Why Writers Write

“I’ve wanted to be a writer my whole life, and now I’m not writing,” I wrote in a frantic email to my playwriting professor Tina Howe, one year after graduating from college. “What if I’m not supposed to be a writer?”

In Tina’s class, I worked for two years on a play in which a young woman named Eddie secretly slept at a used bookstore at night. The play, then titled Izzy Gold Drops Dead, explored questions of sexuality, meaning, and loss, in a quirky romp I dubbed a spiritual, dark, coming-of-age comedy. Izzy Gold Drops Dead won awards and had readings, but I didn’t understand why Eddie was hiding—or how to get her out. After graduation, the play went into a drawer for four years. Eddie wasn’t the only one hiding: I was, too.

The play is now called Stranded. I’m proud to report that through the progression of recent drafts, Eddie learns the lesson she needs to learn to leave the bookstore and enter adulthood. I’m ready to emerge as well, and am excited to continue work on this cathartic story about heartbreak, faith, and living with questions that can’t be answered.

Tina’s reply to my email was a gentle push. “Writers don’t write because they want to be writers,” she said, “They write because they have something they need to say.”

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Excerpt from a cover letter I wrote this year. Thankful today for support from mentors, and for the lessons that come with time.

The Mincha Minyan

In the Jewish communal world, there is an ongoing conversation about how to activate and dazzle uninvolved or unaffiliated Jews. I think the conversation needs to be reframed; I believe that many people want to be involved, but for different reasons aren’t able to access the Jewish ritual and communal space.

Likewise, I believe that many people want to connect to Torah, to prayer, to learning, to community—all of which are present at the arguable peak of the Jewish week: 9am to noon on Saturdays. What if that timeframe isn’t enough? What if it doesn’t work for everyone? (Nothing works for everyone!)

Same Love

I heard this yesterday during a long car ride back from, appropriately enough, a wedding: “Same Love” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, featuring Mary Lambert. The power of words knows no bounds.

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“Love is patient… love is kind….”

OMGWTFBIBLE Chapter 8!

It was my honor to help my pal David Tuchman record the latest chapter of his hilarious and brilliant monthly podcast OMGWTFBIBLE. Take a listen!

The Meaning of Life (According to Heschel)

I was recently sent this quote from a 1972 interview with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. 

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Carl Stern’s interview with Dr. Heschel. Originally broadcast on NBC-TV on Sunday, February 4, 1972, under the auspices of The Eternal Light.

Stern: We have just about a minute or so left.  I should have said at the start of this hour, before we began this hour, that Dr. Heschel indicated an interest in directing a message to young people.  And I don’t know that I ever in the past hour gave you the chance I promised that I would give you.

Heschel: I would say to young people a number of things.  And we only have one minute. I would say, let them remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity.  Let them be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power, and that we can, everyone, do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all the frustrations and all disappointments.  And above all, remember that the meaning of life is to build a life as if it were a work of art.  You’re not a machine. And you are young. Start working on this great work of art called your own existence.

For the Women Who Mother Me

When I was in second grade, I didn’t want to make a Mother’s Day card with the rest of the kids in class. My teacher, a kind person who I’m sure meant well, insisted. “You can write to her in heaven,” she said. I thought it was a stupid idea, and refused again.

My mom died when I was five years old. My father remained single throughout my childhood, and only very recently–to my twenty-something surprise–did he fall in love again, getting married at City Hall to his lovely wife one year ago, at sixty-five. Because he raised me and my brother by himself, I grew up without a mom or a stepmom. The absence was felt keenly and mundanely at the same time: I internally corrected teachers who told us to take permission slips home to our “mom and dad”, I answered small talk questions about my parents with the phrase “my family” (“my family moved here when I was five”), and I cringed at every TV show, movie, or book that used the backstory of a dead mom to explain a character’s troubled emotional landscape.

When I was a freshman in college, I called my father to let him know that I would be attending Yom Kippur services for the first time. He told me that there was a special prayer read by people who don’t have a mother, and asked me to find it and read it. I was moved that Judaism–my own religion, and one I knew next to nothing about–had such a prayer. Today, I read it four times a year: Yom Kippur, Passover, Sukkot, and (right around the corner now) Shavuot. Sometimes I cry. Usually, I don’t. In many ways, I’m accustomed to the idea that I don’t have a mom.

But that idea began to shift a year and a half ago.

Read the rest on the Lilith blog.

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photo credit: bernat… via photopin cc

Black Skinny Jeans

“Why is it so hard to be good at my job, write, work out regularly, work on my fellowship project, be on a synagogue board, have a social life, and continue to spend time growing a serious relationship?” I asked my therapist recently. I should have also added: and be a good sister and daughter, be a good roommate, learn to cook, learn to drive.

“You can’t do it all at the same time,” she answered.

The truth is, I’m trying. But there are only so many hours in the day and I mostly just want to be happy. My therapist went on to say that as different pieces become important, my priorities and how I spend my time will shift.

Suddenly, I began to look at my on-again, off-again, years-long Unbuttoned Pants Deadlock in a new way.

I am fifteen pounds heavier than I think I should be. At least, I am fifteen pounds heavier than I was a year and a half ago, and that knowledge has driven me slightly bonkers as well as to the gym. I learned to run, and I run on the treadmill and sometimes in the park close to my apartment. My weight has gone up and down and up and down… or, lately, just up and up. In recent months, every time I stepped on the scale I thought “Wow, I’ve never seen that number on here before.”

My pants—a pair of jeans that I wear almost daily—haven’t been fitting me but I put them on every day anyway. I’ve always refused to buy larger pants because I thought that would be “defeat”. This logic served me well in the past, as I was moved to buckle down and get the weight off. This time, months have passed and more often than not I just feel like a packaged ham busting out of my clothes.

I surrender. Dear God, I look fine. I look good. I eat well, and I’m working out regularly, and damn it: I’d rather be comfortable in a pair of pants that actually fit me. As my therapist said, I can’t do everything at the same time. So if I sit down at my job, or at a board meeting, or to write, or to work on my fellowship project—I don’t want to unbutton my pants anymore.

Yesterday I bought a new pair of jeans. They’re black skinny jeans and they’re a size that I’ve never worn before in my whole life.

They look great. Best of all, I feel great in them. I’m done obsessing. I’ll buy a smaller size if and when I get there.