Bat Mitzvah Redo 2016

12 is a terrible age to have a bat mitzvah. I don't know if it's true for others, but when I was that age I felt like my skin didn't fit, I was uncomfortable in front of a group and I didn't have the slightest idea who I even was or how I fit into Judaism.

But now I'm an adult, and I feel so much better about myself, about being Jewish, about everything. Over the years I've followed my own path experimenting with becoming more and more committed, first through gravitating to very observant communities, and later by holding onto my observance but simultaneously discovering progressive and sometimes egalitarian communities in which I could actively become much more of a participant.

So a few years ago as I began to learn how to lein and lead services in my partnership minyan, Minyan Tiferet, I had the idea that maybe I would try again and have a bat mitzvah-type celebration. Doing this would give me an opportunity to actively and maturely demonstrate my relationship to Judaism and to the community by doing the sorts of rituals that are normally done in a bar or bat mitzvah service.

So around October of last year I finally began learning to lein this past week's parsha Be'ha'ah'lotkha.
Read more »

Israel, 2015 -- Part 5, End of the Journey

 
By Friday we were so tired that that day and Shabbat are somewhat blurred.

We packed up our hotel and prepared to meet friends of ours later in the day. Just one more restaurant, we said, and walked to one I'd read about a few days before but hadn't located. I'm so glad we did. Te'enim is the kind of restaurant we always wish we could go to when traveling, but usually can't because it isn't Kosher. It was quiet, decorative and had beautiful classical guitar music playing. We sat by an open balcony window and looked out on the old city. Opening the menu we sort of gritted our teeth because so far we had spent so much on food. The breakfast menu had a price with a long list of dishes after.

"So we have to choose one of these," we confirmed with the waiter.

This was not the whole meal. We also had buttered bread, juice and tea.

No. You got all of them for that one price. It was healthy delicious, beautiful.

This is just for decoration, a little spice swirled in the center of the plate.

Sigh. Wish we could have taken it home with us.

After that we met up with our friends, as planned. These Israeli friends of ours lived near us for three years and were our regular Shabbat park and seudah shlishit playdates. The mother of the family had relatives in Jerusalem that we would all stay with to enjoy the day together.

"Where do you want to go?" she asked.

"I'm so spent at this point," I told her, "it no longer makes much difference."

"Really, you don't want to see everything?"

I shook my head. "I've done just about all I can do."

So we just went to two places. One was the Israel Museum. It wasn't terribly child friendly. We did see the giant installation they have of ancient Jerusalem, but the real highlight was Big Bambu. This was an art installation you could climb up in, a towering bumble of bamboo. Those of us who did it enjoyed sitting at the top (holding on for fear of any sudden wind bursts) and marveling at our bravery and at how secure it actually felt.

Lunch came and we got yet one last restaurant meal. This one was in a mall and on an outdoor deck. Such a treat when we knew soon we'd be returning to snow.

By now I didn't even care what I ate anymore. We enjoyed our meal and watched as the staff hurried to close up in time for Shabbat. We rushed through our meal and headed for the family.

That Shabbat was lovely and ended with a walk on a promenade overlooking Jerusalem.

After Havdalah we had our final slice of Israeli-made pizza and followed our friends to their apartment in Shoham. There we showered and slept about 3 hours before shaking ourselves awake and driving to the airport.

We departed Israel during Sunday's early hours and stopped over in Vienna. There we exited the plane on a tarmac with snow coming down and gradually became used to being surrounded by fewer and fewer Israelis. I enjoyed speaking a few words of German with the flight attendants, but it certainly wasn't the same.

I can't say that I want to live all my life always around other Jews, for so many reasons, but there was a distinct feeling as we left Israel of leaving behind a place that really matters to us in so many ways, much more than a tourist destination.

11th Remission Anniversary

A very special one this has been so far.

I didn't know how to mark it really. Last year I sort of gave myself permission to stop finding enormous meaning in it. The chagim have just finished so I barely have had time to prepare in any way, and then I got this horrendous cold Friday night, right after Simchat Torah. I thought at first it was from all of the singing, but I was short of breath during some of the dancing in a way that meant more than just overexertion. ND and I were both up much of the night. As much as I rested through the weekend, I had fever Sunday night which is so odd for me! So I missed Monday and Tuesday of work.

Here's where this starts to turn. I spoke to my meditation teacher on Tuesday at 11:30 and as we spoke I went deep deep deep into my vulnerability again. I haven't touched this place much recently as I've been trying to be calmer about feeling illness. I remembered too that I often get sick at this time. I cried a lot. We had a very special conversation that I'm going to keep mostly to myself now.

But beautifully, when I got off the phone, I felt so much more energy! So good that today when I returned to work one of my other dearest friends said I just didn't look sick and said, "Your body always remembers, doesn't it? Now you know though that you can heal."

I got so much today. So many well-wishes, sometimes in the midst of little frustrations. To have someone sincerely wish me "from strength to strength" while I'm wrestling with a copy machine makes me zoom out in perspective rapidly and forcefully.

11 years I saw the ending of a renegade part of me -- a tumor -- tried to grow so fast that it could have killed me. I loved it out of existence (I know that sounds weird, but it was a part of me) and walked into life again. And here I am.

I don't feel fear or sadness or illness, guilt or shame today. Just love.

A Brief Thought About Stuff

I have many things I want to write on here lately... nothing big. Just "what's the purpose of life" kind of general stuff. But it will wait until I have some more time. (Yes, I;m being a big tongue in cheek here.)

A profound thought to share briefly... I got in the mail a couple of things today belonging to Michael who died in September. I've had things given to me that were inherited from family before, but never quite experienced this... I know his family is cleaning out stuff that they won't want to keep anymore, and I happened to get some of it.

I'm touched they took the time to send some to me.

I have to figure out what to do with it. I feel reverence and also some pulls towards recycling. Is there literature on how to cope with this kind of thing?

Making a Difference

Tonight I had some friends over to celebrate my 9 year remission anniversary. (That's one-fourth of my life that I've been a survivor.) Somehow I'm connecting it very strongly to the loss of my mentor, Michael this year and I spoke about him to my friends.

Throughout the night we talked about many things and it kept coming up again and again, the idea of people who had made a difference in our lives, often by a single interaction among many. I keep feeling like the work I want to do in healing the world will not happen through teaching. But maybe I've been wrong. Two of the friends there tonight are my friends because I taught their daughters and made a difference to them directly. I've sometimes been thinking I want to get out of the school environment because it is so intense, rushed and stressful in many ways, but maybe I'm needed there to help kids navigate it. Also, I care more about emotional landscape and survival than I do about teaching reading and writing. But maybe that's the very reason I need to continue.

I've just been published at the PLP network where I wrote about my childhood and compared it to contemporary suburban NJ childhoods. Maybe taking the question and knowledge I have of my ideal world, and taking it with me when I enter the world in front of me, can provide some small amount of respite or change or possibility to the children who enter the room to work with me each day. And maybe writing about this reflection can make a difference to others further away.

Maybe I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing and don't need to worry about it so much.

Inspiration and Agony

A friend of mine recently got a job with Teva and has been ecstatic since. On Yom Kippur he told me about a transformative experience he had davening Shacharit with a leader in the woods. He wrote a lovely blog post about it.

I listened as he told me about this and found myself exclaiming internally, "Oh oh oh! You've never davened shacharit in the woods before? Oh, how sad!!!! Oh, you know now about the light inside us all that comes from G-d... you hadn't had that before either?" I am so happy for him to have discovered this and feel a simultaneous plummeting inside me as I'm realizing just how few have ever even touched this. It feels as natural as water to me. I grew up in Corvallis, OR with nature and incense and touchy-feely Jews who loved Judaism for its connection to life itself and not just to text or walled-up inside shuls. To me this is what it is.

Over the years my day-to-day view of Judaism has changed, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, but that connection between nature and the soul and Torah are already inside me. It makes me so sad when it's obscured by materialism or simply by the devoted black hat suited culture that is passionate about G-d but disconnected from land and sometimes from their children because they don't always know how to connect their spirits together. What torture to imagine that it's not for so many people who want that connection so badly, sometimes without even knowing it.

Before this friend told me this story, we were sharing how grateful we both are to have jobs in where we know we daily engage in passions of our life that make a difference in the world. But there's a piece of me that still feels something is missing, a potential connection isn't meeting. Is this just the norm that comes of not being able to do all I want all at once -- change the lives of children while still writing and meditating and being present in my own free time and being a fun mother too. Or is it a gap I need to heal? I don't get to teach spirituality. I teach reading, writing, math and how to be a citizen from a child's perspective. The passion of teaching comes through connecting with children and families, particularly when there are barriers to overcome just as social or behavioral differences.

That's just it... I love connection. I'm connecting with them, sometimes helping them connect to each other, but are we connecting to G-d? Am I connecting all the parts of me, are we connecting all to each other, to nature, to our inner spirits? Or must the writer and meditator parts of me be reserved for different times.

In short, am I doing everything to the best of my abilities exactly as I should be? Or someday should I do it a little differently... the writer, meditating environmentalist teacher of behaviorally challenged children...

who loves to just sit and be alone sometimes in the woods.

And who already does that sometimes, returning to see the perfection in the present exactly as it is right now.

Recategorizing

Today I had lunch with a woman whose daughter was my student 6 years ago.

I love shifting people from "parent-of-kid-I'm-teaching" category to "friend." It's a shame it takes so long.

Happy to add her to my very slowly growing collection of true NJ friends.

First Snow of 5771, Last of 2010

At 9 o'clock yesterday morning I still didn't quite believe it. In fact, we had plans to visit relatives who were in NY city, but had to cancel because we knew a blizzard was on its way. As soon as we made that choice we knew we had to do something fun as fast as possible before we got snowed in, and rushed to go bowling. We paid a discounted price for 2 hours rather than paying by the game, but as we started the second game saw it was time to go. The snow was falling, and falling fast.

Shoveled a little yesterday, more as an excuse to get into it than anything. We knew, though, that anything we shoveled would be replaced in no time. ND commented on the "kippah" on top of one of the trees.

All night we could hear the wind.

I was proud and grateful that I put out tons of birdseed before the storm got too heavy.

Started today with shoveling off our flat-roofed terrace so it wouldn't cave in our roof. Paid a neighbor's son to shovel our walkway. Then ND and I made a snow bird that she calls a snow man. It wasn't good packing snow, so we sort of just carved it out of the piles that were already there. Then we went to dig out the cars. Much of the snow we dumped off the terrace created a mountain on our driveway beyond the cars and out of the way, but some of it blew so heavily onto our Corolla that we could barely find the hood.

Finally we went sledding. Never really done this before, but it was a friend's suggestion. We took a cardboard box because that's what we learned from Caillou, but then our friend arrived and, by then, our box was nicely broken apart. So we shared their sled for awhile, then had cookies and hot cocoa with them. I'll write in a different post about how I've sort of given up sugar, but made a special exception for this. After all, the cookies were homemade apple cookies by a master baker.

Click here if you want to see more about how much snow there was.

Mass. Independence Weekend

What a wonderful weekend. We drove over on Friday and stayed through Monday morning with dear friends from college. 

They have a farm share so we got to go pick vegetables together directly from the farm on Friday. 

Saturday we went to shul in Brandeis which literally borders our friends' backyard. 

Sunday we went to the Boston Commons to meet friends we knew in Vancouver. ND had a great time on the swan boats, the carousel and finally, playing in the frog pond. U. took off midway to go see a Red Sox game... (there was only one ticket left at the price we wanted to play and I think ND and I had much more fun doing just what we were doing.) After the frog pond we went back to our friends where we got a lesson paper-making. I hope to teach it to an after school environmental club next school year. We finished the night off with Settles Of Catan which is an awesome game if you play it with wonderful people.

I felt so at-home there and I can't help but wonder if I'll ever be able to make new friends again that I care about as much as my college ones. I was not eager to come back "home" after our trip and wonder how I can be closer to really good friends... 

Bear Mountain

A great day. ND and I visited old college friend and her two girls up in Cold Spring, NY. We left there at 2 so she could get some work done and, despite a rainstorm, decided to check out Bear Mountain State Park. 

I can't believe we never came here before. Next time relatives visit and we have time for a whole day outing, this is the place to go instead of Manhattan. Hiking trails, boat rental, swimming pool, carousel, zoo and all of it surprisingly quiet! (It's quieter than our neighbors of late who seem to always be talking or playing radios in the yard when I'd like to just relax.)

I'm totally exhausted, but ND and I got a lot out of today. Besides picnic and running in a sprinkler in the morning with the friends, we got to rent a paddle boat and see the animals in the zoo at Bear Mountain. I just wish I'd had a stroller. We were both exhausted and, as a result, I carried ND a lot of the way on my back. As you can imagine, I'm about to collapse. 

NY dinner

I spent a semester abroad in Ireland during my college days. I met someone there I'll call AF who was my friend. I never knew quite what to make our visits. We got together many Thursday nights at a pub and talked around various subjects that I don't remember to well and sampled the many drinks available. I became partial to cider.

I referred to her as my authentic native Irish person friend. She would say, "we prefer to call ourselves 'indigenous.'" She said if she ever changed the name of her band from "Vern's Pest Control" it would be "A____ from America" after me.

And that was about it. We talked about books a little I think and various things. I never quite felt I got deep into a friendship where I yanked out my soul for her or vice versa, but it was comfortable chatting together and kind of dancing around figuring out what to say. I really enjoyed it and was always a little awkward, wondering why she'd want to spend her time hanging out with me.

To her credit, we've stayed in touch all these years... first through occasional emails, then our blogs, and now Facebook. She and her girlfriend are in NY right now for the week and we managed to get our acts together so that I could go to dinner with them.

It was tricky. ND was with me and made conversation almost impossible. I felt sorry and a little embarrassed that I have not entirely figured out that I can't always bring ND to these things. And we most certainly didn't have time to get any deeper than we did before.

But there it is... we got together. She even brought a copy of my book (which she'd bought online) for me to sign.

Sometimes I make a friend, and then we go our ways, and then much later I meet her again and wish I could get to know this person better. I wonder if it's possible, or if our friendship is exactly as it should be now. In one of my poems I wrote, "You wave in my direction/and no is standing behind me." Is it that hard for me to accept a friendship as perfect enough? I'm too often surprised when someone wants to connect again. I rarely can believe I offered enough to make the friendship worth while for the other person.

But there it is. She contacted me from across the sea. We got together. It was nice. She'll read this blog. We'll remain in touch. And so on.

Really really

Good news. This morning ND told me, "I really really like my new school."

But it gets better. I came to pick her up that afternoon during extended care when the leftover kids from all the classes are playing in a small gym together. (Yes, my ND is one of the first to arrive and last to leave her school.)

While ND was nursing I heard another girl say she "really really" liked something. 

"Is that girl in your class," I asked ND on a hunch, and discovered that, in fact, they're rather good friends.

Camping Trip 2009

Wonderful trip this year.

Click above to see the narrated slide show. (I couldn't help that the videos are not in quite the right order.)

First Trip Away From ND

U. is giving ND a bath, so at least I have a moment to catch up on a few personal things.

First, I went ahead and updated my Ginat Kesher blog today after a lovely though tiny tzedakah experience.

I got an email from a friend asking about a particular Portland (or rather, Vancouver, experience) so let me write it up now...

So my trip to Portland was almost 3 weeks long. I timed it to help me get to a friend's wedding on August 9th in Vancouver. The original plan was to drive up some time during that previous week and revisit good old Vancouver where U. and I lived the year before we moved to Englewood. But between one thing and another (including U's inability to join me) it began to seem too stressful to do this trip with ND. So finally I made a radical decision to ask my parents to watch her for the night while I flew up to Vancouver just for the wedding and fly back.

They agreed and we timed it so that I was up around 4:30 AM on Sunday to get ready, wake up ND, nurse with her, say my goodbyes and get a ride from my dad to the airport. The flight was to land at 10:50. The preliminary wedding things (tisch etc.) would be at 11. The chuppah would be at 12:30. My plan was that after the wedding I'd hit my favorite personal spot in Vancouver, Van Dusen Garden. I had other favorite spots too, but that in particular I visited frequently enough to buy myself a membership, and I usually went alone. The other places I'd love to revisit, I would be a little sad to do without U.

Then I'd get back to the hotel and up again Monday morning at 4:30, get to the airport and meet my mom and ND in the airport before a 1:30 PM flight back to Newark, NJ.

Packing was very complicated. I had to do it on Friday and packed things in all different places depending on whether ND would need them during her stay with my parents, whether I would need it in Vancouver, whether it needed to go into a suitcase or could be shipped. (I brought a lot of stuff, both old and new, from Portland this year.)

I worried/thought about this trip a great deal in advance, and at first it kept me up at night a little. But even then, I don't think I doubted its feasibility... I just wasn't sure how best to make it work. I've NEVER been away from ND overnight. I've rarely even missed a bedtime and she often wants me close during the night. But we prepared as best as we could, talking it through in advance and with me tutoring my parents on tricks to help her out.

Goodbye was hard, but not wrenching, and I reminded her I'd be back. My biggest fear was that my plane would crash or that something would happen to her while I was out of reach. But, thank G-d, neither of those things happened.

When I flew into Van it took me a 1/2 hour to get through customs. This was particularly frustrating as I had, at one point, a choice to get out of one line and into another, but stayed put only to find I was stuck between a group of Asian visiting students who didn't speak English and therefore needed attention. It was cute to see their workbooks helping them guide them through the customs process and see their teacher helping them through. I felt excited for them, to be honest, but I needed to get where I was going.

Once through I jumped into a cab and we hit Oak street, the central street on which I once lived, went to shul and used as my main artery for everything useful during our year there. We passed the turn-off for my old workplace and then pulled up to a temple that I'd passed but never been in.

I was there exactly at noon, just as the men were getting up from the "tisch" and having pictures taken. I immediately found my friend, CK from Oberlin who was taking pictures too, and we caught the eye of my groom-friend, BZ. He saw me and I could tell he was glad I came. That look made it all worth while.

Meanwhile, ND was doing just fine back with my folks, visiting the zoo, park etc.

I had a great time, talking with CK and her husband, JK, both very dear friends from my best times at Oberlin. And the wedding went on LONG. They were still dancing at 8 PM!!! CK and JK left for the airport at 7ish and by then I slipped away. There was no way I could make it to the garden, but I did get a glimpse of the mountains from the rooftop of the hotel where there was a lovely terrace.

AND... I went to the bar and had a beer and read a book for half an hour. What a joy!!! Just to sit in quiet and in public and to read and not worry about drinking and driving, but just to go up to my room after.

The night was tough. I guess I was a little worried. I called home and knew that ND was having a very rough bedtime. I knew there was nothing I could do, so I tried to just relax. But I was in a strange room and the night stretched on and on with me only getting a few hours sleep and while I suffered from the pain of not nursing. (Yes, we're still going strong.)

When we met up at the airport, she was sleeping after a long sleepless night for everyone, but, when she awoke, she was only about as happy as ever to see me... no more, no less. It felt natural to come together again instead of desperate as I'd imagined.

The best part of that day was actually seeing her see her Dad again when we FINALLY arrived back in Newark at midnight. She was in her car seat/stroller and began kicking when he drove up and practically flew into the car when I unbuckled her and opened the door. What a look as she hugged him around the neck after those 3 weeks away... so much more than my single night.

Either way, I'm glad we're back together again, and home.

Portland Poetry Reading

I did it. 

In a certain way it wasn't a big deal. Some friends and family (about 16 people in all) came together to hear me read from my book. No big deal.

In another sense, I poured out my heart and soul on the page, exposed my vulnerability and then presented it all publicly and tried to sell it. 

Either way, everyone was smiling.

How are you supposed to feel after that?

To begin, I'm a little tipsy as my friend took me after for a beer (that I did deserve). I also feel relieved and a little proud.

I definitely have accomplished something. I've written good poetry on and off over a period of about 12 years. I've collected it together. I've arranged it. I've revised it (how many times?). I've printed it up in a book, advertised to a limited audience and now sold 10 copies. 

On the other  hand, I have not proven a thing.

If Billy Collins or some other amazing poet told me I was good, I would be ecstatic.

But then, just like now, I would go on with my life and all the feelings of uncertainty and insecurity would be just the same.

I am here in this moment, and it's a little special. 

Hello, moment.

Good bye

There are many ways in which I can sort my friends, but one way is in the categories of "Those who are here and available to me" and "those who are far away."

This afternoon we went to a going away party for some friends making aliyah. I feel like I'm moving them like a game piece from one category to the other. By the end of the summer that will be two of ND's friends who have moved away, and several of mine too, of course.

Pay-Off

Tonight was the end of the year big dinner for our school. I'm usually a least a little uncomfortable in fancy things like this, partly because I don't know how to look the look and dress the dress or feel comfortable with the mingling, but every year I look forward to my school's dinner. I feel like I've earned it.

I saw a parent there whose son was in my class this year and whose daughter was in my class 4 years ago when I first came.

Tonight we were eyeing each other's funky medieval-sleeved dresses and she came over and said, "I don't have any more kids that are going to go through your classes, so boundaries issues are over. As soon as the year's done, we're going shopping!"

I can't wait.

Another Snow Day!

They announced it last night, even before the snow had started to fall. By morning they were justified.

It couldn't have been better timing. I was feeling like I was coming down with something, and my friend, Joel, from Oberlin and then later from Vancouver was staying the night on his way to a conference in Connecticut. The plan was that I'd get to talk to him for a few hours that evening, but that would be all the visiting time. Instead, we had all morning.

I've been thinking a lot about the upcoming summer and figuring out how to deal with the unstructured (and unpaid) time and how to be okay with it instead of becoming depressed or anxious. It's not hard on a snow day to just melt into the moment. Harder when the sun is out.

I'll just have to make a lot of plans!

In Time For Valentine's Day

Lately ND is into "friends."

"You be my friend?" she'll ask?

"Dada be my friend?"

Once when she was angry at me, she swung at me and yelled, "You're not my friend!"

We both got over it.

Poetry Pole

I got a letter from my Portland Poetry Partner yesterday. (She's a teacher I used to know in the school where I used to work. We used to send poems to each other regularly.) She told me that as retirement gift, one of our colleagues gave her a Poetry Pole which was installed at the school.

I'm not sure I entirely understand what it is. I want to ask her to send me pictures. She said it's like those boxes you see realtors putting out that you can open and take a sheet of paper out. But that this is homemade and beautiful. I imagine some sort of display case for poems but am unsure of how many and whether people take them, leave them, or both.

I did find a youtube video of a poetry pole in Yakima. It's a nice idea, art in the public realm.

I was thinking about how it would be neat if we had one of these at my school, but people do things very neatly at my school, and I would want to allow this to be sloppier. (That said, I already have a poe-tree in my classroom where I hang a few poems now and then. There is also a bulletin board where the kids hang theirs... it can withstand lots of hands touching it better than my little lemon tree can.)

I would prefer one closer to the home part of my life, I think, but maybe not right now.

I'm almost finishing compiling an anthology of my own work that U. is helping me publish. I'm at the stage now of removing poems I don't want others to see after all.

It's a tricky process. There are some fairly private pieces... some about relationships, for example. Also, I've had some highly emotional periods of my life that include obsession about certain topics and I wrote and wrote and wrote at those times. I'm embarrassed by obsession as it feels so out of control, and yet I don't wish to censor myself. So I select one poem from a series and include it, hoping the art in my work will speak louder than the fact of my speaking it and somehow be okay.

I'm also unsure of how certain friends or family may receive certain poems as they may contain parts of my life that I don't discuss openly.

Yet there they are. And I don't wish to censor myself.

I hide behind my writing, and yet I like an audience to my life. This is a brave experiment.