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124 pages

English

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This book is a compass. Though it's primarily mine, I trust its continually turning arrow will offer directions to anyone interested in finding higher ground.
When I was maybe nine or ten years old, I did a double take on a photograph of myself because I didn’t like what I saw … but the picture did not improve: my shoulders were drooping and my chest looked a little sunken. From that moment on, I made a conscious effort to improve my posture by standing up tall with my shoulders back and my chest out.
Over many years, this initial desire to improve myself has evolved to include more than just the way I look; these days, I’m working on my mind and spirit as well as my body, trying to elevate myself in any way I can. My writing is part of this. When I write about an experience or a memory, I’m able to slow everything down, think about what happened from a new angle, maybe even learn from it.
Each of the thirty-six stories in this book is a step I have built to help me climb. I still have a long way to go, but I’ve definitely made progress. Join me on my journey. I trust the steps will hold you too. I don’t have all the answers, but it’s nice to know I have kindred spirits out there who are climbing with me. Together, we can repair the world.
Ricky Ehrlich
May 2021

Sujets

Relationships

Philosophie et théologie

Religión

Self-help

Spirituality

Relationship

Religion

Family

Informations

Publié par	AuthorHouse
Date de parution	08 juin 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781665525589
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

A Little More Consideration

RICHARD EHRLICH

© 2021 Richard Ehrlich. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

AuthorHouse™
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: 833-262-8899

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-6655-2557-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-2558-9 (e)

Published by AuthorHouse 07/28/2021

For my par ents,
Manny and Joyce Ehr lich
for my wife,
Liza
and for my sons,
Jacob and Adam
Contents
Eggs Grandma
Salad For Two: A Mexican Love Story
The Fifth Period Dream
Winter Story in a Hot Room
Box Marked “Kosher for Passover”
Israel
The Wedding of Shira and Akiva
In Pursuit of Magic
Mom’s Memories
Of Circles, Presents and Falling Fruit
The Wood That Warms Best
Tikun Olam
Using Ideas As My Maps
Golf Ball on a Tombstone
For my Big Brother, Bobby
Omniscient Narrator
Remembering Dad
Living the Dream
Proof
Peeled Garlic and Bananas
The Better Angel of my Nature
Living in The Buffer Zone
Just Before Sunrise
Ambition
Luck
Rules Are Made To Be Broken
Rejection
Food Shapes
Vision Quest
Maintaining Balance
Scaling the Heights
Love Your Neighbor as You Love Yourself
Dream Time Arising
Finding the Sweet Spot
Six Men and Two Dogs
My Father’s Voice
Preface
Over the years, I remember my mom telling me more than once “Even the President of the United States uses toilet paper.” She said this when she thought I might be doubting myself, when I was facing some challenge that made me hesitate, made me wonder whether I could measure up. She was reminding me that I could play ball with even the smartest and most accomplished of people.
Writing teachers always tell their students “Write about what you know.” How could they write about anything else? My writing comes from my life … from my family and friends, from my pain and joy, from my memories and food and movies and dreams. Part of me is always writing for myself and part of me is always writing for “an audience.” I’m repeatedly telling my students that everything I’m teaching them I’m also teaching myself. The life lessons we glean from literature – or from anywhere else for that matter – aren’t lessons you just learn once and are done; they’re lessons to be learned over and over again until they become bone-deep enough to be part of you.
Although these little snapshots of writing are about my life, I trust that the messages I’m attempting to give myself are messages you can hear too. Come close, lean over my shoulder and read with me. I’m trying to elevate myself in any way I know how. It’s not rocket science, but it’s important stuff. Even the President of the United States uses toilet paper.
Ricky Ehrlich
May 2021

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
These are the opening words to David Copperfield , by Charles Dickens. I like the way they sound here, at the start of my own little book.

Eggs Grandma
She was heavy-set and old, as far back as I can remember. Her face and hands were wrinkled and soft, but strong – something like the ribbed exterior of a bulldog. Thinking back on her now, some three years after her death, takes me to a little shtetl in Poland, to Ellis Island, to the Lower East Side of New York, to Brooklyn in the 1930’s. Her eldest daughter once described what she was like as a young woman – that she was so vibrant, so energetic, so downright powerful, that, when she walked, the ground actually shook! Even now, I’m still not so sure Aunt Helen was speaking figuratively. Because there’s always something remains of youth, of anything we truly were, no matter how far away from it we get.
I remember Grandma cooking and baking at holiday time. We’d all go over there on a Sunday, and she’d be handing out plates of latkes with applesauce, or ahnsitinkin . Maybe the last time I was ever over there with her, she made me something … what was it? I wish I could remember. It was at that last place she lived – sort of an older folks apartment building with rails all over the place, benches, and wheel chair ramps. But it wasn’t as bad as that sounds. It was in Brooklyn somewhere, not far from where she lived most of her life.
Anyway, it was during the day, and I was keeping her company for a couple hours while dad was seeing one of his clients in the area. I remember, before we went up, dad sent me over to the grocery store on the corner for some bread and milk. I’m not sure, but I’d like to think that what Grandma made me that day was ahnsitinkin – loosely scrambled eggs. I’d like to think that because I’m certain she made it for me sometime or other, and I know the entire family has had it, and still does.
It’s a very personal kind of dish/memory for me because of the name – ahnsitinkin . I mean, I could just say “loosely scrambled eggs,” but that’s not all they were. There was something Yiddish in the eggs, in their preparation, their smell, their taste. The eggs were eyes looking back a hundred years to a time and place when Grandma was herself a grandchild eating ahnsiti nkin .
The ways of the old world will never be completely dispensed with, anymore than Grandma’s wrinkles could completely stop the ground from shaking when she walked. However distant and unapproachable that old world is for me, I still yearn for it; it’s still a part of me. Eggs probably smelled the same then as now. Hunger, love, a holiday with grandchildren, and a Grandma cooking and baking, handing out plates to the kinder – all the same, all very much the same. And years from now, still, someone will enjoy a plate of ahnsitinkin , and taste his family.
Salad For Two: A Mexican Love Story
(Inspired by the film, When Harry Met S ally )
Alan and Sheryl were from different worlds, but they both lived in New York. Probably the single major difference between them was that Alan was a man and Sheryl was a woman. This story is not altogether a comedy: it’s funny the way real life is funny; it’s sad the way real life is sad. But I think it’s going to be a basically happy story. After all, in the end, Alan and Sheryl get married and live happily never after. Freudian slip? No; I just want to keep you guessing.
But when I say this is not altogether a comedy, what I mean is, isn’t it true about there being a very significant difference a man and a woman? And I’m not talking penis/vagina here, though somewhere along the line I’m sure that has something to do with it. I’m talking years and years of TV and movies and books and relatives and friends and strangers and dreams giving us all kinds of ideas about what a man is and what a woman is. And then we go through all this stuff and embrace what seems to make sense. But the roles of men and women have become so loaded with history, with herstory, it’s like trying to learn what driving through Kansas is like while sailing out in Amagansett; things have become a bit more complicated, a bit more nuanced, since the days of Adam and Eve. We can never have the clean slate they had; we start with all sorts of markings that both guide and perplex us. But let’s get back to Alan and Sheryl.
In the beginning, they drove each other crazy. One thing in particular he could never understand was that she always read the last page of a book first. This simple fact, in one fell swoop, put to rout everything he believed about order, aesthetics, and the process by which we arrive at meaning. It reminded him of that joke from The Honeymooners when Alice didn’t laugh at Ralph’s joke about the “knight out on a horse.” It wasn’t that Alice had no sense of humor; hers was simply different from his. The same with Alan and Sheryl: they both had order in their lives; they both somehow arrived at meaning. It would take some time, though, before they could drive their separate meanings without crashing into each other.
They had met in a health-food store on Church Avenue in Brooklyn. His girlfriend had left him four months earlier because he wasn’t materialistic enough for her. She had left her boyfriend seven months earlier because, well, it just wasn’t right … Doctor Frankenstein tried to combine different parts of different people and look what he came up with. It just doesn’t work that way. Everybody is a package deal; you pays your price and you takes your pick.
Anyway, he was looking for the Gone Nuts granola and she was looking for some lard-free refried beans. She accidentally knocked down a package of sesame rice cakes and, when they both bent down for it, they knocked heads. A light knock, it wasn’t. She just got a little bump, but he was out cold until they brought him back by spritzing him with some Perrier that was conveniently shelved in the same aisle. The first thing he said to her when he came to was, “Are you OK?” Everyone laughed except for Sheryl. She liked his unselfish concern for her and decided to invite him over for lunch. He accepted, provided she’d let him make the salad. They were to have Mexican.
They never did have Mexican that day. The plan had been for Alan to follow Sheryl over to Park Slope where she had an amazing rent-contr