Humility

I meet Lev at a sushi restaurant in Malden to talk about my Bat Mitzvah—our last meeting before he will leave for Austin. He looks tired, slow around his eyes. He is applying for nursing jobs, coming off of clinical training which means he’s been up at four every morning. And he’s been teaching—classes in Judaism. And as always, he’s been keeping up with his wide network of friends and colleagues.

I tell Lev I’ve identified my ten Jewish values, values I want to pass on to my grandchildren. Here they are in no particular order: Jewish identity, integrity, honesty, compassion, Tzedakah, forgiveness, love of life, love of learning, awareness, and family stories, what Nina, my granddaughter calls, “dead people’s gossip.” Gotta love it. And just when I thought I’d finished my task, another value surfaced: humility.

In a religious context, humility is easy. One is humbled in the face of God. But that’s not the kind of humility I’m talking about. I’m talking about teaching humility to a generation fixed on devices, smart phones, iPods, tablets. They take pictures of the food they eat, of their faces, sending these images out over the internet, gathering likes. Their Me is large, a blinding white spot in front of their eyes. And so you say that adolescence has always been a time of self-centeredness. And I will say, yes, but, not like today when kids are hardly forced to interact with a larger world. And so I asked Lev: how do I make humility cool? Can I make humility cool?

“Interesting,” Lev said.

Humility and humiliate share a root, and I understand the negative connotation of the word. Humiliation is shadowed by self-effacement, timidity, submissiveness. Yet, humility is positive value, one that opens a person to possibility. One who is humble is self-aware. She keeps her place in this world. And she can correct herself. The opposite of humility is arrogance, pride and self-importance, traits that harden like a shell. There is a softness to humility, a way of leaving space for others. Perhaps, we pass on the value of being humble, by humbling ourselves, visiting the sick, helping those less fortunate, as once again, doing and being become our best teachers.

Outside the restaurant, Lev offers to walk me to my car. I decline. We embrace, do not say good bye. Most people would not describe Lev as humble. I would. Always, he leaves me inspired to do more than I think I can, and he gives me space. 

Faith

A writer’s faith that the blank page will yield; a sculptor’s faith that she will find form inside of wood or marble, a painter’s faith in line and brush. Lev’s faith that the world will give.

My friend, Sue, has had a strong reaction to my blog post, A Bump in the Road. In a word, she is angry. She isn’t alone. Many of my friends are angry, not with me, with my son. Sitting on tall chairs inside the Stonewall Kitchen café, eating salads, Sue and I have talked about our families and our work, pleasant conversation. Now, Sue says, “I have to ask you. Why did you let your son off the hook? I don’t want to say anything bad about him—he’s your son—but what an opportunity this could have been for you and your grand daughter.”

My Bat Mitzvah. My grand daughter’s Bat Mitzvah, the two of us working together.

Sue touches her heart. “I kvell when I think about it.”

Ah that Yiddish word: joy beyond joy.

            But, Sue does not know my family, our past rifts and hard feelings. So many divisive moments. I didn’t want another one. Yet, I do want to become a Bat Mitzvah, a daughter of the commandments, a woman who commits herself to a Jewish way of life. I assure Sue I’m not giving up, but I need to find something that will give my projects and my exploration of values closure. I confess, “Sue, with all that I’m doing. I feel as if it’s not enough. Something’s missing. I’m sure Lev would have figured it out.”

Fork mid air. Sue tilts her head, pausing before she speaks. “You need the Jewish piece. The more traditional piece. One of the nicest Bat Mitzvahs I did….

Did she say? Did I hear? I don’t let her finish. “You do Bat Mitzvahs?”

Why didn’t I know that? Sue is a Jewish singer, songwriter, musician. A Jewish educator. Often she collaborates with Rabbi Lev. Of course, she does Bat Mitzvahs. Would she? Could she?

 “Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” Sue says.

And it is as if Rabbi Lev is here at our table, giving us his sideways glance. He has the most mischievous grin. And he has faith that if you get our of your own way and make room in your heart for possibility, possibility has room to breeze in. 

Visit Sue's website: Modern Jewish Music http://www.suehorowitz.com

A Bump In The Road

On the speaker phone, my middle son’s voice fills my car. I’m driving north into the mountains, my husband beside me in the passenger’s seat. My son is seventeen hundred miles away, shouting, “You had thirty years before this. You have ten years afterwards.”

He’s measuring my life. Until what? Senility? Death?

He’s furious because the date I've chose for my Bat Mitzvah is close to the date of his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. Why is he exploding now? I’d explained. Mine is not a traditional celebration. I’m looking inward, exploring Jewish values, planning projects with my four grandchildren, cooking, mapping, reading. No synagogue. No Hebrew. August eighteenth is the only day, Rabbi Lev is available. He’s moving to Texas, coming back east that one weekend. How will I work with him? Celebrate with him? My oldest son wished me well. He and his daughter would be with me that morning. The rest of my family went mute. I sent another email. Both my youngest son and his wife answered. They would attend. My middle son’s wife answered, saying the family would do the best they could to be with all of us. I’d assumed she’d spoken for my son.

“You’re selfish,” my son rails. “You’re stealing Raina’s thunder.”

I’m driving a country road, watching dusk fade into darkness. Headlights blind. I don’t want to steal Raina’s thunder. I want to be a stepping stone. We are a family. This is not a competition. Yet, in that place where truth rubs like a rash under skin, I’d worried about the closeness of our dates. Particularly about going first. I’d talked with Lev, talked with my husband, then, silencing my own doubts, I went forward. Meekly, I send my voice into the car. “I thought about that.”

His retort is quick, his tone metal cold. “Well, you didn’t think hard enough.”

I know that tone. It lives inside of me. It lived in my father: Every thing. I give you everything. Dancing lessons. Piano lessons. What do I get? Nothing. You should be grateful. Not you. You’re selfish. You hear me? Selfish.

Decades peel away. I am a young mother raising three sons, screaming out my frustrations. Can’t you listen? The answer is no. Final the end.

But it wasn’t the end. Bitterly, our arguments circled.

“I cannot support you in any way,” my son says.

My heart is collapsing, filling with sadness. These last two months we have talked happily on the phone, mailed and received Hanukkah gifts, planned a ski trip. How was I to know that for those same two months he’d harbored resentment?

“I always say yes to you. Well, this time, I’m not.”

I grew up with anger, distance and dissonance. Even with cruelty. We all do in varying degrees. Trembling, I speak softly. “I’ll work on this. I’ll get back to you.”

Silent all this time, Dick shifts in his seat. He speaks slowly. “I understand how he feels.”

I take a breath. “Why didn’t you say so before?”

“I hoped it would work.”

My eyes fix on the road, the white line dulled by grit and salt. On the shoulders remnants of last month’s snow storm. When I began my journey toward a Bat Mitzvah, I wanted to pass down, not just words or even beliefs, but lived values. If I believed in God, I’d think God had sent me this confrontation as a test. Perhaps, as a gift. I know my son will accept nothing less than capitulation. So hard for me. After all, we are cut from similar cloth. Pulling into a Shell station, I ask my husband to drive, then sinking down into my seat, I close my eyes, as if to see more clearly.

           

That night, sitting across from Dick at a table in the pub of the inn where we are staying, I lift my wine glass. Dick lifts his. “I can do this,” I say. “I didn’t think I could, but I can.”

And my mind’s eye, I am seeing my grandson. He and I are exploring the streets of the Lower East Side where he lives, where my maternal grandparents had lived. I am baking with my grand daughters, using recipes I’ve found that I hope will duplicate tastes of my childhood, tastes of villages I’ve never seen. My grandchildren and I are reading books, emailing, talking, visiting. I won’t call what I’m doing a Bat Mitzvah. I wont have a celebration, not on August eighteenth. Not with Lev. Will I have a celebration at all? I don’t know. I’m feeling both full and empty, full because I will spend time with my grand children in a meaningful way, empty because I will not have my moment in the sun. But isn’t one of the values I want to pass on, the ability to consider another’s concern as my own? And doesn’t love force concession?

Dick and I touch the bowls of our wine glasses. "Terrific," he says. 

"What's terrific?" I say looking over the rim of my glass.

"That you can still do it."
Can or will? 

"The Path"

This past summer after a particularly wonderful visit with my grandson, I was prompted to write "The Path." I submitted to TOSKA. The editors wrote back. Read "The Path" in the current issue, Winter, 2013. http://toskamag.com/2013/01/18/the-path-sandell-morse/

And just what does Toska mean?

Taken from their website.

toska - noun /ˈtō-skə/ – Russian

No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody or something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.

-Vladimir Nabokov

Redux: A Literary Journal: #65: "Midrash" by Sandell Morse

Redux: A Literary Journal: #65: "Midrash" by Sandell Morse http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2013/01/65-midrash-by-sandell-morse.html?spref=bl

This story was previously published in the New England Review( 1997).              

Bessie Feldman parks her car in front of Hebrew ...

Forgiveness

“Every encounter with forgiveness requires defeating the ego over and over again.”

                                                                                                Gandhi

Two nights ago at dinner, my granddaughter bore down on me in anger. I don’t remember her words, but I see her face, eyes cold, lips pursed and spitting words. Shouting as if I were her thirteen year old adversary instead of her seventy-three year old grandmother, she was relentless. Mean. Melting inside, I sat tall, found what I hoped was a soft but firm voice and said, “N., go to your room.” She pushed back her chair, rose silently, and walked from the dining room. A day passed without our speaking or  seeing one another, although we lived in the same house. This morning before leaving for an early morning yoga class, I offered a ride to the bus stop. She accepted. 

           Driving, I asked about yesterday’s cross-country ski meet, her dance lesson, each question a slick of ice covering the deep pool of our discontent. This was not the time to address her disrespect, her tone of voice. This was a time for both of us to take a breath and to reflect, consciously or not. My grand daughter talked openly and energetically about the meet—she fell down three times, but that didn’t matter. She had fun. In her dance class, she was learning a routine. “You start down on the floor,” she said, then reciting each move, she explained how each dancer rose to her feet.

            At the bus stop, I shifted the car into park. We sat in silence, but not uncomfortably.  “I’m sorry, Grammy,” my grand daughter  said, her voice soft and contrite.

            I don’t remember what else she said. Perhaps, I didn’t need to hear more. Turning to face her, my voice grew thick. “We love each other very much, don’t we?” 

            She nodded.

            Because I’m preparing for my Bat Mitzvah, I’m thinking deeply about moments like this one. What are the values I want to pass on? Atonement? Yes. Forgiveness? Yes. But how do you forgive when your ego won’t let go, insisting instead of holding onto hurt? Anger’s doppelganger is fear. Afraid to reveal vulnerability, we hide inside of anger’s hard shell. We need to stick out necks, but hiding feels safer. It’s not. Anger leaves a path strewn with destruction. Stepping out of anger and ego, we step into a place of humility and of harmony. Love springs forth as it did for Nina and me. So what do I want our family to value now and after I’m gone? That extra breath where the ego gives way and we draw forgiveness into our lungs. 

I Did It List

I’m a writer who beats herself up. Most of us do. So I want to thank Erika Dreifus (http://www.erikadreifus.com/newsletter/current/) for her adaptation of Lisa Romeo’s post, Looking Back, Looking Ahead, No Regrets please (http://lisaromeo.blogspot.com/). These past few months, the rejections have come in, plunging me down into that place where writers go when they're despondent. It's rather dark in there. So I'm climbing out to write my "I DId It List" for 2012 as Lisa suggests. 

After a trip to France in 2011, I completed four essays on material I gathered there, researching and interviewing, beginning a series of essays related to Jews in France during the Second World War, one about Germaine Poliakov is published in ASCENT  (http://readthebestwriting.com/?p=1581).

Returning to France this past fall, I interviewed Germaine Poliakov for a second time. Germaine is ninety-four, vibrant and sharp. I drafted an essay about her life in Paris after the Second World War. Then, traveling and conducting three more interviews, I drafted three more essays.

An essay, “The Groves,” won second prize in the Press 53 Open Awards Contest, and is published in the Press 53 Anthology, 2012. That same essay is upcoming in CALYX.

An essay was named a finalist in the Maine Literary Awards, short nonfiction category for 2012.

I was awarded a fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (http://www.vcca.com/main/index.php).

I met two wonderful writers, West Moss (http://theyearofmynovel.blogspot.com/2012/06/home-again.html) and David Ebenbach (http://davidebenbach.com). .

I strengthened my friendship with writer, Kristen Cosby (http://www.kristencosby.com).

I have taken Steve Almond’s (http://stevealmondjoy.com) seminar “How to Create an Irresistible Narrator” at Grub Street in Boston.

With the help of one of my sons and daughters in law, I have updated my blog to include links and I have committed to publishing more often.

I continue to work with my wonderful writing group, driving to Brookline ten times each semester to sit at the table with nine wonderful women.

Probably, after I publish this blog, I will think of more that I could have added to this list, but this is enough to keep me looking ahead without regrets, as Lisa Romeo suggests. I'm so happy to have discovered her website. 

Not a bad idea to make a similar list for other aspects of my life.

A happy and healthy New Year to all.