Self Help

When I was a tween, I had this recurring dream where I was driving on the side of a mountain alone with a little kid. In the dream, I was a grown-up woman and the kid was my kid. And we were going on an adventure. We were living in Mexico. We were in Greece. We were in the desert. We were high up and there was a sea below and it was joyful.

I also remember dreams about flying. I would always fly low to the ground, swooping and hovering. 

I have had no such dreams since I was a child.

When did I give up on myself? Why do I think I need to be with someone else and not myself? I think I am happiest when I am on my own. I think I'm going to become a dog lady. I got a dog. I am a lady. I think I can be a dog lady without being a lesbian (not that there's anything wrong with it - that's a Seinfeld joke). Dogs are safer. They don't criticize. They will follow you anywhere if you have snacks. They like hiking. 

I always thought I would be alone and I always thought I would have kids. I never ever imagined a man in the picture with me. I couldn't then imagine any man would ever want to kiss me, let alone love me. Is there a part of me that still believes I am unlovable? And that the love of my lovers has all been faked? Like a sci-fi movie of emotions? I still see that vision of myself with my kids, alone. 

In Fat is a Feminist Issue, she writes that fat is a way of walling off the world. Perhaps this is the reason I've gained 15 pounds? Perhaps I am living on brownies and peanut butter M and M's to keep men away? I would like to keep everyone away. I pretty much want to sink into my couch and never leave. The brass ring is always just out of reach. But I'm better on my own. I don't like to share my cake. 

Flying shmying. 

But what about that adventure to Mexico with my kids? They are with me. I am not alone. But that's different.

The Palace of Tears

The Palace of Tears

Pushing my youngest child in a swing was like being in a time warp of joy.I grabbed her feet as she flew toward me, the little leather slippers with owls stitched on the front. “I got your toes,” as she giggled in delight. I remembered the blue ones with cars my oldest son had 13 years ago. Each time she came toward me, excited with a little drool slipping down the one corner of her teeny mouth, I was in the moment, my heart rising up a little with the black rubber baby swing. Each time she slipped away, I had this sense of the younger parents next to me and of all the years that had come before this, all the times I had pushed a baby on a swing, coached a toddler to reach his little legs out and in, and reach for the clouds with your feet, reach for the branch, reach for mommy’s hand held out just beyond the reach of their toes. It was like I couldn’t make sense of being 43 with a one year old, like I couldn’t understand how I could have a baby and a teenager at the same time, gray hair and nipples leaking milk. 

 The baby’s eyes crossed as the swing slowed. She pulled her hands from the metal triangles attaching the rubber seat to the chain and clapped them together. How much her father would enjoy this, it killed me not to have him here. I looked over at the couple to my left, pushing their chubby little boy with dark curly hair who kept giving them rasberries. They were arguing over who had left the towel on the floor. “I just felt caught off guard because I thought we were in good shape for the open house,” the wife was saying passive aggressively, “So I freaked out and shoved it in your bottom drawer.” She made a clucking noise to the little boy, avoiding eye contact with her husband. “So, y’know … just so you know.” She grabbed the swing, pulled it up to her chin, locked eyes with the baby and said, “Ah, ah, ah … ah-choo!” and let the swing go, the baby giggling and kicking his little feet. 

 I didn’t feel so bad to be alone anymore. 

 Probably the best sex we ever had was by a swimming hole he wanted to show me. We had talked about it for a while, doing it outside, and I had been obsessed with 10,000 Maniacs that summer. And we had wildflower fever. We had to lay down where they grow… But the honeyed haze with which I now remember those 20 minutes seem impossible, like somebody else’s movie. I remember the sweat dripping off of him, the bees buzzing around us, how amazing it was to jump into the water after that. I was 41 but I could have been 14. I could not have felt any younger, more free. Then there was the time I wanted to go swimming in the city pool the next summer, when I was pregnant. I was so big and he had been moving in for months, the whole summer it seemed. It was taking forever, just a few boxes at a time, but each time a new load came in it was like my house’s pants felt tighter after a big turkey dinner. We worked all day without the air conditioner to save on the bill. It was dark and dank in the house and humid and bright outside. Come on, I said, it’s the weekend. Let’s take a break. I have to jump in the water. He said he’d be out shortly. I waited and waited, trying to bite my lip, to be patient, shifting my hips around on the stoop to ease my sciatica, but he didn’t come. Sorry, he finally said as he walked out onto the stoop, closing the front door behind him, but he didn’t mean it. We got in the car. He was silent and dark. I kept pointing out the items I’d brought to make it pleasant: towels and water bottles, snacks and sunscreen. I heard my voice go up and octave and I hated it. This is how I’d been with my ex-husband, trying to cheer him out of his moods. 

 When we pulled up to the pool, it sounded like a party in there with hip hop thumping like a sound cloud around. It was one of the few city pools with trees in the outer park, and it looked shady and inviting while the pool seemed blue and crowded and cool. I unbuckled my seat belt. “No fucking way,” he said. “What?” I was so close to relief. “I’m not going in there.” I felt ready to cry. 

I know what I should have done, of course. Had my therapist been the little angel on my shoulder, I would have looked at him calmly and said, suit yourself, I’m hot as fuck and I’ve given up my whole damn summer to help you move in, bent myself over backward to make you feel welcome and clear out all my stuff and my kids’ stuff you can have room for your own, and now I’m going in the fucking pool.

But of course, that’s not what happened. If it was, I wouldn’t still need therapy, would I? Nope. Not at all. Instead, I said, okay there’s another location on 4th and Washington, but it might be closed by the time we get there. He drove, slow as molasses, and parked and as I got out, I heard the lifeguard blow the final whistle of the day. Everyone got out and went to their towels. I got back in the car, choking back tears, and he said sorry but didn’t mean it for the second time that day.  

Elegy for Fashion

 It's not just the Pandemic. That's a big part of it, of course. You can't exactly get excited about wearing the same leggings and T-shirt ... again. Or putting your baby in something cute when she's only going to visit the living room. That alone makes me sad and hopeless.

But it's also the rest of the fashion world. It's like a Peter Paul and Mary song: Where have all the magazines gone, long time passing. It's not going into stores, not trying things on, not flipping through catalogues. The only catalogue that ever comes to my house anymore is L.L. Bean because I bought the kids slippers there a few years ago. Let me announce to the world, I have never bought or worn clothing from L.L. Bean and I never will (okay a pair of socks, but they were sooooooooo cozy!). But I find myself pawing through it as I sip my coffee because there is nothing else. Why oh why, Victoria's Secret, have you not sent me photos of impossibly thin women wearing ridiculous underwear? I won't buy it and certainly wouldn't wear it, but at least it wouldn't be so damn depressing as mom jeans and turtlenecks. Turtlenecks!

And listen all you hopeful, bright-eyed millenials, do NOT try to smooth this over by telling me A) 90's fashion is back (to that I say, Like gag me with a spoon!) or B) well, I just look at all these great fashion blogs on my phone. Instagram is not a magazine. Suddenly all these lovely mom friends of mine who used to post cute pics of their kids or amazing yoga poses are trying to be influencers. Please! I do not want to see you in athleisure. I do not want to know about what face cream you use. I really just want to see the dumb pictures of you and your kids at the beach. I really just want to see your attempts to capture a sunset. 

In the famous words of Carrie Bradshaw, fashion is my cardio. It is also my bedtime, bathroom, morning coffee, and coffee break reading. It is my subway read. It is what I do when toddlers are playing around my feet so I don't go insane with boredom but also don't get so engrossed in what I'm reading that I can't pay attention when they start to climb the stairs or stick forks into electric outlets. It is not the same on a phone - you don't get free perfume samples and you can't rip out pages for your recipe books or your "one day i'll find this on sale at Loehmann's folder.

I find myself jonesing for fashion these days like a sugar fiend, which is what I've become. I have gained 15 pounds in this pandemic, stripped of all cardio, not just the fashion kind. And wandering from room to room between the baby and toys and un-folded laundry and re-folded laundry and various Chromebooks and wires, trying to get organized and never really being able to get anything done and never needing to actually get anywhere, which might force me to actually get something done. 

It feels like, why bother cleaning my house? Why bother putting on earrings? In fact, why bother putting on pants? I used to be a shoe person. I - gasp! - wear shoes in my house and invite others to do the same. Also in the spirit of Carrie Bradshaw, shoes are part of the outfit, and I don't feel fully dressed without them. Slippers are not the same. I just feel so frumpy in slippers or flip flops, like my bra is hanging out, like I'm in a bathrobe or what my grandma used to wear - a housecoat. That's what it feels like these days, like my grandma at the end of her life, in shapeless house coats, never going anywhere, never feeling the need to wear a bra. But she was a woman in her 80's she deserved a break.  She wore a girdle for decades for gods sake! She stood on her feet taking orders in a bakery for decades. She got dressed up for holidays and dinner parties and early bird specials. She earned her housecoat. 

But as Woody Allen said, It's important to make a little effort once in a while. I am not 80. I am not done living. And for me, fashion is about living. It is hard to care about an extra 15 pounds when I'm not planning to put on a dress for a long time. I'll lose it then, I say in my head, though I fear I won't. I feel like my life is on hiatus because my wardrobe is. And along with it has gone all sense of self-care. I've stopped exercising, watching what I eat, even showering regularly. There were even a few scary days when I wondered if it were really necessary to brush my teeth. 

So how to come back from this? Is it COVID sensitive to do an emergency trip to Anthro? Or Lucky? I'll even try on the size I really am at the current moment (and stare longingly at the size 4's I know I truly am way down deep beneath). Or, you know, I could just stop buying carrot cake in a cup from Acme. Please - I need to care about something again. And I don't mean spirituality or my fellow man. I mean skinny jeans and ponchos. HELP fashion gods! Help!

A Fran Leibowitz Life

 I felt the need to write today and decided to do it as a blog post. I vaguely remembered that I had a blog out there once upon a time, but I was surprised to log in and find that there were so many posts and that they actually went until quite recently. I must have started this thing when I was pregnant with my oldest, who is now almost 14!!! Reading these old posts was like being a time traveler. I thought I might be reading someone else's thoughts, but indeed, I do remember some of these events and definitely know my own writing style, so I guess it was me all along.

Me. Who is that person and aren't we supposed to have that figured out by the time we are 20? 25 at the latest? I think I might still be discovering this person.

Don't get me wrong - I have a very solid sense of self, but we are not all Fran Leibowitz, and some of us have self-doubt. Especially those of us who were bullied as kids, were pressured into pleasing our fathers all the time, and who generally felt out of place our whole lives. As an adult, I embraced that outsider quality and used it to find friends and a community of like-minded people. After my divorce, I felt even more sure of myself. I loved meeting new people and saying, here I am. This is who I am, fuck-ups and all. Take the whole package or feel free to shop elsewhere.

But I have always been so SO susceptible to other people's views of me: My ex-husband, my son, my sister. I seem to fight with EVERYONE. All the time. So much drama. I am in therapy with literally every member of my past and present family. Except Eli, who probably needs it, too.

So? If I have so many problems with so many people, who is the problem? Who is at the center of all of these problems? Me. 

My son keeps telling me I do inappropriate things as a parent and I make poor parenting decisions. My ex-husband seems to agree and has hired a lawyer to tell me so. If I'm not fighting with my dad, it's my sister or my sister-in-law, or my mother. My daughter tells me every day she hates me. My boyfriend seems to generally like me, but I think I make him mad plenty. 

I just want to run away for a long time to someplace warm. Help me Fran Leibowitz, help me!

Forgiveness

I had an epiphany in yoga last week. It was the simplest thing, a thing I've thought a million times over. But somehow, it did the trick.

The teacher asked us to set an intention for the class and I was thinking about how I need to judge myself less harshly and how I demand so much. I've been drowning in narcissistic self pity and I know it and I know it's not good for me, for my career, for my kids - let alone any kind of love life I might want to have. But knowing it and feeling it are two different things. But somehow, I came to the idea that what I needed was not to pretend that all of my fuck-ups never happened or that somehow I won't fuck up again (cause I will!), but that I can acknowledge them and repent them, and still forgive myself. Don't I always forgive others? Aren't I known as being too forgiving? And yet, as my sister has pointed out, the world has not been very forgiving of me. Maybe I need to be the first.

I was also thinking about how I forgive my parents for all their various missteps. As a parent, I now appreciate how hard they had it with all three of us, and especially me, the pain in the ass. I didn't mean to be a pain in the ass, of course, I think I am naturally contradictory. I swear it's genetic - the devil's advocate gene. I blame it on coming from an argumentative people. And also, I always see the other side. So, I was seeing my parents' other side, and Mr. Nation's other side (he was the theater teacher in high school - can you believe I was lucky enough to have a theater teacher at my high school? - and I drove him nuts, too). And it is good to look back on my past and see where others may have had quarrel with me, but I went too far. I began to see everything from everyone else's point of view, and completely lost my own. Like every argument in my entire 40 years was all my fault and never was there any shared blame. Or just good old difference of opinion.

I had been angry with my parents for so long and this all came to a head at Passover, both for the things they did when I was a child, and also the things they continue to do. It was the night of the chopped liver. My mother didn't trust me with it. But mostly, she didn't trust anyone to do anything right enough to please my father. It was always about pleasing my father and since no one could ever do that except here (and often not her, either), I could never be given the chance to try. I felt that as a little kid - you know when you want to be given grown up tasks and not just little kid busy work. And I felt it that night. I feel it when they don't want to come to my house for dinner or I bring some cookies over and they are okay, they're fine or even good, but they are given this raaaaave review like oh my god, no one has eeeeever made chocolate chip cookies before! Like I'm being pandered to. So I insist my mother let me handle the chopped liver and I'll get it done for her before she even wakes up, because I have to go out when she will be up and cooking the rest of the meal (the main meal, the meal that counts, because god forbid I should ever be given the chance to make the turkey. Have I mentioned that I'm a 40 year old woman with plenty of turkey behind her?) I want so badly to take the burden off of her, to please her by having done a job well, well enough that it might even please my father, which would in turn please her. And all of this is so embarrassing as I write it down - why am I still trying to please my father? I cook all the time, good meals, bad meals, sort of okay meals. I am perfectly competent in the kitchen and perfectly confident in my cooking abilities - usually.

So she leaves me the recipe and I get everything right - the onions are perfectly browned, they consistency is yellow and creamy. The only thing is that I hate chopped liver, so I have no idea how it's supposed to taste. My mother comes down just as I've finished all the dishes I agreed to make and I'm about to leave for my appointment. She tastes it and I am just so proud - finally, I have proven my worth as a daughter and a woman. And then she goes, Ummmm... how many livers did you use? And I say - the ones that were in the package. And she's like - All of them?!?!?! And I'm like yeah -- it was a frozen package - I just assumed I was supposed to use them all. And she's like - you were supposed to use 5. I wrote it down for you. And I say - So how many were in the package? And she goes - 20!

Oy vey!

So we fix it. It came out okay. There was a LOT of extra. And we used a ton more eggs. But the toll was taken on my ego and I just couldn't get out of it. She'll never trust me with anything again, I worry. She doesn't even see me as an adult. I'm not capable of anything. And it spirals out. I think of all the times I was proven incompetent. It must be true. I must not be able to pull off anything worthwhile. Certainly, I didn't ever believe I could get a real job, have a real husband, be a real mother. That these things have happened seem accidents of the fates - like the authorities haven't noticed yet that they should actually confiscate my children, that it's only a matter of time until my boss fires me, and that maybe my divorce isn't really about my ex-husband's drug use, but really about the inability of anyone in the world to love me - because I can't make chopped liver! And therefore can clearly accomplish nothing else worthwhile in the world.

Yes, I know this is all ridiculous. But it's the rabbit hole I went down. I picture myself as Alice, but not stopping off to taste things or notice the underground foliage, just scraping hopelessly at the wet dirt on the side of the very long hole, my fingernails breaking off and my voice going hoarse as I scream indignantly. It is no one's fault but mine that I am falling and I look very ungraceful with my arms milling about like that. I hear my father telling me I sound like an elephant as I stomp up the stairs, that I don't know my own strength as I hug a grown-up tightly, or sarcastically calling me a liiiiiiberal and a feeeeeeminist as I grow into a rebellious teen phase. I am angry and lost and feel like my little four year old with his sad pout when I make him sit in time out for hitting his brother. I hate myself, he cries pitifully and I hug him. I still make him sit in time out, but first I hug him, because a little child should not have to feel like that.

So can I hug myself? It is hard to hug yourself. It is hard to forgive yourself. It is easier to forgive others. I have never felt the victim of the world. I have often felt so different from the world, and tried to turn my monsterishness into uniqueness, to embrace weirdness. It worked for a time and I convinced myself that I was whole and happy. But apparently, it took a job change, a divorce, and ultimately a messed up recipe to get to the place where I could not stop pretending that the monster in the mirror was me. It is me, and I have to learn to love the monster or I will never reach the bottom of the well, nor be able to climb back out.

More fears - middle aged and otherwise

Fear of a bad review at work
Fear that I am still a bratty tween
Fear that people can see that I'm faking being an adult woman on the outside while being a bratty tween on the inside
Fear of saying stupid things while drunk
Fear of getting drunk and sleeping with men and waking up and realizing I said stupid things all night long
Fear that the man will want to call me
But the other fear that I should want him to call me and what does it mean that I do not care?
Fear that I do not know enough
Fear that I can never know enough
Fear that everyone else knows more than me
Fear that I always say stupid things, drunk or not
Fear that I will know the right thing to do but do the wrong thing
Fear that I have made bad decisions my whole life and that this represents a pattern and that the pattern is strong enough to be "who you are" and that this essentially makes me a "person who makes bad decisions"
Fear that everyone else is making better decisions while I am out there fucking up again and again
Fear that I am beginning to hate myself for all of these fuck ups
Fear that I have always hated myself and am just now beginning to admit it
Fear that even though I have admitted this, I will not be able to change it
Fear that all of this fear is very self absorbed
Fear that my grandfather will die
Fear that my kids will not remember him
Fear that all of his knowledge and his experience of the old world - a world that does not exist anymore- will be gone with him
Fear that we will forget
the Holocaust
a world where people went hungry and walked miles for fresh water daily
a world in which you had to walk everywhere and you couldn't text upon arrival
that a 97 year old man was once a teenager who liked to sing zionist songs with his friends and perform in street plays on Purim and dance tango with young ladies at the rec center in the village
Fear of time

Why I Can't Stop Writing About the Holocaust

They say the second generation after a traumatic event actually has a kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome. My mother fits the bill - nightmares, guilt, acting from obligation, extreme dedication to the group. But what about the third generation? Are we supposed to be rid of it? I'm definitely not.

Last night, Larry and I came home to find all three of our kids cuddling on the couch with my parents. It was really sweet. Eli, who had a fever, was on my Dad's lap, and they were both draped in our couch blanket. Dylan was reading a book I'd never seen to my mom and Joey had her head in my mother's lap, listening. I noticed it was a sort of graphic novel. Then I realized it was some book about the Holocaust. Dylan is 7 and Joey is 4. They were reading about a boy whose parents had pushed him into a closet. The story followed the boy's narrow escpae from the Nazis while hiding in this closet. That sounds pretty intense for a 7 year old, when I think about it. They don't even start Holocaust education in Hebrew School until 4th grade.

Larry was upset - he thought the kids were too young. But they didn't seem upset; in fact, they seem interested. It is certainly too young for gory details. But is there an age that is too young to know about this world-changing event, an event that two of their great-grandparents survived? Great-grandparents they know, by the way, not just some dusty old pictures with hollow eyes and no smiles, people they love.