tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890090558284224162024-02-19T00:41:25.416-05:00Last American ChildhoodRachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.comBlogger494125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-3867941771973576782023-10-06T11:10:00.006-04:002023-10-06T14:55:45.802-04:00The chance to be here and not here<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNxM3AMcokbK0TF2oHK6IL8QrxSMMMMzGL-qOPHyYghm472KSE1S8trYKg2lzyuqNtyVNgO77ukvqwaqVrW3RP0dGo5oqWBfgfQqh9ANJDfSW0mSgmDauVAeYSoSecuHC3vGUV-Rxpj6Hz9n--GRQ9-VHyHQRO9tgVGm2rjPBaq3ikUG0h5Av5MfBHJ1Si" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="1124" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNxM3AMcokbK0TF2oHK6IL8QrxSMMMMzGL-qOPHyYghm472KSE1S8trYKg2lzyuqNtyVNgO77ukvqwaqVrW3RP0dGo5oqWBfgfQqh9ANJDfSW0mSgmDauVAeYSoSecuHC3vGUV-Rxpj6Hz9n--GRQ9-VHyHQRO9tgVGm2rjPBaq3ikUG0h5Av5MfBHJ1Si" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I’m sitting in a lovely community center downtown while Petra is in choir practice. Petra is my 10-year-old, younger sibling to the main subject of this blog for many years. Wally is now 15, a sophomore in High School. It’s been so long since I’ve written here—2 years!—it seems like perhaps I need to (re-)introduce the characters.</span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Waiting in this quiet room is a luxury, a moment during the hectic week to breathe. Out in Brooklyn until after 11 PM at an editor meeting on Tuesday. Three-hour wait at the eye doctor with Petra on Wednesday. Picture Day. Spirit Week. Enveloped in this quiet, I’m reminded of the weekly brief but life-altering half hour I used to wait while Wally age 2 played with an OT in a sensory gym near Columbus Circle. I started this blog at that time, a moment when blogs were blossoming. No laptop, no parents I knew, a place to sit comfortably. Not a room to myself exactly, but still an in-between with its a liminal tranquility. A protected place for reflection. And now with Petra's choir practice I have a weekly pause again.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I could jot down thoughts for a book project. I have three massive ones due by January, more work than I’ve had I think ever. Petra has piano, softball (casual fall ball), and choir plus middle schools tours. There are vaccines to schedule (extra round this fall including rabies shots as Wally got bitten by a stray cat outside Rio in August), my husband is once-again adjusting to a new principal in his South Bronx middle school and now to being the only English-Language-Learner teacher in the school. The usual frenzied muddle of making dinner, doing dishes, buying groceires, finding abandoned bananas in the bottom of backpacks. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Yet I know one of the most important tasks of this time will be staying present to this time of letting go, the end of elementary school for my </span><i style="font-family: verdana;">younger</i><span style="font-family: verdana;"> child. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">(How am I now that person writing about such big kids? I remember putting down <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/catherine-newman/catastrophic-happiness/9781478957010/?lens=little-brown" target="_blank">Catastrophic Happiness </a>and finding out that </span><a href="https://www.catherinenewmanwriter.com/" style="font-family: verdana;" target="_blank">Catherine Newman</a><span style="font-family: verdana;"> was the mom of almost entirely grown kids and feeling almost hoodwinked – what? You were talking about the exhaustion of constantly bending over with snacks and Bandaids and wiping tears and meanwhile your kids are wearing crop tops and playing guitar sulkily in dark bedrooms?)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Having turned away from this space, toward grad school, <a href="https://www.ontherunfiction.com/stories/my-fathers-ex-girlfriend" target="_blank">flash fiction</a>, finally publishing a <a href="https://literarymama.com/articles/departments/2022/05/aria-2" target="_blank">story</a> I'd worked on for <i>years</i>, and other (often less satisfying) ways to connect like WhatsApp, social media, endless texting, I’ve recently been inspired by lovely newsletters from <a href="https://www.nicolemgulotta.com/" target="_blank">Nicole Gulotta</a>, <a href="https://www.jamiattenberg.com/" target="_blank">Jami Attenberg</a>, <a href="https://www.madeleinedore.com/" target="_blank">Madeleine Dore </a>and <a href="https://www.sdionbaker.com/" target="_blank">Samantha Dion Baker</a> to return here. There seems to be a re-emerging tolerance for a longer form in-the-moment thinking through one’s life and the shape of the days. I miss it so much.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But something is nagging at me. Something unfinished. (Something of many things. A million unfinished songs, poems, stories, novels, essays, drafts of posts here over the past two years.) Right now the most pressing unfinished pull is an essay I wrote the summer before last about another liminal moment, the end of middle school for my older, the last year in the beloved elementary school at the top of the stairs for my daughter before the school moved further downtown. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">I had some interest from editors. Some yes-but-with suggestions for revisions. I revised. I rethought. Rewrote and resent. But, no, still not quite there, not really. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">And then the moment was gone. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Scrawling with my pen in a rain-soaked notebook today I decide I will publish it here, on this blog. Why not? It will feel like tracing out one place on the map where I've tried (imperfectly, discontinuously) to document this time of active motherhood. And then I can continue on with the work of the in-between, starting from here, which of course will always mean circling back, again and again.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">So here it is.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">*</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><div>How a New Walk at the End of the School Year Helped Me Find My Way</div><div><br /></div><div>First I walk down loud and crowded 9th avenue past the paper lanterns outside Chelsea Market and the sidewalk cafes. Further down, I cross the cobblestone streets of the meatpacking district, where once I played guitar at midnight. When I reach the outer edges of the West Village the street name changes to Greenwich. What a perfect place to meet someone sometime, I think each time I pass a wine bar below Jane.</div><div><br /></div><div>Soon, the streets are quiet enough that I begin to hear my thoughts and feel the heat. After the flurry of getting the kids off, the gallop through a shortened workday mixed with household chores, I’m here. A “here” that keeps changing on the walk but one that centers me nonetheless.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is a ritual I only began in May, with the end of the school year just five weeks away. Why hadn’t it been a tradition all along? Most weekdays I relied on the school bus, but on Fridays I like to pick up my daughter so she can go to the park with friends from school. Why had I always taken the subway down with its potential delays, its overstimulating, rushed feel, delays or skipped stops adding to the anxiety of the day?</div><div><br /></div><div>Halfway through the walk, I pause outside the middle school where my son goes. He had never let me walk him there or pick him up, but there is something comforting about passing by it. And also to the symmetry to things - for now we are lined up on a single street. Our Chelsea apartment, a West Village middle school and an elementary school in Tribeca. I take the same path the next few Fridays. Watching one neighborhood turn into another makes them feel more connected, and the day more connected, too. It is the not rushing, the paying attention.</div><div><br /></div><div>At home in the evenings, I sketch out pieces of an essay about this walk. To find what I want to say, first I have to relearn how to walk without talking. I had gotten in the habit of walking while dictating text conversations. I remove Whatsapp from my phone. I pull back from texting. With my voice back in my head, the walks become quieter.</div><div><br /></div><div>For so many years I was content for hours without interaction. I wrote songs alone at the piano. I wrote in my journal many times throughout the day, almost every night. Urgently, obsessively writing only to myself. It was never lonely. Why does it feel that way sometimes now? Maybe lonely isn’t the word, but detached, a bit lost. Was it blogging that changed things? Social media?</div><div><br /></div><div>It can feel strange to exist just alone on the page when I could be engaging with others in real time. When someone might “Love” something I write, the minute I write it. I could be discussing, debating, clicking on links with the joy that others clink their glasses of champagne.</div><div><br /></div><div>The failure to walk “alone” (that is, without conversation, music or a podcast) feels tied to the difficulty of writing alone. I don’t know why now I have to be coaxed back into the lovely solitary room with the yellow tulips in a jar. I am thinking of May Sarton; she was always relieved and endlessly grateful to be alone. Like I used to be.</div><div><br /></div><div>For three weeks I tell my writing accountability group my goal is to revise my essay about the walk. What is the story you’re trying to tell? I write longhand in blue marker on a big white sheet of paper. Lists bloom along the margins. Zucchinis, lemon, whole-milk ricotta. Orthodontist. Teacher thank-you $$. And new French words as well: <i>cerisier. souhaiter. ficelle.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>“Ficelle” means string. It came to me from a song by a Canadian singer named <a href="https://www.ingridstpierre.com/" target="_blank">Ingrid St. Pierre.</a> It is a sad song about her grandmother losing her memory, and the singer hoping she won’t forget her name. </div><div><br /></div><div>I knew the middle school years would go by quickly, but I didn’t know I would remain at such a distance from them. That the November pie meet-and-greet tradition we kicked off in the first fall was the first and last. That in March of 6th grade my son would get a role in a musical they would never perform. That there would be no musicals at all. Only one in person parent-teacher conference. </div><div><br /></div><div>If only I’d been taking these walks all along. The essay would have a natural shape. The walks and the disrupted school years. I could try to string them together. </div><div><br /></div><div>A few blocks south of North Moore, I reach the little school at the top of the steps. It will move downtown at the end of June. Covid kept the graduates including my son from being able to visit their classrooms after they left. Now their chance is gone.</div><div><br /></div><div>Two days left until the deadline to decide about high school. My son got a high enough score on a citywide test to earn a spot at a select school. He has an offer from an arts school as well. A lucky problem to have. Two wildly different paths. Down one he’ll learn Latin, annotate classics, learn to debate. In the other he’ll get to participate in theater every day, pursuing a less serious academic path. We know many who have chosen the rigorous school, already arranging the morning commute together. We know almost no one heading to the arts school, but many who are outraged about the open admissions process this year, moving to private school or further, to Jersey. </div><div><br /></div><div>The choice hangs over our house in the evenings.</div><div><br /></div><div>Immersing myself in the present of the city sidewalks creates a counterpoint to the liminal space of these weeks. I am no longer even reaching for my phone while walking. I’m no longer tabbing to other pages while writing. But am I holding desperately onto a moment that’s leaving? At the start of the pandemic, I had one child in first grade and one in 6th. Now one is off to high school, one will begin fourth grade. I have become that mother of “big kids.” In these walks, in this essay I’m trying to write about them, am I reaching for a helium balloon slipping out of reach?</div><div><br /></div><div>One Friday left. On the walk downtown I see the 8th graders in the middle school yard signing yearbooks. I think I catch sight of my son’s curly head, but he doesn’t see me. In Tribeca my daughter tells me the classroom is packed up in boxes. The 3rd-graders did arts and crafts, wrote letters of goodbye. I feek like a child in a picture book. Was I ready to write a farewell letter too?</div><div><br /></div><div>On Monday, the last day of school, many students will be absent. Onto the next thing. Often this is the case, kids missing the last days of school. Running off to catch a flight, start camp, pack up for a country house. Families willingly giving up the in-between, the chance to be here and not here, making one’s way through the threshold with its attending anxieties and their potency. Meanwhile, I’d always paid attention to endings, and this year, I began to revel in the in-between. To soak it up.</div><div><br /></div><div>Crossing Canal, or crossing lines off in a draft. These weren’t the walks I’d taken all along. They were the ones I discovered at a precipice. A ritual for just a short while.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the last day of school, I take the subway down because I am carrying a picnic for an end-of-year celebration. The kids come running out but minutes later the skies open and the picnic called off. My daughter and I jump on the city bus, soaked and grateful for its swift arrival. At Barrow Street, a pile of middle school kids clambers on, my older child among them. For a moment, it feels like the old days, when the two kids were briefly in the same school together. On Fridays we’d take the bus home after the park. But the 8th graders tumble off the bus before our stop with what sounds like a plan for frozen yogurt. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Through the blurry window, my younger one and I wave goodbye.</div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgszyFbLnVoNEbDuTW31utvfwTZK-XmUPFwYGkcv9XKp-kCA7NfliH1ZU2Wss73lWgiZyz4cYIhY1zYeBktTTONCsJoAG4a7oCbqF4KHzQx7QMzhmIXheB_G8VcAjQyrRMQlQsC6_kQ2Sfex_6Yg-C8Nv-DCwGTpH3hddHQUvHdWAJCcew5e4Q0peJe6qDP" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="1124" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgszyFbLnVoNEbDuTW31utvfwTZK-XmUPFwYGkcv9XKp-kCA7NfliH1ZU2Wss73lWgiZyz4cYIhY1zYeBktTTONCsJoAG4a7oCbqF4KHzQx7QMzhmIXheB_G8VcAjQyrRMQlQsC6_kQ2Sfex_6Yg-C8Nv-DCwGTpH3hddHQUvHdWAJCcew5e4Q0peJe6qDP" width="320" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><br /></span><br /></p>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-80177013064371307092021-11-01T18:06:00.007-04:002022-05-18T13:11:41.056-04:00Welcome to You Are Journey<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtix6wDhiO6Yt3nbHXIzWJRPUR852eKfue-v699xnQqtjA-Mq8ho0Bp5Bwx2LHTqNNwQJh3LrjVFO8BqqHbLFkyoTmM9WFjhpXpW3wbPkjgof_qUYbL144FmUZlu4MbTofaOoEqIWyIxx8/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtix6wDhiO6Yt3nbHXIzWJRPUR852eKfue-v699xnQqtjA-Mq8ho0Bp5Bwx2LHTqNNwQJh3LrjVFO8BqqHbLFkyoTmM9WFjhpXpW3wbPkjgof_qUYbL144FmUZlu4MbTofaOoEqIWyIxx8/w640-h480/wheel+of+time+rosh+hashanah.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">At the start of last November I posted "The Way Back" after a long absence. In between that date and now there are four drafts here, never published. No posts. No marked path that would offer a way back, let alone <i>the</i> way back. But a full journey around the sun, or just about.</span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">A friend who moved from Vermont to the country (this is a theme I love, like in J. Courtney Sullivan's</span><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/564677/friends-and-strangers-by-j-courtney-sullivan/" style="font-family: verdana;" target="_blank"> <i>Friends and Strangers</i> </a><span style="font-family: verdana;">and Elise Albert </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/books/review/after-birth-by-elisa-albert.html" style="font-family: verdana;"><i>After Birth</i> </a><span style="font-family: verdana;">[wait, was it in </span><i style="font-family: verdana;">After Birth</i><span style="font-family: verdana;"> that she left NYC? or did Elise Albert just write about leaving in </span><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/goodbye-to-all-that-sari-botton/1114979844" style="font-family: verdana;"><i>Goodbye to All That?</i></a>. <span style="font-family: verdana;"> That one, the goodbye book, I gave my first NYC roommate years after we arrived here and twice lived together, once on the Upper West and once in Brooklyn. Friends from college, we moved together West 87th into a one bedroom with no kitchen owned by someone who played in <i>Ghostbusters</i>. This was when we just said hello to all this, to Bethesda Fountain, Max Fish, Columbus Bakery, dumplings on Mott street, wine on rooftops, bands in Brooklyn and a million other things. This </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">August this friend said goodbye and moved so close to where I spent so many of my most memorable </span><a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2010/11/you-should-be-airborne.html" style="font-family: verdana;">days</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">)]).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Wait - the friend who moved to Vermont. What about her? She moved from NYC to the country and </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">now raises chickens. A few weeks ago asked me about this blog. She said she'd just reread my last post and asked when I would write again.</span></span></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Tonight? The kids—3rd grade (the younger!) and 8th grade—started school September 13. The 8th grader is not serious about applying to high school, which he needs to do this fall, because we have so far not said goodbye to all this, that is New York, and all its craziness. <i>I barely had middle school!</i> he whines. <i>Why should I have to worry about high school?</i></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Both of Catherine Newman's kids are out of the house! The youngest one is in </span><a href="http://benandbirdy.blogspot.com/" style="font-family: verdana;">college.</a><span style="font-family: verdana;"> It was already a shocking thing <a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-sky-that-we-look-upon.html">to discover</a>, after reading about her toddlers in <i>Catastrophic Happiness,</i> that her kids were teenagers. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">But now Catherine and her husband are taking </span><a href="https://motherwellmag.com/2017/05/30/night-walks-with-my-teens-who-are-about-to-leave-me/" style="font-family: verdana;">night walks</a><span style="font-family: verdana;"> alone? What they dreaded, what they knew would happen, what they couldn't stop from happening. Is it absolutely ludicrous to be so tied to— almost merged with—your children that you're devastated, like Catherine, to see them go? Many commenters on a recent </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/05/opinion/parenting-college-empty-nest-pandemic.html" style="font-family: verdana;">New York Times article</a> <span style="font-family: verdana;">about the subject say is <i>not</i> a sad moment. It is what you have worked toward. The right outcome. </span></span></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">But can't the right outcome also be sad? Can't being too old for the playground, or trick or treat, a developmentally appropriate passage, also be sad? (Did C.S. Lewis really put away childish things?) At weddings, are people always tearing up because it's just all so beautiful and wondrous or is there also something painful about all you're leaving behind?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Not tragic sad, not sad like the evening in September we stare downtown at the still surprising skyline and listen to Verdi's Requiem and remember. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">But still.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Each year, each new renewal, there is a lot to say goodbye to. For the first time at Yom Kippur this year I found this song "Kol Nidrei" (Arabic for "All vows"). Listen to it <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/kol-nidrei/">here.</a> Scroll down on the page. But before that, before the time for atonement, was the time for reflection on the year that has past. For Rosh Hashanah we generally go to my sister's apartment in Brooklyn and eat kugel, mashed potatoes, green beans and a gluten-free zucchini pie the recipe for which I discovered a few years ago. Oh and challah with honey and apples and apple cake. This year, like last, we did not go to her house because of Covid.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">But we had a similar, if less elegant, meal here. We drank red wine and the kids had sparkling lemonade when I remembered Manischewitz is actual wine and not kid's wine. The joke about it is that it tastes like grape juice, not that it is like Kadeem grape juice, which then wouldn't be a joke.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Then Alex said he was going to the studio. <i>But you're going to miss the river,</i> I protested.</span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I had decided we were going to do Tashlich. I had not known about or ever heard the word Tashlich seven hours earlier that day. I had read about it that morning. You throw bread crumbs into the river, if you're lucky enough to live by a river, which we do. "<span style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 16px;">Right and left, the streets take you waterward," write Melville of Manhattoes.</span> But now the recommendation is for something better for fish like oats or peas. Those o</span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">ats or peas represent aspects of yourself over the past year you want to cast off. I mean maybe some people would call them "sins" but I'll say things you want to change. </span></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>But that was never a tradition,</i> Alex objects. <i>The river was never part of it.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">He was right, of course. He packed up the bass, my bass, the one I haven't played in over a decade, and headed to the studio. The apartment had that after-dinner quiet, after tense-ish conversation quiet, am-I-really-going-back-outside after a long day, a big meal, just me and the two kids for a tradition that was never a tradition quiet. (Like <a href="https://www.deborahunderwoodbooks.com/Deborah-Underwood-The-Quiet-Book.html">The Quiet Book</a> by Deborah Underwood but for adults who drank wine and still had a lot to clean up.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">But none of this was a tradition, I thought as I rinsed a few dishes. We didn't grow up with Rosh Hashanah. We didn't take off from school. Once I moved to New York, we would show up with kosher wine at my grandmother's apartment for a meal with matzoh ball soup to start and for those who ate it, gefilte fish.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Out to the river we went. Petra (the almost 3rd-grader) took her scooter. Wally, the fairly recently-minted teen, trailed us. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">It was brighter by the river, the sun that you think is gone three avenues East is still dazzling over Jersey. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">At the western edge of this island, we each took a handful of Irish oats. (We'd had just a little oats left in the box, not enough to ever cook, but too much to throw out or even compost. A random "I'll get to it someday" amount.) We each, I hoped, thought about what we wanted to cast off and then we threw our oats into the river. They blew right back up at us. The symbolism was disastrous. The wind was heading East, blowing in our face. We needed to go out on a pier and throw with the wind at our backs. A nice Irish blessing.</span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">The wheel of time! At the end of Pier 66. That would be perfect, I thought. I ushered the kids down and block and out along the dock. We passed the kayaks and the anchored sailboats. </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Only two other people were out at the end. <span>Imagine all the people without a river (in Jerusalem?) reading the rules for Tashlich and having to make do with water from the faucet. </span><span>The wheel of time, I said again. Then several more times. It seemed so fitting, even though it wasn't the right name for the piece. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span>It's actually called "Long Time." </span></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">So finally, there by the "Long Time" </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">waterwheel </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">designed by Paul Ramirez-Jonas, born in Pomona, California, we threw the Irish oats East and they landed in the water and we hoped they were safe for the fish and the seagulls to eat.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">A week later, we learned about the Moon Festival from our neighbor from China who gave us Mooncakes. They came in a beautiful red box. I think inside was red bean paste. I had pictured sponge cakes we'd had many times at Kung Fu. But those are not at all like moon cakes, I found out on Yom Kippur. With the kids off from school and in the playground, this neighbor and I were both outside. After four hours, she said she was going to take her daughters to the river. We parted ways. I didn't think anything about it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">The river.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The next day she told me they'd gone to the river to carry out the tradition I'd told her about. Tashlich. She described family reunions for the Moon Festival. And I'd described that ritual by the river, the moment of reflecting on the past and turning toward the future.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Imagine that. A woman who grew up in the town of Yitong, 600 miles northwest of Beijing, bringing her girls to the </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Hudson River in 2021 to perform a tradition from the </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">8th century BCE, recorded in the old testament by a minor prophet. <i>I'll be damned</i>, I would have said, in my head, if I was the kind of person who used expressions like I<i>'ll be damned.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Her openness. Her curiosity! Those are qualities of mine I've come to see as liabilities, or at least <i>massive</i> time sucks that have possibly derailed years. But on the other side of curiousity, observing it, I marvelled. </span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">There is so much to marvel at now with a teen and a 3rd-grader. I am fast on the heels of Catherine Newman's flight. (If you don't know who she is PLEASE read some of her essays immediately, like <a href="https://motherwellmag.com/2016/10/27/the-boring-tragedies-of-parenthood/">this one</a>). </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This teen of mine wanted social media and that made the 3rd-grader want Facebook messenger. They created a decorate path through the house with posters leading us from room to room and finally to a performance meant to persuade us social media would facilitate more real-life meetings. At the start of the path was a poster greeting us that said "Welcome to you're journey." </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>You're with an apostrophe? You are? Do you see how you spelled this? </i>I called out from the back hall when they were in the living room preparing the opening dance that would precede persuasive skits about why they should both suddenly have social media. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>You wrote 'Welcome to You Are Journey.'</i> I repeated that throughout the evening, hoping to bide my time before giving an <i>answer</i> about social media. We were supposed to have an answer by the end of the show. The phrase was starting to grow on me. I had no idea what to say about social media. What if everyone you know is on it and that's how they stay in touch and you're not really big on video games so this is a way to stay in touch and not be out of the loop? </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">But loops can be bigger than you think. They can be looming. They can turn like wheels of time, disappear like the rings made from the gossamer landing of Irish oats in water, shine like a full moon looming over the autumn harvest on the other side of the earth.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Welcome to You Are Journey. Maybe that's the way we should say it. Maybe we should accept that we not only take a journey, travel it, but inhabit it, too. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>You're still here, </i>I think, when I realize where I am, the same place as so many years ago. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">But so far away.</span></div><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-16111900705307837202020-11-03T22:55:00.001-05:002020-11-10T12:21:29.487-05:00The Way Back<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Sunday morning.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">You know what you have to do. You have to write.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">You have to come into the bedroom, where there is not good light. You have to flip open the laptop, find the charger, open a new blank page. Later you can check email, The New York Times, the polls, your To Do list, your texts, your project management spreadsheet. No, but what if there is an urgent text? It can wait. It has to. Later you can put music on, music that will help you focus, but maybe it will help you focus now? But it will also remind you of the song you want to play for the kids, the Biden/Black-Eyed Peas mashup of "Where is the love?" So for now there will be no music. There will be the rain on this dark morning, whatever you can hear over the sound of the trucks backing up and the construction that has been going on for seven years outside your window. Entire skyscrapers and all of Hudson Yards built in that time, art buildings, an empty mall, luxury gyms and rooftop skydriving. But still, on 29th street, the pavement torn up, the digging, the excavating—of what? What are they searching for? All along the blocks and avenues buildings are vacant, favorite stores gone. Both beloved pizza places—one from when you were a child, the other cozy, wooden walls, a shelter on rainy afternoons after a long bus ride home—gone. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">There are these gaps all over the city, and to fully process these gaps, to do that work that will make them into apertures, it seems like it needs the ground underneath to be solid. There is a lack of centering now every day, a delay. We will get to centering after the election. Before it was post-Covid, post-Covid we will return to center, but post-Covid is now not a thing that we can wait for. But you can not wait for post election either, because you don't know for sure that the election will go your way. Either way, you take a deep breath, and prepare yourself for battle. It doesn't stop, so it doesn't make sense to postpone the moment of feeling centered. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">But then, how?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">You remember the children's story about the lonely island you began when your now middle-schooler was in preschool. Should you dig that out? Or what about seeing if you can make anything of the novel draft from ten years ago. There's a short story you want to send Sunday, a flash fiction piece you want to complete for a contest ending in 5 days. You promised to bake brownies for the Kung Fu class today, there's an application to fill out, meeting notes to transfer, voter post cards to mail, a present to buy, the blog post which is a paid gig, a book pitch, which is also official. Any of those would be easier. But that's not what you wanted to say. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">This is a rare moment. Two children in the house and they are both quietly reading. You winced when you asked the younger to read in her head, not out loud. You love to hear her read about the witch-girl Heidi Hecklebacker or Ramona. Ramona, of course, always gives you the most comforting waves of nostalgia and memories of days you wore rainboots over shoes to school. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">It is surreal to open this blog and see more than a year has passed since the last post. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">What is the way back? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Meditation? Buying a magazine on meditation? Running? Yoga? Tai Chi? Qigong? A latte? A sketch class. A Halloween craft? Incense a candle a phone call, re-reading The Art of War? A constellation map posted to the bulletin board a conversation with your dear grad-school/writing friend Amie who is writing furiously, furiously every day. Reading a <a href="http://benandbirdy.blogspot.com/2020/09/our-fudge-of-perpetual-sorrows.html">post</a> that makes you leap up into the air. Or sink into the ground. Or both. But the kids are grown now, for example, Catherine Newman's kids I mean. All her beautiful writing couldn't stop them. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Elizabeth Bishop could stare at words all day. Sometimes I think back to what it meant to write at a computer when I was in high school. How it was not connected to anything outside me. The computer was in the basement and it was quiet and it was just the blank screen and the words that appeared.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">#</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Two days later. You haven't written this really, whatever "this" is, but by opening up this post, opening this space, you have done something worth celebrating: you haven't <i>not</i> written. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"># </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Indiana was never a question —I'm trying to tell them. They're in the other room, waiting for results from Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina. We have to stay focused on states we thought we could win.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">But now there are are states we're supposed to win where we are not winning. But also we knew early numbers wouldn't look good, but we are not holding onto this.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Wasn't the extra hour on Saturday night into Sunday morning so cozy? That was one thing to hold onto.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Either way, we fight. Either way, we way we have to be grateful. Either way we look outside in the morning and see that the trees that were green for so long are finally turning red.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nobody can focus now. Nobody is trying to focus now. My grad school friend is. She already sent me back the writing I sent her marked up with comments. How was she able to do that? But whatever happens—a win, another crushing loss, or neither, uncertainty for weeks, we will need to wake up tomorrow and do our work.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">I am tempted to keep checking, but checking what? There's nothing more we can really know tonight. Why toggle away to check guesses and estimates. We will need to sleep without knowing. We will have to stop wondering about Grand Rapids. We will have to think bigger than Miami-Dade. We will have to remember the Waning Gibbous moon. It is easier now in the evenings to see Jupiter and Saturn.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><br /><p></p>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-48198899891041639462019-09-11T21:53:00.004-04:002019-09-12T09:12:33.640-04:00September 11<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I did not know any of the people who died in the attacks of September 11.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I woke that morning eighteen years ago to the sound of my roommate's screams. We took her transistor radio and climbed the fire escape of our Brooklyn apartment. From the roof we watched the towers burn. With my brother-in-law we saw the second tower collapse on
live TV. The first tower had fallen on our walk over to my sister's apartment. She was teaching at the time in Morningside Heights. Only a half hour passed </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">between the collapse of the first tower and the second, yet one of the clear memories I have of that surreal morning was trying to wrap my head around the unfathomable strangeness of a New York City skyline with only one of the twin towers. By 10:30, of course, both towers were gone. </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">The loss of life was something I hadn't begun to process.</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The subways were down, the phones weren’t working. We walked
to meet up with those we could find on this side of the river. By that evening the
subways were running, calls getting through. From my boyfriend’s
apartment in Fort Greene I spoke with my grandmother in Chelsea and then my
parents. They were on vacation in California. They had woken up to a world already gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the days that followed we lit candles and sang songs and
wondered how to make sense of thousands of missing people posters. We
read a million articles as if some new angle on the disaster would help us shift the smoldering, shapeless pieces back into place. Then we returned to work, resumed routines, looking over our shoulders at first as
we walked through Grand Central, wondering, in Times Square, if it was wise to
be walking there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When family members and mourners, or visitors, or whatever we were who did not
know anyone who died, who had no personal connection to the tragedy, returned
to Ground Zero, it was at first an open wound, not a construction site, just a wreck. And in that wreckage, in that chasm, you could kind of feel the bottomless, colossal loss. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Already by the second anniversary, it was harder to see the emptiness. You
had to walk around, over, on the other side of barricades. Still in the early years
of the anniversary, my friend Kristin and I—the roommate whose shrieks had
awoken me that September morning—attended church
services, wrote messages of hope on tiny white ribbons and tied them to trees.
And then finally the memorial opened. And the visits seemed to become more silent, less about seeking and more about simply paying respect. Five years later there was the Oculus and now there is art and memorabilia and there are many, many tourists. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Today at the memorial site I saw a beautiful woman in a
black dress putting white roses on one of the names carved in the side of the memorial. I tried but I couldn’t see which name although I did see "Jr." at the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On these visits sometimes I listen to the recitation of the names and sometimes I
read them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Christina Sunga Ryook<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">John Patrick Gallagher<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lesley Anne Thomas<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Gregory E. Rodriguez<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sheryl Lynn Rosenbaum<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I try to pause on each one that I hear or read. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Years ago someone chose their names with care, embroidered the letters, maybe, on a pillow for a new baby, waited gleefully to greet his or her new and delicate face. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Around
me visitors were taking panoramic shots and videos of water cascading into
the ground. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com2New York, NY, USA40.7127753 -74.005972839.9423093 -75.296866299999991 41.483241299999996 -72.7150793tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-4782520039674508472019-08-02T15:26:00.002-04:002023-10-07T08:28:19.279-04:00Life, A Love Story<div class="MsoNormal">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h0aPezvGrd0/XUSNesKyCuI/AAAAAAAAFBQ/S9vU6DFP_3QWu5zG1YThVKIsS6n6qNtlACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_20190729_143214685.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h0aPezvGrd0/XUSNesKyCuI/AAAAAAAAFBQ/S9vU6DFP_3QWu5zG1YThVKIsS6n6qNtlACK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_20190729_143214685.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">See the balcony with the plants? We lived in that apartment when I was three until almost seven. The playground equipment hasn't changed.</span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">In a small library in a small town in New England in the middle of July, I came across an article about the joy of reading the same
books as your child. I knew I wouldn’t remember the name of the article or the
name of the woman who wrote it, but I hoped I’d remember her blog, cited in the
little author bio at the end. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Back home in New York City last night, trying to think of
what to make for dinner (after so many nights of big group dinners, I forgot
how to think small), the name of the blog returned to me: </span><a href="http://www.dinneralovestory.com/" target="_blank">Dinner, A Love Story</a>. I scrolled through
mouth-watering recipes full of fresh summer veggies. And oddly,
as I looked at the pictures of lovingly prepared <a href="http://www.dinneralovestory.com/three-no-recipe-recipes/" target="_blank">Tagliatelle</a>, I felt a
wave of nostalgia for the days when I was immersed in the blog world. Reading them daily and
writing them as often as I could. It felt like a collaborative effort, a shared
attempt at meaning making. During disordered days and in strange hours of the
night I was carried along by the soothing lullaby of other mothers' voices.
Theirs were exhausted, maybe a bit scratchy, even, like mine, but still the
sound was gentle and reassuring. Words mattered more than sleep. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">In the world of shared
daily writing, (and I think of it as a daily not only in terms of the schedule
but in that the prosaic, everydayness of the world was something celebrate,
roughness and unevenness and mistakes were okay, both in writing and in life),
no one blog needed to offer an answer to the many questions being raised along
with young children. But, sending missives from our laptops late at night, we
were part of a collective effort, creating a tapestry of sorts. Maybe the
pattern wouldn't be clear for many years, but it might emerge one day if we
trusted the process. Letters had been my life blood for many years, but
those were gone. The long-form email was over. Blogs were the closest thing we
had. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Blogs were new once, too, resisted by those who found them too careless, too rushed. Certainly no
substitute for a researched article. They were closer to letters. I wouldn’t
cite them as evidence of anything, other than one person’s experience. Books
had to prove themselves, though once they did, they had a good long run. Socrates was skeptical of the written word, the effect
it would have on memory and the difficulty of getting to the truth without
conversation.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><!--EndFragment--></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The premise of the blogs I missed seemed to be a promise to appreciate the everyday. </span>As I heard music in the <a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2014/06/when-i-dropped-recycling-into-bin.html" target="_blank">sounds of the recycling bin</a> or <a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2011/04/at-night-my-eyes-turn-into-videos.html" target="_blank">mistook an actor for someone I knew</a> or spent all day on the tarmac <a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2010/11/you-should-be-airborne.html" target="_blank">missing my cousin's wedding</a> in the back of my head the blog asked me, gently, to connect today's events to yesterday's, to wonder—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what does it mean?</i> If
I picked fresh sage and brought it home from the garden, then found it shredded like confetti about the living room
floor, was that a poetic moment or just a mess? The possibility for something that signified was always right nearby.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">*</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">“The Funeral” by Band of Horses is playing in the coffee shop across the
street from the neighborhood where I now live. Two nights ago was the funeral for Jason Schneider, an
editor with whom I worked during my publishing years and once briefly, last year, when he hired me for a freelance project. He was my age. He had three
young kids, younger than mine. He was never a close friend, although he played
in a band (<a href="https://longislandmusicscene.fandom.com/wiki/Satellite_Lost" target="_blank">Satellite Lost</a>) and so we had that in common along with editing. All night I seemed to dream of him. I was meeting him
for dinner. People kept telling me—you can’t be meeting him for dinner, his
funeral is taking place tonight. In the dream I had to explain: he’s dying, but he’s not yet dead.
He knows he has only a short time to live so when he was filling out paperwork he typed the year of his death
(2019) and based on that Facebook misreported his living status.</span></div>
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<o:p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The</span></o:p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> Tagliatelle recipes weren’t conjuring the moments
that sought to rise above the everyday so much as they seemed to represent a
steady domesticity. If anything, I have much more of that now than I did then. Two
kids instead of one. Older kids (11 and 6) instead of so young. No more
resistance to a new life. Happy to stay home in the evenings, in fact, happier
than going out. Not in grad school anymore. Not interpreting Malory's Morte Darture in the evenings. Many of the friends who were keeping up that old lifestyle going out and being part of the city have given up, too. So perhaps it is
simply that scrolling through <i>Dinner, A Love Story</i> gives me the pleasing sensation of a return to form. It is not the home with the lovely dinner I long
for, but the home of the daily life elevated. As Ali Smith writes, “For even if
we were to find ourselves homeless, in a strange land, with nothing of
ourselves left–say we lost everything—we’d still have another kind of home, in
aesthetic form itself..."</span></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">A longing for form, one that’s been largely abandoned, given
over for up-to-the-minute bite size pictures of lattes and feet, for the
“Instantaneous, noncalibrated, digital self-revelation” as Maggie Nelson describes social media in <a href="https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/argonauts" target="_blank">The Argonauts.</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">I'm inspired by this <a href="http://parenthacks.com/2018/10/blogs-rebuild-america.html" target="_blank">piece</a> by Asha Dornfest, "Can Blogs Rebuild America?" and by the enthusiastic responses. I have long felt like one of the last few people at a party, staying for the scraps of real conversation still possible in that nearly empty room. I've winced when I see the ads on my blogs—amazon discounts, scenes from science fiction horror. But this is the price of a "free" space. Is it worth it? </span></span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span>
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">I have felt something new taking shape for a while. Since ending my yoga/writing project last September, I've mostly stayed away from posting much of anything anywhere, and I've relished the quiet. </span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span>
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">I've reveled in making pumpkin-shaped cookies that went into the oven and into the mouths of happy kids and over to neighbor's houses but were never photographed, never needed to be. </span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span>
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">I've delighted in long afternoons full of slime-covered kitchen tables and cups of tea and, later, lovely crescent moons and startling comments made by my five-year-old and ten-year-old, now 6 and 11, that made me gasp, smile, wonder, none of which was documented.</span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span>
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">I've listened to the quiet. I've been present inside it. But yes, I've also missed this form.</span></span><br /><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Jason wrote songs and played guitar, and helped other people improve and send their books into
the world, but tonight I find myself wishing he could just chop parsley while the
kids tear the living room apart. S<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.02px;">auté</span> the onions until they're a
nice golden brown. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">*</span></div>
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<br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black;">Over a year ago, at
the end of June last year, Petra said, “I wish you could watch yourself grow.”</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black;">Everything was
changing, molting, growing for her. She was going to be a “big kid” in the
fall, starting Kindergarten. She wouldn’t have a nap anymore. The pretend play
area would be cut in half.</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black;">I once started a
growth chart for Wally, but didn’t keep up with it and eventually recycled it.
I haven’t managed to put together more than one scrapbook. Watch yourself
grow. What an idea. Commitment to a daily practice is the best way I know
how to do it.</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">By August, Petra had
lost her two bottom front teeth. </span></span></div>
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</span><div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black;">“How can you be
younger than Daddy if you’re taller?” she asked me. </span>The lost bottom teeth made her seem younger, interfered a tiny bit in her speech, gave a new kind of vulnerability to her face. </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Now she understands that a certain point you stop growing taller. “You are
still growing,” she reassures me now. “Growing older.” </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">She is too. From her
vantage point, it doesn’t seem so bad. The key word is grow. Whether you watch
yourself or not, make picture-perfect Tagliatelle or boil pasta into a pulp,
you're changing and becoming something new, and you’ve stitched another piece of
the tapestry you’re weaving, or accidentally pulled a thread loose, and maybe that's the way you prefer it, so someone else can join in, but either way,
it means you're still alive.</span></div>
Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-65392058534953458502018-10-16T12:14:00.004-04:002019-01-09T10:36:45.505-05:00Already October<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxa-zkMV4AYD0_fV-huTUQ7BQ-ykZeYnJTHhyphenhyphennyfHDn-yXh9LwQaXUxaYffmbcqiZ3Wd6Q12OoQ1DjM2HKFSV1n3eYYLbVysH4LKqEGV4CDqZBj9eEVxQkNQ4vvzfG5BqnHd5XTLmhVIkm/s1600/drummer+farms+fall+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxa-zkMV4AYD0_fV-huTUQ7BQ-ykZeYnJTHhyphenhyphennyfHDn-yXh9LwQaXUxaYffmbcqiZ3Wd6Q12OoQ1DjM2HKFSV1n3eYYLbVysH4LKqEGV4CDqZBj9eEVxQkNQ4vvzfG5BqnHd5XTLmhVIkm/s320/drummer+farms+fall+copy.jpg" width="297" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am done with the writing/yoga project <i>The Light Within.</i> Here is the final <a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/2018/09/20/endings/" target="_blank">post</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The <a href="http://www.writersresist.com/anthology/" target="_blank">Writer's Resist Anthology</a> is available <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781947041134" target="_blank">now</a>. I might be part of a reading in Brooklyn on November 13. Stay tuned. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I just checked the labels for this post, saw 5th grade as a tag I'd previously used, and wondered—why did I have 5th grade in there? I haven't posted in so long and Wally is only in 5th grade now. Then I remembered <a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2010/07/moveable-feast.html" target="_blank">A Moveable Feast</a> from more than 8 years ago, from the day we dug up the time capsule from 5th grade.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The cover photo on this blog is way out of date. I'll have to update it. Turning/returning to this blog feels like digging up a time capsule, almost. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I always find it strange when I read an essay about raising young children and then go to the author's website and find out the children are teens now, sleeping in, playing video games all day. (This happened last year with <a href="http://benandbirdy.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Catherine Newman</a>, Real Simple advice-giver and author of <i>Catastrophic Happiness</i>.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I found the most wonderful post last night, written by Janell Burley Hofmann, author of <a href="http://www.janellburleyhofmann.com/irules/" target="_blank">iRules</a> (a thoughtful approach to media use, adapted from the iPhone contract she gave her son). In <i>Footsteps on the Stairs </i>Hofmann<i> </i>writes: </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"As a new school year starts, I find myself, like I do every September, with a heightened level of awareness. Because before it even happens, it is already underway – beginnings into holidays, winter into final exams."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She describes the last hurrah of summer, kayaking in the creek. </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"</span></span><span style="background-color: white;">I paddle towards their voices, wishing for many more years of knowing the sounds of their youth so intimately."</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was going to name this post "Another September," a reference to those fleeting Septembers of years past. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But September is already gone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Hoffman's post was written at the end of September three years ago. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I wonder if she still knows those "sounds of...youth so intimately."In those three years—an eternity in childhood temporarily—what has drastically changed, what everyday moments, what intimate connections, have already been consigned to fugitive memory. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7l3_waXEG8Y/W8YOQZf-s-I/AAAAAAAACj4/qN80QNfdb301cDvGPSSQ_X63TqpEOVZbACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-10-16%2Bat%2B12.13.31%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7l3_waXEG8Y/W8YOQZf-s-I/AAAAAAAACj4/qN80QNfdb301cDvGPSSQ_X63TqpEOVZbACK4BGAYYCw/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-10-16%2Bat%2B12.13.31%2BPM.png" width="284" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-47865544605349385892018-08-29T11:31:00.001-04:002018-08-29T11:31:10.072-04:00Sandbar<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Everything takes a long time. Talk to a productivity expert, who will tell you to double or triple how long you think a task will take, then add a few hours onto that. Talk to any writer, who talks about draft upon draft upon draft. Putting in a full day and having almost nothing at all to show for it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I looked at the date of the last entry, and couldn't believe it's been nearly half a year since I posted here.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My friend Amie Reilly posted <a href="https://theshapeofme.blog/2018/08/27/check-in-check-out-check-up/" target="_blank">this</a> a few days ago on her blog, the shape of me, her first post in an entire year. She writes, "<span style="background-color: white;">I have notes. I have drafts. It didn’t go anywhere." </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I feel that way with so many projects. I have notes. I have drafts. It hasn't gone anywhere. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Since I met Amie on the first day of grad school four years ago, we've shared the experience of feeling we're on the margins of the scholarly discussions we love because of motherhood, but in the center of everything because of motherhood, too. Our boys are exactly the same age. Amie and her son have a ritual of a beach walk on the evening before the start of the school year. I haven't done this with Wally, but I somehow feel so tied into their ritual, from reading her writing about it, and I'm tied into that exact stretch of sand from wandering it for infinite hours in my own childhood.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am nearing the end of my one-year experiment over at <a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">writingfitness.com</a>. It has changed since the <a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/?s=how+to+begin" target="_blank">beginning</a>. My partner, Kajal, the yoga teacher, has dropped off writing entries. I've also let the monthly guest-writer post go (although I will have one more from <a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/2018/04/06/make-room-for-the-spring/" target="_blank">Sharyn</a>) before the last entry September 19.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am working on writing a new Artist Statement, for various grants, which is an excellent opportunity to stop and think—what am I trying to do? A chance to name a new course, claim your identity, sort through the scattered pieces of your "work" and try to trace a coherent theme, or at least a coherent set of questions.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've had an idea for this blog, for how I wanted to adapt it, re-purpose some of the material, into something bigger, more meaningful, more lasting. I have notes. I have drafts. It hasn't gone anywhere. But maybe flailing among those notes and drafts are where I need to be for a long time. Why wouldn't that be the case. <a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2010/05/swimming-too-far-out.html" target="_blank">Swimming too far out.</a> The murky waters of the <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-gowanus-sessions-dimestore-scenario/12829290" target="_blank">Gowanus Sessions.</a> That's how it has to be for a long time. It feels amazing to be standing at this precipace, having a child entering the last year of elementary school. But it has taken a long time to get here, much of it documented here, for example, <a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2010/10/wallys-world.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Things take a long time. The waters stretch out. So often they're cold and the current pulls the wrong way. Every now and then we find a sandbar.</span></span>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-16129593273786916822018-03-07T14:15:00.003-05:002018-08-26T08:35:58.637-04:00<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am blogging over <a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/2018/03/07/building-a-platform-for-what/" target="_blank">here</a> at writingfitness.com for now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Oh, and some music, over <a href="http://soundcloud.com/dimestorescenario/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-11560884579672584062018-01-05T14:07:00.001-05:002018-01-05T14:07:43.075-05:00Shooting for persistence<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjibOcD322Ihxs8xzLuS-eBaRdnw7oxrJuKQ8Q5zCtPEjCR9XoaG20ibvfh4iX4WOJ01VlbnhHMLN_rhW3p9IgnC7c59N0l54CeOQtqs5uHPQcnj4VRFtAx8zLs4YuX3zrZyfRUH7CXYMqF/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-01-05+at+1.45.09+PM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjibOcD322Ihxs8xzLuS-eBaRdnw7oxrJuKQ8Q5zCtPEjCR9XoaG20ibvfh4iX4WOJ01VlbnhHMLN_rhW3p9IgnC7c59N0l54CeOQtqs5uHPQcnj4VRFtAx8zLs4YuX3zrZyfRUH7CXYMqF/s320/Screen+Shot+2018-01-05+at+1.45.09+PM.png" width="320" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This bitter cold and snow-covered city is nothing if not an invitation to start anew.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So here I go, with a few new things.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had a tiny, and I really do mean tiny (micro-flash fiction), piece published in the Hoot Review </span><a href="http://www.hootreview.com/hoot-online-issue-64-october-2017-micro-fiction-poetry-memoir-book-reviews/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My collaboration with the New York Botanical Garden, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/552521/the-mindful-gardener-by-the-new-york-botanical-garden/9781524759063/" target="_blank">The Mindful Gardener</a>, reprinted—and this time the publisher remembered to put my name on it!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The workbook I adapted/edited from the best-selling <i>Designing Your Life </i>by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans is coming out this spring. You can pre-order it <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/558132/the-designing-your-life-workbook-by-bill-burnett-and-dave-evans/9781524761813/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Test Your Toddler's IQ</i> is available now <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/test-your-toddlers-iq-rachel-federman/1125738669;jsessionid=5FFACAB070804CD121FD5EF52997F9AA.prodny_store02-atgap06?ean=9781510723290" target="_blank">here</a>. And, why stop there? <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/test-your-babys-iq-rachel-federman/1125738671" target="_blank"><i>Test Your Baby's IQ</i></a>, too. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've been keeping up with my writing/yoga blog project over at writingfitness.com, writing about </span><a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/winter-twilight/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">winter twilight</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> and </span><a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/all-these-things/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">running along the river</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> and </span><a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/2017/11/06/changing-leaves/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">changing leaves</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mainly I've been working on evaluations for minority education programs. One is for Jazz at Lincoln Center. They bring jazz concerts and related American history lesson plans to (mainly) Title 1 schools. Another is a teacher training and retention program for Thurgood Marshall College Fund. The goal is to get more African American teachers (particularly males) into underserved schools and support them in the early years of teaching. It's astounding what a dramatic <a href="http://www.ebony.com/news-views/black-same-race-teacher-study#axzz53KTY19px" target="_blank">impact</a> African American teachers can make for African American students. That is further down the line than what we're currently studying. Our focus is on the training program. The hope is that the current work will translate to positive outcomes for students. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oh, and one last thing, while I'm writing this update. I have a follow-up to <i>Writer's Boot Camp:30-day crash course to total writing fitness.</i> It is called—drumroll—<i>Writer's Boot Camp 2</i>. Now wait a minute. I can hear you shouting. Nooooo! You can't have a Writer's Boot Camp 2. It's a one-time thing. And I totally hear you because I had the same reaction. And it was a stumbling block at first, leading to a bunch of false starts. Finally I decided to just address the issue head-on in the introduction. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIUb146rQDqWegERicRUzsCfJUBXCdFp1-7kjOh2cG32rbtsBIpTH92aoYi1o-swjBRonK7nXplQeNM5OjauJuCnHibLYTg7M-IaWeK9wRsEkPkku1k7iJse8tOGaT53k6cE1FkriKfac1/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-01-05+at+12.43.51+PM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIUb146rQDqWegERicRUzsCfJUBXCdFp1-7kjOh2cG32rbtsBIpTH92aoYi1o-swjBRonK7nXplQeNM5OjauJuCnHibLYTg7M-IaWeK9wRsEkPkku1k7iJse8tOGaT53k6cE1FkriKfac1/s320/Screen+Shot+2018-01-05+at+12.43.51+PM.png" width="320" /></a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, I go on to talk about how I saw Wally lost his writing momentum, and eventually talk myself into a Writer's Boot Camp 2 as not only not illogical but really the most important part of the writing process. </span><br />
<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: DIN; font-size: 11pt;"><i>Writer’s Boot Camp 2,</i> I realized, wasn’t a lack of inspiration,
and not just an extension of the first Boot Camp, but an
essential companion, a roadmap for what to do when you’ve
lost your mojo, for finding your way when it’s less obvious,
less glamorous than the blood, sweat, and tears of the
punishing, glorious first four weeks. It was also a way to
think about balancing a dedication to writing with a need to
continue on with the rest of your life.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I suppose that's one of the questions that is always present here: How to balance a dedication to writing with the rest of my life. The answers are always conditional, they depend on the day, the rest of the family, Alex's changing job, school routines, my own work, the crazy two-year stint in grad school. On any given day, week, month, year, I haven't always found the answers I wanted, but I do always find that writing makes my experience of the rest of my life fuller. I have struggled with the shift away from blogs to the world of briefer status updates and primarily visual modes of communication. I long for the quiet of writing but also long for the energy and buoyancy and synergy of conversation and collaboration. I have at times felt extremely disappointed that the conversation I once had in this space has fallen away. But I'm shooting for staying the course. I would like to be able to say, (though I don't feel I remotely deserve the phrase that's been rightly applied to so many unbelievably tenacious women): Nevertheless, I persisted. </span><br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-8986528092535815522017-11-20T21:38:00.001-05:002017-11-20T21:38:11.402-05:00<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not the "now" I imagined, but <a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/2017/11/21/the-now-that-you-have/" target="_blank">the "now" that I have.</a></span>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-23289252784061293242017-11-08T21:10:00.002-05:002017-11-08T21:10:22.772-05:00<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Re-directing again to my other <a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/2017/11/08/a-balcony-in-seattle/" target="_blank">spot</a> today. Apologies to loyal fans who subscribe to both sites! </span>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-69366731935127147882017-11-06T18:23:00.002-05:002017-11-06T18:23:43.176-05:00<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You can catch me over <a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/2017/11/06/changing-leaves/" target="_blank">here</a> today.</span>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-12022891892037408362017-11-04T21:23:00.003-04:002017-11-04T21:23:55.016-04:00<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Back when we were full of <a href="http://www.shakesville.com/2016/09/photo-of-day_29.html" target="_blank">hope</a>. </span>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-11203719676443494132017-10-23T13:37:00.001-04:002017-10-23T13:46:01.466-04:00<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/opinion/chicago-gangs-crime-mothers.html" target="_blank">This!</a> If only Tamar Manasseh could get 1/100 the attention Lenore Skenazy gets in her crusade to protect childhood. Maybe soon she will. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Follow here on Twitter:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">https://twitter.com/TamarManasseh</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Check out her organization <a href="http://ontheblock.org/" target="_blank">here</a> and donate if you can.</span>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-19527175704684443862017-10-03T13:03:00.003-04:002018-03-28T11:15:22.468-04:00The Day After Vegas<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We don’t have a word for the kind of wondering we do the day
after Vegas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Wondering, with its root in wonder, its shades of casual
speculation on the hand, or on the other, awe, is the wrong word. And yet I
cannot think of the right one to describe what I experienced waking up today,
mind pounding and throbbing as I tried to understand: What goes through their
heads? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Not the heads of killers. Neurological factors, early abuse,
frontal-lobe injuries—the perfect storm aggregate of risk factors for
committing a bloodbath is far too rare and isolated to give us actionable data.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Although the headlines in the papers would have us think
otherwise, we do not need to know the motive behind the killing. We do not need
to understand what led to this particular bloodbath. We do not need to get
inside the “mind” of another white gunman. Gun-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">man</i> as <a href="http://rebeccasolnit.net/" target="_blank">Rebecca Solnit</a> would have us remember. Gun. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Man</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Articles about the mind of a lone killer will get hits,
clicks, posts, reposts, likes, retweets. They will generate ad revenue. They
will help sustain investigative pieces attached to fewer dollar signs. In the
long run, we hope, they can contribute toward a better understanding of
sociopathology.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But we have investigated other gunmen. We have traced the
paths that led up to their bloodbaths. We have studied their early lives; read
their final emails; analyzed reports of their last conversations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">None of that will help us today. None of that will not serve
us. None of that will save us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As far as what we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i>
on the day after Vegas, none of that matters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Would-be killers exist worldwide. Only here in the U.S. are
they given free access to endless weapons of mass destruction. Only here is it
possible to say, when a concert on the Vegas strip turns into a phantasmagoric
bloodbath: another day, another mass shooting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But we’ve said all that too. Numbers—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts" target="_blank">Vox</a></i> laid them out beautifully—do not convince the ones who need
convincing. The death of 20 rich, white, suburban first graders did not convince
the ones who need convincing. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A bullet’s lack of discrimination, its ability to
shatter the bodies of the rich and the poor equally, members from powerful
groups and from marginalized equally, distinguishes it from most other horrors
that fall disproportionately on the poor and already disempowered. That lack of
discrimination, perhaps we might call it terror-equality, of mass shootings,
does nothing to convince the ones that need convincing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Who are they? Who are the “they” I woke up wondering about? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The owners and traders and paraders of guns, the guardians
of laws to protect semi-automatic weapons, they are hardly mysterious. They are
collecting weapons of war. How much more concretely must they acknowledge their
paralyzing fears? </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They have made their inner states manifest. Their vulnerability,
their sense of helplessness, their lack of inner strength are on full display. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Should we ask about the minds of the 49 members of the U.S.
Senate and 258 members of the House of Representatives who accept NRA donations
and bend to its will? Maybe, yes. But it is not so hard to imagine that in a
country of millions a few hundred people exist so bent on power that they see these
kinds of bloodbaths as a reasonable tradeoff to keep it. They are part of the
same group that would seek to take away people’s healthcare, that favors
environmental deregulation. Death is no obstacle to them. Refusing to pass
background checks when 90% of Americans were in favor is just one more example.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We need spend no more time wondering about most <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-most-evangelicals-dont-condemn-trump/2017/09/01/64baab1c-8e79-11e7-91d5-ab4e4bb76a3a_story.html?utm_term=.f5e031305bd7" target="_blank">evangelicals</a>, 80% of whom voted for Trump. “Are they really pro-life if they
are not protecting the right of a child not to die from cancer? Are they really
pro-life if they would rather give tax cuts to big business than help hurricane
victims or give meals to housebound seniors? Are they really pro-life if—” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No. They’re not. They’ve told you this, again and again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As the ever-wise Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you
who they are, believe them.” They are not our allies. We must not spend any
more time trying to engage them in our fight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The “they” that plague me, then, that leave me still
wondering, are the people I grew up with who went to the best schools in the country, who studied with me at Dartmouth, at Fordham, the parents at my
children’s school whose luxurious, non-working days are filled with
volunteering for the already well-resourced PTA, my neighbors, my friends, my
family, my husband, myself, these immensely privileged people, who talk a lot and post a lot on Facebook and sometimes wreck elections for
Democrats and send us spiraling further downward into the Bacchanalian hell of
white male empire, and the perhaps less “far-left” but often more practical and
truly active people who talk a lot and post a lot on Facebook and try to win
elections for Democrats, but the whole lot of us, that is, all of us who through
merit, and hard work (in most cases) and, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">every
single </i><i>case</i> good luck, just pure good luck of circumstance, have been given enough
stability, enough access, to have a voice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What will it take for them, for <i>us</i>, to untangle the link between those
who trade in the symbolic economies of Wall Street, stockpiling nihilistic billions, and those who openly parade what
they must alone in the middle of the night feel is at bottom the completely emptiness and
meaningless of life by stockpiling machines whose sole function is—with the
greatest possible swiftness and efficiency—to end it?</span><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-2092216223287973722017-09-27T21:45:00.003-04:002017-09-30T08:07:22.177-04:00Greeting the Day<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/greeting-the-day/" target="_blank">Greeting the Day.</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/greeting-the-day/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pFgknfIOFl4/WcxUJHvcVNI/AAAAAAAACgA/F3fJ4iAmZmA8zNrqXI1SdtdvNbTFEJu9ACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-09-27%2Bat%2B9.43.53%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pFgknfIOFl4/WcxUJHvcVNI/AAAAAAAACgA/F3fJ4iAmZmA8zNrqXI1SdtdvNbTFEJu9ACK4BGAYYCw/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-09-27%2Bat%2B9.43.53%2BAM.png" width="320" /></a></span>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-84789370285363617522017-09-25T20:33:00.004-04:002017-09-30T08:06:59.962-04:00A Single Day<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA1C32TJU7OfAJeZLfPxpKp_qXFnqFT1XLM8ZT5-BmftiVHQ1hi78HQaJNrAoKlQyMHo2GNGDKCfaxSGgzynlK-0g4cRjsxX1J068L5a1ASKcWzat4ajDWzX8TAbAB5WRdIfJr0RFI2Lsu/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-09-30+at+8.05.30+AM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA1C32TJU7OfAJeZLfPxpKp_qXFnqFT1XLM8ZT5-BmftiVHQ1hi78HQaJNrAoKlQyMHo2GNGDKCfaxSGgzynlK-0g4cRjsxX1J068L5a1ASKcWzat4ajDWzX8TAbAB5WRdIfJr0RFI2Lsu/s400/Screen+Shot+2017-09-30+at+8.05.30+AM.png" width="353" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You can find me blogging over <a href="https://writingyogafitness.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/a-single-day/" target="_blank">here</a> today about radishes and palimpsets and hunting Morning Glories. </span>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-75658599566861522612017-09-20T12:20:00.003-04:002017-09-20T12:20:43.548-04:00Yet again<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Launching off from all my beginnings here on this blog, on this soon-to-be eve of renewal, I'm launching a new one—The Light Within</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> —with my friend Kajal</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> at </span><a href="http://writingfitness.com/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">writingfitness.com</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> today. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8T9FOHzq1L8/WcKU22dJCpI/AAAAAAAACfs/aDiogDrhIj8p37NgHgh-GU_7you8oWAywCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-09-20%2Bat%2B12.12.48%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8T9FOHzq1L8/WcKU22dJCpI/AAAAAAAACfs/aDiogDrhIj8p37NgHgh-GU_7you8oWAywCK4BGAYYCw/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-09-20%2Bat%2B12.12.48%2BPM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tell me what you think. Here or there...</span>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-67833512150663219832017-09-15T12:48:00.001-04:002018-08-26T08:39:46.933-04:00Change<div class="p3">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7flSw9u5yEir2QOSOELIfFtbBj69EJgg-pmWQXXEpT1IbmBI8clkBzcrulgTlvLIlnbqIWrAV60afrGzLaAyhUWpZeOXh_NVrCqFAVir4OZ16mS1EK2gHbGwj3i-7mvjhhVSZrLILCV_o/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-09-15+at+12.38.12+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="787" data-original-width="755" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7flSw9u5yEir2QOSOELIfFtbBj69EJgg-pmWQXXEpT1IbmBI8clkBzcrulgTlvLIlnbqIWrAV60afrGzLaAyhUWpZeOXh_NVrCqFAVir4OZ16mS1EK2gHbGwj3i-7mvjhhVSZrLILCV_o/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-09-15+at+12.38.12+PM.png" width="306" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #181818;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it
flamboyantly. No exceptions.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">—William James<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">It is Friday morning. The kids are in school. I should be
getting to work now but I just got back from a magnificent run along the river
and I am full to bursting with things I need to say so I am just going to sit
down and write. This doesn't have to be a long post. I don't have to put
that pressure on myself that because I haven't written in a long while I have
to make up for it with some kind of spiritual reckoning for the time
"lost." I can just come here and dash off a few quick things, what it
was I thought about as I jogged along the river. It seemed to be already fairly
coherent in my head as I ran. The thoughts re-arranged themselves into various
patterns like a kaleidoscope and now all I have to do is type them all
up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Hah! Now that I'm sitting here, all I can remember are a
few phrases: "Deer ears" was one of them and "Perfect is the
enemy of the good" which I say all the time but never know whom to credit.
Voltaire? He gets the credit but it was someone else originally but no one
knows who the someone else was. All week I had tried to run (jog, really,
really slow jog if it can even be called that) up the river after dropping the
kids off but the first four times I couldn't make it. And one of the reasons I
couldn't make it was because I had, last weekend, stupidly tried to do
yoga with Petra on my back and this had really, I guess, hurt my back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I didn't have the idea to put Petra on my back. I was not trying an extra workout challenge. Opposite. I was trying to slow down and go
inward with music and a candle and incense and Petra kept climbing on my
back and I said, <i>I am going to be a yoga-mom-warrior and just power through.</i> <i>Even a toddler (the world's most powerful creature) will not stop me!</i> I won't wait for the mythical, free, empty moment when I can
do tree pose with silent gratitude. No, I will do it with the sound of the
construction outside and upstairs neighbors moving their piano (this is what it
sounds like they do several times a day, every day) and Petra crawling all over
me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">One problem: I am not strong enough to yoga-while-mothering. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I can <i>write</i>-while-mothering. I did it nearly every day this
summer. I have all kinds of tricks for that and put them into my Writer's Boot
Camp books (a new one coming up soon...maybe by the holidays? Or perhaps it's
for January, New Year, New You kind of thing. I will find out). But I am just
not strong enough to do a downward dog and plank and sun breaths with a 30+
pound toddler on my back. It’s something you have to practice. I foolishly got
ahead of myself. And that attempt led to a cascade of headaches that interfered
in all the other runs and meant I had to skip yoga this week. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">So, today I forced myself to go really, really slow.
You'd think there was nothing in between the really, really slow speed from the
other days and actually standing still but I managed to find it. And I did not
stop, as I had the other days, to get in a few downward dogs when I saw a
beautiful patch of grass in the sun. Instead I just stayed quietly within
myself at that slow pace and made it all the way back home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And here I am.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The easy lesson, like so many others, can be reduced to
aphorisms. Expressed in clichés. Haste makes waste. Slow and steady wins the
race. Tortoise, not the hare. Small, achievable goals. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Why is it I am finding
myself learning these same lessons again and again? Or I should not say
<i>learning</i> them, rather, I am demonstrating their truth, again and again, re-learning them, trying to accept them. Coming back to them. A million
variations on a theme. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I held a writer’s group on Wednesday evening. It was
something I’d thought about for a long time in the years since my other writer’s
group dissolved. It felt like an idea that was growing in urgency with various
women writer friends of mine. Many friends from different realms – from Dartmouth,
from my editor days, my band days, my mom days, my Fordham days, one even from
elementary school (we haven’t re-met yet, but have communicated on email,
originally because she answered a Facebook post of mine looking for subjects
willing to take a <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YourWritingLife" target="_blank">survey about writing habits</a>). All of us itching to write
more. Eager for the support and structure that comes from having a group. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">For a while I floundered thinking I better ask everyone when
is the best time to meet, what day, what hour, where, how long? What method
should we use? Workshop pieces? Send drafts before-hand or just show up? What do you think about using The <a href="https://finishingschoolbook.com/" target="_blank">Finishing School</a> method, it seems really cool, I just read the book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And then I thought – No, no, no, you’ll never get <i>anywhere</i>
that way. You’ll end up with those Doodle surveys with lots of little x’s and
no time that works for a clear majority and tons of emails back and forth and
you’ll never actually meet. You can’t dream about it. Can’t just
hope it manifests by going inward and meditating on it. Pick a place. Set a
date. If you build it, they will come.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">So I did. And sent out the invitation. And immediately got
more happy “Yes” responses than I’d imagined. Day by day, the group was growing. Energy was
circling around it. September 13! A new beginning! And...as it turns out, as I found out a day or two after picking the date, also the Open House/Meet
the teacher night at Wally and Petra’s school. At first
I thought I'd have to re-schedule but then I realized I <i>had</i> to stay committed,
to the other women writers and to myself. Something will always come up. I’ll
see if Alex can go and I’ll get a babysitter. I can't afford right now to get a babysitter but I have to get one. Date night can wait—but writing night. That HAS to happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Throughout the day I received various cancellations, over email, over Facebook, “don’t think I can make it,” and in some cases, silence. And on my side there were many obstacles – rain, a "cocked up" (as my grandmother would say) pick-up
plan to get Wally from Kung Fu and deliver him to meet the babysitter who would at that point
have Petra (two local Kung Fu dads, both with first-letter "D" names? Anyone?) –but at last, not even late, I <i>made</i> it to the time and place I'd set with an array of papers in hand and <i>The Finishing School</i> book and snacks
and we had Pinot Grigio and…there I was! I made it!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I
arrived to find <a href="https://www.quartoknows.com/news/535/Jeannine-Dillon-Editorial-Director-Race-Point-Publishing-Named-PW-Star-Watch-2016-Honoree.html" target="_blank">Jeannine</a>, and how happy I was to see her! We spoke for a while
and along came Amie (you may know her from <a href="https://theshapeofme.blog/" target="_blank">here</a>) and how happy I was to see <i>her</i>. Two wonderful friends—and they'd never met! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">But, nagging thought as I considered the tiny group, no need for extra chairs—even with all the
cancellations, I thought there’d be a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">slightly</i>
better turnout. I kept looking up at everyone who walked near by,
expecting to happily greet another member of our little merry band. But, no, just
us three. So it wasn’t a “real” meeting after all. I’d
gotten the babysitter and gone through all the hassle and Jeannine gave up seeing her kids entirely that day and Amie gave up time she needed
for work and made a long, long trip into the city from suburban Connecticut
just to meet and it was a flop, a failure, a group of no-shows, excuses,
exceptions, not changing our lives, not immediate or flamboyant at all. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>But</i>, it turned out to be one of the most if not the most
satisfying writing-related get-togethers I have ever had. We talked about
projects that haunted us. The fear of opening long-buried manuscripts. We
listened to each other. It was such a change from all my writing classes where
<i>forget</i> someone actually looking into your eyes and caring what you had to say.
In those classes it was all I could ever do not to get cut off mid-sentence by an
uber-confident male. Every writing class was teaming with them; many taught by
them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">In this meeting we defined our goals. We committed to
deadlines. And maybe best of all Jeannine and Amie clicked so fantastically and I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i> in a bigger
group that might never have happened. So now here they are, beginning a new
friendship, and the other writing women can join the merry band another time. We did not
wait for the perfect date. We picked the imperfect one. (And we somehow ended the night with free drinks on 43rd street!)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">We started small. But we <i>started</i>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">William James – you’re
wrong. To really change, you don’t start immediately. Rarely flamboyantly. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">You do it at
a shaky little table in Bryant Park with a notebook and a pen and a friend or
two and you know that if you show up and keep showing up and reach for what’s
possible not for what sounds radically magical, then you are exactly where you need to be. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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-->Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-22012697413391064932017-08-19T17:13:00.002-04:002017-09-16T16:51:03.363-04:00Living on Earth<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Pamela Paul wrote this. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/opinion/sunday/technology-downgrade-sanity.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region" target="_blank">Save Your Sanity. Downgrade Your Life.</a> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-69957719526273618492017-08-06T09:38:00.001-04:002017-09-16T17:02:36.084-04:00You will not write<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It doesn’t matter if you put out overflowing bowls of cereal
on Saturday night, all ready for the morning. If you have giant water bottles
filled with fresh water. If you have milk within reaching distance in the
fridge that is down low enough in the bottle that it is pour-able by
4-year-olds. It doesn’t matter if they are allowed to watch cartoons for 2
straight hours and if the 9-year-old is more than capable of navigating around
the outrageous, seemingly infinite, number of options for what they can watch. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They will interrupt you again and again and again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They will not accept, “I have to work.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They will not accept, “I have to write.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They will ask why. They will not stop to think—why should
they?—that you have been home with them for three weeks now even though you
have massive amounts of work that you need to do. People who work outside of the house,
don’t have to field dozens of questions<i> as they work</i> about <i>why</i> they have to
work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Other people, you think, fuming, don’t have to constantly
defend their right to work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Or maybe most do. Maybe you’re thinking (as usual) of a
small, subset of over-privileged people perhaps more privileged than you. Maybe you’re forgetting history. Like all of history. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yes, definitely you’re forgetting history and how hard
groups have fought for the right to work. How certain groups have given their lives for the chance to work. Okay. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Jesus. That was embarrassing and white-privileged and
First-World-Problems of you to even think and fume about. Sorry. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You are drinking coffee in an air-conditioned room typing on
a goddamn MacBook Air with stacks of books for leisure-class people like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Happiness</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Is</i> …by Lisa Swerling & Ralph Lazar and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Things You Can Only See When You Slow Down</i> by Haemin Sunim next
to you. Okay, so scratch that about most people don’t have to defend their
right to work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Deep breath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Still irked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Still amazed at the variety of the interruptions. The
complaints of “I’m cold” and “This blanket has holes on it” from people who are
perfectly capable of fetching their own non-holed blankets. But no, to be fair,
your husband often yells at them for dragging blankets around the house, whether
to use as intended, or wear, or make forts out of. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Okay, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fine!</i> You’ll
get the damn blankets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The requests to get dressed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Are you kidding? These kids who on school mornings wriggle away from their clothes like cats refusing Halloween costumes when we need to catch the bus at 7:15 AM insist now on getting fully dressed, on a Sunday morning, when we have literally no where we have to be and I was hoping they might lolly-gag around in PJs and get involved in quiet projects that don't involve needles or stamping the walls?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You’re still amazed that you could get so incredibly annoyed
at a perfectly sweet request like, “Will you watch with us?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Or, worse, that is, worse in terms of how cold and hardened
you’ve become, when they ask if you could cuddle for just a few minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Cuddle??? Now??? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>You have Cheerios</i>, you want to scream at them, the wrong kind even (don’t ask), which is
to say the sweetened kind, which for the kids is the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">right</i> kind. <i>You have water. You have milk.</i> <i>You never drink juice
when I put it out so I’ve stopped putting it out. Blankets. TV. A huge,
flat-screened smart TV. You have Netflix. You have On Demand. You have some
free trial of Hulu something or other with all seven seasons of Golden Girls. And
you’re asking me to cuddle? Seriously? Is enough ever enough?</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now before you—that is some disembodied, unforgiving, judgemental voice in your head — go saying maybe they’d trade the Honey-Nut Cheerios and the
blankets and <i>Teen Titans Go!</i> for just a nice little cuddle with their parents remind
yourself that for the past seven nights you have all slept in the same room and, as far as the littler one goes, often the same damn <i>bed</i>! And remind yourself that once the dedicated TV time is over that (trading off) you and your husband will be hanging out with them practically the entire Sunday with cuddling and tickle
fights and art projects and playgrounds and cooking that takes three times as
long because they insist on chopping up veggies for stir-fry but must do so
with a butter knife and not even a proper butter knife with a serrated edge
but rather the miniature plastic one from an old Play-Doh kit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Keep that in mind
when you’re about to go all soft and sappy and “Here’s the lesson about what
kids really want” and give in and give up your writing and dive into the couch
with them and send the Cheerios up and around into a cascading fountain of soon
to be crushed edible confetti. And don’t worry, because they will clean it up themselves
with a miniature broom with a broken, duck-taped-together handle, and you’ll
jump on it like the mom in Peter Glassman’s book <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1703672.My_Working_Mom" target="_blank">My Working Mom</a></i> and tell them to jump on the back and you'll all fly away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-66271820163441056132017-07-25T21:47:00.000-04:002017-09-16T17:03:24.252-04:00Watch Them Grow<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-250iSbbjyfM/WXferYQcVSI/AAAAAAAACdQ/wg5vDFtWUWY1UG8MS5xppAMcY02mRCWOgCLcBGAs/s1600/WP_20170524_07_59_40_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1477" data-original-width="1068" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-250iSbbjyfM/WXferYQcVSI/AAAAAAAACdQ/wg5vDFtWUWY1UG8MS5xppAMcY02mRCWOgCLcBGAs/s320/WP_20170524_07_59_40_Pro.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The gray makes it easier to return to NYC.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Easier to return? I write that and pause. New York City is the place <i>to which</i> you return when you've had all you can take of somewhere else. According to Bob Dylan at least. When I came here in my 20s, I would hardly have relied on advice from anybody else.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is no enough of the White Mountains, though. No enough of big, loud, overflowing family dinners, Van Morrison playing in the background, no enough of cold, splashing river swims, of waking up to the sound of birds, just birds, nothing else. No enough of singing "Kookaburra" rounds, to watching cousins laugh and dolphin dive and come tearing in the door in the late afternoon sun-drenched and waterlogged and hungry and happy and only worried about whether they can stay up late enough to get a good view of the stars. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Anyone who has read this blog in the past knows I am always <a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2017/02/return.html" target="_blank">torn about returning to NY, </a>always debating: <a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2012/03/country-mouse-in-big-city.html" target="_blank">Country or city?</a> <a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-feel-bad-that-i-didnt-do-much-of.html" target="_blank">Small town</a> or the ever new and renewing urban landscape where you can, Lin Manuel-Miranda tells us, be a new man? I have continually searched—and usually found—evidence that in some ways I <a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2012/07/lessons-from-seeds.html" target="_blank">interact more with nature</a> here in Manhattan than I ever did outside it. I have recognized New York City for the small town that it is. Come to appreciate our neighborhood for the river town that it is. Enjoyed the easiness of<a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2012/07/huck-finn-in-city.html" target="_blank"> living simply here.</a> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As my sister pointed out, I've lived here longer than any other place, and yet it still has something of a temporary feel for me, worth considering, a very strong possibility. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I have wondered if I would actually find the things I imagined existed in a smaller town. Those questions I had seven years ago about whether kids run loose like we did have been answered many times over. (For the most part, a resounding no.) Now even the questions themselves feel quaint, out of date. Friends of ours—across the street neighbors—have just moved to Vermont. We said goodbye to them in the firefly-filled garden. Many times over Wally and his friend had imagined what they'd do and where they'd hang out once they were in middle school and high school. In our little bohemian village, hardly anyone ever leaves. With all its community and continuity, it is not a good example of living in Manhattan. Just as the happy splashing afternoons and family dinners are not a good example of living in New Hampshire. Everybody knows you can't evaluate a place when you're on vacation. Those deep breaths, those mountain views, those post-pool glasses of chilled wine, those trays of grilled eggplant and potatoes cascading in from the back porch—none of those would be your real life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">*</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It is strange, this particular return, to a kind of routine. A new one: Wally to camp for the week. And an old one: Petra to her preschool. I thought Petra had a week more to go, the last week of July. I never bothered to <i>check</i> of course because this is me. But I assumed if the last month was July, the days would go <i>through</i> July. Makes sense, right?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It turns out the year runs for only three more days, making tomorrow the last day. It has been nearly two years from when, with a little toddler in tow, and soon to be second-grader Wally, we toured the empty classrooms in August. Two years, nearly, from when the nuns showed us the dolls lined up for September with their white dresses not only washed but starched and ironed too. The little play kitchen. The wooden blocks. The quiet courtyard playground. "We'll take it!"<i> </i>we said, before the tour was halfway through. "Where do we sign?" Or rather Alex said this in Spanish. The nuns were from Malaga, Cuba, Columbia. The patron saint of their order was, they told us gleefully, Petra Perez. There was no reason they would know Perez (Alex's last name) is not in Petra's. No reason they'd know he gave her instead a blood name, Arroyo. River. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I remember that summer I ran into a mother I kind of knew with a daughter maybe a little older than Petra. She was trying to decide whether to put her child in full-time preschool or part-time or no time and stay home with her. We had our girls with us as we tried to talk on the sidewalk and although I'd planned on full-time preschool, clearly I'm always open to re-thinking decisions, so I wondered along with her. During the two minutes we talked, the girls pulled, and squeezed, and pinched, and fell, and squabbled, and needed water, and needed snacks, and wanted to pet the giant, unfriendly dog, and lost a shoe, and dropped the top half of a banana and didn't want to eat the bottom nub of the banana and wanted to throw the peel away themselves and the conversation, the little we had, was like—obviously, we need someone to help us take care of them for as much time as we can if we hope to do anything else, even finish this conversation. But then as we were already going separate ways down the street, she, I think her name might have been Sarah, it might have been Anne—I don't <i>know</i>, I couldn't hear—said something about how you try to figure out all these arrangements when they're little and then suddenly they'll be in Pre-K and then that's it. They're in school full time and that's it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And I said, <i>I know. I know exactly what you mean</i>. And we both kind of smiled and both kind of made a gut-wrench face as we were pulled in opposite directions and I've seen her in passing but I don't think we've ever spoken again. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But it stayed with me. It's like wishing you could have a <i>minute</i> of quiet at the dinner table but knowing in a few years you'll be lucky if they want to join you at the dinner table. And wishing they could play quietly in their room and not need you in there to find the penguin-thing or help them tape together the moon chart they ripped or <i>whatever</i> but knowing before long they won't want you in that room at all. The door will be shut and you'll have to knock and you'll be lucky if you get a grunt of an answer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">*</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am almost done reading a parenting memoir <i>Catastrophic Happiness</i> by Catherine Newman. I know her face from the pages of excellent advice in the <i>Real Simple</i> magazine. I know her name from wishing I had a name people knew in the world of writing about parenting. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I love this book. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Reading it is pure pleasure. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She <i>gets</i> so many things. She says so much I'd never have the guts to say. The words sing off the page. Yes, yes, yes—the glee and the frustration and the wonder and reminding us that we have to stop worrying about what might happen and try to enjoy all that we have. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I love it so much that I don't want to finish it. I put it down and find her <a href="http://benandbirdy.blogspot.com/2017/06/summer-2017-beginning-in-pictures.html" target="_blank">blog</a> instead. On the first post, there are pictures of her kids Ben and Birdy as....Teenagers? What? Playing <i>Minecraft</i>? Not possible. This little Birdy, whom she carries on her hip, the little girl who comes padding into her room at night? What happened? What did I miss?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Newman writes about how, when it comes to our kids, "...we lose them metaphorically all the time. Their little selves are swallowed up by their bigger selves, and they're all nested in there...". She warns us that one day Birdy's favorite stuffed monkey will be "in a box with the rest of the castoffs" (153), </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">but she did not prepare me. I thought maybe now they'd be say 9 and 12 now, at the final <i>cusp</i> of childhood but...not past it, not sleeping until noon!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Somehow this always gets me. The same thing when I read a post and don't realize or stop to think that it's from say 2013, which shouldn't be that long ago, but in kid years is absolute antiquity, and then I go to the current post and see the current version of the kids and my mind hurts. Wait, wait, wait—what?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I had even checked the copyright date in Newman's book (2016) as a precautionary measure and hadn't stopped to think about how she collected essays from over a span of time and even then who knows how long between the collection and the publication, and anyway, there Ben and Birdy are still sleeping when they're supposed to have been up for hours already.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For goodness sake, Rachel, wherever you are (you are here), remember Annie Dillard. You're not a <i>Pilgrim at Tinker Cree</i>k, you're a mom in Manhattan. You're studying human children, two of them, not muskrats, but: </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The mountains, the sea, Chelsea Market, the playground across the street. The important thing is to stop and be wholly attentive. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Petra of the River and Wally of the Olive Tree, whose relatives came here on boats from Poland, from Russia and Ireland, on planes from Brazil. Your father moved here at fourteen, your grandfather and great grandparents grew up in Brooklyn. Your first cousins live here, in Gowanus and South Ozone Park. Your very bedroom—the place you'll fall asleep tonight—was the room my grandmother slept for more than half a century. We can zig zag any path around this island and I could narrate a personal history tour no matter what streets we take. We know the crossing guards by name. The kids know all the neighborhood dogs: Wolfie, Rocco, Logan, Buddy, Joey and so many more. Just today I spoke with a woman who said her father designed the playground that used to be in the spot nearby where my kids play almost every day. My sister and I used to play there when we came to New York. "We might have played together!" We squealed. Could a town get any smaller than this?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You are country kids who love to run outside in the rain and help baby frogs get back to the pond and listen with deer ears for the sound of leaves rustling. You are city kids, too, who love the playground to be teaming with other kids, who would rather wait in line and take turns than have a swing all to yourself, who know in your bones the importance of community, who place group harmony, more often than not, above your own needs. Let me be wholly attentive to you. Let me attend to everything growing right here, wild and radiant.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One lone seagull flies overhead. I'm getting ready to close up shop for the day. It's a nice place to live. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Maybe I'll stay.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Maybe my kids will grow up knowing one parent finds life here a bit strange. Like I did, but in reverse. Instead of a dad who says, How do you live without a decent slice? Without talking to your neighbors? Without hoards of kids around playing stick ball on the street? Without music pouring out of car windows and a park you can walk to and access to anything, even if you don't access it, but just knowing you can? Instead they'll hear, How do you live without long stretches of time to yourself? Without going outside in bare feet and pajamas? Without making your own footprints in the snow and lying back on your sled and just staring in the silence up at the open sky?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They will grow up, like I did, hearing about this enchanted land and maybe one day trying to move there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">*</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Wally and I were teary tonight thinking about how tomorrow is Petra's last day at San Jose. True, she'll only be onto Pre-K next year, but it is a full day. It is school. It is official. You have to show up on time. She is moving out of the stage, in a way, where she belongs only to us. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She was unfazed. Not dwelling on it. Laughing and being silly and singing "Umbrella" by Rihanna and begging to play the game where she is a princess who wants to go to a party and get married. What does that mean, get married? we ask. Y<i>ou dance,</i> she tells us, and shows us how. Slow dancing—she stands on the piano bench, her hands on my shoulders.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Later in the dark room, with the neon stars on the ceiling, with the same blue-striped wallpaper that was there when the room was my grandmother's, Petra did something she hasn't done in a long time. She asked me to hold her "like a baby" and sing her to sleep.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-10097228737969603442017-06-15T14:54:00.002-04:002017-09-16T17:56:49.652-04:00Start Here<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilBhz-CouCWPBIZz0PjkIv1R6Eme9DSoWGAg70vB0x9sGI72Ew4Nuu6IuBh6OYj8v_9GzS6wKEZxfAl1JwnIPc0zVsD-fWK6PVtnCZbeeKSDCy5a0JLd-_4U_4G95lzbRYvRCwIsGD6INK/s1600/P1000808.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilBhz-CouCWPBIZz0PjkIv1R6Eme9DSoWGAg70vB0x9sGI72Ew4Nuu6IuBh6OYj8v_9GzS6wKEZxfAl1JwnIPc0zVsD-fWK6PVtnCZbeeKSDCy5a0JLd-_4U_4G95lzbRYvRCwIsGD6INK/s400/P1000808.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You don’t rush through yoga. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Rushing through the stretches wouldn’t make sense. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I’ve seen people speed-up salutations. Chant in double
time. I've done it myself. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">challenge</i> is holding
the pose. Breathing. Staying still. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">At the end of April I was getting back into the habit of
daily free-writing every morning. I’ve been going in and out of the habit for over
fifteen years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yes—<i>great</i>! I’d think as I'd frantically scribble away. I’m
doing it again. Committing to this habit that has the potential to bring so
much insight and peace and steadiness to the day. Whatever other personal writing I get
to later on, I'd tell myself as I grab my pen and my notebook, I'd have this for sure. My practice. I’m taking my own advice. And everyone else’s. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Because it was private, just me alone at the table, starting again did not have a sense of dishonor about it that starting again with something even <i>marginally</i> public has for me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'd put on meditative music. Sometimes even light a
candle. I'd set a scene for a calm, open, spiritual kind of practice. But in practice, I'd race along like crazy to get to a minimum page count.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I have terrible handwriting anyway but with my speed, my shakiness, my
near-frantic, get-this-done-and-checked-off-the-list-ness, it was totally illegible. Not just in terms of merely deciphering the words later, but also in terms of making any meaning from them. I couldn't stick with a single thought for a sentence. I leaped around, feeling further adrift with every fragmented thought.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It was pointless. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It
took me weeks at least before I became aware of the pointlessness. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I knew that it wasn't feeling right. I think? But that didn't translate to an articulated thought about it. I knew I wasn't getting that satisfying feeling I often get from writing (whether or not it turns into anything or just rambles on in my own notebooks I eventually fill up and feel like recycling but neurotically keep in case there's <i>something there). </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For days I went along. I checked daily writing off my list. I had satisfied</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/03/morning-pages-change-your-life-oliver-burkeman" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Julia Cameron</a>, <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">right</span>? <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">I was so committed to the idea I championed in </span><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/writers-boot-camp-rachel-federman/1124083861" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" target="_blank">Writer's Boot Cam</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">p, the idea that Anne Lamott, Natalie Goldberg, Steven Pressfield and Heather Sellers, all my favorite writing-advice-givers, all writer-advice-givers, espouse: <i>Just get a piece of paper and write! </i>I was/am such a fan of the back-of-the-napkin, waiting-in-line, doctor's office waiting room, #writeanywhere, everywhere line, that I did not stop to think that it does not always <i>work</i> to write that way. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yes, you will get words down on paper, that way, you might even finish projects. Lots of them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But if what you're seeking is something quieter, something more internal, something steadier, more expansive, that refuses the detours of frustration and defensiveness, resists the false arguments with past selves or constructed selves or imagined critics, resists even the resistance we create to block out just how loud those voices are, then you can't just race through writing to check it off your To Do list. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A few weeks ago I was running by the river as I do every now and again. Throughout this blog, after a stretch of time without writing or running, I have berated myself for needing to <a href="http://lastamericanchildhood.blogspot.com/2016/09/beginning-again.html" target="_blank">begin again.</a> I've returned to the beginning so many times that I've begun to adopt "Begin Again" as a mantra, thanks to writer/readers like <a href="https://onebluesail.com/" target="_blank">Sarah Bousquet </a>who were able to frame it that way. It was Sarah's comment today, on a previous post, that brought me back here finally, beginning again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Despite the kind of Zen, pick-yourself-back-up-again, incantatory effect of the <i>Begin Again </i>mantra, when enacted in public, for me, starting again was always partly a failure. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">It meant I had lapsed, fallen off the path.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">It meant that, after all that effort, after all the seeming progress, here I was back at square one. Jogging along at an embarrassingly slow pace. Here I am again, awkwardly trying to remember how I used to write here on this blog when once I was immersed in it and all I had dreamt it might mean. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yet during that recent run, something started to feel absolutely right about beginning again. Running slowly. Not needing to run fast or a certain amount. Not needing to prove anything to anyone who might be watching me—let's face it, no one really was—or to my own internal gold-star hander-outer. Nobody. The task was to run slowly, because that's all I could manage, but that was harder than running too fast and then needing to stop. Hold the pose. Breathe. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I took notes immediately after I ran—still out by the river—on a single piece of paper that I then scrunched up in my pocket. Everything seemed to be coming together. So many disparate pieces of my life. Playing CBGBs on a Saturday night. Conversations with my therapist. Living in my grandmother's apartment. Reading books to Wally and Petra. The paths Dara and I wandered in the woods behind the cottage. The epic conversations with Margaret walking through the Acton Arboretum where we pushed and challenged every position, where we always committed to learning more, to growing, to staying open. Everything was making sense. Decisions I'd made. Creative failures. Nightswimming at Heather's lake. Relationships I'd prioritized above everything else. They resonated to "Lost Blues" by Palace Music, related to a lesson I tried to teach Petra about not belting out the climax of the song too early on because it's not earned yet, you haven't built to that moment. Why Gretchen Rubin and Elizabeth Gilbert infuriate me (much as I admire them and seek to take their advice). Why Rebecca Traister gets it wrong in her piece on Hillary in <i>New York Magazine.</i> Why Roxane Gay is right to argue for constant </span>vigilance<span style="font-size: 12pt;">, why it is important to keep talking about everything wrong in all the pop culture we love, not only love to hate, but really love. I could tie it into what my friend Lindley said about her husband John saying he will only write poems from now on if he can write without any ego. Yes, yes, yes! I circled, wrote upside down, drew arrows. It all makes sense!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">These notes would be the basis for a piece I would write that would more than "make up for" the long silence on my blog. A piece that would explain not just where I am now, and where I would have been if I had written more—not just <i>more</i>, but more <i>mindfully</i>—and one that would redeem my never-ending starting line. Beginner's Mind—it's a well-known Zen Buddhist concept. I could <i>own</i> the continual first step of the thousand mile journey. Beginning again was exactly where I needed to be. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And then of course I lost the paper. Perhaps it slipped right out of my pocket. Maybe sailed into the river.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And now—how can I not?—I'll craft it into personal mythology. That crumpled, sweaty paper that had all the answers. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It would have been a major breakthrough. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hemingway's lost manuscripts! Fermat's Last Theorem! If only I had those notes, I could explain <i>everything</i>. Now instead I'm just shakily starting a new post that I might never send. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">At the first Kung Fu class Wally attended last September, he was the only student. The teacher, Sifu Julie, </span>welcomed<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> him with a huge smile. She started right on time. Julie asked Wally to stretch and breathe. She showed him how. </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">She didn't seem to be looking around for other students, wondering if anyone else would join. </span></div>
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<i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">How can she be so enthusiastic when it's just the one student in the big empty room?</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> I thought.<i> Isn't she worried about how it looks? That if she's so energetic teaching just the one student, then it might not seem like a legitimate studio? Doesn't she think there's a loneliness to it? A pathos? What if it makes her look like a beginner? It's not supposed to be a private lesson. Why doesn't she seem bothered at all? How can she be so focused and deliberate with just this one little boy? </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the coming days and weeks, the classes filled up. Soon, the buzzer was always buzzing. The door always swinging open. Bustling parents and kids and another Sifu and all kinds of activity. Kids tying their yellow and orange belts around their waists. People pouring water, stretching, waiting for their class to begin. Belt tests and tournaments and parents chatting and little siblings jumping into the games at the end.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But I just keep thinking about that first class. Picturing the way Sifu Julie </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">led Wally through the warm ups. He wanted to get to the fun part. She didn't rush. Kung Fu means hard work. To watch her, you'd have thought training Wally was the most important task she'd ever been given. You'd have thought that</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> scruffy</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> eight-year-old boy, who had never even done a push up in his life, must have come to the studio in disguise, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">must be a child of royal blood, perhaps the</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> son of an emperor, and the hot, 2nd-floor studio on 28th street, surely a temple. </span></div>
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Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-34208494557026306982017-05-27T07:25:00.002-04:002017-06-16T13:15:22.054-04:00Won't You Be My...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOKehttJyc9rGjL6j69pQG8et79LFJ6aEZxyofaZAuq_GlZI9aE376bSJnlxT4_8_Rc4AdsVbEBiuONzkc-eNPvGp1z6zvsA8IR5O9Y4fIgLySUeaDypGvijYvMAeGDfQ6NPcqkOypYvUG/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-06-16+at+1.13.35+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOKehttJyc9rGjL6j69pQG8et79LFJ6aEZxyofaZAuq_GlZI9aE376bSJnlxT4_8_Rc4AdsVbEBiuONzkc-eNPvGp1z6zvsA8IR5O9Y4fIgLySUeaDypGvijYvMAeGDfQ6NPcqkOypYvUG/s400/Screen+Shot+2017-06-16+at+1.13.35+PM.png" width="367" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">I can think of lots of reasons to get to know your neighbors. Here are a few of them in Marc J. Dunkelman's </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/opinion/invite-your-neighbors-over-for-a-barbecue-this-weekend.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Op-Ed.</a>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89009055828422416.post-3562141286571552572017-05-18T16:18:00.000-04:002017-05-18T16:22:06.695-04:00Stopping by the Plants on a Sunny Morning<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Begin again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Again, begin again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Not in the same place we were last time, though.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We know more.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj-ihgPN8JrC9w3nELMLASBBDWcl72vSnzz5hnjIZ_0LI7qBwv71qqKyKFUlXvcPKtRpMnOS6xXaA30M867jTVi71i5lTe4E1FO1stAZcBBErI1oJGwSL_sB0_6it8V6DFztiuu3U6QbOG/s1600/WP_20170429_09_03_57_Pro+2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj-ihgPN8JrC9w3nELMLASBBDWcl72vSnzz5hnjIZ_0LI7qBwv71qqKyKFUlXvcPKtRpMnOS6xXaA30M867jTVi71i5lTe4E1FO1stAZcBBErI1oJGwSL_sB0_6it8V6DFztiuu3U6QbOG/s400/WP_20170429_09_03_57_Pro+2.jpg" width="400" /></a>Rachel Federmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00954446214849444639noreply@blogger.com6