Last week I cooked artichokes

for the first time in my life and not planning it, the cooking and eating of them became another memorial for my Grandma Min, who died two years ago this month. I use artichoke hearts from a can a lot when I cook and I cook a lot but I had never cooked a whole artichoke for Fred and me, so we could eat it, leaves and all. I had bought the artichokes thinking that I would cook them for Fred and me to eat on Valentine's Day but then I ended up going to visit my baby niece Mira (named for Minerva) on Valentine's Day and so the artichokes sat in the fridge. It was last Monday night, just an ordinary night, when I took the artichokes out and steamed them whole for seven minutes. They came out tender

and we had fun, eating slowly, picking off the leaves. June wanted to try one and she liked it. I showed her how to dip the leaf (though I used olive oil instead of butter) just the way that my grandmother had taught me to do, when she made artichokes for us during a visit to our house when I was seven-years-old. That was who my Grandma was in my life--

the person who introduced me to interesting things, to culture, who had a kind of magicalness to her, maybe the same magic that exists between all grandparents and grandchildren, but for me, Minerva was always my north star. Sitting at my table, dipping artichoke leaves with June, I could feel her. I could remember that night, sitting in our kitchen in Duncansville, me watching Grandma to see how she ate the artichoke. I tried to imitate the graceful way she dipped her leaf but did not drip her butter. She had no idea, really, what an influence she was

on me. I married Fred because of her...he was the only boyfriend of mine that she ever liked. But that is a story that I will unpack another day. For now I want to say how grateful I was to have been shopping at Trader Joe's in a frenzy after getting out after the last blizzard and to have paused in front of the globe artichokes and decided on impulse to buy them. And how also I am grateful that even as I still grieve Minerva, I understand how her being gone from this world is showing me how love does live and endure. My friend Yitz says "Only love." It is a revolutionary way to live and I can't say

that I live it, not 100%, but am I moving towards that, yes, I think I am. I like that I can sit in my kitchen on an ordinary night, dipping artichoke leaves into olive oil and the extraordinary power of my grandmother's love can wash over me and hold me and I can share it right there, with my daughter so that truly I experience how our consciousness is connected and I have never nor any of us been alone.

We ate all of the leaves down to the thistle part and picked them off and discarded them and then we savored the heart.
***
Also this week, George lost his first tooth. It had been loose for a few weeks but he hadn't let me wiggle it at all. I kept giving him apples, but he bit around them (smart boy). Then the other day, when I had finished work and picked up the kids from school and we were all lounging on my bed watching a video in a semi-exhausted state, George pulled on his tooth a little bit, gave a short cry, and there I saw it, his baby tooth against his red sweatshirt.

I said the Shehechiyanu prayer, thanking God for sustaining us and bringing us to this moment. It hit me like a brick, seeing that tiny baby tooth against his big chest, seeing his toothless smile. I remember so well the painful hours of George's teeth coming in; it was never easy, his teething. I remember the endless walks up and down the hills of Roxborough where we lived, George snuggled againist me in his Baby Bjorn. I remember exhausted finally getting him to sleep at night only to have him wake an hour later, screaming. I remember Fred's midnight runs to Rite-Aid for infant motrin and I remember all of the homepotahic remedies for teething that I diligently tried, then trashed. Whatever we did, it wasn't easy for him; but there, a few days ago relaxing with June and me in my bedroom, his tooth fell out with ease.

It was another moment where it felt like a conversation between God and me, something about the mystery of it all, how some times in our life are so achingly hard and how some are so effortless, so full of ease. So much in the past few months has been feeling that way for me, is it my "Only Love" intention bringing the ease forth?

It gave me hope, too, in a way that since there are so many things that are still so, so hard for George--his speech in particular--that maybe there can be other moments like his first tooth falling out for him, where grace will just appear and things can be easier. That is my prayer, God, since we are in this conversation I'll continue it here, that is my prayer for George, that not only is he surrounded with only love but that things could open up and become easier for him.

This I know, taking out his little tooth from time to time this week from the satin pocket in my jewelery box where it's going to live, taking out his tooth and holding it in my hand, I am happy to be here with him now, to appreciate the way he is becoming such a big kid, to begin saying goodbye to those baby teeth and their memories and to open to what is ahead for us.

And if things don't become easier for my baby, my big boy, I also know that only love surrounds us and fuck it, I have a PhD in dealing with hard stuff, so I will meet what is.

President's day 2009 was when I found my lump

and I wasn't sure how I would feel on President's Day 2010 but it was actually a light day (more and more, in letting go of deeply held emotions, I am able to flow through my days and tread more lightly through my life than ever before). Here in the Northeast, we've been buried in record-breaking snow, but the Sunday before President's Day, roads were clear enough that I could drive down to Arlington and see my brother and Steph and my new niece, Mira, who was born in California last October. It was pure joy to meet this baby girl, to connect with and to hold her. She is fabulous! After spending the day with Miss Mira and parents, I drove to Fairfax to have dinner and stay overnight with my sister, brother-in-law and nephews which was also really fun and then I got up early Monday, President's Day, drove home and spent the day with my kids.

It was light, it was fun, we went to the Hiway to see a matinee of "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and then my friend Steph came down to take June ice skating for the first time which didn't work out great since the ice skating rink was closed but we did find another one and then we ended the day with dinner out for gluten-free pizza. I thought I might be full of emotions--

remembering a year ago...I had come back from a weekend away working at a teen retreat where I didn't shower at all. I missed the kids so badly. I came home late Sunday night and Monday morning took a long, hot shower. I was shaving when I felt the lump. I ignored it at first but kept going back to touch it. I called my primary care doctor and they told me to come in later that day. That began everything...Wednesday I had an ultrsound and they rushed me to get a mammogram then to see the surgeon and the next day I had my biopsy. That's how my cancer (or awareness of it) began.

But President's Day wasn't especially sad or freaky or even unusually joyous for me: it was just a day that I felt really grounded in and that's how most of my days are going now. I think

that I am opening my heart in a very new way, I think that I am lighter, clearer, and also more honest, both with myself and others. I think that I have waited my entire life to come in to this honesty. It is hard to voice

things that maybe I haven't been conscious of before or that maybe I have avoided, but now, a year after finding that lump and looking hard at the state of my mortality, I am not willing to avoid the truth.

This is hard and beautiful stuff. Fred and I are starting to do some serious work in our relationship; looking hard at how we relate to each other. There is an incredible foundation that we have built of love and support for each other and now we are ready to go deeper and look at what energy feels blocked and what patterns we are unconscious of that are preventing us from unleashing the depth of love that we know we have to give.

Being honest and present is shifting my whole world. Not needing to be nice or to be liked continues to liberate me. I mean, I am generally an especially nice and friendly person, but I'm allowing that more to come from an inner place than from a fear of what will happen if I'm not nice or if someone doesn't like me. And a year ago, I was not conscious of just how I lived that way and that I lived that way out of fear.

I'm in a deeply creative place at the moment, with interesting projects and possibilities coming up for me; also, I am valuing myself and my creative abilities in a new way. There is no ceiling for me; anything is possible. Maybe to others it would seem like I knew that already--I've written and published a bunch of books, I've created and performed in one-woman shows, I currently lead creative worship services for children. But somehow before, there was a place connected to my creativity that felt that what I did wasn't really good enough or it was limited somehow. Just now, I don't believe that at all anymore--and I am finding a new respect for and belief in my path.

It was funny, Sunday night at my sister's house, we were playing a word game with the boys after dinner where everyone gets tiles and you have to use them all to make as many words as you can (like an individual scrabble where everyone is competing at the same time). I just sucked at it. My 12 and 10-year-old nephew were much better at making up words than me and my sister was amazingly quick and would finish while I was only half-way done with my tiles. I looked at her and thought, Damn! She really is smart--

while all the while, when we were growing up, I felt so stupid in her shadow. I mean, we must have played games like that all of the time and there was no way for me to compete. And i know that my parents didn't compare us and I know that they really encouraged all of my creative activities, but it was beyond their control. I got from the world around me, from school, that there was one way to be smart--

and I wasn't that way. So it is great to be here now, at 38, feeling young, feeling like life is ahead of me, feeling like living honestly can feel hard at times, but is really sweet in that just as I can see the shit that my ego has created to survive in the world, so I can feel

the pure joy of stripping it away, and finding my whole self, my whole.

And that is where my creativity lies. That is where my sense of God lies and my connection to every person, who lives with an ego battling fear or anxiety or insecurity. In my honesty and coming from a soul place, more often in my days I am connecting to other people in their soul places and that is what I mean by my need to not be nice anymore. It's deeper, where I'm coming from these days--

because of the President's day that I experienced in 2009 and from how I went forward.

(And I can not be jealous of my sister and instead be proud of her and appreciate her for being so smart and also understand that who she is, her soul, has nothing to do with how fast she can make words...or not).

Last Tuesday morning, 24 hours after my normal mammogram

I met my friend Marjorie in the woods near Kitchens Lane for an early morning walk. We had scheduled our walking date a few weeks before. Marjorie is someone whom I've known for a long time, since she was in rabbinical school and I was there at RRC getting my Master's degree, and though we don't see each other regularly, I always enjoy being with her. Last fall her mother died suddenly

and we hadn't had a time to connect and talk about how she was doing, her grief, and also about me and my year and everything that had gone on since the last time we were able to make time together for a walking conversation.

It was cold in Valley Green park and breathtakingly beautiful: the bare tree branches reaching up to touch the gray sky, the stream below us both icy and flowing, little patches of snow collected over the rocks where we walked. I had on sneakers and jeans and my fuzzy warm winter coat and a thick hat and gloves but I still felt the cold pressing hard against me.

I love the winter now, I told Marjorie, I see the beauty in it, this kind of morning and you know I never had been able to before, I just sort of slugged through these winter months waiting for spring

but now I appreciate it so much. This is gorgeous, I said, motioning

to the hills with trees that extended up from our path. I loved January and I've never loved January before, I took the kids outside almost every day around 5PM even as it was getting dark and just took in the fresh air and now

that it's February, I'm watching each day how it gets lighter and I'm noticing the change in the light. It's really gorgeous and clear, February light.

Marjorie agreed--she grew up in Wisconsin and embracing winter was not anything new. We walked on for a while, talking first about our work and our hopes for work and trying to find balance in a busy life.

We came to a little bridge that we crossed and on the other side of the stream, Marjorie asked if it would be okay if we said Kaddish, that every morning since her mother died, she stops during her walk to say the Mourners' Kaddish and set a kavannah (intention) for the day. I said I would be honored to say Kaddish with her--

in fact, I had been thinking about saying kaddish because my Grandma Min's yahrzeit (the anniversary of her death) was coming up in a few days and didn't want to miss it. So we stood there, above the stream, breathing in the cold and the quiet of an early February morning in Pennsylvania and we said those ancient Aramaic words, praising God for life.

Marjorie asked if I wanted to set an intention for the day and I said, with tears in my eyes, to keep letting go; that I was really doing it now, letting go of expectations, and in letting go, discovering that my life could flow in an easy rhythm.

She nodded and we walked in silence for a bit, until we came to a turn that lead us back down the hill towards our cars.

Marjorie, I said, I didn't know that I needed a ritual, but I did. Yesterday was my first mammogram since cancer and it was clear.

Oh wow, she said, you must be relieved.

I am, I said, releasing my tears, I am so relieved. I am thankful that we planned our walk for today, because I needed this so much.

I'm glad that I could be part of your ritual, she said.

And from there we started talking about rituals and I told her about all the kind of rituals that I had over the last year and how they all were so different and how each ritual got me through the cancer experience in a different way.

There were rituals of all kinds, I said.

That's the name of your book, she said.
****
It made me think, hell yeah, I did create a lot of rituals. Each one was totally different, depending on what I needed in that moment; there was:

the healing circle that took place the night before my surgery at Rabbi Yael's house, where close friends and my sister gathered and Yael lead everyone in prayer and people wrote me cards of encouragement or blessings and then a lot of people shared them out loud and Rabbi Yael presented me with organic lavendar lotion and annointed me with it. She laid her hands on me and invited everyone to as she said healing prayers. It was one of the most powerful moments of my entire life, I'll write more about it later, but that was the first ritual, there on the eve of my surgery

and the next one was the Saturday night before the week of my chemo and that ritual was meeting friends at the Drake Tavern and getting totally shitfaced and that was a really great night, too and just the ritual I needed in that moment (and Fred won't let me forget pulling the waitress aside to let her know that I don't usually drink this way but I had some personal things going on. I'm sure it shocked her, Fred said, I'm sure she never saw anyone come into the bar to get drunk before)

and then the next ritual was probably again with Yael, on my 38th birthday, when I met her at the labyrinth and walked it in silence and came to sit by her on the bench, realizing that on the path, I could feel God with me and how God is always with me

and then the next ritual was the day I ended treatment and went for coffee and then a massage and said good-bye, good-bye to all that...

and then a few weeks later, a really awesome ritual was meeting my friend Steph at Infinite Piercing off of South Street, where I got my nose and ear lobe pierced. That was an experience and so awesome doing it with Steph

and then there was also the walk I took with Yitz, actually it was before the healing circle, when I was diagnosed but hadn't seen the surgeon yet, and we came to the stairs in High School park that lead to nowhere (there's a park now where a school had once been) and we stood at the bottom of the steps looking up into heaven and Yitz said, do you want to take that walk? and I didn't--

I was scared shitless but I said to him, I'll take that walk if you go with me and he did, our arms locked together, me crying a little and when we reached the top, I said, okay, it's not so bad.

that began my letting go, I guess, that improvised ritual, that winter morning with Yitz, a year ago bringing me to the walk I took with Marjorie a week ago, a ritual I so clearly needed and didn't even have to plan.

Friday night was Tu B'shevat

the Jewish New Year of the Trees, of the Trees' Birthday as we sometimes teach children and it is George's birthday, too; he was born on Tu B'Shevat (the 15th day of the month of Shevat) in the Hebrew calendar. I've written an essay and maybe I'll post it separately about his complicated birth and my feelings about it and how sacred it felt to have my baby come into the world on a day celebrating trees, nature, life; he was a baby who barely made it into this world.

But now he is 7! And Saturday night I had two hours alone with George when Fred took Junie to a pajama party at her preschool and it was cold out and had started to snow and first George and I put on our winter coats, hats & mittens and took a really fast walk around our block, letting the snow fall on our cheeks. Then we came back into the house and I thought I would read him some books (I'm trying to read him at least 3-4/day to help with his auditory processing difficulties and attention) but George just wanted to snuggle on, to put his cheeks right up against mine and then to burrow his head against my chest. It was so snuggly,

just the two of us at home, no June, no Fred, no music, no TN, no phone ringing, just us, Mommy & George huddled inside and the snow falling out our wondow onto our little front lawn, onto Union Avenue. And as I held him

I imagined him, my baby, in the incubator, me outside, looking in, wanting to rip through the tubes that helped him to eat and breath so just so I could hold him that way, him againist my chest and then I thought

this is enough Georgie, for 7 years I have carried this weight, I have carried this feeling of separation, that you are there and I am here and I can't get to you, I can't hold you close enough

I want to let it go, go. And there in the quiet, with you against my chest still, I cried for a while and you looked at me and I imagined that plastic wall of the incubator dissolving

there I said it, that there's a piece of me that had never gotten through that pain. I've said it

and maybe if there weren't other obstacles in your development, maybe I would have forgotten that feeling of separation years ago, but as it is, when we struggle to communicate, that helpless feeling of you being so close to me and so far away from me simultaneously is still there.

I held you and it was silent in the house except for my tears releasing and falling into your hair and your breath, the sound of it warm, against my cheek

I said, this is the beginning, George, this is our new cycle of 7 years, everything is possible, honey. Everything is possible.

The Jeep pulled up. Fred and Junie clammered up the steps and Junie entered the house regaling us with tales of the Hat Man who put on a show for the children and of the children she played with and the cereal she ate for dinner at the pajama party.

And Fred took George up to bed while June put her sweaty arms around me and took her turn for cuddle time.

And then the next day, Sunday, George was playing around with his finger in his mouth and I peeked in and saw what was bothering him: a new tooth! His first grown-up tooth, how do you like that, right after Tu B'shevat, the holiday of trees, nature and growth, a tooth grew right there in Georgie's mouth as if to say

yes, mom, I'm not a baby anymore. We're done with that. I am a 7-year-old, Mom--
a 7-year-old.
****
and today I went to Fox Chase for my 1 year mammogram, my first since treatment ended (did I mention I drank a big snifter of Maker's Mark last night?) and guess what, everything looks fine normal.

Great news, wrote my Dad, after I emailed the family. Live long and Prosper.

(Thank you, Dad).