Setting expectations for ourselves is akin to walking through a minefield. No matter how gingerly we tread, we inevitably misstep, and when we do, we rarely hit a dud that fizzles without doing harm. Standing there in the debris of our disappointment, we conduct a vain search for the enemy, which more often than not proves to be our own desire to do too much too well and too quickly.
Initial triage reveals a gaping wound left by our sense of failure. For failure, after all, is multi-talented and ubiquitous. It can rear its ugly head anywhere, and there are few realms in the big bad world that offer so many opportunities for achievement.
For some, the possibility of failure can be paralyzing, even when it is wrought by a bar set impossibly high. But my children seem to forge ahead undaunted, as long as the list of expectations is of their own making. They are still of that refreshing age when they believe they can expect to achieve anything.
In the weeks leading up to the end of school, I watched cautiously as they piled their plates high with summer plans to grow taller, to improve their endurance on the basketball court, to make new friends, and to broaden their worldview. While I enjoyed their casual ambition, my kishkes groaned with the fear that September would arrive on a wave of disappointment.
Remarkably, though, they have amazed me here at the seasonal half-way mark.
One left for camp shorter than his mom and returned with a bird’s eye view of her scalp. He also resolved to “become a better person,” and the truth is that he is making enormous effort to quarrel less with his brothers. His heart seems to have expanded in the sun.
Another took his first stabs at archery with surprising success and had the courage to get on the bus to overnight camp without knowing another soul. Though we had to pick him up on visiting day, there is no doubt that he was braver than I’d ever have been at his age.
And the third has at long last used his iPhone as a source for good, giving his brain a hardy workout. He loaded it with a CD to teach himself Croatian, and let’s just say that my husband and I no longer consider it our secret language.
Despite my own pronounced fear of failure, my summers are still heady with possibility, too. Though they are a mere 60 days if we discount June as a school month, I still hope – nearly every year – to declutter the entire house, shrink to a six 6, and write volumes. I plan big, but realistically, I’m satisfied if, come Labor Day, I’ve tackled one drawer in the kitchen, lost a few pounds, and managed to post this blog.
But I have another set of expectations, ones that loom much higher on the horizon between my reality and the end of the yellow brick road. Though not entirely fantastical, they are just a pinch out of reach. And yet, these wants leave the largest scar when they elude me as I navigate my way through a minefield riddled with what I imagine my life should be.
I want to forget, just for a moment, that I’m an adult with a BMI who shouldn’t eat that bowl of pistachio ice cream. I want to ignore the passing of years long enough to allow 24 hours a day to suffice. I want to throw caution to the wind so that I can replace mindless, unsatisfying obligations – at least some of them -- with the diversions I truly love.
This summer, when fulfillment of expectations seems genuinely possible, my boys approached Oz with unapologetic greed. It is I, sadly, who missed the moment while I tarried behind with the Scarecrow, the Lion, and the Tin Man, shouting Go, boys, go! as my sons ran ahead. I failed to make the leap of faith required to get all the way there. Fear stopped me in my tracks.
Still, the summer hasn’t been a total loss. Should it ever come to pass that I find myself face to face with the Wizard, I do at last know what I would seek.
For starters, I would like some extra smarts, enough to know that I should embrace who I am without insecurity or embarrassment. I mean really. I’m too old to be worried what people might think and I should discount anyone who expects more than that of me. I would wisely save a little of what I’m granted for a rainy day, a reminder that my quirks and eccentricities are all law-abiding and ethical, and therefore, just fine.
Next, I’d ask for a second heart, one that would kick in when I need to have compassion for myself. It would force me to accept my right to fallibility, even when I inadvertently fail those whom I most love in the world or when all the tip-toeing in the world keeps me from safe passage.
And finally, I would plead for courage of superhero proportions. That should be enough to help me take those first steps into the minefield, ready to face my anxiety about change, the boys growing older, and the challenges that await me on the road ahead.
All of that, plus a little of Dorothy’s pluck and maybe some ruby slippers, and I might at last find my way to the Kansas of my expectations.
Making My Days Happy with Decoupage
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Friday, June 28, 2013
Leaning In or Falling Over?
Well, Sheryl Sandberg, it seemed as if I was leaning in. So far, in fact, that I fell over.
It was the end of a long Tuesday, the one day a week I work in an office, not from my computer at home. My youngest had graduated from elementary school the night before and I was still reeling from the hasty passage of time. I was so irrationally moved by the experience that I cried when the graduating class sang the High School Musical finale.
To be fair, a major project deadline loomed. I’d been eating/drinking/sleeping the writing, research, and gathering of archival documents required to get things done. Laundry dunes dispensed with all pretense of order in our house. The boys had been eating nachos for dinner on a regular basis and I kept pretending not to notice. I was just too tired, both physically and mentally.
But by early evening last Tuesday, my caffeine stores were depleted and I sank to a new level of exhaustion. It was time to head home after a ten-hour workday when I discovered the absence of two archival images from my chapter five files. Thankfully, they were copies, not originals. Still, they’d taken a lot of digging to find and I had no easy way of tracking them down again.
Luck had blessedly put them in my hands. Alas, luck giveth and luck taketh away.
As panic set in, my Aunt Bea’s voice rang in my head, reminding me to breathe. I retraced my steps and began to search frantically through my folders chapter by chapter, hoping the AWOLs would turn up. It eventually occurred to me that in my daily effort to organize the overwhelming stacks of paper related to this project, I may have accidentally thrown out the documents after a meeting with my boss.
That limited my search to three separate recycling haystacks. However, Mila from the building’s housekeeping service had already gathered the dailies from the bins and was making her way down another corridor. When she overheard my humbling admission to my boss about the missing images, she put the brakes on her cart and pronounced in her lovely Slavic accent, “We are going to find this for you!”
The recycling bags were especially full that day because the retiring chief of accounting had been clearing off his shelves. He’d also tossed in his almost, but not quite, empty coffee cup.
Before I knew it, I was on the ground with my head deep inside the recycling bag. My boss fished out a handful of documents that could’ve been, but weren’t the missing ones. We quickly ruled out accounting manuals and budgetary spreadsheets until her carpool beckoned and she left for home. I kept looking, ignoring the fact that I now smelled of someone else’s coffee.
Two colleagues passed by, one kind enough to recognize that I was in a desperate pinch, that I was perhaps singularly devoted in that moment to my career. Another chuckled and asked a snarky question about whether I do my grocery shopping in the same manner. I was too busy to offer a dignified response, so I kept my mouth shut.
Nearly a half hour into my futile search, I conceded defeat, but Mila kept at it. She emptied each of the massive bags onto the floor and sifted through the piles to find anything that resembled what I described. Eventually, she too abandoned all hope and proceeded to clear the rest of the office.
The sun had by then begun to set. For the first time since the morning, I checked my phone. I’d missed a handful of calls. Most were from home: the boys ringing to report their grades on finals and what they’d found at the bottom of their lockers, my husband asking which train I’d be taking and whether I wanted to watch an episode of “Downton Abbey.”
None of it seemed to matter as I weighed my imminent professional demise.
A fellow colleague – also a wise friend – suggested that I just head home. Enough leaning in, she implied. Turn your focus back to where it belongs.
Frankly, I hadn’t really been leaning in. Instead, I’d been grasping at straws all over the place and, therefore, grasping at nothing. Responsibilities – laundry, healthful dinners, good G-d even my children – were falling through the cracks, along with important documents upon which an entire project hinged. I felt spun about in circles, unsure where exactly my focus should be directed.
In a last ditch effort to salvage some thread of my life, I checked the one folder I’d not touched all day. And of course, both documents were right there: misfiled, mislaid, but suddenly back in my arms.
So I brushed myself off and went to find Mila, who was relieved to hear that I was back on track at work. Thanks to her nurturing at my moment of near crisis, I was reminded of my other half – the part that knows where my heart needs to be at the end of a long day, even when I’m on the office floor with my face in a recycling bin.
Constitutionally – for now anyway – I cannot lean in without tipping over. But at least my bins are better sorted, even if my laundry is not.
It was the end of a long Tuesday, the one day a week I work in an office, not from my computer at home. My youngest had graduated from elementary school the night before and I was still reeling from the hasty passage of time. I was so irrationally moved by the experience that I cried when the graduating class sang the High School Musical finale.
To be fair, a major project deadline loomed. I’d been eating/drinking/sleeping the writing, research, and gathering of archival documents required to get things done. Laundry dunes dispensed with all pretense of order in our house. The boys had been eating nachos for dinner on a regular basis and I kept pretending not to notice. I was just too tired, both physically and mentally.
But by early evening last Tuesday, my caffeine stores were depleted and I sank to a new level of exhaustion. It was time to head home after a ten-hour workday when I discovered the absence of two archival images from my chapter five files. Thankfully, they were copies, not originals. Still, they’d taken a lot of digging to find and I had no easy way of tracking them down again.
Luck had blessedly put them in my hands. Alas, luck giveth and luck taketh away.
As panic set in, my Aunt Bea’s voice rang in my head, reminding me to breathe. I retraced my steps and began to search frantically through my folders chapter by chapter, hoping the AWOLs would turn up. It eventually occurred to me that in my daily effort to organize the overwhelming stacks of paper related to this project, I may have accidentally thrown out the documents after a meeting with my boss.
That limited my search to three separate recycling haystacks. However, Mila from the building’s housekeeping service had already gathered the dailies from the bins and was making her way down another corridor. When she overheard my humbling admission to my boss about the missing images, she put the brakes on her cart and pronounced in her lovely Slavic accent, “We are going to find this for you!”
The recycling bags were especially full that day because the retiring chief of accounting had been clearing off his shelves. He’d also tossed in his almost, but not quite, empty coffee cup.
Before I knew it, I was on the ground with my head deep inside the recycling bag. My boss fished out a handful of documents that could’ve been, but weren’t the missing ones. We quickly ruled out accounting manuals and budgetary spreadsheets until her carpool beckoned and she left for home. I kept looking, ignoring the fact that I now smelled of someone else’s coffee.
Two colleagues passed by, one kind enough to recognize that I was in a desperate pinch, that I was perhaps singularly devoted in that moment to my career. Another chuckled and asked a snarky question about whether I do my grocery shopping in the same manner. I was too busy to offer a dignified response, so I kept my mouth shut.
Nearly a half hour into my futile search, I conceded defeat, but Mila kept at it. She emptied each of the massive bags onto the floor and sifted through the piles to find anything that resembled what I described. Eventually, she too abandoned all hope and proceeded to clear the rest of the office.
The sun had by then begun to set. For the first time since the morning, I checked my phone. I’d missed a handful of calls. Most were from home: the boys ringing to report their grades on finals and what they’d found at the bottom of their lockers, my husband asking which train I’d be taking and whether I wanted to watch an episode of “Downton Abbey.”
None of it seemed to matter as I weighed my imminent professional demise.
A fellow colleague – also a wise friend – suggested that I just head home. Enough leaning in, she implied. Turn your focus back to where it belongs.
Frankly, I hadn’t really been leaning in. Instead, I’d been grasping at straws all over the place and, therefore, grasping at nothing. Responsibilities – laundry, healthful dinners, good G-d even my children – were falling through the cracks, along with important documents upon which an entire project hinged. I felt spun about in circles, unsure where exactly my focus should be directed.
In a last ditch effort to salvage some thread of my life, I checked the one folder I’d not touched all day. And of course, both documents were right there: misfiled, mislaid, but suddenly back in my arms.
So I brushed myself off and went to find Mila, who was relieved to hear that I was back on track at work. Thanks to her nurturing at my moment of near crisis, I was reminded of my other half – the part that knows where my heart needs to be at the end of a long day, even when I’m on the office floor with my face in a recycling bin.
Constitutionally – for now anyway – I cannot lean in without tipping over. But at least my bins are better sorted, even if my laundry is not.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Breaking Bread
My road to challah baking was in no way a smooth one. It was paved instead with bumps of denial and sloth and riddled with potholes of obtuseness and indecision. Eventually, however, the blind spots cleared and I began to focus on the destination.
Though I arrived begrudgingly, I felt like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat once I began baking challah regularly. How remarkable it was to have taken yeast and eggs and flour and transformed them into that! The experience was a week at the Canyon Ranch spa: the kneading recharged my body and the rising energized my soul.
I felt so darned smart for having decided to take the whole wonderful process upon myself. And to top it all off, I got a mitzvah every time I did it. I needed to rack up as many of those as I could.
I even loved shopping for the ingredients. On Thursdays, I was part of that club of women buying high-gluten flour, not ready-made challah, at our kosher market. The packaged may be delicious, but my children do not get to smell it coming out of the oven.
Each Friday evening, my husband grinned and swooned when I plunked the loaves down on the table. The boys loved them, too.
Until one day, they decided they didn’t.
We’d gone to friends for a Shabbos meal. While walking home, one of the boys commented that the challah had been delicious. There is no question. My friend makes great challah. This particular son was quick to add a “yours is too,” but the blow had already struck its target.
I worked up the gumption to ask if he preferred hers to mine. And then that little Brutus, the one who essentially orchestrated my challah-baking in the first place, betrayed me. With a hesitation I’ve not seen from someone as forthright as he is, he confessed that yes, he did.
When I asked why, he clarified: “It isn’t that your challah isn’t great. It’s that hers isn’t whole wheat. Real challah should be white.”
The brotherly chorus weighed in, too, in a rare moment of agreement. They told me that they were sure if I were to make white challah, it would be the most delicious thing they’d ever tasted. But I didn’t and they no longer wanted to suffer through something that smacked of healthy. It was detracting from the pleasure of the Shabbos experience.
Full disclosure: I use half white whole wheat and half high-gluten. I don’t make a health food store special that supercharges the GI system like Draino. It has eggs and sugar and honey. True, it isn’t white, but that’s been my recipe for as long as I’ve been baking challah and I couldn’t imagine trying anything else.
Now if you have ever baked for someone you love, you know that the worst thing he or she can tell you is that he or she prefers someone else’s baking to your own. You can prefer it to your own and say so. They need to keep such thoughts to themselves.
I know that my family enjoys my cooking. They tell me often enough. This complaint was directed exclusively at my challah. But my relationship with challah-baking was so fraught in its early days that, mitzvah or not, I couldn’t imagine carrying on with the enterprise unless I had a cheering squad accompanying the loaves’ exit from the oven.
Weeks went by, and the boys staged a quiet rebellion. They’d douse slices in honey to camouflage the whole wheat taste or they’d eat it while reminding me how much better my white challah would taste if I were ever to give baking it a try. Though their attempts at pandering failed, I did slightly up the high-gluten to whole wheat ratio. Still, I stuck to my old standard even in the face of dissention.
When one of the crew asked for store-bought, I knew that the whole wheat version was on its last legs. I began to slink away from the table downtrodden, disappointed in the whole challah-baking “thing.” What kind of woman would I be if I were to cave so easily? On the other hand, what kind of mother would I be to continue baking challah for my family while ignoring this one little request?
The following week I gave in, though not without pangs of regret. Trying to look at the bigger picture, I reasoned that the mitzvah would be mine, whatever flour I used. Can you imagine the boys reminiscing about their youth, saying, “My mom could’ve made the best challah, but she made whole wheat instead?”
Thursday arrived, and I tossed the high-gluten in my cart along with a bag of regular, standard, run of the mill, far removed from the earth wheat flour. I turned away from the bag of whole wheat in shame. They wanted white and I wanted to bake for them, so I decided to love what is.
I hadn’t told the boys beforehand. Their eyes lit up on Friday evening when they spotted the freshly-baked loaves of white challah. Not a dash of whole wheat in the pair. They were so happy! While watching them munch away with abandon, only I seemed to notice that the key ingredient was missing, and it wasn’t the whole wheat. It was that piece of me that saw the process as an extension of myself.
For weeks now, my heart just hasn’t been in it.
This past Thursday, I stood in the market and made a fork-in-the-road decision. I bought the white whole wheat and I baked it. Miraculously, all the joy came flooding back. There was that lilt in my kneading and the thrill of expectation as the loaves began to rise. I haven’t served the challah yet, so I cannot say what the critics will write. I imagine it won’t be a pretty scene.
Over the summer, I may try to find a regular flour recipe I can learn to love, a combination of ingredients into which I can knead a bit of myself. The younger two boys will be away at camp, so there will be some freedom to experiment. I can make smaller batches that will enable me to swallow my pride in manageable bites in order to make room for the better parts of me.
For now, though, the baking is mine, and I’m going to hang on to it a bit longer.
Though I arrived begrudgingly, I felt like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat once I began baking challah regularly. How remarkable it was to have taken yeast and eggs and flour and transformed them into that! The experience was a week at the Canyon Ranch spa: the kneading recharged my body and the rising energized my soul.
I felt so darned smart for having decided to take the whole wonderful process upon myself. And to top it all off, I got a mitzvah every time I did it. I needed to rack up as many of those as I could.
I even loved shopping for the ingredients. On Thursdays, I was part of that club of women buying high-gluten flour, not ready-made challah, at our kosher market. The packaged may be delicious, but my children do not get to smell it coming out of the oven.
Each Friday evening, my husband grinned and swooned when I plunked the loaves down on the table. The boys loved them, too.
Until one day, they decided they didn’t.
We’d gone to friends for a Shabbos meal. While walking home, one of the boys commented that the challah had been delicious. There is no question. My friend makes great challah. This particular son was quick to add a “yours is too,” but the blow had already struck its target.
I worked up the gumption to ask if he preferred hers to mine. And then that little Brutus, the one who essentially orchestrated my challah-baking in the first place, betrayed me. With a hesitation I’ve not seen from someone as forthright as he is, he confessed that yes, he did.
When I asked why, he clarified: “It isn’t that your challah isn’t great. It’s that hers isn’t whole wheat. Real challah should be white.”
The brotherly chorus weighed in, too, in a rare moment of agreement. They told me that they were sure if I were to make white challah, it would be the most delicious thing they’d ever tasted. But I didn’t and they no longer wanted to suffer through something that smacked of healthy. It was detracting from the pleasure of the Shabbos experience.
Full disclosure: I use half white whole wheat and half high-gluten. I don’t make a health food store special that supercharges the GI system like Draino. It has eggs and sugar and honey. True, it isn’t white, but that’s been my recipe for as long as I’ve been baking challah and I couldn’t imagine trying anything else.
Now if you have ever baked for someone you love, you know that the worst thing he or she can tell you is that he or she prefers someone else’s baking to your own. You can prefer it to your own and say so. They need to keep such thoughts to themselves.
I know that my family enjoys my cooking. They tell me often enough. This complaint was directed exclusively at my challah. But my relationship with challah-baking was so fraught in its early days that, mitzvah or not, I couldn’t imagine carrying on with the enterprise unless I had a cheering squad accompanying the loaves’ exit from the oven.
Weeks went by, and the boys staged a quiet rebellion. They’d douse slices in honey to camouflage the whole wheat taste or they’d eat it while reminding me how much better my white challah would taste if I were ever to give baking it a try. Though their attempts at pandering failed, I did slightly up the high-gluten to whole wheat ratio. Still, I stuck to my old standard even in the face of dissention.
When one of the crew asked for store-bought, I knew that the whole wheat version was on its last legs. I began to slink away from the table downtrodden, disappointed in the whole challah-baking “thing.” What kind of woman would I be if I were to cave so easily? On the other hand, what kind of mother would I be to continue baking challah for my family while ignoring this one little request?
The following week I gave in, though not without pangs of regret. Trying to look at the bigger picture, I reasoned that the mitzvah would be mine, whatever flour I used. Can you imagine the boys reminiscing about their youth, saying, “My mom could’ve made the best challah, but she made whole wheat instead?”
Thursday arrived, and I tossed the high-gluten in my cart along with a bag of regular, standard, run of the mill, far removed from the earth wheat flour. I turned away from the bag of whole wheat in shame. They wanted white and I wanted to bake for them, so I decided to love what is.
I hadn’t told the boys beforehand. Their eyes lit up on Friday evening when they spotted the freshly-baked loaves of white challah. Not a dash of whole wheat in the pair. They were so happy! While watching them munch away with abandon, only I seemed to notice that the key ingredient was missing, and it wasn’t the whole wheat. It was that piece of me that saw the process as an extension of myself.
For weeks now, my heart just hasn’t been in it.
This past Thursday, I stood in the market and made a fork-in-the-road decision. I bought the white whole wheat and I baked it. Miraculously, all the joy came flooding back. There was that lilt in my kneading and the thrill of expectation as the loaves began to rise. I haven’t served the challah yet, so I cannot say what the critics will write. I imagine it won’t be a pretty scene.
Over the summer, I may try to find a regular flour recipe I can learn to love, a combination of ingredients into which I can knead a bit of myself. The younger two boys will be away at camp, so there will be some freedom to experiment. I can make smaller batches that will enable me to swallow my pride in manageable bites in order to make room for the better parts of me.
For now, though, the baking is mine, and I’m going to hang on to it a bit longer.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Learning What Counts
We are, to be sure, a people who count. We count our blessings and from the
second night of Pesach, we count the omer until we reach Shavuot. Left to my own devices, I inevitably forget the whole endeavor by day three of the forty-nine-day cycle. My youngest son, however, rarely fails to turn the scroll on his omer-tracker.
Having drawn close to the foot of Mount Sinai on Shavuot, I couldn’t help but notice the parallels between our desert wanderings and the antics of my children.
Eager to be where we were going, we behaved incorrigibly towards Moshe. With the insistence of a toddler, we wanted water and we wanted it now. We challenged authority like typical adolescents – remember the golden calf? -- and we broke the most sacred of rules. It felt as if we will roam the desert forever, until our circuitous route enabled us to figure out exactly who we are.
It was, in fact, those detours along the way that were so invaluable to our development. That’s why G-d kept us out there for forty years. And we did get there, rising to the occasion and agreeing to the Torah’s terms before we even knew the details.
I believe, too, that my boys will get where they are destined to go whether or not I insist that they put away their laundry. And yet, it is precisely the little annoyances, the ones that exasperate them – the requests to load the dishwasher and schlepp in the groceries, for example – that will polish them to a buff shine in time for me to hand them off, G-d willing, to their brides.
Besides, the best route isn’t always the direct line between two points. Forks in the road give us the chance to stop and think, rather than run on autopilot.
We bring children into the world, but we cannot forecast their futures, nor can we predict every leg of their individual journeys. Like most parents in our community, my husband and I always assumed that our boys would attend yeshiva, yet our youngest goes to the local public elementary school. The choice, though still fraught with anguish, was evidently clear.
I will not lie and say that there was no disappointment on our part. I will also not pretend that we were never frustrated with the yeshiva’s limitations or furious with teachers and principals who were simply not interested in trying to fit our square peg into their round schools. But at the end of the long, soul-searching day, we suspected correctly that it was in public school that he would find a smoother path to academic fulfillment.
Though we have tried to create a parallel Jewish school experience for him, he has regrettably missed opportunities along the way. For now, he learns regularly with a morah and a rebbe, and all evidence thank G-d points to him reaching the same Jewish milestones as his brothers. From his very beginnings, he has charted his own course, and we have taken the enormous leap of faith required to accept that.
When others wonder at our decision, I point them to the lessons found in the actual giving of the Torah. G-d did not have the tablets waiting in His outstretched arms when we reached the other side of the Red Sea. He first demanded proof of both our faith and our fortitude by winding us through a rigorous physical and spiritual obstacle course, one we could not initially comprehend.
Though it is primarily Jewish wisdom that guides me as we approach Shavuot, I also find myself consulting the sports philosophy imparted by my sons: Every play is the most important of the game.
Our desert meanderings were never for naught. After all, G-d gave us His Torah in an unforgettable, grand slam in the last game of the series sort of way. All of us – generations past, present and future – were there to witness it. Regardless of our background or our place in time, there could have been no doubt that we all counted in His eyes.
second night of Pesach, we count the omer until we reach Shavuot. Left to my own devices, I inevitably forget the whole endeavor by day three of the forty-nine-day cycle. My youngest son, however, rarely fails to turn the scroll on his omer-tracker.
Having drawn close to the foot of Mount Sinai on Shavuot, I couldn’t help but notice the parallels between our desert wanderings and the antics of my children.
Eager to be where we were going, we behaved incorrigibly towards Moshe. With the insistence of a toddler, we wanted water and we wanted it now. We challenged authority like typical adolescents – remember the golden calf? -- and we broke the most sacred of rules. It felt as if we will roam the desert forever, until our circuitous route enabled us to figure out exactly who we are.
It was, in fact, those detours along the way that were so invaluable to our development. That’s why G-d kept us out there for forty years. And we did get there, rising to the occasion and agreeing to the Torah’s terms before we even knew the details.
I believe, too, that my boys will get where they are destined to go whether or not I insist that they put away their laundry. And yet, it is precisely the little annoyances, the ones that exasperate them – the requests to load the dishwasher and schlepp in the groceries, for example – that will polish them to a buff shine in time for me to hand them off, G-d willing, to their brides.
Besides, the best route isn’t always the direct line between two points. Forks in the road give us the chance to stop and think, rather than run on autopilot.
We bring children into the world, but we cannot forecast their futures, nor can we predict every leg of their individual journeys. Like most parents in our community, my husband and I always assumed that our boys would attend yeshiva, yet our youngest goes to the local public elementary school. The choice, though still fraught with anguish, was evidently clear.
I will not lie and say that there was no disappointment on our part. I will also not pretend that we were never frustrated with the yeshiva’s limitations or furious with teachers and principals who were simply not interested in trying to fit our square peg into their round schools. But at the end of the long, soul-searching day, we suspected correctly that it was in public school that he would find a smoother path to academic fulfillment.
Though we have tried to create a parallel Jewish school experience for him, he has regrettably missed opportunities along the way. For now, he learns regularly with a morah and a rebbe, and all evidence thank G-d points to him reaching the same Jewish milestones as his brothers. From his very beginnings, he has charted his own course, and we have taken the enormous leap of faith required to accept that.
When others wonder at our decision, I point them to the lessons found in the actual giving of the Torah. G-d did not have the tablets waiting in His outstretched arms when we reached the other side of the Red Sea. He first demanded proof of both our faith and our fortitude by winding us through a rigorous physical and spiritual obstacle course, one we could not initially comprehend.
Though it is primarily Jewish wisdom that guides me as we approach Shavuot, I also find myself consulting the sports philosophy imparted by my sons: Every play is the most important of the game.
Our desert meanderings were never for naught. After all, G-d gave us His Torah in an unforgettable, grand slam in the last game of the series sort of way. All of us – generations past, present and future – were there to witness it. Regardless of our background or our place in time, there could have been no doubt that we all counted in His eyes.
Monday, May 6, 2013
The Maternal Barometer
With the exception of fast days and the occasional Shabbes when, Lord help me, I forget to put up the urn, I always begin my mornings with a cup of coffee. It is a total sensory ritual. The aroma. The taste. The large ceramic cup that warms the span of both of my hands. And let’s not disregard what the punch of caffeine does to my poorly-rested brain.
A simple pleasure, yes, but very little in this world makes me happier.
Though I’m perhaps less alert before I’ve enjoyed the full cup, I’m not grumpy in the morning and need no powering up time. I go from zero to sixty, heading downstairs while everyone else is still asleep, I prepare a take-out menu that includes three breakfasts, four lunches, and one dinner, plus snacks, while my hot latte looks on. If there’s time, I’ll run down to the basement and fold some laundry, then back up to empty the dishwasher.
My maternal barometer at this point remains in a peaceful state. I’m feeling productive and am reasonably certain that the immediate future will be agita-free. I sense, I really do, that I may possibly be in control of the chaos, for the moment anyway, and I’m smiling like those suddenly regular folks in the probiotic yogurt commercials.
What comes to mind, however, is what my Hungarian co-workers used to say when I lived in Budapest: The Americans are smiling because they have no idea what is really going on. Indeed, my biggest challenges are still in bed, which means the jury is still out on what kind of day I am going to have.
Like a stealth warrior, I gingerly climb the steps and proceed to door number one. At this precise moment, I don’t yet know if the prize is a dud or a dream kitchen. So I pause and breathe deeply, using the Lamaze techniques that did me no good during the birth of any of my children. I enter and head towards my eldest, tripping over piles of laundry and shin guards and who knows what else along the way. After all, it is still dark at this hour.
Quietly, I announce that it is time to wake up. And then I wait. A peaceful response from my eldest – even a short, soft grunt -- bodes well. Next I turn to awaken my middle son, who might offer a gentle “I’m up.” I exit the room feeling good, confident in my parenting and grateful for my loving relationship with my children. I giddily hand off lunches and sometimes even get a hug. I now feel like a gazillion dollars. I’m so happy that heck, I don’t even need to finish the coffee.
It only gets better when my youngest, who sleeps like a burrito tightly wrapped in blankets and sheets atop a large stuffed dog I purchased years ago during a fit of working mother guilt, wakes up on his own. When he shuffles downstairs already dressed – I mean in school clothes and shoes, not his boxers – then I know it’s going to be a great day. The stars have aligned and Mashiach is imminent and world peace is on its way. I take a sip of coffee just to be certain I’m not dreaming.
Now the morning can go the other way, too. If, when I head upstairs, the teenagers grunt loudly (Leave me alone) or rattle off a list of frustrating requests (I need an obscurely-colored, rarely available item for school – today -- and what do you mean you don’t have one handy my bus leaves in fifteen minutes?), well, honestly, it spells trouble. These disagreeable encounters cause tension, which foment a quarrel between boys who would rather be sleeping and their mom, who would prefer to be sipping her hot latte.
Suddenly, everyone is in a huff and the sun has not yet come up. I am by now entirely unhinged. All of the lattes in the world -- with the exception perhaps of one I might drink with my husband in Florence – cannot wash this away. I feel icky and sad, flagellating myself for not saying the right thing or for endeavoring to talk to them at all.
If on top of this excitement, the youngest refuses to emerge from the burrito and then cannot find his shoes because he’s tossed them somewhere, the tension intensifies. I suggest gently that one shoe is likely in his laundry basket and the other on the book shelf, and I’m often correct, but he is also determined to be right. We disagree and I’m derailed another rung.
And the guilt! Oy! Surely, if I did not work at all and devoted myself entirely to keeping house, perhaps his room wouldn’t be in a condition conducive to shoes gone missing in the first place and I’d be back to a state of calm.
Soon enough, though, everyone has gone about their day. The house is suddenly, eerily quiet, if not quite ready for its close-up. I sit down to work, first considering whether this morning was the worst of our lives, whether a spat over missing yarmulkas or forgotten permission slips will set our relationships off course. If we argue over such silliness, will they care for me when I’m old and infirm?
On cue, my phone dings. It’s a text, one of the older boys asking for something – money or permission to go a friend’s house – but I see that it begins with “Mommy please.” Suddenly, it doesn’t matter what the request is for. That “Mommy” has straightened me back up and put a smile on my face. They’ve forgotten the morning’s blip, if they thought of it at all. I struggle to do the same, to reign in my innate sense of drama.
Time passes quickly and I make it through as much of my agenda as I can before heading out for school pick-ups. Like a film scene rolled in reverse, here we go again. The last out is the first home, and I test the waters as I do in the morning, gauging what kind of afternoon I’m going to have. As the rest file in, everything from the reaction to what I’ve made for dinner to the way they’ve answered my “hello” can set me off again. They are either teenagers or nearly so, and I’m a walking barometer, a too sensitive one I think my boys will say.
Before long, it is already past my bedtime. The evening’s success or failure – read: my mood -- depends entirely on the boys’ suppression or expression of sibling rivalry. As I weigh their impact on my daily life, I catch a glimpse of my morning coffee, still there, forlorn on the kitchen counter. It is cold and undrinkable at this point. Still, it is a reminder that hope will brew anew tomorrow morning. And perhaps, just possibly, I will get to drink it while it’s still hot.
A simple pleasure, yes, but very little in this world makes me happier.
Though I’m perhaps less alert before I’ve enjoyed the full cup, I’m not grumpy in the morning and need no powering up time. I go from zero to sixty, heading downstairs while everyone else is still asleep, I prepare a take-out menu that includes three breakfasts, four lunches, and one dinner, plus snacks, while my hot latte looks on. If there’s time, I’ll run down to the basement and fold some laundry, then back up to empty the dishwasher.
My maternal barometer at this point remains in a peaceful state. I’m feeling productive and am reasonably certain that the immediate future will be agita-free. I sense, I really do, that I may possibly be in control of the chaos, for the moment anyway, and I’m smiling like those suddenly regular folks in the probiotic yogurt commercials.
What comes to mind, however, is what my Hungarian co-workers used to say when I lived in Budapest: The Americans are smiling because they have no idea what is really going on. Indeed, my biggest challenges are still in bed, which means the jury is still out on what kind of day I am going to have.
Like a stealth warrior, I gingerly climb the steps and proceed to door number one. At this precise moment, I don’t yet know if the prize is a dud or a dream kitchen. So I pause and breathe deeply, using the Lamaze techniques that did me no good during the birth of any of my children. I enter and head towards my eldest, tripping over piles of laundry and shin guards and who knows what else along the way. After all, it is still dark at this hour.
Quietly, I announce that it is time to wake up. And then I wait. A peaceful response from my eldest – even a short, soft grunt -- bodes well. Next I turn to awaken my middle son, who might offer a gentle “I’m up.” I exit the room feeling good, confident in my parenting and grateful for my loving relationship with my children. I giddily hand off lunches and sometimes even get a hug. I now feel like a gazillion dollars. I’m so happy that heck, I don’t even need to finish the coffee.
It only gets better when my youngest, who sleeps like a burrito tightly wrapped in blankets and sheets atop a large stuffed dog I purchased years ago during a fit of working mother guilt, wakes up on his own. When he shuffles downstairs already dressed – I mean in school clothes and shoes, not his boxers – then I know it’s going to be a great day. The stars have aligned and Mashiach is imminent and world peace is on its way. I take a sip of coffee just to be certain I’m not dreaming.
Now the morning can go the other way, too. If, when I head upstairs, the teenagers grunt loudly (Leave me alone) or rattle off a list of frustrating requests (I need an obscurely-colored, rarely available item for school – today -- and what do you mean you don’t have one handy my bus leaves in fifteen minutes?), well, honestly, it spells trouble. These disagreeable encounters cause tension, which foment a quarrel between boys who would rather be sleeping and their mom, who would prefer to be sipping her hot latte.
Suddenly, everyone is in a huff and the sun has not yet come up. I am by now entirely unhinged. All of the lattes in the world -- with the exception perhaps of one I might drink with my husband in Florence – cannot wash this away. I feel icky and sad, flagellating myself for not saying the right thing or for endeavoring to talk to them at all.
If on top of this excitement, the youngest refuses to emerge from the burrito and then cannot find his shoes because he’s tossed them somewhere, the tension intensifies. I suggest gently that one shoe is likely in his laundry basket and the other on the book shelf, and I’m often correct, but he is also determined to be right. We disagree and I’m derailed another rung.
And the guilt! Oy! Surely, if I did not work at all and devoted myself entirely to keeping house, perhaps his room wouldn’t be in a condition conducive to shoes gone missing in the first place and I’d be back to a state of calm.
Soon enough, though, everyone has gone about their day. The house is suddenly, eerily quiet, if not quite ready for its close-up. I sit down to work, first considering whether this morning was the worst of our lives, whether a spat over missing yarmulkas or forgotten permission slips will set our relationships off course. If we argue over such silliness, will they care for me when I’m old and infirm?
On cue, my phone dings. It’s a text, one of the older boys asking for something – money or permission to go a friend’s house – but I see that it begins with “Mommy please.” Suddenly, it doesn’t matter what the request is for. That “Mommy” has straightened me back up and put a smile on my face. They’ve forgotten the morning’s blip, if they thought of it at all. I struggle to do the same, to reign in my innate sense of drama.
Time passes quickly and I make it through as much of my agenda as I can before heading out for school pick-ups. Like a film scene rolled in reverse, here we go again. The last out is the first home, and I test the waters as I do in the morning, gauging what kind of afternoon I’m going to have. As the rest file in, everything from the reaction to what I’ve made for dinner to the way they’ve answered my “hello” can set me off again. They are either teenagers or nearly so, and I’m a walking barometer, a too sensitive one I think my boys will say.
Before long, it is already past my bedtime. The evening’s success or failure – read: my mood -- depends entirely on the boys’ suppression or expression of sibling rivalry. As I weigh their impact on my daily life, I catch a glimpse of my morning coffee, still there, forlorn on the kitchen counter. It is cold and undrinkable at this point. Still, it is a reminder that hope will brew anew tomorrow morning. And perhaps, just possibly, I will get to drink it while it’s still hot.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Our Cleaning Lady’s Bar Mitzvah Year
I’ve heard it told that friends should never share cleaning help. But my cleaning lady came blessedly into my life on the recommendation of my friend Susan, whose own mother-in-law Anna made the initial shidduch that brought Susan’s house to order. I am forever grateful to both of them.
I’d already been through numerous cleaning people over the years, most of them lovely. The exceptions were the ones who kept breaking things and the one who cast aspersions on my housekeeping skills, which was just silly. If I had stellar housekeeping skills, I wouldn’t have needed her services in the first place.
In any case, they spoke a multitude of languages I could not understand. I then worked full-time, commuting three hours round-trip each day, and was never home when they arrived. The combined result was an entirely unproductive enterprise, since I had to leave it to them to decide what it was that I needed done.
So Susan’s recommendation was a godsend. For starters, she spoke Serbian, a sister to the Croatian language I thankfully learned to speak years ago. As she took her place in my trifecta of immigrants from the former Yugoslavia who have enabled me to manage my life (sort of, anyway), my Croatian husband had a good chuckle about my being some kind of Balkan magnet.
The first of the threesome was our babysitter, Blanka. We met in the elevator of our building when I was pregnant, returning from the hospital with bed rest orders. She kindly asked me which floor. I recognized her Croatian accent and three days later, she was keeping my older boys – then mere toddlers – busy on Shabbat mornings so my husband could go to shul. Though we now rarely need a sitter, she is still a part of our extended family.
Years later, when we moved into our fixer-upper home, I sought recommendations for contractors to render it livable. Coincidentally, two of the three were ex-Yugoslavs. We chose Zak, the one from Croatia, before we could even ask that personal of a question. He, too, has since interwoven himself into our lives, in part because he still fixes everything that breaks in our house (we have boys, so let your imagination run wild).
But it is really Jovanka, our cleaning lady from Serbia, who has steadied my universe since she first walked through the door. She always tells me that I’m “naša,” the equivalent of a landsman; that I was born in New York is irrelevant. She shares riotous tales and village wisdom as it applies – or not -- here in New Jersey. For thirteen years now, she has taken me under her wing, even if the resident elves restore the house to its former state of disorder just hours after she leaves.
Every year on my youngest son’s birthday, she recalls watching me writhe in agony while on bed rest. She was sure that I would not survive his pregnancy and worried herself into knots. Tell me, though, how many people can say that their cleaning lady prays for them?
Once I’d hung a picture above the beds in our room. I came home the night after Jovanka had been here to find it leaning against the wall. We put it back up, but the next time, sure enough, the picture was down again. It seems a woman in her village had died when the picture hanging above her bed had fallen on her. Years later, still nothing hangs on that wall in our home. I wouldn’t dare.
Jovanka loves that I cook and especially that I bake challah, like a good village woman who makes her own bread. This only proves to her that I’m really a Balkan sister. That said, she has choice words for me because I don’t iron my husband’s shirts. To placate her, I taught her how to make knaidlach. It seems to have worked.
The relationship has been wonderful, long may it reign. Still, there has been one fly in the ointment: my boys’ rooms.
For years, I’ve complained to her about their mess, about their lack of fastidiousness, about their inability – despite their athletic prowess – to get their dirty clothes in the laundry basket, not on the floor right next to it. With a wave of her hand, she would poo-poo my concerns, saying, “Aaah, decki (boys).” So I’d lock their rooms, and she’d find her way in, cleaning them anyway.
Last week, though, clear out of the blue, she declared that it is now time to teach them to clean up after themselves, put away their own things, and hang their own clothes. I nearly plotzed. Surely, she knows that I’ve been trying for fifteen years to do just that, though clearly without much success and sometimes without her complete support.
In the to-the-point yet loving way in which she states everything, she added another round of village wisdom: “They are no longer little boys.” I realized then that all along I’ve been asking them to clean for me. The time has come that they do it for themselves.
I’d already been through numerous cleaning people over the years, most of them lovely. The exceptions were the ones who kept breaking things and the one who cast aspersions on my housekeeping skills, which was just silly. If I had stellar housekeeping skills, I wouldn’t have needed her services in the first place.
In any case, they spoke a multitude of languages I could not understand. I then worked full-time, commuting three hours round-trip each day, and was never home when they arrived. The combined result was an entirely unproductive enterprise, since I had to leave it to them to decide what it was that I needed done.
So Susan’s recommendation was a godsend. For starters, she spoke Serbian, a sister to the Croatian language I thankfully learned to speak years ago. As she took her place in my trifecta of immigrants from the former Yugoslavia who have enabled me to manage my life (sort of, anyway), my Croatian husband had a good chuckle about my being some kind of Balkan magnet.
The first of the threesome was our babysitter, Blanka. We met in the elevator of our building when I was pregnant, returning from the hospital with bed rest orders. She kindly asked me which floor. I recognized her Croatian accent and three days later, she was keeping my older boys – then mere toddlers – busy on Shabbat mornings so my husband could go to shul. Though we now rarely need a sitter, she is still a part of our extended family.
Years later, when we moved into our fixer-upper home, I sought recommendations for contractors to render it livable. Coincidentally, two of the three were ex-Yugoslavs. We chose Zak, the one from Croatia, before we could even ask that personal of a question. He, too, has since interwoven himself into our lives, in part because he still fixes everything that breaks in our house (we have boys, so let your imagination run wild).
But it is really Jovanka, our cleaning lady from Serbia, who has steadied my universe since she first walked through the door. She always tells me that I’m “naša,” the equivalent of a landsman; that I was born in New York is irrelevant. She shares riotous tales and village wisdom as it applies – or not -- here in New Jersey. For thirteen years now, she has taken me under her wing, even if the resident elves restore the house to its former state of disorder just hours after she leaves.
Every year on my youngest son’s birthday, she recalls watching me writhe in agony while on bed rest. She was sure that I would not survive his pregnancy and worried herself into knots. Tell me, though, how many people can say that their cleaning lady prays for them?
Once I’d hung a picture above the beds in our room. I came home the night after Jovanka had been here to find it leaning against the wall. We put it back up, but the next time, sure enough, the picture was down again. It seems a woman in her village had died when the picture hanging above her bed had fallen on her. Years later, still nothing hangs on that wall in our home. I wouldn’t dare.
Jovanka loves that I cook and especially that I bake challah, like a good village woman who makes her own bread. This only proves to her that I’m really a Balkan sister. That said, she has choice words for me because I don’t iron my husband’s shirts. To placate her, I taught her how to make knaidlach. It seems to have worked.
The relationship has been wonderful, long may it reign. Still, there has been one fly in the ointment: my boys’ rooms.
For years, I’ve complained to her about their mess, about their lack of fastidiousness, about their inability – despite their athletic prowess – to get their dirty clothes in the laundry basket, not on the floor right next to it. With a wave of her hand, she would poo-poo my concerns, saying, “Aaah, decki (boys).” So I’d lock their rooms, and she’d find her way in, cleaning them anyway.
Last week, though, clear out of the blue, she declared that it is now time to teach them to clean up after themselves, put away their own things, and hang their own clothes. I nearly plotzed. Surely, she knows that I’ve been trying for fifteen years to do just that, though clearly without much success and sometimes without her complete support.
In the to-the-point yet loving way in which she states everything, she added another round of village wisdom: “They are no longer little boys.” I realized then that all along I’ve been asking them to clean for me. The time has come that they do it for themselves.
Monday, March 18, 2013
The Great Pesach Heist
I’ve been robbed.
Oh, it came as no surprise, though I did not exactly court the trouble myself. My son arrived in this world when he did, six weeks early of his own volition, right on the cusp of Pesach. I returned from the hospital following a C-section and immediately set to kashering my kitchen, a fact I look back upon still today with utter fascination. From whence came the strength, I do not know.
But a fleeting thought came to mind even then: his bar mitzvah would fall out on Shabbat Hagadol. For years, it was something to speculate about with a bit of a nervous chuckle. Eventually, however, the nervous chuckle transformed into full-blown panic when we realized that the first seder would begin that year on a Monday night.
Not exactly perfect timing if you aren’t the sort to spend the holiday in a resort hotel on the beach. And I am not.
Friends and family gently suggested that I consider moving the date, but that wouldn’t have been easy either given conflicts with other bar mitzvahs already on the calendar. Ultimately, G-d had the deciding vote. I’m simply not one to play games with His scheduling. If Shabbat Hagadol is when He wanted the bar mitzvah to take place, that’s when it would take place.
So we proceeded accordingly, and it all looked so doable from far from away. Distance has that remarkable ability to calm our nerves, to convince us that there’s plenty of time to get it all done, to reassure us in the way Israelis say, “yehiye tov.” It will be good.
And yet, the confluence of events suddenly struck me like a ton of bricks once the year of his bar mitzvah arrived. Then the countdown – months, weeks, now days -- began, and I immediately found myself split in two. One half lurched towards Pesach, the other half towards the bar mitzvah. A sliver of me stayed in the center lane, trying to hold down the rest of the work-life-laundry fort. I soon took to using a large piece of paper to manage it all, folding my shopping and to-do lists into three columns.
Now, with less than a week to go until the bar mitzvah and one extra day left until Pesach, I feel much like my fifth grader, whose gym curriculum includes a circus unit. They juggle. They balance plates on sticks. But as my fifth grader -- who has mastered keeping three balls aloft -- will tell you, mismatched objects cannot travel easily in a continuous round. Likewise, a fragile stick cannot keep a heavy plate in the air.
With the pressure on to do too much at once, my frustration has made me into one of those snapping turtles in the aquarium. I need a coffee I.V. to function and I can hardly eke out a smile. I barely recognize myself and Lord knows I don’t admire myself in this state.
Generally, I love this time of year. I enter Pesach cleaning season like a kid in a candy shop. All of the organizing and cleaning and sorting and clearing out set my heart beating as if I’m falling in love with my husband all over again. Almost nothing makes me as happy as lining up bags to donate or pass along to friends. I don’t even mind the smell of Windex and Comet seeping into my skin because the end result – appliances that look brand-spanking new – is so worth it.
But on another level, nothing matches the conversations I have with G-d while I’m cleaning as I get ready for seder at a slow and steady pace. We talk about everything. While wiping down the cabinets, I am wiping my slate clean, too. I apologize for my impatience with my children and my slothfulness when I do not make it to shul, hoping my fastidiousness in preparations for the holiday will somehow make amends.
This year, however, I’ve been denied that lengthy preparation time, rushed as I am with all sorts of distractions. Instead of self-reflection, I’m simply ticking things off lists. Forget about prayer. I’m lucky I’m awake! And so, what has long been a meaningful period of spiritual focus has been stolen right out from under me by thieves who snuck in under the cover of chaos.
This morning, however, I awoke annoyed with myself. Shame on me, I said, for failing to see the wonder of all that is happening around me. I decided to slam on the brakes and take a detour away from the traffic in order to find a way to be genuinely happy – right now. It is unfair, I realized, to allow all of this stress to mute my son’s simcha. Likewise, poor Pesach is awash in the tumult, too. At this rate, nothing is getting the attention it deserves.
And you know what else I realized? I’m entitled to my time with G-d as well. I have scheduled a shorter conversation with Him for later this evening when I’m cleaning the freezer.
So friends, there’s the rub! The burglars may have pocketed a few things, but they left behind the gift of focus.
Gone, for this year at least, are my Pesach-induced neuroses. There’s simply no time for spring cleaning. I will pay close attention to the blessings that nullify whatever chametz I missed in my swoop through the house. As it always is, the kitchen will be kashered and thank G-d, no one will go hungry. The important thing is that we will be together for the holiday.
As for the bar mitzvah, my sons are my greatest blessings, and I’m glad to have had the reminder this year. I promise myself to be present in the moment when my middle man stands to read from the torah. As Grandma Sadye liked to say, I will stick out my chest in pride and be grateful with a full heart.
And once the bar mitzvah is over and Pesach has begun, I will remember to send the burglars a thank you note.
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