Back to the Past

Today's fashion trends has me laughing. 

You know how in Back to the Future, when Marty ends up 30 years in the past, in 1955, and everything is beyond recognition and comprehension? 

So if Marty took the Delorian back 30 years from 2025 to 1995 (God, I'm old) he would see that—

Not THAT much of a difference. 

OK, cell phones aren't around yet, and he would actually have to use a paper map, but the fashions are the same. 

And, well? '90s fashion kinda sucked. 

Floor length denim skirts? 

Platform shoes? 

The long, blocky blazer? 

They're baaaa-aaaaack. 

Skater jeans? Why? 

I can't find anything to wear. 

I'm going to have to wait this out for another few years. Now, the 2010s? THAT was fashion.   

"Rabbis and Wives"

Back in May, the NY Times Book Review rhapsodized over Sons and Daughters, a very posthumous English publication of a Yiddish serial by Chaim Grade. 

Chaim Grade (pronounced Grah-deh) was a Yiddish writer of great renown, to the point when Isaac Bashevis Singer won the Nobel for literature, many in the Yiddish community thought it should have gone to Grade. 

Grade died in 1982, and his widow refused to release any of his papers; after her death in 2010, his documents were pounced upon, and a Yiddish serial that had yet to be translated and published was dusted off and made ready. 

I don't like fighting other library patrons for new releases, so I requested an older Grade book, Rabbis and Wives. It's a series of three novellas, each depicting a very certain type of rabbi: a humble, learned, compassionate man, who eschews a shteler because he cannot bear to tell the poor women of the community that her chicken is not kosher, nor does he want to be embroiled in local disputes. This rabbi is not recognized by many for his holiness, but he doesn't care, obviously. 

Grade vividly depicts a world that was, down to the women's fashions and styling of male facial hair. He describes the children chafing against the ideology of their parents—including the debate if the Land of Israel should be settled by Jews now (Mizrachis) or if Moshiach should come first (Agudahniks). 

The level of detail is mesmerizing, to the point I have no idea how non-observant Jews or non-Jews could possibly chap this universe. One visual made me laugh out loud: the young people are inappropriately taking boat rides down the river on Shabbos, boys and girls cavorting together, however, of course they would not smoke in the streets on Shabbos, for: "they come from good families, after all." 

I had not expected a book such a this, and pulled up his Wiki entry. Apparently, he had learned in Novoardik, and seven years under the Chazon Ish. Rabbis and Wives is dedicated to the wife of the Chazon Ish! Despite the fact that Grade left observance, he apparently maintained a great respect for the rabbinate and his own Rav.  

Grade's mother and first wife were killed in the Holocaust; they remained while he fled, believing that women and children wouldn't be harmed by the Nazis. He tends not to address the war in his books; they are mainly time capsules. 

Here, one can truly envision what life was like before the war; what the shul politics were, what the marriages were like, how children behaved (gotta say, kinda badly). The perspective isn't narrow through one narrator, so one can see the whole picture. 

I think I'm gonna buy Sons and Daughters. 

The Wise Elder

Maggie Anton takes great fictional liberties in her Rashi's Daughters trilogy, but there is a depiction therein that I still think about, a year or so after reading it. 

Rashi came from a family of vintners, but he was away at yeshiva for many years before returning to the family home. His widowed mother ran the show.

He dutifully toils in the fields with the others, but in terms of agricultural strategy, his mother is the one with the experience. So if the rains came too early or too late, she knows what to do in order to salvage the crop. 

As Book 1: Yocheved, continues, Rashi's mother begins to suffer from cognitive decline. Yet even in dementia, the family still turn for her knowledge when it comes what to do with the grapes. Even when mentally disadvantaged, her experience is still sought after and respected. 

In a time when the science of agriculture—all of science, rather—stayed the same for hundreds of years, the wisdom of elders was valued and respected. They saw many years of bad weather, which would result in a bad harvest. Yet in their old ages, they would know what to do to at least make out the year with something rather than nothing. 

Yet as technology advanced to the point that the new becomes old in a matter of months, not centuries, that once valuable experience became obsolete. The reverence of the aged became scorn. 

I'm not elderly yet, but as I am almost 40, I'm noticing a shift. Younger people use unfamiliar slang that doesn't feel natural to me (I still say "awesome" and "dude"; I have no idea how to use "salty" organically except in terms of food). When I pass by 20-somethings on the street, I realize now I'm not their contemporary anymore. Han is just a few years older than me but other guys his age are marrying off children, while our oldest is six. 

I've become that crotchety complainer by weddings. "The music is too loud. Do you have ear plugs?" "This is how the kids are dancing nowadays? Shrieking and jumping? This isn't dancing!" "Can we leave yet?" 

I've also become aware how important life experience is. It's not the new features on the phone that matters. It's about learning from one's mistakes, doing better, being willing to recalibrate. It's about understanding what is important, what should be priorities. It's about the values we carry and try to pass on. It's about so much more than technology. 

I've already resigned myself to a future witnessing eye-rolls in response to whatever I say, but that'll just be the youth not getting it. 

Some More Trauma Talk

You'll have to bear with while I squeeze this topic to death; I was obsessed with this article when I first read it, and reread it more than once. 

To continue: 

Around the time the piece came out, Han was listening to Edith Eger's The Choice (he likes Audible). Edith Eger is a Hungarian survivor, but she didn't practice a particularly religious life; when she came to America, she tried to deny her experiences, attempting to make herself as American as possible (but I must say, her attempts to beat the Hungarian inflection from her speech was not successful). 

She didn't want to be identified as a survivor. Han noted that her experience must have been different from that of our grandparents, who dwelt in a religious community who were primarily survivors. My grandmother's idea of small talk was "So, where were you in the war?" 

I guess that's the logic of support groups. Being amongst other people who have also dealt with your experience can help us bear the burden. 

After first reading the article, I had felt this burning need to track down Brodesser-Akner and pour out to her my own story. She'll understand! And yet I know that sometimes sharing pain is not what some want to do. 

Rachel Goldberg-Polin wrote an article following Hersh's murder that, in essence, begs people to not approach her with their pain:

When my girls and I are having a moment walking, breathing and smiling, and someone stops us and starts crying, they are robbing us of a moment of respite from the horror we are digesting. When I am walking alone, with a hat, sunglasses and my head down, it is me saying, “Please, oh please, let me breathe for a moment without having to also carry your pain. Your pain is as real as mine, but I have no strength at the moment to carry yours too. I love you and am endlessly grateful for you loving Hersh. I love you for loving the hostage families. I love you for trying to help. But please, if you want to help me, let me go on walking. When you see me and our eyes cross paths, please, oh please, just smile and wave. My knees are buckling from all the wounds people are sharing. I am just not formidable and powerful enough. Not yet.” 

Sometimes we do have to sit with our discomfort, and gauge first whether others are willing to share that pain. People are often at different stages of their grief journey, and maybe they can't always go there.

Another comment to Brodesser-Akner was how sometimes in our need to fight the trauma, it can negatively overtake our lives. The commenter said that her mother also had a traumatic birthing experience, and became a focused advocate of home birth. Yet, her daughter said, her book writing and agenda so overtook all that her children were neglected. This reaction to her trauma may have seemed healthy—after all, she's fighting for change—but it in turn traumatized her children. 

We also have to be mindful of collateral damage, which can happen in numerous ways. 

The article ends off that Brodesser-Akner concludes with this awareness:

It happened. It will never not have happened . . . after all your attempts at healing—when you finally realize that you are forever changed—you can allow yourself to embrace your trauma. You survive what happened to you, then you survive your survival, and then the gift you're given is that you fall in love with your whole life, inextricable from the bad thing that happened to you. 

It's sort of like with people. We sometimes wish that a person in our life was a little less this and a little more that, but people are an entire being; you can't pick and choose what parts we want to keep and what parts not. 

It's not that the stories of our lives are stuck in only one point in time. Our grandparents accepted their experiences, but they didn't allow them to define their lives. It was but one year amongst many. 

I sometimes meet young, bright things, who haven't yet hit that inevitable bump in the road, and I know how small their perception of life is. Because knowing grief, I feel, gives me a more complete perception of the human experience. Before, it was narrow and shallow; now, while it may be more painful, it is more accurate and true.

The Very Ordue Continuation of Trauma

To preface, my kids go bonkers when I take out the laptop and gleefully try to push as many keys as possible. So yes, I know this is ridiculously late for a follow-up. 

After I read Brodesser-Akner's article—twice—I found myself sifting eagerly through the comment section. Did anyone else find this article mind-blowing? Please? 

This is still the internet, so some missed the point entirely. One had snippily typed that she had experienced the same unasked-for procedure during childbirth, as well as sexual assault, and in no way were they comparable. 

No one was saying they were comparable, moron. She was saying that trauma is trauma, and it's not a matter of what others consider valid and invalid. 

But most of the letters applauded the article, and some took it further. 

One commented a truth: That when Jack Teich was kidnapped, everyone agreed this was a very bad thing to the point the government mobilized to help. In the case of Brodesser-Akner's childbirth trauma, she was alone. Very few people believed her or validated her. Many probably—like the above commenter—belittled her experience as being "no big deal." That can certainly exacerbate the trauma into attendant feelings of shame.

"Sherry" posted that after she was traumatized, she was told by the therapist that she eventually consulted to talk about it as much as she could and cry as much as she wanted. However, the people around her were impatient: "It was so long ago. Why don't you get over it already?" She thought she was crazy. Then a chance encounter with a stranger who went through the same: "You will never get over it and they will never understand." 

That is what I learned after Ma died: If they haven't been through the same, people don't understand. They don't understand that grief leaves a permanent mark. 

I watched a clip on Meaningful Minute's Stories of Hope about a widow who remarried. She said that no one gets over grief; she will be talking about it for a long time. So if you want to be there for your friend in their time of need, you better be willing to listen to them talk about it forever. 

"Michael" posted that empathy is so important. For some people, they can't "choose" to move on. (I personally don't think people move on, I think they're just really good at compartmentalizing.) Support and kindness is the best that can be done.

Trauma is Trauma

Is anyone still here? 

I would perfectly understand if you've moved on. Obviously, I haven't been blogging.

It's not that I don't want to. It's that, to me, this annus horribilis has made my usual observations . . . petty. It has made most of the happenings in my life . . . inconsequential. 

How can I get upset about anything? How can I even write about anything, at all, when anything at all is so obviously trivial in the face of the suffering others have to bear? 

So even though I've had thoughts and observations, I couldn't bring myself to blog about them. It felt insensitive, for being too mundane. 

But then, a few months ago, "The Kidnapping I Can't Escape" by Taffy Brodesser-Akner was printed in the magazine section. I like her as a writer, and the article did not go where I thought it would. 

It begins with a retelling of a harrowing ordeal from 1974. Her neighbor, Jack Teich, was kidnapped from his driveway. During his nightmare, the kidnappers claimed they were for the Palestinian cause, but was later discovered to be a disgruntled ex-employee. Unbelievably, Jack was freed after the ransom was paid—which rarely occurs. 

As friends with his children, Akner thought of him as fine. He was fine, right? He went back to work. He went on with his life. He was fine.

Then the article shifts, much to the reader's puzzlement, as Akner describes the birth of her first child. I think every woman out there who has been in the same position of vulnerability and agony felt her experience. After hours of labor, the doctor performed a procedure on her—without her knowledge or consent—to speed up the process. 

When she returned home, she was a wreck. She describes, in excruciating detail, how she unspooled. Most assumed it was post-partum depression, but eventually another therapist informed her it was PTSD: she was traumatized. 

What followed then was shame. Other people go through trauma, she wondered, and they're fine. They're fine. How am I not fine, too? So she made sure that, at least, she appeared to be fine.

Then Akner was working on a novel, inspired in a way by her neighbor's kidnapping, and asked to meet him to discuss his experience. She didn't think anything of it; he was fine, after all, right? 

When she arrives, she sees how he carefully unlocks the door, then relocks it when she comes in. His property is under 24-hour security. Lights are always on. For the year after the kidnapping, he would go to work, but do no work. He couldn't focus. He wonders if he could have made a run for it into the woods next to his house, but then his family within would have been at the kidnappers' mercy.

Then Akner realized: Jack was not fine. Not remotely fine. Of course he wasn't fine. 

Tolstoy tells us that all happy families are alike and that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. A few years ago, I wrote a different novel, my first novel, about divorce, which was inspired in part by the divorce stories of several people I know, and I came to the conclusion that, actually, all divorces are exactly alike. I tell you this because I’ve now come to understand the same thing about trauma: Happy, well-adjusted people are all different. The traumatized are exactly alike. I’m about to tell you a story that is nothing like a violent kidnapping — almost laughably so — but what I’ve learned over the years is that trauma is trauma. Something terrible happens, beyond what is in our own personal capacity to cope with, and the details don’t matter as much as the state we’re thrown into. Our bodies and brains have not evolved to reliably differentiate a rape at knife point from a job loss that threatens us with financial ruin or from the dismantling of our world by our parents’ divorce. It’s wrong, but explain that to your poor, battered autonomic nervous system.

Luke holds that we were all traumatized by 10/7. I had stupidly watched Instagram reels that motzei Shabbos, and sobbed for days following. I sobbed on the train platform while my brother muttered to me, "We're in public, Lea." 

I'm not claiming my experience was the same as those who went through hell, or live half-lives of terror while their sons are in battle. But pain is pain. One person's agony doesn't cancel out another's. 

This goes for other pain we may experience in life—not just a terrorist attack and subsequent war.

To be continued.

Age Can Be a Number

I recently read Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, featuring Vera Wong, the tough Chinese "auntie" who insists on investigating a mysterious death. 

The book itself was pleasant. No complaint there. My quibble, however, is in how Vera Wong is described: a little old lady. 

That would be correct if she was, say, 80. However, our protagonist is a mere 60 years of age, and she is repeatedly referred to as "old." 

Old? I kept thinking. 60 isn't old. Ma died in her mid-60s, and no one said, "Well, she lived a long full life." It was "How tragic, so young."

I wonder if this is because 40 is inching ever closer, but truly, I don't see how 60 is "old." 

There has been chatter online as to how the characters in "The Golden Girls" looked so old when they were playing women in their 50s. A reel popped up in my feed explaining that it was simply the fashions and hairstyles they had—he shows a crudely edited picture with Betty White's old-timey 'do topped with a long, sleek alternative, and suddenly she looks ten years younger. 

Seen women nowadays in their 50s? Not remotely old. At all. 

Apparently, I wasn't the only one to find this a problem, as another reached out to the author of Vera Wong, Jesse Sutanto, that by referring to her as "old," she thought Vera was 85. Jesse responds that in Asian culture, one receives more respect depending on their age, so Vera herself would be referring to herself as "old." 

Yeeeeeaaaaah, except the other characters—even the Caucasian ones—think of her as "old." 

Well, maybe it's the hairdo. Sounds a lot like Dorothy's from Girls. 

To Understand

I've been slowly (very slowly) working my way through "The Crown" (as an aside, not the point of this post, I'm finding the last season to be lace with annoying woke-ness, but anywho) and William is returning to school after Diana's death. 

This William is understandably pissed, particularly at Charles. Watching their awkward interactions, it occurred to me: 

Parents are usually able to guide their children through their formative years because they can recall their own youthful experiences to show that they have been there, too. 

But Charles hadn't lost a parent. So he's rather useless. He can't relate. He can't understand. It's not his fault; unless someone has been there, no one can. Yet William is young, in the public eye, and he's grappling with grief seemingly on his own. 

He rebuffs Charles' lame efforts, exuding angst. Until his grandfather Philip steps in. 

Philip had a tumultuous childhood. His family was driven out of Greece when he was a baby. His mother suffered from schizophrenia and was institutionalized at one point (she later protected a Jewish mother with two children during the war, and became a nun). His parents lived separately after that. He was raised by his sisters, one of whom died with her husband and children in a plane crash when he was 16. In short, he was no stranger to loss and upheaval. 

William listens to him—because Philip understands. 

Keeping in mind that "The Crown" is mostly fiction, the show humanizes the royals, showing that their lives are not as glamorous as we would think, and they are more relatable than we would have believed.

Any father or mother could find themselves in the position Charles was in—clueless how to parent a child who was thrust too young, too soon, into tragedy. 

It reminds me of the book, "It's OK You're Not OK," and the author states therein that she was a freaking grief counselor, but when her husband died suddenly in an accident, that was when she understood. And that her professional methodology until now was a load of crap. 

Sometimes it's not enough to put yourself in another's shoes. Sometimes you have to have had actually walked in the same path a bit to understand. 

This is also a PSA: If you can't understand, don't say anything.

The Multiverse?

TooYoungToTeach insisted that I read "Life After Life" by Kate Atkinson. Always up for new titles, I plucked it up from the library, only to be disappointed that a lot of it takes place in World War II. I don't like reading about World War II. Or World War 1. Or war in general. War is usually off the table for me. Unless it's by Bernard Cornwell. He does war so well. 

Anywho, the heroine of the book is Ursula, but she is an odd duck. For every time she dies, the clock spins backward to the original moment of her birth, over and over and over.

Some timelines continue with near identical repetition; others vary wildly. But we don't see how those timelines continue beyond her death; we are just hurtled back again to her first day on earth. 

What we see is that one small occurrence can alter so much—it's novelized butterfly effect, or "Sliding Doors." 

It made me wonder if the point was that we live in a potential multiverse, where infinite permutations of reality play out. In Ursula's case, some strictly involve her, others involve world events. Like, saaaaay, how would the world be different today if Hitler had been assassinated in 1930? He's also only one person. But his elimination would have altered EVERYTHING. 

I also continued to contemplate if Hashem is overseeing other realities, other planes of existence. But this quickly got far above my pay grade, and decided to quit before I gave myself a headache. 

I concluded that while there could technically be a reality where certain mistakes weren't made, where all is different, as Jews we also believe that reality is intentional. If something was supposed to happen, it does. There is only so much in our control; Ursula is mostly not the driver of her own life; she is swept hither and thither by circumstance. Bumping into the wrong man (multiple men), for instance, by seeming happenstance. 

While have times in our lives when hashgacha pratis is seemingly so clear, other times when we feel cast about in chaos. But is the chaos also intentional, except we just can't see it? 

Headache brewing. Best to leave it be.  

Own It

I've always carried with me a constant awareness of my childhood. Like when people say, "I don't like children," I'm surprised, because don't they remember they were a child once themselves?

So here I am, paying bills, running a household, pushing 40, and I don't feel quite like an adult. When did I get to be a grownup? I qualify? 

I came across this nugget by Maya Angelou: 

I am convinced that most people do not grow up . . . We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulations of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias. 

I realize now that I am the same age, if not older, than some of my childhood playmates' mothers. When I was ten, I gazed up at adults at being all-knowing, wise, and capable, but now that I'm there I see how childish behaviors can have a mighty grip on those who should technically know better. For some, adulthood does not necessarily bring on maturity.

There is something to be said for childhood innocence. But what about the wisdom we should be acquiring with age? Ma would sneer with disdain, "There is no fool like an old fool." She had little tolerance for those who should know better. Children can be excused their mistakes; adults should eventually acquire some common sense. 

I saw this quote the other day: 

Maturity is working through your trauma and not using it as a never ending excuse for poor behavior. — Ellis Anthony

Being an adult isn't just supporting oneself. It's self-awareness. It's reflection, as opposed to reacting. It's being able to have a conversation without being threatened that another has a different opinion, and being able to see their point of view. It's about taking ownership for your actions. 

Looking through Beraishis, a good many of the happenings therein is regarding personal accountability. Hashem forgives those who say, "I messed up." Whether the sin was against Him or another mortal, all is absolved. Not only that, there is even reward; because Yehuda took responsibility twice in the record, he becomes King of the nation.

I learned, relatively recently, that taking responsibility for my actions is less threatening that I thought it would be. I used to fight against when I was younger, that "It's not my fault," but even when it technically isn't (like Ben did something when I should have been overseeing his actions), it's still just better all around if I say, "It was my fault." 

 

And everyone, including me, can move on.