Know

I recently participated in a remarkable course through USC called Community Arts -- Healing & Social Justice. It’s been a while since I’ve been a student.

It was wonderful, incredibly exciting, very interesting and somewhat burdensome, burdensome because it was an intense course. Four Sundays for five hours each time.
I adore the professor who is teaching this class. I have known about him for years. He is an expert in this field and is deeply connected to the work. He is so incredibly good at what he does, he really, I mean REALLY, knows his shit. 

He gave us an exercise for homework. We had to create or take an image in our community of something that makes us feel safe and something that makes us feel unsafe.
There must be at least one million things I could have taken pictures of for both. There must be at least one million more images online that would or could paint the images of the things that keep me up at night, or the things that bring me solace. Somehow, I went totally blank and could not think of anything. Nada. Nothing. 

I was driving in the car with my middle daughter and told her about the exercise. She looked at me shocked that I didn’t have an answer. “Well, that’s easy. Take a photo of the car. You always say how unsafe you feel when we drive. I mean, seriously that’s a no-brainer. And for the safe one, take a picture of the Sukkah (the hut we sit in as Jews to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot). You love the holidays. You love being Jewish. Geez, Ima, what’s wrong with you? This is easy! Wish my calculus homework was this easy!”

I wasn’t sure how she knew exactly what to tell me. I felt that what she suggested was perfect. Of course, when everybody started sharing their pictures, I started second guessing myself. I find it amazing how easily what we know to be true can be shifted and turned into what we think we don’t know!

Knowing. 

Owning what we know. 

Letting ourselves know.

Sometimes I see a kid and I know.

I know they can make it. 

Maybe it is my faith. Maybe it is intuition.

Maybe it is simply my will.

“Ms., I don’t know what to do.”

“Yes, you do,” I say. 

“Fucking hell,” she says. “I don’t know what to do, really.” 

I push back. 

“Yes, you do.” 

“Ms. Tell me. Tell me what to do.”

“I can’t,” I tell her. “This is your choice, and you have to make it.” 

I fervently wish I could tell her what to do. This is a tough one. 

She is pregnant.

She also got into college.

She is the first in her family to graduate high school. 

She is no longer in a relationship with the father of the baby.

“Ms., I don’t know what to do.”

“It is your choice,” I tell her.

There were 1 million things I could say to her.
They were 10 million other things I didn’t want to say. This is a loaded topic. Various colleagues of mine have strong opinions about this. I believe a woman has the right to choose what works for her, her body, her life, her being. 

As a mom of three, I know that once that kid comes into this world it is a lifelong commitment. No one has the right to force someone to make that commitment.

I tell my students all the time that they are the experts on the subject of themselves.
No one else can be in their shoes and know what is right for them. And while I think advice is important and sometimes helps us, deep down in our gut most of the time we know what to do. We just need the courage to listen to that voice.

On the next phone call, I tell her again, “This is your choice.” 

“I really want someone to tell me what to do,” she answers.

“This is a huge decision.” 

I asked her why she wants someone else to make this decision.  

She said, “So I’ll have someone to blame when it sucks.” 

We went back-and-forth. I supported her not knowing journey.
I took her to places where she could get information.

I told her it will suck and it will be amazing.

I will not write here what choice she made because it could be used the wrong way by people who have an agenda on this subject.

She made the decision that was right for her. She made the decision that she had to make.

“I know what I need to do,” she said. “I have known from the minute I found out.”

“I know,” I said. 

“I had to walk the path to what I know.” She laughed.

“That’s okay,” I said. 

“You know, Ms., I just need to listen to the voice inside me and trust it.”

“Yup,” I said. “That’s a hard one.”

“Why is it so hard?”
“Because we trust ourselves the least, when we really should trust ourselves the most.”

“Well, I have done some shitty shit in my life. I am not sure I’d trust a bitch like me.”

I laugh and say, “Trust the you inside who isn’t connected to the shitty shit.” 

“How do you know there is a me that isn’t connected to the shitty shit?” she asks.  “And I ain’t all shit.”

I look at her. I am quiet.

I see her. 

I make sure she sees me see her.

“I KNOW,” I say. “I simply know.”

She laughs and says, “Well I ain’t fucking with what you know!”

“Perfect!” I say, hoping I remember with conviction not to fuck with what I know either.

I Am

I am a half breed. I was born in the US but lived most of my life in Israel. After moving back to the US, I have lived here for the past 15 years.
In Israel, I was always considered SO American. 

When I moved back to the States, everybody always told me I’m SO Israeli. To be honest, I straddle these two worlds, sometimes with ease and grace, and sometimes in a clumsy, very sloppy way.
When I first moved back to the States as an adult, I was struck by how absolutely Israeli I was and was amazed by how I am NOT AMERICAN at all. However, recently, I have become aware of how American I have become. And how now there are certain “Israeli-isms” that actually piss me off and drive me insane.

I am a half breed. I was born in the US but lived most of my life in Israel. After moving back to the US, I have lived here for the past 15 years.

In Israel, I was always considered SO American.

When I moved back to the States, everybody always told me I’m SO Israeli. To be honest, I straddle these two worlds, sometimes with ease and grace, and sometimes in a clumsy, very sloppy way.

When I first moved back to the States as an adult, I was struck by how absolutely Israeli I was and was amazed by how I am NOT AMERICAN at all. However, recently, I have become aware of how American I have become. And how now there are certain “Israeli-isms” that actually piss me off and drive me insane.

I think the most important thing I have come to realize is that there are some things I am and a handful of things I am not.

There’s a lot of things I so want to be and things that I simply can’t be.

I try to find the balance and peace among all of these things because, as the serenity prayer goes:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Ironically, I am in the business of change. I tell people they can be whoever and whatever they want to be. That was something my parents told me again and again when I was a little girl. “You can be anything you set your mind to.” A smart therapist once told me “It’s a big burden to be anything.” I remember not really understanding exactly what she meant then. I think now I do.

We can’t be everything. It’s too hard - actually impossible.

We can be what we can be. We can be who we are and the things that we can’t, we simply cannot be. The trick is being OK with that.

“Do you really think I am gonna graduate, Ms.?” she asked me.

“I am absolutely sure you will.” I nod.

“I ain’t ever finished anything in my life,” she said.

“You finished my class,” I say. She laughed.

I met her when she was in her teens, locked up, young, and very angry. They wrote her off. She was affiliated with a particularly violent gang. Her family was gang royalty. That is not something you walk away from easily. In the lock up facility they predicted she’d be in county (jail) in a year.

I said maybe not.

They said I was naïve.

When she got out, it was impossible to get her transcripts to her school - so much red tape. She got kicked out of school and then kicked out of another school.

She went in and out of Juvie.

We were in touch and then we lost touch.

Then, out of the blue, she texted me.

She needed a recommendation for a job.

I hadn’t spoken to her in a few years.

I told her I need to meet with her a few times, and we need to get together before I can write her a recommendation.

We went out to lunch.

We took a walk in the park.

We sat in a garden and played with her son.

She blew me away.

She cut herself off from the complications in her life.

She lives in a small apartment with her grandmother.

“When I had my son, I knew I could do better,” she told me. “I stopped all the stupid shit, Ms. Oh, and guess what? You were right, I finished high school, got me a diploma!”

“I told you.” I smiled.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“I didn’t, but I knew you had to hear someone say it out loud so you would know that you have the option.”

“No one ever told me that I can do shit,” she said.

“Well, obviously you can.”

“Yup, I sure can. I’m gonna go to college, too, but not now. Now I can’t. It’s too much and it ain’t me, but later, Ms., later.”

It was kind of far where she is living now.

In the car on the way home, I was incredibly content thinking about how well she is doing – impressed by what an awesome mom she is even though she has absolutely no role models for parenting.

I heard again in my head how with such ease she told me that right now college isn’t her. She is taking care of her kid, she has a job, and college will happen later.

I think about being anything and being everything and how hard I am on myself for the things I am not.

Maybe like my sweet student - it simply ain’t me now.

Maybe it will never be me.

I think how no one, absolutely no one, ever thought this kid would become who she is now.

I realize that we can become, we can change, and life is dynamic.

There is always later, even though sometimes later can be too late.

But hey…

Better late than never!

Feelings

One of my children is on the quiet side, she is very different than me.

Sometimes when we are driving to here or there, it can be a little unnerving.

I feel like I am on an uncomfortable first date. She sits quietly. Sometimes on her phone, and sometimes looking out the window.

Me? I am babbling and talking about everything under the sun.

Trying to make conversation. Trying to connect with her. My interactions with her evoke so many different feelings. I know she likes the quiet. Not sure why I can’t just be quiet.

There is such a distance between what I know I should do, and what I actually do.

I am trying. Really trying. I know that it is me trying so hard that is the biggest problem. I am  incredibly proud of who she is. I love that she’s so dramatically different than me. The issue is that I don’t know always know what to do about that.

I feel horrible that I sometimes push her, and then she gets mad.

She will say “Ima - you’ve said that seven times,” or “you asked me that already.”

As my children get older they need me less. My feelings are mixed.  

Happy to be getting my life back, to do my own thing. Sad to see them move on. Exhilarated to watch them become. A little gloomy about them leaving. Excited for their lives without me.

So many mixed emotions. I am trying to process these emotions and feelings and figure out what I’m supposed to do with them. 

I stopped the car to let her off. She coldly got out, closed the door and did not say goodbye. Actually she said nothing and walked away.

I sat there annoyed, a little hurt. I sat and watched her walk away and thought about something one of my students told me about getting clean from drugs.

He told me that one of the reasons to use drugs was to numb all the feelings. “I got all these feels, didn’t really even know what they were.” He added, “Once I got lit (high) they changed, the feelings they went away. Dem feelings, they become something else.” Then he told us,

 “When I went to therapy…”  God bless Homeboy Industries that gives my beautiful students the opportunity for therapy and guidance. He continued, “The therapist told me that I will find answers in my feelings. I thought she was fucking stupid, but then I started to feel and listen to what I was feeling.” He added,  “I hate my fucking baby mama, and that’s cause she is a bitch.” He laughs, “Now, I know I hate her. Those are my damn feelings. She ain’t nice. I fucking hate her. I don’t gotta fight with her. I just stay away from the bitch, and hate her without the fighting.”

Everyone laughed.

“Okay.” I say to him, not loving this narrative, but going with it.

“No, wait Ms. hear me out.” He said, “If you hear your feelings, they tell you stuff. I ain’t gonna lie - I hate my ex. Those are my feelings. I heard my feelings. I except them. Now I don’t get mad at her. I just hate her without getting mad. I used to think my feelings control me Ms. Now? I get me control from understanding how I feel.”

I remember thinking in that moment how profound that is.

I think of my kids and try to figure out how can I get myself control from understating how I feel.

I was sitting in my car and actually laughing out loud just thinking of that.

And my feelings were a little calmed. I need to find control from understanding how I feel.

Not let the feelings control me.

A woman in that class said, “I got no control – I got me so many feelings. They got them a world of their own. They come at me like crazy fucking bullets from an automatic machine gun. All I do is try to dodge dem bullets. I don’t understand how you get you control. That therapy shit don’t work for me. If I let my feelings loose, they come back to bite me in the ass, fucking hard!”

“Girl…” my feelings student said, “Your problem is that you are trying to dodge them. Let them feelings hit you. Let them touch you. Feel your feelings.”

I remember almost falling off my chair.

“Ms. You must have done a lot of therapy right?” I nod, laugh and say, “Oh yes, lots of therapy.”

“Didn’t they tell you to feel?” he added.

“Well actually,” I say. “Therapy is talking about the feelings, so you can understand them a little better and live with them at peace.”

The female student says, “That’s bullshit.”

“No,” I say “It’s a choice, and it’s super hard work.”

“See,” the feelings student said again “you control the feelings.”

They went back and forth. We got into a deep discussion about therapy.

The pros, the cons, and why therapy is vital for healing and recovery from the big stuff, and the little stuff.

I watched my kid from the car meet up with her friends.

She was cheery, chatty and smiley.

She looked like a totally different kid then the one who got out of the car without saying a word to me. I felt relieved that it is me not her.

I realize that in the car when we are together it is the space where she can have her feelings.

All her feelings, no filter no control – however she needs or wants.

Not a beautiful metaphor, but I guess I am a little like the garbage disposal of her feelings – I know from walking through the fire of her two sisters, that that is a little what parenting teens is about.

“You know Ms. I did drugs so I wouldn’t feel. Then when I was locked up, I pretended not to have feelings, so people would think I am strong and the shit. Now, I feel, I cry, and I am. That is fucking life and it’s a blessing.”

I drive away from where I dropped off my kid.

I think yet again of my students who somehow always teach me and make me so much better at all I do.

I stop at the light and I listen to my feelings and try to hear what they might be saying to me.

Pain

He was incarcerated for 30 years.

He is one of the kindest, sweetest, most gentle men I have ever met.

He is deep. He is insightful. I absolutely adore him.

When I leave my room after a Zoom class and my eyes are teary, my kids know he must have said something profound. They know about him. I can’t imagine what he was like thirty years ago or what he could have possibly done that got him incarcerated for that amount of time.

His English isn’t great, even now. I don’t know any details or what got him in trouble. I am sure there must have been many things that led up to whatever happened to him then.

What I do know is what is now. Now, is what matters.

He was released from incarceration. He is my student.

He is incredibly important to me. He currently lives with his two sisters.

In class he constantly shares the complication of the relationship with the three of them. The whole family living together consists of his two sisters, their husbands, their children and him.

His stories make me laugh, hard. As someone who has two sisters herself, I find his predicament funny. He desperately does not want to take sides and gets in trouble when he tries to be the peacemaker between his two sisters.

He is damned when he does anything, and damned if he doesn’t do anything.

Thirty years he was away. Thirty years of relationships with his sisters lost.

He tells the class how hard it is for him to see one of his sisters suffer. She is having issues with her husband. He tells us, “I want to take away all of my sister’s pain. I see how hard it is for her.”

I say softly, “What if it’s not your job to take away her pain but to just sit with her in the pain.” He tears up. “Wow, that is deep,” he says.

“I spent so much time away. I had a lot of pain. I decided when I get out I will not have pain and I will take my family’s pain away. I caused them so much pain.” He adds. “I had a lot of time to think about all this, Ms., a lot of time.”

I take a breath, thinking about what to say, not sure I have anything to say.

He continues, “When you have lost so much and had too much pain, everything is good, the flowers, the sun, food, my family. The good is taking away all pain.”

I see people nodding.

“My sister has so much good, but she lets her husband make it all bad. This is sad.”

I smile. “I have a feeling it is so much more complicated than that,” I say.

I picture these siblings together trying to make up for lost time, pretending to know each other even though the last time they were together they were young teens and now they are in mid-life. I think of my own siblings. There are four of us. I am the youngest. I feel incredibly lucky to have these three older humans there for me.

I tell him. “You know, recently something really shitty happened to me. I called my brother and I sobbed and sobbed on the phone, snot coming out of my nose sobbing.” They all laughed.

“You know what he did? Nothing! He listened and said, ‘I’m sorry Nomsie. I really am.’ He told me what he thought about the situation, gave me some advice, and then we hung up. To be honest,” I said, “I am not really sure what he said, but he just let me cry and be where I needed to be. He actually told me that I need to be sad about this, really sad.”

“What?” my student said. “He told you to be sad? He is a little loco (crazy).”

“No, he is actually really smart. If your sister is in danger, make sure she is safe, but if she is sad, it’s okay. Let her be what she needs to be.”

“AHH, this is too hard,” he says.

A different student chimed in, “Man, when you are locked up, you have the pain of being away. When you get out, there is the pain of being here and…”

Someone cut him off. “The pain inside is the pain of missing life. The pain on the outs, it’s the pain of living life. Those are different. Man, live your life with the pain and love it ‘cause you know the other pain is the shit, and you got nothing you can do about it.”

I sit with that advice in my head after my class thinking about living life with pain, loving pain, not being able to comprehend being locked up for decades and the pain of that. I don’t think I will ever be able to understand being locked up even though I have been hearing the stories about it for almost a decade.

“Ms.,” he told me in the next class, “I have been thinking about pain, and I think there really is the pain inside when you are locked up, and the pain outside when you get out. The pain that is horrible pain, and the pain you can live with. And then, like you said, the pain we need to sit with. The pain is different. The death pain is a level that is up here. (He raises his hand outside of the Zoom screen.) and there is pain here. (He puts his hand on his heart.) and then there is the pain of seeing someone you love in pain. I am trying to separate the pain and know the difference.”

Then one wise student answered and summed it up for us all.

“Stop trying so hard. You are out. You are here. That is what matters. There is some pain you can’t do anything about. Some pain is like a mother fucker and doesn’t leave you. That pain becomes like an extra leg. You learn to walk like a weird dog and that turns into your walk. Then there is other people’s pain. You gotta be careful not to let that be heavy on your heart. Dude, you got freedom. That is joy. Joy is a painkiller, so focus on the joy.”

And I say no more.

Death of the Diaper Bag

I had three children in four years. When they were little, I used to think that I would be buried with my diaper bag. I could not imagine leaving my house with a small purse –especially since one of my kids had a super hard time potty training.

I always had to have extra clothes with me. I would look at women then, who are my age now, sitting with their teenage children and think, “That is so nice, but it will never happen to me.” It felt to me like my diaper bag would be eternal and that my children would be small forever.

Here I am, a decade and a half later, watching my children graduate, grow, change, and become. As I reach for my car keys and phone, I am suddenly aware of the long-ago death of my diaper bag. I am not sure where the time went. As I watch my oldest get ready to leave the house, I find myself thinking back to that diaper bag, a bag that held snacks, clothes, and so many other surprises. I smile to myself and think I did okay. Not all days are like that. There are so many days that I feel like I am far from okay. Then, there are other days that are not okay at all. I wish I had a diaper bag, a bag that held the solutions to what I desperately do not know.

“The last time she lived with me she was in diapers,” she shared.

“I lost custody of her when I got locked up. I am clean. I am sober. I got me a job now. I want her back.”

“Hey, hey, Girl, you’re gonna need a shit ton more than diapers now. Them kids are expensive. They want all sorts of fucking shit, ya know?” someone yelled out.

“Yup, I do, I missed a lot of years when I wasn’t there,” she answers. “I lost a lot of time from when I did time,” she said.

I can’t imagine what I think to myself.

“You know, Ms.,” she added. “I’d collect diapers wherever they were giving them. I’d always have me a plastic bag with diapers. Even when they took her away, I’d keep collecting them diapers. Even when I was piss ass drunk, I’d collect those fucking diapers. There are so many places you can find them. You just gotta go and collect them. Did you know that, Ms.?”

“Actually, I do,” I said. “You’re a good mom,” I add.

“You’re crazy, Ms.” She held back her tears. “I haven’t been a mom for a long time. I was high and drunk and then locked up. Now I want to be a mom, Ms. I really want to be one.”

I think of my own kids, my kids who I don’t always have the right words for. The kids who I yell at because I am at my wits’ end. My kids who don’t always have the best of me because I am tired, overworked, and stretched oh so thin. My kids who have grown so fast that I can hardly catch my breath. My kids who I have had the privilege to watch grow, and hold and touch, even though, now sadly, they really don’t want me to touch them very much. My children who live with me in my house and, for better and for worse, we are together. And this year, we have really been together.

“You never stopped being a mom,” I tell her quietly. “You just were not with your kids.”

“Ms., seriously I stopped being a mom. Now I want to start again.”

“No,” I say again. “You were always their mom; you just were not with them or maybe not taking care of them.”

“Jesus, Ms. I don’t think you hear me. I was locked up and couldn’t be with them. I wasn’t their mom then.” She is annoyed with me.

“Here is the deal. My oldest daughter is graduating high school. Next year she is going to Israel for the year. Do I stop being her mom cause she is gone?”

“What you gonna do when she is gone, Ms.?” she asked.

“Cry?” I laughed and said, “I am going to be happy for her. That is what I am going to be. I…” and she cut me off and said, “I was happy for my girl that she was taken care of. I was sad for me that I wasn’t the one doing it. My sister took care of her real good.”

“Well, you have a good sister,” I say, and I think of my own sisters who live in Israel and next year will be looking out for my kid. I look at this young woman who could probably be my kid too. I think of the nights she must have laid awake in jail dreaming of her little girl, of how she went from place to place to pick up diapers and how, although I hated that diaper bag that I used to schlep around, I know I was lucky to have had it. Lucky to have the days, the hours, the time. So lucky for the time. Lucky to be present, lucky to be able to kill the diaper bag only to move on to be the driver or the ATM machine. Lucky to be the mom.

One person said “Girl, is your kid alive?” “Yes,” she said.

“That’s big, Girlfriend. You are a good Mom. Your kid didn’t die.” We all laugh.

“You kept your kid alive. In the hood, that’s a blessing,” another adds.

“I think keeping your kids alive is a blessing not only in the hood” I add.

My kid peeks her head into my room. I am not sure what she wants because my eyes are a little glassy. I nod and say yes, happy to see her smile. Still in shock that she is this age, still in shock that they are all my kids, and they are the size they are. I sigh and look at my computer screen and am grateful for my beautiful students’ wisdom. I kept my kids alive. I guess I didn’t do so bad after all.

Ripples

Last month I went to Big Bear to celebrate my birthday. We stopped to watch the sunset from the edge of the lake. I stood up on the edge of a massive rock to watch the colors of the sky change and the shadows that were cast on the water. As I stood there in awe of nature and all its glory, I noticed the ducks in the water forming the craziest ripples around them.

One duck was gliding effortlessly over the water. The most brilliant ripple followed its stoic glide. Behind that duck were a bunch of other ducks. Each seemed to be doing its own thing. Each was creating beautiful swells of water all around them.

One dove into the water disappearing for a long moment. I leaned forward a little afraid it wasn’t coming back up, but, at last, it did. When it did, the fiercest ripples formed around it. I watched these ripples grow, expand, and continue almost across the entire lake. I was hypnotized by the picture being painted in front of me, the beauty and flow created by these ducks plunging in the water, coming up, and the ripple effect unfolding from their actions. I sat there as the sun was setting, watching the ripples being created and I was reminded why I chose to call my organization The Advot (Ripple) Project.

One move, one action creates a ripple that can have such a long reach.

My family was on rocks a little further away from me. It was quiet. I looked at my girls each on a rock. They were laughing, and so sweet. I can’t believe how big they are. God only knows the ripple effect of my every action, how it affected them and the impact it had on them.

I sit down on the rock. It is that golden hour and I hear her voice in my head.

“You know, Ms.,” she said.

“If I graduate high school, I betcha my sister and brother and other sisters and brothers will do the same shit.” She added, “I be doing my GED here. As much as this place is fucked, I can do something with myself.”

This conversation was years ago with a young woman who was locked up in a county juvenile detention facility.

“You will be an example for them,” I told her.

“That is messed up,” a different girl said to me.

“How the fuck she go being an example being locked up?”

“No,” I said. “She is being productive and that is a good thing.”

“What is productive?” one girl asked.

“It means she is making good use of her time here,” I say.

“You can’t say good and doing time in the same sentence, Ms. THAT’S messed up!” Everyone laughed.

The young woman getting her GED wanted so badly to create a ripple effect of change in the minds of her siblings. You see, she had 6 siblings, each one from a different father. There was a grandmother in the picture who helped the mom, but apparently, the house was a major center of drug dealing. You would need a tsunami to create change in that environment.

When she got out, she was proud that in the time she spent locked up she graduated high school and was able to complete her GED. Sadly, her addiction got the better of her. It certainly didn’t help that when she was released, she went back to the very place that got her in trouble in the first place.

Although this story doesn’t have the happy ending I wanted and prayed for, I do know that three of her younger siblings actually stayed in school because of their sister. They managed to stay clean, and one is going to community college.

She told me this when we met at an alumni gathering we had before I lost touch with her.

“Ms., I did it. I had a triple effect on my family,” she said.

“You mean ripple effect?”

“Nope! I mean triple effect – three out of six. Three of my siblings be doing school, and staying out of the hood, away from the gang.”

I looked at her and knew she was using. I gently asked her

“What about you?”

She smiled her beautiful smile and said, “I’m the original.”

I think she wanted to say the origin, but I wasn’t sure.

“I was proctive. You know that word you told us.”

“Productive?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I was that and then they learned from me.”

That is the beauty and tragedy of ripples. We cannot control them. They go out into the world, change, and have the capacity to touch people and generate good. Once we send them, they go, but we stay.

The ducks didn’t move much in the lake, but the ripples were all over the place and had a very wide reach.

My girl was the origin of change and quite an original.

She was productive and so incredibly smart. Her siblings were deeply affected by her. She absolutely sent that ripple out. Sadly, she couldn’t send it in to take care of herself.

I sat on the rock and felt my eyes well up with tears. If only she could see herself the way we saw her. If only she could be sitting where I am and see the scope of her heart. If only the odds were not stacked so high against her.

If only….

Recipes

As I desperately try to shepherd my three daughters through their teenage years and learn how to let them separate from me and be independent, I look for recipes.

A recipe to figure out how not to suffocate them.

A recipe to step back and learn to control the Jewish worrying mom in me.

Recipes for success.

Recipes that will have guaranteed outcomes.  

You know, a recipe to take care of them and be there for them every waking moment, but still have a life and identity of my own that is not connected to them.

I want a recipe, like that amazing one your grandmother gave you, that never fails.

I want THE recipe.  

A recipe to help my students stay clean. 

A recipe to combat recidivism. 

A recipe to make this world a better place. 

Recipes for change. 

I want a recipe that can guarantee those outcomes I so urgently want in my work and in my life.

Lately, I have been trying to come to terms with the realization that there actually might NOT be an easy recipe. As cliché as it sounds, the only recipe that might be the one that works is love. Love, love, and then some more love.

Sadly, there are no recipes to keep your kids from being hurt. We must watch them make mistakes, fall, and sometimes fail, and just stand there and be present. Ironically, sometimes they will get over their mistakes faster than we will. I think that is a part of love that no one really talks about - how badly it hurts when someone you love is hurting.

There is another important ingredient, I have learned from my work - that is to listen. Listen, listen and then listen harder. Don’t respond. Don’t try to fix things. Just listen. 

A student in a class about communication once said, “Ms., when you don’t listen, it’s like missing something in a recipe. If you do that, what you’re cooking comes out like shit.”

I have been teaching communication and relationships for two decades. No one ever thought of that analogy. My team and I thought it was brilliant.

In a different class one of the women was upset. She told me, “Ms., everything was down (which ironically means up). I had it all set. I was on the right, and still I was fucked. I didn’t get my kids and the judge doesn’t want to see me for another 6 months.”

Sometimes you can have all the ingredients and the recipe just doesn’t come out right. 

“What is that about?” she asks me with tears in her eyes. “I am clean. I am sober. I did the program. I am ready for my kids. I don’t understand?”

The past ingredients of her life are sticking to her even though she no longer needs or wants them. I am quiet. What can I say to this? What answer would or could possibly make her feel better? I think of my own kids, and although I joke sometimes about wanting to not be in their presence, if they were taken away from me, I don’t think I could survive.

“What did the judge say?” I ask, as if hiding in the answer I might find some secret ingredient to tell her. She looks at me and says, “He said no. He said that it isn’t time yet and that he wants to see me continue this lifestyle and not go back to my old lifestyle. F-u-c-k-e-r.” There was something in the way she said “fucker” that was really funny. I didn’t mean to, but I laughed out loud. It just slipped out. I immediately apologized, “I’m sorry. That’s not funny,” and as I said that I laughed even harder. I seriously don’t know what happened to me.

She looked at me and said, “That’s cool, Ms. He really is a fucker, mother fucker, fuck fucker,” and to that every single person on my Zoom screen started laughing that crazy, uncontrollable laugh. I felt horrible and wonderful at the same time. We all did.

After a good five minutes of laughing, I asked, “Are you okay?” 

“You know we were not laughing at you. Right? It was the situation and the way you talked about the judge.” 

“That’s cool,” she said. “You’re cool.” It was quiet again.

“He told you to come back in six months,” I say. “That’s good.” I continue and add, “Keep doing what you are doing. Stay clean and sober and working, and we will pray. We will pray that we get the result you are hoping for.”

“Always good to put praying into the recipe, Ms. That can never hurt.”

“Yup,” I say. “Praying and laughter will always save the day.” 

“You got that right, Ms.,” she answers. “You got that right!”

I asked her to stay after everyone else signed off from the Zoom class.

I told her, “I know this is really hard, but you must not give up. I know we laughed a lot today. I also know this is hard for you and a setback like this might, well, set you back.” 

She was quiet. I don’t know what was with me that day that I was so emotional. I teared up and said, “I have watched you these past months try so hard. I am so proud of you. I am so sorry about the judge’s decision. I know how badly you wanted this and -” 

She cut me off and said again, “Ms., I told you he was a F-u-c-k-e-r.” I burst out laughing.

“Ms., I’m gonna laugh. I’m gonna cry and I’m gonna pray. I’m gonna work my ass off and listen to the fucker judge. It’s gonna be okay. Then I’ll get to love my kids real close.” She lost her signal, and my Zoom screen was empty. 

I looked at my reflection on my empty computer screen. I took a breath.  

And just like that my brave student gave me the recipe: Laugh. Cry. Pray. Work your ass off. Listen and Love. All the ingredients needed for it to be OKAY.

Laugh. Cry. Pray. Work your ass off. Listen and Love. Repeat.

It is both as simple and as complex as that.

Run

For as long as I can remember, running has not been my thing. Never liked it, never could do it, and there was something psychological about the fact that after two feet of running, I’d be done.

When I was in the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) it was a known fact that Ackerman (as they called me) doesn’t run. Somehow, I had finagled getting out of running drills. Even as a sergeant I never had to do them or lead them. I could do dozens of push-ups and/or sit-ups, but running? Not me.

People have conquered many issues during this pandemic. Some made bread, others learned how to sew. Some took up knitting. I decided that my running thing is a mind over matter issue. In it hides something bigger that I need to deal with now.

I downloaded an app from the couch to do a 5K, determined to start running. Mind you, I have downloaded this app a dozen times in the last five years. This time I decided I am going to do it. It helped that my kids get up later than I do and Zoom school is at home. No carpool express.

I am available in the morning to take on this new endeavor. I had to listen to a few different apps before I found the lady I liked, who calmly told me to run for one minute and then walk for one minute, run for two minutes and then walk for one minute.

If you had told me that at my age, which is a lovely age but not a spring chicken, and at my current weight, which is, well, impressive, I would be running 5 kilometers a few times a week, I would have laughed. I would have laughed so hard I would probably have cried. But thanks to my dear app, that is exactly what I am doing. Running 5k three to four times a week. That is the beauty of change. It is sometimes unexpected, surprising, and unimaginable -- the impossible made possible.

Every week I have the privilege of seeing change in action. People who knew nothing but crime, people who were led to do drugs by the circumstances of their life, people who, under the influence, lacked judgment, people who too many people in society wrote off without knowing that these are people with beautiful hearts, who are sensitive and special. So many of my students took the wrong path, but then, by the grace of God and their own strong will, made unimaginable changes in their life.

What I know from years of being an activist and a change maker is that change is slow, sometimes so slow you don’t even see it. What my running app taught me is that it is a gradual incline. First, I ran a minute, then I ran two, then I ran three, and then I ran five. I listen to books to distract me; I listen to music and I let my thoughts trail off. If you don’t focus on what you need to change, sometimes it is easier simply to do it.

“Ms., this kinda life was never my life. I don’t know how to do this. It’s not me. Ya’ Know. Have a job, show up every day, be responsible and shit.”

This one has the most exquisite heart of them all. If I was ever in trouble, she would be the one I would call. Believe me, she would arrive before I put the phone down.

“Maybe it was not who you were, but it is definitely who you are. That old you? She was a hiccup.”

“You’re funny, Ms.” She says and adds “I wasn’t a hiccup; I was IT. Nobody would fuck with me.”

I know this to be true. She was fierce and violent. She was hurt and had a very difficult life that left her with incredible challenges. I look at her and I could see in her face that she was scared. More than anything, change is scary. If you define yourself by one thing and then you change, who are you?

I tell her about my running app. She thinks it is the funniest thing that I run when the lady on the app tells me to.

“I only run when there is a siren chasing me.” We laugh together.

“I am no runner,” I tell her, “but now I run. It’s good. I think I actually enjoy it.” I add, “You don’t need everyone to be afraid of you. You need to be you. You are the sweetest, kindest, person I know. You have the biggest heart on this planet. Be the you that doesn’t need to hide behind the drugs and the violence. Everything else will fall into place. It will not be easy, but you got this. You don’t want people to be afraid of you.”

It got very quiet. She blushes.

“I gotta get used to being called those things, Ms.”

“Yes, you do,” I say.

“When you say those things, I don’t know who you are talking about.”

“I am talking about you, Girl. I have seen how good you have been to people here, what an amazing friend you are and how supportive you are of everyone. That gangster from the hood she isn’t here anymore.”

“Who is going to protect me if she is gone?” she asks.

“God!” someone yells out. To be honest, I was thinking that, too.

Then someone said, “As if that tough bitch protected you. She just made you think you were safe, but it was bull shit. The change protects you. That heart of yours, like she said, that will protect you.” the person added.

Then someone else said, “Sometimes nothing can protect you.” I see heads nodding, “But that ain’t no reason not to change, and try to do your best.”

I looked up while I was running. I saw the tree before me had totally changed and was in full bloom. A gorgeous yellow halo on the branches of the tree, and a carpet of fallen, yellow flowers surround the trunk of the tree and the sidewalk.

I run here every day and didn’t notice. I stopped to take a photo and an old woman who lived in the house next door came out to sweep the fallen flowers.

“Isn’t it crazy?” she says. “That ugly, bare tree overnight became a beauty queen.”

“Oh,” I respond, “She was never ugly. This one was always a beauty queen.”

The lady on my app tells me to run. I wave good-bye and go on my way.

I think of my student who was always who she was even when she wasn’t.

I smile to myself and wait for the lady to tell me it is time to walk again, and then remember that she will not tell me that for a while, because things have changed, and I now run for much longer than I actually walk.

Waves

One of my daughters learned how to surf during the Covid 19 quarantine.

It created a new amazing routine where we get up early, put the surfboard in my car, and go to the beach. I sit and watch in awe. I sit and watch the waves and the dance she dances with them. Catching them, missing them, being defeated by them and riding them.

I watch her and I think of the waves of intense emotions that the quarantine has been creating in me. Despair, happiness, gratitude, sadness, fear, loneliness, tenderness. Sometimes all at once, and sometimes only just moments apart.

I am reminded of an absolutely stunning essay written by an incredible young soul whose name was Ruby Campbell. Ruby tragically was killed by a drunk driver when she was 17 years old. This extraordinary, talented human being was stolen from us way too early. The name of the article she wrote was “OCEAN.”

Ruby, who battled with depression and OCD, compared her feelings and emotional struggle to the ocean. She ends her essay with these words:

“Finally, I come up for air once again, strengthened by the oxygen rushing through my lungs. I wonder, will the next wave come? It feels both inevitable and impossible at the same time. If (when) it hits me, will I go under again? Will I struggle for air against the ancient rage of the sea? Or will I swim fast and strong, slicing through the last wave to the place beyond the breakers? Will I float on my back under the summer sun and listen to the waves crash in the distance? This would be a peaceful life, a good life, and I will only have to brave one more wave.” (You can find link to the full essay at the end of the blog.)

As I sit on the beach, I watch the waves. I think of the waves of my life and the waves of this bizarre reality we are living in now. I think of my students who are battling the waves of their existence every day. One said to me recently, “Ms., it goes and then it fucking comes. Just as one thing leaves, you think you can breathe; the next thing comes and throws you down. It never fucking stops.”

“Yup,” I say. “You need to learn to ride the waves.”

“How the fuck can I do that?” she asks, a little annoyed with me.

“I ain’t no pussy surfer,” she adds. “No, you are not.” I laugh and say, “What I know about surfing is that you have to have balance.” I add, “Figure out how to center yourself so you can ride the wave.”

“Sometimes, man,” one student leans into the Zoom and says, “You gotta let that mother fucker pull you down. Then you gotta hold your breath until you can come up for air again.”

I look out at my daughter and her friends being thrown around by the waves.

When the waves push them off the board, I hold my breath, watching them disappear into the ocean, only to exhale when I see their heads pop up, laughing, having the time of their life.

“Ms.,” she says. “These waves of my life, they are motherfuckers. I got no idea how to find balance and ride them.”

“Girl,” another student answers. “You are riding them by living. You got me? You are riding those damn waves by getting up in the morning, staying clean, doing the work, and not living the crime life. That is life, girlfriend. When I was locked up, I used to think all I need is to get out and then everything will be easy. I just need to get out. Then I got out, and there are bills to pay that come every month. My baby daddy is annoying as fuck, and I gotta fight DCSF to get my kids back. It’s a fucking lot, but it is my life and I’m living it. I am trying to love it.”

I share with them Ruby’s story. I didn’t really know her I tell them. Her family attends my synagogue. I know that she learned how to battle the difficult ocean of her life and had found peace. I then shared with my students that she and her brother Hart were killed by a drunk driver. It became dead silent.

I tell them that I can’t imagine a harder or more difficult wave than that. I share how with absolute admiration, respect, and wonder I watch the parents of these two kids get up from that wave and find a way to live, love, be activists, and fight for good in this world.

“Fuck,” one says quietly.

“You get up. You breathe, one day at a time. I don’t think there is anything else you can do,” I say.

“I told you,” the friend says. “These fucking waves will come. They will go. Sometimes the tide is low, so they stop. You can rest. Sometimes those shit faces come so hard you can barely keep it straight. Some pull you down and you think fucking hell it’s my time. I am done, but it ain’t. You get up. You keep going and you praise the lord for another day. At the end you say, Wow! I rode all the fucking waves. I did it and you know you’ve lived this life good.”

I am quiet. I find myself getting a little emotional.

I think of Ruby and Hart’s parents.

My heart aches.

“Maybe I am a surfer, after all,” my student says.

“You definitely are,” I say, “We all are in our own unique way, surfing and swimming in our own private ocean.”

“Well, if I’m goanna have me my own private ocean, I’m in, Ms.” And she smiles.

“That’s dope.”

We all laugh knowing that today we rode the waves together and that, well, that always makes things easier.

Click here for the link to Ruby’s essay

Smart Place

I had to film something for a promotional video with my beloved Rabbi at his office.

After we filmed, I stayed and taught my Zoom class from there.

My students immediately noticed that I was in a different space.

Mind you, not one person noticed that I cut my hair, but they saw the books behind me, and they got the vibe.

“Ms., where are you? You are in a smart place!” one said.

To me, the office I was sitting in was more like a womb than a smart space. 

Yes, there are lots of books, books about ethics and books about Judaism. There is also an incredible amount of love in that space. 

There are photos, too, including one of the rabbi’s stunning wife. I love her and deeply admire their beautiful relationship. There is a picture of my cherished Rabbi with important political figures. Then there are quotes, quotes that to me are the essence of this special, wonderful man who, for many different reasons, has become such an important person in my life.

“Caring for people is our only business.” 

“Love peace and act peacefully. Love people and draw them close to the Torah.” (Torah is the Old Testament.)

“What you say matters. What you do matters. Who you are matters.”

Every corner of this office is filled with intention, filled with love. And the kicker? In the window, there is this beautiful glass case and inside it is an old special Torah that survived the Holocaust.

This office is so much more than a smart space. 

This office is a loving space. This office is a safe space. This office is filled with a spirit of generosity and kindness.

When I open my computer, I don’t think about any of that.

I am just worried about getting online and making sure that I have the password.

So many times, we are so busy with one thing, we forget to pay attention to the other more significant thing. After my class, my next meeting was with someone who knows my Rabbi and who was tickled pink to see his office. I made a point of showing her the Torah in the window, because she understood the significance of it. 

When I left the office, I could not figure out how to leave the parking lot. I was in a hurry and was driving around for a bit, which made me laugh at myself when I finally got out.

On the way home I was thinking about smart spaces, safe spaces, loving spaces, generosity filled spaces. 

We are all confined to limited spaces these days. 

What is filling your space? Books? People? Feelings? 

Things you need to get rid of?

“Ms, where are you at?” they asked me. “What is that smart space?”

I explained. They were curious about my Rabbi. I told them that he is my colleague, my friend, and mentor. I shared with them that he is my special person. I told them that whatever space you’re in, make sure you have a special person. That is really the most important thing you should have in any space: a good person.

“Girl, I’d be happy to fill my space with fancy things. Fuck people.”

We all laugh.

I then ask them to share something they are looking forward to. One shares that her son is getting out of jail after four years. She is excited and worried. 

She is happy that she has a house and he has a place to come to. Her house is small. He will be on a couch or maybe share a room with her younger son, but he has a place to come home to. 

She tells us that she hasn’t seen him in four years, because she herself is on parole and could not visit him. She tells us that she doesn’t know him and that she worries. She tells us that she’s excited, and she tells us that she wants to fill her space with anything and everything he needs.

“Now, that is creating a smart space,” I say.

One of my other students who was recently released from jail chimes in. 

“You need to be patient. You need to be so incredibly patient. It’s hard coming out. Things that you were used to, your reactions that you have on the inside, are so different on the outside. Understand that he’s forgotten. Understand that he will make big mistakes. Understand that you need to make space for him to be. Be the smart one,” he says.

“Create a smart space, not the fancy book kind like where Ms. is sitting. Make a space where you give him space,” someone adds.

“Yeah,” she says. “Thank you.”

My kind Rabbi gave me his space, a smart, warm, welcoming space. I didn’t even think about it. He said, “Feel at home,” and then he went home.

In my house, my children are each in their own room every day in the space they created to learn in and be on Zoom. I hope these are smart spaces.

More and more, I am staying home and not going to my office that, luckily for me, is still open. The Advot Project’s office is a great space, but my kids are home. I want to be near them to make sure our space is working for them to be in and to learn.

“Ms.,” she tells us, “I am excited and a little afraid. It is hard to create space.”

“It is, but you are going to be fine,” I say. “Be yourself in your space and it will be filled with goodness and love, just like where I am sitting right now. It is going to be hard, but you are going to be fine.” 

I so wish I could give her a hug. When the Zoom session is over, I look around and realize how much the office I am in is a reflection of the person it belongs to.

This week is the Jewish New Year. May all our spaces be filled with love and kindness. May we be inspired by smart places. May our hearts be forgiving, and may the New Year bring everything we wish for -- and a few surprises that we could have never imagined! 

I am taking a break for the next month from The Ripple Effect.

I will be back in October.

Please be the ripple of good. 

Pay attention. Give attention. 

Know that you are loved.

We all are.

A happy, happy, sweet, joy-filled new year.

Shana Tova.

Extreme

We are living in an incredibly extreme time right now. Extreme situations. Extreme circumstances. I would add that anybody raising teenagers lives with emotions swinging from one extreme to the other in waves that hit you so hard and without warning that sometimes it feels impossible to stand up.

I work with individuals whose lives are one big extreme version of life itself. 

By nature, I tend not to be an extreme individual. Something inherently centered exists inside me that lets me, by the grace of God, have some type of proportion and ease when faced with extreme situations. However, there is a big difference between being extreme and being dramatic. Drama is my game; queen is my name. I respond and am extremely dramatic, BUT I do not respond and behave in extreme measures. 

I must say that people tend to say that what I do in my work is extreme, that how I care is extreme, and the lengths and measures that I will go to for kids or people that are in my programs is extreme. 

To this I laugh, and I say, “What are you talking about? THIS is the way it should be.” 

I truly believe that this is what we all should do in these lives of ours.

We should go out of our way, spend the extra dollar, take a bit of a chance and raise the bar of doing good as high as we possibly can. If we all did that just a little, even just some of the time, the world would and could be such a better place.

You have no idea how much can get done by so little. There really is no need for extreme measures. Again, and again, I am surprised, saddened, and actually a little bit shocked by how self-centered people today have become, how thinking of the other is not natural anymore and considered to be extreme behavior. 

My late mother was an incredibly thoughtful person. One of the many gifts she gave me was to always think of the other. She was an amazing social worker with the kindest heart. It was her nature to lean in. Why and when did leaning in become an extreme action?

I find it incredibly troublesome that this world we live in is so focused on “me” and not us or them.

What’s funny is that I try to teach my students the exact opposite. I tell them to focus on them, to focus on their “me” and hold on to it and to their worth and to be content. You see, my students’ reactions to every little comment, every look is intensely extreme. They will and can kill you if you look at them the wrong way.

When you grow up in extreme situations, when you have experienced extreme trauma, your responses tend to be exactly that -- extreme.

“I am fucking going to kill that bitch if she doesn’t stop looking at my man like that,” she says.

“Don’t you think that is a little extreme?” I ask. “She really didn’t do anything to you,” I add. 

“Why she go looking at my man like that? Huh? She is disrespecting me, Ms. Can’t you see that?” she asks me in dismay.

This issue of respect or a sense of disrespect is extremely important to my students.

“No, I don’t see that,” I say. “I see someone hitting on your man. That’s awesome. It means you are with a man other women want.”

She looks at me confused.

“You are fucked up,” she laughs. “Hold on,” I say. “What would happen if you let it go? What would happen if you just love you, love your man, and ignore her?” 

To her, that was an incredibly extreme thing to ask.

“Ms., you don’t get it,” she tells me.

This woman has had a sad, hard, difficult life. She is finally getting it all together. I am so, so happy for her.

Someone looking at her boyfriend or at her seems to me so silly and unimportant, but here is the learning point for us both. I don’t see what she sees.  She doesn’t see what I see.

The lesson is in the center of those two extremes.

I ask her quietly and carefully, 

“Listen to me. Do you like where you live right now?”

She says, “Yes.”

“Do you like your job?” I ask. 

“Yes! Ms., I have two jobs,” she tells me proudly.

“That is awesome,” I say and add, “An extreme response to someone looking at you or your man could jeopardize all that.” I know that I need to lean into her.

“I get that it is annoying. I understand that you want to beat the crap out of her, but, really, is it worth it?” 

“I don’t understand,” she says.

“You could lose your job and where you live if you get in a fight. You could lose everything you have worked so hard for,” I say.

“That is only if I get caught,” and she laughs.

Thank goodness someone else butts in.

“Girl, how many times you been locked up? You always get caught for something.” Everyone laughs.

I think of my kids, who tend to have extreme reactions these days to my words and comments. I don’t always have it in me to not respond and/or to understand that COVID, adolescence, and hormones make them sensitive and irrational. I take the bait. I get mad. I push extreme with extreme and that is never good.  

“Girlfriend,” the other student says with conviction, “Live extreme in your head. In your head beat the crap out of her, fuck her, stab the shit out of her, rip her lungs out. But in reality? Live the calm, Bitch. Live it hard, until it becomes you. Nobody is worth your freedom. Extreme in your head, calm in your heart, Baby.”

I am quiet, because I could not have said it better.

“Extreme in your head, calm in your heart.” I need a tee shirt with that written on it.

“I feel you,” the first student says.  

I add, “Love yourself enough so that that other woman doesn’t matter.”

“Okay, Ms. That is a little extreme.”

“Actually, out of this whole story, that is the least extreme thing,” I say.

“I invite you to love you enough, so others who look at you or say stupid stuff don’t matter.”

She smiles shyly. She gets it.  

It’s a little uncomfortable, but she gets it.

“OK ,OK,”  she says “I got you.”

Now I smile.

To you who are reading this and are capable, I ask the opposite.

How about every once in a while, you love the other, the one who needs it, just a little more than yourself? Not all the time, not everyday, not to an extreme. Just once in a while, here and there, so change can have some space to grow.

Rant

I have a really good friend. She is one of my best friends, a true soul sister. We met in a professional capacity and immediately bonded because we were both about to get married. That was decades ago. At the time, we found many things in common around the idiosyncrasies and craziness of wedding plans and getting married at an older age. This friend of mine is a free spirit with an enormous heart. She can be a little flaky, but I love her like family.

She is one of those people who will always show up exactly when you need her, and always, but always, will say exactly the right thing even if it is simply not saying anything at all. 

Having someone like that in your corner is not only important, it is vital.  She is the person I call when I need to vent, with no need for explanation, no need to apologize. I can be authentic and real. I try to be that person for her too.

The other day she had an issue going on. She called me, and, somehow, I knew that I needed to pick up. Such is it with soul sisters. I literally had a three-minute break between Zoom meetings. I picked up the phone and for the duration of my break she had an epic rant about something that happened to her. Although she was upset and angry, it was actually kind of funny. When she was done, she paused and said, “That’s it.” We laughed. I said, “Sorry, I gotta go.” And we hung up.

The ability to rant and get things off your chest is incredibly important. To have a person to rant to is as essential as the rant itself.

What I know to be true about ranting is that to be a good rant listener, you need to be able to withhold any response. All that is needed is that you be present, catch the rant and take it away. I am a great rant catcher, yet another gift my students have given me.

In my classes, I hear the most epic of rants. Sometimes, even on Zoom I physically lean forward to listen and concentrate so that I can separate the details and fully understand what the rant is about. Rants have this habit of encompassing many details. My students' rants are complicated and multilayered. Many players are involved. If you are a grown-up who has been systematically deprived, as well as the victim of racism, injustice and all-around misfortune, all of your crap tends to be funneled into every single rant. That is actually one of the main things we teach and try to work with participants in our programs: helping them learn how to divide and conquer. Not everyone needs to know or will care about every detail of your story. Actually, if you burden someone with too much detail, they will shut off and not listen at all. And, if you want to solve a problem, you have to focus on one issue and not try to tackle thirty issues at the same time. 

And that is exactly the problem. There are so many issues.  

“Ms., I need a job, but I have a record. I really ain’t got skills and I don't read well. My baby daddy gives me no money. My sister is locked up again and I gotta take care of her babies. Then my brother went back into sober living cause he was drinking. I don’t know how to help my daughter with her homework, and I am so fucking hot I want to scream!”

She ranted for a long 15 minutes. And I am writing only the highlights here.

I was quiet when she finished. At the end, unlike after the rant with my friend, there was no laughter. 

She seemed frustrated and sad. I said softly, “That is a lot.”

She was quiet. “I know,” she said. “It is a fucking disaster.”

“I hear you,” I added, “When you say it all at the same time, in one breath, it  must feel like that.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

I tried to break down the rant very carefully.

“Well, you talked about so many things. You can't start taking care of anything when you have to take care of everything.”

I pissed her off.

“Ms., everything is a fucking disaster. You ain’t listening!”

I said calmly, “I listened to every word.” I repeated to her, counting on my fingers one by one, what she just told me: 

“1. You need a job;

2. It is hard because you have a record;

3. You feel like you don't have any skills. In addition, you do not read so well; 

4. Your baby daddy does not give you money; 

5. Your sister is locked up and you are taking care of her kids;

6. Your brother had a relapse and is back in sober living; 

7. Your daughter is having issues with her homework and you do not know how to help her; 

8. And the weather sucks.” 

She smiled a little.

“Everything feels connected, because it is happening to you. Can we try to separate things and figure out how and what to do about each thing? Also, there are things you have control over and things you don’t. Your sister is locked up. Your brother is in sober living. That is on them. Your daughter is in school. That’s good.”

She cut me off and said, “Don't go saying there is something positive in all my shit. I hate that, Ms. Honest to God, I hate when people fucking do that!”

“Why?” I asked.

My question caught her off guard.

“Where are you going with this, Ms.?” she asked. 

“You can’t do anything when you are mad and negative about everything,” I said. 

“It’s great your kid is in school. Better than her being in the street and doing meth.”

She laughed out loud.

“Call the school and ask for support. I am sure they have it. Ask for help where you need it.

Did the court tell your baby daddy he has to give you money?”

“No,” she said, and to this we all laughed.

And someone in the group said, “Girl, he ain’t gonna give you no fucking money if the judge don’t tell him to.” Someone else said, “That’s bullshit! Don’t get the court involved.”

“Hold on,” I said.

“See, this is a whole issue by itself. You need to think and talk to some legal person to see what you can do about this.” 

She smiled and nodded. “I feel you,” she said to me.

“Now, to the biggest issue. You have amazing skills. Reading isn't one of them. That’s not great, but it is what it is. You can work on that skill and at the same time look for a job that doesn't require it. I am not saying it is easy, but when that is standing by itself, it is not as bad as when it is hanging out there with all your other problems.”

She looked at me for a bit and laughed again. 

“Ms., my problems are like the gang bangers. Together they are fucking tough, but alone they are less. I gotta make my troubles lay down the flag (that means to not be an active member in the gang) and deal with each one.” 

This story happened before COVID, so I was able to get out of my seat and actually go over and give her a hug, a great big, long hug. Remember those hugs, those hugs that once you give them, you really don't have to say anything? Man, I miss those hugs!

I miss them so much!

“You are absolutely right,” I told her.

“Can I still bitch about everything though?” she asked me. 

“Absolutely, girl. Rant as much as you need to. I am the rant catcher and I am here for you.” We hugged again, laughed, and said no more.

Guilty

I am your quintessential Jewish woman who carries guilt like an extra limb on her body. 

Guilty for not doing this, guilty for not doing that, guilty for not going here and not being there. As a working mom I have the classic “not good enough at my work, not a good enough mom” situation going on. Always feeling guilty for where I think I fall short.  Guilty I’m not like that mom, who always seems so much better than me. Guilty that I don’t do more, because there is so much to be done. Guilty when I look back at the choices I made that could have, should have been better. Guilty for the voices in my head that I really do not need to be guilty about. But, as I said, guilt is like an extra limb of my body. It grows by itself.

Many times, guilt is the color that paints my accomplishments. I know this isn’t wise, but it is what it is. 

When I started meeting people who were found guilty in a court of law for doing truly bad things, I noticed different colors of guilt from mine.  I observed that my students’ guilt comes with an enormous amount of realism and humility. More than anything, it comes with acceptance, acceptance of what happened and an incredible effort to be in motion, move forward, away from the act they are guilty of.

Be present and live in the day is their motto.

When you are guilty of something that you did in the past, the only way you can deal with the guilt is by moving forward and being in motion. If you don’t, you might stay stuck in the memory of the act that you are guilty of. 

I listen to my students express their guilt. I know when they tell me that they were a “lifer” it usually means they were guilty of something serious. I know when they talk about “taking flight” someone was beaten up, usually pretty badly. I know that there are keywords that they use instead of saying exactly what they are guilty of. Maybe not being completely direct helps with the guilt. Maybe part of moving forward is calling things alternative names so they don't feel so bad.

One of the most powerful things my students have taught me is to seek compassion for perpetrators, since they, too, have been victims. When something bad happens, they talk, of course, about the victim, but there is always a moment that someone talks about holding space for the perpetrator. In the beginning, it made me feel uneasy. I would question and ask myself, if I were related to a victim, would I be able to have compassion in my heart for someone who did something to someone I love? I am so aware of how important this is. I want to believe that with time I would. But, to be honest, I hope I will never know.

In my anger management class, I shared a personal story.

On a particular morning when I was still driving my children to school, they were being impossible, or maybe I was tired, or maybe I was holding anger from the day before. Who knows? 

It was pure chaos in the car. I got so angry I pulled the car over. I rolled down my window and I threw my favorite mug out of the window with my morning coffee.

I then turned to my children and said, “That is how angry I am!”

Everyone was shocked, them and me.  The rest of the ride to school took place in complete silence. Later that day we had a good laugh about it. Thank God I have the capacity to laugh at myself!

I shared with the students that I was embarrassed by my extreme act, and that the minute I did it, I felt guilty that I didn’t have more self-control. 

One of my students looked at me and said, “Ms., you didn’t hurt no one and you didn't  turn around and give a whooping to your kids. You got no guilt on you. You did what you teach us to do, shift that anger and let it out somewhere else. That coffee cup of yours took a fucking beating! Your story is a good story, not a bad one.”

I laughed very hard at this comment. Then I thought to myself, maybe the key to getting over our guilt is somehow finding a good story in the bad one. Of course, not all bad stories have good in them, but there are many stories that, depending on how you look at them, can change from bad to good.

My students accept the past and use it as a propeller toward the future.

I think our guilt is a propeller for us to do better, to be better. 

More importantly, our guilt can be motivation to become who we were meant to be.

We all, really, are just constant works in progress. 

When an older friend of mine told me that she went back to therapy in her late 80s, I laughed. “Naomi,” she said sternly,  “I know many of my contemporaries are dead, but I’m not, and I still can wake up and be a better me every day. Not to mention that I’d like to leave this world guilt-free.”

I think that’s a really high goal, but it’s something to think about. 

I don’t know if I can let go of all of my guilt. Again, as I said, it’s a part of my body, maybe even part of my DNA, but I can rearrange how I look at it in my head. 

Want to try with me?

Generosity

Last week a very special, dear friend of mine was incredibly generous to my family and me.  She did not have to do what she did, but she knew that it would be of great help to us, so she simply did something generous and thoughtful. She did it with grace, compassion, and ease. 

My heart expanded with gratitude and was filled with love. What was special about this act of generosity was that my friend did it quietly without making a big deal about it. She simply told me “I’m doing this” and that was that. She did something because she could, and it was incredibly touching.

Again and again, when I do something nice or go out of my way for my students they ask why I do it, and I respond, “Because I can.” They are always puzzled by my answer.

It is not a given that people do things because they can. Actually, in this life, people exercise “I can’t” so much more than “I can.” 

Again and again, people are not generous because they can’t be, or they can’t right now. Sometimes they really can’t, which is totally understandable. But many times, “can’t” is a convenient way to say “I don’t want to.”

Generosity has always been an important value to me. It is a choice to have generosity of your soul, your time, your spirit. It is not a given that those who have, give. Sometimes, I wish it was. 

I can tell you that one of the things that COVID-19 has taken from me is my abundance of generosity. I don’t feel it.  For me, part of my COVID blues is shutting down and not doing as much as before. I am feeling heavy. I wish I could do more. I want to do more, but I am pulled down by things that get in my way of doing and being.

My friend’s generosity was straightforward and beautiful. People around me have been insanely generous supporting The Advot Project and donating funds, time and support. 

From my Homies, I have learned the most important lessons about generosity. Their generosity comes in a completely different form and shape. I call it accelerated generosity. When someone who has little but still chooses to give, when someone doesn’t feel like doing anything or being nice but still makes an effort, when life has given you really sour lemons and you choose not only to make lemonade, but you give it away, that is accelerated generosity and my students do it on a daily basis.

“Ms.” She looked at me. This one was an angry bird, tough and a little mean. She laughed when people tried new things and she did not cooperate with me and my curriculum. I wasn’t really sure why she kept coming and she was the closest I have ever come to asking someone to leave the program.

“Your writing exercises are stupid.”

“Okay,” I tell her. “Try and do it even though it’s stupid.”

“Fine!” and she rolled her eyes at me.

“You are not funny,” she said. 

“Not trying to be,” I add. 

And she cursed under her breath.

I have learned since then, that it is the distant ones that need us the most. They are the ones who will challenge us the most and, in the end, teach us the most.

The writing assignment I gave was about forgiveness, who needs to forgive us and why. 

One of the other participants shared a horrific story about something she did when she was under the influence. These actions got her locked up for a long time.

Looking at her I couldn’t imagine her assaulting anyone, let alone violently, but actions don’t fall from the sky.  They are connected to history. They are connected to trauma. They come hand in hand with addiction. These are not excuses but rather explanations. So many people judge so incredibly quickly without looking at the bigger picture and therefore lack the understanding of the complexity of situations.

The one telling the story was sobbing, sharing more than I really wanted to hear, but I had to listen. Everyone sat quietly. While I was waiting and thinking about what to say, it was my most difficult one, the one who said this was stupid, who leaned in first.

“Okay,” she said. “You did some dumb shit.” She got up and sat near the other girl. This got everyone’s attention.

She pulled out of her bra a candy bar. In their bras, these girls hid things they were not supposed to have, and so much more. She generously handed the candy bar over to the one who shared.

“That was dope that you shared your story. I got you.”  

She put her arm around the one crying, which was the most generous act because she let her wall down and let the other girl in.

Everyone was shocked at her unexpected accelerated generosity.

To be honest, the interaction left me speechless. 

I stood there quietly. 

Then my tough one looked at me and added, “You know why this is a stupid exercise, Ms.? Because we all did fucked up shit. I did so many drugs. Fuck! Sometimes I didn’t even know my name. I ain’t asking no one for forgiveness but myself.” 

She looked at the girl who shared. “You hear me. No sorry to no one. Just say sorry to you.”

And then it got even quieter. That’s what happens in ah-ha moments.

The girl who shared looked at me and then at the tough girl.

“I think that’s what she wanted.”

She started to cry again. “I gotta forgive me before anyone else can forgive me.”

“Actually,” I said in a whisper. “If you don’t forgive yourself first, then even if someone else forgives you, it doesn’t really help. You got the exercise right on the nose.”

That made them giggle.

Then the girl who shared wiped her tears, took the candy bar she was given, and gave it back to my tough one, who said, “The same goes for being nice, Girl!!” 

“Take the candy for you. Be nice to you. You hear me? Be nice to you before you are nice to me.”

I rarely was afraid when I worked inside the walls of the detention facilities, but I took a step in because I was worried about what the reaction would be to this. And it was surprising. The tough girl who I thought was going to take a swing at the other girl started to cry.

“That was the most nice thing anyone did for me,” she said.

The other girl started to laugh.

“Are you an asshole? You just gave me the chocolate. I am just giving it back to you.”

“You didn’t have to,” she answered, and then added,

“What you just did is generosity.”

The walls fell down, and this tough rough gang banger was softened by a small act, that, ironically, she had started.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote, "Happiness is not made by what we own. It is what we share." 

I don’t know if my student found happiness. I do know that this interaction opened the door for her to be less tough, more present, and absolutely less angry. And, maybe, a little happy. That is what generosity can do.

You should try it.

Walls

Lots of people have been hitting their coronavirus walls lately.

Somehow this week has been harder for everyone. Walls have gone up. People have been coming up against walls. The walls are falling apart.

I know I hit mine. It has not been easy.

When sitting with a few moms on the beach, six feet apart, wearing masks, we were talking about how somehow this week was a really tough week. 

The end of summer is near. School is starting soon online. No end of this pandemic is in sight. Each one of us is fighting our personal demons with the collective issues closing in all around us.

One of the women shared, “Last night I just sat down on my bed and cried and cried and cried.” To that I added, “I swear, I was driving around feeling so down, I thought to myself this is what depression feels like. You don’t have anything to look forward to. You lose your joy and you are simply sad, sad, sad, sad.” 

The conversation was comforting, because everyone is challenged with this pandemic quarantine situation.  One of the moms said that the fact that we don’t know when it’s going to end doesn’t help. It feels like there are walls all around us. “I feel like walls are closing in on us. The pandemic is like these huge jail walls that we can’t get out of.”

I was sitting looking out at the ocean and I drifted away from the conversation.

I remembered one of the first things a young man who was incarcerated said to me when I asked him what freedom looks like to him. He looked at me and said, “People think that freedom is being outside of these walls, but I know when I lean into the wall, that’s where I find my freedom.” I was puzzled. “I don’t think I understand,” I responded gently.

He said, “At night when everyone’s asleep (in this juvenile facility, the youth slept in one big room in beds near each other), I’d sneak off my bed, sit on the floor, and lean against the wall. I lean against the wall, close my eyes and dream. I imagine my future. I think about the things that will be and the wall is where it starts.” He continued, “I lean against the wall, Ms. The wall holds me in, but it also pushes me ahead.”How poetic I thought to myself. I remember being impressed by his using the wall as his launching point. 

I am not sure what these Corona walls are launching, but I do know that we are going to look back and see the start of many things, even though right now it feels like the end of everything.

Another student told me once that even though she is outside of the walls, the walls are always there, because she is always judged by the fact that she was incarcerated. 

“How can I get people not to see those fucking walls, Ms.?” she asked me.

“Once I tell them I did time, it is over. They put up a wall that is higher than the prison wall. How will I ever get a job?”

“We have to figure out how to climb over that wall,” I told her.

“How do we do that?” she asked me, frustrated. 

“I am not sure,” I answered and paused to think. As I was about to speak, another student jumped in and said, “There are some walls you will not be able to climb, Ms. You need to walk alongside them, feel them, get to know them, and then you will be able to get through them.”

I looked at him. I looked at her. These are people who have spent more time behind walls than my children have been alive, yet they are optimistic.

When they got out of prison, outside the prison walls they were faced with new walls that were higher than the walls that locked them up, yet they didn’t give up and they are desperately trying to move forward. Then a third student chimed in, “There are many kinds of walls in this life. Some high, some low, some tougher than others. The thing is, Ms., you gotta learn to go outside the walls in your mind, and not let them get into your head. Once you learn how to do that, you can beat anything.”

This was a man who spent many years, yes YEARS, in solitary confinement, so he knows what he is talking about.

I am pulled back to the conversation on the beach with a group of beautiful women, a new circle I am getting to know. I really like them and their honesty. 

“This is a lot,” one woman said. 

“Way too much,” the other added. 

I share a little of my work. I say it is ironic that my students who did time and sat in solitary confinement are a source of comfort and wisdom to me. We all laugh and take a collective breath together.

“This is good,” one said. 

“Yes, it feels normal,” the other added. And we all erupt in laughter, since there is absolutely nothing normal about a group of moms sitting distanced from each other, wearing face masks, at the end of July, on the beach on the Pacific Coast Highway.

We will all get through this pandemic, and the crazy walls it brings with it. 

We can and will tackle our walls the best we can.

Some will lean against them. Some will walk alongside them. Some will climb over the walls.

“You know,” I told my student who was having trouble getting a job.

“There are places that employ people that have a record. They are smart, because they can have people like you work for them,” I told her. 

“Seriously, go where they want you. Walk away from the wall and go to the door.”

“You always gotta be a fucking poet, Ms.,” and she laughed. 

“I got you,” she added. “I’ll try.”

There really isn’t a door to the wall of this pandemic.

We need to be patient, and like everything, we must give it the time it needs to be and what it needs to be. We need to do what needs to be done.

My wise students have shown me that the wall is as high as you let it be.

“Don’t let a wall hold you in.” 

I could hear his voice in my head.

I look at the wall in front of me. 

This huge wall that keeps me up at night and takes my joy, and I tell it,

“You aren’t as bad as you are trying to be.” And then I make myself say to it, 

“I can live with you, Wall. I wonder if you can live with me?” 

Suddenly, I understand that I can be the wall, too. Somehow that is comforting.

I hope it is for you as well. 

 Remember when looking at the walls of your life, they are also looking back at you.

You have so much more power than you can imagine, even in a global pandemic.

Take Flight

To me, to “take flight” means to go high. It means to soar. It means to accomplish, to become independent. When someone in my world takes flight, they’ve done something cool. Something great. Something worthy of praise.

When my students tell me that they “took flight,” it means they beat someone up.

In the urban dictionary it explains this phrase, I kid you not, like this:

To Take Flight: To whoop somebody's ass. For example, “If you talk shit, I'm gonna have to take flight.”

In the Merriam-Webster dictionary the definition is very different.

The definition of to take flight:

(a) to begin flying. “The bird took flight when we tried to approach it.”

(b) to begin a period of rapid activity, development, or growth.

“The idea really took flight and soon it seemed everyone was copying it.”

(c) to leave or run away from danger. “Fearing arrest, they took flight and hid in the mountains.”

The two definitions couldn’t be more different from each other.

My late, beloved father had a deep fascination with slang. When I was in the army in Israel, he would ask endless questions about the army slang, trying to understand, trying to see where in the Hebrew language the root was from, what in the culture led that word to be chosen as slang. Then, he would compare it to his own army slang. I remember at the time being incredibly frustrated with his endless questions, puns and stories of his army service. Silly, stupid, young me.

My dad was trying to connect me to him, to the culture of Israel, to his own army experience. There was no way my 18-year-old self could see or understand that.

As I listen to my student speak and tell me how she “took flight” on a kid that pissed her off, I think of that phrase: “to take flight.” I wonder why that term was chosen to describe beating someone up. I wonder who started that expression. I could see myself about to ask my student a million annoying questions as my dad did. Then I smile to myself feeling my late father’s presence in me.

I listen to my student tell her story.

People are nodding their heads on Zoom.

I love this student. She has risen above so much. Yet, I am saddened that she succumbed to her anger and “took flight.”

When the class is over, I think about this term “taking flight.” I think about the countless students I have watched take my definition of “flight” and cross the graduation stage, get clean from drugs, spread their wings and leave the gang.

I am watching my own children begin to “take flight” away from me, blossoming into incredible, young women, but, through the endless challenges, almost killing me in the process.

My student shared that when she took flight, it felt good. “I ain’t gonna lie. I didn’t do this in a while, and it felt good to lay it into that kid. Why did he take my car? He shouldn’t have done that. Not cool, Ms.”

The kid took her car. He is a minor. She lost it and went back to her old ways for a moment and beat the crap out of him.

Thank God, nothing really bad happened!

Shit happens.

Although sometimes something like this can put my students back to square one and/or back in jail, thankfully, it didn’t this time.

Once you have a record, the system is not forgiving and very, I mean very, quick to judge.

I tell my students they must be careful.

Things don’t always turn out the way we think they will.

A bad choice, losing it, can take them way off the course they are on.

We talk together about how once you have screwed up, the world is not kind to you.

I am relieved and happy that, in this case, it turned out okay.

A few days later, I want to make sure things did not escalate. I love this woman and I am insanely proud of where she is and the obstacles she has overcome in the past year.

In the hood, fights can simmer and then get out of hand. I want to make sure the fire was out, that she was okay, and she didn’t get herself into a compromising situation. I call to check how she was doing.

“Hey there,” I say. “Everything okay?”

“Yup,” she tells me.

And then she moves me deeply.

“I ain’t gonna lie, Ms.,” she tells me again. “It felt fucking good. It felt fucking amazing to beat that punk up. I forgot how good it is to take flight on someone.”

I hold my breath.

“But to be honest, Ms., after a few hours, it didn’t feel good no more. I don’t know, Ms., it ain’t the same anymore. You know what I did? I called him up and I’m going to help the punk. I’m going to bring him to Homeboy (Industries). I’m going to help him get help. I just didn’t have it in my heart to make a big deal out of it anymore. He didn’t know what he was doing. He needs to do work. I’m gonna help him.”

My heart is happy because this is what change looks like in action.

“Now you are taking flight,” I tell her.

“Ms., I am telling you I am taking him to Homeboy. I am doing good.” She is a little annoyed with me.

So, I explain to her, “You know, to take flight also means to fly, to go high, not just to beat someone up. You are taking a higher ground and doing a good thing. You are taking a different kind of flight.”

She laughs. “I didn’t know there was a different choice.”

“There always is,” I say.

“Oh, but it is a motherfucker, Ms.,” she tells me.

“Yes, it is,” I say and add, “You took flight and now you are flying super high and doing the right thing.”

She laughs “You know there is another kind of high. Right, Ms.?”

Now I laugh.

“Yes, I do.”

Then she answers thoughtfully, “I think when you take flight on someone, it makes you feel like you are high, but the bad kind. I like your taking flight better than mine.”

We agree and laugh about being high from doing good. I tell her how proud I am of her. We chat a little more and she tells me that she is “gonna take my flight more often now.”

I smile and hang up.

I think of my dad and how excited he would get when he understood a slang word that I taught him and how he would use it again and again, proud of himself for getting it.

I then actually laugh out loud thinking what a kick he would get out of the fact that a bad ass ex-gang member with a golden heart is the one who triggered my fond memories of him.

And now, I am taking flight from the memory of my dad, and the beauty of my student’s change all combined together.

Pockets

In my crazy, overly busy life, working full-time, trying to give back to the community while raising my children, I have these small pockets of time where I fit in short conversations with people I love. Actually, that was in my old life before Covid. For instance, I would drop my children off at school and have a little pocket of time to call my brother who lives on the East Coast. Or, I’d be schlepping myself or my kids from one place to the other and would talk to this friend or that friend.

It was also a kind of unspoken agreement that if I’m going to pick a kid up from an activity or at the store or here or there and I’m on the phone, no matter where we are in the conversation, the pocket is over when my kid comes out. I hang up. No mercy, hang up. “Gotta go.” Such are the conversations in the pockets.

I am always multitasking while in those pockets. I’m at the grocery store, I’m filling up gas or some other essential task. It’s really horrible for the person on the other end of the line. “More later” is my sign off. Oy, there is always more for later.

It was awesome when I had a gig in San Diego or was at my beloved camp in Ojai. I’d finally have this long pocket of time and would be able to have an uninterrupted conversation which I could gave my full attention. I used to love that.

Covid took most of my pockets away.

Zoom meetings are one after the other. There is no time in between.

The farthest I go is up the block to my office, down the hall to the bathroom or into my kitchen.

It is as if I’m wearing some type of outfit that is glued to my body with no pockets of moments in between where I can steal a conversation here or there. I understand now why I have been so exhausted and incredibly out of touch with everyone in my life. I am pocket-less.

My daughter’s dance studio opened for small socially distant groups of girls to dance together. Suddenly, I was quasi in my old routine, driving to take her there and pick her up. There it was, a little pocket of time to call one of my friends. It has been a while since I spoke to her. That pocket was like that tiny extra pocket on the 501 Levi’s jeans. You can barely fit a quarter in it and it is really kind of useless, but, still, it’s there.

“Where have you been?” she asked. I responded, laughing, “Outside of my pockets.”

Sometimes my classes, too, are like a pocket of time. Little pockets in space.

A detached safe haven for my students to share with one another and with me, to learn, to exhale, a safe pocket to explore, a place where we all can grow.

One of my students shared that he used to keep a knife, a gun, a razor, some kind of weapon in his pockets. “You see, Ms., I used to use my pocket to give me power. I used to think that the power was in the tool I hid in my pocket. It would make my heart race. I’d feel strong. When I got out of jail, I decided to challenge myself and see how I felt with my pockets empty. I felt afraid. I felt weak, but then I used my pockets to protect me. When I’d get angry, instead of using my hands, I’d put my hands in my pockets to keep me out of trouble.”

I smiled.

“Pockets are very important, Ms. You know in jail, no pockets in your pants. You can’t hold nothing.”

I wonder if I am in a kind of jail with no pockets of time, and I laugh to myself when I remember this story. But I know better. I have been inside jail where I have held classes. I am far from being there. I am just busy and actually very focused with work.

“You know what’s funny, Ms.?” he continues.

“Some storytelling dude told a story about a man who had gold in his pockets and he ended up drowning, but it was the man whose pockets were empty who was able to swim to shore. Sometimes empty pockets leave you lighter, ya know. Nothing pulling you down.”

I am awestruck. I search endlessly for the story my student was referring to, to no avail. I think of the power of storytelling. My student heard a story by an artist who came into his jail to share art. The story stuck with him. Can anyone still tell me that art does not heal, affect, move and empower???

In a small pocket of time, some man came and told a story to a group of inmates. Years later that story is being told by one of the former inmates to teach a lesson.

Ripples, my friends, ripples.

Someone in the class responded and said that he’d like to have the gold even if it killed him. “Better to die with a rich ass, than live a poor shit.”

“You are missing the point,” the former inmate said.

“Don’t fill your pockets with shit that weighs you down, Dude.”

“And,” he adds, “know how to see the difference.”

As I sit at my computer writing this, I think about what and who weighs me down.

Who are the people I need in my pockets and, seriously, who I don’t?

I think of the storyteller who probably pulled that story out of his pocket to tell to the inmates, never expecting it to live as long as it did.

What has Covid taken out of your pockets?

What is weighing you down?

What can you put inside your pocket to keep you safe?

Do you dare keep your pockets empty?

Think about it.

I know I am.

Intentions

On my late-night Facebook scrolling, I came across cufflink bracelets.

They were silver with inspirational sentences on the inside. It seemed to me that this would be a beautiful present to get for my daughters. I would think of something cool to get inscribed and give it to them. It would be a reminder of how much I love them. Lately, we have been struggling to figure out how to love each other when we are spending so much more time together than we are used to--with no end in sight.

When looking a little deeper at the website I found that I didn’t really have the option of writing my own inscription. I had to choose from the ones that they offered. I spent a ridiculous amount of time deliberating about which sentence to have inscribed so that my kids would like it and think it was sweet and funny.

My intention was to give them something touching. My intention was to remind them how much I do care about them even though some of my recent outbursts don’t always show it. My intention was to get something for them that will be a reminder of their Mom.

The reality could not have been farther from my intention.

When I gave my gift to my children, their reactions were hysterical laughter.

They thought it was the cheesiest, most absurd, silly present they ever got.

The sentence that I had carved in the bracelet seemed ridiculous to them.

My oldest actually said out loud, “I always wondered who the idiot was who would buy the crap that’s advertised on Facebook.” She had no intention of hurting my feelings or sounding the way she did in that particular moment. I actually kind of agreed and thought it was funny.

I realized that my midnight shopping wasn’t as moving or meaningful in the daylight as I had intended.

I truly believe that some of the really, really bad things that I’ve heard that my students have done, or their friends have done, and that they have shared with me did not come from bad intentions.

On the contrary, I don’t think there were any intentions at all.

When you have grown up surrounded by poverty, lacking the basic necessities and suffering traumatic encounters basically from birth, I’m not sure that intentions, good intentions or your moral existence, are anything but defensive acting out and aggressive behavior.

When you have been hurt and you’re angry, you don’t think that much about your actions or care that your actions might hurt someone.

Actually, when you’re trying to survive, you really don’t have intentions at all. You basically have instincts. When you add into the cocktail substances of any kind, intentions exit the room.

In my class a person shared a horrific story about a carjacking. The story ended with a young girl being pushed out of the car, hitting her head on a fire hydrant and dying. The people who hijacked the car were “loaded” as my students say, meaning heavily under the influence of crystal meth or whatever drug of the hour was available.

The person telling the story shared how in her neighborhood at this particular moment in time there was a surge of substance and drug abuse. There were also many carjackings. People come, at gunpoint, push people out of the car, and steal the car, even just for a joy ride. She shared how the whole community was shocked by the death of this girl who is the daughter of a beloved, churchgoing family, who give back to the community.

When the person shared this story, she was very emotional and crying. She was sad not only about the loss of this child, but also because of the loss of the life of the person driving the car. In her anguish she shared that she believes there was no intention to kill anyone. They shouldn’t have been stealing the car and they shouldn’t have pushed the girl out of the car.

“But I really do believe that they did not intend to kill anyone,” she said again. “They didn’t know what they were doing. They were drugged out. People who do drugs do stupid shit. When I used to do drugs, I had no compassion. I didn’t care. I didn’t think about the effect of what I do. I didn’t think of the effect of everything, the effect of our drug use and the effect of our violence. When you’re in it, you don’t think that way. Now that I’m sober, now that I have learned compassion, now that I have learned love, I am so sad for the young people who did this because I know their life will be ruined.”

Her statements took my breath away.

We talk more about living life with intention.

I talk to my students endlessly about having focus and intention about what you want and paying attention to the way you talk and ask for things, because that is the key to getting them.

My children and I had a big laugh over my silly, although loving, intention of buying the bracelets for them. This will be a joke on me for a long time. In the end it was an endearing, funny mother-daughter episode.

I was lucky I made a choice to go with the silly.

This is not always the case.

Sometimes, if not most of the time we have an intention, we really mean it to be good, but it is overlooked or not acknowledged by the other person.

Then, we feel small. Unseen. We feel silly. We feel bad because our intention was not met with acceptance.

Many times, that is when anger will fester.

There are horrible things that happen because people weren’t thinking, because people were under the influence, because people do not allow positive intention in their life, because they do not have compassion.

I believe that intention and compassion are married.

To have good intentions, you need to have compassion.

To have compassion, you need to seriously work on your demons.

All of this is incredibly important and part of the essence of restorative justice. By teaching this and trying to practice this, we can start to change the endless cycle of violence.

My heart aches for the girl who lost her life in such a senseless crime.

But listening to the wisdom of my homies who have learned compassion and now have the most amazing intentions, I am, at the same time, cautiously optimistic. 

Shame

We all have things that we are ashamed of. If you’re reading this and you don’t think you do, seriously, you should be ashamed of that.

Some of the things that we are ashamed of are truly shame worthy. Some are voices in our heads, things that people have said or that society has succeeded in making us feel bad about. 

There are things I’ve done in my past that I am ashamed of. Some things I should be ashamed of. Others just bring up silly shame. Shame is such an incredibly powerful feeling. There really isn’t a lot we can do about it.  

But, if it’s something that is bothering you and you can change, change it. If it’s something you did in the past, you need to accept that you did it. Do not do it again and figure out what you need to do to move on. Not an easy task and incredibly easier said than done.

Before the pandemic I went to speak about The Advot Project’s work to a senior home for Jewish women. I brought a man with me to speak. He actually was not really a student of mine. He is someone I met through my work, through a sister organization that I love.

This man is a really wonderful person who every now and then does odd jobs for The Advot Project, mostly consisting of driving people and things from here to there. 

I knew he had a compelling story. I thought it would be a good story to present to this older group of Jewish women that I had been asked to speak to. The event was about change makers. When they asked me to come to speak, I told them having just me speak was not enough. They should have someone who has totally changed come, too.

“Do you really think that is necessary?” the woman who was organizing it asked me. 

With no shame I answered, “Absolutely. I don’t think I should come without someone who can talk about change firsthand.” 

“Okay,” she said.

I could hear in her voice that she wasn’t totally convinced.

So, I asked this man to join me.I waited for him outside the venue.

I haven’t seen him in a while. We shared a long embrace and caught up on each other’s news. When he told me that he is off parole, I was elated.

We walked in together and sat together.

I spoke first and talked about the work I do, and why I believe this work is so important. 

I talked about being a facilitator to others making change. I made it clear that we provide the tools for the kids we work with to make the change in their lives.

I introduced my friend and told them I want them to hear about change from someone who totally turned his life around. Then he told his story.

He talked about being incarcerated for two decades. With his head bowed down, he talked a lot about his previous lifestyle and the crimes he had committed.

He talked about his shame, his deep sense of shame.

I started to think that maybe I shouldn’t have had him speak.

Usually when I bring people to share their stories, there isn’t this much shame. Although I had talked to this person in the past, he had never sounded like this.

“Young man,” one of the older women in the group said, “You have got to stop being ashamed. You are incredibly inspiring. Look how you have turned your life around and look at all the good you are doing now.”

He then told her that something changed for him recently when he got off parole. He feels free, but also, he feels the burden of his crime more because he is no longer being punished, if that makes sense, and he smiled. 

This one is special; I knew it when I met him. He has such a gentle heart.  He spends a lot of time giving back to society and he is working hard going to school.

I sat there a little helpless, ashamed that I didn’t talk to him more, that I didn’t know what was going on with him.

There was a moment of quiet and a woman got up. She had to be in her 80’s, if not older. She leaned on her cane and looked right at us sitting at the podium.  

“Young man,” she said in a strong voice even though she was tiny.

“Number 1. You were given a bad deck of cards; you played the game that you were taught.

Number 2. You got caught, you sat in jail. You do not have anything to be ashamed of. 

Number 3. You can feel bad for the people you hurt, but it sounds to me as if you are doing everything in your power to do the right thing now. That is lovely.

Number 4. You are young and strong. Use your shame to fuel the good you are doing. 

I am 88 years old. There are so many things I could have done better and differently in my life. I have a big mouth. I am extremely moody. I have buried three husbands; I was only loyal to one. I stole my sister’s share of our father’s inheritance, but she deserved it. I then gave her the money back with interest. 

We all do stupid things; we all do bad things. I am aware that some are worse than others, but no one can change the past. 

We can only live in the present. 

Believe me, I am around a lot of old people who wish they did things differently and guess what! They can’t! You, my friend, are truly inspiring! You could choose to be bad and mad and make money doing illegal things. You could choose to continue to be a bandit, and here you are going to school and being a mensch. 

Did she teach you what being a mensch is?” She pointed to me and said, “You explain to him later. Take your shame, give it a good kick in the ‘tuchus’ (rear end) and love yourself.

Love yourself because no one else will. Well, maybe she will.”  She points at me again.

“She loves everyone, but I’m not sure what that is about. Let me give you some advice. Shame will melt when it meets love. You must love yourself and let others love you. That will help you stop with the shame. Okay????” 

She waved her cane in the air and she sat down as everyone clapped.

My friend stepped down from the podium and walked over to the lady and gave her a hug. Everyone in the room was standing and watching. 

Shame on me for judging anyone and anything about this event.

We stood outside my car and shared a long laugh about what had happened. The event was a smashing success. 

He asked me, “What is that word she said about me?”“Mensch,” I told him. 

“Is that a word you call people who were in jail?” he asked me. 

I laughed out loud and told him, “No, no! A mensch is a good person, someone who is responsible, good hearted, dependable, and an all-around solid human. It is a Yiddish word for good guy,” I add. 

“She said that about me?” he asked. 

“Yes,” I said, “because you are such a mensch.” 

Now he laughed and said, “I know a lot of people who wouldn’t think that about me.” 

“Well,” I said, “it would be a shame if you listen to them and not what you heard today.”

He smiled at me. He really is a special mensch, this one.

I recently found out that he and the old lady exchanged phone numbers. He has been checking in on her during this crazy pandemic. She has checked in on him during the protests. 

She told me on the phone that it is a shame that people don’t know how great he is. 

“They should know. People are so stupid sometimes.”

I told her not to worry. 

They will.  

Now I can tell her that they do.

Feathers

When I was on my morning walk, I saw a Native American man walking to the hospital that is near my house.  

He was wearing jeans and a white button-down shirt. He had a long gray braid in his hair with three feathers coming out of it.  

He walked tall, proud, and confidently, which made me happy.

There was so much poise in his stride. He saw me looking at him. I waved because with a mask on I knew he could not see my smile. We ended up standing at the light together. “Your feathers are beautiful,” I told him. 

He bowed his head. “Thank you,” he said and then asked me about the Advot Project Listen-Act-Change tee shirt I was wearing, which I explained.

We walked six feet apart, but we were together.

He told me a little of his story, that he was born on an Indian reservation before he became a doctor.  He always wears his feathers so people know who he is and so that he doesn’t forget where he is from. His eyes were gentle, and his heart was kind.I can’t imagine that life is easy going to work wearing feathers on your head. 

He turned into the hospital, waved to me, and said,

“Thank you for liking my feathers. That brings me happiness,” and then he disappeared through the doors of the building.

Later that day one of my students called me and told me, “Happiness has left my life. Everything is hard and I am sad. I spent so many years locked up. I got out and I felt happiness filling me up. Now living is so hard, I’m bummed, Ms. It’s like she left for good.”

I love that happiness has become a person in her story. 

For people who have been incarcerated for years and/or decades, when they get out everything is new, and everything, and I mean everything, is a challenge.

You need to catch up, re-learn and adapt, which is not easy, to say the least.

I can totally understand why happiness left and went for a walk.

This student of mine has so much to face, so much, and she is doing it with so much grace.

“It’s a funny thing about happiness,” I tell her. “When she leaves, it feels like she is never coming back, but she is a sneaky one, that happiness. When you least expect it, she will come back. 

I can also tell you,” I add. “Happiness will sometimes drop in for a moment only to go away again. You simply need to leave the door open for her and have faith that she will come back.”

“I don’t know,” my student tells me. “I’m feeling beat down.” And then she tells me how hard all these things are that she is trying to learn and to do. “I don’t want to go back to jail,” she adds. 

“I know,” I tell her. “Of course not.”

Listening to her made me think of the man I saw in the morning.

“What are your feathers?”  I ask her. 

“What?” she asks. “I don’t understand.” 

I am not sure I understand what I am asking, but there was something about this doctor with the feathers in his braid that made me think about the keys to happiness. 

I think of what he said to me. “Thank you for liking my feathers. That brings me happiness.”

I share with my student my morning encounter. 

“The doctor’s feathers are his heritage, his spirit, and what he stands for. His happiness hangs out there. What are your feathers? What do you stand for and feel good about in all the hard things that you have to face? Maybe there is where you can find some happiness.” I am sounding a little airy-fairy to myself. 

I think this is a serious stretch. But it is all I have at the moment. 

I am not really sure even I understand what I am saying.

 I think for a moment about my own happiness. She, too, has been giving me some heartache lately.  I think of many of my village who like me are looking for ways to keep happiness from slipping away in these challenging times.  I get a little lost in my thoughts and the quiet, and then, of course, my brilliant student gets it better than me.

“That is dope, Ms.” she said. “How do you think up this shit?” and she laughs a big laugh.

“My feathers, huh???” She says  “Well, my feathers, let me tell you something about my feathers. My feathers are the 23 years I sat locked up. My feathers are my good heart that I kept clean of hate. No matter what happened, I try to be kind and nice. My feathers are my will. I am going to get my license and my car. And I am not going back to jail. Wow, Ms. You are right! Bam! There is my happiness.”

Now I am quiet. I feel my eyes tear up. I am happy we are on the phone and not on Zoom on the computer.

I think to myself; my happiness is not too fond of all these Zoom meetings I am doing.  You see, my happiness is a people person.

“Ms., you there?”“Yup,” I tell her.

“Thank you. Happiness is back.”

“That is great,” I say. “You know, she is tricky,” I warn. 

“Oh, Ms., happiness is a bitch. I know that. But now I got me my feathers, so I’m good.”

I laugh out loud and say, “Terrific!” and we talk a little more.

I hang up the phone. I sit a few minutes. I try to think of my feathers. What are they?

And then I think of the doctor with the feathers in his hair and I know that this would make him oh so incredibly happy.

I smile to myself, and whoops there she is.

Happiness drops in for a little visit.