A week and a half ago it was 60 degrees out

and sunny; it was Thursday, the day I keep June home from preschool so that we can have June-Mommy time. We walked to the Elkins Park library and stopped at Elkins Perk for bagels with cream cheese on the way home. Being with June on a sunny day in December filled me with joy and when we arrived back home it was about 1PM and we still had a couple of hours until it was time to get George from school so we planted tulip bulbs that I had been meaning to plant for about a month and a half. I dug the wholes and June plopped in the bulbs and covered them with dirt

and I remembered how one of my first blog entries last march right after my surgery was about taking a walk George and noticing tulips and daffodils sprouting up in my yard and not remembering having planted the bulbs the previous fall. And there I was, with my garden gloves on, digging in the dirt with June, the sun shining on our backs and shoulders, laughing with her as she dangled worms between her fingers, thinking

I've arrived. I'm here right now, I'm in my life, breathing and laughing and being with June...whereas a year ago in this kind of moment, I know that my mind would have not only been circling around my to-do list but also be reminding me of all the things that I hadn't done right or well or thinking about people whom I "owed" a phone call to or ruminating about some mistake I'd made at work.

And now, the blessing that is coming out of my contemplative practice is noticing how my mind works, so that I can turn it off or at least be aware of it so that racing thoughts can't stop me from soaking in the sun and dirt and the joy of being with my daughter

who marvels at worms and how they squirm and how one can become two worms.

Having survived cancer, I am sure as hell not willing to let my anxieties or perfectionism rob me from living my life.
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For the last two weeks or so, I've bundled up the kids in hats and coats at 5PM and taken them out for a brisk walk before dinner. George really needs physical activity to settle his sensory system and the fresh air does us all good. Entering the winter making a conscious effort to move my body is one of the ways that I'm hoping to fend off the usual seasonal depression that sets in for me about this time of year.

We look at our neighbors' Christmas lights. George gets fascinated by blinking lights and stops to gaze at them and jumps up and down. I wish he could describe to me how he's seeing it because I can tell that it is very magical for him.

June wants to celebrate Christmas this year, even though I've explained that Chanukah is our tradition. Sending her to a Jewish preschool can only do so much, Christmas is everywhere. It makes perfect developmental sense to me that it's hard for her to distinguish between "ours" and "theirs" and I'm trying to be low-key about it and not make a big deal about the distinction and focus on making warm Chanukah memories that will become part of her foundation.

There is one house we walk by that is the best: it's got a yard full of dancing santas, trees wrapped like candy canes and a glowing creche scene, complete with camels and the three wise men on their way to see Baby Jesus.

The first day we saw it, June asked me if she could sing a chanukah song to Santa(s). I said sure and she launched into a very dramatic rendition of "S'vivon, Sov, Sov" ("Spin Drydel") at the top of her lungs. We said good-night to the santas and walked over towards the creche scene. June asked me who the baby was and I said baby Jesus and that Christmas is his birthday and June said who is the Mommy and Daddy and I said Mary and Joseph and they are so happy that there baby is with them just how I was so happy when I got to hold baby George and baby June because you both were my dreams and then God brought you both to me.

And Georgie, who hadn't said anything for at least an hour and was jumping up and down as if his body was receiving electrical charge from the lights, started singing the song from Barney I love you, You love me, We're a happy family...

and it's not like he watches Barney or anything and we probably hadn't sang that song for a year maybe and he pulled it out, there in front of baby Jesus and he sang it beautifully, the whole thing.

And I don't know if his singing was the miracle of the moment or that June stayed quiet and let him sing or that I was alive and well holding my two babies mittened hands or that God had brought us all together, the four of us, our happy family

but I did thank God for my expanding heart, for all of my blessings, and for the beautiful story

of that baby, which evokes love and hope in my heart.
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And that I'll figure out how to say to June that religion is a metaphor and that Judaism is our culture, a beautiful and complicated civilization with a language, food, ethics, traditions, etc. that we can draw strength and wisdom from.

But God, I offer to both of my kids, is the consciousness inside of us, around us, connecting us. God is our breath, our awareness. You don't have to know anything to access God; God is there, God is holding us.

I am so much more gentle and loving to myself now. I can see myself more clearly because I am not afraid to see my life clearly, its deep challenges and its blessings.

I am thankful to light my little Chanukah candles this December, this Hebrew month of Kislev, and watch them rather quickly melt. I may only have a moment or two to notice them because someone is whining to open presents now or needs their special holiday kiddush cup filled with more apple juice, but that moment is enough right now. To have one moment and really experience the candle's light allows it to stay with me when it is dark and gone.