Reconstructing Stacey

We are all a work in progress, or more specifically, The July Project # 1

12:02 a.m. (background about The July Project)

Tonight I went to the first class in a 3-part series called "Creating a Life Worth Living." It's taught by a life coach and is sponsored by American Jewish World Service, which mostly helps impoverished and underserved populations in Asia, Latin America and Africa, but also creates programming for young American Jews who want to look at the world through a Jewish and social justice lens. 

So the teacher is a local Jewish woman (for these purposes we'll call her LG) and she is incredible. There are 18 people in the class. Three boys, the rest women. It's so encouraging to be in a room full of people who know their life holds promise, but aren't sure in which direction to turn to seek said promise. It's a reminder that I'm not alone in my quest for ... well, I'm not sure yet. Generally, I applied to take this class (we had to apply!) because I know that what I'm doing is not satisfying me in the ways I want/need, but I'm not sure what kind of changes I need to make in my life to feel wholly satisfied. For instance, do I need a different journalism job, or a different career? Do I need to just make some changes at my current job to improve it? Can I derive fulfillment from nonwork pursuits, and if so, how can I focus myself to really commit to a few of those?

LG posed the following question: How does "pretty good" hold us back from achieving great?

Lots of people spoke up -- fear of failure, fear of success, complacency, comfort, resistance to change, concern that the change won't be any better (or even worse) than the existing situation....

I felt I had already said quite a bit, so I didn't add what came to mind while considering this question, and that is: Inability to let go of your old goals.

I always thought I'd be a famous news reporter. If I don't become that, I'm obviously finally accepting that, but then... what? What do I do? Is it okay that my work no longer fulfills me completely? Is it okay that a job is just a job, as long as I'm finding satisfaction and happiness in other elements of my life, and that my job is not sucking my energy too much? I asked the group that question and LG pointed out that all of the questions we're posing tonight (and in future sessions) can really truly only be answered individually.

One girl said she hopes the class helps her listen to herself. I seconded that. In the hubbub that is daily life, I don't often enough find time or space or energy to ask myself: What do I need? What do I want? And I mean these questions in a small context, not necessarily in a huge, wordly way.

LG also reminded us numerous times that this is not a career seminar, though of course we should feel free to talk about our careers, and direct the focus that way if we so choose. I found it interesting that for many of us, "work" is our default setting. It's endemic to society, really, and a bit surprising in a group of San Franciscans, who have made an art out of chasing work-life harmony. Everyone in this city has something they're passionate about, whether it's art or yoga or volunteering or planting trees or teaching people how to compost. It's inspiring and yet daunting because if you don't have these dual (or tri or quad) identieis, then who are you really? Work defines the minority of people in San Francisco, and yet when asked to first consider how we "create a life worth living" we all think first about work.

One of the participants is a rabbi, so she led us in a short text study of a passage from Genesis. Did you know the very first question in the Torah is: Where are you? God asks Adam this question, and Adam responds by saying he was hiding because he heard God's voice and was afraid. God asks him if he ate from the forbidden tree, and Adam confesses but blames Eve for the indiscretion. Then God asks Eve if this is true, and she blames the Serpent.

What we learned is that this question "Where are you" is perennial. It is a constant presence in our lives, and it is not an accident that it is the first question in the Torah. The rabbi pointed out that neither Adam nor Eve took responsibility for themselves in answering the question, and that in doing so, failed to truly answer God's questions. Therefore, if we don't own our choices and take responsibility for ourselves, we cannot honestly answer "where are you?" It follows then, that if we can't honestly answer the question, we can't figure out where we are or where we need to go to feel happy, whole and fulfilled. (Clearly, the question is not so much one of geography but of headspace.)

In my last two minutes of writing, here's my final thought, and it's this. The rabbi, who said she read these passages a million times, found one new meaning while preparing for the class. She added up the numeric value of "where are you" in Hebrew, which is "ayecka." Turns out it adds up to 36, which is 18 + 18, which means double chai, or double life (for those not in the know, 18 is a highly significant number in Judaism and you should check wikipedia or jewfaq.com for more). Which basically means that the question "where are you" is a living, evolving question (and answer) that should serve as a bridge between all of life's transitions.

12:22 a.m. (yay! 20 minutes of freewriting)

end note: the only things I corrected in this blog post were spelling errors, which will be my practice from now on.

It's all about reh-LI-juhn

You know how sometimes you're too busy to eat? You feel starving at first, but then you adjust to the hunger pains and away they go. Temporarily, at least, the hunger is forgotten. Same thing happens when you aren't able to go to the bathroom. You have to pee so so bad, but you're in the park, or you're stuck in traffic, so you hold it, and the sensation goes away.

I've been spiritually holding it for four years.

I had no idea how hungry I was for Judaism until now, today really, when I celebrated Rosh Hashanah for the first time in four years with a real community of thinkers, seekers and friends. Living in small town America, I had no choice but to adapt to feeling like "the other." Sometimes, I'd purposely avoid talking about my Jewishness simply because I didn't feel like having a conversation that marked me as an outsider, as someone different. Of course I was proud to be Jewish. But I also wanted to feel like a part of the larger community, and in general, that community was not Jewish, (nor did they know much about Judaism), so it was sometimes more comfortable to not label myself. And besides, I was a journalist first and foremost. That was my identity. My purpose. My passion.

But for the past year, I've gradually moved beyond that. I'm still a journalist, yes. But living in San Francisco and writing for a Jewish paper has allowed me to explore this huge part of my being that's been dormant for so long.

But I also didn't exactly realize just how much or what I was missing. In said small towns, there was no opportunity for adult Jewish learning or creative Jewish expression. So even though I felt a snag in the fiber of my life, I didn't know how big it was until I let myself reconnect the Jewish threads.

The realization hit me tonight at Ocean Beach. A few friends and I went there for a Tashlich service. The service wasn't so much a service as an exercise. First, we threw chunks of bread into the water, as a symbol of casting away our sins of the past year. Then, with sticks we wrote our mistakes or shortcomings into the sand so we could watch the tide wash them away. And finally, we wrote on paper our hopes for the coming year, put them in a pile and lit them on fire, dispersing the goals/hopes/dreams/visions/aspirations into the air and perhaps propelling them into our future.

About 30 people came. We spread out along the beach to throw the bread (our sins) into the ocean, symbolically casting them aside, freeing us of their weight. As we did so, the seagulls began singing and circling above, swan-diving into the water to eat the scraps. The ocean was iridescent in the sun. And I began to cry. Quiet, soft tears. I was simply overwhelmed by the horizon, the warm, saltwater-scented air and the power of recognizing my shortcomings while simultaneously letting them go. And though I often doubt the existence of an all-knowing-all-present God, in that moment, with the Pacific licking my ankles, I felt God was there, in the water or maybe in the sun or sand or breeze. It sounds bizarre and hard to explain, but it was deeply spiritual and comforting and moving.

 

photo courtesy of oo-di

Earlier in the day, I attended a service/class hybrid at a synagogue. The rabbi explained that crying on Rosh Hashanah is encouraged, a goal even. He said that crying may begin with confusion, but it also brings us clarity and purification, redirecting us, pointing us toward a better path.

Hours after this service, I stood on the beach, feeling the sun and tears on my cheeks. I let myself feel regret/guilt/shame. Then I let the ocean take those from me. The tide receded, rushed back in, receded. And all I felt was gratitude. Because as I celebrate the birthday of the world this Rosh Hashanah, I see that the prayers and rabbis are right. That to be alive is a marvelous, wondrous thing.

Into the woods

I spent 24+ hours at a Jewish overnight camp last month. Of course, the trip was motivated by a story assignment. It was published Friday. Click on the link below the photo (my favorite -- of a camper saying the Sh'ma -- that somehow didn't make it into publication) to read the piece.

CLICK ME

I draw your attention to this story because it was totally new for me as a writer, reporter and photographer. I've never spent 24 hours on site, nor have I ever written a long feature in the first person, nor have I ever blended journalism with editorial as a storytelling technique. I think it turned out well. And since, sadly, I've received almost no feedback on it yet (It's always the stories you slave over that fail to spark letter-writing) maybe you can let me know what you think.

If journalism was a buffet made by my Jewish grandmother

For the past five days, from 8:30 a.m. to about 10 p.m., I soaked up as much information as I could about Judaism, journalism and the many ways they intersect. I was one of 17 lucky participants in a fellowship for Jewish journalists at Brandeis University, just outside of Boston. It was the real deal. I took approximately 30 pages of notes. Well-known scholars, professors and Jewish leaders talked to us at great length about a hundred different things. We went to a mikveh. We slept in dorms and stayed up late playing cards and teaching the over-35 participants about the time-wasting joys of Facebook and MySpace.

I'm still digesting everything I learned, not yet ready to explain exactly where the turning wheels in my brain will take me once I return to San Francisco. However, I have concluded two major things.

One: Jewish journalism, for the first time, is not about limitations. For the past 10 months, I've thought only about what I can't do because I'm writing for a Jewish press. I now see opportunities for storytelling because I am writing for a Jewish press.

I hate to admit it, but here's the truth: I took this latest job because I wanted to live in San Francisco. I knew the change would be personally enriching, but professionally? Well, I doubted that very much. There is such elitism in the daily newspaper world, and though none of my colleagues ever criticized my choice, I knew deep down they wondered why I would take a "step back." I asked myself the same question. I wondered if I had made a mistake, leaving a profession and a rhythm that had dictated all of my major life choices since graduating from college. Would I regret it? Would I continue to grow as a writer? And if I wanted to go back to dailies, would I be accepted for my writerly shift?

But now, for the first time, I understand this school of thought is wrong. I didn't take a step back. I took a step in a different direction, one that I finally see has a lot to teach me.

I also see that there is great work happening in the Jewish journalism world. Of course we're all burdened with having to write -- what I like to call -- non-story stories (you know, the ones about the 80-year-olds winning awards for giving $36 a year to Federation for the past 200 years), but we also want and do tell unique, powerful stories that have real meaning to those who read them. I am proud to be a part of this fellowship. I am excited to go back to work with an arsenal of new story ideas and a new attitude.

This notion of fellowship brings me to my second point, which is this: Jewish journalists support each other in a way that I don't think daily news reporters do. I don't mean inside the newsroom --  I always felt that at the IDS, Courier and Herald, my colleagues were teammates I could count on for anything. What I'm referring to is the larger world, beyond the particular newsroom in 50613 or 99336. With the exception of the edu writer's listserv I was a part of last year, I have always felt a quiet competition among daily reporters. When I attend journalism conferences, I'm accustomed to feeling like I have to prove myself, that everyone else is trying to do the same. It is exhausting. And yet at the Gralla seminar, I never felt like that. I never felt like I had to share about the latest front page enterprise story I wrote, or the scandal I uncovered at last night's school board meeting, or the 3-day series that won some in-the-long-run forgettable SPJ award, to demonstrate my talent and ambition. I just felt accepted.  The fellows treated one another with respect, listened to each other with great interest. Several people even praised my question-asking skills, which was a tremendous compliment.

So, while I can't yet explain how I'll use the nuts and bolts of what I learned, I can say that it's given me a new perspective. And for that, especially that, I am grateful.