Love – Page 6 – and yadda yadda, an aliyah blog

Letting Go, Love, Mindfulness, Writing

I really, really don’t want a book deal

April 9, 2013April 11, 2013 Jen

I really, really don’t want a book deal.

Just kidding.

Which blogger doesn’t want a book deal?

Put your hands down.

Stop pretending like you blog for the fun of it.

I say that all the time, too.

I don’t mean it.

Except for when I do.

Which is a lot of the time.

But then there’s the day when a mommy blogger I’ve never met gets a book deal and my eyes bug out and steam pours from both of my ears and my heart and belly both get stuck in my throat and deep inside I

SCREAM!!!!

…In my inside voice. The louder of the two.

Where’s my book deal?!?!?

And then my other inside voice answers back,

“What makes you think you’re getting a book deal?”

And the scream, now subdued says, “Well, you know. Someone should just discover me and fall in love with my writing and offer me lots of advance money (or at least plumb royalties) and beg me to write a book. A whole SERIES even.”

“Oh,” the peaceful, reasonable voice answers with subtle condescension. “I see.”

What she’s not saying (in her peaceful, reasonable tone) is:

Stop waiting around for someone to discover you.

Stop wanting what other people have.

Stop being regretful about what you think you should have done, but didn’t. What blog you should have kept up, but didn’t. What career you should have stuck with, but didn’t. What path you should have taken, but didn’t.

She’s only being a little bit judgy, just enough to quiet the screaming.

===

I have a colleague whose dad is a celebrity.

She hardly ever talks about said celebrity, except in the context of his dad-ness.

I’ve never asked her about this. Or what it’s like to be the daughter of someone so famous.

I imagine, though, her modesty has something to do with her relationship to him.

To her, he’s dad. It doesn’t matter how famous he is or becomes, his celebrity will always be secondary to her.

And I think in all the glorifying we do of celebrity — of book deals, of magazine covers, of awards and prizes and titles — we lose sight of celebrity’s secondary-ness, its subservience.

We lose sight of the inevitable real life behind the celebrity. Why?

Because save for the tabloid spreads, we hardly see the real life behind the celebrity.

The anxiety that comes the day after a book deal was signed.

The self doubt.

The need to please, to produce, to win.

To look good. To smell good.

To smile. To have a good hair day.

We hardly ever hear of their breast cancer scares, their hemorrhoids, their financial troubles, their soured friendships. Save for the celebrities who’ve publicly shared bits and pieces of their angst in well-placed magazine features, we hardly hear of their suffering.

And they all, certainly, suffer.

No matter how many times we read Everyone Poops, we still imagine that celebrities poop with greater ease, with more satisfaction, with softer toilet paper.

And maybe they do.

But, most likely they don’t.

And, as corny as it sounds, no matter how much we wish we were more famous, more successful, more educated, more experienced, we often fail to acknowledge or recognize how famous, successful, educated, and experienced we already are.

This is what I try to tell my screaming inside voice.

You are already famous.

Seriously, I can find at least three people who believe I’m famous (and yes, their last names are the same as mine.)

And I bet I could find someone out there who is not a blood relative that wishes they could have a job like mine, or a husband like mine, or write a blog like I do.

I am already famous.

Despite that: I still scream inside every now and again when somebody gets a book deal.

And I probably will until the day I finally accept that I am already famous enough.

The day I finally accept I am already famous, is the day I will finally achieve the pinnacle of my success.

Peace, love, and ease.

Behind all our secret or public clamoring for celebrity, what we really desire is peace, love and ease.

And that, my screaming inside voice, is better than a book deal.

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, 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, 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.

Letting Go, Living in Community, Love, Making Friends, Mindfulness, Relationships, Spirituality

Life is hard work and other things that make me feel tired, but alive

February 5, 2013June 9, 2014 Jen

I am struck by the pictures my friend Holly is sending back to us from Hong Kong and Vietnam.

See more http://instagram.com/theculturemom

She’s feeding her wanderlust with banana pancakes, dim sum, and gorgeous panoramas, while feeding our desire for travel photography “porn.”

I love instagram.

Almost in the same moment that the drool drips down my chin, while mesmerized by the lush green mountain ranges and Buddha statues, I long for the eyes through which I saw Israel in the first months I lived here.

The virgin immigrant eyes.

The virgin immigrant heart that burst with joy each and every day…at the beauty of this land; in curious awe of her people.

When we first made Aliyah, every drive was emotionally equivalent to a stroll through an art museum; every hike through a national park was a new adventure in a foreign land.

Every day I would find myself saying out loud: “Do I really live here?”

And I meant it in the same way a mother whispers over her newborn baby, “Are you really mine?”

Two years after making Aliyah, I find that my eyes and my heart are still capable of wonder.

But it’s an experience that does not come as naturally and as automatic as before.

I need, instead, to make those moments happen.

And that takes a lot of work on my part.

I need to see the trash fire in Kfar Manda

— and turn my anger into compassion, and then activism.

And that’s really hard.

It’s much easier to be angry. To rant. To shake my head.

I need to remember, in a moment I feel frustrated by my community, when I am outraged by their seeming indifference to the trash that peppers our fields

how grateful I am for my community.

How my community supports me.

How my community allows me the freedom to be a Jew in Progress. To be curious. To be a novice at living in this country.

Acknowledging my community as a gift, however, is really hard work when I am stuck in a moment of discontent.

It’s much easier for me to assume. To judge. To wish myself away from here.

It’s really hard work — and a huge emotional commitment — to be present in your life all the time.

To notice. To stop. To redirect. To be who you want to be, not your raw-emotion-of-the-moment.

It’s exhausting — living your best life.

It’s much easier to feel alive when you are on vacation — separate from the drudgery that often clouds your intentions.

It’s much easier to feel alive when you are first in love; experiencing a newness; your senses overwhelmed by glorious colors and smells.

I recognize this.

And I acknowledge that some days I am too tired to live my best life.

But on the alternate days — the ones in which I work hard for happiness, the ones in which I allow my heart to be open and my mind to be free — I find beauty that surpasses any landscape, any painting, any colorful market scene.

A vacation awaits me.

In my regular boring life.

And yours.

Family, Letting Go, Living in Community, Love, Making Friends, Mindfulness, Parenting, Uncategorized

I wasn’t always like this

February 1, 2013 Jen

A well-thought out middle name is an underused tool.

My middle name should be “in progress.”

Jen In Progress.

In my case, In Progress would remind me to be compassionate, to others, but mostly to myself.

Mother In Progress

Wife In Progress

Friend In Progress

It would remind me that I will always be a novice no matter how expert I might become at a skill or a task.

Employee In Progress

Coworker In Progress

Marketing Goddess In Progress

It would remind me that self-expression is a gift wrapped in complicated responsibility

Writer In Progress

Coach In Progress

Community leader In Progress

And that how I define myself is as temporary as it is permanent

Jew In Progress

Israeli In Progress

Kibbutznik In Progress

If my middle name was In Progress, every time I made a serious decision, committed myself to a long term action plan, said Yes or said No, I would acknowledge that I am doing so with the purest of intentions as well as the greatest of uncertainties.

That I am always “in progress” means that I may always forgive myself. I may always start over. I may always assume that tomorrow will be better.

Even when it’s not.

In Progress reminds me to be in motion. To repair that which I may have broken. To rediscover the gratitude I may have misplaced. To reignite the passion I have let wane.

To progress.

To journey.

To grow.

Family, Living in Community, Love, Making Friends, Middle East Conflict

I can’t remember growing older

January 25, 2013 Jen

When you’re a parent, each day is a struggle not to live in the future.

What if?

What will be?

What will she look like?

How will he make it through?

And some days are harder than others.

The days when fear grips you.

When headlines make you want to keep your child locked inside a bubble-wrapped, sterilized room forever.

You want to be locked inside, too.

This morning, my 10-year-old son and his friends are enjoying a weekend morning.

They’re playing Playmobil and singing as they manipulate their imaginary worlds.

They’re chilling out, numbing their minds in front of the Wii.

As I hear their squeaky pre-pubescent voices belt out a mix of Shabbat songs and Rhianna, I laugh.

For a moment, I’m in the present.

They are cute.

But a moment later, I’m in the future.

They are tough. Or pretending to be.

These boys?

These four boys?

They’ll be soldiers some day?

I don’t believe it.

I can’t picture it.

I wish it away.

How many other mothers in Israel have wished it away?

Countless. As many as there are mothers.

How many other mothers saw 10 turn into 18 in an instant?

How many other mothers can touch 10? Taste 10? Smell their 10 year old boy’s sweating, dirty self walking in the door at 6 o’clock?

They scream!

Someone has fallen into an imaginary Lego hole. Someone has knocked down a Playmobil brigade.

Oh please.

Please let those screams,

please please please,

always be screams of play.

Always be screams of who gets the first turn

Not screams of agony.

Let this moment last.

Education, Love, Mindfulness, Work

The long road to desire

January 8, 2013January 8, 2013 Jen

Bragging moment: I was accepted into the University Honors Program in college. I even got a scholarship.

That letter in the mail was likely the pinnacle of my academic career. That, or the poetry award I won from Mr. Schaeffer at the end of 9th Grade.

I was your classic underachiever in school. And in retrospect, I completely wasted the distinction The George Washington University placed on me.

In order to maintain the scholarship and my place in the program, I was required to take at least one class each semester offered by the honors track. As always, I did the bare minimum. I followed the rules and aimed for a grade acceptable to me and my parents. (A “B” or above.)

The only classes I remember are two semesters of “An Introduction to Soviet Cinema”– from which I walked away better educated about cinematographic license and with the easiest “A” I ever earned — and my senior seminar with Professor Harry Harding, an expert on Asian-American relations.

I don’t remember why I took this class with Harding, since my interest area was the Middle East. I probably heard from someone that he was kind or didn’t give a lot of homework. I do remember, however, the brilliant research thesis topic I dreamed up for the paper I had to write at the end of the year:

“The Influence of Zen Buddhism on American Pop Culture”

I wish I could get my hands on that paper. And, then completely rewrite it. Because whatever I wrote was complete crap and/or borderline plagiarism, I’m sure.

This time, if given the opportunity, I’d actually do the research. I’d read more than the three required books. I’d actually do primary research. Find people to interview. Listen to their stories. Imagine what their lives were like. Swim in their memories. Meditate on them. And then produce a paper that truly encapsulated my brilliant findings and analysis.

But, like most 20-year-olds, I hated writing research papers. And this was a 25 page research paper, which was the longest by far I was ever required to write before or since.

I loved learning, but I was too bound by the rules and the concern for a good grade and the concern for a good job and a good career and a good paycheck and a good pitcher of beer to actually do what I imagine most teachers want you to do — learn about something and carry that education forward into your life.

I remembered this research paper yesterday when I watched a video a friend shared on Facebook.

It’s a series of images that illustrate a lecture given once by Alan Watts entitled “What If Money Were No Object?”

The name sounded familiar. I Googled him. Oh, yeah. He was the guy in my research paper from senior seminar; recognized as one of the key individuals responsible for bringing Zen Buddhism to the West.

I chuckled. Here was the voice of Alan Watts speaking to me — primary research, 20 years too late.

If only the internet had been more than a chat room on AOL when I was in college.

If only I had heard Watts say:

“What do you desire?
What makes you itch?
What would you like to do if money were no object?

How would you really enjoy spending your life?”

I might have spent more time on my research paper. I might have spent more time wondering if this Alan Watts guy was more than just page filler.

What would I have thought if I had been in that crowd? Would Watts have inspired me?

What message would I have taken away from that lecture?

Would I be the philosopher, the novelist, the soap opera star I sometimes wish I was?

“Crowds of students say, ‘We’d like to be painters. We’d like to be poets. We’d like to be writers.’

But as everybody knows you can’t earn any money that way…

When we finally get down to something which the individual says they really want to do, I will say to them, “You do that. And forget the money.”

Amen, I thought to myself, when I heard Watts challenge the audience to “forget the money.”

And then, “I wish someone had said that to me when I was 20.”

Easy for me to say now.

Easy now, at 38 years old, with a steady paycheck and two decades of experience making it on my own.

But would I have been able to really hear Watts then?

Would his words have led me to walk a different path?

I don’t know.

My life might have turned out exactly the same.

I was a lot more stubborn then. A lot less likely to listen to someone wiser than me. I might have done exactly what I did. Graduate. Get a job in a non-profit. Be happy that I was finally earning my own paycheck and had my own money to spend on jeans at The Gap in Georgetown. Or on big scrunchies.

I really wanted my own money back then. I wanted freedom from my parents. I wanted room to make my own choices. I didn’t see any possible way to achieve both freedom and my desire.

Which makes me think Watts’ advice would have registered only as a temporary instigation.

Not inspiration.

Because in our current society set up, it’s practically impossible to forget the money.

We have to follow our desires in spite of the money.

What you need to know if you choose to forget the money is how you will stay true to your desire when the rest of the world says you need money over everything else. You need to know how you will navigate the expectations of your family, your friends, your neighbors. You need to know how to avoid the pitfalls of consumerism. How to live without a TV; without an SUV; without a weekend getaway.

You need to build your life so that your life is your weekend getaway.

= = = = =

If anyone had asked me when I was 20, I wouldn’t have said then, “I’d like to be a philosopher.”

I wouldn’t have said, “I’d like to be a craniosachral therapist.”

I absolutely would not have said, “I want, more than anything, to be a full-time, paid-loads-for-a-living celebrated writer.”

I didn’t know it then.

And I couldn’t see the way.

And yet, I’ve been fortunate to find my way. To have either landed in or created circumstances in which I’ve been able to recreate my career based on my passions and desires.

I’ve been a children’s book author.

A magazine promoter.

A think tank thinker.

I’ve been a newspaper reporter and an editor.

I’ve designed t-shirts. That celebrities have worn.

I’ve been a web master.

A freelance writer.

A publicist.

I’ve been a business owner. A wellness pusher. A community resource.

I’ve been a brand strategist. And a stay-at-home mom. A Facebook goddess.

I’ve been a C-level executive. A blogger. A consultant. A coach.

I listened to and followed my itch; years before hearing Alan Watts’ speech.

But, along the way, I’ve had to give up desires, too. Ignore certain itches.

I’ve had to choose.

Sometimes I’ve been able to forget the money.

And sometimes not.

Watts does not talk about choices…and consequences.

It’s not easy to follow your desire instead of following the money.

= = = = =

What would I say to a crowd of young people today?

How would I guide them?

I might say something similar to what Watts says: “Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way.”

I believe this to be true. And I like to think that somehow, accidentally, when I was writing that research paper in college, Watts’ advice penetrated my tired mind as I was lazily investigating the influence of Zen Buddhism on American pop culture.

Perhaps, subtly his words have been guiding me ever since.

But I would also suggest being as flexible as you are determined.

For who knows what you will be when you grow up?

You don’t.

I didn’t. I still don’t.

I still ask myself every day, “What do you desire?”

And then listen for the answer.

Forget the money, yes. But be flexible. At every turn, there is an opportunity if you are primed to notice it.

Ask yourself every day, “What do I desire?” And be strong enough to acknowledge the answer and take action, even if the answer is, “Money.”

Community, Family, Living in Community, Love

A woman on the brink of death

January 3, 2013January 5, 2013 Jen

(This was originally posted on the Times of Israel)

Sometimes I imagine I am a woman on her death bed.

How else to explain the sense of wonder I have the minute I pull out of my driveway each morning to head to work?

Before I even leave the boundaries of my small community in Northern Israel, my head turns from side to side looking out the car window for a sign of nature’s wonder.

Morning light breaking through a stunning cloud formation overhead.

The sun rising over the Eshkol Reservoir.

The first kalanit popping up in the fields lining the road into our neighborhood.

Who else does this but a woman about to die?

Sometimes I catch myself imagining I am her — a woman on her death bed.

I am paralyzed. Frightened.

Could it be true?

What if it was?

And then I laugh with the realization that it is true.

We all are.

We are born to die.

And as much as we fear it, we spend our lives rushing towards it…towards death.

Rushing through breakfast; pushing the kids out the door; grabbing three different bags – a laptop bag, a lunch bag, a pocketbook – and throwing them into the back seat. We drink a to-go cup of coffee on the way. We turn on the radio and scan the words for news. News that will help us make decisions; make us feel right; make us feel wrong.

Get us there quicker.

We breeze by our coworkers; we tweet through our days. Our fingers sore from scrolling, from typing, from pointing.

Who else but a woman about to die notices the teeny tiny wren perched on the tallest branch of a pine tree across the street from the entrance to Rafael?

Who else catches through her passenger side window the hearty laugh of a teenage girl in a bronze glittery head scarf waiting for the bus to Karmiel?

Who else but a woman on the brink of demise notices the blend of hope and fear on the faces of the black men – the ones standing on the side of the kikar at the entrance to Kfar Manda — as she passes them during rush hour?

Who else but a woman about to die?

We characterize our behavior as “living,” but really we are rushing towards death. Getting there quicker, richer, righter.

Until we stop.

And in the moment we stop – in the slow minutes spent behind a tractor trailer chugging up a hill, for instance – we slow down death.

We drink in life.

Drink it in.

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