So I was preparing a post reflecting on how our family has
managed to instill a sense of unplugged time and space with our teen daughter,
a post I am excited to share and extend, however things happen…
Last night after I set a few ideas on paper for such posts,
our severe weather became even more furious with wind and rain threatening our
windows and nearby trees! Transformer POP , darkness …electricity gone… a
situation not unfamiliar to our family and thousands of others in the
Northeast! Our previous experience with
power outages left us in the dark and without electrical power for 8 days (a
typical festival duration!). So immediately
following our lovely unplugged Rosh Hashanah
holiday celebration, here was unplugged time imposed on our family exactly when the urgency of returning to the chol
(the everyday ) hits hard. We need (
crave?) “ plugged in”. I needn’t
enumerate the ways!
My irritation began to boil over as soon as I began to prepare lunch and food for my daughter’s school day and beyond as she participates in varsity sports and needs energy to propel her through her day. It was still so dark and I had to open the refrigerator and who knows how many days this would last and... This was my whine time and I was going to use it wisely or not. I was grateful for whoever would listen (like Clyde, our cat).
Preparing
food for my family is one of my favorite ways to nurture and this was feeling
like a tremendous imposition. Though I am a big proponent of choosing when to unplug as part of one’s
Jewish, parenting, and Jewish parenting practice, the spiritual quality of this
life approach is lost when you ‘ Lose Power’ !
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