On Taking Responsibility for our Young Girls and Women

Like many of you, I was riveted this past week watching the story coming out of Cleveland unfold.  The rescue of three young women who had been held hostage for ten years by a brutal perpetrator is both utterly surreal and devastatingly sad.  It is virtually impossible to integrate the details of this story.  The facts of the case continue to emerge but we do know that these women were kidnapped, held for a decade against their will, starved, beaten and raped.  We know that they were bound with ropes and chains.  We know that they were not permitted to leave the decrepit house in which they were imprisoned. There is no way for any of us to comprehend the terror that they have suffered or the trauma that they have endured.  How were they able to maintain sanity or hope?  Perhaps they didn’t. I find it unbearable to even imagine their lives over the past ten years.  Denial is such a powerful buffer that I am desperate for them to tell us it wasn’t as bad as it sounds.  I want them to say that they were able to at least bond with each other and never felt totally alone.  I want to fast-forward to three years from now where one of them has written a memoir in which she describes her miraculous new life where all her wounds have been healed.  But achingly, these women---girls at the time of their capture---may never find peace.

The person responsible for this unspeakable horror is Ariel Castro, a marginal being with (at a minimum) mental illness and masochistic sexual deviance.  I suspect there will be months of speculation by FBI profilers and mental health professionals around what factors contributed to his executing this nightmare.  We will feverishly seek to understand “what to look for” when it comes to identifying potential future offenders.  Possibly some of the post facto analysis will make us feel like we are learning something valuable from this tragedy about the human condition.  But what kind of lessons can we glean from the behavior of an obvious sociopath?  Perhaps energy would be better spent on evaluating the routine, daily and casual attacks that are committed against women and girls.

Consider for example, that every two minutes, a woman in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. Forty-four percent of all victims are under the age of 18.  Fifty four percent of sexual assaults are never reported and by one estimate, 97 percent of rapists will never spend one day in jail.  Learn more about sexual assault statistics here.  What can we do with this information?

And what about the more subtle ways in which women are put at risk? Women continue to be regularly objectified in mass media. Such portrayals range from thoughtless characterizations of women as weak and dependent to victims of explicit and excessive violence in horror movies.  The message seems to be that women are not worthy of protection when we have ineffectual domestic violence laws on the books and inadequate community resources with which to respond to their urgent needs.  It appears that women cannot be responsible for their own bodies and must be subject to controls when we chip away at access to safe and legal abortion, Plan B, contraception and sex education (all the while, a 15-year old boy can buy condoms without restriction or consequence).  We demonstrate disregard for women’s humanity when we hold up unrealistic standards of beauty and encourage them to destroy their own bodies in the name of fashion.   We have normalized and mainstreamed pornography and disturbing video games in which women and female characters are often humiliated and treated viciously.

All of these realities are absorbed by our young boys and men.  All of these realities condition our young girls and women.  All of these realities imprint strongly on the broken mind of a potential perpetrator.

It is obviously critical that we acknowledge, investigate and unpack the horrific events experienced by these three women in Cleveland, Ohio.  Although it feels voyeuristic, I, too, feel a frantic need to understand what happened and how it might have been prevented.  What may be even more important to the larger cause of safeguarding girls and women is to address some of the more mundane ways in which we subvert and dehumanize them.  We might never be able to prevent the rare psychopath from kidnapping women, but we certainly have the power to improve social norms and strengthen legal protections.  We can teach our young girls and boys about equals rights and more generally how to treat one another.  We can empower young girls to learn about and appreciate their bodies and develop clear emotional and physical boundaries.  We can remind young women to maintain an acute awareness of danger and never accept assistance or a ride from a stranger.  The lessons coming out of Cleveland are not new---they are prompts to re-engage with bolstering the status of girls and women in this country.

A Family Affair

Everybody has a different concept of family.  I was reminded of this after a recent trip to California where virtually our entire brood gathered to spend a long weekend.  As it turns out, the weekend was certainly longer for some of us than for others.  Even within the same core family unit, you will find members with vastly wide-ranging notions of connectedness as well as varying levels of tolerance for intimacy.  For my part, I find myself growing wistful for a time gone by, when we flew from all parts to be together for significant occasions with greater regularity.  In my admittedly rose-hued memories, we all managed to get to the beach for sunset and evenings ended congregated around the fire. What I find increasingly fascinating about being a part of a multi-generational family is how the gears are constantly shifting.  There are historical alliances that change in response to marriages and babies.  There also seem to be dynamics that are established so early and become so entrenched that no amount of maturity, softening of the years or costly therapy can deconstruct them.  There is great universality in the fact that we essentially become our adolescent selves in the presence of our parents and siblings.

The inner teenager is not always the most flattering version of yourself…mine engages in a confusing combination of acting out (often comically) and subverting feelings.  Still and all, my default position tends to be mediator and salve.   I just want everyone to get along and everything to be OK and everyone to love each other.  LIKE RIGHT NOW.  My official roles, then (according to the therapeutic community), fall into two categories: “Caretaker”, one who feels great responsibility for the emotional life of the family, and “Mascot”,one who uses comedy to distract from uncomfortable or dysfunctional situations.

There are times when these formative roles serve me well.  I have a highly attuned sense of empathy and I am occasionally entertaining at a party.  On the flip side, I can have poor boundaries and deny very real wounds.  Clinically speaking, the Caretaker is identified as being at higher risk for depression than other family members (it can be tough trying to make everyone happy) while the Mascot is often the person with the most healthy coping.  So, you see, it could really go either way for me.

Of course, now that I am a self-possessed adult, I could make different choices.  There are many people close to me who have no desire to endure the morass of feelings involved in dealing with their families.  It is often the subject of debate with dear friends---even with my husband---the ultimate costs and benefits of being an active member of an extended family.  I always land in the camp of “YES,” it is worth it.  What else is there?  What are the other options?  The other options seem to be cut-offs and estrangements.  At this age, with this amount of history, it is a take it all or leave it all kind of proposition.  While some maneuvering is possible within the relatively fixed role each of us occupies within a family, in due course the choice is to participate or not and to do so either kicking and screaming or enjoying the ride.

I have been accused of glossing over elements of the past when it comes to my family.  My ballast is a place where I consider my childhood happy---even the teenage years---and my family close.  I have unique touchstones with each member, and some relationships are based primarily in the past and while others continue to develop over time.  We have borne and inflicted our share of pain, but it generally pales in comparison to the real suffering of families where there is true neglect, abuse or impairment.  We have been largely spared of tragedy and our close calls have functioned to knit us together.  While I support the people I know who have separated from their clan, I feel crushingly and beautifully stuck with mine.  In fact, I am already dreaming up locales for next year’s reunion.  Just don’t tell my husband.

If not now, when?

‘I need a mental health day,’ I thought to myself in the late afternoon.  This desperate impulse came after the last in a series of indignities, mounting responsibilities and frustrations surrounding work, travel and family.  I was standing in line, waiting for coffee, when I realized my breathing was a little too shallow and my stomach was churning.  My mind scrambled and slid over panicked thoughts of work that would get pushed forward yet another day.  I clutched my iPhone in a death grip and it felt white-hot in my hand, having already recharged it once since pulling it from the wall eight hours earlier.  DING, went the insistent alert tone, indicating another new email.  When it occurred to me that I am my own boss and I could technically, literally fold the laptop closed and shut it all down for the day, I felt a glint of relief.  Of course, if you ask any person who works for herself, you will hear about the sensation of near constant pressure and generalized anxiety that does not defer to the bounds of the hours between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM. As you might expect, despite a clear recognition that I am suffering the ill effects of stress, I didn’t turn tail at that point and head back to the apartment.  I persisted in working through the day and even felt some perverse sense of exhilaration knowing that I had beat back the creeping beast.  There is apparently some distinction in ignoring the warning signs of a mind and body teetering on the brink of collapse.

While this may sound melodramatic, I am ripe for a break down.  I tell you this not to burden you or try and arouse sympathy.  I have a superb and dynamic support system.  I say it because we all have to start taking better care of ourselves right this very minute.  Most of you are like me and you don’t do it well enough---it might even be something that never enters your conscious thought.  You might never have deliberately considered, ‘How am I doing?’

I was reminded this week---in the way you hope you never have to be---that life is invaluable and that the people living it are fragile.  It can be a slippery slope from suffering the strains of the daily grind to taking your own life.  When something like that happens, it feels irresponsible, disrespectful not to take a personal inventory.  You owe it to yourself and the people that love you.

The Fundamentals (I am not a doctor.  I am not a sleep expert.  I am not a nutritionist.  I am a clinical social worker, but mostly these reminders are derived from my personal investigation.):

1)   Get enough sleep.  I am averaging 5-6 hours these days and a grown adult needs more like 7-9.  Even an hour or two less than your body requires can have devastating effects, including putting you at increased risk for a range of psychiatric conditions.  Learn more about your sleep needs here.

2)   Drink mostly water and lots of it.  Stay hydrated.  Your body uses water for everything and needs at least 8 glasses a day to run effectively.  Sugary, caffeinated drinks do not count toward hydration (my delicious afternoon coffee notwithstanding) and often serve to dehydrate you.

3)   Eat in a way that nourishes your body.  Eat frequently – small meals with protein, fresh fruits and vegetables and complex carbohydrates.  Eat what’s in season.

4)   When you begin to feel overwhelmed in whatever domain in your life, stop and reprioritize.  Figure out only what absolutely needs to be done.  Then give yourself even more latitude with that short list.

5)   If you are experiencing physical symptoms---headaches, stomachaches, short of breath, ruminating instead of sleeping---take immediate action.  Take a day off, if you can.  Consider yourself in a state of emergency and respond proportionally.

6)   Reach out to others.  Instead of caving inward, turn to those around you and ask for help.  Particularly if you are person who is stoic or simply presents well under duress, you would be surprised to learn how few people close to you are aware of your struggle.  This is partly true because each of us is so immersed in our own.

7)   Talk to a professional.  You and I and a million people like us can help de-stigmatize therapy.  We can say out loud that we are vulnerable and benefit from added support.  If you had heart disease, you would go straight to the cardiologist.  If you are struggling with your emotional or mental health, why wouldn’t you go see a therapist?

I am going to get through this weekend’s big deliverables and then take some time for self-care and family travel.   Just knowing I am going to do this with intention is already helping.  I am also going to see my therapist when I get back, because why wouldn’t I?  What could possibly be more important?

Prop Up

A lot of hay has been made this week in reaction to the release of Sheryl Sandberg’s new book, “Lean In.”  As appears to be the case whenever any notable woman tries to impart a few kernels from her experience, Ms. Sandberg has been met with a range of zealous responses---from impassioned support to bitter resentment.  As these things go, water coolers everywhere have been trembling with activity and public focus has turned once again to the struggle of women to advance educationally and professionally in stride with men.  Inevitably, the word “feminist” enters the picture (at times, spat out like so much epithet) and questions abound as to whether the Facebook COO should be identified as such and whether she is the appropriate person to take up this mantle. Let me be perfectly clear: Sheryl Sandberg is a feminist.  I am a feminist and chances are, if you are reading this, SO ARE YOU.  According to Merriam-Webster:

Definition of FEMINISM

1

: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

2

: organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

In fact, we might be hard pressed to locate any person willing to go on record denying her feminist credentials based on the actual definition.  Imagine even Melissa Mayer, (I discuss her role in this conversation in a previous piece) with cameras rolling saying, “No, I don’t believe that women should have political, economic and social equality with men.”  And yet, when presented with the “feminist” moniker, in her interview for the film, Makers, she immediately rejected it as something toxic that didn’t apply to her and to which she couldn’t relate.  And she is not alone.

According to a Time/CNN poll conducted in 2009, only 24% of American women self-identified as “feminist” and only 12% considered being called a feminist a compliment.  Meanwhile, 82% of the women polled said their overall status was improved relative to 25 years ago and 69% had a sense that the women’s movement, in particular, had directly improved their lives.  Despite this, less than half the women believed that there remains a strong need for the women’s movement.  It would seem that many women understand the concrete ways in which the advocacy of “feminists” has created meaningful and positive change in their lives and simultaneously consider “feminist” a dirty word.  They also aren’t clear as to whether the movement is pertinent today.  What’s going on here?

My sense is that it is a confluence of factors. Conservatives have done an excellent job portraying feminism as something radioactive.  Women are still expected to subscribe to traditional roles and any deviance from the placid maintenance of home and family is seen as damaging to the fabric of society and even the well-being of children. Even with more subtle messages about returning America to its “former promise,” they describe a collective yearning for a tranquil era-gone-by, one in which women, people of color and “others” did not have a place at the table.

Women, themselves, appear to have internalized the notion that there is some archaic version of feminism that has 1) ruined the label for modern women and 2) might not even be necessary anymore.  Could it really be that our generation believes the problem is solved?  And why don’t we recognize how we got here or the work still to be done?  To decide that we no longer need people safeguarding the progress of women in this society is like a diabetic thinking that because she now takes insulin and her blood sugar is stable, PROBLEM SOLVED.  Somebody has to keep manufacturing that insulin, testing it, packaging it, selling it and you have to keep taking it.  Institutional inequality and gender bias still exist and still require the vigilance of activists on both a macro and micro scale. 

Sheryl Sandberg, then, is perhaps the perfect torch-bearer for the new movement.  She is a woman who has had phenomenal success and achieved impressive accomplishments akin to any and all male peers.  She has done this with many fewer barriers than the women who have come before her, but grants that the system remains stacked against her and conveys how conscious she has had to be along the way to claim her status.  She is receiving flak from every direction, including a most refined criticism that her message is only relevant for women of a certain social class.  I actually love this---the fact that there is an entire category of women with privilege to whom she might be speaking, is, in itself, a huge enhancement.  I also think it is false---she is specifically interested in shoring up women at all levels of the workforce (as well as domestically) and much of what she promotes requires more of an internal shift than access to actual resources.  Her ideas don’t solve the whole problem or even many of the problems, but they are a fine place to start.

I believe that with a message to women already in positions of power about reaching out to peers and subordinates still striving, Ms. Sandberg reminds us all that incorporating more traditionally “female” qualities, such as being supportive vs. cut-throat, lifts up everyone of any stratus.  Her ideas about women owning their authority, taking appropriate credit, keeping the pedal to the metal in their career trajectory and demanding better support at home and at work during the child-bearing years is at least 40 years old and still fresh as a daisy.  When a woman who has attended the finest institutions and flourished in the most demanding jobs stands on her pedestal, leans into the microphone and tells us we have a ways to go, we had better listen.

Marissa Mayer's Easy, Breezy Climb

In the PBS Documentary that premiered this week called, Makers: Women Who Make America (about the history of feminism in this country), Marissa Mayer, President and CEO of Yahoo! and the 14^th most powerful business woman in the world (according to Forbes) said that she does not consider herself a feminist.  In her brief interview, she went on to associate feminism with a “militant drive,” a “chip on the shoulder,” and with a perception of negativity.  You can watch exactly what she said here: Her comments came to my attention because my husband’s Twitter feed was all aflutter (also, aTwitter) with varied responses to her statements.  I had intended to see the documentary the night before, but ultimately decided to save it for the weekend, so I hadn’t seen the clip.  He asked me if I had heard what she said and wasn’t I outraged?  My initial response was tepid — after all, I have heard women (and men) talking about feminism this way my whole life.  I totally understood and in some way related to her desire to dissociate herself from the more “outlandish” or “angry” version of feminism, so dismissed by the mainstream.  After all, this version of feminism is threatening and flips the script on men in traditional positions of power.  The more we discussed it, the more I wondered if it was that Ms. Mayer had been so privileged in her career and social trajectory that she had truly never experienced barriers or that she had so internalized the narrative that women should “go along to get along” that she sincerely couldn’t empathize with “radicals.”

Marissa Mayer, you stand on the shoulders of the women throughout our history who acted out in a way that you might consider ugly.  By all accounts, you earned the daylights out of the position in which you find yourself today.  You are eminently qualified for your job in terms of your education and experience.  You have a reputation for being an unapologetic workaholic.  And yet, you don’t seem to realize that the reason you had access to your education, any of the jobs you have held or the resources and social sanctions to work as hard as you have is because of feminism … the bra-burning kind.  Or, even worse, you are so disconnected from that struggle and have no sense of why women have been forced to be so reactive, that you don’t want to affiliate with that identity.

I want to say here quite clearly that I obviously don’t know Marissa Mayer at all.  I don’t have true insight into what she was thinking when she said those words (that I now can’t stop watching on YouTube).  I also haven’t seen the entire context of the interview, which might soften the seemingly cut-and-dried indictment of her sisters in arms.  I do know that when you have achieved that kind of status (breezily climbing the ladder, she seems to believe), the public has a tendency to hang on your every word, particularly in the context of being interviewed about your extraordinary accomplishments in a documentary about FEMINISM.

This also comes on the heels of her establishing a company-wide ban on working from home.  Flexible scheduling and telecommuting have been cornerstone achievements in establishing equality in the workplace.  Introducing the idea that the work environments could and should be more flexible has boosted the careers of both women AND men in recent decades and allowed both parties to be more available for childcare, among other things.  Many studies, including this 2009 study by major corporate employer Cisco found that people are actually more productive and satisfied with their jobs when they have this flexibility.  This is particularly salient for women, for whom the traditional work structure is still punitive when they have children and prevents them from keeping pace with their male counterparts in terms of advancement.

And what about Marissa Mayer and her own, personal, work-life balance?  She made history when she was hired by Yahoo! as the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company ever and immediately announced that she was also five months pregnant.  Working mothers everywhere glommed on to her story, waiting with bated breath to see how this would all play out.  She ended up working from home during the end of her pregnancy, took only two weeks of maternity leave and had a special nursery built next to her office at Yahoo! so she could be close to her newborn after her lightning fast return to work.  I don’t have to tell you what a poor model this is for working women and how nobody else on planet earth has the money or power to build a nursery next to their office and bring their infant to work.  Maybe Oprah or Martha.  Maybe.

I write this on a day when Congress has finally voted to re-authorize the Violence Against Women Act.  Shockingly, despite the description of what the act aims to prevent being right in the title, this wasn’t remotely a done deal.  In fact, it was kind of a squeaker.  138 Members of Congress (Republicans, all) ultimately voted against it.  It sort of makes me wonder where we might rustle up a bunch of feminists to demonstrate the appropriate level of fury?

I hope that as Marissa Mayer evolves in her career, she might reconsider her notion of feminism as negative.  It is, rather simply, the entire reason she has a career.  I get that she pictures feminists only as wearing combat boots and reading poetry about their vaginas.  But, she is in a position of vast power and has great wealth and we could use her in the trenches.  We could use another woman who fits all the classical norms of beauty and prominence to publicly recognize that there is still so much work to be done.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Sarah Brysk Cohen, owner of Blossom and Branch, is obsessed with flowers. She has been working in flower shops on the cutting edge of floral design, from New York to California, for 20 years and opened the Blossom and Branch studio in Brooklyn, New York in 2009. Her designs have been featured in various online and print publications, including Style Me Pretty, 100 Layer Cake, Brooklyn Bride, Brides Magazine, The Knot, New York Magazine Weddings and The New York Times, as well as in the San Diego Museum of Art. In addition to providing event florals and decor, Sarah teaches floral design classes and is a regular contributor on the internationally renowned blog, Design*Sponge. Before launching her design career, she obtained an MSW and worked as a licensed clinical social worker in two states. Sarah currently lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn with her husband, one-year-old daughter and English Bulldog. TO REMIND YOU OF SUMMER Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead I read this novel a couple years ago and it filled me with longing for my sun-bleached 1980s youth.  It also tapped into my fantasies of what moneyed people do on Long Island.  I love Colson Whitehead’s writing style – he is wry without being jaded and broaches the sensitive/heavy with a sense of humor.  He takes seriously the internal struggles of a teenage boy and makes them relevant for all of us. I also get the sense that this novel must have been semi-autobiographical and I love wondering about which elements come from his experience.  Plus, I met him on my bus once!  BIG UP, BROOKLYN.

BECAUSE I AM A MEMOIR FREAK Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn Whoa.  WHOA.  This memoir by Nick Flynn is about managing his homeless, alcoholic father and the intersection of their lives when the father comes to live at the shelter where Nick is employed as a social worker.  Having worked in and run homeless shelters, this book had me imagining what it would have felt like to try and maintain boundaries with a family member as client.  Despite living a tale of intense pain and loss, Flynn is able to tell his story with clarity, humor and a clear sense of empathy for his nearly impossible father.

BECAUSE I LIKE SMART GIRLS How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley A series of totally hilarious and charming essays by Crosley and a very quick read for commuters or people like me who pass out after 2 minutes when you get into bed at night with your book.  Her snarky voice masks tender observations about human nature, which rings familiar to me.  I kind of wish Ms. Crosley would be my best friend, but until then, I will have to settle for a glimpse into her world through her writing.  And I will obviously continue to lightly stalk her on Facebook.

BECAUSE I LIKE SMART BOYS Live From the Campaign Trail by Michael A. Cohen OK, OK, so my husband wrote this book.  But it is actually totally fascinating and perfect for reflecting on the 2012 presidential election.  It is a history of the most important and influential campaign speeches of the 20^th Century and how they shaped modern America.  If you like history, politics, speeches and/or want to help us send our daughter to college, you should pick this up at any fine bookseller.

FOR A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF RACISM AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA All God's Children by Fox Butterfield This is a stunning non-fiction work about violence and racism in the South told through the multi-generational struggle of the Bosket family.  This book was first released in 1995 but feels particularly relevant today, as we have experienced a recent spate of gun violence in this country and our conversation about how to address anti-social behavior has been brought to the fore.  You will be riveted by the first-person accounts of Willie Bosket, the centerpiece character of the book, and as the author digs back into the Bosket family history (all the way back their slave roots) you will see the legacy of violence continuing to produce dysfunction in modern times.  Please read this.

FOR THE EDWARDIAN CHILD INSIDE The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett When life gets too complicated for adult for my taste, I return to this children's classic book.  I have it downloaded on my iPad and just tap my fingers in anticipation of reading it aloud at night to my daughter.  This was the first "chapter book" I recall as a child that grabbed me and got me interested in reading.  It is, of course, a tragic, romantic and fanciful novel that combines many of my favorite themes - the mystery of a manor on the English countryside, the magic of gardens and the power of friendship to inspire healing.  The story is likely familiar to many of you -- two young cousins brought together by parental deaths are trapped in a vast and lonely English manor.  They figuratively and literally blossom together with the assistance of household staff and ultimately are bonded through the work of rehabilitating a long-dormant garden.  The characters are heartbreaking and timeless and it is worth a re-read, if, like me, the first time you read it was in 3rd grade.

Paper Hearts

I love my wonderfully magnificent husband.  He loves me right back.  Today, however, I will not be receiving anything heart-shaped from Kay Jewelers.  We will not be spending $250 on dinner at a restaurant where we typically eat for less than half that price.  Although it is entirely possible that I will gorge myself on chocolate treats (this is essentially known as “Thursday” in our house) and while it is fundamental to our marriage that we demonstrate love openly and frequently, it feels forced to do so specifically on Valentine’s Day. Aside from the fact that the Holiday originates in the veneration of a Saint (which is not really our thing), Valentine’s Day has never seemed terribly significant in our lives.  Perhaps it is this way for many married people, couples that have been together for a while or couples that came together a bit later in life.  I said, A BIT.  But before you decide that I am the exact opposite of fun or light-hearted, please know that I have certainly done the whole shebang for Valentine’s Day at various points in my illustrious romantic career.  I have coordinated and participated in elaborate spa getaways, decadent meals, surprise concerts - you name it – as well as the giving and receiving of delicately packaged items.  I do also recollect from my dating years the buzzy thrill of a person asking you out for Valentine’s Day - a sure sign (much like the first road trip together) that the relationship has bumped up to the next level.  And we haven’t even touched on my experience working in retail flower shops for days on end to prepare endless vases with floral expressions of love.  I have been there.  I have done that.

It should also be noted that I am in full support of the tradition of children crafting Valentines and learning to formally display affection for others.  I think it is ridiculously sweet to introduce any mode of creative correspondence, particularly for children growing up in the age of the iPad mini.  When parents and teachers of young children are sensitive about distributing classroom Valentines, it presents a genuine opportunity to learn about inclusivity.  I recall concrete lessons from my early elementary years about making each of my classmates feel exceptional.  For many little ones, the template for empathy comes from this kind of social experience. 

I think my primary issue with Valentine’s Day is that like with so many things in our culture, we have decided (somewhat arbitrarily) that this is the single day each year that we publicly acknowledge the love we have for the people around us.  I am much more concerned with keeping my relationship fresh and conveying appreciation during the daily slog.  It is not tremendously complicated to throw money at one of the many clichéd offerings on February 14^th.  The real labor of love, in my view, is to make eye contact and tender a bear hug during the morning greeting; to remember to ask your partner how the big meeting went today; to not finish all the ice cream yourself.  Enduring love means being the one who gets up before dawn with the baby because your cohort doesn’t “do mornings.”  It means not freaking the fuck out even though this has got to be the 794,375^th time you have picked a ball of socks up off the floor.  It means never, ever, ever checking out mentally or emotionally.

I haven’t picked out a card or made reservations anywhere.  I will be wearing regular, nondescript, cotton undergarments all day.  But I hope he will consider my abiding commitment to nurturing our life together a most treasured and heartfelt Valentine.

An education

Sometimes it is really hard to be a Liberal. Lately, some of my doggedly-held values around social justice and being part of a diverse community have been challenged.  I am learning that when you become responsible for sending a small person out into the world, it can lend a highly specific perspective to what were previously only abstract concepts.  I am not particularly comfortable with some of what I am discovering about myself but I think it is important to ponder. So my husband and I have just hopped on the loopy carnival ride that is securing an education for a child in New York City.  While clearly this process is mystifying in many urban centers, NYC has a famously complex network of public neighborhood schools that are either failing miserably or so successful, such bright spots in a dreary oblivion, that people buy and sell apartments, use the address of a deceased relative, beg, borrow, steal, WHATEVER IT TAKES to gain entry.  And even then, they are not guaranteed a slot in the local school because of overcrowding or their kid may end up in a kindergarten class “annex” in a bodega around the corner.

I would like to state for the record, that our child just turned 1 and so in this moment our focus is on preschool, which doesn’t happen for another full year and yet somehow requires our urgent attention.  I feel whiplash, like I just recovered from having an infant and I haven’t had time to put my purse down before we are off to research schools.  There is pressure where we live to tour preschools, apply and get on the waiting lists NOW, even though because of a late December birthday, our daughter won’t even be eligible for preschool until 2014.  As an aside, our day care of preference (if we had chosen the day care route or would want that to bridge our daughter until preschool) has a 1-1.5 year long waiting list and the people we know whose kids go there now had the good sense to apply when they were newly pregnant.  And they still waited.  And oh by the way, you tour, interview and apply to these places that you then have the privilege of paying for. . . the amount of money varies from modest rent to modest salary. 

Now that we are in this process, we are naturally having to look at our daughter’s future options for school where we live.  Our values dictate that our child will go to public school.  I was educated in an excellent public school system in California and I grew up with this idea that you build community and strengthen local schools by participating in them.  Even if we had the money, private school was not a value of ours.  My husband went to private school because there was no appropriate public option where he lived and he came out of that experience enriched, but feeling like he wanted something different, something more inclusive, for his children.

Diversity is a buzzword, but it also means something to us.  We live in New York and in Brooklyn, specifically, because we want to live among a wide range of cultures, races, ethnicities, walks of life and we want this for our daughter, as well.  But the fact is that we live in a “burgeoning” neighborhood in Brooklyn that has mostly deficient, even sometimes dangerous public schools.

The de facto segregation that the school struggle creates here is widely known and continues unabated and we are likely on our way to contributing to it.  What happens in our community is that the poor children (almost exclusively of color) go to these lacking public schools in the neighborhood and get an inadequate start right out of the gate.  There are also charter schools with limited spaces (also a much-talked-about phenomenon) and these schools are not a panacea.  Charter schools are controversial in a number of ways (Do they really educate kids better?  Are they creating their own form of urban flight?  Are they bad for the neighborhood schools that the children “abandon?”).

We live in a building that is like an island in our neighborhood.  It is full of upper-middle class folks who moved in when this warehouse building was converted to loft condos 7 years ago.  This is the story of so many historic ghettos in Brooklyn.  The affluent people get pushed out of Manhattan and/or choose a different lifestyle and begin changing the face of the neighborhood.  We see the seeds of inequality every day, right outside our door.  Across the street from our island, we have a poorly-rated and, at times, unsafe public school.  In our entire district, there are maybe 1-2 schools that we would consider, none of which are near us and all of which would all require an exceptional process if we were to apply.

What most people on our island do is game the system in some way: they apply to schools using a different address; they happen to know someone somewhere; they apply to a million places outside the district and are willing to wait until August to get a “yes” if the school has space; they have their child tested for “gifted and talented” status and ship them off to a school with a program, etc.  All of this is not only exhausting it has the effect of landing like-people in like-places.  Here we are, priding ourselves on living our diverse experience and we will almost certainly usher our kid toward a school or a classroom where she will be surrounded by kids that are almost exactly like her in most ways.  We will recreate the island and we don’t feel we have any choice about it.

I have begun to call into question what I mean when I say I value diversity.  It is easy to say this academically, and it is quite another to live in a neighborhood where there are shots fired 25 feet behind you when you are 8 months pregnant.  It is easy to say that you want your child to be exposed to every kind of experience until you watch the kids from the local school hang out just steps from the entrance, in broad daylight, smoking weed and let’s just say “talking disrespectfully” about women.  It is easy to say that you love the many threads of our beautiful fabric until you feel so intimidated by the guys on the corner that you walk the long way, and then cross in front of the police station, to get to the subway.  Of course, these experiences are not reflective of the entire character of the neighborhood, but they are an undeniable fact of the culture here.  I want to believe that people of every background can be truly integrated, but sometimes I feel like we all just end up living parallel lives within the same space.

We sat in a classroom with 60+ other parents on Monday to begin the tour of our desired preschool FOR 2014.  I looked around the room and saw lots of hues, heard a few different languages, noticed some non-traditional parents and felt a little better about myself.  Of course if you pay attention for long in a situation like that, you start to realize that everyone is talking to their children in the same way, using the same phrases, asking the same questions, carrying similar gear, coming to and from similar jobs.  It seems like this level of diversity will have to do for now until I can come up with a way to feel more “of” our neighborhood.  And so (if we get in!), we will travel back and forth from one island to another with our daughter and hope that the trip along the way becomes smoother sailing.

The sound of one door closing

I’ve never liked the word “closure.”  I know what people think they mean when they say it---this relic word from a self-help era gone by.  The concept of closure seems almost darling, with its naiveté, it’s aspirational quality.  In my experience, if you are employing this term, it is in the context of searching for answers and resolution to the wholly chaotic and mysterious.  Human relating is sloppy and the sad fact is that much of it never ultimately makes sense.  Whether relationships are historic or enduring; whether they are romantic, familial or with friends. . . chances are you might never totally get what they were as you look back or how to operate successfully within them moving forward.  And this is actually good news. At the beginning of the end of one of my young relationships, I was confronted with the fallacy of seeking tidy understanding when it comes to other humans.  I sat in a therapist’s office, where I had come week after week, unpacking stories of conflict and misery.  I was living with a man (a boy, really) who didn’t know himself and didn’t appear to even particularly like me most of the time.  I spent countless hours and too large a ratio of a non-profit salary on parsing this mess.  I’m not sure whether my therapist had just had it with me or whether she saw that I was ready to be nudged along, but when I said something about needing “closure” in order to walk away, she simply said, ”Why?” (a question, I later learned in my own clinical training, you almost never ask a client).

I had taken for granted that this is what adults did in relationships.  I assumed the idea was to make a careful, rational selection of a partner, ride the arc of the relationship to some logical conclusion and then part ways with a mutual understanding of the facts.  It goes without saying that I never made any kind of clear-eyed choice when it came to being with this man and virtually every moment with him was one baffling disconnect after another.  So, damned if I wasn’t going to try and exert some control over its’ ending.

What I learned from her “Why?” and the succession of “Whys” that followed---pursuing my train of thought until I ran out of answers (“Why do you need to make sense of it?” “Why does it matter what people will think?” ad infinitum.)---was that most of the need for closure was about him or other people.  I was completely engrossed in his behavior, what it all meant, whether or not he was capable of change, what it said about me (to whom?) if I just gave up on this person I had claimed to love.  It was also a way to remain perpetually engaged in a relationship that I felt terrified of ending.  What a brilliant excuse for staying stuck if you just continue to hang in there until you make your way out of the labyrinth!  Except that almost nobody emerges to see the light of day when they are entangled like this with another person.

Like for most people, true lightning bolt moments are incredibly rare in my consciousness.  This happened to be one of them.  I felt the gears shift in my brain and a single thought shoved all others aside---“There is no reason why.”  There was no explanation THERE WOULD NEVER BE AN EXPLANATION for why he acted the way he did or why I felt the need to spend many foundational years working on the calculus proof of this person.  The very instant I accepted that closure wasn’t necessary, wasn’t even possible, I had no other choice but to leave him for good.

It was fucking beautiful.  I don’t say this so much as an endictment of that particular relationship as much as acknowledging the liberating psychic gift it was.  Once you realize that full and true understanding of others, especially when you are embroiled in love, isn’t critical or all that promising, you are much more free to go.  Paradoxically, this also gives you the best chance at making it work.

Today I have a few friends mired in relationships or wrestling with ghosts of relationships with the aim of achieving this emotional state of closure.  I want so much to release them from the bondage of this notion.  Days, months, years pass with large swaths of their emotional lives occupied by this thing that will never happen.  The fantasy of closure is that you will be somehow elevated to more sophisticated relating in the future, if you can just get some perspective on the thing that came before.  The bottom line is that when you are engaged with an appropriate partner, you evolve together and tackle things along the way and could therefore never be left holding a heavy bag of unanswerable questions at the end.  The trick, then, is to choose well at the outset or recognize that you are barreling toward a dead end.

Let go of time.

It’s official---we have a legitimate walker in our house.  Our 1-year-old is suddenly, out-of-thin-air toddling around like the tiniest Charlie Chaplin.  She has that hilarious stance: butt jutted out, feet duck-splayed and little arms curled up by her sides.  Sometimes she flaps them just for good measure, as if flying might be next on her list.  Her forward motion is augmented with a side-to-side wobble that threatens to send her scooting to the floor in either direction. I so desperately want to fashion a miniature bowler, cane and moustache and perpetrate it on her.  Occasionally, she revs up the engines a little too high, which can result in face-planting that ranges from controlled to . . . less so. Watching this process, I can feel the anxiety welling to the surface.  I have visions of gluing packing peanuts all over her entire person.  After all, I didn’t spend ten months eating algae-based DHA and another twelve torturing my breasts (THEY USED TO BE AMAZING.  AMAZING.) so that she could crack open her fragile melon with one ambitious step over the dog.  Incidentally, she has negotiated some kind of détente with the Ruby thus far, which seems to involve using her for a taxi, a way station, a pillow, a jungle gym---you name it---in exchange for the dog gaining unfettered access to her head, hands and feet for incessant licking.  It is, all at once, achingly adorable and also disgusting.  But here we are one year into her life and she has six teeth, can eat an entire avocado in one sitting, has finely honed comedic timing and ambulates.

I have spent a good portion of the past three years worrying.  I worried I wouldn’t get pregnant.  I worried she wouldn’t be healthy.  I worried she wouldn’t develop appropriately.  I worried she wasn’t getting enough milk.  I worried I was working too much or too little or some combination of both.  These days I worry she is growing at lightning speed and I am not appropriately savoring every moment.  Having said all that, I would like to take this opportunity, at the start of a new year, this second year of my daughter’s life to stop worrying so much.

Today I was driving through Brooklyn, rushing from working in one location to another.  As is typical, I was contemplating about 1400 tasks and projects while simultaneously replaying Isadora, elated, walking across our living room in my mind.  In this particular scene, she scurried toward the front door, plopped down on her tush and hastily gave herself an enthusiastic round of applause.  This memory prompted an audible laugh.  But my next thought carried the sheen of sadness, “It’s all going by so quickly.”  At that moment, the light turned green, and I noticed the side of the building next to me as I passed.  In large, block letters, someone had stenciled onto the brick, “LET GO OF TIME.”

In 2013, I intend to release my tight clutch on each moment with my daughter while not wasting any more of them at sea with concerns.  This is what parents do.  I am not terribly unique in this.  We claw after the days that slip away and busy ourselves with anxiety over things we can’t control.  But perhaps if I keep reminding myself to loosen the grip now, at the beginning of all her beginnings, I can open up space for even more delighting.

And to All a Good Night

What happens when you put your Jewish friend in charge of stringing the lights on the tree, is that you get to the bottom and have no way to plug them in.  “What I have here in my hand is two female parts, but it seems like I need two male parts,” I called out to my oldest friend.  She looked perplexed, herself, having never been the one to do the lights on the tree.  The tree endeavor (both selection and installation) had always been the province of her husband, who made a big production out of it with her kids.  He had been gone just three months and the whole operation carried a pall of sadness.  I was determined to establish a fresh tradition, help her feel confident in her new role and win the day with enthusiasm.  The kids had been good sports at the tree lot that morning, although it must have been terribly disorienting to be there without their father.  I felt the least we could do was to get the tree going before nightfall.  Ultimately, we had to call up our reserves---two effective and creative friends (with four children between them), both Mommies who were responsible for all things tree-related in their homes.  Within the space of twenty minutes, those two had stripped the tree, restrung the lights and carefully dotted the whole situation with ornaments.  That day, my status as “other” when it comes to celebrating Christmas and participating in the “Holiday Season” took a back seat to being present for a loved one. I returned home feeling decidedly less sorry for myself.  Even considering my pattern (like so many American Jews) of feeling a bit left out at this time of year, I had to consider the heartache of my friend and so many others who have lost a spouse or someone close to them, knowing the pain of a loss like that is much more acute during Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and the assorted benchmarks of life.

As much as I have my own issues with the Christmas behemoth, its value as a touchstone for many families in this country is undeniable.  It is a marker around which people create important memories with one another.  Children experience Christmas as an expression of familial love and have the opportunity to be showered with special attention by parents and extended family.  Adults take time away from work to be with their families and reflect.  Sometimes people even use the Holiday as a way to process wounds that haunt them from childhood.  The corrective experience of making your own Christmas for your own family as an adult must be incredibly powerful on a number of levels.

There still resides inside me, the smart-ass fourth grader who wrote an essay about how the White House Christmas tree lighting ceremony was a violation of church and state.  This represented my desperate attempt to communicate the plight of the American, Jewish 8-year-old during the Holidays.  Back in the 80s, they didn’t really show much of Reagan lighting an obligatory Menorah somewhere or sitting down with his staff for a game of Dreidl.  And I likely would have argued that, to be fair, he shouldn’t be publicly participating in any religious celebration.  They also didn’t give Chanukah much air-time in the media in general back then, which made it even more critical that I drag my Mom into my elementary classrooms so that she could fry up Latkes on an electric griddle.  There is almost nothing more tragic than a bunch of disinterested school children carting floppy paper plates of greasy potato pancakes and dollops of applesauce to their desks to “enjoy.”  “Also, we get chocolate coins!” I asserted to anyone who would listen.

While I feel certain that I will be confronted with many uncomfortable conversations with my own children about why we don’t adorn our home or really do anything amazing at this time of year, I also trust that they will find ways to turn their outsider status into something interesting.  They might end up with a fantastic sense of humor about it.  It might increase their empathy for people that experience actual “other” status (people of color, immigrants, gay families) and who live permanently outside the mainstream.

I will always feel a little twinge at Christmas time.  I will try and remind myself that I can appreciate someone else’s traditions and how profound they are without needing to participate myself.  We have our own traditions on December 25th– Dim Sum!  Blockbuster movies!---and I remain grateful that I won’t need to cling to them like a life-raft, girding against loss.

For the rest of us

So, here we are again.  The Holiday Season is upon us.  Depending upon who are you are, this either means a great deal or almost nothing at all.  Whatever your traditions or affiliations (cultural, religious or otherwise), there is no escaping the Holiday Industrial Complex in this country.  Every year I struggle with the very mixed emotions that accompany my identity as a secular, Jewish but nostalgic and kind of sappy person.  I yearn for rituals and moments in which to touch base with family, consider particular stories/lessons about humanity, make special foods.  This year, as the matriarch in a new family, I am confronted with decisions about how to integrate “Holiday” traditions into our lives, for our daughter’s sake. Although in 2012, we say “Holiday” in reference to things that might take place in December (to include Chanukah, Kwanzaa), what we really mean is Christmas.  All jokes referring to paranoid conservatives spouting off about the "War on Christmas" or the "War on Jesus" aside . . . the popularization of Chanukah and Kwanzaa have always been simply a response to Christmas (and a pretty woeful one, at that).  Let’s face facts: Christmas will never not be a really huge deal and one that takes the cake.  Christmas is so embedded in our culture, our calendar, our winter and so beloved, there is no extricating it.  Beyond the gifts, music, food and décor, Christmas is also a Holiday onto which everyone’s personal psychodrama is superimposed.  The way in which families gather or don’t, the traditions people had as children or didn’t . . . the powerful dynamics at play during this time of year call up some of the deepest feelings of joy or longing for many Americans.  Oh and also, reverent people consider it holy and significant.

I grew up in a home that was very culturally Jewish, but didn’t really give much credence to Holidays, per se.  We typically belonged to a Synagogue, but mostly only went on the High Holidays, which, incidentally do not include Chanukah.  For Jews, the major deals are Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (New Year and Memorial Day-ish).  Tragically, our High Holidays don’t involve gifts.  And let's be honest---they aren't really all that fun.  Rosh Hashanah tries hard with apples and honey and talk of renewal, but is sort of a downer what with the stern warnings about being inscribed in the Book of Life.  Even the dressed up version of Chanukah has un-sing-able songs in minor keys and potato pancakes (?!).

Chanukah was a bit of an afterthought in my house and my parents often grumbled about how it is actually is a very minor Holiday, bastardized in this country to compete with Christmas.  As far as I know, we are the only culture in which Chanukah is celebrated with gifts.  The Americanized version of Chanukah can often look like a “Jewish Christmas,” with crass commercialism at the core.  Despite my profound yearnings as a child, my parents weren’t buying it or buying it, although some years they managed to go beyond the candle lighting and chocolate coins to bestow socks, pajamas or books.

While, as an adult, I can totally respect their philosophical stand on this front, as a child, I desperately wanted what I saw most other kids having---not just an embarrassment of gifts, but a whole season devoted to them.  I would spend time at friends' houses during December and watch as the tree was trimmed and all the rooms filled up with sparkling trinkets, bright parcels and the fragrance of cinnamon sticks.  The promise of this sacred time when everything got so cozy and everyone gathered together from far and wide (particularly salient for me, as my siblings were much older and lived all over the world) felt impossible to resist.

I also knew people growing up who were Jewish, but just threw in the towel and celebrated Christmas.  This was always sort of sad to me.  It spoke to two unfortunate realities---that Jews in this country feel so overwhelmed by the power of Christmas that they feel compelled to participate in another religion's Holiday and/or they feel their children can't tolerate December without the Bacchanalia.  Meanwhile, I totally get this.  I won't mince words, Christmas wins.  It is friggin’ awesome for kids.  And let’s not even consider families in which there is only one Jewish parent and they “celebrate both.”  I SAY AGAIN, CHRISTMAS WINS.

So how to make sense of it all now?  The fact is that my parents were consistently generous throughout the year with their love, their time and many of the material things we desired.  Just because I didn't score a payload at Christmas, doesn't mean I didn't have a wealth of toys and games.  I had way more than I needed, as so many of us did.  And despite my desire to be like the other kids, I never had to watch my parents grow anxious or irritable about shopping for a bounty of gifts or spending money they didn't have.  They also made it clear that it was highly inappropriate to develop a sense of entitlement about gifts, especially as a child.  These lessons were swallowed hard, but remain valuable.

I think this is what want for Isadora, ultimately.  I hope she feels loved beyond belief and that she lives with a sense of joy throughout the year.  I hope that she relishes how our family is different and feels confident and comfortable with who we are.  I hope we celebrate important milestones with good cheer and delicious foods in each season and take great pains to be together with extended family as often as possible.  I also plan to spoil her with frivolous gift items and possibly spend more money than is reasonable on things like a long sleeve t-shirt with a bulldog silkscreen.  And certainly most important, I intend to teach her about giving to others and being of service because we have so much relative to most.

(Images: Marco Ghitti via Flickr)

One Bad Mother

I have the video monitor on with the sound turned way up. I listen with one ear perked to her noisy, clogged breathing---such an adorable, pathetic, concerning sound emanating from our miniature person with a cold.  I glance periodically at the screen, whose camera looks like it is hunting for paranormal activity.  I flash on all the tasks that should consume the rest of my evening---the tasks left hanging from a never-ending work day.  It is 8:38 PM and I wonder how much steam I've got left before that heavy molasses feeling envelops my brain.  I am distracted momentarily by her flipping over, sighing a little and registering a tiny complaint.  My resolve begins to waver and now I'm considering the consequences of simply climbing into bed at this point with the monitor and a magazine.  Or better yet, scooping her up out of the crib and bringing her into bed with me.  In weeks like this one, there are days when I spend more time watching her on the monitor than I do holding her in my arms. Even a generation ago, I am not sure women allowed themselves the luxury to think about work-life balance in the way that we do now.  Today, as I was frantically rushing home to catch 20 minutes with the baby before bedtime, I thought about how lucky I am to even consider such a notion.  How fortunate that I have the education, training, and capacity to work outside the home in the first place, let alone be daunted by how to thrive in two environments.  My work is meaningful to me, it is in a chosen field, and I have a large measure of control over my schedule.  I am not limited to an exclusive childcare role nor am I forced to work a job that is dangerous, unsatisfying or menial.  When I zoom out on my scenario, I realize how refined and esoteric my dilemma might seem to some.  In fact, in an ideal world, more women would face this kind of dilemma---one in which they are choosing among many good options for childcare and have the privilege of participating an elevating career.

It would appear that whether or not women (and many men) have had the consciousness or the language to describe it, this struggle is ages old.  I try to recall how my own mother dealt with managing work and home life.  I don't ever remember noticing her being particularly tired, lacking the energy to make things happen at home or even seeming anxious about her responsibilities.  She consistently helped with homework, threw some hot meal on the table (albeit rarely cooked by her) and made it to all our games/performances.  Although she worked full-time, I always had access to her on the phone.  She arranged for school pickups and shuttling to activities with others if she was unable to coordinate her schedule.  We definitely reconvened each night as a family and this seemed to re-set the connectedness.  I do remember a general sense of wishing I could spend more time with my mother and vaguely complaining about this in moments.  But weekends were exclusively devoted to us and our needs and whatever else was happening during my parents' busy lives, it was clear we were the priority.  Of course she had help, as I do, with housework and childcare.  Oh and did I mention she had five kids?

When I ask my mother these days about what it was like for her raising a brood and working full time, she admits to feelings of guilt, mostly about not being enough or doing enough at home.  She was always highly competent and effective at work---in her mind, it was home that suffered.  Although it was not our experience that she dropped any particular ball, I have more insight now into how she must have lived with powerful ambivalence.  It is also worth noting that my parents literally never took a single vacation on their own or did any individualized, enriching, adult activities.  This is the one area where I picture doing things a little differently.  As much as I can't begin to process the demands on their time for all those years, I hope/plan to delineate more regular space for my marriage and more escape for myself.

Sometimes my mother says to me, "Oh, well, you know it was easier back then."  I have some sense that she is right about that but neither of us can put our finger on exactly why this is true.  I think for one, it required less money and less time at work to be a solidly middle class family and achieve financial flexibility.  I also think there was more neighborly and community support built in to people's lives.  Perhaps the expectations on adults and children were also more reasonable---not everybody was supposed to a "Super" anything?  The fact remains that we had soccer, art class, piano lessons et al and my parents were pulled in a zillion directions.  Still, I can't access a single episode of a legitimate melt down---the machinery always moved fairly seamlessly forward.

The guilt I feel about missing time with our baby casts long shadows and tugs at me throughout the day.  I genuinely imagine that she might develop a greater attachment to the baby sitter during weeks when their time together is more enduring.  When I come home and she instantly lurches forward from the babysitter's arms for me to hold her and proceeds to cling to me like a chimp for the remainder of the evening, it brings some secret satisfaction.  The selfish side of me is relieved when she demonstrates a touch of separation anxiety, howling when I leave the room.  I want her to be securely attached, but I also want to know she prefers me to anyone and won't forget that during the many hours I am away.

I am proud of my work and know it is critical to my identity to have a holistic sense of self.  I recognize it is good for my daughter to establish her independence and be cared for by many different loving adults.  I reaffirm that I want to be her primary and central model of a woman with a career.  This doesn't mean I don't cry at my desk mulling the fact that she might take her first steps today and I could miss it.  This is the fulsome experience of the modern woman/parent.

In my view, it is not so much about figuring out how to have it all as it is being happily immersed in what you are doing at any given moment.  I think anyone who presents as having each domain of life under control is hiding something or is teetering on the brink.  I respect and appreciate the women in my life who admit to questioning their many roles and evaluating their health and sanity with respect to each of them.

By 10:17 PM I had done nothing but write this piece and pump 5 ounces of breast milk before I packed it in for the night.  Then again, I guess that is something.

Photo of Sarah: Buck Ennis for Crain's New York Business.

Social Distortion

I used to be a person who worked the room at a party, sprinkling laughter around as I moved from conversation to conversation.  People often commented that I relished being social, like talking to people was a vocation for me.  In fact, this is part of the reason I became a therapist — I seemed to have a knack for engaging with people, hearing their stories and reflecting their light.  If you had known me as a teenager or in my 20s, you would never have understood that this persona, this social bravado was something of a mask.  I have always battled with anxiety and a sense of failing to fit in.  I have carried a fear of others judging me harshly, of saying the wrong thing and of being mortified publicly.  I achieved social success in early life with a paradoxic solution and it came to me with relative ease.  Amazingly, people bought it.  I am noticing now in my later 30s, with mounting responsibilities and a collection of profound life events behind me, the person who really just wanted to be home under the covers, the person on unsure social footing has re-emerged.  And yet, when I fumble around for that outgoing mantle, the trusty suit of charm offensive, I can't seem to find it.  Or when I do, it keeps slipping off. When I was a kid, I was described as socially precocious.  I could hold my own at an adult dinner party, and was expected to perform in those situations, at times literally.  Once, a friend's parents actually hired me to sing a medley of show tunes (no joke at all) at their New Year's Eve party in front of 500 guests.  My memories of that evening are storms of emotion that include terror and elation.  Mind you, I was 7 years old, maybe even 6.  In retrospect, I don't have the first clue about how I pulled something like that off.  What reserve of preternatural confidence did I draw upon to make that happen?  The person I am now grapples with chatting up a familiar colleague at a professional networking event.  Who was that little girl and where did she run off to?

In adolescence, I don't have to describe the tempest of feelings, the cauldron of concerns that befell me.  This is implied in the word, "adolescence."  Incongruously, this was the period in which I honed my craft.  By about age 15, I could have taught a master class at the Actor's Studio.  My singular focus in that era was to entertain others and deflect attention from the awkwardness of the pariah I imagined myself to be.  In a hackneyed teen movie archetype, I was the class clown (oh sure, check the yearbook), the person in the corner of the room shouting "LOOK AT ME, I'M DANCING!"  I would do anything for a laugh and would risk any kind of consequences to help a friend.  I fought so fervently against the advancing insecurity that I presented as radically carefree.  My antics as court jester/supporting actress in a leading role once landed me in the Vice Principal's office where he told me without mincing words that my future hung in the balance.  That grim meeting followed an incident in which I was performing an ill-timed, but spot-on impression of our AP Economics teacher just as she walked back in the classroom.  I recall very little of Keynes, but I can still hear her exact words as she pointed to the door, "Sarah, this is my classroom, not yours.  Do not pass go on your way to the office."  Mercifully, that was followed two weeks later by an offer of admission from the college of my choice.

Although in college the social anxiety would keep better pace with me, I redoubled my efforts.  I immediately accrued a boyfriend (during orientation week, didn't even wait for the first day of classes!), surrounded myself with friends and became immersed in activities.  I was a consummate "joiner" in those days - sports teams, singing groups, volunteer organizations and the like - whereas now I can't even bring myself to participate in an essentially anonymous Mommy list serve.  In my sophomore year, exhausted from the chase, I finally succumbed to symptoms I could no longer fend off and landed in therapy.  The next decade or so would find me toggling between a brilliant capacity to shine in the spotlight and struggling to even answer the phone when a friend calls.

In my current life configuration, I have all the usual excuses for why my facility for being social has suffered.  Like everyone on planet earth, I am tired all the time, have way too much on my plate and am just trying to make it through the week.  I am also depleted from many consecutive years of major life changes, some tragedies and some losses.  But I have to ask myself, what is the alternative?  I had an "Aha!" moment last night when my husband wanted to discuss potential plans with friends later in the week.  I was prepared with every justification as to why I wouldn't be able to make it…the baby, chief among them.  My husband had a response to every barrier I constructed (including a babysitter) and capped it off with, "I would like to spend some time out with my wife."  It suddenly occurred to me for the first time that being wrapped up in my own head, folded in on myself has real impact on this person I love.  There was no getting around his matter-of-fact request and I felt a little ashamed that my self-indulgent fears would come at the expense of his social life.  I am not sure what about this interaction tipped the scales, but in an instant, I was confronted with how much I have regressed on this issue in the past few years.  Stopped in my tracks, I agreed to an evening out.  A small thing, to be sure, but an important shift.

I am on the hunt again for that brassy girl of my youth who enjoyed costuming and talent shows.  That girl bucked authority, won debate competitions and was the glue holding her group of friends together.  She left the house for a night out utterly prepared to experience something magical.  And I know I have opportunities to reignite that energy all these years later.  I can approach professional events, teaching floral classes, meeting with clients and vendors with a new zeal.  I can exude competence in that realm and pay special attention to building relationships through my business.  I can employ all the mental gymnastics required to tamp down nerves with friends and acquaintances, which these days mostly involves reminding myself that I am just not that powerful…nobody is noticing the things I think are vulnerabilities.  People are busy with their own lives and just want to connect.  Nobody can take a lifetime of negative self-talk and swirling doubt and transform herself into a reality TV diva.  But somewhere in there I have expertise in "acting as if," which has often lead to me to a steady state of being.  If you see me out on Thursday wearing a fabulous top and a broad grin, be sure to give a wave from across the room.

For I have sinned

I am about the furthest thing from a Catholic imaginable, it's true.  But last night I was lying awake feeling guilty for a litany of failings and vices from the past weeks.  'How Catholic of me,' I mused.  And this is not to say that my own Jewish culture doesn't have a lot to offer in the guilt department.  As I flopped back and forth under the covers, I told myself to stop spinning about my various shortcomings and try to focus on all the ways I might have been effective or kind recently.  As so many of us writing here have acknowledged, it is not easy to take those night-time demons to the mat, especially when the hours are small.  Part of the struggle is feeling alone, trapped in your mind with what you imagine to be shameful thoughts and deeds. When I was finally awoken by the chattering of the baby in the early morning, it was something of a relief.  As I extracted her from the crib and set about to start the day, I decided I would engage in something of a "confessional" exercise.  Perhaps if I purged my consciousness of some of the low moments, I could make room for fresh experiences.  Forthwith, a detailing of seven mortal sins of late.  Here is hoping that cracking open my humanity can start to heal what ails me.  At least it might make you feel superior and then you can write about all the ways in which you experienced Pride :)

Wrath - I am typically fairly internal when it comes to anger, which, if you read any study on health is not ideal.  Apparently, people who externalize anger (at least express it, if not outright explode all over the place) tend to have lower levels of depression and can experience improved communication.  This article from the American Psychological Association (and there are a host just like it in the literature) describes some adaptive qualities of anger and how to use it to your benefit.  At my worst, I employ the tactic of stuffing down things that irritate me and then completely coming unglued over something relatively innocuous much later on down the road.  This is totally unproductive and moderately to profoundly confusing for loved ones.  I am working on addressing problems in the moment and being honest about my needs.  This is tricky and can feel risky to someone like myself who likes to avoid confrontation.  But ultimately, the confrontation always happens, just maybe displaced, which is no good for anyone.  Onward.  Upward.

Greed - I want more time, mostly.  Of course, I always desire too many cookies, clothes and earthly possessions, but hours in the day . . . what I wouldn't give.  The truth is that I could manage my time better.  There is certainly some whiling away the hours on Facebook/Instagram, spending late evenings watching Boardwalk Empire instead of answering emails, iChatting with a friend rather than ordering groceries.  The balance of stealing some time to which I feel entitled ("me" time) and organizing the day around prioritizing important tasks is the struggle of all good people, right?  And listen to my language: "stealing" some time . . . from what or whom?  Still and all, I want more time for work, more time with my family, more time to noodle on the internet.  There, I said it.

Sloth - Um, please see Greed.  And then sprinkle in all the moments where I sit in the chair at the studio or on the couch at the apartment thinking 'Sarah, stop flipping through the magazine and move on to the next thing.'  How about the time last week when I recalled I had read a study somewhere (I'm big on studies) indicating that dogs have fewer allergies when you bathe them less often, so . . . On the whole, I tend to push myself to make it all happen and there are times when I actually take great pleasure in physical labor and menial tasks.  There can be a wonderful meditative quality to folding, organizing, washing, etc.  But I realize I tell myself that things are just super busy now and fitting it all in will get easier over time.  This is, of course, an exercise in self-delusion.  Everything will just continue to get busier and the tasks and demands on time will simply compound.  Operation Pull it Together in full effect, then.

Pride - I post about 74,000 pictures of my daughter on Facebook every day with captions extolling her adorableness.  I talk about her accomplishments (at 9 months, these include things like almost, maybe, no definitely, actually probably not - but it really sounds like it! - uttering, "mmmmm…" when I feed her bites of something) ad nauseum.  When people ask me about her I always start with, "She is totally @#!&-ing awesome."  Sue me.  I am a new mother.  I got nothing for you here :)

Lust - There are days when I want power and I want it badly.  This is typically applicable in my business.  I want to be huge enough and famous enough that clients line up at my door, the phone rings off the hook and my inbox is brimming with messages where the inquiry goes something like this, "We really want to work with you, exclusively and specifically, and as such, we are writing you this check with a large sum.  Please deposit this check immediately and then show up on the day of our event with whatever florals and decor you feel are appropriate.  Thanks so much."  Until then, I suppose I will continue to work really hard to prove myself in the industry, hone my brand, secure the trust of clients and exceed expectations in the execution of events like my business depends on it.  Because it does.  The mogul situation is still out of reach, as it turns out.

Envy -I always think everyone else has it easier, is doing it better, knows something I don't and so on.  I believe this to be a fairly universal issue but it doesn't make it any less potent. I am particularly uncomfortable with this aspect of my personality, as my life is so relatively rosy.  As previously discussed, I have greater flexibility and more human and capital resources than most working people.  There is real suffering all around me in this big city and my concerns about finding the time to update my website or whether my daughter has enough of whatever thing-of-the-day should consume scant mental energy.  No excuses here.

Gluttony - The unending battle with cooking at home and eating "like a real family," wages on.  We over-indulge in take-out and restaurant meals where we are inevitably served too much of less healthful food.  This is a symptom of multiple larger issues in our house (see above struggles with time management, for example) and the remedies aren't coming easily.  I picture us coming together for dinner each night, discussing important matters of the day, laughing, sharing locally sourced food we have lovingly prepared, nourishing our bodies . . . then I scrape the sauce from the (recyclable?) plastic container from Dao Palate onto day-old rice, popping it into the microwave and feel awful.  Fill the refrigerator weekly, take a cooking class (or seven), continue to try and carve out the time.  How hard could it BE?!  HONESTLY.

Well, now I see why people are into this process of recounting wrongs and requesting absolution. It does feel somewhat cleansing.  The accountability piece is where things get dicier.  Maybe writing it down will catalyze forward motion.  And reading it over will help me be a little more gentle with myself as I strive to be a better . . . well . . . everything.  Wait, is that Greed or Pride or maybe Lust?  Sigh.

 (image via)

A Traditional Marriage

This weekend I will be traveling to New England to attend the wedding of two dear friends.  Naturally, I love weddings---the pageantry, the ritual, the attention to detail---and I know this one will be memorable.  Part of the fun with weddings is evaluating each of the selections the couple has made.  One of my favorite activities is getting into bed after an event such as this and breaking it all down piece-by-piece with my husband.  We like to do the full debrief, including, but not limited to: fashion, ceremony elements, weird family dynamics, food and decor.  Clearly, I will be inspecting the floral design with a critical eye---it is a brave soul that invites a wedding professional to the Big Day. This wedding will be much the same in that I know how deliberate and painstaking this whole process has been and I can't wait to see how the couple will be reflected in their choices.  Additionally, I have been made aware that the guest list is rich with characters and we are to be seated at a table with some of the more dynamic friends of the couple.  As usual, my husband and I will immerse ourselves in all the action and take mental notes along the way for fruitful discussion later.  Although we are always delighted to participate in bearing witness to a public commitment to love, something that distinguishes this wedding from the many others we have attended is that the people getting married are two men.

The grooms-to-be in question, are, in actual fact, already married.  They ran right out and got married here in New York on the very first day it was legal.  It was that significant a step in their relationship---they didn't want to wait a single day more than they had to before making it "official."  Anyone who has ever doubted how critically important, how equalizing and normalizing a right it is to be able to get married, should really watch any footage or read any story from the day it became legal for gay people to wed in the few states where that dream has been realized.  New York was no exception when this happened in July 2011.  Appropriately, there was a collective sigh of relief in our community followed by raucous festivities---much like a wedding.

Certainly there is so much to celebrate here.  The idea that we have progressed to the place where there is majority (sometimes overwhelming) support for gay marriage in various corners of the nation is, in itself, staggering.  Although it is easy to wring hands over many social policy and civil rights issues these days, states legalizing gay marriage and our nation's president endorsing gay marriage are heartening signs.

When I think about the relationship that I am traveling to exult and sanction, I am struck by the fact that theirs is a marriage quite similar to and also much more “traditional” than my own.  Both men are working professionals with advanced degrees.  One of them is self-employed and owns a business.  They are both public servants in some capacity.  They value social justice and give to charity.  They share the aspiration of having children and are expecting a baby in the coming months.  They sit down to dinner together each night to a meal they have often actually cooked (!!), candles lit, and discuss the long day behind them.  Their home is warm, comfortable and impeccably decorated.  Most important, they are demonstrably in love and I have only ever seen them speak to one another with kindness.  I already look up to them as parents and their baby has yet to come.

When I consider the controversy around gay marriage, I absolutely cannot understand it from an entirely practical standpoint.  No question, I recoil at the notion that two men or two women couldn’t or shouldn’t love each other as much as a heterosexual couple or that they wouldn’t have the same legal rights and social empowerment.  But this couple bears out my experience that gay people who want to marry thrive in such a way as often puts most straight couples to shame.  They are doing “us” better.  Perhaps it is all the years of being “other” and observing relationships from the outside that has honed their skills within the partnership?  Maybe it is that being with somebody of the same sex has distinct advantages and allows for smoother communication?    The bottom line is that who is anybody to say that they shouldn’t have the right to kick our ass at marriage and/or bomb miserably at it?  I say, WELCOME.  Come on in, the water is fine.

So the next few days will be a whirlwind tour and I am so honored that we made the short list for this one.  These are selective people and not just any person scored an invite.  We are gearing up for a life event that will look a lot like so many that have come before it in terms of the customs.  But, the magnitude of the occasion might just mean slightly more.  I say this both because of what these two men marrying represents and who they inarguably are as individuals and as a couple.

Time is on my side

While my daughter is still an infant, I am trying to adhere to a schedule of spending at least two solid weekdays alone with her, despite the fact that I own and run a business.  “Alone,” in our household, means that my husband (who also works for himself) might tag along and spend some portion of the day with us, as well.  This is quite obviously living the dream and I mean that in all sincerity.  Like so many people, all I ever wanted in life was to create a family and to have one in which the adults prefer palling around together to any other activity.  The addition of the portly, charming baby (who, I might add, has been impressing even total strangers of late with her glittering, two tooth-bud smile, full-body laugh and enthusiastic hand-clapping) is just the definitive bonus.  We have these epic moments, often only the two of us, where we find ourselves sitting on a blanket in the park in the middle of the day, staring up at the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.  We are saturated in, practically oozing happiness.  But lest you think we are busy having it all (wait for it, Schadenfreudes) you should know that organizationally, domestically, we exist in a state of utter chaos---a ceaseless game of whack-a-mole. There are, as they say, absolutely not enough hours in the day and it is my perpetual struggle to prioritize appropriately.  On the days when I am solely focused on the baby, I make an effort to really and truly be present during her waking hours.  I have the great privilege of a somewhat flexible schedule and the even greater privilege of being her mother.  It is in this spirit that I strive to keep work emails and tasks tucked away in my pocket or purse.  I look at the mounting pile of laundry or the creeping clutter in the apartment and decide that it can wait.  I shrug off the light sense of despair over the two primed walls that we were supposed to paint last winter.  I tell myself that she will never be exactly this age again and that I will look back on this first year and know I didn’t miss a thing.

I am acutely aware that most women (or men, for that matter) do not even have the option to do this and I feel almost a sense of responsibility to parents everywhere to take full advantage.  Of course, this means I have to work harder and smarter when I am on the clock.  It also means that I am on the clock longer and at odd hours.  Ultimately, it means that we sort of live in a college dorm and have to run to the bodega at 7:30 PM to buy an $8 roll of toilet paper because we ran out and nobody had the chance to get more.

Meanwhile, as is my wont, I am plagued by the notion that everyone else must be doing it better---they have to be, right?  During a recent trip to the playground this was confirmed, as I zeroed in on a few other mothers and observed their whole set-up.  Each one seemed to have the diaper bag completely dialed in, down to the perfectly portioned organic snack foods in an eco-friendly/non-petroleum/possibly Swedish baggie.  Their strollers were tidy and their children even had on accessories.  They had brought galvanized tins of French sidewalk chalk and appeared to have organized play-dates.  When I arrived on the scene, my daughter was assiduously chewing on the rubber case from my iPhone (almost certainly made in China).  My stroller was pandemonium---it included incongruous items like dog poop bags, my diluted vitamin water bottle and a calcified, half-gummed whole wheat dinner roll from a restaurant adventure the day before.  I plunked my daughter on the padded playground surface and watched as she crunched fall leaves between her fingers and attempted to stuff them in her mouth.  She was not wearing shoes or a bow in her hair but she seemed pretty thrilled.  We did not have an adorable German tube of bubbles (why is everything good European?) and I hadn’t even remembered my nursing cover.  We embarrassed the family with an awkward lean-to situation using a cotton drape, which she repeatedly tore away with a whipping motion, exposing my breasts to the most populous borough in the city.

So, I am coming around to the idea that I actually only have so much bandwidth.  The letting go of certain practical elements of daily life in favor of more time for human relating seems a fairly obvious choice to me.  While I aspire to be a person who deftly balances her infant on one hip while folding fitted sheets or doing the taxes, it turns out that I only can/am willing to (?) do one thing at a time.  Most tasks, therefore, are sort of shined on or phoned in until they have the good fortune to be in the pole position.  I keep the goals small, so then when we have a fully stocked fridge or I send out a birthday gift, I feel like I have summitted Everest or passed the California bar.

Although I mostly feel good about the way I am partitioning my time for now, like every working mother I grapple with needing and/or wanting to be in two places at once.  Who knows how this will all change as she gets older and as my business evolves?  It is a little disheartening to realize that I did seem to need the “excuse” of a baby to finally feel justified in prioritizing enjoyment.  Why didn’t I do this before?  And why do I still feel like I’m “admitting to something” when I tell you I spend entire days, in the middle of the week, not just being with my baby, but actively trying to do little else?

Needless to say, I want my daughter to be proud of her mother as a role model and an entrepreneur.  But I am hoping she doesn’t have to feel this from a remote place.  I want her to experience that I am as available to her as I am to my work.  She will doubtless have a wide array of things to discuss with her therapist about her home and family.  I figure I won’t just hand her the line that her mother always had too many things on her plate.  I want her to work a little harder for her gripes.

All alone, together

I got the shocking call last Sunday afternoon.  She told me that he jolted awake suddenly in the pre-dawn hours and just as quickly he was gone.  This prince of a man, this decent, loving husband and father had died.  Out of nowhere.  WHAT?  Weren’t they just . . . ?  Didn’t we just . . . ?  I struggled to process this dreadful information.  I wanted to rail against God.  I wanted to offer some words of comfort until I could get there, something trite, like “This is part of God’s plan, it is beyond our understanding.”  Of course, I didn’t believe that.  My rage would be directed at the ether.  My efforts to soothe would be built on a false premise.  I don’t believe there is anyone up there or out there. It is precisely at times like these that I desperately wish for some kind of faith.  There are people all around me who have a version of God.  This God provides a structure for living and dying, solutions to complex problems, answers (or diversions) where there are none.  I don’t have anything close to this.  I was never very good at science but it is all I have.

I used to hedge a little more when talking about this highly sensitive topic.  This was for two reasons: I was concerned about offending anyone and I had some mildly superstitious notion that I would leave the door open, just in case I should have occasion to call God into service in my own life.  As a younger woman, I talked of feeling “spiritual” and that I could imagine “a force greater than myself” in the universe.  I never really had any idea what I meant when I discussed this.  I thought it made me sound less off-putting to others but mostly, it made me less terrified of having no guiding light.  I would describe how we are “all connected,” relate experiences like seeing something extraordinary in nature and how this could grant access to the sacred world.  The truth is, I have seen the sunset over the Pacific, a baby moose in the Tetons, Halley’s Comet and a human child emerge from my own body.  In each case, I have thought, ‘What an absolutely stunning miracle . . . of science.’

The older I get, I am increasingly convinced of the randomness of life.  I do believe that everything always works out in the end, in the sense that we learn to cope with whatever circumstances bring.  What I mean when I say things like, ‘I am exactly where I was meant to be,’ is that it requires an active acceptance of chaos to get from one day to the next.  This is more of a mantra than some philosophical statement about a grand plan.

I challenge anyone to explain to a woman who has just lost the center of her life and the father of her young children that all will be revealed.  NO.  There will be no reasonable explanation and if the logic of it is outside our comprehension, then it is useless anyway.   What we can know for sure is that she will move forward very slowly, moment-by-moment, until it is less and less surreal.  The heavy boulder of pain will eventually be massaged into tiny pebbles that rattle around in her mind.  New rhythms will develop and her children will grow.  She might create a novel iteration of a family, not because this was all supposed to happen just exactly like it has, but because she will simply handle what she has been dealt.

For a long time, I wondered whether this lack of a divine center meant that I was a lost soul (lost brain?).  But I can tell you with conviction what it is that makes me found.  My family and friends (also considered family) are at the core---I live for them and with them in this life, in the here and now.  I do this not because it is written or commanded or foretold.  I do this because it is right and feels good and creates community.  I don’t need to understand the meaning of life to know that when someone is ripped from it too soon, it creates a searing pain.  I don’t require the threat of hell or a judgmental God to treat people with kindness.  I know that I should “do unto others” because I, myself, have feelings.  I also know that nobody is perfect and that when I fail as a human (often spectacularly), the person from whom I need to beg forgiveness is the person I have slighted.

In the tradition of my Jewish culture (and yes, for many people, Jewish religion), in the New Year we do a self-assessment and make a commitment to do better in the coming season.  One rationale for this is to ensure that we are inscribed in the Book of Life for another year.  The warning here is that God will only allow those to survive who have done good, been of service and been authentically sorry for ways in which they have harmed others.  This begs the question whether the people who have died this year somehow weren’t all they could be?  And you see how it begins to break down.

I do appreciate the concept of personal inventory, making genuine apologies (at least once a year) and being intentional about your humanity in the year to come.  This year I hope to focus on being even more available to this most treasured friend that has experienced devastating loss.  I won’t talk to her about God and providence.  I will talk to her about how powerful his presence was and will continue to be in this life.  I won’t talk to her about fate.  I will tell her that I know he is gone too soon and that nothing about this is just.  I won’t be equipped to provide any enlightenment.  But I will visit the kids, get down on the floor with them like he did, and keep his memory fresh for them.  I will do this because I love her and I loved him and this is what people do.