Thanksgiving

After a week of reconnecting with my sense of power, I could use some of this softness and beauty to balance things out. Our bags are by the door, and once the car is packed, we’re headed to Massachusetts and Long Island for the traditional mother’s-side-of-the-family gathering. Aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, first and second cousins once-removed, grandparents, sisters, the whole mishpacha. The girls are crazy excited for the hot tub in the hotel. I’m grateful for family, and the roof, and the blankets, for the food and the fridge and for eyes and ears and legs and hearts.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Jew-limia (Rhymes with Bulimia)

Since I outed myself as writing a book, a few people have asked me what it’s about. I have a notorious relationship with the “about” word – one of my favorite quotes about writing is from the poet Heather McHugh, who said, “Poetry is not about about.” But the fact is, it has to be about something, and I have to be willing to confront what that something is.

Yesterday, I heard myself telling someone, “It’s about finding my voice – and using it.” Other days, I think it’s about my Om-Shalom, East-West, Jewish-Buddhist journey. Oh, and motherhood. And practice. And self-acceptance, redefining achievement, making a life.

Yesterday afternoon, after a weekend crammed full of visits and parties, I crashed. My mind kept trying to pull me into the “why?” place and the “should” place – why am I feeling this way, I should do such and such differently. I made a conscious attempt to stay in my body instead. I just sat in a chair at the kitchen table describing to Greg the energy I was feeling, the yucky, roiling around, full of birthday cake, overdrawn energy. That alone helped. He went out for a run and I made dinner while the girls splashed and fought and played in the bathtub.

When he got back around 5:30, it was officially nighttime and Aviva and Pearl were in their pj’s eating dinner. “Want to go power it out?” he asked. I haven’t been running since my hernia surgery, but I have been walking, and walking more than running is historically where I have connected with my power, my sense of stride or swagger, my whole arms-swinging, foot-pounding, angel-talking body. Greg asking the question got me out the door, even though I had just eaten a huge bowl of pasta and was feeling sluggish.

I practiced just letting my body be full as I sped up the dirt path across the street and then down the hospital steps and up the hospital steps and down and up and down again, then through campus and neighborhoods and campus again to the dark track and even darker bike path, by which point I was crying, talking out loud, raging at people who have died, realizing what I’ve learned from them, coming to some conclusions, and then letting those go too.

And at one point, I had this thought: I am writing a book about bulimia. It felt like a bummer to admit it, but at least on some level it’s undeniable.

It’s true and it isn’t the whole truth, but it’s the part of the truth that feels ugly, the part that’s the most hidden, shameful, unattractive, difficult. The part I’m the least inclined to say out loud. I want the book to be about other things, shinier things. But at this point, I think the book is trying to tell ME what it’s about, rather than the other way around. There’s more to write, and I’m finding that I’m going there, writing new things, trying to write from the gut and not the head.

And then, there was this stroke of brilliance. Jew-limia. This was a Greg-ism early this morning as I was describing some of this to him. I first heard it as “Giulimia” and immediately pictured Rudolph Giuliani as bulimic, which struck me as funny. But then I understood. It’s ugly, yes. It’s over, we get that. But the aftershocks – all these years later finding my voice and using it – are inseparable from the experience of binging and purging as a teenager, of staying small, of keeping things in and not knowing how to get them out in a way that could be powerful rather than self-destructive.

All of this is inseparable from my journey spiritually, my journey as a mama, as a life coach. It is all one journey. Sure, I could sit here and say that I don’t know what this has to do with being Jewish (besides for the fun word play), but is that true? Do I really not know? Or is saying “I don’t know” just false modesty or avoidance?

The only way past is through. And here’s the thing: this is serious stuff. So many women are disappearing themselves, denying their huge spirits, feeling powerless. It is not okay. This may sound like a cliche, but if telling the truth about my experience and making some sense of it in the larger context of my life’s journey can help even one person, then it will have been worth it to risk being so exposed.

So for today, here’s to Jew-limia, to honoring all the parts of our journeys, ourselves, to owning what we know to be true. Here’s to writing my heart out, and pounding the pavement, and looking right at the ugliness, and raging at the ones who left us, and letting our pulse rates get out of hand with the blood that is coursing through our veins. Here’s to opening hearts and mouths and letting the words, the sounds and the fury, come pouring out. Here’s to being alive.

Image: Silent Scream by Chitra Arunasalam

God is a Wilderness First Responder

God is a Wilderness First Responder,
a CPR master.
God always wears a helmet,
except at night, when she lets down
her hair and covers us in dreams.

God finds you unconscious in the woods,
speaking gently but firmly,
her voice a braid of elements:
Can you hear me?

God already knows your name,
but loves to play hide and seek
and will place mundane objects
in the most sacred, dusty corners
of your living room.

You’ll find these during a cleaning fit
after you’ve finally come to –
speaking in the only language
you were born to learn.

A Pre-Hanukkah Meme

It has been a long time since I got tagged for a meme. Amy over at Homeshuling created what she calls a “Jewish mama meme” for the upcoming holidays. I haven’t been tagged for a meme in a long time, so I was happy to participate.

One menorah, or several? Hillel or Shammai? (just kidding about that part)
Several – the more light, the better. That said, we only have two, so we have to have a bunch of other families over the last night, then the big windowsill in our living room is completed lined with them.

Hillel, for these words: If I am not for myself, who is for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?

Do you buy your children gifts for every night of Chanukah?
We’re learning. Last year, we went overboard and bought all manner of tchotchkes and small gifts, only to get deluged with gifts from family. I wound up stashing several of the things we were going to give them. But yes, they do open a present each night. And then they get Christmas at Grandma’s, but I see that we’re saving that question for later.

Do you and your spouse/partner or any other adults in your life exchange gifts?
Oy.

Special family Chanukah traditions?
This too is evolving as we go. Since neither Greg or I grew up celebrating Hanukkah, we are inventing family traditions and rituals from scratch. A few come to mind that we have done consistently for the last few years. We always hang a few strings of lights – white lights, colorful lights – inside and outside. It’s a holdover from our childhoods, and I find it beautiful and festive and warming. We also create a Hanukkah calendar together to hang on the living room wall. It’s actually a practical matter; if we get invited to various Hanukkah parties or plan to have people over at all, it’s helpful to have it all visually laid out somewhere. But it’s also a fun and creative way to anticipate and plan for the holiday with the kids.

We always designate one of the nights as “tzedakah night.” Basically, instead of giving each other gifts that night, we get a cardboard box and go around the house, each of us choosing several items – clothes, books, music, stuffed animals – to put in the box, which we then bring to a homeless shelter in town that houses families with young children.

Finally, we play some mean games of dreidel – with gelt of course – after dinner every night. Gimel, nun, hay, and shin are the four Hebrew letters our kids know so far, and this is why.

Latkes or sufganiyot? If latkes, sour cream or applesauce?
I’m partial to latkes myself. Thin, crispy around the edges, with all the fixins. But generally only if someone else makes them.

Favorite Chanukah book?
Thanks to the PJ Library, our shelves are crammed with Jewish children’s books, including many good ones about Hanukkah. Aviva loves When Mindy Saved Hanukkah. Pearl loves Latkes, Latkes, Good to Eat. I’m partial to anything by Patricia Polacco, including The Trees of the Dancing Goats. A Hannukah Treasury is a beautiful, hardcover collection of stories, fables, poems and songs.

Do you actually play dreidl? If so, what do you use for counters?
Yes! We play with gelt! No messing around here.

What relationship, if any, do you have with Christmas and all things Christmas-y?
That’s a joke, right? Oh, where do I start? Maybe here. Or here. Or what the hell, come find us on Christmas Eve at my mother-in-law’s house three miles from here. We’ll be the ones with visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads.

As for tagging folks: If you have a blog and a relationship with Hanukkah, go ahead and play along.

“He not busy being born is busy dying”

Twice this week, I’ve been called a midwife by former coaching clients. Is sharing that the opposite of humility? I don’t think so. Sharing is what I do, it’s what I encourage, it’s why I’m here. To be a midwife to another human being’s own self-discovery and dreams is as great an honor as to help deliver babies.

For a long time, I debated what to call myself professionally. I do not think of myself as a career coach, though I do work with people around professional questions and transitions. I am not trained as a therapist, though I have studied Carl Jung and Alfred Adler and grew up surrounded by books about Freud and trauma, memory and identity. I am not a parenting expert, more like a mama in the trenches messing it up and making it up as I go along with the best of ‘em. So, Life Coach has felt like the best catch-all title I can wear comfortably.

But maybe… maybe I could be a midwife instead. Hey, some of my best friends are midwives! Some of my best friends are a lot of things. Gay, straight, trans, black, white, Jewish, Buddhist. Other, all or none of the above. But I digress.

A Life Midwife. How about it? Too crunchy? I kinda like it. OK, it’s getting late, the rest of the family is sleeping, and you can tell I’m punchy.

I never cease to be amazed at the ebb and flow of our days, our capacity to roll with it, to adapt and make space, absorb shocks and find the openings where connection happens. It is humbling to watch people open up to their own lives, their own selves, to what is possible. We go around afraid of cracking, but it is the cracks that create access to so much buried treasure. I broke open this past weekend and realized that I need to keep mining my own riches, too. Bob Dylan said it best: “He not busy being born is busy dying.”

What is being born in your life, in yourself? And who is your midwife?