continuing

Yes, essentially I expect this blog to function pretty much as did my workshops,  with the difference that I am both subject and object,and you, my stratosphere, will implement my figuring out what I am doing, I hope, as I report to you and assume your interest.

So:  Today I went to the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Fran with a small group organized by the Peninsula Regent (the retirement community I belong to, referred to previously).This museum was founded a few years ago yet so far I never had the opportunity to visit.  Today I gathered that they depend primarily on loaned exhibits, and the one we got to see was of a collection of paintings that had belonged to a Jewish art dealer in the Netherlands. He fled, the collection was confiscated by the Nazis, eventually returned to the Dutch government after the war and only recently returned to the man's heirs.  The collection itself was not as interesting as the human drama presented about the tracing,  researching, reconstructing and, finally, the return  of the paintings to owners, 2 generations later.

I also visited another part of the museum, which claims to be working on  the Torah in modern terms,  using modern tools. The project, " 304,805, explores the Torah  "as a historical artifact, ritual object, scribal tradition and contemporary  muse".  They claim that each person's hand is related to one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and there is a machine that allows you to get an  imprint of your hand (the inside of your palm) which in turn (by computer) tells you  to which letter of the alphabet it (you) correspond.  Mine turned out to be the 8th letter  ("Chet").  There are books telling what each letter stands for.  Chet stands for  "Truth".  Also,  allegedly,  my imprint shows that  I have a "divided soul" ; - they say that the upper part of my throat fights with the lower part of my throat.

So now I have to figure out what that metaphor stands for.  I am tempted to agree with it - in that, like many Jews I tend to think of  ideas and options with the view::"on the one hand, but on the other hand......" I have often been teased about always seeking one option and then another and still another in making a decision although I think of myself as a pretty decisive person - except for wanting to explore more options than may be necessary or desirable.
I am also quite intrigued by the present-day experience, which reminds me of my attraction to the gypsy fortunetellers of my youth.

Yes, I'll insert bits of biography as they come up from the "now" ; - so here goes:-
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As indicated in my profile, I lived in Istanbul during my school years although my parents were Romanian. My father was employed as the Near East representative of an a Romanian and  international oil company so we - father mother and I - lived in Istanbul  (Turkey) between l921 and l932 - during which time I went to an English school - from Kindergarten to High school graduation.
We were quite isolated as a family and my mother, who was an energetic person and  felt uprooted, with  not much  to do, concentrated far too much on supervising me from the moment I came from school.  Fortunately for me,  by contrast to American schools which encourage PTA participation,  the snobbish British school I attended prohibited maternal "interference" as long as a child did well in school ,(which I did),  and there were various after school activities - like sports and drama as well as voluntary after school sessions for homework.
So my mother could never know exactly when I was due home from school  - it could be any time between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.  I did not like sports, but I loved wandering around the streets of Istanbul  (they were pretty safe in those days, especially in the "European" area where  we lived and where foreign schools were located. )So I frequently  took a couple of hours  getting  home, allowing my mother to believe I was kept after school.
There were all the street peddlers around, and little stalls selling sweets and flowers and, best of all, there were gypsy fortune tellers of all kinds, ready to read tea leaves, coffee dregs, zodiak signs, and, best of all read your palm if you "crossed it with silver"; (a few coins would do too!)  My parents were generous with pocket money (again, thinking some was needed at school!) so I always had enough for some of the sticky sweets I loved, regardless of the flies buzzing around them, and, of course, plenty to get my palm read.
As time went on, and I  hanged  around one gypsy or another, a few became  quite motherly with   me , showing off and instructing me - generous with their time, pleased that I tried to  learn their skills, bragging about their predictive  abilities and teaching me ways to assess potential customers.
As  a result, during my high school years my hobby was "studying" a French encyclopedia of mystical arts.  I became quite convinced  about the validity of palmistry even though it was often difficult to reconcile the allegedly scientific rules of palmistry with the way my favorite gypsies practiced it.

My mother and I used to spend my summer vacations at a resort in Romania (where she could visit her sister, my beloved aunt Dida and my little cousin Nita)  or sometimes we went to a resort in Austria or Switzerland. Here and there, whenever I had the opportunity with strangers I would offer to "read their palms" and secretly practice my skills.  In such vacation settings people were willing to indulge me and usually gave me pretty positive feedback. I always wondered whether they just wanted to be nice to me, or whether, intuitively I just sensed what I needed to say for a positive response, or whether - since I sometimes conscientiously "read" the lines on people's palms in accordance with some guidelines  from the French encyclopedia - these instructions were indeed, fool-proof.
Until, one day, I had a terrible experience.
It started  in the large "salon" at  a  resort "pension"  where my mother and I were vacationing.  My mother was playing bridge, and I was there also, bored, with a book that was not particularly interesting.  One of the hotel guests who had previously been at our dinner table was now sitting on a couch near the window, staring into space.  He looked like a good candidate to test my fortune-telling skills; I came up to him, and asked him if he would like me to "read his fortune."  "All right," , he said, and showed me his two palms, as I requested , to compare his left palm (his genetic fate) with his left palm (his life as he was developing it). There was enormous  difference there, and very unusual criss-crossed lines on the right palm.  Before I knew what I was saying, I said:  "You are very confused; are you  thinking of suicide?" With this he pulled his hands back, stood up abruptly and said, in a very agitated voice:  "tell me, where do you see this?"
Scared by his reaction, I tried to backtrack - but he turned around and walked off precipitously.  I felt overwhelmed with terror, much of it, I must admit, with the thought that he would complain to my mother, who was still peacefully playing bridge.  I went on sitting there, hoping he's come back.  Finally I went out to the reception area, which was empty except for the man at the desk - I asked whether he had seen Mr,......(he had introduced himself at dinner). " Yes, he just checked out - I got him a taxi", he said.

That's the end of this story - I never found out what happened to Mr. ....and that was also the end of my fortune-telling experiments and "study" thereof.  It was to be my last school year and was quite eventful in other ways. I  had to study very intensely for exams (that's a different story I'll tell another time) so my schoolgirl life kept me busy enough, after which much else  followed.   So I dropped my interest in fortune telling, but remained with some nostalgia about it which got revived occasionally like today, when ,(times change!) it was the computer in the Jewish museum , rather than a gypsy, which  led me to acknowledge that, indeed, I have a "divided soul" with an argumentative throat.

Perhaps that's why I need to write this blog?