Missing

in my haste and in my lack of calendar awareness  i started the month of elul a day before it really began—thus i am now painstakingly going back and changing all the dates to accurately reflect the month

this explanation  and then the painstaking task of altering each date will allow me to arrive at the end of the month at the appropriate time

you ask why this is important— well to cite an important reference— there’s a time for everything—and rushing past a day, or losing a day alters the earth’s rotation and my sense of order

i blissfully was unaware of the error until i found myself looking at a calendar for the year 5778 and understood my miscounting

of course sometimes we telescope time — the year my father and lung cancer wrestled for time my mother called me and said can you fly down for a thanksgiving dinner a week after the usual day — by that time she explained it would be ten days after my dad’s chemo and perhaps he could enjoy some of his favorites

so we celebrated thanksgiving ten days after the official date with a turkey that was surrounded by our family’s usual accouterments

my father sat at the head of the table and ate a small amount of all the dishes and said it was the best meal — my mother, a notorious poor cook— had ordered in the entire meal—the turkey was already cut and then miraculously put back together so that it looked as if it was waiting for the knife

 sometimes you just need to alter time