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Semi-Happy Camper: A Travel Story and A Jew Story

The Story:
I have not written for more than a month because a few days after my last post I told my school I was taking a sabbatical for the next year.  Since that time I have moved out of my apartment, put all my belongings into storage, and taken a job for eight weeks at a Jewish summer camp in Yosemite.  After that I will live at Alef and Dr. Animal's house for a little while until I leave to spend the next ten months in Jerusalem, Kenya, India, and maybe even Australia.

The Lesson:
I was busy for awhile trying to orchestrate all this but things are calming down a bit, at least for now, so I should be able to write more soon.  This weekend I'm going to Berkeley for one of Alef's many pre-wedding celebrations ('bridal showers'=too stam) and while she and Dr. Animal are at Chez Panisse I think they might let me use their Internet.  I will share with you stories of this transformation I have taken on, including but not limited to what it was like to finally move out of my adorable but sorrowful apartment and the ways in which I am currently trying to embrace how filthy and underpants-free I am out here in the middle of nowhere.

The Jews And The Pagans: A Jew Story And A School Story

The Story:
This past week at school we celebrated Shavuot, the Hebrew word for "weeks."  This holiday both marks the end of the seven post-Passover weeks during which one observes the counting of the Omer (long period of spiritual reflection based on now-defunct agricultural practice) and also commemorates G-d giving the Torah to the Israelites at Mount Sinai.  Shavuot being one of the harvest-related holidays, we all brought in fruits and vegetables to school for donation to an organization that focuses on equitable food distribution and for some random Jew reason that no one seemed quite sure of, we all dressed in white as is Shavuot tradition.

Just as all the students in the Lower School were making their way up the hill to the synagogue, swathed in white and carrying all forms of bags and baskets overflowing with produce, the Middle School was getting on a small fleet of schoolbuses to go to the park for Mini-Course Day (randomly scheduled and completely unrelated to Shavuot).  The younger kids, heads wreathed in crowns of harvesty branches and the older kids, clothed in the unofficial outdoor learning day uniform of sweatshirts and swishy pants, regarded one another with complete confusion as their paths crossed in the parking lot.

The Lesson:
The next day Ani called me for the first time in forever to see if I wanted to go to Arizmendi with her.  I was on my way to meet Alef and also wasn't quite sure what we'd say to one another so I politely declined but we chatted for a moment or two and she made a sage observation about the festivities from the day before.  "I saw all your kids going up to the temple and did a total double-take," she said.  "They all looked so pagan in their white shirts and dresses, everyone with head wreaths and armsfull of bananas and broccoli.  It was like that Dar Williams song The Christians and The Pagans, except with Jews.  I thought it was Beltane (pagan holiday they used to celebrate in the co-op where she lived at Stanford) all over again for a second."

My reply: "We are nothing if not a liberal pluralistic community day school I suppose..."

Palm Sunday: A Family Story And A Jew Story

The Story:
While I am Jewish, preparing to observe in the coming days the Passover seder and celebrate the victorious freedom that was ours after years spent as slaves in Egypt, the rest of my family is not.  For them it is a different holiday today.  It is Palm Sunday, one week before Easter, the day on which Christians commemorate Jesus' triumphant return from humble self-imposed exile to the glory, yet certain death, of the ancient walled city of Jerusalem.

Ira and Peanut called yesterday, Erev Palm Sunday, from the large park and playground on the property of their church in Iowa.  They were taking abreak from Ira running the sound board of contemporary Christian music and Peanut rolling around on the ground in the area of grass that had been roped off for use by the zero to three year olds in the Easter egg hunt, a patch of grass where--unlike the other areas in which older children peeked under and behind things to find plastic bubbles of sugary treasure--a huge pile of eggs had just been laid on the grass and the challenge was not to find them but rather to roll crawl scoot stumble stagger across the lawn over to the prize, then use whatever small motor skills exist if you are less than 36 months old to actually pick the eggs up and put them in your basket.

Ira laughingly described the ways in which Peanut, upon being laid down on the grass next to an egg and shown how to pick it up, first tried to put the entire shell in his mouth and then promptly fell asleep on the ground.

The Lesson:
Eighteen hundred miles away my nephew is celebrating, in his own drowsy way, his first Easter.  He is with his family and his friends, he knows who he is as well as one can when seven months old, he knows he belongs and that he is loved.  Does he understand the difference between peeps and jelly beans at yesterday's easter egg hunt, can he comprehend the waving of palm branches and the wafting of incense that mark the return of Christ to Jerusalem this morning?  Not this year and not for a long time.  What he does understand is that there is consistency, a pattern to his new life--when his father puts him down on the grass and all he can do, weary from the work of learning all he can about the world around him every moment of every day, is fall sound asleep he knows in his own baby way that Ira will be there when he wakes up.  Whether someone is Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, pagan, somewhere in between on the spectrum of faith or really on the continuum nowhere at all, everyone deserves to know who is in their family and who will be there to welcome them in the morning, whatever time of day it comes.  Welcome, Peanut, Shehechiyanu--Happy First Easter to you, little man.

What's A Girl To Wear?: A School Story And A Jew Story

The Story:
This Friday at school we will celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim, which as opposed to me describing I would prefer you Google if you are interested in any sort of explanation.  The PG-rated version basically involves getting dressed up and playing all day, while the R-rated version includes getting wasted off your ass until you cannot tell two people apart from one another--a mitzvah I accomplished last year the night before Purim while attending the Matisyahu show at Ruby Skye, damn that made it very difficult to go to school the next morning while still drunk but I sure had a hot costume--and cross-dressing.

A chronology of my recent Purim costumes:
2002: can't remember, possibly also a doctor but that would make 2003 really lame
2003: doctor
2004: fairy princess with ballgown, wings, tiara and magic wand
2005: Old McDonald, yes the farmer--not hot but comfortable in overalls
2006: Austin Powers go-go dancer complete with short-ass skirt, blacklight-friendly fishnets, and neon chartreuse wig

Of course as the teacher it is overwhelmingly important to have the best costume in the class, but this year I am a little stumped.  I have a few outfits from previous non-school Purim celebrations that I could recycle, most notably Miss America from the Purim shpiel (musical story) at temple two years ago--black evening gown, sash with glitter letters, huge presentation bouquet of red carnations, elbow-length gloves and again with the tiara--but I think I might take Ms. Bat up on her offer to borrow her kimono-esque ensemble from the years she spent teaching in Japan, including sash and sandals.  Culturally inappropriate as it might be, I think I would look hot as a geisha.  I'd just have to look online for examples of hair and make-up and I'd be all set.

The Lesson:
What do you think I should be for Purim?  All suggestions welcome but I only have until Friday.

My G-d Is A Lesbian: A Jew Story And A Travel Story

The Story:
I got email from Gatsby yesterday with pictures from Friday's Gay Pride rally in East Jerusalem.  This morning I read the article on SFGate about the gay Palestinian man from Chicago who was there to rally with his friends and was attacked, stabbed, thrown down a flight of stairs, and beaten unconscious by Muslim religious men who threatened to cut off his head for being queer (after which he was taken to some random medically-backwards and ideologically-closeminded Palestinian hospital instead of the modern, interfaith, world-reknowned Hadassah Medical Center located on the campus of Hebrew University in the center of East Jerusalem--?!).

I was reminded of my own experiences being a different kind of gay in Israel:
•holding hands with Romeo at the Western Wall, all of the women around us assuming we were sisters or cousins sharing a profoundly moving emotional moment when really we were two grrls so deeply in love with one another and the place we had come to see and to share

•the Shabbat spent in bed in our hotel room, sleeping and dreaming and talking and planning and playing until the sun went down and it was finally Motzi Shabbos and everything was open and we could go out and get some real dinner and not just the fruits and pastries we had bought the morning before at the shuk and been eating all day

•driving in the rental car from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv on my way to become Jewish in the mikveh of the Mediterranean Sea, freaking out but both calmed and delighted by Alef as she sang me a verse from "Bab El Wad" reminding me that "everyone in this car's a different kind of gay!"

•making the decision to be open with my housemates and classmates this past summer about the fact that I have loved women and men and what it was like for me when the heart-wrenching truth about my ex-un-girlfriend and all her lies and all of my horrified reactions unfolded right in front of my former-yeshiva boy Gatsby's eyes

•playing rock-paper-scissors with a boy in my ulpan class as a joke to see which one of us would win the privilege of asking out our HOT Arab-Jewish vegetarian feminist teacher, the one with eyes dark as night and thick rich wavy inky hair spilling down her back

•the taxi driver who threw me out in the middle of Rehov Yaffo after midnight one time when after repeatedly asking me out and repeatedly getting no for an answer asked where my husband was (because clearly I must have one if I don't want to go out with him) and I replied by telling him I did not have a husband, I had a wife (total lie but I thought it would get my point across) and he started yelling, "At lesbit, at lesbit!  You're a lesbian!" and pulled the cab to the side of the road right before the big intersection where you turn left to get on the highway and he ran around to the back and yanked my door open and grabbed my arm and pulled me out and drove away and left me there in the dark

The Lesson:
queer+Israel=challenging.

However, there are people like this man, originally from Oakland but now living in the Negev, Israel's southern desert, who make it worthwhile to stick it out and fight.

His shirt says "Elohim sheli, he lesbit--My G-d is a lesbian."

I never thought about it before, but mine could be too maybe.  That would make more sense because as Alef taught me LONG ago, the lesbians give better presents than the boys and this world and my life is a pretty unbelievable gift sometimes.

Chetz V'Keshet: A True Story And A Jew Story And A Love Story

The Story:
Over the summer, in Ulpan at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, I had two teachers.  One was named Rachel and she was a grandma, born and raised on a classic Israeli kibbutz, salty and strict but loving on the inside, who taught us reading and grammar and would open every class with Ha Hadashot, the news of the day, since there was a war going on and she knew many of us didn't have access to the media and if we did that most information was in Hebrew.  The other was Adi, barely 30, an Israeli Arab feminist vegetarian woman with long curly coal black hair and fiery eyes, who in addition to being our conversation teacher and leading our weekly dance class was a PhD candidate in Modern Comparative Hebrew Literature.  I adored both my teachers, for different reasons, but mostly because as a teacher myself I know what it is like to be on the receiving end of such adoration and welcomed the chance for the tables to be turned and to feel such love and affection from those who were, instead of me for once, in front of the class. 

Rachel would greet us every morning and send us away every afternoon with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, never saying Shalom ("goodbye") or L'hitraot ("see you later") at the end of class but always Ad machar, until tomorrow, a promise both granted to and requested from us to, in the most basic and yet completely complicated of ways, live through yet another Israeli night to return again after the next sunrise. 

Adi was just plain hot and I was so proud of her for being so vocal and honest about her otherness in a place where the price she could at any time be asked to pay for such honesty, where such judgement was doubtlessly passed against her by everyone around her for appearing Arab in her face and body while at the same time dressing and decorating herself as a secular Israeli in style and accessories while really on the inside being a Nice Jewish Girl like so many of the rest of us.  I had an enormous crush on her and so did Jared, one of the two college-aged kids in my chevrutah (study group).  He and I would spend hours analyzing her bold yet tasteful make-up and hip Israeli fashions, much to our fellow study partner Sabrina's dismay.  I never found it difficult to pay attention and participate in conversation class, to say the least :)

So along with teaching us how to speak to another, Adi also taught us to express ourselves with our bodies.  Each week we'd have one or two sessions of dance class during which time we'd learn traditional Israeli folk dances like the hora or modern Jewish religious dance, which was way cooler and not nearly as nerdy as it sounds.  One dance she taught us in our last session was an interpretation of the song Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu, "May Peace Come To Us."  It involved lots of spinning and sliding and crashing into the walls of our narrow classroom, there was much laughter as she tried to teach a group of sixteen people with two left feet how to gracefully bring peace to ourselves and to everyone through dance.  My favorite move in Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu was a new one, something that had not been part of our previous lessons.  Adi called it Chetz V'Keshet, the Bow and Arrow.  Involving both arms and also the feet, it was tricky to master but fun once you got the hang of it and what can I say, she looked so hot doing it that I enjoyed watching her demonstrate it much more than I enjoyed practicing it myself.

I had almost forgotten Chetz V'Keshet until recently when, for the first time since Purim, I heard the Matisyahu track Time of Your Song.  My iTunes were set to shuffle and I was folding laundry when the chorus unpredictably poured forth from my iMac and mind snapped back without warning to that secretive and sexy night at Ruby Skye, dancing with a fabulous boy behind the mechitzah (divider that separates men from women).  I had heard the tune before, I remember dancing with him to it that rainy night, but for the first time I listened to the words:

Moonlight illuminate my night
and my days sunray
make the people say
And a vision something's missing
so they're screaming out loud
Keep my feet on ground
and my head in the clouds.
I'm the arrow, you're my bow,
shoot me forth and I will go
And I know and I go and I go
get up and go
Make me feel its for real
tell me what you know...

The Lesson:
A new year is beginning and as I look back I cannot count the times since last Rosh HaShanah, I do not know how often I have asked myself over the past three years:  what does this mean, why is this person in my life?  Now, as the month of Tishrei and the year 5767 begin, I have finally after months of struggle let her go and I know she has released me too.  Ulai, the Hebrew word for "maybe," the entire purpose for my former 1TL to have become such an integral and long-inextricable part of my heart and my soul was to prepare me for what is coming next?  Am I the arrow, was she my bow?   I wonder if soon it will be time to go...

I Do Not Fast On Yom Kippur: A Jew Story

The Story:
Today is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and most Jews choose to fast.  It is thought on this day one is as close to death as one might be during the course of the year, that one's repentance for sins and release from vows unfulfilled and reconciliation with those intentionally and unintentionally wronged allows one's name to be written in the Book of Life.

There are a lot of things I did this year in observance of the chagim, the High Holidays:  I had dinner with Ani and a large number of colleagues and friends at the home of a former student; I attended services on Erev Rosh HaShanah, the night before the new year began; I attended services once again on Rosh HaShanah morning, saying the Mourner's Kaddish, a prayer for the dead, in honor of a relationship once central to my existence and now absent completely from my life; I took the N-Judah to Ocean Beach and did tashlich, the practice in which one casts bread crumbs upon the ebbs and flows of a natural body of waters to symbolize the thoughts or behaviors one chooses to toss away and leave behind as the new year begins; I listened carefully to the haunting chant of Kol Nidre, the melody heard but once a year on the night before Yom Kippur during which the song leader on behalf of the congregation asks God to release us from all the vows we will make in the coming year which despite our best, most honest efforts we will not be able to keep; I saw the character formerly known as M1TL and also her current partner and if that was not enough the woman with whom she had a brief yet torrid relationship last summer after I told her I could not be her one true love anymore was there also; I got up today and put on my white clothes to represent the day of my own death and I went for the last time to the only temple where I have ever been a member, where I have decided I do not belong and will not return, to once again ask forgiveness and seek repentance and also hear the Torah and now I am at home. 

The Lesson:
I am at home, eating.  Most Jews fast, most Jews had a big meal last night and then woke up and went to temple with no breakfast, some not even bathing or brushing their teeth, most Jews will not eat until after Yiskor and Neilah and the sounding of the shofar tonight, but not me.  I had round raisin challah toast and yogurt with strawberries and orange juice and coffee before morning services and now I am drinking lemonade and eating the Trader Joe's version of Cheese-Its and my holidays have been trying and complicated enough without me fasting on top of it all.  If, after all the fucked-up choices I made this past year, HaShem wants to judge me for the decision to eat on Yom Kippur then so be it. 

Alef's First Dream: A True Story And A Jew Story

The Story:
Alef has been a very prolific dreamer lately...or, maybe she is always a very prolific dreamer but has just a) been dreaming about me a lot recently and as a result b) mentioning her dreams to me more often than she usually does.  The first dream about which she told me was this one, recounted via email:

i had a dream last night that you and i were somewhere at synagogue--
it didn't look like any synagogue i had been to, as happens in dreams.
but we were sitting on some bleachers or something, like at a stadium.
and it was rosh hashanah or yom kippur, and someone we know was
up in front leading the proceedings. it got to shofar blowing time, and
she started to try to blow but no sound came out. and she kept trying
but she couldn't get it to work (she had long hair in this dream too,
don't know what that part means). and we were sitting there and people
were getting distressed and worried and uppity, and finally you got fed
up and pulled out a flute from under you chair and took it out and blew it,
and the sound filled the room and everyone stopped and listened, and
you saved the day.

 

all sorts of symbolism, i think. her voice/sound being gone, and yours
being intact, and more pure and lovely than ever before. who knows.

 

anyhow. thinking of you and hoping you are well.

The Lesson:
One goal I have for the new year is to tell the truth more than I did in this year gone by.  It was Alef who first told me over the summer that a dream is 1/60th prophecy, so maybe in her mind my flute and I were subconsciously fortelling an honest future?  I hope so.

Waiting: A School Story And A Jew Story

The Story:
Another teacher wrote me this poem for the Yamim Noraim, what are referred to as the Days of Awe between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, and I enjoyed it very much so I am choosing to share it with you.

you're waiting,

aren't we all...

waiting for the new year to sweep us away

for the stars to shine even brighter

for last year's mistakes to translate into 
this year's growth

for a new student to make you laugh

for writing to explode onto pages below their names

for great food to steam from our cooking pots

for hot coffee to ease cold mornings

for more restful nights of sleep

for us to realize that someone who we didn't know 
a month ago is now a part of our lives forever

for women

for slow strolls on the sand and in the street

for god's little blessings everywhere

waiting.

for big smiles

and small children
that never grow up in each of us

for flowers that smell even better this year, even 
in their short moment of bloom

for loving them even when they're wilted and dying

for appreciating what we have and giving away as much
as we can to anyone who doesn't or even does but maybe
could use some of what we have to share

to finding a way to connect and be together in whatever
way, maybe not worrying so much about definitions but 
about getting to know each other

for me being inspired by you to give away little gifts 
to others the way i always used to

for better ears and better eyes

and better hearts

The Lesson:
G'mar chatimah tovah, may you be inscribed boldly and with certainty this year into the Book of Life.

Erev Rosh HaShanah, New Year's Eve: A Jew Story

The Story:
Friday night was Erev Rosh HaShanah, the night before the beginning of the Jewish new year.  It was also the autumnal equinox and the first night of Ramadan.  A lot going on up in the heavens all in one evening...

Celebrating the new year usually involves two parts: the temple part and the eating part.  There are services at night on Erev Rosh HaShanah (new year's eve since all Jew stuff starts the night before) and in the morning on Rosh HaShanah itself (new year's day).  I was not excited at all to go to temple, not for religious or spiritual reasons but because I was sure I would see the person whose blog name was for quite some time M1TL but who is no longer and (arguably?) never was My One True Love in the first place...so that person needs a new name and I will have to think of one...regardless I have not seen or spoken to her in a few months and was not looking forward to playing nice and polite with her at temple.  Also, for a variety of personal reasons, I recently discontinued my membership at this particular synagogue where I have been part of the community for four years and so I had an unsettled feeling about attending services for the High Holidays knowing that after this I will not be attending at all anymore.

On Thursday at school I made plans to sit with Ms. Myrtle and her husband Mr. Chevrolet for both the Friday evening and the Saturday morning services, so that took care of the temple part of the plans.  This did, however, cause a conflict with the eating part of the plans in that I was invited for dinner to my TA Ms. Sydney's house except that her meal was being served at 7:30 and the service we were attending at the temple was to begin at 8:30...so we would not really have had time to even eat-?! 

Fortunately this problem was solved on Friday morning when Ani, whom I had invited to join Ms. Myrtle and Mr. Chevrolet and I at temple, counter-invited me to dinner at a student's family's house at 5:30--plenty of time to eat and get to services at 8:30, yet nice to have an obligation to meet Ms. Myrtle and Mr. Chevrolet at 8:00 so as not to have to stay and shmooze with school families all night.  Dinner would be eaten, I would get to hang out with Ani for something like five hours straight, and we would not be blowing off my TA completely as Ms. Sydney's party could still be a drive-by after services or, if it was too late, perhaps not happen at all. 

At 5:30, half an hour late but in thoughtful response to my panicked text that I was totally running behind schedule, Ani showed up at my house with completely sandy feet from a new year's beach walk with her friend and a huge round challah as a new year's gift for me.  I was pretty freaked out about her being in my house and worried that I would get in trouble for making us late to dinner, so I was not the most gracious gift recipient ever which plagued me with guilt the rest of the night.  We got into my car (something else that almost was the end of me as I hate having other people in my car due to the completely irrational fear that it has a bad smell) and drove by Ms. Sydney's to drop of the challah I had bought so they could have it with dinner since we weren't coming until later, then drove across town to the family's house where we were having dinner. 

Dinner did not start until almost 6:30 so we spent time visiting with the only other faculty member who was there, playing with her kid, talking to parents, and getting the tour of the house from Ani's current student, a former student of mine, whose family had invited us in the first place.  I had a long and awkward conversation with a former parent who maybe is and maybe isn't getting divorced, but quickly forgot about it when Ani fed me apples with honey since my arms were full with a 3-year-old who was only being quiet during the blessing because I was letting him play with my pearl necklace.

We ate quickly, interrupted only by me slicing my finger open on the foil from the Martinelli's bottle and needing to excuse myself to get a band-aid, then left at 8 to go meet our friends.  The parking space we created for ourselves at the Presidio golf course was totally illegal but we decided we didn't care because we didn't want to be late so we just left the Saturn there and walked down the hill to the temple, not before Ani a) asked me to carry her wallet and phone in my bag and subsequently got made fun of by me for being so stereotypical and b) realized she had neither a sweater nor her dress coat and decided to put on her North Face fleece over her skirt and blouse and subsequently got my eyes rolled at her for being so in her 20's still.

At the temple we quickly found our friends, then went in and unsurprisingly found that the same general admission seats in which I've sat the past three years were still free, seats which have previously be reserved in advance for me by someone who works there and as a result gets to services before everyone else but which this year just happened to be the only four seats on an aisle left in the first twenty rows, coincidence?  I think not...sigh.  We put down our stuff and then went to the Secret Bathroom since the line for the ladies' room was about a dozen people long, quickly making our way back to our seats as the music was beginning but not fast enough to avoid being caught by some parents from school as we were walking into the sanctuary, an awkward situation which I have learned to manage effortlessly but which freaked Ani out since she's not used to it yet.  With my gracious yet firm lead we escaped quickly enough and were back in our seats just in time to find the evening's first blessing in the machzor, or prayerbook, and just in time for Ani to see the character formerly known as M1TL talking to a parent from her class which prompted a series of hastily whispered questions between she and Ms. Myrtle as I had begun vigorously blowing my nose as soon as I could tell what was happening, both to avoid Mformer1TL and to avoid answering Ani's questions about the situation.  Oh, sick and twisted small Jewish San Francisco world, I curse you, I thought to myself.

After the service was over we all walked together outside to the street, Ms. Myrtle and I chatting about the class she has this year as Mr. Chevrolet and Ani were comparing notes on the service.  Soon it became time to part ways as my car was up the hill and theirs was down the street.  I drove Ani home to the Marina where we sat in the car and talked for a little bit before she gave me a quick good-bye hug and kiss on the cheek, then got out of the car and went inside her house.

The Lesson:
L'Shanah Tovah, kulam--To A Good Year, everyone.  It's off to a smooth and pleasant start so far...and besides, anything at all would be better than last year.