Month: June 2013

Letting Go

How peeling eggs turned me into Ralph Macchio

Jen

I think the majority of the world falls into two camps.

People who don’t mind peeling eggs. And people who hate it with all their might.

Peeling eggs, for me, is torture.

It’s a slow torture, too.

It’s painful to my senses. The uneven, unexpected cracks that may or may not lace the eggs once they come out of the pot. The stretch of the skin as you pull off the hard, cracked outer shell.  The rubbery touch and feel of the skin beneath. All the small left over pieces that you can’t easily scrape off your fingertip.

I can hardly stand it.

What I like even less about peeling eggs is the amount of time it takes, and the fact that each egg must be peeled slowly and with care. This isn’t so bad if you want just one egg, but becomes more of a nuisance if you need to make egg salad …and much more of a pain if you are making egg salad for a party of 10 or 15 people.

That’s a lot of eggs to peel.

But what I like even LESS is when a piece of shell pulls off with it some of the meat of the egg white.

Grrrr… and you’re left with a very deformed, less than perfect, certainly not whole, egg.

As a borderline perfectionist, this truly is almost more than I can bear.

But I bear it.

Over the years, I have been given a few tips on how to peel eggs easier. (“Wait til they’ve cooled. Do it quick while they’re still hot. Crack a hole on each end and blow into it first.”)

No matter what the technique, it still is a process I wish I didn’t have to go through.

But I do it anyway.

Mindfulness comes in handy in these situations, I have found.

Unless you don’t mind chomping on shells, peeling eggs requires extraordinary presence and patience.  You need both hands to peel and you need a careful eye to search and find the leftover pieces of shell on the egg.

You need to be with the egg.

You can’t be typing a text to your husband or responding to an email from your boss.

You can’t be changing the baby’s diaper or sitting on the toilet.

You can’t speed through it — unless you don’t mind peeling half the egg off with the shell.

And you can’t do it in front of the TV or in the dark in bed.

And if you hate peeling eggs as much as I do — you tolerate all this in the hopes that the ends will justify the means. BUT, at the same time, you are required to completely give up expectations of the outcome.

You need to be okay with the mauled, ugly egg, for instance — or you’ll be boiling and peeling eggs all day long, over and over again.

I was peeling eggs semi-mindfully today — and by semi-mindfully, I mean my emotional state was somewhere between pulling out my hair and poking out my eyes — when my 6 year old son came over and asked if he could help.

I almost said, “Thank GOD!” and ran away.

Instead, I sat with him and patiently showed him how to peel an egg. I taught him the steps, instructed him on how to peel the shell completely, and coached him on letting go of the need for the egg to be perfect.

As I heard my voice out loud, guiding him on concepts I still myself need coaching on, I suddenly got the epiphany of  “peeling the eggs”

Do you hear Mr. Miyagi’s voice the way I do?

He’s saying:

“Peel the eggs eggs

Peel the eggs

Peel the eggs …

No, no look here.

Slowly, slowly.

Peel the eggs

Peel the eggs

Peel the eggs.

Very good, Jenny San.

Don’t forget to breathe…

Peel the eggs,

Peel the eggs.”

Environment, Health, Middle East Conflict, Mindfulness, Work

An Israel Story Only I Can Tell

Jen

The title of my blog references my aliyah.

Aliyah is the Hebrew word used when a Jew moves from somewhere outside Israel to Israel.  If you have been to a synagogue on Saturday, you might have heard the word also used to reference someone being called up to the Torah for a blessing. The word aliyah literally translates as elevation or ‘going up.’

My going up was from New Jersey.

Depending on how much of a Jersey fan you are, you might not have difficulty seeing how moving to Israel from New Jersey was ‘elevating.’ (I’m staying out of that debate.)

On the other hand, depending on how much of a fan of Israel you are, you might have a lot of difficulty understanding why my husband and I picked up our three young children and moved here. (I’m staying out of that debate, too.)

We’re not particularly religious. Nor are we ardent Zionists.

We are reasonably observant moderate Jews from New Jersey, emphasis on the word reasonable.

This — reasonableness  — is what Israel, and the world that talks about Israel, needs more of. So, you can say, we’re contributing to that cause.  When I blog from Israel, I hope to share stories that most people outside of Israel never hear. The stories of the people who live here: Our daily lives, minus the conflict, minus the politics, minus the fear.

I don’t blog often about what I do during the day when I’m not blogging. I’m the Chief Marketing Officer for an investment group that invests in and develops start-up companies.

A lot of new olim (immigrants) try to break into high tech when they move here because a) it’s a great marketplace for English speakers and b) Start-up Nation is where it’s at.

Not me, though.

That wasn’t my plan at all.

My plan was to move here, get adjusted, learn Hebrew, grow an organic garden, and write a few freelance articles for The Jerusalem Post.

However, a few months after landing here a job opened up at a nearby company and the job description basically described me. My husband encouraged me to apply for the job. I did. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past 2 1/2 years all day, 5 days a week — helping grow start-up companies.

I never write about my job because it’s not what I think about when I am not working. I like to leave my work at work.

Mindfulness, and all.

But last night, something incredible happened that is still with me today.

Two companies who I’ve worked with — portfolio companies of my employer, The Trendlines Group — won awards for best start-ups of the year. Out of dozens that were eligible, the award was offered to three companies, and two of the companies were from our group.

That in and of itself is something to take pride in — companies who I’ve worked with are now award-winning companies. But my greater pride comes from the types of technologies the companies are developing. One, Sol Chip, has created a tiny chip that harvests energy from the sun in a way that’s going to change how we use electricity everywhere from offices to farms. The other, ApiFix, has revolutionized treatment for adolescent scoliosis. It’s literally going to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of young girls with severe curvature of the spine.

These are the kinds of companies Trendlines invests in — companies really poised to improve the human condition.

These are the kinds of ideas and technologies that come out of Israel.

Not just technologies that help you find your way from the bar to the post office.

waze

But technologies that will save your life some day. If not yours, than your child’s or your neighbor’s.

Technologies that will one day be used not just in Israel, but everywhere.

Even in countries that are anti-Israel.

This. Is. Quite. A. Story.

And so, I blog about it.

You see: The Israel story — and my story living here — is even more complex than you ever thought.

When I moved to Israel, I braced myself for potential backlash from friends who, for reasons of politics or ignorance, might see my move to Israel as a statement, or worse, as a mistake.

But that didn’t happen.

What did happen was a door opened.

I got to be a part of an Israel that people who live outside Israel hardly ever see.

And I got to be someone who shares that story.

So, thank you.

Thank you for reading.

And thank you for letting me be a reasonable voice in a very noisy, and complex world.

team at awards jm
Part of the Trendlines team with Chief Scientist Avi Hasson and Israel’s Technology Incubator Program Director Yossi Smoler, June 2013

ocs award

Letting Go, Writing

Midterm exam in letting go

Jen

I imagine the ultimate test in letting go is when you die.

If you progress into the afterlife or Heaven or stay put, cold in the grave (depending on your beliefs and spiritual affiliation), you get an A+ in letting go.

If you turn into a nice ghost, just hanging around moving chairs and creaking doors ’cause you have  a few things left on Earth to clean up, you can probably bank on a C + with the chance to take the test over when some nice human with special powers comes along, notices you moving chairs and stuff, and helps you transition into the post living world. If you turn into a scary ghost or some demon that possesses toy clowns (like in Poltergeist), you clearly are still majorly stuck, and have official failed the “letting go” test.

But if there were a midterm exam on letting go, I’d say that test would look like your laptop click click clicking and never turning on again.

And when your computer died — because apparently that’s what the click click clicking always means — and it took your creative writing and your photos to the grave with it, the midterm exam demands of you proof you know your material. You need to prove to  your friends and your family and your readership — and most of all to yourself — that you truly live this thing called ‘letting go.’

To pass the midterm, you need to breathe in deep, say a prayer that you did do a backup a month ago — and then publicly show some gratitude for that.

To pass the midterm, you need to be thankful that living your life on Facebook and Instagram means that part of your life exists somewhere else —  in that mythical land called “the Cloud.” To pass the midterm means writing an essay that explains why a dead computer is like ten times better than a dead person and five times better than a solar flare powerful enough to wipe out the electrical grid, and take the Cloud with it. To pass the midterm is to acknowledge that you do not know everything and to actively remember the times in your life when opportunity has appeared in the middle of an assumed catastrophe.

To pass the midterm, is to type your blog post on your smart phone and be happy you have a smart phone on which to communicate and smart people whom may guide you on how to cope with the loss of things that feel really really important…but are in the end, just things.

Community, Kibbutz, Learning Hebrew, Letting Go, Living in Community

How I accidentally on purpose became that mystery girl

Jen

I have a tendency to say things I don’t mean.

Or, rather, say things I mean, but wish I hadn’t said or wish I had thought through before saying out loud.

This is not a new tendency.

It’s a delightful and attractive trait I’ve possessed since the 2nd grade when my teacher Ms. Levin aptly, but inappropriately, nicknamed me Motor Mouth.

Since moving to Israel, however, I’ve developed — like a nervous tick — a pause between thinking and speaking.

At first, I resented this seemingly cowardly pause.

I’ve always liked being quick and clever and as I met new people here, I was often disappointed that Israelis  weren’t able to get to know the clever me. She was always hiding behind her immigrant smile, trying to figure out exactly how to conjugate her joke into past tense.

By the time I figured out how, of course, it was two Tuesdays too late.

But once I made a few friends who I could speak freely with in English, and who appreciated my less-than-sophisticated humor, I no longer resented the pause, but relished it.

I relish it still. This is truly an added-value of aliyah. (This, and the fact that my kids have all learned to dance with no help from me.)

The pause I’ve developed in between thinking and speaking allows me to be more compassionate. Caring.

Mysterious, even.

I’m like Michael in the parking lot of the bowling alley of Grease 2.

Of course, my English speaking friends are capable of destroying my mystery girl image in an instant; if and when anyone cares to find out more about mysterious ole me.

But for a few days or weeks or months, when new people move in to my community, let them think of me as “the lovely girl who thinks so carefully before she speaks.”

Not motor mouth.

Not compulsive, impulsive, chatty, sometimes accidentally on purpose offensive Jen.

That mystery girl

Health, Love, Mindfulness, Relationships, Spirituality

Unconventional workout

Jen

I started running.

Yup.

I’m a runner.

A short-distance, short-time runner.

For almost a month, I have been running for 15 minutes every day except for Shabbat.

That’s it. 15 minutes.

And it works. I finally found an exercise regimen that works.

For now.

Maybe it’s not enough for everyone, but it’s enough for me.

For now.

I’ve also committed to writing more.

Tiny tidbits here and there.

A blog or the start of a new short story or a poem for fun spurred by a random writing prompt.

I find, the more I write, the more I write.

And the better I feel.

So between the running and the writing, my physical and emotional health seems to be on the up and up.

I know because my hormones say so.

They say so by being quiet when they are normally loud.

Quiet hormones. Quiet head.

Ahh….

But I think I could add a third element to my personalized workout:

Gratitude.

Gratitude, as we know, is such an energy boost. It’s a life lifter.

When we feel gratitude — the day after a violent stomach bug, or the minute after you avoided a tragedy or danger, or simple moments of love between you and your spouse or your child or your cat — we love life.

In the very moment we feel gratitude, we love life.

And loving life is all any of us ever want. It’s why we exercise. It’s why we write.

It’s why we exist at all — to love life.

So, I’m going to try to add 15 minutes of gratitude to my daily workout regimen.

If it’s that easy to love life, why wouldn’t I?

Want to join me?

Letting Go, Mindfulness, Parenting

Sick with motherhood

Jen

I’m watching my 10 year old son move in and out of a sleep much lighter than I wish; his breath too rapid for my comfort.

He’s disturbed.

So am I.

The muscles in my neck are tight. So are his.

I realize just now my jaw is clenched. His knees move back and forth; the rapid shaking an effort to release his fear and pain.

He’s home sick today.

I’m home sick today.

But his sick is of the variety that comes and goes. And while it seems as if it will never pass — especially when you are in the throes of throwing your insides up — it will, God willing, pass.

But my sick is different.

It’s not viral.

It’s not contagious.

And I can’t be sure it will ever pass.

My sick is a panic turned into a tension turning into an ache.

When my son was little, I remember remarking what a trooper he was when he was sick. The mess was often minimal — even as a toddler he would make it just in time to vomit into the toilet; he’d hardly ever cry after — and his needs were easy to address.

I would ask him, “What do you need?” And he’d say:

More water in my sippy cup.

Some toast with jam.

A new Wiggles video.

He knew he was sick. But he knew he would feel better. We told him so, after all.

But my son is older now. And his simple desire to feel better has turned into grief that the world has inflicted such suffering on him and the anxious worry that he will never feel better again.

“Why me?” my son shouts with a burst of sudden energy.

I don’t know how to help him.

I sit next to him as he finally closes his eyes and he lets me smooth his hair off his forehead and lets his head rest on the back of my palm.

I count the freckles on his right cheek.

1 – 2 – 3 – 8 – 12 … when did he get so many freckles?

I remember we used to count them one-by-one in the bath and I’d point out when there was a new one.

But that was years ago.

Years before the lump that sits in my throat. The lump that will surely turn to tears in

5-4-3-2-1…

My son is older now.

It’s no surprise to me.

I saw it coming.

But still I am sick with motherhood

The kind of motherhood you catch when your child suddenly becomes more than a child and his needs more than a child’s needs.

The kind of sick you feel when you realize that slowly, slowly your power to heal weakens.

And he will soon need to learn how to heal on his own.

Food, Religion, Spirituality

The beet goes on

Jen

I thought the most interesting thing about today would be the beet.

I pulled four beets from the vegetable drawer because I knew if I didn’t do something with them today they’d go bad tomorrow.

I have a strange relationship with beets.

I want to love them.

I want to savor them like my friend Allison, who once said to me,

“Mmmm…I love beets.”

But I can’t. I just can’t. At best, I can tolerate beets when they’re roasted just so and soaked in a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

But beets are so incredibly beautiful that I will wash them and peel them and slice them and stand over them in wonderous amazement even if I won’t eat them.

dancing beet

The red pink of beets should not exist in nature.

It should be synthetic, it is so beautiful.

The spiral designs inside a beet, however, should exist in nature.

Beet innards are exactly the kinds of puzzles that nature produces and we call God.

I love beets, but I can’t eat them.

After the beets, I tried to take a nap.

Two of my kids were sleeping: one sprawled on the couch in a beet-colored dress with wrinkled flowers on the strap and the other with his head hanging off the bottom bunk.

He fell asleep in the middle of a tantrum while I tried to soothe him with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Chapter 1, page 1.

There was a knock at the door.

It was Nachum.

Looking for my son.

I knew it was Nachum because I heard his fingers drumming on the metal railing outside.

I liked that I knew it was Nachum and didn’t mind so much that he was rousing me from my almost nap.

My son was not at home. He was at a basketball game with his dad.

I told this to Nachum. He turned around and left as quickly as he came.

I tried to take a nap.

There was a knock at the door.

It was not Nachum, but a man whose name should have been Nachum.

He was in a rumpled white button down shirt and black pants.

He had a long black beard, too.

He might have had a black yarmulke but I didn’t notice when he turned to walk away.

I was too busy remembering his smile.

I gave him 20 shekels and he was happy.

I was happy, too.

So happy, I stopped trying to take a nap.

= = =

(This post was written in less than 15 minutes. Wanna take on the Friday 15-minute challenge? Write today for 15 minutes and leave a link to your post in the comments below and tag your post 15-minute Friday.)

Climate Changes, Community, Culture, Environment, Family, Living in Community

This is best use of social media for social good I’ve seen in a long time

Jen

#Litterati

 

Education, Environment, Family, Food, Letting Go

If i was a lawmaker, but then again no…

Jen

Today’s Daily Prompt:

You have the power to enact a single law. What would it be?

Wait for it.

Wait for it.

Wait for it.

I would make a law that allowed me to make three more laws.

Ha!

Don’t ever try to limit me to just one anything!

I will beat you

at your own game

every time.

But, in all seriousness, as much as I love laws — and I do, I’m one of those irritating rule followers — I have a hard time coming up with the laws I would enact first if given the opportunity.

I would certainly enact one law that would benefit mothers.

And enact another that would benefit the Earth.

Somehow both of the above laws would trickle down to benefiting children.

Not just today’s children, but tomorrow’s.

Because I think the Earth, mothers, and children are often the ones who suffer with a lack of laws in their favor.

I would enact a law, I think, that would allow one parent to choose to be at home to care for his or her children, if he or she chooses, for at least two years full-time, and then supplementary after that until the children leave home.

My new “Family Leave Law” would not emphasize the LEAVE, but the STAY.

It would make a case for staying.

So staying is something a parent could choose to do, as opposed to making a major financial sacrifice when choosing to leave a full-time job in order to care for children, which is the situation for most people.

My law would reward and support parents for choosing to take on the job of caring for, educating and nurturing their children before and after school, for which we now pay others to do in a daycare system or through paid childcare.

My law would use taxpayer’s money to offer the parent caring for the child financial benefits and significant tax breaks for the time spent caring for the child.

In many countries (not the U.S.) laws like this already exist in some form.  The existing law is not as supportive as my proposed law, per say, but it’s better than what exists right now in America under the Family  and Medical Leave Act which basically protects no one and supports nothing, but the employer.

Really.

It’s a joke.

If you have ever been pregnant, you know what I mean.

Unless you’re a teacher, a union member, or work for the state government — those guys, from what I hear, have it pretty good.

Of course, there are cases to be made for not doing this.

Israel is one such case.

People here have lots of babies.

For a long time.

I’m talking 6, 7, 10 children.

My new law could potentially create a financial hardship for the government.

Which then may lead to the government putting a cap on how many children they will subsidize.

Which then will lead to anti-government people getting all up in arms about government regulating what we can and cannot do; how many kids we can or cannot have.

Which would lead to a media frenzy.

Which would lead to an outcry. And then a backlash. And then, maybe a reversal of my law.

Which makes me really glad, for once, I’m not the one making laws.

It’s really not as easy as it appears, is it?

What law would you enact?

Letting Go, Love, Mindfulness, Relationships

Practice hard what you preach; then practice some more

Jen

There is what I preach and there is what I practice and there is sometimes overlap.

All of my preaching is prepared and shared with good intentions.

Yet there is intention and there is action and in between there is emotion.

Emotion gets in the way, sometimes.

A lot of times.

Meaning, no matter how good my intentions, and no matter how loud my preachin’, my emotions trump.

My emotions are

Royal

Straight

Flush.

Which brings me back to practice.

Knowing that my emotions trump my intentions, I may be (and must be) mindful in situations in which emotions run high.

The only way I know how to get better at acting with intention is to notice when I’m not…

and turn it around.

traffic

I love my emotions.

Okay, I value them.

But there are times when I wish what I know to be true would run through and through

all the way to my heart

As opposed to the doubt, the anger, the hurt, the fear

That runs through instead.

And all I can do in those moments

when the through and through is

doubt, anger, hurt, fear

is practice.

= = =

P.S.: For those seeking the conclusion to my driving test saga, sigh, I didn’t pass.

Culture, Letting Go, Mindfulness, Spirituality

Ideas that spread

Jen

I love TED talks.

I love the concept.

I love the execution.

TED

As a marketing professional, I think TED talks are often brilliant examples of storytelling and I often share them with my clients to show how delivery can reel a person into a topic that might be dense or unfamiliar.

I have watched TED talks that seem to have nothing to do with my life — that are by people so foreign to me or about ideas that are a million miles away from what I think or care about.

And yet, by the end, I’m crying. Or nodding. Or shaking my head in stunned disbelief.

That’s what a good story does to you.

As a human being, I think TED talks enrich my life.

I love learning about problems I never knew existed.

And being surprised by how the solutions to those problems end up applying to my own life.

I have the TED app downloaded on my smartphone and when I remember, I will often listen to a TED talk on the drive home from work.

I hardly ever spend time browsing the videos. I choose one of the top three recommended.

Today I chose “Phil Hansen: Embrace the shake.”

I had no idea who Phil Hansen was before I watched his talk, nor did I understand the reference to the word, “shake” in the title.

But I love the word “embrace.”

embrace

It’s physical.

It’s emotional.

And this word alone in the title was enough to pique my curiosity and press play.

I’m very much into embracing. (And tips on how to do it better…)

Embracing my uncertainty.

Embracing my fear.

Embracing the new and unfamiliar.

Embracing …so that you may let go.

What Hansen suggests in his talk is that embracing our limitations actually opens us up to limitless possibilities.

I agree with him.

I won’t spoil the 10 minute talk.

Enjoy it for yourself, but be prepared to be surprised.

And to let go … of your expectations.

About the speaker.

About the talk.

About everything.

“As I destroyed each project, I was learning to let go,” Hansen says. “Let go of outcomes. Let go of failures. And let go of imperfections…”

See what happened, when he did.

Letting Go

Friday writing challenge: 15 minutes of…

Jen

In Israel, Fridays are Saturdays. Which is to say — they are the first full day of the weekend.

But Fridays aren’t Saturdays.

For many reasons.

For one, Friday is the day leading up to Shabbat — the 25-hour or so rest period during the week for observant Jews.

We’re not observant Jews.

But we’re not, non-observant Jews.

I often refer to myself here in Israel as a Jew-in-progress.

I am playing with my Judaism.

It’s fun.

For me, Shabbat means dressed up Fridays and a Saturday morning buffet unlike any I’ve ever experienced before.

Fridays are a day to prepare for Shabbat, so that Saturday we may relax and enjoy being in the moment. Each moment. Whether the moment is a board game with my son, or a meditation group with my neighbors, or a quick nap in front of the TV.

On Fridays, we clean the house (since we never have time or energy during the work week); we prepare a nice dinner for our family or for guests (since Friday is the only night we truly eat together as  family); and — if we’re really lucky — my husband and I might find time for a snooze or a chapter or a whatever it is we want to do with our limited free time left.

My kids all have programs on Friday mornings, which is awesome.

But what typically happens is my husband and I spend the entire morning cleaning and cooking and then right at 11:45 am, 15 minutes before the kids come home, we’re finished.

We have 15 minutes left.

What can you do with 15 minutes?

Not really enough time to chill or read or watch the 12 hours of recorded programs on our DVR.

But 15 minutes IS enough time to write.

Most people would say, “not so.”

What can you write in 15 minutes?

What they really mean is: How well can you write in 15 minutes?

Well, what if the point was not to write well?

But just write … and share what you’ve written.

No time to think through your topic carefully. No time to outline your story. No time to proofread or edit.

No time left.

Writing this way requires a completely different mindset.

It means … you have to let go.

And just write.

For me, this is almost unspeakable. Except I just spoke it.

And I’m about to do it.

Want to play with me?

If so, go ahead. Write something. Then, add a link to your 15-minute Friday writing challenge post in the comments below. Tag your post 15-minute Friday.

Can’t wait to see what happens when you, too, choose to let go … and just write.