Never Done: Had a solo date with Tabitha
Tshuve: Played in a pile of leaves
I recently wrote about how sometimes I lose track of what makes my life significant. When I look back over the years, one thing I'm never confused about is how good it's been to be very close to young people, and their parents. Starting in the late 80's in Maine, I spent special time with the Sanborn sisters (who are now grown women), and then in Portland with the Cervantes-Gautschi sisters (also now grown women) and my wonderful across-the-street neighbor Gabrielle. My young New York friends have been boys -- two sets of brothers who I've known since they were babies, and are now full-on teenagers. I've been missing this kind of bonding in my life lately -- the kind of closeness that comes from being a very good friend, which is different from being a parent, or an aunt. Because you get all the fun, trust-building, and surprise of hanging out with a child, but you also get to give their parents some unexpected support. And that feels significant to me.
I had my first date with Tabitha, the daughter of my good friends (and wonderful theater director) Michelle. Tabitha and I are going to start hanging out once a week for 2 hours. It sounds like so little, and yet how awesome is it that her mom gets two hours to herself -- on a day when she's not at work -- to spend however she wants? And while I do care about that part, how awesome is it that I get to hang out with the very cool Tabitha? I had a (very) few trepidations. We'd only spent time together with her mom. What if she didn't want to be alone with me? But from the moment we got together, she seemed completely content. And when I decided to go into the park to play together in a big pile of leaves, she was ecstatic. I didn't know, but it turns out she has a special affinity for leaves. She likes to pick them up one by one, examine them, drop them, and pick up more. Repeat. Again, and again, and again. Tshuve. As it turns out, she also likes to roll in the leaves and giggle. And, I remembered, so do I. It had been a long time since I'd done that -- tshuve -- so simple, so crumbly, so fun, and so much more fun with someone who is cracking up with delight. Towards the beginning of this blog I wrote that one of the things my friend L loves about being a parent is that she gets to re-visit parts of her childhood that she loved, and that she gets to share them with her son. As I pulled the bits of dried leaves off my sweater and out of my hair, I knew just what she meant.
Showing posts with label middle age woman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label middle age woman. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Night of the Living Dead
Never done: Walked across the Hudson River
Never done: Watched Night of the Living Dead
After the wedding, I wanted to cross the Hudson on the walking bridge at Poughkeepsie -- which has been on my list of things to do since it re-opened a year ago. So I called my college friend Cyndi, who lives in Poughkeepsie, to see if she wanted to walk over the river too. She told me it was her anniversary with Mark, whom she fell in love with at a Halloween party five years ago, where he was a terrorist, and she was Elizabeth Taylor in her dressing room while playing Cleopatra. (She didn't have good Cleopatra shoes, so she wore fluffy slippers, and then came up with the identity to match her outfit.) And sure -- they had the day off, and would love to walk on water. We dressed in polar fleece and wool hats (no high concept Halloween costumes, although we did meet a gorilla along the way) and set out across the world's longest elevated pedestrian bridge. The walkway is broad and solid, in fitting balance to the broad river that flows both ways. The view was expansive and beautiful. I needed that after a weekend staying in a hermetically sealed hotel. I don't do well in enclosed spaces. I leave windows and doors open -- even in the city -- more concerned, it seems, with whether I can get out than if someone else can get in. Which is a surprisingly apt segue to my second never done activity of the day: I finally, finally, finally watched Night of the Living Dead.
Is it safer to barricade yourself into an enclosed space where you can't see what's coming, or to take your chances near the windows and doors, where you can get in and out if you need to torch something? I'd be upstairs with Ben, but hopefully I'd be HELPING him. What's up with the catatonic white woman, Barbra? And all the other less-than-helpful white people? (Tom and Judy at least tried.) And Ben, the black man, who has to do everything for everyone, and manages to survive by a combination of his strength and seykhl (wits) but STILL gets shot by the cops at the end of the movie? When I saw those men crossing the field, I knew in my heart what was coming, but I didn't want to believe the film would be so politically sobering. My friend Eric wrote to me that George Romero was way ahead of his time, but I would argue back that he was completely OF his time. That film was made in 1968. The same year as the Tet Offensive and the Fair Housing Act. And the same year I learned the hard way that I prefer doors to be left open.
Never done: Watched Night of the Living Dead
After the wedding, I wanted to cross the Hudson on the walking bridge at Poughkeepsie -- which has been on my list of things to do since it re-opened a year ago. So I called my college friend Cyndi, who lives in Poughkeepsie, to see if she wanted to walk over the river too. She told me it was her anniversary with Mark, whom she fell in love with at a Halloween party five years ago, where he was a terrorist, and she was Elizabeth Taylor in her dressing room while playing Cleopatra. (She didn't have good Cleopatra shoes, so she wore fluffy slippers, and then came up with the identity to match her outfit.) And sure -- they had the day off, and would love to walk on water. We dressed in polar fleece and wool hats (no high concept Halloween costumes, although we did meet a gorilla along the way) and set out across the world's longest elevated pedestrian bridge. The walkway is broad and solid, in fitting balance to the broad river that flows both ways. The view was expansive and beautiful. I needed that after a weekend staying in a hermetically sealed hotel. I don't do well in enclosed spaces. I leave windows and doors open -- even in the city -- more concerned, it seems, with whether I can get out than if someone else can get in. Which is a surprisingly apt segue to my second never done activity of the day: I finally, finally, finally watched Night of the Living Dead.
Is it safer to barricade yourself into an enclosed space where you can't see what's coming, or to take your chances near the windows and doors, where you can get in and out if you need to torch something? I'd be upstairs with Ben, but hopefully I'd be HELPING him. What's up with the catatonic white woman, Barbra? And all the other less-than-helpful white people? (Tom and Judy at least tried.) And Ben, the black man, who has to do everything for everyone, and manages to survive by a combination of his strength and seykhl (wits) but STILL gets shot by the cops at the end of the movie? When I saw those men crossing the field, I knew in my heart what was coming, but I didn't want to believe the film would be so politically sobering. My friend Eric wrote to me that George Romero was way ahead of his time, but I would argue back that he was completely OF his time. That film was made in 1968. The same year as the Tet Offensive and the Fair Housing Act. And the same year I learned the hard way that I prefer doors to be left open.
Friday, October 29, 2010
A Sense of Wonder
Never Done: Have genetic testing. My body doesn't store iron. I don't have any ferritin, which is (source: wikipedia) "a ubiquitous intracellular protein that stores iron and releases it in a controlled fashion. This protein is produced by almost all living organisms, including bacteria, algae, and higher plants, and animals. In animals, it acts as a bugger against iron deficiency and iron overload." We are supposed to have between 10 and 291 nanograms/mililiter of ferritin in our bloods, and I have 1 on a good day. It's been this way for many years. I have taken iron supplements, been injected with weekly B12 shots, cooked on an iron frying pan, eaten kale, spinach, molasses, raisins and apricots, and none of this had had an effect. Then earlier this summer I asked myself for the first time (shehekhianu) WHY I might have such low ferritin. And it turns out that the two most common links are thyroid disease and celiac disease.
I'll try to avoid going all too-much-information on you here. We did some blood tests, found I have thyroid problems, and I started treatment. Celiac is harder to test for because I've been on a wheat-free diet for 18 months (because I feel much better without it) and yet in order to test positive for celiac, I would have to eat gluten for many months, so we could find the enemy within. To get a read on things sooner, and to help assess whether it is worth it to submit me to all this, my doc ordered some genetic predisposition testing for celiac and we just found but that yes, I carry a gene variant associated with celiac disease. I've been gene-mapped! I can't believe I didn't ask her to test if I share an ancestor with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Mario Batali. (I still haven't watched Faces of America. I'll put it on my list.) (I also haven't eaten at Eataly.)
On the one hand, this news and this genetic testing technology don't seem like big deals. On the other hand, I am old enough to think like my parents thought, and can still be amazed with the advances in technology over their, and my, lifetimes. My father was born in 1918, and my mother in 1929 -- and I was born in 1963. Let's think about all the things we didn't have when I was growing up. ATM machines, personal computers, IVF, the internet, Dippin' Dots. And if I'm honest, I like that I still have this sense of wonder, when I walk down the street and see everyone talking on their cell phones -- and I think about how it was when I grew up, when I went into the bank to deposit money into our savings account, and I typed my papers on a manual typewriter, and people who were infertile adopted, and I did my research in the public library, and we made our own ice cream with a hand crank, and the phone was connected to the wall in in the kitchen. I'm not trying to go all sentimental retro here -- because I love my computer, and I am incredibly happy that my friends have been able to have their fantastic children with the help of IVF, and I talk on my cell phone all the time. (I hate Dippin' Dots. They are made of chemicals and taste bad. I love ice cream though, and still eat it every day.) So no, I am not trying to go all sentimental retro; I'm just trying to explain about my sense of wonder when I see this on my lab report: !HLA-DQ2(DQA*05/DQB1*02): Positive.
I'll try to avoid going all too-much-information on you here. We did some blood tests, found I have thyroid problems, and I started treatment. Celiac is harder to test for because I've been on a wheat-free diet for 18 months (because I feel much better without it) and yet in order to test positive for celiac, I would have to eat gluten for many months, so we could find the enemy within. To get a read on things sooner, and to help assess whether it is worth it to submit me to all this, my doc ordered some genetic predisposition testing for celiac and we just found but that yes, I carry a gene variant associated with celiac disease. I've been gene-mapped! I can't believe I didn't ask her to test if I share an ancestor with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Mario Batali. (I still haven't watched Faces of America. I'll put it on my list.) (I also haven't eaten at Eataly.)
On the one hand, this news and this genetic testing technology don't seem like big deals. On the other hand, I am old enough to think like my parents thought, and can still be amazed with the advances in technology over their, and my, lifetimes. My father was born in 1918, and my mother in 1929 -- and I was born in 1963. Let's think about all the things we didn't have when I was growing up. ATM machines, personal computers, IVF, the internet, Dippin' Dots. And if I'm honest, I like that I still have this sense of wonder, when I walk down the street and see everyone talking on their cell phones -- and I think about how it was when I grew up, when I went into the bank to deposit money into our savings account, and I typed my papers on a manual typewriter, and people who were infertile adopted, and I did my research in the public library, and we made our own ice cream with a hand crank, and the phone was connected to the wall in in the kitchen. I'm not trying to go all sentimental retro here -- because I love my computer, and I am incredibly happy that my friends have been able to have their fantastic children with the help of IVF, and I talk on my cell phone all the time. (I hate Dippin' Dots. They are made of chemicals and taste bad. I love ice cream though, and still eat it every day.) So no, I am not trying to go all sentimental retro; I'm just trying to explain about my sense of wonder when I see this on my lab report: !HLA-DQ2(DQA*05/DQB1*02): Positive.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The end of nationalism
Never Done: Make a monthly accounting system. There are days when I question my decision to try to do a new thing every day. Those aren't the days when I've lined up something amazing that's been on my list for 5 years; nor are they the days when grace places a church medallion in my line of sight. Instead this happens when I am struggling with the question of what makes my life significant. I haven't always struggled with this question. For most of my life, I've been very clear about the ways my life, and my work are significant. It's a question that has dogged me since moving to New York City -- where I have felt more anonymous, and less effective, and less able to build community in the ways I'm used to. This has all started to shift for me in the past months. I feel more connected and more effective, and I can notice that I am more central in this Big City than I have ever felt before. This is both Never Done, and also Tshuve -- because I am starting to feel like Brooklyn is just a town, and Manhattan is just a town, and that I can do things here like I did in Portland, which when I moved there was a huge overwhelming city to me, and by a few years in, was one of my deepest homes. One of the reasons I am so excited about the Brooklyn Soup Swap, is that it's the kind of thing I would have easily done in Portland, and took me 8 years to initiate here. (It's going great, by the way. We have 8 households, and I will be making the first round of soup next Friday. I will write about it then.)
The question of significance has also dogged me since both my parents have now passed. As wonderful a global network of friends as I have (and I do have a beautiful global network of friends who are really good at reminding me of my significance) -- nothing has ever reminded me of my own significance like caring for my parents as they aged and died. Not that I haven't been super invested in a ton of political work that I've done, or performance or writing or film .... it's just that since they've gone, I have more days when I wonder what I'm doing here.
So when I come to the end of a day and my Never Done is that I set up a monthly accounting system, you can imagine that I might feel a little tiny in the world. But the thing is, I know that that little system is going to have some big reach. First of all, I'm hoping it will lessen dull conversations between me and my partner. We are both pretty great about taking care of our own lives, but we still, after 7 years, haven't figured out how to take care of our joint life. So this is actually a joint monthly accounting system. I took a little notebook (very pretty with a black and white photo of a spiral staircase, with iron work and ornamental plaster work) and we wrote down all our joint monthly expenses, and who pays which bills, and which ones are recurring, and which ones are variable. And we are going to sit down at the end of every month, and add all these numbers up, divide by two, and settle up our accounts. (It sounds so simple, right? Why did it take 7 years to start?) So I am hoping that we will have ONE dull conversation a month about this, and not 15 dull conversations sprinkled throughout the month. And that should lead to our having a lot more fun together, which will lead to my increased productivity, which will lead to my writing the screenplay about my father's secret career in pursuit of the end of nationalism, and that will end to the end of nationalism, and THEN I will be able to tell that my life is significant. And it all started with a monthly accounting system.
The question of significance has also dogged me since both my parents have now passed. As wonderful a global network of friends as I have (and I do have a beautiful global network of friends who are really good at reminding me of my significance) -- nothing has ever reminded me of my own significance like caring for my parents as they aged and died. Not that I haven't been super invested in a ton of political work that I've done, or performance or writing or film .... it's just that since they've gone, I have more days when I wonder what I'm doing here.
So when I come to the end of a day and my Never Done is that I set up a monthly accounting system, you can imagine that I might feel a little tiny in the world. But the thing is, I know that that little system is going to have some big reach. First of all, I'm hoping it will lessen dull conversations between me and my partner. We are both pretty great about taking care of our own lives, but we still, after 7 years, haven't figured out how to take care of our joint life. So this is actually a joint monthly accounting system. I took a little notebook (very pretty with a black and white photo of a spiral staircase, with iron work and ornamental plaster work) and we wrote down all our joint monthly expenses, and who pays which bills, and which ones are recurring, and which ones are variable. And we are going to sit down at the end of every month, and add all these numbers up, divide by two, and settle up our accounts. (It sounds so simple, right? Why did it take 7 years to start?) So I am hoping that we will have ONE dull conversation a month about this, and not 15 dull conversations sprinkled throughout the month. And that should lead to our having a lot more fun together, which will lead to my increased productivity, which will lead to my writing the screenplay about my father's secret career in pursuit of the end of nationalism, and that will end to the end of nationalism, and THEN I will be able to tell that my life is significant. And it all started with a monthly accounting system.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Embarrassment of riches
Never Done: Ate goat meat. I had dinner with Alissa Wise last night. (Did you just notice that? I wrote her name, not just her initial. I asked her if it was OK.) We went to Purple Yam, a fantastic Filipino fusion restaurant in Ditmas Park, where she had been before, and I had not. She suggested two dishes, and we ended up ordering them both to share -- one was a delicious and complex goat curry, and the other a fresh vegetarian lumpia. When Alissa recommended the goat, I felt a little inner hesitation because I was hungry, and wanted something I knew I would like. But then I had that awareness moment -- "Ah! this is something I've never done!" and so I decided to order it. When it came, and I took a bite, and it was delicious, I put down my fork and asked Alissa if she would say the Shehekianu with me. Because Alissa is not only a good friend, but she is a rabbi. And she is not only a rabbi, but she is the person who introduced me to Mussar, and will be leading a year-long Mussar group I'm going to be in. And she is not only my Mussar teacher, but we were getting together to talk about Never Done: My Mussar Year.
I loved saying the Shehekianu together. Even though I've been saying it every day for over a month, I was totally embarrassed and stumbled over it while saying it together with Alissa. I don't think I had ever said a blessing before while someone looked me straight in the eyes and beamed at me (another Never Done, which would require another Shehekianu, which would be even more embarrassing.) And while I am tempted to report on our conversation about Mussar -- and in particular, Mussar as an ethical framework for life -- I am going to let that wait until our group is underway, and I've internalized more of my own understanding of the practice. Instead, I want to thank you here, in this forum, Alissa, for opening your Jewish door wide open for me, for being my Mussar teacher, and for making me blush. Omeyn.
I loved saying the Shehekianu together. Even though I've been saying it every day for over a month, I was totally embarrassed and stumbled over it while saying it together with Alissa. I don't think I had ever said a blessing before while someone looked me straight in the eyes and beamed at me (another Never Done, which would require another Shehekianu, which would be even more embarrassing.) And while I am tempted to report on our conversation about Mussar -- and in particular, Mussar as an ethical framework for life -- I am going to let that wait until our group is underway, and I've internalized more of my own understanding of the practice. Instead, I want to thank you here, in this forum, Alissa, for opening your Jewish door wide open for me, for being my Mussar teacher, and for making me blush. Omeyn.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
This is new! Let's do it again!
Never Done: Take a cute baby video. When you're a baby, you do things you've never done every day, and then you want to do them again and again and again. I went to the playground today with T and her mom M. T, 13 months, played on the slide, in the rubber tire, on the swings, and for the first time in her life, in a veritable Never Done, in the sandbox. She adored the slide, and would have played on the it the entire time, but after a while, M and I would take her somewhere else to try something new. For the most part, she'd try the other things and be OK with them (with the exception of the sandbox, which she really didn't dig (so to speak) but after a while, these other things were, ultimately, not the slide. And so we would bring her back to the slide, and she would beam with delight as she went down it again, and again, and again. (And I took a video of that beaming delight with my iPhone, which was both the first time I'd taken a video with my iPhone, and the first time I ever took a cute baby video.)
Her mom says she is the same with books and watching videos. When she and her husband read T a new book or show her a little video of herself, T wants to hear it/see it again, right away, and again, and again, and again. M thinks it has something to do with making sure it's still the same -- that it hasn't changed. I imagine it also has to do with learning English, hand-eye coordination, and three act story structure.
So for T, the experiences of Never Done and Tshuve are closely intertwined. "This is new! Let's do it again!" If I'm honest with myself, I notice that I have the same impulses much of the time -- I just don't have the time to follow them the way I did when I was a kid. Maybe I'll put this one my Tshuve list -- spend a day shooting hoops, for as long as I want, the way I did when I was 15, or maybe watch the entire season of Battlestar Galactica in a single marathon, assuming I like it as much as everyone says I will.
Her mom says she is the same with books and watching videos. When she and her husband read T a new book or show her a little video of herself, T wants to hear it/see it again, right away, and again, and again, and again. M thinks it has something to do with making sure it's still the same -- that it hasn't changed. I imagine it also has to do with learning English, hand-eye coordination, and three act story structure.
So for T, the experiences of Never Done and Tshuve are closely intertwined. "This is new! Let's do it again!" If I'm honest with myself, I notice that I have the same impulses much of the time -- I just don't have the time to follow them the way I did when I was a kid. Maybe I'll put this one my Tshuve list -- spend a day shooting hoops, for as long as I want, the way I did when I was 15, or maybe watch the entire season of Battlestar Galactica in a single marathon, assuming I like it as much as everyone says I will.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Can't see the artwork for the trees
Never Done: Saw art on the Church of the Virgin Mary. I walked first north, and then south down 8th Avenue. Heading north, I glanced over and saw a medallion of artwork that I'd never before noticed on the church. I thought about it a while, wondering why I'd never seen it before, and then eventually got lost in other thoughts. Heading back south, I walked on the church side of the street so I could get a closer look, but got distracted by a tree stump, right in front of the medallion. I figured that the tree was most likely lost in the tornado and micro-storms last month, and I mourned it -- another giant gone. But then I realized that the tree had been blocking the view of the art, and that I couldn't see the artwork for the tree.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Cheese Sandwich Lost
Never Done: Met one of Josh's college roommates. Not only did I meet him, but he and his wife hosted us over night, on a moment's notice, the night after they returned from a 2-week trip to Italy. AND ... they integrated us into a dinner along with two of their daughters, a granddaughter, a sister-in-law, and two nieces. Spending time with B was a view into Josh I had never had before. At breakfast the next morning, he came down with a stack of parodies that they wrote in college (Harvard, class of 1969.) One of them was called Cheese Sandwich, Lost -- a hilarious parody of Milton's Paradise Lost, based on the in-joke that one of their roommates lost a cheese sandwich and couldn't stop complaining about it. My favorite line was something like, "Wrapped in wax. Wax, the stuff of Icarus's fiery ascent." I'll get the real text and post it, so you can see the actual brilliance, and not the diluted and mis-reported brilliance, of Josh and Bob in '69.
A little Never Done context that I haven't yet explained on this blog: I am a person who has held many jobs, and done many things. This is not a project for a very young person, because by definition a very young person has never done many things. It is also not a bucket list, which I think of as for people who are at or near the end of their lives -- because of either age or illness. It is about short and long-term goals, and it's also about, as I wrote before, awareness: being able to notice when something new is in my path. It's also about choices. There are things on my Never Done list that I don't intend to do, and there are things that scare the crap out of me, but that I might just have to consider. Examples? I've never shot heroin, and I don't intend to. But I might have to consider sky diving, joining a synagogue, or this new idea I just had that is so fucking ambitious that I am afraid to even say what it is. (But it has to do with television, in case you want to keep me honest later.)
A little Never Done context that I haven't yet explained on this blog: I am a person who has held many jobs, and done many things. This is not a project for a very young person, because by definition a very young person has never done many things. It is also not a bucket list, which I think of as for people who are at or near the end of their lives -- because of either age or illness. It is about short and long-term goals, and it's also about, as I wrote before, awareness: being able to notice when something new is in my path. It's also about choices. There are things on my Never Done list that I don't intend to do, and there are things that scare the crap out of me, but that I might just have to consider. Examples? I've never shot heroin, and I don't intend to. But I might have to consider sky diving, joining a synagogue, or this new idea I just had that is so fucking ambitious that I am afraid to even say what it is. (But it has to do with television, in case you want to keep me honest later.)
Friday, October 22, 2010
You Gotta Believe!
Never done: Spoke with an adoption agency. This is a big one. I knew when I started this project that some days would feel insignificant and some days would rock my world. Well, rock on. I had a long talk with Mary Keane, from You Gotta Believe! which is a program (let's not talk about that strange name, which sounds like it's a booster for the World Series underdogs) for older child adoption in New York City. Over the past year I've called literally every adoption agency in the city, and received not one, not two, but NO return phone calls. It finally dawned on me to call the LGBT center, and ask them if they could be a resource. Terry Boggis called me back immediately, and has started to reach out on my behalf. She also recommended that I start going to GPS/MAPP classes. (GPS/MAPP stands for Group Preparation and Selection/Model Approaches to Partnerships in Parenting.)
So I called Mary, who leads the class at the Center, to tell her I would start going in early November, and we had a big full conversation. I always thought I would adopt. I grew up across the street from my (now) oldest friend, who is the only biological child in a family of four children -- her three younger siblings are adopted. They were all adopted as infants, and I think I imagined that's what I would do as well, but I've gotten to 47 without doing it, and my partner is 62, and so it's started to make more and more sense to consider adopting an older child.
I hear it already. "It's so hard." "Once they're that long in the system, they can't learn to trust." And yeah -- these are my exact fears too. But should the thousands of kids who are waiting for families never get them because potential parents think it will be hard. Well, it *will* be hard. Parenting is hard. I don't expect to go into this blindly -- or to pretend that I have no limits on what I am capable of. On the contrary, I know that there are certain things I can handle as a parent, and certain things I can't. (And hopefully the GPS/MAPP classes will challenge me on what I "know.") Isn't this a wonderful example of how to balance out the needs of the self versus the needs of the other? There it is again, the heart of Mussar practice.
Here's what I believe: I believe that every person is capable of learning to trust, no matter how badly trust has been broken in the past. I don't think it's always possible -- or useful -- to rebuild trust with the person who broke it. But I do think it's possible for a person who has been very, very hurt to heal. Repair. Tshuve.
So I called Mary, who leads the class at the Center, to tell her I would start going in early November, and we had a big full conversation. I always thought I would adopt. I grew up across the street from my (now) oldest friend, who is the only biological child in a family of four children -- her three younger siblings are adopted. They were all adopted as infants, and I think I imagined that's what I would do as well, but I've gotten to 47 without doing it, and my partner is 62, and so it's started to make more and more sense to consider adopting an older child.
I hear it already. "It's so hard." "Once they're that long in the system, they can't learn to trust." And yeah -- these are my exact fears too. But should the thousands of kids who are waiting for families never get them because potential parents think it will be hard. Well, it *will* be hard. Parenting is hard. I don't expect to go into this blindly -- or to pretend that I have no limits on what I am capable of. On the contrary, I know that there are certain things I can handle as a parent, and certain things I can't. (And hopefully the GPS/MAPP classes will challenge me on what I "know.") Isn't this a wonderful example of how to balance out the needs of the self versus the needs of the other? There it is again, the heart of Mussar practice.
Here's what I believe: I believe that every person is capable of learning to trust, no matter how badly trust has been broken in the past. I don't think it's always possible -- or useful -- to rebuild trust with the person who broke it. But I do think it's possible for a person who has been very, very hurt to heal. Repair. Tshuve.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Eternal comedy
Tshuve: I joined the Armory YMCA as a charter member last winter, and I got a wonderful cranberry inaugural jacket with a New York Y insignia on the arm. You see them all over the neighborhood -- members sporting them like we are all on the same hipster team. The new wonderful Armory YMCA has no showers though, and my old apartment was a little far from the gym, so I didn't like going, getting sweaty, and not being able to get clean. So I stopped going. But now I have moved 3 blocks from it, and so I am back lifting weights, running on the track, and using the elliptical machine. It's not just a return to the Y -- it's also a return to a certain kind of physical activity. I've been quite physically active since not going to the gym -- running and swimming and doing yoga -- but that's not the same as going to the gym, which gives me a deep sense of tshuve -- return -- to the most grounded place in my adolescence, to which I have returned and found strength, both literally and figuratively, many times over the past 30 years.
Never done: I went to a reading of Nahma Sandrow's brand new translation of a Yiddish play, Yankl der Shmid (Yankl the Blacksmith) by David Pinski. Nahma is a gifted translator, and I loved the play, which is really about the main character's struggle against the yetzer hore, which Nahma translated as the "evil impulse." Yankl is a drinker and a womanizer, but he wants very much to change his ways. He falls in love with a lovely young woman -- an orphan with few prospects -- and she marries him despite his reputation, because he is super good-looking, she believes he can change, and she doesn't think she has better prospects. The play is about the struggle between good and evil -- his in action, and hers in faith.
In Mussar practice, one way we look at yetzer hore is as focus on self, whereas the yetzer tov (good impulse) can be seen as a focus on the other. It could be thought of as a moral conscience -- the impulse that reminds us of god's laws when making decisions. Yetzer hore is selfish nature -- the desire to satisfy personal needs like sex, food, shelter, etc without taking into consideration the moral consequences of fulfilling those desires. What most interests me about Mussar practice is right at the nexus of these two impulses: how do we balance out our own needs with the needs of our communities? With the needs of the environment? With the needs of the world? This is something I, like many socially conscious people, have struggled to understand for myself for many years. Buddhism taught me to hold my own needs in one hand while holding other people's needs in the other hand. Therapy, the same. But it's still not easy for me; years of subsuming my needs for the needs of the family made it difficult for me to gently, confidently, easy-goingly stand up for myself without over-asserting my self. It is also not easy for Yankl the blacksmith, who is tortured by the yetzer hore, or for his beautiful orphan wife Tamara, who is constrained by the yetzer tov. But their lives are a melodrama in four acts, and mine is, hopefully, an eternal comedy.
Never done: I went to a reading of Nahma Sandrow's brand new translation of a Yiddish play, Yankl der Shmid (Yankl the Blacksmith) by David Pinski. Nahma is a gifted translator, and I loved the play, which is really about the main character's struggle against the yetzer hore, which Nahma translated as the "evil impulse." Yankl is a drinker and a womanizer, but he wants very much to change his ways. He falls in love with a lovely young woman -- an orphan with few prospects -- and she marries him despite his reputation, because he is super good-looking, she believes he can change, and she doesn't think she has better prospects. The play is about the struggle between good and evil -- his in action, and hers in faith.
In Mussar practice, one way we look at yetzer hore is as focus on self, whereas the yetzer tov (good impulse) can be seen as a focus on the other. It could be thought of as a moral conscience -- the impulse that reminds us of god's laws when making decisions. Yetzer hore is selfish nature -- the desire to satisfy personal needs like sex, food, shelter, etc without taking into consideration the moral consequences of fulfilling those desires. What most interests me about Mussar practice is right at the nexus of these two impulses: how do we balance out our own needs with the needs of our communities? With the needs of the environment? With the needs of the world? This is something I, like many socially conscious people, have struggled to understand for myself for many years. Buddhism taught me to hold my own needs in one hand while holding other people's needs in the other hand. Therapy, the same. But it's still not easy for me; years of subsuming my needs for the needs of the family made it difficult for me to gently, confidently, easy-goingly stand up for myself without over-asserting my self. It is also not easy for Yankl the blacksmith, who is tortured by the yetzer hore, or for his beautiful orphan wife Tamara, who is constrained by the yetzer tov. But their lives are a melodrama in four acts, and mine is, hopefully, an eternal comedy.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Shehekhianu
Baruch ata Adonai Elohenu, melekh ha’olam, shehekhianu, v’kimanu, v’higianu, lazman hazeh. Praised be you, Adonai, king of the universe, who has kept us alive, and has preserved us, and enabled us to reach this day.
The Shehekhianu is the blessing Jews say when we experience something for the first time. We also say it when we celebrate a ritual for the first time during the year, or we eat a fruit for the first time during a season. I wrote it above to mark the first time any of us are experiencing this blog. My leap of faith. My new project: Never Done: My Mussar Year.
Starting on Yom Kippur, which this year fell on September 18, 2010, I committed to doing one thing every day that I have never done before. And to write about it. I have a successful month under my belt -- and I've already learned a lot about what my project is, and isn't.
I started out by making a huge list of things I have never done before -- mostly things I would like to do, and including some that I'm not sure about. Some are relatively small, like go to Upright Citizens Brigade, or go kayaking on the Hudson river. Some are bigger, like get a tattoo or adopt a child. I expected that I would pick something from the list every day, and go for it -- mixing up the little with the huge.
But in fact that's not how it's been working. I quickly learned that Never Done is more of an awareness practice than a Pick Your Own Adventure. As I go through the day, I almost always come to a moment when I notice that I have come face to face with something I've never done -- and that I can choose to do it. In this first month, there have only been a couple days when I reached into the grab bag -- once because it was 11 PM, and I hadn't done a Never Done yet, and once because I just felt like it. But most of the time, someone offered me a quail egg, or I took the wrong turn on a path in the woods, and ended up someplace new. It's a wonderful feeling to notice suddenly that I'm on the brink of a Never Done, and to say yes to it.
So why am I doing this? What's the journey? I'm 47, which strongly feels like I'm approaching 50. Most people tell me they think of as younger, and so do I. In fact, I can barely imagine fitting into the identity of a 50-year-old. But I will turn 50 on January 13, 2013, so I decided to make sure that 50 feels expansive to me, and not limiting. When I had the idea for Never Done, of course I thought about "a woman's work is never done" which can be subverted to be really quite expansive, if you think about it. No forced retirement (noting the irony that as I write this, the French are going out on general strike to protect the retirement age of 62) and eternal opportunity. The truth is, my mind is sharper than it's ever been, I am much more productive, creative, and effective than I've ever been, and I have more patience for people than I did in my 20s and 30s. But still, I am afraid of aging -- what it means to me, and what it means to others about me -- and so I decided to do something new every day, and see how transformed my life is by the time I turn 50.
Just a couple days into this practice, I talked with a 50-something-year-old friend who told me that at this point in her life she is more interested in returning to things she's loved in the past than she is interested in exploring new things. She said that is one of the main reasons she wanted to have a child (and she does have a child -- a terrific 9-year-old.) This made sense to me, and so I started thinking about Done Before, return, tshuve. I realized that if all I do is new, new, new, never done, never done, never done, that I won't be grounded or rooted, and I will miss returning to things I already love and value. The cranberries I pick every October, dinner with my old friend, swimming across Walden Pond. And so I have also been writing down when I return to something meaningful to me.
There is a part of the Jewish spiritual/ethical practice of Mussar -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musar_movement -- in which we choose an action and take it consistently throughout a year. Some people choose to give money to everyone who asks -- no questions asked, and some choose to stop for yellow lights -- every time, and some choose bless their food every time they eat. As I understand it, the idea is to stop the bargaining our minds can engage in: "I really have to go through this one yellow light, because the ice cream is melting in the back of the car." "If I give this man some change, then he's gonna want more tomorrow." You stop the voices, you do the action every time, no questions asked. And you see what it is like. If you forget and run the yellow, or you tuck into your slice of pie before remembering to bless it, then you get to notice why you forgot, and that is really at the heart of the practice. So far I have not gone a day without doing a Never Done, and I've never not noticed that I've done it, but I have forgotten to say the Shehekianu.
This is a long post -- and I haven't even included my list of things I've Never Done, or what I've done in the past month. So I will write up what I did on my first day of my Mussar Year, on Yom Kippur, and I'll just list what I did this past month, so that if I decide to go back and reference them later, you'll have at least a point of reference.
9/18/10
Never Done: Get caught on the wrong side
After morning services at the beautiful egalitarian shul in Bath, Maine, JW and I went to Popham Beach. I like to spend part of Yom Kippur outside somewhere beautiful, and for the past number of years I've gone to Popham. Popham is a wonderful sandy beach with a tide that approaches from two directions, and salty estuaries that cut through the sand. The tide comes in fast, and it's possible to get caught on the wrong side -- either out on an island that the tide cuts off entirely from the shore, or on the wrong side of the estuaries. I've been going to Popham Beach since I was 4 years old -- so for 43 years -- and I have never, ever been caught on the wrong side. But we were out playing on the beach (three adults and a 9-year-old) and by the time we noticed that the tide was coming in, we couldn't get back across the estuary without wading across swift, cold water up to our waists. Halfway across, not sure how much deeper it was going to get, my shorts and gatkes already wet, I noticed that this was a Never Done! And I started to laugh, and laughed my way across to the embankment. (Another 10 minutes, and I wouldn't have been laughing.)
And then ....
9/19/10
Never Done: Watched Veronica Mars
9/20/10
Never Done: Shipped lobster across the country
Tshuve: Climbed on the rocks at Ocean Point in the late afternoon sun
Never Done: Cooked Lobster Fra Diavolo
9/22/10
Never Done: Built a sukke
9/23/10
Tshuve: Return to the Boothbay Farmers Market
Never Done: Started a new screenplay called Temporary Dwellings
Never Done: Went for a walk in the woods, turned down a new path, and ended up somewhere I'd never been
9/24/10Never Done: Said the Shehekianu after eating a new fruit (Mollie's Delicious Apple) in the sukke.
Never Done: Spent time with my cousins G and P in Boothbay
Never Done: Saw four of the moons of Jupiter through G's telescope!
9/25/10
Never Done: Went into a golf clubhouse
Tshuve: Watched the sunset at Porter Preserve
Tshuve: Went to Robinson's Wharf, which was my father's favorite place, but it was also a Never Done, because I had never gone as an adult
9/26/10
Tshuve: Returned to Common Ground Fair
Never Done: Brought JW, met up with EG, met EK
Never Done: Introduced J to the grilled haddock sandwich at Red's
9/27/10Never Done: Walked from Peterson's Cove, over the little bridge, and up the steps, and out of the cove onto Farnham Point Road. It was a small thing, but I did say the Shehekianu over the bridge.
9/28/10Never Done: Had a film that I'd worked on at the New York Film Festival (Nuremberg)
9/29/10Never Done: Got my hair cut at Mudhoney, from a woman on a pre-agricultural diet (which I'd never heard of)Never Done: Had a film that I'd worked on premiere at the Film Forum (Nuremberg)
9/30/10
Never Done: Started working at the Camden Film Festival (met a bunch of new film industry people)
10/1/10
Never Done: Had Nero D'Avola wine at CIFF, met a bunch of new film industry people
Tshuve: Had lunch with an old friend, and for the first time were together as film festival colleagues
10/2/10
Never Done: Saw the film Do It Again, in the Bayview Cinema in Camden
Never Done: Went to a documentary pitch workshop
10/3/10
Tshuve: Picked the cranberries I always pick in October
Never Done: Saw the film Prodigal Sons
10/4/10
Tshuve: Left East Boothbay
Never Done: Went to sleep before the D's
10/5/10
Never Done: Spoke with 3 Muslim men after they finished their prayers on the sidewalk of the Merritt Parkway rest area. We spoke about Jewish and Muslim prayers for things we do for the first time.
10/6/10
Never Done: Spilled a full cup of tea all over JW's desk -- with hard drives, papers, and into power strips. (All was OK.)
10/7/10
Never Done: Had a beer milkshake (it was fantastic. Best milkshake I've ever had.)
Never Done: After seeing the Social Network, I accepted the Facebook friend request of my ex whose requests I'd been intentionally ignoring.
10/8/10
Never Done: Called the LGBT Center to inquire about adopting a child
10/9/10Tshuve: Woke up with laryngitis
Never Done: Went to A's bar mitzve
Never Done: Since starting this project, said the Shehekianu together in a group of other people (for A's bar mitzve)
10/10/10
Never Done: Saw the film Memories of Overdevelopment.
Never Done/Tshuve: Baked apple pie at AM's house, with apples from L's trees
10/11/10Never Done: Started the Brooklyn Soup Swap
10/12/10
Never Done: Got a call back from the LGBT Center about adoption
10/13/10
Never Done: Saw Big Bambu on the roof of the Met, with P.
10/14/10
Never Done: Had sex in our old apartment, the night before we moved out.
10/15/10
Never Done: Moved to our new apartment
10/16/10
Never Done: Woke up in the new apartment
10/17/10
Never Done: C visits in Brooklyn
Never Done: Watched the Mad Men season finale upstairs with landlords
10/18/10
Tshuve: Had 3rd quarter check-in with D, D, and N
Never Done: Introduced K and D for the first time
Thank you for reading. From here on out, the posts will be shorter, the life will be fuller, and maybe the formatting will be more consistent. (I've been wrestling with fonts and italics for 30 minutes now, and it's time to let it be good enough.
The Shehekhianu is the blessing Jews say when we experience something for the first time. We also say it when we celebrate a ritual for the first time during the year, or we eat a fruit for the first time during a season. I wrote it above to mark the first time any of us are experiencing this blog. My leap of faith. My new project: Never Done: My Mussar Year.
Starting on Yom Kippur, which this year fell on September 18, 2010, I committed to doing one thing every day that I have never done before. And to write about it. I have a successful month under my belt -- and I've already learned a lot about what my project is, and isn't.
I started out by making a huge list of things I have never done before -- mostly things I would like to do, and including some that I'm not sure about. Some are relatively small, like go to Upright Citizens Brigade, or go kayaking on the Hudson river. Some are bigger, like get a tattoo or adopt a child. I expected that I would pick something from the list every day, and go for it -- mixing up the little with the huge.
But in fact that's not how it's been working. I quickly learned that Never Done is more of an awareness practice than a Pick Your Own Adventure. As I go through the day, I almost always come to a moment when I notice that I have come face to face with something I've never done -- and that I can choose to do it. In this first month, there have only been a couple days when I reached into the grab bag -- once because it was 11 PM, and I hadn't done a Never Done yet, and once because I just felt like it. But most of the time, someone offered me a quail egg, or I took the wrong turn on a path in the woods, and ended up someplace new. It's a wonderful feeling to notice suddenly that I'm on the brink of a Never Done, and to say yes to it.
So why am I doing this? What's the journey? I'm 47, which strongly feels like I'm approaching 50. Most people tell me they think of as younger, and so do I. In fact, I can barely imagine fitting into the identity of a 50-year-old. But I will turn 50 on January 13, 2013, so I decided to make sure that 50 feels expansive to me, and not limiting. When I had the idea for Never Done, of course I thought about "a woman's work is never done" which can be subverted to be really quite expansive, if you think about it. No forced retirement (noting the irony that as I write this, the French are going out on general strike to protect the retirement age of 62) and eternal opportunity. The truth is, my mind is sharper than it's ever been, I am much more productive, creative, and effective than I've ever been, and I have more patience for people than I did in my 20s and 30s. But still, I am afraid of aging -- what it means to me, and what it means to others about me -- and so I decided to do something new every day, and see how transformed my life is by the time I turn 50.
Just a couple days into this practice, I talked with a 50-something-year-old friend who told me that at this point in her life she is more interested in returning to things she's loved in the past than she is interested in exploring new things. She said that is one of the main reasons she wanted to have a child (and she does have a child -- a terrific 9-year-old.) This made sense to me, and so I started thinking about Done Before, return, tshuve. I realized that if all I do is new, new, new, never done, never done, never done, that I won't be grounded or rooted, and I will miss returning to things I already love and value. The cranberries I pick every October, dinner with my old friend, swimming across Walden Pond. And so I have also been writing down when I return to something meaningful to me.
There is a part of the Jewish spiritual/ethical practice of Mussar -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musar_movement -- in which we choose an action and take it consistently throughout a year. Some people choose to give money to everyone who asks -- no questions asked, and some choose to stop for yellow lights -- every time, and some choose bless their food every time they eat. As I understand it, the idea is to stop the bargaining our minds can engage in: "I really have to go through this one yellow light, because the ice cream is melting in the back of the car." "If I give this man some change, then he's gonna want more tomorrow." You stop the voices, you do the action every time, no questions asked. And you see what it is like. If you forget and run the yellow, or you tuck into your slice of pie before remembering to bless it, then you get to notice why you forgot, and that is really at the heart of the practice. So far I have not gone a day without doing a Never Done, and I've never not noticed that I've done it, but I have forgotten to say the Shehekianu.
This is a long post -- and I haven't even included my list of things I've Never Done, or what I've done in the past month. So I will write up what I did on my first day of my Mussar Year, on Yom Kippur, and I'll just list what I did this past month, so that if I decide to go back and reference them later, you'll have at least a point of reference.
9/18/10
Never Done: Get caught on the wrong side
After morning services at the beautiful egalitarian shul in Bath, Maine, JW and I went to Popham Beach. I like to spend part of Yom Kippur outside somewhere beautiful, and for the past number of years I've gone to Popham. Popham is a wonderful sandy beach with a tide that approaches from two directions, and salty estuaries that cut through the sand. The tide comes in fast, and it's possible to get caught on the wrong side -- either out on an island that the tide cuts off entirely from the shore, or on the wrong side of the estuaries. I've been going to Popham Beach since I was 4 years old -- so for 43 years -- and I have never, ever been caught on the wrong side. But we were out playing on the beach (three adults and a 9-year-old) and by the time we noticed that the tide was coming in, we couldn't get back across the estuary without wading across swift, cold water up to our waists. Halfway across, not sure how much deeper it was going to get, my shorts and gatkes already wet, I noticed that this was a Never Done! And I started to laugh, and laughed my way across to the embankment. (Another 10 minutes, and I wouldn't have been laughing.)
And then ....
9/19/10
Never Done: Watched Veronica Mars
9/20/10
Never Done: Shipped lobster across the country
Tshuve: Climbed on the rocks at Ocean Point in the late afternoon sun
Never Done: Cooked Lobster Fra Diavolo
9/22/10
Never Done: Built a sukke
9/23/10
Tshuve: Return to the Boothbay Farmers Market
Never Done: Started a new screenplay called Temporary Dwellings
Never Done: Went for a walk in the woods, turned down a new path, and ended up somewhere I'd never been
9/24/10Never Done: Said the Shehekianu after eating a new fruit (Mollie's Delicious Apple) in the sukke.
Never Done: Spent time with my cousins G and P in Boothbay
Never Done: Saw four of the moons of Jupiter through G's telescope!
9/25/10
Never Done: Went into a golf clubhouse
Tshuve: Watched the sunset at Porter Preserve
Tshuve: Went to Robinson's Wharf, which was my father's favorite place, but it was also a Never Done, because I had never gone as an adult
9/26/10
Tshuve: Returned to Common Ground Fair
Never Done: Brought JW, met up with EG, met EK
Never Done: Introduced J to the grilled haddock sandwich at Red's
9/27/10Never Done: Walked from Peterson's Cove, over the little bridge, and up the steps, and out of the cove onto Farnham Point Road. It was a small thing, but I did say the Shehekianu over the bridge.
9/28/10Never Done: Had a film that I'd worked on at the New York Film Festival (Nuremberg)
9/29/10Never Done: Got my hair cut at Mudhoney, from a woman on a pre-agricultural diet (which I'd never heard of)Never Done: Had a film that I'd worked on premiere at the Film Forum (Nuremberg)
9/30/10
Never Done: Started working at the Camden Film Festival (met a bunch of new film industry people)
10/1/10
Never Done: Had Nero D'Avola wine at CIFF, met a bunch of new film industry people
Tshuve: Had lunch with an old friend, and for the first time were together as film festival colleagues
10/2/10
Never Done: Saw the film Do It Again, in the Bayview Cinema in Camden
Never Done: Went to a documentary pitch workshop
10/3/10
Tshuve: Picked the cranberries I always pick in October
Never Done: Saw the film Prodigal Sons
10/4/10
Tshuve: Left East Boothbay
Never Done: Went to sleep before the D's
10/5/10
Never Done: Spoke with 3 Muslim men after they finished their prayers on the sidewalk of the Merritt Parkway rest area. We spoke about Jewish and Muslim prayers for things we do for the first time.
10/6/10
Never Done: Spilled a full cup of tea all over JW's desk -- with hard drives, papers, and into power strips. (All was OK.)
10/7/10
Never Done: Had a beer milkshake (it was fantastic. Best milkshake I've ever had.)
Never Done: After seeing the Social Network, I accepted the Facebook friend request of my ex whose requests I'd been intentionally ignoring.
10/8/10
Never Done: Called the LGBT Center to inquire about adopting a child
10/9/10Tshuve: Woke up with laryngitis
Never Done: Went to A's bar mitzve
Never Done: Since starting this project, said the Shehekianu together in a group of other people (for A's bar mitzve)
10/10/10
Never Done: Saw the film Memories of Overdevelopment.
Never Done/Tshuve: Baked apple pie at AM's house, with apples from L's trees
10/11/10Never Done: Started the Brooklyn Soup Swap
10/12/10
Never Done: Got a call back from the LGBT Center about adoption
10/13/10
Never Done: Saw Big Bambu on the roof of the Met, with P.
10/14/10
Never Done: Had sex in our old apartment, the night before we moved out.
10/15/10
Never Done: Moved to our new apartment
10/16/10
Never Done: Woke up in the new apartment
10/17/10
Never Done: C visits in Brooklyn
Never Done: Watched the Mad Men season finale upstairs with landlords
10/18/10
Tshuve: Had 3rd quarter check-in with D, D, and N
Never Done: Introduced K and D for the first time
Thank you for reading. From here on out, the posts will be shorter, the life will be fuller, and maybe the formatting will be more consistent. (I've been wrestling with fonts and italics for 30 minutes now, and it's time to let it be good enough.
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