national defence force that some have called the least hierarchical in the world. Individuals who made life-and-death choices for themselves and their colleagues at age 19 or 20 may be less timid in taking major entrepreneurial or other life risks at 25 or 30 than an average North American or European at that age. Not to discount the value of peace and all the benefits it would bring, the circumstances in which Israel exists have created a thoroughly unique social and economic environment.

Coincidentally or not, also in the news this week was a vote at the United Nations in which 163 countries, including Canada, voted for a condemnatory resolution against Israel; five voted against. It is one of 17 resolutions expected in this General Assembly session targeting Israel, while just seven country-specific resolutions are expected to be aimed at condemning every other injustice on the planet. Canadian Jewish organizations and pro-Israel commentators are furious at Canada’s vote, which directly contradicts pledges made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, including during the last election campaign.

While many are appalled at the hypocritical obsession with Israel, and certainly Israeli diplomats are in the fray denouncing the vote, average Israelis, it is safe to say, remain sanguine. They have seen far worse attacks than that by the world community in the comparatively impotent global parliament that the UN General Assembly has become.

While it would be nice if the world judged Israel with moral measuring sticks commensurate with those we use for every other country, in the end it doesn’t seem to make much difference, thankfully. Even through the pandemic, Israelis have continued to try and turn science fiction into scientific reality. This week’s news alone included the possibility of cures for cancer, dementia and aging itself. And the benefits of such research do not accrue solely to Israelis, but to all of us – whether the nations of the world at the General Assembly recognize and appreciate that fact or not.

Shabbat with Bubbie

“I learned about climate marches and I learned about dancing bubbies,” said my niece Fae, 9, when we were discussing Bonnie Sherr Klein’s new children’s book, Beep Beep Bubbie, over FaceTime. Among other things, my niece Charlotte, 7, learned “you can learn to ride a bike at 53 and anything is possible.… And I learned about grandmothers who can shush a crying boy.”

Amid much laughter, including talk about dogs pooping – Bubbie has a dog – and what my nieces recalled of Vancouver from their visit here last year, Beep Beep Bubbie offered more discussion than I had anticipated. But, before I get to that, I have to say, for the record, that my nieces have dancing bubbies in their lives, and bubbies who can shush crying children, so they more related to these aspects of Bubbie’s character than learned from them. With that qualification and butt covering, I continue with the review, starting with the basic story of the book.

It is Shabbat and Kate and her little brother Nate are going to visit their grandmother, who is going to take them to Granville Island to buy apples for Rosh Hashanah. The kids have been told there’ll be a surprise waiting for them at Bubbie’s. That surprise, though – Bubbie’s new scooter – isn’t a happy one initially for Kate, who “already missed the Bubbie she used to have. That Bubbie danced and took them to climate marches.” However, during the afternoon’s adventures, Bubbie’s scooter not only allows her to venture farther from home than she otherwise would have been able to manage, but has other advantages, as well.

After their trip to Granville Island, Kate shares a library book that she’s brought along for the visit. About American educator, activist and suffragist Frances Willard, Kate and Nate find out that Willard “fought for women to have the right to vote. When Frances was 53 years old, she learned to ride a bicycle to show that women could do anything.” A conversation ensues about why Willard wouldn’t have known how to ride a bike. “People were afraid women’s ankles would show under their petticoats,” explains Bubbie. “Can you believe it?”

Well, at my nieces’ house, this part of the book was met with disbelief and more laughter, as Charlotte was keen to show off her ankles, which were hard to see, given the placement of their computer and her being the height of a 7-year-old. But, before things deteriorated into mayhem, Fae said, “I also learned that girls are tough.” And, she “learned another reason why women weren’t treated fairly in the past.”

“And what was that reason?” I asked.

“Because women didn’t ride bikes because their ankles were going to show. And they couldn’t vote, [it was] like they didn’t have an opinion.”

“It’s definitely not fair,” said Charlotte about people thinking that girls showing their ankles was wrong.

All in all, Beep Beep Bubbie elicited much talk and not an insignificant amount of gymnastics. The illustrations by Élisabeth Eudes-Pascal are wonderfully colourful and fun; full of energy and movement. Both Fae and Charlotte gave a resounding “yes” when asked if they liked the pictures.

One the drawings is a two-page spread of Bubbie, Kate and Nate and the park, where they join in the fun of flying kites. One young person is in a wheelchair, and Charlotte asked why Bubbie had chosen a scooter instead. Not knowing the answer, I asked the author. Here is her response: “I chose a motorized scooter over a wheelchair, btw, because it felt more sportif,” wrote Klein in an email, “and I am lucky enough to be able to transfer, which keeps me a bit more mobile.”

I like knowing, but the reasons aren’t important, as far as the story goes. Art is to be interpreted and my nieces and I talked about a lot of ideas, from serious to silly, during our FaceTime book review session.

Published by Tradewind Books, Beep Beep Bubbie can be purchased from pretty much any online bookseller. Enjoy!

Continuing to give it a whirl

A whirligig is a top, or spinning device, something constantly changing. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes feel my head spinning. Whether we are talking about the internal – the radical changes many of us experience in our lives – or the external, the remarkable way the world around us has changed, I think I have got it right, in describing life as a whirligig.

Sometimes, I feel a churning in my insides, as I try to decide whether to laugh or cry. Isn’t it incredible that we start out as these wee things, helpless as puppies? We are even worse – we don’t, as newborns, have the survival instincts of other animals. Then, we grow up as creatures capable of organizing events that can shake the world, at least events that can shake the world around us, metamorphose the people and environment around us. I find that an astounding reality, don’t you?

Creating a new life, as some of us have been blessed with the chance to do, potentially alters all of human history every time it happens. Some humans have done that, and they were born of man and woman. Now, we are seven going on eight billion. What amazing potential lies in human hands! Who knows what intelligences currently lying outside our ken we are yet to master.

I grew up as one of the nonentities and, yet, I have affected the lives of millions who don’t even know my name. No guarantees. We could arrive here just to be another creature consuming resources. But, when I consider the trajectory of my all-too-common life, I shake and twirl, like a spinning top. What about those around us whose names we all know? They also started out on this planet as being more helpless than puppies, but became forces of nature that thrust themselves into our consciousness.

Maybe that is not the most important model. What about those unseen and unknown to us who led a life that yielded offspring, providing the continuity necessary to ensure the survival of humanity’s way of life? All of us started out as an idea that was born into flesh and blood, presenting the option of acting for good or evil. That it works out for the good so many times is astounding, when there are multiple things that can go wrong. We know about those, too. I am letting it all wash over me, making me happy and sad.

Can I talk about some of the ways in which the nature of my external world has changed? I was challenged by the existence of the computer when I was in my 50s. Before that, I remember going into a computer centre in the business I worked in. It occupied a vast air-conditioned space, tended by individuals who were regarded as acolytes of a mysterious priesthood. Today, I have more computing power in the machine I am typing this tale on than was contained in the whole of that metaphoric temple. All that data stuff held for the world’s business has vanished from their physical premises; it’s now in the “cloud,” held electronically in an obscure corner of the United States.

Nowadays, in an instant, I can be present at an event occurring in real time in a place I have never heard of that is 6,000 miles away. If I have the number, I can talk face-to-face with a person halfway around the world!

I can remember shivering in fear as the radio announced what our losses were on land and sea during the Second World War. How immediate would those things be today? We have seen it depicted on TV. Star Trek, with its once-only-imaginable technology, is coming into our living rooms and lives, in living colour. Our appliances are becoming smarter than we are. Is it any wonder that my head begins to spin when I think about it? Our grandkids take this all for granted. They stare at us in disbelief and laugh.

We don’t understand the half of what is going on. But we try to cope with all of this. I have not yet thrown up my hands. I take courses and try to learn new things. I watch webinars. I blunder about expecting failure, and experience it. Bit by bit, I learn a minimum, and I gratefully accept any help offered. I am grateful for the patience of others and try to be patient myself. I revel in small victories of understanding. I resist computer updates that may change the things I know how to work, putting off improvements that leave me at a loss. I accept that I will not learn to know it all.

So, my head is spinning on the turntable of my life, which is also spinning. I make an effort to keep in contact with others of my ilk who are in the same place. We can compare notes and share news of gains and losses. So far, my younger near and dear speak to me in languages I still understand. They make allowances for my decrepitude and hide their amusement at my distresses. I hug my Bride and friends close and closer to ensure I retain human contact. We continue full speed into an evolving future that may be even more beyond my understanding.

I know that, at some time or another, I will have to get off the turntable and hand in my IDs and passwords. Until then, I continue to give it a whirl!

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.