Why I Light this Candle

Monday night was my father’s yahrzeit, and I lit a candle.

He died in 1980 on the 23rd day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, February 10th by the American/Gregorian calendar. Since the Hebrew calendar follows a lunar month, the date shifts around every year, and I have to check each year to find out when Shevat 23 lands.

The candle is a special candle that burns for about 26 hours. I light it at sundown the night before his yahrzeit and I say Kaddish, a Hebrew prayer of mourning. Then I take a photo and send it to my siblings and my daughter.

My brother replied: “Saying kaddish? Praying? Do you guys do that? Is the religious aspect of Judaism important to you all? Do you believe in the Jewish God? Or any god?”

These are all good questions. I only started lighting the candle a couple years ago, so why exactly do I do it?

First, there’s the God part. I have a physicist’s view of the universe. Einstein and Hawking and Feynman and Thorne are my source material, and while I marvel at the amazing answers science has been able to provide, I am in awe of the unanswered questions. The mystery is what thrills me, the unknowable (so far). That mystery is what I might feel God-like (or physicist-like?) about.

So that really doesn’t have anything to do with “belief.” Or “higher powers” or the usual ideas about God. Prayer is a melody, not a request or a hope. It doesn’t do anything.

So if I’m not lighting the candle for God; am I doing it for Dad? Well, Dad is dead, and he has no idea I’m lighting any candle. I also tend to skip the part about telling stories about him, remembering him, reflecting on him. My Dad had a difficult childhood with ideas of parenting I have since rejected, but I made my peace with him. So I don’t think I’m lighting the candle specifically for my Dad (even though it’s his yahrzeit).

I am lighting the candle because I am part of a line. Other people lit candles for parents and grandparents and I am a daughter and it’s my turn in the line.

I didn’t really understand this line until I had a daughter. She was named for my grandmother, but she extended my line into the future. That’s a really earth-shaking realization – a total transformation of reality – and once you’re extended into the future, your link to the past is cemented, too. In our Third Thirds, it all seems so much clearer. That past comes with tradition, history, and ritual. In my pick-and-choose way, I pick the candle ritual.

In my case, the tradition is Judaism. This is what I believe: whatever you are, however you identify yourself, you have to be it wholeheartedly. You have to affirm it, learn about it, be proud of it, espouse it. At the same time, you have to enjoy that everyone else is affirming, espousing, and proud of what they are. If we don’t do that, we all become just white bread.

Ursula K. LeGuin wrote a fascinating book called The Lathe of Heaven. The protagonist has “effective” dreams, meaning they actually alter reality. A psychiatrist tries to steer his dreams to solve world problems, such as racism. But as dreams work, George dreams that everyone is now gray … and his girlfriend no longer exists. Being black was such a powerful part of her identity, she couldn’t exist in a gray world.

A gray world, a white bread world, is a world I don’t want to live in. I want big, vibrant African-Americans; big, vibrant Puerto Ricans; big, vibrant Norwegians (recognizing that might not be their style…), etc. etc. And my contribution to this is as a Jew.

So this is why I light the yahrzeit candle: I am reaffirming my place in the Jewish line of my grandparents, my father, my family, and my daughter. I am honoring them and our tradition, and I am being who I am. That’s all.

The Illness Lesson

In a very smart move for our emotional health, Tim and I scheduled our annual trip to sunshine. This time, we were headed to Puerto Rico to add our dollars to their hurricane- and earthquake-ravaged economy. For its part, Puerto Rico would add its many hours of daylight to our psyches.

So why did I pick a three-leg return flight with an 8-hour layover in Philadelphia?!?

It could be any number of stupid reasons:

• It was the one that “popped up” on the website

• It was cheaper or took less miles

• I thought, “Oh, we can take the SEPTA train into Center City and see a museum. I can check out Philadelphia for an urban infusion month. It’ll be like two vacations in one.” Was I delirious??

So after we were blissfully relaxed in Puerto Rico, we had to be at the San Juan airport at 4:30 a.m. for our 4½-hour flight to Philadelphia. An irritating little cough started on the plane, the kind that just tickles and doesn’t go away. A “non-productive” cough. We got off in drizzly, gray Philadelphia, got onto the train, made it easily to the Museum of the American Revolution. But somewhere around Washington’s Tent (the actual!), I was flagging. Sagging. We bought cough drops.

And then we had to get back on a plane for another six hours to Seattle. By now, the whole plane was coughing. I kept thinking of Japan, of people kindly wearing masks so they wouldn’t infect others. And then, at a pivotal point in my misery, I thought, What would I pay to not be on this flight?

Later, Sophie would tell me that she’s figured she’d pay $200 to get out of a horrible itinerary, but when she’s purchasing her ticket, she’s pleased with herself for “saving” $200. Note to self: I’m not 25 anymore. A penny saved may be a torture created.

In Seattle, I paid $1 a pill for Advil (because I’d checked medications so I wouldn’t have to carry them around Philadelphia museums…) Way back when we were taking Lamaze classes many years ago, I thought, “I’m a distance runner. I can handle anything if I know there’s an end in sight to pain.” Then the instructor gave us clothespins to clamp on our ears, and I thought my head would spin off from the pain. That flight was like those clothespins.

I am a wuss. This is only the second time I’ve been sick. The other time was when I caught bronchitis 25 years ago. Mostly, I think sick people failed to get their flu shots or … lack some moral fiber. Yes, I know that is totally ungenerous and lacking in compassion. It’s a serious deficiency in my human development, but I guess my current state is a reflection of my own lack of moral fiber.

Twenty-five hours from when we started in San Juan, we made it home. Since then – many days – I’ve been on the couch. My cough is now very “productive” and my body aches so much even my skin aches. If my hair flops from one side to the other, my scalp hurts.

Puerto Rico is a distant memory. I’ll have to reflect on it later. I’m not sure I remember it. So what have I learned?

• I am very, very lucky to have a home that comes with a husband, a couch, a heating pad, a big blanket, Netflix, many library books, a teakettle, and a medicine cabinet.

• I shouldn’t plan something that requires marathon strength. Planning should default to a higher comfort level; save the marathon strength for an unanticipated emergency.

• I am very, very lucky to have a home that comes with a husband, a couch, a heating pad, a big blanket, Netflix, many library books, a teakettle, and a medicine cabinet.

• Don’t put the Advil in the checked baggage.

• I am very, very lucky to have a home that comes with a husband, a couch, a heating pad, a big blanket, Netflix, many library books, a teakettle, and a medicine cabinet.

So I guess I got more out of a trip to Puerto Rico than I thought.

Resolution Rebellion

I refused to make any New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t know if it’s cynicism or laziness, but I just wouldn’t. In my Third Third, I’ve been through 60+ attempts to codify being a Better Barbara. No, 120+ attempts: I have the Jewish New Year, too. And while there’s something gratifying about envisioning ways to be a Better Barbara, this year’s Barbara just rebelled.

Resolutions are the skirmish in my war of “feel like it” versus discipline, my continuing Third Third battle. At first, when I subtracted shoulds from my life – no more waking up to go to work, no more external demands on my time – I unleashed tremendous energy for my wants. But eventually, that tremendous energy faded and to-dos reasserted themselves.

Three years ago, I wrote here that I was excited about my new brand of resolution: baby steps. I was, for example, going to do just 50 sets of squats in the whole year. And it was also here, that I reaffirmed, “if nothing changes, nothing changes.”

So why haven’t I changed? Have I become a stick-in-the-mud in my Third Third, an old fogy? Am I [horrors!] set in my ways???

I can actually think about doing squats – like right now – and not stand up and do them. It’s not that I hate doing squats; it’s not that they’re painful or uncomfortable or even just unpleasant. It’s just that I don’t feel like doing them.

I’d set a Goodreads goal of reading 75 books in 2019. I ended up reading 102. Wow! Hooray! But that’s because reading is a socially acceptable way to do just what I want and dodge shoulds at the same time.

Another resolution – writing thank you notes – actually worked. I designed pretty note cards out of pressed, dried leaves, and I was actually excited to mail them out. Now why did that one work? It combined creativity (the art for the cards was a New Thing) with feeling kind with being do-able. A big win! I’ve pressed more leaves.

Once, Tim and I made resolutions as if it were a year later and we were looking back on the year. So we’d say things like, “It’s 2021, and we’re glad we took a road trip through the South in 2020.” We didn’t look at the resolution as a plan but as an accomplishment. We didn’t have the stress of a to-do but rather the satisfaction of a done. That actually worked, too.

This is what I would like to look back on 2020 and see: that I tackled a big challenge and did it. Not the little challenges of getting a meal on the table or a mile swum. Not even the challenge of arranging another urban infusion month in a big city, but a Big Challenge. Something tough but not too scary; one Chilkoot Trail is enough.

I have to make sure I outfox my grand pianos, the weights that plague me psychologically, so it has to feel rewarding. It has to touch some deeper chord in me, keep me mentally healthy. It has to be a should wrapped in want clothing.

Stop, stop, STOP! It’s a few weeks later and I just re-read that last line. (I also just re-read the Big Challenge I’d set for myself – and deleted it.) Why do I even have a should that has to be disguised to be palatable? Is there some hierarchy of value that puts shoulds at the top? Am I assigning medicine to myself that I have to force myself to take?

I am not a discipline writer; I am a feel-like-writing writer. I am a feel-like-painting painter. I am a feel-like-skiing skier and a feel-like-swimming swimmer. When those activities feel good, I’m happy. But making a disciplined rule or schedule for them just ices my soul.

Yes, I know that sets the stage for ordinary, for failure to master, for no improvement. Chasing whim sets the stage for “flaky.” I once decided that my goal in cross-country skiing was explicitly to remain mediocre, that after a lifetime of aiming for excellence, I wanted one activity that would just stop at mediocre. A friend called it remaining “happy intermediate.”

I think, in my Third Third, Happy Intermediate is a nice goal for a lot of things. So this will have to be my resolution:
    Happy Intermediate is, by definition, happy. Enjoy it.
That’s all.

Is it hoarding if you're organized?

This is such an anti-resolution post.

First, it’s not what I intended to write about resolutions in our Third Third. I’ll have to get to that later. And second, it flies in the face of all the de-cluttering I’ve resolved to do.

It started with an assignment to create a Volunteer Survey for OLÉ, our mostly all-volunteer nonprofit. There are always tasks to be done and maybe there are willing volunteers out there. How to find them and appeal to them?

I’ve done a lot with volunteers – recruiting, coordinating, and being one – and I have a lot of thoughts on how to value them, recognize them, incorporate them. I was once even the keynote speaker at the Golden Heart Awards.

But what I remembered was creating a Volunteer Survey for Denali Elementary School. It was a really good survey, so my first stop was my computer.

I searched in all my folders: Volunteering, Denali K-8, School District. I used the little Mac searchlight (spotlight?) thing over and over again. (I imagined her saying, “Enough already! It’s not here.” And besides, even if I found it, I bet its Microsoft Word would have that funny black “exec” icon that means my current Microsoft Word can’t read it.

[Aside: is there a cure for that??? Do I just watch my files slip slowly into oblivion? Is that Microsoft’s way of forcing me to de-clutter?]

I can clearly visualize the survey: I’d done it on letter-size paper, but folded it the long way, so it opened vertically. With columns and little check boxes. We printed it on hot pink paper.

That moved me to the file cabinets in the laundry room. I searched high and low. Didn’t I have a file on Volunteerism? Or was it subsumed under Civic Engagement? Or School District? Or even Speeches? I’m sure Volunteerism is somewhere. Where?!?

So then I went to my friend, Margie, who had been on the Denali Committee with me. I described the survey, the hot pink color. I hoped she had better files than I did. And this is what she said:

Oh I am sorry Barbara! I would usually have this sort of thing but I finally got rid of all my Denali paper, even, gasp, the state raffle paperwork and all the losing tickets, some time ago. Don’t you hate redoing something when you are sure you did a better job the first time? Good luck, Margie

She saved losing tickets???

But yes, she hit the nail on the head: I was sure I did a better job the first time. It’s the same feeling when I end up deleting something in error and have to re-create. It’s like a bad copy of a copy.

So this morning, I attacked the file cabinets again. If it wasn’t in my files, maybe it was in my “Sophie Files.” I have all the fascinating things she created: the Kindergarten folder, the 1st Grade folder, the 2nd Grade folder, etc. etc. all the way to Graduation. I keep meaning to have her go through them and de-clutter, but she doesn’t even know they exist. They’re my little secret stash of clutter.

And then, in the 1st Grade folder, in between her How Plants Make Food report, How to Tell Time handmade book, and certificate for TV-Turnoff Week 1999, was the Survey!

Oh, yikes! I feel like I’ve just outed myself as a hoarder! Am I still a hoarder if my files are neatly arranged and have plastic tabs identifying them?

But it doesn’t matter: I have the Survey! And yes, it is good. It asks whether someone “vants to work alone” or is a cheerful worker bee: “Give me a copy machine and I’ll stand in front of it.” Do they want short and sweet projects, to run the show or follow directions, to make fun or make money?

I told Margie I’d found it, and she replied, “This is the kind of thing that keeps one from throwing anything out.”

Moral of this story: A successful Find is a de-cluttering Setback. But a successful Find is a Jump-Up-and-Down-Happy-Dance with a Smile on your Face and a Hooray in Your Heart!

Back from Japan

I’ve been in Japan.

Time zone changes, jet lag, and return-home-catch-up would be enough to explain why I haven’t written, but it’s even harder than that.

How do you sum up Japan?

It’s one thing when I travel for a month and go through the process – in this blog – of learning and discovery. It’s another thing when I’m back, have already dealt with both the panic and thrill of cultural disruption, and now have … reflection.

We arrived at Sea-Tac Airport early, so All Nippon Airways had signs that said “Counter opens at 9:20 a.m.” At precisely 9:20 a.m., the agents stood in front of their individual counters, bowed, and welcomed us to their airline with prepared introductions.

Welcome to Japan.

My first total and complete thrill began on the plane: Japanese toilets! With a lifetime of restroom visits and bladder emptying – with my experience as the Toilet Police – how could I have missed learning about Japanese toilets!

All those buttons! You can spray your front, you can spray your rear, you can change the pressure, you can warm the seat. You can air dry, you can deodorize. You can play sound so no one else hears your “sounds.” There are so many buttons, I’m not sure what some of them meant: pulsate? oscillate? (and that’s the English). And in the accompanying child stalls, there were even optional potty chairs.

It’s only fitting. In a country of clean streets, no graffiti, public transit with immaculate cushioned seats, absolutely pristine garbage trucks, and swept garden lawns (!); it’s only fitting that everyone would have clean butts.

Speaking of Clean
It’s impossible to find a litter box in Japan, but it’s equally impossible to find litter. After a while, you learn to carry your litter with you. Going out for the day is like camping and packing out your own trash. Look around and you realize everyone treats the public spaces as if they were their own living room. Japanese children mop their classroom floors (there are no janitors); Japanese athletes clean their locker rooms.

In Japan, the Commons is cared for. At every level, in every location, at any time, it’s obvious. (And afterwards, when you return to the United States, the opposite is obvious, too.)

And not just clean. Beautiful. So I’ll start with the gardens.

The Gardens
I know I’ve mentioned here that I tire of manicured gardens when I make my monthly trips; that I crave the wildness of Alaska and its “dirty dirt.” But the gardens of Japan take manicured to the level of artistry, of masterpiece, of divine spirit.

After visiting the Kenroku-en Garden in Kanazawa, I heard a BBC interview with its head gardener. He explained that it takes 60 gardeners per tree to pluck last year’s pine needles from each branch by hand. (The interviewer couldn’t tell this year’s from last year’s, but the gardener could.) Gardeners sit on the moss and pick out individual blades of grass that have taken root. Ropes are strung to the trees so when snow falls, it will stick to the rope and make patterns while the ropes support the tree.

We were there – just by luck – during the peak of red maple season, and the gardens were glorious. Beyond glorious. My color hair glorious. I can’t do justice to those scenes, so look at this.

It’s not just the trees. Ryōan-ji in Kyoto is fifteen stones in a garden of white pebbles. That’s all, but the stones were intentionally placed. Leave me there and just let me sit and look.

Just Look
I can’t read or speak Japanese, so the world was filled with signs I couldn’t read, bookstores I couldn’t enter, TV I couldn’t understand. My visual world was just a “look at” world, not necessarily an “understand” world. I walked through streets and saw color and shape and images; I couldn’t receive textual or verbal. Everything became a picture not a sign.

This was really a big change for my word-brain. And that’s even before I entered Zen and became one with the table.

Lefse Lessons: Trial and Error Error Error

A lot of my Quests for New-ness (my method for keeping life from getting stale) involve cooking. Cooking is so prone to staleness – dinner every night over and over and over again – that it needs dedicated intervention to liven it up make it bearable. So there was the Sauerkraut Saga and the Medieval Mustard Mission. Twice, I discovered parables for living with a brand new pressure cooker – once when I bought it and once when I wrecked it. But even if none of those had worked, there was always Barbara’s Ginger Beer Factory, raspberry liqueur, Bourbon Salmon, and further misadventures with alcohol.

Hmmm, cooking Quests for New-ness always seem to involve a certain amount of calamity. Well, New-ness doesn’t come without risk, but how else would I have learned how to whomp mustard?

So when the Sons of Norway put out a call for help making lefse, how could I resist? It was time to call Connie, and that was before I knew that we’d end up covered in flour. Connie and I are really good at getting dirty.

We entered Viking Hall and right off were greeted by Amanda. The same Amanda who’s taught me watercolors and pencil drawing! She teaches lefse rolling, too!

First we have to prepare round boards for rolling on. We cover them with round, pastry cloth covers and pull them snug. Then we have to sprinkle enough flour to cover up the printing on the cover. Lots of flour. We pull a little sock over the special ridgy rolling pins, too. More flour.

At one end of the kitchen, other volunteers are boiling potatoes, ricing them with flour, and making balls to put in the refrigerator. I take a ball from the plate of finished dough balls, put it on the rolling board, pat it, and push it a couple of rolls. Dough sticks to the rolling pin sock. Not enough flour. Get a new sock. More flour.

You have to roll in alternating directions to make sure your lefse maintains Round. My Round is Round-ish. My Round is basically just not square. Or it’s square with bulges here and there.

When your dough is a super-thin pancake, you stick the long, special turning stick under it. One side of the stick is rounded and one is flat. Flat-side down, you scrape under the dough to release it from the board. Then you lift up the pancake.

Then you pick up the pieces that have broken and fallen. Reject!

You roll out another, super-thin. So thin, there are holes in it. Reject!

You roll out another, but it seems most of your flour has been absorbed. You can’t get the stick underneath. Reject!

When you finally get a pancake to stay on the stick, you walk over to the griddle to lay it down and cook. Not so easy! It’s big and floppy and thin, so it falls on the floor before you can make it to the griddle. Reject!

You try to make one a little sturdier, but it’s too thick. Reject!

You roll out another, but it sticks to the pastry cloth. Reject! More flour. One woman volunteer talks to herself, “Flour is our friend. Flour is our friend.” She’s right! I am now covered in flour, but I’m making round-ish pancakes! I turn to the griddle … and my lefse lands with all its sticky sides sticking to each other. Reject!

Connie decides that productivity demands she give up trying to deal with the griddle. She’ll just roll. But Amanda doesn’t give up on us: we have to hold the long stick very low to the griddle and twist it so that the pancake slowly unwinds itself. It’s a balancing act of original placement on the griddle and unwinding over it. Some make it, some don’t.

Once on the griddle, you use the brush to brush off the excess flour. And because flour is now our friend, there’s a lot. Grill the other side and add your lefse to the mountain of lefses on the counter under the sheet. Other volunteers are brushing off excess flour (Flour is no longer our friend.) and packaging the cooled ones.

So much to learn! I am trying to decide if a valuable learning experience for me is a net-productivity-loss for the Sons of Norway, but by now, I’m churning out lefse. Well, I’m producing lefse. I’m not exactly a lefse factory. They can package my round-ish lefse mixed in with properly-round lefse, so maybe no one will notice.

I am exhausted. I whisper to Connie, “Two hours.” She looks at me in shock, “Two hours MORE?” “No, no!” I say. “We’ve been here two hours. I think we can leave.” Everyone else in the room is still toiling away. They were there yesterday and they’ll come back tomorrow. They tell us to taste one before we leave. (We kindly pick from the pile of rejects.)

We butter it, sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar, and roll it up. It’s delicious!

And now I know how to make it! But first I need a nap. 

Back to School (Reunion Version)

I drive onto the university grounds, following the signs for the parking lots on the grassy fields. The first lot, the closest one, says “50+.” Oh, whoa, I think, I can’t park there. That’s for the old people.

Wait a second: I’m here for my 45th reunion. Next time, I’ll be in the 50+!

Nothing like a reunion weekend to bring up the issues of time, aging, memory, way back when, and what next. The place you lived for four years and whizzed around on your bicycle in your sleep is now so full of new buildings – and even a whole new quad – that you are hopelessly lost and disoriented enough to feel disconnected from your own history.

And the class book is filled with so many people you never met that you wonder, Did I really go here? Or did I just inhabit some little insignificant corner?

Nothing like a college campus to generate an identity crisis.

Cindy says, “I worked for Congresswoman Bella Abzug the summer after you.”

“You did? That’s amazing! Why didn’t I know that?”

“Barbara, we know that. We’ve known that. We’ve talked about that.”

Candy is in the photo the night Bella came to dinner. “Candy, I didn’t remember you lived in that house.” “Barbara, you were there???”

The question of identity is time-sensitive. We were who we were once, and some part of us lingers and endures, but what if it’s a part we can’t remember?

Well, then, you still have a great time meeting new people. They have all come back because something interesting beckons, some learning, some exploration, some mystique. I meet Jan (whom I never knew) walking from the parking lot, Ann in a long conversation over lunch, the two aerospace engineers as we discussed the 737 MAX.

And then, there are The Friends. We met freshman year, and we endure. Dennis in from London, Debbie from D.C., Bob from Mill Valley, May and Bet from Oakland. Gayle from Las Vegas, Joy and Jeff from southern California. Neil hurt his hip, so he and Lee Ann can’t make it. Even Jon makes his appearance! We are like Shangri-La: we reopen every five years and we know we’ll always be there. Until, we don’t, and then we’ll miss them each year, like we miss Sally for the first time for always.

There is a class on climate change, a class taught by an ambassador to Russia, a computer musician who built a laptop orchestra, a class on poverty-stricken cities that can no longer even provide 9-1-1. I love all this learning, engaging, access to great thinkers!

But in a class participation session on post-retirement, everyone else seems to have found their rhythm while I’m still … experimenting. I tell them how, in search of something I could repair that wasn’t getting fixed, I couldn’t even get the goose poop cleaned up from a park! I’m looking for my legacy, and it’s elusive. “I’m Barbara, and I waste time.” Everyone laughs.

Afterwards, I hear from LOTS of people: they relate! What a surprise! We are all – always – feeling our way. That’s it. We are all – always – just feeling our way.

Meanwhile, I’m reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Timequake. He writes:

Still and all, why bother [writing]? Here’s my answer: Many people need desperately to receive this message: “I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don’t care about them. You are not alone.”

We are all – always – just feeling our way! We are not alone.

One of the classes is “Cultivating Calm: Spiritual Practices for a Healthy, Whole Life.” How could I resist? She talks to us about The Tree of Contemplative Practices, and I didn’t know storytelling counted! And volunteering! And marches! So instead of focusing on how I don’t have the patience to meditate, I can see the benefits of what I am doing.

But this is what she says. She says the best thing she can help a student do is to get that student to wrestle with this question: “Who am I and who do I seek to become for the sake of the world?”

That question never ends! That is my question forever. It was my first identity crisis, and it will be my last, and wrestling with it is the point.

I have gone back to college, and I have learned something.

Aha!