November 11th, 2010
When I opened my blog posts today I was astonished to see that it had been 10 months since I’ve written a post. I haven’t had a consistent creative outlet in months. I admonished myself (like only I can get away with). No wonder I’ve been noticing a growing level of irritability lately, and why my children have been doing their homework in an adjacent room. Read the rest of this entry »
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January 26th, 2010
“This isn’t going to show up in your next book, is it?”
It’s a funny thing about being a non-fiction writer. It seems it has made some people wary of me. I knew this was true when Olivia scrunched her face and said, “I can’t believe you wrote that.” And when friends have made disclaimers in conversations, stopping themselves mid-sentence to say, “Don’t blog about this.” I even overheard one of my brothers say to another,”Watch it. She remembers everything” (call it a curse, but it is true). Read the rest of this entry »
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January 12th, 2010
Home. It can find you in many places. Like today, for instance. All day, I was defining home as this lovely house that I live in. “Should I go out for coffee or just stay home?” I thought to myself. I filled out an application online and they asked for my home number. I knew which one they meant – it traveled along a cable and entered my phone through a hole in the exterior wall of my kitchen, into my home.
Sometimes home is Milwaukee where I grew up in, and where my entire family lives still. I’ve been deciding when I’ll go home this summer for our annual family retreat weekend.
Tonight I experienced another home, one that I had forgotten was a vital part of my weave. It was my graduate school, JFK University. I have been attending JFKU since the fall of 2006, and I’ve come a long way since the first term, when I was shocked we were actually meditating in class. Now I’m upset if the meditation is too short. Read the rest of this entry »
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December 31st, 2009
I sat at a cafe and glanced down at an abandoned newspaper. The Lifestyle section had a column titled “Fifty Things We Learned in 2009″. I sighed. It seemed that everywhere I turned, the media was assembling synopses.
At first I thought the summaries bothered me because I am more comfortable looking ahead than I am looking back. Or it could be because I thought it was preposterous to try to sum up 365 days in one column or television segment.
But then it dawned on me. The reason I didn’t want to review the last year was because it was dangerous territory. If I dipped my toe in the water of nostalgia, I would likely be pulled in by the tide of gratitude. If I gave it just a little thought, if I put together the pieces of the last twelve months, I would see that I had a year overflowing with mind-blowing blessings. And I really needed to write a final paper for grad school today.
As I sat in the pew of my synagogue, mesmerized by Harrison’s d’var torah as he become a bar mitzvah, I knew it was a special year. A shy child become a bold man, looking his guests in the eye as he shook their hands, allowing himself to be body-passed over the dancing crowd, hugging me when he thanked me and Michael at the end of the night. It was a year of watching Olivia mature, too, as she generously handed her brother the limelight, and as she made fresh choices for healthy friendships. There was nothing like watching her ferociously face opponents on the basketball court, too.
My brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, sisters-in-law and parents astounded me with their bottomless well of love in 2009. They flew out to California for Harrison’s bar mitzvah, and filled the crowd at my book launch in Milwaukee. They called me and offered me support as I decided to leave consultancy and seek the next career move. Throughout the last year, they constantly told me words that still make me cry today: I’ve got your back.
It was a year of nieces. Sabrina moved in with us, and Stephanie spent after school hours with the kids every week. They both share their spirit, their humor, their zeal for life with our households. They are forbidden to leave the state. I’ve offered them incentives to lure their siblings to California.
This year I finally deeply understand the transitions my mom had the courage to go through in her own life, and I credit her with my strength and stamina. She was my first one to read my manuscript, she is my first call after a victory, and the first voice of support on a bad day. She held up my book at every one of her networking meetings, boasting about her daughter and selling books, and she scheduled my book launch in Milwaukee. Forget the woman behind the man. She’s the mom behind the woman.
Hikes with girlfriends and candid conversations were the highlights of my weeks last year. I am so fortunate to have friends who showed such unbridled enthusiasm when The New Jew was published, and their support for everything I do means the world to me.
My book tour gave me the unexpected bonus of spending time with friends I had lapsed with. They opened their homes to me when I stayed in their cities, feeding me, giving me vitamins when I was getting overrun from exhaustion. I felt nurtured and loved every time I travelled, and friendships have found second lives.
A surprise romance opened my heart to love in a new stage of life, and I am so very lucky. It’s different this time around – kids, schedules, careers and life’s daily bustle make it challenging to see each other sometimes, but I’m learning to integrate, and it is lovely.
It was a year with death. My brother-in-law Marshall passed away. I miss him very much. I don’t think I’ll ever see a smile like his again. I was stunned by the death of my friend Robert, a friend of mine from Larchmont Temple. When I was last there he took a photo of me that I loved so much, I use it on my Facebook author page. They, and others, are gone. But they are not forgotten.
It is confirmed – I cannot possibly summarize an entire year in an essay. For every sentence of gratitude I begin, ten more pop into my mind. How can I recall each pomegranate colored sunset over my deck, the cat’s smug expression from the sofa, the raucous games of Pictionary, the sound of the branches brushing my window, the taste of the best smoothie ever, the feel of my daughter’s hand in mine?
I have just one New Year’s resolution: to give back even half as much as I received last year.
Happy New Year.
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December 29th, 2009
It is vacation time. The kids are on school break and I am enjoying the simple pleasures for the first time in a long time – sporadically anyhow. No planes to catch, no interviews to schedule, no books to send. It has been board games, making tissue paper flowers, challenging kids in scrabble and humiliating myself on Wii games in between interviews, meetings and final papers.
One of Harrison’s and Olivia’s biggest treats is reading past midnight. This has seriously cut into my opportunity for late night television, something I indulge in just a few times a year. So, when the kids left for Tahoe with Michael, I surrounded myself with DVD’s and munchies and ended the night with an episode of CSI: New York .
There are a few seductions to this show, and they all reflect a sampling of my fantasies: of being a detective, of having curls like Melina Kanakaredes’, of having a job with cool, high-tech gadgets, Read the rest of this entry »
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November 29th, 2009
I awoke this morning, sat at the kitchen table, and opened the local paper. Before browsing the headlines, I sipped my fresh coffee and looked out onto the vibrant colors of turning leaves in the backyard. How lucky I am to be able to be able to take in this view, I thought.
I pulled by glance away from the window and began to read the paper. Within minutes all of my gratitude fell away like a bare foot on a mossy rock. I thought of Einstein’s famous quote “The biggest decision one will make in life is to decide whether the world is hostile, or whether it is friendly.” I knew what viewpoint I had chosen. And it clashed with the media’s chosen view. The paper was one big tome of disastrous, tragic things happening everywhere. I couldn’t help but wonder – did I really need any of this information?
There was the couple who died on Thanksgiving Day while digging for clams, and a man who perished when his sailboat capsized. Their were stories about the man who shot his two kids on Thanksgiving Day, and the couple who mocked our President’s State Dinner by crashing the party. And who could miss the breaking news about Black Friday early shoppers, boasting $1,000 in shoe purchases? Read the rest of this entry »
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November 28th, 2009
Last September my niece Sabrina returned from a visit to Wisconsin and handed me a package.
“It’s a birthday gift from my mom,” she grinned. “Open it!”
I hadn’t expected a birthday gift. As close as Chrissy and I are, we rarely exchange gifts (although she does have a habit of grabbing miscellaneous things from around her house and offering them up to me). I pulled the tissue away from the package and uncovered a rhinestone-encrusted tiara, spelling ”Happy Birthday.”
“Oh, my god. It’s perfect.”
Seems Chrissy was spreading her own formula for the female pick-me-up. We all have them. I’m not talking about a hike, or a massage, a night out with girlfriends. I’m referring to those little secret indulgent things we do for ourselves. I have a friend who is a believer in the healing effects of a late night burger and fries. Another wears seductive lingerie under t-shirt and jeans, knowing she is the only one who will see it. One girlfriend dons a cocktail dress at home with full make-up and has imaginary look-where-I-am-now conversations with old boyfriends. Read the rest of this entry »
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November 25th, 2009
I love my dinners with Harrison and Olivia. Each night we set the table, light two candles, grasp hands and have a silent meditation. We express something we are grateful for in the last twenty-four hours, and enjoy our dinner. It is a perfect way to set the day’s activities behind us, and settle into our family evening.
The conversations that ensue are often enlightening. One night Harrison and Olivia shared articles they had had read in Newsweek. I was amazed, considering I hadn’t picked up an issue from our coffee table in months. Other times we recap our days. There are the sibling spats and the kids telling me not to respond to my beeping iphone, too – all in a night’s conversation.
Tonight Harrison and I were alone, and he was in the mood to express his latest brainstorm. A filmmaker, a consumer advocate and a budding entrepreneur, he was rarely at a loss for ideas.
“Hey, mom. I have an idea for a reality show,” Read the rest of this entry »
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November 24th, 2009
I’m sitting in the airport, listening to a woman behind me talk to her dog on the phone. I know this because I’m guessing her child isn’t named “Miffy” of “Spot”. Or at least I hope not.
My horoscope today suggested that I live in the present. Eckhart Tolle would agree. However, I’ve decided to choose which present, because in any given moment, there is a lot to take in. The puppy-doting woman was entertaining, until she got a human on the phone and went into an elaborate description of the cruise buffet. The cluster of eight men walking through the airport with pointy felt hats and gray knickers were interesting (was there a direct flight from the Alps?), but they passed by too quickly before I could surmise about what sort of musical instruments they were hauling in the tube-shaped bags. I decided on the interior moment, sitting in the airport an author completing a tour, and reflected on the last 24 hours. Read the rest of this entry »
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October 25th, 2009
“Sally, do you know what to expect from this class?” the scantily clad instructor asked me in front of the other twenty students.
‘Yes. It’s going to be very hot.”
I was standing in the middle of my latest brilliant idea. Since I am traveling a good deal in the next two months, taking my traditional coursework in graduate school was not an option. So rather than bowing out this quarter, my program director at JFKU and I created an independent study course about leadership. That would have been enough, except I wouldn’t qualify for financial aid unless I took one more unit.
That’s where my brilliant idea came in.
Rather than design another cerebral course, I decided to create somatic balance. After all, I am enrolled in Integral Psychology. I must treat and respect the whole person. So I decided to study and enroll in Bikram Yoga. Read the rest of this entry »
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