Meditation, Part I

Our house has a spare bedroom.  When we first moved in, it was my office.  When Paula’s apartment burned down, it became her daughter’s bedroom.  By the time her daughter moved out, I had relocated my office to the basement, so the spare room became a space in limbo- a collection spot for suitcases, filing boxes, Littlest Pet Shops and mate-less shoes.  The door stayed closed, and the clutter out of view.  

For my Chanukah gift, Paula gave me a sanctuary.  She cleared the spare room of its junk and furnished it with a yoga mat, a candle sitting on a small apothecary’s chest, and a bamboo plant.  My favorite of her paintings hangs above the candle.  That’s it.

I couldn’t imagine a better gift. I’ve wanted to reincorporate meditation in my life for some time, and now I had the perfect space for it: quiet, uncluttered, a place to focus my mind.  I was overjoyed.  But then, the epiphany: I had also been stripped of my last good excuse, left alone to wrestle with my attention deficit and my Aries personality.  

Uh… the cat ate my meditation suit?

Meditation does not come naturally to me.  There isn’t a mellow bone in my body.  My mind races forward in planning mode, and backward in replay mode, but rarely rests in the present without determined effort.  I worry, I stress, I panic, I project.    I overreact, and I rationalize it.  Nothing says I love you like hysteria, I say.

Many years ago, when I decided to engage an executive coach, I was tasked for the first time with meditation as a formal exercise.  He recognized the toll that stress and distraction were taking on my effectiveness as a leader.  I had expected to be taking personality tests and reading books like Built to Last – but instead, he handed me Full­-Catastrophe Living and put me on a 2-week media fast.  No NPR, no CNN, no OMG.  The next step was to begin a regular practice of meditation and yoga.    I loved yoga, but I would make almost any excuse to avoid meditating.  It just seemed so hard, and I couldn’t even count it as exercise. 

In 2010, I reengaged with meditation through a course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).  The UMass Center for Mindfulness describes MBSR as a complementary health and wellness treatment:

Mindfulness is a way of learning to relate directly to whatever is happening in your life, a way of taking charge of your life, a way of doing something for yourself that no one else can do for you — consciously and systematically working with your own stress, pain, illness, and the challenges and demands of everyday life.

It was a particularly stressful time in my life, and I needed to get a handle on the effect stress was having on me and on my kids.  For 12 weeks, I meditated, did body scans, practiced yoga, and met weekly with a group of people committed to doing the same.  I kept it up on the premise that if you’re going to pay for a class, you might as well do the homework.  It was hard work.  But one ordinary day, I was in the kitchen, in the midst of the morning crush to get the kids out of the house before my first meeting.  Leah was refusing to put on her shoes.  As she ran up the stairs with a pair of underwear on her head, I felt the flush of outrage- the clock ticking toward my 8AM call, and this 4-year-old refusing to accept my absolute sovereignty.  I felt it in the tightness of my jaw and the surge of heat under my skin.  Noticed it.  Observed it. 

And breathed.  And calmed down.

This incredible act of self-control went unnoticed by the rest of the world.  But for me, it was a life-changing moment.  For more than four decades, I had dismissed my propensity for shock and awe as immutable.  I had tried to compensate for it by working extra hard and being extra charming at other times.  In a moment, everything changed.  Meditation had rewired me to put space between stimulus and response.

I still don’t have a mellow bone in my body.  My DNA remains a tightly-coiled double helix.  But my sense of resignation has been replaced by resolve.  The practice requires effort.  But the effort is worth it.  

At 6:00 this morning, I fed the cats, retreated to my spare room, lit a candle, sat down, and breathed.  It was only for 20 minutes.  But that is better than nothing.

I intend to do it again tomorrow.

Shalom, Christmas

Christmas isn’t part of my tradition.  My childhood Christmas memories are of sushi and bowling, Chinese takeout and Frogger marathons.  I grew up in a DC suburb with lots of Jews, so I had plenty of company.  Both of my parents were Jewish; not observant, but Jewish.  We ate bacon with our eggs, and we didn’t join a synagogue until I was 9, but we never had a Christmas tree. 

As an adult, my home has always been a Christmas-free zone.  The kids go back east to celebrate Christmas with Ted’s relatives every year- but in our house, there has never been a tree, lights, or faux melting snowflakes.  Call it indoctrination, but the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School was very firm on this point: Christmas is not a secular holiday.  Most secular holidays don’t have the word “Christ” in their name.  A Christmas tree has no place in a Jewish home.  I’d never really questioned it.

This is the first holiday season that Paula and I have lived together.  A few weeks before Christmas, she asked, innocently enough, “Do you want to get a Christmas tree?”  My flat and immediate “no” caught her off-guard.  Paula hasn’t been to church in decades.  She doesn’t identify as Christian.  For her, and for many Americans, a Christmas tree is a seasonal symbol; it’s Santa Claus and his reindeer-powered sleigh, not Jesus in a manger.  She had some reasonable questions to ask: what exactly do I have against cheerfulness, joy and peace?  (I do have something against them… when they are retail gimmicks… but that was my previous blog post.)

We visited the homes of several interfaith couples during the holidays, and many of them do have Christmas trees.  “We don’t have a Jewish home,” one friend explained.  “We have an interfaith home.”  They belong to a synagogue, their kids go to religious school, they attend services and go on family retreats with the congregation – but in their home, the multiple traditions of their families and faiths are alive and celebrated.  Their tree was beautiful.

Another friend with no cultural ties to Christmas had a different perspective.  “My wife and I are both Hindu,” he said.  “But we have a Christmas tree.  The kids don’t think of it as Christian; they just think of it as where their presents go.”  They are not interfaith, but Christmas is not a tradition of faith for them; it’s an American tradition of gift-giving, one which their children look forward to just as much as Jewish, Christian, and atheist children do.

I respect each of these friends’ decisions.  I love visiting their homes.  I have often caught myself humming “The first Noel” and “Silver Bells” in the car.  Still, I choose to abstain from Christmas decorations.  This year, more so than ever before, I have challenged myself as to why.  Here’s what I came up with:

Reform Jews don’t stand out in America.  We don’t dress differently, we don’t eat differently (unless you count gefilte fish), and most of us only go missing from work on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  Christmas is one of the few times of year that being Jewish makes me feel different, like a chameleon coming out of camouflage.  This isn’t a negative feeling; I love being Jewish.  In myriad ways, Judaism has influenced my values, my lifestyle, and my ambitions.  As a Jew who is largely assimilated into American culture, Christmas is the one time of year when, with my unlit, treeless home, I stand up and am counted.

But it’s not just my home and my kids’ home; it’s Paula’s, too.  How do I honor the tradition of joy and seasonal beauty that Christmas means to her, if doing so obfuscates my own tradition?  Surfing around the web, I can see we’re not the only ones struggling with this balance.  Interfaith families- and even Jewish families – have landed everywhere along the spectrum.  

The day before Christmas, with the kids back east, I was out shopping for groceries to make a grand Christmas Day meal for Paula.  I had a nagging guilt about the exclusion of Christmas from our shared abode.  On the way home, I stopped and picked up an assortment of ornaments.  I savored the experience; ornaments have always been the piece of the Christmas puzzle I envy the most.  They’re so pretty, and over time, they tell the story of a life: baby’s first Christmas; the one made from pasta and metallic spray paint in first grade; a keepsake from Prague; and so on.

I came home and hung my new ornaments from the lemon tree in our backyard.  They really did look nice.  Paula smiled and thanked me, but I know she was just being polite.  Santa doesn’t often drop the mother lode under a citrus tree.  And with the tree in our backyard, the street view still suggested an undecorated home.  But at least I wasn’t snubbing Christmas entirely.  

Last year, I went to work on Christmas Day.  I was in Tel Aviv, where Christmas is just a regular work day.  Other than the chocolate Santa that mysteriously appeared in my hotel room – an oddity in a hotel that keeps Kosher and has a Shabbat elevator – there wasn’t any indication that December 25 was a special day.  No one had hung snowflakes from their beachfront balconies, no stores closed early – and Israeli children don’t expect to wake up to a mound of new toys, under a tree or elsewhere.  This is really cool, I thought.  For the first time in my life, I’m surrounded by people as indifferent to Christmas as I am.  We lit the menorah at the office, and we had the traditional jelly doughnuts at the company meeting.  I was ensconced in my own tradition.

Except that I wasn’t.  I am an American Jew; emphasis on American.  Christmas is one of the few days that America grinds into low gear, even for most Jews.  Christmas as a normal workday was something I’d never experienced.  And believe me, fight it though I might, my kids expect presents.

This year, at home in San Jose, I ground into low gear too.  I explained to Paula that we must have Chinese food on Christmas Eve; she was all too happy to oblige.  On Christmas Day, we did a jigsaw puzzle.  We made a bag of sandwiches and distributed them to homeless people in the park downtown.  We visited her mom and hosted her sister for dinner.  For one day, the world around us slowed down, and we did too.  It was great- way better, honestly, than being 7,000 miles from home and saying “Merry Christmas” over Skype.

So maybe I wasn’t completely truthful when I said that Christmas isn’t part of my tradition.  I’ve come to look forward to “the holidays” as an annual respite from our busy, overcrowded, overstimulated life.  I’ve absorbed some of the warmth of the season into my own rituals of gift-giving, card-sending, and time off work.  (Yes, we light the menorah – and the kids get Chanukah gifts – but Chanukah gift-giving is really a tradition that grew out of Christmas.)  In a world that glorifies multitasking and often leaves professional women swinging on a pendulum between two outposts of guilt, Christmas is a day when the world around us stops its dizzying spin and we settle into the moment.  

When I am honest with myself, for that, I am truly grateful.

Unwrapped

“The holidays” always agitate a certain tension in me.  It’s not so much stress or depression, the usual suspects this time of year.  It’s more that that the holidays pull at me internally, pitting the globally-warmed conservationist I’ve become against my inner child.  One night I can’t sleep because the rising level of CO₂ in our oceans is decimating oyster hatcheries; the next night, I’m up worrying about denying my kids the carefree delight of holiday excess.  Inner Child loves the vision of a hearth piled with sparkly gifts, magical in their veil of infinite potential.  Inner Environmentalist knows that the wrapping paper will go straight to the trash, that most toys are less entertaining than the boxes they come in, and that production lines in China are pouring untreated wastewater into the rivers and lakes that serve local communities, too far from American buyers’ eyes to raise any eyebrows.

Is it just coincidence that The Grinch is green?

My kids feel the same tension– Becky, at 10, more so than her younger sister.  They abhor destruction of animal habitat – but they really love their collection of stuffed animals.  They sneer at our dependence on fossil fuel – but boy do they want the Nintendo 3DS.  They may wax poetic about days of yore when all this excess didn’t exist – but since it’s here, it’s hard not to want it.

I didn’t expect the kids to tell me that they want to pass on gifts this year.  My inner child would actually find it somewhat disturbing if they did.  But I also don’t want them to feel beholden to the spell that the retail world tries to cast.  I don’t want to tell them where to land, but I invite them to explore the spectrum between indulgence and abstinence, to sit with the pros and cons.  No matter how shiny and enticing the catalogs are, no matter how bright the smiles of the children modeling with toys and clothes, no matter how resounding the marketing message that money can buy you love, we know better.  Excess yields diminishing returns.  The euphoria of new stuff is fleeting, by design; if it weren’t, it wouldn’t work out so well for the retailers, who want you back next year.  And all of this has a global cost much higher than the Black Friday price tags suggest.

Everyone finds their own equilibrium in this tension.  For us, it is a place in the middle.  After the candles were lit on the first night of Chanukah, the girls sat on the floor in the living room with their eyes covered.  Five minutes later, they opened them to find model horses all around, unloaded from Trader Joe’s bags.  Thanks to Craig’s List, I had scored a collection of them to present as a Chanukah gift.  The fur on their noses is worn, and their saddles are cracked – but for $20, and zero incremental effluent into waterways, the kids enjoyed what felt to them like a bonanza.  For the next few hours, they gleefully welcomed Colonel Mustard, Annie Hall, Vanilla and the rest of their brethren into our home.  (Assigning names seems to be the most fun part anyway.)  No wrapping paper wound up in the garbage that night, but there was carefree excess in the air.  And if they collect cobwebs after their first week… well, no one really feels too put out.

This approach doesn’t always go smoothly.  On night three, I gave each of the girls an envelope.  Inside was a homemade certificate good for one year of horseback riding lessons- an indulgence that will stretch our budget but which I was honestly excited to give them.  I grew up riding horses, and I have long wanted them to share the experience.  Both of them read their slip of paper, looked at me uncertainly, and then dug into the envelope, looking for their “gift”.   Finding only the paper, Becky recovered gracefully, realizing that this was something she should celebrate – but Leah turned and ran to her room, sobbing.  My first reaction was righteous indignation; how could she turn up her nose just because I didn’t include a toy surprise?  What kind of spoiled little brats had I raised here?  But I know that she was only reacting honestly; at five, she is easily fascinated by shiny objects.  It’s my job as her mom to teach her what matters.  It is a lifelong course of learning.  I’m still learning it myself, every day.

So, gifts don’t have to be new, they don’t have to be wrapped, and they don’t have to be things.  It seems simple enough.  But part of passing on a tradition is considering which parts to preserve and which parts to rethink.  As our kids grow up to face challenges that are truly global in proportion, maybe these small invitations to adapt will have cultured an openness to possibility that becomes material to their survival.  It sounds like a leap – but as a wise woman once told me, all things are linked.  I believe it.

California Minus 30 Equals...

Ever since our Tikkun Olam committee hosted a dialogue on "voting your values", I've been thinking a lot about what this means.  This morning, as I skimmed through a ballot guide that can only be described as overwhelming, I felt the weight of this responsibility. Registered voters in California are being asked to jury a mind-boggling breadth of debates, from the minimum wage in San Jose to labeling of genetically-engineered foods.

Generally speaking, this strikes me as a really bad idea.  Why?  Because, for the most part, we don't know what we're talking about.  Columnist Robert J. Elisberg summed it up well when he called the California Proposition system "an ill-thought out disaster":

"However poorly one thinks of politicians, the Proposition System is worse. It starts with the faulty premise that the voting public is going to willingly study a thick guidebook... Instead, with propositions, they turn to watching 30-second TV ads to learn what the laws are about.  Watching 30-second TV ads to learn what a law is about is like reading a fortune cookie and believing that you now understand Eastern Philosophy."

The prop system has also evolved into another stage where wealth inequality plays out.  Four of the eleven initiatives on the 2012 ballot are the pet projects of single uber-rich individuals - and others are being shot down with the help of millions in funding from equally wealthy critics.  The glossy, emotionally-charged fliers that fill our mailboxes leave Californians feeling obligated to exercise the right to vote on these propositions - but eminently unqualified to do so.

Historically, this has made me a sort of conscientious objector when it comes to most ballot props.  I am suspicious of their sponsors - their motives and, even when they mean well, their credentials.  And I am often equally skeptical about my own credentials as arbiter. 

But this year, there's a chink in my armor: Prop 30.  Unlike most propositions, which leave all but the most tenacious fact-finders with little clue about what will really happen if they do or don't pass, the consequences of Prop 30 are pretty clear because of the "trigger cuts" included in the state budget if Prop 30 fails.  According to KQED's non-partisan 2012 California Proposition Guide,

"K-12 schools and community colleges would lose $5.35 billion. The University of California and California State University systems would each lose $250 million. City police departments, CalFire, the park system, flood control programs and others would also lose several million dollars each."

Did you read that?  $5.35 billion.  This from a school system where PTAs already do fundraisers to buy paper for the copy machine, and students get extra credit for bringing boxes of tissues to class.

I think back to the Tikkun Olam dialogue about voting our values.  If there's one value that has been instilled in me as fundamentally Jewish since the day I became a fertilized egg, it's the importance of education.  From the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism:

"The Jewish commitment to public education dates back to the time of the Torah and Talmud... The Reform Jewish Movement has long stood in strong support of public education recognizing that an educated population is the cornerstone of democracy. The United States' well-being depends on the decisions of its educated, informed citizens...
When we invest in public education, we invest in our children and our nation's future."

If we're voting our values, we must give our public schools the resources they need to fulfill their mission.  Surely, a quarter cent increase in sales tax isn't more than the average Californian can stomach to bet on our future - whether their children attend public schools, or they'll count those students as colleagues some day, or they'll rely on them as neighbors and members of their communities 10 and 20 years from now.  For me, the choice is clear.  But it raises another question: why believe that Prop 30 has the right formula?

Because this proposition represents Governor Jerry Brown's plan, not that of a rogue billionaire.  Because it wouldn't even be on the ballot if California weren't suffering the same legislative gridlock that has crippled Obama's efficacy in his first term.  Because I believe that Jerry Brown is not only smart but also a devoted and experienced public leader who knows what he is doing.  Because government, for all its flaws, can act in the name of shared values in ways that the private sector simply can't.  .

I'm so tired of this election cycle- the inflated outrage around slips of the tongue, the asenine stream of MoveOn Facebook posts, the never-ending pleas for more money to secure Obama's reelection.  (Though honestly, if there were a magic number that would clinch it for him, and I could afford it, I'd write the check tomorrow.)  But weariness aside, I ask you: Please, ffs, vote Yes on 30. 

Facebook and the art of coming out

“I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”

“It’s OK if you’re not.”
“I think I am.  Are you?”

“Yes.”

“OK.  Here goes.”

At which point I pressed “Post”.  And up on my Facebook page appeared a smiling photo of Paula and me, along with the caption, “It’s National Coming Out Day, so… out I come.”

That was one year ago.  70+ “likes” and public affirmations later – mostly from straight people around the periphery of my life – I was euphoric.  I hadn’t expected it.  The chorus of support came from classmates I hadn’t seen in years, former coworkers, parents and teachers from my kids’ school, my old yoga instructor.  I sat and reflected on the fear and dread that had lead up to that moment.  What had scared me so much?

Coming out in your 40s is a strange thing.  It’s often described as a rite of passage.  But by the time I came out, I had been through many such rites.  I was a parent and a professional.  I understood myself pretty well.  I could list many things I liked about myself, but I had a well-reasoned list of dislikes too.  Neither list had anything to do with my sexuality.  I hesitated to come out to the world because I didn’t want to be told I was brave.  I didn’t want to be proud of my sexuality any more than I wanted to be proud of my skin color or my height.  And most of all, I didn’t want the world to start defining me through a filter that is rife with stereotypes.  (For the record: I am terrible at softball, and I don’t really like going to Ikea.)

But these were just rationalizations.  The truth was that I like to be liked, and I was afraid of making people feel uncomfortable.  With that context, taking the leap felt like the only way to act with integrity. 

Although I was already “out” to all of my close friends and family, I’d retained an online identity where I presented myself as a parent, a businesswoman, a cyclist, a wanna-be comedienne – but not as gay.  In the sanitized slice of life known as Facebook, where the skies are always sunny, all of our meals are photogenic, and we’re never awful to our kids, I was in the closet.

Like almost everyone, I make fun of Facebook.  And I’ve unabashedly loved it anyway: targeted ads, navel-gazing, invaded privacy and all.   But I have never appreciated Facebook more than I did on National Coming Out Day 2011.  In one swoop, without having to broker uncomfortable conversations that would have been more about supporting the listener than about supporting me, I came clean.  And I realized that there were a lot of people out there who were just fine with that.

I dream of a day when people scratch their heads and wonder why we used to have Pride celebrations, confused by what could possibly have been shameful about being gay.  Sadly, that day isn’t here yet.  The world is changing, and we’ll get there – but in the meantime, to all who got up the nerve to break the silence on National Coming Out Day last week, yasher koach.  Strength to you.