All this week I’ve been thinking about what holidays are, what we celebrate, and why. And how we can learn to celebrate every single day. It isn’t easy, but in the end, and in the beginning, these days are a thousand times richer (maybe a hundred times richer) when we do.

Tonight is Kol Nidre. The words, in Aramaic, mean “all vows.” We say “Gmar Hatima Tova.” May you all of you be written into the Big Book of Life.

Days of Awe (Friday)

Some people make lists

what they did what they’ll do

listing intentions

some people know exactly what they

want when they shop.

I have been collecting

strangers lists for years.

Sometimes they leave them

in their shopping carts.

A person once wrote

milk eggs orange juice

divorce. Maybe this year I’ll

write a list. Not of intention.s

Just a few good words.

The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are a time when we are supposed to be introspective — to think about what we did, and didn’t do. And reconcile.

Yom Kippur (Saturday)

Tonight after the sun

goes down tonight after we

get the baby from daycare,

we break the fast of atonement

first honey crisp apples

cut Ziggy’s honey

sits in the blue dish he gave us

tonight when storms settle

maybe when Adam and Eve

became Adam and Eve

and maybe not tonight we

every single one of us tonight

no matter what we believe

or where we are tonight we have the chance

the way we do every single day

to start again.

Some of us fast. Some of us don’t. We use these days, these ten days we are given, to think about the year that’s passed, to consider what’s happened, to pray the way we might, and to forgive one another, and ourselves.

Forgive me

forgive me
for arrogance
for acting as though
I know
more than you
as though I know better
wanting you to do things
different from your instincts
you never have to go to the gym
forgive me for all pettiness
all control forgive me for forgetting
love is what matters
and now right now