The Pathetic Incident of the Spoon at Lunchtime

Two weeks ago I sat on the rug at the Cambodian Buddhist Temple in Rochester and watched Dar being turned into a monk: his head shaved, his clothes set aside for orange robes. At the corner of the room a huge TV screen hung next to large golden statues of the Buddha. A computer, printer, and large stacks of printing paper sat on shelves. One of the monks checked his iphone, sent a quick text. Incense burned, filling the room with its sweet scent. Dar knelt in the middle of the row with his brother, brother in law, nephew and a cousin. The monks chanted the guttural sounds of Sanskrit, instructing the five new monks when to bow down and touch their foreheads to the floor.

Safe home earlier this week, I sat over coffee with a friend and found myself expounding yet again how difficult not touching Dar for twenty-something hours had been for me. I handed a spoon to my friend to demonstrate how I resorted to tricks in order to feel that Dar and I are at least touching the same object. My friend laughed and returned the spoon. “In orthodox Judaism,” she commented, “you couldn’t do that.”

I’ve always known that orthodox Jews do not touch women other than their wives, and that they do not touch their wives around the time of menstruation. But touching the same object? How can that be a sin? My friend had grown up in an orthodox family, however, and her authority seemed indisputable. A quick internet check revealed much more about the prohibition of touch: Orthodox men and women indeed cannot touch or handle the same object. Nor can they eat from the same plate, serve each other food, or sleep together. I don’t think I could survive that. I believe in Gretchen Rubin’s “hug more, kiss more, touch more” rule of happiness, and in my relationship with Dar (and with my family and friends) I religiously follow it.

The spoon was all his sister’s idea. At luncheon on the second day of the funeral weekend, we waited for the eight monks (the three real monks and the five monks for a day) to finish eating first, as required by tradition. From where I sat at our table I could not see Dar and vehemently complained about the injustice. “You can have him hold one side of a spoon while you hold the other,” Mouly slyly suggested.

I was tired and irrationally mad at Dar. I was angry with him for agreeing to be a monk, for feeling bound by those rules, for leaving me by myself at night and sleeping at the temple, and for looking so incredibly cute in his bald head and monk’s robes. As he came by our table, I thrust the spoon at him, and he instinctively took hold of the other side. We were both holding the same spoon. And according to the Jewish law, there was touch.

And let me tell you, it was not enough.

All You Need Is Love

I am feeling happy today. I have many reasons to be happy, but I think that might be true almost every day, but today I am happy for no particular reason. Not giddy happy. Not high happy. Just pleasantly happy, enjoying the patterns of clouds in the skies, the warm sun, my daughter’s little body in the giant jacket we borrowed from her brother, and my son’s lovely face as he proudly explained to yet another group about broken bones (Human Body Symposium this morning).

I am happy because I love and feel loved. I feel healthy and strong and grateful for the health of my loved ones. I feel happy because I am writing to you about love and how to express love, and I realize that just thinking about this subject fills me with a joy of life.

Giving love, I know, increases happiness. Feeling grateful increases happiness. I want my son, my daughter, my boyfriend, my parents and siblings, my entire huge family to feel secure in the knowledge that I love them. And I want to show them love with more than just words. Sometimes it’s nice to show love when the object of it doesn’t expect it. A hug, a kiss, a squeeze can mean so much.

From Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project I learned to wake up my daughter with a song. Eden is often grumpy in the mornings, but I noticed that when I sing for her, her little face, her cheeks puffy with sleep, lights up, and she opens her eyes to the morning with happiness and joy, secure with the knowledge of my love.

At eleven, my son is a little more reluctant to hug and kiss, but every once in a while he cuddles up to me. He leans his head on my shoulder and just sighs. I find little ways to show my love: making his favorite cheddar cheese bread sticks. Buying him those jello containers he likes. Telling him I love him. Coming to events in his class. Listening when he plays his two instruments. Accepting his little gestures of love.

Gretchen Rubin chose as one of her keys to feeling happier to “hug more, kiss more, touch more.” With the kids, with Dar, my parents and even with the dogs this is great advice! This morning I sat with Chaim, my alpha dog, and I petted him for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, just him and I. The result: I felt quieter, calmer and happier. And if a dog can make me feel so much love, how much better with every hug or kiss from the children and Dar!

So today I feel happy, and I wanted to share the love with you. I hope you can find someone (appropriate) to hug today. Share a kiss with your loved ones. Get that amazing feeling of completeness with someone, human, cat a dog. I wish you a love day, love week and love year. And please remember to spread the love to everyone you hold dear. (Hey! That rhymed!)