End of August

 My former writing group invited me back for an August Write-A-Thon. Write something every day. I'm sharing this one here:

End of August

Yesterday I saw an airplane, the kind of airplane I usually would have boarded by now to visit my parents across the country. 

Tonight I went for a walk on my street, the same neighborhood I’ve walked almost every day for the past six months. I heard crickets, the same kind of cricket sounds I usually hear by now when we meet up with my college roommate from out of state and go camping, a camping trip we promised ourselves annually as soon as I moved to the east.

Just now I had a hug, a hug I’m grateful for, from my husband, the only person allotted to giving them to me right now. 

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.
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Quick Kondo update

Looks like when I'm all done with the books (still not there yet) I'll be for sure saying goodbye to more than 200 books. Maybe around 300.

That's a lot of weight to be lifted and space to be discovered.

Continuing Kondo

By Kondo, I mean of course Marie Kondo's plan for my house to feel magical.

Purging enormous piles of books today.

One of the trickier areas... I have lots of textbooks from teaching. I look at them and see the enormous wealth of knowledge contained, many of which might be very useful. The fact is, though, that I never open them. It's not doing any good on the shelf, and the idea of me re-reading them is unrealistic. Bye books.

Too Scattered

My last post was about my love of writing and how much I am getting into it.

I've kind of fallen off the wagon again. I am just so overwhelmed with so many things I want to do and on top of that am so surrounded by STUFF that I can't clear my head.

So now I have just finished reading that book that everyone is reading too, The Life-Changing Art Of Tidying Up. Ideally I suppose I would have just read it and then waited to get started on her process when I have more time. However, I don't think I'll ever have more time. Further, I can't concentrate right now because of how much there is all around me.

Part of what I mean by this is not just my usual daily clutter. A few weeks ago U. installed lovely new petite corner shelves to take the place of some bulky ones we'd had in the living room. So all the books came out. Those books are now piled on my office floor along with others I've been rounding up for this "pick out only the books that really spark joy" session that will start as soon as I've finished the clothing round that Kondo recommends starting with.

Last week I tackled my closet and dresser for three hours. Those two locations are now the calmest in our private living space. I still have a pile of scarves and shoes to get through... if I can just get the time.

Writing Fire

I did it. I spent almost every day of November writing for at least 15 minutes every day. The one day I missed, I made up the next day with double time.

Most of what I wrote was towards the goal of revising the novel I drafted in 2013 during Camp Nanowrimo. I had taken a year off from that process during 2014-2015 and have been gung-ho to return since my WAC (writersandcritters) writers' retreat in spring of 2015.

So I was feeling great at the end of November, proud of my stick-to-it-ness and thinking if I kept up the pace I could get through the entire draft again by summer.

Then the first Saturday night of December I sat down at my desk and I felt my heart start to race and my stomach to clench. This was ridiculous. To finish a novel with any quality at all at 15 minutes a day? For one thing, I also need to parent, stick to my goals of regular yoga and meditation, other short writing projects that I feel driven to write, another project due in July (to be discussed later - related to my 40th birthday), a healthy amount of exercise and, uh cleaning and, oh wait, yeah, I also teach 30 hours a week not mentioning prep. time, tutoring and my additional role this year as a mentor for new teachers in my grade.

Even 15 minutes every day is too stressful.

To do it with depth is ridiculous.

So I tried a new take. First of all, I took a break from the novel. WAC expects me to submit two writing samples and four critiques of other people's samples every month. However, they take two weeks off at the end of December. So with the freedom of nothing due, I sat down last Friday and wrote... just wrote, by hand, in a notebook that no one will see but me. I write by hand rarely because it's less efficient when I'm ready to submit something, but now I had fallen out of love with writing and I needed to get back in. To love a person it really helps to actually be in the same room with them and not remove yourself with a screen.

(I'm not even going into what I've learned as a special education teacher about the different neurological process of forming letters and words by hand instead of by typing.)

That Shabbat instead of reading a novel I flipped through Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg for the first time in years, and began rereading cover to cover from my favorite writing book, Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott.

I wrote again Saturday night, and then again Sunday morning, finishing one draft that I hope to look at and maybe revise, but maybe I won't as I don't know yet what's there.

A writer friend said we are defined by the things we do every day... so to say you are a writer you must write every day. However, I'm a teacher too, and don't show up to work on weekends. I certainly don't want to be the kind of person who romantically claims to be a... a writer... and never writes anything, but even when I can't write, I know that ultimately I will have to write. I just have to. So even if I quit for days, weeks, even months at a time, I will come back to it.

I will not necessarily come back to other things I've thought I was: bicyclist, basket maker, musician. I like to bike and make baskets and play music, but they are not in my blood. I only dabble. I don't ask or need them to be part of my identity.

So right now I'm trying to compartmentalize my week a bit. Instead of spending a little of every day on all of the things I love, I'm trying to group some things and weekday activities and some as weekend. It's not as easy as it sounds. My physical and mental health depend on daily yoga and meditation, and the weekend gets very full with everything else that can't happen during the work week, like laundry. However, I think I really can spend some more real time on writing on the weekend, at least for now. Some other things will suffer, no doubt, but right now this isn't negotiable. I have to do this. If I can pour my writing more into Friday through Sunday, I think I can do it better. If some of it is for show and some of it is not, I'm entering writing headspace again. If I can maybe jot down something during the week that writer's see, then I'm tapping it too.

One final note, halfway through my writing this blog post I had to take a break to go to a friends' birthday party. Someone at the party remarked that she used to have hobbies but just haven't time in this stage in her life.

I started to feel a little guilty, that I can do this and she "can't." And I'm not judging anyone else's choices, but I just need to be clear. Writers have to write, however they do it, even if it means having a messier house or leaving parties earlier or getting up extra early or even only devoting certain weeks of the year to their craft. We just have to. How other desperate writers make this happen is their business.

This is how I'm handling it right now.

Autumn Mindfulness

I wrote in Summer Mindfulness about a class I took this summer on mindfulness for educators. I also wrote about my struggles incorporating mindfulness into the classroom. Here's an update as the year progresses.

As someone with my own life-saving, pain-easing, anxiety-reducing, compassion-and-calm-producing yoga and meditation practice, I have always wanted to bring my practice to others, especially children, but often get waylaid. When I taught in a large elementary school classroom I used to try a little yoga or breathing with my students now and then, but when the schedule was frantic and I didn't see others reinforcing this work, I usually gave up pretty quickly. My best, most committed year, was the one in which I created Moment That Matters. It was a moment set aside in the day that could be used for any number of things. Sometimes I taught a yoga pose or led a short self-talk moment -- "I can do this!" -- or even just a class phone call home to a child who was sick. That year I had an assistant who loved I was doing this. That was a great reinforcement, even still I eventually started glossing through the time quickly or skipped the Moment altogether.

This year, partly inspired by the mindfulness class and partly by new circumstances, I'm determined to try yet again. As I have for the past three years, I am teaching in a resource room setting rather than a large classroom. My office/classroom used to be joined with someone else's. It was a very comfortable room and I loved the time I spent collaborating with the teacher who shared the room. However, there was a lot of movement in and out of the room either by her students or other teachers coming to get books that were stored there. So I suppose I must have lost confidence in the importance of that little bit of peace I was trying to bring into my students' academic day.

This year my office/classroom was moved. My old space was needed for first grade and my new one is actually joined to one of the Second Grade classes I serve. However,  it's a space I never initially would have chosen. Some years ago it was the back of the gym. Later a wall was built to incorporate it as a storage area into a classroom. Now the storage has been removed from the area and it is my office. There is no window or regular air circulation, so I've brought into the space everything I can to make it comfortable. (Mind you, interior decorating has never been a strength of mine.)

As you enter, you pass through a magical curtain instead of a door. It feels as though you are entering a sacred or secret space. My principal choose a calming blue paint that now covers two of the four walls. I have an air purifier which both clears the air and provides white noise to block out the sound from the adjoining classroom. Finally I have put to use an aromatherapy diffuser that I've had for years but never really did much good in larger spaces. I have a collection of oils that my students help me choose from for the room. Every now and then students in the adjoining classroom say, "I'm getting hungry for cookies. Where is that peppermint smell coming from?!"

For each of my daily 6 classes, the first thing I list on the board's agenda is "chime." The children are reminded by a poster I have on the wall, "When you hear the chime, show you are ready by sitting tall and breathing slow, quiet and relaxing breaths." Even the students who giggle over his follow the directions and will remind me if somehow I skip that step.

Partly inspired by a meeting I had with a psychologist of one of my more anxious students, I also add in some self-talk. So I might say, "Today while I ring the chime, think to yourself, 'I've got this!'" Other phrases I might use are, "My brain is so good at learning," and for one of my more distracted groups, "I am ready to learn something new."

Last week we had a lockdown drill. The 20 kids who use the room that adjoins mine came into the space with me and my two more anxious students. Since we knew to expect this drill, we worked together first to move the tables and chairs out of the way. (This gave ownership of the room and the situation to those students.) Then when the class came in I asked the class teachers if I might use the time to read quietly to the students. Right away out came Mindful Monkey, Happy Panda. The children were silent and absorbed it all.

Even when the drill was over they were happy to sit to the end of the book and followed my lead when I closed my eyes at the end and said, "Right now I'm kneeling on this hard floor, I'm sweating because it's so crowded in here and it's pretty uncomfortable, but I'm also breathing gently and telling myself that in this moment, I'm really OK."

I got a note from the parent of one of those anxious children noted above. The child came home and quoted to the mother from the book about how to stay in the present moment. Her mother has been trying to teach her this skill and was grateful I reinforced it.

I've got this.

Hoshanot 2015

I guess writing about Hoshanot is becoming a tradition for me as I did it in 2013 as well as in 2012 in a post that led to my article on JOFA's site and all the way back in 2005 in this article to name a few. You can search the blog if you really want, but by now you will have gotten the point.

Well, this year I had two similar but distinctly different Hoshanot experiences. The first was in our regular shul. Remembering anxiety in past years about how this might go, I emailed the rabbi ahead of time and asked that it be made very clear exactly where women would be and how to participate during the Hoshanot service. I also asked what I could do to help make sure this happened. Our rabbi assured me all would go well, that he would make sure there was a circle for men as well as one for woman, and said what I could do was recruit (which I did a little).

I was grateful to see that an email appeared in the bulletin inviting both women and men to participate in Hoshanot and encouraged both to bring lulav and etrog.

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Welcome To Our Sukkah!

These first two days of Sukkot were packed and I want to write about two things that happened. In this post I'll tell about the sukkah hop. I'll use another post for the other thing.

So in our shul there is an annual sukkah hop. It used to consist of hoards of children bombarding one sukkah after another, swooping up candy, and leaders pleading with them to say thank you and try not to break anything. At least, that's what I hear.

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Routines

There are a lot of landmarks looming for me right now. Next June I turn 40. I'm just about to start teaching for my 11th year at the same school which means I've lived here for 10 years, taught here for 10 years and now gone camping for the 10th year in a row.

I remember how I felt at the end of my annual camping trip after the very first year. Pure terror filled me as I'd had a rough beginning at the new job and have always tended to be anxious. I felt nauseous and doomed. Teaching has always been anxiety-producing. At other times in my career it has manifested as keeping candles oriented in a particular way during yoga to help me see how close to Shabbat I was. At other times I remember being afraid to get out of bed until I could just remember the face of a child from my class instead of feeling I was drowning in the sea of things I needed to do and could not seem to do well enough.

It has been a habit for me to cling desperately to things that make me feel safe... visits home to Portland, hoarding of special items I'd buy there, weekends, precious moments in nature.

I've been through the cycle so many times now, it's no longer a big deal. When I went on my souvenir hunts this summer, I still loaded up, but not as much, and wondered what things at home I could get rid of at the same time.

How is this possible?

For one, I've become a better teacher.

For another, I have an easier position now than I used to.

Refuge seems to always be accessible now even if it takes a deliberate breath or step away from a difficult situation, but I've so many times gone through days that just weren't as bad as I thought, that I feel fine more often now.

As I began to reflect on this I wondered if age has brought a dulling of my feelings. I'm feeling less anxious. Does that mean less happy too? Now... it just means feeling a little lighter. Happiness is less desperate, but it's certainly there.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't mind if I were still camping right now. However, when I show up on Tuesday next week, it will feel familiar and I don't have to think a lot about it right now.

Missing writing

I admit it. I'm jealous. A friend from my writer's group, Writer Granny posted a few days ago that she hit blog post number 1,521 after having started her blog in 2009. This blog that you're looking at was started in November of 2004 and this post is number 912.


The result? I'm writing a blog post that doesn't say a whole lot of anything.

A few hours ago we took a break from some household chores and watched Spellbound, a documentary about 8 kids competing for the world championship in a spelling bee. Talk about over-achievement! My takeaway (especially after my last post): When you set goals that are really really high, there will always be a little disappointment, even if you really do the very best you can. To be in the moment without qualifiers, without "but" or "if only," but just to be and do what's possible with a little bit of discipline, that's my new goal. It's not easy to keep a goal like that under pressure. However, it's a goal that I can be proud of achieving again and again in small victories.



So why I'm writing this blog post. Well, yeah, I wish I had more blog posts. Am I aiming for 1,521? No, not right now. I do think I'd like to post a little more often though, and then maybe I'll throw a party when I discover I've actually reached 1000.

Another small victory.

Summer Mindfulness

Summer is a complicated time for me. I'm fully aware of how fortunate I am to be part of the working population who has the summer "off" and as a result has a very different life during that time.

My summers are not, however, smooth sailing. My workaholism, ambition and strong belief in the importance of professional development prevent me from just vacationing. I've been putting in hours studying for my special education endorsement program as well as accomplishing things that I'm unable to do during the school year.

The onset of every summer is emotionally jarring for me. There's an enormous leap from putting in long and stressful hours, investing my work into children, worrying that my work over the year wasn't enough, waving them off and then having only my own child left to care for. To put in so much energy for other beings and then just have them disappear after maybe giving me a goodbye and thank you card is uncomfortable. It shakes up my sense of self-worth and industry. Then I face unstructured days and lists upon lists of expectations for myself, goals, to do lists.

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Welcome, 2015!

So it's the secular New Year, a time when lots of people make resolutions. I don't have any new resolutions to share right now. Rather, I find myself checking in with my intentions as of Rosh Hashanah/2014-2015 school year.

This year has been designated as a scaling-back year. The biggest part of that was taking a hiatus from my writing group and, hence, my novel as well. I've done very little volunteering and am taking stock of some questions about my work.

Instead, what I find is I'm settling into inhabiting my life. This has become a major phrase for me. It means
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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.

Farm Visit

On Wednesday the first and second graders took a field trip to Green Meadows Farm. It was a special treat for many reasons, one was that since I teach Second and Naomi is in First, it was a rare opportunity to take a trip with her. So yesterday I attended as a parent more than as a teacher.

It had a very big impact on me. The Farm is basically a giant petting zoo and the kids were allowed to not only pet, but even pick up animals like goats, rabbits and full-grown chickens. Even growing up in Corvallis, Oregon and bringing in the eggs from our chickens, I never had held one before. (In fact, I don't think I held one yesterday either, but I did pet a few.) We also petted pigs, emus, horses, cows, puppies and kittens.

It was stunning to watch the reactions both of the children and the adults. Many of the children were a little afraid, although by the end of the day most were willing to go into the pens and touch everything. Some of the adults are terrified to go near anything which made me very very sad. The idea that the connection to animals had never existed or had been severed over time is heart-breaking to me.

Further, I realize that everyone that was with us that day readily eats meat without making the connection. In fact, a child asked as we were actually milking a cow, "Is this Kosher?" On one hand that made me sad, that anyone would want to eat this creature with whom we were interacting. On the other, isn't that exactly how it used to be here and is in other places? Children knew the animals they would eat some day. They excepted the cycle of life and then participated.

I think that the older I get, the more sensitive I become, and so even if it's natural, I am hesitant to participate in this cycle. However, what hurts the most when I consider meat eating, is the thought people do so without connection to where the animals come from and without any idea or acceptance that there may be a sadness involved. In fact, people revel in how much they can choose not to care about animals. ("Oh no, I only avoid red meat for health reasons.") Why this can be attractive stuns me. Don't we want to be around others who have compassion?

I realize this all, ironically, makes me difficult to be around, and it's not an easy way to feel either. I want to just revel in the joy of what I saw without thinking about how lovely those animals were and what will happen to them in a matter of a few short months or years.

Yahrzeit

The stone we placed last year got dirty and broken quickly. That made it clear to us what to do this year to commemorate the sad day.

Yom Hashoah 2014 Part 2

I went to bed after my bumbling post last night wondering what I'd really wanted to say. I said some, I suppose, but there is more.

I think there are essentially two ways to remember the Shoah.

1. To name and learn about specific people who were lost, especially if they were family. 

2. To learn about what happened them -- the horrors, the stories of triumph, the lessons.

The event that I missed last night mostly would have been about the first of those. There are always survivors and survivor families at this event and I appreciate the chance to be witness to them. At the same time, I feel a certain disconnect as my family's particular relationship to what happened in Poland and Germany is a little different. My grandfather was lucky to get out of Germany early, so my family doesn't have the typical Holocaust stories to share about camps or resistance. 

I've had plenty of the second type of learning in my life. It unsettles me considerably and I don't know what to do with it. What is there to be done with the reality that some people were cruel and others suffered in ways beyond our imagination? The feeling and knowledge sits there uncomfortably on the table with no appropriate action. No amount of empathy, guilt, regret or even strength can undo the past. 

For many, the importance of the Holocaust is very much wrapped up in Jewish identity. It should be. It's part of our past. That's why I learned as much as I could about it when I was a teenager and why I know that I have a responsibility to care about it. However, all I can act on, is what I can do today for this world.

One way to do this is to follow mitzvoth and to be a strong Jew. Another is specifically to support and celebrate Israel. 

For me personally, I think I feel my strength most when I try to be an activist in the ways I discussed in the previous few posts because today too there are people who are cruel and there are others who suffer  in ways beyond our imagination.

You don't have to be Jewish to be an activist, and the areas I care about the most are not even specific to the Jewish community, and yet I feel that they do from expectations the Torah has from us as Jews to make a positive difference in the world.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that I hope the things I try to do now to help the world do not exist in a vacuum. Already I question how much impact they have, but what I hope instead is that my actions can be a Kiddush Hashem, and that by living a life of Kiddush Hashem, I can in my own way help smooth over some of the pain from the past too.

Yom Hashoah 2014

Tonight is Yom Hashoah.

There was a community wide event as always, but I couldn't attend this year as I'm needed at home.

I didn't know for awhile, though, whether I'd be going or not. Toyed with whether or not I wanted to, whether or not I had a responsibility to. I really do believe in showing up for things, and any reason that I would give for not wanting to go would be an excuse.

I feel sorry for not having gone, because numbers of people matter. I also know there are other ways to recognize the day.

There was an article in The Jewish Week this weekend about alternative and controversial ways to remember the Shoah. For example, one man talked about his plan to tattoo his grandmother's camp number on his arm. Like most, I suppose, my instant reaction to that was to be horrified, but as I read his thought process, it made sense and his grandmother apparently told him she supported the idea.

Another example in the article was a viral video of a family -- including a survivor -- dancing to "I will Survive" in Auschwitz among other places. If you read the comments below, people's reactions are generally strong to either extreme. Either they say how much they love the video, or how wrong it is for this family to have made it.

I don't know yet how I feel when I watch it. I wanted to feel some triumph, but I feel haunted and sad instead. I also am rattled by the images in the side bar of other videos. I don't feel tonight like I can open myself up to those and let me feel that pain. On Tisha B'Av I can and will, and then will rise up again. I don't feel I have the space to do that on a Sunday night before I have to enter into a workday.

But both then and now, I'm still baffled. How do I appropriately commemorate? I don't know now, I don't know on Tisha B'Av and I didn't know when I was a teenager on March of the Living either. What internal messages must I listen to in order to know if I find the answer?

Regarding the video once more, and also regarding anyone's idea of how to appropriately commemorate… I think there is a danger to being too reverent. Even in the camps themselves they had to laugh and there are books to that effect. To really show respect to those that were lost, don't we have to show respect too to the multitude of reactions each of them would have had?

I wish I'd gone to the ceremony tonight, but I couldn't. If I had gone, I would still feel incomplete.

I could have read or watched things about the Shoah, but as I said, I do better with that on Tisha B'Av.

The best I can do is to try to create a world as antithetical to that of the Nazis as I can. It's just one reason that I try often, not just today, to make the world a better place. It's today's justification for my fundraising for Tread on Trafficking to combat child sexual slavery. Even without the Shoah in the past, I would hope I'd be trying to do good things like that. If I do it with the memory of the Shoah in mind, does that bring some kind of light to the darkness of that time? Or am I disregarding the distinctness of our history?

I feel this blog post is a way of making profound excuses for not attending a community function, and maybe it is, but it's also a recognition of the sheer feeling of floundering. The Shoah is this horrific part of our past and we still don't know quite what to do with it, where to put it or how to shine the light bright enough on what we want to remember but want to forget.

Manic Activism Continued

Last night I wrote a little about how I want to change the world,

and also about my fear of annoying other people in my effort to do that.

This morning I have some new thoughts on the subject.

First an anecdote:

A friend of mine was telling me about teaching high school in a very rough school. One of her students actually pushed or hit her. When the teacher protested, the girl aggressively said,

"Miss, you're making me FEEL bad."

It occurs to me that the reason people don't like to become aware of nasty, inhumane and cruel aspects of our world for that very reason. I don't want to go around making people FEEL bad, but I also would like to minimize the rather greater suffering of people and animals who are actually being mistreated in the world in a way that goes well beyond making them FEEL bad.

I went to bed last night with images in my head of factory farm slaughter. We've all heard that it's BAD and maybe even seem images before. There were some new practices I learned of last night that shocked me.

The baby chicks -- boys, I think they said -- would be useless for meat, so were being thrown into a machine that ground them up alive for farm feed.

Pigs were killed by being pushed into boiling water.

Chickens, after being genetically modified into horrific looking creatures, were mutilated so they wouldn't peck each other, then killed by hanging them upside down and dipping their heads into electrified water.

"Thank G-d I keep Kosher," you might say. But there are plenty of practices wrong that with that industry as well including shackling and hoisting cows off the ground before schita. Terrifying an animal before killing it is torture, and there are many out there who would dispute the idea that such practices can count as "Kosher."

But let's say you're a vegetarian, which I try to be although I just did my annual meat order from pasture raised Grow and Behold to get us through Pesach. (So glad to be able to have this "alternative" meat, but still feel sad about eating animals, and don't feel so healthy after eating them.)

Here are some other concerns:

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Manic Activism

I think this tends to happen to me in the spring that I start to feel a sort of manic activism.

I just got home from watching Vegucated with my CSA as a launch for this year's farm share. It got me reflecting once again on my food choices which is a little stressful for me because there are so many "don'ts" and "can'ts," some more self-imposed than others. I try to be mostly vegetarian and would consider veganism if 1. I didn't love cheese but 2. (more importantly) I wasn't allergic to nuts and wary of soy. I would love to craft the most humane food-eating regimen possible, but for my food sensitivities, Kashrut, difficulty to come by certain foods, high risk for breast cancer (and so avoidance of soy) etc. After the images of animal mistreatment, however, I think it's tragic how many people eat meat -- including Kosher -- without fully realizing the impact of their consumption. If they knew, they might still choose to eat meat. But shouldn't they know?

It's not just food on my mind.

I'm also about to start my yearly Tread On Trafficking campaign to combat modern day child sexual slavery.

I'm writing an article about issues of gender in the Orthodox Jewish Community.

I spent a weekend with a dear friend that reminds me of my desire to watch my actions environmentally throughout every part of my day. (Amazing how proximity to the right people can remind you of values you share.)

I also just completed phase 1 of a project in my school to reduce waste production, especially of plastic water bottles. I'm proudest of that because it took a lot of planning and I see the effects immediately, but I'll return to that in another post.

I suppose when I'm like this, it could start getting annoying for others. All this desire to change is a form of perfectionism for the world and we all know how unhealthy perfectionism can be. I may be labeled idealist, self-righteous, obnoxious. They would be fair labels.

However, the alternative is dire. The things I'm aware of that drive me towards working on each of these causes (and more) must be tackled if not actually changed. The fact that so many people are  unaware is frightening.

Like the bumper sticker says, "If you're not pissed off, you aren't paying attention."


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