Tag Archives: Life

Why I blog

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I blog because it is cathartic and empowering. It is also more considerate of my friends and family to give them a break from listening to me. My partner is especially grateful. She can read my thoughts when she has time or not. Up to her.

I would appreciate comments from those of you who read my entries. I would welcome different viewpoints and I would like to engage in a dialogue. I see the world through a lens shaped by my life’s trajectory and family story, so my view is necessarily constrained.

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Visiting Day at Day Camp

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Today is visiting day at day camp. Ok, it is visiting dinner, really.

I still remember my parents coming for visiting days when I was at sleep away camp. I remember the summer my mother went gray. It was 3-1/2 weeks since I had seen my parents and I wondered who were those odd people waving at me. Maybe it was my mother’s gray, my father’s checked pants and white shoes combo or the red keds (the really wimpy kind — not the now-preppy-cool kind) my mom wore. It was probably the whole picture that made me weak in the knees.

Luckily, my son saw us this morning so the trauma should be muted. More later.

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Grandma, Mom and me

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So I am not only becoming my mother, I am becoming my grandmother.

You may remember seeing old Jewish ladies like her. They had heavy accents and would offer you a “gless of tea in a kup” (because in the “old country” tea was served in glasses, but “vee know that here, in Amerrrica, dahlink, vee poot tea in a kup”).

They carried heavy shopping bags full of things. In fact, those shopping bags were so ubiquitous that they were called “Jewish luggage”. Which gets me to my point. This morning, I couldn’t seem to find any of my fancy shmancy bags in which to shove some of the daily detritus of my life. I spied a small Dean & Deluca shopping bag (note to self: remind family that this is not a eatery for recessionary times). So in went my blackberries (yes more than one), gym clothes, bills I need to pay, etc. Off I went to my fancy shmancy job at my fancy shmancy office with my shtetl style bag.

Some things must just be in our genes. From generation to generation. . . .

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Tattoos

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I hate tattoos. I think they mar an absolutely amazing work of evolution — the human body. It also must hurt. And, ink in the skin can’t be a good thing. But, tattoos are everywhere, even on 60-something people who didn’t get them in the military.

So, now I try to look at them instead of looking away. What do they say about the person? They must be clues to a person’s identity or life story. Or am I giving people too much credit?

I must read up on this because if there is meaning in these tattoos, then there is a whole new level to people watching.

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Being the other mother

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I am not my son’s biological mother. My partner is. There are distinct advantages to being genetically irrelevant: no worries that the less-than-stellar genes I carry (recessive, of course) will transfer to my son. I can say that he is adorable and that he is smart, because I have nothing to do with those. The down side is that I don’t see my mother in him and she was such a positive life force.

I live the nature/nurture debate. I think humans are born hard-wired and nurture doesn’t change that. Nurture can create a safe, loving, encouraging environment so that a child’s better impulses, desires and dreams can flourish. That’s my job. It is hard sometimes because there is something about the biological connection that is primitive and similarly hard-wired.

I worry about my place in my son’s life. I have a piece of paper — court ordered adoption. I am legally and financially as responsible for him as is any biological parent. But that is no bright line upon which to stake my parental claim. Certainly if family were decided based on “blood” relations, I would lose. Court order sounds strong but it is paper and in “rock, paper, scissors,” I would lose to the scissors. So, it can’t be that strong.

I know I love him and he loves me. That’s the tie that binds. The rest shouldn’t matter. But until love is the litmus test for family, I am glad I have the piece of paper.

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Losing my mother — 6.5 years later

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Dear Mom:

Tomorrow is your grandson’s 7th birthday.  You died one day shy of his being six months old.  That means today is 6 and 1/2 years since you died.  I can’t believe it. There is no “moving on” after your death; there is only “moving with” your memory and wishing you were here. Next to the computer is a picture of you holding him after his bris and I am sitting with you on your left. The person on your right (unseen in the photo) said something tremendously stupid because I can see it in your eyes. But I know that look — you were measuring your response to an inane statement. In fact, I have that same look on my face in the picture. Genes are amazing things, except you would have responded with something perfectly diplomatic but to the point. I would have responded like Larry King did when he interviewed Jean Harris (who killed the Scarsdale diet doctor), “so, you’re a murderer”.

You live in me and as I age I look more and more like you. This comforts me. But I need for your grandson to know you or know about you, so he can appreciate the remarkable person who was his grandmother.

I tell him about you all the time.  I use those Yiddish phrases that you used with us when you cupped our punims adoringly.  Sometimes, I tell him what Grandma would have said if she were alive because I want him to have a sense of you. So if he does something funny or wonderful or if he needs comforting, I tell him what you would have said to him if you were alive.

A few months ago, we were all in a cab after visiting Dad.  I buckled up and put your grandson on my lap and “strapped him in” with my arms forming the “Grandma grip” (which he knows comes from your legendary strong grip on your children’s arms when crossing streets).  The cab stopped short and everyone else went flying (though, thank G-d, no one was hurt).  Your grandson was safe in the Grandma grip.  That is the image of you I want him to carry with him — the strong, protective love that endures even though you are in Heaven.

I wonder if you would like my blog and would send the link to all of your friends. I wonder if you would comment. You would probably send me direct tweets that said, “be nice” in that slightly chastising way you have. You would worry about Sarah Palin’s daughter being so young to have had a child and tell me to be gentle about that. But, you needn’t worry. I, too, feel that the world is too much upon her. It is her mother who makes me crazy(ier).

Mom, this is not getting easier. And I know you would say to me, “my poor little tsatskele, if I could have this sadness for you, I would.” And that’s the catch: so much more to mourn.

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Another rant because everyone else gets to rant on the Internet

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Finding out someone I consider(ed) a friend is cheating on his spouse sent me into the rant that follows.  (And I don’t mean a-blame-it-on-alcohol one night stand. I can understand one-time show of colossal stupidity or total lapse of judgment because we are human.)

Maybe I am so upset because, on local and national levels, I wonder where are our humanity and our personal and societal accountability?

Our economy has been destroyed by the greedy and power-hungry — really, if you all only cheated only a little, you would be fabulously rich and 30% of Americans wouldn’t be out of work, homeless, worrying about their jobs, without healthcare or any combo of these.

Our society has been co-opted by power hungry people who control by creating “Us”es and “Them”s — really, you could be kingmakers and then be high-paying pundits without starting a culture war and leaving our national principles among the casualties.

Our religions have been hijacked by radicalism — really, as Elvis Costello asked, what’s so funny about peace, love and understanding? What is wrong with our president’s middle name and his family heritage? And what if a man loved a man?

Our politics are populated by self-serving hypocrites — if you live in a glass house, be generous about the frailty of others lest you be fodder for the 24 hour news recycle.  You might even get to do something for the Common Weal instead of the Singular Ego.

Maybe humanity starts with humility. Ok, so I guess that means I should not judge my (former) friend. Instead I should hope he finds his way back to his family.  So, I have proved my point by being the very type of self  satisfied pompous ass against whom I started this rant.  Damn.  I hate that.

I’ll plan on being humble tomorrow. Today, I will enjoy being the pompous ass. Because I am mad enough, I am tired enough and, gosh darn it, I am (sort of) good enough to rant today.  Apologies to the Senator, formerly known as comedian, Al Franken.

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