Around Labor Day

Each year around Labor Day I read Robert Pinsky’s poem, Shirt. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47696/shirt.  It’s one of a handful of poems, his poem, The Night Game, is another, that caused me to fall back in love with poetry when I was in my late 30’s, combining, as they do, my own interests in history, language and Jewish culture and their various intersections and collisions. My copy of Pinsky’s book, The Want Bone, has been well worn over the years.

It’s another pandemic Labor Day with things so muddled it’s hard to have a sense of what the future might hold. Though it’s too soon to tell, the pandemic seems to have reshaped work and how we think about it, but the “we” I am speaking of implies a sense of choice not available to so many in the world, and the choice to not return to a soul stripping job often involves difficult trade-offs and costs. 

A shirt is a sturdy thing, and during the pandemic I have found myself wearing the same few over and over. I have lost much interest in things. Whether this is a product of my own age or the situation of spending so much time alone and indoors, hard to say. 

But a shirt is also a made thing, and I have never lost my sense of wonder about our ability to make things and to make those things beautiful.

Although the weather today is cool and beautiful, Labor Day weekend also brings me a sense of melancholy. The end of summer, a time of change, and while change can be exciting, that’s not always the case. It’s the time of year of my husband’s brief final illness, and the seasonal change triggers memories. I am wearing a shirt that I purchased at a local crafts fair because of its fall colors.

The weather disguises the deadly storm two days ago. All around debris stacked on the curbs. People drowned in their cars and basements. I dream of the sensation of drowning

So much like the weather on 9/11, a perfect almost fall day, the sky blindingly blue. Twenty years ago next week. Shirts flying as people leaped from the towers. The videos of them falling arenot shown over again on reruns, only the airplanes crashing into the buildings. 

And the New Year has come around again. With it the debates of whether school should be held on Rosh Hashanah. Because the school year begins in September, it has always seemed to me like the right time to celebrate the New Year. 

I usually attend services on the High Holidays. Today I will buy apples and honey in anticipation of celebrating. It’s comforting. Some years are better some are worse.

So please celebrate the Holidays, or anything else you feel like celebrating, with ALTE by Zoom on October 3, at 7 pm. Details will follow.

The deadline for submissions for the next issue of ALTE is November 15. The theme is “Suddenly.” We look forward to seeing your work.

Wishing you and yours a Sweet New Year!

Jessica