Happy 5th Birthing Day: Reflections & Moving Forward

First day on a school bus ever! (summer camp)

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

– Carl Sandburg

When you wake up and question where the last 5 years have gone. July 11, 2020. It is the height of the Pandemic. My labor is taking a long time to kick into gear. We are not allowed to leave our hospital room, let alone the hospital. A windowless room with no guests allowed. I remember a glowing landscape and a meditation type melody playing on the TV in the room. I was in and out of a foggy haze over those next 36-72 hours, in what ultimately culminated in a complex and complicated birth.

If I’m being honest though, that was the easy part. One’s birth is supposed to be wrenching and hard. The mother is allowed to reel with fear and pain. For me though, postpartum turned out to be the bigger challenge. Over those next 12 months or so, I was scared to admit what I felt and what I didn’t feel. How was I supposed to get support from other women and moms over a screen? There were no in person “mommy and me” gatherings or classes that I could find in those days. I relied on some virtual support groups and online lactation coaching. But I pretty much felt I was on my own to process the traumatic birth and the ensuing circus.

We had a newborn. She was perfect in every way, but it would take time to find my path forward. The wee hours of the morning were sometimes the most peaceful part of the day. If I listened carefully, I could hear a buzz from the crickets outside and I had my baby in my arms, cooing and nursing. I used one (sort of) free hand to read Pachinko and sunk deeply into the present moment.

Fast forward five years and there are days now I don’t want to jinx how lucky I feel. To have this little human that our daughter has grown into. She is a blessing and a beacon of light. She laughs the biggest and boldest laugh I’ve ever heard; her giggle is contagious. I want to bottle up her desire and endless energy to sing, act, dance and make trouble all at once. Yes, I want to bottle it all up like its a glass of freshly squeezed lemonade, in hopes that it will run through my veins and come pouring out like a sweet salve on my skin.

At the same time, the last 5 years have been a bit of a blur. There are times I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it… afraid that I wasn’t cut out for this journey, this role, this excruciatingly challenging task of mothering a child into the world, as well as mothering myself, for what has often felt like the first time. No script, no one book to follow, and certainly no self-help guru could solve this new life puzzle for me. How, for example, do I soothe her tantrums and soothe the inner child within me that is scared too, scared I can’t tolerate her big feelings without exploding into a ball of nerves.

As I now look towards the next five years, I find myself reflecting on this reoccurring theme in my writing of “time and space,” and specifically “time scarcity.”

I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t an issue before my daughter was born. I can remember waking up on a Saturday in my early thirties, with the entire day ahead of me. On one hand it felt like waves coming in and out of the ocean, the day is full of possibilities. And yet through my time scarcity lens, all I could often see were a series of competing choices, all of which I wanted to try on before time ran out. And yet I remember feeling so fretful that I would either pick the “wrong choice” or that I wouldn’t have time to do all of them.

Underneath all of this angst are two competing life fears that I still grapple with most days: a fear of making a mistake and a fear of missing out. I believe deep down I have this genuine love for and curiosity for life…but it rides alongside, perhaps an existential deep knowing that we are only on this earth for so long and we must make the most of it. I see this play out in my life now, both as a forty something human and as a working mom. With even less time (ostensibly) at my disposal, I find myself asking quiet questions most mornings about how I can exercise after work and have silly 1-1 time before bed with my daughter. Do I have space to finally take a French class this year, join a book club AND take my daughter on an after school play date? I’m playing out the same scenario I did in my early 30’s, except now I’m adding in another human’s needs to the matrix. I sometimes have to remind myself to literally stop cleaning the kitchen and vacuuming so that I can pause and look at my daughter sitting in her small, black, wooden arts and crafts chair, quietly drawing a picture of Elsa and Olaf while singing a made up song to herself.

You blink an eye and you miss it.

Alas, as I look towards these next 5 years, I know we will see new challenges and hurdles arise. With the Jewish High Holidays upon us, I often see this time of year as an opportunity to reflect on what I want for myself and my family in the coming year. How can I be more intentional about the way I’m living each day, giving and receiving, breathing and believing in myself, as a mom, as a daughter, as a friend, and as a citizen on this earth? As I referenced in a recent blog, I want to lean into my mid-life years with a little more freedom, ease, and forgiveness for myself. And yet, I also want to be realistic that the way I’ve been leaning into “mid-life” up till now is and has caught up with me. I can’t “do it all.” And I certainly can’t do it “perfectly,” or as well as the “the mom across the street” is doing it.

Let it be known that in these next five years, I want to emphasize quality over quantity. I want to choose less and live into those choices more fully. I want to judge myself and my family, not against any other family’s framework or lifestyle, but against my own gut instincts about what feels right.

The scariest part of this realization is that it means I must finally come to accept that there is no “right” choice for our endless daily (and more nuanced) decisions. But if I slow down, even just 1%, and feel into the safety of my body and breath, there is a window of freedom and opportunity to leap into the matrix of it all and simply make a choice.

So as a gift to myself on this 5 year anniversary of the beginning of my birthing and mothering rollercoaster, I am choosing to step off the pressure-filled looped path that I’ve been living. The new path may be a little quieter and perhaps a little boring at times, but if I can catch a murmur of those cricket sounds along the way, then I know I’m here and I’m living. One wild and precious, messy moment at a time. Blessings for the journey dear readers. And a happy, quiet end to summer.

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“I pray for the change in perception that will let me see bigger and sweeter realities.”

~Anne Lamott (Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers)

Mid-Life Musings

Port of Galilee, Point Judith, Rhode Island

“Midlife is not a crisis. Midlife is an unraveling.” ~Brené Brown

I recently read this brilliant post by Brené Brown about what she describes as a “mid-life unraveling” and something struck me. Just as Brené shares that her “mid-life unraveling” hit her during her forty-first year, for me, my forty-third year has been a sort of unraveling. In fact, I think I’m still in it. I’m not sure how long it’s supposed to last or if there is a prescription for how an “unraveling” is experienced, but Brené Brown nails it with this essay. She describes her own battling it out with the Universe. Her resistance and her armor, which she’s built up over decades, is fierce and it has served her well. But at 41, she surrenders and accepts (eventually) that it’s time to let go… to let the layers shed. The layers of insanely strong and professionally manicured armor that she didn’t even realize she was wearing began to burst at the seams and prevent her from living.

I don’t think anyone has ever described this concept of a “mid-life/mid-love” chapter that I now find myself in so beautifully and yet so adjacent to fear at the same time.

In my experience, I learned at a young age, probably around 12 or 13 years old that I couldn’t share my fears. Not all of them anyways. I became astute around this time at playing into other’s vision of “cool,” what I would later look back at and see as a straight, white, cis-gendered femininity and popular girl culture that I needed to blend into in order to survive. I remember masterfully doing a sort of “code-switching,” acting one way when I was with one group of friends and then another way when I ebbed and flowed into other social spaces. For example, I remember starting 8th grade and laughing along with the “popular” kids on the bus, even when their use of the term “gay” was directed at others in a derogatory way. I just wanted to be liked. I wanted to play into the image of cool that I instinctively knew was my best shot at “survival of the fittest” and so that year I began pushing down, really far down, my own doubts, insecurities and vulnerabilities around my own sense of self and identity. My superb skills at “fitting in,” being likable and even becoming known as a sort of “peacemaker/negotiator” among friends have carried me through decades of living and growing and wandering.

I believe on many levels that I am brave and courageous and am worthy of being loved, which Brené professes so beautifully, are all of our birthrights. But until very recently I didn’t know how to shed the armor that has been covering up my ability to see that I don’t need to keep pretending and performing in order to be liked or likable.

The coping mechanisms that so many of us have developed to protect ourselves from getting hurt are keeping us small and stuck in the mud, even when we reach mid-life.

Mid-life is a scary thought. I fight like hell most days to control my surroundings so as to be able to put my feet up at the end of the day and smoke a proverbial cigar and say, “great job,” “bravo,” “you deserve to rest now…” Only to realize as I put my head on my pillow that I never actually put my feet up that day. In fact, I never stopped. Most days I am fighting an uphill battle with the Universe and I don’t think I’m winning. Instead, I am often working myself into a state of burnout, only to get up and keep fighting the same fight the next day.

For those of us who are caregivers (for children or parents, pets or neighbors, for the planet,) how do we wake up each morning and live into our most sacred truths while still making a living and playing this critical care-taker role? How do we allow ourselves to shed our armor and bask in what we really want to be doing without turning our backs on responsibility?

If I could, I would retire now and enroll in a creative writing program. Wake up and write, paint, take photos and live in nature. But alas, I can’t. I must take my dog out, feed my daughter, take her to school, rush to work and make sure bills are paid in order to wake up and do it all over again the next day. All this in a world that feels very, very fragile and chaotic and frankly scary these days.

Brené Brown shares that, “courage and daring are coursing through your veins.* You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.”

*I want to know how to do this and make sure I’m not late for my 10am meeting.

I guess for now, I will just keep writing, keep asking questions and try not to be afraid of this unraveling that I find myself wanting to speak more truth to. Perhaps as Brené illustrates so well, this unraveling is a sort of re-awakening/re-birth that will hopefully allow all of us to build a new type of armor (regardless of where we are in life), an armor of courage, bravery and risk-taking that we didn’t ingest enough when we were young…When I was that 12 year old girl hiding behind myself. Instead, I will try to live into these questions and be less afraid of not being liked. I think I’ll still always be a peacemaker at heart, but I will also try to stay open to some natural conflict and internal dissent along the way. After all, humanity is imperfection. Humanity is messy.

So as we kick off the summer and celebrate Pride month, may we all wake up a bit and concoct a medicine that gets infused into the water of our young. A medicine that allows bravery, vulnerability and courage to become seeped into our bones. Perhaps armor will eventually become a thing of the past, both physical and virtual. And perhaps we will realize that love and kindness, freedom and truth are ours for the taking.

Meig’s Point at Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison, CT

Excerpt from “The Midlife Unraveling“: “I’m not screwing around. All of this pretending and performing—these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt—has to go. Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy and lovable, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever. Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through your veins. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.”

— Brené Brown (2018)

Winter

Wadsworth Falls State Park, Middletown, CT

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~By Jalaluddin Rumi

A poem for a difficult season. When the light feels hard to find. And I don’t want to dance as much.

How can I slowly crawl back to my younger self who danced with the wind, who didn’t notice who was looking when she sprawled out in all her richness, creating a world of fantasy as she moved?

I’ve somehow lost that vision lately, or maybe lost it years and years ago. I have felt so burdened and even crushed by all the self-imposed “to do’s” that I’ve forgotten about the moments of life in between.

I started this blog a little over 3 years ago (fall 2021), in another season of my life when I needed to soak up the wisdom contained in slowing down. That was the whole premise of the blog, in fact, to journal and reflect on the benefits of slowing down, even if by 1%. In some ways I feel like I’m right back where I started, at another critical inflection point, unsure of which turn to take next. The growing demands and intensity of work and motherhood continue to push many of us to our limits. Too fast, too much, too packed. And not feeling in control. How do we get that control back?

Lately it’s felt like I’ve been swimming upstream and I know I need to start a slightly different dance.

In this new year, can I stop long enough to find others who will dance with me, alongside me and even mirror me? Can I slow down enough to see all the music and the movements that nature holds in its own dance? Can I slow down long enough to make space for those I love, not for us to accomplish anything, but for us to just be still together?

To sit around a table and enjoy the company, without worrying about who is cleaning up. To do a puzzle together. To play the Bluey Jenga game we gave our daughter for Hanukkah. To sit long enough to watch the PBS New Year’s Eve Countdown 2024 with DJ Walrus and Friends (instead of cleaning the kitchen). Guess what? I watched 95% of it this year alongside her, without my phone in my hand. DJ Walrus needs to get another day job though in my humble opinion. Sorry, Mr. Walrus.

In this new year, can I join my daughter in HER dance and learn more about the true art of slowing down? While she moves a mile a minute, she does focus her attention on just one thing at a time. In the quiet (or not so quiet moments) when she’s playing by herself, may I try once in a while to not fill the time with another chore, but instead to just breathe, soak up the energy of her play and even join in. I know my kid, competitive and playful nature is in there somewhere!

This year, Hanukkah coincided with Christmas and New Years, the holiday trifecta. For the first time in what felt like years, my family sat around the table on the 6th night of Hanukkah (the night before New Year’s Eve) and played dreidel by candlelight. We took turns spinning our own miniature dreidels and laughed out loud as the Hebrew letters were called out. My daughter was the most excited of all and belted with pride as she landed on a gimel (which stands for “gantz” or “everything.” The player gets everything in the pot.)

Wishing us all a quiet and peaceful turn of the new year. May we all find some light and abundance amidst the darkness.

Life Keeps Moving

I’ve been struck recently with how fast time seems to move. My last blog entry was in June 2024 and somehow now we are in fall. The leaves have turned and we are getting ready for Halloween. I wish I could say I feel wiser and more grounded and settled since I last wrote, but I don’t think that would be true. I’m just as confused and overwhelmed with life as ever. (And not to mention, I’ve discovered a few more grey hairs).

One area I’m continuing to reconcile, in which I am perhaps making some progress, is catching a hold of and accepting the contradictions of life, the “both/and” mindset if you will. Just a few examples that come to mind in this particular moment…

Life is scary AND beautiful at the same time. I sit, for example, before this breathtaking fall landscape in Cromwell, CT AND brace for a world that feels more polarized and full of spite than ever before, particularly in the run up to our elections.

Raising my daughter is getting harder and easier at the same time. She is becoming more and more independent AND has the energy of a jaguar on steroids, which seems to rope us in constantly. She resists us whenever possible to proclaim her burgeoning truths. I can remember myself at this age (4 going on 14) and I don’t want to squash her light. (Mine is still coming back on!)

I’m exhausted at the end of most days AND have the yearning to run a marathon, swim a mile or climb Mount Kilimanjaro. It’s a constant push and pull of contradicting and perhaps complementary desires.

Our family recently returned from an epic adventure overseas, celebrating my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. It was the first time I traveled this far in well over a decade and I was reminded of my 20 something self who only saw adventure and travel in her future. I admittedly feel most myself when traveling. The further I go, the more connected I feel to myself and the universe. To break free from the monotony of daily routines, packing lunches, cleaning, being online from 9am to what feels like bedtime, etc. Travel is the epitome of perspective building for me.

While on our trip, we start in a small seaside European town and I receive a lesson along these lines that I’m still digesting. On our first evening in France, straight off the airplane, my mom and I go into town to try and purchase a new stroller after we leave ours mistakenly somewhere between the gate and baggage claim (the first of several things lost on this trip). The highlight, for me, during the excursion is dappling in my broken, very rusty, once fluent French. Once we successfully secure a new stroller, we find ourselves unsuccessfully trying to wave down a taxi. So we get on a public bus back to the hotel, jet lagged and overstimulated.

However the next day, just as we are about to board the ship, I realize my wallet is missing. We search everywhere. I assume I have been pickpocketed and proceed to ride the waves of resentment off and on throughout the trip. To my utter surprise and amazement, while scanning my emails on the plane back home I find out that the wallet has been discovered! It was a good Samaritan from the local French bus company on that very first night who found the wallet, sorted through it, found a business card and emailed me to come retrieve it! While I unfortunately can’t get back there in person (yet), I’m hedging my bets that it gets returned safely to me in the US. What are the chances! And how can I reframe when I next start to feel that victim mentality/resentment start to build up about what feels hard?

The world is so big AND yet so small at the same time. We are but small microbes and photons floating in the universe and yet, when we choose to, more often than not, we find some commonality with the strangers we encounter.

My challenge upon returning home (and perhaps for all of us), is to live into each moment with even 1% more of the energy I have when traveling. To see people and places around me, with all their hues and personalities. To not give up on my potential to keep growing and stretching when life feels hard, and to keep looking for where the water meets the shore…to see the waves, as we did on our “boat trip” (as my daughter calls it) and to know that we are all part of a vast ocean of life. We must keep moving, because we have no choice AND because we have the privilege and ability to do so. Blessings for the journey. Shabbat Shalom. And may I be with you all again soon.

Southern France, after transatlantic flight

1 Year Later

“Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver, the other is gold.

A circle is round, it has no end.
That’s how long, I will be your friend.

A fire burns bright, it warms the heart.
We’ve been friends, from the very start.

You have one hand, I have the other.
Put them together, we have each other.

Silver is precious, gold is too.
I am precious, and so are you.

You help me and I’ll help you
and together we will see it through…
Girl Scouts of the USA

Friday, June 14, 2024. What would have been a typical Friday. Dropping my daughter off at school. Staying for an Early Childhood (EC) Shabbat morning gathering at her preschool. But today, in a mere moment, I’m catapulted into a time machine. I drop my daughter off at her “old” school for the summer. (It is a family run daycare that has a preschool within it). She will attend from mid-June to mid-August, just barely two months. No big deal, right? It was a logistical decision really, to bridge us from one school year to the next at our new Jewish community day school, where our daughter has thrived this past school year. She’s grown by leaps and bounds. There have of course been some bumps but we have ridden the waves of transition and she has settled into a new “home.”

Finding ourselves back at the doorstep of our “old” school is like putting a mirror in front of us where I’m unexpectedly reflecting back on myself and this past year. Am I proud of what we have accomplished? Can everyone see my wrinkled forehead now? Why does it feel like we continue to ride the waves of a new family? The transitions just keep coming…

And this “old school” is the school where we first dropped our daughter off when she had barely started walking, at about 14 months old. She was known for her “babbling,” going on and on and on with gibberish before she learned to put her words together. Before she started singing Moanna lyrics and dancing to her new beats. This is where her teachers picked her up to change a diaper on the large wooden changing table and slobbered sunscreen on her before going outside. Where she had her first skinned knees. Where we learned she was a “jokester,” egging on the other students to join her in a mischievous rebellion. Where we learned from her teachers that she was incredibly bright and hard-willed. Standing in the center of the room, refusing to leave when the rest of the group was transitioning from one activity to the next. “I don’t want to X, Y, Z!” she would exclaim. Transitions have always been hard for her (and now I know where she gets that from).

Last summer when we said goodbye to her old school, she had just turned three. She was so brave and went with the flow as we moved her in July for her birthday to a new preschool room within the school and then again at the end of August to a whole new school. She looks around the room this morning, following my eyes looking nervously around the room too. Wondering perhaps, where do I put my lunchbox here? I hang my backpack on a hook and not in a cubby? My parents come inside for drop off instead of saying goodbye outside? All seemingly innocuous, trivial concerns, but in the head of a toddler, not insignificant at all.

Our daughter’s time at the “old” school last summer was a fog. A blurry haze. On June 15, 2023 I broke my ankle in a freak accident. One week later I had major surgery and two weeks later I started a new full time job. I stumbled into this school on my crutches most of the summer to do drop off.

And today I find myself asking, what have I been present for in the last year? What has changed? What has stayed the same?

It’s now summer 2024…I’m jogging (albeit slowly) again. I’m more confident working full time again since having my daughter. I have colleagues I respect. We’ve weathered (and continue to weather) deep, deep trauma from upheaval in Israel and Gaza…the existential threats and panic it’s brought to our bodies and our people. It has been all-consuming. And yet, after a year attending a Jewish day school, our daughter can now recite the prayers on Shabbat. She hums and mumbles tunes in Hebrew, without being aware that I’m listening. My heart warms for the community she’s created and the safety and comfort of her “new” school.

AND I can be grateful that she will be held in safety this summer too. She will step back and forward at the same time. She will continue to stretch and grow, even with the time machine we’ve placed before her.

I stand back in awe as she points out letters on the carpet she knows and peers through the window at the gaping playground she just barely remembers climbing on as a 3 year old. “I remember that playground. I love that playground,” she says. My heart constricts and then releases. And I remember, we are okay. We have been through a lot this year, AND we are okay.

We can take two steps forward and two steps back at the same time. This is not a contradiction. Or perhaps it is and then life is a moving target of contradictions.

And rather than resist and make sense of all the waves intellectually, we can exhale and let go of the resistance and the constriction. I will accept that this summer will bring with it a new journey for her and for us. A new plethora of trail heads. All pointing in different directions. And our daughter will bravely explore them all. With gratitude for new beginnings and old memories all seeped into one. I’m still a bit hesitant but grateful to be welcomed back.

Perhaps our reflections and “time travel” do not need to be projected on our children. Our waves of emotions and dizziness at times do not have to dictate their journeys.

As I exhale and buckle in for this next chapter, I draw wisdom from this classic campfire song I started singing last week when explaining that she was going to a “new/old school” this summer… “Make new friends, But keep the old. Some are silver and the other gold.”

May we lean into each day at this “new/old school,” making new memories, built upon layers and layers of old ones, that form a foundation on which we keep moving forward.

Time: The Daily Stretch to See it Anew

“Time is relative; its only worth depends upon what we do as it is passing.”
Albert Einstein

When you become immobilized in making a decision about how to spend your 1.5 hours of “free” time while your child is napping.

When it feels impossible to transition between the seemingly endless “to do’s” and resting because a voice deep inside you is screaming that you may not have “enough” time to get your “to do’s” accomplished later.

When you call the doctors office at the last minute to apologize that you’ll be running 10-15 minutes late due to traffic, but really you just couldn’t stop cleaning up the kitchen or getting in one last load of laundry before you left (referencing back to scenario 2).

The daily fight with time has been something I’ve reckoned with for what feels like forever. But when I was recently asked by a coach to think about when I first became aware of time as an oppressive phenomenon, I froze. I couldn’t remember when the plague of “time scarcity” began. Perhaps it was in college, when I found myself for the first time, living on my own and making decisions apart from my parents about how to structure and manage large blocks of time. I do remember feeling uptight about assignment deadlines and the like but when I look back on those years, it feels like time was never-ending. The days would last well into the evening, going to sleep for 2am was not uncommon and sleeping to 10am for an 11am class was the norm. No, it wasn’t then. Time flowed like honey and there was always more to be found.

I do have a distinct and sticky memory of becoming aware that time was a construct when I studied abroad in Senegal my junior year of college. I remember when one of my Senegalese professors with whom I became close, shared that in Senegal (and across Africa) there was a completely different rationalization given when people were “running late.” He explained that when a friend or colleague was “late,” it was natural to assume they were intercepted by something that was important and necessitated them taking more time. If a person was late, for example, for a rendez-vous with friends, you might assume that a sick family member needed them. In other words, you naturally gave people grace and a built in buffer. NOTHING started on time and everyone gave one another the benefit of the doubt.

—

More than 20 years later and with the advent of smart phones, I can’t help but wonder if the oppressiveness of “white supremacy culture” in our country has seeped in and made it that much harder to let go of a constant sense of urgency.

People have been working and raising families for millennium. How has technology become so all-encompassing and resulted in us being more tethered to time than ever before?

An irony is that I stopped wearing a watch years ago. I rely on my cell phone to monitor the day and time for me now. We have and own more things than ever before, and yet time feels scarcer than ever before.

As a “newer” parent, I’ve noticed just how many references to time fall into our vernacular when talking to our children…

“Running late,” “must be on time,” “wasting time,” “time is ticking,” “we can’t be late,” “on time is late,” “respect my time,” “time is precious.” When I catch myself using time vernacular in these contexts I try to divert myself and say something different. “It looks like you need some help before we go, let’s keep moving, or we need you to participate.” It’s fascinating and sad in a way that we superimpose our construct of time on children, who are blessed (we hope) with not needing to be fully aware of it (yet).

I remember picking up the book, Einstein’s Dreams (Alan Lightman) in my early 20’s and my mind being blown away. Lightman imagines dreams that Einstein might have had in 1905 when he was dreaming up his theory of relativity. Each dream portrays a world in which time works differently. In one world, for example, time is circular and people repeat their highs and lows over and over (not too dissimilar from the concept presented in the movie Groundhog Day, which also fascinated me at the time). In other worlds, time moves backwards and people’s journeys unfold in reverse order. This journey is also fleshed out in movie form in the film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I was equally fascinated by this story and have found my mind wandering back to it over the years.

—

In the end, I wonder if the way we relate to time is relative to our human complex with mortality. After all, time is finite. Our days are numbered, and even if we are Benjamin Button, getting younger with time, we eventually become absorbed back into the universe. The material things we surround ourselves with, the busyness we become immersed in…might all of this be an illusion and a distraction from our fear of the inevitable?

The many colloquial expressions about time are steeped in truth. Time does move faster as we get older. Not literally, but relative to our spirits. We are more consumed with responsibility, and our bodies forget or become disillusioned with the present, even to the point of becoming disembodied. How can we fight back against this, so that we don’t blink and find ourselves looking back at years of “wasted time?”

Perhaps one helpful concept which flips time on its head is Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest. It occurs each week from sunset on Friday through sunset on Saturday, and is celebrated by Jewish communities around the world. I remember starting to incorporate it into my life spiritually and therapeutically as a graduate student. Living in Washington, DC, and swimming in a culture of political and professional networking mania, time became all-consuming. I remember finding it particularly challenging to “turn off.” I felt pressure to always be “on” or working. As part of my therapy, I began instituting certain boundaries for myself on Shabbat. Over the years, this concept has become trendy. The idea of a “technology shabbat” has been coined, but for me, it has been a lifeline to sanity.

I’ve experimented over the years with observing a form of Shabbat, from shutting down my phone to not allowing myself to check email or be on any screen. I find it is a welcome respite from the noise of the week. In fact the only day I often give myself permission to slow down enough to write creatively has been Shabbat.

How can I give myself permission to incorporate a “tech Shabbat” on other days and in other moments of the week? In the hybrid world of work we now live in, it has become even harder to create these boundaries. Access to “work” can literally be in your pocket or in your ear bud at any point in the day or night. We must reset our own priorities as no one else will do it for us.

—

I’d like to close with the concept of “Ataya” or the three-cup ceremonial tea drinking tradition I learned about in Senegal. Ataya, which in Wolof translates to the “preparation of tea,” is an integral part of Senegalese culture. “Each cup represents the growth of friendships or the stages of life. The longer you wait for your Ataya, the stronger and sweeter friendships grow.” Whether it’s the start of a family visit or a business meeting, or even rounding a street corner on your way to the market, you can always find someone making Ataya.

Slowly, over the course of the six months I lived in Senegal, my body and spirit acclimated to slowing down and engaging in this ritual. Often sitting on cushions, friends and peers gather around a tray of small glass cups and boiling water, waiting for the tea leaves, mint and sugar to simmer. The act of pouring the tea back and forth, from cup to cup, slowly building and creating a foam lather, is a form of meditation in and of itself. You finish your tea when…you finish. Time isn’t in control. Instead, it is the tea and sweet moments of connection that call the shots.

—

My eyes flutter open after taking a short nap while my daughter sleeps. I take a deep breath and sigh. It is Shabbat again and I’ve given myself permission to rest and write. A sweet gift that I don’t think I will ever take for granted again since becoming a parent. I know the laundry waits. Emails are likely piling up. And I’ve got a list of errands to run and people to call back. But for right now, I will practice surrendering my time to the universe and being grateful for the early spring trees outside my window, slowly swaying in the cool wind.

The highest version of myself comes out in these moments. Her voice is quiet but I can feel her trying to speak. She’s saying, “shhh, quiet down now, just be sweet girl, resist the urge to move and do and accomplish. Your life awaits in the present moment. You have my permission to play.”

“The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.”
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Brandi Land

“In the cradle of the circle.
All the ones who came before you.
Their strength is yours now.
You’re not alone.”
Allison Russell

Barcelo Maya Beach, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

Would you believe me if I told you thousands of people, mostly women, converge on a resort in Mexico for a long weekend every January to compete for the chance to sing karaoke (coined Brandi-oke) with Brandi Carlile and her band?

…The resort is coined Brandi Land, just for the weekend and my wife and I attended this year for the first time. (This is year five of the event.) We really had no idea what to expect and were just happy to escape to a warmer climate and pretend everything was simple for a few days.

What makes this trip truly unique though, is the priceless opportunity to exist for a moment in a time and space where LGBTQ+ folks and families are the norm and not the exception. Everyone is welcome, but given the nature of Brandi’s fan base and the branding of the weekend, it feels as though I am surrounded by a sea of queer women and families. There are two moms to my right, in line for the buffet and two moms to my left, walking back to their rooms… some with toddlers, others with teenagers. There are older lesbians, laughing and hanging out with their friends at the pool. And there are queer 20 somethings, enjoying the safety of walking freely hand in hand. I honestly forgot what that felt like. I know this is not the same reality I live in back home, but it is a reminder, and one that I really needed of late, that I’m not alone.

I attended a workshop during the trip entitled, “Writing in Community with Vulnerability and Strength.” It was facilitated by Lindsay Wheeler, a queer, neurodivergent social worker who guided us in several exercises and writing prompts about the power of vulnerability. One prompt we were asked to respond to was, “Write a short letter to a younger version of yourself in which you tell them about the community you’ve discovered here and what life can look like for them in the future.”

I would like to lean into that vulnerability and share the letter I drafted to my middle school self, circa 1996:

Dear Stephie,

First, hi. I’m sorry I haven’t written in a long, long time. I miss talking to you!

I’m here to tell you that you can let go a little of your worries, dear one. Life is hard and bumpy and messy. But it’s also grey. I know that’s hard to see right now. You’re feeling so many things. Fear, doubt, shame, embarrassment, joy, curiosity, confusion. And I want you to give yourself permission to feel them all. The feelings are big and scary, but I promise they won’t swallow you up.

...and you’re not alone.

I also want to tell you a secret…being gay or what many people now call queer is a gift. You don’t need to have it all figured out, but just know that not being straight is singlehandedly one of the best gifts that you will ever receive.

The prism through which you will be able to see the world will open up in ways you couldn’t imagine. You will see more clearly others who live and float on the margins. You will come to realize that to be queer is not just an identity but it’s also a verb–to queer the lines of art, education, family, etc. It means to rip open the boxes and labels we are told by society we must confine ourselves to. None of this needs to make sense now. But I want you to know you have a superpower, dear one.

Life will not always be easy. And with this superpower comes added responsibility. Most people will not be able to see the world the way you do. You will need to help them. Offer them grace and patience, and help them break down the linear boxes getting in their way. Don’t be afraid to look and feel different. The truth is we all feel this in different ways and for different reasons.

Your queer identity, dear Stephie, is like an invisible bridge into a community of misfits who are all looking to feel seen and heard. You didn’t ask to be this bridge and it is an added weight to carry, but this weight will enrich your world, your children’s world and bring untold meaning to those around you.

And on this one random weekend in the future, at the start of 2024, you and your wife (yes, you will get married!) will stumble upon a rainbow coalition of allies on what feels like a far-away island. They will come from all over the world to listen to music and just be. It will feel a bit like a magical island of unicorns, and it may not feel real, but please know that it is.

…Dear Stephie, don’t be afraid to look for these unicorns wherever you go in life. They are hiding and also in plain sight. Look closely for the grown-up unicorns…the older unicorns who have lived generations before you and can share their wisdom. Tell them what you’re feeling, what you’re thinking. Do NOT push back those scary feelings because they are uncomfortable. Release them into the world.

Most of all, I want you to know that everything is okay.

Love,
Me ❤

—-

I hope we can come back to Brandi Land next year and bring our daughter. I want her to see and feel the magic of this place. I want her to see other children with two moms or two dads as the norm and to start to see and feel how big the world is, even if she doesn’t yet have the language to unpack it.

Perhaps she will be able to tell herself now (and not 40 years from now) that she is free to be herself, truly and authentically. While the world does have cynics and bullies, there is also a band of allies and beautiful people who will unconditionally see and welcome her.

—

As we pack our bags to return home, may all of us unicorns at Brandi Land carry a piece of this time and space back with us. May we turn inwards whenever we need to feel the warmth of community (and the palm trees) as we ride out the quiet months of winter.

And may we remember, just as Brandi opened up the whole weekend…

“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue. And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”

Thanks, Brandi Carlile, for continuing to role model this for all versions of me, young and old, here and in my future.

Lyrics to “You’re Not Alone”

Hey, my little evening star
How bright you are
Anywhere you go
You’re not alone

Rocks and bugs and angel wings
Every little shiny thing
Anywhere you go
You’re not alone

You’re the north star and the compass
Always finding something wondrous
Anywhere you go
You’re not alone

Wish that I could keep you from
Sorrow and harm
None of us is here for long
But you’re not alone

In the cradle of the circle
All the ones that came before you
Their strength is yours now
You’re not alone

Sparrows in the morning
Crows at dusk
Singing with your mam
(Singing with your mammy)
We have love

We have love
We have love
We have love
We have love
You’re not alone

De l’Afrique à l’Acadie
De l’Europe aux Amériques
La musique nous réunis
Une Famille

La musique nous réunis
De la Louisiane à Sans Souci
Tigallum Tigalli on arrive
Une Famille

Hey, my little evening star
How bright you are
We have love
You’re not alone

We have love
We have love
We have love
We have love
You’re not alone

You’re not alone
You’re not alone
You’re not alone
Allison Russell
“You’re Not Alone”
(feat. Brandi Carlile)
(originally by Our Native Daughters)

Meditation on Change

“Open the window of your mind. Allow the fresh air, new lights and new truths to enter.”
Amit Ray

Aging is a funny thing. It happens constantly. In every moment. While we are awake and while we are sleeping. Most of these moments just pass by, unnoticed. It is a natural and inevitable part of life and yet we often fight it. Or at least I fight it.

The gray hairs that start to slip through, harder to hide. Wrinkles on my face. An increase in aches and pains when I don’t work out as much. Or when I do work out. I’m growing older. Most of us don’t have too many outlets to make sense of this process. Instead we buy our way into stopping the aging process. Try this beauty service. Use this jade roller. Meditate more. Eat lighter foods. All of these recommendations on their own are perfectly reasonable and ones we could likely benefit from, but taken together, they feel overwhelming and at times counterproductive.

Our six year old Portuguese water dog, Halligan (aka Hal), was recently diagnosed with aggressive liver cancer. He was given a prognosis of about 1-2 months, if we pursue treatment. And if we don’t pursue treatment then we are looking at weeks or even days. Of course no one can say for sure and the research is spotty but either way you look at it, we have very little time left with him.

How on earth do you process something like this? One moment he’s seemingly healthy, running 2 miles in the woods with us and the next we are talking about comfort measures and how we want to talk to our toddler about mortality. (Tips on this are welcome by the way.)

As I remain hyper vigilant to Hal’s symptoms, I notice that so many of my waking hours are spent in a state of subtle scanning. I think I’m channeling my ancestors and looking for a fire to put out or a threat from neighboring tribes. I’m almost always in problem-solving mode, planning out my week ahead or doing the math on how I’m going to get to my new job on time while “lightly” guiding my daughter through her morning routine. (She’s rounding 3 years old and the concept of “threenager” feels apt.)

As I prepare to return to work full time, I’m asking myself, how did this happen again? I took the last year a half to step back and find a sense of calm and balance from the the frenzied pace I had been moving at. And, yet, if I’m being brutally honest with myself, I think I’ve recalibrated bit by bit so that I’m still following the same patterns just a little less intensely. All of these behaviors I’m sure are adaptive and in place to protect me from unseen threats. However, they are still getting in the way of me being in the here and now.

In this next phase, as I return to work, I want to reflect on what I’ve learned since “Taking a Pause” 20 months ago. In no particular order…

Our relationships are sacred. Our partners, our children, our parents, our colleagues, our neighbors, our friends…They are primary and deserve to be elevated above all else. No work stress or drama or inconsequential, petty argument is worth jeopardizing the connections we’ve built with those around us.
Parenting is hard. Full stop. Give myself grace as the journey continues to unfold.
When I feel cynical, which I do often, try to reframe or consider a new perspective. How am I learning, growing, and stretching through this hard thing? What is another way to look at this moment?
Dream. Imagine. Rest. Allow myself space for rest and creativity. Having just finished Tricia Hersey’s, Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, I’m moved and saddened by how consumed many of us are by “grind culture.” The oppressive nature that white supremacy and capitalism have on us is dripping in plain sight and yet we can’t see it because we’re too busy grinding away. It’s in our blood and our social makeup, but it doesn’t have to be our fate. We can resist.
It’s okay to not have it all figured out. Multiple times throughout the past year and a half I thought about making major career and life changes. I researched schools, ministries, organizations, yoga teacher training programs, etc. I shadowed, I prayed, I asked for answers.

And…now….I find myself returning to something very familiar, to an organization for which I worked previously. I think my search and quest for change has ironically (or not so ironically) brought me back to where I started so many years ago when I first moved up to CT.

Perhaps though, while I have come full circle in some ways, I have changed in the process. I have grown and surely aged (as is evident by my greys). And hopefully I’ve garnered a little more wisdom about what matters.

In this next chapter for myself and for all of us, may we go easy on ourselves and others. May we see the world for all its beauty and all its pain. May we stop for snuggles and cuddles and belly rubs and know the sky will not fall if we don’t send that last email. Perfectionism is dangerous and a form of violence and is perhaps the biggest threat of all to this messy and sacred process of living.

Sending love and blessings for whatever small or big steps lie ahead.

Can We Go Back?

“We are powerful because we have survived.”
Audre Lorde

It’s the spring of 2003. I’m a second semester senior at the University of Pennsylvania. I have maybe 4 weeks left before graduation and I decide now is the moment I’m ready to walk into my college’s LGBTQ+ Center. I had finally started to acknowledge my queer identity to a few close friends and was ready for a fresh start post-graduation. I was still applying for jobs and internships and wasn’t yet sure where I would land, but decided to make an appointment with the LGBT Center Director to get some advice on transitioning to life outside of Penn as a queer person.

Back then, being out as a college student was still daunting (and for many, it still is). I had essentially spent my entire college experience in the closet. It was easier to skim the surface of my social life as just a part of myself, exploring crushes and relationships with boys, but not going near my feelings for girls. I think part of me truly believed that if I pushed these feelings back far enough that they would go away. I thought I could will a different future for myself, one that placed me squarely into the range of “normal.”

It’s now 20 years later, and I’ve decided to bring my family back to campus for my 20th college reunion later this month.

I’ve lost touch with so many friends. And I have no one knocking down my door to see me again. Part of me wonders if my connections faded because of the “dual identity” I lived during my time there. I was like a fish swimming in heteronormative waters. Every once and a while, I would poke my head out and see that there were other pockets of possibility, but they felt impossible to bridge. I therefore never truly let people in to get to know me. Maybe I’m not alone in this feeling. So many of us are afraid, for different reasons, to let others in during these fraught years. And yet it’s still sad to me looking back that I was not able to open up (to myself and others) about what I was feeling and thinking and questioning as it pertained to sexuality and identity more broadly. I would likely have been met with empathy and support and realized there was a whole community of people with similar questions and life experiences.

It is largely for this reason that I feel compelled to step back onto campus 20 years later and reclaim my college experience as a queer person. I will be bringing my parents, my wife and my daughter and while I’m grateful beyond words to have them by and on my side, this pilgrimage is really a solo one.

To step back onto the Penn Quad and College Green as my full self. To walk proudly down Locust Walk and know that I’m not hiding anymore. It will surely bring up a swell of emotions, painful and joyous, but I’m prepared this time to feel them all. I will point out to my daughter the old gothic buildings where I took my first anthropology classes, the theatre world I stepped into as a college sophomore, and the tiny dorm room I lived in freshman year above the mail center in the upper Quad.

And I will walk her into the Carriage House, home to the LGBT Center, and watch her roam, free.

Here or Nowhere

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language…Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke

I picked up a book recently from a hospital Chaplain’s library called Here or Nowhere. The Chaplain who has become a mentor to me, told me to pick any book I wanted from her bookshelf to borrow. The small dusty copy of Here or Nowhere by Renée Hermanson (1984) caught my eye. It was a simple quote on the back cover that stood out. Hermanson, writing from a Christian perspective and weaving in biblical figures to help her unpack “middle age” and all its meaning, writes, “I spent many years waiting–for time to go back to school, for the children to grow up, for our finances to get better–and then discovered time was not waiting, but marching on. I believe we need to be reminded that, as Thomas Carlyle said, our ideal is here or nowhere. We must find God in our lives and our lives in God wherever and whenever we are.”

The search for meaning and a sense of “arrival” seem to be timeless inquiries. From biblical times through the present, we are all searching, looking for answers to life’s big questions. Why are we here? What is intended for us? What is God or the world or the universe waiting for us to realize and manifest? I’ve been fighting with myself lately around these questions. I’ve been asking myself, do I want to go back to school and pursue another degree or credential? I’ve been pondering a leadership path that weaves through religion and the spiritual. I’ve also been hit with the reality that I need to focus on a new job search, to secure a full/ “fuller” time position that will give my family some more breathing room and sustenance. While just a short year ago, I thought the answer was to leave my job to find more breathing room and be home with our young daughter, now I need to reverse the cycle and work more hours. Such is the ebb and flow of life.

There is a pending fear and excitement all at the same time about the prospect of more change ahead. There is a part of me that I think will always yearn for change and new opportunities to break free from what feels like the mundane and ordinary. I’ve realized I’m chasing something that is always going to be a step (or miles) in front of me unless I change my perspective. I risk now sinking back into the “if only” syndrome of my 20’s and 30’s. If only I had a partner, if only I was settled down, if only I had a child, etc. etc. But when that elusive “if only” becomes a reality, your dreams just morph into something further away.

How can I find wisdom and answers right here in the now, without trying to search for them? How can I release the pressure to keep searching and at the same time remain a seeker and stay curious?

I recently watched the movie, Women Talking (2022), produced by Sarah Polley. It chronicles a two-day period in which women from an isolated Mennonite community grapple with the decision of whether or not to stay and fight their attackers or leave their community. It is a profound depiction of women at their strongest and weakest moments, scared out of their minds about the violence (sexual, physical, and emotional) their children might face. I was struck by the character of Ona (played by Mara Rooney) who is sometimes teased for being too lofty or imaginative in her ideals. She allows herself to dream and float above the horrors her community has endured and imagine a better world for herself and her children. She is at the same time grounded in what’s real and what’s looming if the women don’t act and make a decision. In the end, when they have every reason to give up on their faith in God, the women lean further into their faith. As one female character wisely states, they must look further out into the distance beyond what is right in front of them (in an analogy to how she steadies her horses when riding her buggy).

I also recently finished re-reading the book, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (2007). It depicts the biblical character, Dinah who is Leah and Jacobs’s only daughter. Dinah is merely a footnote in the bible, depicted as a victim to a violent crime and sandwiched between the stories of her iconic father, Jacob and her powerful brother, Joseph. Her voice enraptures me and carries me back into Canaan and the land of my ancestors. I am struck by the lives the women lead, anchored in many ways by the “red tent” which is where they gather each month during their menstrual cycles. In the tent, they talk and dream and lament. They share their wisdom and woes and build meaning through their stories. The women are apart from the men in their community during this 3 day period each month. The men are forbidden to enter in fact. Similar to the secluded barn haystacks upon which the women sit in Women Talking (set in 2010), Dinah and her mothers gather strength from one another to go back out and face the world.

On the cusp of another spring and in honor of International Women’s Day, I am reminded that perhaps we can gather wisdom from the strong female figures of our past to make tough decisions. Can characters like Dinah and Ona who aren’t afraid to dream big in the face of incredible obstacles, inspire me to do the same? Perhaps big (and even small) decisions are not meant to be made in isolation, alone in the quiet of our minds, but instead in community with our sisters, mothers and family members of generations past. In this spirit and in the red tents of our futures, may we lean into one another’s collective wisdom to emerge stronger and refreshed for the journey ahead, knowing that here and beyond are often where the magic happens.