and yadda yadda, an aliyah blog

Family, Love

There are days like this

April 5, 2013 Jen

Some days I feel really bad I’m not creating more intentional and meaningful traditions for my kids.

Holiday rituals.

Bedtime rituals.

Weekend rituals.

For an obsessive-compulsive anxiety-prone doomsday prepper, you’d think I’d be more ritual loving.

Save for my weekly Friday morning cleaning rituals, I’m not.

Rituals or not, I do believe I’m creating content for my kids’ memoirs (which I secretly hope will end up in the humor section next to David Sedaris).

The tradition my husband and I unintentionally foster most in our family is laughing when you should be shuddering with fear or despair; evidenced by my children’s reaction last weekend to our epic fight in the car on one of the final days of “Israeli Passover Survivor.”

In order not to divulge too much information that will first cause my husband to leave me and second propel his lawyer to file for defamation and full custody, I’ll just say that my children should have been weeping in response to our lower-than-low behavior, but instead they laughed.

They laughed hysterically.

One barb followed the next. And it didn’t matter if it came out of his mouth or mine, they laughed.

They thought we were joking. Or they just thought we were practicing inappropriate comedy routines a la Louis CK or Dane Cook (neither of which my children know or love … yet.)

Maybe they were giggling nervously. I definitely passed onto them a propensity for this flaw.

But their laughter was louder than giggling, and together they fueled each other on.

The front seat was a war zone.

But the back seat was the first row at the Improv.

Who knows why my children were laughing?

At the time — even in the heat of the inappropriateness of that moment — I understood I’d rather they laugh than shut down in fear.

This is true for almost every day of my life…and theirs.

I’d rather they laugh.

I don’t know if laughter is a tradition or a ritual or something that can be truly intentionally passed on from parent to child.

All I know is that it makes days like this tolerable,

Survivable.

It turns our resentment into ridiculousness.

It dissolves pain and bitterness.

It quiets the doubt.

Laughter lets light in.

And then love in.

My children may grow up God-less heathens. They may grow up to be without conventions, customs, or culture.

But they will grow up laughing.

And I suppose this is as good an inheritance as any.

Family, Letting Go, Parenting

When we grow up, will I be a lady?

March 31, 2013 Jen

Today, while driving my kids to the playground in the next community over (the only thing I could motivate to do on this 169th Day of Passover vacation in Israel), I found myself in deep discussion with them about Jesus and parenting.

Two topics I know almost nothing about, but pretend like I do, sometimes.

The conversation began with my realization that today is Easter Sunday.

You wouldn’t know from the look of things around here that Jesus died for our sins in this neck of the woods some 2000 years ago. This is what it’s like to live in the boonies of the Jewish State.

Easter is just another Sunday in Spring.

I don’t know much about Jesus, and I certainly told at least three partial untruths, unintentionally contributing to the spread of blood libel I’m sure. But it all made for an interesting enough diversion to keep the backseat from being a war zone for five minutes.

If that’s not a Passover mitzvah, I don’t know what is.

It’s been a long, tough school break.

One that only looks perfect in pictures.

The last 16 days is the longest I’ve been alone with my kids since I went back to work full-time two years ago.

And I haven’t even been alone that whole time. I’ve been lucky enough to have my mother in town visiting; my in-laws taking over for a day or two; and my husband around for the Seder and the weekends.

In the days leading up to the long break, I mentally prepared. I even convinced myself all this time alone with them was going to be kinda fun. I must have forgotten the agony of those long holiday vacations back in America when I was a stay-at-home or work-at-home mom. And I completely forgot a basic life lesson:

16 days together with anyone — no matter who, no matter how much you like them — is TOO LONG AND ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU HATE YOURSELF, AND EVERYONE ELSE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ADORABLY CUTE BABIES AND BUNNIES.

No, this vacation wasn’t perfect, and made me doubt at times my parenting, my career, and our decision to move to Israel.

But it wasn’t without its moments. Teaching moments. Learning moments. Loving moments.

Like the moment today after we finished talking about Jesus and the Jews.

We had just entered the gated community with the cool playground.

I openly admired the houses there. One in particular with solar panels across the roof, a fat wooden tree house in the shaded backyard, and a porch swing gently embraced by flowering vines.

“Wow. Look at that house. I want to live there when I grow up,” I said aloud mindlessly, still in my imaginary future.

“But, Mommy, you are already grown up,” stated the middle son, who depending on the day can be both the wise, the simple, and the son who did not know how to ask.

“True,” I said. “But, the part they don’t tell you in school, is that you are always growing up. That’s basically, I’m afraid, your life’s work.”

Groans and denials from the back seat as we arrived at the playground.

“Not true!”

“What are you talking about?

“Grownups get to decide everything!”

(After 169 days together, you could say that a few punishments have been handed out and threats thrown around.)

“You think they teach parenting at school?” I pressed my kids, cranking my neck around to give them my most serious, yet loving advice face. “Every single decision I make when I’m with you guys is a potential HUGE mistake, or at the very least a big, fat lesson for me to learn for next time. I’m growing up the same as you! Living, learning, figuring stuff out.”

I park the car.

Silence.

And then they open the doors and run off to swing from a rope tied to a tree.

So much for teaching moments.

I start to say something to them — to shout at them from the open window.

“Did you hear me?!

“Don’t run!”

“Be careful!”

“Take turns!”

But I can’t quite get out the words.

I’m too busy growing up.

Climate Changes, Community, Environment, Food, Health, Mindfulness, Politics

Environment is not a dirty word (and being green doesn’t mean being perfect)

March 28, 2013March 29, 2013 Jen

There’s a story I’ve shared quite a few times over the past six years since I became an accidental activist for holistic health and conscious living.

The story goes like this: I used to roll my eyes at environmentalists.

I used to snore that obnoxious snore that one inhales at the back of one’s throat when one thinks that someone else is holier than thou … naive … peace loving … do-gooding…world saving.

I was like, “Give it up, poser.”

And then one day I became the person other people roll their eyes at.

Oops.

It happened sometime in 2010.

After denying for years I was an earth loving, peace seeking hippie, I realized that all the efforts I had made to be healthy; to protect my kids from toxins in their food and surroundings; to connect people to wellness practitioners that allowed them to avoid a life spent on medication — all those things — also helped the Earth.

And what did I understand soon after that?

If there was no Earth for my children to live on, it wouldn’t matter how organic, how natural, how toxin-free they were.

They’d be homeless.

And just like that I was an environmentalist.

Not the kind of environmentalist that saves otters or spends two years in a treehouse in the Amazon.

Just a simple environmentalist:

One that stops and thinks before she buys something; before she throws something away.

One that reads food labels.

One that brings an extra plastic bag on a picnic for trash — and then feels a little guilty she has a plastic bag in her possession to begin with.

One that teaches her kids that killing ants is cruel and eating animals is something I wrestle with.

I find that many people think that being green means being totally and completely careful and sure about every single thing you do, eat, buy. As if going green means going whole hog, vegan, hemp-wearing, off-the-grid hippie.

It doesn’t.

Truth telling time:

My kids own plastic toys.

Sometimes I throw them in the trash.

My community doesn’t recycle glass.

Sometimes I pack the glass bottles up in bags with the intention of taking them over to the next community for recycling.

Weeks go by. I throw the glass bottles in the trash instead.

I eat non-organic food.

Sometimes that non-organic food is called McDonald’s.

I like long, hot showers.

And sometimes I take them — in spite of the fact I live in a country where water is a luxury.

I don’t like dogs.

Sometimes I fantasize about kicking dogs. (I don’t kick them, but not because I like them).

I am human. But at the same time, I am a thinker.

I am someone who thinks green… by default, at first. And now, on purpose.

I think; therefore, I am.

I am someone who acts green.

Not because it’s politically correct or trendy.

And not because I think that my one or two or ten choices will mean that there will be a planet for my children to live on in 20 years.

In fact, some days I find myself banking on Mars.

Some days I think we’re all just f-ing doomed.

I am an environmentalist because once I started thinking, I realized it was impossible for me to be anything but…

an environmentalist.

Living in Community, Mindfulness, Parenting

Community isn’t just a funny show on the TV

March 7, 2013March 29, 2013 Jen

Living in community is hard.

It’s also engrossing, fulfilling, heartwarming, and at times, heart-breaking.

More than anything, living in community is a sure-fire way to be present at any given moment to your self-worth, your self-esteem, and self-sufficiency.

Living on top of each other — which is what you do when you live on a small kibbutz, at least — means you are every day faced with fitting in, belonging, needing, giving, taking, believing, doubting, judging, questioning, accepting, committing, avoiding.

Your heart just sits there in the front seat of a roller coaster ride.

Some days trekking slowly slowly to the top — excitement building. You can hardly breathe. Other days, a swift ride to the very bottom. You can hardly breathe.

But in a different kind of way.

Who chooses this life? This togetherness?

Who forfeits the privacy, the independence, the safe separate-ness of living in a large city or a large suburb with long driveways and electric garage door openers?

There are days when I want to run away to that large city; hide inside a dark suburban garage.

You can’t do that on kibbutz.

You can’t avoid the neighbor who insulted you.

Or the friend who disappointed you.

Or the child who bullied yours.

You can certainly try.

But as you cross paths time and again, each time reminded of the injury, the insult, the suffering, you have a choice to make.

Be with the suffering,

Or heal.

There’s no avoiding. Not for long, anyway.

There’s just choosing to suffer or choosing to heal.

Living in community is hard.

But no harder than life.

Living here, in community, is like living in a petri dish of evolution. Of social innovation. Of personal development.

Of love and compassion.

For yourself and for your neighbors.

And it’s hard some days.

Other days, though, miracles happen .. right before your very eyes.

Family, Love, Mindfulness, Parenting

My life in pictures

March 5, 2013March 29, 2013 Jen

When I was a girl, I imagined my life a movie.

In fact, I have a few distinct memories of moments in which I felt very present to the experience of being watched.

This makes me sound crazy. Paranoid. Egotistical.

I know.

But, nonetheless, every once in a while I’d be walking down the street with a friend or engaged in a song and dance with my brother, and suddenly sense an observer.

I’d look around. Nobody was there.

Over time, I resolved this to be an inexplicable sensation I labeled, “My life in pictures.”

Now, as an observant adult, as a mindful lifer, as a humbled human being awed by her children, terrified by her own mortality…I find I am a member of the audience, instead; with one greasy hand inside the popcorn box and the other gripping the side of the aisle seat wondering…

How will it all end?

Meanwhile, I’m also the excited, but cautious cinematographer.

Struck breathless by extraordinarily poignant scenes

Obsessed with capturing light

and angles

Wondering all the time if other people can see what I see…

If other people feel the love and the loss inside a half-eaten cupcake

Or the extraordinary sadness of a broken plate

I sometimes watch my husband chase the children and know that once there was someone who watched me.

Someone is still watching.

A critic, a fan, or just a curious spectator of my life in pictures.

Letting Go, Mindfulness

The gold buried inside a rejection slip

March 4, 2013March 4, 2013 Jen

I got rejected today.

I opened my email this morning to find a very nicely-worded rejection letter in response to my application to participate in a young Jewish leadership conference.

I know what you’re thinking: You’re not so young anymore.

This is what I thought, too, when I opened the rejection letter.

I mean could there be any other reason why the evaluation committee would ever in a million years not choose me?

I mean, come on.

I’m passionate. Energetic. Creative. A proven innovator. A success story.

Who wouldn’t want me to be a part of their project?

Okay, it’s possible I’m a little past my prime. Maybe I’m not the rising star I used to be.

But…reject me? Who would ever do that?

And yet, someone did. A whole committee. A whole group of people sat around and discussed my worth, my potential for contribution, my adequacy.

And they decided:

WRONG!

Why am I sharing this with you? Who goes around and admits she’s a loser?

Someone who wants to convince her heart of what her head already knows:

There is no deep meaning concealed between the lines of a nicely-worded rejection letter.

A rejection is a pure and simple, “No, thank you.”

A rejection is not, “You suck;” “Never in a million years;” or “As if!” and I think many of us — even those of us with a history of success — often over-interpret, over-internalize, and over-analyze rejections.

We make them mean something.

About us.

About our work.

About our worth.

The truth — the gold — is we reject people and things a hundred times a day and attach no meaning.

The phone rings. We don’t answer it. Rejection. Without meaning.

The telemarketer calls us up to offer a special deal. We say no. Rejection. Without meaning.

The cashier offers us a club card. We shake our heads. Rejection. Without meaning.

Our spouse makes a move … okay, this is where it gets dicey … but you understand, don’t you?

It makes no sense to say that one rejection has meaning when another doesn’t.

Either rejection means something or it doesn’t.

And I suggest it doesn’t. And we’re better off believing this reality than the one that says rejection is proof we’re losers.

Rejection means someone said, “No thank you.”

And it only makes its way into our future when we bring it along for the ride.

Family, Letting Go, Mindfulness, Parenting, Religion

Purim lots

February 20, 2013March 29, 2013 Jen

My husband and I fell in love and got married quicker than you can say “Who moved my cheese?”

Almost as quickly, if not quicker, we got pregnant with our first kid.

We didn’t take the time to have the important parenting conversations like,

“Do you mind if our kids eat candy for breakfast?”

“Is it important that our kids go to college? Or is GED good enough?”

“Is it okay if our son marries his cousin?”

Somehow, we’ve made it this far without divorcing or selling one of our children on the black market.

Eventually, we had a lot of those crucial conversations, and luckily see eye-to-eye on most parenting issues.

Our values line up.

When we disagree, I can usually persuade him. Sometimes it takes a few years…Like the time he refused to switch from Heinz ketchup to the organic Whole Foods brand.

Three years later the organic brand was in our fridge door.

(Now, in Israel, we’re back to Heinz. It’s a specialty item, which in Hebrew means “practically organic.”)

There was this one time, however, when my husband was right in the first place.

We were talking about our kids as teenagers and how comfortable we would feel if one of them decided to dress “Goth.”

My husband was insistent that we would be flexible about piercings and black lipstick and long leather jackets. He said we needed to foster their sense of creativity and self expression.

I could see his point, though I was hesitant and reluctant.

Truth is: I don’t want my kid to be the kid teachers and other kids are afraid of.

Also, I’ve never been good at not being scared of people who dress scary.

I don’t want to be scared of my own kid.

Our kids are still too young to be expressing themselves with their outerwear just yet, but one day a year, my oldest son wants to show off his dark side.

Purim.

The other kids come to the bus stop in homemade Mordechai costumes, or walking clever references to pop culture.

But my kid?

Year after year, he wants to scare the bejeezus out of you.

My husband usually goes along with it.

But this year, concerning the above nail-impaled zombie mask, my husband was himself reluctant.

At first, he considering forbidding my son to wear the mask. (It was a gift from Saba and Savta.)

It’s not appropriate, my husband told me. Purim is not Halloween.

He’s right.

Or at least maybe he’s right.

Who am I to know what’s Purim appropriate? I’m still a Jew in progress. Still an immigrant mom. Still figuring out how not to embarrass myself on a daily basis.

But what I do know — what I’m sure of — is that my husband was right when we first had that conversation 8 or 9 years ago.

We absolutely, positively want our children to feel free to express themselves.

As long as they aren’t hurting themselves, or others, we want them to be comfortable showing the world who they are.

To dance.

To sing.

To frolic.

To feast.

To be free.

This is Purim spirit, I’m sure of it.

This much I know.

Letting Go, Love, Mindfulness, Writing

And Yadda Yadda Yadda … I got nominated for an award

February 19, 2013April 14, 2013 Jen

My first chain letter experience was during Freshman year of college.

It involved underwear.

You remember chain letters pre-internet, right? You received an invitation in the mail (usually handwritten on notebook paper) and were invited to participate in a “totally super-fun project.”

The deets on the one I said Yes to?

Send a pair of sexy underwear to a stranger — a girl whose name was written at the bottom of a list sent to you by a girlfriend. Then you were asked to invite 5 or 10 more girls to join the super-fun, and within six weeks you’d get 30 or so pairs of new sexy underwear in the mail.

Back then, I was actually spending some of my discretionary funds at Victoria’s Secret, so this proposition seemed like a good idea.

Lo and behold, I ended up with 30 or so new pairs of sexy underwear.

Really.

Or course, sexy is a very subjective term.

And lace irritates my thighs.

But, it was, at the very least, really fun to get packages Freshman year of college and it was a hoot to open up the padded manila envelope and be surprised by the contents.

The Liebster Award process is a little bit like a chain letter: Someone chooses you. You feel acknowledged…a part of something.

If you choose to accept, you’re required to do something that takes a little time and effort. But you do so with the hopes that your small time and effort will reap rewards for many.

Thanks Miss Corinne, for the letter in the mail. Now I get to prepare the virtual padded manilla envelope of love.

Here are the instructions and the contents.

Instructions:

I answer 11 questions Miss Corinne provided. I add 11 random facts about myself. Then I create 11 questions for my nominees to answer. Then I link to my nominees’ blogs. Who will I nominate? Blogs I think deserve more attention. Bloggers who are writing mindfully. Bloggers who are trying to create community. Bloggers who make me laugh, think, or smile hopefully. Blogs that I think are poised to make an impact on other people’s lives as long as they’re read. Here goes:

Questions I Was Asked To Answer:

Do you think social media and communicating online is helping/hurting human connection?

Overall, I think it’s helping human connection. Personally, it’s my mission to use social media for good — to make people think twice; to make connections that make a difference, both to me and others. But in some smalls ways, as referenced to in a recent study linking Facebook to depression, we’re suffering a little too as a result of social media. We compare our lives to others. We don’t let go of old pain, old baggage. We sometimes learn about tragedies we’d be better off not knowing.

What does “being green” mean to you?

Five years ago, I would never have called myself “green.” In fact, I would have gone as far as saying, “I’m not green. I’m healthy. There’s a difference.” But there is no difference, and that’s what more people need to understand. I understand now that what I do for my or my family’s health will be pointless and useless if I do not also act for the sake of our environment. We can’t have one without the other. So for me, “being green” means understanding that the health of the planet is related to my own health; and vice versa. If health matters so much to me (and it does), I need to do what I can on an individual level to stop hurting the planet (make better choices) and on a community level, to inspire and educate my friends and neighbors to make more conscious lifestyle choices. Specifically, lately for me that looks like: recycling more, buying less, and in general redefining the word “trash.” Stopping to think before I throw something in a trash can. Walking more, driving less. Living closer to the land, appreciating it, caring for it, and teaching my children to do the same. And not in a Farmer Brown sorta way — not yet. In a “I’m still figuring this out” sorta way.

Do you do any gardening (indoor/outdoor, rural/urban)?

We have a backyard vegetable garden and an herb garden. If I can do it, anyone can. We also live on a kibbutz. I count that as gardening — anyone who lives in constant cow stink gets extra points.

You get to fly anywhere for free – where do you go and why?

Hawaii. I’ve always wanted to go … surf, climb mountains, dip my toe in a volcano.

You get a large sum of money, but have to give it to one charity – who do you give it to?

I’m a rule bender. I’d create my own charity — it’d be dedicated solely to finding a cure for food allergies (and a little bit of lobbying). It’s beyond ridiculous that with all our medical technology that we have not yet found a cure for food allergies.

You get a large sum of money, but have to spend it on yourself – what do you buy?

Luckily I was educated in the 1980s-era school of Richard Pryor films (Brewster’s Millions, The Toy) so I could easily spend lots of money on myself without thinking too hard. I wouldn’t buy a baseball team or a live human toy. But I’d start by hiring a stylist. She’d help me buy a new fashionable wardrobe. I’d pay lots of extraordinary service providers to service me: health coach, cook, massage therapist, personal yoga instructor, life coach, hypnotherapist, dream coach, writing coach. Then, since it’s a “large sum of money” (which in my mind means GAJILLIONS) I would quit “working” and start “healing.” Solving the problems I feel like I can’t solve right now because money is an object.

Favorite movie and why?

If I have to choose one, it’s The Princess Bride. It’s storytelling perfection with a moving soundtrack by Mark Knopfler.

What guilty pleasure song/album can be found in your iTunes or movie in your DVD collection?

Yeah, I don’t have ITunes which might explain why my guilty pleasure is Barry Manilow. Enough said.

Favorite artwork and why?

Cheesy answer, but authentic: My 6 year old son’s.

And my husband’s:

Best advice you ever got?

This is where I wish I had a personal film flashback function – so I could tell you exactly what was said, by whom and when. But I don’t. I’d say I am most grateful to my friend Devora for suggesting I take a weekend self-development course called The Landmark Forum. It put me on the path that I am on now. And I guess if I were to go backward even more, I would thank my son’s first pediatrician Dr. Keith Dverin for “advising me” to be friends with Devora.

What has inspired you lately?

My surroundings as seen through the filters of instagram. I feel as if I can finally show others what I see in my mind’s eye. Mostly the sky. Cloud formations. Unusual trees. Unusual people.

11 Random Facts About Me

1. I grew up addicted to All My Children. I could tell you story lines and characters from the late 1970s. And when I was in college, my mom won for us a visit to the set in New York City. It was awesome. (Tad Martin was dreamy. And we got to see a young Sarah Michelle Gellar, before she was Buffy, rehearse a scene over and over again.)

2. I never really cared for Sarah Michelle Gellar’s acting on AMC, but nonetheless quickly became addicted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer soon after its debut. My first “blogging” gig (paid!) was for a site called The WB Scoop. My job was to blog about Buffy episodes. The site is long gone but some entries are archived here. I actually had a bit of peanut gallery.

3. I have a brother who is 2 years younger than me and one who is 12 years younger than me.

4. I have very vivid dreams … every night.

5. Sometimes my dreams come true, but usually only the boring ones.

6. I am a science fiction nerd. In addition to All My Children, I grew up on the original Star Trek. I hated “Trouble with Tribbles,” but loved the episodes where they go back in time.

7. I lived in NoHo when I was in my twenties and right before it was super chic.

8. I used to see celebrities all the time walking up and down the street. I once semi-stalked Jared Leto by following him into Dean & DeLuca; I also sat next to Matt Dillon in a bar and — on a dare — touched his butt.

9. I wish I was two inches taller than I am.

10. I was a White House intern.

11. My favorite ice cream flavor is Java Chip.

11 Questions for My Liebster Nominees

1. What does mindful living mean to you?

2. How do you deal with people in your life you think “bring you down?”

3. Do you believe in reincarnation?

4. Do you think world civilization is doomed or on the path to enlightenment?

5. Name one person who changed your life forever (first name okay) and why.

6. Name one person whose life you changed forever (first name okay) and why.

7. If you could have one super power what would it be?

8. What’s your earliest memory of your parents?

9. How is the town where you live now different from where you grew up?

10. How are you making the world a better place?

11. What’s usually the last thing you do before you fall asleep?

And finally, the moment you have all been waiting for! The Nominees:

Exploring Mindfulness and Reality Beyond

From America to Australia and back again

Clothilda Jamcracker

The Kasdan Family Blog

The JackB

Triumph Wellness

Nominees … don’t forget. In order to play, you need to choose your own nominees and paste the Leibster ribbon on your blog post. Nominees are supposed to have less than 200 followers — smallish, less well-known blogs. My nominees range from smallish to medium. I have no idea how many followers you really have but I do know I want more people to follow you!

Environment, Love, Mindfulness, Relationships, Spirituality

The Abundance Tree has sprouted

February 18, 2013February 18, 2013 Jen

Seth Godin.

That man has a gift for producing nuggets of wisdom. Little snippets, little treasures of thoughtful brilliance that may equally apply to your personal life as they would to your career.

Today, his wisdom nugget was a metaphor plucked from nature. Here it is in its entirety:

It’s a lesson on abundance of which I need constant reminding:

The more unreservedly I give, the more abundantly I receive.

Thank you, Seth Godin. Message received. Seed planted. Abundance tree growing.

Soon after reading Seth’s nugget, I wrote … a bit reservedly… a rather vulnerable post. It was one of those that make me hesitate to hit the publish button.

In my hesitation, I heard the online voice of James Altucher who writes all the time that his most well-read blog posts –the ones that most touch a nerve — are the ones he almost didn’t publish.

So, feeling vulnerable, I hit publish anyway.

I published the vulnerable post because somewhere deep down beneath the fear and apprehension was a belief that some good would come from hitting the publish button; some good would come from sharing of myself; someone’s head somewhere would nod along with me; someone’s heart somewhere would swell with compassion or fellowship.

Hitting the publish button was me planting the seed.

A half hour later I saw a comment come in from Miss Corinne at A Green (ish) Life responding to my vulnerable post (positively) and telling me, by the way, she nominated me for a Liebster Award. I’m not sure what I was more excited about — that she liked my vulnerable post or that she nominated me for an award I never heard of before.

Either way, I felt all warm and fuzzy inside.

Abundance sprouting.

The very essence of the Liebster Award, it turns out, is unreserved giving. The trophy? Paying it forward.

Thank you, Seth Godin. Thank you, Miss Corinne. Thank you, James Altucher.

Stay tuned for my Liebster acceptance speech and nominations … and watch my abundance tree grow.

Letting Go, Love

Sylvia Plath doesn’t scare me anymore

February 18, 2013February 18, 2013 Jen

“I may never be happy, but tonight I am content,” writes the young Sylvia Plath in her journal. (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)

What does that road look like?

The road from “content” to put-my-head-in-the-gas-oven?

I can’t think about this for more than a minute. When I do, I myself get consumed.

Sylvia Plath is usually off limits for me.

As caught up in life as I get sometimes, so I get caught up in death. So I stay away. On purpose.

I first heard about Plath from my friend S., who was always much deeper and much more mature than any of my childhood friends, and who was reading her mother’s copy of The Bell Jar already in eighth or ninth grade. When I saw the book on her bed one day, S. told me of Plath’s depression and her rocky relationship without much fanfare. But I couldn’t get the image out of my head — the 1950s era housewife with her head in a 1950s era gas oven.

Perhaps because of how impressionable I was when I first heard about Plath, the image has been ingrained in my head ever since and so I’ve never read Plath.

I avoid her.

Yesterday, however, attracted by a well-crafted tweet, I clicked on to Brainpickings.org and found myself faced with Sylvia Plath.

I almost didn’t read the article, but I love BrainPickings so.

I really really love it.

So I dared.

In a post commemorating the 50th anniversary of Plath’s suicide, Maria Popova pulls out entries from Plath’s journals that I can relate to. Entries, as Popova writes, that give us “a record of [Plath’s] incessant oscillation between hope and hopelessness;” Plath’s own “conflicted relationship with life and death;” and Plath’s apparent joy of life and her deep, thoughtful examination of the human species and her own humanity.

The excerpts from Plath’s journals are exquisite and extraordinary.

And something I want to read more of.

But in order to do so, I need let go of my fear of Sylvia Plath.

I need to let go of the unknown. Of what I don’t understand.

I need to let go of the choices others make — the actions I have no control over or the reactions I can’t relate to.

Can I do this?

Can I let go?

Can I do this?

You understand why the answer must be, “Yes,” don’t you?

Why letting go of Sylvia Plath is good for me.

And why letting her in is scary…

But good.

Family, Love, Making Friends, Parenting

When life is full, shep nachas

February 12, 2013February 13, 2013 Jen

I’ve been lamenting lately a perceived lack of time to write new blog posts.

An idea will pop into my head, for instance, but in between the idea and the publish button is a perceived lack of opportunity to sit and transform the idea into a story.

Too busy at work. Too tired at home. No time in between.

Life is full.

Can you hear my voice?

How does it sound?

“Life is full,” she said with a sigh.

“Life is full,” she whispered as she let her head fall heavily onto the pillow.

“Life is full,” she grumbled as she hastily prepared dinner for three hungry, irritable children.

“Life is full,” she thought to herself as she watched her husband chase her daughter around the grassy field.

When I put aside my frustration and my lament, I can acknowledge that I am so very lucky that — blog posts or not —

Life is full.

* * *

So while I only have three minutes today in between this and that, I will use it to shep a little Aliyah nachas.

That little guy in the top hat is my middle son.

He’s six years old.

When we arrived in Israel two years ago, he didn’t speak a word of Hebrew. He was cute, but shy.

Lovable, but sensitive.

January 2011, at Gan on Kibbutz Hannaton

Little.

Breakable.

For the first two weeks at Gan, he didn’t speak a word to anyone.

In fact, one day he pretended he was blind.

Literally.

He walked around with his eyes closed all day.

The kids ran up to me at pickup time to ask me if it was true, “Is he blind?”

No, I told them. Just shy. Nervous.

When I asked him later why he pretended to be blind, he told me he didn’t want anyone to notice him.

It took him only three weeks to turn those confused children into his best friends.

He’s older now. Adjusted. Still cute, and a bit shy. Still sensitive, yes, but…

More Israeli.

When it comes to song and dance — this kid is Israeli through and through.

It doesn’t matter what the holiday, what the occasion, this kid’s got the soul and spirit of a sabra.

This morning, my heart burst with joy and pride as his “Kitah Aleph” (first grade) class performed a Purim presentation for the rest of the school and for parents.

Yup: The middle guy in the top hat memorized his line in Hebrew, recited it flawlessly in front of the entire school, and sung and danced his little heart out.

Everyone noticed him.

Especially me.

My life is full.

And lucky for me it takes no time at all to shep nachas.

Just a moment to change your tune.

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