Mitzvahs for Mom

May was always a month that we celebrated my mom. We observed Mother’s Day together and my mom’s birthday fell on the last day of the month, May 31^st. After my father died I was aware that the first year of holidays and birthdays are often particularly  difficult.  On Mother’s Day this year, I had an awful cold and was in bed taking care of myself. I hardly cared what my own family did for me because I was feeling so rotten. Honestly, it made the first Mother’s Day without my mom less difficult. As my mom’s birthday approached I started thinking that it would probably be a bittersweet day as well. Then I got an idea. After sharing a post on Facebook about a girl who celebrated her 21^st birthday by doing acts of kindness, I wrote ” Who’s got a May birthday?” and then remembered my mom would have had her own birthday in May. So, I decided to coin my own holiday in honor of my mother’s birthday.

Ironically, my brother David and I were planning on meeting up in Las Vegas, that weekend while my son attended a Magic the Gathering convention so we’d actually be together on Sunday, May 31^st. We decided to treat my mom’s birthday as a day to do dozens of mitzvahs. We called them “Mitzvahs for Mom!”

I knew since we’d be in Vegas, staying in a hotel, I had to come up with some prepared ways that we could do mitzvahs rather than letting them be completely random like I did for my 1000 Mitzvah project. Also, I thought it would be fun to come up with things my mom would have loved! I brought some fun things I found at the dollar store, pads of paper and pens – my mom loved giving things to the children especially when she traveled. I also bought some plastic blow up balls for the swimming pool, because one of her favorite hobbies was swimming. Finally, I bought a star-shaped pad of sticky notes to write messages on, my mom’s middle name was Star!

First thing, I surprised the guy behind me at the cafe with a free cup of coffee. At breakfast, we surprised our friend Lisa who ironically shares my mom’s birthday and was in Vegas as well for the convention, with cake and a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday.

We left quarters in every pay phone we passed. Did you know that it now costs $.50 cents to make a phone call? I had no idea.

I left several of the sticky note messages on bathroom mirrors in a few different hotel bathrooms as well as on a couple of housekeeping carts. I thanked the workers for their effort to keep everything so clean. Ironically, later in the day when I stopped at a Sephora store to buy something and let the manager know one of her employees had been really helpful she told me they love when people fill out the surveys about customer service because they work for “recognition not commission.”

I left the pads of paper and pens and blow up balls with the housekeeping staff on our floor after one of them told me several of the women had children that would love them.

My brother was excited to join in the fun and came up with the idea to give out ice-cold bottles of water to people on the street since it was 100 degrees all weekend long. This was certainly the most interesting part of the day. We decided to head to old Fremont Street rather than the Las Vegas strip to give out the water bottles because it’s a little less touristy. We opted to give them to the locals including the street vendors, a  costumed Sponge Bob character as well and some of the other homeless folks we passed along the way. Since it was 100 degrees you can imagine people were very happy to get a cold bottle of water. We only had a few bottles left when the security police cycled up to us and told us we’d have to stop because it was too risky to let people do this because who knew what we might have added to those water bottles. I guess it makes sense. My brother really wanted to make sure we gave away the last of the bottles though so the security police told us to walk off Fremont yo give our final few away. Now my brother and I definitely have a fish tale to tell about our day!

Overall, I’d say the day was certainly one where we tried to remember our mom. After my book came out, my mom joked when she died I’d have to do 2000 mitzvahs for her. Though we hardly performed that many mitzvahs it definitely was a great way to think about her and perhaps this will be a new May 31^st tradition for my brother and I, though I’d be perfectly fine if we were in Portland and not Vegas next year!

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“Oh my aching back” — Just might be an opportunity

We use the term, a pain in the neck, to say that something is causing us trouble or is the source of our unhappiness. Sometimes a pain in the neck or a pain in the back in my case or even a terrible cold can teach us something important. I am not sure if this is true for chronic pain but it does seem to be true for me with acute pain or illness. I had a terrific reminder this week when I was suddenly faced with a terrible back ache. I hadn’t been working in the yard or even schlepping Passover boxes or doing anything else particularly strenuous when it happened. In fact, I am not sure what brought it on, all I know is it took me down, literally, because one of the few places that felt comfortable was lying down on my back. Luckily, I was able to listen to my body and take the time to rest my back and not push through the pain. This gave me time to both allow my body to have pain, acknowledge the pain and appreciate how lucky I am when I don’t have any kind of pain in my body. I loved listening to what my body was teaching me.

I found that my body was needing rest and stillness. I  was even able to have some meditation time in a prone position while icing my sore back. The combination of resting with the ice and meditating was not unpleasant, in fact, I might even say I enjoyed the time and space to be awake and mindful in that horizontal position.

Allowing myself time was probably the biggest challenge. We are all busy people. We have things to do and meetings to keep and not being able maintain our schedule can be very difficult. But if we are listening to our bodies when they scream at us, “Help me, I am hurting and I need some attention,” then sometimes we have to cancel an appointment, or stay home for a day or two or miss something important. But isn’t your body worth that? It’s the ultimate self-care to listen to your body when it asks for some extra attention.

My biggest “aha”  was while attending my weekly yoga class. I debated if I should go, not sure it was actually good for me to do any yoga and emailed my teacher to explain what was going on. His reply was “COME! Even if you need to just rest in shavasana (corpse pose) you will be receiving the energy of the class.” He’d done the same thing after he’d broken his spine a few years back. I am so glad I went. It was an incredible class. I was fully present in my body feeling every move intensely both when it felt helpful and when I felt a  twinge or something painful. I listened deeply to what my body was telling me the entire class. I have been practicing yoga for years and attending a class knowing that I would not be able to do all the poses, knowing that I might have to stay on my back or in child’s pose when the class was doing other movements was liberating. It allowed me to be focused completely on my own body and what my body needed in that moment. I felt my breath and my stillness profoundly during the class. It was a deep and powerful experience.

Today, after 48 hours I am happy to say that my back pain has subsided. I am grateful for the new perspective I have on how lucky I am when my body functions without my noticing it, without pains. I am also aware now that a pain can also be an opportunity to listen to what our body is asking us to do – take care of it, slow down, breathe, maybe even stop and be still. When we do take care of our bodies physically, mentally and spiritually they return to us with stronger health and intuition. I am thanking my body today for all of that amazing wisdom that comes even through discomfort and pain.

Tradition!

This Friday night, we begin our eight-day holiday of Passover. I have written more about this Jewish holiday previously on my blog in this post and this one where I shared a simple recipe for chicken and matzah ball soup. During the Seder we tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt. Most Jews can probably remember celebrating a Seder at some point in their life no matter how observant or religious they are. When I think back about different stages of my life, I can remember celebrating Seders in Israel, with college boyfriends and their families and more recently (the past decade) with my own family and a variety of friends who have joined us in our home over the years.

I often tell non-Jewish friends and colleagues that Passover is as intense as the Christmas season. Swap gift shopping for food shopping, baking dozens of Christmas cookies for hours spent cooking traditional Passover foods like haroset, brisket and gefilte fish as well as the additional days of cleaning our homes and clearing out all of the chametz (bread) that is forbidden in our houses during the holiday.

Finally, the Passover holiday also requires that observant Jews use a separate set of dishes that hasn’t been in contact with chametz. So in addition to the cleaning and cooking there is also the schlepping and reorganizing of your kitchen. I must admit that there is a big part of me that dreads Passover. I know how much work it is to prepare for the holiday and the weeks before I begin actually preparing I spend too much energy fretting and worrying about everything that needs to get done. Yet every year the same thing happens. I find the cleaning to be an opportunity to touch cabinets and drawers that deserve a spring cleaning and a good wipe down and pulling out the Passover items puts me in a time warp. I have several Haggadot (the Jewish book we use that tells the order of the Seder) from when my kids attended a Jewish preschool. The Haggadot include velcro matzahs, hand drawn artwork and photos of my children at age 2, 3 and 4, unbiasedly adorable!

When I was a newlywed and we relocated to Portland, Oregon, we had just a handful of dishes that first year. Probably four plates, four sets of utensils and a few glasses.  In the late 1990’s after my husband and I had bought our first house, my folks sent me my grandmother’s glass Passover dishes. My beloved Grandma Rose greatly influenced my Jewish identity and I have many fond childhood memories of my grandmother, most revolving around eating and cooking. She was a kosher caterer and her food was always delicious. Her Passover dishes were nothing special just a simple set of glass dishes but each year when I unpack the dishes, I often feel her nishamah (soul) close to me as if these dishes that she used and touched transcend time and the traditions I continue are the same ones she celebrated. 

Several years ago, I tucked some letters that my grandmother had sent to me in the final years of her life into the Passover pantry. After I graduated high school and left Vermont to attend college in California, we wrote to each other regularly. When I find them in the Passover closet each spring (which I somehow forget are there from year to year)  I read her words in her scratchy handwriting and feel her love and adoration for me, her first grandchild. They also remind me of my connection to my past and my link in the family and always make me smile.

I hope others find that the work of the holiday is lightened by the ability to continue a family tradition and feel connected to loved ones who are no longer here to celebrate with us in person but whose spirit remains with us always.

Wishing you a wonderful and meaningful Passover.

It’s All Right To Cry

When I hear this phase it immediately brings me back to my adolescence when I listened endlessly to my Free To Be You and Me record and read through the corresponding book. I loved everything about that recording but probably didn’t give too much thought to what the words actually meant. Now tattered and respectfully sitting on my book shelf, my Free To Be You and Me book serves as a reminder of the comfort and joy this book provided during that tumultuous time of my life.

More recently though I have thought of this phrase as a mantra and reminder that no matter how much our current society seems to shun it or even how much discomfort people seem to have witnessing someone crying, it definitely IS all right to cry. Even in public, even for seemingly no apparent reason to those around you. I have had my share of public crying jags these past several years. After losing both parents and my first pet, I feel like I have had the rawness of grief show up in many unexpected places – a play, school activities, on a Shabbat retreat, on the yoga mat or in a coffee meeting with a colleague. In addition, my kids notice that a commercial, movie or show can easily bring me to tears.

Last July, just a week or so after my mom had died, while doing the corpse pose at the end of a yoga class, tears and emotions began flooding my mind. I started crying uncontrollably while we quietly observed our breath. After the class, I left without speaking to the teacher or other yogis for fear of embarrassment. I thought about it all week though because my teacher had witnessed my tears and his words had offered solace. He had acknowledged that something very deep was coming up for one of his students even though he had no idea what it was. I felt seen and attended to even though I was also emotional and embarrassed. The following week, we sat together and I shared what that experience had felt like and how much it had meant to me that even without his knowing what I was experiencing he had acknowledged it. Sometimes we can be there for another person  even when we don’t know personally what is making them so upset.

I want to become a poster child for the benefits of crying  because I am beginning to no longer feel embarrassed or make excuses for crying in front of others. I experience that lump in my throat, runny nose and tears streaming down my cheeks without feeling any kind of shame. This is a human reality and we should embrace it and not feel as if we have to apologize for our behavior. In fact, last week I had an entire day where I was wading knee-deep in difficult emotions. They kept surfacing and I kept acknowledging and witnessing them with acceptance and kindness. All day, I needed to cry.  I cried with my meditation teacher, a colleague and another friend, without shame or embarrassment.  If you witness someone crying, know that you are witnessing a powerful and beneficial experience and one that is incredibly helpful in moving emotions through their body. Consider it a blessing that someone is comfortable enough to show their true emotions to you.

Look up the health benefits of crying and you will learn that there several. First, it releases stress hormones that are excreted in the body through our tears. Crying also stimulates the production of the hormone endorphins or our feel good hormones. Additionally, they help us process and release our emotions. People usually do feel better after they have cried.

What I have noticed, through the past few years, is that when I am authentic and true to myself as a human being it helps me relate to others. There is a deep connection between two people who are speaking honestly about difficult experiences, but there is also a bond that is created when we relate to someone on that level. I have offered my hand and shoulder to someone during a difficult period of tears and many kind people have done the same for me. These emotional times have made me feel connected to these friends or colleagues in a way that a mere conversation really doesn’t. I also believe it is what helps us recognize and learn from each other through difficulties we all face in life.

So be kind with yourself and others when they are vulnerable and experiencing something that makes them cry. Allow them to just be with their tears and remember that you are in the power of authentic human emotion that are important and beautiful to share. And if it helps you can always start humming It’s All Right To Cry.