Simcha

No...not my cat...the Hebrew word:

Simcha (Hebrew: שִׂמְחָה‎ śimḥāʰ; Hebrew pronunciation: [simˈχa], Yiddish pronunciation: [ˈsɪmχə]) is a Hebrew word with several meanings. Literally, the word "simcha" means gladness, or joy. It comes from the root word "sameyach," which means glad or happy.

I had a simcha moment this morning.  Of a sudden, and for no apparent reason, I had a moment of pure joy this morning.  It washed over me like a wave of gladness and I thought to myself "I am happy and I want every one around me to feel this way".  Of course it passed.  But for that brief moment all was right with my world.  I wonder if this is the moment one has before dying (just saying).  Not that I thought I would drop dead from my simcha moment.  OK, so for maybe a moment I thought I would drop dead. But if that had happened I would have died in a moment of pure joy.

Percy came over with Phyllis last night and we discussed my pal Jerry's memorial service planned for the 29th of September at 9:00 a.m. (y'all come!).  We are planting Jerry's ashes, along with that of his beloved cat Sassy, with a sugar maple.  A memorial tree.  It will stand guard on campus forever and a day and will line the sidewalk Jerry took every day to the Union and back and then back again on his way home.  Percy has a nice brief service planned and we are taking a page from a Jewish service, i.e., having those who want to shovel a trowel full of ashes in the ground to do so.  Ostensibly this is done at Jewish services for the reason that we had help coming into this work so should we have help leaving.  Jerry left over two years ago and his ashes have been well traveled since but now he will go to his final rest and this, I hope bring closure.  Up until now it did not feel as if I had any real closure.  But with the service I hope to bring to an end the transitional phase of my life, my life from Highland Street to the condo, and now I am in a much better place.  My simcha place. So maybe this is why I had a simcha moment this morning.  The coming closure of a chapter in my life.  A chapter of sorrow and of some joy but not to the extent that I feel happy in the "nowness" of this moment.  Yes, dear friends, I am living in the moment and that moment feels right.  A simcha place.

And, yes indeed I have a cat name of Simcha, who is.  He is the embodiment of all that is joyous.  Although some days he prefers to be called either Francois or Sven, depending on his mood and my own.  Gonif has morphed into Eduardo, although he is still my little Gonif, the one who stole my heart.  He'll be nine in October, but is still very kittenish.  Then there is the big boy, Yankel (Yiddish for Jacob) who now prefers the monikers of either Moshe or Raul depending on the day of the week.   See in spite of having various simcha moments though out the day I really have no life.  No, but seriously folks, I do have a life.  It includes the silliness of renaming my cats depending on my whimsies.  And whimsical I am.  And I enjoy being silly.  Silly is what wrought the break between the Soul Sucker.  She had no whimsy.  Still doesn't I suspect.  This being silly brings me jollity much like Jupiter is the bringer of Jollity (see: Gustav Holst's the Planets).  Really we could refine the term simcha to be a moment of joyous silliness.

I love to laugh.  It keeps the tears at bay.  Sophie and I make each other laugh and lighten our day.  When she retires in December (oops, the cat is out of the bag) I shall miss her constantly.  Her sense of humor meshes so seamlessly with my own.  And we are silly.  Lowbrow silly.  Nothing makes us laugh harder that the natural passage of gas.  See Sophie is on some medication that makes her, well, belch.  Her gas attacks just make me laugh as they are so monumental as to shake the library.  A helluva good medication that is.  And it was these belches that angered the Soul Sucker to the point where she accused Sophie of doing this on purpose to annoy her.  Not so.  They are the natural byproduct of medication.  Sorry to say I laugh out loud.  The more outrageous the belch the better my laughter is and, as they say, laughter is the best medicine.  Another simcha moment has passed as has gas.  [if you recall Sophie originally had the name of Gastric but upon accompanying me to West Bloomfield in Michigan to see a production of "Old Jews Telling Jokes" she became my close and personal friend Sophie Horowitz].

So keep the laughter coming.  Keep those simcha moments coming.  I will take it all.   And away we go.