Rumi-nations

Momma said there would be days like these... Then she said to get over it! So I learned, not well, to operate on top of whatever I was feeling, or escape in a Dervish dance, spinning like a tornado, my vision blurred.

The sky is bright blue, the breeze chills me awake to all possibilities. The freesias shake their stalks and open a weepy eye towards the adamant sun. The robins and finches, do their do-see-do dance amongst the sulfur oxalic dotting my crab-grassed and dandelion-strewn lawn. The worms doing the Cha Cha underneath the trampoline upon which my kids are doing the Funky Chicken. Breakfast is wholesome, organic and ample. My girl pulls me to her and nuzzles in my ear. The weekend is almost upon us.

So what's the problem?

I live in the land of anxiety. Sometimes I lose my passport and have a hard time escaping. That land is my homeland, though I know, in my more lucid thoughts, that, being a practiced wandering Jew, I could relocate. I have moved so often in my dramatic life that maybe stability is uncomfortable in its unfamiliarity. Maybe neutrality is scary. Where's the juice? Most of my life I have lived amped up. I was described as "very passionate", "full of piss and vinegar", an Israeli with her cactus pricks extended, but her insides, if you could get in there, oh so sweet. Being neutral was in insult to my birthright.

But now, well, it's a bit different. Whatever caused the change: menopausal changes; not using my drugs of choice: the great uppers and downers - sugar and carbs; an intimate relationship based on mutual support for growth and closeness; or a new way of interacting and living with humans and a less elusive avenue to the Divine, is now in my face all the time. Making me deal, deal, deal with life, love, loss, Now. There is no more "get over it." If It isn't ready to be "gotten over with," I GET to stay with It. And sometimes I feel like there is no good reason to feel like this. It feels as if my reasons aren't enough to feel crappy. Being scared that all this goodness will collapse or being unsure if I am doing "enough" to create a better world, or a better me, well, sometimes it feels like a privilege to complain, or as Simon Cowell of American Idol would say,"It sounds indulgent." Another Middle Class angst-filled melody.

So I turn to Buddhism and grasp for compassion. And I turn to Eckart Tolle and try to embrace the NOW. And I try to connect to nature and see that the trees are almost blooming, and they stand there in their raw nakedness in the blustery wind, even when the sun is bright or it's hailing or when claws strike their bark. And I write. I write my heart out and my head out. I write so that I don't run to the fridge for answers. They aren't there. I write so I don't scream at my kids, doing the opposite of what I'd like to do, which is have more time playing with them. I write until the next chapter of life arrives - a walk in nature with my girl, or a cup of coffee with a friend or attending to my sick child.

And then I turn to you, my boat mate in this vast sea and ask for an oar, or some sunscreen, or a song. Got anything?

Musings on the Mount

On the balcony of our rented, Jerusalem apartment, the Israeli, November sun is playing peek-a-boo through the carob trees. It's a different sun than in the US. My eyes don't squint. Oh, no. Here, they are wide open - the better to see with.

The red roofs host a slew of water heaters, congregants forming their own Temple minyan, a tribute to the elusive Hot Water God, to whom, like all other deities, you've got to turn to or, in this case, to turn on, otherwise you will be praying mightily in the shower.

Of what shall I tell you of this journey? How can I bring you here with me so I really could feel less fractured? Maybe it’s just a human feeling, the pangs of separation we feel once our umbilical cord has been severed, though sometimes it feels more like an occurrence after a natural, albeit dramtic, event, more like being dislocated, like a bone sticking out at a skewed angle, or an uprooted tree after a hurricane, forever on its side or upside down, roots to the sky, face to the dirt? Either way, it could just be a ten-year-old’s perspective after leaving her country.

After snorkeling in the Sea or Reeds amidst a fantastic Aquarian kleideoscope, we venture North through the Negev, an arid plateau surrounded by the bullish Mastiffs, the Judean mountains. Standing on top of Masada, the formidable fortress that held over 900 Jewish men, women and children who collectively decided that committing suicide was preferable to living under Roman slavery, I watched the Dead Sea meander soundlessly, leaving rich salt deposits, receding rapidly, as if taking a bow after a great show. It is. Masada is the Modus operandi for the Jews, "They will not take us alive"- our motto. There has got to be a more hopeful or relaxed way to live.

There are bastions of notices. I've noticed that Israelis aren't so quick to smile or say hello. One could assume that they are a closed, distrusting, unfriendly tribe, but that would be quite a mistake, because as soon as I offer a relational exchange, they stop, a bit taken back, and open so widely, like the Sea of Reeds. The generosity and profound giving that ensue continually astonish me. For instance, I walked into a small falafel/hummus restaurant and handing my enormous salad bowl, I asked the young Arab-Israeli worker if I could have some fried eggplant. Usually, this eggplant is only served as a side to a main dish. He said that he really couldn’t give me very much. I asked him to give me as much as he could and charge me whatever he liked. I then asked for his name and told him how much I appreciated his willingness to help me. I also invited him to visit the US. He kept filling my vat and then, when I inquired about the price, he smiled and answered “Achla”, enjoy, to your health, on the house. I was stunned. How did this falafel vendor mirror my all-or-nothing attitude so pointedly? I have tried to adopt a “Just Enough” stance in my quest for a more balanced life, but this interaction really shed a whole new light on how I was raised, and gave a poignant perspective on the all-or-nothing occupied territories conflict.

Another thing I noticed is that cultural diversity does not feel the pressure to assimilate into a melting pot and often co-habitates peacefully. There seems to be enough room for Borscht, Malabi and Schnitzel. At the Dead Sea, a bare-chested Nigerian woman was laughing as she smeared black, therapeutic mud on herself. Next to her stood a fully dressed, religious woman donning a wig, as per Orthodox custom, chatting in Yiddish, while young, red-lipsticked Russian women floated nearby on the salty water, their thongs covering absolutely nothing. Old Mother Russia would have crimsoned - as varied as the fish of the Red sea.

There is little personal space here and this lack is even more apparent in the shuk. Pyramids of cascading, purple eggplant, blushing tomatoes, and slender cucumbers nestle against massive barrels of shiny, black, brown and green olives. If you’ve ever experienced some children, or adults, scream for attention, you should hear the produce! Even the air gets conquered by the vying aromas of deep-fried Sufganiot (Hanukkah donuts), freshly baked pitot and honey-drenched kanafe, a middle Eastern pastry. There is such an incredible cornucopia of foods that I am baffled as to why most of my people are not profoundly rotund?

And as I stroll taking all this in, my beloved turns to me and says that she really could see herself living here. What is it about these ancestral Germans and the Holy Land? It seems there is a magnetic pull that tugs at the hearts of these unsuspecting visitors. Karmic healing? I don’t know, but if you might want to experience this for yourself, remember I’ll be right there with you, in the air, in the small spaces, willing to give more than you expect, especially if you don’t give up and insist on reaching a connection.

Be-Longing

On the way to the Dead Sea and Masada, we stopped for the night at a place, a cross between a Bedouin tent and Burningman. This morning, beautiful classical guitar is playing in the background, though last night it was techno-Arab-rave. The acacia trees host a myriad of birds, feral cats march into the kitchen and communicate their desires adamantly, the flies cover the dogs who lie snoring on mattresses in the communal tent. Last night, rain pitter-pattered on the roof, as the boys played 500 Rumi, I looked at a Nargila, the infamous Middle-Eastern water pipe, listening to any whisper of wild stories it might hold. Soft, amber light wrapped the divans, the rugs, the easy chairs, the fire pit, in a lazy, rich, calming hue. I sipped my Turkish coffee nursing my injury. Earlier in the day, my son had climbed an inviting hill so he could view the Judean mountains in Jordan. I was scurrying below him when rocks dislodged and came tumbling down, hitting me in the thigh and welting my finger blue-purple. Rachel made me go to the car and cry. I remembered that I had hardly ever cried in Israel over any hurts - apparently the training for a good soldier-so I indulged her and let out tears from an old well swell. I thought it had dried, like the arid terrain surrounding me. Any rain is welcomed here. But crying connected me to my grief, to the place of belonging and not belonging; to two Universes, two planets, opposing countries, fraternal cultures. There was a loneliness, a sense of disconnectedness, of being lost, like my people had been once, in the desert. How apt. So today, I sit amongst the cornucopia of longings, of not-knowings, of wanderings in the land of what-ifs what-nows and try to breathe in the Negev we so desperately cling to, no matter how desolate.

Are we here yet?

Although we’ve landed here five days ago, it seems that I have yet to arrive. It’s curious. I’ve reconnected to my Hebrew, my family says I use my body to expressively communicate in ways that I don’t do in English. I’ve visited my beloved, complicated, decrepit, old, crumbly house and bomb shelter and my now-fenced-in elementary school. I’ve lived vicariously through my kids as they’ve had Shoko, the cold milk chocolate I had drunk as a kid from a plastic bag, and have devoured the mounds of the candy of my youth. I’ve seen and engaged with old friends and neighbors, whom I have not seen in 17 years, but I feel, well, not so much. I just thought that it would be more intense, that I would feel a plethora, a swelling, of emotions. After all, this is Israel, right? The land of intense and tense people, where food, words, politics, religion and driving are over the top, isn’t it?

Contrary to my popular belief, people are actually pretty mellow. Not many people are leaning on their car’s horn as if they’ve just had a heart attack. It’s pretty quiet everywhere, even in the middle of Tel Aviv. Really. People have been friendly, helpful and, dare I say, relaxed. Is it I who has changed? Have I been trying to uphold the illusion that Northern California is relaxed? I know, I’m on vacation, but still, to see that one of the most garrulous places on Planet Earth is chillaxed, as my kids would say, gives one pause, no?

One of my kids, who is decidedly un-relaxed at home, the one who didn’t even want to come here, and who anticipated the beginning of WWIII being in a car with his parents for two weeks, has been gobbling mounds of hummus with zaatar, pinenuts and tahini with fluffy, hot pita and has informed me that he is not going back. He loves it here. He wants to stay amongst the Bedouin of a tiny village called Lakiya in the Negev and hang. He is cognizant that it would be challenging to live there without basic services, living in an unrecognized, i.e. unsupported, part of Israel, but something has shifted in him. He wants to do a Gap year there! He says that it would give quite the perspective of living without the services we take for granted in the US. This is from the guy who consistently makes fun of me for my gratitude practice. He misses his friends, but now is wondering how to gather all of them and go on an extended trip together. That’s my boy, gathering communities to experience the world relationally. Whoa! It’s so funny. People here who know that he is not biologically my son, are dumbfounded at how alike we are in looks, temperament, expressions. The Universe sure does work in mysterious ways and I am rather mystified today.

Is this my country?

After the bumpiest flight to the other side of the world, where I rapidly became an ultra-orthodox Jew praying mightily to just get to the Holy Land in one piece, we arrived to a beautifully warm, lazy Saturday morning in Tel Aviv. I didn't get teary-eyed. I didn't burst into the national anthem. I didn't kiss the ground. I felt a little foreign. A stranger in a strange land. Where was the excitement, the nerves, the heart palpitations for a country I had left with so many unresolved memories? Not quite yet present, apparently. Where were the bronze, rugged soldiers with their dangling Uzis? Where were the long lines of weary travelers being questioned by stern-faced security interceptors? Apparently, those weren't here either. The Israel I knew must have dissolved into the sands or receded along with the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, the enormous date palms batted their heavy-lidded branches coyly. The signature 90-degree cranes stood, towering over half built, erections, at attention.

We dropped our luggage at the hotel and headed to the beach in an attempt to keep our teens awake and battle the time change. I saw Plumbago, the same flower that had gazed upon me with azure eyes when I was a third-grader and getting paid with fudgesicles for favors I did for sixteen year old Arab boys. We saw feral cats, who didn't look so scrawny now, begging for some love.

As we reached the beach, a familiar, visceral, awaking occurred in my nostrils, the indelible scent of fried sea - salty air mixed with falafel and chips (a.k.a french fries). I was mesmerized and seduced as other delicacies joined in a rambunctious, cacophonous tugging that had coupled with my early longings, reminding me how I had those, temporarily requited by an insatiable wolfing. My brain went into what it thought was a rational monologue about how there are many ways to sustain weight loss and surely some people could have just a plate of hummus, and garbanzo beans sure are healthy, and if I measured the portion, couldn't I just have some? As if this was about weight loss...As if hummus was a contender as my favorite food...As if the possibility of losing my community, my sponsor, my life was just a tiny, inconsequential decision.

Yikes!

I picked up the phone and dialed a fellow, Israeli woman who does what I was doing with my food. Good to know this mantra was drilled into me, even menopause couldn't obfuscate it - Going it alone is never an option. She assured me that this wasn't the first time I had felt this way. It had probably happened in places like New York, the other Jewish city. It had. I had survived that. She reminded me that it will take a few days, but that I will get through it and it will dissipate. It was good to know that I had a lifeline, a preserver to hang onto anywhere in the world. OK, I could now move towards the Shuk, with my family, my innards intact.

There, amidst barrels of shiny olives, freshly-baked oval, sesame breads, pomegranates the size of inflated softballs spilling rubies, I moved into my role as a food-pusher, wanting to stuff my family with all my once-favorite things. I noticed how insistent I had become at having them savor what I could not.

I ingested the vibrant palette of bashful, engine-red tomatoes, the heady fragrance of variegated melon and soft-yellow guavas, the piles of fat, pink radishes, the snowiness of lamb-y goat-y cheeses, the erotic, spread-eagle, purple figs by clicking my shutter, gulp after gulp.

Thank goodness there are many ways to experience abundance.

My son, who never wants to leave home and who had complained about being in a foreign country where no one speaks English (wtf?) told me he was in love with this city and can he please move here? He loved the incessant movement, the crumbling, ancient-ruins-meets-Bauhaus architecture, the people out in cafes at night. I was truly shocked and pleased. This is my country. My son loves my country. There was something that resonated for him. Something that has pulled me back. Something that still, on day two, seems surreal and untethered is touching, reeling us both in ways I have yet to comprehend. I can't wait to see what happens when we actually get to my birth city, Haifa.

HOME

Following my aptly named ancestors, a wandering Jew I’ve been. My family left Israel in 1976. I was ten, full of trepidation, excitement and a belief that God was on our side. I’m 45, and the rest is pretty much, still the same, except that I now believe God is on everyone’s side and the trip is in reverse. I am returning to the sands of the Mediterranean, which still try to encroach the entrance to the hospital where I had my first peek.

It has been 17 years since I set foot on that arid, irrigated, sacred, bloodied terrain. I have been very busy crisscrossing the US, creating a tapestry of homes, seeking community, a place for my heart to belong. And it did, at times. But there was always a place, unfettered, untouched, inaccessible to assimilation, to America, to this early, foreign invasion. That spot is where I have gone at times of terror, of deep yearning, for familiarity, for belonging.

In two weeks, I am returning to my home, my people, my place of complicated relations, the one that shaped me, the one that has held me no matter how far I distanced my self from it.

I imagine that everything is different, for the both of us. I cannot fathom how Israel has grown, spread without apology, invented and rose and civilized and uncivilized. I know the roads on which I had travelled and I know them not at all in the more recent landscape. I know there are new roads splitting Arab communities like red, raw, weeping watermelons spitting families, like seeds, aside, without care. We will drive on those roads so that we all can witness how cruelty festers in mistrust, and how it is our responsibility to find a solution. Now.

And I know the tremendous changes that have occurred in me since my last trip. This time my family constellation consists of my female partner and our two man-cub thirteen year olds. They actually expect me to know how to navigate in a land where I never drove, where I now stammer in the language, rusty from a profound lack of use for nearly 35 years. Although I am no longer accustomed to guns and shoving and yelling and smoking, I know that those are integral to Israeli culture and will greet me, assaulting. I know my family has no idea what they will encounter. I dare to consider that my fears will be met with joy, beauty and unexpected connections. People, who look like me, will mirror al our beauty, harshness, kindness, passion, racism. I know that I may taste grief and heartache and that I will no longer avoid my guts by burying them in cold bags of chocolate milk, in pyramid-high falafel, in iced coffee brimming with ice cream, in succulent corn from the large steaming kettle on street corners. I don’t use food like that anymore, but that is how I survived all that I had to in Israel. And I wonder what it will be like to be surrounded with comforting delicacies and uncomfortable memories and over-stimulation of everything life in my primary core has to offer, but have it served up exponentially.

Shall I take them to my old apartment complex, the slums of my township, to watch the big, frightening and frightened cockroaches scatter like the a Passover plague, when one lifts the communal trash bin lids? What will they say when they see the scrawny, scraggly, feral felines copulating everywhere, nary a neutered one in sight? Will they cherish a fudgesicle like I did, in exchanging for sexual favors at the age of 8? It’s hard even to write that sentence in relation to my children who are five years older than I was when that happened.

But it is a vacation, after all. And I really do want all of us to be able to relax, and soak up some sun on the Tel Aviv beach and snorkel in Eilat, and touch our lips to the Wailing Wall and know that we are very much alive, very much here, together, right now and thank for another day of feeling full and pray for another day of being present.

The Hormone Mayhem

The Universe has a twisted sense of humor, although I can't say I haven't been warned. Physically, I know I should have had kids at the bodily ripe age of sixteen. My energy was robust, my nocturnal habits meshed congruently with a newborn - sleep all day, stay awake all night! We all had an attachment to a bottle of sorts. We created some scatty messes that we needed help cleaning up. If I had children then, I would have been in my late 20's, when they began their pubescent journey. Like them, I would have slid onto snowboards stealthily, traversed with my own ripstick and text with tenacity. However, I believed that I needed years of therapy and to be more grounded within life's whims before I could navigate parenthood. An honorable, steadfast notion, if it weren't for the small print in the Parenting manual that ostensibly never made it into my hands. No one happened to mention Menopause might be a bit of a mired muck when it met with adolescent angst.

This is what it looks like these days:

My boys, both eleven, hastily speeding into teenage-hood, scrutinize the mirror for any budding follicles on their face. So do I. Our aims, opposing. They love to sleep in. I'd just like to sleep. Even once in a while would be nice. They devour pizza, double bacon cheeseburgers, vats of ice-cream, Andre-the-Giant size Foot-long subs, a calf's ration of milk per day. I watch my waist un-waste. I devour flaxseed oil for hot flashes, black cohosh for my darkened days, and Ginko for my geriatric memory. I am about to embark on slathering progesterone cream, so I don't lose my mind any further and pull a postal trip.

While my kids verge on having nocturnal emissions, I already nocturnally emit puddles of sweat onto my exhausted sheets. I'm experiencing a sort of teenage mid-life cycle, in reverse. While they amass Testosterone, my progesterone and estrogen, bid farewell. I am fully ready to pursue my writing career, but alas, my memory bank has decided to play Bernie Madoff and abscond with any semblance of language acquisition and recall.

We share mood swings, like a seesaw, I , on the irritated side, they, on the belligerent one. They begin to notice girls, work on their abs and pecs, wake up with a protruding body part pointing North; I notice that I'd rather lie on the couch, than jump in the sack, my body parts definitely point south. It seems we are gale forces blowing in opposite directions, except when we turn around and collide in midair.

But there are some exquisite everyday respites. We do love to watch the screen together. I, personally, love anything that has to do with being prone and watching other people sing, dance and experience the agony of the feet, like in the Olympics, or in "So You think You Can Dance." They just love TV. We load our dinner plates with protein and sprawl on the family room's sectional. Later, we get close vying for the fuzziest blanket, as we discuss what Simon says on American Idol. We dissect anything on the show that brings up sexism, racism, and homophobia, and all this is done before the 10:00 o'clock news. Not bad for an attempt at repairing the world.

Because beauty and order are more important when one is 40 plus than at 16, I've taught my boys about shared communal responsibility, and they get up and clear the dishes and food. They load the dishwasher, and not just their own dish. These days they actually ask, "Do you need help with anything else?".

And they offer comic relief to this peri-menopausal woman, who needs it like a daily dose of bioidentical hormones. Although, they think of me as a hippy, process-loving, and a bit out-of-it parent, they know they have license to be goofy around me. They don my bras and dresses and take up the challenge of getting me out of Grumpyland. All I can say is: "Thank you Universe for making laughter available at any age."

What have we done?

It’s not that I haven’t needed to write. I just found myself focusing on all else. My partner laid down the law today. She saw how miserable I have been. I’ve been ignoring my need to write, as well as my need to exercise, well, because it’s easier to go crazy inside my mind with errands, than to go crazy because of what has happened.

A little over a week ago, a 15 year old Richmond High School girl was raped and beaten by 7 guys, as over 20 others stood and watched. Let me try this again. I am feeling nothing.

In my community last week, for two and a half solid hours, seven boy-men took all their hostility, apathy, rage and filthy, desperate venom and inserted these, brutally, inhumanely, savagely into and onto a girl child/young woman desecrating her body, mind, heart and spirit until she lay unconscious, while a group of twenty onlookers stood by. Nobody called for help.
Nobody called the police. Nobody. No Body. Every body checked out.

Ok, I am beginning to feel something.

When my partner came home, I was cooking dinner in our homey, cozy, safe kitchen. She told me that she needed to tell me something. I had no idea the imminent bomb that was about to burst in my ears, face, uterus. I told her to hang on, since I was in the middle of cooking, but she went ahead and told me what had happened. I extinguished all the flames on the stove. An old one burst, rekindled. Inside an old flame caught fire and gathered momentum as my partner sat and wailed on the couch. My anger and desperation linked with hers.

At first I wanted to go to the old warrior ways of the scythe. A swift, fierce justice executed without mercy. I knew the pain of one attacker. I knew the pain of a series of abusers over years. I did not know how one survives a continuum of torture by more than two dozen males. I held my breath. I did not move, except for an escapee tear or two fighting me to be let out.

After my partner stopped crying it was my turn. I felt like I was going to implode. How can we let this happen? What in the world were we doing or not doing in order for that savagery to occur? How were we supposed to survive this? I knew in that instant that the young women in that school were more afraid than before. The young men knew they had just cast, willingly or not, a net of terror, lest some girl get out of line. Lest some girl do absolutely nothing. Regardless, she could be fucked at any moment. I am not just talking physically. The power dynamic just reared its ugly, hooded head lest we get too comfortable, less vigilante. I knew mothers were more keenly praying for their daughters safety and tried desperately to reign them indoors , trying to shelter them from life outside. I knew that often inside was not very different because fathers and brothers could and would do the same.
I knew that what the girls and their mothers felt was contagious. Many mother from other schools dug their nails into their daughters. Many daughters tried to integrate this tragedy into their young lives.

At first I vehemently insisted that we would not talk to our 11 year old boys about this. My partner disagreed. She was right. I knew I had to spew my own poison out before any such conversation, so as not to attack and dismember my children’s spirits. I have cried and raged and cried some more about this event with some of my co-counselors. I had a session with a 6’7” guy. He laid on top of me and I had to fight him off. It was a powerful, explosive session. I had him in a headlock within 15 seconds. The deep, profound releasing of disappointment, grief and hurt increased when he held me softly, close. I so wanted to believe there could be sweetness and safety without confusion..

I have looked for a place to gather, to grieve in community; to overcome together. Last night there was a vigil at the High School. I was getting angrier by the minute. There were no plans of action. No education for boys and girls. No calling out to understand where we have failed our children so miserable. There was a lot of talk about Jesus, almost more than about this girl. There was a speaker that said that this was not the only incident of multiple rape assailants this month. It wasn’t the only rape that week. Did we know that a woman /girl gets raped every 9 seconds. Count with me now: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. A woman’s or a girl’s life just changed forever. So did a man’s or a boy life. We could do this again. Every nine seconds. This is so outrageous. I just can’t process this. What do we do? I can’t imagine what the mothers of the young men who stood by are feeling.
I have to figure out a way to talk to my children about this. I cannot be silent. I must teach them to never, ever stand by and do nothing. It must begin at home. In my home.

If I were a Rich man...

I just didn’t know that attempting to eat locally and trying for a carbon toe print instead of a whole footprint, would raise such uncomfortable moral dilemmas. As I forage our urban landscape and consumerist jungle for local, organic food, I have encountered quite a challenge. Some of my values get smacked around and I am not feeling very choiceful.

Our food budget is $200/week for a family of four, whose members don’t eat many grains due to allergies. So, after spending hours mulling over tomatoes that I like (Cherry, California grown and organic - $4.50/basket), or ones that I eventually bought (Fat ones, local, organic, $3.59/lb) and adding in some carrots and a few other essentials like Organic, local milk in a glass bottle (no throwaway container, thank you very much) and eggs that came from hens who may have ran around, even if it is for 5 minutes (I’ll never know, since there are no regulations for range free), I filled one bag to the tune of $50 and I hadn’t even gotten an 1/8 of this week’s groceries. I was a bit depressed and annoyed. Can only millionaires enjoy being locavores (people who are committed to eat food grown within 100 miles)?

I know of a community garden that grows food for local low-income residents in my town. I felt semi-entitled. I have been struggling with finding and securing on-going employment for over a year. We don’t buy anything new. We don’t go out to eat. We stick to free entertainment. We barter and swap and share and manage to do with what’s available, and mostly, I am grateful that we are creative and resourceful and that we get what we need.
However, I needed more food. When I got to the garden, it had a low, padlocked fence. I felt part lioness going for the hunt and part thief, stealing in broad daylight. I was a bit apprehensive and a bit ashamed. I didn’t want to sacrifice my value of eating well and nourishing my family with unsprayed bounty to the value of not stealing. But was it stealing? We have been playing phone tag with one of the members of the garden to get a time where we could come in and work in exchange for food. So, why was I feeling guilty? I picked some greens, lettuces and some zucchini. They were gorgeous, lush, and happy. I wanted to make sure I ate them in serenity and not choke on any constricting shame. It did taste delicious, but I’m still thinking about it..

The following day I found out that there is another organization that delivers veggie boxes to a central location in my community and that also offers subsidized boxes to low-income residents. I realized that my shame about getting what would be the equivalent of financial help stemmed from my Jewish, middle class upbringing. WE don’t do food stamps. We, Jews, are supposed to be doctors or lawyers or at least have enough to never, ever get a handout. As middle-class folks, we are taught to help others, but to appear as if all is fine. We are just right, the middle bowl of the three bears, not too rich, not too poor. Just right. Except that it isn’t.
So, we get stuck in more isolation when we feel we are the only ones who need a hand.
I filled out the order form anyway. I want to deal with my feeling about the Have and Have-nots. It isn’t fun. What would you do?

Peaches and other red rounds

It’s been a couple of days in the new world of eco travel and traverse and I must have missed the fine print. I am getting closer to nature daily because my butt looks like a red baboon’s. I have gotten on my bike with a vengeance, or a mission. And, it really has been great and I can finally sleep really well at night. I didn’t know how quickly it took to ride to the local farmer’s market from my home, although the hill on the way back is the one responsible for said butt, it was faster than I expected. On Monday, my girl and I rode together, I, to hunt, gather and do comparison-shopping at our local market; She to her appointment nearby.

Local goat cheese from happy, frolicking, neighboring goats-check. Shipped, not flown, organic pineapple from Costa Rica- check. Truck driven, polluting my planet, organic tomatoes from Mexico – forgettaboutit! Oy, so many choices, so much to investigate and learn. I did feel like I was getting back to the old ways because I was using my body to gather my food. In fact, I discovered local, organic and FREE produce right off the bike path. Yep, apparently, the cities of El Cerrito and Berkeley plant cherries, plums, blackberries and loquats all along the long and meandering path. I carry plastic bags wherever I go and, sure enough, my girl and I hopped like bunnies from fruit tree to fruit tree and collected their yield. Que Romantico! I am now searching for a bike for one of my boys, so we can have a family outing. My kids already think that we are hippies, (which shows you what inaccurate history they teach in school today!), this should fit right in with their confused perception.

Anyway, my cat needed food and I was petty determined to go to our local, friendly supermarket and compare items, so I did that as well. Their labels indicated that almost all of their products came from Monrovia, CA - Yogurts and beans, tortillas and pepperoni. Where in the heck is Monrovia?Apparently they have acres of farms. No, it’s just their warehouse factory, so I can’t actually tell where the food is from, so I‘m not buying it. I did however buy about 60 lbs. of mostly local, some organic food, and realized that I needed a bike rack and I needed my partner’s help, just so my back wouldn’t join my butt in an uprising. So that was trip number two up the hellacious hill towards home, but I had a blast, while working on my thighs and tan.

The next day I vowed to only walk not ride, and try to calm my radiation colored behind. But alas, my girl forgot the shirt that she changes into after her vigorous walk to work, so guess who got to ride and give it to her? Yep, it hurt a bit, but then I stopped at the farmer’s market and just handed over my last $6 of the food budget to the peach lady. Ok, these are not .89 cents a pound, but I am so sick of eating fruit that tastes like cotton fuzz. This morning, I had an orgasmic candy on my plate. A sweet, very drippy real peach that made my whole mouth break into an operetta. The hill was worth it!

Eco-Warriors or Eco-Terrorists, you decide

Maybe it's just a phase… Even if that were true, it can only help. After visiting the Academy of Sciences exhibit on Climate change and attempting to calculate my own carbon footprint on planet Earth, (did you know that the energy used and pollution caused by industrial farming is responsible for more global warming emissions than the entire transportation industry?) and getting small, but outrageous tidbits from Michael Pollan's, "The Omnivore's Dilemma", I decided to rally my family around the "Summer of Sustainability."

Well, all right, we have done a bunch of things already to go Greener, like changing our bulbs to CFL's, turning down our thermostat, using canvass bags while shopping and washing our clothes only in cold water. But there's a deeper level of commitment and a more profound area of knowledge in which I wanted to delve.

With the checklist "Sustainability Made Simple", from the Academy of Sciences, I urged my family to sign up for an experiential challenge of reducing our impact and making choices to protect our Planet's future. Everybody needs a hero. We could be the Lesbian household version of "The Incredibles."

Now the challenge begins. How do I navigate through a maze of buses, trains, but no planes or automobiles? How do I let my two eleven years old boys gain some independence by taking the bus while not turning completely gray from worrying whether they knew where to get off, how to be safe in the world? Should I buy local or organic, shipped from New Zealand or driven from Mexico?

Apparently according to Pollan, USers are basically "Tortillas with arms and legs", because we ingest so much corn in various forms. But can I afford not only grass fed meat, but grass-finished as well? Do you want to know what that is? Stick around, I'll tell you about our adventures in this strange, new world of living like the old world: eating seasonally, bartering for goods, heading to a market that doesn't package everything in plastic.

So it begins. Today, I got on my bike to do a shopping comparison between four stores that carry all the stuff my family eats. I have felt in the past that my hunting and gathering in these stores has been very primal. Now, I am taking it to another level, by actually walking or riding my bike to get to my kill. I am trying to assess whether I need to go to several stores to buy food. I can't do my shopping all in one place in one day. That's over for now. But I don't have to create time to exercise (and often I never did get to that task), so as of today, I ride or walk and integrate that into my normal daily routine. So, I wonder what changes my body will go through this summer? No need for gym memberships, though I do need to equip my bike with a rack or trailer. cha-ching. Oh yes, and there's that small matter that we all have in abundance in a hectic, urban environment, time. I guess I should be grateful that I am only semi-employed, but lest this challenge deter you. I will report on how the pros and cons of all these factors and then you decide.

Oh, yes. My back yard looks a little like a homeless encampment because we've decided that our non-energy efficient dryer is for the birds. Our laundry is now swaying in the California breeze, though I did notice that our towels, once dried, are course. I'll live. I am curious to see what our energy bills will be compared to what they were last summer.

You may laugh. You might think you don't have the time, money. You like the convenience. I do too. However, I can't live like an ostrich, with my ass up in the air, for all future generations to kiss. There may not be much of future generations, if I don't start with the only place I can, my own home. I’m off to fold the hanged laundry and to get the kill for my cat's supper. If you see a blur riding by, wave. It's me minus my cape.

--