Born to Kvetch

 

On a recent visit to Amsterdam, (May, 2023), we visited the famous 1639 Portuguese synagogue, which still serves the Sephardic community of Amsterdam today. At the bookstore, Michael Wex's book on the Yiddish language, Born to Kvetch, leaped out to me. What a photo! Well, I had to purchase a copy. which proved to be a very good read.

You see, although I don't wear a bowler hat and do not sport my forelocks in a payes, I, too, was born to kvetch, no doubt about it. (Kvetch is a Yiddish word meaning to complain. I noticed, months later, that the winning word in the National Spelling bee was knaidel, dumpling, which was pronounced in three syllables, The Yiddish kn is, however, monosyllabic. Well, I would have won that spelling bee, along with the Indian youth who won the prize. No surprises there, once I saw a comedy sketch in which an Indian boy won first prize in Ebonics), but the youth who won the spelling bee apparently had no idea what the word knaidel meant.

I kvetch a lot. I sometimes feel quite inadequate, blaming myself for not helping my fellow human beings enough. And I kvetch about being old and afflicted with Parkinson's Disease; I torture myself that it might now be too late to accomplish things I would like.

Dorsett, stop complaining!  You still can talk; you still can walk; you still can write.

Yes, you still can walk, albeit with a cane. Maybe a little gratitude will help unkvetch the frown on your face when you  just have to sit down. So I decided to try it.   

So many things I take for granted. With a flip of a switch, day extends into the night. With a flip of the wrist, I experience the benefits of indoor plumbing. Though my handwriting has become unreadable, I can still tap words into my computer. I have friends; I have acquaintances. Even more important, I have a wonderful wife and a wonderful son. Though I don't see well at all, I am not totally blind, and still can read with the help of large-print books.  I've reached old age, no longer dependent on a so-called living wage. As my stepfather once said, any day that you're still breathing is a good day. Or as a comedian once said, if you're not in the obituary, eat breakfast. I shall with a smile. 

Yeah, right. I repeat: Dorsett, stop kvetching!

2.

For our nature book club, we recently read  a very good book, The Bird Way, by Jennifer Ackermann. We  learned that 'bird brain' is an unfair characterization of the neurology of birds. The neurons are small, yes but they pack a whallop. Birds are even theorized to start fires, so they can have easy access to stampeding prey. Some species, such as turkey vultures, use their keen sense of smell to locate carrion. Corvids and parrots are amazing problem-solvers. The species variation is great, although it’s hard to agree  with the alas! part of pigeons on the grass, alas, alas—pigeons are not the brightest bulbs in the avian kingdom, although they are far from simple.

Observing birds closely, I decided I needed to add a bird house to my back yard. My son Philip purchased a see-through bird house of clear plastic which I could attach to my window. This allows us to watch birds eat the feed we have placed in the bird house. We got to know a cardinal pair, (Cardinal Joseph and Sunyatta) and Morris the squirrel; plus a host of many other birds.

As you might imagine, it inspired me to write a poem, “The Diaphanous Bird House,” which follows:

John feels he has seeds left to scatter

Before he unmatters forever--

Soon, on the snowside of the glass,

Scarlet amazement appears.

 

The cardinal takes what Crumplejohn offers:

A handful of protein, caraways seeds.

A robin alights; a squirrel approaches;

Red wings soar skyward; John disappears.

John’s ego disappears at the amazing sight; for a while there is no border between the world and him. (I hope he doesn’t come across as being too ‘crumpled.’) John was ecstatic, that is, beside himself with joy. A good approximation about how I felt.

O the glorious existence of nature, who is neither a he, she, or it. Existence without ego is the garden of Eden, which is populated not only by birds, but by (sometimes) wise flightless beings, us—we sometimes come close to reality and all of us can put in effort to come closer. But there is a catch.

Birds are ‘nervous,’ always on alert for potential predators. . If, say, a sparrow weren’t alert and ready to fly away at the slightest hint of danger, from a perceived threat to a warning call from fellow feathered creature, how long would the sparrow survive? If a sparrow’s perennial alertness relaxed, you’d find more satisfied raptors in the world than there actually are. Birds have to be always alert; if not, there wouldn’t be any birds.

So here’s another reason not to kvetch. Humans are no longer prey to other animals. We don’t have to worry—the vast majority of us, at least—that a tiger or bear is going to pounce and remove us from Earth as efficiently as an eagle with a mouse in its talons.

So be thankful! And let me end with a final kvetch. Human beings prey on each other.  homo homini lupusi man is wolf to ,man. (Which is an insult to wolves; wolves  need to hunt to feed fellow wolves; their ‘evil’ is thus severely limited.

So be thankful that planes overhead contain passengers and not bombs. Be thankful and do what you can to bring peace to those areas where planes drop bombs.

So let me be very thankful for what we have. While it lasts. Stop kvetching and start helping~ Kvetching doesn’t do any good. I have, in my old age, still a lot to learn.