Sweet

b-boy and bluegrass? yes please.

Struggle and Light

So last week I was in a hell of a funk. Too much free time does not suit me well... I was getting completely unmotivated to do anything, yet going stir-crazy at the same time. I did such valuable things with my time as watch 3 episodes of Gossip Girl. I was mad at my current situation- lack of job (or enough of a job to live off of), the economy, and my trip- for making everything in my life seem upside down and out of wack. It made (and is making) me doubt everything, causing me to re-examine every aspect of my life. What kind of work I want to do, where I want to live, my relationship to Judaism. This struggle is ultimately good I think, but in the midst of it, well, it sucks.

So I was in a major funk. And what did I decide to do? Go to DC for the weekend! I hopped on a sketchy chinatown bus (full of odd smells, rickety seats and one particular passenger who was constantly burping) and went to visit my dear friend Lucy. What a refreshing, lovely day and a half.

Saturday night I went to the campus of George Mason University to attend an event/benefit/concert/film-screening for The Sulha Peace Project: www.sulha.com. There was a Sulha gathering in Israel that I desperately wanted to attend in August but because I was with my Livnot trip, I couldn't. It seems to me this organization is doing really amazing work. And the musical part of the evening was so uplifting!

Maybe the most beautiful moment of the night for me may have been one only I was privy to see. In front of me during the program sat a young muslim couple. Next to them were a row of older Jewish couples. In the last part of the evening, during music by a group called Amen, there was a song in both hebrew and arabic. And the musicians encouraged us to sing along. After it finished, this 50-something Jewish man in front of me turns to the muslim couple and ask for clarification on the arabic words. They say them and he repeats them. Then, the muslim woman asks him for the hebrew words (a bit more complicated) and he launches into explaining/teaching them.

Tears came to my eyes and I thought there is truly hope for understanding and peace. But we have a long way to go.

Learning and Teaching

So last week I did a training with The Leadership Program, an awesome organization that I taught with for a little bit last spring and hopefully I’ll be doing more with them this year. The training was called SOAR: Non-traditional Counseling and Classroom Management. It was actually a really great way to jump back into life here in New York. It was based in some psychological theories that the foundation of our sense of self comes from the holding environment established by the biological mother within the first couple years of life. Some children are unfortunately “dropped” from their holding environment resulting in them being insecurely attached.

We talked about how we can create a holding environment within our interaction with kids, try to address the needs of our students, and recognize that behaviors don’t define people. Instead of thinking- that’s a shy child or an angry child, to say/think that child is exhibiting shy or angry behavior. All this information was alongside awesome bonding and team-building exercises, role plays, and of course lots of processing.

It’s funny, throughout the whole thing I just kept thinking how I could apply the training to working with Israeli and Palestinian kids. Conflict resolution tactics buzzed in my head. Palestine and Israel are definitely on my mind everywhere I go.

I’m teaching on Tuesdays for a middle school drama club in Manhattan (where I worked last spring) and today was the first day. It was so invigorating to use some of the recent things I learned, and also humbling. I have so much more learn in being an effective and inspiring teacher. I want my students to be challenged, to think for themselves, to open up, to surprise me (and themselves too). Sometimes I really don’t know why I’m so passionate about theatre, but god I love it.

What I'm trying to live right now

I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have a patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
Letter to a Young Poet

Examining the Big Apple

Coming back from a long trip is like a fresh start. Time moves slower, everything seems different. You have new motivation – to cook and bake, experiment with new spices, to pray, to clean, organize, to read, write, think, to hang laundry to dry instead of using a dryer, to respond to emails, to make music, take classes, do yoga, learn languages…

Spending time abroad made me feel free, at home in my skin. I didn’t yearn for the things I yearn for in the States. I didn’t judge people. I was practical. I was matter of fact, yet I FELT. I cried, I laughed. I reacted to the world. I looked with wonder upon every situation. I didn’t get sick. I didn’t worry about fashion, or looking right, or cleaning. I talked to people. I observed, I took in, I smiled, I laughed.

New York City makes you hard. It makes you self-conscious. There are cockroaches, garbage, rats, beggars, people talking to aliens – so you have to protect yourself. Go go go … So you build a wall – you don’t let anyone in, you put on your headphones, you don’t smile, you don’t engage, you don’t connect, you get where you have to go and you don’t let your guard down, because who knows what might happen if you did.

I’m too casual for New York. I’m behind the times – with my nearly 3 year old cell phone and hair that hasn’t seen a salon since I can’t remember when. New York is expensive. It’s trendy. It’s image-conscious. It’s full of hipsters. It moves fast. And if you don’t run through the turnstile to get on the train, well, you won’t be going anywhere.

As I watch the wind rustle the leaves of the small trees of Houston St and sip my tea, I know fall is here. I left when it was summer –outdoor movies in the park, stifling heat on the subway platforms, air conditioners dripping onto the sidewalk– and now it is autumn. It’s time to pull scarves around your neck, and bright orange pumpkins appear for sale in the grocery store. It’s almost like I time traveled, pressed fast forward through the change in seasons.

New York City is completely different to me. And I’m reveling in that a bit. How the familiar has been made foreign. And while this certainly allows to me notice all the negatives of this city, it also gives me a fresh perspective as I live this next phase of my life.

Appreciation

I am constantly reminded about opposites. Through darkness, we know the light. Because of hunger, we know what it means to be full. We understand loneliness because we know what it feels like to have a friend and to be surrounded by people we love.

Traveling helps me appreciate home.

Never have I been more grateful for my own shower- to have space and time to myself while bathing. And my own bed in a room with just me in it! Lots of pillows, a soft comforter, and my very own orange curtain blocking out the light in my own room. I'm using the word "own" a lot, yet for me I'm not thinking about it as ownership, it's more just having a space that for an extended period of time has me in it. However, I suppose it's inevitable that a feeling of ownership goes along with that. Hmm, I'll have to think about that more.

Being around different languages makes me appreciate being in a place where I can communicate easily with everyone. Being in a country of primarily one religion makes me marvel at living in a city with such a diversity of beliefs. Surviving out of a small suitcase for 46 days has helped me realize that I have so many possessions. Too many, really. I thought I'd tire of the few clothes I had over the course of my trip. But I didn't! If fact, it often felt like I had too much. We really need very little, yet live in a world of such opulence and excess. Constant consumption and perpetual waste.

So I am thankful for all that I have. I also feel so blessed to have been able to experience the things I have in the past 46 days, and that it has given me an appreciation for all I have now, including such an amazing community of people I love.