Discover Top Posts Tagged with #julchen writes

Shehecheyanu

In my whole adult life, I never before had my own menorah. I had an unfortunately dull Jewish upbringing and decided I was atheist before I even graduated high school. I went to college, found me a pretty boy with Norwegian cheekbones, and asked him to marry me. When our kids were little we belonged to a UU congregation. The festive December lights in our home have always been on a tree. After last year’s election, I felt compelled to lean into my Judaism since the Christofascists were openly gearing up, and Judaism is resistance and endurance. I so enjoyed seeing all of last year's menorahs on Tumblr that I went looking for one of my own, and found a gorgeous contemporary oceanic design from a glass artist. Later in the year, my 76-year-old aunt gave me her Bubbe’s traditional menorah. After so many years of having no menorahs, I suddenly had two. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’ve tried many ways to maintain or regain abilities my MS is eroding. There have been triumphs, annoyances, and disasters. I’ve tried to stay determined through it all. 2024 and 2025 have been my hardest years yet, marked by precipitous losses of function just when I think I’m making great progress. It’s a disappointment every time, but this past July’s setback was devastating. The trigger for the loss was never identified, but at the time, it felt like, “Oops, too much hope; we can’t have that!” It broke me. For several months, I could do little more than sit in a chair all day and wonder if this would finally be the crash I couldn’t climb out of. But the menorahs were there on a shelf I could see from my chair, and I resolved to make it to Chanukah to light them. And here I am. My daughter lit the menorahs each night because I didn’t trust my hands, but I sang the blessings for the first time in more than 30 years. Some days are better than others, and my ability varies even from hour to hour within a day, but I’m stronger than I was this summer. I’m still fighting. As we say with the Shehecheyanu, I am grateful for having been given life, sustained, and brought to the present moment. I’m so glad to be here with all of you. Thank you for being here to share the light. Happy Chanukah, my friends. 🌹

#chanukah #julchen writes #adventures with ms

The time my great-grandfather brought a butcher's sharpening steel to a gunfight... and won

As promised months ago to @notaplaceofhonour; lightly edited from the story told to me by my great-uncle Feivel. My mother’s zayde Scholem was born in Lithuania in the early 1890s. The family livelihood was farming livestock to provide beef and chicken to the community. Scholem emigrated alone to the US at the age of 19 to escape conscription by the Russian army. His immigration record says he was 5'5" and a butcher.

He and my great-grandmother raised their four kids in a two-bedroom city apartment around the corner from the family’s kosher meat shop. This story takes place around 8:00 PM on a Saturday night in the late 1930s, when the shop was open for business again after being closed for the Sabbath. My grandmother’s brother Feivel worked in the shop with his dad, but at that moment, while business was in a slack time, Feivel had gone up to the family's apartment to have a cup of coffee. When he came back down, there was a crowd of police talking to Scholem on the sidewalk. While Feivel had been gone, two men in long overcoats had come into the shop and asked for chicken. Scholem told them to pick one from the display case. One of the men gave a perfunctory look at the chickens on display and said, "I don't like these. Maybe you have something better back there," indicating the walk-in ice chest. Scholem had been sharpening a knife. He put the knife down but kept the long sharpening steel. As he walked toward the freezer, he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the man pulling a gun from his coat. In Feivel's words, "My father, who never lost his temper or fought physically with anyone, at that moment saw red. He swung himself around, and, with the steel, smashed the man's hand across the wrist so hard the gunman fell to the floor." The other thief ran to the door and stood there shouting, "Shoot him! Shoot him!" The thief on the floor picked up the gun, aimed it at Scholem, pulled the trigger...and it only clicked. Scholem figured these clowns were just trying to scare him and he chased them out. They jumped into a car with a woman at the wheel and sped off. Scholem called the police and that's how Feivel found him. After the police left, Feivel set to straightening up the meat display case and found an ammunition clip for a .45. They called the police back and determined that Scholem must've hit the hand with the gun hard enough to knock the clip out. The robbers had planned to put Scholem in the ice chest and take the money from the register. Failing that, they really had intended to kill him. Scholem had to go to the police station to look at lineups until the thieves were caught. They'd been preying on small shop owners and had already killed one. When they were caught, the man Scholem had struck still had a welt on his wrist. The story was written up in a true crime pulp magazine. You wouldn't think this story needed to be juiced up, but they wrote that Scholem had chased the robbers around with a meat cleaver.

The man himself, in his work apron, with the oldest of his ten grandchildren.

#family legends #zayde and the robbers #julchen writes

i thought your url was juche in red

Juche, the North Korean ideology?? No no no, definitely not! 😬 Julchen is a diminutive of Julia, like Juliet. A German-speaking friend nicknamed me Juliet in college a thousand years ago. Both parts of my URL — "Julchen" and "In Red" — are homage to dear friends who long encouraged my creativity and cheered me on. When I first stumbled into Drarry fandom in my 40s (ten years ago this Spring!), I was in a sad and stuck place in my life. When I finally stopped lurking and made a presence on AO3, I chose a name to remind myself of the creative person I once was and hoped to be again. @lqtraintracks was the first to call me Jules and it stuck. Since joining AO3, I've not only returned to creative writing but unexpectedly became known as an artist, so the magic worked! 🌹 But no, no Juche here!

#julchen writes #whence julchen

your profile pic is really pretty. i think that every time I see it so im finally now telling you about it lol.

is it from something specific?

Hi, Nonnie, and thank you! My profile pic is a bit from a large stained glass installation called "The Sea of Jewish Learning," in the library of Congregation Beth Chaim of Princeton Junction, New Jersey.

The windows were designed by a beloved friend who's no longer with us. She didn't live to see me become a fandom artist, but she would have been delighted. She knew me when I was a scrapbooker and she loved what I made from paper then. The collage and mixed-media play that I used in scrapbooking became the foundation for my fanart. Everything I make is infused with the inspiration of her memory. ❤️ This is a post in honor of what would have been her 50th birthday in 2020. And this is us back in 1999. She'd just bought me that bead curtain, and we're both standing on a couch to show it off. 😄

Thank you so much for the question and the kind words, Nonnie! 🌹

#nice anons #julchen writes

Smutsgiving Drabble

A 100-word Hermione/Luna drabble for the customary Smutsgiving challenge. ---------------------- There could be no sleeping until the part-Veela/part-werewolf newlyweds on the other side of the wall exhausted themselves. Consequently, no matter where each night’s whispered conversation with Luna began, it always inevitably turned toward sex. “But it’s fascinating, though,” Luna insisted, “there are infinite variables. People are covered in nerve endings! It’s amazing!” “Is it?” Hermione smiled. “Of course! Consider the possibilities. The throat, the wrists, the inner thighs, the lower spine. Everyone has different erogenous zones.” Luna’s lips quirked. “Where are yours?” Hermione blushed. “I…don’t know.” Luna’s eyes flashed with a scientist’s delight. “Would you like to find out?”

#julchen writes #femslash #drabble #hermiuna #smutsgiving #smutsgiving2023 #hermione/luna

A Hermiuna Pantoum: Tea at Dawn

Hermione wakes in bed alone at Shell Cottage and goes to find Luna, drinking her morning tea on the porch. ---------- I gasp and reach reflexively for her. She’s gone to have her tea and greet the sun. My racing heartbeat slows. My nightmare fades. I sigh and shiver, blinking in the light. She’s gone to have her tea and greet the sun. She sways with blissful sighs and dancing hands. I sigh and shiver, blinking in the light. A fragrant twig is steeping in her cup. She sways with blissful sighs and dancing hands. Her tea is strong, with unexpected spice. A fragrant twig is steeping in her cup. It’s all the wand she has, and it’s enough. Her tea is strong, with unexpected spice. She’s brave and vibrant, after everything. It’s all the wand she has, and it’s enough. She hums and murmurs, rocking like the tide. She’s brave and vibrant, after everything. I gasp and reach reflexively for her. She hums and murmurs, rocking like the tide. My racing heartbeat slows. My nightmare fades.

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On AO3

#julchen writes #poetry #my poetry #pantoum #hermiuna #tea at dawn #rare pair #neurodivergence

Drabble

A 100-word Hermione/Luna drabble for this Thanksgiving challenge. ---------------------- “Show me.” Luna stepped back, eyes intent. Hermione pulled off her pajama shirt, brashly flexing her shoulders more than strictly necessary. Once bare, though, she felt shy. To keep from crossing her arms, she clasped her hands behind her back. “Oh, lovely,” Luna murmured. Hermione shivered under Luna’s focus. “What do you see?” “I see questions and answers. I see skin full of nerve endings.” Luna held her hands near Hermione’s breasts and mimed a gentle plucking caress to see Hermione’s nipples harden. “I see a mind full of fantasies. I want to touch them all.” Hermione glowed. “Keep talking.” ---------------------- “To come to attention” on AO3.

#julchen writes #femslash #hermiuna #smutsgiving #smutsgiving2022 #drabble #hermione/luna

Jules Tries...making blackout poetry! Friends, this was far harder than I expected it to be, and I’m still not much thrilled with the result. I spent most of the week banging my head against large books of poetry, looking for a good candidate. The large vintage book of Romantic and Victorian poetry was insurmountably depressing, and even Shakespeare didn’t offer many better options. In the end I chose a poem nearly at random, just to have something in hand by deadline. If you want to try making blackout poetry, I’d advise you to choose a poem that has plenty of ordinary parts of speech to work with: pronouns and articles and such. Without many of them, I struggled to find fragments that would hang together coherently, but I did my best. 😮‍💨👍 What is this series?

#jules tries #blackout poetry #julchen writes #my poetry #poetry