Making Peace with My Personal Chaos Theory

February 2, 2010

I have an interesting relationship with chaos. I claim I don't like it, that it makes me crazy, and that I can't function in the midst of chaos. But the reality is something very different. Over this period of extreme financial uncertainty, I understand that I've long ago created my own personal chaos theory. Sometimes it's quiet, but at times like these, my personal chaos theory is alive and somersaulting across the tightrope.

According to Whatis.techtarget, chaos theory is defined as: "the study off nonlinear dynamics,  where seemingly random events are actually predictable from simple deterministic equations...Chaos, with reference to chaos theory, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules; this understanding of chaos is synonymous with dynamical instability, a condition discovered by the physicist Henri Poincare in the early 20th century that refers to an inherent lack of predictability in some physical systems." 


Aha. 


Here's a prime example of my personal chaos theory in action and how it applies to the above definition, as well as to my current state of affairs. 


About six weeks ago, my girls and I did a mitzvah, good deed - we dropped off some soda and crackers at one of their friends' house who was getting over a bad bout of food poisoning. After making our delivery, I drove down the street and spied a "For Sale" sign. I made a u-turn and pulled up in front of a modest two-story contemporary, grabbed a flyer and headed home. At the next stop sign, I glanced at the price and the details of the house. A seemingly harmless act. When we got home, I went online and viewed the house on a virtual tour which revealed a modest house, slightly larger than ours, 3 bedrooms, and here was the kicker: 3.5 bathrooms. Bingo. I've written about the woeful shortage of bathrooms in our current home and the mere idea that 3.5 out of 5 of us could be simultaneously using the bathroom was more than I could bear. And it had a finished basement. I had found my Shangri-la. 


That Monday, I made an appointment with the real estate agent and went to see the house, without telling Jack. It was lovingly dated, owned by one elderly gentleman who was transitioning to a more down-sized lifestyle. I confessed to Jack later that night that I'd gone to see a house. He let out a big sigh. I quickly promised him that I wouldn't make him, us or the kids crazy, but would he please come and see it. He did and like me, he loved the open flow and high ceilings, the 3.5 bathrooms. He found the bedrooms "tragically" small, but I was willing to look past that and the rush of my personal chaos theory was bubbling to the surface. 


The agent came to see our house and gave us a very realistic idea of what we needed to do get our house "sale" ready:

• Update the kitchen, which was enshrined in it's original 1950s amber varnish.
• Replace the carpet in the den
• Put a shower in the main bathroom
• Make the second bathroom usable and attractive
• Neutralize the entire house - especially the girls room

Oh yes, and do all this by the end of January. January 2010. My personal chaos theory shouted out "No Problem!" and I was off. Within the day, I had a two page list of each room in the house. What did it matter that Jack was week's away from his first paycheck from the community college and that my non-working holiday days were unpaid? No plan to pay for materials?  Guffaw! My personal  chaos theory boasted that we'd just do it all through Freecycle and local building resource centers - it would be a marvel of reduce, reuse, recycle! 

Chaos, with reference to chaos theory, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules; this understanding of chaos is synonymous with dynamical instability.

My particular law or rule? Ignore the facts, or at least try to creatively work around them. The facts, in this case, were plenty:

1. There was no way in hell we could fix all those things by the time the elderly gentleman had moved on to simpler living quarters and the house would be listed. In my head I knew this, but my chaos theory voice was too busy devising ways around the timeline fact. And the snarly thing about this state of mind is that it can come up with lots of illogical solutions, or those synonymous with dynamical instability. The agent stressed that it was much harder to sell a house being lived in, especially by a family. The illogical solution I embraced? Move out of our house, put it up for sale and rent the other home. 

2. Finances. The possibility of being able to qualify for another mortgage at this particular time? The stressful hoops we'd have to jump through and high interest rates we'd probably have to pay? Those facts couldn't be a more perfect example of my personal chaos theory's embrace of apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules. 

One good thing about my personal chaos theory? It has a relatively short shelf life, although I do seem to be overly ready to take it off the shelf. 

Soon after I launched us into "our house sucks we have to move to have a better life" mode, another real estate agent was kind enough to take me on a neighborhood tour to see some other homes for sale in our immediate neighborhood. I was hesitant and I realize that this step would take my personal chaos theory out of fantasy-land and into the very real world. The experience was eye-popping and I realized that we have one of the nicest houses in the neighborhood. But my chaos theory pulled a fast one on me and quickly turned that new information into yet another reason why we should continue down the yellow brick road. Because we have such an attractive home, it will sell really quickly!

That weekend, we finished our kitchen cabinets, all remnants of the maple syrup varnish gone and now a contemporary white oak. We'd scraped, sanded and stained. As we sat back and stared at the transformation, even my personal chaos theory paused. But not for long. 

Fast forward to this morning. Still in the glow of our weatherization love affair with Gary and Zump, I emailed the agent of my 3.5 bathroom Shangri-la, and cheerfully updated her on our soon to be insulated and kitchen-updated home, as well as a query on whether the owner would consider a self-financing deal. A few seconds later, I got an email back from her. "I was going to call you. The house on Albion received an offer." 

What's the sound of my personal chaos theory stopping dead in its' tracks? Something like a tree falling and fingernails on a blackboard. 

I emailed her back: "Sigh. I guess that means we're out?" I followed up with a phone call and had a pleasant enough conversation and asked her that if the offer fell through, to please let us know and keep us posted on other homes in the area at that price. And keeping in mind I would probably be writing about this tonight, I told her that it was probably not the right time to do this. 

I hung up and called Jack. He sweetly said he was sorry, but then we talked about how we needed to heal the karma in this house. How we needed to do the work to make this home our Shangri-la and enjoy it before we really do grow out of it. How the unrealized home was part of the same pattern that had gotten us into our financial predicament. How we couldn't lose something we never even had, except in the combined consciousness of my mind and my personal chaos theory's mis-guided will to push me in directions I need to consider more thoughtfully and carefully. And slowly. 

What I've learned from this experience is that chaos feeds off of chaos and my life is filled with it, from our finances, to my job situation, to the non-stop noise going on in my brain. And I need to accept that it might be this way for a while longer until I finally stop turning to my personal chaos theory as the path out of the chaos. 

It's time for me to just let chaos be and let it spin off into the distance like my favorite Warner Brothers' Loony Toons character, the Tasmanian Devil. Eventually, the Tasmanian Devil comes to a stop, but only after it's done it's necessary spinning. That seems to me to be the natural response to chaos, the acceptance that it is a temporary and necessary part of affecting significant changes and that my personal chaos theory is a way to interrupt, stall and endlessly put off the most important change of my life. 

It's time to really open my eyes and count my many blessings, which include our sweet and elegant little home. We're still going to be working our way through my two page home improvement list, but the timeline will make sense, we'll approach the idea of an overall budget and the improvements will be for us, for our family, the path through the chaos. Hopefully, this path will help to stop, or at least slow down my personal chaos theory long enough to put it on the shelf in a lock box and then throw away the key. For real and for good. 

Deliberate Acts of Kindness or How I'm Warmer Today than Yesterday

You know the bumper sticker: "Perform Random Acts of Kindness"? I've decided that this well meaning message depresses me. It makes me think too much about winning, or not winning the next multi-state Powerball. Or about all the horribly random things that happen in not such kind ways.

Kindness is a way of life. It's opening the door for anyone in front or behind you, not because they are old or infirmed, but because extending energy to benefit another being is like constantly living inside one of those Snuggie blankets my kids want to buy for the dog.

I'm in a playful mood today. And that would qualify as random since my SOM (state-of-mind) has been decidedly depressed, angry, resentful and exhausting/ed. How did this shift happen? No, I didn't land the job of my dreams. Bill Gates didn't Google my new domain names and decide to give me a blank check for my new venture. Publisher's Sweepstakes didn't arrive at my doorstep this morning with cameras and balloons.

How did my mood shift from yesterday's melancholy to today's almost giddiness? Simple. Kindness knocked on my front door this morning.

Well, actually, kindness first drove up in a large white truck and came in the form of two energy audit employees from Longs Peak Energy Conservation program. in Boulder County. This past December, in a frantic last act of 2009, I submitted a weatherization application for families in our financial situation. We live in a 1950s ranch house that could double as a flappy tent in the winter. Every summer and fall we promise each other to try to save up to pay for what it would take to stay warmer and stop paying so much in heating bills each winter. Ten years later, I know that our current situation will not let that happen and after a few too many mornings of iced-over windows, and as the clock neared mid-afternoon on December 31st, I faxed in our application. By January 4th, we were qualified for an energy audit, insulation, sealing and possibly an energy-smart refrigerator. When they told me that it could be up to six weeks until we were scheduled, I shot an email back telling them that we had ice on our windows and our heating bill was approaching our mortgage and equally unpayable. They set an appointment with us for the next week.

Today's kindness had two names. Gary and Zump. Gary wore a beautiful blue glass cross he later told us he and his wife make for friends. Father of two home-schooled children. Works all day weatherizing homes and a few nights a week as a dishwasher. Zump studied anthropology in college and reads Michael Ondaatje and is a dead ringer for a half dozen Hollywood actors. I immediately scroll through my mental list of available friends in a match-making frenzy. When Zump tells Jack that his ex-roommate is also a photographer and had been laid off his newspaper job and that after many years in the business is unable to work in his field, I see a long held and tense part of Jack relax. They gently talk us through how the process works, walking through our house, pointing thermal cameras at our walls.

One of the things I love most about Jack, my life partner and best friend, is how instantly he puts people not only at ease, but willing to talk about the loftiest things. It's something that still makes me stop and shake my head with admiration. Very few people go away from an encounter with him untouched. Within 30 minutes, we'd put up another pot of coffee and were talking religion, raising mindful kids in a mindless world, surviving these tough times and more, as if we'd had this conversation with them a hundred times before. Jack's pulling books off the shelf and sharing Norman O. Brown's Love's Body with Gary, who has now been joined by another Longs Peak Conservation employee named J.D. The synergy of his initials are not lost on us, having just absorbed the news of J.D. Salinger's passing. Gary had called J.D. to look at our huge single pane picture windows to see what we can do about the biggest source of heat loss in our house. During this discussion, a new weatherstrip is installed on our front door, our old light bulbs replaced with LED ones, and a blowing test is conducted that shows us just how severe our thermal loss really is.

Zump also did the favor of showing us, or I should say Jack because I refused to look at them, our last year's gas bills. Well, it seems like our house has a bit of a consumption-envy problem. Our bills reflect a much grander and bigger household than we've been living in. I guess our house has been heating that much imagined finished basement I've been yearning for all these years. And we've been footing the bill for our house's identity crisis.

The details of the day don't really matter. What matters, at least to me, is this - we were brought to the this process purely because of our financial means, or lack of them. What could have been another in a long line of humiliating experiences in being without much of a pocket, was in fact, a day in which we were cared for by people who performed their work with steadfast attention and -- yes -- love. They could have gone about their day and done an excellent job without touching our lives, but the fact that they took the time to connect with us as humans and as humans who understood because they are much in the same place.

Their kindness allowed us to relax and to stop blaming ourselves for our leaky, cold house. Their kindness let us celebrate that we were able to benefit from a program that is here to help people in our situation and that sometimes all it takes is just that - to ask for help. Their kind approach to our house, to their work, took away my sense of despair and isolation, at least for today. They helped me feel secure again in my own home, something I haven't experienced in a while.

Today's kindness was not random, it was deliberate. It was part of a way of being in which we take the time to at least consider kindness as a mindful choice with everyone we come into contact with. I feel blessed to have had these two fine people tending to our home with such humanity and integrity.

The constant leaking of heat out from and cold in to our home for all these years is an obvious symbol. It speaks of the blinders I've often put on in regards to our financial roller coaster. It speaks of an imbalance of what I give myself and what I give to the world. Of the veneer I put on in the face of stress - one that is very much like our single pane windows.

But today, because two strangers entered our lives with deliberate acts of kindness, the cold will have to work harder to gain entry. The windows still need work, but I have a number to get that started.

Today, this day before February 2, before the loyal groundhog checks her shadow, and tells us what we already know, that winter is far from over, our house is warm. Our home is warm.

Bulletin Boards and Black Lint

January 31, 2010

It’s Sunday morning and the panic has started to set in. The suggestion that my bulletin board be taken down because our oldest cat paws at it before dawn has set me off in a negative direction, as well as a kitchen that’s in the midst of a DIY remodel with missing cooking tools and kids waiting for breakfast. The whole scene rubs me the wrong way and does not help my feeling that things are out of control and may never come back into balance.

Yoga is in 30 minutes. Will I be able to find any sense of balance or calm there? The last few days of practice have been filled with a head that is way too chatty and a nervous system that is in total adrenal overload.

---

I made it to Yoga. What a blessing. The teacher and I have a great laugh about my being able to balance on one leg, other leg straight out in front of me while I pick a piece of black lint out of my toes. I realize that if I can do this small, yet ridiculously impossible act, I can pretty much handle anything. In a room heated to 106 degrees, sweat dripping from every part of my body, I’m still able to see something that I want to change and with my head balanced on my left knee, I accomplish what would make most people fall over on to their ass.

When my mind is relatively clear in yoga, which it isn't very often, I'm pleasantly washed over by all the possibilities that exist for me. As if the fact that I can do these 26 sometimes seemingly impossible postures opens up that potential to all parts of my life. 

When I left the studio, the car was waiting for me in the parking lot, so I could head home and have some needed time alone to eat and put my thoughts in order. I chose one thing from the torrent of ideas I'd had during class and jotted one down before I headed to get the kids from Sunday School:

• Research domain names for new business

When I got home, while the girls played and practice their instruments, I researched three domain names that are part of a dream I hatched a few months ago and which I'm ready to begin forming into an idea and written down plan. The names were all available and I chose them, putting a small down payment on my present and future. 

A glimmer of hope enters my heart. I know myself well enough to know that if I pay for something, I will have a better chance of following through on it than if it remains just in my head. First steps taken and it's not even February. 

Water Flows Underground: How to love my unfulfilled dreams

January 30, 2010

Richard Russo, in his book Bridge of Sighs, centers a chapter on the main character’s thoughtful consideration of a parallel, yet unlived life. Lou, a shopkeeper who has lived in the same depressed town his entire life, looks upon a parallel and unrealized life as he is writing a family history of sorts. He explores this with an utter lack of angst, resentment or anger. Instead, he carries the unlived past, present and future with the same hope that the unrealized was conceived with because it has remained wholly untouched and completely intact.

I was reading from this book tonight while my daughters were ice skating at our local outdoor rink. I sat by the heating lamp, book tilted up toward the high, overhead lamps and their laughter, mixed with the sound of blades against solid ice, intermingled with the words on the page. The fact that I was reading a passage about a town probably not unlike Longmont, where we live and where I thought we would never live. The fact that I’m at a certain point in my life when I’m pausing between looking back, looking ahead and getting through each day, while I'm reading this book, is not lost on me. 

These are remarkably challenging times and I mean this in the most personal sense, as well as how our personal stresses fit into so many other lives and into the struggling pulse of our country. The personal stress is one of work and money, or the lack of both as consistent forms of security and feeling safe. Of being able to feel I’m properly able to shelter my family with the calm surety of my childhood. And in the midst of the clamp that fear puts on one’s being when faced with sustained financial insecurity, I keep asking myself the same question, over and over, which emerges in my head as David Byrnes' singing  "And you may ask yourself...How did I get here?"

My husband and I have been married for almost 15 years, together for 25. We met when we were both determined and creative spirits; he a writer, me an actress. He was going to write the next Great American Novel. I was going to win more Tony Awards than any other actress. We moved to New York, he first and I to follow and we pursued our dreams which seemed so possible and so real. Our life was dedicated to art, to the pure pursuit of art at the expense of all else – money, security, marriage, children. He wrote slim poems bursting with the heart’s syncopation. I sang and spent my days in performing workshops and auditions, attending theater and living the dream I had envisioned at 15 years old.

Then one day, the dream for me was no longer that. I was unhappy in the world I had chosen. There was no purpose to the dream other than it was what I had believed myself to be for 15 years. I saw it in the mirror of my last audition. Another part of myself pulled out while I sang and hung out behind me watching me and talking to me. Who is that unhappy person in the mirror? It’s me, I answered in my head between notes. Why is she so unhappy? I looked in the mirror to see what this other self saw and I saw myself, unhappy, sad, and disconnected to the dream that was no longer there. I stopped singing mid-song and quietly said, “I can’t do this anymore.” And I walked away.

Why is this with me now? I think because I feel the same stripped away feeling that I felt almost 20 years ago. The fear of a future that might be as uncertain as the present, where you can get fired from a job a week after your father has died. Where insurance can be cut off for a single mother of two after being laid off a job. Where the fear of losing our home or not being able to make a living is with me every second of the day.

But at the ice rink, while reading the quiet lives Richard Russo has brought to me, lives also filled with homes lost, business started and failed, children who die and those brought into the world and who stay safe, the way in which the lives are gently given to me on the page bring me peace. There is suffering, but there is grace. There is loss, but there is recovery. In the same way the main character experiences the permanence of the road not taken, I experience the permanence of the lives that exist in books and am tearfully grateful for the gift of books.

As my girls round the frozen oval over and over, holding hands and keeping each other from falling over with laughter, my heart felt full to burst. How could such happiness, such motherly bliss be present while I feel so much uncertainty? How can this day be part of the same life that was yesterday, when I had to write a painfully honest appeal to my mother to ask her to loan us money? How can the tears I’d finally allowed to pour out be part of the same person who smiled and laughed with the elderly residents at my mother-in-law’s housing complex?

The only answer I can come up with is the one I read in Richard Russo’s gorgeously subtle book. The truth of a life lived with many unfulfilled dream is the embodiment of love, love in action. I have to love the things I’ve believed possible, those which I believed in for my lifetime but have yet to realize, as well as the many great ideas that fly across my radar everyday. That they remain unfulfilled is not cause for anger, for regret, for wringing my hands of all that I haven’t accomplished. They are cause for celebration because despite their stage of development or realization, I created them, they emerged from me, from the multitude that is me, from the alternate sides of my psyche and soul, which has given rise to so much that is possible.

The purpose of this entry is simple and a step toward a way through all of this: over the next 30 days or so, I’m going to chronicle what it is to be a 51 year old overly educated mother of three living with extreme financial stresses. The goal? To learn about myself in this extreme situation and to let go of the shame, isolation and paralyzing fear that it will never change. I might not be able to pay the mortgage right now, but I can write about it. I might not be able to buy my kids new shoes, but I can write about it. I'll be writing about my continued job search, my launching a new business idea and the through line through it all will be the simple act of writing it down. 

When the twins were born and I was a 43 mother with three children under three, I wrote. I wrote my way through the isolation, the exhaustion, the frustration and the joys. Through the same extreme financial stress. If I could do it while breastfeeding three children, I can do it now. I have to do it now because it is the only way I know how to survive this time with myself intact and sane.

I’ll be exploring my fear of budgets, of building a sustainable and meaningful work life. I’ll be exploring learning to be vulnerable to the ones who count on me the most and to give up the part of myself that equates authenticity with losing love. 

After the 30 days, what do I think will happen? Everything, anything and nothing. But I realize the only way to survive these days and nights in which I am so afraid is to trust that it will pass, and to hold onto the alternate life that flows under me, as well as to do what I know - write, love myself and my family, hopefully find some humor and do lots of yoga.

And if I’m lucky enough, I’ll glide along on top of this difficult time like my three glorious girls on the ice rink tonight, and together, we'll go round and round and round, with love and laughter and grace.

Light the First Light of Chanukah - In Two Parts

I have two stories to tell about this first night Chanukah 2009.

Story #1 is a story of reaching back in order to move forward. Being able to do both at the same time through the simplicity of ritual.

Story #2 is about taking the light of Chanukah and sharing it with someone who really needs it.

Both stories are about what my father taught me about living in this world. About caring for my family and taking that care back out into the world.

Story #1: Held Together and Almost Smooth
Chanukah is a holiday I have always cherished. As a child, I never felt any yearning for Christmas, or to have a Chanukah bush, like many of my other Jewish friends. I loved all the Jewish holidays, but Chanukahwas a different kind of special because it was my dad's territory. And territory that he lovingly shared with me as his special Chanukah assistant. I don't know why Chanukah was his realm. I also don't know why my brothers weren't involved in the preparations, other than they were probably spending their time looking for where the presents were hidden. I didn't care. Chanukah was about my family, but it was really what went on between my father and I and that made it extraordinary.

The night before the first night he'd go into the attic and get the box that contained all our decorations. They were wrapped in tissue paper, most likely saved from the last year's gift wrapping. Blue and gold wall hangings with menorahs, Judas Maccabee, Stars of David and dreidels. One roll of blue crepe paper, one roll of white. Both rolled up as if they were brand new.

Dad had a specific place for each decoration which we returned to every year. And an order. First the menorahs were taken out and cleaned. Then the wall hangings were put up. Then finally my favorite part. The blue and white rolls of crepe paper. He'd get out the step ladder and some tape and have me stand at one end of the den, holding the blue paper as he slowly unrolled it until it reached diagonally across the room. He'd climb up the ladder and tape it to a pine beam. He take the other end I'd been holding and fold it, then tape it up into the next corner and the next. We'd repeat the same process with the white paper. After he'd taped the last corner, he and I would stand in the middle of the den and look up. A perfectly symmetrical Star of David stretched across the den ceiling. The decorations were simple, not ostentatious - no lights except for the ones we light on our menorahs or eight nights in a row.

And then there were his latkes. In the days before food processors, he'd first peel the potatoes, getting every scrap of peel off, then grating them finely by hand. He chopped the onions, cracked the eggs, added salt, pepper and matzoh meal. I'd stir the mixture for him until it was the consistency he liked - held together and almost smooth. The oil went into the pan and we'd wait until we heard the sizzle. He spooned them gently into the hot oil, four or five at a time and then we'd wait, always the hardest part for me then and now. Before we knew it two, three pans would be full and he'd put them in the oven to stay warm until our extended family would arrive. But not before he'd take the two most perfect ones and dollop some sour cream and applesauce on them and we'd eat them before anyone else had a chance. Just him and me.

I woke up this morning and cried as I drank my coffee. It was my first Chanukah at home without my dad. Last year we spent Chanukah in Costa Rica, lighting the menorah in the tropical breeze. It was Chanukah out of context with the Chanukah of my life and I don't remember if I felt sad. I was happy to be somewhere warm and beautiful with my family and to have left my grief back in Colorado. But this year was different and I could feel it coming even before I took my first sip.

The sadness started earlier in the week when my daughters and I went to our regular market, King Soopers, a normally decent place to get Jewish holiday supplies. But when I walked up and down the promotional aisles stuffed to the gills with Christmas candy, decorations, toys, lights and more, I couldn't find the usual small section dedicated to Chanukah. I strolled over to the "ethnic" food aisle to see what was in the Kosher section. A few boxes of candles and overpriced grape juice, but nothing else. I found a manager and asked him where the Chanukah section was. He looked uncomfortable and responded that he didn't think they had one this year. "Not even chocolate gelt - coins?," one of my girls asked. He looked down at the floor and said, "Let's take a look." We followed him back to the promotional aisle and he did in fact find a few mesh bags of Chanukah gelt. He apologized for not having more and we thanked him. I left the gelt there, feeling miffed at being disregarded by a store in our community.

The next day I went to the Super Target in Longmont, also a place I've relied on in the past for a small but well-stocked supply of Chanukah goods and a place I was sure I'd find what I needed. This time I was with just one of my daughters who was home sick from school. She sat in the cart as we headed to the holiday section. Up one aisle and down the next. Nothing. We repeated this seven, eight times. No Chanukah in sight. I could feel my anger boiling up, but I kept a lid on it so not to set a bad example for my daughter. "Let's see if we can find someone to help us," I told her as we headed up to someone in a red employee shirt. "Can you tell me where the Chanukah supplies are?" She asked if we'd looked in the holiday section. I told her yes and that there was nothing. She found a manager and asked her if she knew where the Chanukah section was. The manager got the same uncomfortable look as the one at King Soopers. "We only have one end cap (what the shelf space at the end of an aisle is called) for Hanukkah this year and it's in the food section." I expressed my disappointment and she nicely told me that she'd already spoken with the corporate office to request three sections like they had in Boulder and that I'd not been the first to complain. My daughter looked back at me and asked, "Mama, why don't they like Chanukah?" The woman looked at my daughter, then at me and apologized. She walked me over to the Chanukah end cap and I saw the same pathetic samples as King Soopers. They did have Chanukah candles on sale, so I grabbed the last two packages and headed to the check out line.

I felt so angry, but below that anger was so much sadness. I thought of my dad, a Holocaust survivor, and his quiet pride and happiness at being able to stretch a blue and white Star of David across his own den ceiling, of being able to openly celebrate Chanukah with his family.

I looked at the faces of my three girls and felt so sad that they should still have to carry the pain and the burden of living in a society that insists on one way above all the rest. But I also realized that they had learned a hugely important lesson in being who they are with the same quiet pride and happiness that my father reflected back to me.

So when I woke up this morning of the first night of Chanukah, I woke with the heaviness of the burden and I missed my dad. I looked toward the day with hesitation and not so successfully fought of wave after wave of tears. The biggest hesitation I had was following through on my offer to make apple latkes for the first night gathering at my sister-in-laws. I didn't want to do it. I was afraid to do it. I felt the weight of my entire people, or at least the weight of the Longmont Jewish community, on my shoulders to do it.

When I got home from work, Jack had performed the blessing of peeling and coring the apples and also surprised me with doing the same with some potatoes. I didn't remember saying I was planning on making regular latkes, but when you're faced with a colander of peeled potatoes...

I made the apple latkes first.

But the potatoes were waiting.

I looked for some wine to drink, but could only find a tiny bottle of vodka. I took a couple of swigs and then mixed a small drink of ginger ale and vodka.

I opened the Jewish Cooking Cookbook by Arthur Schwartz and turned to the potato latkes. I put the potatoes in the food process and sliced them thin. Added two eggs, dash of salt, pepper, one diced onion and because I was making these for me, they had to be gluten free. I substituted the matzoh meal for potato starch and mixed. Put it back into the food processor and pulsed until the mixture was the right consistency - held together and almost smooth. I added oil to electric griddle and waited for the sizzle. I ladled small ovals of the mixture onto the griddle. And waited. Every time I was tempted to prematurely turn over a latke, I took a sip from my drink. My dad probably would have been sipping a screwdriver, which was my first choice, but we were out of OJ. The waiting paid off. Latke after latke turned out perfect. Brown, but not charred. Light and like a pancake. At almost 51 years old, I'd finally accomplished recreating my dad's latkes. And even more importantly, I was happy and felt deeply connected to my tradition. The simple ritual of cooking latkes had taken me back in order to move forward.

The front door flew open and the kids ran in. "Can we have a latke?" I put four on a plate and we ate them. I looked at the photo of my dad from a few years ago, taken on a summer Shabbat in Los Angeles and smiled.

But the story doesn't end there. They never do.

Story #2: Lighting the Light for a Stranger 

It's still the first night of Chanukah. We'd stopped at the liquor store to buy a bottle of wine as a present for my sister and brother-in-law. I waited in the car with the girls, staying warm and giggling at how delicious the latkes smelled. And then I saw her. She looked to be about 75 years old and she stood on the corner in a light blue parka holding a neatly written sign: Disabled. Homeless. Gas. Food. Money. I looked next to her and saw a walker and an oxygen tank. I signed deeply, deeply enough to get the girls' attention. "What, Mama?" Then they all looked out the window and saw the lady. "What does her sign say?" One of them read it and we sat there. I unlocked the door and got out. "Mama, what are you doing?" "I'm giving the lady some latkes." I wrapped up two potato and two apple latkes in some foil. And then I remembered I had a little bit of money in my wallet. I reached back into the car and took out a $5 bill.

"Hi," I said as I tried to approach with respect. She looked up at me as I offered her the foil wrapped package. "It's just some potato pancakes, and here's five dollars."

She smiled. "Thanks, I love potato pancakes."

"Please tell me you have somewhere warm to sleep tonight," I asked her. The temperatures in Colorado have been below zero for the past two weeks. She assured me she'd called her sister. We had no room in the car and family was waiting. She thanked me and I wished her well.

As we drove away, I broke down. All the tears I'd been holding back just came forward. I told Jack we had to do something, that I couldn't bare the idea of that lady being on the street in the cold. I got on my phone and called the local shelter, but their warming center wouldn't be open for another hour. I called the Boulder Homeless Shelter and cried on the phone as a sweet woman tried to figure out how to get this woman to some warm shelter. She finally suggested I call the police and they'd come and get her without making her feel like a criminal. I called the police and told them about this lady. The dispatcher told me it could be someone who makes her living doing this, but when I told her the woman's location and that she had a walker and an oxygen tank, she promised to send a car and see if they could help.

We got to our family gathering and had a beautiful, embracing evening. Presents, lighting the candles, five varieties of latkes, soup and homemade sufganiyot. Playing dreidel and lots of laughter. Everything I remember my first night's of Chanukah always being. And everything I want my children's first nights of Chanukah to be.

As we were driving back home and approached Longmont, we came to a red light. I turned to Jack and asked, "Can we see if she's still there?" Without blinking an eye, he moved into the left lane and started driving in that direction. The girls woke from their car-drive-home sleeping and asked, "Are we going to see if the lady is still there?"

We crossed Main Street, then Hover, turning right. Turned left into the King Soopers parking center and toward the liquor store. None of us said a word.

She was gone.

I took Jack's hand and he turned the car toward home.

"The lady is somewhere warm?"

Yes, my darlings. The lady is somewhere warm.

Chag Sameach, Dad. 

A Friend That Comes Along Once in Lifetime, Part One: Our Own Private Malibu

Ten years ago on Thanksgiving morning a special light went out in the world. That light's name was - is - will always be Donne Pinsky, born January 7, 1958. As best I can, and understanding that I won't be able to come near being able to put into words what Donne meant to me, continues to mean to me more than 40 years later. I've been lucky in my life to have friends from my childhood, women who have known me since I was nine or ten. Donne was one of those. This is an attempt to honor the friendship I miss so much. To honor the friendship that defined what a friendship could be.

It will come in parts because 40 years is too much to put into one post.

Part One - Our Own Private Malibu:

I met Donne in 1969 or 1970 at Camp Hess Kramer, a reform Jewish summer camp nestled in the Malibu Hills. We were both 9 or 10 years old. I came from Downey. Donne lived in San Marino. We were in the cabins next door to one another, named after Jewish women of the Old Testament. Leah. Rachel. Sarah.

Donne had long brown hair parted down the middle. She was short and wore overalls. I had short hair that had me often, and painfully, mistaken for a boy. We instantly liked each other and discovered a common love for the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin and Simon and Garfunkel. One of Donne's favorite things to do every morning was to run into our cabin and in her best Peppermint Patty voice, wish us all a good morning.

What also drew us together was our intense love for the camp we came to think of as our soul-home. It's hard to explain to those that didn't either go to camp, or who didn't like the camp they went to, but for 8 years of my life, summers at Camp Hess Kramer, and subsequently, Gilding Hilltop, were the most important summers of my life. Within the context of Judaism, I discovered myself, a self that was independent of the identity through my older brothers, my parents, our family.

For Donne, camp was the place she could escape the overly white and not-very-Jewish place she was growing up in. From the very beginning of our friendship, Donne showed a desire to be a part of the larger world that would eventually have living in many parts of the world. She had an early worldliness that was remarkably grounded.

After that first summer of our friendship, we wrote to each other and called and became part of a girl pack of five where we had slumber parties for each birthday, complete with Mad Libs, dirty jokes, dares and all the rest. One summer Donne and I decided to talk our parents into a second session. Both set of parents told us that if we wanted to go we had to earn our way. Donne and I went into the babysitting, car washing, house cleaning, dog feeding and whatever else we could get our hands on to earn a total of $185 each for two extra weeks in our own private Malibu. It took us all fall, winter and spring, but by the time the deposits were needed to reserve our space, we had the money.

One of the other things that bound Donne and I so closely together was that we both understood what it felt like to be outsiders at camp, as many of the others went to school together in the more fashionable areas of Pacific Palisades, Beverly Hills.

I loved being at Donne's house. Her mother was a ceramic artist, her father a psychiatrist. I don't even know that at ten or eleven I even knew what a psychiatrist was, but I knew it had something to do with very modern furniture and listening to George Carlin's "7 Words You Can't Say on TV." I was introduced to Woody Allen at the Pinsky's house, as well as silent movies and I'll forever be grateful to them for taking me to El Chollo's Mexican restaurant. Her mother was gentle and funny.

Donne loved my family. Loved my dad's down to earth, quiet nature. Loved my brother's teasing and the strong ties that ran through us all.

We were each other's confidantes during the impossible adolescent years, whispering on the phone about how to use tampons, what size bra we wore, what the heck the difference was between second and third base. But we never referred to each other as best friends. Somehow we knew that the term was too immature for a friendship that was destined to last a lifetime. We understood, without every saying so.

When my family moved from Downey to Culver City, (on the West Side of LA!), instead of it causing a rift between us, it brought us closer because Donne's mother was part of a ceramic artist's cooperative and it meant we could spend more time together. Together we discovered the fine art of second hand and resale stores that populated the then extremely uncool Culver City.

Donne was a year a head of me in school and during her junior year in high school she made the decision to graduate and get the hell out of San Marino. She was fluent in French and lived with a family in Grenoble for her senior year. Her itch to travel was just beginning to be scratched, while my discovery of theater was just getting started. We supported each other in our dreams, although she was always more pragmatic and practical about making hers more of a reality. After Grenoble, she went to UC Berkeley, living in a co-op where pot plants grew in the window boxes. I went off to Northwestern and after we both graduate, we both ended up back in Los Angeles.

We didn't need to pick up where we'd left off, because we'd never left off. We just got to see more of each other and eased into our early 20's together, going to movies, eating great food and laughing. There was always laughing. Side-splitting, stomach aching laughter.

We also hung out in Laguna Beach, at a place her parents had picked up for weekend retreats. It was there I first heard Miles Davis or Mel Torme, drank red wine and fell asleep to the sound of waves. It was also there that Donne let me know that without a plan, the idea of being an actress would only be that - an idea. She was pragmatic and urged me to follow through on the daily actions of my dreams. It was advice I'd never gotten and is one that I still rely on when my dreams get ahead of my lagging practicality.

It was around 1986 or 1987 that Donne announced to me that she was going to graduate school at Johns Hopkins in the international politics program. Washington DC. Her life would completely change there. Mine would change soon after and both for the same reasons. Love...

to be continued...

The Ugliest Bathroom in Boulder County...is MINE

About two months ago, I read an article in the Boulder Daily Camera about "Invironments," an eco-friendly furniture and remodeling store in Boulder who was celebrating their 3rd anniversary, as well as acknowledging the difficult economic year, with a "Bathroom Confessions" contest. The winner, who would tell why she or he deserved a redone bathroom through a compelling and inspiring tale of turning lemons into margaritas, would get an environmentally friendly and beautifully upgraded bathroom worth $15,000.

Here's the thing. I'm a sucker for sweepstakes. Five years ago, I talked a dear friend into nominating me for TBS's "Dinner and a Movie" makeover contest and I won it. It was a silly thing, but at that point, with three children under the age of five and during a time when I rarely wore anything but my sweats and fleece, I needed some pampering. My friend met me at the Trident Booksellers and Cafe on Pearl Street and in the midst of our second cup of coffee, a stretch limo pulled up and out popped two well coiffed folks who were obviously not from Boulder, each bookended with someone holding a large microphone and video camera. They thrust the camera and microphone into my face and told me I had won a whirlwind day of pampering and new clothes.

I howled and hopped into the limo, where a chilled glass of champagne was waiting for me, camera rolling. The producer ran into the bookstore with my friend, who later told me that when they asked the guy behind the counter to sign a release, he asked what was going on. When they told him I had won a makeover, he paused and asked, "A spiritual makeover?" One of the many reasons why I love where I live.

I spent the rest of the day in a movie star trailer having my hair colored and highlighted, blown dry (and straight), beautified with makeup and then gussied up with fantastic clothes. I felt like a million bucks. I didn't even mind that the entire thing was just an extended commercial for Cover Girl and Nice and Easy, I was feeling great and taking home lots of booty to boot.

The kicker was that at the end of the makeover, I was to emerge from the trailer, and for the new me to be revealed to my husband and kids. The reason why this is a kicker is that my

husband hates makeup and my kids, well, they're kids. When I came out of the trailer, my husband was standing there with my kids dressed in the oddest outfits, hair unkempt and I sweat, grape jelly on their faces. On national TV. I don't even remember what my husband was wearing, except it wasn't much better. The kids took one look at me and started crying. I sashayed over to my husband, my eyes pleading with him to just play along. As the cameras closed in on our romantic embrace, when my husband's lust for the new, improved me was supposed to be shown for all the TV-world to see, he leaned in and said, "You know I hate lipstick." I smiled my best theater school smile and whispered back, "Get over it or I'll never have sex with you again." We smiled for the camera.

After three days of straight hair, I let my hair go back to it's natural post-twins, peri-menopausal sort of waves. I'm happy to say I've donated the clothes to a woman back to work organization since my now Bikram yoga body has rendered them too big.

Fast forward to tonight. I entered Invironments with a certain degree of trepidation, but determined to go by myself, not wanting to get my kids' hopes up of our bathroom finally getting redone and quite frankly, the memory of the very public reveal of my last sweepstakes win stays pretty fresh. I wanted to suffer the potential humiliation all on my own, although I did try to recruit the same friend from the last one to meet me there for a good laugh, but she wisely passed.

But as soon as I showed up, I relaxed. It was great to roam around the store, imagining how the gorgeously toned furniture, counters, cabinets, lighting and fixtures would look in our home. I sipped wine and tweeted about how pleased I was didn't know anyone there. The crowd was classic Boulder, hip, fit and self-conscious.

Jodi Feinhor-Dennis, Invironments' lovely owner and the evening's emcee, gathered the crowd together and explained how difficult a process it had been to decide on who would win the contest and how moved she was by the 55 contestants' stories. Her assistant, Katy, brought up a PowerPoint presentation and they showed a few samples of the competing bathrooms. And that they had made the decision to offer up some consolation prizes such as a convenient lay-away program, as well as a DIY coaching program with KBC's Mark.

The PPT presentation displayed a slide which read: 1st runner up and winner of "ugliest bathroom." The mouse clicked and then there it was, for the entire room to see - MY BATHROOM, I squealed and proudly took my white as freshly fallen snow organic cotton shower curtain and bar of rosemary and lavender soap as if I'd just won an Oscar.

President Obama can proudly claim having won the Nobel Prize for Peace for the potential of what his administration and presence represent, but he has the burden of now having to prove that it was the right choice. I have nothing to prove because I've won the distinction of the Ugliest Bathroom in Boulder County for something I've known I've had for almost ten years. An already established and now vindicated fact, nothing I need to prove. I can rest easy I have already accomplished this.

What's next after winning this kind of distinction? I'm still basking in the glow of the evening, but my first thoughts go to the following:

• Holding an Ebay auction of the "Ugliest Bathroom in Boulder County"and let the highest bidder have at it
• Running my own contest to transform this ugly duckling into the swan I know it can be.
• Pitching my story to HGTV
• Taking the "Ugliest Bathroom in Boulder County" on tour
• Letting the "Ugliest Bathroom in Boulder County" have a crack at national and international exposure - why should I limit it's ugliness to just the county level?

In the meantime, I can go to bed with a clear mind and happy heart. Thank you, Invironments Design, for validating what I've always known and harangued my family and friends about. The sweet victory of owning the "Ugliest Bathroom in Boulder County" is mine. All mine.