Honestly, I do feel I deserve some kind of award. Weekend warrior? No...not that.
It is so oppressively hot and sunny outside that I have decided to come in and ponder the answer to that question on my computer while enjoying some air conditioning.
I'm not sure that my award should be in recognition of my amazonian efforts yesterday so much as for the level of lazy, wishful thinking and neglect that I indulged in for the past seven years. I realize that seven years is a long time to neglect anything, and that a child, pet, houseplant or marriage would be unlikely to survive this sort of treatment. In terms of damage, though, few things can make more progress in that period of time than a savage honeysuckle vine.
When we first bought our home, I was a fearlessly optimistic, strapping gal in my mid-thirties. We still owned and lived in a house in Symmes township while the new one, 25 minutes away, in Wyoming, was being renovated. I put my mural business on hold for a few months and committed to doing as much of the work as I could myself.
The property had been transferred to us in an estate sale. The previous owner, Julia V, a childless widow, had been alone in the house, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, for many years. Once Julia was declared incompetent, her nephew in Virginia arranged for a series of caregivers to look after her and her beloved gardens. I had very limited experience in gardening but Julia had been a master gardener and had poured her love and passion for flowers into her gardens. This property, our new home, now inspired me to step up and do some fast, hands-on learning. The younger kids were in half day pre-school and I was shuttling them to drop and retrieve Max at an endless sequence of lessons and rehearsals, so my time was very limited, but still, I managed to do an admirable job clearing the perimeter of the lot of nearly all its weeds. In the process, I uncovered some peony plants and daffodils and happily transplanted them to more suitable locations.
Along the way, I distinctly remember spending a couple of overcast days wrestling six and seven foot tall honeysuckle weeds out of the late spring mud. Although the estate had kept a groundskeeping service on payroll to the tune of some $3,000.00 plus a year, certain things had been neglected "backstage" while the tulip beds and rosebushes had been lovingly maintained. The honeysuckle, I was informed by a landscape consultant, would have to be "taken out" or it would take over. In the course of my mud wrestling marathon, the honeysuckle weed that I left for last was on the smaller side, perhaps four or five feet high. Unfortunately, it was relatively inaccessible. Whereas the other plants' greatest challenge had been their extreme proximity to very prickly young holly trees, this one was located in the shelter of several large and low leafed trees. Its roots were practically wedged between two tree trunks, and the ground sloped precipitously toward a collapsed stone retaining wall that was in the process of being rebuilt. Exhausted and otherwise victorious, I decided to leave the baby honeysuckle, for now, and resolved to tackle it another day.
As it turned out, that day rolled around yesterday. The retaining wall was beautifully rebuilt in late 2004; I had no excuse except for about a million other easier, more interesting things to do.
Yesterday, before going at it for several hours with a bow saw and clippers, I had done a deep, thorough clean of the basement playroom and practiced Beethoven's Archduke trio as well as the Bach Double Violin Concerto and Beethoven's 2nd Violin Romance. Well, thank goodness for Beethoven to put things in perspective. Because at the end of the day, when my husband, over a late family dinner at the neighborhood restaurant, asked me what was the hardest work I had done that day, I thought for a moment, and then answered, "in all sincerity, the Beethoven trio".
It's true, but it was a very close call. Certainly the honeysuckle vine had exacted a higher price from me, taken a greater toll My palms were raw from tugging down vine out of the tree tops. I had been smacked in the face by a snapping branch, hit on the back and shoulders and arms by falling limbs. As the vine was forced, bit by bit, to let go its hold, the dead tree bits it had held captive for years came sailing down toward the ground. Each time, I tried to get out of the way, but it was a difficult location in which to move swiftly, surrounded as I was by branches and logs. Some of the falling "bits" were over ten feet long, so it was perilous work.
Once I moved to my neighbor, Vladimir's yard, to rescue his enormous tree from the clutches of my errant honeysuckle, I developed a system of strategically planning which captive limb I would next let fall, and I had yards of open grass across which to scoot out of the way. But that was in the home stretch, around what would normally be dinner time. When I dragged all the debris into our yard, the vine snaked from the top of the back yard down to edge of the sanctuary and firepit at the very bottom - a very, very long way for one little, once easily dismissed, neglected vine.
When I stripped out of my soaking wet, filthy clothes and I was about to step into the shower, I saw myself in the mirror and stppped short. "I look like a warrior," I thought. My face was flushed, bruised, and scraped, with bits of earth and bark stuck to it. My shoulders and upper chest looked similar. My hands were sore and I saw that the skin of my palms and fingers had been pierced in several places.
Today, I have to admit, after a longer than usual night's sleep (8 hours) my hands, back and shoulders are all a bit sore. I still need to clean up our yard from yesterday's battle and drag all my fallen victims into the woods. My afternoon trio rehearsal has just been cancelled suddenly due to an onset of fever in the pianist. I'm very sad about that, but on the other hand, it gives my body a chance to recover before I meet up with Beethoven again.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
This gratitude is powerful stuff
I am so happy this morning.
The melon is sweeter, the garden more miraculously beautiful, my children and husband even more lovable than usual.
There is nothing like deep gratitude to cast a golden light on everything around you.
Last night, my plan was to get out to Zionsville, Indiana with plenty of time to spare, pick up a non-fat, no-whip venti iced mocha for the two-hour-long return trip. I have to collect Sam, my ten year old, as soon the camp fireworks end and return him to his bedroom for a few hours of sleep before getting him up to begin rehearsals for Grease, the musical, in the morning.
Fortunately, I had a sugar free Red Bull right before leaving home, because the Zionsville Starbucks is closed for the holiday.
I am greeted by friendly faces at the camp and invited to watch the fireworks (incognito, so as not to set off a wave of homesickness) with some staff in their car at the edge of the sports field where they are being set off. Darkness falls and I spend the next segment of time developing a new skill: hitting the iPhone camera button just before the fireworks explode in the sky so that their blaze is captured digitally.
After the grand finale, we see some figures moving toward the bushes. It is Sam, no longer on crutches, being escorted (by his brother, Max) to meet me at the camp office. Instead, Sam climbs into the staff car with a big grin on his sweet face. Max gives me a quick squeeze and soon, Sam and I are on our way, homeward bound, in our brand new car.
At this point, I already have so much to be grateful for. Sam's sprained ankle has been healing, in his happy place, this wonderful camp. Max seized an opportunity to see me, even if it was, as he'd text me later, only for .3 seconds. I am glad to be wide awake, having been treated with kindness, and now, buckled into a wonderful new vehicle with my precious child.
There had been light rain on the way to camp, but now, the sky is clear, and the roads are practically empty; perfect conditions for driving. Bonus fireworks sparkle on either side of the highway as Sam shares some of the highlights of his last three weeks. No, he hasn't memorized his lines, but he has become familiar with the script and he is confident enough that he will catch up at rehearsal. Life is good.
At midnight, I decide to cut short our chat. "I know you are not sleepy and I love hearing your stories," I tell him. "But you are going to be so tired in the morning. I have to wake you at 7:30, you know, Sam."
"Mom, it's a treat to sleep until 7:30!" he says.
"Not when you've been up until 1 am," I warn. "So, please, stretch out, put your seat back, get comfy, and we will talk more tomorrow."
"Okay," he says, and falls silent.
It is midnight, exactly.
Ten minutes later, I see a pair of lights in my rear view mirror. Two mismatched little stars, piercing the darkness behind me, growing brighter very quickly, too quickly. I ease into the right hand lane, slowing from 75 mph to 70 so that the driver can more easily pass me by. As I watch the lights continue to brighten at an astonishing speed, I see they are even more unbalanced than they initially appeared. The bright orb on the left seems to emit three or four times the wattage of the one on the right. As the car comes up on my left, I glance out the side window to catch a glimpse of it, curious as to who or what is in such a hurry at this hour of the night. I take in a boxy, rusted, white mid-sized sedan, 25 to 30 years old. The image has just enough time to register in my mind as it flashes past my window. How fast is it going, I wonder? The next thing I know there is a loud squealing, a screeching, a scream. I grip my wheel, and watch in silent horror as the white car spins crazily counterclockwise toward the median, spraying gravel at the front of my car, at me. Like a stunt car in a movie, but this is all too real.
I feel a fear stored up in me from an earlier moment on the highway with Sam, several years ago. In the middle of the day, in the right hand lane of a three lane highway, I had passed a car and then heard Sam announce "hey, those cars just crashed into each other!" and as I looked to my left, I saw one car careening toward the median, as the other came veering my way. I watched out my side window as the large black sedan literally broke apart, the shiny fenders, the wheels, all disconnecting from each other as if they were the universe expanding as it hurtled through space. An exit ramp appeared miraculously on my right, and I glided onto it without further incident. But my heart was beating like it was part of the drum corps.
Now, for a second time, I feel all my leg muscles tighten, my heart pounds, races, and next, my breath comes very quickly, along with a torrent of words, as if they had all piled up in my throat during the previous moment, when I must have been holding everything in.
"Holy, holy, holy..." I say, at first, not allowing myself to finish the phrase. "Holy, holy, holy...crap," I finally say. "I'm sorry, Sam, but a car just passed us and then the driver lost control and it spun out just as soon as it passed us... That noise you heard was that car, skidding and sliding, and then you heard the gravel hitting our car as it got thrown up from the ground when that car crossed the center of the highway. Oh, my G-d, Sam, oh, my G-d! I don't know how that driver can still be alive, Sam, I really don't. I hope to God he didn't hit anyone else. Oh, Lord! Everyone getting on this road right now must be drunk. Too many beers while watching the fireworks, then they get behind the wheel and try to get home. Oh my G-d, oh my G-d, I hope I don't see anyone else on this road for the rest of this ride. Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, oh, Lord!"
I struggle to shut up as fast as I can and try to get a grip on myself.
I drive on in the dark, white-knuckled, trying to calm down, listening to the BBC news, wondering if I should pull over, then deciding just to keep going, just to get home as fast as I can. Safe. We are still safe. Why are we safe? It must be Sam, I think. This special boy of mine. We were protected because of him. Both times, such narrow escapes, and completely unscathed. It must because of Sam. There must be an angel protecting him.
I need to believe this because, of course, there are still other cars on the road, and I am now afraid that all the drivers are drunk. I try to think of statistics. They can't all be drunk! I am painfully aware, with each breath, with each mile, with each pair of lights ion the darkness, that any one of the oncoming cars or trucks could come across the median at me, that the next speeding car could come up behind me and skid into me instead of away from me. For the next twenty minutes, I mutter under my breath, like a madwoman, at every car in the rear view mirror "keep away from me, keep AWAY from me!" until they are each safely past. I am tempted to speed the rest of the way home, letting no one pass me, but I realize this is impossible to do safely. I choose to continue praying, muttering and gripping the wheel rather than trying magically isolate myself from everyone else on the road.
Finally, our exit sign appears like a green and white shining beacon. We exit the highway and slow to 35 mph. I remain hyper-vigilant, reminding myself that most accidents occur very close to home, in the final stretch, when we let down our guard.
A half hour after the crazy screeching of the white car, we arrive home safely. I tuck Sam in, and he says, with a smile "a real bed!" and then, I walk across the house, splash my face with water, strip off my dress and climb into bed. On my side of the mattress, an outstretched, open hand waits to take hold of mine. I take Paul's hand, and find that I am gripping it very hard, unable to let go or to loosen my grasp. I take it in both my hands and press it to my chest, then tell him that I am wide awake, that I had a scary drive, that I am ever so grateful to be home.
Paul listens to my story, then thanks me for my safe driving, for bringing our precious cargo home safely, and drifts back to sleep. I lie awake, disturbed to realize that I did not think to call 911, wondering what happened to the driver of the white car, amazed that the accident happened just after he passed us, after having come up from behind us for so long. Had he not seen us until just then? Was it because he'd had to switch lanes, after all, in order to get past us? My mind races until some unidentifiable point in time, when it must short circuit, releasing me into a sweet, dreamless sleep.
This morning, everything is better. Paul has hidden the bathroom scale, sparing me its reproach. My boys are two angels in their neighboring beds as I brew good coffee from just enough beans. I pinch baby mint leaves from the garden, noticing the beauty all around me, observing that the Rose of Sharon has opened its first blooms of the season. I cut juicy, orange melon into slices and arrange them lovingly on a green plate. It is so beautiful that I have to photograph it. Everything and everyone is so sweet that it is all I can do not to cry.
The boys leave for rehearsal in my friend's minivan. I walk the dog in the dappled sunlight, and loop back to the house. I finish my coffee and take up my violin to practice the Archduke trio. As I begin to play, pleasure washes over me. This music, this moment, this day.
I am so happy to be here. I am so lucky to be alive.
The melon is sweeter, the garden more miraculously beautiful, my children and husband even more lovable than usual.
There is nothing like deep gratitude to cast a golden light on everything around you.
Last night, my plan was to get out to Zionsville, Indiana with plenty of time to spare, pick up a non-fat, no-whip venti iced mocha for the two-hour-long return trip. I have to collect Sam, my ten year old, as soon the camp fireworks end and return him to his bedroom for a few hours of sleep before getting him up to begin rehearsals for Grease, the musical, in the morning.
Fortunately, I had a sugar free Red Bull right before leaving home, because the Zionsville Starbucks is closed for the holiday.
I am greeted by friendly faces at the camp and invited to watch the fireworks (incognito, so as not to set off a wave of homesickness) with some staff in their car at the edge of the sports field where they are being set off. Darkness falls and I spend the next segment of time developing a new skill: hitting the iPhone camera button just before the fireworks explode in the sky so that their blaze is captured digitally.
After the grand finale, we see some figures moving toward the bushes. It is Sam, no longer on crutches, being escorted (by his brother, Max) to meet me at the camp office. Instead, Sam climbs into the staff car with a big grin on his sweet face. Max gives me a quick squeeze and soon, Sam and I are on our way, homeward bound, in our brand new car.
At this point, I already have so much to be grateful for. Sam's sprained ankle has been healing, in his happy place, this wonderful camp. Max seized an opportunity to see me, even if it was, as he'd text me later, only for .3 seconds. I am glad to be wide awake, having been treated with kindness, and now, buckled into a wonderful new vehicle with my precious child.
There had been light rain on the way to camp, but now, the sky is clear, and the roads are practically empty; perfect conditions for driving. Bonus fireworks sparkle on either side of the highway as Sam shares some of the highlights of his last three weeks. No, he hasn't memorized his lines, but he has become familiar with the script and he is confident enough that he will catch up at rehearsal. Life is good.
At midnight, I decide to cut short our chat. "I know you are not sleepy and I love hearing your stories," I tell him. "But you are going to be so tired in the morning. I have to wake you at 7:30, you know, Sam."
"Mom, it's a treat to sleep until 7:30!" he says.
"Not when you've been up until 1 am," I warn. "So, please, stretch out, put your seat back, get comfy, and we will talk more tomorrow."
"Okay," he says, and falls silent.
It is midnight, exactly.
Ten minutes later, I see a pair of lights in my rear view mirror. Two mismatched little stars, piercing the darkness behind me, growing brighter very quickly, too quickly. I ease into the right hand lane, slowing from 75 mph to 70 so that the driver can more easily pass me by. As I watch the lights continue to brighten at an astonishing speed, I see they are even more unbalanced than they initially appeared. The bright orb on the left seems to emit three or four times the wattage of the one on the right. As the car comes up on my left, I glance out the side window to catch a glimpse of it, curious as to who or what is in such a hurry at this hour of the night. I take in a boxy, rusted, white mid-sized sedan, 25 to 30 years old. The image has just enough time to register in my mind as it flashes past my window. How fast is it going, I wonder? The next thing I know there is a loud squealing, a screeching, a scream. I grip my wheel, and watch in silent horror as the white car spins crazily counterclockwise toward the median, spraying gravel at the front of my car, at me. Like a stunt car in a movie, but this is all too real.
I feel a fear stored up in me from an earlier moment on the highway with Sam, several years ago. In the middle of the day, in the right hand lane of a three lane highway, I had passed a car and then heard Sam announce "hey, those cars just crashed into each other!" and as I looked to my left, I saw one car careening toward the median, as the other came veering my way. I watched out my side window as the large black sedan literally broke apart, the shiny fenders, the wheels, all disconnecting from each other as if they were the universe expanding as it hurtled through space. An exit ramp appeared miraculously on my right, and I glided onto it without further incident. But my heart was beating like it was part of the drum corps.
Now, for a second time, I feel all my leg muscles tighten, my heart pounds, races, and next, my breath comes very quickly, along with a torrent of words, as if they had all piled up in my throat during the previous moment, when I must have been holding everything in.
"Holy, holy, holy..." I say, at first, not allowing myself to finish the phrase. "Holy, holy, holy...crap," I finally say. "I'm sorry, Sam, but a car just passed us and then the driver lost control and it spun out just as soon as it passed us... That noise you heard was that car, skidding and sliding, and then you heard the gravel hitting our car as it got thrown up from the ground when that car crossed the center of the highway. Oh, my G-d, Sam, oh, my G-d! I don't know how that driver can still be alive, Sam, I really don't. I hope to God he didn't hit anyone else. Oh, Lord! Everyone getting on this road right now must be drunk. Too many beers while watching the fireworks, then they get behind the wheel and try to get home. Oh my G-d, oh my G-d, I hope I don't see anyone else on this road for the rest of this ride. Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, oh, Lord!"
I struggle to shut up as fast as I can and try to get a grip on myself.
I drive on in the dark, white-knuckled, trying to calm down, listening to the BBC news, wondering if I should pull over, then deciding just to keep going, just to get home as fast as I can. Safe. We are still safe. Why are we safe? It must be Sam, I think. This special boy of mine. We were protected because of him. Both times, such narrow escapes, and completely unscathed. It must because of Sam. There must be an angel protecting him.
I need to believe this because, of course, there are still other cars on the road, and I am now afraid that all the drivers are drunk. I try to think of statistics. They can't all be drunk! I am painfully aware, with each breath, with each mile, with each pair of lights ion the darkness, that any one of the oncoming cars or trucks could come across the median at me, that the next speeding car could come up behind me and skid into me instead of away from me. For the next twenty minutes, I mutter under my breath, like a madwoman, at every car in the rear view mirror "keep away from me, keep AWAY from me!" until they are each safely past. I am tempted to speed the rest of the way home, letting no one pass me, but I realize this is impossible to do safely. I choose to continue praying, muttering and gripping the wheel rather than trying magically isolate myself from everyone else on the road.
Finally, our exit sign appears like a green and white shining beacon. We exit the highway and slow to 35 mph. I remain hyper-vigilant, reminding myself that most accidents occur very close to home, in the final stretch, when we let down our guard.
A half hour after the crazy screeching of the white car, we arrive home safely. I tuck Sam in, and he says, with a smile "a real bed!" and then, I walk across the house, splash my face with water, strip off my dress and climb into bed. On my side of the mattress, an outstretched, open hand waits to take hold of mine. I take Paul's hand, and find that I am gripping it very hard, unable to let go or to loosen my grasp. I take it in both my hands and press it to my chest, then tell him that I am wide awake, that I had a scary drive, that I am ever so grateful to be home.
Paul listens to my story, then thanks me for my safe driving, for bringing our precious cargo home safely, and drifts back to sleep. I lie awake, disturbed to realize that I did not think to call 911, wondering what happened to the driver of the white car, amazed that the accident happened just after he passed us, after having come up from behind us for so long. Had he not seen us until just then? Was it because he'd had to switch lanes, after all, in order to get past us? My mind races until some unidentifiable point in time, when it must short circuit, releasing me into a sweet, dreamless sleep.
This morning, everything is better. Paul has hidden the bathroom scale, sparing me its reproach. My boys are two angels in their neighboring beds as I brew good coffee from just enough beans. I pinch baby mint leaves from the garden, noticing the beauty all around me, observing that the Rose of Sharon has opened its first blooms of the season. I cut juicy, orange melon into slices and arrange them lovingly on a green plate. It is so beautiful that I have to photograph it. Everything and everyone is so sweet that it is all I can do not to cry.
The boys leave for rehearsal in my friend's minivan. I walk the dog in the dappled sunlight, and loop back to the house. I finish my coffee and take up my violin to practice the Archduke trio. As I begin to play, pleasure washes over me. This music, this moment, this day.
I am so happy to be here. I am so lucky to be alive.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Nancy' ark (Part One)
Yesterday, I dug out of my jewelry box a brooch I seldom wear. It is silvertone and yellow brass, and depicts happy animals crowding the top deck of Noah's ark, presumably during a sunny moment immediately following the 40 days of rainfall. It was given to me by Mary Lee Sirkin, in appreciation for the many hours I spent in the preschool "muscle room", donating a mural for the children there. Yesterday, I needed any good karma that might be stored in this pin. I needed my children to feel as happy and secure as the smiling giraffe and hippo. Essentially, I needed an ark.
While in between car ownerships, just the other day, I received an email asking me (1) to what extent and (2) how I wanted to participate in a local carpool for my sons' upcoming production of Grease.
My answers were:
(1) fully!
and
(2) with deep gratitude, as the new owner of another minivan or its equivalent.
This email brought an extra frisson to what was already proving to be a very disquieting adventure. It added a small measure of desperation to my increasingly urgent search for three rows of fun for under $30,000. Every other mother in this very desirable carpool could take another 3 children in addition to her own. In order to participate fully, in this any any future carpool, I was going to have to find some spacious wheels, and soon.
On our way to camp earlier this month - the first of ten trips I will make to the kids' camp this summer - Max wanted to drive, since he would be unable to access a car for ten weeks. We were nearly there when I thought I hard a race car about to pass us on the highway. I looked up from my iphone, where I had been peacefully reading friends' facebook status updates, but could not detect the source of the revving engine. I looked all around us, but the race car was nowhere to be found. Turns out, that revving engine was ours.
(to be continued...)
While in between car ownerships, just the other day, I received an email asking me (1) to what extent and (2) how I wanted to participate in a local carpool for my sons' upcoming production of Grease.
My answers were:
(1) fully!
and
(2) with deep gratitude, as the new owner of another minivan or its equivalent.
This email brought an extra frisson to what was already proving to be a very disquieting adventure. It added a small measure of desperation to my increasingly urgent search for three rows of fun for under $30,000. Every other mother in this very desirable carpool could take another 3 children in addition to her own. In order to participate fully, in this any any future carpool, I was going to have to find some spacious wheels, and soon.
On our way to camp earlier this month - the first of ten trips I will make to the kids' camp this summer - Max wanted to drive, since he would be unable to access a car for ten weeks. We were nearly there when I thought I hard a race car about to pass us on the highway. I looked up from my iphone, where I had been peacefully reading friends' facebook status updates, but could not detect the source of the revving engine. I looked all around us, but the race car was nowhere to be found. Turns out, that revving engine was ours.
(to be continued...)
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
storing away the popsicle stick star
I knew it had seemed much too easy.
Yesterday, I dropped my boys off at camp. We are empty nesters for the next 12 days, and we've planned a trip so that we don't have to look at their empty beds. That's what I told them, so that they wouldn't feel bad about missing out.
"You'll be at camp, so what else can we do? You can't expect us to wake up and see your empty beds each day, your empty chairs at the breakfast table..."
But secretly, I was gleeful. This was a dream we had concocted when they were both still in diapers: someday, when they'd both be grown up enough to join their big brother, Max, at sleep-away camp in Indiana, we would have a couple of weeks of freedom: to sleep, to have uninterrupted conversations, to travel, to get to know one another again...
It had seemed so remote, and yet now, here we are.
An unexpected wrinkle on this page was that on the way to camp we had to visit the minivan the boys had grown up in and remove the license plates, put the key and the title in the glove compartment. I photographed the boys standing beside our collection of bumpers stickers, purchased each Mother's Day in Yellow Springs, Ohio and plastered all over the van's rear half. I filled two shopping bags with paraphernalia gathered from the van's innards and we went across the street to have lunch.
After our last meal together of fruit, yogurt, bagel and burrito, we went to camp. They needed my help, to varying degrees, with making their beds and sorting their clothes and possessions, but eventually, I was lovingly dismissed by two very happy campers.
On the ride back to our vehicles, the busload of cheerfully bereft parents compared notes on what we planned to do with all of our free time for the next 2, 4, or 8 weeks. I was in a bit of a rush to return my rental van and meet up with dear friends in a nearby Starbucks, who were waiting to drive me back to Cincinnati.
We zoomed homeward for two hours until we met up with Paul, dined al fresco, and then decided to stay out and see the 9:45 screening of Midnight in Paris. I felt fine; tired from a long day's work, but content, and generally unburdened. We walked the dog together, I dunked a forgotten nightgown, rescued from my erstwhile minivan, into a bowl of Oxiclean, and fell into bed, exhausted.
An hour or so ago, I rose to brew coffee as I do every morning, and stooped to poke through one of the bags of items collected from the van. I pulled out the popsicle stick Magen David that I'd ceremoniously kissed as the boys watched me cut it down from the rear view mirror. As I gazed upon its glitter glue embellished surface, the blue paint now completely faded away, the glitter bleached from rainbow to a pale gold, I felt my face crumple.
First, I realized I had no vehicle with which to adorn it. This is fine, a situation that will be addressed soon after we return from Paris. But immediately thereafter, I knew that I could not put the star up in my new car. It would be ridiculous to choose to hang a pre-school judaica project in the front window of a vehicle used to transport children who will soon be turning 9 and 11. Even if the boys were to indulge me, as they surely would, it would be a clear sign - to my orchestra carpool and many others - that I was trapped in the past, out of step with reality's forward lurching. In the next moment, I was back in bed, crushing myself into Paul's back as the tears rushed up to moisten his pajamas and fill my sinuses.
My outburst was lovingly dismissed as "hormonal living" and then Paul suggested that someone might make me a new mirror dangle while at camp. As I walked the dog, just now, with my first cuppa joe, I realized it was inevitable that the emotion of this milestone would hit me as hard as it just did. By releasing us from minivan ownership on the very same day our youngest child becomes a camper, the Universe is sending a clear message: we are in a new chapter of our lives.
And, as the Woody Allen movie impressed upon us for about two hours last night, we must live in the present. Life is by definition somewhat unsatisfying, the film's protagonist observes, but for maximum enjoyment, we must embrace the time in which we find ourselves. This era; this moment. I'm all in.
Yesterday, I dropped my boys off at camp. We are empty nesters for the next 12 days, and we've planned a trip so that we don't have to look at their empty beds. That's what I told them, so that they wouldn't feel bad about missing out.
"You'll be at camp, so what else can we do? You can't expect us to wake up and see your empty beds each day, your empty chairs at the breakfast table..."
But secretly, I was gleeful. This was a dream we had concocted when they were both still in diapers: someday, when they'd both be grown up enough to join their big brother, Max, at sleep-away camp in Indiana, we would have a couple of weeks of freedom: to sleep, to have uninterrupted conversations, to travel, to get to know one another again...
It had seemed so remote, and yet now, here we are.
An unexpected wrinkle on this page was that on the way to camp we had to visit the minivan the boys had grown up in and remove the license plates, put the key and the title in the glove compartment. I photographed the boys standing beside our collection of bumpers stickers, purchased each Mother's Day in Yellow Springs, Ohio and plastered all over the van's rear half. I filled two shopping bags with paraphernalia gathered from the van's innards and we went across the street to have lunch.
After our last meal together of fruit, yogurt, bagel and burrito, we went to camp. They needed my help, to varying degrees, with making their beds and sorting their clothes and possessions, but eventually, I was lovingly dismissed by two very happy campers.
On the ride back to our vehicles, the busload of cheerfully bereft parents compared notes on what we planned to do with all of our free time for the next 2, 4, or 8 weeks. I was in a bit of a rush to return my rental van and meet up with dear friends in a nearby Starbucks, who were waiting to drive me back to Cincinnati.
We zoomed homeward for two hours until we met up with Paul, dined al fresco, and then decided to stay out and see the 9:45 screening of Midnight in Paris. I felt fine; tired from a long day's work, but content, and generally unburdened. We walked the dog together, I dunked a forgotten nightgown, rescued from my erstwhile minivan, into a bowl of Oxiclean, and fell into bed, exhausted.
An hour or so ago, I rose to brew coffee as I do every morning, and stooped to poke through one of the bags of items collected from the van. I pulled out the popsicle stick Magen David that I'd ceremoniously kissed as the boys watched me cut it down from the rear view mirror. As I gazed upon its glitter glue embellished surface, the blue paint now completely faded away, the glitter bleached from rainbow to a pale gold, I felt my face crumple.
First, I realized I had no vehicle with which to adorn it. This is fine, a situation that will be addressed soon after we return from Paris. But immediately thereafter, I knew that I could not put the star up in my new car. It would be ridiculous to choose to hang a pre-school judaica project in the front window of a vehicle used to transport children who will soon be turning 9 and 11. Even if the boys were to indulge me, as they surely would, it would be a clear sign - to my orchestra carpool and many others - that I was trapped in the past, out of step with reality's forward lurching. In the next moment, I was back in bed, crushing myself into Paul's back as the tears rushed up to moisten his pajamas and fill my sinuses.
My outburst was lovingly dismissed as "hormonal living" and then Paul suggested that someone might make me a new mirror dangle while at camp. As I walked the dog, just now, with my first cuppa joe, I realized it was inevitable that the emotion of this milestone would hit me as hard as it just did. By releasing us from minivan ownership on the very same day our youngest child becomes a camper, the Universe is sending a clear message: we are in a new chapter of our lives.
And, as the Woody Allen movie impressed upon us for about two hours last night, we must live in the present. Life is by definition somewhat unsatisfying, the film's protagonist observes, but for maximum enjoyment, we must embrace the time in which we find ourselves. This era; this moment. I'm all in.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
mezora
This week's Torah partion is about lepers...sort of...well, not really.
Anyway, it reminds me of a difficult and lonely time in my life when I was treated like a non-person, or less than a full member of the community. It was a period I was so eager to put behind me that I spent little time reflecting back upon it until years later, when I came back into the community and discovered a former acquaintance standing in the shoes I had once worn. I asked about her experience and, as she described the way others were treating her, my memories of rejection and loneliness came rushing back and I knew I had to help her.
I immediately made plans to throw a party and I invited a bunch of the people who were ignoring this woman in their midst. When I explained to one of them what I was doing, she argued that my perception of the situation was accurate. Ironically, this friend was one of the people who had ignored me when I had stood in my old shoes but befriended me when I returned wearing a "new pair". I told her how I knew it was true, without mentioning that she had once treated me the same way.
The shoes I'm overstretching here are the metaphorical shoes of a divorced woman, or, as some people who haven't walked in them might put it, of a "single mother by choice".
The reason I mention this is because I wonder whether it's the perception that some women CHOOSE to become divorced that exempts them from the loving ministrations of the community, or if not, what is it that makes people behave the way they do?
It is marvelous that when a married woman becomes gravely ill, the community lines up to help - they visit, they bring meals and gifts, they offer to do errands, they drive the woman to and from doctor appointments, they cart her children around for her. It is absolutely a wonderful thing. It feels great to help people in their time of need, when they feel overwhelmed, when their life seems to be falling apart. It makes us grateful not to be in their shoes, faced with our own mortality.
But when a woman gets divorced, she is often a pariah, very much like the lepers of the Torah. Generally speaking, a woman not only needs a whole new skill set, but also a whole new set of friends and support system, because she suddenly may become persona non grata to a shockingly large portion of the community. I'm not sure it is even a conscious decison people make, and I'd certainly prefer to think that it is not, but every time it happens to a friend, I reach out to them, only to hear how rare my kindness is. This saddens but no longer surprises me.
As beautiful as it is to witness the outreach to the wife whose physical health is slipping away from her, that is how ugly it can be to witness the phenomenon of people turning their backs on the divorcing woman as her world is crumbling.
I was divorced 15 years ago and since then I have counseled such a great number of people - both lifelong friends and those who were drawn to me just for that season of their lives - that I have become, quite accidentally, a bit of an expert.
I think this expertise obtained because I have so much compassion for women at this painful point in their lives. Admittedly, I simply love talking, helping, and giving advice, but it's more than that. Especially when I meet a person who came to town in a relationship and now, bereft of that relationship, finds herself utterly alone, well, I really "get it" and evidently, that is rare. First of all, no woman becomes a single mother by choice. Either her husband leaves the marriage, or she leaves because she is on the verge of losing her mind. In the latter case, she is essentially leaving in order to save her life. She generally does not leave the marriage until there is no longer any viable choice. In all my years of becoming an expert on this subject, I have only encountered one person who chose to leave her marriage to play the field because she was pretty sure she could score an upgrade. She traded up and then her second husband left her. In that instance, I had a bit less compassion, but as far as I can tell, her story is very unusual.
Because divorce sucks.
When I moved to Cincinnati married to a native son, I was embraced to some degree by the community of folks my husband had grown up with. When I divorced him, they turned their collective back on me. One woman, whom I considered a friend because she kissed me whenever she saw me, invited us to parties, took me out to lunch, brought us a lovely baby gift, attended our son's bris, had us break the Yom Kippur fast at her parents' house, and invited me to faux finish her dining room in exchange for pizza, explained, when I turned to her for comfort, that while she hadn't really been friends with my husband while growing up, so far as she could tell he had become a real mensch. So, if I was leaving him, well, we could no longer be friends.
Others were more subtle, leaving me to the conclusion that Cincinnati was just an extrmely cold and unfriendly place. I immersed myself in parenting my young son, accepting the fact that he and I were now two people "on our own", as my photo albums from that era are labelled. We had a lot of fun together, and we had an incredibly close, intense relationship, but we were constantly isolated and alone in the middle of a crowd. No invitations to playdates or shabbat lunch. No invitations to much of anything. I felt lucky if anyone spoke to me. On the playground with my son after school, the only adult who engaged with me was the grandmother of another preschooler. Ironically, she was a good friend of my former mother in law, but she was the only adult (other than the teachers) whom I remember talking to on a regular basis at my son's school. We took the kids for ice cream a couple of times and it was shocking treat for me to get to talk to another adult in this context. I wonder if she has any idea how much I appreciated her kindness. When I am done with this blog post, I plan to call and tell her.
I joined a new temple and attended services weekly, took a class at lunchtime, but nobody there reached out to me, not even the rabbi and his wife. My decorative painting clients were often quite friendly while I was in their home, but that was as far as it went. It was clear that I would have to create my own life. I was (if you know me, you know this) far from shy, but I had just two, very busy friends in town - one had been my nanny, and the other, Gillian, a single friend from college, who had moved here to join the local symphony just as I was preparing to get divorced.
This scarcity of friends left me plenty of time for myself. When my son went to be with his father, I either exercised alone in my apartment, did volunteer work, laundry, filled photo albums with pictures I'd taken of my son, or hung out with the new gay friends I made through my work as a decorative painter.
The other thing I did was to go out on blind dates. These were either the result of an ad I placed in the newspaper or, later, when I became more selective, through an old fashioned Jewish matchmaker. Nobody in my "community" ever once asked me if I wanted to meet someone they knew. Early on in my divorced life, I met an older guy when I went to shabbat services elsewhere, and I went out with him only because (1) he was tall (2) I despaired of ever being introduced to anyone. I even auctioned myself off from a catwalk once when someone asked me to help the charity she worked for.
Eventually, one of those dates (from the matchmaker) actually led somewhere. I became engaged, and when I did, there was a palpable shift. Actually, it was more like an earthquake. Once I was part of a couple again, clients started acting like friends. One client made a bridal shower for me. Other clients attended, showering me with gifts and positive attention. Even though I felt like exactly the same person, no more or less attractive or friendly, it was as though my "leprosy" had suddenly cleared up, my pariah status had been nullified. I didnt have any more money than before because I was marrying a graduate student earning his Phd and paying off student loans. But some of my clients - now our friends - even came to our wedding, even though it was hundreds of miles away, in Cleveland.
So, mezora. This is still how we treat the lepers. I hope it is clear that I am sharing my story not to complain, not to criticize, but merely to raise awareness and increase sensitivity. The town I once thought of as unfriendly when I was divorced has yielded up an abundance of good neighbors and great friends, a fun community orchestra and an incredibly supportive and loving yoga community. I have a wonderful husband, three of the best children in the world, and a temple community where people in all stages of life are genuinely included and embraced.
I recently started a new blog to open up conversations about certain female topics on which we tend to remain silent, and then, this week's Torah portion reminded me there is yet more silence that I feel should be broken. My hope is that you will now think of a divorced person in your community and reach out to her or to him. My dream is that you will read this and invite them, include them, or offer them a helping hand. You never know what sort of shoes you might be standing in someday. May you never walk alone.
Anyway, it reminds me of a difficult and lonely time in my life when I was treated like a non-person, or less than a full member of the community. It was a period I was so eager to put behind me that I spent little time reflecting back upon it until years later, when I came back into the community and discovered a former acquaintance standing in the shoes I had once worn. I asked about her experience and, as she described the way others were treating her, my memories of rejection and loneliness came rushing back and I knew I had to help her.
I immediately made plans to throw a party and I invited a bunch of the people who were ignoring this woman in their midst. When I explained to one of them what I was doing, she argued that my perception of the situation was accurate. Ironically, this friend was one of the people who had ignored me when I had stood in my old shoes but befriended me when I returned wearing a "new pair". I told her how I knew it was true, without mentioning that she had once treated me the same way.
The shoes I'm overstretching here are the metaphorical shoes of a divorced woman, or, as some people who haven't walked in them might put it, of a "single mother by choice".
The reason I mention this is because I wonder whether it's the perception that some women CHOOSE to become divorced that exempts them from the loving ministrations of the community, or if not, what is it that makes people behave the way they do?
It is marvelous that when a married woman becomes gravely ill, the community lines up to help - they visit, they bring meals and gifts, they offer to do errands, they drive the woman to and from doctor appointments, they cart her children around for her. It is absolutely a wonderful thing. It feels great to help people in their time of need, when they feel overwhelmed, when their life seems to be falling apart. It makes us grateful not to be in their shoes, faced with our own mortality.
But when a woman gets divorced, she is often a pariah, very much like the lepers of the Torah. Generally speaking, a woman not only needs a whole new skill set, but also a whole new set of friends and support system, because she suddenly may become persona non grata to a shockingly large portion of the community. I'm not sure it is even a conscious decison people make, and I'd certainly prefer to think that it is not, but every time it happens to a friend, I reach out to them, only to hear how rare my kindness is. This saddens but no longer surprises me.
As beautiful as it is to witness the outreach to the wife whose physical health is slipping away from her, that is how ugly it can be to witness the phenomenon of people turning their backs on the divorcing woman as her world is crumbling.
I was divorced 15 years ago and since then I have counseled such a great number of people - both lifelong friends and those who were drawn to me just for that season of their lives - that I have become, quite accidentally, a bit of an expert.
I think this expertise obtained because I have so much compassion for women at this painful point in their lives. Admittedly, I simply love talking, helping, and giving advice, but it's more than that. Especially when I meet a person who came to town in a relationship and now, bereft of that relationship, finds herself utterly alone, well, I really "get it" and evidently, that is rare. First of all, no woman becomes a single mother by choice. Either her husband leaves the marriage, or she leaves because she is on the verge of losing her mind. In the latter case, she is essentially leaving in order to save her life. She generally does not leave the marriage until there is no longer any viable choice. In all my years of becoming an expert on this subject, I have only encountered one person who chose to leave her marriage to play the field because she was pretty sure she could score an upgrade. She traded up and then her second husband left her. In that instance, I had a bit less compassion, but as far as I can tell, her story is very unusual.
Because divorce sucks.
When I moved to Cincinnati married to a native son, I was embraced to some degree by the community of folks my husband had grown up with. When I divorced him, they turned their collective back on me. One woman, whom I considered a friend because she kissed me whenever she saw me, invited us to parties, took me out to lunch, brought us a lovely baby gift, attended our son's bris, had us break the Yom Kippur fast at her parents' house, and invited me to faux finish her dining room in exchange for pizza, explained, when I turned to her for comfort, that while she hadn't really been friends with my husband while growing up, so far as she could tell he had become a real mensch. So, if I was leaving him, well, we could no longer be friends.
Others were more subtle, leaving me to the conclusion that Cincinnati was just an extrmely cold and unfriendly place. I immersed myself in parenting my young son, accepting the fact that he and I were now two people "on our own", as my photo albums from that era are labelled. We had a lot of fun together, and we had an incredibly close, intense relationship, but we were constantly isolated and alone in the middle of a crowd. No invitations to playdates or shabbat lunch. No invitations to much of anything. I felt lucky if anyone spoke to me. On the playground with my son after school, the only adult who engaged with me was the grandmother of another preschooler. Ironically, she was a good friend of my former mother in law, but she was the only adult (other than the teachers) whom I remember talking to on a regular basis at my son's school. We took the kids for ice cream a couple of times and it was shocking treat for me to get to talk to another adult in this context. I wonder if she has any idea how much I appreciated her kindness. When I am done with this blog post, I plan to call and tell her.
I joined a new temple and attended services weekly, took a class at lunchtime, but nobody there reached out to me, not even the rabbi and his wife. My decorative painting clients were often quite friendly while I was in their home, but that was as far as it went. It was clear that I would have to create my own life. I was (if you know me, you know this) far from shy, but I had just two, very busy friends in town - one had been my nanny, and the other, Gillian, a single friend from college, who had moved here to join the local symphony just as I was preparing to get divorced.
This scarcity of friends left me plenty of time for myself. When my son went to be with his father, I either exercised alone in my apartment, did volunteer work, laundry, filled photo albums with pictures I'd taken of my son, or hung out with the new gay friends I made through my work as a decorative painter.
The other thing I did was to go out on blind dates. These were either the result of an ad I placed in the newspaper or, later, when I became more selective, through an old fashioned Jewish matchmaker. Nobody in my "community" ever once asked me if I wanted to meet someone they knew. Early on in my divorced life, I met an older guy when I went to shabbat services elsewhere, and I went out with him only because (1) he was tall (2) I despaired of ever being introduced to anyone. I even auctioned myself off from a catwalk once when someone asked me to help the charity she worked for.
Eventually, one of those dates (from the matchmaker) actually led somewhere. I became engaged, and when I did, there was a palpable shift. Actually, it was more like an earthquake. Once I was part of a couple again, clients started acting like friends. One client made a bridal shower for me. Other clients attended, showering me with gifts and positive attention. Even though I felt like exactly the same person, no more or less attractive or friendly, it was as though my "leprosy" had suddenly cleared up, my pariah status had been nullified. I didnt have any more money than before because I was marrying a graduate student earning his Phd and paying off student loans. But some of my clients - now our friends - even came to our wedding, even though it was hundreds of miles away, in Cleveland.
So, mezora. This is still how we treat the lepers. I hope it is clear that I am sharing my story not to complain, not to criticize, but merely to raise awareness and increase sensitivity. The town I once thought of as unfriendly when I was divorced has yielded up an abundance of good neighbors and great friends, a fun community orchestra and an incredibly supportive and loving yoga community. I have a wonderful husband, three of the best children in the world, and a temple community where people in all stages of life are genuinely included and embraced.
I recently started a new blog to open up conversations about certain female topics on which we tend to remain silent, and then, this week's Torah portion reminded me there is yet more silence that I feel should be broken. My hope is that you will now think of a divorced person in your community and reach out to her or to him. My dream is that you will read this and invite them, include them, or offer them a helping hand. You never know what sort of shoes you might be standing in someday. May you never walk alone.
Friday, March 25, 2011
reshelving books, with great love
I am missing my beloved Friday morning yoga class today because some movers need me to be home from 9-2. They are bringing to me some of my grandparents' things, for the final time. It's a big deal.
The first time a moving truck brought me things from my grandparents' home, Mama and Papa were in the process of moving out of the Great Neck ranch home that was the site of all my childhood seders, my first nights of Hannukah, my Rosh Hashanah lunches. It was a place I almost always entered through the side door, with the comforting certainty that my grandmother would be working in her kitchen and that my Papa Sam would grab me and say "hey there, ya bug, what's the word?"
The shipment they sent me last time, in 1996, furnished approximately half of my apartment in Clifton, where I lived for three years with a very sweet little boy named Max. My grandparents never visited this apartment - their last trip to Cincinnati was for Max's first birthday, just a few months before we moved - but because of this shipment, they were with us every day in spirit. On our birthdays, they called Max and me to sing to us as soon as we woke up in the morning, and later in the day, flowers would arrive from Adrian Durban and packages would come in the mail. But it made me happy to wake up on every ordinary day and see my grandmother's neoclassical Baker bench at the foot of my bed, her pretty French writing desk waiting on the opposite side of my bedroom. In the living room were her four, black, lacquered chairs, painted with beautiful roses. Perhaps best of all, sitting on my bookshelves, were many of their books.
My grandfather had lovingly wrapped, and then filled the drawers of a dresser with, very special books: a small black prayer book Mama had used in Brooklyn in the 30's, books about the great composers and their music, and books from the place they used to call Palestine, our beloved Jewish homeland, which I grew up knowing Papa just wanted to live long enough to introduce me to. Papa got his wish: we went on a family pilgrimage to Israel when I was twelve and again when I was fourteen. When my first husband and I visited Israel in 1993, my grandparents were there as well, and we met up with them in Jerusalem. Papa Sam even stuck around for yet another 5 1/2 years after that, sweetening each subsequent season of my life with his constant love and wisdom.
The other day, while on a field trip together, my son's second grade teacher asked me about my background in Judaic studies. I explained that my grandfather was "supposed" to have become a rabbi, but he left Poland to become a chemist and a businessman in America. Papa was a scholar all his life, and his love of Judaism and Israel and his life long passion for learning shaped me greatly growing up and continue to influence me today.
Another of their books that I found in my mother's childhood dresser that day in 1996- a piece of furniture which I would soon repaint for Max - was a gorgeous illuminated Megillat Esther. The cover is beautifully embossed black leather, with a window featuring an engraved copper plate of men praying at the Western Wall. Tissue paper lies protectively atop each breathtaking illustration of this book, which was published in Jerusalem in 1947. This Megillah is not only a valuable and beautiful book, but meaningful for several other reasons. My grandmother was the most regal person I knew (and that includes the arab Prince I hung out with in London in 1987). Mama's given name was Esther, and from well before I was born she reigned over our family and continued to do so until her death about a year ago. Her historic namesake's holiday, when we read the Megillat Esther in temple, has just passed, and now, Mama Esther's first yartzheit is fast approaching. After 43 years of having her in my life, I am still unaccustomed to her absence.
When I got the call, just two weeks ago, that the shelves from her living room and den, as well as my grandfather's desk, were soon going to be in my home, my first impulse was to call Mama up and tell her the good news. I knew she'd be happy. I see her picture on my kitchen windowsill every day and think of things to tell her as I wash the dishes. The few items I admitted I would like to have after her death - she had pressed me to name them and then promised they would be mine - were evidently not itemized in a will. I never heard anything about her having written will and testament; all I know is that the few items Mama promised to me are in my mother's possession instead. I was rather upset for a few minutes and then promptly put it in perspective; it's just stuff.
But today, I can't help it; I am just so thrilled to have these shelves and desk. It may sound impersonal to you, perhaps, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The shelves that are wrapped and sitting on pallets in a truck right now are something I stood before, in wonder, throughout the first several decades of my life, gazing upon the display of my grandparents' most treasured items. In their living room, first in Great Neck and then in the apartment in Garden City, their immaculately shiny chrome and glass shelves displayed books about Jerusalem and Masada, about the first days of Israel, about Ben Gurion and Golda Meir. The shelves held silver spice boxes and kiddush cups, and a hannukiah made of Jerusalem stone. The shelves in my grandfather's den held more books, and also displayed pictures of my sister and me, their only grandchildren, and photos of their two daughters. Eventually, it also held a picture of the six of us, standing in Jerusalem with the Western Wall behind us. Both sets of shelves were walls that defined my grandparents. Now I will be able to return some of their favorite books, which they shared with me years ago, back onto the shelves where I first gazed upon them. My mother is holding several other of Mama and Papa's special books for me in her home, and these will be returned to the shelves as well.
The desk is another story. It was private; it was Papa's; end of story. I never once thought to snoop inside its drawers. My snooping was strictly limited to the guest room, in the back of the house, once my aunt's childhood bedroom, where Mama kept a closet full of handbags, shoes, scarves and long beaded necklaces, perfect for dress up.
Ah, the mover has just called from down the street. I'm going to try not to cry as we unwrap all these memories in my living room. I feel so fortunate to be bringing my grandparents things once more into my life, into a home that is so full of love, Judaism, music and learning. Mama and Papa are still with us and they always will be. And for that, I am so very grateful.
The first time a moving truck brought me things from my grandparents' home, Mama and Papa were in the process of moving out of the Great Neck ranch home that was the site of all my childhood seders, my first nights of Hannukah, my Rosh Hashanah lunches. It was a place I almost always entered through the side door, with the comforting certainty that my grandmother would be working in her kitchen and that my Papa Sam would grab me and say "hey there, ya bug, what's the word?"
The shipment they sent me last time, in 1996, furnished approximately half of my apartment in Clifton, where I lived for three years with a very sweet little boy named Max. My grandparents never visited this apartment - their last trip to Cincinnati was for Max's first birthday, just a few months before we moved - but because of this shipment, they were with us every day in spirit. On our birthdays, they called Max and me to sing to us as soon as we woke up in the morning, and later in the day, flowers would arrive from Adrian Durban and packages would come in the mail. But it made me happy to wake up on every ordinary day and see my grandmother's neoclassical Baker bench at the foot of my bed, her pretty French writing desk waiting on the opposite side of my bedroom. In the living room were her four, black, lacquered chairs, painted with beautiful roses. Perhaps best of all, sitting on my bookshelves, were many of their books.
My grandfather had lovingly wrapped, and then filled the drawers of a dresser with, very special books: a small black prayer book Mama had used in Brooklyn in the 30's, books about the great composers and their music, and books from the place they used to call Palestine, our beloved Jewish homeland, which I grew up knowing Papa just wanted to live long enough to introduce me to. Papa got his wish: we went on a family pilgrimage to Israel when I was twelve and again when I was fourteen. When my first husband and I visited Israel in 1993, my grandparents were there as well, and we met up with them in Jerusalem. Papa Sam even stuck around for yet another 5 1/2 years after that, sweetening each subsequent season of my life with his constant love and wisdom.
The other day, while on a field trip together, my son's second grade teacher asked me about my background in Judaic studies. I explained that my grandfather was "supposed" to have become a rabbi, but he left Poland to become a chemist and a businessman in America. Papa was a scholar all his life, and his love of Judaism and Israel and his life long passion for learning shaped me greatly growing up and continue to influence me today.
Another of their books that I found in my mother's childhood dresser that day in 1996- a piece of furniture which I would soon repaint for Max - was a gorgeous illuminated Megillat Esther. The cover is beautifully embossed black leather, with a window featuring an engraved copper plate of men praying at the Western Wall. Tissue paper lies protectively atop each breathtaking illustration of this book, which was published in Jerusalem in 1947. This Megillah is not only a valuable and beautiful book, but meaningful for several other reasons. My grandmother was the most regal person I knew (and that includes the arab Prince I hung out with in London in 1987). Mama's given name was Esther, and from well before I was born she reigned over our family and continued to do so until her death about a year ago. Her historic namesake's holiday, when we read the Megillat Esther in temple, has just passed, and now, Mama Esther's first yartzheit is fast approaching. After 43 years of having her in my life, I am still unaccustomed to her absence.
When I got the call, just two weeks ago, that the shelves from her living room and den, as well as my grandfather's desk, were soon going to be in my home, my first impulse was to call Mama up and tell her the good news. I knew she'd be happy. I see her picture on my kitchen windowsill every day and think of things to tell her as I wash the dishes. The few items I admitted I would like to have after her death - she had pressed me to name them and then promised they would be mine - were evidently not itemized in a will. I never heard anything about her having written will and testament; all I know is that the few items Mama promised to me are in my mother's possession instead. I was rather upset for a few minutes and then promptly put it in perspective; it's just stuff.
But today, I can't help it; I am just so thrilled to have these shelves and desk. It may sound impersonal to you, perhaps, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The shelves that are wrapped and sitting on pallets in a truck right now are something I stood before, in wonder, throughout the first several decades of my life, gazing upon the display of my grandparents' most treasured items. In their living room, first in Great Neck and then in the apartment in Garden City, their immaculately shiny chrome and glass shelves displayed books about Jerusalem and Masada, about the first days of Israel, about Ben Gurion and Golda Meir. The shelves held silver spice boxes and kiddush cups, and a hannukiah made of Jerusalem stone. The shelves in my grandfather's den held more books, and also displayed pictures of my sister and me, their only grandchildren, and photos of their two daughters. Eventually, it also held a picture of the six of us, standing in Jerusalem with the Western Wall behind us. Both sets of shelves were walls that defined my grandparents. Now I will be able to return some of their favorite books, which they shared with me years ago, back onto the shelves where I first gazed upon them. My mother is holding several other of Mama and Papa's special books for me in her home, and these will be returned to the shelves as well.
The desk is another story. It was private; it was Papa's; end of story. I never once thought to snoop inside its drawers. My snooping was strictly limited to the guest room, in the back of the house, once my aunt's childhood bedroom, where Mama kept a closet full of handbags, shoes, scarves and long beaded necklaces, perfect for dress up.
Ah, the mover has just called from down the street. I'm going to try not to cry as we unwrap all these memories in my living room. I feel so fortunate to be bringing my grandparents things once more into my life, into a home that is so full of love, Judaism, music and learning. Mama and Papa are still with us and they always will be. And for that, I am so very grateful.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
to Help Stop Bullying
The One you just called fat? She has been starving herself and has lost over 30 pounds. Someday she may see an endocrinologist to learn about why her body's metabolism is different from yours...
The One you just called stupid? She has a learning disability & studies over 4 hrs a night. She is full of wonderful, original ideas she has not yet learned how to express.
The One you just called ugly? She spends hours reading magazines about how to be popular, tweezing her eyebrows and putting on makeup, hoping people will like her.
The One you just tripped? She is abused enough at home. When she is alone, she cuts herself and picks at her scabs so she can feel a sense of control over her own pain.
There's always more to people than you what you see.
The One you just called stupid? She has a learning disability & studies over 4 hrs a night. She is full of wonderful, original ideas she has not yet learned how to express.
The One you just called ugly? She spends hours reading magazines about how to be popular, tweezing her eyebrows and putting on makeup, hoping people will like her.
The One you just tripped? She is abused enough at home. When she is alone, she cuts herself and picks at her scabs so she can feel a sense of control over her own pain.
There's always more to people than you what you see.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
the nesting imperative
For some people, the harbingers of spring are little green shoots poking out of the partially thawed ground. For me, it is another miracle of nature that signals the coming change of season, but it takes place in my open air art studio, right off the kitchen.
Every year at this time, our breakfasts are enlivened by the darting back and forth of little brown finches outside the enormous louvered windows facing the studio. The birds are terribly busy refurbishing a double decker nest on the lower and middle shelves of a antique kitchen cabinet. So old and exposed to the elements that its vanilla yellow paint has achieved a natural crackle effect never to be matched by faux technique, the cabinet hangs on the exterior wall of our home, origianlly intended merely as a convenient spot to store paint, gesso, glitter glue, sequins and the like.
The two slightly warped doors of the cabinet each hold several panels of glass, and during the first year in our home, when I occasionally felt inspired to tidy up the studio, I would force them shut and fasten them with a dangly, painted metal hook. The rest of the time, I left them slightly ajar and they would slowly swing to a fully open position in the breeze. This gave the birds easy access to the shelves inside, and evidently, they found or created enough space behind a lean to of plastic palettes to build a suitable nursery. Now, the cabinet doors hang open permanently, allowing the easy return of the nest refurbishment crew.
As winter ends, the cabinet becomes a veritable condominium for finches. I look forward to this event each year and delight in the various stages of the bird life cycle that we are privileged to witness so very close up.
This time, as we watch the renovation and refeathering, Isaac asks me if he and his brother Sam could also build a nest for themselves, because it looks like such fun to build and so very cozy inside. I tell him that his father and I had already provided them a cozy nest: their bedroom.
I explain that this is part of nature. "The Mommy bird has something inside her," I say, "that makes her start bringing bits of fluff to a nest before her eggs are ready to hatch. Whether a Mommy is a bird, a monkey or a person," I tell Isaac, "this is what we are programmed to do. Whenever one of you babies was on the way," I say, "I would be overtaken by an irresistable impulse to order new bedding and repaint the furniture."
"But what about the Daddy bird?", Isaac asks, as I knew he would. "The Daddy bird is programmed to help," I tell him. "And your Daddy would put the crib together for the new baby." We stand together in the kitchen, watching the pair of finches dart busily back and forth, in and out of the cabinet, working in what appears to be perfect harmony. I silently marvel at the lack of squawking on the part of the Mommy bird. Either she thinks her mate is doing a perfect job helping with the nest, I reason, or else, she is just too busy using her beak to haul and arrange feathers to have time to stop and criticize him. Constructively, of course.
Soon, it will soon get very noisy out there. The birds - both parent and offspring - are very vocal once the babies arrive, and I'm looking forward to that stage as well. I'll take and post pictures of the nests as soon as the coast is clear.
Every year at this time, our breakfasts are enlivened by the darting back and forth of little brown finches outside the enormous louvered windows facing the studio. The birds are terribly busy refurbishing a double decker nest on the lower and middle shelves of a antique kitchen cabinet. So old and exposed to the elements that its vanilla yellow paint has achieved a natural crackle effect never to be matched by faux technique, the cabinet hangs on the exterior wall of our home, origianlly intended merely as a convenient spot to store paint, gesso, glitter glue, sequins and the like.
The two slightly warped doors of the cabinet each hold several panels of glass, and during the first year in our home, when I occasionally felt inspired to tidy up the studio, I would force them shut and fasten them with a dangly, painted metal hook. The rest of the time, I left them slightly ajar and they would slowly swing to a fully open position in the breeze. This gave the birds easy access to the shelves inside, and evidently, they found or created enough space behind a lean to of plastic palettes to build a suitable nursery. Now, the cabinet doors hang open permanently, allowing the easy return of the nest refurbishment crew.
As winter ends, the cabinet becomes a veritable condominium for finches. I look forward to this event each year and delight in the various stages of the bird life cycle that we are privileged to witness so very close up.
This time, as we watch the renovation and refeathering, Isaac asks me if he and his brother Sam could also build a nest for themselves, because it looks like such fun to build and so very cozy inside. I tell him that his father and I had already provided them a cozy nest: their bedroom.
I explain that this is part of nature. "The Mommy bird has something inside her," I say, "that makes her start bringing bits of fluff to a nest before her eggs are ready to hatch. Whether a Mommy is a bird, a monkey or a person," I tell Isaac, "this is what we are programmed to do. Whenever one of you babies was on the way," I say, "I would be overtaken by an irresistable impulse to order new bedding and repaint the furniture."
"But what about the Daddy bird?", Isaac asks, as I knew he would. "The Daddy bird is programmed to help," I tell him. "And your Daddy would put the crib together for the new baby." We stand together in the kitchen, watching the pair of finches dart busily back and forth, in and out of the cabinet, working in what appears to be perfect harmony. I silently marvel at the lack of squawking on the part of the Mommy bird. Either she thinks her mate is doing a perfect job helping with the nest, I reason, or else, she is just too busy using her beak to haul and arrange feathers to have time to stop and criticize him. Constructively, of course.
Soon, it will soon get very noisy out there. The birds - both parent and offspring - are very vocal once the babies arrive, and I'm looking forward to that stage as well. I'll take and post pictures of the nests as soon as the coast is clear.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
why I am happy to do a teenager's laundry
When Max was starting high school, I was looking forward to his doing more to help around the house. I grew up with a housekeeper picking up after me and I went off to college a spoiled slob, and I wanted to prepare Max differently. Two and a half years later, I take full repsonsibility for the fact that his activities have gone in a different direction than domestic. It took me a while to work through some disappointment and even resentment of the fact that I was still his maid, but eventually, I realized that if he stopped to do his own laundry, put away his clothes, to clean up his room, even to set the table, he would have less time to do the countless and truly awesome array of wonderful things that he does do. And while I imagine there are many of you who will disagree with me and say I am spoiling my child, I am now strong enough in my convicton to able to defend my continuing to pick up after him and generally be as helpful as I possibly can.
I was just in Max's room, straightening up, making his bed, picking up bits of trash and loose change from the carpet, when I came across an email which reminded me all over again why I so cheerfully continue to act as his maid, cook, laundress and butler, even after being dismissed as his driver.
The email subject was "Ideas for Max" and it was written by the woman to whom Max reports at his volunteer job at The Drake Center, a rehabilatation facility where Paul is a salaried employee.
For the next couple of days, she writes, it would be great if Max could go from room to room and play for the following residents for 15 minutes a piece. She then lists some patients for Max to visit, 4 for Wednesday and 4 for Thursday, and describes them and their bed location to prepare Max for each encounter:
1. alert, oriented and verbal, but difficult to understand at times
2. nonverbal, enjoys music, at times will swing elbows
3. nonverbal
4. repetitive verbalization, will sometimes yell out
Wow. Not your typical audience for live music; not by a long shot. Many teens with Max's musical gifts would use them merely to get attention from their peers, to become popular, or a "chick magnet". Max is very familiar with the power of his musical performance to command the attention of his peers, but he chooses to do so much more with his talent, and I could not be more proud.
Max gets up early almost every Sunday, drives to temple with his guitar and spends the morning teaching small children to sing Hebrew songs, for just $15 before taxes are withheld. He leads religious services at temple and at home, with me (his mother) and on youth retreats. And now, he plays and sings, four afternoons a week, for people living in a rehab center, some of whom are nonresponsive.
I will wrap this up now, hopefully before it has become a disgusting brag fest. As I said recently, when Max acted in Brighton Beach Memoirs and people called him a star on my facebook page, it is terrific to win over an audience and to garner critical acclaim, but it so much more important to me that he be a mensch. I'm going to run back upstairs and finish putting Max's clothes away. When he returns later from the Latin Convention he's been attending all weekend in Columbus, I wnat him to have a nice, tidy room to collapse in; or, more likely, to stay up late and finish his homework in.
OK, here I go...
I was just in Max's room, straightening up, making his bed, picking up bits of trash and loose change from the carpet, when I came across an email which reminded me all over again why I so cheerfully continue to act as his maid, cook, laundress and butler, even after being dismissed as his driver.
The email subject was "Ideas for Max" and it was written by the woman to whom Max reports at his volunteer job at The Drake Center, a rehabilatation facility where Paul is a salaried employee.
For the next couple of days, she writes, it would be great if Max could go from room to room and play for the following residents for 15 minutes a piece. She then lists some patients for Max to visit, 4 for Wednesday and 4 for Thursday, and describes them and their bed location to prepare Max for each encounter:
1. alert, oriented and verbal, but difficult to understand at times
2. nonverbal, enjoys music, at times will swing elbows
3. nonverbal
4. repetitive verbalization, will sometimes yell out
Wow. Not your typical audience for live music; not by a long shot. Many teens with Max's musical gifts would use them merely to get attention from their peers, to become popular, or a "chick magnet". Max is very familiar with the power of his musical performance to command the attention of his peers, but he chooses to do so much more with his talent, and I could not be more proud.
Max gets up early almost every Sunday, drives to temple with his guitar and spends the morning teaching small children to sing Hebrew songs, for just $15 before taxes are withheld. He leads religious services at temple and at home, with me (his mother) and on youth retreats. And now, he plays and sings, four afternoons a week, for people living in a rehab center, some of whom are nonresponsive.
I will wrap this up now, hopefully before it has become a disgusting brag fest. As I said recently, when Max acted in Brighton Beach Memoirs and people called him a star on my facebook page, it is terrific to win over an audience and to garner critical acclaim, but it so much more important to me that he be a mensch. I'm going to run back upstairs and finish putting Max's clothes away. When he returns later from the Latin Convention he's been attending all weekend in Columbus, I wnat him to have a nice, tidy room to collapse in; or, more likely, to stay up late and finish his homework in.
OK, here I go...
Friday, February 25, 2011
Opening The Throat Chakra
I find there are very few true coincedences in life, but they are all worth paying attention to. When you notice what you think is a coincedence, it is usually the "universe" sending you a message. People often find there is a particular place where they tend to receive these messages most easily and consistently. For some, it can be as simple as sitting on a tufted cushion in their own private meditation room. I have not yet managed to develop a disciplined meditation practice, but I have been fortunate enough to locate several places where I feel really supported in my connection to the divine, to my spirit guides, or to whatever you want to call the Source of inspired thoughts.
I just returned home from my favorite yoga class at one of these special places: Shine, in Hyde Park. As she did last year at the same time, Shine owner and yoga teacher Wendy Anderson is guiding us through the chakras, ninety minutes at a time, week by week. Last week, we focused our practice on the heart chakra, and the class happened to follow right on the heels of two lovely days of mild, sunny weather in the middle of winter, so we were all feeling the love.
Today, our practice was dedicated to opening the throat chakra, which enables us to speak our truth more fully and freely. Wendy reminded us, as we sat in preparation to begin, that we should keep part of our awareness on our root chakra, because we are not working to open our throat chakra merely to talk more freely. We want to open it in such a way as to express truths that are rooted in the core of our being. I was very amused by her articulating this connection, which I did not recall her doing last year, but not because what she was saying was inherently funny. I was smiling as I listened to Wendy make this very valid point because only the day before I had found the courage to give voice to the truth specifically about my experiences in the pelvic region, which also happens to be the locus of the root chakra.
To that end, so to speak, I created a new blog yesterday called Vaginologue. In my previous post, below, I wondered whether I should share the story of some particularly female experiences here, or whether they were better kept private. I also considered whethr there might be some other, more appropriate forum for such a conversation. I decided the last choice was best, so I created a separate blog devoted completely to the experience of being a woman. I recognize that I am in my essence a writer, and not a very private one; I am a memoirist more than a journalist. I write for a number of reasons, including to process some of my experiences and to heal from them, as well as to entertain and inform. I also believe in creating a community through writing, and I find blogging to be a wonderful way of reaching out, sharing stories as a means of connecting with other people. Some people believe memoir to be an immature, self indulgent, or narcissistic form of writing. I disagree, believing it to be in some ways the most courageous and valuable writing a person can provide for their readers. My first day of feedback on Vaginologue indicates that many of you agree with me.
So, as was also true last year at this time, my throat chakra is wide open. My neck is as long as it can be, and my head is held high and in proper alignment with the rest of my spine. I speak my truth fully and freely when people ask my advice or opinion. I tell people when I find what they are doing to be exceptional and praiseworthy. I also speak up when I think something is not right, whether I have been invited to or not. I try always to be respectful, but I am also as genuine and honest as courtesy allows.
All sorts of readers are welcome to read either or both of my blogs. I will continue to post to Unburied Treasure about my general adventures and random reflections. I reserve Vaginologue as a space in which I share my own story of being female, and invite readers in turn to share as much as they are comfortable doing, because I believe that each of us sharing our story can do a great deal of good. By exchanging stories of our unique personal experiences, in community, we can discover a commonality we never knew existed.
I just returned home from my favorite yoga class at one of these special places: Shine, in Hyde Park. As she did last year at the same time, Shine owner and yoga teacher Wendy Anderson is guiding us through the chakras, ninety minutes at a time, week by week. Last week, we focused our practice on the heart chakra, and the class happened to follow right on the heels of two lovely days of mild, sunny weather in the middle of winter, so we were all feeling the love.
Today, our practice was dedicated to opening the throat chakra, which enables us to speak our truth more fully and freely. Wendy reminded us, as we sat in preparation to begin, that we should keep part of our awareness on our root chakra, because we are not working to open our throat chakra merely to talk more freely. We want to open it in such a way as to express truths that are rooted in the core of our being. I was very amused by her articulating this connection, which I did not recall her doing last year, but not because what she was saying was inherently funny. I was smiling as I listened to Wendy make this very valid point because only the day before I had found the courage to give voice to the truth specifically about my experiences in the pelvic region, which also happens to be the locus of the root chakra.
To that end, so to speak, I created a new blog yesterday called Vaginologue. In my previous post, below, I wondered whether I should share the story of some particularly female experiences here, or whether they were better kept private. I also considered whethr there might be some other, more appropriate forum for such a conversation. I decided the last choice was best, so I created a separate blog devoted completely to the experience of being a woman. I recognize that I am in my essence a writer, and not a very private one; I am a memoirist more than a journalist. I write for a number of reasons, including to process some of my experiences and to heal from them, as well as to entertain and inform. I also believe in creating a community through writing, and I find blogging to be a wonderful way of reaching out, sharing stories as a means of connecting with other people. Some people believe memoir to be an immature, self indulgent, or narcissistic form of writing. I disagree, believing it to be in some ways the most courageous and valuable writing a person can provide for their readers. My first day of feedback on Vaginologue indicates that many of you agree with me.
So, as was also true last year at this time, my throat chakra is wide open. My neck is as long as it can be, and my head is held high and in proper alignment with the rest of my spine. I speak my truth fully and freely when people ask my advice or opinion. I tell people when I find what they are doing to be exceptional and praiseworthy. I also speak up when I think something is not right, whether I have been invited to or not. I try always to be respectful, but I am also as genuine and honest as courtesy allows.
All sorts of readers are welcome to read either or both of my blogs. I will continue to post to Unburied Treasure about my general adventures and random reflections. I reserve Vaginologue as a space in which I share my own story of being female, and invite readers in turn to share as much as they are comfortable doing, because I believe that each of us sharing our story can do a great deal of good. By exchanging stories of our unique personal experiences, in community, we can discover a commonality we never knew existed.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
self criticism (examining my virtual navel)
I truly love myself. I don't want to be anybody else but me. I am living an incredibly blessed life. This blog, with its positive name, very intentionally reflects that positive aspect of my reality, partially because it helps me to dwell in that space more than I might without the exercise of grounding myself in it by consciously writing about being in it. In a sense, blogging is a form of meditation for me. But as a resuly, I realize that this blog does not reflect my life accurately. Nobody's blog can, of course, so this is an example of my being self critical, I suppose. But an episode of the television show "House" brought the issue of self-censorship to my attention recently. There was a patient who blogged incessantly. She had a large, devoted following and she believed it was dishonest to withhold anything significant in her life from her readers. She went way outside her comfort zone in the name of blogging integrity, sharing things with her readers when she would have much preferred the luxury and comfort of keeping them private.
I do not operate this way, but I have lately wondered if some difficult things I am dealing with in my life belong on my blog or not. I generally do not want to air other people's dirty laundry on my blog, so my interpersonal stuff mainly stays out of this zone, with occasional exceptions. But I do wonder whether I am delivering maximum value to you, the reader, by staying - not at a superficial level, exactly - but closer to the surface than I sometimes might. I had to ask myself, after watching that episode of "House", whether I consciously edit what I share here in order to preserve a certain image of myself in your eyes. Or, would it be strange to share more here than I do in my sidewalk life, where I run into people in the flesh, seem to share so much, am considered extremely open, and yet still, hold so many things back?
For example, I am about to run out to a medical appointment for a condition many women suffer from in silence. I wonder whether I should be sharing my journey here about something I have denied and neglected for years. On the other hand, this is not a medical blog, and not just for women, either. So, that is a quandary I'm facing today as I head off to begin taking care of myself in a new way. I wonder whether to share and then I examine my impulse to hold back. Many questions arise: What is at the root of my fear? What is my purpose in blogging? From what aspect of my blogging do my readers currently derive the greatest value? Why blog if I am creating a fictional character of myself by doing so and at what point does editing (i.e. withholding) part of my truth make my blogging dishonest?
I would welcome your feedback.
I do not operate this way, but I have lately wondered if some difficult things I am dealing with in my life belong on my blog or not. I generally do not want to air other people's dirty laundry on my blog, so my interpersonal stuff mainly stays out of this zone, with occasional exceptions. But I do wonder whether I am delivering maximum value to you, the reader, by staying - not at a superficial level, exactly - but closer to the surface than I sometimes might. I had to ask myself, after watching that episode of "House", whether I consciously edit what I share here in order to preserve a certain image of myself in your eyes. Or, would it be strange to share more here than I do in my sidewalk life, where I run into people in the flesh, seem to share so much, am considered extremely open, and yet still, hold so many things back?
For example, I am about to run out to a medical appointment for a condition many women suffer from in silence. I wonder whether I should be sharing my journey here about something I have denied and neglected for years. On the other hand, this is not a medical blog, and not just for women, either. So, that is a quandary I'm facing today as I head off to begin taking care of myself in a new way. I wonder whether to share and then I examine my impulse to hold back. Many questions arise: What is at the root of my fear? What is my purpose in blogging? From what aspect of my blogging do my readers currently derive the greatest value? Why blog if I am creating a fictional character of myself by doing so and at what point does editing (i.e. withholding) part of my truth make my blogging dishonest?
I would welcome your feedback.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
12 hours in my life (7am-7pm today)
I wake up to the sound of someone talking on NPR, and after a while, I remove my flannel-lined satin sleep mask.
I jump out of bed, walk across the sun drenched house and wake my boys with the news that it is going to be a glorious day, that the birds are singing and the air is alive with energy.
I go outside with my iPhone into backyard and photograph the sun rising bright pink over the edge of the backyard.
The coffee I set up last night is now brewing....drip, drip, mmmm...
I bring some recyclables down to the end of the driveway, noticing for the second time today that I am barefoot outside on a February morning and it is not unpleasant....I feel very happy about this.
I cook two portions of steel cut oatmeal with flax seed, raisins, vanilla extract, cinnamon, sea salt and organic brown sugar
I open the dishwasher and put away clean dishes, and rinse the tea cups that were waiting in the sink overnight
I open the washer and dryer, put clean wet clothes into dryer, and stuff another load into the wash.
I serve the boys bowls of cold cereal, warm croissants with nutella, soy milk, and vitamins. No smoothies today; we are running a bit late.
I eat some of the oatmeal, drink some coffee, pound some vitamins.
I advise the boys on wardrobe and general readiness for school, help them find their lunch boxes and fill them with good things to eat - fruit and juice, water crackers, tuna salad and string cheese...
I drive the boys to school, with the dog in the back seat by their feet.
At school, we all pile out but almost immediately, I have to make the dog get right back into the van. We drive back home swiftly to retrieve Sam's viola, which was accidentally left in the middle of the kitchen floor.
I drive to school a second time, arriving in the hallway just in time for music class to begin.
I give my hairstylist's card to a mom outside school who compliments my do - she is at school delivering the musical instrument her daughter left at home this morning
I drive back past our street and pick up my ADHD meds at the Kroger pharmacy
Then, I buy gas at Kroger with my 20 cent per gallon discount, earned with the purchase I just made inside at the pharmacy.
I withdraw cash for Marcy, the friend whom I pay to help clean my house with me every other Thursday.
I return home and walk the dog alongside my neighbor, Maryann, and her dog, Sadie.
Marcy arrives early and I ask her to start without me, promising that I will be back to clean with her after a very short workout - one of a dozen offered for $39 (TOTAL) on livingsocial.com
While chatting with my friend Susan, who can't work out with me today because her daughter has a fever, I drive across town to meet with a personal trainer to target glutes and abs. Ouch!
Afterwards, I sit in the parking lot just long enough to respond to an urgent email: I must compose and send off a new musician bio for the program of my upcoming quartet concert.
I drive home and clean house with Marcy, strip beds, put away finished laundry, make beds, then edit my bio, and resend the new version while eating granola and berries mixed into Greek yogurt.
I change my clothes to attend a 90 minute design meeting at a local architect's office, proposing some mural ideas for the future gelateria and coffee/tea house coming to our neighborhood.
I return home while chatting on phone with my friend, Alison.
I read my new email, look for images for mural on line, update my facebook status, correspond with Paul and CCM prep about a conflict between a basketball play off game and a theatre rehearsal for Isaac. The theatre reheasal wins out.
I briefly visit with Max until it is time to return to school to pick up the boys.
I chat on phone with my friend Gina as I drive to the neighborhood elementary school for the third time today.
As I get out of my car, I look up at the sky and spread my arms wide as if to embrace the sun. I then literally embrace and also briefly visit with friends on the sidewalk outside school, setting up a conditional coffee date with one for 2pm tomorrow, if I can be ready by then...it will be a much busier day than today.
I drive the boys home, work on typing up lyrics sheets for tomorrow night's Debbie Friedman tribute service, to be held in our living room.
I rearrange the living room furniture for the service, and continue cleaning the house, doing the laundry.
I practice the cello with Isaac, which is interrupted by the realization that I forgot to give everyone their afternoon snack. Pear are sliced and consumed, and then practice resumes.
I field a call about tonight's rehearsal as Isaac runs outside to join the family game of frisbee.
I put two frozen Kirkland cheese pizzas in the oven, after first smearing one with fresh pesto sauce and sprinkling it with fresh basil leaves
I blog about it
From the top of the stairs I hear "BEEP!!
and then, BEEEEEPPPP!!!!!
OK, OK, so, this blogging took more than 11 minutes, and consequently I've burnt the basil pizza. Slightly. To be safe, I "make" another one and pop it in the already hot oven.
Paul walks in the door just as it is done baking. I serve all three pizzas and tall glasses of orange juice and, thanks to spring fever and the increased activity of everyone around the table, the food rapidly disappears.
It is decided that Isaac and I will run out to Kroger and buy several different flavors of ice cream, like Eugene and his cousin did in Brighton Beach Memoirs. The five of us then sit at the table and eat ice cream together and it is very, very good.
I jump out of bed, walk across the sun drenched house and wake my boys with the news that it is going to be a glorious day, that the birds are singing and the air is alive with energy.
I go outside with my iPhone into backyard and photograph the sun rising bright pink over the edge of the backyard.
The coffee I set up last night is now brewing....drip, drip, mmmm...
I bring some recyclables down to the end of the driveway, noticing for the second time today that I am barefoot outside on a February morning and it is not unpleasant....I feel very happy about this.
I cook two portions of steel cut oatmeal with flax seed, raisins, vanilla extract, cinnamon, sea salt and organic brown sugar
I open the dishwasher and put away clean dishes, and rinse the tea cups that were waiting in the sink overnight
I open the washer and dryer, put clean wet clothes into dryer, and stuff another load into the wash.
I serve the boys bowls of cold cereal, warm croissants with nutella, soy milk, and vitamins. No smoothies today; we are running a bit late.
I eat some of the oatmeal, drink some coffee, pound some vitamins.
I advise the boys on wardrobe and general readiness for school, help them find their lunch boxes and fill them with good things to eat - fruit and juice, water crackers, tuna salad and string cheese...
I drive the boys to school, with the dog in the back seat by their feet.
At school, we all pile out but almost immediately, I have to make the dog get right back into the van. We drive back home swiftly to retrieve Sam's viola, which was accidentally left in the middle of the kitchen floor.
I drive to school a second time, arriving in the hallway just in time for music class to begin.
I give my hairstylist's card to a mom outside school who compliments my do - she is at school delivering the musical instrument her daughter left at home this morning
I drive back past our street and pick up my ADHD meds at the Kroger pharmacy
Then, I buy gas at Kroger with my 20 cent per gallon discount, earned with the purchase I just made inside at the pharmacy.
I withdraw cash for Marcy, the friend whom I pay to help clean my house with me every other Thursday.
I return home and walk the dog alongside my neighbor, Maryann, and her dog, Sadie.
Marcy arrives early and I ask her to start without me, promising that I will be back to clean with her after a very short workout - one of a dozen offered for $39 (TOTAL) on livingsocial.com
While chatting with my friend Susan, who can't work out with me today because her daughter has a fever, I drive across town to meet with a personal trainer to target glutes and abs. Ouch!
Afterwards, I sit in the parking lot just long enough to respond to an urgent email: I must compose and send off a new musician bio for the program of my upcoming quartet concert.
I drive home and clean house with Marcy, strip beds, put away finished laundry, make beds, then edit my bio, and resend the new version while eating granola and berries mixed into Greek yogurt.
I change my clothes to attend a 90 minute design meeting at a local architect's office, proposing some mural ideas for the future gelateria and coffee/tea house coming to our neighborhood.
I return home while chatting on phone with my friend, Alison.
I read my new email, look for images for mural on line, update my facebook status, correspond with Paul and CCM prep about a conflict between a basketball play off game and a theatre rehearsal for Isaac. The theatre reheasal wins out.
I briefly visit with Max until it is time to return to school to pick up the boys.
I chat on phone with my friend Gina as I drive to the neighborhood elementary school for the third time today.
As I get out of my car, I look up at the sky and spread my arms wide as if to embrace the sun. I then literally embrace and also briefly visit with friends on the sidewalk outside school, setting up a conditional coffee date with one for 2pm tomorrow, if I can be ready by then...it will be a much busier day than today.
I drive the boys home, work on typing up lyrics sheets for tomorrow night's Debbie Friedman tribute service, to be held in our living room.
I rearrange the living room furniture for the service, and continue cleaning the house, doing the laundry.
I practice the cello with Isaac, which is interrupted by the realization that I forgot to give everyone their afternoon snack. Pear are sliced and consumed, and then practice resumes.
I field a call about tonight's rehearsal as Isaac runs outside to join the family game of frisbee.
I put two frozen Kirkland cheese pizzas in the oven, after first smearing one with fresh pesto sauce and sprinkling it with fresh basil leaves
I blog about it
From the top of the stairs I hear "BEEP!!
and then, BEEEEEPPPP!!!!!
OK, OK, so, this blogging took more than 11 minutes, and consequently I've burnt the basil pizza. Slightly. To be safe, I "make" another one and pop it in the already hot oven.
Paul walks in the door just as it is done baking. I serve all three pizzas and tall glasses of orange juice and, thanks to spring fever and the increased activity of everyone around the table, the food rapidly disappears.
It is decided that Isaac and I will run out to Kroger and buy several different flavors of ice cream, like Eugene and his cousin did in Brighton Beach Memoirs. The five of us then sit at the table and eat ice cream together and it is very, very good.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
the Quietly Gay song, a preview
There are couples at weddings;
folks bring guests to bar mitzvahs;
but I always mark one on my reply
For my work, thank G-d,
there's no company picnic;
I'll be quietly gay 'til I die
from The Dark Side of Debbie Friedman:
Why Just Kvetch When You Can Sing?
copyright Nancy Illman 2011
folks bring guests to bar mitzvahs;
but I always mark one on my reply
For my work, thank G-d,
there's no company picnic;
I'll be quietly gay 'til I die
from The Dark Side of Debbie Friedman:
Why Just Kvetch When You Can Sing?
copyright Nancy Illman 2011
Why just kvetch when you can sing?
The Laundry Song
Well, the old may have pains,
and the young may have pimples,
but housework's for all of your days
You may do laundry now,
you may do laundry later,
you may do laundry all of your life
You might hire a maid,
you might hire a butler,
but if you're in debt, you may not
You must mop your own floors,
you must scrub your own bathtubs,
you must do laundry all of your life
(from "The Dark Side of Debbie Friedman:
why just kvetch when you can sing?"
copyright Nancy Illman 2011)
Well, the old may have pains,
and the young may have pimples,
but housework's for all of your days
You may do laundry now,
you may do laundry later,
you may do laundry all of your life
You might hire a maid,
you might hire a butler,
but if you're in debt, you may not
You must mop your own floors,
you must scrub your own bathtubs,
you must do laundry all of your life
(from "The Dark Side of Debbie Friedman:
why just kvetch when you can sing?"
copyright Nancy Illman 2011)
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Letter to the Universe, from Brava Music
My talented friend, Gina Weathersby, took wonderful photographs of a couple of my friends and me a few weeks ago. I was planning to use them in a brochure, where I would also list some musical repertoire, prices, and our musician bios. I was going to hand over these brochures, along with a rather big check, to David's Bridal so that our chamber music ensemble, Brava Music, would become their "merchant partner". This means that the store would include the brochure in a goodie bag given to all customers who purchase a gown and/or bridesmaids dresses, and we would then wait, hoping to hear from some of these customers about providing music for their weddings.
At a brainstorming session after the photo shoot, I decided this was perhaps not the ideal way to inform brides - or their parents - about our ensemble's availibility to provide music for their event. So, today, that's one more check I still have in my checkbook, available to be used for a babysitter, piano or cello teacher, veterinarian, tree trimmer or chimney sweep.
Each of us - violinist, flutist, cellist - chose our favorite pose from the shoot and then Gina got to work processing the photographs. Today, we received the beautiful images by email....you can see mine right below. Here is the good news: I already have use for them that I did not have at the time of the photo shoot: they will be featured in the programs and promotional materials mailed out to promote a concert our piano trio has been hired to play at Ohio University. Our flute and string quartet also has a concert coming up, but the church we are perfoming in doesn't use artist photos in its program.
I do hope that our lovely new photos will be useful in helping us find more opportunities to perform. Strangely enough, though, it almost seems like just by having had the photos taken, by taking that step towards really putting ourselves out there, the universe has already responded. And not with a little wedding gig, either, although we still want those and hope to get them. We are booked for a real concert, in a subscription series, complete with programs, fliers and posters and a written legal contract that includes requirements and benefits. We will also receive more monetary compensation for giving this concert than we would charge for being somewhat overlooked at a wedding, where it is considered perfectly polite to talk to your neighbor while the musicians are playing. Plus, we will get applause, and maybe, if we do really well, even get to hear our name in the air: "Brava!"
I would like to say, now that I have discarded my expensive and possibly quite inefficient idea of "partnering" with David's Bridal, that I will still make the brochure and that I will then call and make appointments around town, distributing brochures to select church musical directors and wedding planners, but first, I'm afraid, I still have to purchase a new laptop on which to create said brochure. So, in the meantime, I am just going to put this out into the universe in other less costly, complicated ways. Hence the following letter, posted into the blogosphere:
Dear Universe,
Thank you for the two paying concert gigs we have coming up. We are currently working on programs including works by Beethoven, Boccherini, Brahms, Lidarti, Telemann, Hindemith, a Sephardic Jewish melody, and Bach. We are really excited and will work long and hard to meet everyone's expectations of us.
If anyone out there wants to manage a group of classical musicians in our quest to find more concert venues, please let me know! Because honestly, none of us want anything to the business of getting these jobs. We just want to plan the program, practice our parts, get together to rehearse, and then show up on time, looking as neat and tidy as we can, to do our thing to make a special day that much more magical with our music, whether that's in a concert hall, or a church, or out on a farm with little white lights strung in the tree branches.
With deep appreciation,
the Women of Brava Music
At a brainstorming session after the photo shoot, I decided this was perhaps not the ideal way to inform brides - or their parents - about our ensemble's availibility to provide music for their event. So, today, that's one more check I still have in my checkbook, available to be used for a babysitter, piano or cello teacher, veterinarian, tree trimmer or chimney sweep.
Each of us - violinist, flutist, cellist - chose our favorite pose from the shoot and then Gina got to work processing the photographs. Today, we received the beautiful images by email....you can see mine right below. Here is the good news: I already have use for them that I did not have at the time of the photo shoot: they will be featured in the programs and promotional materials mailed out to promote a concert our piano trio has been hired to play at Ohio University. Our flute and string quartet also has a concert coming up, but the church we are perfoming in doesn't use artist photos in its program.
I do hope that our lovely new photos will be useful in helping us find more opportunities to perform. Strangely enough, though, it almost seems like just by having had the photos taken, by taking that step towards really putting ourselves out there, the universe has already responded. And not with a little wedding gig, either, although we still want those and hope to get them. We are booked for a real concert, in a subscription series, complete with programs, fliers and posters and a written legal contract that includes requirements and benefits. We will also receive more monetary compensation for giving this concert than we would charge for being somewhat overlooked at a wedding, where it is considered perfectly polite to talk to your neighbor while the musicians are playing. Plus, we will get applause, and maybe, if we do really well, even get to hear our name in the air: "Brava!"
I would like to say, now that I have discarded my expensive and possibly quite inefficient idea of "partnering" with David's Bridal, that I will still make the brochure and that I will then call and make appointments around town, distributing brochures to select church musical directors and wedding planners, but first, I'm afraid, I still have to purchase a new laptop on which to create said brochure. So, in the meantime, I am just going to put this out into the universe in other less costly, complicated ways. Hence the following letter, posted into the blogosphere:
Dear Universe,
Thank you for the two paying concert gigs we have coming up. We are currently working on programs including works by Beethoven, Boccherini, Brahms, Lidarti, Telemann, Hindemith, a Sephardic Jewish melody, and Bach. We are really excited and will work long and hard to meet everyone's expectations of us.
If anyone out there wants to manage a group of classical musicians in our quest to find more concert venues, please let me know! Because honestly, none of us want anything to the business of getting these jobs. We just want to plan the program, practice our parts, get together to rehearse, and then show up on time, looking as neat and tidy as we can, to do our thing to make a special day that much more magical with our music, whether that's in a concert hall, or a church, or out on a farm with little white lights strung in the tree branches.
With deep appreciation,
the Women of Brava Music
Animation can now help us learn Torah
I was invited to attend Sunday School today with my 8 year old today, Isaac. Isaac's teacher, Ari, is from Wantagh, Long Island, just a couple of stops away from my hometown of Massapequa on the Babylon Line of the LIRR (Long Island Railroad). Anyway, Ari told me about this awesome new site called G-DCAST where you can watch 4 minute long animated lessons about each of the portions of the Torah. They got different rabbis to do different portions. I just watched Lawrence Kushner's take on Bereshit, which was BRILLIANT. I also thought, while I was watching it, that all my yogi friends, but especially those from Shine Yoga Studio, would really appreciate the rabbi's take on the creation story. It is just wonderful, and I must believe, universally appealing. I chose this portion because I just painted a Bar Mitzvah gift today for a boy who chanted part of this story at his Bar Mitzvah last fall. I think it turned out great, and I hope that (1) it survives firing in the kiln and (2) he and his parents will forgive my lateness with the present. My eldest son chanted Bereshit at his own Bar Mitzvah back in 2007. Back then, we visited the Creation Museum to ponder a different way of interpreting the story. I like Rabbi Kushner's SO much better. What do you think of it?
www.G-DCAST.com
www.G-DCAST.com
Friday, February 11, 2011
BCG attends a Bar Mitzvah...and really, really likes it!
My friend, Trina, a self-proclaimed Bad Catholic Girl, reads this blog regularly, corresponds with me frequently, and enjoys learning a bit about Judaism from what I share here. As Trina's "go-to Jew", I was recently tapped for any advice that might help her and her family be ideal guests at an upcoming Bar Mitzvah, their first! Trina uses yiddush so adroitly that I was frankly a bit surprised that she had never before attended a Bar Mitzvah. Flattered by her request, I mentioned a few things I thought she might like to know and then, promptly forgot about it.
Then, the other day, Trina sent a Bar Mitzvah report that brought tears to my eyes. I was so moved by her observations that I asked for and obtained permission to share it with all of you.
For those who do not know, Bar Mitzvah means Son of the Commandments, and "Bat" Mitzvah is a variation that refers to a daughter. Once a Jewish child reaches the age of thirteen (twelve, for a girl) he/she is counted as an adult member of his/her congregation, and as such, assumes responsibility for following the laws of our religion, also known as commandments. In many cases, this milestone is marked with a celebration, which typically features the Bar/Bat Mitzvah reading from the Torah at synagogue, and addressing everyone in attendance. Whether you may be preparing to host, star in, or attend such an event, (which, like the celebrant, is also known as a Bar/Bat Mitzvah) or you are merely curious about it, I hope you will enjoy Trina's report:
Now for my first Bar Mitzvah update: It was fantastic.
(Being a Bad Catholic Girl, I am used to long drawn-out services with a lot of up and down; but guess what?? The Jews don't kneel!!)
It was a 3-hour affair, with people walking in and out, kibbitzing in the pews, davening, chiming in with the call-and-response - or not - more like the African Methodist Episcopal tradition than the rigors of the Mass (which clearly was stolen from The People).
(The cantor had a voice like a Russian opera star. Be still, my heart. Turns out he was from Argentina.)
Each boy gave a talk on his portion of the Torah, and related that to his community service project. One little guy (with a voice like an angel) told about volunteering at a nursing home for people with MS/ALS. He sang to them! Requests! Whatever they wanted! Lady Gaga!
The rabbi blessed each boy with personal acknowledgment of his particular gifts and talents - and said, "The next time we welcome you here, it will be under the chuppah [Jewish wedding canopy] with your beloved."
The younger brothers of the Bar Mitzvahs then circulated with baskets. Being a BCG, I naturally assume that when a basket comes by, you put money into it; but no; the baskets were filled with lovely candies, which we tossed at the boys to shower them with sweetness.
Fun! They thought of everything!
(We got the bishop slapping us on the cheek and informing us that we were Soldiers of Christ...)
All the families read and chanted; then at the end, the rabbi welcomed all the little kids up to the bimah [like a pulpit] - they raced up in a mad dash and sang the final prayer. It was terrific.
Then there was kiddush in the party room; then we all went back to our hotel, and swam and hot-tubbed till it was time for cocktails and dinner, with hot music, and a birthday party for our young friend (whose actual birthday was the very day of his Bar Mitzvah).
He stood up yet again, and publicly acknowledged his friends and family, inviting us to come and light a candle, as the DJ cued songs he'd selected for each party (he's a guitarist and loves music - He played "Empire State of Mind" for his grandma from New York). It was very cool.
I now see that all American children should be required to prepare for adolescence in this way - not by being stuck with the 'teenager' label, but by being welcomed to adulthood; to achieve literacy in an obscure and difficult language; to sing and chant in it; to perform meaningful community service; to articulate this experience in public; to have tasks and expectations, with the bar set high; and to be advised before the congregation to start thinking intelligently about whom they are going to hook up with permanently.
Then dance the night away!
His mother - a wise woman - told me later that she'd required him to help with every aspect of the event (which was as complicated as a wedding) - another skill set which should be honed in young people (so they will know what to do for their parents' golden anniversaries, etc.).
Walt said that the yarmulke covered his bald spot perfectly. (I was surprised at all the women wearing yarmulkes, but not prayer shawls).
We had a ball (and people loved it when we tossed out 'Yasher Ko'ach'). I remembered the multiples of 18; and some inner voice prompted me to wrap the present in blue, which turned out to be exactly right. It was a fabulous experience and we feel blessed to have participated.
xox b'shalom!
Then, the other day, Trina sent a Bar Mitzvah report that brought tears to my eyes. I was so moved by her observations that I asked for and obtained permission to share it with all of you.
For those who do not know, Bar Mitzvah means Son of the Commandments, and "Bat" Mitzvah is a variation that refers to a daughter. Once a Jewish child reaches the age of thirteen (twelve, for a girl) he/she is counted as an adult member of his/her congregation, and as such, assumes responsibility for following the laws of our religion, also known as commandments. In many cases, this milestone is marked with a celebration, which typically features the Bar/Bat Mitzvah reading from the Torah at synagogue, and addressing everyone in attendance. Whether you may be preparing to host, star in, or attend such an event, (which, like the celebrant, is also known as a Bar/Bat Mitzvah) or you are merely curious about it, I hope you will enjoy Trina's report:
Now for my first Bar Mitzvah update: It was fantastic.
(Being a Bad Catholic Girl, I am used to long drawn-out services with a lot of up and down; but guess what?? The Jews don't kneel!!)
It was a 3-hour affair, with people walking in and out, kibbitzing in the pews, davening, chiming in with the call-and-response - or not - more like the African Methodist Episcopal tradition than the rigors of the Mass (which clearly was stolen from The People).
(The cantor had a voice like a Russian opera star. Be still, my heart. Turns out he was from Argentina.)
Each boy gave a talk on his portion of the Torah, and related that to his community service project. One little guy (with a voice like an angel) told about volunteering at a nursing home for people with MS/ALS. He sang to them! Requests! Whatever they wanted! Lady Gaga!
The rabbi blessed each boy with personal acknowledgment of his particular gifts and talents - and said, "The next time we welcome you here, it will be under the chuppah [Jewish wedding canopy] with your beloved."
The younger brothers of the Bar Mitzvahs then circulated with baskets. Being a BCG, I naturally assume that when a basket comes by, you put money into it; but no; the baskets were filled with lovely candies, which we tossed at the boys to shower them with sweetness.
Fun! They thought of everything!
(We got the bishop slapping us on the cheek and informing us that we were Soldiers of Christ...)
All the families read and chanted; then at the end, the rabbi welcomed all the little kids up to the bimah [like a pulpit] - they raced up in a mad dash and sang the final prayer. It was terrific.
Then there was kiddush in the party room; then we all went back to our hotel, and swam and hot-tubbed till it was time for cocktails and dinner, with hot music, and a birthday party for our young friend (whose actual birthday was the very day of his Bar Mitzvah).
He stood up yet again, and publicly acknowledged his friends and family, inviting us to come and light a candle, as the DJ cued songs he'd selected for each party (he's a guitarist and loves music - He played "Empire State of Mind" for his grandma from New York). It was very cool.
I now see that all American children should be required to prepare for adolescence in this way - not by being stuck with the 'teenager' label, but by being welcomed to adulthood; to achieve literacy in an obscure and difficult language; to sing and chant in it; to perform meaningful community service; to articulate this experience in public; to have tasks and expectations, with the bar set high; and to be advised before the congregation to start thinking intelligently about whom they are going to hook up with permanently.
Then dance the night away!
His mother - a wise woman - told me later that she'd required him to help with every aspect of the event (which was as complicated as a wedding) - another skill set which should be honed in young people (so they will know what to do for their parents' golden anniversaries, etc.).
Walt said that the yarmulke covered his bald spot perfectly. (I was surprised at all the women wearing yarmulkes, but not prayer shawls).
We had a ball (and people loved it when we tossed out 'Yasher Ko'ach'). I remembered the multiples of 18; and some inner voice prompted me to wrap the present in blue, which turned out to be exactly right. It was a fabulous experience and we feel blessed to have participated.
xox b'shalom!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Secret Cello Thrill
I have taken a very long and circuitous route to becoming a cello player.
The viola was my favorite instrument as a very little girl, but when finally, after years of begging for viola lessons, I was taken to the rental store to be fitted for my first instrument, I was so impatient to bring it home that I took the 1/2 size fiddle home as is, with violin strings, rather than wait five minutes to let the man restring it as a viola. Thus was an accidental violinist was born.
By junior year of high school, I became aware of harboring a deep envy toward the cellists in my orchestras and chamber ensembles, and that while I liked carrying the melody, and being the concertmaster, I longed to make the rich, sweet sound that only a cello has. I was encouraged to learn the viola, a relatively easy crossover, but at that time, I found had lost interest in it.
Years passed. In 1994, I moved away from all my musician friends and had a baby. I stopped playing the violin altogether.
As a devoted mother, I found myself gradually developing a list of places I would visit and things I would do when the children up and left me someday. More than resuming violin playing, learning to play the cello topped my list.
When my sister-in-law learned of this several years ago, she said "life is short, carpe diem, get a cello already!"
For a brief moment, this made sense. Isaac, my youngest, was still just one, but I went out and bought a cello, hired a sitter so that I could take a weekly lesson, and hired the sitter to return so that I might go to the basement and practice.
Eventually, I decided that it made more sense to wait and see if any of my boys wanted to study cello and would let me learn along with them. That has finally happened, with Isaac, and I am so happy!
I have lately become active as a violinist again, performing regularly in an orchestra and two chamber ensembles as well as my temple band. I'm a pretty skilled musician. But Isaac's cello teacher had never heard me play on either instrument until yesterday, and even though I have claimed to be a violinist, she assumes nothing.
Yesterday was our sixth cello lesson. With the Suzuki method, you learn the music first by listening to it, moving to it and singing with it before you try to play. So, in terms of playing, we have progressed to the point of plucking a three or four note song. Meanwhile, Isaac's working hard to develop his intonation so that he is able to sing on key. To help him learn the melody of a song he has been assigned to sing daily since Day One, his teacher, Miss Nadine, suggested that when we practice every day at home, I should play the song on my violin.
Since we already both have our cellos out for practice sessions, it is actually easier for me (and I would like to think, more inspiring for him) to accompany Isaac on my cello when he sings. I have done this every day with him for a couple of weeks, but then, let him sing the song a capella at his lesson, at which point he has struggled to remember the melody in front of Miss Nadine. She is the kind of teacher who can make a person very nervous...enough that you might forget a song you sang perfectly well on the car ride over.
At yesterday's lesson, when it was time for Isaac to sing, I said to the teacher "please don't watch my technique, I'm just going to accompany Isaac on this", and then I proceeded to play the melody as he sang. Because Miss Nadine is very critical, I tried very hard to play in tune and with a clear, pretty tone.
When we were done, she said to me "Well, clearly you picked the wrong instrument!"
My immediate reaction was to become defensive about my violin skills, but Miss Nadine interrupted me. "I just paid you a big compliment," she said.
"Thank you," I said, chastened.
Miss Nadine is very strict as much about manners as she is about practicing. In both respects, I am supposed to be Isaac's teacher and role model. Try as I might to meet her high expectations, Miss Nadine has found something legitimately to criticize me for at every single lesson, even as she delights in Isaac's dedication and preparedness.
Yesterday, as she went on to compliment my "very lovely" tone, even though I was secretly thrilled, I found it difficult to accept the compliment, attributing the sound quality to my wonderful instrument. So, I suppose that is why I am telling you here, ever so secretly, that I am beyond thrilled to have my son's strict and demanding teacher compliment my cello playing so earnestly. I desperately hope that I may continue to earn her praise.
The viola was my favorite instrument as a very little girl, but when finally, after years of begging for viola lessons, I was taken to the rental store to be fitted for my first instrument, I was so impatient to bring it home that I took the 1/2 size fiddle home as is, with violin strings, rather than wait five minutes to let the man restring it as a viola. Thus was an accidental violinist was born.
By junior year of high school, I became aware of harboring a deep envy toward the cellists in my orchestras and chamber ensembles, and that while I liked carrying the melody, and being the concertmaster, I longed to make the rich, sweet sound that only a cello has. I was encouraged to learn the viola, a relatively easy crossover, but at that time, I found had lost interest in it.
Years passed. In 1994, I moved away from all my musician friends and had a baby. I stopped playing the violin altogether.
As a devoted mother, I found myself gradually developing a list of places I would visit and things I would do when the children up and left me someday. More than resuming violin playing, learning to play the cello topped my list.
When my sister-in-law learned of this several years ago, she said "life is short, carpe diem, get a cello already!"
For a brief moment, this made sense. Isaac, my youngest, was still just one, but I went out and bought a cello, hired a sitter so that I could take a weekly lesson, and hired the sitter to return so that I might go to the basement and practice.
Eventually, I decided that it made more sense to wait and see if any of my boys wanted to study cello and would let me learn along with them. That has finally happened, with Isaac, and I am so happy!
I have lately become active as a violinist again, performing regularly in an orchestra and two chamber ensembles as well as my temple band. I'm a pretty skilled musician. But Isaac's cello teacher had never heard me play on either instrument until yesterday, and even though I have claimed to be a violinist, she assumes nothing.
Yesterday was our sixth cello lesson. With the Suzuki method, you learn the music first by listening to it, moving to it and singing with it before you try to play. So, in terms of playing, we have progressed to the point of plucking a three or four note song. Meanwhile, Isaac's working hard to develop his intonation so that he is able to sing on key. To help him learn the melody of a song he has been assigned to sing daily since Day One, his teacher, Miss Nadine, suggested that when we practice every day at home, I should play the song on my violin.
Since we already both have our cellos out for practice sessions, it is actually easier for me (and I would like to think, more inspiring for him) to accompany Isaac on my cello when he sings. I have done this every day with him for a couple of weeks, but then, let him sing the song a capella at his lesson, at which point he has struggled to remember the melody in front of Miss Nadine. She is the kind of teacher who can make a person very nervous...enough that you might forget a song you sang perfectly well on the car ride over.
At yesterday's lesson, when it was time for Isaac to sing, I said to the teacher "please don't watch my technique, I'm just going to accompany Isaac on this", and then I proceeded to play the melody as he sang. Because Miss Nadine is very critical, I tried very hard to play in tune and with a clear, pretty tone.
When we were done, she said to me "Well, clearly you picked the wrong instrument!"
My immediate reaction was to become defensive about my violin skills, but Miss Nadine interrupted me. "I just paid you a big compliment," she said.
"Thank you," I said, chastened.
Miss Nadine is very strict as much about manners as she is about practicing. In both respects, I am supposed to be Isaac's teacher and role model. Try as I might to meet her high expectations, Miss Nadine has found something legitimately to criticize me for at every single lesson, even as she delights in Isaac's dedication and preparedness.
Yesterday, as she went on to compliment my "very lovely" tone, even though I was secretly thrilled, I found it difficult to accept the compliment, attributing the sound quality to my wonderful instrument. So, I suppose that is why I am telling you here, ever so secretly, that I am beyond thrilled to have my son's strict and demanding teacher compliment my cello playing so earnestly. I desperately hope that I may continue to earn her praise.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
old fashioned courtesy in a high tech world
Many people say that texting, facebook and twitter are creating a new generation of anti-social people. I tend to find most of the criticism I have heard to be rooted in oversimplification. I believe that many parents give too much weight to social media, as opposed to acknowledging the potentially much greater power and influence of parents and teachers. It's the same with TV. It is not inherently evil, as some parents claim, a toxic thing I should keep my children away from. It is actually a great resource and a wonderful learning tool, but it must be used in the right way, with parental supervision and involvement. The same argument applies to video games.
Actually, it's a bit like the gun control argument. Guns don't kill people; people kill people. If you are a gregarious person, a kind and considerate person, if your parents taught you manners and to value social graces, then using facebook should not make you regress in the way you interact with people.
I can't deny the observations of veteran teachers who describe significant differences in how their students conduct themselves since the onset of new social media. A professor told me recently that she has had doctoral students submit work with the letter "u" used as a stand in for the word "you", based on conventional text spelling, where expedience is of the essence and many words have been boiled down to the lowest possible number of characters. Voice coaches and acting coaches have shared that their current students no longer know how to look a person, whether judge or audience member, in the eye, or how to have what they used to consider a "normal" conversation.
I have only one son who is old enough to text and use facebook. We let him set up a facebook account when he was 14, and he uses it a great deal to keep in touch with hundreds of kids he knows from camp and overseas trips who live all over the country. I am happy to say that I do not discern any antisocial tendencies in him at all, although there was a time when I did need to address a certain lack of filtering in his online communications. In terms of it being a time suck, well, so is talking on the phone with friends, which I did for hours in high school. If his grades were slipping, facebook would be the first privilege taken away, but his grades are not an issue. As for socialization, well, his idea of what is appropriate behavior is my responsibility. Just as it is my responsibility how he speaks to anyone, but especially to adults, as well as the pride he takes in his any schoolwork he has ever handed in to a teacher. My son can text to beat the band, but this skill does not negatively impact him either in terms of spelling or in acquiring and using an extensive vocabulary. Just as he knows how to discriminate between real life and the pretend world of the movies, he knows the difference. He knows what is appropriate behavior, syntax, spelling and vocabulary in each context -whether that is texting, facebook, school, temple, extra curricular activities, his job or summer camp. So I'm not worried about what facebook is "doing" to his generation. I'm much more worried about what parents are doing...or rather, not doing. But that's for another blogpost, another day.
Getting back to facebook, let me say that I really only interact with adults on the site, not with my son or his friends, although they are among my list of friends so that I can stay current with them. This is reflective of my real life, which seems appropriate. I want to be accessible to and in touch with my teenager without interfering in his separate teenager world. So, observing just the behavior of adults then, I have noticed certain social phenomena during my few years interacting on facebook. I joined but then quickly abandoned twitter, realizing that I am far too inclined to long sentences and strings of paragraphs for that format to work for me.
There does seem to be a diminished sense of filtering among adults on facebook, that is to say, a failure to limit oneself to writing only that which we would say face to face. This is a well established phenomenon in all online communication, whether you compare email versus "real letter" communication or text versus phone, and we can certainly see evidence of it on facebook. I find it particularly interesting to see what happens when people who have never met encounter each other on a mutual friend's facebook wall and voice their opposing views.
My friend, Patricia, whom I only met on facebook and never in person, is a writer. She has her own page on facebook where people who have never met regularly disagree. She finds that generally they are courteous and willing to learn from each other's different persepctives. Patricia's rule for facebook is this: if people don't behave as well as she would expect them to in her living room, then they are given "a dressing down" or their comments are removed. This makes sense to me.
Another peculiarity of facebook conversations is that there is no "tone", which of course is a liability in texting and email communication as well. Just last night, my orchestra conductor and I had a misunderstanding when I texted him to say I was taking a mental health absence and staying home to drink wine, rather than attending that evening's rehearsal. He thought I was joking, but from his response I thought he understood me, until he texted me today to ask what I had thought of the rehearsal. (He had been unable to attend due to extreme weather conditions where he lives) Very often people who do not know me well tend to mistake my tone for sincerity when I am being sarcastic or facetious. At the same time, I really am a very earnest and dedicated person, so the idea of my joking about skipping rehearsal seemed unthinkable to me. And yet, due in part to the nature of the medium, and in part to my casual "ironic" use of it, I was misunderstood without realizing it.
Earlier in the day, I had posted a Jewish joke, which I borrowed from the facebook wall of an orthodox rabbi. The joke went viral during the course of the day, but at that point I had only seen it on the rabbi's wall and I wanted to share it. This was a few hours before anyone was killed in the protests in Egypt, which of course have subsequently turned quite bloody and chaotic. The joke went as follows:
Dear Egyptian rioters,
Please don't damage the pyramids. We will not rebuild. Thank you.
The Jewish People
I think it is fair to say that at that point, just about every Jew in America was somewhat to deeply concerned about the impact the impending regime change would have on Israel and all of the middle east and our relationships there. Roughly half of my facebook froends are Jewish. Many welcomed the chance to laugh during a tense situation, which is what I believe accounts for the universal popularity enjoyed by the joke throughout the day. Some of my close friends and relatives posted responses indicating that they found the joke hilarious. One person, though, a Jewish man whom I have never met, scolded me for making fun of the Egyptians. He then went on to challenge me to consider how I would react if someone made fun of women's rights, or gays and lesbians.
I do have to wonder if would have said such a misguided thing had he been sitting in my living room, instead of snowed in and about to shovel his driveway for the umpteenth day in a row. First of all, if he were in my living room, he would probably have gotten to know me better than he evidently had managed to do on facebook. But I have to say that I was surprised that he had such a distorted view of who I am, that is, who I perceive myself to be and who my "real" friends reflect back to me. As Patricia observed, after witnessing his behavior, and knowing I was upset by it, "it usually has very little to do with you and much more to do with them."
On the other hand, I responded to him just as I would have on the phone or in my living room. I stood up for myself, clarified and defended my position, but tried to maintain a civil tone in doing so. I was frankly overwhelmed and touched by the amount of support I received, both privately and on my wall. People vouched for my positive intentions, for my sensitivity, humanism, humor, and political awareness. That was all great. One of my "friends" sniped at me, rather irrrationally, in defense of my critic, to whom she clearly feels a stronger allegiance. The two people who took shots at me both hurt my feelings. But I have to admit I was a bit taken aback at some of the hostile remarks that were written on my wall in defense of the joke, in support of my position, and criticizing my critic.
Two people offered him a one way ticket to Cairo, where they predicted he would be stomped on, or have his heart cut out, by the Egyptians he was protecting from my joke, as soon as they discovered his Jewish identity. Several people called him nasty names and said disparaging things, said "good riddance" after he withdrew himself from my facebook circle. Perhaps they would have said exactly the same things to him were they all sitting together in my living room. Some of what was fired at him, like "intellectually lazy", seems living room appropriate. But if actual face to face name calling were to start up in my home, or if violent death wishes were expressed, I have to beleive that I would either change the subject, and if that failed, that I would ask everyone to go home. I have to ask myself why I did so little to intervene when remarks went beyond a point I felt appropriate. The main reason I think is that it seemed harmless venting since the target was no longer present. But if my facebook wall is my virtual living room, then I have to admit that I took some satisfaction in letting my friends assault my attacker while I stood licking my wounds in the virtual corner of that room.
Communication on line is fast and furious. Yesterday, I wrote about how grateful I am that technology makes it possible for us to be connected to each other in ways that our ancestors could only dream of. But it is also important to be courteous, and to be sensitive to each others' feelings, even while communicating nearly at the speed of light. This is something our ancestors valued a bit more highly than we seem to do. This does not seem to me to be something we should blame on technology. We need to teach our children, and adjust our own behavior, to use new communication technologies in the best possible way.
Actually, it's a bit like the gun control argument. Guns don't kill people; people kill people. If you are a gregarious person, a kind and considerate person, if your parents taught you manners and to value social graces, then using facebook should not make you regress in the way you interact with people.
I can't deny the observations of veteran teachers who describe significant differences in how their students conduct themselves since the onset of new social media. A professor told me recently that she has had doctoral students submit work with the letter "u" used as a stand in for the word "you", based on conventional text spelling, where expedience is of the essence and many words have been boiled down to the lowest possible number of characters. Voice coaches and acting coaches have shared that their current students no longer know how to look a person, whether judge or audience member, in the eye, or how to have what they used to consider a "normal" conversation.
I have only one son who is old enough to text and use facebook. We let him set up a facebook account when he was 14, and he uses it a great deal to keep in touch with hundreds of kids he knows from camp and overseas trips who live all over the country. I am happy to say that I do not discern any antisocial tendencies in him at all, although there was a time when I did need to address a certain lack of filtering in his online communications. In terms of it being a time suck, well, so is talking on the phone with friends, which I did for hours in high school. If his grades were slipping, facebook would be the first privilege taken away, but his grades are not an issue. As for socialization, well, his idea of what is appropriate behavior is my responsibility. Just as it is my responsibility how he speaks to anyone, but especially to adults, as well as the pride he takes in his any schoolwork he has ever handed in to a teacher. My son can text to beat the band, but this skill does not negatively impact him either in terms of spelling or in acquiring and using an extensive vocabulary. Just as he knows how to discriminate between real life and the pretend world of the movies, he knows the difference. He knows what is appropriate behavior, syntax, spelling and vocabulary in each context -whether that is texting, facebook, school, temple, extra curricular activities, his job or summer camp. So I'm not worried about what facebook is "doing" to his generation. I'm much more worried about what parents are doing...or rather, not doing. But that's for another blogpost, another day.
Getting back to facebook, let me say that I really only interact with adults on the site, not with my son or his friends, although they are among my list of friends so that I can stay current with them. This is reflective of my real life, which seems appropriate. I want to be accessible to and in touch with my teenager without interfering in his separate teenager world. So, observing just the behavior of adults then, I have noticed certain social phenomena during my few years interacting on facebook. I joined but then quickly abandoned twitter, realizing that I am far too inclined to long sentences and strings of paragraphs for that format to work for me.
There does seem to be a diminished sense of filtering among adults on facebook, that is to say, a failure to limit oneself to writing only that which we would say face to face. This is a well established phenomenon in all online communication, whether you compare email versus "real letter" communication or text versus phone, and we can certainly see evidence of it on facebook. I find it particularly interesting to see what happens when people who have never met encounter each other on a mutual friend's facebook wall and voice their opposing views.
My friend, Patricia, whom I only met on facebook and never in person, is a writer. She has her own page on facebook where people who have never met regularly disagree. She finds that generally they are courteous and willing to learn from each other's different persepctives. Patricia's rule for facebook is this: if people don't behave as well as she would expect them to in her living room, then they are given "a dressing down" or their comments are removed. This makes sense to me.
Another peculiarity of facebook conversations is that there is no "tone", which of course is a liability in texting and email communication as well. Just last night, my orchestra conductor and I had a misunderstanding when I texted him to say I was taking a mental health absence and staying home to drink wine, rather than attending that evening's rehearsal. He thought I was joking, but from his response I thought he understood me, until he texted me today to ask what I had thought of the rehearsal. (He had been unable to attend due to extreme weather conditions where he lives) Very often people who do not know me well tend to mistake my tone for sincerity when I am being sarcastic or facetious. At the same time, I really am a very earnest and dedicated person, so the idea of my joking about skipping rehearsal seemed unthinkable to me. And yet, due in part to the nature of the medium, and in part to my casual "ironic" use of it, I was misunderstood without realizing it.
Earlier in the day, I had posted a Jewish joke, which I borrowed from the facebook wall of an orthodox rabbi. The joke went viral during the course of the day, but at that point I had only seen it on the rabbi's wall and I wanted to share it. This was a few hours before anyone was killed in the protests in Egypt, which of course have subsequently turned quite bloody and chaotic. The joke went as follows:
Dear Egyptian rioters,
Please don't damage the pyramids. We will not rebuild. Thank you.
The Jewish People
I think it is fair to say that at that point, just about every Jew in America was somewhat to deeply concerned about the impact the impending regime change would have on Israel and all of the middle east and our relationships there. Roughly half of my facebook froends are Jewish. Many welcomed the chance to laugh during a tense situation, which is what I believe accounts for the universal popularity enjoyed by the joke throughout the day. Some of my close friends and relatives posted responses indicating that they found the joke hilarious. One person, though, a Jewish man whom I have never met, scolded me for making fun of the Egyptians. He then went on to challenge me to consider how I would react if someone made fun of women's rights, or gays and lesbians.
I do have to wonder if would have said such a misguided thing had he been sitting in my living room, instead of snowed in and about to shovel his driveway for the umpteenth day in a row. First of all, if he were in my living room, he would probably have gotten to know me better than he evidently had managed to do on facebook. But I have to say that I was surprised that he had such a distorted view of who I am, that is, who I perceive myself to be and who my "real" friends reflect back to me. As Patricia observed, after witnessing his behavior, and knowing I was upset by it, "it usually has very little to do with you and much more to do with them."
On the other hand, I responded to him just as I would have on the phone or in my living room. I stood up for myself, clarified and defended my position, but tried to maintain a civil tone in doing so. I was frankly overwhelmed and touched by the amount of support I received, both privately and on my wall. People vouched for my positive intentions, for my sensitivity, humanism, humor, and political awareness. That was all great. One of my "friends" sniped at me, rather irrrationally, in defense of my critic, to whom she clearly feels a stronger allegiance. The two people who took shots at me both hurt my feelings. But I have to admit I was a bit taken aback at some of the hostile remarks that were written on my wall in defense of the joke, in support of my position, and criticizing my critic.
Two people offered him a one way ticket to Cairo, where they predicted he would be stomped on, or have his heart cut out, by the Egyptians he was protecting from my joke, as soon as they discovered his Jewish identity. Several people called him nasty names and said disparaging things, said "good riddance" after he withdrew himself from my facebook circle. Perhaps they would have said exactly the same things to him were they all sitting together in my living room. Some of what was fired at him, like "intellectually lazy", seems living room appropriate. But if actual face to face name calling were to start up in my home, or if violent death wishes were expressed, I have to beleive that I would either change the subject, and if that failed, that I would ask everyone to go home. I have to ask myself why I did so little to intervene when remarks went beyond a point I felt appropriate. The main reason I think is that it seemed harmless venting since the target was no longer present. But if my facebook wall is my virtual living room, then I have to admit that I took some satisfaction in letting my friends assault my attacker while I stood licking my wounds in the virtual corner of that room.
Communication on line is fast and furious. Yesterday, I wrote about how grateful I am that technology makes it possible for us to be connected to each other in ways that our ancestors could only dream of. But it is also important to be courteous, and to be sensitive to each others' feelings, even while communicating nearly at the speed of light. This is something our ancestors valued a bit more highly than we seem to do. This does not seem to me to be something we should blame on technology. We need to teach our children, and adjust our own behavior, to use new communication technologies in the best possible way.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Groundhog's Day
Well, I will try to make this a day I would want to repeat, but so far it is not promising to be. On the other hand, it is better than yesterday, which found me quarantined in my house with a sick dog.
This morning, as soon as the boys were on the school bus, Suki and I visited the vet, adding a $311 checkup and vaccination bill to the $287 spent Monday on the emergency carpet cleaning necessitated by her illness. Pets are expensive, but they are worth it. Aren't they? We put up with destructive behavior, inconvenience, the mess and the expense because we get so much gratification from having a pet in our household.
At home all day, it is difficult not to listen to the news, although lately I have eschewed news coverage in favor of classical music or a book on tape. Reporting of the riots in Egypt is generally superficial. I know our government is walking a political tightrope as we wait for an outcome, and Israel's is sweating bullets. The more I listen, the more concerned and helpless I feel, so I shut it off and turn instead to matters that affect me more directly, more immediately.
You might think my house would be quite clean after my being trapped inside it for an entire day, but today you would be wrong. Having scrubbed a particular section of carpet three times in less than 24 hours, I was in no mood to clean the rest of house.
Instead, I added some bling to a pair of fancynancypants, email photos of recent sewing work to a friend with a celebrity connection on the West Coast. I practice Saint-Saens, Bach and Boccherini, and fill out a fitness profile for a personal trainer a friend and I are going to meet tomorrow. I do the dishes, and half heartedly move the laundry along. I think about how easy it is for me to feel connected to people even when quarantined for the day, and how different it used to be for my historical counterparts, before all this technology transformed our lives.
Even without blogging or exploring facebook, I feel very connected to people yesterday during my day of solitude, in so many ways. Let's take a look at six and a half hours in my life, home alone...
From early in the morning, I am engaged in an extended email conversation about our orchestra's next concert program. Also by email, I coordinate an upcoming chamber music recital, and contact my photographer about publicity shots she recently took of me and two of my musical colleagues.
My sister sends me a long, wonderful text message so that I know she is doing well and this brings a big smile to my face. A friend calls to inform me that the aforementioned email conversation is actually a group thread, something I had not surmised from the limited information displayed on my iPhone screen.
I telephone my mother, who is on Long Island supervising three moving men packing up the contents of my late grandmother's apartment. I listen to her explain why she has just decided not to send me any of my grandparents' things, despite our earlier conversations to the contrary, despite conversations I had with my grandmother about things she would like me to have. I decide not to react when she tells me that the cost of send furniture to Ohio is prohibitive, and in the next breath, that she is sending it to Florida instead and if she can't use it in her (fully furnished) home, she'll take it to consignment stores, because it is so much easier to get rid of stuff down there.
I decide not to let this hurt me. I tell myself I don't need more stuff in order to remember my grandparents. I remind myself of all the jewelry my grandmother gave me when she was alive. I look to my kitchen windowsill, at one of the pictures I keep of Mama, smiling and holding one of my babies, and I remember some helpful things she told me to get through situations like this.
Next, I call my aunt in New York City, thinking she might want to talk about this emotional milestone in her life. Instead, I listen to her tell me about her last dinner out with my sister, Sunday night, and how much she wishes she could see her even more often, and how much she misses my sister's kids, who live on the other side of Manhattan. When she tells me to say "hi" to my kids for her, or no, better yet, to give them hugs from her, I pretend that I will.
I remember more things my grandmother told me so that I do not get upset, but still, I do feel annoyed as I think of how many years it has been since my aunt has visited us. Then, I remember that my in-laws are arriving on Friday and I think of how much fun it will be to share the weekend with them, how strongly and lovingly connected they are to my children. I feel better immediately.
A friend calls from Long Island to talk about his son, who, in addition to having become a Bar Mitzvah last weekend, plays the double bass, and is preparing to play a solo for a competition I once took part in. He wants my advice, and I enjoy sharing my opinions, memories and even current information that, strangely enough, I happen to have, on options for string students in the New York area. We reminisce about my first marriage, which this friend gives himself credit for propelling me out of, and I remember aloud how blessed in friendship I am and have been for some time. I feel very fortunate indeed.
Today, the ground is littered with tree branches that fell off in last night's ice storm and the Groundhog has predicted an early Spring. My dog is feeling better; the carpet is unsoiled. The house is still waiting to be cleaned, the laundry, to be put away. Music is waiting to be practiced; we have orchestra rehearsal tonight. A concert contract is waiting to be signed and returned, more photos are needed for its program. More fancynancypants photos need to be organized and sent. The elliptical training machine, I know, would also like some attention. A friend across town breaks months of silence to inform me by email that she has breast cancer.
It is time for me to get moving. Thanks to those of you out there, who read this blog and reach back to me, reminding me that indeed, we are all connected.
This morning, as soon as the boys were on the school bus, Suki and I visited the vet, adding a $311 checkup and vaccination bill to the $287 spent Monday on the emergency carpet cleaning necessitated by her illness. Pets are expensive, but they are worth it. Aren't they? We put up with destructive behavior, inconvenience, the mess and the expense because we get so much gratification from having a pet in our household.
At home all day, it is difficult not to listen to the news, although lately I have eschewed news coverage in favor of classical music or a book on tape. Reporting of the riots in Egypt is generally superficial. I know our government is walking a political tightrope as we wait for an outcome, and Israel's is sweating bullets. The more I listen, the more concerned and helpless I feel, so I shut it off and turn instead to matters that affect me more directly, more immediately.
You might think my house would be quite clean after my being trapped inside it for an entire day, but today you would be wrong. Having scrubbed a particular section of carpet three times in less than 24 hours, I was in no mood to clean the rest of house.
Instead, I added some bling to a pair of fancynancypants, email photos of recent sewing work to a friend with a celebrity connection on the West Coast. I practice Saint-Saens, Bach and Boccherini, and fill out a fitness profile for a personal trainer a friend and I are going to meet tomorrow. I do the dishes, and half heartedly move the laundry along. I think about how easy it is for me to feel connected to people even when quarantined for the day, and how different it used to be for my historical counterparts, before all this technology transformed our lives.
Even without blogging or exploring facebook, I feel very connected to people yesterday during my day of solitude, in so many ways. Let's take a look at six and a half hours in my life, home alone...
From early in the morning, I am engaged in an extended email conversation about our orchestra's next concert program. Also by email, I coordinate an upcoming chamber music recital, and contact my photographer about publicity shots she recently took of me and two of my musical colleagues.
My sister sends me a long, wonderful text message so that I know she is doing well and this brings a big smile to my face. A friend calls to inform me that the aforementioned email conversation is actually a group thread, something I had not surmised from the limited information displayed on my iPhone screen.
I telephone my mother, who is on Long Island supervising three moving men packing up the contents of my late grandmother's apartment. I listen to her explain why she has just decided not to send me any of my grandparents' things, despite our earlier conversations to the contrary, despite conversations I had with my grandmother about things she would like me to have. I decide not to react when she tells me that the cost of send furniture to Ohio is prohibitive, and in the next breath, that she is sending it to Florida instead and if she can't use it in her (fully furnished) home, she'll take it to consignment stores, because it is so much easier to get rid of stuff down there.
I decide not to let this hurt me. I tell myself I don't need more stuff in order to remember my grandparents. I remind myself of all the jewelry my grandmother gave me when she was alive. I look to my kitchen windowsill, at one of the pictures I keep of Mama, smiling and holding one of my babies, and I remember some helpful things she told me to get through situations like this.
Next, I call my aunt in New York City, thinking she might want to talk about this emotional milestone in her life. Instead, I listen to her tell me about her last dinner out with my sister, Sunday night, and how much she wishes she could see her even more often, and how much she misses my sister's kids, who live on the other side of Manhattan. When she tells me to say "hi" to my kids for her, or no, better yet, to give them hugs from her, I pretend that I will.
I remember more things my grandmother told me so that I do not get upset, but still, I do feel annoyed as I think of how many years it has been since my aunt has visited us. Then, I remember that my in-laws are arriving on Friday and I think of how much fun it will be to share the weekend with them, how strongly and lovingly connected they are to my children. I feel better immediately.
A friend calls from Long Island to talk about his son, who, in addition to having become a Bar Mitzvah last weekend, plays the double bass, and is preparing to play a solo for a competition I once took part in. He wants my advice, and I enjoy sharing my opinions, memories and even current information that, strangely enough, I happen to have, on options for string students in the New York area. We reminisce about my first marriage, which this friend gives himself credit for propelling me out of, and I remember aloud how blessed in friendship I am and have been for some time. I feel very fortunate indeed.
Today, the ground is littered with tree branches that fell off in last night's ice storm and the Groundhog has predicted an early Spring. My dog is feeling better; the carpet is unsoiled. The house is still waiting to be cleaned, the laundry, to be put away. Music is waiting to be practiced; we have orchestra rehearsal tonight. A concert contract is waiting to be signed and returned, more photos are needed for its program. More fancynancypants photos need to be organized and sent. The elliptical training machine, I know, would also like some attention. A friend across town breaks months of silence to inform me by email that she has breast cancer.
It is time for me to get moving. Thanks to those of you out there, who read this blog and reach back to me, reminding me that indeed, we are all connected.
Friday, January 28, 2011
The Torah Parade
Tonight on simchas torah, with two silver crowns upon ya,
You'll be the grandest torah in the torah parade.
I'll have my arms around you, and when their eyes have found you,
I'll be the proudest fellow in the torah parade.
In our temple, on the avenue, all the congregants will follow us,
And you and I will dance all night in the hora that surrounds us.
Oh, I could write a ballad, here in my silken tallis,
all about the scroll I'm carrying in the torah parade.
new lyrics by Nancy Illman c2011
written to the tune of Easter Parade by Irving Berlin
You'll be the grandest torah in the torah parade.
I'll have my arms around you, and when their eyes have found you,
I'll be the proudest fellow in the torah parade.
In our temple, on the avenue, all the congregants will follow us,
And you and I will dance all night in the hora that surrounds us.
Oh, I could write a ballad, here in my silken tallis,
all about the scroll I'm carrying in the torah parade.
new lyrics by Nancy Illman c2011
written to the tune of Easter Parade by Irving Berlin
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Eldridge and Plum streets - a tale of two temples
In 1896, a community of Jews, recent immigrants to New York City from Eastern Europe, purchased three lots on Eldgridge Street on the lower East Side. They wanted to have their own congregation, separate from those of the German and Sephardic Jews who had arrived earlier. Eighteen months later, after a total expenditure of $19,000, they had built their own synagogue, using two local brothers, Christian gentlemen, as the architects.
The synagogue was a glorious space in which to spend time. Indeed, for most of its members, who generally lived in the tenement buildings of the surrounding neighborhood, Manhattan's Lower East Side, it was the most beautiful place they had access to on a regular basis, and better yet, it was all theirs. The upper balcony, separate and shielded as it was from the men below, must have been a wonderful haven for local wives and mothers to sit in splendor and comfort, relieved for a while from the stuffy, cramped environments of their apartments, happy for the chance to visit, rest and connect with other women in the community. Their early lives in New York were very hard. So difficult was it to makes ends meet that these new American Jews found it impossible to keep the Sabbath, in terms of refraining from work from sundown Friday until after sundown on Saturday, so the Shabbat service had to be held very early in the morning on Saturday before everyone headed out to work for the rest of the day.
Eventually, as members of the congregation established themselves, flourished and became successful, they moved out of the crowded tenement neighborhood know as Jew Town and into other areas, including the outer boroughs of the city, making it impossible to continue worshipping together. By 1950, the small group of more loyal or less successful congregants who were left could not afford to heat the entire building, so they locked up the main sanctuary and used just the smaller chapel to one side. A quarter century later, in 1975, a visiting professor unlocked the door to the main sanctuary and decided to restore it to its original splendor. The goal was to keep as many of the original elements of the synagogue as possible, which required a very painstaking process of careful and precise restoration. So began a long and laborious restoration project which cost over $18 million and was not complete until 2007.
My father and my husband had separately visited the Eldridge Street Synagogue in the early 1980's before the restoratiuon work began. It was full of rubble, then, the walls and ceilings had fallen in chunks of plaster to the ground, the pews all lay upended. Something worse than abandonment had occurred in the place, and it was then forbidden for anyone to enter for fear of their being injured. Still, both of these men were curious enough, as surely many others also were, to cross the barriers and peer inside this once grand, then crumbled bit of our collective past, as descendants of Jewish immigrants who had fled Eastern Europe and come to live in New York City.
Today, you may enter the street level chapel, which had remined in use through the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's, and where you can now, every day but Saturday, pay a museum vistor's fee, learn the history of the congregation and visit the main sanctuary with a historian as your guide. The guide who escorted my father, sister and me a week ago Sunday had recently immigrated to New York from Romania. Just a little bit of personal conversation revealed that she currently lived on precisely the same block of Brooklyn, by Avenue M and Ocean Boulevard, where my grandparents lived when my mother and aunt were little girls.
The massive, round, stained-glass window created by artist Kiki Smith is the first thing to command our attention on this sunny winter afternoon as we enter the main sanctuary. It hangs above the ark, a huge, dynamic swirl of blue adorned with many golden stars. We are told that this work was the last piece of the restoration to be completed. It is entirely unlike the original window that was blown out by a hurricane, and also, completely different from the brightly colored gothic style window that is opposite it, at the Western side of the sanctuary. Our guide points out that although the synagogue architects were Christian, they were very sensitive to the purpose for which this space was being created. Accordingly, they designed the stained glass windows into twelve parts forming a circle, to represent symbolically the twelve tribes of Israel. The arches of modest glass block that had been used to let light into the original sanctuary have been moved to create a tribute wall honoring the many donors who made the restoration possible.
In Cincinnati, we have a temple that was built by German immigrants in 1865-66. Once called the Jewish church, the Plum Street Temple is an histoic landmark, and considered one of the crowning jewels of Cincinnati's historic architecture. It was one of the first places I was taken to visit in Cincinnati, even before I decided to move here. I realize that I am now, once again, standing in another rare example of a beautifully preserved Moorish Revival building from the 19th century. Both temples have been lovingly restored and both show evidence of the strong influence of Moorish design on temples of that era. Only in Florence (Firenze) Italy have I stood in synagogue similar to these two, and that one was restored, after destructive floods swept through it, by the largesse of the Ferragamo family.
I find it interesting that the two cities in which I have now spent the greatest chunks of my life each have one of these temples, one built by German Jews, and the other by immigrants from Eastern Europe. The greatest difference I notice between them is that the temple in Cincinnati marked the birth of the Reform movement, so that the pews hold men and women sitting together. There is consequently no balcony level in the Plum Street temple other than the one built in the rear to hold musicians, who according to traditional Jewish practice, were forbidden from playing during the holidays. Also, the front of the sanctuary in Plum Street temple widens so that some pews are sitauted facing the bimah from the right and the left sides, instead of all of them facing on one direction, facing east.
In addition, I notice that the interior of one temple is predominantly red and the other is mainly decorated in shades of blue, which is oddly reflective both of the colors associated with the cities' respective premiere professional baseball temas, the Reds and the Yankees, as well as the contrast in the political leanings of the two cities' residents, Republican versus Democrat. Perhaps I should end my personal observations here. If you want to see inside either historic synagogue, tours can be arranged of both, although significantly more planning is required to see Plum Street. The congregation which owns it, K.K. B'nai Yeshurun, currently uses the historic building only for Bar Mitzvahs, weddings and high holiday services. Its main meeting place nowadays is a mid-20th century building located closer to where the Jewish population has migrated over the years, several miles north of Plum Street which is in the heart of downtown.
As for the Jews of New York's Lower East Side, well, it seems that some of their descendants have migrated as far away as Cincinnati, Ohio.
The synagogue was a glorious space in which to spend time. Indeed, for most of its members, who generally lived in the tenement buildings of the surrounding neighborhood, Manhattan's Lower East Side, it was the most beautiful place they had access to on a regular basis, and better yet, it was all theirs. The upper balcony, separate and shielded as it was from the men below, must have been a wonderful haven for local wives and mothers to sit in splendor and comfort, relieved for a while from the stuffy, cramped environments of their apartments, happy for the chance to visit, rest and connect with other women in the community. Their early lives in New York were very hard. So difficult was it to makes ends meet that these new American Jews found it impossible to keep the Sabbath, in terms of refraining from work from sundown Friday until after sundown on Saturday, so the Shabbat service had to be held very early in the morning on Saturday before everyone headed out to work for the rest of the day.
Eventually, as members of the congregation established themselves, flourished and became successful, they moved out of the crowded tenement neighborhood know as Jew Town and into other areas, including the outer boroughs of the city, making it impossible to continue worshipping together. By 1950, the small group of more loyal or less successful congregants who were left could not afford to heat the entire building, so they locked up the main sanctuary and used just the smaller chapel to one side. A quarter century later, in 1975, a visiting professor unlocked the door to the main sanctuary and decided to restore it to its original splendor. The goal was to keep as many of the original elements of the synagogue as possible, which required a very painstaking process of careful and precise restoration. So began a long and laborious restoration project which cost over $18 million and was not complete until 2007.
My father and my husband had separately visited the Eldridge Street Synagogue in the early 1980's before the restoratiuon work began. It was full of rubble, then, the walls and ceilings had fallen in chunks of plaster to the ground, the pews all lay upended. Something worse than abandonment had occurred in the place, and it was then forbidden for anyone to enter for fear of their being injured. Still, both of these men were curious enough, as surely many others also were, to cross the barriers and peer inside this once grand, then crumbled bit of our collective past, as descendants of Jewish immigrants who had fled Eastern Europe and come to live in New York City.
Today, you may enter the street level chapel, which had remined in use through the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's, and where you can now, every day but Saturday, pay a museum vistor's fee, learn the history of the congregation and visit the main sanctuary with a historian as your guide. The guide who escorted my father, sister and me a week ago Sunday had recently immigrated to New York from Romania. Just a little bit of personal conversation revealed that she currently lived on precisely the same block of Brooklyn, by Avenue M and Ocean Boulevard, where my grandparents lived when my mother and aunt were little girls.
The massive, round, stained-glass window created by artist Kiki Smith is the first thing to command our attention on this sunny winter afternoon as we enter the main sanctuary. It hangs above the ark, a huge, dynamic swirl of blue adorned with many golden stars. We are told that this work was the last piece of the restoration to be completed. It is entirely unlike the original window that was blown out by a hurricane, and also, completely different from the brightly colored gothic style window that is opposite it, at the Western side of the sanctuary. Our guide points out that although the synagogue architects were Christian, they were very sensitive to the purpose for which this space was being created. Accordingly, they designed the stained glass windows into twelve parts forming a circle, to represent symbolically the twelve tribes of Israel. The arches of modest glass block that had been used to let light into the original sanctuary have been moved to create a tribute wall honoring the many donors who made the restoration possible.
In Cincinnati, we have a temple that was built by German immigrants in 1865-66. Once called the Jewish church, the Plum Street Temple is an histoic landmark, and considered one of the crowning jewels of Cincinnati's historic architecture. It was one of the first places I was taken to visit in Cincinnati, even before I decided to move here. I realize that I am now, once again, standing in another rare example of a beautifully preserved Moorish Revival building from the 19th century. Both temples have been lovingly restored and both show evidence of the strong influence of Moorish design on temples of that era. Only in Florence (Firenze) Italy have I stood in synagogue similar to these two, and that one was restored, after destructive floods swept through it, by the largesse of the Ferragamo family.
I find it interesting that the two cities in which I have now spent the greatest chunks of my life each have one of these temples, one built by German Jews, and the other by immigrants from Eastern Europe. The greatest difference I notice between them is that the temple in Cincinnati marked the birth of the Reform movement, so that the pews hold men and women sitting together. There is consequently no balcony level in the Plum Street temple other than the one built in the rear to hold musicians, who according to traditional Jewish practice, were forbidden from playing during the holidays. Also, the front of the sanctuary in Plum Street temple widens so that some pews are sitauted facing the bimah from the right and the left sides, instead of all of them facing on one direction, facing east.
In addition, I notice that the interior of one temple is predominantly red and the other is mainly decorated in shades of blue, which is oddly reflective both of the colors associated with the cities' respective premiere professional baseball temas, the Reds and the Yankees, as well as the contrast in the political leanings of the two cities' residents, Republican versus Democrat. Perhaps I should end my personal observations here. If you want to see inside either historic synagogue, tours can be arranged of both, although significantly more planning is required to see Plum Street. The congregation which owns it, K.K. B'nai Yeshurun, currently uses the historic building only for Bar Mitzvahs, weddings and high holiday services. Its main meeting place nowadays is a mid-20th century building located closer to where the Jewish population has migrated over the years, several miles north of Plum Street which is in the heart of downtown.
As for the Jews of New York's Lower East Side, well, it seems that some of their descendants have migrated as far away as Cincinnati, Ohio.
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