Annette Gendler's Blog, page 12

Learning to Pace Myself

Nine weeks out from my hip surgery, I wish I could say I’ve learned to pace myself. My recovery seems to be largely about taking it slowly, treating myself gently but alas, I’m still learning that, and all kinds of other things:

Listening to my body. This is what my surgeon told me to do at my six-week check-up when the brace came off (hurray!). He said that “the hip clings to inflammation and therefore, pushing through pain is not what you should do. Listen to your body. If an activity prov...

The Vilna Shul

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is around the corner, and so I thought this is a good time to share a few photos from my visit to the Vilna Shul in Boston back in April. I’ve milled about Boston’s historic Beacon Hill many times; in fact, it’s my favorite neighborhood there. And yet, I didn’t know about the Vilna Shul until my daughter’s a capella group Kol Echad performed there. As I happened to be visiting, I got to tag along. Oh, what a find!

Let’s start at the beginning, i.e. the inc...

On Rereading Books

I just reread a book I had read in 2012 when it first came out: Susannah Conway’s This I Know. It is one of the few books I’ve gifted several times and I have recommended it often to friends going through grief and bereavement.

I found there is much to be learned from rereading. I initially leafed through it looking for a quote I associated with it, namely the assertion that even in the most dire circumstances, when you’re totally down and out, you will find that most moments are not that bad...

My Book’s Almost Titles

At book events, I’m often asked how I came up with my book’s title, Jumping Over Shadows (see that story here: How to Come Up with a Book Title). Recently, however, when I told the story of the title, someone asked what the other contending titles had been. I thought this would make an interesting book companion post.

An Impossible Love, Revisited

This was my working title. A friend and I came up with it after she’d read one of my very first drafts. We met up at a writing conference and brai...

Why Handwritten Get Well Cards Are Special

I have blogged before about the special magic of handwritten letters and postcards. But now that I am recovering from hip surgery and have been largely housebound, I discovered just how special it is to receive an actual get well card in the mail.

In this age of WhatsApp, texting, email, Facebook posts and messaging, I have received plenty of well wishes. Friends check in regularly to see how I’m doing, but it’s all via the ether. Receiving and replying to an electronic message occupies me f...

Crossing Lake Michigan on the SS Badger Ferry

Turns out my one day of pure R&R this summer was spent crossing Lake Michigan on the SS Badger Ferry (our trip to New Orleans wasn’t exactly R&R). Assembling this blog post was a wonderful way for me to revisit that trip, especially now that I’m still mostly confined to the house during my recovery from hip surgery. This ferry crossing falls under the “I always wanted to…” category of undertakings, except that in this case I actually had crossed Lake Michigan on this ferry before, on a big c...

Honoring Our Roots

At our grandparents’ grave – my sister, my brother and I

Summer is the time of family reunions. Incidentally, just before my hip surgery, we had a family reunion of sorts on my mother’s side on the occasion of my beloved uncle’s sudden death. Of course the intent wasn’t a family reunion, but funerals do bring people together. On the day after the memorial service, following a cousin’s directions, my siblings and I went in search of our maternal grandparents former property in Lapeer, Michigan...

Hip Surgery: Some Insights from my Recovery So Far

Cover image of my favorite children’s book, given to me by my American grandparents in 1968

I feel like Cinderella these days as I am recovering from hip surgery: When the timer chimes, I need stop what I’m doing and lie down again. I can’t be up, doing anything, be it sitting, walking or standing, for more than 30 minutes, or there’s hell to pay in hip pain. And not only that, overtaxing my hip most likely means prolonging my recovery, which already looks like it’ll take months.

On July 10...

The Best of New Orleans

Not a place where we could eat, but it was still fun to see Paul Prudhomme’s original restaurant still operational. I have his Fork in the Road cookbook, and his Spicy Turkey Loaf is one of my staple dishes.

I’ve often felt that if only I didn’t have expectations, I wouldn’t suffer disappointments. This applies particularly to travel.

To celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary, my husband and I decided to take the family on a weekend trip to New Orleans earlier this month. Only he had been the...

Suicide Touches Almost Every Family

My great-grandfather with my grandmother, Reichenberg, 1932

“A few days before Kristallnacht, on the evening of Thursday, November 3, 1938, my great-grandfather walked up the hill to the cemetery by the crematorium in Reichenberg, found the family grave, and shot himself.”

Jumping Over Shadows, p. 66

I was going to write about something completely different today, but then I leafed through yesterday’s Wall Street Journal while having lunch and happened upon Karl Rove’s stunning article on his...