My agency switched insurance companies this month, so Nicole and I talked about whether it would be worth it for me to switch over to hers. Because of federal discrimination, we would have to pay taxes on whatever my insurance would cost her organization, and we still aren't sure how much that would be and how it would impact this decision. But we DID know that we want family coverage through her insurance after we have a baby, and if hers has better fertility coverage, it would be worth switching now.
I called my provider to ask what the fertility coverage is. The agent read down the list and my heart rejoiced as I heard "artificial insemination, 100% lifetime coverage." But of course I had to go ahead and ask the next question: "Is that automatic, if I were to walk into a fertility clinic, or would I have to meet certain criteria to qualify?" She linked me to the many-paged policy on their website and explained that I would have to show that to my doctor and they would have to show that I qualify based on those criteria. She said to find a fertility doctor, show them this policy and ask their thoughts, ask them the procedure number, call a different number with the procedure number to verify whether it's covered, have the doctor call yet a different number to see if I need pre-certification, and then have the doctor follow through with pre-certification if needed.
Anyone else a little overwhelmed?
The first response had seemed so simple, and was certainly very welcome, and five minutes later I felt so discouraged. Reading the extensive policy discouraged me further, as everything is called INfertility treatment, and requires proving infertility in order to get coverage. So in my case, a woman with no male partner, I would have to show twelve unsuccessful insemination cycles to prove infertility. Then my insurance would cover testing, treatment, and further insemination.
According to one particular fertility clinic that I've been looking into off and on for the past year, one cycle of IUI costs $1200. The sperm itself is another few hundred, including the cost of transporting and storing. If I got pregnant the first time, this isn't so bad - but we certainly can't do this every month. For every unsuccessful attempt, we'd have to save up for a few more months before we can afford to try again.
My insurance company's website has a link to LGBT-affirming providers, and reproductive centers were included in that list. I'm sure they deal with this all the time, and maybe they know how to get around this. I sure hope so. Twelve cycles is a LOT of money to put up front before getting coverage, and if we have twelve failed attempts, the path ahead will be rougher as it is.
wedding
Monday, November 12, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Post-Sandy Shabbat
Services were cancelled last week in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and resumed this week despite the synagogue not having full power and having no heat. We huddled in the library where they had set up space heaters, and everyone stayed snuggled in their coats until the room warmed up. I LOVED this service.
Seeing people huddled in one room, with a small ark that could only hold one Torah, and an oneg table set up in the same room instead of in the reception room outside the sanctuary - it just felt so makeshift, and yet just as holy as in any other setting. It immediately brought to mind how Jews still observed Shabbat and holidays and rituals even when persecuted. How while fleeing Egypt and in the Holocaust, they would honor Shabbat as closely as possible even while in hiding and in concentration camps and in the wilderness. In our own much less serious situation, the sense of community did not change despite the fact that we were small and cold and crowded, and in fact I actually felt a stronger sense of community than ever before. We were all absorbed in our own post-disaster struggles outside of temple, but we were still able to come together with a spirit of celebration.
It was a smaller group due to the circumstances, and in a very small space. I would think this would make me less of a participant, because I tend to feel self-conscious about it in general since I still feel like somewhat of an outsider and am still learning everything that is going on. I would think being in a smaller group would make me even more aware of myself because I can't hide. But it did the opposite. I sang louder than I ever have, and I chanted loudly and with confidence. Chanting is difficult because you have no way to know where the inflections are except by becoming familiar with it. After ten months of services, I am finally able to join in, and it is AMAZING. I used to follow along in the English because there just wasn't much other way for me to participate. This time I chanted in Hebrew, and FEELING that was more important than knowing the words I was saying.
One of my closest friends, Allyson, who is an observant Conservative Jew, surprised me the other day by telling me that she isn't fluent in Hebrew and that most non-Orthodox Jews aren't. She said Hebrew school is mostly for learning how to read the Hebrew letters (right now I'm reading the transliteration) but that they don't just speak it to one another, and though they may know enough to get the general gist, most Jews in services don't understand every word spoken. I wrestled with this, wondering what the point is of praying, singing, and chanting in a language you don't understand. Last night I understood. There was something about being a part of worship with an entire community that felt so amazing. And "amazing" is a generic word I'm using because my vocabulary is too limited to find the word that encompasses the experience for me.
I remember Rabbi telling us early on that the biggest part of feeling ready for conversion is when you go from seeing the Jewish community as "they" to seeing them as "we." Last night I felt such a part of it, and that clicked for me. I didn't feel like such an observer. I felt comfortable and moved and connected. I have been feeling increasingly more comfortable, of course, but that service was essentially the "breakthrough" moment for me. Since the last service we attended on 10/19 (10/26 was my best friend's birthday celebration, and the next week was the hurricane), I have started my Intro to Judaism course (10/25) and have done SO many readings. These readings have been incredible, but they have also had me intellectualizing Judaism. I've been craving this for many months, and have enjoyed the opportunity to stretch my brain, to wrestle with God, the Torah and Judaism, and to reflect on all this in my journal, which has always been my most natural and comfortable mode of expression. But without services, the emotional and spiritual piece was separate, without my even realizing it. I've been at a distance from it, curious and fascinated and eager, but not connected. Feeling at home, comfortable, and revived in our own temple with our beloved rabbi, at our first Shabbat service since beginning the course, completed the circle for me.
I feel so happy, at peace, and where I'm meant to be.
Seeing people huddled in one room, with a small ark that could only hold one Torah, and an oneg table set up in the same room instead of in the reception room outside the sanctuary - it just felt so makeshift, and yet just as holy as in any other setting. It immediately brought to mind how Jews still observed Shabbat and holidays and rituals even when persecuted. How while fleeing Egypt and in the Holocaust, they would honor Shabbat as closely as possible even while in hiding and in concentration camps and in the wilderness. In our own much less serious situation, the sense of community did not change despite the fact that we were small and cold and crowded, and in fact I actually felt a stronger sense of community than ever before. We were all absorbed in our own post-disaster struggles outside of temple, but we were still able to come together with a spirit of celebration.
It was a smaller group due to the circumstances, and in a very small space. I would think this would make me less of a participant, because I tend to feel self-conscious about it in general since I still feel like somewhat of an outsider and am still learning everything that is going on. I would think being in a smaller group would make me even more aware of myself because I can't hide. But it did the opposite. I sang louder than I ever have, and I chanted loudly and with confidence. Chanting is difficult because you have no way to know where the inflections are except by becoming familiar with it. After ten months of services, I am finally able to join in, and it is AMAZING. I used to follow along in the English because there just wasn't much other way for me to participate. This time I chanted in Hebrew, and FEELING that was more important than knowing the words I was saying.
One of my closest friends, Allyson, who is an observant Conservative Jew, surprised me the other day by telling me that she isn't fluent in Hebrew and that most non-Orthodox Jews aren't. She said Hebrew school is mostly for learning how to read the Hebrew letters (right now I'm reading the transliteration) but that they don't just speak it to one another, and though they may know enough to get the general gist, most Jews in services don't understand every word spoken. I wrestled with this, wondering what the point is of praying, singing, and chanting in a language you don't understand. Last night I understood. There was something about being a part of worship with an entire community that felt so amazing. And "amazing" is a generic word I'm using because my vocabulary is too limited to find the word that encompasses the experience for me.
I remember Rabbi telling us early on that the biggest part of feeling ready for conversion is when you go from seeing the Jewish community as "they" to seeing them as "we." Last night I felt such a part of it, and that clicked for me. I didn't feel like such an observer. I felt comfortable and moved and connected. I have been feeling increasingly more comfortable, of course, but that service was essentially the "breakthrough" moment for me. Since the last service we attended on 10/19 (10/26 was my best friend's birthday celebration, and the next week was the hurricane), I have started my Intro to Judaism course (10/25) and have done SO many readings. These readings have been incredible, but they have also had me intellectualizing Judaism. I've been craving this for many months, and have enjoyed the opportunity to stretch my brain, to wrestle with God, the Torah and Judaism, and to reflect on all this in my journal, which has always been my most natural and comfortable mode of expression. But without services, the emotional and spiritual piece was separate, without my even realizing it. I've been at a distance from it, curious and fascinated and eager, but not connected. Feeling at home, comfortable, and revived in our own temple with our beloved rabbi, at our first Shabbat service since beginning the course, completed the circle for me.
I feel so happy, at peace, and where I'm meant to be.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Intro to Judaism - Week 2
This week's topic is about what I believe about the Torah. There are specific questions posed, but I'm better at sort of free-writing so I'm going to keep it at that simple summary and go from there.
I was so relieved to read about Reconstructionist Judaism, which I believe is the most recent denomination, if I remember correctly. The founder's view on who wrote the Torah fit like a puzzle piece for me, and actually made me panic for a nanosecond that maybe I should have explored Reconstructionism and what if it fits me more than Reform? Of course I continued reading and realized that Reform still most closely fits how I feel, think, and believe. But in Essential Judaism, it says of the founder: "The sacred texts, he said, are not the product of divine revelation but are the creation of the Jewish people. As such they represent four thousand years of Jewish aspirations towards God." As I read it, I got so excited - "YES, that!!!" This articulates a belief that I have struggled to explain even for myself, and validated a way of thinking that I wasn't sure would be accepted. It seems so...non-religious.
I'm self-conscious of my tendency to intellectualize my spirituality, as if to make it more palatable for myself, to change it to fit me rather than change myself to fit religious truth. But I digressed so much from religion for an entire decade that I can't just abandon my intellectualism in order to re-embrace it. Coming back to religion requires reconciling science and religion, and that is a huge part of why Reform in particular appealed to me. So even though this is a Reconstructionist view, Reform seems, in my limited experience, to allow freedom for this kind of perspective.
I have believed since the age of 19 or 20 that there is no absolute truth that humans can be aware of, and therefore no one correct way of perceiving and explaining God. This is why I sort of shed religion for a while - not because I was an atheist, far from it, but because I felt like I had no right to determine that any one path to God was right or wrong and therefore couldn't determine my own. How could I firmly assert that MY religion was correct, just because I had been raised with it? Wouldn't people in other religions feel the same? Why am I any different? Why am I so sure that I'm right? How can anyone be so sure? Okay, so that's where faith comes in - but then faith must come down to an active choice to believe over common sense, over a broader world view, that your path is the best one - or at least the best one for YOU. And that's how I began to develop mine.
I do believe that an interpretation of God depends on your culture and historical context. I believe that an understanding of God is filtered through the minds of humans who are desperate and eager to understand more than they are capable of. Does that make the stories fables of a sort? Not really. I believe there is truth and fact behind all of it, but that there is an undeniable spin on it that is a result of oral tradition passed down through many generations before being written down. I value these stories for how they have kept God alive for an entire community of people for thousands of years. I value the traditions as part of my wife's culture, which I don't yet feel I can call my own (will I ever feel that I can?), but which will be our children's. I do believe - at least right now, though my faith is constantly evolving - that the Torah is not "the product of divine revelation" but rather "the creation of the Jewish people," and deserving of as much respect and study as if I believed it to be God's own direct word.
The Jewish people have spent millennia studying and interpreting the sacred texts, and (with the exception of Orthodox?) attempting to disentangle the lessons from their historical context in order to apply it to their modern lives. I look forward to doing the same.
I was so relieved to read about Reconstructionist Judaism, which I believe is the most recent denomination, if I remember correctly. The founder's view on who wrote the Torah fit like a puzzle piece for me, and actually made me panic for a nanosecond that maybe I should have explored Reconstructionism and what if it fits me more than Reform? Of course I continued reading and realized that Reform still most closely fits how I feel, think, and believe. But in Essential Judaism, it says of the founder: "The sacred texts, he said, are not the product of divine revelation but are the creation of the Jewish people. As such they represent four thousand years of Jewish aspirations towards God." As I read it, I got so excited - "YES, that!!!" This articulates a belief that I have struggled to explain even for myself, and validated a way of thinking that I wasn't sure would be accepted. It seems so...non-religious.
I'm self-conscious of my tendency to intellectualize my spirituality, as if to make it more palatable for myself, to change it to fit me rather than change myself to fit religious truth. But I digressed so much from religion for an entire decade that I can't just abandon my intellectualism in order to re-embrace it. Coming back to religion requires reconciling science and religion, and that is a huge part of why Reform in particular appealed to me. So even though this is a Reconstructionist view, Reform seems, in my limited experience, to allow freedom for this kind of perspective.
I have believed since the age of 19 or 20 that there is no absolute truth that humans can be aware of, and therefore no one correct way of perceiving and explaining God. This is why I sort of shed religion for a while - not because I was an atheist, far from it, but because I felt like I had no right to determine that any one path to God was right or wrong and therefore couldn't determine my own. How could I firmly assert that MY religion was correct, just because I had been raised with it? Wouldn't people in other religions feel the same? Why am I any different? Why am I so sure that I'm right? How can anyone be so sure? Okay, so that's where faith comes in - but then faith must come down to an active choice to believe over common sense, over a broader world view, that your path is the best one - or at least the best one for YOU. And that's how I began to develop mine.
I do believe that an interpretation of God depends on your culture and historical context. I believe that an understanding of God is filtered through the minds of humans who are desperate and eager to understand more than they are capable of. Does that make the stories fables of a sort? Not really. I believe there is truth and fact behind all of it, but that there is an undeniable spin on it that is a result of oral tradition passed down through many generations before being written down. I value these stories for how they have kept God alive for an entire community of people for thousands of years. I value the traditions as part of my wife's culture, which I don't yet feel I can call my own (will I ever feel that I can?), but which will be our children's. I do believe - at least right now, though my faith is constantly evolving - that the Torah is not "the product of divine revelation" but rather "the creation of the Jewish people," and deserving of as much respect and study as if I believed it to be God's own direct word.
The Jewish people have spent millennia studying and interpreting the sacred texts, and (with the exception of Orthodox?) attempting to disentangle the lessons from their historical context in order to apply it to their modern lives. I look forward to doing the same.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Hurricane Sandy
At first it was kind of fun. I remember Hugo hitting when my family lived about 30 minutes from the South Carolina coast. We woke up with our above-ground pool in the neighbor's yard, but as an 8-year-old, it felt like an adventure. We were stocked up on food and water and hunkered down together, all sleeping in one room so us kids would feel safer. Some part of me thought it would be like that this time, except with less damage.
I'm not 8 anymore.
Board games by candlelight and cooking a random assortment of thawing food wore out its welcome after about 24 hours. Then I started to feel crazy. I read on the living room floor, up against the glass doors, and start to feel panicky as the sun sets. I wake up and shower in the cold, and get dressed in the dark, and feel depressed and antsy to get out. I walk around the neighborhood and see trees through people's roofs and on their cars. I see telephone poles snapped in half. I hear on our emergency radio that 100 houses burnt to the ground in Queens. I have to figure out how to get to work with no Long Island Railroad, very limited subway service, and a city out of gas. People are desperate and panicked, siphoning gas from other people's cars, breaking into fights in lines at gas stations that just got a shipment, forming lines over a mile long waiting for gas that just came in and then having it run out when they pull up to the pump eight hours later. Grocery stores are empty because they're without power. People who depend on hourly wages are struggling to feed their families until their workplaces open again and until they can get transportation there. Lower Manhattan is in complete chaos - dark, flooded, and with no subways. Rats are roaming the streets because they got flooded out of the subway tunnels. Homeless people are camped out in the lobbies of apartment buildings whose electric security is down. Cabs are out of gas and the few running subways stop at 34th St and are so packed that you literally get carried onto the car by a mob. Roads are packed the first day after the hurricane because no one can use public transportation, and empty the second day because everyone is out of gas.
It's eerie and post-apocalpytic. For every story of someone helping someone else, there is another of someone taking advantage. Nicole and I are huddled in our cold, dark basement apartment, refusing to leave the cats as neighbors around us (or at least those without generators), and ultimately even my in-laws, flee to the homes of generous family and friends whose power has been restored.
We were supposed to close on our house Monday. All closings are adjourned and pending re-inspections at the bank's expense. We are trying to figure out our next step when we are in oases of power, like at work or at Aunt Laura's a mile away. Our Halloween rock-the-dress photo shoot was canceled and our photographer is cheerfully reaching out to us to try to reschedule when we can barely keep our sanity intact.
I'm grateful to be alive, grateful that both the house we live in and the house we are buying are both okay, grateful that we filled on gas before the storm and stocked up on dry goods and water, grateful to wake up in our cold apartment with our cats happily snuggled up against us for warmth, grateful for salaried jobs where we can take days off if needed without affecting our ability to pay bills. But I'm also tired, depressed, lethargic, and, six days later, really ready to have this behind us as a memory.
I'm not 8 anymore.
Board games by candlelight and cooking a random assortment of thawing food wore out its welcome after about 24 hours. Then I started to feel crazy. I read on the living room floor, up against the glass doors, and start to feel panicky as the sun sets. I wake up and shower in the cold, and get dressed in the dark, and feel depressed and antsy to get out. I walk around the neighborhood and see trees through people's roofs and on their cars. I see telephone poles snapped in half. I hear on our emergency radio that 100 houses burnt to the ground in Queens. I have to figure out how to get to work with no Long Island Railroad, very limited subway service, and a city out of gas. People are desperate and panicked, siphoning gas from other people's cars, breaking into fights in lines at gas stations that just got a shipment, forming lines over a mile long waiting for gas that just came in and then having it run out when they pull up to the pump eight hours later. Grocery stores are empty because they're without power. People who depend on hourly wages are struggling to feed their families until their workplaces open again and until they can get transportation there. Lower Manhattan is in complete chaos - dark, flooded, and with no subways. Rats are roaming the streets because they got flooded out of the subway tunnels. Homeless people are camped out in the lobbies of apartment buildings whose electric security is down. Cabs are out of gas and the few running subways stop at 34th St and are so packed that you literally get carried onto the car by a mob. Roads are packed the first day after the hurricane because no one can use public transportation, and empty the second day because everyone is out of gas.
It's eerie and post-apocalpytic. For every story of someone helping someone else, there is another of someone taking advantage. Nicole and I are huddled in our cold, dark basement apartment, refusing to leave the cats as neighbors around us (or at least those without generators), and ultimately even my in-laws, flee to the homes of generous family and friends whose power has been restored.
We were supposed to close on our house Monday. All closings are adjourned and pending re-inspections at the bank's expense. We are trying to figure out our next step when we are in oases of power, like at work or at Aunt Laura's a mile away. Our Halloween rock-the-dress photo shoot was canceled and our photographer is cheerfully reaching out to us to try to reschedule when we can barely keep our sanity intact.
I'm grateful to be alive, grateful that both the house we live in and the house we are buying are both okay, grateful that we filled on gas before the storm and stocked up on dry goods and water, grateful to wake up in our cold apartment with our cats happily snuggled up against us for warmth, grateful for salaried jobs where we can take days off if needed without affecting our ability to pay bills. But I'm also tired, depressed, lethargic, and, six days later, really ready to have this behind us as a memory.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Intro to Judaism - Week 1
We started our Intro to Judaism class this past Thursday - and boy was it intense! As I posted that evening on Facebook (where you can "journal" in a sentence or two), "thrilled, fulfilled, and entirely overwhelmed." This class is complete with a college-like syllabus (listing the books, weekly assignments, and an absence policy), weekly journal entries, about eight or so books, multiple assigned readings, beginning Hebrew assignments, field trips of a sort, Torah readings, a presentation on one Torah portion, and a final project. Whew! Nicole and I both left feeling exhausted and anxious.
We have been talking about conversion (well, for me - more like rediscovering for Nicole) since spring of 2011, temple-shopped that fall after our wedding, and have been attending services at our current temple since the first week of January 2012. We began meeting with our rabbi in February to talk about conversion, and she explained that it involves taking this class. However, when she went to look up when classes began, she found that they began that very day. It was too last minute for us to go that evening, and we knew we would have to miss several other classes as well for our March vacation and my sister's wedding in North Carolina in April. It was frustrating because we were eager, but we decided it would be better to wait than to have to miss three classes. I wanted to do this the right way, and there was no need to rush it.
We then tried to register for summer classes, after months of antsy anticipation on my part. I was very much enjoying services and our monthly meetings with our rabbi, and I was feeling comfortable enough that I was ready to move to the next step. However, we received a cancellation notice within a couple weeks of registering, due to not having enough participants for a summer course. Strangely, our spring had been very busy but we were free all summer. This was a major disappointment, and when I expressed that to Rabbi, she responded by providing us with a book to read together (As a Driven Leaf - an awesome book that will now have to be on hold for months) and started providing some more structure to our meetings so that we could really start learning. I'm very grateful to her for this.
I then registered for the fall class, and while there was one starting September 25, it was with a male rabbi, and I really feel more comfortable with female rabbis. I appreciate the inherent feminist outlook on everything - how can you NOT consider that with pretty much everything you read and do as a woman? A progressive male rabbi may offer something similar, but I feel that it would be coming more from an intellectual place rather than from an implicit understanding of what it means to be a spiritual woman in a religion that historically has been dominated by males. I also come from a Catholic background and have a deep appreciation for the recognition that women can lead and teach, and I want to support that. This was worth pushing it off yet another month and registering for the October 25 class.
So in we went, hopeful, eager, and anxious. I have always been an avid student, and have very much looked forward to taking a class on something so new to me yet something I'm feeling so connected to and passionate about. I was ready to eat it up! For some reason, it had just never occurred to me that it would feel so intensely overwhelming. I almost felt panicky looking at our stack of books and the list of assignments - which we were already behind on from the first class! I also felt a little nervous about the diverse group of students in the room. This should add to the experience (and surely will), but for the time being it makes me a little nervous. People are there for all different reasons, and I feel less connected to them as a group than I thought I would. I'm hoping that will change.
It also felt odd to have a rabbi different from OUR rabbi. This is really the only temple and rabbi we have known, and it's like I forgot that other people have their own rabbis, different rabbis. It's like I expected Rabbi R to be sitting at the front of the room, ready to teach us, and was shocked and unsettled to find a different person there who also called herself Rabbi. Such a childlike perspective!
I'm excited to FINALLY begin this part of the journey. I have been waiting almost a year. I feel so comfortable in our temple and with our rabbi, and I'm ready for this challenge. I'm ready to shake up my discussions with Rabbi R.
So I guess this serves as my first journal entry. We get suggested topics every week, but we don't have to stick to them, and I kind of just ran with this in my own journal. My syllabus is buried in a stack of books and papers from class on the kitchen table, so I'll just end this with two of the questions I remember from this week's topic: what are your hopes or expectations, and what are your concerns or doubts?
My hope is that I will strengthen my bond with this faith that feels like home to me. My hope is that it will open up conversation between my wife and me as we learn new things together. My hope is that what we do every week at temple will start to make even more sense, and that we will be given history and context for our spirituality.
I worry that I will learn things I don't agree with or don't believe. I have some questions that I don't ask because I'm afraid of the answer, and nervous about what it means if I don't agree. There is a lot of flexibility in Reform Judaism which is part of why it feels like such a natural fit for me. There is room to question and disagree. But it's still a concern in the back of my mind.
I hope I can use this newfound time, with tomorrow off of work for the hurricane, to start tackling some of this reading. Feeling overwhelmed can easily immobilize me into procrastination, and I really don't want to let that happen.
We have been talking about conversion (well, for me - more like rediscovering for Nicole) since spring of 2011, temple-shopped that fall after our wedding, and have been attending services at our current temple since the first week of January 2012. We began meeting with our rabbi in February to talk about conversion, and she explained that it involves taking this class. However, when she went to look up when classes began, she found that they began that very day. It was too last minute for us to go that evening, and we knew we would have to miss several other classes as well for our March vacation and my sister's wedding in North Carolina in April. It was frustrating because we were eager, but we decided it would be better to wait than to have to miss three classes. I wanted to do this the right way, and there was no need to rush it.
We then tried to register for summer classes, after months of antsy anticipation on my part. I was very much enjoying services and our monthly meetings with our rabbi, and I was feeling comfortable enough that I was ready to move to the next step. However, we received a cancellation notice within a couple weeks of registering, due to not having enough participants for a summer course. Strangely, our spring had been very busy but we were free all summer. This was a major disappointment, and when I expressed that to Rabbi, she responded by providing us with a book to read together (As a Driven Leaf - an awesome book that will now have to be on hold for months) and started providing some more structure to our meetings so that we could really start learning. I'm very grateful to her for this.
I then registered for the fall class, and while there was one starting September 25, it was with a male rabbi, and I really feel more comfortable with female rabbis. I appreciate the inherent feminist outlook on everything - how can you NOT consider that with pretty much everything you read and do as a woman? A progressive male rabbi may offer something similar, but I feel that it would be coming more from an intellectual place rather than from an implicit understanding of what it means to be a spiritual woman in a religion that historically has been dominated by males. I also come from a Catholic background and have a deep appreciation for the recognition that women can lead and teach, and I want to support that. This was worth pushing it off yet another month and registering for the October 25 class.
So in we went, hopeful, eager, and anxious. I have always been an avid student, and have very much looked forward to taking a class on something so new to me yet something I'm feeling so connected to and passionate about. I was ready to eat it up! For some reason, it had just never occurred to me that it would feel so intensely overwhelming. I almost felt panicky looking at our stack of books and the list of assignments - which we were already behind on from the first class! I also felt a little nervous about the diverse group of students in the room. This should add to the experience (and surely will), but for the time being it makes me a little nervous. People are there for all different reasons, and I feel less connected to them as a group than I thought I would. I'm hoping that will change.
It also felt odd to have a rabbi different from OUR rabbi. This is really the only temple and rabbi we have known, and it's like I forgot that other people have their own rabbis, different rabbis. It's like I expected Rabbi R to be sitting at the front of the room, ready to teach us, and was shocked and unsettled to find a different person there who also called herself Rabbi. Such a childlike perspective!
I'm excited to FINALLY begin this part of the journey. I have been waiting almost a year. I feel so comfortable in our temple and with our rabbi, and I'm ready for this challenge. I'm ready to shake up my discussions with Rabbi R.
So I guess this serves as my first journal entry. We get suggested topics every week, but we don't have to stick to them, and I kind of just ran with this in my own journal. My syllabus is buried in a stack of books and papers from class on the kitchen table, so I'll just end this with two of the questions I remember from this week's topic: what are your hopes or expectations, and what are your concerns or doubts?
My hope is that I will strengthen my bond with this faith that feels like home to me. My hope is that it will open up conversation between my wife and me as we learn new things together. My hope is that what we do every week at temple will start to make even more sense, and that we will be given history and context for our spirituality.
I worry that I will learn things I don't agree with or don't believe. I have some questions that I don't ask because I'm afraid of the answer, and nervous about what it means if I don't agree. There is a lot of flexibility in Reform Judaism which is part of why it feels like such a natural fit for me. There is room to question and disagree. But it's still a concern in the back of my mind.
I hope I can use this newfound time, with tomorrow off of work for the hurricane, to start tackling some of this reading. Feeling overwhelmed can easily immobilize me into procrastination, and I really don't want to let that happen.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Homemade Muesli
About a week ago, I encountered something that changed my life - muesli.
I was rushing through Penn Station from the LIRR to the subway and needed to get breakfast on the way. I stopped in Au Bon Pain and saw nothing but high-calorie pastries and breakfast sandwiches. Then I saw a refrigerated section with yogurt parfaits and muesli. Mildly intrigued, I grabbed the muesli - and it rocked my world. Sweet, raw, filling goodness!!! I ate it three days in a row, even when I wasn't in such a rush and had the option to have breakfast at home. I felt slightly guilty about the packaging I was throwing away and the money I was spending. I also wished it wasn't quite as sweet. So then I thought, "Hmmm, this certainly seems like something I could make at home." It required a bit of preparation, which I can be really lazy about for planning to-go meals in advance, but I couldn't bear to keep buying something so simple and to keep throwing out plastic cups.
Thus began my adventure in muesli-making. I made it this morning and sent my lovely wife off to work with it, a little anxious about how she would like it because I knew it would be mushy and she has issues with textures. She LOVED it. She came home pleading with me to make more for tomorrow. SCORE for cheap, healthy, and yummy!!
Here is my recipe:
Soak a serving size of plain rolled oats in 1/2 cup of milk overnight. Make sure non-citrus fruits of your choice are prepared the night before, cut up and ready to go in. (I used apple and banana.) In the morning, mix in the sliced fruits, dried fruits (we used a craisin, golden raisin, and dried cherry blend from Trader Joe's) for sweetness, nuts (such as almond slivers) for protein if you have them, and brown sugar. Be sparing with the dried fruits, nuts, and sugar, as they are high-calorie; the mixture should be mostly oats and fresh fruit. Use less sugar if you use dried fruits, as they will sweeten it too. Most of the milk will be soaked up, so add more if you prefer the mixture to be more liquidy.
You can change it up (and I just may) by using different fruits (peaches, berries, pears), seeds instead of nuts, honey instead of brown sugar, juice instead of milk. You can really put in anything you think will taste good. The only crucial element is soaking the oats overnight. I think tonight I will also try mixing in the dried fruits ahead of time so that they have time to rehydrate. In the muesli from Au Bon Pain, I had actually thought the cranberries were fresh because they were round and plump, and was surprised to read on the ingredient list that they were dried. I'm hoping a good overnight soak will give them this effect.
I was rushing through Penn Station from the LIRR to the subway and needed to get breakfast on the way. I stopped in Au Bon Pain and saw nothing but high-calorie pastries and breakfast sandwiches. Then I saw a refrigerated section with yogurt parfaits and muesli. Mildly intrigued, I grabbed the muesli - and it rocked my world. Sweet, raw, filling goodness!!! I ate it three days in a row, even when I wasn't in such a rush and had the option to have breakfast at home. I felt slightly guilty about the packaging I was throwing away and the money I was spending. I also wished it wasn't quite as sweet. So then I thought, "Hmmm, this certainly seems like something I could make at home." It required a bit of preparation, which I can be really lazy about for planning to-go meals in advance, but I couldn't bear to keep buying something so simple and to keep throwing out plastic cups.
Thus began my adventure in muesli-making. I made it this morning and sent my lovely wife off to work with it, a little anxious about how she would like it because I knew it would be mushy and she has issues with textures. She LOVED it. She came home pleading with me to make more for tomorrow. SCORE for cheap, healthy, and yummy!!
Here is my recipe:
Soak a serving size of plain rolled oats in 1/2 cup of milk overnight. Make sure non-citrus fruits of your choice are prepared the night before, cut up and ready to go in. (I used apple and banana.) In the morning, mix in the sliced fruits, dried fruits (we used a craisin, golden raisin, and dried cherry blend from Trader Joe's) for sweetness, nuts (such as almond slivers) for protein if you have them, and brown sugar. Be sparing with the dried fruits, nuts, and sugar, as they are high-calorie; the mixture should be mostly oats and fresh fruit. Use less sugar if you use dried fruits, as they will sweeten it too. Most of the milk will be soaked up, so add more if you prefer the mixture to be more liquidy.
You can change it up (and I just may) by using different fruits (peaches, berries, pears), seeds instead of nuts, honey instead of brown sugar, juice instead of milk. You can really put in anything you think will taste good. The only crucial element is soaking the oats overnight. I think tonight I will also try mixing in the dried fruits ahead of time so that they have time to rehydrate. In the muesli from Au Bon Pain, I had actually thought the cranberries were fresh because they were round and plump, and was surprised to read on the ingredient list that they were dried. I'm hoping a good overnight soak will give them this effect.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Catching Up
This post will not be so thoughtful and from the heart because I feel like I mostly just need to give a general update, since I have not posted in a month. This will feel a little more like my old journal, where I mostly just logged events for memory, as opposed to using this as an outlet to think things out as I go along. But right now I need just that, a log, because feeling overwhelmed at all that I've missed zaps away what small bursts of motivation to write I've felt in this last crazy month. So here goes.
1. A week before August ended, after much anxiety at not knowing what would happen, we asked our landlord if we could get out of our lease because we were in contract on a house. He gave us the number for his broker, told us to have him list it, and said that we could leave if the broker could get it rented. This was on a Friday. By the next Tuesday, they had found a renter, but they needed it for September 1 so we would have to be out by Friday night. HOLY COW. We had the option of turning this down, of course, and trying for a September 5, 10, or 15 renter - but the prospective tenants were in a tight spot since the apartment they were supposed to move into had just flooded, and it was difficult for us to give up a sure thing and have to hope we would find someone else later. It was also nice knowing we wouldn't have to pay any more rent and could put away more toward house expenses. So we made it happen. It was a crazy few days, but by Friday night we were in my in-laws' one-bedroom basement apartment, with the vast majority of our furniture and belongings stored in their garage.
2. So here we are! We are waiting for a mortgage commitment, and getting a little anxious because the date stipulated in our contract is fast approaching, but in the meantime it's a pretty comfortable living arrangement. I am LOVING taking the Long Island Railroad in for work every day. It is about 15 minutes longer than my previous commute, but infinitely more comfortable. I only take two trains instead of four, and I almost always have a seat. This means I actually have time to get fully and comfortably absorbed in a book. I cannot wait until I am walking to the Floral Park station instead of Bellerose, going to and from MY HOUSE every day. I'm also loving the neighborhood. It's so pleasant to walk in. I miss our apartment because it was our space together - the first place we lived in as a couple, and as newlyweds. But I don't miss our neighborhood at all, and I think that might be a first for me. I am, however, missing dearly my colleague who lived across the street and with whom I have become so, so close. Our commutes both feel so lonely now, and we desperately try to fill the void by spending more time in each other's offices at work than we ever did before.
3. I celebrated my first Rosh Hashanah earlier this month. I work for a Jewish organization and have always gotten the holidays off, but this is the first year that I haven't just seen them as freebie days. I thought I would resent that - but I didn't. I so enjoyed the services and the sense of community and celebration. I enjoyed thinking of the New Year as the birthday of the world, and connecting that to a chance to start fresh as people. I am struggling with my choices around food, so I resolved to make a small, realistic change for now in order to get on a better track. I resolved to take better care of this body I've been given by not putting trash into it. This does not mean everything I eat will be healthy (though ideally it would). It means specifically that I will work to avoid overly processed foods. When I'm craving a crunchy, salty snack, a bag of Lay's potato chips has the ingredients potatoes, oil, and salt, whereas a bag of Cheetos has so many I can't count, nor can I pronounce most of them. So the choice would be clear. Should I regularly devour bags of Lay's then, because it's less processed? Of course not. Limiting junk food in general and being careful around portion control is very important, and I will continue to try to be aware of this. But I know that in order to be successful, I need to set achievable goals and start small. I will choose chicken, rice, and beans from the Dominican restaurant near work instead of McDonald's. I will choose ice cream instead of cartons labeled "frozen dairy dessert" (you have to check with different flavors from the same brand).
4. Last week was my first Yom Kippur. This is the Jewish Day of Atonement, and boy was it work! Fasting from sundown to sundown was the least of it. We went to every single service, which we had not originally planned, and it was excruciatingly exhausting. When I mentioned this to a couple of Jewish friends and colleagues, they said we were crazy, and that they never go to all of them. But not only did we feel the need to know what they all were, we also needed structure for the day since this was new to us. It's supposed to be a solemn day, though there is certainly joy in forgiving and being forgiven, and what would we be doing at home to mark it? You're not really supposed to be having fun while asking God for forgiveness, so what would we do without playing on the computer or watching TV? Would we pray by ourselves all day, or read Torah? And if that's the case, then why not actually go to services? The first was Tuesday night from 8:00-10:30 PM, then Wednesday 10:00 AM-12:30 PM, then 4:00-5:15 PM, then 5:15-6:15 PM, then 6:15-7:00PM, followed by a breaking of the fast. The prayers really helped focus me, and pointed toward things I would not even think of as sins, things we are all guilty of - neglecting or turning our eyes from someone that needs us, for example, or exaggerating a truth for our own benefit. It was really thought provoking. We were also challenged to apologize, make peace, and offer restitution where we have gone wrong. We heard many times that God offers immediate forgiveness for wrongs against God, just by asking, but that where we have wronged others, we can only atone by making peace with them. I love the extremely difficult challenge in this. And I put it into practice by writing an apology note to a former friend with whom I had not spoken in three years. In my initial message, I did not offer excuses nor point out her part in it, but simply apologized for my role in how our friendship ended, the actions for which I was responsible, and the things I wish I had handled differently. She immediately responded with acknowledgement of the courage she knew it took me to write that, and with ownership of HER role in the situation. It was a powerful feeling, and I will never forget how my first Yom Kippur changed my life.
5. On a much lighter note, my brother got married on September 9th in Las Vegas. We had six weeks' notice of their nuptials, because they were not expecting our attendance but simply giving us the option, and of course we all wanted to go. My sister and I left our spouses at home and bunked with my parents to make the last-minute trip more affordable. My brother and his wife had a whirlwind romance, becoming engaged three weeks after their first date and getting married five months after that. I met her at my sister's wedding, a couple of days after they had gotten engaged, and was skeptical and cautious, protective of my brother whose heart had just been shattered the previous December. This trip to Vegas gave me a much-needed opportunity to spend more time getting to know her and to watch her relationship with my brother. I can tell she is genuinely in love with my brother, and it is amazing to see. She is a down-to-earth, goofy girl who is a great fit in our family, and I wish them both all the best.
1. A week before August ended, after much anxiety at not knowing what would happen, we asked our landlord if we could get out of our lease because we were in contract on a house. He gave us the number for his broker, told us to have him list it, and said that we could leave if the broker could get it rented. This was on a Friday. By the next Tuesday, they had found a renter, but they needed it for September 1 so we would have to be out by Friday night. HOLY COW. We had the option of turning this down, of course, and trying for a September 5, 10, or 15 renter - but the prospective tenants were in a tight spot since the apartment they were supposed to move into had just flooded, and it was difficult for us to give up a sure thing and have to hope we would find someone else later. It was also nice knowing we wouldn't have to pay any more rent and could put away more toward house expenses. So we made it happen. It was a crazy few days, but by Friday night we were in my in-laws' one-bedroom basement apartment, with the vast majority of our furniture and belongings stored in their garage.
2. So here we are! We are waiting for a mortgage commitment, and getting a little anxious because the date stipulated in our contract is fast approaching, but in the meantime it's a pretty comfortable living arrangement. I am LOVING taking the Long Island Railroad in for work every day. It is about 15 minutes longer than my previous commute, but infinitely more comfortable. I only take two trains instead of four, and I almost always have a seat. This means I actually have time to get fully and comfortably absorbed in a book. I cannot wait until I am walking to the Floral Park station instead of Bellerose, going to and from MY HOUSE every day. I'm also loving the neighborhood. It's so pleasant to walk in. I miss our apartment because it was our space together - the first place we lived in as a couple, and as newlyweds. But I don't miss our neighborhood at all, and I think that might be a first for me. I am, however, missing dearly my colleague who lived across the street and with whom I have become so, so close. Our commutes both feel so lonely now, and we desperately try to fill the void by spending more time in each other's offices at work than we ever did before.
3. I celebrated my first Rosh Hashanah earlier this month. I work for a Jewish organization and have always gotten the holidays off, but this is the first year that I haven't just seen them as freebie days. I thought I would resent that - but I didn't. I so enjoyed the services and the sense of community and celebration. I enjoyed thinking of the New Year as the birthday of the world, and connecting that to a chance to start fresh as people. I am struggling with my choices around food, so I resolved to make a small, realistic change for now in order to get on a better track. I resolved to take better care of this body I've been given by not putting trash into it. This does not mean everything I eat will be healthy (though ideally it would). It means specifically that I will work to avoid overly processed foods. When I'm craving a crunchy, salty snack, a bag of Lay's potato chips has the ingredients potatoes, oil, and salt, whereas a bag of Cheetos has so many I can't count, nor can I pronounce most of them. So the choice would be clear. Should I regularly devour bags of Lay's then, because it's less processed? Of course not. Limiting junk food in general and being careful around portion control is very important, and I will continue to try to be aware of this. But I know that in order to be successful, I need to set achievable goals and start small. I will choose chicken, rice, and beans from the Dominican restaurant near work instead of McDonald's. I will choose ice cream instead of cartons labeled "frozen dairy dessert" (you have to check with different flavors from the same brand).
4. Last week was my first Yom Kippur. This is the Jewish Day of Atonement, and boy was it work! Fasting from sundown to sundown was the least of it. We went to every single service, which we had not originally planned, and it was excruciatingly exhausting. When I mentioned this to a couple of Jewish friends and colleagues, they said we were crazy, and that they never go to all of them. But not only did we feel the need to know what they all were, we also needed structure for the day since this was new to us. It's supposed to be a solemn day, though there is certainly joy in forgiving and being forgiven, and what would we be doing at home to mark it? You're not really supposed to be having fun while asking God for forgiveness, so what would we do without playing on the computer or watching TV? Would we pray by ourselves all day, or read Torah? And if that's the case, then why not actually go to services? The first was Tuesday night from 8:00-10:30 PM, then Wednesday 10:00 AM-12:30 PM, then 4:00-5:15 PM, then 5:15-6:15 PM, then 6:15-7:00PM, followed by a breaking of the fast. The prayers really helped focus me, and pointed toward things I would not even think of as sins, things we are all guilty of - neglecting or turning our eyes from someone that needs us, for example, or exaggerating a truth for our own benefit. It was really thought provoking. We were also challenged to apologize, make peace, and offer restitution where we have gone wrong. We heard many times that God offers immediate forgiveness for wrongs against God, just by asking, but that where we have wronged others, we can only atone by making peace with them. I love the extremely difficult challenge in this. And I put it into practice by writing an apology note to a former friend with whom I had not spoken in three years. In my initial message, I did not offer excuses nor point out her part in it, but simply apologized for my role in how our friendship ended, the actions for which I was responsible, and the things I wish I had handled differently. She immediately responded with acknowledgement of the courage she knew it took me to write that, and with ownership of HER role in the situation. It was a powerful feeling, and I will never forget how my first Yom Kippur changed my life.
5. On a much lighter note, my brother got married on September 9th in Las Vegas. We had six weeks' notice of their nuptials, because they were not expecting our attendance but simply giving us the option, and of course we all wanted to go. My sister and I left our spouses at home and bunked with my parents to make the last-minute trip more affordable. My brother and his wife had a whirlwind romance, becoming engaged three weeks after their first date and getting married five months after that. I met her at my sister's wedding, a couple of days after they had gotten engaged, and was skeptical and cautious, protective of my brother whose heart had just been shattered the previous December. This trip to Vegas gave me a much-needed opportunity to spend more time getting to know her and to watch her relationship with my brother. I can tell she is genuinely in love with my brother, and it is amazing to see. She is a down-to-earth, goofy girl who is a great fit in our family, and I wish them both all the best.
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