TED talk on success

Jersey haiku

Piles of dirty snow
Chairs save spots to park between
Get me out of here

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Ode to stretch marks

The baby may as well have scrawled "Adina wuz here" across my torso. Nevertheless, even though I vividly remember my horror over seeing on other mommies the battle scars of pregnancy, I love my shifted shape. Maybe because I got sick of passing for a highschooler, or maybe because this pregnancy was so difficult and scary that to come out unscathed would seem anticlimactic. But my stretch marks remind me that the stork did not do the heavy lifting on our baby girl. I did. Its surprisingly easy to overcome body issues once the body has been repurposed. It is not here for aesthetic pleasure. It housed a life, fed it and protected it and strengthened it. Stretch marks are my evidence of the amazing fact that Hashem had the wisdom to encase our skeletons in something that CAN stretch.

The downside, however, is that I still need to find the motivation to get my body back. Its so hard to be enthusiastic when I am sooo tired. I understand all those daytime talk show women who pointed to their children as when they started to lose control and gain weight. I understand them but do not want to be one of them. Hm... any ideas for inspiration?

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She's teensy!!

Its not worth trying to update this with everything from the last month of pregnancy, the labor, delivery, first days with her in the hospital, and our first week home. Suffice it to say, its been a whirlwind. These days we are sticking around the house, obsessing over our new little one, and learning to function without sleep. Conclusion... i had no idea a baby could be sooooo tiny!

The Toolbox

One concept in Jewish thought that I always liked is written about beautifully in the book Woman to Woman (which is based on a series of lectures by Rebbetzin Esther Greenberg).  Basically, the idea goes like this: if you were a construction worker with some kind with an intelligent foreman for a boss, you could show up at work one day and, based entirely on what is in your toolbox and where you are, figure out what you are meant to do that day at work.  Of course, we are the worker and Gd is the foreman.  Our gifts and passions are within our toolbox and our life's circumstances are the setting.  


Ok, now that I've butchered that I can move on.  


I was recently fortunate to spend a Shabbos meal with some NYU students, including a woman who recently graduated from the same theater program I went to.  We discussed our shared feelings of conflict over being theater artists who had become passionate about our Judaism.  We came to term our Torah learning a "wakening of the sleeping giant."  Inconvenient, but ultimately not something one can ignore.  There's a giant in the room.  An awake one.  That changes the situation.


So here we are, albeit still in two somewhat different places, trying to figure out this delicate balance between our creative gifts and passions and the indescribable beauty of Torah and a Torah lifestyle.  


And I think it is starting to be time to check out that back burner which has been caring for my artistic soul for the last two years while I've explored a new part of myself.  


While I am happy with the choices I've made and certainly wouldn't take anything back, I am inarguably in a different place than I ever expected to be.  


Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht. (Yiddish proverb- Man plans and Gd laughs.)


Forget the Orthodox Jewish bit (if you can fit that pink elephant into the corner for a moment, thank you).  How about the married bit?  The imminently arriving BABY bit?  The--dare I say it--living in SUBURBAN NEW JERSEY bit?


This was not the plan.  And I'd spent a good decade crafting this plan.  And I spent much of the last two years trying to craft a NEW fabulous plan that would make this all fit neatly together.  Way to learn the lesson, self.


And yet, I wouldn't change a thing.  No, this is not the route to my Oscar.  Nor are we buying our one-way tickets to Israel any time soon.  How unglamorous of us.


On the other hand, I am currently engaged in the single most creative act known to mankind.  THIS SECOND.  And this one. 


It's time to accept that this is not the workplace I anticipated.  The needs of the world I live in now are not the needs I thought I would one day fill.  What I have to offer will not be received the way I had planned out.  Nu?  It's taken me two years to come to terms with this?  I've been observing this phenomenon for all this time without swallowing that pill (which ultimately I don't think is even such a bad pill to swallow!).


It's time to look into the toolbox, get a good lay of the land, and start building.

Thoughts on Pregnancy or... Birth Control For The Weak-Hearted or... Things I'd Post On Facebook But I Think You'd Judge Me

1. I was under the mistaken impression that an unborn child couldn't keep you up all night.
In reality, I feel like this:

All the time.

2.  It used to seem logical that if you were exhausted at 9 PM, you could probably go to bed.
In reality, exhaustion at 9 PM is really just your body playing a cruel trick because really, right before you fall asleep, you'll bounce back and be full of energy until about 3 AM at which point you've read enough about the Salmonella crisis to finally peel your eyelids off your hairline and consider nodding off.  Oh, and that Camomile tea (which I haven't been able to sleep one night without) will make sure that you're up again around 5 AM.  And wired.  Because who can sleep after three nightmares in a row about a missing nursery and nowhere to put the baby?  (Why THIS bothers me is a bit confusing... we know we won't have a nursery so it's a moot point.  Wouldn't my brain be more entertained with anxiety over birth or car seats?)

3.  If a pregnant woman's appetite is supposed to be justified by the phrase "eating for two," I'm taking it upon myself to release this PSA to all expecting women.  Sometimes baby invites thirty friends over for a dinner party, and you'll be expected to feed them all.  NOW.  Gd help anyone who gets in your way.

4.  I was also certain until recently that the baby could not get a hold of bricks and Leggos until after the actual birth.  But, having reviewed human anatomy and finding nothing that could possibly be so hard and stabby as what's sticking out of my tummy, I'm convinced that somebody's providing toys to baby.  And I'm thinking of suing.

Thank Gd for new shoes, new makeup, (so at least I don't look quite as bad as I feel) and a hubby who's learned very quickly that when I stop using full sentences, he's going to be in charge of dishes that night.

And when I never managed a full sentence in the first place, we'll be ordering pizza.

My Reaction to the "Emerging Adulthood" Debate

Perhaps it's a misnomer even to say there's a debate.  It seems that the new phase of "Emerging Adulthood" has been pretty well accepted since the NY Times came out with their article dubbing the 20's as a new phase (remember, adolescence had to be accepted onto the world stage, too--imagine, a world without Wet Seal).

I guess the debate lies more in how we feel about it.  Are 20-somethings just more self-involved and immature, or are they boldly exploring their individuality and daring to take risks--wisely, before bringing external commitments onto the scene?

20-something writer Jessie Rosen wrote a great reaction to the Times article, defending her position.

Ultimately, since nobody was a 20-something then and is also a 20-something now, we're just looking at one another's generations and trying to piece together a case for our preconceived notions.  Having one good self-absorbed 20-something in your life could tip the scales pretty neatly towards the Times debate.

Lemondrop.com published an article defending my generation with a barrel of additional statistics--look how few are divorced, look how many have higher education.  We aren't sitting around waiting for life to come and get us, we just don't have as clear a path to saunter down as perhaps we would have had a generation ago.  Global economy, new employment structures, choices choices choices...  We're busy doing research.

Ok, so this brings me to my obviously less-traditional perspective on the whole thing.  Here I (and hubby) are, married, expecting, with an apartment, a car, weekly errands and even a financial advisor helping us figure out how to save for a down payment!  All before we hit the 25 year-old mark!  Where did we go wrong?  Did we not watch enough commercials growing up?

And are we really just a throwback to an earlier generation?

For full disclosure, I have to say that my comparison is generally with my own parents and they weren't particularly traditional themselves. While they married at about the same age, they were artsy bohemian types more than anything who tried out a few different gigs and living situations (did they prefer the houseboat or the deserted mansion?) and I'd argue that only one of my parents really did settle down in the end--at least, the way the NY Times would want them to.

But I guess my theory on all this is that despite the obvious life decisions that have set hubby and I apart from our peers (who barely recovered from the grown-upness of our marriage only to find me boasting a baby bump) there's a lot that keeps us similar.  And not like the generation before us.  I think there is something to our generation that we don't take many things as a given.  Where to live, for instance.  We've spent two years researching and examining communities in a few different countries, trying to make a careful decision about where we let the roots settle, while I think a generation before we wouldn't have even gotten this far away from our parents in the first place--or we'd be much more likely to be hurrying back to familiar territory.  Career-wise, I may have landed in a good gig now that I'm teaching, but who knows once we become a  family of three.  And hubby is still finding himself professionally.

And while we were pretty clear about wanting to be married and start a family right away (and not primarily for religious reasons--we both wanted to be married young and start a family young long before Shabbat meant no TV), I'd argue that in both of our cases that was just as counter-culture a decision (based on where we were coming from and our peer groups) as someone deciding to go live in the Outback for a year and develop her photography hobby.  I guess the main difference is that while our peers are being careful to "finish" finding themselves before making any major commitments, we're happy to be going on this search together.

The NY Times and Lemondrop are both using statistics and popular life markers to try and understand the mentality of a generation.  From someone who's hitting each milestone in stride (or even earlier), I just don't think that it's as clear-cut as that.  I don't think it's so obvious that because our generation is hitting milestones at different times, we're so essentially different--nor that those of us who are hitting the milestones at "traditional" ages are doing it with the same feelings and for the same reasons as the generation before ours.

Frightening article about what's happening to female American peace-activists in Palestine.

Please share this article with any women you may know who are considering doing this kind of work.

Surprising NY Times Article

Here's a really interesting NY Times article about the university-created cultural divide between rural white Americans vs liberals and minorities.  Really surprising findings.

What do you think?  It makes sense to me, being from NYU and remembering a classmate crying because she was so embarrassed to come "out" as a Republican after classes were turned into group-therapy sessions upon the Bush re-election.  But that's NYU--the left of the left.

Was your school the same?

Rebbetzin Levitan is a FlyBaby?

I've written about FlyLady before, but this takes the cake!

Today, Rebbetzin Levitan, super-shadchan, marriage and dating counselor/speaker extroardinaaire, and author of the very popular new book, I Only Want to Get Married Once: Dating Secrets for Getting It Right the First Time, just wrote in a testimonial to FlyLady!

I was so surprised to see this in my inbox!  Check it out!

"Dear FlyLady,

The book you are holding would not have been written if not for a very special email I received from you in 2008. I am writing to thank you and to share my experience with you. The words in your email that really impacted me were: 

"So how do we stop this sensory overload? We have to pull the plugs! Let's practice turning off and tuning in… This is how I wrote my first book. I had made myself a strict routine for the morning… My goal was to write ten pages or three hours whichever came first. To accomplish this goal I had some rules for myself."

You then listed a bunch of very important rules including: Doing morning routines, not turning on the email, browser or instant messenger program and most importantly, no answering the phone. 

You then wrote, "I started my day at 7:30am by 8:00am. I was ready to start writing and by 11:00am I was finished with ten pages or I worked for three hours. In two weeks I had a manuscript. Do you see what you can accomplish when you turn off the distractions and tune into your brain power. 

When I read your email, I was literally blown away. I never heard of someone writing a book in 2 weeks. I was amazed. Now, I had been considering writing a book based on my lecture series on relationships. Many people were pushing me to put my lectures into writing, but I always said, "I don't have time to write a book. I run a lively home, together with my husband. We have a handful of beautiful kids and I also have five teaching jobs. On top of this, I also freelance lecture and counsel people. When exactly do you expect me to write a book???"

All of a sudden, after reading your email, my excuses didn't hold water. If a book could be written in a short time, well then I could do it. I just needed some focused time. So that was it. I said to myself, "If FlyLady could write a book in two weeks, I could write one in four!" And that's exactly what I set out to do. 

In June 2008, I sat down to write my book. I wasn't as good with my morning routines as you were. And I didn't stop writing after three hours. Actually, as soon as I started writing I couldn't stop… until it all came out. Although I didn't quite make my four week deadline, seven weeks later, I had a manuscript! (Thanks to a lot of patience and support from my husband and kids as well) But FlyLady, if not for you email, I am convinced that I never would've written my book. It was published iin February, 2010 and I have already received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from people who have been helped by my book. This is all in your merit! I cannot thank you enough! Perhaps other people will be inspired to accomplish big projects based on your email together with my response. If you want to print this email as a testimonial, it would be my pleasure. 

FlyLady, once again, I have no words to thank you. You are an inspiration to so many people, may you always be blessed with the wisdom, strength, health and good heart that you have to continue making a difference in so many people's lives. 
With endless gratitude,

Chana Levitan
Jerusalem Israel"