Things I Could Do Without ~ by Jay

So Elizabeth Warren said something wonderful, which no doubt you've already heard.

"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody,” Warren said. “You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You built a factory, and it turned into something terrific or a great idea: God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

I love it. Other people do not. One of them created this response

Right. Because women's sexuality is a market commodity, sold to men, and rape is exactly the same thing as paying taxes for road construction and education.

Some days I really, really don't like people.

Man in a Hat ~ by Jay

There's a man in a hat in my front yard. I can tell from looking out the window that he's humming as he pulls weeds and picks up twigs and sweeps the shreds of mown grass off the sidewalk.

Sam doesn't meditate. He goes outside and gets dirty, digging and planting and tidying and snipping and filling buckets with dead flowerheads and bits of thistle and brown pokeweed stems. There's a huge grass stain on his knee and I think he tore the back pocket of his jeans again, and none of that matters.

There's a man in a hat in my front yard, and he is a happy man, and I love him.

A Sweet New Year ~ by Jay

Kugel and challah are made, the second brisket is cooking while the first rests, the black beans (not traditional but beloved by our vegetarian friends) are done and the first pie is cooling while the second bakes. Sam is practicing his Torah portion. Must be the afternoon of erev Rosh Hashanah.

In this liminal time, when the gates are open and we stand closer to the divinity within ourselves, may we return to what is essential, what is best, what is truly necessary.

L'shanah tovah tikatevu. May you be inscribed for a good year.

Conversations With My Daughter ~ by Jay

What's the best age to have a baby?

That's a hard question to answer. It's best for your body in your late teens and early twenties, probably, but most people aren't emotionally or financially ready to have a baby at that age.

Having a baby when you're a teenager is a BAD IDEA.

Yes, mostly it is.

Why do people do that?

Well, sometimes they just want a baby so badly they have a baby on purpose, but  most of the time they decide to have sex and then get pregnant when they didn't intend to. No matter how careful you are, sometimes birth control doesn't work.

So they shouldn't have sex.

When you love someone and you want to be close to them, you want to have sex with them. It's perfectly normal and natural, and those feelings start to happen to teenagers and they end up having intercourse. There are lots of other ways to satisfy that feeling, though.

What do you mean?


I mean that you can get a lot of pleasure and closeness from being with someone without actually having sexual intercourse - where the penis goes into the vagina.

Mommy, that doesn't make any sense at all.

Some day it will, sweetie.

Mind Body Mama Explains It All ~ by Jay

Rape is never the fault of the woman who is raped.

And yet it makes sense to take precautions to reduce our risk of being assaulted.

Is this a contradiction? MindBodyMama explains why it is not, and in the process puts into words something I have always believed but have never been able to articulate.

In fact, there is a self-defense argument against getting falling down drunk.  A big piece of self defense is being the worst potential victim possible.  I live in a world where one in six women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime.  Since that’s the world I have to move in, I don’t feel safe being sleepy, pukey, distracted and uncoordinated.   I’d prefer to stay sober and be alert, strong, aware, and prepared.

It’s a risk averse response to a treacherous reality.

If I went into a basement to avoid an air raid, would that make me responsible for the bombing?  If I evacuated from a coastal town ahead of a hurricane, would that make me responsible for the storm surge? 

Planning ahead for the possibility of violence against me is the sane, responsible, self-loving action of a queer female in a very dangerous world.   It does not, and never will, make the violence against me my fault.

 Read the whole post.

Things I Never Thought I'd Say ~ by Jay

Eve, I don't want you to turn your phone off.

(especially after you text me to tell me your afterschool plans have changed and I don't see the text for an hour because I'm in with a patient, so I have no idea where you are. Even if you were smart enough to also text your father and the babysitter, and it turns out that you're home doing your schoolwork and getting ready for dance class)

Things I Could Do Without: Aaargh ~ by Jay

No, I'm not observing talk-like-a-pirate day. I'm venting my frustration with Language Log, which used this illustration as a "visual aid" for the use of the final serial comma

and then closed comments because too many comments exhibited "irrelevance, rudeness, lack of substantive or amusing content, etc". They deleted said comments so we can't judge for ourselves if "irrelevant" included "objecting to the gratuitous use of nearly-naked women as objects to illustrate a point".

I like the final serial comma. I like Language Log. I do not like this.

Why I Love Tim and Mary ~ by Jay

Mary and Tim blog at Both Hands and A Flashlight. Read through their posts and you will get to know both of them, and you can see their love for each other, the strength of their marriage, and their delight in both their kids, the J-man and Dale Jr.


This post about calming kids with sensory challenges, and proprioception in particular, taught me something new. Yes, I know a bit about sensory issues, and I accept - at least intellectually - that the discomfort is real. But I'd always thought of it as "discomfort" until I read this line

Like with pain management for any of us, it’s important to stay ahead of the pain by proactively managing it

Pain. Pain. Pain management. Of course. What do I do for a living again? Right, that. How many times have I talked with people about "staying ahead of the pain"? Yeah, about that often. But I never made the connection before, and I'd never thought about a family's preventive measures in that light.

And then I kept reading, and I found the line that made me fall more in love with Tim (and Mary, but Tim wrote this one).

It’s amazing how much he’s learned about helping himself through tough situations. Our kids can teach us a lot about what they need!

Mary and Tim don't sugar-coat the challenges they face. They write honestly and directly about family life with autism, and the emotional and physical grind of caring for their kids. And in every word, in every post, in everything they do, I can see the J-man as himself, as a boy with humor and sass and heart and persistence who is learning and growing in ways that aren't always immediately visible. So many of us struggle to see our neurotypical children as whole and separate from us, and the J-man is teaching us, too.

Maybe I Work Too Much ~ by Jay

 

Because the first thing I thought of when I saw this was "Wow, that's a HIPAA violation".

This Made Me Cry ~ by Jay

Clark is offline.

No matter how well we think we know our patients, how close we are, how supportive we try to be, we never know what their journey is really like.

The first personI ever diagnosed with cancer on my own had recurrent melanoma. He was about the same age as Clark, with two small children. I was still in my 20s then, so he was older than I, although not by much - not enough to insulate me from fear. It's easier to rationalize the deaths of the oldest old, the patients who have children and grandchildren clustered around their beds telling stories and saying "She had a good life" even as they wipe away the tears. People my own age - now that I'm here in my 50s - harder, much harder, but still not as bad as the ever-increasing number who are younger than I am.

As much as I try to stay fully present, I know I build walls - barriers to help me keep a bit of distance on the sheer terror and pain of watching younger people die. I need to feel enough to stay connected with the patients and families, but not so much that I am overwhelmed. The balance can be hard to strike. Essays like this show me a little of the private lives and jokes and loves of the people we call "patients", and help me pull a few bricks out of that wall.

I hope Rebecca finds a moment of peace today.

Just For Fun ~ by Jay

Try this.  And then try doing a search - just click in the box.

Have fun.

Remember, Re-Post ~ by Jay

I wrote this originally for a s'lichot service in2005, after the attacks. Portions of it were read at a community remembrance five years ago, and I posted it here in 2007. Today Sam and I will sing in the choir at the 10th-anniversary community service. I could write all day and I would not improve on what I wrote before, so I offer it again.


May we find peace. 

The central prayer of Judaism is an act of witnessing. When the sh’ma is written out in the Torah, the ayin and daled are enlarged. Ayin daled. Ed. Witness. The sh’ma itself is an act of witnessing the presence of God. It is also a command to be witnesses, for it is not enough to “listen, O Israel”. We must also speak the words, and teach them. Witnessing is an act.

We do not always know what it is we are called to witness, and on September 11th, 2001, I do not know. First there were voices – announcers on the radio; patients coming in and sharing what they knew; my brother, finally, at his office in midtown Manhattan. Then there were images, compressed into a terrifying narrative arc – see the first plane, see the second plane. Then the fire. Now the towers collapse. Watch it again. Watch it again.

But watching is not witnessing. We watch only with our eyes. Watchers don’t participate. Watchers stand apart. Our tradition calls us to do more than watch; our tradition demands that we witness. Witnessing is an act that requires our entire beings. It calls on memory, courage, voice and spirit. It is not enough to watch. We must also know. What we know, we must remember. And that memory calls us to act.

Another televised narrative arc: a black-hooded head on a concrete hotel balcony in Munich. I am twelve years old. My parents do not shield me. I hear my mother say “Don’t you ever forget: this is what it means to be a Jew”. Twenty years later, a single shot of that hood, that balcony, on another television show leaves me shaking. I have not forgotten.

But remembering alone is not witnessing. It is not acting. It is simply terror. It leaves us silent, isolated, paralyzed. At twelve, I could not be a witness. Thirty years later, I had learned that there was more to being a Jew than being afraid, alone, and powerless. So on September 12th, I found myself at morning minyan, holding my daughter and feeling both at home and out of place in a different shul. The prayerbook was unfamiliar. I realized that I was worshiping in a congregation where I could not stand and recite the Kaddish Yatom unless I were officially in mourning. At first, I resented what felt like an archaic rule. I wanted the comfort, the peace that comes from raising my voice in the ancient cadences. I did not want to listen; I had heard enough of other voices. I wanted to speak, but I did not. But as I chanted the lines of response, I realized this was why I came – it was the act of witnessing. It transformed the watching of the day before into something far more powerful. Mine was one voice in many that said “I see. I hear. I am present for this moment of grief”.

To act on that presence is to raise my voice against the re-interpretations and misinterpretations of events, to speak my truth about what happened that day and why. That narrative arc we see on television is only one heavily edited version of reality. If I am truly to be a witness, I must find the courage to speak out against the abuse of that powerful tool, the visual image of tragedy and fear. Fear can isolate us. We may feel safer if we lash out or hide away behind walls. It is easy and comforting to demonize the Other, to hold onto our grief as it transforms into rage. But when we do so, we forget the lesson of the sh’ma; we no longer are witnesses to God’s presence. The presence of God lives in each of us, in that small piece of the Schechinah that we were each created to hold. I catch glimpses of it when I am lucky enough to be in the presence of healing, of that deep connection that exists when I am really seen and really see-ing.

It is the Shabbat after my grandmother’s death. We meet on our screened porch for services, and we do not have a minyan. I know that we are not supposed to say Kaddish, and yet I deeply need to do so. My friends, my witnesses, willingly participate. It is a gift I treasure. My grief is eased by their presence.

From that moment of presence both the mourners and the witnesses gather strength. We come together at terrible times to act as a community, to forge new memories and hear stories that will help us to act on our values, to live out our prayers and our hopes rather than our fears. The Kaddish we speak out of our deepest grief is composed words of praise for the Divine, and by witnessing that paradox of praise and pain we can conquer the isolation of terror. We can become true witnesses: not just those who remember, but those who act to heal the world.

Never forget, this is what it means to be a Jew. To be both a mourner and a witness. To hear, to see and to act. Never forget.

Things I Could Do Without ~ by Jay

The local Army/Navy store is having a special sale, this weekend only:

10% off guns and ammo.

This weekend, only.

On The List of Things I Never Thought I'd Do ~ by Jay

There are many things I never thought I'd do, and this is one of them: counsel someone about end-of-life care for a family member over Facebook chat.

I offered a phone call, but she was sitting at the hospital and didn't want anyone to overhear. So we typed back and forth in the little Facebook window about IV fluids and nutrition and fluid overload and oxygen saturation and how you tell someone you love that it's OK to let go.

It was really frustrating not to be able to hear her voice, and I realized how much I rely on my own voice - and how much I prefer to have these conversations in person, where I can use touch and eye contact to convey my concern. Tonight it took a lot more words to say the same thing.

What a brave new world it is, indeed.

In Which My Daughter Makes My Day, or Possibly My Year ~ by Jay

Eve and her friend are in the back seat of the car headed out on a vacation adventure. They are playing some version of SuperMario on their DSis, and I'm not really paying attention, until I hear this conversation:

Eve: Why does Mario always have to rescue Peach? Peach should rescue Mario.

Friend: Well, it's not always Peach.

Eve: But it's always a girl. Girls can rescue boys, too.

It is possible - just possible, mind you - that she's getting it. Sam reaches over and squeezes my knee, because he already gets it.

Things I Could Do Without: Vacation Assumption Edition ~ by Jay

The new interface for Blogger informs me that we last posted on July 28th. So much for August.

Not-writing breeds not-writing. I make no promises about the return, though. The time pressures that made August go whizzing by have not vanished - they are temporarily on hold this week due to a little thing I like to call "vacation". We didn't make a lot of plans for vacation, so we've had a quiet, aimless week, which was just what we needed. Eve's back-to-school and back-to-dance shopping is completed, some necessary home repair has been taken care of, and I have not worked for a week, which feels damned good. I seem to have the time and mental space to blog again, and of course, there's always something I could do without.

Yesterday we did something actually vacation-y, and went to a National Recreation Area to recreate outdoors. The recreating was great fun, the weather was wonderful, and we took our windblown, gritty selves to a local watering hole for dinner, guided by Yelp! The reviews all praised the available beers on tap, but there was no printed or posted list - so I asked.

The waiter reeled off a bunch of "lite" beers, and I said "no, thanks", so he went on to "light" beers - lagers and pale ales - pointing to each tap on the nearby bar. He skipped one, which had an intriguing harlequin pattern. I asked what that one was, and he said "Oh, that's Ommegang Ale. That's only for people who like strong beer".

Now why do you suppose he assumed I wasn't one of those people? (I had the Ommegang, by the way, and it was delicious with the spicy mussels I ordered for dinner).

Perhaps this was more what he thought I should order.

From their website: After two years of effort, Chick Beer is our answer.  This lovely beer is a light lager, with low carbs and just 97 calories.  The taste leans toward the smoothness of malt over the dry bitterness of hops  It’s the taste that women prefer.  You’re going to love it.

 Oh, no. No, I'm not.