Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

Truth Is Stranger than Fiction

How is it that when I am always sure of what I am going to write about, something happens that forces me to completely change my focus?

On Wednesday I drove up to New York to meet a friend to see Carole King and James Taylor perform. It was a wonderful concert: wonderful time with a friend who is great for creating memories with, wonderful seeing my mother a little less drained than she had been the previous week on her way back up to New York, and wonderful that the drives to and from New York were smooth sailing almost the entire way. And wonderful that I went on this one-day adventure after it had changed from a more intentional, extended visit with my mother to a less than 24-hour jaunt. After the concert I thought that I was going to write about how the audience of midlife-plusers couldn’t contain themselves from singing out loud during “Natural Woman” and “Fire and Rain”—moi included. But then something happened the next day that shelved that reflection on how we change and yet how we don’t change. But on second thought, maybe it is still on that but from an entirely different angle.

On Thursday afternoon I checked my work email. My heart did a drop and roll back into place as I read the most unexpected email. It was from a man who I was friends with in the few months I lived in New York between visiting Israel and moving back to Israel in 1982-3. It was a very intense friendship--and no sex or dillydallying was involved. It was this free moment before our lives (I assume on his, I know on mine) took a serious turn. We were free to talk and walk around New York for hours, and doing spontaneous things because we were young and felt the power of our youth and the flood of happiness that invades when you mesmerize and are mesmerized by someone else without really being aware of it or acting on it.

Oh my. I cried for about five minutes in the car as I drove to pick up my daughter and her friend after they saw Eclipse at the mall. 

How do you ever know if you have touched someone? And do you ever know if you have been acknowledged long after your presence isn’t present? Twenty-eight years ago we were companions in an idyllic interlude. And that has been remembered.

In the space of his email I was transported back past the bitterness and disappointments that have tainted me. He brought me back to a time before regrets. Before, as too many people have noticed, my eyes deadened—and then came back to life. Back to being the young woman who listened to James Taylor and Carole King in her room endlessly, being touched by their words but not, yet, fully understanding the meaning from which they were formed.

Just being at that concert, listening to Carole King and James Taylor, transported me back to my youth, but yet kept me so solidly in the present, so did his email. The past and the present. Perhaps I have lived my past more fully than I thought. Maybe there is less to regret than I think. I was fully in my life, experiencing it, not planning it or anticipating it or waiting for it. Perhaps that is the sense that I need to recover; not (necessarily) the silliness of walking across a bridge in a blizzard, but of committing to the preciousness of each moment—and of sharing and creating joy.

* * *

Update on the six-week relationship: It did not last past that marker.

Women, Hugs and Friendships

The other night was the last night of Hebrew School. I now have my Tuesday and Wednesday evenings back. I said goodbye to the sixth graders and the “big kids” (the middle and high schoolers) the previous night, but there were no dramatic pronouncements. When I said goodbye to the third graders, it was much different. I will sorely miss them. Before they bolted out of the classroom (with the boy who had been one of the rowdiest as the line leader because he had gained my trust that he would not lead them to whoop and holler down the hall), I told them how much I enjoyed being their teacher and how wonderful it was to spend the year learning with such a great group of kids—and I meant every word I said. There is something truly special about third graders. I haven’t studied enough child development to know why, but their blossoming and openness and giddiness is just a wonder of nature.

And then I did dismissal, otherwise known as ushering kids into the right cars and not letting parents who already have their darlings in their cars run over someone else’s kids, because what do they care—their kids are safely ensconced within.

Then one of my closest synagogue work friends left. The night before she joked that she wouldn’t give me a goodbye hug that night, but at the last moment—she didn’t want to get sentimental. We finally hugged; it was an uncertain hug because she’s not sure if she’ll be back to teach next year. We talked about getting together over the summer and I thanked her for being such a good role model to my daughter who helped her teach some of her classes for part of the year. And we broke the space rules as we stood there and intensified the feeling of friendship that had been steadily growing over the year.

Then I went inside and said goodbye to my other good synagogue friend. When we realized that I won’t be back until the end of the summer, we hugged. This is the woman with whom an amazing amount of ground was leaped over to develop a solid friendship once we both realized that we had been married to crazy Israelis. Now she’s married to a mere mortal who is a lovely and kind and gentle man. I love catching up with her in those few lull-like moments when we can act on our friendship.

As I walked out of the synagogue on my way to my car, I realized that those two women despise each other. There had been a scene in the middle of the year; there had been harsh words slung especially in one directions (of course, this was from one of the players, so the slinging was probably mutual); and there had been an unsuccessful “let’s all just get along” session lead by the director. How is it that I am close to both of them? Close as in get along in the comfortable fleeting friendship way that develops because you effortlessly click with someone. There have been no coffees together, or lunches out, or even shopping soirees (how women shop together is beyond me, but I know that it happens because two women in the department at school are forever wearing the same Ann Taylor outfits and shoes), simply a few minutes once or twice a week to exchange a hello, an update that all is well and if all is not well, to give and receive heartfelt compassion.

How is it that two women who I get along with so effortlessly so dislike each other? It punctures my whole “friends of friends” theory that says we can generally befriend a friend’s friend because we are on the same wavelength. Kumbaya and all that.

Friends of friends. Maybe we need to earn each and every one of our friends and friendships—and none can or should be taken for granted. And, perhaps, I should value each of those friendships more than I do because they are not doled out as easily as I had thought. And just perhaps I should value my ability to make friends and keep them, and not assume that it is the other person who is so friendly. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I am a good friend and not an incidental conversationalist. 

Those hugs. They were from me and they were for me. They were a testament to something—something that I need to embrace and not merely walk through as so much air. 

Fleeting Friendships

I often think that I don’t have many friends, and that I have never had many friends. But I wonder if I have far more than I ever imagined. Perhaps the accounting system I use is flawed. Do we all have more friends than we think, and is it, perhaps, the working definition of what “friendship” is that limits our access to an expanded world of friends and friendships?

Are friendships only those relationships that occur over years of talking around tables or in living rooms? Are they only represented by longevity and a kind of intimacy that comes with details known and exchanged? What about those people who you smile at and exchange pleasantries with—once or every day for years? Do they count? Are those friendships? Could a definition of a friendship be an interaction with a person that brings you pleasure?

During the school year on most Tuesdays I teach at my synagogue’s Hebrew school. For the first half of the year my daughter started an hour before I did, so I would go to the nearby McDonald’s and eat and do whatever preparation work needed to be done before heading back to teach my classes. After a couple of weeks I noticed that a mother and her young son and daughter were there at the same time. At first we exchanged nods. Then we progressed to the most casual of conversation: hi, how are you’s. After this introductory phase we began talking. It turns out that she would take her kids to McDonald’s before they went to religious school at the church right next to my synagogue.

Is she a friend? Technically or by the traditional definition, she is not. But I feel that she is. I looked forward to our weekly exchanges. I enjoyed our five minutes of chatting between attending to my work and her kids. She remembered my name and I eventually remembered her name.

(The word acquaintance does not fit here, because, at least in my understanding, an acquaintance is someone you are familiar with, but there isn’t a true connection, one that brings a warmth from a meeting, however brief.)

Another element to thinking about these fleeting friendships is whether or not the exchange added a dimension to your life. Was there another layer of meaning created through the exchange? In that case, these fleeting friendships surely do something that “real” friendships cannot. It is an absolute acceptance of who you are just by the feeling that you project and receive. It’s a kind of love at first sight, but rather than love you have intrinsic recognition.

This expanded definition feels important. It gives me a new dimension from which I can look at my life and interact with the world. That certainly is a wonderful thing to discover on a Thursday night.

More Thoughts on People

I’m still mulling people’s reactions to each other, or perhaps I am still mulling how people live their lives so separate from each other. Or maybe I’m mulling how I’m still disappointed in people, but I'm coming out of that into a disappointed acceptance.

The other day I received in the mail a condolence card from my colleagues. I cried as I read through their comments, touched that were sending out their thoughts to me and that they had made this gesture. But then I caught myself: so, they all knew that my father had passed away and yet they hadn’t said anything to me face-to-face. At first they got a sort of pass because it was possible that they hadn’t known that he had died, but now I know that they had known and yet they thought that “I’m sorry for your loss” on a card was sentiment enough. Maybe it is—in their worlds—but not in mine.

Yes, I know. My father died and your life goes on unaffected. Well, if my father hadn’t led by example never to curse I would say “f%#* you” to all those who are so callous. I’m in an angry mood, maybe it’s a stage of reacting to people’s reactions when called to rise to the occasion. First, disappointment, then anger. What comes next? Maybe, as a few of you suggested, cut the dead wood. Forget about those people who don’t want their lives to intersect with mine or who don’t know how to intersect with other people.

Yes, I should focus on my one colleague who gave to me a bottle of wine with a smiley face on it—Happy Wine—because she knew I’d “been having a tough time.”

I am going to resist retreating again from people. And I am going to try not to absorb the lesson “not to expect anything from people.” I am going to try to continue living my life according to the rule “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man,” because I prefer some tears of disappointment in others over tears of disappointment in myself.

Life lessons. Is that what life is all about? Is life like a billboard on a busy road? We keep passing the signs displaying the lessons, but only after we’ve driven by them countless times do we finally understand what they’re saying. Unfortunately, there are lots of drivers who are so focused or distracted or inept that they never look around, and so they never see the signs.

The latest sign: I’m going to stay focused (and not feel bad about it) of comprehending the signs and not letting the sign-less distract me.

“Oh, Yeah, Sorry about Your Father”

My mother has found the outpouring of grieving reactions from people about my father’s death to be moving and comforting. She keeps saying how surprised my father would be—so many people have touched her by saying such nice things about a man who was always nice. Me, well, on the whole I have found that I need to reconfigure what I think of people. Granted, none of the people who have, unbeknownst to them, hurt me ever knew my father, but I had thought that on the whole people were kind and caring and were able to take a moment out of their lives to console a friend/colleague/acquaintance. My mother said I should just leave it, but how can I? How can I let the uncaring, or unaware, or thoughtless not impinge just a bit into my vision of the village?

Maybe I was like them before, not aware of how much a word, however brief, just acknowledging someone’s grief means to that person. But does that really excuse a colleague who I laugh with on a daily basis in the English teacher lunchroom to say to me the other day, as I was telling something that happened while we were sitting shiva at my parent’s house, “Oh, yeah, sorry about your father.” Speak of cutting to the quick with insensitivity. A few years ago, when I barely knew her, I went to her sister’s funeral. So she knows of grief. The casual way she addressed me just doesn’t leave me.

And then there is another teacher, her room is next to mine and we talk on occasion, but she is much older than me and she keeps to herself most of the time because she’s busy being the overworked theatre teacher. Granted, this summer we ran into each other in the records room of the courthouse when she was there with her daughter who was going through a divorce and I was there in the continual ache of divorce proceedings, which, perhaps, made some kind of outside-of-school bond. And I did tell her that I was flying down to Florida because my father was sick. When she saw me in the hall the other day, she gave me the warmest hug and said how sorry she was for my loss. Then, after we talked for a few minutes, as she was walking away she turned and said “Love ya,” which worked to bring tears again to my eyes, this time not in memory of my father or her parents who had passed away, but from the kindness of some people and the connections that we create that hold us to each other—and up.

There was an email announcement at school and at temple about my father’s passing. At school, one person sent an email and one person sent a card, and I received a plant from the school administration. I did tell three school friends about his passing before the announcement was made and they were kind, but each of them, I believe, should have contacted me over the break to see how my father was, which they did not do. At temple, there were calls and emails from a few people, and a donation made in honor of my father. At temple there were also genuine hugs when people saw me, and there was an honest sense of caring.

I don’t know what to think. Is it an age thing, being able to acknowledge someone’s grief and be able to reach out to a person who is grieving? Is it a work-relationship thing? Is it me and my ability or inability to connect at a deep enough level with people for them to reach out to me? Is it that at temple, a place created for, to a great degree, dealing with the hurts of life, people find it easier to connect? I have no idea.

What I sense is that we are so entrenched in our lives that we don’t take the time to reach out to each other, at least not in meaningful ways. What I sense, too, is that we are so very tribal and the tribe is so very very small: one’s own nuclear family and the few friends who are admitted into that circle. Social networking. Is that just another way to pretend that we engage with people when, really, we are further closing into the smallest family unit. Do we know how to create meaningful relationships? Do I?

The saving grace was my real friends, who showed that they are, indeed, real friends. Am I too naïve or deluded to hope/ think/expect that more of the people whose lives intersect with mine will care enough about me to extend a word, a gesture, an acknowledgement? Pain. Yes, it’s painful that my father passed away. But it’s also painful to realize that we are not intersecting with each other, we are simply in parallel paths.

Will this knowledge stop me from expressing my concern for others? No. There is a difference in understanding the way most people work and in succumbing to that. Are my real friends my real friends because they share the same characteristics as me? Maybe it’s not our circumstances that invites closeness but rather our personalities.

I don’t know. It’s all so painful. Is it really so hard to show that you care, that someone else’s life can divert from yours for just a moment?  

What I Learned this Thanksgiving

This year, as in the past four years, I went to New York to celebrate Thanksgiving with my brother and his wife’s family. It has become a wonderful opportunity for me to become a part of her family and for her family to become my family, as well as to meet up with my New York friends.

In past years the sympathy factor has been in my direction because I was still in the throes of the bitterness of my life/divorce. But now I have been in my own lovely apartment for six months, and the most visible remnant of the bitter divorce is the court case that's coming up in a week and a half (I haven’t given up on getting from him the $14,000 he owes me), all of which means that I am basically on par with everyone else in the “dealing with life” aspect of things. Which brings me to what I have uncovered or acknowledged: that we are all simply dealing with life. It doesn’t seem that we are enjoying it, rather we are simply handling the things that keep coming at us and we just keep going at it. I wonder, then, if we need to adjust our expectations so that the “dealing with” becomes less of an intrusion into what should be our unending happiness and instead we should understand that life as it’s lived is not just an intrusion but life itself. Would we feel better about our lives and ourselves if we expected the complications and not the beaches?

Most of those gathered round the table are in our forties and fifties, and we are all in the midst of lives that we have found to be ours—none of us can claim that this is the life he or she expected when we were the ages that our mostly teenage children are now. None of us was complaining in the “woe is me” way of the world, but we are all dissatisfied or still hoping for better times ahead or at least times that aren’t so full of pains, and exhaustion, and concerns.

Happiness. What is it? Is it sitting around a table passing plates and platters or is it being untouched on a pedestal? Is it sharing words spoken and heard, or unending attention? Is it sharing stories of aches or being free from compassion? I wonder.

I wonder if now that my house is as in order as it’s ever going to be the time has come to reassess what being thankful means.

Thankful. Full of thanks.

Thanksgiving. Giving thanks.

Thanks, not for what could have been or should have been, but for what is. Is that a new, working definition of happiness?

I Have Nothing to Wear: Rethinking the Thong

For some reason the conversation of ten women and one man (what part of Girls Night Out did that achingly close, not yet married couple not get?) in a bar turned to undergarments. One Scandinavian woman is dissatisfied with the width of the thongs that are available in this godforsaken country; but it turns out that she is really longing for g-strings (which, to those of you who don’t know the difference—as I didn’t, is the string up you-know-what as opposed to an inch-wide swath of fabric up that same place). When I told the Scandinavian woman next to me that I don’t wear thongs or g-strings, but I cover it all up, she shook her head and said, “No, you must embrace your curves. Try it, you will feel marvelous.” She then said something about men who will love to see me jiggle. I’m not sure, but I thought the undergarments were for me and my hygiene. But no, she was quite sure that a g-string or a thong was all that I needed to get my love life out of the thought department. And with that a six-foot tall, blond, blue-eyed, slender Danish woman managed to invade the cotton comfort of my life.

But it wasn’t just about thongs. No, her statement “embrace your curves” sounded so much better than my mental disparagement of “you need to lose weight” or “look how fat your face is.” Embrace my curves. She said it in a much nicer and more respectable way than the man who never made it past a phone call because he said he liked my curves and then seemed to be disappointed that I didn’t carry the conversation into dirty-talking territory. I told her that I know I should accept who I am, for goodness sakes I’ve been down this thought-vein for years and it hasn’t brought me any happiness or dietary success. She smiled at me and said something about her not having any curves, which I ignored.

Today I was thinking about symbolism and carried the curves thought to my hair, which is as full of ringlets as Shirley Temple’s ever was. Those surely are curves that I am proud of, after all, I never flatten them with an iron or blow them away with a hair blower. No, I proudly toss my curliques from side to side. Maybe I am meant to be curvy, all over. It’s not that I am a glutton, but my body has found its place. It is not where I would like it to be. I do not have most of my friends’ bodies. But I guess they don’t have mine either.

I’m not sure if I’ll follow through on the thong/g-string connection to feeling good about myself, but I think I finally heard what I needed to hear, or else I was finally ready to just let down my guard of pretending that someday I could be someone else and accept myself—curves and all. I must admit, I’m getting awfully tired of being disappointed in myself. It’s hard to always be critical and always finding fault. I am who I am.

In Hebrew, the word hineni means I am here. Maybe I need to just start saying that to myself: hineni. I am here. This is me, curves and curliques and all.

The Symbolism of a Downed Tree

Yesterday when I was driving home I found the way blocked by a tree that had fallen across the street that I take to get home. There was no way to get around the tree: it spread its trunk and branches from curb to curb. I drove into the parking lot next to it, thinking that I could get back to the street, but I couldn’t so I did an inelegant 3-point turn. When I got to the stop sign at the top of the street where I was planning to turn left, there were two cars in front of me, the first one seemed to be driven by a new driver because s/he was not moving even when there was time to go. So I turned to the right, thinking I’d make a u-turn at the next opening. Of course, there was a “no u-turn sign” there, and since I’m not into breaking obvious road laws, I took a left into the street and did another inelegant 3-point turn to get back to where I needed to be. I made my right. At the light where I needed to make my left turn to the street that would lead me to my street, I temporarily became disoriented by the dusk and the rain and turned into the left side of the street—as in the side where three lanes of cars were coming right at me with their white lights shining—right into my eyes. Luckily, at that moment my temporary road-rule amnesia left me and I did yet another inelegant 3-point turn. Everyone waited for me to turn around, that is except one asshole who was, I guess, aggravated by me and my unfamiliarity with the rules, who drove around me in the middle of my turn. No compassion from him. I bet HE (I am sure it’s a he, sorry guys) was going someplace really important that he couldn’t wait for someone who was obviously in distress or distraught to correct her error. Everyone else waited for me to finish my turn, thankfully, and then at the light, I made a U-turn to my street because there wasn’t a “no u-turn” sign there. I was also afraid what would happen if I needed to go down another street and make another 3-point turn. I needed to get off the road, I felt lucky to still be driving.

The rest of the drive home, all seventy seconds of it, were uneventful.

Those roadblocks and mistakes made me think that the drive home might be symbolic of the meeting I just had, and what it might mean for the future—and what it might represent for the past. I had come from meeting a woman in response to her Craig’s List ad (no, I’ve not so completely given up on men) to start up a Jewish-Palestinian dialogue group and this woman, as we learned through our emails and our first meeting, is the Palestinian-American version of me. It wasn’t odd at all to hear how the trajectories of our lives were so similar, rather it felt right—the embodiment of people connecting as people and not being the representatives of any side or cause. We moved to Israel and the West Bank at around the same age. She married a Palestinian and I married an Israeli. We both suffered from their words. We both had to deal with “dealing with him” with the children and in bitter divorces. And we both came back to the states. We both worked on getting our careers on-track, for ourselves and our children. And we both want to do something about abuse and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And we laughed and enjoyed telling the stories of our lives to each other.

I thought that the roadblocks on the way home represent the roadblocks that we may face to create whatever group or program we have yet to envision (we’re at the brainstorming phase). They could also represent the immense and intense roadblocks that Israelis and Palestinians have placed between themselves so that in Israel we never would have met. I lived in Israel for seventeen years and the two-hour conversation that I had yesterday was more than I had spoken with any Palestinian in all of that time, unless you add the time I spent ordering meals from Palestinian waiters.

In the three years I spent studying for my master’s degree in conflict studies I never met anyone with whom to have a dialogue. Most of the people were, from my perspective, so anti-Israeli that they couldn’t do the most basic thing the field demands of people--to see those on the other side as people, as individuals, and not as representatives of a side. So there we were, two women—mothers and ex-wives—meeting as women do, by sharing their stories and seeing how they can work together to make the world a better place. A more peaceful place for their children—for everyone’s children. 

It’s raining and dreary outside, but I feel a warmth that I haven’t felt for a while.

5770: Starting Off Quietly

On Saturday evening I went to a friend’s house for a mid-holiday Rosh HaShanah (New Year) dinner. Besides me, there were three couples and their two, two, and one children. I had thought before the evening that I would feel a stab of discomfort or loss at my unaccompanied presence. For a brief moment before it was time to go I even considered cancelling and staying wed to my couch. But I didn’t. It could be that my friend and her friends and family were all interested and interesting people so the conversation flowed easily and I didn’t get caught in any down-times in conversation that left me without a built-in conversation partner.

Have I overcome a hump? The “I’m alone” hump? Am I now resolutely in the “it’s okay to be alone” phase? Is this what it feels like to be a person who is not dependent on another or with others dependent on her—or wishing that someone would depend on me? Should I rejoice in this chance to focus on what I want to focus and not moan that one daughter is in California and the other spent the holiday with her father? Is this my chance to be stripped of imposed-upon roles so that I can whittle myself down to my own essence? It’s as if I can feel the layers of personhood that I was and still am, but now I can also clearly discern the self—my self. Enough time was given up to the regret phase that I am purified of it, and so this transcendence doesn’t feel like a trick of a mourning self, but the very real reflection of a person who respects herself and her life.

So this is what it’s like to be me. I talk read write critique listen laugh greet walk observe eat shop cook drive plan think inquire doubt. I don’t seem to do anything. But perhaps that is not essential to me. The doing is the living. This is my life. It doesn’t need highlights to be a highlight. Satisfied with who I am, does that mean that I am not looking for someone to redefine me? Does it mean, too, that I will not let someone else redefine me? I hope so. It’s taken a while to reach this configuration of self; a while and a journey. It seems that I do things. But I also contemplate them.

I have begun 5770. A new year. Stepping into a new year with the fullness of how the years past have wrought me and excited for how I will hone the future, moment by moment. 

Coincidence

The other day I sent an encourging email to a colleague in my class. I wasn't sure what she had been upset about that day, but it seemed to be something about her job being in limbo. After knowing her for two weeks I can say that she is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. Any wonder that she's a second grade teacher?

Whenever I arrive in the morning to campus, I walk from the parking lot to the classroom alone. How is it that on the day after I sent that email, we both got there at the same time and walked together to class? Talking the while time, with her explaining her job situation and how her now former principal was treating her poorly.

Have you had this kind of coincidence or whatever you want to call it (fate if you must) happen to you?

Advice from a Friend Who’s Been There

Sometimes the advice friends give are better taken as expressions of concern from a friend who cares but certainly not advice to be acted upon. But yesterday I spoke with a friend who gave me the advice that I needed to hear and the advice that I think is the right advice to act upon. And for that I sincerely thank her, even if she was cleaning her refrigerator while we were talking. I’m taking the liberty of passing on the advice that cost her many hours and dollars in therapy and challenging moments with her own daughter and psycho-ex (her phrase).

You need to have mantras. These are some of the mantras she shared with me for dealing with exman/slime on custodial issues. We are only one week into younger daughter going back and forth and already he is being himself, causing problems, lying and bullying everyone around.

Take the high road. Get yourself out of the conflict between you and your ex because that is over, and put your daughter in the center. It is no longer about your failed marriage and bitter divorce; it is about taking care of your daughter as best as you can, regardless of what he does. It is about enabling her to grow up as independently as possible from the conflict that her parents have wrought.

Take the pressure off her. Don’t make her choose between parents, and don’t make her any more anxious than needs to be. Just step back.

"I will support whatever decision you make." This mantra is to be repeated to daughter instead of transmitting to her any of my fears of loss (of her love and attention) or anger (at exman/slime).

"I will do whatever you choose." A variation on the previous mantra, because it’s not good to keep repeating myself. Again, stepping back and letting her find comfort as best as she can without the added agony of worrying about how her actions will impact me.

Though these will surely be hard to act upon and say, they make sense and seem worthwhile to recite to myself and daughter. When she said them, I knew she was right. Right in the way the friend who told me to just put daughter on a bus to visit her grandparents in New York regardless of ex’s games was wrong. Sometimes there is a difference between what would feel good for me and what would be good for her, and that is what I need to remember. It is about how I continue being the best mother possible for her. That is the only relationship that counts now.

Meet the Neighbors

Last night when younger daughter and I returned from seeing Up (highly recommended and if you’re like both of us, bring tissues), going to a friend’s house, and then to the supermarket we received a “welcome to the neighborhood” pie (apple crumb crust and delicious) and even a toy for Poops (who is now with exman for his week). This gift was from the neighbor whose door is right opposite mine on the second floor of our little four-apartment part of the building and who I see very rarely because it seems that he is out and about a lot, as am I.

On Friday afternoon we received brownies from a red box baked by the downstairs neighbor. How do I know they were from a box? Because she showed the box to me. These brownies came after about three weeks of telling me that she will give us a welcome gift and then asking if we keep kosher or have any food allergies, and then if we like walnuts in our brownies or not. Word of our not liking walnuts in our brownies is getting around the neighborhood since I heard her telling another neighbor this morning that “Laura doesn’t like walnuts in her brownies.” While this might be critical to someone, the very notion that our food preferences are circulating around is a bit off-putting.

This food talk follows on my realization that the downstairs neighbor is a “bit” nosy or overly-friendly from day one when she drew a little map of our four apartments and the four right next door and who lives where and how old they are and even, yes, that one couple doesn’t want to hang with everyone. Oh, shocking to learn. News of Poops was carried from that little tete-a-tete. Now maybe this is a small town thing, but I grew up in New York City in an apartment building where you had a lot of neighbors who were all in pretty close proximity so you knew that there had to be boundaries as to what to ask and say until you decided to invite the person into your life. This neighbor certainly grew up in different surroundings.

I am trying to see it as friendly that whenever I come home or leave, or when I open my terrace door I seem to hear “Hey Laura.” I shall remain friendly but I need to establish my boundary or personal space that is visible to her. I didn’t move here to feel uncomfortable in my home again. But she’s a tough neighbor to crack. Her yard and porch is right under my terrace. From day one when I went onto my deck to sit and talk to a friend on the phone she decided to call up to me to tell me something uber-important about storage space and would not stop even when I told her I was on the phone. To when my parents and I were taking pictures on the terrace two days later and she called up that she’ll take them for us. To the other day when she invited me down to hang out with her and another neighbor the moment she heard me open my screen door.

I guess the thing that pushes the boundary is that she is trying to keep track of younger daughter and her friends. Seriously, a forty-something woman (with no kids) should not try to become friends with my daughter and her friends. I understand the “she’s lonely” but she shouldn’t try to force her way into my life to fill her own. 

Friendly, yes, and I am not wishing it away, I am just going to make sure that my kind of keep-it-at-a-distance friendliness is respected.

How are your neighbors?

The Threads of a Life

So many threads to a life. So many threads interweaving with other threads. Some threads continue interweaving, some go in new directions, and sometimes we need to tie a knot in them to see where we are at the moment. That’s where I am right now, at the knot-tying stage, looking at some of the threads in my life.

The husband of my colleague, who was diagnosed with esophageal cancer about six weeks ago, died a little more than a week ago. Still in shock, her refrain, her complaint (if it can be called that) is that “it happened so fast.” Even so, a few days before he died they managed to arrange for their engaged daughter to get married in their backyard for a true blending of the bitter and the sweet into their lives. (May his memory be blessed.)

My wonderful student from last year who was supposed to have brain surgery in July was notified that, no, they cannot wait, and so she has already been operated on. I cannot tell you how hard it is to see a 15-year-old child need a wheelchair to get back to her room from just a few feet away. Sure, I saw her two days after her surgery, but there are some images that you don’t want to reconcile with the picture you have in your head of how a teenager is “supposed” to be, and how this lively, enthusiastic, intelligent, perfectionist always was—is.

I was invited to take part in the teaching of writing class that I interviewed for in March. Last night was the welcome dinner. It is fascinating to hear the ideas that other teachers have to excite, instruct and inspire their students to write. Why the creativity of teachers is not a thing more discussed is a wonder to me. We each need to make a 75-minute presentation; I heard the ideas of about half the teachers who will be taking the class (25 all together) and they were all so interesting and inspiring, for me both as a teacher and a parent. You have to wonder how it is that kids are missing out on the sparks that are coming their ways. What is it that they need? Or is the best that any teacher can expect in a year is to reach a few kids, and with that, to feel “mission accomplished” and not stress too much over those who did not have a spark-detector for her?

The assistant principal “raved” about how well I handled psycho mom in the parent-teacher conference the other day. Apparently the “can get defensive” label that I had been given has been replaced with “handles tough parents well.” I certainly like the sound of that more.

Older daughter is moving to California on Saturday, days before her 18th birthday. “Mixed emotions” could cover it, but what’s the mix if it changes all the time? I am certainly proud of her that she is going where she wants and is facing her future as opposed to acting like someone already worrying about retirement before she is even old enough to drink. There is a heavy feeling of hoping: hoping that I have been as good a mother to her as possible and that she is prepared and comfortable to become herself. She did get a letter from a professor the other day who called her brilliant, so on that side of things she seems to be doing well. She is, as I was, as unprepared for the minutiae of life, you know, cooking, cleaning and organizing, but I hope it will come when it needs to.

I will be moving on June 1st. The settlement on the house is to be mid-June. There are countable numbers of days until the end of this ordeal. There really is a tunnel with two ends, for so long I thought it was a dead-end tunnel. I am imagining myself getting up in the morning from a bed and walking a few steps away to see my younger daughter sleeping comfortably in her room, and then walking over to the little terrace, which will become my outside thinking spot, for a few moments of clarity before heading into the shower. Yes, I can finally imagine a lightness to living, and not just dreading hearing heavy footsteps and a tape recorder and another demand for money or twisted interpretation of reality. Freedom. It’s coming.

I told the mediator that I will not pay the bill he sent me because he let ex-man insult me and he tried to pressure me to agree with him. He wrote back that he will cancel my bill, and he won’t have us back again to mediation. No kidding. It was for a really small amount, but I stood up and kept standing.

Today I will be meeting nasty lady lawyer to ensure that I get the full amount due to me from the sale of the house, and that I will not have to pay for his non-payment of the mortgage in the past few months. Soon, soon this will end.

And there is a 35-year-old man who keeps writing me lovely emails. And there is the lovely, laid-back South American scientist with whom I will eventually have a second date. The back, back burner idea of romance suits me. Pseudo-man contacted me again, ugh, and I told him, in between silent treatments, that I have moved on, and I have. I will not have anything to do with someone who is not good for me, or who I think will not be good for me. I am for me now, so how can I let someone in who is so obviously for himself?

A colleague will be 40 today. She’s feeling the life marker. Me, I’m feeling a different life marker, or marks of my life, and so happy to have a head that can finally look ahead and is not just stuck in the now.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for helping me this past year. My strength has been your strength. You, readers, have no idea how invaluable it has been to me to know that people are reading about my struggles, and passing on to me encouragement and strength, not only through your words, but your presence too (for the non-commentators out there). Your presence has truly lifted me up as a prayer. May life be full of fulfillments for us all.

Not a Post about Cleavage, but about the Village

I was planning on writing a humorous post on how if you wear a push-up bra with a lightweight sweater that is not low enough to reveal cleavage you will visibly show that you have partially constrained breasts and partially bouncing breasts, which is just not an attractive look, especially since it looks more like you’re wearing a small, ill-fitting bra than that you have perked-up breasts just eager to be subtly peeked at. But then I started thinking of three people I talked with yesterday, and the boisterous (vocabulary word) humor left me.

First was the twin sister of a student I had last year who started to explain to me that the doctors finally found out why her sister, her twin, had been having migraines and falling asleep during English class and other sundry maladies for the past year or so. And then, just as she told me the punch line, my sister needs brain surgery, her sister walked in to tell me the news herself. As my class walked in, I wanted to hug these two girls, but that is against the rules (and especially not good in front of an entire classroom of kids), whatever, and so I walked around the projector that had stood between us and just touched the arm of the girl who needs the surgery, who certainly needs more than an arm touch.

And then later that day, at my afterschool teaching job at the synagogue, I covered for another teacher who was running late because she was picking up her daughter from the airport to take her to the hospital to be with her husband, the girl’s father. It seems that he did the manly thing and ignored the irritation he had in his throat until it couldn’t be ignored any longer because he could barely breathe, only to find out that he has cancer there. Her comment to me was: my life changed in a minute.

After I absorbed their news, or as much as possible, I thought about how good it is to be connected with people. When I was with exman there was this understood rule of his not to tell people about what goes on in our house. This went beyond what we talked about, it also covered anything personal. I mean I had a cyst removed from my left breast when I was 25 and his suggestion was only to tell my parents after so that they wouldn’t worry. Why, why shouldn’t they worry, or at least know what’s going on with me? They’re my parents, after all, the people who raised me and cared for and about me for an entire life. I took his “advice,” obviously regretting it to this day. And look who still cares about me.

Why? Why hold yourself apart from others? Why not let people know what you are going through? Where is the benefit to holding in that your husband is ill and that you need support? It’s not that this woman poured her heart out to me, but she reached out for a hug, and a moment of relief.

For me, this transformation, of leaving behind the woman I had become with exman to the woman I am, is the most wonderful thing about having divorced him. Leaving behind a controlling man not only enables you to open up to the people in your life, but even more than that it enables you to feel yourself freed—and thankfully able to savor those connections. This, perhaps, is the strongest sense of before and after: before I held myself back from people and they, sensing that, held themselves from me; and after I am joyously out there to and for all.

What is life if it’s not shared? Obviously no one wants to get sick, but if you do, don’t you want to tell people? Have them pray for you or think of you? Don’t you want to look into someone’s pain-filled eyes knowing that she sees compassion in yours? I rejoice in colleagues and friends asking me how I am knowing that I can answer them truthfully (sometimes). And you know, no one goes running, not wanting to hear of my pain. What you get instead is their knowing that they can come to you when they need that compassionate look and touch. What more can a person’s life be about if not that?  

Back Home

Here I am, after a four-day trip to LA during which I did too much driving through too much traffic amidst inconsiderate drivers (even taking into consideration New York drivers) and in full-view of too many accidents. The car that careened into the dividing wall after, I assume, the driver pressed on his brakes too hard was far too much drama for me. Older daughter’s response a few moments later was: “Why are you driving so slowly?” And younger daughter’s response when I told her about the accidents I saw was: “Maybe you’re bad luck.” You do have to love those girls: they are committed to not being a support to their mother all the time but becoming their own people with their own thoughts and causing me no end of concern as to their compassion… or lack thereof.

I was free of thoughts of ex-husband, which was good because the moment he noticed my return this morning he was back in slime mode. As I sat down to a plate of too much matzo brie (matzo that is softened in water, then mixed with an egg, heavily salted, and then fried) he took his egg carton out of the refrigerator and said: “Excuse me, these are my eggs.” Yes, he refers to me as “Excuse Me.” Lack of class cannot be made up for by using a term like that when it is dipped in bile. And since my daughter finished my eggs (I guess he knew this because he keeps tabs of things like this) and I knew what response I would get from him if I touched one of his eggs, I calmly responded: “I bought a container of 18 this morning.” And off slime went, leaving behind his dirty and clean dishes for someone else to take care of before more people were supposed to see the house, but didn’t show up.

I shall not dwell on seeing the university where older daughter wants to go except to note that she really wants to live in the LA area and study at this one school and is not concerned about going into massive debt to study there. In my role of mother I have tried to talk to her, but she will be 18 very soon and is very smart and confident. Grandma will try to talk to her tomorrow. It is true, I am not one of those mothers who sets down the law but have tried instead to make my daughters independent women. While I am sure that is the right way, sometimes I wish they would just do what I say!

Dinner with my blogging friend and her family showed me that blogging friends can be real friends. If I had met her in “real” life I am sure that we would have been friends. Dinner, then talking and meandering in a bookstore, and then ice cream—that’s the way to spend some time together away from a keyboard.

Even while ensconced in a hotel room that was formerly part of a silo (with round cement walls to prove it) and the rails of the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe a few yards from the room so that I could hear and feel the trains rush by I was not disturbed into thinking about men or the men who are either not that into me or who are not that into keeping up email correspondence at a Laura-suitable pace. This was good, very good. I was focused where I needed to be.

But just in case you were wondering, I had two emails when I returned from Chemistry-related gentleman: one who seems to be illiterate and the other who is taking too darn long between contacts. I had written him off, and oops, there he is. Oh, and there is a Craig’s List gentleman who seems to be more of a gentleman even though he has no degrees than many of the men who have graduate degrees. No, you cannot be my "pronce charming" whoever you are. And if you start every sentence with “I” in your profile I will archive you. And no, I don’t trust you when you say you want a faithful woman—not with my controlling-man experience. And if you say that a woman should never be in front or behind I will question you too (it was the never in front part that was a real turn-off, why can’t we take turns leading and following?). But we shall see, and if nothing comes of these, then c’est la vie, or c’est ma vie.

I walked a lot. I drove a lot. I didn’t eat too much. I adhered to Passover restrictions except for a couple of self-granted leniencies (I tried not to eat too many of the dry noodles in my awful Asian chicken salad that I didn’t know would be there, and I pretended to be Sephardic one day and had some pinto beans with my rice-less, taco-less Mexican lunch). While I am still not drinking coffee I have not been as good on the chocolate ban. How I wish the cashier at Trader Joe’s in Pasadena would not have wished me a “good evening with your chocolates” on Thursday night. Who says things like that? Besides, I bought the small box of truffles (only 30) and not the big box (50) and there are still some left.

My daughter and I got along most of the time; there were a few snips from her, but she’s really not used to being with mommy so much (or anyone or that matter), and even she said what a good time she had. That would be (as in the good time) except for my repeatedly bringing up the subject of the cost of tuition and her wanting to say “I do” to indebtedness.

And on the subject of meaning of life I decided that I need to do more and think less. So even walks during which I mull to myself need to be supplemented by real action. I’m not quite sure what, but perhaps hiking with other people would be a start. Maybe take a crafts class; I’ve wanted to learn how to throw clay (on a potter’s wheel) for more reasons than creativity.

Which brings me to a discussion of my writing and blogging. I think that I will be cutting back on the number of blog posts I do—that would be daily, and focus more on the questions and then one or two posts a week. This would enable me to start the book that I decided that I need/want to write. I’m not quite sure what shape it will take since the words “fictionalized real-life,” “philosophy of life” and “funny” are battling for control of my mind. I want to keep my connection with my readers, with the blogs I read and with the wonderful world of immediate communication but I also want to explore my depths even more, hence “the book” project.

Lastly. Happy Passover! Happy Easter! May happiness emerge from within us all.

This should be an interesting week: another mediation session.

Highlights of a Weekend in New York

The drive from Northern Virginia to Long Island (east of New York City) should be five to six hours. My younger daughter and I got onto the highway (495) at 4:22, after stopping at the store for essentials (aka junk food, but we did each get an apple, too), getting gas and returning a book to the library. The easy, breezy longish trip that should have gotten us into my brother’s house at around nine ended up becoming a trip to see how long we could be delayed in traffic in Maryland and Delaware. Delaware may be one of the smallest states in the Union but it sure didn’t feel that way as the hours ticked by. But we were both in good moods the entire time. This proved that, indeed, the journey is the key part of a trip. Or, if you’re going to get stuck in traffic don’t go with your extremely impatient child. We didn’t rouse my brother from his slumber on his LaZBoy until 1:30.

On Saturday I took my daughter to her camp friend’s Bat Mitzvah, and then I was independent until Sunday morning since the invite ended up including much hang-out time, including a sleepover at a hotel after the big party at a country club.

I was off to Manhattan to meet a friend. The rain cleared for what would be a glorious spring day. I was in the mood to walk (as I always am when I am in Manhattan). So I walked from Penn Station at 34th Street and 7th Avenue to 54th and Fifth Avenue where we were to meet, in front of Tiffany’s. While I waited for her I watched as countless tourists took pictures in front of the Trump building or the Tiffany’s sign, while others came out of Tiffany’s with their little TIffany blue bags. Me, I leaned against a planter and watched the river of people walk by.

As usual, I’m thinking that all or a part of my wardrobe is lacking. So while I’m thinking that I should have waited to buy more attractive walking shoes my friend comes up and greets me, telling me how great I look and how my red jacket looks so nice. Her, I haven’t seen her for at least six months and I was surprised and saddened by how drawn and drained she looked. She’s been trying to find a job in New York for a while but has only managed to land temporary things here and there, and it seems that even temp jobs have completely dried up in New York.

We walked up Fifth Avenue on the Central Park side to the Metropolitan Museum. Instead of going in and looking at the artwork (which we did last time), she used the restroom and then we walked and talked our way across a very crowded Central Park. We were on the search for Thai or Chinese food, but we could find neither. We walked from the park to Amsterdam Avenue to Columbus Avenue and then down from 84th Street to 72nd Street to find a Chinese restaurant. Not only was I surprised by the lack of expected diversity of restaurants, I was surprised by how many closed stores there were; although, the pizza places seemed to still be intact.

After lunch I headed back to Penn Station. I should have taken the subway, but I was in push-yourself mode, so I walked back down to 34th Street. At one point I was glad that New York didn’t have the muggings it used to have, since I didn’t think that I would have the energy to fight someone off.

It's My Birthday

It's my birthday. I am 48 today. Last year on my birthday I was in New York with my family celebrating my nephew's Bar Mitzvah. This year my daughter had a friend's Bat Mitzvah on Long Island on the 28th so I decided that this year, too, I will spend my birthday amidst friends and family in New York.  Well, they're not so much celebrating my birthday as enabling me to celebrate mine with people who I love and who love me. You know, the way a birthday should be spent.

I just hope there won't be a lot of traffic on the drive back to Virginia. If there is, I can just put it down to symbolism. That I am meant to stay embraced by those who care rather than thrust into a situation that just brings me down and makes me feel alone. BACK TO BIRTHDAY THOUGHTS.

To all those who share a birthday with me, especially my college friend Cindy Kane--wherever you may be, may your candle wish come true.

The Symbolism of a Worm

This morning, after looking out my window and seeing that the snow that had blanketed the lawn for a week was completely gone, I went on my morning walk with Poops to the mailbox to get the newspaper.  As I walked up the road I noticed a worm, and then another one and another, all drying on the pavement. And I realized that in one week we had gone from winter with 13 degree temperatures and wind chill factors and six inches of snow to 60 degrees and worms seeking sunshine. And then I noticed the twittering of birds in the trees. Spring, yes, spring is coming. What a relief.

It’s not that I don’t like winter, after all, in Virginia it’s not so harsh and not so long, but still, I need a change. What could be better than a change from the cold and bare trees to colors on the ground and in the bushes and on the trees?  As a lover of fall and its vibrant colors I must say that this year, this year I cannot be happier about the change of seasons, even if it entails losing an hour of my life tomorrow and a vast number of sneezes.

What a relief that soon I will not feel confined, I will not feel forced to stay in because the sting of cold is so discomforting. I look forward to not having a built-in excuse for getting out, because I so much want to get out and I want to cajole myself with ease.
When I got home I took off my light raincoat that I barely needed and made my breakfast of tea and toast. A few days ago a friend told me that her doctor told her to refrain from coffee and chocolate, and without a moment’s hesitation I decided to join her. For friendship, that suffering together thing, and because what’s good for her body is probably good for mine, I decided that I was going through with it. So for a week I haven’t had coffee and just one piece of chocolate and one brownie, and I feel good about the internal change of season. Could it be that my body also needed to move from the heaviness of winter hibernation to a lighter spring diet? Could it also be that I hate how anything controls me, be it coffee or people?

Surprisingly I didn’t have much of a withdrawal headache and I don’t think that I was much grumpier than usual. It feels good to have (at least for a week) followed through on a decision that is for my physical well-being. It’s time not to let another spring come without my acknowledging that as the earth tends to itself, I, too, need to tend to myself.

On Monday when I was shoveling I watched as a bird drank water from a tiny pool of melted snow. Then it flew off to sit in a branch of the forsythia bush and watch me. A little while later the neighbors came out and the bird flew off, but as soon as they left, it was back. I could interpret that bird’s presence as happy coincidence or I could say it was my own little winged messenger from nature telling me that each animal must watch out for each other and itself. Later that day my friend told me what her doctor said.

I will be watching the orioles’ nest in the forsythia bush on the front lawn for yet another harbinger of change and newness. While I won’t be taking any direct messages from that, I will rejoice in how we are continually given the opportunity to tend to those in our care, and ourselves.

And now I’m off for another walk with Poops.

The Art of Sighing

It seems that I have become quite a sigher of late. It’s loud and it’s earnest; I guess you could call it a full-body sigh. I can feel my entire body sinking into that sigh as it exits me. I slump down, I make a full-blown exhalation that is not subtle as sighs are supposed to be, and even my face seems to seep and sink into the sigh. It is a perfect reflection of how I feel.

Sigh. It’s how I feel about everything right now. It’s how I feel about my co-teacher who tries to get into a discussion about everything that I do with the students as if he is the class psychologist and I am there as some kind of non-initiate watching how he intuits all there is to know about a student. The sigh reflects my relationship with my daughters: I am the holder of the keys, the pocketbook, the kitchen utensils and sponge, and occasionally a sounding board, for good and for bad.

A sigh certainly reflects how I feel when I leave work and most interactions with people come to an end. Midlife Slices commented on a post the other day that if something were to happen to her husband, she would be happy to continue her life with just friends and family around. But what do you do, other than sigh, if you don’t have friends and family around to cover that hole? Do you just sit in the hole and keep excavating? And even when you try or hope to get out of it, what if there are no rungs to climb up with? It doesn’t always work that you have family nearby, and it certainly doesn’t always work that you have friends who are nearby and who are available to offer rungs in the form of time together. It just isn’t so easy to fill a life with people and interactions just because you want to.

A sigh. A sigh because sometimes, a writer doesn’t want to express the sensation of being alive in little bits when the totality is overwhelming. A sigh would be the equivalent of that picture that you use to “paint a thousand words.” That is my kind of sigh. It feels good when it comes out. It feels as if mind and body are commiserating together, for the benefit, surely, of the overwhelmed me, helping me overcome the feeling of being overwhelmed. As the heavy, charged air exits in a sigh, I feel lighter and fresher.

This is my kind of therapy: sigh therapy.  

Talking to a Mom

"Hi, Laura, it's Karen's mother. Did she tell you that my cancer returned?"

"No. What kind?"

"Ovarian." 

And with that I started talking to the mother of one of my younger daughter's friends (who slept over last night), and who is one of my best front door friends. You know, one of those women who you talk with for an hour when you go to pick up your child or she comes to pick up hers, but it never progresses past that stage.

We talked about her hair, her shaving her head, her inability to look at herself without her hair, her kids wanting her to have her wig on, and the little cap that she wears, and how her older daughter (13) comes home to be with her. Then she asked about my life. And we did a front door talk on the phone.

Now I sit here thinking of her body getting help fighting the cancer from the medical establishment, and her emotional self getting help fighting the cancer from her husband and family and friends, and her strong sense of self. I wish her and all of those fighting cancer and illness healing and health.