Editor’s note Re: Summer Hours
As you may have noticed, things are slowing down a bit over here at TPR. I’ve been researching the pleasures of summer, taking copious notes that will be turned into essays coming your way in the fall. Until then, I’m taking a break from the newsletter. I hope you are finding a way to some version of that yourselves. For paying readers, thank you for supporting this endeavor. I’ll be hitting pause on your subscription this month, too. Happy summer, all.
Lately, I have been noting the portals in my life, thinking about them as a chance to leave something behind and an chance to call in something new. I have been walking through doors saying, “tada!” as though everything were different on the other side.
In the USA, there might be no bigger portal than Ellis Island where nearly 12 million immigrants passed through on their way to a new life. I visited Ellis Island a few weeks ago as a part of a family reunion.
Joe’s grandmother Gertie was the youngest of eight siblings born to Sarah and Avram Polinofsky in Ukraine outside Kyiv. They farmed and sold sheet metal until Avram died at age 35. In 1909, with anti-Semitic violence on the rise, the oldest son, Jack, was sent to America. His instructions were to rent a house and prepare for the rest of the family to arrive. It took five years. In 1914, with war breaking out, Sarah and her remaining children began their voyage to America.
The descendants of Sarah and Avram have continued to gather. This year we met up in New York City. On the Friday evening of our reunion, the elders lit Shabbat candles and retold the story of how Sarah and her children were stopped at sea for three days while the captain of their German ship negotiated a safe passage through American waters. They recounted how family members supported one another as they learned new trades and established themselves as builders, artists, entrepreneurs, economists, and activists. It reminds me of how the retelling of the Exodus story at Passover reinforces the narrative and also resonates in a new way every time. This year, I was thinking about the wisdom of leaving when they did.
On Saturday evening, we boarded a boat to Ellis Island for a private tour. As we approached the dock, I could imagine mothers and fathers jostling luggage down the ramp and calling out in Russian and Yiddish for their children to stay close. Behind us was the infirmary where those deemed ill or emotionally unstable were housed before being returned to their homeland. In front of us was an enormous three-story, red-brick building with spires rising from four corners. Park rangers ushered us inside and upstairs to the great hall where arched windows frame an immense open space. Our voices bouncing off the vaulted ceramic ceiling were a distant echo of the millions of immigrants who were interviewed, examined, and sent home or onward into the great unknown. As we wandered through the exhibitions, I was surprised by how sacred it felt to be there.
Sometimes we choose to step into the unknown for a little excitement. More often though, as in the case of Joe’s ancestors and millions of immigrants who are still on the move today, we are thrust into the unknown. Portals mark the transition.
As we waited for the boat to bring us back to Manhattan, with a crescent moon rising just above the Lady Liberty, we set up a speaker on the dock. Four generations of Polinofskys and their partners had an impromptu dance party. Sarah and Avram, I am sure, would have approved.
May there be epic portals in your near future.
My favorite portals:
The Big Bang
FROM THE INSTITUTE OF PLEASURE STUDIES
Here’s a summer viewing/reading that will make you feel good about feeling good.
Netflix’s Principles of Pleasure is a 3-part documentary series about my favorite topics: sex, joy and science.
And then there is Good Luck to You, Leo Grande on Hulu about a recently retired widow who hires a sex worker. In the words of RogerEbert.com, “What happens between them is, of course, sexual, but so much else is going on. Fascinating philosophical territory opens up, where things like intimacy, aging, and the importance of sexual pleasure, whether it's with yourself or with someone else, enter the room.”
If you want to situate pleasure in a more political context, adrienne marie brown wrote a fabulous essay over at YES! Magazine titled, The Power of Pleasure. “Feeling good is not frivolous,” brown writes. “it is a measure of freedom—not just the physical freedom of the body to pursue the pleasures of the flesh, but also the mental, emotional, and spiritual freedom to feel content, happy, and present in our brief and potent lives.”