In the Weeds & Literal Roses

We’re in the weeds. All of us. Some of us much deeper in than others.

The trick about being in the weeds is that we often don’t know how far in we’ve gone until we’re completely entangled, stuck.

These weeds aren’t so bad, I think, They’re not weeds at all, I say: They’re dandelions, and violets and tiny clovers!

We can find beauty - even in these weeds - right?

Then one morning I wake up, and I’ve drifted into the bramble; and frankly, I’m a bit annoyed that no one warned me about this thicket!

(But maybe they did warn me and I wasn’t listening)

At the same time, there are actual roses.

There are eye-popping reds and yellows and every shade of pink roses, their sweet fragrance a gut-punch of awe.

And the roses are so close.

These literal roses. They are in full bloom.

There’s a whole garden of them, in fact, just a few blocks away.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m caught in the weeds it doesn’t matter how close the roses are — they feel out of reach.

Luckily, this is not my first brush in the bramble.

I mean that. Every day of this pandemic, I am thankful for my past experiences in the weeds.

I know when it’s time to dial a friend (or a therapist) — Or to open the physical door and walk a few miles to the ocean, or just a few blocks to the roses.

To breath in the outside air - salty and sweet - even through my gauzy-scarf-mask.

How motion brings me out of my head and into the world.

“I think I get it” I told Dan, before falling asleep last night:

“If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now, it’s just a a spring clean for the May Queen”

“It’s about movement, and not being scared — It’s about rebirth, revelation.”

I said it like I was picking up a thread of an interrupted conversation — though “What do you make of the Stairway to Heaven lyrics?” is not an actual conversation we’ve ever had.

But it’s an implied conversation, right?

When our partners and our relationships are being tested - in this pressure cooker of a pandemic - maybe one of them is simply tumbling over Led Zeppelin lyrics, trying their best to parse out some meaning, to find their way out of the tall hedgerow.

And the kindest thing to do isn’t to ask what or why, but to simply reply, as Dan did:

“There are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”

Yes, And it makes me wonder.

Wishing everyone consolation this week - even a whiff - of sweetness.

Repetition & Fog

I tell myself a story each day: it’s the story of being enough. And I need to hear it over and over. Especially now - during this time of overextension - when the shortfalls are so glaring.

Somewhere in this telling, though, I got a detail wrong. A detail about self-discipline.

I told myself that people practice their craft: their music; their sport; their chess game. The ones who match exceptional talent with exceptional discipline become Madonna; Michael Jordan; Bobby Fischer.

They pull from their inner-well, from this intrinsic characteristic: discipline.

And good for them. (The world doesn’t need or expect me to be Michael Jordan!)

The detail I got wrong was discipline, that they’re able to practice their craft because they have discipline.

They — anyone who becomes proficient (or excellent) at something— acquires discipline through practice.

I think I knew this, but buried it somewhere. And then, like all lessons that I need to re-learn, it came at me - with force - from several directions.

The Ain home is not one where we need to go on a hunt for meaning: metaphors come crashing at us: One of us wakes up in the night a few years ago saying the word “mishkan” (tabernacle) and the other has a vision of a flight to California.

A therapist once told me that I was searching too much for a narrative thread in my dreams. I have a new therapist now.

So last week when the convergence of the Torah portion about the Jewish calendar (structure!) collided with the daily counting of the Omer (discipline!) and a conversation with a musician about her daily practice (structure & discipline!) collided, I was not surprised.

I stepped outside to breathe in a truth.

It was almost Shabbat, just before nightfall. And the fog was dancing over the tall Cyprus trees, skimming through their dark branches.

The fog surprised me when I got here - not its presence (we were warned we’d be moving into the literal thick of it).

I was surprised by how much I loved it: its speed; its beauty. It was much quicker and more elegant than I had imagined.

The fog was not something that I felt stuck in, but rather moved by.

A consolation, for sure, to have its cool mist pass over me while I took in the pain but also solace that discipline is something I can still practice.

Something that I can practice while never being Michael Jordan, while accepting the gifts of narrative threads in my dreams and my surroundings, while showing up for daily repetitions — while being enough each day — over and over and over again.

Strength of the Matriarchs

We’ve been sheltering long enough to know that love, grief and longing are felt across the vastness of our physical separations.

I didn’t always know this.

I used to think there was a very specific physical space that I needed to inhabit for this type of connection.

And, to Dan’s resignation, I believed this space was Philadelphia.

Five years ago with our then toddler and newborn, we packed our car and headed across the wintry Verrazano Bridge from Brooklyn to Philadelphia for the final stage of a job interview which looked likely to come to fruition for Dan.

It was not a job that he necessarily wanted, nor one that I was fully convinced the right fit.

His willingness to pursue it was an act of love.

(And maybe also fear; I was in the throes of postpartum.)

It was essential, I believed, to return to my place of birth. To my strong line of matriarchs.

Whatever happens, whatever outcome with this job, I told Dan, was fine. I was just praying for the highest good, I told him.

This was true. Sort of.

I was praying for the highest good while taking long walks in Prospect Park listening to the Rocky soundtrack, pausing as the sun reflected blinding patches of light over snow and ice.

I was praying for the highest good while making a collage of our family superimposed on the steps of the Philadelphia art museum.

I was praying for the highest good while emailing links of Philadelphia real estate to my mom.

It almost happened.

And then, for reasons, wildly unforeseen, it did not happen.

It didn’t take long to recognize this outcome as a near miss.

And then, a few years later, to know immediately in my bones what felt like our destiny beckoning us out West.

By then, two of the matriarchs - Mommom Ethel (my grandmother) and my Aunt Sherrie - had already left this earthly realm.

It was Mommom’s birthday last week. She would have been 90 years old.

I watched a video of her reading a favorite Myra Kalman children’s book, What Pete Ate, to my daughter.

I cried.

And then I felt pure joy looking at a photograph: the matriarchs crouched down on the floor in a circle around my daughter, showering her with love and protection.

What a consolation to have had that — in this world.

And even when the distance - or absence - hurts, I feel it, still, wherever I am.

It hurts, but I’m grateful it does; it hurts because it’s real.