The older I get, the more sure I am that life really is just a series of hoops--hoops we choose to, or have to, jump through (or not). I'm not being pessimistic or minimizing so many of my decisions, just realizing that hoops are what I have encountered, sometimes like medicine that I have to swallow in order to get on with it all.
School poses the most amount of hoops. As a student, I jumped through them all. Classes I didn't want to take but had to in order to progress onto the next level or complete my major. Assignments I had to complete in which I had no strong passion for the material, all hoops! But I did it all--I jumped through each one because I saw the 'prize,' which was the diploma, the degree, the celebration, the end of my formal education. A huge hoop for me that I refused to jump through was anything related to math. Actually, I am quite good after all in math, but I lacked the confidence in myself. In picking a major, I leafed through the university catalog to find the one major that didn't require any math at the time. Linguistics! Studying five languages was a fair trade for no math. I avoided the big hoop in my life...the fear of math only to have it hit me during my doctoral studies--statistics. Another valuable lesson....sometimes we just can't avoid the hoops even when we try. They either meet us when we're young, or get us when we're older.
I see my own students struggling with their hoops--often fighting against them with such humility and perseverance. Many can't afford their books, have two jobs to make ends meet, help their families financially, have no transportation, not even supportive shoes on their walking journeys throughout the city. I tell them, "Life is a series of hoops and you can just decide to jump through them or ignore them." Some show a recognition of my metaphor; some believe I am referring to basketball, and some are sleeping with their eyes open.
I have come to see that hoops really are there for the ones who are ready, the ones who have decided that they want what they want so badly that they will swallow everything--their own voices and even their pride, temporarily, in order to comply. These are the students whose 'light bulbs' have gone off and who know that they need what I have to teach them. Simple as that. Thus, the hoops that I once jumped through in college are now ones that I provide. However, my goal is to provide students with meaning and enjoyment, as much as formalized, required writing can be enjoyed. Dr. Jaffe's hoops. Hoops attached to learning and growing, with no ego-driven power over them. The ones I jumped through were often the busy work of egotistical professors. I would like to think that mine are the new kinder, gentler hoops--hoops with collateral learning--so students can learn writing while they learn about themselves and their own hoops.
The hoops of parenthood are varied and countless. Ironically, these hoops aren't for my kids to jump through, but for me to leap through, often tripping and sometimes falling, but always getting back up. Believe me, there were days that I just wanted to stay 'down.' I have actually thought that the largest hoops as a parent are the following (not counting pregnancy and childbirth): sleeplessness; chicken pox; toilet training; and driver's licenses. I have horrors about all four of these 'big ticket items.' But like with everything in our lives, we survive and keep going, no sooner finishing the jump when another presents itself. We want our kids to be happy, healthy, have friends, do well in school, so we are creating more of our own hoops while they are jumping through theirs, which might be very different than our own, resulting in the push and pull of the generations. I want to pick my kids up when they trip through or even over their hoops, but I know I can't, especially since they are grown men. I'm on the sidelines, now, as I should be, cheering from afar, praying they will decide to jump when they are ready, hoping they know I'll always be there.
The strange thing about hoops is that we don't really know they exist until we review our lives with our greatly earned hindsight--earned through our own countless hoops.
Monday, December 26, 2016
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Reflections on Waiting
It sometimes feels as if I have spent 50% of my life waiting--waiting for people, events, movies to begin...pretty much anything that requires time. The bottom line is, I am always early, and, thus, much of my waiting is self-inflicted. Being early or late likens to the comparison of being a Republican or a Democrat. Most people are one or the other (not including 3rd party, etc....). Being on time, in a sense, has become almost like a religion, as I practice it throughout my days. I can no sooner be late than become a gorilla. On the occasional time that I am running a little late (no more than 5 minutes), I begin to breathe heavily and panic. I know this is a problem and would love to be late once just so I could know that I won't melt, but being on time comes from eons of programming from long ago and a genetic component. The 'late gene' in my family was completely missing.
My father Milton was famous for getting to places early and because we were a family, we were, by proxy, all early. It wasn't a stretch to say that we arrived at a wedding before the bridal party (well, sometimes they were there but were taking pictures). At various funerals, we also arrived before the casket. We always arrived early for our dinner and hotel reservations, often both the table and rooms still occupied by the previous 'owners.' My father would have a very jovial way of starting our early journey by telling both my mother and me to take our time, but we knew what this really meant. While we were getting dressed, my father was in the front seat of the car, with the motor running. It was impossible not to rush, knowing gasoline was burning. So began my indoctrination into obsessive time management.
When we went on our annual vacation to Palm Springs, we had to pack ahead of time, so my mother wouldn't get nervous (she was a stickler for time, too). In fact, we packed up to two weeks ahead of the trip. During those two weeks, my mother would often say, "You are wearing that outfit again?" Clearly, over the course of 14 days, everything I had worth wearing was already packed in my suitcase. The night before we were ready to leave, my father performed his 'dry run routine' of packing the trunk of the car with our suitcases. Once he knew they would fit together like a puzzle (based on his schema that he had drawn), he would remove the luggage from the trunk and stack the suitcases in the garage to await the official packing the next day.
I have rebelled over the years and consequently, when going on a trip, I pack the night before or even the day of! I know I am living dangerously. I also don't think it should be a surprise to myself or to others that, in a sense, I married my father with regards to 'the time issue.' My time-sensitive husband Paul is incredibly early/prompt for engagements, travel, movies, theater, and get-togethers. We have spent many minutes sitting in the car outside our destination, as it is too early to enter--embarrassingly too early. The Kindle has saved my sanity, for now I have reading material in my purse when we are too early. The back lit Kindle case enables me to read in darkened theaters, too, as we wait for the advertisements to come across the silent screen (we are so early, that there is nothing playing...not even music). Now that many theaters have reserved seating, I thought that we wouldn't have to arrive so early, but we still do because of parking. I really can't complain because I also like to wait in the theater instead of at home. And it's true; parking in Los Angeles is horrible and if we don't get to the theater complex early, then there are slim pickings in the parking lot. Still, there is a part of me that envies those who arrive at their movies just as the coming attractions are finished and the movie is beginning. This would be my version of jumping out of an airplane--without a parachute.
Still, I have embraced arriving early over the years, to the point that I really can't blame my father or my husband. The genetic component of 'being on time' is deeply embedded in my DNA and I take responsibility for this character trait. I am early for my own engagements and my own meetings, yet I am planning on being late to my own funeral.
My father Milton was famous for getting to places early and because we were a family, we were, by proxy, all early. It wasn't a stretch to say that we arrived at a wedding before the bridal party (well, sometimes they were there but were taking pictures). At various funerals, we also arrived before the casket. We always arrived early for our dinner and hotel reservations, often both the table and rooms still occupied by the previous 'owners.' My father would have a very jovial way of starting our early journey by telling both my mother and me to take our time, but we knew what this really meant. While we were getting dressed, my father was in the front seat of the car, with the motor running. It was impossible not to rush, knowing gasoline was burning. So began my indoctrination into obsessive time management.
When we went on our annual vacation to Palm Springs, we had to pack ahead of time, so my mother wouldn't get nervous (she was a stickler for time, too). In fact, we packed up to two weeks ahead of the trip. During those two weeks, my mother would often say, "You are wearing that outfit again?" Clearly, over the course of 14 days, everything I had worth wearing was already packed in my suitcase. The night before we were ready to leave, my father performed his 'dry run routine' of packing the trunk of the car with our suitcases. Once he knew they would fit together like a puzzle (based on his schema that he had drawn), he would remove the luggage from the trunk and stack the suitcases in the garage to await the official packing the next day.
I have rebelled over the years and consequently, when going on a trip, I pack the night before or even the day of! I know I am living dangerously. I also don't think it should be a surprise to myself or to others that, in a sense, I married my father with regards to 'the time issue.' My time-sensitive husband Paul is incredibly early/prompt for engagements, travel, movies, theater, and get-togethers. We have spent many minutes sitting in the car outside our destination, as it is too early to enter--embarrassingly too early. The Kindle has saved my sanity, for now I have reading material in my purse when we are too early. The back lit Kindle case enables me to read in darkened theaters, too, as we wait for the advertisements to come across the silent screen (we are so early, that there is nothing playing...not even music). Now that many theaters have reserved seating, I thought that we wouldn't have to arrive so early, but we still do because of parking. I really can't complain because I also like to wait in the theater instead of at home. And it's true; parking in Los Angeles is horrible and if we don't get to the theater complex early, then there are slim pickings in the parking lot. Still, there is a part of me that envies those who arrive at their movies just as the coming attractions are finished and the movie is beginning. This would be my version of jumping out of an airplane--without a parachute.
Still, I have embraced arriving early over the years, to the point that I really can't blame my father or my husband. The genetic component of 'being on time' is deeply embedded in my DNA and I take responsibility for this character trait. I am early for my own engagements and my own meetings, yet I am planning on being late to my own funeral.
Monday, December 5, 2016
Loss and Longing
I was only half-listening to a song on the radio, yet a wave of sadness overcame me for the loss of my father. The song had nothing to do with my dad nor did my mood, as I was content and even joyful before the song played. Grief is like this. I am at the market, picking grapes to place into my cart and immediately I am taken back to my childhood, shopping with Dad. He is not only selecting the grapes, but he is eating them. "You can't do that, Daddy. That's stealing." Today, I smile with a bittersweet memory, enveloped with loss and longing, wishing he could eat the grapes again regardless of the theft.
I am shopping, the activity that my mother and I shared so peacefully. So many times I want to say, "Mom, I bought a great pair of shoes" or "You have to hear about the deal I got on this jacket." Of course, I can think that she knows, being somewhere way above me, but the loss and the longing exist within me and suddenly I am taken on a journey through time right back to my mother's bed, where she spent so much time, whether healthy or ill. A comforting block of sheets, spongy mattress, and bags of chips and candy, entwined with newspapers and a bookmarked good read. How could I be at a department store and suddenly end up in my mother's bedroom? How can this happen after 2 1/2 years without her? This is my version of grief and loss. Again, I am at peace, sipping a cup of coffee as I walk through a store and suddenly I am brought back to sharing space with my mother. "I'll buy you the coffee. Here's the money. I'll go sit down and wait for you." Except, I am alone and no one is waiting for me.
When I enter Starbucks, it's not really the coffee I desire, but the recreated memories I had with my dear, dear friend Marion, who died so young and left so many. We would meet at our nearby Starbucks, calling it our 'office.' Sometimes it was for 30 minutes, but it was enough time to establish "our table" and within the space, we were taken into the conversational world of adult girlfriends: husbands, motherhood, finding a balance, freedom. Grief overtakes me as I wait to pay, remembering how one of us would save the table and the other would wait in line. I search the tables, looking for her, even after eight years, ridiculous, but longing places tricks on me; I slowly walk out with the mediocre brew , trying to capture the loving connection of the living we once had, knowing it is forever lost with my Marion.
How is is possible that the loss I feel for my grandmother, my Nana Bea, who helped raise me and died 27 years ago, can be as fresh as a recent loss? I hear her voice within me, reminding me to get back on course when I have slipped. We shared our hearts and our similarities in personality, as I often felt closer to her than to my mother. Nana understood me, even during my teenage years, so when I feel misunderstood today, my thoughts and my heart return to the safety of my grandmother who needed none of my words to know how I felt. She never told me she understood, but I knew she did.
I don't have the same feelings of loss and longing for my own years that have passed with such speed. I have spent them well and exhausted both my time and myself. I am thankful for them and don't wish them back. I don't want to be 20, 30, 45, or even 50 again. I did them and did them well, or at least the best I could. I am at the age when some people die of natural causes, whatever that means. I am okay with this and don't wallow in regrets or missed opportunities. No loss here. The grief catches, though, not in my own longing for these years, but for those who traveled with me, for my dearest first canine Teddy, who helped me from young motherhood to a seasoned blend of experience and knowing. The animals and people I will never have with me, yet who are always within. Perhaps, then, the function of my loss is a rekindling of all that I hold dear, a reminder that I still need all of the people and the experiences within me on my journey ahead. They are a song away; a grape away; a cup of coffee away; a good bargain away, as is my loss and longing for them all.
My loss is on a continuum, where at times it is deep within and protected, barely felt, yet a falling leaf, a stop sign, my book, a glass of water, can catch the latch of my grief, opening its door. At these moments, I feel so real, so complete, and while devastated, I know I have had a depth of quality having shared my years with those to whom I say goodbye again and again. This is my loss and longing and my love.
I am shopping, the activity that my mother and I shared so peacefully. So many times I want to say, "Mom, I bought a great pair of shoes" or "You have to hear about the deal I got on this jacket." Of course, I can think that she knows, being somewhere way above me, but the loss and the longing exist within me and suddenly I am taken on a journey through time right back to my mother's bed, where she spent so much time, whether healthy or ill. A comforting block of sheets, spongy mattress, and bags of chips and candy, entwined with newspapers and a bookmarked good read. How could I be at a department store and suddenly end up in my mother's bedroom? How can this happen after 2 1/2 years without her? This is my version of grief and loss. Again, I am at peace, sipping a cup of coffee as I walk through a store and suddenly I am brought back to sharing space with my mother. "I'll buy you the coffee. Here's the money. I'll go sit down and wait for you." Except, I am alone and no one is waiting for me.
When I enter Starbucks, it's not really the coffee I desire, but the recreated memories I had with my dear, dear friend Marion, who died so young and left so many. We would meet at our nearby Starbucks, calling it our 'office.' Sometimes it was for 30 minutes, but it was enough time to establish "our table" and within the space, we were taken into the conversational world of adult girlfriends: husbands, motherhood, finding a balance, freedom. Grief overtakes me as I wait to pay, remembering how one of us would save the table and the other would wait in line. I search the tables, looking for her, even after eight years, ridiculous, but longing places tricks on me; I slowly walk out with the mediocre brew , trying to capture the loving connection of the living we once had, knowing it is forever lost with my Marion.
How is is possible that the loss I feel for my grandmother, my Nana Bea, who helped raise me and died 27 years ago, can be as fresh as a recent loss? I hear her voice within me, reminding me to get back on course when I have slipped. We shared our hearts and our similarities in personality, as I often felt closer to her than to my mother. Nana understood me, even during my teenage years, so when I feel misunderstood today, my thoughts and my heart return to the safety of my grandmother who needed none of my words to know how I felt. She never told me she understood, but I knew she did.
I don't have the same feelings of loss and longing for my own years that have passed with such speed. I have spent them well and exhausted both my time and myself. I am thankful for them and don't wish them back. I don't want to be 20, 30, 45, or even 50 again. I did them and did them well, or at least the best I could. I am at the age when some people die of natural causes, whatever that means. I am okay with this and don't wallow in regrets or missed opportunities. No loss here. The grief catches, though, not in my own longing for these years, but for those who traveled with me, for my dearest first canine Teddy, who helped me from young motherhood to a seasoned blend of experience and knowing. The animals and people I will never have with me, yet who are always within. Perhaps, then, the function of my loss is a rekindling of all that I hold dear, a reminder that I still need all of the people and the experiences within me on my journey ahead. They are a song away; a grape away; a cup of coffee away; a good bargain away, as is my loss and longing for them all.
My loss is on a continuum, where at times it is deep within and protected, barely felt, yet a falling leaf, a stop sign, my book, a glass of water, can catch the latch of my grief, opening its door. At these moments, I feel so real, so complete, and while devastated, I know I have had a depth of quality having shared my years with those to whom I say goodbye again and again. This is my loss and longing and my love.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Author Barbara Jaffe, like millions of other children, understood by the age of ten that if her brother hadn’t died, she would not have been born. When her parents contemplated a life for her surviving brother, Stephen, they decided that he should have a replacement for his deceased brother, so Barbara was born. Barbara’s mother was thrilled to have had a girl after two boys, and while she claimed she was elated to have a daughter, her actions often reflected otherwise, for, like many replacement children, Barbara’s gender was in stark contrast to the little boy they had loved and lost. On the one hand, her mother frequently reminded her that a daughter was special, but Barbara felt that she never seemed to live up to the model her mother envisioned for her daughter. She always fell short. And falling short—never being adequate, satisfactory, “enough”--became the subtext of her life as she moved from childhood through adulthood. With each pivotal occasion in her life—graduation, marriage, motherhood, graduate school, career, Barbara paid a price with silence. In time, Barbara learned that she had to fix the broken pieces within herself in order to help anyone else; she had to at least identify her lost sense of self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth. All of these “selves” had been stunted; now, they needed to be nurtured, not by others, but by Barbara herself. Barbara has worked tirelessly to strengthen her inner core, and has finally found her voice. When Will I Be Good Enough? is the first memoir focused on the emotional issues of the Replacement Child Syndrome by a replacement child. However, what has come to light is that there are many other categories of “replacement children” who feel the same way. Adopted children are often expected to “replace” a couple’s not-to-be-born, natural child. Survivors of 9/11 and contemporary terrorism/trauma are another category of “replacement children” who feel they must live up to the potential of those who did not survive. Many struggle with issues of self-confidence, self-esteem, self-worth and overall identity issues. Through her book, Barbara looks forward to helping others pursue a full and honorable life, one they can pass on to their children and then, to future generations. While the circumstances of her birth reflect her position as the replacement child, today she chooses to view herself as the unique individual she is – a replacement child no more!
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