seders

For the past few years it seems like Seders are not real.  They are more of an attempt to step into a memory.  Now I know that that is actually the point of a seder, but come on.   We are not reliving the Exodus here.  We are not really trying to.  No one is.  We should probably just finally get rid of that part.

Instead we are trying to step back into the time when Seders were real.  Before everyone died. The seders that we attended the most frequently in our lives.  We don't do a very good job though of recreating those seders.  We are in different homes with different people around us.  We, who were the kids, have found ourselves to be the people we had no idea we could ever become.  The Parents!  There is one generation above us now, only one.

I used to feel like I had to have at least one blood relative with me at every Seder to make it real.   One person who knew the same tunes that I did.  Last year though I realized that at least for the foreseeable future I will always have two.  Now that they are more people than ideas I am struck by the fact the Eli and Mira are my relatives.  They don't know my tunes but I know theirs.   We are building this whole this up anew.

We are good at creating traditions in our house, but I worry that we are not so good at holding on to old ones.  Mostly this is my fault.  My tendency is to throw everything away. To cast away the nuggets of beauty with the garbage.   And mostly this is okay.  But at a Seder you need a little dirty water to wade in. 

 

Pesach

"Uh oh" I thought when I saw her browsing through the Kosher for Passover section of Albertsons. Marjorie Schneider. One of the nicest parents at Shir Tikvah.

I had run away from that job completely. I tried to take only my books, my friendship with Jennifer, and our babysitter Ilana when I left but you don't always get to choose. Especially in Portland. Especially around Passover if you go to Albertsons. Everyone at Shir Tikvah was nice and tried to be supportive when I decided to leave. It is a congregation of nice people. Marjorie was possibly the nicest.

She gave me a hug when she saw me. "We miss you!" she proclaimed her blond curls bouncing. Marjorie is young and pretty. "We are fine but we still miss you. On the first day of Sunday School we were told that from now on the kids should bring their own snack from home. This is when I knew you were really gone. You nurtured all of us, you were our mom."

"This is why you miss me?" I thought incredulously. "I was their mom?!"
I knew what she was saying though, and this is why I left that job. I couldn't be their collective Jewish mother. They loved the tidbits of Judaism that I fed them on teeny spoons. They gobbled them like the sugar coated goodies that they were. But this is neither the way that I teach nor the way that I feel about Judaism. My Judaism is more maror than charoset. It is the bitter herbs that I crave. It is also, by the way, not the way that I parent. In running away from that job I was running towards a more authentic version of myself.

As I usually do, when I run into someone that I think I don't want to see, I began to relax into the conversation. I remembered how much I truly like Marjorie and inquired about her family. We began to seem like allies trying to maneuver our way through the pre-Passover chaos at Albertsons and through life. In a different setting we would be friends.

Passover does this to me. More so than the High Holidays it seems to me a season for taking stock. Clearing out what you can no longer stomach to make room for freedom. I am surely not meant to be the Director of Congregational Learning at Shir Tikvah. Leaving that job was a modest Exodus for me. The bigger ones have yet to take place. But, slowly, the waters are gathering.

It is so much easier to see what doesn't fit than what does. Leaving for me is not hard. But my sense of direction is so easily muddled. Both in metaphor and in my real life. journeys are the hardest part. I know where I don't want to be but getting to the place that I am going feels next to impossible. Maps don't help. Clear written instructions are better but no one is offering them. Yet now there is a quiet song in my head, a raking away of old leaves that is revealing a small clearing. And maybe this is Passover.

life, interrupted

I have always hated coming home.

How mom must have dreaded those return trips of mine! Most of my school vacations were spent with my dad. He lived, at various times, in Washington DC, Texas, LA, San Francisco, Ohio, Israel, and Chicago. Before each trip mom would help me pack. She would do my laundry several days before and urge me not to wear anything I might need for thr trip on the days leading up to it. She would drive me to the airport, help me get checked in, and leave me with the flight attendant who was in charge of "children traveling alone". She would kiss me goodbye and drive home by herself. I usually had a brand new book to read and a pack of gum. I loved this part of the trip. I could imagine the clothes tucked neatly in my suitcase waiting under the plane. Dad calling the airline and checking to see if my flight would arrive on time. I pictured what he would look like when he picked me up, his scratchy hug, his utter delight to have me back. I let mom drive away without a thought.

I spent most of my time on these trips with Jean. She wold take me with her on her errands and tell me stories about her family. Her mother was psychic and communicated with the dead. The first trip I took after Hadara was born Jean let me hold her right away. I helped change her diaper and stared at her for hours along with Jean. I felt fiercely protective of her. At night Dad would lie down with us on their bed and tickle Hadara and me. We ate pineapple and watched James Bond movies while Hadara slept. Jean and I would take her to gym class and sometimes meet Dad for lunch where we ordered grilled cheese or fish and chips. They never wanted anyone from the synagogue to see us eating hamburgers which is what mom and I always ordered when we out for lunch.

At various times Phil or Beth would live in the same city as dad. They would come over when I was visiting and take me to the movies or the beach. Phil and I tried one day to drive from the beach to the mountains. Beth would always claim at least one of my nights for a sleepover where we eat ice-cream and potato chips and talk about General Hospital or the books we were reading. On Friday nights Jean would make chicken, and brisket, and dessert. The food she cooked tasted spicier and fancier than moms. Mom only ever cooked one main course, although usually I liked hers better although she rarely made dessert. Everyone would drink their own can of soda and after dinner we would watch a movie.

The other thing that happened on these trips is that Dad or Jean would buy me anything that I wanted. New books, both popcorn and soda at the movies, when I was younger stickers galore, and really big life- sized stuffed animals. As I got older they bought me (in the same visit!) my first swatch watch and first pair of guess jeans. Life with Dad and Jean was paradise. They treated me like a princess. They made me feel beautiful, smart, funny, rich and positively adored. And then, no matter what, it would be time to go home.

I would start to dread leaving towards the end of each visit. I would sit in the back of the car and imagine that I could turn the clock back. Turn it back so it was the day that I was arriving rather than leaving. Dad always drove me to the airport by himself. He would try mightily to talk to me. We would talk about mom and how much still he loved her and respected her as a mother. He would tell me his fears and hopes for Phil and Beth. He reminded me that I was smart and talented and could would conquer the world. He tried so hard not to make me cry. When it was time to leave he would kiss me goodbye just like mom had. By then I would be crying for real. He would hand me to the flight attendant in charge and drive home alone just as mom had. His eyes were glassy his chin quivering when he turned away. I'm sure mom cried too. She must have saved her tears though for the car when she was alone.

I cried for most of the flight home. The flight attendants and other passengers would try to cheer me up with gum and chocolate. Eventually I would escape into the new book Jean would buy me on the last day of the visit. When I saw mom at the airport I would start to cry again. She hugged me but could offer me no comfort. She would suggest we go out for dinner, or shopping, but I didn't want those things from her. I wanted my dad. It took me a long time after each trip to stop mourning. I never wanted to go back to school or see any of my friends. I spent a lot of time in bed or on the couch watching tv or reading. Mom tried so hard but there was nothing she could do. After each one of those trips I had to come to grips again with the fact that my parents were divorced. I would never, never have what I most wanted which was both of them. I can't imagine how devastating all of this was for mom. She never showed me. Every ounce of the self that she showed me was her trying to cheer me up. Her concern was what would do it each time. As surely as it would come the depression would lift and mom and I would go back to our lives together.

It is still hard for me to return from vacations. I can't help but obsess about what I lose when I return home. I will never be the kind of person who can say "oh yeah the trip was great but I was ready to come home". I am never ready to come home. Even now. I am thrilled to be back with Jeff and Mira and Eli but a part of me is crying inside for the week in Mexico. The part of me that is still eight, and twelve, and fifteen is deathly afraid that real life can never be as good as vacation. That what we lose when we leave is so much greater that what we have at home. In this case I know with every fiber of my being that this is not the case. I have the best life in the whole world and for this I am truly, eternally grateful. But today is hard.

spring break II

We finally made it to the park. We were having what in Portland we call a "sun-break". Really it was more of an "ice and snow -mix -windy -freezing" break but we had made it. The ultimate goal for Mira and Eli and me, our own mini spring-break, we were at the park.

Not only were we at the park but we had wheels! Ski-boot style roller-skates for Mira (from Target making them next to impossible to fasten) Dora the Explorer over-the-shoes skates for Eli made complete with matching knee and elbow pads ("did those used to be yours?" asked Mira's friend Elizabeth suspiciously when we ran into her) and, for me, bought in a frenzy to have to have some fun this week if it killed me, brand new roller blades. Last night Mira and I had tested out our new skates when Jeff got home from work. We skated around the park for an hour until our hands were numb and it started to rain/snow/ice again. We had the park to ourselves save for one lone skateboarder. We admired his jumps as we raced around giddy in our freedom. Happy to be together. Happy to be away from Eli whose constant crying this week was driving me to the breaking point. We felt light and free on our wheels. Mira and I generally have the exact same skills. We are good readers and great friends. We are terrible at any sport involving balls or competition and are strictly mediocre at math. We are excellent skaters.

Mira insisted on skating to the park. Eli tried on his skates at home and declared that I should put them on at the park where he would be sure "not to fall down and hurt myself". I packed up his skates and gear, Mira's shoes, goldfish, peanut-butter filled pretzels, juice-boxes, water, oh, and my skates, in one of reusable Trader-Joes's bags (the ones I always forget to bring to the grocery store) and we were off. Not only was it sunny but with some motion involved I could almost imagine shedding my winter coat or at least maybe losing my wool hat. Mira ran into yet another friend when we arrived (she is popular my daughter, and this is Portland where the rule is, well, you always run into someone you know) and was off. I stuck Eli's brown Merriled feet into the pinkish red Dora skate and buckled them. "But what if I fall down?"he asked in a voice that was a quiver of a whine. "You won't hurt yourself because your kneed pads and elbow pads will protect you" I replied tightening both around him. He stood up. He sat back down. "But what if I fall here?" pointing to his midsection? "Or here?" pointing to virtually every part of his body that wasn't covered by pad or helmet. "I hate skating here, I want to skate AT HOME!". Uh oh.

The Spring Break Eli was coming back. The one with the very bad cold who hadn't stopped whining or crying for the entire week. Eli had gone from an easy-going baby, to a loud and demanding toddler, and was only now emerging as a mostly mild-mannered and happy four year old. This week he was back to his two year old self. The one, where, when it was actually happening, Jeff and I agreed that we were done having children. The spring break Eli had two modes. Whiny and crying. "LETS GO HOME, IT'S BORING AT THE PARK" the tears were starting. I tried reasoning. "Just, stand up and try it, I'll hold your hand". "I WILL FALL DOWN!" People were starting to look at us. "How will you know if you don't stand up? Mira fell down yesterday. She just got up and started skating again. "NOOO!". "Well then, lets take off your skates and you can play at the park." "I HATE THE PARK, THE PARK IS BORING!". I walked away. He screamed. At this point every eye in the park was on me. I went to check on Mira happily skating and chatting with her friend. "Put on your skates Mommy" she urged me. I looked longingly at my Trader Joes bag which was next to my screaming miserable little boy. "Maybe now is not a good time for me to skate" I said walking back over to him.

He grabbed my leg, pulled me down to him. I took off his skates. I told him that I was going to skate with Mira for ten minutes while he played and then we were going to go home. I said this very logical and calm parenting bit with only the slightest quiver in my voice. He screamed louder. His face was red his nose and eyes streaming his arms gripping tightly around my leg. And then I felt it. The feeling started deep in the pit of my stomach and tried to move to my hands. I wanted to hit him. I forced the wave back down into my stomach. It felt like my insides were being pummeled. I stepped away from my child hands firmly at my side. I didn't do it but I had wanted to. I get it now, why people hit their children. The feeling was hard to resist. It comes from a place deep within. It is an instinct. In this case an instinct that is to be fought against but the fight takes all of your might. It's like fighting the urge to eat or sleep. It is that powerful.

When the urge had almost fully passed we collected a very reluctant and grumpy Mira and returned home. We all ate some chocolate at home and felt a little better. Eli and I took Mira to her piano lesson and he continued to whine and cry. I cried too. I was frustrated and tired and coming down with a cold. But I no longer wanted to hit him. That urge had blessedly passed. When we got home Jeff was home and like the terrific dad and person that he is he took over for me. I had a glass of wine and cooked dinner. I sat with my family while they ate. Jeff bathed the kids and put Eli to bed. I read to Mira. Life was back to ordinary.

The parenting stuff is still hard. Just when you think you are capable it turns around and bites you on the hand (literally). And then it stops again. It wakes up in the morning proud and surprised "I slept all night in underwear mommy!". It gives you a hug and reminds you why you sometimes have to fight your worst impulses. And then life goes on.

spring break sucks

Have you ever seen a four year old who refuses to take medicine when they are sick? It in not pretty. We are in a forced state of Scientology and everyone is suffering. "My stomach hurts!" "my nose hurts", " "my eye hurts", "I really, really hate you".

Just take the god-damn medicine!

And what is it with the stupid piano lessons anyway? Is every kid (even the ones who beg and wheedle their parents into getting them lessons) clinically predispositioned to fighting (excuse me waging total complete warfare) with their parents about practising? And, so sorry, but no you can't scooter home from Amses's (yes everyone Mira has a friend whose actual name is Ames) by yourself! Don't worry that you have to cross 39th, I know for this I deserve the silent treatment all afternoon. By the way, don't bother thanking me that I got you out of the house of pain and torture all morning.

Eli has two modes whiny and crying. He no longer has a regular voice. Oh, and Mira wants to wait to practice piano until daddy gets home. Yeah, that's a good idea! He never fights with her. Ha!

I hate spring break!

motherless mothers

I am finally reading this book. It is called Motherless Mothers and is written by Hope Edelman. Ms. Edelman has made a career of missing her mother. Her other books include Motherless Daughters, Letters from Motherless Daughters, and Mother of my Mother. I think that we can safely say that losing her mother was the defining moment of Hope Edelman's life. I usually linger past her books in bookstores in libraries. I have read large segments of both Motherless Daughters and Letters from Motherless Daughters standing in the stacks of the Hollywood Library or sitting at the train table at Barnes and Noble. I even went to hear her speak two years ago when she was in Portland promoting Motherless Mothers. When you live in Portland it is inevitable that you will run into someone that you know every time you leave your house. That night I learned that at least two acquaintances of mine had mothers who died when they were still young. A club I didn't want to join. I said goodbye to my friends and left without doing what virtually every other woman there was doing, buying the book.

When I decided to read this book I bought it rather than check it of the library. It seems important somehow that I own this book. But, why now? It has something to do with the process that I going through. Writing every (or nearly every) day is teaching me to shed a certain layer of skin. It is scary. If I am going to be an honest writer than I am going to have to stop hiding the parts of myself that I can't face. If I am going to be an honest person and if I have anything at all to offer to the world it is time to stop running away. Hope Edelman wrote all of these books because her mother's death is her story. You can feel this as you read her words. The words jump out at you from the page and crackle with energy. Raising her daughters without her mother is part of her story. I am reading her book now to learn how she does it.

How does she search for ultimate meaning within her story? How does she weave her experience throughout the larger context of what it is like to be a mother without a mother? And of course it's no accident that I've chosen this book to pick apart. I am becoming a fearless reader. Go ahead, books, delve into my inner pain and extract meaning. I dare you! It's amazing though what happens when I shed the fear of these books that I have been avoiding. Like those in Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking, Ms. Edeleman's words are touching me but very lightly.

Her writing is good. She reaches that difficult blend of friendly and literary. She comes across as compassionate and self-aware. She even acknowledges the absurdity of basing her professional life upon her mother's death. Much of what she writes about I can absolutely relate to. The part about how motherless mothers have the impulse the keep their children from their mother-in-law. If my mother can't see my child than neither can you. The loneliness of trying to be a mother without having a mother. She has a wonderful imaginary conversation with her mother on the phone. One in which her mother asks to speak to Hope's children. Her children are involved in their play and don't come to the phone. Hope's "mother" is offended both by the fact that the children don't want to speak to her and that Hope does nothing to force the issue. They hang-up unsatisfied. I loved this! I always tend to over-glamorize what all of our lives would be like if mom were still alive. I would have my mother, the kids would have their grandma, life would be perfect. Hope Edelman reminds me that no relationship is really like this. Mom and I fought all of the time. This wouldn't have changed if she hadn't died.

One thing I have gotten from reading the book is that while I am still terribly sad about mom, her death is not the central story of my life. The day that she died was the day that I became a grown-up. A real grown-up though, age 25, not a sped-up before-her-time grown-up like Ms. Edelman did at 17. Mom was alive to guide me through every significant passage to adulthood and for this I am forever grateful. It is devastatingly sad that we never got to have a relationship as adults. Even more so that she never met my children. But with me she did her job. She did it well.

Eventually I stopped reading this book page to page and started reading the story that was just Hope's. I liked her a lot but got bored by her writing, by her countless interviews. I skipped the section on raising teenagers without a mother altogether although it is possible that I may turn back to it when it is more relevant. But maybe not. This chapter is largely about parenting without a model. How to be a mother during those years when you yourself had no model. Luckily for me mom was absolutely present for my teen years. In the end I got some of what I wanted to out of reading this book. How to take your own story and market it as a book. I caught a glimmer of that. I didn't learn all that much about being a motherless mother but really how could I? It's who I am. But, it's not my story.

Purim-or-does everyone eventually turn into their parents?

Mira was sick this week. The kind of sick that she will probably remember forever. Fever over 104 degrees and an eventual diagnosis of pneumonia. She subsisted on one watermelon flavored Popsicle and a bite of a hamantashen for the entire week. She was most upset though about missing Purim. She wanted so badly to dress up as Hermione! To join her friends in the costume parade and drown out Haman's name. Although I promised her that if she felt well enough we could go to the Purim carnival at the JCC, this wasn't enough for her. She wanted Purim on Purim. So, we brought Purim home.

Eli abandoned his queen Esther costume he had worn to school so he could be Harry to Mira's Hermione. They decided that I would be Professor McGonagall and Jeff would be Dumbledore. I phoned Jeff to tell him about the plan and to urge him to bring home plenty of wine for us. Good wine. Two huge down-on-the-floor all out stormy tantrums later (one by Mira because her robe didn't fit and one by me because of PMS) the three of us were ready. I was wearing an old long black velvet dress and my bath robe. I played some Purim music and we danced; Jeff came home and we ushered him upstairs to get changed. "What do I wear" he asked desperately, "Where's my costume?"
"Find something to wear" I called twirling around with Eli.

He came downstairs looking, well, a lot like Jeff. He was wearing black sweats, an orange sweat shirt and a flannel shirt. I think the flannel was meant to be like a wizards robe but it looked suspiciously like what Jeff usually wore for a Shabbat evening at home. We went to the Shabbat table and lit the candles with teeny tiny magic wands (lumos! we said before singing the blessing) we said the kiddush over goblets of pumpkin juice, and ate strange braided Jewish Muggle bread. When we sat down to eat Jeff turned to Mira and said "so you had quite a week didn't you Mira?" He said it in his regular voice while the rest of us had been using our very proper British voices throughout the night. Eli's was a higher-pitched version of his regular voice but he was trying mightily. Mira's voice was a spot-on imitation of Emma Watson's movie version of Hermione while mine was more Monty Python than Hogwarts.

Jeff continued to talk in his regular voice. He asked me to pass the challah (not the Jewish Muggle bread) and reminded Eli (not Harry) to use his fork. What was going on here? Jeff is no party pooper. He is a great dad and is usually tuned into the needs of our children surprisingly well. So, why was he missing Mira's need for Purim? It was because at that moment he wasn't Jeff. Before our very eyes he had turned into Marty, Jeff's father.

Like Jeff Marty is a great dad. His three sons have nothing but fondness for Marty. He was an equal partner to Ellen in raising them and is largely responsible for the "menchlike" qualities in Jeff, Mike and Ken. He was unequivocally and simultaneously both the fun parent and the disciplinarian in that Katz household. He also has nearly no capacity for make-believe. Most of us are somewhat addicted to our routines but to Marty they are an absolute necessity. He is crazy about our children but has a hard time connecting to them because he is so intensely uncomfortable in my house. He is often a few steps behind what the rest of the group is doing. Ellen attributes this to his hearing, but I'm not so sure that this is the case, it seems like more the essence of Marty.

Sitting next to me last night was not Jeff but Marty. I reminded my husband (in my starting-to-annoy-even-myself Monty Python voice) that we were playing a game and that the children and I would like for him to play with us. "I'm Marty aren't I?" he said a little bit astonished and horrified. "Yes, but try to play with us anyway". He did. The rest of the evening he put on his own Monty Python voice and entered Purim/Harry Potter world with the rest of us. He banged on his plate the loudest when I told the story of VoldermortHaman. He turned back into Jeff trying his best to turn into Dumbledore to bring Purim to our sick daughter. But Marty is lurking within him which lucky for us is not necessarily a bad thing. But a little scary.

So, then I can't help but ask was this night something that my mother would have put on for me if I was sick and missed Purim? Uhm... probably not. I think she would have wanted to but she wasn't really free enough. It was a huge privilege for me to be able to cancel every obligation I had this week to stay home and care for Mira. A bit of a burden too, and hard and certainly exhausting and annoying, but a privilege. A privilege to bring her Purim when she was sick. Certainly privileges that for both internal and external circumstances my mother never had. She just didn't. She always tried to be nicer to me when I was sick which probably goes pretty far in explaining why I was spent so much time willing myself to be sick while growing up. But she didn't let my sicknesses transform her life. She couldn't and I understand that now. But still she was nicer to me. This week I was nicer to Mira. There was a spark in all of this that was mom. She was there last night as surely as Marty was.