When I was maybe nine or ten years old, I did a double take on a photograph of myself because I didn’t like what I saw ... but the picture did not improve: my shoulders were drooping and my chest looked a little sunken. From that moment on, I made a conscious effort to improve my posture by standing up tall with my shoulders back and my chest out. Over many years, this initial desire to improve myself has evolved to include more than just the way I look; these days, I’m working on my mind and spirit as well as my body, trying to elevate myself in any way I can. My writing is part of this. When I write about an experience or a memory, I’m able to slow everything down, think about what happened from a new angle, maybe even learn from it. Each of the thirty-six stories in this book is a step I have built to help me climb. I still have a long way to go, but I’ve definitely made progress. Join me on my journey. I trust the steps will hold you too. I don’t have all the answers, but it’s nice to know I have kindred spirits out there who are climbing with me. Together, we can repair the world. Ricky Ehrlich May 2021
A Little Consideration Richard Ehrlich AuthorHouse, 205 pages, (paperback) $16.99, 978-1-4634-4389-4 (Reviewed: October, 2010) Over the past 20 years, Richard Ehrlich has kept track of life's smallest moments, following Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy that the meaning of life can be found by giving "a little consideration" to the things that take place around us every day. Borrowing that phrase for his title, Ehrlich has compiled personal essays that reveal the constants of his daily routine. He bikes along the boardwalk, swims, teaches high school and reads Emerson and Thoreau. He also revisits the experiences of building a fort with his brothers, helping his parents move a couch, playing basketball with friends and eventually selecting his father's tombstone. As his skills of observation and introspection mature, so do the essays until, at the end, he finds himself dreaming of his deceased father and realizing that "we can continue to receive his nourishment anywhere we find ourselves." Ehrlich's strongest essays tap into the power of the Jewish rituals. Ehrlich's ancestors emigrated from Poland and made a life for themselves in Long Beach, New York; their journey is never far from his mind. He allows the reader to share his memories of gathering palms for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and wearing his father's prayer shawl. He makes sense of those moments by drawing from Jack Kerouac and Paul McCartney, as well as the Talmud and the Bhagavad Gita. Ehrlich's intelligence and facility with language are evident throughout, bringing to life the joy of running on the beach, eating with his grandfather's spoon or enjoying the quiet before students arrive at school. "Everything we do becomes part of our life tapestry," he writes. Readers of A Little Consideration will savor this invitation to take a look. BlueInk Headds-Up: Scholars of Judaism and Jewish history will find this book especially interesting. Also available in ebook.
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