Arttist Date 51: Now I Know

December 13, 2013December 21, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

There are a couple of memories that permeate my childhood. Stories I asked to hear again and again until I knew them word-for-word, by heart.

My origins, my adoption and my first eight weeks on the planet – captured with typewriter ribbon on onion-skin paper and tucked into a red vinyl bag with my report cards and school pictures.

The loss of my mother’s biological child. One she didn’t know she was pregnant with until she lost it. The event which, to my mind, secured my role as my parent’s child.

The day my parents packed up their bags and their bird and moved from Oak Park to Birmingham, Michigan to live with my father’s sister for a short time.

It was the summer of 1967. The city of Detroit was on fire — literally. Residents rioted and looted. Police unleashed with unrestrained force. Both the Army and the National Guard were called to quell the mayhem.

My uncle living in California called to say he was watching the news, and did my mother know that tanks were rolling down Woodward Avenue.

She did. Oak Park was just a few miles over the 8 Mile Road border that separated the city from the suburbs. It felt close. Too close. And the tony suburb of Birmingham seemed safely a world away. So they went.

I don’t recall any more of the story than that. How it ended. When it ended. When they came home. Only that the chasm – racially, culturally, financially – between Detroit and the suburbs appeared to be sealed that summer.

Over the years I asked my parents what started the riots. They hypothesized. But the truth was, they weren’t quite certain. Neither were other white people of their generation, and the one just behind them, that I asked.

I got my answers last Saturday night at the Northlight Theatre – Artist Date 51.

The first time I saw a poster for Detroit ’67, with its black upturned fist of Joe Louis, I knew I would see it. That I needed to see it. I didn’t consciously think I might get answers to the questions left hanging from my childhood. I merely felt the pull, a tug that took me to Skokie on a dark December evening — alone.

The audience is mostly older – boomers and above. Mostly African American or Jewish. I recognize the latter by the smattering of kippot (head coverings) and conversations about Israel. And, at risk of sounding politically incorrect, as a Jew raised among mostly other Jews, I “just know” my people. Many of them are dancing – some in the aisles, but mostly in their seats – to Motown.

Martha and the Vandellas. Smoky Robinson and the Miracles. Stevie Wonder, when he was still called “Little Stevie Wonder.”

It is the music of my childhood. The Big Chill soundtrack, and Big Chill-like gatherings at my cousin Wendy’s house.

The couple behind me is singing. They know every word. During the performance, they respond to the actors. More than a mutter but not quite “out loud,” either. I like it. I feel like we are all, “a part of,” and I am not so much alone.

Meanwhile, I tuck into the program and get schooled.

This is what I learn:

Detroit’s 12^th Street Riot began on July 23, 1967, with the police raid of a blind pig — a home illegally selling alcohol under the guise of “an attraction…with complimentary beverages.” (Not unlike memberships sold for experimental AIDS treatments in Dallas Buyers Club. Artist Date 47.)

The raid itself was not unusual. Detroit’s white police officers were known for harassing, and even brutalizing, the city’s black residents.

The aftermath. Detroit Free Press photograph. Public Domain.

But unlike other raids, this one did not resolve quickly or quietly. And what began as a conflict between police and patrons soon engulfed the whole city. To end the disturbance, Governor George Romney ordered the Michigan National Guard into Detroit. President Lyndon B. Johnson sent Army troops.

Five days later, 43 people were dead. More than 500 were injured, and 7,231 arrested. Half of those arrested had no criminal record. Sixty-four percent were accused of looting and 14 percent were charged with curfew violations.

Losses from arson and looting ranged from $40 to $80 million.

But I don’t see any of it.

Only the actions, and reactions, of five residents of Detroit, black and white, who want to feel safe. Who want something better for themselves. Not unlike my own family. In a basement in the city’s near west side, with an eight-track player, a phonograph that skips, and a dream.

Doing It Again. Confessions of a Reluctant Doula.

October 20, 2013 LesleyPearl2 Comments

I vowed I would never do this again.

And yet, the words tumbled out of my mouth. At the same time both jumbled and awkward, certain and clear. Clover reflected them back to me.

With Clover, on one of our many gelato/sorbet dates this summer. — With Clover, on one of our many gelato/sorbet dates.

“Are you saying you want to be my doula?”

“Um…yes. I guess.”

Pause. Smile. Squint. Think. Nod. Nod again, excitedly.

“Yes. Yes, I do. If you will have me.”

She stood up from her chair — her pregnant belly announcing itself to all those around us – and threw her arms around me. Both our eyes wet with tears.

Just a few months earlier, she had told me she was pregnant.

Sitting on the marble wall outside of the Sulzer Library. It was summer and we had just polished off our cups from Paciugo – sorbet for her, gelato for me. I was talking about boys. None of it new or terribly important.

And when I stopped, she was talking about babies. Specifically, her baby.

Later that night, we danced in the street to a band from West Africa. And when she was tired I walked her home, suddenly terribly protective. I called her Lil Mama – what a boy from South Carolina used to affectionately call me – and told her I would support her in any way I could.

So it shouldn’t have surprised either of us when I offered to be her doula.

Except that I am not certified as a doula. Greek for “a woman who serves.”

I am a pre-natal massage therapist and instructor. A friend. Terribly interested in the miracles our bodies engender.

And I’ve done this once before. A little more than six years ago, for my oldest and dearest friend Julie.

My then-husband and I were preparing to move from California for his medical residency. In the two months leading up to our departure, we would travel to Chicago to look for a home, and to Oklahoma for my ex-boyfriend’s wedding.

Julie asked that I consider a third trip – to Detroit, for the birth of her son. She wanted me to be her doula.

I was in an underground parking lot when I received her call.

Every fiber in my being wanted to say no. It wasn’t practical. It was expensive. I felt overwhelmed.

The words that flew out of my mouth were, “Of course.”

I arrived a few weeks later – three days before her due date, and departing four days after. It was spring. No one thought my schedule and the baby’s would sync. We gave it to the universe.

We spent our days on long walks. Visiting her mother. Talking – about everything and nothing. Like we always do.

I massaged her legs while she sat on the exam table in a flowered gown, waiting for the obstetrician. And pressed acupressure points on her hands and feet – “downward elevators” in Chinese medicine.

We ate a late breakfast following a trip to the gym – her last before becoming a mother. Julie wanted to use the elliptical machine. (She swears this is what started her labor.) She ate little of her French toast. Her stomach pushed so far up into her ribs, it left little room for food.

Around 11 p.m. that night I got the call. It was time.

I met Julie at the hospital door. Steve parked the car.

We walked the hospital floors for an hour, until she was dilated enough to be admitted.

Once in her room, we talked and laughed and napped over the next many hours. Somewhere there are photographs of me wrapped up in blankets, looking like a woman from the old country.

Her husband fed me crackers and peanut butter. I watched Julie instinctively comfort herself. She labored many hours, insisting on a vaginal birth – even though the doctor on call wanted to perform a C-section.

Thankfully, the labor nurses supported her choice.

At their urging, I held up one her legs and counted her contractions out loud until hoarse. Jaron’s head emerged. Then his shoulder. And then the rest of him – slipping out quickly like a fish.

I saw him first and looked at Julie with wet eyes, nodding. I didn’t have any words.

Jaron was placed under a heat lamp, like a Big Mac, while the doctor tended to Julie, and the nurse made notes. He looked wise, terribly nonplussed by this abrupt move from his inner world out.

“You’ve done this before,” I said.

Right after the birth. My first time as a doula. — Right after the birth. With Jaron.

They say babies don’t smile right away, but I am certain he did, as he reached into the air. “Playing with the angels,” Julie said, referring to the idea in mystic Judaism that babies are born so pure they can see angels. A lovely idea.

I returned to the hospital the next day. Julie was eating a cold grilled cheese and French fries – seemingly already accustomed to the realities of motherhood.

She told me I should do this work professionally. “Never,” I replied.

A few years later her niece asked me to come to New York to be her doula. I was flattered, but politely declined.

I didn’t want to be on call. Couldn’t imagine putting a price to the work. Wasn’t willing to sleep on a fold-out chair for just anyone. Just her.

I was grateful for the experience. To be invited so intimately into my friend’s life. But I had no desire to repeat it.

Until I did.

Clover had just gone public with her pregnancy on Facebook.

As we ate perhaps our last gelato and sorbet of the season, I intuitively knew that I would be there. Sleeping on a fold-out chair, eating crackers and peanut butter, a blanket wrapped around my head like a babushka. Serving the miracle.

Artist Date 42: Dressed, Safely Shrouded

October 11, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I think I need a headdress.

Feathered, painted and beaded. Like the one I’m standing in front of at the Chicago Art Institute – Artist’s Date 42. According to the description, it is meant to express a sense of beauty, while spiritually protecting the wearer, providing potency in battle, diplomacy and/or courtship.

I could use that – spiritual protection and potency. Especially in courtship. I feel like I’m fumbling all over the place in this suddenly, or not so suddenly, single world.

Perhaps a wig would suffice. Cover up my naked head. My naked heart.

My cousin Andrew told me I should consider wearing them. Over dinner a few weeks ago at a trendy, too loud, see-and-be-seen, restaurant, he leaned in and said, very seriously, “I’ve been giving it some thought…I think you should wear wigs.”

I laughed, but he was dead serious, waxing the possibilities of an Uma Thurman Pulp Fiction bob. I showed him a photograph of me wearing a large Foxy Brown afro wig many years ago in Oakland. I told him I wished my hair grew like that. How I longed to wear a wig but worried about offending people – lest those whose hair grows that way think it is a joke, this seriously small white girl sporting a do belonging to someone else.

We made a date to go wig shopping but never quite made it.

I had forgotten about it until now.

And really, I probably shouldn’t be thinking about it now. Or even be here at all. My friend Julie arrives from Detroit in a few hours. Her visit comes on the heels of my friend Ernie’s visit from Seattle, which came on the heels of my trip to Dublin, and precedes my trip to Minneapolis – for my cousin Andrew’s wedding – by just days.

And yet, I am here. Stealing away for an hour or so, by myself, with no intention any more noble than to see with different eyes, hear with different ears, feel with a different heart. To leave here a little better than I arrived. To fill my mind with something other than “me, me, me.” It is a relief.

My plan was to visit the African Art. But I am stopped in my tracks in the Native American section. Thinking about wigs. About my cousin. About my other cousin – Diane.

I visited her in Albuquerque when I was 17. The trip, my first time traveling alone – to see Diane in New Mexico and Andrew in Los Angeles – was a high-school graduation gift from my parents.

I bought suede fringed boots, the kind with no hard sole, on that trip. They snaked up my legs, stopping just beneath my knees and tied with crisscrossing leather cord. Burnout style. And also, a wooden box, the top decorated with a sand painting of Father Sky – it says so in pencil, written on the underside, good for storing treasures.

Diane bought me a miniature wedding vase, a smaller version of the kind I would drink from at my own wedding 15 years later.

It seems like forever ago. As does my trip to see Diane. Except the memories of my marriage feel sneakier – unexpected – and not as purely sweet as those of my trip to New Mexico.

So I keep on moving, rather than sitting (or like my friend Sheila likes to say “bathing”) in the feelings. I look at pipes, teepee covers and silver jewelry, eventually moving on to the African Art section – something without connection to the past. Something entirely my own. Sort of.

Unless you consider it is my ex who bought me a gift certificate to the Old Town School of Music and Dance, where I study West African dance. Or that I found myself in Rwanda right in the middle of our divorce.

And yet, Africa is mine. It always was. A dream since I was a child. He just helped get me there.

The collection is small.

A few voluminous robes – the kind I have seen my instructor Idy dance in, constantly moving the sleeves in gorgeous gestures to keep from getting the fabric caught up in his feet. A couple of headdresses and costumes, one depicting the ideal mature woman in the 17^th century – prominent nose, jutting chin, and large breasts.

I think of my own breasts. Small. No longer pendulous. Faded scars run from breast fold to areola – subtle reminders of my reduction surgery. A different beauty ideal.

I am struck by the words tacked to the wall.

“Dress is among the most personal forms of visual expression, creating a buffer and a bridge between the private and the public self…Special forms of luxury dress…may (also) signal particular standing within a community or a moment of transition from one role to another.”

I think about the Native American headdress. Of my own dress. My friend Tori says I dress differently since my divorce. Sexier. It was not my intention, but I believe she is right.

Across the room is a timeline of events, highlighting key moments in both African and world history. I snap photographs so I can remember them.

1884: European nations meet for the Berlin West Africa Conference, initiating the European scramble to colonize Africa. By 1900 only Ethiopia and Liberia remain independent.

1957: The nation of Ghana gains independence from British colonial rule, launching a continent-side decolonization movement.

1980: Zimbabwe gains independence from Great Britain; it is the last European colony to do so.

1990-94: Civil war in Rwanda leads to genocide.

I remember my friend Geri’s map-of-the-world shower curtain – so old, Rhodesia was still on it.

I think about my own map. My timeline. My dress. My independence. Messy. Uncertain. Liberating. But unlike Rhodesia, I got to keep my name.

No Longer Waiting. And Other Little Miracles

October 7, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I have a bit of a sugar hangover. I blame the French meringues. Stacked in big glass jars. All shades of gorgeous. Purple cassis. Cocoa salted-caramel. Yellow-cream.

I blame the lemon and apple tarts, covered with glazed domes, glistening, yellow and red. So shiny and perfect, at first I think they are glass.

I am at my cousin Andrew’s wedding.

I had not planned to eat so much sugar. I never do. Just like I never planned to drink so much, for things to go sideways, as they often did. Especially at weddings.

This is no longer my experience. At weddings. Or anywhere else for that matter. I don’t stick my hand in the cake (already cut up and served, thank goodness) on the way out the door. I don’t offend the groom’s cousin by dissing where he lives. The bride doesn’t have to separate me and her 17-year-old boy cousin who I am grinding with on the dance floor. The one who thinks perhaps this is his lucky day. Or night.

I am grateful.

And I am triggered.

By this girl – a woman, really – who reminds me of me when I drank. She stumbles back to the hotel with us, barely putting one foot in front of the other. Shuffling. Earlier, sitting at the bar, I watched her eyes roll back in her head. Her words don’t make any sense to me. She is speaking gibberish.

I remember making dinner for my girlfriends many years ago in California. Being drunk before they arrive. My friend Rainey, sweetly, sadly, telling me she doesn’t understand what I am saying.

Nobody tells this girl she doesn’t make sense. No one seems to mind. She smokes a joint thick as a cigarette and waves it about. I have to leave.

I am triggered by my brother. Showing up to the wedding with his new girlfriend. It isn’t her. Or him, for that matter. But that he always has a girlfriend. Always had a girlfriend. Always.

I am triggered by my aunt’s stories of dating in her 40s, after her divorce. The seeming line of suitors, one more exciting than the next, waiting for a chance to be with her. Her year in Italy, living with a Count.

My aunt and I. She is so beautiful. I can imagine her line of suitors.

This is not my experience. Any of it. And yet, the shame that rises is all mine. It is so familiar. The shame I used to feel in my drunken-ness. The shame I still sometimes feel in my alone-ness. Even if I have – mostly – chosen it.

So sugar seems like a good idea. At the end of the night. Alone, in my cousin’s hotel suite. Tired. Waiting for him and his husband to take me back to their apartment where I am staying.

The meringues are like a siren. The shiny slices of mango torte know my name. Even the leftover pastry from the morning is alluring. All from the patisserie where my cousin works.

I sample each, many times over. Quickly. And then…I stop. I realize I am going to be physically uncomfortable very soon if I continue. I say this out loud to myself. I realize I am uncomfortable in my skin right now. Triggered. I call my friend Matt and we talk it through.

I do not shame myself for using food. It is a small miracle. A victory. As is the stopping while I am in it.

This morning, it all feels a long time ago.

I am walking to the market to pick up some yogurt and produce for the apartment. A coffee. I am dropping into “my life” here in Minneapolis. My life for two and a half days.

I marvel at how easily I can make a place my own. Like I did in Dublin, with Steven. Renting an apartment. Finding my coffee shop. My grocery. My people in meetings in church basements.

I’ve done this in many places. In Brussels. In Charleston. Even my hometown, Detroit. Here, this morning in my cousin’s city, I remember a time when it wasn’t like this.

I was 17. My parents sent me to Los Angeles to visit my cousin – their high-school graduation gift to me. It is my first time traveling alone. I am terrified.

Andrew goes to work, leaving me with a key and suggestions of where I might go while he is away. Places I can walk to right out the door. There are plenty. Surprising for Los Angeles, but true.

I can’t leave the apartment. I am stymied. Paralyzed. I hang out with the cat. Listen to Carly Simon. Smoke his weed. Drink his booze. And wait for him to come home. While Los Angeles waits for me.

It is no different in the years that follow, as I continue to visit him in Los Angeles. I stay in when he is gone. Alone. Afraid.

Perhaps it’s just age. Or maybe it is travel. But I cannot imagine sitting inside today, waiting.

Just like I can’t imagine being the drunk girl at the wedding.

I can almost imagine men lining up to date me, like they did for my aunt. And that in itself is another miracle, that I can even imagine it. Even if it hasn’t happened. But I’m not waiting on that either.

Instead, I think about now. About dancing all afternoon at the wedding. A three-piece band – keyboard, stand-up bass and drummer – playing jazz and swing. About Peter swinging me around the floor. A strong lead, I follow easily. He dips me at the end of each song and I smile big. It is not a love connection. We are just dancing, having a great time.

About Emiko, my cousin’s friend from Los Angeles. She literally watched me become an adult, in those years that I visited, when I afraid to leave by myself. We talk as though no time has passed, picking up the thread of easy connection and filling in the blanks.

About Monica, my cousin David’s wife. The last time we saw one another was at my going-away party – when I was leaving California, with my then husband, for Chicago. The city I embraced as my own – even though it was his dream that brought me here.

About her words to me.

She tells me she is excited for me. For this time in my life. For the adventures I’ve lived, and those I am about to live. That I look amazing.

She doesn’t see the fear. The worry. Just this woman who flew in just this morning to show up for her cousin. For her family. For her life. Not waiting…for anything. For anyone.

This morning, walking, writing, making Minneapolis mine, if only for a moment…I see the same woman. No longer waiting.

Love Letter to My Farnow, From the Dancing Queen

September 24, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

The side of my face is pressed to yours. I feel your beard against my cheek. The bone of your right pelvis against my own. Your leg gently, but firmly, straddling mine.

You dance tango. But we are not dancing tango.

No matter, it is the sexiest dance I’ve ever had in my life. I’m certain of it.

I have not danced like this in more years than I can count.

I am referring not only to the leg between mine. Or the man, 10 years my junior, to whom it belongs. But to the friends surrounding me. My farnow, the Kiwi word roughly translated as “family of choice.” Farnow I’ve known for 20 years. Farnow I’ve known for just 20 minutes.

We are dancing to Patti LaBelle. Donna Summer. The Cure. New Order. All of us. Like we did in Detroit. In San Francisco. When I was 20-something and it didn’t feel like “a thing” to stay up late to go dancing.

I am sweaty. Low to the ground. All hips and legs. I feel vital. Sexy. Alive.

“You are in a very good place,” my friend Steven tells me. He is right. I am.

But not for the reasons you think.

This isn’t a story about sex.

This is a story about recognizing another one of my teachers. About the universe tapping me on the shoulder, inquiring exactly where I am with the old idea I tossed into Lake Michigan – along with stale bread. the ritual of tashlich – on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, just a few weeks ago.

The day I muttered, “I let go of the idea that I am only good for sex.” Over and over, like a mantra. The notion being that I might be attractive to men for more reasons than this.

Prior to my marriage, I used my sexuality like a calling card. A year outside of its dissolution, I’m not sure what is. Or if I have one at all.

Earlier in the evening, we did a different sort of dance. Flirty. My ass to your ass. My back to your chest. Your leg between mine for the first time.

“Is this ok?” you ask. Yes, I nod. It is more than ok. I cannot stop grinning.

And then…you are sitting on a stool, no longer dancing. I am not quite sure what has happened. I think it has something to do with the girl sitting next to you, but I am not certain.

I do not want to interfere with anyone’s real life. I am on holiday. This flirtation is fun. But I do not want to hurt anyone. So I leave it be. I leave you be. Mostly.

I dance with Steven and Tim. Anja and Derek. Anne-Marie and Tom. Everyone but you. I ask G-d to help me to be to be present to the people who are with me and not to worry about those who are not.

Later, when you are alone, I apologize for possibly getting you into trouble with a girl. You insist I have not. But that you are certain I am one to get into trouble. You are teasing me.

I tell you it is incredibly sexy when you reach down between your legs to tap on the cajon – the box drum – which I saw you do the other night, playing music with my friend, Tim.

I notice you don’t drink. Neither do I. We talk about living life feeling everything. “EVERYTHING,” you say slowly, emphatically, with a knowing smile.

We talk about G-d. That yours is like Star Wars, “The Force.” That mine is magic, poetry and serendipity. The kind of stuff I couldn’t think up myself.

You ask me about my work. My Judaism. My writing. We talk about your music, the religion of your upbringing, and our friendship with Tim.

I tell you I enjoyed dancing with you. You smile and reply that you enjoyed talking with me. I am flummoxed. It is as if the universe is asking, “Remember your taslich mantra? The one about being attractive for other reasons…Are you paying attention?”

We dance that slow, sexy dance, and say goodbye. I kiss either of your cheeks, feeling your beard against me again. I ask if I will see you again on this trip. “G-d willing. Allah willing,” you say, and list a couple of other names for G-d, but I do not hear them. I am touched by your response.

And you are gone.

I go back to the floor and join my farnow and dance until DJ Gerry can play no more. I think about you whispering in my ear that I could surely tango. That I am a good dancer, but I must know this already.

I do not see you again. I am a little bit sad, but not at all surprised. It isn’t necessary. I have received your teaching.

I want to tell you this. And that my meeting you is a wink from the universe – is G-d. But I do not. It seems too intimate. Too much.

So I blog instead. My sober artistry. A kind of “love letter,” sans stamp. Destination: Dublin, Ireland. I sign it,

“Until ‘the force’ conspires for us to meet again. In gratitude, Lesley.”

Artist Date 38: Creating Community…It’s Not About the Shoes

September 6, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I don’t know if I filled my creative coffers this week. By my spiritual and social ones are brimming over. And that will have to do this week for Artist Date 38.

Overlooking Lake Michigan, at Dawes Park.

Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year. 5774. I’m at Dawes Park in Evanston for the ritual of tashlich – where we empty bread from our pockets into a body of moving water. Some think of it as casting away one’s sins. I prefer a gentler interpretation. That I am simply cleaning out the residue of the last year. Whatever is stale. Has been sitting around in the corners of my consciousness slowly growing a somewhat furry mold.

I’ve stuffed a package of naan bread in my bag. It’s been in my freezer since November. A friend brought it to a party I had, to go with the curried lentil soup I was making. I’m not much of a bread eater, so I tucked it away for just such an occasion.

Another woman has matzo. I could have brought that two. I buy too much every year.

It is my third High Holiday season with the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, so I know where we meet. But this year is different. I not only know the place, but I know many of the people here too.

My friend Phil is here with his family. He introduced me to this congregation – specifically the Rabbi — a number of years ago, when I was feeling particularly wayward and spiritually lost.

Since that time I have developed a close relationship with Rabbi Brant and Cantor Howard. They are tuning up for this short, mostly musical, service that precedes the tossing of the bread. Jeff is tuning up as well. We met a couple of years ago at a Shabbat morning service I attended just once.

He seemed to sense I was new and somewhat hesitant, and warmly welcomed me in. I have had several encounters with him since them. Perhaps my favorite being when he sidled up to me during last year’s High Holiday services.

He said he read my blog postings from Rwanda and that he liked my writing. I thanked him and told him I used to write professionally. “It shows,” he said. And was gone.

Moments before I had silently cried out to G-d, asking what the plan is, what it is I was meant to do. I recall looking up toward the heavens, smiling and saying, “got it.”

Mary Jo is here. Brant introduced us several years ago when I completed my conversion to Judaism. She joined him and Howard as my witnesses, and was there in that same role when I received my get, my Jewish divorce.

I am now on her permanent invite list for Passover, and the breaking of the fast on Yom Kippur.

I feel a tap on my shoulder. It is Rachel. She is a Weight Watchers member I know.

Monica is here with her family. We met at Shabbat services at the lakefront a couple of years ago. Michael is here too. He blows the shofar every year at High Holiday services. He introduces me to his daughters who are following in the family tradition.

I see Hannah. She used to wear her head shaved like mine but now she has a mass of ringlets. She tells me that she’s bought a condo and that she broke up with her boyfriend. She introduces me to her friend Kelly and we agree we must get together.

A woman I have never met before approaches me. Her name is Sheila. She likes my shoes and takes a photograph of them.

Yes, they are “the shoes.” The shoes that have seemingly come to identify me. My orange Fly London peep-toe wedges.

The first summer I owned them, people literally chased me down Michigan Avenue to find out what they were and where I got them. It was fun, talking with all sorts of people I wouldn’t otherwise meet. And today is no exception.

Walking to the water, a tall woman with a mess of dark curls puts her foot next to mine. “Nice shoes,” she says. She is wearing the same ones in pewter.

She tells me she is tossing out the year of rehabbing her broken wrist. It is healed. I do not tell her what I am tossing. Instead, I tell her I like our shoes so much that I have two pairs. That the second I bought before my divorce was final, when my then-husband kindly said, “Do what you need to before we separate our monies.”

I bought a new lightweight massage table, a Torah commentary, and the peep-toe wedges in mustard. We laugh at my choices.

I wish her a sweet New Year and peel off to throw my bread, my karmic residue. There are so many things I could get rid of. The litany that I repeat every year – self-doubt, unkindness, judgment of myself and others. I recall that last year I tossed away my identity as a wife.

It was a Monday. I knew divorce papers were signed on Mondays in the county where we filed. I had a sinking feeling at that moment that I was officially divorced. A call to my mediator later in the day confirmed it.

Today I am casting away what my friend Lisa likes to call “an old idea.” I am embarrassed to admit that I have continued to hold on to it. Actually, I’m not sure I was consciously aware that I had it, but a series of recent events has cast a glaring light upon it and I can no longer turn away.

I point myself east, tear off a piece of naan and whisper to myself, “I let go of the idea that I am only desirable for sex.”

It is windy and the naan flies back at me. I turn west off of the dock where the waters are still. I repeat the words.

I’ve got a lot of naan so I say it a couple of more times, ripping and tossing. Ripping and tossing.

When I am done, I am approached by a woman. She asks me about the shoes. She is radiant and I tell her so. She tells me about her job search. Her cancer.

I suddenly remember that people used to tell me things about themselves all of the time. Friends and family, and random, almost strangers too. Cab drivers especially. I realize people are talking to me in this way again.

It’s not the shoes. Because I wore the same ones last year…I am different. My heart has healed just enough to let some of my light shine out. I am open and there is room for others. They sense it and come in.

A Wandering Jewess

My Journey Back To Self

Tag: Family