Monday, June 29, 2009

Benjamin Button

There are not enough photos in the world. Video will never be real enough. But there is the smell of your sweaty hair on a summer night. Your little knuckles squeezed into my fist. Your backwards hugs as I read you to sleep. Your surprise at waking up. Your hiccough-laugh as your daddy catches a firefly. Your turn to play pet shop, pretend there's a baby in your belly, throw blueberries across the room, pull the cat's tail, splash in your tiny blow-up pool naked, try to put a marble up your butt, announce with a stick and a golf ball that you are going to teach your doll how to play baseball, jump in the tub until the floor (and me) are soaked, eat your boogies, go nuts for ice cream, build a tunnel for your trains, say "guess what, I'm gonna be a big brodder" in that sing-song voice, learn all the words to Aiken Drum, Where the Wild Things Are, eat charcoal because you think it's chocolate, and be afraid of worms in your shoe. Nothing could be better. 

Monday, June 22, 2009

Rainbow

1) The rainbow the other night at Rachel Barr's graduation party. OMG I have never seen one so complete and bright and beautiful. Obviously a sign of good things to come for the bright, beautiful Rachel.

2) The skittles I want to keep eating and the roaches in my cabinets and my stomach that keeps making me want to throw right up. Hooray for pregnancy

3) The calm I feel (I know this isn't a direct rainbow relationship, but is associated with the calm and optimism I felt at the sight of #1) even though my work world is topsy turvy right now. I know nothing's written in stone and that I made it all worse by getting pregnant, but somehow I feel like there might be a change (for the first time in my life) of actual work actually working out and me actually being able to feed my family and not have to cry every night because i can't get a decent paycheck. do you think? could it happen? probably not.

4) screw rainbows!

Sunday, May 3, 2009

beginning to see the light. creeping towards teh light. gotta get through tomorrow. gotta get summer job. gotta finish story and paper and then ....Laaaahhhhhhhhhh!

I see a future where I can watch TV and buy stuff --- soon to be a real American!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

diversity 1

So, I'm starting a new project and here goes:

I want to bring diversity to my mom's group. That might mean a lot of things: racial, sexual, gender, class, religion, etc and so on.

This will be my final project for my women's studies class, so there will be some academic stuff going on. These blog entries will be part of that.

so here's what's what. Basically, I sent out emails to the group as well as some other local groups who seemed to be concerned with this stuff. I found a mom's group for women of color and a gay and lesbian family group. Haven't heard back from the LGBT's but the mocha moms have been awesome. The end result is that we're setting up a playgroup/meeting to talk about all of this.

I was really afraid that my inquiries would be rebuffed. I was worried that the mocha moms might think it was a very strange thing to get from a total stranger. That they might think I was trying to do diversity tourism in playgroup or trying to get token members or just think the whole thing was stupid. I was also worried that women in my mom's group would be angry. I was worried they would accuse me of trying to bring politics into what they might consider a-political space. Like, hey, we're all moms here and we're trying to support each other and isn't that enough?

BUT that's not at all the reaction I got from anyone. Of course, it coudl be that people with those negative comments just didn't respond to my inquiry, but I certainly didn't get any hate mail. On the other hand, I did get lots of enthusiastic responses. One of the mocha moms actually has a sister right in the area, so hopefully, she can come to the playground sometimes. I joked that she could be our token member. I didn't get a laugh -- but it's email, so its hard to tell withotu emotiocons. I'm very very hopeful, though.

check back to see what happens.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Santosha



Apparently, this means contentment, with an emphasis on enjoying the moment. Something I aspire to do better.



We spent the weekend at a great BB by this name in the Poconos, did yoga, hiked, washed away anger and doubt, drank good coffee, watched the sunrise, and rubbed each others' shoulders. We also crashed a sweet 16, rubbed elbows with Dati folk wearing streimels and speaking Yiddish, and bought a dresser for $15, so if that's not a good weekend, I don't know what is.



Oh, and it was the first time we left Dylan over night. Don't worry, he had a blast with his brother and a whole cadre of other children.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Spring Makeover

Ok, I know it's trite, but I can't help it. I just went shopping (I sneaked it in on my way home from an appointment, so it was Dylan free!!!) and I don't fit into any jeans -- ahhhhhhhhh! It's not just that because some fit - that is they buttoned and zipped --- but it's like I have a totally different body. I don't recognize this body. It doesn't even seem like mine. Where did my old one go????

So, now that I've eaten a slice of pizza and a chocolate bar, I need to figure out how to get it back. I don't think Weight Watchers is going to work again, because I'm just way too busy to remember to write down all the points. I guess we've been eating a lot of meat and pasta (and yes, ok, fine, chocolate!!!!), so that's got to stop.

But I don't want to give up chocoate. But I want to fit into pants. Ahhhhhhhh!

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Home Place

Kol Tzeddek Reconstructionist Services 5/7/09

Perhaps it is an omen; I have just checked my horoscope online (a fiendish little habit) and discovered that my Tarot card for the day is the star: “You are consciously on the way home in a spiritual sense.” Sometimes these things are right, sometimes they’re just loopy. Today, it is uncanny. I have just returned from attending for the first time services at Kol Tzeddek, an egalitarian reconstructionist congregation in West Philadelphia, lead by a woman rabbi and woman cantor. This monthly service is called “Tot Shabbat” and it is aimed at families with young children because it consists mostly of participatory singing, dancing, and storytelling rather than traditional lead and response prayers. Despite the non-traditional nature of this service, it contained many elements I consider intrinsic to a Jewish service: the reading of the Torah, the recitation of the Sh’mah and the Mourner’s Kaddish. What made me feel at home was the mixture of these things in what I consider a uniquely feminist recipe.
It is not just that the rabbi and cantor were both women, though that helped. It was not just that the focus was on children, though that helped. It was the larger sense of open-ness that made me feel at home. My husband, a convert to Judaism, and I, raised Conservadox, have been on a pilgrimage for as long as I can remember to find a spiritual home. I can remember discussing with him the feeling of community his sister had been able to find a home in her Catholic parish, just as his parents, who had helped to build a new parish in West Chester, Pennsylvania, had found theirs. My brother and his wife seemed to be finding their home place in a forward looking but very Orthodox shul in Boston. Others of our siblings were not as settled, but neither did they seem to be searching. We felt all alone in our quest not just for religion, but for the kind of religion that resonated with our souls and our hearts. We are interested in social justice, but that’s not a religion on its own. We are interested in meditation on the spiritual, but we do not want to sit alone with our legs crossed and our fingers in mudras – we want to share that journey with others. And we are interested in finding a place which is fundamentally welcoming: to women, to converts, to people who question, to people who want to challenge and try doing things differently. This is what I feel I may have found at Kol Tzeddek.
I often see the difference between the Catholicism that my husband grew up with and the Judaism that I grew up with as a difference between prioritizing faith or practice. Practice without faith is hollow and faith without practice is unanchored to the world. Neither my husband nor I conceive of god as a sentient entity, but as some kind of life force. Similarly, neither of us is willing to embrace ritual without examining it, without imbuing it with meaning that resonates with us. We are looking for a home place that both rejects the universalism of Christianity, in its broadest cultural, moral, religious, and social senses, and rejects the elitism and exoticism of Judaism. We want to be part of the cultural and spiritual worlds of the Jewish people, but we don’t wish to fetishize it. This, I feel is a fundamentally feminist and critical quest as well as a spiritual one. Perhaps it is too idealistic a quest. Perhaps there is no perfect home place, but I feel at home among the doubters, the questioners, the let’s-try-it-this-way-and-see-what-happens folks.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I want something wide and vast and i don't know what it is: a new country, a new language, a new mode, a new way of moving my body, of knowing the world, of interacting with people.

I just saw a guy get robbed in the subway. Not the end of the world -- they took his i-pod, scared him a bit, ran off. People came to his defense. I went up and told the teller to call the police. Two black male robbers, one white male victim - so cliche I can't stand it. They were all in their 20's - at first I thought it was just horsing around, or a fight between people who knew each other. Just as I told the teller, the two assailants came running through the turnstiles and I said -- those two guys. I should have stuck my foot out to trip them or something, because the next moment, there was the police officer, hot on their trail (he was young and black, too --- too cliche? he wasn't officer krupke, for god's sake). He shot through the turnstile, muttering -- what they hell did they do? --- and swiveling his head all around. That-a way -- I pointed after them and he shot up the steps after them. Could have caught them - I don't know. I felt like I was in a cartoon. I was the lazy mexican with the giant sombrero and the half empty bottle of tequila - they went that-a way --- too cliche?

I want something expansive. I want a new theory, a new critique, a deconstruction of all the things I am told are not problems. You are too sensitive. They didn't mean any offense. Offense is not the issue.

My sister-in-law works with these women - these tofu and broccoli hating women and it makes her so angry. Did you ever ruin Christmas by telling other little children that Santa doesn't exist? - they demand of her, the lone Jew. Oh, we didn't mean any offense. Why would you want to feel any pain? they demand of her for attempting natural childbirth. Indeed, why would you want to feel anything? Process everything. Just eat your damn hamburgers and don't challenge things. Everyone is male and Christian and white and rich. All men are created equal. Let's all go to the mall.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Caffiene

Cannot concentrate. Comps exam two days away. Fingers twitchy. Time flows like piss from a drunk guy. How did it get to be 1:32? Why did I schedule a playgroup for 3pm? Who is Oedipa Mass, anyway?