Warm Weather Tuesday... 3 Days Left of the Atlantic Hurricane Season

Not sure which is better... days left of the Hurricane Season or how many days til Chanukah? I better start shopping or thinking or looking or cooking.. something.. Then there is Yud Tes Kislev. What to do there? Where to go?

Found an incredible book yesterday in a Jewish Library I am working at this week. A book with pictures of chassidic groups that was put together back in the early 60s; Lubavitch being a chassidic group it made the book. There I was, transported back to the hair styles and fashions of my earliest connections to Chabad.. a little before my mother actually connected but early enough to know faces and people and say "oh my gosh, that's ______ " at that Chupah in their Sukkah. Turning pages as I traveled back in time to a place I can see in my eyes, very alive, very still there somewhere in my memory I suppose. Early Crown Heights... before the young Yuppie like Chabad kids took over the "Heights" and everything changed. Turning pages, one by one and suddenly there was this picture of the Rebbe standing in front of his chair, mid-prayer and he must have turned to look at the photographer... the eyes of the Rebbe just stare right into your soul in that picture. Like so many I have seen but more so and it took me a few minutes to realize he was younger there than he had been when I met him but still he had the same look. You couldn't stop staring at the picture if you saw it... eats a hole in you and right through you. Can't say it automatically changes you but it grabs you and connects you. Okay...it's the view from where I used to daven in 770, women's side.. first shul as you walked in near Kingston and Eastern Parkway (old shul.. not the new little one they opened on the other side later) and where Chaya and I would stand on Friday nights because she shlepped me out early as soon as we lit candles to walk in my high platform 1970s heels all the way down Montgomery .. up Kingston.. UP Kingston and to 770 so we (she) had a good place with the rest of our class. Yup, that photographer had to be standing right below where I used to stand. Yes.. I am obsessing. Why? Don't know why but because it's one of those things.

Sometimes you can be transported back to a certain time or place. A sound (the wind), a scent, an aroma, a favorite movie, a favorite song... you are zoom, zoom, zoomed back in time and space to where you were standing when you saw the Rebbe, watched the Dolphins win in 72 at the Orange Bowl, Grandma's kitchen, a strong cold front blasting it's way down to Miami and walking to school... walking UP Kingston Avenue :)

Hurricane Season of 2006 is coming to a close... an end... an official end of sorts. Unofficially it ended when El Nino began to dance in colors orange and red in the Pacific Ocean early in the summer.

Holiday Season of 2006 is beginning. Choose your holiday wisely :) Decorate your home and hearth. Send cards online or offline to those you love. Concentrate on memories.. old ones, new ones, making memories. Concentrate on the power of miracles and love and happiness spreading out... yeah I sound real new Agey don't I this morning?

3 Days left of the Atlantic Hurricane Season. Give thanks to the Lord that you didn't see the likes of Joyce and Michael and all those other storms that never formed. Storm trackers will as always sit in front of old video on TWC or watch Twister or their favorite Hurricane movie and remember... but our blue roof tops are getting ready for the holidays and though there is no snow on our roof tops in Miami..somewhere, someone is getting snowed on today.

Winter is here.. even if in Miami it's warm and the Heat won last night with my Rivky in the audience (and on TV) and I am going to work in sandals today and not my suede boots.

Somewhere inside my mind it is Yud Tes Kislev and I am standing in high platform heels and a warm winter coat at 3am in the morning waiting outside in front of 770 with my class who insisted they would NOT go to school the next day but did anyway... waiting for the Rebbe to walk out after a Fahrbregen and smile at us and make with his hand and laugh as he got into his car and the driver drove away and we ... walked back UP Kingston Avenue to Montgomery Street and home... waiting to see if snow would or wouldn't fall the next day.

Memories.. misty water colored memories...of the Way We Were...