COOKING WITH MOM: 101

I wrote this piece for the website, Living the Second Act. Please enjoy!

It’s about teaching my son to cook before leaving for college. SPOILER: It’s about more than cooking. XO

Doing Good

When the world seems to be falling apart, it is comforting to see the people you love trying to put it back together. One of those people is my son.

He’s a quiet kid. He’s shy and unassuming and once you are lucky enough to get to know him, he’s hilarious and kind and genuine. He still needs to work on the regular teenage stuff like being nicer to his brothers or answering me in a more patient tone. But all in all, he’s a truly fine human being and I am honored to have the privilege of being his mom.

In the fall, my son participated in a Midnight Run. Together with his friends and our synagogue he collected necessary every day items we might take for granted: soap, pillows, a warm jacket. On a cold November night, my son and husband drove into New York City and handed out jackets to the homeless. They helped people find the right size coat, the color they preferred, and ultimately the jacket that would keep them the warmest. They handed out jackets until there were no more jackets to hand out. But there were still people who were cold.

A few weeks later, I saw a segment on the news about a company in Michigan called The Empowerment Plan that was making jackets that converted to sleeping bags. The labor hired to sew these jackets is sourced exclusively from homeless shelters. These women are trained and given skills that will hopefully allow them to find full time employment. It was an incredible story to behold. I told my son about the jackets and he began an online fundraiser via Crowdrise to raise $5240 (the cost of 50 jackets plus shipping to NY), so he could continue to help keep our city’s homeless a little warmer.

With the help of many friends and family, more than $6000 was raised allowing for the purchase of nearly 60 coats. And on a cold January night, our family and my parents loaded the jackets into two trucks and drove to Hebrew Union College in The Village to distribute the coats to those patronizing their soup kitchen.

As we unloaded the coats onto a table and started demonstrating them for the people there, a small crowd began to gather. A very tall man was the first person to take a coat, explaining how happy he was because he has not been able to find a warm jacket that fits him in years.

We met a man named Matteo who sleeps in his van and was grateful to now have some semblance of a bed. He marveled at the utility of the jacket and how it was an item fashioned for those in need with respect for those in need in mind. He thanked my son and began to cry.

When a woman named Fatima saw the jacket, she broke into a wide smile and laughter, confiding that this was something she could really use. Her joy was palpable. She took a jacket and returned 15 minutes later just to talk to my son.

“You did this? How did you do this?”

My son explained his fundraiser. Fatima began to cry.

“I can’t believe you did this. You’re only 16. Do you know what you’ve done?”

And then she asked him for a hug. And they embraced.

When the shift was over only 5 jackets remained which we donated to the soup kitchen. Several hours later, after eating dinner at a local restaurant, we started walking back to our car. On the way, we passed Hebrew Union College. Outside was a man in a lawnchair, laughing with his friends, and wearing one of the jackets we gave him earlier that night.

Things have certainly come full circle. To have begun the Midnight Run program in our synagogue and to have ended this coat drive in the basement of a seminary was a beautiful living brush stroke of tikkun olam: repairing the world.

And the world is indeed in need of repair.While the country’s delicate seams have been mercilessly ripped apart, small acts of kindness, like this one, are the thread we all need to sew us back together. Because regardless of where we live or what we own, people are people are people. And yes, you do things for other people. You do it because it is the right thing to do. You do it because you can. You do it because you can make someone’s life better, even if it is just in the smallest way, like a giving a stranger a fresh bar of soap. But you also do it because it makes you feel better too. And it feels good to do good. It does.

My son may not always be the type who sits on my lap to hug me, or who holds my hand while I’m driving and rests his head on it, or who comes into my room to hug and kiss me as a study break. But I hope he is. I will never be too old to accept any of those expressions of love.

Soon my son will be going off to college. When he leaves the home in which he has grown up, I wonder if he is ready for what the world will throw at him. But mostly I want to know that he is a good person. That I am sending my best work, a really good human being, into the world. That he will love and be loved. That he will be kind. That he will help those who need it. And that he will be good. And he is.

My son is already repairing this world, doing great things, and giving back. He’s going to make his mark on this world. In fact, he already has.

Love, Marriage, & Singing in the Car

19 years and one day ago I married my best friend. He was smart and tall and smart and handsome and smart! He was mildly funny and he was smart. He was nice and good at being Jewish and decent. And he was so smart. Just my type.

We moved through our marriage by years, by 3 homes, by 2 births, by 3 children, by many vacations, by some disasters, by 3 separate times I took the car and drove around for hours until I was less angry enough to return, by the loss of 3 grandparents, by several jobs, by 1 fire, by 6 deceased goldfish, and by multitudes of laughter.

Along the way, I wished on many occasions that my husband be something, actually many things, that he is not. I wished him to be more laid back (he is not!). I wished him to be more thoughtful (so so but perhaps making progress). I wished him to be more fun (……). I wished him to be the kind of person that would crank the music up in the car with me and belt out the very best Sirius radio has to offer (sigh).

I am an unabashed, reckless car singer. Maybe you have driven next to me and seen me so you know. Maybe you have just heard about me. Or maybe you have even heard me over state lines. I am a legend in this regard. It’s not pretty and I am seldom able to get through a song without being told to stop singing but it is what it is and I am who I am and that person is an avid, unapologetic car singer.

I have begged my husband, in and out of 19 years, to please sing with me when a good song comes on (and come on, there are so many!). He will not indulge me. He does not think that it will be fun. I continue with “how can it not be fun?! It’s singing! It’s a great song! Pleaseeeee.” No dice. He simply will not sing.

I compare him to past boyfriends and tell him about the wonderful guys before him who would sing in the car with me and the great times we had. They are so much more fun than he was. He waits for me to finish talking and then changes the radio station to 1010 WINS which we listen to on a 22 minute loop until we die.

In the space of all the songs he is not singing with me, he is helping our kids with their homework, sometimes coming home early so he can properly accomplish this task. He is walking my parents’ dog when I am too lazy to do so. He is running out at night after realizing our sons do not have any food to make lunch for the next day of school. He is volunteering at our synagogue and as a basketball coach for our son’s CYO team. He is shoveling my parents’ driveway when there is a snowstorm so that when they return from vacation, they will have one less thing to worry about. He is doing everything except sing in the car with me.

Until finally, one day, he does. He belts out a song with me in the car. I can’t even remember which song it was. But I will tell you this: it was nothing like I thought it would be. It was terrible. In fact, it was so bad, I begged him to stop before the song was even finished. He can’t sing. He can’t car sing. He can’t even sing badly. I don’t know what the word is for the sound that was coming out of his mouth, but I will never be asking him to sing in the car with me again, even if the song that comes on is “Domino” or “Caravan” by Van Morrison. That dream has died.

Sometimes we fantasize about the things we want in our marriages, our lives, ourselves. The patience we wish we had. The parents we wish we were. The fun, breezy, car singers we want to be. Sometimes those fantasies are better left imagined. I am not going to ask him to be who he is not. But that is ok. Because who he is, is for the most part, more than I could ever ask for to begin with.

Happy anniversary to my tone-deaf beloved. For better or for worse. But mostly, for better.

 

Entering a Party

I know I haven’t written in months. I am so sorry! I have been busy planning my sons’ b’nai mitzvah and specifically, working on this: Please give it a look. I hope you love it as much as we do.

I’ll write again soon. I promise.

 

Things We Gained in the Fire

Have you ever had a fire in your home? Probably not. Fire happens to other people. Not to you.

Fire happened to me. And for a multitude of reasons and strokes of luck and fate, I was home and no one was hurt. But still. I did not expect to find the entire second floor of my home filled with smoke. I did not expect to find my bathroom wall in flames. I did not expect to find the need to call 911.  And yet all that happened in a matter of minutes.

Do you have smoke alarms? You should. Do you have fire extinguishers? You should. You should also make sure that they have not expired because otherwise, they’re just taking up precious space in your home in which you could store something that will help you should your house catch fire. And while we are on the subject, you should also make sure they are “ABC” fire extinguishers for all levels and kinds of fires. I did not expect to gain this type of education.

We have smoke alarms. Ironically, for a few weeks they were without batteries (also a no no) that my husband only recently replaced. While previously I thought of smoke alarms as annoyances, this one happened to save our house and possibly, our lives, as I never even smelled that smoke filling up the second floor of my home.

We also have fire extinguishers on every floor but I did not use them to try to put out the fire because I estimated I would first have to read the instructions label and I just did not have the time to do that. I knew the fire would not wait for me to figure out how to kill it and it was already speedily climbing up the wall and charring surfaces on adjacent walls. Do you know how to use your fire extinguishers? You should. You pull the pin and shoot.

Do you have a fire drill in place? A family plan? You should. We did not. I recalled seeing some kind of program that advised that in an emergency, you must direct specific people to carry out certain tasks. You cannot merely say “someone call 911” because someone may never get around to it. I told my son, Eli, to call 911, and I told my son, Ben, to get me a bucket.

My sweet friend, Stacey, has been sending me birthday gifts every year since college. Typically, they arrive on my birthday or the day before. This year, a tin of cookies showed up on my doorstep about 10 days early. Thank goodness. I used that tin to put out the fire.

I did not think about electrocution although I surmised the fire was electrical. I thought about my home. I thought about the place we love, the roof that shelters us, the kitchen and den and dining room in which we have shared so many wonderful holidays and memories, the deck where we love to entertain, the couch on which we gather to watch old home videos, and the bedrooms we retire to at the end of the day. I thought about this space that we love and that loves us and that this recent slight betrayal was going to end right now with me and several cookie tins full of water. I thought that if I did not act immediately, my house was going to burn down along with beloved irreplaceable photographs, ticket stubs from games my sons attended with their father and uncle, knitting needles owned by my adored Aunt Sandy, dirt memorialized from Yankee Stadium for Derek Jeter’s 3000th home run, a needlepoint of the alphabet my mother made for my sons, an old chenille cardigan that my beautiful late grandma used to wear, my son’s cherished stuffed Bunny, Cocky Pancho, my wedding band, and the dress I plan to wear to my sons’ b’nai mitzvah in April. I thought we could lose our history.

Then again, maybe I did not think at all. Maybe I just reacted out of instinct because you when you see flames threatening to destroy something you love, you just want to extinguish them. 911 instructed all of us to leave the house immediately. I sent my sons outside and I went back up the stairs. The fire was still contained to one wall which I took as a good sign. I wondered whether it was a bad idea to try to drown an electrical fire and whether I might short out my entire house. I wondered whether the fire could spread fast enough to trap me in my own bathroom. I also wondered where the towel rod went and if I was doing all the wrong things. I probably was. Perhaps I should have immediately left my home. Instead, I filled and refilled the tin with water and threw it at the fire until I could see no more flames. And then, wondering what might be lurking behind the wall, I threw a few more tins of water, dampening the area as much as possible just in case. And then I ran out the door in my socks.

Only then, while standing in our socks on the driveway waiting to hear the relief of sirens, did one son start to cry while the other one dribbled a basketball. But I told him about how lucky we are, about how we lost nothing we really cared about, and about the death of that goddamn fire. And then, after seeing many firemen and firewomen, and several police officers in and out of my home, we went out for dinner. Because life goes on.

The fire happened the first night of Hanukkah. I never lit my menorah that night. Instead, we were evacuated from our home. The only thing I really worried that we might have lost in that fire – our sense of security – has been restored. And what we gained, hopefully reclaimed perspective, appreciation for all that we have, and gratitude for just how lucky we are, is worth much more.

Last night, on the final night of Hanukkah, we lit our menorah and slept soundly under the roof we love.

Shehecheyanu.

 

 

Gratitude

 

Possibly one of my top ten favorite words and something I try to keep in mind when confronted with things I’d prefer not to think about because things could always be worse:

G R A T I T U D E

Perspective is so important and today, like every day, I am so grateful for

1. My children
2. My husband
3. My parents
4. My brother
5. My extended family
6. My friends
7. Good health
8. James Taylor
9. Licorice
10. Music
11. Warm chocolate chip cookies
12. When Harry Met Sally
13. Medicine and science
14. Taxi
15. The NYT crossword puzzle
16. Laughter
17. Words
18. Not turkey — I could skip that
19. Meatballs
20. My pizza oven
21. My grandparents. They were the best.
22. A well told story
23. Games of all kinds
24. Good coffee
25. The University of Michigan
26. Shehecheyanu
27. The gym (not while I’m there, only when I’m leaving)
28. Frizz Ease
29. Blow outs
30. Public School
31. Kindness
32. Sunshine
33. Pickles
34. Bloody Marys
35. The ocean
36. My Kindle
37. WordPress
38. My GPS even though she sometimes sucks
39. The freedoms granted to me in the Bill of Rights
40. Love

Thank you so very much for reading and for your encouragement. I am grateful for you all.

Shehecheyanu.

Thankful for Human Kindness

— and Stephanie Robinson of Oxford

 

 

I Plopped So You Don’t Have To

Having curly hair is not always easy. And after a lifetime of tending to it, my hair and I are still getting to know each other.

To an outsider (i.e. someone who wakes up with nice hair — hey, what’s that like?), curly hair seems like a true gift. I often hear:

“You’re so lucky! You can wear it any way you want. Straight, curly, you can do so many things with your hair!”

Yes, like never brush it, or sleep with it down, or not wash it if I don’t have hours to let it dry right (fingers crossed).

My Hair, Properly Dried Indoors

For my hair, optimal conditions include applying a heavy combination of Frizz-Ease, Kiehl’s Silk Groom, and Nexxus Keraphix, separating my hair into 5 different sections, curling those sections like payos, and then allowing a solid 4-5 hours for it to dry indoors. So easy, right? If I don’t have the time to let it dry indoors, a quick outdoor method that works is to stick my head out of the window of a vehicle moving at a speed of 55 mph or higher. Highway driving is best. Traffic lights and stop signs really interrupt the hair’s proper drying process.

And by the way, so does summer (also known as the “Season of the Bun”).  If you happen to see a curly-haired woman wearing a bun, it’s not because that is her preferred style; it’s because she doesn’t have a choice. My hair is less of a liability in the winter because with the decrease in humidity, I sometimes indulge in the random blow out (which I can milk as well as any post-menopausal octogenarian, thanks to my hair’s dryness).

With age, my situation is even worse. Due to the cropping up of some gray hairs (let me tell you, those gray hairs are total assholes and will do whatever they please regardless of how much product you may use), I am losing more and more control over my hair every day.

Recently, and to my extreme delight, I came across this video demonstrating the super easy method of “plopping.” A woman (I’ll call her “Lady Curls”), tosses around shiny, perfect wavy curls, while telling me that my hair can also look like that! And, even better, all this fabulous styling will happen while I sleep. No. Way.

First, Lady Curls, in her white terry robe, applies a cocktail of Tresemme and Garnier Fructis products, and combs it through evenly. Next, she slowly lowers her head onto a T-shirt, so that the hair “coils.” Lady Curls pulls the sleeves of the shirt behind her neck and wraps her entire head in the body of the T-shirt. She then ties the shirt’s arms in front of her, tucks in loose ends, and smiles as she relates how this magic doo-rag will allow me to awake with curls that are “dry, bouncy, and frizz free.”

I could not wait to try this method. Maybe I too could now join the ranks of people waking up with nice hair. I hit CVS to buy the products Lady Curls suggested and immediately went home, showered, and fastened on the plopping turban (my husband’s T-shirt). Yes, I looked like a head wound victim, but this would all be worth it in the morning! I would like to say I dreamt of bouncy, frizz-free curls, but there is no sleeping while your head is wrapped inside a damp cotton T-shirt. All I could think about at 3, 4, 5 and 6 am was how nice my hair was going to look and what a sweet time saver I stumbled across. God bless you, Internet!

By 7 am, I was ready to unveil my curls.

The result was incredible: Lady Curls is a downright liar. Actually, wait. She did tell the truth in one respect: my hair was definitely “dry.” It was dry in the way that it was not wet and it was also dry in the way that burned out leaves spontaneously combust to create forest fires.  As for “bouncy and frizz free” — I don’t think so. I would describe the look more as “Survivor, Season 4” (I actually used to think my one luxury item would be Frizz-Ease but then realized it wouldn’t matter because I would be begging my fellow castaways to vote me off the island at the first Tribal Council).

Forest Fire Ready Hair!

My kids advised that if I showed up to their school with my hair “like that,” they would not acknowledge me as their mother.

“It’s really weird. And bad. Why did you do this?!” Said my husband.

I’m the only curly-haired person in my family. No one quite understands my plight. Sigh.

Plopping definitely gave me the hair of a celebrity and that celebrity is Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein.

Me and Gene: Who Wore it Best?

Or, perhaps this video was a devious way to get me to buy Tresemme and Garnier Fructis products, or even a veiled invitation for me to time travel back to the 1980s, prior to the discovery of frizz-taming wonder serums. Whatever the intent behind this video, Lady Curls was a fraud. You suck, Internet!

Anyway, my hair has been in a bun since the “Morning of the Plop.” I would really love to wash it but I just don’t have 4-5 hours.

Lady Curls, you are The Worst.

Friendships That Are Gifts

Every now and then you are lucky enough to come across someone who will be your true friend. Someone who will understand the same jokes. Someone who you can laugh with until your stomach hurts and tears roll down your cheeks. Someone who will get you. Nearly 13 years ago, I was lucky enough to come across my beautiful friend, Beth.

Not long after that, when she was only 37, she called me to her home on a warm spring night. We sat on the porch and sipped iced tea and she told me she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was the first step in a heartbreaking chapter of our friendship.

Beth, loved by innumerable people besides me, was strongly supported by our local community and her larger network of family and friends. I had never known a friend with cancer and I had no idea what to do for her first. I began by pouring my heart into cooking. Every Wednesday night, for as long as she was undergoing treatment (which, incidentally, was many months) I made dinner for Beth and her family. Throughout this time, I noticed her lose her hair, her eyebrows, her eyelashes. I listened to her talk of sores in her mouth as she sucked ice pops, and lament that she was forgetting things from all the chemotherapy. I saw her family rally around her. And I saw her rally around her family. And most important, I watched her fight each day, talk relentlessly about the future, and continue to live her life positively. She was simply incredible.

On her final week of treatment, and the last time I delivered dinner to her family, I brought her a bottle of wine. I worried that such an open display of revelry might superstitiously invite bad luck, but 5 years after Beth’s diagnosis, I was fortunate enough to bring her pink champagne to celebrate the important milestone she finally reached.

What once consumed Beth and her family (and a large part of my mind as well), has become merely a part of her past. She does not dwell on what happened to her. She looks forward. She is happy. She is loved. She continues to live her life positively. She is still simply incredible.

Several months ago, Beth asked me to join her on the Avon 2 day, 39 mile walk across New York City. Without even thinking about it, I said yes. First, I have a problem saying no, and second, I would do anything for Beth. And then I panicked. 39 miles is a major undertaking that required 12 weeks of training, 2 pairs of sneakers, 3 new apps, a minimum fundraising goal of $1800, a weekend away from my family, and countless blisters. What I received in return, however, cannot be itemized. Walking through the streets of the city in which I have grown up, in which my parents have grown up, in which my grandparents have grown up, was nothing short of momentous. I walked past the area where my great grandfather owned an antiques store on the Lower East Side, the theater where I saw my first James Taylor concert, the apartment building I lived in during law school, the library in which my husband and I met, the street where my mother and I picked out yarmulkes for my wedding, the hospital where I delivered my first baby, the spot we used to stroll him to for Sunday brunch, the courthouses in which I spent so much time litigating. I walked through my family history for the past four generations. I walked through my life.

And then I realized, maybe that’s the point. Maybe when you walk through your whole life, your whole life comes back to you. Washed amid a sea of pink, our team held hands and crossed the finish line. I took so many pictures throughout the two days but my favorite one, by far, was the one captured by my husband, solely because of the pure glee you can see in my friend Beth’s smile.

Beth’s whole life has returned to her. She is complete. At the end of the walk, I kissed her and said “your friendship is a gift.” Because it is. I should know. I have been treasuring it now for almost 13 years.

More pictures from the walk:

  

Reservoirs of Hope

I posted optimism in haste. I understand, I am optimistic by nature. I am also superstitious, however, and that should have given me pause. Regardless, I was hasty and we have seen immeasurable sadness.

My son returned to a fetal position on the floor, unable to contort himself enough to not feel pain. He winced, he punched pillows, he cried. I did too. “It’s not fair!” He screamed. I told him he was right. It was not fair. Life often is not. He is only 12. I wish I could know the pain he is feeling. I wish I could experience it so I could commiserate with him. I fear the pain I feel as a mother might be worse. I hope it is because I am abler to weather it than he.

He rearranges himself constantly, twisting around within and atop the quilt, like a giant stress ball but regrettably ineffective. Another very sad week to enter into the calendar.

“Tomorrow will be a better day” I tell him, just like my mother used to tell me when my day ran afoul. Each night I go to sleep an empty pot left beneath a leaky ceiling, allowing hope to collect in time for morning. Each morning I wake with expectation, yet it is always the same, if not worse. The pain still there, the agony unbearable for a young boy, and too much for this mother to witness. At what point do my empty promises reveal me to be an optimistic liar to my child. I cannot keep telling him that “tomorrow will be a better day” when it just does not come to fruition. Perhaps he should be more like his father: an over-prepared realist. Ready for and expecting the worst and anything less will be tolerable and even welcome. Then again, I’m not sure I could live like that either.

“Just sit here and look out the window” my mother used to tell me when I had a nightmare. It was also what her mother used to tell her to remedy the same situation. Inevitably, I would stare out the window and become distracted enough with whatever I may have noticed to have lost track of my nightmare. I wish I could stare out the window long enough right now.

“Just sit here and look out the window” my mother tells my son. But he cannot sit upright long enough without pain to complete this task. He again curls himself into a ball and weeps.

I wonder if this little boy knows how much he is loved. How much the lives of those who love him are thrown off by this spell. That his mother goes to sleep waiting to refill a reservoir of hope by dawn. That his brothers might be a little bit nicer to him. That his grandmother does not sound like herself when she answers the phone. That his grandfather makes frequent unannounced visits just to see how he is doing, just to look at his face, just to kiss the top of his head and rub his back. He is so loved.

Yesterday was the type of day you just do not expect when you wake up, even with a full supply of hope. When you confront a disease, especially one that afflicts your child, and you must contemplate therapies, sometimes none of the choices are good. All medications are accompanied by unfathomable risks and you find yourself asking doctors “is it at least a treatable Lymphoma?” as if that is an acceptable outcome. Simultaneously, compromising your child’s current health is not an option. Pile on the relentless pain and decisions are suddenly made amidst a pressure cooker of love and concern and the need for a young child to simply find some rest.

I refused to allow the nurse to provide a detailed consent, particularly in front of my son. I do not want to know the risks they are required to tell me by law. I do not want to know about minuscule possibilities of terrible things that may await us. I do not want to know about something that might have happened to a lab rat that received 1,000,000 times the allowable dose. I want to see my son well. I want to see his smile again. I want to see him be a 12 year old boy.

Several hours later, following his first IV infusion therapy, I did just that. Now he is at school. He is sleepy, he is concerned, but he is smiling. Today is a better day.

My pot is full.