The Advocate

( Books of Jewish Beauty ) Hadran Alach : “hadran alach, ve’hadrach alan,” which is Aramaic for “we have returned to you and we will return to you, dear tractate, and you have returned to us and will return to us.” We say this when finishing any book, not just religious ones. We treat books almost as if they are people, capable of thought and feeling. We respect and revere them. We treat them as guests of honor in our lives. They are to be visited often, to be remembered, and to be returned to in gratitude and thankfulness for the gifts of knowledge and enjoyment that they have provided. Take note and take care.

(Art by Dave Correia) Every day. Since January 22, 2003. I sit and I write. I read. I rewrite. I read something else. I write something else. I keep doing this and doing this and doing this. I have been writing so much for so long that I've lost more writing than I can remember or pull from storage. Some days I write better than others. Most days I just write what I need to write to make it to the next day to write something else, something more. I miss my life before writing, in certain ways. It was prelapsarian. It was before the recorded word. It was the BCE to my AD. I can imagine any number of things, any number of myths about who I was, why I was, how I was... Once I started writing, I became unable to distort my lived experience. It was stark. It was unambiguously factual. It was lacking adornment to the point of emaciation. Before I could write I was a life full of adventure and magic. It was tragedy, it was comedy, it was drama. It was. Now It simply is. My...