Stop. Sleep. Drink.

I’ve been studying with a gifted herbalist over for the past 4 Thursday nights — A crash course in taking care of yourself and others during a pandemic.

I did this over zoom with a dozen beautiful strangers, people who typed the names of the herbal teas they were sipping in the chat bar.

While Dan was working on his sermons and the kids were watching Garfield cartoons, it wasn’t just turning to plants as medicine within a capitalist culture that felt radical, but actually carving out 8 hours for myself to pursue this.

For our final class, last night, we shared our flowchart plan of action if we - or those we’re caring for - experience symptoms of illness, and also how to manage our inevitable stress. (I might have even dressed my chart up in the plastic sleeve that held my son’s alphabet chart)

Share it with your kids and family members and friends, our teacher instructed us.

I went over it with the kids after dinner. The first step, more important than anything else, I told them, is that when you’re feeling any of these symptoms Do not continue on as normal. Stop. Sleep. Drink.

We all know this, and we especially know it now.

And what a consolation if our society shifts to honor this most basic truth, and we allow people to rest their bodies instead of being productive, without suffering the loss of their livelihoods.

Some of the plants we discussed I knew and some were new to me.

Last night we shared the plant we were most grateful for over these past four weeks.

I said Lavender.

A plant we learned was proven in studies to have similar effects as Benzodiazepines for stress and anxiety.

Let me pause here. I will be the first to admit that there are few things more annoying than someone telling you to sniff lavender when you actually need Klonopin. To everything there is a season.

I’ve entered the season of Lavender.

I’ve been steaming with it, and inhaling it before bed, and using droppers full of it in warm foot baths.

Sukkot begins this evening.

I’m wishing you all some respite in this wilderness, in your temporary dwellings, and a connection to our natural surroundings and the radical act of amazement.

Prayer + Action: A portion of our class gift economy payments went here: Black Healing October

All Apologies

I used to think an apology looked like a long letter. And I take pride in constructing a strong, well expressed letter.

Actually, an apology looks more like a sentence, a very short one: I messed up; I'm sorry.

I once thought I was too busy caregiving to commit transgressions. (Okay, I thought that just a few weeks ago, and I stated it aloud in a discussion group -- whoops!)

As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew they weren't true; in fact, I knew the exact opposite was true.

When I’m spread thin caring for people, I’m definitely letting down, disappointing and hurting other people.

And, right now, many of us find ourselves spread thin caregiving, or even just trying to keep ourselves above water.

So the transgression index is high. And this is hard.

When my daughter, now nine, was just a few weeks old, a friend responded to a panicked voicemail I’d left her during a stretch of insomnia and what Dan and I would later dub the poet’s postpartum experience.

She left me a message that I would play over and over:

"The only thing that you need to do right now is keep yourself and your baby alive, everyone else can buzz off” (Okay, she didn’t say buzz)

And that was good advice. That was lifesaving advice.

It’s advice that I’ve thought about a lot recently.

Because while I was keeping myself and my baby alive, I did not show up for very close friends for moments that were important in their lives.

These were friends who I had known for many years, who I loved, who loved me.

And for a couple of them, it ended our relationships.

I wonder, now, if I had just apologized and recognized that I’d hurt them, without trying to explain, in long letters, why I was justified — why my pain was bigger than theirs — if they’d still be in my life.

At the time it felt like suffering their disappointment was too much to bear on top of what I was already bearing --- like how could I have hurt you when I'm the one hurting!

But that's usually when we hurt people, right?

Seriously, I love getting older — and all of the consolations it brings.

Among other things, I recognize when I'm wrong faster. And I don't waste as much time on long letters for things that need to be expressed in short sentiments.

Like the poet Philip Levine, of blessed memory, wrote in The Simple Truth:

Some things
you know all your life. They are so simple and true
they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,
the glass of water, the absence of light gathering
in the shadows of picture frames, they must be
naked and alone, they must stand for themselves.

I messed up; I'm sorry.

I will try to do better.

This is what it is to be human and alive.

Shana Tova friends.

Prayer + Action: Global Citizen

Late Summer, Early Fall

I used to see an acupuncturist in Chinatown, off of bustling Canal street in lower Manhattan.

On my first visit, almost fifteen years ago, I filled out a health intake form, but instead of checking off the familiar medical history boxes, this one asked about my favorite color and seasons — it differentiated between the typical four: There was a category for Late Summer and one for Early Fall. I checked both of those.

This was around the time I began dating Dan, and it became an early joke of ours, if one of us mentioned Summer, Dan would be sure to note that he meant late Summer. But the distinction grew to make sense to me.

Years later, when we named our daughter Autumn, it wasn’t inspired by the days of post Thanksgiving chill, but by that distinct Early Fall — the moon a blood orange, leaves of every red and yellow, and the sense of possibility that came with this specific time of year — every year, over and over again.

The acupuncturist asked me questions about my life; he looked at my tongue and told me that my ailments were caused by holding in anger and sadness.

When he placed the delicate needles on the corresponding pressure points along my body, I felt a current — the energy moving through my limbs, my fingers and toes.

Late summer — the moment we’re currently inhabiting— marks my birthday and my son’s birthday (one day apart) the start of the school year and, of course, the Jewish High Holy Days — which, like some endless pool of mercy, every time they circle, fill me with an incredible sense of being able to start again, to try again — to do better.

Every year I feel that. I do.

Even now, when the school year begins in what used to be our dining room.

Anger and sadness. Collectively, we are grappling with these emotions, all of us.

And every year we transgress. (If we didn’t would the holiday be filled with any sense of awe?)

I take consolation that this time of year feels vitally relevant each time — every go round.

Because we’re alive, we transgress, and because we’re alive, we have the possibility to do better.

Wishing everyone a season filled with meaning and release.

Prayer + Action: San Francisco Interfaith Council