A Bike to Work Day Tribute to my Two-Wheeled Friend

Dear bicycle,

If you were human, you might wonder whether you should even entertain a letter from me.  In the 16 years we’ve been together, you’ve suffered a lot.  You’ve carried me through pouring rain and sweltering heat.  You’ve been poked with thorns and broken glass and everything else the streets of San Jose have to offer.  You were slammed into the pavement when I crashed and broke my humerus (though believe me, it hurt me more than it hurt you), and United Airlines tried to crush your frame 24 hours before we were scheduled to ride 500 miles through the mountains of Colorado.  (But they couldn’t crush your spirit.  We did it anyway.)  I suspect you wouldn’t recommend me to a friend or colleague if this were a Net Promoter survey.

Fortunately, since you’re an inanimate object, we can’t have this conversation.  Still, I feel compelled to tell the world how much I love you – well, not you, because you should only love things that can love you back, but our life together.  It is Bike to Work day, and here we are on the Caltrain, heading home from work.  

Biking used to be my standard go-to for a hit of euphoria.  In my 20s, I would wake up before dawn, ride halfway up Mt Hamilton, and then descend to downtown San Jose in time to be at work by 9.  My weekends involved long rides out to the beach and through the foothills.  Those were the days when no one needed me to feed them, find them matching socks, or make sure all the toilets got flushed at least once a day.  I didn’t have 6AM meetings with Israel back then.  I didn’t wake up so many mornings already counting the hours until I could get back to bed.

Life is different now, but one thing has remained constant: you are still my favorite way to get around.  I don’t cruise to Santa Cruz very often anymore, but I’m a frequent flyer on the bike/ped overpass at Ralston.  Thanks to the advocacy of groups like SiliconValley Bicycle Coalition, bikes are almost as welcome in the Bay Area as teacup Chihuahuas are in New York City.  Since 1996, I have been a bike commuter – first a few miles from my house, then via Caltrain to Mountain View, then Palo Alto, and now Redwood Shores.  

I’m old and tired enough that I often make up excuses for why I should just slide my lazy butt behind the steering wheel, tune in to NPR, and endure the crawl along 101.  But most of the time, I don’t.  I know from experience that I will often not feel like riding.  And I know from experience that I will always be glad that I did.  Bike commuting isn’t a reasonable option for everyone – because of physical limitations or the commute itself - but I’ll venture to say that it’s a possibility for many, especially in the Bay Area.  And, beloved bicycle, I think you would agree that it is one of the most positive changes you can make in your life.  

Some questions that our readers will probably want answered: Will you have helmet head when you get to work?  I prefer to think of it as helmet style.  Will you get wet if it rains?  Only on the outside.  Your skin is well-designed to handle this.  Will there be close encounters with cars?  Quite likely.  You can’t ever assume that a driver is going to recognize you’re on the road.  But if you ride defensively and plan your route well, you can stay safe.  Can you rock a pair of fluorescent yellow rain pants?  You bet your life you can.  Will you feel better when you arrive at the office after a 20-minute workout and a ride through the Baylands than you do after 75 minutes of crawling along the freeway?  Yes, I am telling you, you will – because your blood is pumping, because you’ve left the air a little cleaner, and because you can spend the rest of the day feeling like a supreme bad-ass.    

So, my beloved bicycle, I want to thank you for your faithful years of companionship.  And I want to make an offer to any would-be bike commuters.  Whatever is holding you back – whether you need help planning a route, you need to buy a headlight, you’re not sure how to keep your pants out of your chain ring, you’re wondering whether you can ride with a skirt, you feel intimidated by the whole Caltrain thing, you got a flat five years ago and haven’t gotten around to fixing it – call on me.  I want to be your personal bike concierge.  And I’m not alone.  There are lots of us, and we all want you in the club.  

In the immortal words of Freddie Mercury: Get on your bikes and ride.

La Mesa Verde

Most organizations think of volunteering with a 5-year-old as a sort of un-volunteering.  Gently citing concerns about things like safety, public health, and the well-being of those they serve, they would rather you leave your young children at home, where they can't sink grubby hands into shared food bins, pull rescued animals' tails, or ask other volunteers questions like "What's wrong with your teeth?"

I can't say I blame these organizations.  But I am grateful whenever I find an opportunity to volunteer with my kids, and Sacred Heart Community Service has afforded several of them.  Last summer, Leah and I joined an assembly line filling backpacks with school supplies for needy families.  And two weeks ago, we joined forces with La Mesa Verde, a program that provides low-income residents of San Jose with the training and supplies to grow organic vegetables in their backyards. 

We arrived at 8 in the morning for a 10-minute training led by wonderful Master Gardeners from Santa Clara County. (Did you know you're supposed to plant tomatoes with just the growing tip above the ground?  I didn't.  We replanted all of ours when we got home.)  After the training, and following an opening ceremony, we were instructed to stand under a number along the wall that matched the one on our packets.  The family we'd be helping would meet us under the number, and we'd go together to collect the flats of seedlings and travel to their home - where Sacred Heart had already built and prepared raised beds for the vegetables.

We met Jorge and Sofia* under our number and introduced ourselves.  They were participating in the program for the first time too.  We all headed over to pick up our plants, making small talk about the heat.  Jorge and Sofia each grabbed a flat and turned to leave.  "Nice to meet you," Jorge said, walking toward their car.

Ted and I looked at each other.  "Uh, we're coming with you!" I said brightly.  "We're going to help you plant."

Now it was their turn to look at each other.  They had a brief exchange in Spanish, then nodded.  "OK.  We'll see you there."  And off we went to our own car, digesting the awkward realization that they hadn't been expecting us at all.

We arrived at their home in south San Jose about 10 minutes later.  We all got out of the car and walked into their yard, where they were waiting with Sofia's mother.

Rebecca took a slow look around, then turned to me.  "I don't think they need our help," she said loudly.

I elbowed her, but she was right.  The front yard was bordered with every manner of growing thing: rose bushes, fruit trees, vines, herbs, even a hanging upside-down tomato planter.  "It's all my husband," Sofia said, giving us the tour.  When they had moved to the house 25 years earlier, there was nothing but a barren lot; Jorge had nurtured all of the horticultural splendor around us.  There were five or six fruit trees: peach, avocado, sapote.  Along the house leading to the backyard were tiered shelves overflowing with hanging plants.  And there was more behind the house. 

The family graciously welcomed our "help", even though we were pretty clearly just taking up space in their yard.  Leah and Rebecca soaked the plants in a bucket, while Jorge sprayed the beds and made rows of holes.  Sofia and Jorge's daughter and 2-year-old granddaughter soon joined - and we all worked on setting up the irrigation and getting the plants into the soil.  I spent most of my time picking up empty containers and talking with Sofia and her daughter - about swim lessons, being pregnant in the summer, working at Stanford, cooking with tomatillos... the usual.

An hour later, the plants were all tucked into their beds, Leah took her last run down their slide, and we started to gather our things.  We left with a peach seedling, a sapote seedling, and a fistful of green onions from Jorge to plant when we got home.  I couldn't get over our good fortune at having been paired with this warm and generous family.  They invited us to come visit whenever we were in their neck of the woods.  It felt as if we'd made new friends.

Volunteering is a funny thing.  In theory, you're there to help.  But sometimes you get more than you give.  Through La Mesa Verde, the kids got to spend a morning with four generations of a family whose life was little more than a stereotype to them before then - "the working poor."  Their life is nothing like ours.  Their life is everything like ours.

Without La Mesa Verde, we probably never would have crossed paths.  I am so grateful to Sacred Heart for organizing this day and connecting us with a family who volunteered to welcome us into their yard - and, for a day, their life.  Our community is a better place for these connections.

* Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the family.

Memorial Day: an IDF officer's perspective

Last weekend, at a Tel Aviv cafe, I met Shani.  At 24, she is an intelligence officer with the IDF.  I was introduced to her through her father, who suggested I speak with her in my quest to understand more about the Israeli observance of Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day).  Over coffee, she told me the story of why she’s chosen a career in the army.

“My grandparents,” she began, “were a big influence on me”.  Holocaust survivors who met after the war, they lived with Shani when she was young.  She and her grandfather were extremely close. He was a brilliant doctor who spoke 8 languages and who had spent the war in a forced labor camp in Transylvania, after an informant turned him in for honoring his Hippocratic oath despite the ban on Jews’ practicing medicine.  “He couldn’t deny someone help,” she says.

Her grandmother had been taken from Hungary in the dead of winter and left to freeze or starve to death in the woods of Sibir.  A farmer offered to save her if she would marry him; she was a very beautiful woman.  She agreed, and her family lived; later, she ran away.  

Her American maternal grandfather was a pilot with the Air Force who spent a year in a German prison during the war.  (When he asked for something to read, the only book they had was Grey’s Anatomy; he read it so thoroughly and so repeatedly that when he enrolled in medical school after the war, he skipped his first year.)

These stories didn’t come to life until Shani was in 7^th grade, when she interviewed her grandparents for a Jewish roots project at school.  Four years later, she and her classmates took a trip to Poland.  She showed me a handmade scrapbook from that trip: it begins with a group of girls striking goofy poses in the airport, and it ends with photos of the gas chambers, the ovens and the bunks at Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Majdanek.  

In between are photos from a visit to a beautiful old synagogue in Poland.  The class visited the synagogue, and then they took a short walk down a path into the woods, where there is a memorial.  The Nazis had come to this synagogue, marched everyone out to the woods, and executed them en masse.  At age 16, Shani and her classmates reenacted this march.

Five years later, Shani came back to Poland as a second lieutenant with 50 people in her charge.  Having absorbed the initial shock of seeing the death camps in high school, she was able to move beyond shock when she returned.  Before she left, she recalls, her commander told her that “When you come home, we’ll meet you at the plane with two things: a piece of land, so that you can kiss the ground, and a contract {to sign on for long-term service}.”  She did. 

Shani says she is “very happy and fulfilled” by her position in the army.  The intelligence work she does is interesting (though she can’t talk about it.)  Her boyfriend has it harder; as a combat soldier, he is stationed in Gaza.  Because of her position, she knows what he is doing; she knows when he is in danger.  When I brought up the Palestinian question, Shani answered it simply: “In the army, you can’t talk about your political thoughts… Israel is surrounded by enemies.  We have to survive.”  

She thinks of her grandparents, of the things she saw at Auschwitz – and she carries a responsibility to defend the state of Israel so that these atrocities can never happen again.  But she also worries that she isn’t doing enough.  On both of her trips to Poland, a survivor came with her group.  In 20 years, who will come along?  She feels her grandparents’ experience receding from the collective conscience of young Israelis and resolves to do more to keep it alive.

As an officer, Shani follows a scripted ritual on Yom Hazikaron: she visits the grave of a soldier from her unit and performs a military ceremony.  She’s uneasy with the day; she feels as if it “makes it look very good” to die.  Still, given the alternative, she agrees: “Of course it’s very important to honor.”  It is a somber holiday in Israel; no retail establishments have Memorial Day sales.  The day is dedicated to remembrance.

Yesterday, the cab driver taking me to the airport pointed at the strings of colorful flags and lights going up around Tel Aviv.  “Too bad you’ll miss the fireworks,” he said.  “Independence Day.  Big parties.”

I had noticed the decorations.  “What about Yom HaZikaron?” I asked.  

He nodded.  “Yes, very sad,” he said.  “For all the people who died.  But then, big parties.”  Israel's Independence Day begins the minute Memorial Day ends.  For those reliving the loss of loved ones, it is not an easy transition.

It seems to sum up much of my experience of Israel: the juxtaposition of extremes. 

Deliberate Acts of Kindness

I am prone to inspiration the way some people are prone to colds.  Even when I do remember to order decaf, the little sparks in everyday life tend to light me up and convince me that life really is good.  So, by nature, I am drawn to the notion of random acts of kindness.  They’re inspiring, they’re gratifying, they’re the spiritual equivalent of Kaizen: continuous small acts that collectively make a difference.  

And yet, there are ills that do not recede without deliberate and sustained effort; random acts might mow them down a bit, but they won’t kill them.  Random kindness did not pass the 13^th Amendment, or the Clean Water Act.  In today’s world, I wondered, where so many have dismissed politics as a partisan shooting match, do we have the collective resolve to slog through the hard stuff?  

I decided to attend a Tikun Olam committee meeting at the synagogue last year, to explore whether I did.  I liked these folks right away: they were warm, smart, thoughtful people, willing to work hard to effect change, and I felt inspired (there I go again) by the discovery of this gem of a group within my congregation.  As part of a multi-faith umbrella organization called People Acting in Community Together (PACT), Tikkun Olam focuses primarily on social justice through grassroots community action.  

At the time I joined, the group had decided to focus on healthy aging – in particular, issues of senior transportation.  Sure, I said, thinking of Paula’s aging mother, that’s important.  I went and had coffee with the CEO of SilverRide to learn about senior transit from someone who had made a business of it.  I typed up my notes, sent them out, and looked forward to a lively discussion about senior isolation and how we were going to make a difference.  I was excited.

The excitement didn’t last.  Every month, I went to the Tikkun Olam committee meeting with a handful of fellow congregants, trying not to let my mind wander.  The pace of the conversation was painfully slow.  Compared to the agility and bias for action that a startup requires to avoid extinction,  PACT’s process made me want to chew my arm off.  Who was synthesizing the myriad research meetings into a compelling story?  Where was the PowerPoint presentation?  What is our objective here, folks?  And who’s in charge?  Every meeting had an assigned chairperson, but between those meetings… there was no continuity in leadership.

Still, I told myself, I don’t know anything about community organizing; maybe this is what it takes to get stuff done when it comes to government.  So I tried to remain patient as the conversations meandered back and forth.  

Last month, at the urging of our assigned PACT organizer, I attended a meeting of HALOC, the Healthy Aging Local Organizing Committee, which included members of two other synagogues and several area churches as well.  It was a three-hour meeting to get ready for the upcoming action, and I felt energized about emerging with a clear vision, a to-do list, and renewed energy.  

After 2 hours and 40 minutes, I walked out, at the end of my rope.  The meeting was dominated by a group of longtime members-- mostly seniors themselves-- who had no need for PowerPoints .  As we skittered through an agenda that afforded no latitude for dialogue, newcomers like me felt ourselves marginalized as we moved to vote on priorities we weren’t informed enough to set.  And, predictably, the outcome of the meeting was another set of meetings.  I sat there in frustration, realizing that I was the only person in that room with young children competing for those precious hours.  

After that experience, I concluded that I was going to have to find another way to change the world.  I started declining Tikun Olam meetings and relaxed into the familiar stress of startup life, replete with the comforts of a chain of command and a sense of urgency.  I rationalized my exit by telling myself that my presence wasn’t important.

But Margaret Mead’s famous words still ran through my head.  The process didn’t feel right to me… but the cause still did.  What if I actually had a lot to contribute to that group?  What if leadership and action bias and a little flair with communication were just what that group needed to propel its initiatives to success?  Around the room, there were lawyers, sociologists, retired doctors and teachers… but a striking dearth of business people.  I thought of the thousands of business leaders who have so much to offer our communities.  And then I thought of us all being too fidgety and distracted and impatient and—let’s face it— absorbed in our own lives to do it.

The healthy aging community action is happening in May.  After that, Tikun Olam will move on to other issues.  Rather than using my frustration as an excuse to opt out, I'm going to try to step up – and propose some changes that I hope will bring energy and purpose into the group.  If it doesn’t work… at least I won’t have walked away from the plate before I’ve even been struck out.

Maybe a few incendiary personalities, with our short fuses, short attention spans, and passionate temperaments, aren’t such bad ingredients in a recipe for social justice.  I guess I’ll find out.

To all the members of PACT and other community groups who put yourselves out there to bring on a brighter dawn: thank you for all you do.

Camp Newman

The summer after I finished 4^th grade and my mother finished law school, my sister and I were shipped off to sleepaway camp in the mountains of West Virginia for four weeks.  My mother was studying for the bar exam, and she decided that this would go a lot better if we weren’t around.  In my memory, it went something like the scene from Poltergeist (“Get Out”), but in reality, I’m sure it was a much gentler experience, where our parents deposited us at camp with loving hugs and promises to send care packages.  

I loved camp.  Living in a cabin full of girls my age, giggling and singing songs and doing scavenger hunts and washing our hair in the rain, was about as good as it could get.  Somehow, even making the bed didn’t seem like such a chore when it wasn’t your mother telling you to do it.

Rebecca started going to sleepaway camp the summer after first grade.  She started with three days of Girl Scout camp, then a week.  For the past two years, she has gone to Camp Newman, a Union of Reform Judaism (URJ) camp that is a few hours away in Santa Rosa.  This camp had me at Hello.  It was everything that I liked about Girl Scout camps – the fun, the silliness, the friendship – but with a halo of Jewish values wrapped around it.  From Newman’s mission statement:

Our mission is to inspire campers and staff to take camp home and apply their Jewish learning to their daily lives, ultimately bettering themselves, their communities and the world.

We fulfill this mission by creating a spiritual oasis that bestows on campers and staff enhanced self-esteem, a more positive Jewish identity, a greater knowledge of Judaism and lifelong friendships. We create an enriching, enjoyable community of living Judaism for all ages, all seasons and all of life.

Last summer, Rebecca had mixed feelings about going back.  In fact, she was pretty much set against it.  Although I had hastily shoed in her enrollment during one of her narrow windows of nostalgia, she reacted with horror when I told her that a slot had actually opened up for her.  “I don’t want to go!” she shouted, furious with me for actually doing what I said I was going to do.

 “You’re going,” I replied.  End of discussion.  I wanted to wave my white scarf like the devil who wears Prada and say, “That’s all.”  I had my reasons.

The weeks leading up to camp last summer involved a slew of emotional exchanges about how awful camp was going to be.  “They make us pray all the time,” she complained.  I bit my tongue, knowing full well that they were swimming and playing a lot more than they were swaying.  Nonetheless, I suggested that she might be more receptive to prayer in her life, being a year older, and that if she got bored with the prayers, she could just think about what was in her heart.  “That’s what prayer really is,” I reasoned. 

She insisted that 10 days was too long to be away.  I failed to correct her with “It’s actually 12 days,” figuring that once she was there, it would be hard to keep count.  

Two days before she left, we were doing some last-minute shopping for a bathing suit.  “Camp Newman has ruined my entire summer!”  she screamed to all the shoppers in the Sports Authority parking lot.  It was an interesting observation, given that Camp Newman hadn’t even happened yet.  “What a great attitude,” I shouted back.  “You’re right.  If you’re going into it with that attitude, you’re definitely going to have a horrible time.  Why don’t you spend the rest of your summer playing on Poptropica instead!!”  

After I collected my Mother of the Year award, I started to feel pretty bad.  I really believed in the Newman experience.  But was I doing the wrong thing by forcing it on an unwilling child?  Where did this fall on the list of decisions you do and don’t let your child make?

Fast forward to July 29, 2012, when we picked Rebecca up from the bus.  She was buzzing with excitement.  She chattered the whole way home, sharing one story after another about her camp experience.  She talked about the night they spent tent camping in the wilderness, the highlight of her week.  She described the games they played to build trust and teamwork.  She recounted a beautiful and moving evening when each of the girls shared something about her personal fears.  “Everyone cried,” she told us.  She commended the chef for always making peanut butter an option.  She proudly presented the beautiful candles she had made for Ted as a birthday present in Arts & Crafts.  And she did so with such confidence and energy that I couldn’t help but feel proud.  “And I want to go back for three weeks next year,” she said, unprompted.

I was trying to play it cool, but inside, I was ecstatic.  Why?  Because Camp Newman is the closest thing Rebecca has to living with a Jewish identity.  Our home life, with the exception of Ha-Motzi, is remarkably secular.  Ted isn’t Jewish, Paula isn’t Jewish, most of the girls’ friends aren’t Jewish.  But for two weeks, Rebecca lived a daily life that made her feel connected to and happy with who she is.  And for a pre-teen girl, I can’t think of anything more important.

Did Rebecca bring home and incorporate her Jewish learning into her daily life, as is the camp’s mission?  I don’t know.  She still silently plots the day when she will take revenge on me for making her go to Sunday School.  She still refers to prayers in Hebrew as “a bunch of gibberish.”  But there are things I care much more about: tolerance, kindness, humility, generosity, gratitude, respect for nature…  all Reform Jewish values, and all things I see developing in her as she gets older.  Of course, they're not exclusively Jewish values - but they're not exactly cultural norms in today's world, either.  I have to believe that immersion in a community that actively proclaims and practices its values every day, even for just a few weeks, supports the foundation from which she is growing.

As the mad scramble of summer camp planning commenced for 2013, we faced a cornucopia of options to enrich our kids’ lives and keep them entertained.  But the one we committed to first was Camp Newman.  I can’t wait to hear this year’s stories.