Answering Rabbi Daniel Cohen's Questions

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

The Questions Appear in Rabbi Cohen's New Book 

The book is *What will they say about you when you are gone: Creating a Life of Legacy - Live Your Best Life Now* and the questions are ones that -- since my parents (z"l) are gone and I'm 50+ -- I'm especially in the mood to consider these days:

From pp. 13 and 15-17:

1. Who are you? A Jewish-American lesbian writer, as well as a music, fiction and global museum lover, and a solvent home owner and healthy eater, who has enjoyed the companionship of my wife for nearly 25 years so far, who has parented up to two precious cats at a time for close to a decade, who has been grateful for the siblinghood of my two older sisters Deb and Kayla for nearly 52 years and who comes from fascinating parents (z"l), who loved me and wanted a good life for me. I'm also an aunt, a cousin, a friend and an IBMer, who manages a team of premier instructional designers and who is earnest, loyal and reliable, with occasional lapses into worry that are mostly unfounded, and with flashes of creativity and humor.
2. Who do you want to be? The same, minus the worry, and plus more discipline, practice and personal success with my writing. 
3. How do you want to be remembered? For everything in #1 and #2 plus for being kind, inclusive and for being of service.
   By your family:
   As supportive and loving.
   By your community:
   As engaged and valued.
   By the world:
   As someone whose writing helped people appreciate their lives more and whose writing and work helped people excel and advance. And as someone with a capacity for joy.
4. Pick one person, place or event in your life that brings you happiness and satisfaction, and write down in a journal the various ways it might not have happened: Easily, I could never have gotten together with my wife Pat, since she lived in DeKalb, Illinois and I lived in Chicago, and since I could have not been at Shabbat services when she first visited Or Chadash, the LGBT shul in Chicago at the time, and since we were 15 years apart in age, and since initially, I was afraid to get involved with anyone as amazing as Pat, since I felt still unmoored and still was searching in most ways throughout my twenties to that point, and if Pat hadn't been more self-possessed, patient and clever in drawing me in. :-)
5. Then imagine your life without that person/place/event and write that down, too: If Pat & I had not gotten together, I might still be living alone in an apartment, whether in Chicago or Queens/Brooklyn/Bronx and searching for without ever finding any peace. Probably, I'd never have a deeper pet relationship than with a Siamese fighting fish if not for Pat, as she showed me the wonder of cat parenthood. Also, I would not be as solvent as I am, since Pat made me save the maximum in my 401K from 27 onward. And assuredly, I would be twice the worrier that I am; Pat's self-assurance rubs off on me.
6.  Choose the final words you'll ever speak: Thank you, God, and everyone.

Writing Your Own Eulogy, pp. 17-19:
"If you had to write your own eulogy, what would it say? Use the following questions as inspiration, and then craft a eulogy for your own funeral."

1. What would you do if you had twenty-four hours to live? Why? I'd spend it with my wife, cats, sisters, nieces and nephews and cousins and friends in my home and yard if the weather were warm enough and my favorite music would be playing in the background, say, the George Michael and Sade channels of Pandora. I would serve Indian, Middle-Eastern, Mexican and French food that was catered from favorite restaurants. I would invite one of my congregation's rabbis and some congregants and friends to come over and sing favorite liturgical songs and I'd set up a Hebrew University scholarship for an LGBT student for however many years I could afford to do so without making Pat insolvent. Why: I want the people and pets I love to surround me, along with my favorite music and food, as well as to cover the spiritual element and the g'milut chassadim (acts of loving kindness) angle.
2. What is worth fighting for? Dignity, love, art, humanity, beauty, truth, freedom, creative expression, inclusion.
3.  In your life so far, what have you taken a risk for or gone out of your comfort zone for? Living my life as a lesbian; whenever I've needed to learn something new; every time I've taken a new job at work, including a six-month assignment in India with Pat accompanying me  ... homosexual activity is illegal in India and necessarily, my employer told me that it could not protect me if I were jailed; any time I need to go to a party or a meeting, where practically everyone is a stranger initially.
4. You have five words to write on your headstone. What are they? A dignity and love champion.
5. When you're feeling low, what song do you play to lift your mood and inspire you? Why? Two come to mind: "The Right Track" from Pippin and "Gesher Tsar Meod". Why: The "Pippin" song is cheerful and helps me remember that I'm doing my best to lead a meaningful life, and that I'm not alone in my worry that I want it to be as meaningful as possible. "Gesher Tsar Meod" encourages me not to be fearful and when I'm not fearful, everything goes better.
6. Is there a phrase that you find yourself saying frequently when you're under stress? When you're happy or grateful? When I'm under stress, I say to myself the first sentence of the Shema, the central prayer of Judaism. And I hear my mother (z"l) saying, "Sarah, why don't you let yourself live?" (as in, relax, everything will be Ok). And also, if it has to do with gathering courage to deliver a difficult but necessary message, I tell myself: "Sarah, pull yourself together! He/she/they need you!" When I'm grateful, I tend to say, "Thank God!" and simply, "Yay!"
7. Describe your best day or your best self: My best self is humble, of service, kind, loving, self-possessed, reliable, present, creative, experimental, funny, stylish, fit, attentive, receptive, friendly, organized, on time, lucid, persuasive, inviting, encouraging and productive.
8. What is your favorite Bible verse, poem, or motto? "Al tifrosh min hatsibur"/ "Don't isolate yourself from the community," *Pirkei Avot* / *Ethics of the Fathers*.
9. Why are you here? What is your life mission? What do you hope to achieve? I'm here to model dignity from the margins was the first thing I thought of, but why focus on my marginal status? Because if I can demonstrate dignity as someone in society whose sexual minority status if not also religion and gender can be marginalizing, then anyone can. I get that I have all sorts of privilege in my education level and solvency, and citizenship, by accident of birth, but still, I also know from being an outsider. Why is dignity so key to me? Because it's the opposite of shame to me. Shame paralyzes while dignity makes anything and everything good possible.
   
   What is my life mission? To create something artful that uplifts someone else or many people.
   
   What do I hope to achieve? I hope to achieve peace and unconditional acceptance within myself while remaining loved and loving, and grateful, and amused, and expanded by art of all sorts and while having fun and other vivid experiences.
10. What are your dreams? How can you realize them? My dreams are to write a popular book that helps others, and me, feel less alone; to stay solvent; for Pat & me to remain healthy mentally and physically till we're at least 95 and then to die in a way that is least painful to us and our loved ones.
    
    I can realize these dreams by starting to practice writing more routinely, including enrolling in adult writing classes; by revising what I've written .... I can keep working full-time in my stimulating and relatively lucrative role at IBM .... I can keep rowing for 20 minutes daily and reading books every night pre-bed and encouraging Pat to stay active with pruning, gardening and golfing along with reading and working on crossword puzzles as she loves to do.

These questions were great to answer, though I'm not yet prepared to draft my own eulogy.

Page 43: Give thanks every day to one important person in your life. Today, I thanked my friend Mindy for inviting me to her fun birthday party and for providing an orange to me when I didn't prefer cake.

My Israel Autobiography in Photos

A Retrospective

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

1950-'52: Pre-history - My Parents' Experiences of Israel, Before They Met 

  1960s-'70s - Shohar Posters Designed and Manufactured by Moshav Beit Herut
 

1973: a letter from my second cousin Nitza, who lived in Beit Herut, including pressed flowers

 1973: Coca-cola with Lemon and Soldiers on Rooftops; 2002; 2012

My mom (z"l) took this photo. Her dear friend Chaya Zuckerman-Bareli (right), and me at eight (left), are in Jerusalem.

 

1976: Mom (z"l) and Dad (z"l) and Me in Israel and UK; 2015: Bina and D'vori's Baby Noam

1980: Coming of Age; 2015: Middle Age

 

 

1985-'86: Ambivalently Flirting with My Future; 2014 Reunion

2002: Mom (z"l) and Me and Hebrew University

2012: Introducing My Wife to This History-laden Place

2015: Closure and New Beginnings

When Did I Become a Sage?

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Feeling Self-possessed and of Service Accordingly

At 25, I was just starting what would become a real career, was romantically insecure and much less solvent, as well as a bit lost. I was also searching, earning, dating, and pursuing a career.

Twice this week, younger lesbians wanted to talk with me about my experience -- one along with her non-lesbian classmate, so that I could be the subject of their MBA project on women in business who advance change, and one who wanted tips on how to come out at work.

When did I become qualified to talk about this stuff? Perhaps by 26 if we consider the core definition of a mentor simply as someone who has been there before you. When did I become recognized for being qualified to talk about this stuff? Now, at nearly 50, when I'm so much more self-possessed.

I was touched by both discussions. The first of the lesbian women made it clear that she liked my response during our conversation: "Think bigger." And the non-lesbian classmate posted positively about our discussion on Instagram.

It was gratifying to be quotable/referenceable. The context for the quote was her asking what I'd have done differently in helping start up the LGBT Business Development team at work, which is still going strong nearly a decade and a half since its founding; I moved on to our Learning organization 11 years ago and remain proud to have made a lasting change at work.

The second discussion included the other lesbian, young woman telling me that when we first met and I talked so openly at work about my family-life, she asked herself subconsciously, "Could that be me one day?" 

When I was their age, I wasn't pursuing an MBA, nor was I super-successful at work. Instead, I was hunting for purpose, a partner and prosperity. Back then, I don't think I'd have foreseen that I could be me one day. And yet I have managed to become me. Thank God.

Unconventional, 70's & '80s, Pre-Teen/Teenage Dreams

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

And a Relatively Conventional Adulthood By Today's Standards

The year my dad (z"l) died, I distracted myself with letters from a young woman I wished would be my girlfriend, if only I hadn't also been yearning for a boyfriend in parallel -- to make society and my family happy -- and if only she were actually attracted to girls.

I'd run to the mailbox at the end of our long gravel driveway, even when it was snowing, hoping for a thick envelope filled with her lively handwriting and type-written poems. The poems were never about me, but I was encouraged that she said she thought of me every time she heard, "Always Something There to Remind Me" by Naked Eyes. I was 17. It was 1982.

During the eight weeks I lived with my cousins in Israel, I experienced my first bit of romantic experimentation with another girl. She introduced me to Brazilian music, helped me with my Hebrew and indulged me in my Disco rollerskating phase (which has never left me), facing speakers out her home's windows when her parents weren't there as George Benson insisted, nearly persuasively, "Give Me the Night" while I skate-danced in the village-street. Upon my return, I wrote her letters. Over and over. She never wrote back. I was 15. It was 1980.

Throughout the summer that I spent hanging out nearly daily at the beach in Stamford, Connecticut with my beautiful best friend, I felt so much less cool than she, especially whenever she wore her Yes rock band T-shirts. Once, I saw her gorgeous older brother sitting -- tan, broad-swimmer-chested and shirtless -- in the kitchen while his mom cut his gorgeous curly hair just a little shorter. The 7-Up he drank effervesced off his teeth as he smiled at me conceitedly.

Earlier that same day, his sister wrecked our friendship when she asked me to rub sun-tan oil onto her already golden back as she lay on a beach-chair in a white bikini, years beyond me in her physical development, except for our heights; relatively, I was a flat-chested giant. Unbeknownst to her, the tanning-oil request made my pulse beat in my ears -- made me undeniably conscious of my attraction to her, to girls. I was 11. It was 1976.

I could keep going, back to Mrs. Honan in 2nd Grade, in 1972, but you get the idea.

If only my best friend at 11 had had similar feelings, or the Israeli girl at 15, or my high school quasi-girlfriend at 17. If only it didn't feel like it had to be a desperate secret each time. If only my family and friends could have known explicitly and been supportive. If only I hadn't felt that I needed to put up a prissy, nerdy, aloof front to try to hide my emerging lesbianism.

By now, at 48, I've loosened up and have been out everywhere for the past 27 years. And my family, friends and colleagues have risen to my occasion. My wife Pat and I've also lived in a number of countries and several cities, but Stamford and Montclair, New Jersey hold the record for my long-time residence. As of this September I've lived in Montclair for longer than I lived in Stamford -- for more than 17 years. On the eve of New Jersey enabling same-sex couples to become legally married, I'm feeling relieved that my married life is finally legal in both my native and adopted home states, as well as recognized federally across the United States and also in countries where same-sex marriage is legal.

This post didn't go on to catalog my trials in college till I came out explicitly my senior year -- I've done that in other posts -- but as I consider our country's progress around same-sex marriage, I'm also reminded of our country's current college generation:

By contrast to how it still was when I was in college from 1983-87, our 20-year-old niece moved off campus this year at SUNY New Paltz, and during our second visit, Zoe mentioned that two of her four housemates are lesbian. "How cool that you have lesbian housemates!"

"On this campus, you wouldn't be cool if you excluded them," she said, and I smiled to myself; I guess that people like Pat & I really are becoming more de rigueur. Glad I've lived long enough to see these promising times. And I'm also happy that as secret and scary and disorienting as my pre-teen and teenage years were -- I know, everyone's are, no matter his or her sexual orientation, but -- all's well that's ending well.

Yet even as I feel celebratory about the improving times for lesbian and gay Americans, a piece of me will always feel sad when I think of the energy-sapping shame I felt during the times 30 and 40 years ago -- and still feel when I recall them -- when I felt love and desire for another human being and needed to try to hide my feelings. Adam Ant's "Goody Two Shoes", so popular when I was in high school, felt like it was written for and about me, and I still cringe whenever I hear it.

For me, the best way to transform the leftover shame is to help a new generation avoid it: I'm so pleased to be allotting my United Way contribution to HMI Newark, so that today's lesbian, gay, bi, trans, intersex and questioning youth in metro-Newark at least might be less likely to need to wait 30-40 years to be able to blog openly about societal progress. And here's another reason why plowing through the shame and being visible has been important to more than just my own peace of mind: I learned about HMI Newark from a heterosexual Montclair friend, Tray Davis; Tray and his family are key sponsors of the program. If I weren't open about my life, I wouldn't be able to have such a great friend. Instead, I'd still be stuck in prissy, nerdy aloofness, and that was no way to live.

Happy 5772, 2012 and Soon, Year of the Dragon!

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

This is My 600th Blog Entry, Which Is a Cause for Hope in Itself

I've been at this -- blogging -- since Passover, 5768/2007, or for nearly five years. Granted, whereas for the first two+ years, I managed to blog at least three times a week and lately, I'm lucky if once a month, it's still a friend to me and I use it when I need it.

My blog has been a friend when I'm wondering, inspired, sick, lonely, celebratory, suffering from indignities, sad, mournful, grateful, hopeful, what-if'ing in positive or catastrophic directions. On the yawning first day of every new year, I find myself what-if'ing in hopeful directions, though not usually aloud/publicly, as I'm superstitious. What if, in 2012, the rest of 5772 and the upcoming Year of the Dragon, what if I weren't superstitious? And what if:

• The Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl again
  
• Pat's and my trip to Israel in June was life-changing and wonderful
  
• My thyroid challenge turned out to be only temporary, i.e., just subacute thyroiditis
  
• I collaborated with colleagues to design and deliver more first-of-a-kind social learning activities for new internal clients
  
• Traveled to a new city or country for work
  
• Exercised at least three times a week and was nice and fit
  
• Earned my Masters in Organization & Leadership with a specialization in Adult Learning and Leadership
  
• Studied and regained some Hebrew fluency
  
• Celebrated my mom's 87th birthday and Pat's mom's 89th
  
• Saw real progress in marriage equality for same-sex couples
  
• Found time to do more fun things with friends, more learning or volunteer work.
  

Our Wedding Day

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Feeling Like the Translation of My Name

"Sarah" is the Hebrew word for "princess." And I do feel essentially female and lovely, and even regal today. Please, God, let it last. Other than wishing I had had 90 minutes more of sleep each night for the past couple of weeks, I feel fresh and excited.

All these years, I've felt sort of in limbo societally -- more fish and fowl than human, as I had gotten to age 45 without experiencing either of two classic milestones of human adulthood: being married and having children. Today, I'm declaring my humanity ultimately through marrying Pat. The up-side of having to wait so long is that our lovely niece and nephews can participate in our wedding in more substantial ways, e.g., Zoe's gonna take candid photos.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, Pat," I asked as we woke up this morning, "How worried are you?"

"10. Just kidding. I'm not worried at all," she said. Fundamentally, I believe Pat, which is another reason for marrying her.

Please, God, let today go spiritually. May we do Your will. Amen.

Note added on Saturday, post-wedding: My oldest sister Deb's toast to Pat & me included her assessment that paradoxically, I'm the most conventional of the three sisters/daughters, i.e., we were the first to buy a house, we live in a suburb...and so if the reference above to "classic milestones of adulthood" sounds ultra-conventional, I guess I gotta admit to having conventional taste in a number of areas.

A Relative Geyser of Hope

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Not That I Admitted It, or Necessarily Recognized It at the Time

She was good-looking; attractive face; nice haircut; older than I; not short, but small -- super-slim; I felt big next to her; her handshake was not firm, but was warm; a wedding ring made of side-by-side diamonds; a super-fancy watch, the brand of which I didn't recognize, other than that it was more than I could afford; a purposeful walk, but not quite a lesbian gait; tan corduroy vest; construction-paper pumpkin on her office-door; fancy office with brick walls and three little windows above my eyes' reach to see outside...and vice versa -- reminded me of windows in a TV jail-cell; a book on the desk that looked like a novel, but couldn't quite read the title without being obvious; she pulled a chair up and put up her feet, which were clad in dark-brown, glossy-leather, flat ankle-boots; she leaned her notepad on her knees and began taking notes, which made me feel important; I couldn't help noticing the hip and leg closest to me as she began writing, but shooed away my distraction.

"I'm going to take some notes, too," I said. "I've never done that in therapy, but I think I want to now." (Either it made her uncomfortable, or she didn't care.)

"I just think that when two people are in a room and one is the focus of attention, good things can happen," said this new therapist when, if I remember correctly, I asked her why I should believe in therapy.

"I just come in and I tell stories. That's all I've ever done with a therapist. They're entertained -- not to flatter myself -- but what did I get?"

"Telling stories is good. Constructing a narrative is an integrative experience."

"What does 'integrative' mean in this case?"

"You talk about things that are disparate and it might not be an 'Aha moment,' but you might feel better or click at a deeper level."

(Now, *that* would be a relief -- to see connections I hadn't thought of...but I didn't tell the therapist that.)

Earlier in the session:

"How does your fear manifest itself?"

"...whenever I can't yawn, I know I'm in trouble. I used to run on a treadmill for 30 minutes -- not fast, but still, I hardly breathed while doing it. That's why swimming's so good. I *have* to breathe. I forget to breathe." (She's nodding like she actually understands me! That's comforting.)

More: "I'm afraid I'll lose my house. I'm afraid my mother will die, and then my partner, and then I'll be alone. I'm afraid there won't be another great act in me. I hate imagining 10 years into the future, but I can't stop doing so."

"It sounds like it's extremely hard to be you. What do you do to self-soothe?"

"...Not a lot....I have Pat, who's very funny -- but God knows what it has cost her to be so supportive....I have two cats who help a lot....I have my mother and sisters....I actually like focusing on writing papers for school....My one drug is TV; I totally tranquilize myself with it...and Facebook. I have 700+ friends on Facebook [-- I look over and see her eyebrows rise; she seems to be marveling, rather than judgmental, but I can't be sure]. I don't really keep up with world news; I prefer to look at Facebook friends' news and it's a lot to keep up with....I read the odd book, but mostly, they're school-books...."

"Do you have friends?"

"I do, but I don't really spend time with them." Then I said that I "don't cultivate" them, but what I meant was that I don't maintain my friendships like I should, i.e., I don't tend to them.

After mentioning, parenthetically, that my dad died when I was in high school:

"Did your mother re-marry?"

"No."

"What happened to your father?"

"He died of bile-duct cancer, within six months, when he was 56."

Still later:

"Am I addicted to suffering?"

She was doubtful about the concept of a suffering addiction and added, "One of the ways you take care of yourself is to beat up on yourself....It's a habit."

"Can you help me?"

"I don't know, but you're hopeful in that you're looking for help."

"I'm not hopeful. I'm desperate."

"You don't need to be hopeful to get help."

"When I was looking randomly at the list of local therapists in my insurance network, I noticed that one of them called out her specialty in helping gay and lesbian people, but I'm actually at a point where the lesbian part of my identity is less important than my professional identity.

I used to need help primarily about feeling good as a lesbian, and now, I need help feeling good in my life's purpose....Um, I can't fathom that you're homophobic, but I guess I'd like to know if so, so I can leave now if that's the case."

"It used to be that homosexuality was considered a perversion --"

(Oy! Where's she going with this?)

And then she continued without ever answering my question directly, "When you were talking earlier about going to a lesbian therapist who had helped get homosexuality removed from the DSM list [of mental disorders], I was reminded of a book I'm reading, *Boyhoods,* by Ken Corbett -- the partner of Michael Cunningham, who wrote *The Hours,* and how Corbett feels that everything is really part of a continuum -- how a boy who wears a tutu provokes people, who wonder: Is he going to be gay? Will he be an artist? A sensitive guy? Transgender? And how it doesn't really matter; he writes with feminism and queer theory in mind --"

(She just passed a test unwittingly by saying, "transgender," rather than "transgendered." People who have a clue/who have read about GLBT/LGBT issues, know that transpeople are "transgender," not "transgendered." Phew!)

"...I'm kind of old-school....Just as I am a very identified Jew, I'm a very identified lesbian. Even as I know that categories aren't all there are, I'm more comfortable with them."

The therapist said fine by her shrug, rather than by her words.

And you didn't answer my question directly, and I'd expect you to have *some* homophobia --"

She nodded.

"But as long as you're not [actively] homophobic...."

She nodded again.

At the End of the Session:

"So how did I do?"

"You did well," I said quietly without looking up. We arranged a time for next week and then:

"How about me? How did I do?"

"Can I be frank?"

(Oh, God, what devastating thing will she say?) "Of course!" I looked over at the book on her desk then.

"I think you're going to have a problem sticking with it, since you've had bad experiences in the past."

"I don't think your prediction will be true."

"If you could see me in my private practice, I'd recommend twice a week."

(Oh, God, I must be super-sick!) "Why?"

"Because I think that 45 minutes once a week lets you reconstitute yourself [too much in between sessions]. Despite all that you've told me about how you feel, you're a very high-functioning person; you're sophisticated and I think you'll [become defended by going so long between sessions]."

(God, twice a week sounds *great*!) "Well, I probably can't afford it, and besides, I'm compulsively busy, so I don't know how I'd fit in two sessions, but...."

"Ok."

"Well, thank you; see you next time," I said, and felt an awkwardness and a sacredness at once.

The book was *The Elegance of the Hedgehog.* When I got home, I googled it and felt a surge of hope, that maybe a new set of ears -- trained ones, attached to a person with apparently good taste in fiction -- could do me good.

Day 2.5

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Don't Worry, and Unexpected Encouragement

In my previous entry, I meant to mention that I plan to try working with a therapist again. I had seen one since college, depending on where I lived, and until several years ago, but probably, I was not ready prior, as I always felt like most often, I just went in there and told stories and entertained us...or myself, anyway.

So we'll see.

Something helpful happened already as a result of last night's blog-entry. A colleague from work wrote to me and relayed, though our life circumstances differed from each other, the colleague felt that the colleague could have been the entry's author.

Certainly, I wish this mood on no one else, but since at least one other person in the world has told me that this person could relate to my account, I feel less alone in the struggle and I hope my colleague does a bit, too.

Thank God..

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

I'm Not a Forgotten Woman

Pat and I are watching a documentary, "The Forgotten Woman," which is more sad than "Water" because it's the true version, about the widows in Vrindavan. I've gotta watch cheerier programs. Before this, we watched the latest episode of "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency," and that episode had some especially poignant scenes.

Let's put it this way: I can't keep absorbing all this sadness without also blogging...and without getting more sleep. Yesterday, I went to my mom's for dinner on the way back from work (it's not really on the way, but...) and felt more sadness. The top step in front of her house had come off the day before when our 16-year-old nephew Zach stepped on it and the slab of slate sat off to the side.

One July, I remember sitting on that slate-slab with my oldest sister, Deb, staring up at the tulip tree in our front yard. Already, the stone was warm from the summer-morning sun. Who knew that less than a decade later, my dad (z"l) would be dead from bile-duct cancer? The problem, too, is that I'm on the last few pages of Joan Didion's *The Year of Magical Thinking*. She wrote that grieving is passive while mourning is active.

"If this is what God had in mind for women," I just heard a woman say in Hindi, with subtitles, "He shouldn't have created them." She's crying. Thank God, I was able to live peacefully with Pat in India.

Tomorrow, I will be more hopeful.

Be Careful What We Wish For?

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Or Be More Ardent than Ever?

Desire is just a sexy term for hope, it has occurred to me. I'm still thinking about what we discussed in class recently, about how social media can increase opportunities for instant gratification and can diminish desire, and how desire is an engine of social change.

In my experience, social media are agents for positive social change. The shy and marginalized can become empowered, the privileged can share and writers can be redeemed, since much of social media rely on writing and reading, and responding with more writing and reading.

Replacing Historic Hopes with New Ones

In the movie, "Milk," Harvey Milk declared, "You've gotta give 'em hope!" In "Brokeback Mountain," I empathized above all with the heterosexual wife, and also felt awful for Dan White in "Milk." In both cases, I think it's because their hope disappeared...and yet, in each case, if society had been more inclusive of gay people to begin with, no drama would have been necessary.

What if social media made life equitable for gay, lesbian, bi and transpeople, and other historically-underrepresented groups by doing as I declared above -- by giving us unprecedented visibility? Would we lose our desire/hope for greater freedom? It seems like it would take some time to catch up with thousands of years of being so often relegated to the margins. I think it would be a good problem to face -- trying to figure out what's next after freedom.

Each of Us is on Our Own Path

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Humility is the Key

Today, I received the roster of the section I'll be facilitating for the leadership development program we offer for brand new executives at our company. Uh-oh, I recognized a name. Uh-oh, we started working for our company around the same time. Uh-oh, can my ego take it that he's an executive and I'm not? Uh-oh, will my being his facilitator make him self-conscious with his learning?

That last worry, I'm pretty confident, was my projection. Will I be self-conscious in my facilitation with him, being among the learners?

Should I go ask to have him switched, I wondered. I sat at my desk, pondering what to do until I was distracted by the memory of a great trip to Milan that he and I were lucky to take. It was for an ibm.com training class back in the day.

There's a photo of him with two female colleagues and me, all of us looking unusually European -- well, one of us was from Vienna, so she was entitled to look European. It's on my wall in my office.

Whoever's class he's in, should I invite him up to my office during a break to see a picture of us from a decade ago? Would he find it sweet? Would he remember?

Why did he become an executive and I, not yet? Usually, I console myself, considering, there are nearly 400,000 IBMers worldwide and only ~5,000 executives worldwide, and so it would be a huge deal to become one...especially in a technology company when my expertise and education are not in a technical field.

When IBM came to campus my senior year, I didn't bother to interview with the company, figuring, What would IBM want with a Comparative Literature major? How I got here is another story, to tell another day, but for tonight, I need to come back to the present and pray.

My Prayer

God, please let me be useful and of service to the 16 participants, who will be learning in the section I'm facilitating, beginning at 8 am on Wednesday, and going through midday on Friday. Let me be rid of my ego.

Let me help the learners have a wonderfully-rich, memorable experience during this milestone in their careers.

Let me treat my particular colleague well and be humble and confident in my facilitation. Let him and me be comfortable in our respective roles. Let me be pleasantly surprised by how we learn together this week, and by any other experiences that I can't anticipate or know ahead of time. Amen.

Family Reunion

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...Planned for This Summer

My third cousin Michael contacted Pat and me and is organizing a family reunion in upstate-New York this summer for my mom's side of the family. The invitation captures my imagination, as I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen these relatives since I was eight years old. Historically, we have not been a close, extended family.

To my knowledge, there's never before been a reunion of this family. The idea is so retro and so perfect at once. The names listed for the reunion include the maiden surname of my grandmother of blessed memory and of two other ancestors. My mom might be the oldest-living relative invited; she'll be nearly 84 by then.

Pat's not as enthused as I, understandably, as she has zero history with these people, and one of my relatives imagined as much and said to Pat by phone the other day, "The family's rife with gays," as though that would be an incentive.

The invitation reads in part:

"Saturday lunch and dinner, Sunday brunch, beverages, nosherei, volleyball, bocce, boat rides, tubing, water skiing, lounging, schmoozing … and the fun continues after Sunday brunch!"

Could we possibly use the weekend to have some pure, relaxing fun -- a getaway from the routine of everyday living? I hope so....What a neat time to look forward to, even to the possibility of such fun. Fun and relaxation are never pure, where family's involved, though, are they?

That reminds me: I wonder if my cousin Michelle will be there. Michelle was a couple of years older than I and her mother Ada Helen used to ship a box of Michelle's hand-me-downs to me annually, it seemed, till I was in high school. I hated wearing someone else's clothes. Last I heard, Michelle and her family (husband and kids) lived in New Zealand, so I doubt she'll be there, but....

The Success Is in the Action

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...Not the Result

The affirmation in this entry's title and subtitle is something I try to tell myself whenever I do something brave that is a long-shot. Tonight, for the first time since I was in my early-twenties, I sent a query letter to a magazine, offering to submit an article for publication.

Here's the automated response I received, which nonetheless thrilled me:

Thank you for your submission to Curve magazine. Please note that it can take up to eight weeks for a response.

Diane Anderson-Minshall
editor in chief

Let's see what happens. I'm grateful to my writer-artist friend, Val, who pumped me up with courage earlier this evening. Little did she know that her encouragement would be applied so literally, so soon. Thanks, Val!

Gray Day, Bright Mood

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Hope is Hatching

We woke up to snow-dust and trout-feast for our kitties. They must be fed first thing. Toonces began her heavy-pawed march over our prone bodies unusually early today, at 5 am, but we made her wait till 7, no matter that she batted items off our night-tables and onto the floor, trying to get our attention.

Toonces got it, but our dreams won, and so we dreamt between head-butts and purrs in our ears -- from the cat, not from each other.

People as Packages

Last night, Pat and I watched a documentary on Stephen Wiltshire, the visually artistic, autistic savant and then I also finally finished the Amos Oz short story I'd been reading in "The New Yorker." Both reminded me of compensations and deficits from God.

In the short story, the protagonist had a deficit; everyone saw him as Mr. Affability, but his wife was unhappy with him: "A few weeks ago, when they were fighting, Nava had said that his kindness was like a mask, and under the mask: Siberia."

In the documentary, Stephen Wiltshire had grown up profoundly autistic, but he was a remarkable and highly-successful artist, particularly of cityscapes, from memory. Our friend who died recently, and whose Memorial service we participated in a couple of days ago also was compensated: While he had a sadness about him, he had among the quickest senses of humor of anyone I'd ever known.

Something about my recognizing the deficits and compensations of others, even fictional others, is giving me hope today. It reminds me that I'm not alone in my good qualities and less good ones. Each of us is a package.

My Own, Original Prayer

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

For the New Year

Please, God, let me contribute to a better world daily, or even very often. Let me remember to ask you for help when I feel anxious or sad.

Please keep my loved ones and me physically and mentally healthy, and animatedly alive.

Help me continue to be a loving parent to our kitties, Phoebe and Toonces, and let me continue appreciating how lucky I am to have Pat's love and dedication.

Please help me to be not only positively contributory, but creative and original in doing so...but please don't make me or my product so unique that no one can relate to it.

Short-term, please help motivate me to be as engaged as I've been historically in my Masters program and keep me pumping my help to all of the projects I'm part of at work with humility, but not with too much humility.

God, please help me continue to love my body through swimming for exercise regularly and by eating only foods that are healthy for me. And please help me go to sleep earlier, so that I get at least seven hours of sleep the majority of nights.

Overall, help me remain gracious, funny, positive, inclusive, community-oriented and hopeful, and alert to Your presence, and to all of the special moments and people and things that I notice when I stay present with what and who is around me, rather than when I'm self-absorbed.

Please let this year be full of love and adventure and good health for everyone, including me. Amen.

The Stock Market Is Down and So Am I

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Only the Stimulus of Blogging Can Help My Dip

"Writing is about not committing suicide," a friend of mine told me this afternoon.

I got my paper back from my professor this evening and called back my friend to say. "Just wanted to follow up from our talk this afternoon; you're right. I felt like killing myself over it."

She laughed. I told her, "Just as I was leaving the main building, I looked up from reading the comments on my paper while an attractive young woman was entering the door; she must have heard me talking to myself. I said aloud, 'I might as well just give up now.' I kept walking, mortified that a stranger heard such tragic self-talk."

When I described the mortifying moment to Pat, she said, "She probably thought you got an F."

I didn't. Somehow, I received an A for the course. She didn't even mark the paper itself.

Pat: "Me, I'd have said, 'Well, phew! I got an A!'"

"Sarah, can I tell you something as a trained professional?" said another of my friends, who is a psychotherapist. "You don't have to try to feel good tonight. You can feel however you feel and still do whatever you planned to do anyway....Just before you go, can I tell you that men are coming out of the woodwork suddenly? Now, should I feel that I'm not good enough when they're not swarming me? Should I care that they don't love me? It's analogous to what you're going through. So what if she didn't like the way you wrote the paper. It doesn't mean you're not a good writer."

Pat: "It's just a new kind of writing that you have the opportunity to learn now; it's different from business writing and blogging. It's writing for grad school. It'll be good for you as a writer to learn an additional way to write."

"You have a journalist background, right?" asked my first friend, the writer, this afternoon, when I was telling her that all I wanted was to be published, even though I do not want to have to revise anything I write. She flattered me in thinking I had journalism training, but I said no; rather, I made the comment in the context of anticipating getting my paper back, and how originally, my professor had said that it needed to include a literature review, if it was going to be publishable -- an encouraging statement, but I never heard another word about publishing after submitting the paper, I told my friend, and so I felt nervous to receive it tonight.

"You're a very good writer with a deep gift for observation and you deserve to be published. Well, but you are published; you're on the web with your blog. Also, you should ask her about the publishability of the paper."

"What I really like to write is personal essays."

"They're not just personal. You write about all sorts of things."

Psychotherapist friend: "What is making you feel so bad right now?"

"I'm embarrassed that I did poorly on the paper, especially when I delivered a paper she loved in a previous class with her. As I think back on it, there wasn't the same requirement for it to be ultra-academic. But this shakes my confidence in my writing, and makes me sad about it."

My professor's comment on the paper's title-page: "Sarah, I found/find the insights are here, but the writing needs greater depth and more alignment with academic conventions to be persuasive...." It goes on with examples of what she means by "depth." Ugh! I'm so embarrassed.

"Don't be discouraged," my professor said to me on my way out; she anticipated my feeling when I would read it upon leaving the department open-house tonight. "Keep in touch."

The open-house included a number of the people I like most in my program, but eventually, the evening turned sour for me.

Exuberance, Then a Crash, and Then Some Hope

At 4:30 pm, I arrived at Teachers College and went to the library to try to take out Reserve books for my upcoming course. It felt luscious to be back in that privileged environment. A steel-drum band was playing in the lobby and a student was dancing unself-consciously by himself in front of it. One of the librarians had a Michigan accent and turned out to be from Ann Arbor (where I had studied as an undergrad). I felt so at home.

As I checked out my books with the librarian next to her, she said that my ID was obsolete, but that she'd check out my books till I got a new one.

"When did they change?"

"In November."

"Ah, well, I was in India for six months and so I missed getting that done."

She seemed unimpressed. I was reminded that I really had been away from the campus for half a year.

I went to the department party and saw my professor, who hugged me, and I hugged my adviser and both welcomed me home. "How was India?"

I was just so happy to be back in an environment, where I was no longer forced to study on my own; I couldn't wax on about how great the experience was.

And then a former classmate, Caitlin, came in, providing dark-coral fresh air.

And then one of the women I know from QueerTC, and then one of the women I went through orientation with, and then another with whom I was in a workshop several semesters ago, and then I spotted my professor for my upcoming class.

Caitlin, my first professor and I talked about "Brokeback Mountain," since Caitlin announce d that she had heard of Heath Ledger's death. We also talked about where our families were from originally and our parents' Holocaust-consciousness and then a doctoral student with an Israeli accent appeared and my professor introduced us to him. He had grown up in Latin America, where his parents had fled from Eastern Europe after his grandparents were killed in the Holocaust.

Caitlin said she was getting a snack, and so I made my move: "Can you slip me the paper now, and I won't read it till I leave, but I'm afraid I'll forget," I told my professor. And then, "You told me it needed to include a literature review if it was to be publishable. Is that realistic, for students to publish while they're still students?"

"Sure. Now your writing needs to come a long way before it's ready to be published. It's too bullet-pointed -- not academic enough. I suppose if you wanted to publish in a trade publication...."

"Like what would be an example?"

"Like an HR magazine or --"

"OK, well thanks." I found a way to excuse myself because I just couldn't talk with her for another moment, since she thought my writing was so poor.

Instead, I went over to speak with my professor for my upcoming course. And then I introduced him to two of the students I know, who'll be taking it. One of them -- who I know less well -- said, "I hope this course doesn't take me over the edge because I just don't know how self-disclosing I want to be."

"I'm not a fan of pain, but I cannot control where the class takes it during the semester."

"Well, I just don't know if I'm prepared for it to be therapeutic."

Oh, God!!! That's just what I'm hoping it'll be. (I don't say this aloud.)

"You should be all right. The most important thing is for everyone to feel safe."

Well, I don't feel safe at all now. I feel like I'm too much. Too intense. I was ready to be super-self-disclosing. I mean, why sign up for "Leadership and Self Development: A Biographical Approach" if you don't wish to do some plumbing?

The stated purpose in the syllabus begins: "This course takes an in-depth look at leadership from the inside out. It is based on the assumption shared by current leadership theorists (e.g. Raelin 2003) that a leader must develop a strong internal foundation of self awareness and personal mastery to achieve great external results."

I excuse myself and return to the first professor, who had returned my paper to me, and to the doctoral student, to show that I wasn't running away from her, and to enable myself to run away from the other professor, who wanted me to feel safe(!)

God has a plan? My writer friend says to me while I'm driving home, "Your writing, your career, your education, it's all leading somewhere, and it'll work out."

Hoping

The postings on this site ares my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Possibilities Are Endless

A developmentally-disabled guy is bagging our groceries at Shoprite earlier today.

He asks, "Did you get that hat in India?"

"Yes, I did. I lived there for six months and just got back. It's a cricket cap. Cricket is like baseball --"

"I know what cricket is. It's like baseball, but the bat is wide and you throw like this [he winds his arm up and throws an invisible ball overhand toward the floor]."

"That's right. I didn't know what cricket was, really, till I went to India."

Pat says to him, "You know more about it than most people [in this country]."

We thank him and wish him a happy new year. I walk away inspired.

Straightening up for the New Year's dinner we'll host for our friends David and Gerard, I see a postcard of a show for an artist with whom I was friendly when I lived in Chicago, Riva Lehrer. Much of Riva's art focuses on physical disability.

Riva's work and the conversation with the grocery bagger this afternoon remind me that all of us have gifts and ought to express them. Also, the qualities that society sometimes thinks ought to limit us differentiate us and can serve as our core motivation and means to connect with others.

What's the Purpose?

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Plenty!

I'm tempted not to blog, as I don't want to be coy, but I must be. I cannot blog about the actual work I'm doing here, as ideally, it's competitive advantage stuff.

It's irresistible, however, to mention just how purposeful and hopeful and certain I feel today that I'm doing useful work at a corporate and ultimately societal level.

I want to remember these marvelous feelings during the hard-work part.

Anticipating the New Year

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) is Practically Here

This weekend, Pat and I walked barefoot through the Bull Temple and allowed a priest in front of the bull to rub red-powder bindis on our foreheads.

How did this Hindu ritual prepare us for Rosh Hashanah? Until just now, writing here, I hadn't considered a connection. Partaking of any religious ritual, as we did for a few minutes yesterday, seemed better than continuing with no religious community, as we had done for the past two months.

The priest had a plate that held money, which was reminiscent of plate-passing I've witnessed when attending church services with Christian friends. I had US$1 in my pocket and put it on the plate. I was saving the dollar to give to someone poor, which had been my instructions by the person who gave it to me prior to our departure from the States.

The dollar contributor was a past student-intern at our synagogue, who had since become a rabbi. I want to believe that the Temple was not a rich enterprise and that I fulfilled my assignment acceptably.

It's neat how the dollar was in the wallet of a New York City-based rabbi and made its way to the collection-plate of a Hindu priest in Bangalore.

Temples on Land and in My Imagination

The only other major temple near Bangalore is the ISKON Temple. Hare Krishnas, who run it, do proselytize, which is not typical of most Hindus, according to my nephew Zach.

I just looked at the web tour of the ISKON Temple (see link above) and it looks as grand as I imagine the ancient Temple in Jerusalem looked in its day. A number of worshippers need temples, mosques, synagogues and churches. Apparently.

Until planning our upcoming trip to Kochi, Pat and I have been mostly religiously structureless while in India. Yesterday's tour of the Bull Temple and the temple in tribute to Ganesh down the hill from it, and the Muslim wedding we happened on last month, were as close as we've been to spending spiritual time together in community.

Where is God?

My friend Zdravko asked me for my concept of God several months ago and I told him that it aligned with Martin Buber's I-Thou idea, that in our best encounters with other human beings, we see the Divine in each other and are paying full attention to each other, are fully present.

I want to hang onto this concept, particularly while we're not somewhere, where it's simple to pray with other Jews in community. Most of all, this six-month experience of living far from my birthplace is stretching me to try to have I-Thou experiences with people who are not necessarily natively familiar to me.

What Will the New Year Bring?

Every Jewish New Year, I have a parallel sense of hope and dread, as every single year in my experience, fantastically wonderful things happen and sad things happen --both beyond the imagination, always. This past year, at Rosh Hashanah, I never would have guessed I would have the opportunity to live and work in India. And I would not have expected one of Pat's relatives to suffer from congestive heart failure; the relative is recovering, thank God.

What will 5768 bring?