Monday, January 28, 2008

Inexpressible, Incomplete

When days go by without a post, it sometimes means that I have too much to say, rather than nothing to say. This post is the seed for something else, I think. It is not complete.

Last week I attended the Chassidic wedding of one of my many third cousins, none of whom I had ever met, let alone known about until recently. The bride's aunt had found my brothers and I via the Internet, after searching for our father and discovering that he had passed away. The bride's aunt and my father would be second cousins. For those for whom the concept of second and third cousins is a bit elusive, a simple way to remember the relationship is as follows: (first) cousins have common grandparents; second cousins have common great-grandparents; and third cousins have common great-great-grandparents. For many families that were decimated by the Holocaust, leaving an aching void where grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins would have or could have been, third cousins are a relatively close relationship, or at least not so distant.

Until the last few years, I had been put off by extremely religious people of any denomination, and I had a particular aversion to orthodox Judaism, which to my feminist sensibilities seemed like a culture built around the subjugation of women. Certainly, that is one lens through which one can view some of the practices of ultra orthodox Jews. But as I've become increasingly comfortable with having some Jewish ritual and affiliation as part of my life, and as I witness my oldest nephew and nieces growing up with a strong and positive Jewish identity in a caring modern orthodox community, I have tried to temper some of my aversion to hard core traditionalists with curiosity and respect.

And so it was with a mixture of trepidation and excitement that I packed up my salt sprayed Subaru and drove to Montreal for this festive occasion, to meet this part of the family that my father - for reasons I can only surmise - had not told us about. I had rustled up a long black skirt, selected an elegant but modest green velvet top and had ordered some new shoes for this evening wedding. Arriving to the hotel where the ceremony would take place, I schlepped my large wheeled duffel and a garment bag through the lobby, already filled with sparklingly well groomed women in floor length gowns and men with those unmistakable black hats. Passing a mirror, I caught a glimpse of my tired face and greying hair, frizzy from the dry air in my car, and I felt like the poor country cousin. Suddenly my chosen outfit seemed highly inadequate, as did my skills at applying makeup, of which I have very little. My unpolished nails, which had looked fine the day before, now seemed to scream that I lacked elegance and traditional femininity. The hotel clerk must have sensed my momentary discomfort because he asked me, upon noticing that I had reserved a room with the wedding rate, if, indeed, I had come for the wedding.

"Yes," I said, partly wishing I could turn around and leave, if not for good then at least to visit a salon. He handed me a welcome bag filled with kosher cookies, chips and candy. I added that bag to my load and headed for the elevator, hoping no one would see me in my dishevelment.

At this point I had about 90 minutes or so before the wedding was to begin. My initial plan had been to arrive early enough to use the pool, but the thought of traversing the lobby in my swimming gear, passing a gauntlet of religious men and women, was too intimidating. Instead, I took a short nap.

As I dressed for the celebration, I adjusted my attitude and told myself that I would have a great time, even if I were the only single person there, not to mention childless at an age where some of the women in this community might already be grandmothers. I also decided to suspend judgment and take it all in, as if I were an anthropologist visiting a new subculture.

I found my relatives within a few minutes. Their warm welcome was reassuring and a bit overwhelming - I couldn't remember the last time I had entered a room and been greeted so enthusiastically by so many people. My experiences with other distant relatives have not been so positive. In preparation for our encounter, I had printed up the family tree that they had e-mailed my brothers and me so that I could show other people my connection. This folded up piece of paper served as my passport for the evening, allowing me into a world that most non-religious Jews (or others) would never get to see. One woman questioned whether I was "real" family or not - she seemed satisfied after seeing my passport. Family and shared ancestry are the currency of this community, and even though in many ways I am an outsider to the Chassidic way of life, for this occasion I was made to feel like an insider. The sense of acceptance and belonging I experienced was far more powerful and palpable than the twinges of uneasiness I felt, such as when the bride - her head and face completely obscured by an opaque veil - was carefully escorted by her mother and future mother-in-law down the aisle to the outdoor chuppah (wedding canopy), where the groom waited for her in the freezing cold.

The chuppah was adjacent to a canvas walled tent, where brave guests sat shivering as the bride - still veiled and aided by her mother - circumnavigated the groom an agonizingly slow seven times. The mercury was in the single digits. This community took seriously the custom of marrying under the stars and was undeterred by the winter weather. The wedding photographer had been warned and wore a hooded parka. Some of the women were in the know and wore mink coats. I was unprepared and nearly lost sensation in my fingers. A few guests, religious themselves, thought the outdoor chuppah was a bit meshuga.

Men and women sit, eat and dance separately at orthodox celebrations. My tablemates were mostly diamond decorated matrons who were surprised to learn that I had driven to Montreal by myself. Ten years ago, I would have thought about such a sola trip as evidence of empowerment and independence, and smugly used it as a way to make myself feel superior to these traditional women and to emphasize our differences, but this time I simply said, yes, I drove by myself. My only company on the journey were the voices on the French language cassettes I had checked out of the library. For a moment I envied these women's lives, filled with people and with no shortage of companions for long car trips.

Dancing with these women, linked together as we circled the bride, I was struck by the delicacy of their hands. Mine are strong and firm from yoga and from years of working with them. And unlike the bodies of these women, mine has borne backpacks but not children. And I couldn't help but imagine that my life could have turned out like theirs had my father chosen to stay in the orthodox fold and had raised me in such a community. But he left that orbit to create his own family and his own universe, to expose his children to the wider world. Yet there I was, in many ways a privileged contemporary woman, feeling soothed by the beat of Judaism's Chassidic heart.

In a way I am glad that I didn't learn about these people until now, even though upon meeting them I felt that a certain void had been filled and that, in fact, I had been missing them for a long time. As a child, teenager or young adult, I doubt I would have been able to see the women under the wigs and the men under the hats as individuals, as people with whom I share ancestry and Hebrew names. During the final part of the ceremony, with most of the hundreds of guests already gone home or to their hotel rooms, I witnessed the very special Mitzvah Tantz. The badchen, the wedding entertainer or poet, stood on a chair and with microphone in hand chanted improvised Yiddish rhymes to lovingly describe the bride's and groom's forebears, essentially invoking their spirits. The mood in the room was meditative and mystical, with the family and remaining guests paying focused attention to the badchen's words. After each person was honored, a male family member or group of men would stand up and take hold of one end of a rope - the other end was held by the bride - and would dance "with" the bride, who would just sway as the man or men would kick up their heels, eventually dropping the rope to dance in a circle with each other. Although I barely understood the badchen's rhythmic chanting, I was mesmerized by his loving and reverent invocation of the names and stories of my ancestors, acknowledging their role in contributing to this happy occasion. Entranced by the soothing rhymes of this ritual, I suddenly and surprisingly felt enormous affection for this hybrid tongue. I regretted terribly that I didn't speak or understand Yiddish, a language whose soft sounds and curious expression I've rejected for years.

As the night wore on and as guests began to dwindle further, the badchen remained in good rhyming form, generating wet eyes and causing the appearance of white handkerchiefs as he movingly honored the parents of the bride and groom. The bride's final dance was with her father. For this, there was no rope. They first clasped their hands and then clasped in an awkward embrace, a final tearful farewell.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Illuminated

Turning off the lights in my apartment, I glanced up to see a bright winter moon and a few fistfuls of stars scattered across the sky. An airplane moved across the heavens, leaving a white diagonal line in its wake. Winds lifted the line from below the moon to above it, where it dissolved into the darkness.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Interlapse

The lapse of time between two events.

In November of 2006 I designed and printed a 5.5"x8.5" postcard to announce my holiday studio hours and crafts shows for my jewelry design business. Some of these cards I mailed, others I left at various cafes and still others I had available at my studio. Today, more than 13 months later, I received one of these postcards in my studio mailbox. What made this interlapse all the more intriguing is that I was not the sender of this postcard. Someone's father had used my postcard - which doesn't have a lot of extra room on it - to send a greeting to his children, or to a child and his/her partner. How do I know the person was a dad? He wrote, "Jeanne, Warren, Thanks for the all the goodies. Dad."

And someone else - possibly the dad's partner or another family member - had written a longer message on the lower right of the postcard, beneath the addresses. Yes, there were two addresses, the first one scratched out to make way for the second. There were also two stamps, one on top of the other - a Purple Heart stamp (2007) over a Ronald Reagan stamp (2006). If I were to assume that this person is like me and chooses stamps that reflect their values or tastes, then I would conclude that this person is a Republican who values the military, was once enlisted him/herself or is close to people who did. I am also going to assume that the dad was not the person in charge of communicating via this postcard - what kind of a dad would be so cheap that he'd hijack a jewelry designer's marketing collateral for his own purposes, scrawling in the margins? And I imagine that the dad would know the correct address for his child(ren). I am betting that this other person, who signs the card just as "B", had the bright idea of encroaching on my marketing real estate and using it to deliver his or her news.

The presence of two stamps suggests that the postcard was mailed once, with an incorrect address, and then returned...to whom? and to where? And when it was returned mysteriously to the sender, whose address is not on the card, this person then put a new address and used a fresh stamp, eclipsing most of Ronald Reagan's face, sending the postcard on its second journey.

The handwritten date on the postcard is 12/22/06. On 12/29/2007 it was stamped by a postal machine. My hypothesis is that the senders wrote the postcard in 2006 and put a stamp on it. It sat around for a year, by which time postal rates had gone up, so they plopped a second stamp on top of the first, rather than bothering to go to the post office and pay a few extra pennies for supplemental postage. And by this time the addressees had moved, so the original address was crossed out and another one inked in. But this second address was still not correct and on 1/15/08 it landed in my mailbox. If you have other theories, please let me know!

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Incensed

I'm normally not a political or news junkie but the results of the Iowa caucuses piqued my interest in the campaigns and in the press coverage of them. And so I was rather astonished and incensed to see the extent to which Hillary Clinton was and is being savaged by the media, including the New York Times, which until now I thought was somewhat balanced and objective, even for a liberal paper [except that it has hired William Kristol].

It is one thing for the Times' female columnists - I'm thinking of Maureen Dowd - to practically trash the woman for leaking a tear and showing some emotion (of course, if Hillary doesn't show any emotion, she gets beaten up for that, too). Columnists do get to write their own opinions, no matter how nasty. But there was a Times' headline on Wednesday, "Clinton Escapes to Fight Another Day" which struck me as being more of a comment on the media's incorrect forecast of an early demise of her campaign, rather than a reflection of the facts and perspective. No, she didn't win Iowa, but my goodness, it was only the first of many contests!

Skimming the major papers and the blogosphere, and not terribly methodically, the predominant tone towards Mrs. Clinton appears to be one of derision. The lack of respect in the newspapers for her attempts to get elected, and make history, is staggering. I'm not suggesting that people vote for her simply because she could be our first female president. But it would be a huge improvement if the media would stop circling her like a pack of vultures, eager to snack off of her political death, and would start writing articles that would educate voters about where the candidates stand on different issues.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Invasive

I sailed through the first three plus decades of my life without accumulating a single cavity, a record that fueled delusions of dental grandeur. When my dentist told me a few years ago that the surface of one of my teeth was sticky - a nice way to say decaying - and required a filling, the news crushed my sense of toothy superiority. Part of me had really believed that I'd live cavity-free until 120, despite my propensity for eating sweets.

A few weeks ago this same dentist discovered another sticky spot on a rear, upper left molar. Today I went to get it filled. The room was cold and I was told to keep my coat on. Lying back in the chair, swaddled in my green down jacket, I stared at the dentist and his technician, who looked like a pair of nerdy riot police behind their blue plastic face shields. I tried not to gag as they inserted multiple objects into my mouth. First came a numbing swab of novocaine, followed by three injections of the stuff, not to mention their latex covered fingers. The technician sprayed the inside of my mouth to rinse out the excess from the swabbing.

I was handed a New Yorker magazine to entertain me while the drugs took effect. It was a brief respite before the next oral invasion, during which the dentist inserted the filling and the technician placed a suction tube in my mouth. I must have look stricken or distressed because they kept asking me, "Are you OK?"

"Un huh," I grunted affirmatively, trying to suppress my gag reflex. I wasn't really OK, but I wanted to get the procedure over with as soon as possible, rather than interrupting and prolonging it. Putting my yoga practice to work, I focused my attention on my breath, feeling it rise and fall in my belly. This exercise took my mind off the buzz of activity in my mouth, which normally prefers its privacy and to remain mostly closed.

After what felt like an eternity, but was probably just five minutes, the dentist asked me to bite down and see if it felt right. It didn't - there was too much filling. I braced myself for the next invasion, a whirring tool to remove the excess material.

"Could you lick the tooth and make sure it's not rough?" the dentist asked, wanting me to test his handiwork.

I licked. It was smooth.

"You're all set. We'll see you in six months for your cleaning," he said, leaving the room and leaving me with my second filling and an uncomfortably numb mouth.

"How long will it take for the novocaine to wear off?" I asked the technician. My left cheek and lips felt enormous, as if someone had injected too much collagen.

"Um, just a few hours," she said, with just the slightest hesitation.

"Is that two hours?" I tried to clarify.

"Well, it's a few hours ... but once it starts to wear off it will go quickly," she replied.

It took nearly five hours for the novocaine to dissipate enough that I could eat something. Twelve 12 hours later there is still a slight ache in my gum, a reminder of my dental discombobulation.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Indulgences, Intimacy, Impediments

The other night I got a phone call from a person who was in the middle of taking a bubble bath. Not just any bubble bath, but a green apple scented bubble bath. That is probably not the aroma I'd choose if I were to take a bubble bath, which I haven't done in years. This person - a man, actually - told me that he's in touch with his feminine side and regularly indulges himself in a hot bath. I think hot baths are a fabulous idea, and I even have a medicine cabinet with bath products from overseas, including bath tablets (Sprudelbad) from Germany in two scents: grapefruit-lime (for vitality) and vanilla-bergamot (antistress). These tablets have not only traveled across the Atlantic but have also been stored in two bathrooms and one attic over the years. I wonder if they are still good.

As I was saying, I think hot baths are a fabulous idea, and I often think this thought while traveling, figuring that, when I return home, I'll take a bath. But often, when I could really use a bath, it is simply too cold to get undressed to get into the tub. I'd rather stay fully clothed, rather than risk a wee chill en route to relaxation. But last night, one of the coldest we've had this year, as I warmed myself by a radiator and spoke to this person, I began to think about why I don't take baths.

"My bathtub is somewhat small," I explained, while trying not to imagine him in his green apple scented tub. I had had two dates with this person a week before; there had been a mildly flirtatious vibe going on between us but nothing much beyond that. He doesn't live around here and it seemed prudent to take things slowly. His decision to phone me while bathing came across as a unilateral acceleration of intimacy to which I wasn't completely receptive.

"If you don't take baths, what do you do to relax?" he asked. A fair question, I thought, but then I realized that I'm not particularly good at relaxing. Intense yoga helps, as does attending synagogue on Friday nights and meditation. But none of these activities feel like indulgences -
I see them as necessities, without which my stress level would escalate and become an enormous impediment to functioning.

Meanwhile, my foam covered friend pointed out that I was creating impediments to conversation by not being open enough to some of his questions. I don't disagree with his assessment. It's hard to pinpoint precisely when my defenses went up and why - perhaps a combination of his intensity, the geographic distance and the not insignificant difference in our ages - but towards the end of the long call, during which he had transitioned out of the tub, the good vibes had stopped flowing. There was no acrimony or anger, but the lightness had disappeared, much like the bubbles down his drain.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Immortality, Individuation

Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death overflows with "I" words. This book has been around a long time but I only learned of it this past autumn, when two different people (a rabbi, a friend) recommended it for slightly different reasons. Becker is brilliant at synthesizing the work of Freud and other psychoanalysts, psychologists and thinkers on the difficult subjects of human character, neurosis and how we create meaning. I liberally used a highlighter while reading it and I will probably reread many passages again and again. I was particularly interested in what he had to say about creative types and artists. First:

"Most people play it safe: they choose the beyond of standard transference objects like parents, the boss or the leader; they accept the cultural definition of heroism and try to be a 'good provider' or a 'solid' citizen. In this way they earn their species immortality as part of a social group of some kind."

And then...

"...personal heroism through individuation is a very daring venture precisely because it separates the person out of comfortable 'beyonds'....The most terrifying burden of the creature is to be isolated, which is what happens in individuation: one separates himself out of the herd. This move exposes the person to the sense of being completely crushed and annihilated because he sticks out so much, has to carry so much in himself. These are the risks when the person begins to fashion consciously and critically his own framework of heroic self-reference.
"Here is precisely the definition of the artist type, or the creative type generally.....the key to the creative type is that is separated out of the common pool of shared meanings. There is something in his life experience that makes him take in the world as a problem; as a result, he has to make personal sense out of it. This holds true for all creative people to a greater or lesser extent, but it is especially obvious with the artist. Existence becomes a problem that needs an ideal answer; but when you no longer accept the collective solution to the problem of existence, then you must fashion your own. The work of art is, then, the ideal answer of the creative type to the problem of existence as he takes it in - not only the existence of the external world, but especially his own: who he is as a painfully separate person with nothing shared to lean on....he wants to know how to earn immortality as a result of his own unique gifts. His creative work is at the same time the expression of his heroism and the justification of it. It is his 'private religion' - as Rank put it......No sooner have we said this than we can see the immense problem that it poses. How can one justify his own heroism?"

Aha! I thought as I read this passage, which both relieved and terrified me. The relief came from recognizing parts of myself in these words, the sense I've had for a long time that I don't necessarily share in our society's idea of what is heroic and that I want to experience everything on my own terms. And the terror came from the sense of Oh shit, I'm too far down the path of being different to retrace my steps and try to find meaning where others do, but I'm not sure I have the nerve - or the talent - to keep bushwhacking forward.

More to follow.