The Blessing of Love

The first time I remember listening to the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” and really hearing the words was when I watched the movie Love Actually. Perhaps the movie had something to do with it, or the song, or books I have read, but for many years now I have been a one-solution woman. For every situation, from raising chickens to potty training the dogs to the academic progress of my kids my solution has always been love.

I believe in the power of love. With my dog Percy, I watched as he softened, calmed, settled into our home. I experience the same effect with my children, family and friends. Love works, but not always dramatically. Sometimes, I thought, love is not enough.

Love was not enough when I realized that instead of respect I receive complaints, anger, and frustration from my children. I know they express negative emotion at home because they know they are loved. I, however, end up feeling under-appreciated. I needed help, and I found it with Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a Skinned Knee.

Mogel divided her book into nine blessings: acceptance, someone to look up to, skinned knee, gratitude, work, food, self control, time, and faith. She supports each blessing with teachings from the bible, showing how the three principles of Jewish living, moderation, celebration and sanctification, help in parenting.

While reading, I identified some of my parenting mistakes and potential ways to correct them -- in moderation, of course. In the Blessing of Acceptance and the Blessing of Self Control, I learned about accepting my child’s temperament and reframing their most annoying trait as their strength. Mogel gives the same warning about perfection that I hear from friends and other experts: stop pressuring myself, forget perfection, enjoy ordinary moments.

In the Blessing of Having Someone to Look Up To and the Blessing of Work, I found how important it is that I be the head of the house and that I assign the kids chores. I had a hard time assigning chores to the kids because they move from house to house and because I felt that policing them into doing the chores was harder than doing the chores myself. It did not occur to me that for my children chores are a blessing indeed, a way to feel more grounded and settled at home when they return from their father’s house. Mogel emphasizes making little changes, not sitting the kids down and announcing that things are going to change from now on. I’ve been implementing changes slowly, encouraging the children to help me with cooking, setting the table, feeding the dogs, and looking after themselves (which Mogel says is a mitzvah -- a good deed).

In the Blessing of a Skinned Knee, Mogel reminded me to stop overprotecting the kids, let them make mistakes and learn from them. I am one of those parents who will rush to retrieve a forgotten lunch, book or backpack. Mogel says: let them discover the consequence of their actions so that they learn.

Mogel points out in the Blessing of Time and the Blessing of Longing the importance of finding time to connect with the kids and appreciating little moments. Hand in Hand Parenting calls it special time. Gratitude, Mogel says, must be cultivated. It is so easy to slip from expressing appreciation to thinking about what I don’t yet have or what I fear. In the Blessing of Faith, Mogel talks about the first time she saw a double rainbow with her daughter. The two held hands and recited the Shehecheyanu, the prayer for special moments. I loved how in one instant, Mogel and her daughter experienced three blessings: gratitude, being in the moment, and a connection to God.

Wendy Mogel’s book added many tools to my parenting toolkit, and what I love most about it is that none of them ended up being heavy. By emphasizing moderation, Mogel makes each and every one of her recommendation accessible to all of us. By advocating celebrating our children, ourselves, ordinary moments, and the holidays, she opens up a world of enjoyment in parenting. In the overarching umbrella of sanctification, she tells us not to forget the preciousness of it.

The Beauty of Making Mistakes

A few years ago, before I realized I was writing for children, I signed up for two writing classes at once. One class was at the art center near my house and was called “Writing and Illustrating a Picture Book,” and the other at Stanford, “Writing for Children.” I always loved writing, and I had children -- I felt it would be a perfect match.

I learned two new facts about myself in those classes. The first, that I love to make art and maybe could do something about it. The second, that I am writing for children, but not necessarily a picture book. Turned out that my fairy tale about the princess kidnapped in New York City by a wizard in a flying car who saves herself and marries a chimney sweep is really a novel. I lost the chimney sweep and the saves herself by screaming the wizard into oblivion, and now, a few years and lots of sweating (and some writing) later, I have a novel.

But my novel is far from perfect. Before sending it to agents, I always reread it, and I always find lots to fix. It is never finished, never enough, never perfect. But the book holds the (probably false) promise of potential perfection. If I tinker with it enough, if I identify every little mistake, surely I could make it flawless? But in paintings? There are mistakes which drive me crazy and can never be repaired. Like the too wide left wing of the dragon from the fairytale battle painting which I painted in high school, or the bicycle in the riding down the hill painting whose frame is a W instead of a triangle and really looks weird.

But, I wonder, does art need to be perfect? Brooke Scudder, a magnificent artist (whose art always seems to me to border on perfection) and the teacher of the “Picture Book” class mentioned above, thought otherwise. “Sigal,” she said to me, “the mistakes you make in your painting will often turn out to be the most unique and beautiful parts of it.” Wait, what? That makes it sound like mistakes are a good thing! That can’t be right. Right? And yet I believe her. I believe it is the mistakes in a story or a painting (or in life) that charm me, allow me to fall in love with the humanity of the creator and the creation.

This morning I read a quote by Alfred Sisley: “Every picture shows a spot with which the artist has fallen in love.” And I instantly knew what he meant. The spot that Alfred Sisley is talking about is the mistake, the place where the pen slipped, where inaccuracies occurred, where a drop fell as the brush withdrew and another red flower had to be drawn. And this spot, where the imperfections, the fallibility of the artist shine through, is what allows me to feel empathy, to recognize myself and fall in love. To feel the art through and through.

Insightful Morning in the Rain

I had an AHA! moment this morning, a shift in perspective that I would like to keep and apply in my life. It dawned on me that my weaknesses are my greatest strengths. Amazing, right?

I was talking to my mom on the phone, as I often do on my way back from dropping off the kids. And as usual we began to discuss the children’s schoolwork. Sighing over the long hours they spend doing homework, my mother commented that I never had to study. “You did everything chik-chak,” she said. Chik-chak is an expression in Hebrew for quickly, but it could also mean carelessly. “I didn’t want to tell you then,” my mother said, “but I admired how you learned so fast.”

In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy tells Mr Bingley: “The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.” Rather than appreciate my quickness, I had always taken Mr. Darcy’s reproof to heart. Quickness was bad. Secretly I was proud of how quick I was, yet I felt ashamed of what I perceived as careless and wholly underserved results. I should only do well if I work hard, right?

I longed to become meticulous and studious but did not wish to put in either the time or the effort that was, to be truthful, barely required in order to get much better than good-enough results. See the dilemma? Why work hard if I could get 100% on my history exam without studying? This was the beginning of my flakiness. Never having had to work hard, I never learned how to work at all.

And yet -- can flakiness become an asset? a talent? a tool for moving ahead in the world? “The family tree project you created in seventh grade is more beautiful than your sister’s,” my mother said this morning.

A morning of revelations! My project, more beautiful than that of my meticulous and studious sister’s? See, I remember this project exceedingly well. I started it, I believe, the day before it was due. And I still remember it as a very loud project from how much my mom yelled at me while I was working on it. I remember the crooked titles I made for the photos. Blah.

So is it my mother’s memory that is remiss, or was I overly critical of myself? Is it possible to do well and quick at the same time? Can I finally be openly proud about how fast I am?

And more important, if I can view my greatest weakness, my flakiness (translated to speed), as a strength, can I also switch my point of view on what I perceive as the children’s weaknesses, and begin to see those as assets, strengthening and praising them as talents? If I could do that, I’d finally reach my mothering ideal. Perfection. Or maybe just an acceptance of who we are as we are.

Flakiness and Writing

A few years ago I took an interpersonal communication class at Stanford Continuing Education. Our class had a very simple format. We could talk about anything that had to do with the group itself -- no politics or weather. The group I was with ended up asking a lot about people’s first impressions: what did you think about me?” I stayed in the sidelines, feeling vulnerable, but that did not save me from one piece of feedback that had been branded in my memory forever. One of the women in the class told me: “You appear flaky.”

Flaky? I didn’t even know what that meant. According to the Urban Dictionary a flaky person is “Unreliable. A procrastinator. A careless or lazy person. Dishonest and doesn't keep to their word.” Now, I’m the first to admit that I’m not perfect, but unreliable? dishonest? lazy? I took that woman’s words really hard. Where she said “appear” I put “are,” and I found confirmation for my flakiness with every appointment I failed to arrive to on time and every promise I failed to keep. She was right. I was flaky! I felt horrified and appalled.

And proving myself otherwise is impossible, because no matter how often I finish tasks, am on time (or even early), or am careful making plans, there is always the one appointment I can’t keep, the book I don’t finish, the party I have to cancel, or the friend I am forced to disappoint. I struggle with flakiness. I told you before, I strive for perfection (being the first to admit I’m not perfect is just a foil). I’m tough on myself for not continuing or finishing projects. I want to be responsible, reliable, thorough.

I get anxious when I don’t write every day. The writing routine is my refuge, what gives me confidence that there’s hope for me yet. But since returning from Israel the writing has been slow, and my progression into panic fast. Fortunately, it seems I’m not the only one who has a hard time getting back to a writing routine. Yesterday I read Nathan Bransford’s blog on how to get back to writing after a long break. Bransford says: “Breaks = kryptonite achilles heel termite ridden ankle breaking weakening things.” He recommends not heading straight to the novel, starting small, picking up momentum until the writing again flows.

I hope he’s right. My achilles heel is lack of faith that my flow can return. But I think it’s time to let go of this particular belief and accept one more facet of my humanness. Sometimes the writing flows and sometimes it wanes. My creativity can become inspired during vacation or disappear in the chaos of being far from home. And as usual, I see my first lesson to learn from all this is to let go of perfection and judgment, of comparison and expectations. My new goal is to let the magic of writing lead the way. That’s my worthy, optimistic, wonderful goal for today.

A Solo In Comparison

My niece played with the Terman Band at Gunn High School tonight. She is eleven years old and started playing the saxophone this year. The concert began with the sixth graders, continued with the higher Terman grades and ended with Gunn’s upper-grades band.

I thought: I wish Uri had come. In the front, several kids played the clarinet, one of the two instruments he plays. Off to one side, two girls played the bass clarinet, the instrument he wished to study (his hands are still too small to reach the bottom notes). There were trumpets and trombones, a percussionist, flutists and even a few tuba players.

I thought: I wish Uri would want to join the Hausner band. I wish for him the experience of feeling his notes merging in with the music, melting in to create one harmony. Sitting in the audience this evening, I felt moved by the power this group of musicians generated as each freely gave his or her part for the whole.

I personally am not a good group player. As a singer, I have never been able to let my voice join in with other people’s. I feel off tune when I sing with anyone else. I feel that I cannot merge in, that everybody can hear me. I like to say that I’m a soloist at heart, but I think underneath is a double fear: the fear of not fitting in and the fear that if I tried to sing with other people, I would discover I was not as good as I thought.

Not trying allows me to stay with the dream of being best without having to prove myself either right or wrong. I refrain from putting myself in a position that might bring me into comparison with others, not just because I know it is bad to compare, but because I’m afraid I would still do it and come out missing. It’s a cycle I don’t quite know how to avoid. After all, even a soloist needs to work with an orchestra.

Perhaps it is not necessary to be as afraid of comparison as I am, as long as the knowledge that "I am who I am and that’s okay" balances out the wish to achieve perfection. Perhaps comparison is the path to improvement. If I do not see someone better than me, how would I get better? If no one is more creative, why be creative?

I think maybe it is a balanced comparison which ultimately inspires us. I may be found lacking if by chance you decide to size me up next to Ursula K. LeGuin or Orson Scott Card, but if of all the writers in the world, those two are the ones similar enough to be used as my measuring stick, I think I'll be feeling just fine.