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rathole3

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The World Famous Rat Hole #3

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Tareisia K. Simmons -- Leonie, our freshman humanities tutor, did not show up for dinner tonight. She arrived after eating Sunday brunch at North Star (luck stiff even though she does have finals), and helped out in the tutorie for three hours and then had to work on her own paper that is due Tuesday, and we did not have an available computer for her. She studied economics for a while and then took off at 5pm to go write her paper and said to put her food on a tray and she'd be back late for supper.

By 10pm there was no sign of Leonie. Naama was worried. She called Leonie on her cell phone and left a message. Fifteen minutes later, Leonie called back. She was in Marth Vann Renseleer writing her paper. No she had not had dinner. Yes she was fine.

"Could you handle a study break?" Aunt Naama asked her.

Leonie said in an hour or so she might be able to fit one in. The paper was nearly done and she lives in High Rise One anyway. Naama came out in to the study lounge which is our dining room when we are not eating and saw me. She also saw Basia who was doing math problems and Isabella who was doing the same. She asked me if I felt sleepy. I said I am never sleepy. Basia said she liked to study at night, and Isabella is an insomniac as a side effect of her ADHD meds so Aunt Naama did not have to ask her. "Would you three ladies like to take some food to Leonie? She skipped supper to write a paper tonight."

Naama Roth -- Basia went out with Leonie and Caufeld early Sunday morning to make the long trip to Brooklyn, New York and then on to Lakewood, New Jersey to recover the posessions she left behind when she ran away from home.

That this was not an easy trip went without saying. Basia is Chasidic. I think the present tense is still fair. If you want to say she has abandoned Chasidus, a branch of ultra Orthodox Judaism, fine. I would counter that she has fled. If you want to say she has fled Judaism, you are dead wrong. Basia is still Jewish and still what some people would call frum but which I, who don't speak Hebrew or Yiddish, call observant. There are many Jews at Rose Among Thorns Ithaca, or the Maw, as Leonie, our freshman humanities tutor, named it. Many of them are observant, often frervrently so and others more quietly observant. I fall in to the latter category. Basia is a good kid who is likely to stay on the straight and narrow.

That is not what her parents wanted. I don't mean they wanted her to crash and burn. They wanted something else and that was for Basia to play second fiddle behind the males who are permitted a more important, more highly valued diet of religious studies. Basia was given secular stuides with some religious stuides mixed in so that she could teach nursery school, balance the books for a schlaiach husband some day etc... Basia caught on to this arrangement.

Well more precisely Basia fell in love with her secular subjects some time late in middle school. By the time she reached high school she was sneaking off to the public library and since its hours were largely, she found her way on to the campus of Georgian Court College. She made her way past the gate house by showing her school ID and saying quite earnestly she had come to study in the library. A girl dressed in frum gear, a below the knees skirt, tights, and long sleeves looks a bit like a young nun only more so and in she went.

I later found out what Basia read on the net was the New York Times. Other times she read books for which she had no circulating priviledges. She was subject to long lectures. She got good at refuting the lectures. Finally, by eleventh grade, Basia found herself in AP courses and realized she wanted the rest of that college education when she was old enough. If Georgian Court was too much of an embarassment for her family (It is a Roman Catholic female college), then why not Rutgers or even Sterne in New York City. Sterne College for Women is part of Yeshiva University. Basia even suggested Brandeis. Of course Basia got on one of those college lists that everyone who takes the PSAT's gets on and now the mailbox was filling with secular college ads and driving her parents nuts.

Basia quickly learned that michala, as private relgiious schools for girls are known, had no advice for a young woman wanting to attend an accredited four year college in the secular world. Basia at this point decided she wanted to transfer to the local public schools as a good transition to going to college in the outside world.

I am not describing all the fireworks that went on at home. Somewhere in all this Basia had learned about Rose Among Thorns and another Lubavitch girl who had run away. Rose Among Thorns emphasized secular education and maybe the schools in Syracuse, New York were better than the ones in Lakewood, New Jersey. Basia grabbed a few changes of underwear, her not warm enough winter coat, two pairs of shoes, her favorite books and slipped out on the bus. She took another bus, a Greyhound, to Syracuse and Marguerite found her on the doorstep.

Marguerite did not want a sixteen year old disciple. I've since found out, Basia failed miserably in the tutorie. She has no patience with teaching and is just too culturally different to reach younger kids which is all a sixteen year old can tutor. She could do an occasional kid her own age or a year older but that was it. The idea of putting Basia to work in a kitchen did not occur to Marguerite and Basia did not volunteer. Lubavitchers have an idea about a hierarchy of work which puts coarse jobs at the bottom. I have no such idea and Basia is half useful as a cook.

Marguerite's reasoning was the Basia needed to work under someone who was not Lubavitch to see if she really liked living in secular society. I put Basia back in touch with her parents and made sure they knew where she was. Basia is old enough they can't make her come back against her will. The stuff issue reared its ugly head within the first few days. I don't know what Lubavitch women in Lakewood do all winter, but Basia's clothing was not warm enough for the time she would be spending outside in an Ithaca winter. I bought her a coat.

Basia said the coat made her father call her a goy. Her grandmother asked if she was dating nonJewish boys. Everyone reminded her how she put her own and her sisters' marriage prospects at stake. Basia said it would all blow over by the time the sisters were old enough to marry. Besides Basia had no intention of shaming the family beyond getting a secular education. Basia can be wonderfully stubborn at times.

Suffice it to say, Leonie and Gravid Pua got Basia's stuff along with Basia herself. Caufeld who did the driving slept in the car while the arguing, crying, wringing of hands, and stuff retrieval went on. Basia came home.

She turned to me as we were washing up in the bathroom last night and said. "I'm glad I left home. I love my family, but I'm still glad. They asked. 'Is doing what you want that important?' I asked back 'Doesn't my happiness count?'"

I wanted to tell Basia it was her future that counted. Last night Basia under the quilt she was given as a baby. It is patched in some places but the design is wedding rings. Basia showed me the quilt. It's here with her now and will go to college with her some day if she goes away and doesn't commute from this house to Cornell. Basia's sights now are higher than Rutgers or Georgian Court. Basia has yet to ask why she has to pay such a heavy price just to be who she is. I'm kind of glad she is waiting to ask that question. It doesn't really have an answer.

Naama Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns -- #2 -- The Maw

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

I shrugged. The fresh air would do Isabella good and I liked Leonie because she was brilliant. We don't usually have freshpeople as tutories but Leonie can write with elegance and flare and no she is not an English major or even a linguistics major like Sherman who is definitely not vermin. She is an undecided artsie from Ocean Township New Jersey.

A few minutes later we had a vinyl zipper pack full of leftover potato salad, some extra cheese whirls, and several pieces of fruit. I got to carry the food. We crossed the Charles Street Bridge foot bridge and headed up Iron St. to Eddy Street in College Town. Martha Van Renseleer Hall was on the Hum Ec (short for Human Ecology) which was north of the Ag Quad and east of Clark Library.

For a while we just walked and said nothing. It was a cold night and we had to watch out for patches of black ice and even grey ice on the sidewalks. After a time Basia spoke. "This is a big little city," she said of College Town in particular and Ithaca in general.

"It's a sad little place in the day time," answered Isabella.

"Yes, but it's all full of smart people," Basia replied.

"Book learning doesn't make you smart," snapped Isabella.

"Then what does?" I asked. I figured the answer was going to be fun.

"Creativity," Isabella replied.

We cut through an alley and up on to College Avenue and then toward the stores, restaurants, and bars that were still doing a brisk business.

Basia asked if we ever went to any of these places. "I sometimes go to College Town Bagels," I told her.

"Most of the time we're too broke," Isabella corrected me. "Besides they feed you for free at the house. Why spend money for it in restaurants?"

"Is the food good?" Basia asked.

"The bagels are OK," I said. "They're more a snack than anything else. If you can get one of the college students who's on a meal plan to take you to North Star for Sunday brunch go for it. They get four guest passes a semester."

Isabella snorted. The idea of even excellent Cornell Dining type cafeteria food did not interest her in the slightest.

Then we came on to the campus. Basia gasped at the lit up buildings of the engineering quad, so I suggested we cut through there and then head up past Sage which houses the Graduate School of Management and Uris Hall which is the psychology building and also known as Old Rusty, and then on toward Rockefeller and the Rockefeller-Baker-Clark courtyard.

"This place is amazing," sighed Basia. "Some day I'm going to go here."

"You have to have the grades, Isabella reaminded her.

"I'll have the grades," Basia snorted back. "This place beats the pants off of Stern." Stern is Stern College for Women which is part of Yeshiva University. "My parents wouldn't let me go to Stern anyway. They feared too many nonLubavitchers would corrupt me. I don't know, you have to go a long way to get corrupted don't you think?"

I thought about it. "I think people get corrupted for fun," I said.

Basia blinked. "They get involved in stuff for kicks and it is fun to be evil and do really rotten things for a while and then those things turn around and turn on you and start acting really evil in their own right."

"You mean like drinking or doing drugs," said Isabella.

I nodded. "The only problem," I continued, "is that most people who get in trouble never get corrupted. They just get a run of bad luck. They get hurt or sick and people depend on them so when they go down, they take everyone else with them.... They don't get to have any fun... not at the beginning...not ever."

"I don't think my dad was courrpted," said Isabella to no one. "I think he married a *BLEEP* for a second wife and when she got pissed off she accused him of a pack of lies, but the cops believed her and now.... my dad's in hiding and I can't even write to him order of protection or no order of protection. How dumb is that?"

"My parents believe I have to always be around taking care of my brothers and sisters and that I can't go to a regular university even if I have the best grades in the world and I get yelled at if I read the New York Times...the New York Times or La Monde. Is that crazy?" asked Basia. "People don't believe me when I tell them."

"I thought they call you selfish," I said.

"The ones who believe me call me selfish," she answered. "That's my cousin Pua who just got married and in six months a little Pua will come along except they'll probably name her Mushka. Call it a crisis of imagination," Basia sighed.

We passed through the Clark Library breezeway and on to the Ag Quad and then cut between two new and tall buildings toward the matronly outline of Martha Van Renseleer Hall. The computer room was in the basement, but Leonie was in the lounge studying economics again. We set out the food for her and she asked if we were hungry. I was thirsty and I bought the two new fosters Cokes from the vending machines and got one for myself. We sat and studied for an hour or two and then around midnight headed home.

I knew I'd find Naama waiting up for me. "Cornell is so beautiful," Basia greeted her.

"Glad you liked it," she told our newest foster.

Then she turned to Isabella and asked how the Math 3 was coming along. She said she was up for the test on Monday. "Math isn't all that bad if you keep at it," she smiled. The walk had settled her down.

That left just me and I wanted a hot shower. Fortuantely, we had plenty of hot water in the tank. I changed in to my bed things and lay on my bed reading. After a time, Naama came in. "Is Leonie OK?" Naama asked me.

I said she looked a bit tired but otherwise was fine. She had finished her paper but was busting her tail on macroeconomics. The exam was at 10:15am tomorrow and she had to beat something called a section mean and her section was good but that made the mean very mean. "I think I'd like to learn statistics some day," I told Aunt Naama.

"Some day, you will," she answered, "and hopefully not because you have to figure out where you landed on a prelim or final exam curve."

Tareisia K. Simmons

Rose Among Thorns -- #2

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

Mendel Menachem Schneerson Roth -- "We're going where?" I asked Tareisia who stood making little puff-puffs of her breath in wet grey air. "To Cornell to look for wood scraps so that Isabella can build a paper making frame."

Isabella shifted from one foot to the other. Basia had a backpack swollen with library books. She likes to read and study. She was a good Chasidic girl and is still a good one. Roberta, Brittany, and Lindsay (Same name as an art student but a middle school student) started kicking a stray pebble around. We have ice in places but not much snow so our whole world looks pretty grey and dead.

"Why do you want to make paper?" I asked of Isabella.

"Why not?" she asked back as if there should be no why. "Look at Basia. She reads."

"Basia likes to read. I do too sometimes if a book interests me. Lindsay ((This time it's the art student)), got me some paper making books from that library in Sibley, remember..."

I shook my head. "Come on guys," Tareisia called out. "I've got to be in the kitchen by five. Dinner is late but I'm on crew and so are you, Mendel." A few minutes later we started to slog up the stairs. Basia does not have decent boots for these long walks because they were not part of her day back in Lakewood. Taresisia and Naama have no mercy upon her as far as walking is concerned. Last night they turned her out for a six mile round trip to visit a starving student named Leonie. Naama believes the endless walking in the cold weather will toughen up weak and sickly children and youth. She does not realize that Basia is from a refined background.

Basia is good natured though and did not complain even when she had to climb the narrow metal stairs behind Fall Creek Elementary and up to Ithaca Gun. We came up to Cornell by way of West Campus and Stewart Avenue. We climbed the stairs through the Baker Memorial Arch. Unlike me, Basia adores architecture and was awed by the fake Gothic dormitories. At the Memorial Arch, Basia wanted to read the names of the fallen soldiers. She sighed as she read them; for she has tender emotions. Then it was time to climb up Libe Slope. The trails were icey and patches and the grass muddy. I got the bottom of my pants and my shoes muddy.

"Just wipe it on the grass," Tareisia advised me. Roberta, Brittany, and young Lindsay were talking school and sports and singing. "Unity has finals so we don't have practice until she's through," Tareisia interjected.

"That EXPLETIVE DELETEDS," complained Roberta.

"Big time," answered young Lindsay, and Brittany just nodded.

"Whew that sculpture's impressive," Isabella pointed out a bunch of wooden sticks that met at the top like an Indian teepee without skins that sat on the slope by the Johnson Art Museum. I just thought it was empty. Basia shrugged. "You have to walk around it. It's just a shape, but there's something in it."

"You're seeing things that aren't there like that Chung woman," I told Isabella.

Isabella had to put twenty five cents in the epithet jar for what she told me to do.

We reached the top of Libe Slope exhuasted and sweaty and began our journey toward's Sibley and Rand. The scrap pile was behind the foundry and the second was in a corner of a second floor classroom. Old Lindsay had confided all this to Isabella and Tareisia acted as guard dog to the sacred precincts of Sibley Hall. I decided I would rather learn and headed for the Green Dragon, the coffee shop in the basement. Basia joined me.

I wondered if I should advise her to return to her family who miss her terribly and who love her. I asked if she was homesick and if she found this whole errand outlandish. She said she has work to do and didn't feel like talking. She pulled her cardigan tighter around herself and adjusted her open coat on the back of a chair.

Basia worked on her math problems for a while and then put them aside. She took out a notebook and her book that she is reading for one of those book reports and read some and then wrote down some and then read some more and wrote down some more. This is a reading journal, something Leonie, the freshperson humanities tutor, and our little star, advised Basia to keep. Basia is not used to writing opinion papers so Leonie is teaching her how.

Just then the crowd led by Tareisia busted through the Green Dragon's front door. Isabella headed for the counter and asked the proprietor for something. The proprietor returned with two empty boxes. Isabella and the mob exited and returned not long after with the boxes filled with scrap and screening.

Isabella's face was flushed with joy. "Lindsay is going to lend me her straight edge and drafting tools so we can draw up the plans when finals are over," she said. "I'm going to make several small screens instead of one large one. It will make less mess in the shed anyway."

I shrugged. "It's just craft work!" I finally blurted out.

"You need craft to make art," answered Isabella.

"But you're making paper" I told her.

"That's a kind of art, making fancy paper with different textures. It's similar to collage."

"Mendel," sais Basia. "People like stuff. I like to read about computers and world events and pollution and ways to fix it. That's stuff. The rabbis would call it material, but it's not corrupt...stuff. Most stuff is good stuff. Is making paper corrupt?"

"It's not your parnassa."

"We get pocket money or support and work for the house so that's are parnassa," Basia straighented me out. "This is stuff done because you feel the need."

"And is that a good reason, nu?"

"It's an excellent reason," replied Isabella. "What other reason is there."

"God made me to have an interest in things. There are lots of things so there are lots of interests. There are some bad things, but most things are good, nu yourself..." Basia told me.

"You really believe that."

"Why did I leave my family to shiver upstate?" she all but spat at me.

"But would you die to make papers or read the New York Times?"

"I'd die if I couldn't do some kind of art or something with pictures or shapes," answered Isabella. "I'd shrivel up and dry out inside. I'd starve. This is the part of me that's true to me, that no one can keep away with an order of protection and that can't run off and hide."

I stared at the snow. Didn't any of these women realize there was a higher spiritual order to things? I reminded myself that this is why women are meant to marry and have children. They have a connection to the earth as well as a higher more intuitive soul that does not need the external reinformcement, but to lose oneself in reading about politics or making paper which is a silly pursuit since there are factories that make fine paper and the idea of making weird useless paper just for the fun of it and feel of it, is just useless...silliness...

We walked through the engineering quad on our way home. Basia insisted. Something about the buildings with their austeer steel, glass, and brick and their bright lights pleased her. "Do you want to be an engineer some day?" I asked her.

"Maybe," she answered. "I'm not sure yet. I like that it's practical..."

"If you can stand all the math," sighed Roberta.

"I like math. I have the discipline for it."

"Thanks to your good parents," I reminded Basia.

"You could be right," she told me and we let it go there. We were in College Town by now and I prayed to HaShem that we did not stop to buy treif bagels and other treif treats made without proper supervision. We didn't. Tareisia was hording her money. We found the alley down on to Eddy St. and then to Iron St. and then headed over the big cement foot bridge that crosses Six Mile Creek. Despite the warm weather, there was ice on some of the branches of trees and bushes down in the gorge. We then headed up Charles St. back to Hillview Place.

We were late and Tamima who had charge of the kitchen was ready to show no mercy to Tareisia or me. "We've brought help!" Tareisia called out. "Many hands make light work."

"How good are those hands?" asked Tamima.

"My mother taught me to cook," said Roberta. Basia stared at the floor.

"Go, wash your hands," Tamima told Basia. "You're only useless if you act useless, get it. I need you to peel carrots and then set some water to boil for blanching. Can you peel me twenty carrots?"

"Twenty?" asked Basia.

"I'm making sure we have leftovers. People are coming here for lunch after finals and I want there to be something besides cheese and bread...got that. And don't disturb Naama. Her topology final is tomorrow at 8am. She's had to write a paper most of the weekend and she's playing catch up...got that?"

Basia just nodded her head. "Come on buck up you..." Tamima goaded Basia. "Roberta help Basia with the carrots and you, Tareisia, measure out the dry ingredients for rolly polly. Brittany, can you peel apples...."

I could peel apples which meant the middle school girl and I got stuck sitting by a garbage pale, peelers in hand while Tareisia made biscuit dough. Isabella had secreted herself in the tutorie to get help with English and to read for her own literature paper. We do after all have academic lives here as Naama, Sherman, and the others would call them. I wonder if they would consider academics just so much stuff or stuff of an especially pure or refined kind? I puzzled the question as I peeled apples.

Mendel Menachem Schneerson-Roth

Rose Among Thorns #2 -- The Maw!

411 Hilvview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

Luchi-Xara --

Dear Vijaya,

That letter to Kokqi was lovely. May I forward it to Dr. Chaffee in Bozeman. I'll translate it in to Attawa and he'll translate it in to Blackfoot so that Kokqi can read the words you wrote.

If it makes you feel any better, Kokqi will be returning to her people. I've been back and forthing with the administration on Oniksi vouching for the fact that Kokqi is not allied with the resistance which is pretty much a nonissue in the upper Great Plains on Two-by-Two.

You are being a very responsible mage. Keep up the good work.

Luchi-Xara

Official Outrider Point Two-Five

9 Water St.

Belle Shermane

Ithaca, New York 14850

Naama Roth --

Last night at 4pm my fall semester ended. Now the hard work begins. I sat down in the office with my cell phone and had yet another fruitless conversation with Pua. "I'm pregnant!" Pua wailed. "That's your own dumb fault," I thought but did not say.

"You're going to be pregnant for six months more," I told her instad. "Is that going to keep you out of action."

"It's an averha (a sin) to break up a family," Pua insisted.

"I'm not breaking anything up. I just want to make it easier for Basia who wants to stay here!"

"Look I have my husband to think about and what about Basia's parents."

"They can put her stuff in boxes," I replied. "Even my crazy dysfunctional parents gave me my stuff when Aunt Nikuko and I asked for it back when I ran away from home at sixteen."

"Look I've got work to do..."

"You've got shit to sell on Ebay," I groaned back. "It can wait."

"Basia needs to come home."

You can all see this led nowhere. Last night at dinner we had the big meeting. We decided who would stay over Christmas and who among the adults would go home. Unity offered to stay and rehearse the Praise Choir who have missed her. She has one more final and then it's back in to action for the singing girls as people call them.

Leonie has her last final at 8am on Friday which means a very rushed departure. I offered her a room in the guest lounge. Later that night I took our freshperson humanities tutor aside and asked her for a very large favor. "I need you to help get Basia's stuff. Pua who lives in Brooklyn will drive the car. You'll be moral support and I know you can pack boxes. You'll even lend Basia your suitcases."

"I don't drive," Leonie reminded me.

"You won't have to."

Late last night, I got on the phone with Alise who is still at Walter Reed and asked her to call Dov who is Gravid Pua's younger brother. I can turn the screws when I have to. I could feel them turning though it took until nearly midnight for the phone to ring and this time it was Pua.

"I'm going to do it," she told me.

"Good," I answered. "I'm sending you an assistant. Her name is Leonie."

"Is she Jewish?"

"Absolutely, and she lives in Ocean Township. I'll send her in to Brooklyn via the subway. She'll have empty suitcases for Basia's stuff. She'll also have some folded UPS boxes. She'll either be coming via Greyhound or I'll get Caufeld or Dr. Karch to drive her down. If I can get the latter option, you'll just have to go along for the ride....got that?"

"You know what you're doing is still wrong," snarled a most unhappy Gravid Pua.

"No it's not. When is it right to be without your stuff?"

"She won't come home."

"She doesn't have to come home."

"Her parents can always stay on Triphammer and come visit her. They know where she is. She's going to school. She's staying out of trouble. Where's the wrong in that?"

Pua did not answer. Leonie is mainly studying for exams. I'll talk to Dr. Karch or Caufeld about arranging transportation. I may even get Mendel to go along since he speaks Yiddish and that can be helpful.

Naama Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2 -- The Maw

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

Naama Roth -- I guess I have not grown up yet. I just adore the holiday season, especially now that finals are over or nearly so. Poor Leonie, our freshperson humanities tutor, brings up the rear with a 10:30am final on Friday. She is at least staying the weekend and probably a few days more since she is helping to fetch Basia's stuff from her parents home in Lakewood, NJ. I am sending her with Mendel as Yiddish interpreter and member of the Y chromosome crowd and Basia herself may go since it is her stuff. What a mess.

This morning I got up early, proofed some yeast and started dough rising for kuchen. It's going to be cherry kuchen since we have some canned cherries courtesy of our anonymous angel who gave us a whole envelope of supermarket gift certificates.

I save the apples for the fruit bowl, apple sauce, pies, cole slaw and the like. I was kneeding the kuchen dough when the phone in the office rang. Phone calls in the office are not a good sign. I let the machine take it and heard the assistant principal down at Ithaca High leave a message concerning Codi. Codi is our other ADHD foster kid. He is a sweet young man who helps me in the kitchen. He is also a huge strapping boy who is a force of nature when off his medication, even at nearly seventeen years of age.

This morning Codi was off his medication. I blinked. How could that happen? All the kids and adults who need medication take it at breakfast. That includes me. Codi had his pills by his plate and I saw him pick them up....

I finished kneeding the dough, washed my hands, and phoned the school. Yes, I would come pick up Codi. No, he was not suspended, well not formally. He was just going home for the day, since he would not take his mid day dose of medication in the nurse's office and had arrived at school unmedicated and sent his morning English class in to chaos.

I told the school it would be a while since I was traveling on foot. I walked under the sky that was like a damp slate grey sponge. I tried to keep my mind on the holiday festivities. Friday night we'd start with the reading of First and hopefully Second Macabees along with the menorah lighting and eating of potato latkes until we burst. There would be plenty of good food, lots of singing, time for sleeping, relaxing, and if the weather permitted traying and skiing. Our ground is brown and barren and dead right now. Call it global warming or an open winter. Ithaca is in a bit of a dry spot anyway. The snow shadow falls toward Whtiney Point.

I got to Ithaca High and found Codi pacing back and forth in the ante room of the assistant principal's office.

Codi stands well over six feet tall and if he had more discipline he'd play football. He has blond hair, a weathered face and pretty blue eyes. "Why did you palm your meds this morning and not take any at noon?" I inquired. I wasn't in the mood for hello.

"The meds make me a zombie."

"You tolerate your meds much better than Isabella."

"Screw Isabella!"

"Codi, she has real side effects. She takes them any way. You're the one who tolerates your meds."

"How the fuck do you know?"

"I know because I see you."

"You don't know what is going on inside me."

"I take medication, several kinds of medication," I reminded Codi.

Codi shrugged.

"Look Codi," I lay down the law. "If you want to stay in Rose Among Thorns, you have to look after your health. That means you stay on your ADHD meds."

Codi must have figured I meant business. I got home around 2pm and found the tutorie jumping mainly with last minute studiers who had late finals and found the tutorie quieter than the dorms. I found another message on the office phone.

This time it was Tompkins County Social Services. I called them back. This was concerning Sophia, our sad sack depressed foster kids who is now walking wounded which is much better than collapsed wounded. Tompkins County practices aggressive family preservation which meant that Sophia was going to spend Christmas and perhaps the first week or two of the new year or longer back with her mother who was now able to take her. Sophia's younger siblings (She has three of them) are separately placed and would come home later. Sophia was the guinea pig.

I realized it was time to have a long talk about medications and staying on them to Sophia. I realized I would miss Sophia who was now half useful in the kitchen and holding her own academically though not a star by any means. I will also miss Deborah Bottari who will be going to her father's apartment in Jupiter Beach, Florida as soon as the Christmas break begins at school. Deborah is a "success story." She's in touch with her entire family and she is looking forward to living "in a regular house again," as she puts it. I ought to feel good about both Deborah and Sophia. I don't.

I go over the logistics of all this in my head as a means of escape. With Sophia gone, Isabella gets a single unless I move Basia in with her. Basia is currently in the spare female room which is female because Basia is in it. Of course I could move Basia in with Naomi which is where Deborah is right now. That would probably be a better fit, and then Kelli from Missoula who is supposed to arrive Christmas Day can move in with Isabella. Who knows...it might work.

And yes, I still love the holidays.

Naama Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

Naama Roth -- We got Basia back last night after an arduous twelve hour round trip to get her stuff. I am sorry to have subjected Leonie, our freshman humanities tutor to this ordeal. Caufeld did the driving. He got to sleep while the fireworks went off in Basia's family's house down in Lakewood.

Put quite simply, Basia is a Chasid. Actually she is fleeing Chasidis, a very Orthodox branch of the Jewish faith, but still observant. Basia's battles are over culture not religion. She wants a secular education at a four year college. That sounds so bloodless when I say it, but what she really wants is to live in a world where chemistry, literature, American history, biology (including evolution), all have the same value as religious education. Women in the Lubavitch tradition receive enough general education to get a high school diploma and then a nonaccredited teaching certificate usually for teaching little kids.

Basia fell in love with Global Studies and then chemistry. She sneaked off to Georgian Court College and got past the gate house to read the New York Times in the library. Her frum dress and determined demeanor and school ID got her inside. Her mother was afraid to fetch her out. Basia used to laugh about this and still does. Her joke went that the Inquisition ended three hundred years ago and was in Spain.

Her parents poured on the bogus lectures on anti-semitism at Georgian Court which just didn't hold water and about threatening her marriage prospects (Big fat hairy deal) and those of her sisters (wouldn't this be past history by then?) etc... Somehow Basia grew more determined. When she took AP (college level courses given in high school) courses this fall, she realized that she wanted to attend an acccredited secular or Jewish four year college and her parents said "no."

Basia was all ready getting tons of brochures in the mail from colleges because she took the PSAT and is on ETS' school locator system. We get those brochures now and some of the college students laugh about them, but the fact is, Basia is a hot item. She's a National Merit Semifinalist. She knows enough to want to get her light out from under a bushel.

I'm glad she has not asked why it has to hurt so much. It was an ugly affair to get Basia's stuff. Her parents complained about her marriage prospects, accused her of dating Christian boys, asked if she were still a virgin etc... This was sseventh grade behavior because they know Basia's issues were not about rowdiness. They were academic and philosophical. "I just want to be happy and to do what I want? What I want isn't evil? Can't I just have a choice?" Basia has asked over and over again. Over and over again her parents have said no. Now, Basia is sixteen, too old to be brought back against her will. She is in touch with her retched family. Sorry, they are retched. Maybe dysfunctional would be a better word. Maybe that word is too strong.

Basia went to school this morning, exhausted and grey. "I look like my old self," she said. Her grandmother back in Lakewood yesterday said she looked as if she had gained weight in Ithaca. She hadn't, but being outside more had put color in her face. "Your new self will come back," I told Basia.

"It's the same self," she told me.

Naama Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns -- #2 The Maw

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Naama Roth -- "Basia go fetch me three cups of miller's bran. It's in one of the white containers and it's labeled. It's brown and looks a bit like fine ground oatmeal...OK..."

Basia lumbered off in to the service pantry. She still looked grey and pale from the twelve hour round trip on Sunday. I had yanked her out of the tutorie because she looked like she was floundering. I told her a turn in the kitchen would settle her nerves and perk her up. I could have been speaking a foreign language to the girl.

"Why are we cooking late at night?" asked Basia who is not such an automaton that she does not ask questions.

"Because New England brown breads take two hours to make and several hours to cool. I want them for tomorrow night's dessert."

Tamima was making almond ice box cookies and chopping almonds in the food processor which whirred softly as I got down the clean orange juice cans I had been saving for the last few months and had even lovingly moved from 16 Lynn St.

I started making the sour milk on the counter. "Now Basia," I said. "Please set some water to boil and find a graduated measuring cup."

"My grandmother never baked like this," she said.

"Well that's how we do it here," I answered pointing to the recipes that Tamima and I had each stuck on the counter. "If you can read, with a bit of practice under someone more experienced, you can cook and bake."

"But didn't your mothers make...I mean there's traditional stuff..."

I've been through this with Mendel, but Basia is younger. "Isn't New England brown bread traditional American and cookies..."

"But it's not...." Basia felt for the word. "Jewish. I mean it can be kosher dairy, but that's not the same. Don't you want...."

"I'm Jewish and my mother fed me New England Brown bread from a can when I was a baby," I told Basia.

"It's pretty good," answered Tamima.

"It's got raisins in it," I added. That didn't sell with Basia. She set the water on the stove in a kettle and I sent her to get the raisins and measure them out. "The trouble is you're all..." and she stopped the epithet. No one had to tell Basia that a certain three letter word which describes nonJews is evil. It especially evil when applied to two hosuemates who are members of the same tribe.

"You're all clueless when it comes to Yiddishkeit."

"Why?" spat Tamima. "Because I can make almond spice ice box cookies from a recipe and because Naama liked B & M Brown Bread as a kid. This is a kosher kitchen...get that! K-O-S-H-E-R!"

"But you're not doing it right..."

"How would you do it?" I could see Tamima had given up on her cookies and was concentrating on her arguing, her face flushing red.

"Well, I'd get pastries from...you don't have a kosher bakery."

"Dive fifty miles to Syracuse," I said with a laugh, "but why bother when we've got a pantry and pots and pans...."

"But these aren't Jewish...I mean..."

"You can't be Jewish and American at the same time?" asked Tamima. "Yes, my people were way more assimilated than yours. There, it's out of the closet and on the floor. I'm still an observant Jew and don't tell me this isn't a kosher kitchen. You eat the food here. You're even catching on as a cook. This is your problem, Basia!"

"You don't even see it do you...."

"Let's try this again," stormed an angry Tamima. "I'm Jewish. I'm observant. Mendel and I help see this kitchen stays kosher. If I want to make French style chickpea stew with rosemary or Naama wants Manhattan style fish chowder or we both want cranberry orange juice jello with agar-agar, or gezpacho in summer, or fruit salad, or cole slaw with jicama or hearts of palm, we're allowed all that and more. It's HaShem's bounty. It's freedom of choice within broad limits. You can be a Jew and be free." Tamima pounded her fist on the counter.

"You're bale tschuva aren't you? Both of you?" Basia glanced from Tamima to me. I wondered how I would explain to Basia that our kitchen had become kosher because Tamara, Tamima, and Alise who was in process of conversion had pushed it in that direction and since I could see that there was still a broad choice of things to eat left, I went along with it. I'm in the middle of the road as far as observance goes. There is nothing wrong with that. Basia might as well know the house history. I never got to give this lecture.

"Fucking no!" screamed Tamima. "Basia, with all due respect, do you know what an insult that term is?"

Basia blinked.

"OK, bal tschuva means one who does repentence. It also means a kid who is more observant than her parents. All right, my parents are a pair of stinking atheists who don't understand me and sent me to Heberew school so I could be bas mitzvahed and please the relatives, but I liked it. Yes, it was reform or conservative. Hey it was some kind of Jewish right?"

Basia rested her chin on her fist.

"I'll give you more. I liked it enough that I asked the rabbi for extra books to read. My parents were perplexed but it was better than me going under the bleechers to smoke pot or do funnel beer. OK?"

Basia gasped.

"After my bas mitzvah I kept going to services. Eventually when my temple stopped having convenient summer services -- my job got out at six pm and I couldn't make the service that let the old farts go out to diner, I switched to the Orthodox synagogue. I had to wear a skirt for my summer job anyway so no big deal. Yes, I was waiting table so I just brought the skirt with me. No big deal. It was the full service. It made use of all that work getting ready for my bas mitzvah and people shared my interests.

"No where in that is there any repentence. I'm not sorry for my parents. They loved me and they thought it was a phase and they let me do what I wanted. I love my parents. I love my background. I love being able to go to Cornell and figure out my own major. If I had been raised in a home like yours no one would even know ILR (Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations) existed. Due to my parents and the way I was raised, I'm going to be able to do tikkun olam (a Hebrew phrase that means repairing the world)by helping workers unionize. That's my parents' influence. I have nothing for which to be sorry. I'm a Jew by choice, faith, and inclination, not because I'm sorry!"

"You're a Jew because you have a neshama," answered Basia.

"No, all human beings have souls. If you want to see an excellent soul, look at Sherman some time. I serve on liturgy committee with me. I tell him he's wasting himself studying linguistics. Tell me Sherman's soul is inferior to that of your average run of the mill Jew or person of any religion. Go ahead....tell me..."

"Your neshama says 'go back to HaShem.'"

"No," Basia pounded her fist on the counter. "My mind, heart, and experience say this is what I want. I do this because it it what I want. Free will. Choice... not repentenence or anything super natural. I wanted rootedness and a heritage and a faith with a long pedigree. I wanted that at twelve. I still want it at twenty. Isn't doing something out of free choice better than having some irrational pull to it?"

Basia did not reply. The kettle on the stove shrilled. She measured out the water to soak the bran without direction from me.

"Basia I asked, why do you want to study science and history and read the New York Times?"

"I'm not sure," she asnwered. "It feels good, but that....that does sound trivial. It agrees with me. Girls are made for general studies.... It feels good to do what you are good at.... All right, chemistry is like music. Biology is pretty good too. I don't know where it leads. I don't know if I want to be a doctor or even what major I'll have. I didn't know there were so many. Doing something like physical therapy or occupational therapy or nursing doens't appeal to me. It feels dirty, but being a chemist or a biologist or going to dig up ruins sounds like I'd at least like that to be an option. I don't think of that as freedom....I don't think I'd die for it, but I'd leave home for it. Maybe I would die for it."

"Doing what you want is very important," said Tamima.

"But what if I wanted a bad thing?" asked Basia.

"Then you'd have a big problem," I answered "but there are lots of good choices. Look at all the different majors the college students have. Imagine if there were only one good thing for everybody to want and all the other choices were inferior."

"You're talking about my home aren't you," answered Basia.

"Maybe," I said.

"You didn't meet my family."

"No."

"You know, if all the bucharim and the girls too did as I did, there'd be no yeshivot left."

"You don't think any one would pick religious studies."

"Maybe some would...but they'd have to have people studying all kinds of things. Some of them would even want to make paper all day like Isabella."

"Isabella is very talented," said Tamima.

"Some would repair cars. Some would be engineers. Some would want to run for political office and work on campaigns. Some would be interested in crime and justice and become sociology or criminal justice majors. Some would be interested in helping working people or management and think of ILR as their choice. Others would major in hotel management like Bethany and would spend their spare time in high school bussing tables and working in kitchens."

Basia laughed... "You all believe desire is healthy," she finally said.

"Pretty much," answered Tamima.

"There are many good choices," I repeated. "You have a right to your good choice."

"But what if it makes you forget...I mean your grandmother..."

"My grandmother took domestic science and learned to cook the same way we are cooking. She taught me how to bake," answered Tamima.

"Was she a..." Basia caught herself. She has not paid the epithet jar one quarter since she got here.

"No, she was Jewish the same as we are."

I mixed the lemon juice with the milk to sour it and measured out the rest of the dry ingredients. I mixed the flour with the raisins.

"You don't have to give up your faith to have choices," Tamima assured Basia.

Basia did not reply. "I feel cut off...sometimes especially when I see how different things are."

"You're not cut off. You can always go home, and I make you write those letters."

"They'll say horrible things to my sisters about me."

"It will be up to your sisters not to believe those things," I answered. "They knew you. You were a smart kid. You stayed out of trouble. They know you'd only leave home for a good reason."

"I had to leave," Basia stammered. "You know what I want to do...When I can study what I want, I want to read about the history of Jews in America even the ones who ass-im-ilated."

"I'll take you up to Uris for the books during break. You have AP American history this year and probably have to do a paper in late May. That can be your final project too. Come on, I need someone to grease those cans for the brown bread and to set up the kettle for me. It's there on the end of the table. The brown bread has to steam."

Basia blinked. "Learn something new every day," quipped Tamima.

"How do I know the cans are kosher?" asked Basia.

"Because the kitchen is kosher," I answered. "They were orange or tomato juice cans OK?"

"All right," Basia answered and went about her work. None of us said anything. I began to mix up the brown bread batter and soon Basia had the cans ready. I poured it in, placed the cans on the rack in the steamer, and closed the lid. I set my dishes soaking and went to get a jicama from the refridgerator.

"What's this for?" asked Basia.

"I promised I'd do Tamima here a favor." I peeled some of the skin off the jicama and cut out some small pieces. "Can you take this to the shed Basia and give it to Isabella. Ask her to taste it and tell me if she would mind eating this or if she likes it."

"Choice..." answered Basia. "If you didn't eat all this strange food...." She let her voice trail away. "You believe if you have choice you can be happy."

"Don't you?" asked Tamima.

"I'm not sure what I believe. I just wanted more general studies and a chance to do more reading. Being hungry in your mind is not the same thing as choice."

I sit in the office smelling the brown breads steaming. It is late at night. Isabella will eat jicama root so we will not have to have plain marinated cabbage salad tomorrow. Basia is studying. Leonie is in the tutorie helping middle and high school kids and even a few elementary ones. Tamima is probably asleep or else reading quietly. Caufeld is on my bed, asleep. When he gets up, he has to go to a spare room since I share my room with Tareisia who has still not gone to bed.

Can one be too hungry and frightened to make a choice or admit to making one? The answer is probably yes. What will happen to Basia when she catches her metaphorical breath? Mendel worries that I have indeed broken up Basia's family and am hurting her sisters' chances at marriage. I think the sisters are young enough that everyone will get used to Basia's situation and yes, her choice.

Naama Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2 -- The Maw

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

Naama Roth -- I had the long awaited and somewhat dreaded conversation with Basia tonight. No, wwe do NOT celebrate Solstice here. Our membership is mainly Christian and Jewish so our late winter celebrations besides celebrating a break from classes are Hanukkah which just ended and Christmas which is on Monday.

For Hanukkah we lit the menorah, sung Hanukkah songs, and read from the Books of Macabees in the Apocrypha. We also had a latke supper last Friday. Latkes are pancackes made from either shredded potatoes or matzoh meal.

For Christmas we have a decorated artificial tree in the tutorie. For some reason we don't have a nativity set beneath it though we could have one if the Christians in this house wanted it. Most of us sing Christmas carols. We also have readings appropriate to the season and more than one great feast or so it seems.

Santa Claus, and I don't mean the one on the Telegraph, is not considered a good influence. He is the creation of greedy businesspeople who would just assume people worship mammon rather than God. The malls make a killing and in the end very few are satisfied with what they get.

Basia knows of Santa Claus only third hand. She has never watched the movies: Miracle on 34th Street or It's a Wonderful Life. She has never seen a Charley Brown Christmas and of course she has stayed far away from the New Testament. Now the alien holiday surrounds her.

As we were cooking dinner tonight, I read Basia the riot act. It started with a history lesson. It started with a big fat NO. No, no, no, no, no Christmas was not a time for planning pogroms, massacres against Jews. It was a family holiday or else one for getting quite happily smashed on vodka and other strong drinks. Easter with an execution and blood libel mixed up in its story, was the occasion for blood letting. Besides in most of Russia, Christmas was January 7 not December 25. And besides again, happy well feed drunks aren't usually in the mood to knock heads and spill blood.

Next Hanukkah and Christmas are very different holidays. The first commemorates a miracle that followed a fantastic military victory and a civil war. It was a victory of tradition and nationalism over assimilation and subjugation. It is based in historical fact.

Christmas on the other hand commemorates the birth of a false messiah (Sorry Joshua if you are on the telegraph), God coming to earth in the form of a defenseless babe. There is a promise of peace in all that somewhere. It is a sweet pastoral holiday. Hanukkah is the knock heads holiday.

Anyway, half this house is Christian which means that the house celebrates both Christmas and Hanukkah. "If there's something you don't want to do, you don't have to do it, but you're not going to be able to avoid all of it. If you want to ask questions go for it. If you'd gone to p ulbic school you would have had to learn about Christmas, even back in Lakewood."

"It would have been Navidad," said Basia which surprised me. "You forget, I liked the nuns in the library."

"Yes, but this is going to be around close to twenty-four/seven," I told her.

Basia shrugged. "You'll feel better if you ask questions," I warned her.

"Athena invited me to her church...." Basia blurted out.

"Do you want to go?" I asked.

"I can say 'no' can't I?"

"Absolutely. She did nothing wrong by inviting you and you'll do nothing wrong by politely refusing or accepting. If you had been raised a secular Jew you would have visited your Christian friends' churches on occasion and they would have visited your schul."

"I told her I'd think about it. I wasn't sure if she was trying to convert me..."

"She's not," I assured Basia. "Midnight Mass is considered a fun kind of service and Christians often invite friends to attend."

Basia made an odd face. "Is it like a fabrengin?" she asked.

"No," I replied. "It tends to be very formal with lots of singing and the church all decorated with pointsettias and pine boughs."

"I still want to think about it," Basia answered.

Naama G. Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2 -- The Maw

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

Kelli Ann Jackson --

Dear Telegraph,

I finally made it to Ithaca. I'd be lying to all of you if I didn't say there were times when I wonder why I came over two thousand miles to live in a converted school building with about twenty-five high school and college students. That's mostly what is here. Only two or three of the kids are real little.

Now one would think, (See Lay-Lay, I learned that from you!)that such a place would have wall to wall partying with illegally obtained beer bottles and worse. I'll let all of you imagine what might be worse. Instead, even though it is break for everyone right now, every one here is really into school work. They are also into food and talking about it, cooking it, and in the end eating it. We have these huge dinners every night. Being on kitchen crew is a big deal, except I'm not on kitchen crew. Neither is my roommate, a sixteen year old kid named Isabella. Isabella hates the kitchen and has a spot in the work shop to make paper. She also does paper art. She's ADHD and takes medication but when she's on her meds she's sort of normal, as normal as an artist gets.

Any way, Isabella is considered "useless," in the kitchen. People here are rather judgemental, but I guess that's an academic thing. The schools here are supposed to be very tough so Lay-Lay (Her real name is Leonie or Leonie, the freshperson humanities tutor) and Naama who is a math major at Cornell gave me tests to see what I knew. Well, the schools in Missoula expletive deleted compared to fancy pants Ithaca High School.

I found myself relieved of kitchen duties and spending two to four hours a day in the tutorie working math problems and working on my grammar and writing. The writing isn't bad. It's getting better. As for the math, I'm learning Math 2 and need to learn to do proofs and memorize gemoetry theorems. I also have to work on algebra story problems since both of these are a big part of a test that counts for twenty percent of my math grade. It's called a Regents exam and I'll take it in June. School in New York State goes way in to June. Well at least no one will call me a dumb Indian. Also people here really believe I'll go to college.

What gets me though is all the back and forth and arguing. We had a big argument Christmas Eve about Rudolph, the Red Nose Reindeer, and Sant Claus (and I don't mean the genetlman on the Telegraph). Rose Among Thorns which is the organization that runs this house, does not like Santa Claus. They say that Christmas for those who are Christian is about Jesus. Santa Claus is a creation of commercial interests that turn the holiday in to a festival of greed and leave poor kids unsatisfied and poor parents overextended. I can agree with this. The problem is what do you do with The Night Before Christmas and the story of Rudolph.

One can have (Yes, Lay-Lay, I'm learning!), secular readings at Golden Hour and the Night Before Christmas is a classic. If a Rose Among Thorns member is doing the reading and others are stretched out on the blankets and bolsters, that is very different from the hired help at the mall where they charge five dollars to take photos. We have to go round and round about this and in the end it was a whole house meeting and we decided by consensus. Sherman, who sometimes gets called vermin, blocked consensus until we agreed that those who wanted the secular Christmas tales volunteered as readers and then Naomi blocked consensus because she said that whoever did the reading must be capable so we were not all subject to something that was hard to understand. Codi, who wanted the two stories had to prove he was a competent reader and enunciated clearly and did not swallow his words.

Sherman, who sometimes gets called vermin (Yes, that's the passive voice.), said that in a house of diverse ages, creeds, and ideas, there is sometimes no other way to govern than by vote or consensus. He also said that most of where I've been, the adults ruled by fiat rather than through a transparent democratic process. I had to look up what fiat meant and it is not just the name of a car. My vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds.

Right now I'm scaird about starting school in Ithaca. I'll be competing with professors' kids, and those have to be smart. Nobody is going to call me dumb foster kid or dumb Indian.

Kelli Ann Jackson

Rose Among Thorns #2

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

Tareisia K. Simmons --

With all the new people on the Telegraph, I figure I have to introduce myself. My name is Tareisia Kakira Simmons. I am in eighth grade at Boynton Middle School in Ithaca, New York and live at Rose Among Thorns #2 on Hillview Place where I am Naama Roth's foster daughter. I am also Alise Liddell's foster daughter and my parents even have custody of me in a pinch, but my parents live out of state and Alise got drafted. She's in Virginia recovering from a kidney infection. My family disintegrated when I was nine. My mother is a schizophrenic though now it stays under control with medication and my dad could not work for a long time after he suffered a terrible head injury in a boxing ring. My mom and the five of us kids were homeless for a while and then my mom got institutionalized and we were sent to my aunt in Syracuse. She beat me with a stick and I ended up in custody of Rose Among Thorns and now I'm pretty much out of foster care and living under a joint custody agreement. My mom got three of my siblings back by the way. The youngest one is still with the aunt who beat me.

I am not your typical dumb foster kid. I enjoy academics and classy conservative clothing and I will eat just about anything. If you don't eat what you are served you go hungry, and there are also people out there who want to teach kids to eat properly. It is good to learn that. A little bit of class is always good.

We have a poetry slam tonight for New Year's Eve Golden Hour and it's going to be broadcast on WVBR whichy you can get on the internet if you are so lucky. I know the Medieval folks are not. It's http://www.wvbr.com and then click the icon to listen live. We start at 9:30pm and go to 12:30am. They'll be feeding us in and out. The Praise Choir is getting to sing as well.

Kelli wanted a poem on learning to do math. The librarian in Uris showed her how to search for it using EbscoHost and WilsonWeb, two online databases to which Naama and the other Cornellians have access. Apparently, nothing fazes a librarian when it comes to a search. Basia has a poem by a modern as in twentieth century Yiddish poet. This is considered sacrilidge in Lubavitcher circles. Basia decided to taste forbidden fruit.

I am reading something about the Akedah which we read last night because it is a great story and poets have been inspired to write poetry about it. Caufeld is visiting from his parents home in Altamont down in the Southern Tier. He too will be reading a poem. We have lots of poems and lots of songs.

Basia is getting cold feet about it being secular New Year. Jewish New Year is Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur and takes place in late September and early October. It is done and over. The next big Jewish holiday is Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish new year for trees. Think of it as Jewish Arbor Day. Yes, Aunt Naama invited a very ugly donor to our Tu B'Shevat dinner. Well, I guess his money is as clean as any one else' and we have big metal gates and a swipe card system to keep intruders out of the private areas of our house. This place used to be a school, but we fixed it up beautifully last summer. I don't really miss living in a regular house with regular parents. No, I miss it sometimes. I guess I always will.

Tareisia K. Simmons

Rose Among Thorns #2

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

Tareisia K. Simmons --

There are a hundred ways to soothe a troubled mind. This leaves out all the medications which people from less enlightened times and places think we eat like candy. I suppose if I have what has made the other women in my family ill (talk about euphemisms! Yes Lay-Lay, I learn from you.) I too will end up on medication.

Leonie, the freshperson humanities tutor, is one of the few people who needs medication and doesn't get it. Naama suspects Leonie would do well with a little benzodiazipene, an antianxiolitic, to take the edge of harsh nerves, but parents are funny about putting young adults and teens (not to mention kids) on medication. When kids get in state care, there are no meddlesome parents to stand in the way of their getting good treatment. Leonie, though, has parents and Leonie is still suffering from nerves.

Aunt Naama finally made her get weighed up at Teagle Hall where they have a scale. She has lost some weight due to not eating much during finals. Her appetite did not come back. This is a pretty good sign of nerves.

Aside from that, there is not much Naama or any one else can do for Lay-Lay until school starts and she can see a doctor up at Gannett and get her own prescription away from her parents. Leonie has some prejudices against taking meds, but we've got a big banner in the kitchen. It's for Codi, but it can also be for Lay-Lay. Some day it might be for me.

That said, Naama drafted both Basia and me. She'd draft Kelli too, but she wants Kelli to have maximum study time and Isabella wants to work in the workshop on her paper art, so this is a job for Basia, sometimes Mendel, and me. Mendel is whinging (He's old enough) to get out of the job. The job is simple. I come home right after school and take Lay-Lay walking until 6pm. That means we walk way out in to the country over South Hill.

The reason for all the walking is the ice skating rink and pool at Cornell are closed, and besides Lay-Lay would have to sneak us in. Second, there is no snow so no one here can go traying. They have all the snow out west with Vijaya.

Anyway, it is lonely out there in the boonies, but Lay-Lay likes it. She and Basia who is fast morphing in to Ba-Ba, talk up a storm. Mostly they compare high school experiences, public versus private in the same part of the country. They talk about AP subjects and then it gets weirdly personal. If Mendel is with us he asks lots of questions. I've learned he really knows nothing about American public education. He said one time: "You get to try everything in high school like a big buffet and then have to choose when you're nineteen and in college."

Lay-Lay shrugged. She's never thought it odd to be an undecided Artsie. She says she likes chemistry. Basia who had chemistry last year loved it too. The two talk about balancing equations and memorizing the periodic table which is not really memorizing, just learning to read it and extract meaning from it. I can half follow this stuff.

Then of course the talk drifts to periods and boys. It is mostly talk about periods. That is because Lay-Lay has no boyfriend and Basia would not know what to do with a boyfriend. She does not want to be immodest. She finds co-ed gym unnerving. Lay-Lay explaine dto her that they'll separate the sexes when the boys do wrestling or football and the girls learn social dancing and gymnastics, though sometimes gymnastics can be coed. If there's a boy who wants to learn it, he gets to take gym with the girls. Basia made a face. "What about his parents?" she asked and for the first time we could all see the horror on her face.

"The parents are usually happy about it," answered Lay-Lay. "The boy wants to learn gymnastics and this is the only way he can do it. The parents want the boy to learn gymnastics if he's good at it. We had two boys in with us when we had gymnastics when I was back in high school."

"It's all a question of want to isn't it? Want-to rules everything?" Basia stopped and mused. She too has given in to the God of want-to. I'm thirteen and too young for want-to. I have no choice over what I take and will have very little choice even in high school. High school from what I am learning gets you ready to make choices, at least here in New York State for academically able kids. Earnesty Chung's high school which is small town may be different. They have very little humanities and lots of math on Enceledus and it's probably the same on Mars.

Lay-Lay and Basia are not on the telegraph so we don't talk about that weird Serious Gate world far in the future. Instead, the talk drifts back to periods. Lay-Lay got hers when she was twelve and a half which makes me feel immature because I'll be fourteen and May and you can guess what I don't have. Basia says I won't want it when I get it. She got hers when she was fourteen and a half. She says it hurts. I say I know because Aunt Naama gets cramps. "There's good stuff to take for cramps," I remind Basia. "Meds, meds, meds, meds, meds, meds, meds. They're the answer to everything," snarls Lay-Lay.

"When something is broken you fix it!" I snap back. Suddenly it hits. "This is a philosophical thing isn't it?" I ask. "You don't like to admit how much your body or even your brain chemistry or adrenaline rule you. To take pills means you know you are at the mercy of hormones and chemicals, and only chemicals can fight more chemicals."

Lay-Lay laughed. Basia stared at the ground. "The bocharim take lots of pills but they never think about it like that," says Bsia. "And their pills don't make them feel good...." She lets her voice trail off. "Here, you're supposed to be made all better."

"You have a right to feel good," answers Lay-Lay. "You shouldn't drag yourself around all the time feeling like excrement. Now I'm a fine one to talk but the fresh air is good for me. I'll still have this fresh air with me when I'm in the tutorie tonight."

"There's a word for this..." Basia searches. "Release of tension," Basia tries....

"Catharsis," answers Lay-Lay.

"You are always looking for catharsis."

"This whole house is addicted to catharsis," I interject. "It's in the songs we sing and the stories we read for Golden Hour and the talk afterwards."

"But if you empty out all the emotions, won't there just be more to fill up the space?" asks Basia.

"Not for a while, hopefully," answers Lay-Lay. "Besides catharsis feels good and it's interesting. It's probably one of the most satisfying things there is."

We get back with all the catharsis worn out of us. Lay-Lay is more tired then hungry but she can eat and then she goes in the tutorie to work with the middle and high school kids if we have any. If not, she washes dishes. I go in the tutorie to study. The adult staff are handling the kitchen for the next few days.

In the kitchen, the banner still hangs: "Have you taken your meds today?" It is flaming scarlet red with ochre letters trimmed in gold glitter. I think: Catharsis and pills, but in a way both are signs of hope that you can feel better. Sometimes catharsis works. Medication worked with my mother. It worked almost too well, but I don't have the nerve to tell that story. I don't think Earnesty needs to hear it, not now and besides, I'm not sure she receives the entire telegraph. I don't think the Sirius Gate (the correct spelling this time) crew gets the entire telegraph or they would know we are out there pulling for them and praying for them.

Is prayer cathartic? Of course. Are sad songs and stories? It doesn't take two neurons to figure this one out. Do pills make it feel better? Sometimes they really work. Sometimes they just take the edge off? Do long walks ease nerves and provide release?

One thing I do know is that if you live in a house full of catharsis and medication, people are still hopeful that they can make themselves feel better and they are willing to do whatever it takes to do that. Is it better to go the other way and just sit there and not grab on to all the tools and put them to work as hard as you can. I'd rather be with hopeful people. I'd rather take meds if I need them than worry about whether I am my brain chemistry. I'd rather weep for Isaac who was in a far worse situation with his real parent, Abraham than Earnesty is at the Poldanos, then feel pent up pain inside me with no where to go. I'd rather cry out to God than be silent.

Yes, I'm still praying for a miracle on the Sirius Gate. "His will be done," is only for public one size fits all services. "His will be done," is cathartic, but not cathartic enough.

Tareisia K. Simmons

Rose Among Thorns #2

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

Tareisia K. Simmons --

Dear Alise,

This is just a wild guess, but do you remember Vijaya's graduation party back in June. That was held in the Mossman's apartment. Remember that place, a triplex on Fifth Avenue. The Mossmans were the richest people I have ever met. Could they know Harmony Flowers and other Independent Top Strand people? It is worth a hunch. Mr. Mossman said to contact him if I ever needed anything since he was a fan of my father's when he was a contender for the lightweight boxing championship. Maybe I can get some information from Mr. Mossman. I'm going to try. This has to be worth a try.

Tareisia K. Simmons

Boynton Middle School

1610 N. Cayuga St.

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

Naama Roth --

Dear Vijaya,

Your wish is my command. Here it is, but do promise to teach it to the children. You sing this to a simplified version of HaTikva.