INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
- DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY: Browse our book, film, and media recommendations and submit your suggestions to the committee
- TO CELEBRATE COORDINATORS: Photo highlights from LLC's Coordinator Thank You party on Dec 1
- SPOTLIGHT/THE MEMOIR: Christmas Tree Complexes by Paul Wortman
From the Diversity Committee
To better appreciate the diverse world in which we live and to encourage more equity and inclusion, the LLC Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee is assembling a bibliography that relates to topics of cultural, religious, and racial diversity as well as providing insights into issues relating to sexual orientation, gender identify and physical and mental disabilities.
Our goal is to expand the DEI Bibliography, in an ongoing basis, by inviting recommendations from the LLC community. Using the link below, please send us comments about media you have personally read or watched - books, films or videos including contemporary or historical fiction, biographies, memoires, non-fiction, children’s books and documentaries.
You can find the DEI Bibliography on the LLC website under Programs > Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or use this link to browse the bibliography, where you can also access the Submission Form.
Please direct your questions to Joan Hausrath at [email protected].
To Celebrate Coordinators
On December 1, Kathy and Mike Webster held a Coordinator Thank You party at the Regency Plaza Apartments. Below are pictures from ”A Good Time Had by All!”
Thank you, Kathy and Mike, for all you do.
Spotlight/The Memoir
A Holiday Perspective
Christmas Tree Complexes
by Paul Wortman
In this troubled world we know that religion is a constant cause of conflict. I’d thought this was something in my external world, outside of my immediate family. I grew up in a Jewish home, but soon became disillusioned with the overly hostile God of the Old Testament. He was too much like my father who used to put “the fear of God” in me by chasing me with a butcher knife. So after my bar mitzvah, I walked out of the synagogue and have rarely returned.
My religious rebellion even extended to my choice of a spouse. My failed graduate school flirtation with the nubile Yvonne was the final proof I needed to embrace my loving shicksa, Camille. She was an equally irreligious, non-congregational Lutheran. Religion was just something that was not a central part of our lives… until, after 16 years of marriage, we had a baby. Suddenly this became an issue. In particular, the celebration of the major religious holidays like Christmas and Chanukah seemed very important.
Camille and I both agreed that we should celebrate both. That meant lighting candles for Chanukah and having a Christmas tree which I affectionately called our Chanukah bush. I was left to my own devices for Chanukah although Camille developed into a world-class latke maker. Of course, it’s simple to buy a menorah – you only have to do it once, and to light candles and chant the prayers. The Christmas tree is quite another matter. Little did I realize that it would tap into some deeper psychological place – one that put Camille and me at odds.
Camille insisted that I participate in the Christmas ritual that involved buying, installing, and decorating the tree. I had no trouble with buying one, although I soon learned that height and a trimmed base were important. Decorating was also relatively easy although tree lights are notoriously unreliable. It was installing the tree where something in the dark shadows of our personalities emerged and created havoc.
The first problem was transporting the tree into the living room and placing it in the stand. The initial wound seemed to be squeezing the tree through passageways that always seemed just a bit too tight. This had the effect of making us both anxious for the next, and often, fatal step of getting the tree in the stand. Somehow the stand was always too small even though we now have a collection of four or five.
This required some last minute cutting. But where was the saw? Who knows? Did the workmen take it? My lack of handiness – my unhandy complex – would then kick in. My neighbor, a Jewish woman also in a mixed marriage, put it succinctly, “Of course, you’re not handy; you’re Jewish.” At this point I was in a very fragile state. Unfortunately, so was Camille.
It took me a while to realize that for her Christmas had to be perfect; and my lack of calm handiness combined with the inevitably balky tree was just the imperfection that would set her off. Soon we’d be two psychotic individuals struggling to force the tree into its stand. Then we’d stand back to see if it was straight – both right to left, and front to back. This seemed completely impossible and we were soon simultaneously reduced to acrimonious blubbering. “A little to the right; now a bit left; oy vey the top is crooked; who picked this pathetic tree with scoliosis anyway?”
Jung says, “Women want completeness while men seek perfection.” Not in our household; not with Camille and me. She is constantly seeking the perfect Christmas holiday that eluded her as a child while I’m trying for completeness in getting the bleeping tree into its hole and escaping from my complex. Ah, the collision of two complexes is like star systems exploding into a supernova – a “terrible beauty is born” to quote the poet, W. B Yeats (Easter, 1916).
Well, now that I’ve retired, Camille and I have declared a truce. I’m no longer allowed anywhere near the Christmas tree except to put presents under it.
Have a Safe and Happy New Year!
Coming in January:
- A Memoir by Bill Hudson: How Some Wholesome Midwestern Kids Found Themselves at One of the Most Renowned Anti-War Protests of the 1960s
- LLC’s trip to the Mystic Seaport Museum to see Sargent, Whistler & Venetian Glass