Board Games vs. What If Questions: Another Parenting Dilemma

Last week for some New Jersey public schools it was Winter Break. On Monday, one of my friends in Pennsylvania posted on Facebook that her “togetherness quotient” had expired; on Tuesday, my sister, who was at home in New Jersey with her three small children, texted me to ask who was responsible for the concept of “winter break.” (People with no children and timeshares in Arizona, apparently). On Wednesday, we discussed the equally absurd notion of taking small children “on vacation,” and on Thursday she reported that one of her sons had asked her a question that started with “What if…” and she had interrupted him before he could go any farther. “I just couldn’t take it,” she said. “I even said to him, ‘please stop, I can’t handle that kind of question right now.’ And yes, I’m a terrible person.”

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February 23, 2010 5

We Are Not Alone

My father-in-law, who is wise and insightful, recently posted a comment on my post, “Sit. Feast on your life,” which included a poem by Derek Walcott. He (my father-in-law, that is) wrote: “The personal pronoun ‘we’ says: You are not alone, we belong together. And that’s what I wanted to add to your consideration: Don’t only look into the mirror to see yourself but look around you to recognize all the people who love you or hate you. You are connected to them in good and in bad hours. That’s what gives life to your life.”

He posted this for me to consider so I have been considering it. And it put me in mind of a David Whyte poem called “Everything is Waiting for You,” which I would like to share with you today.

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February 22, 2010 0

Nice Things Men Do

This Christmas my dad came up with the greatest present idea ever: Small Acts of Kindness. Now, no, my dad did not INVENT the idea of Small Acts of Kindness, but because he is a lawyer with a strong attachment to structure, he created a system for executing the AOKs that is worthy of note: he and my mom alternate months throughout the year, and each month, one does two AOKs for the other.

Stipulations: the AOKs are not to be blended in with birthdays, Valentine’s Day, or anniversaries, and during their anniversary month, they are both exempt from the individual AOKs, since they will be doing something to celebrate together.

And no garden variety AOKs for him, either. There may be some flowers involved, a surprise lunch now and then, a gift or two, but for the most part the AOK is exactly what it says: an ACT of kindness, doing something the other person would truly appreciate. Examples thus far have included:

making sure the other person’s shoes are polished and in good repair (no small task when the person has 12,537 pairs of shoes). I think this involved a tarp, rubber gloves, and a step ladder, in addition to the full spectrum of shoe polish colors;
organizing the other person’s sock drawer (again, not a quick job when the person actually has 4 sock drawers–black, blue, golf, and golf overflow–and this is my DAD);
repairing assorted items of clothing.

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February 21, 2010 8

Radical Lent—A Poetic Approach to 40 Days in the Wilderness

So it’s Lent. If you’re Christian, that is. Lent spans 40 weekdays, beginning on Ash Wednesday (today) and ending the Saturday before Easter. I grew up Catholic, which I consider a privilege, mostly because grounding in any faith tradition gives you something to work with. Whether you practice it or not as an adult, a childhood spent in a strong religious tradition means you are never homeless. I may be wrong, but leaving home, while difficult, may be easier than never having had the feeling that you belonged somewhere.

Lent has some beautiful theological significance, which you can read about if you are so inclined. But one of Catholicism’s (Catholic school, specifically) greatest weaknesses is the inability to translate deeper spiritual practices into meaningful experiences for children, so what I remember about Lent is that you either give up something you like or do something that you don’t like. Forgive me, but the spiritual gap between Jesus’ self-sacrifice and giving up chocolate (or, as my son Jacob decided when he was 8, beer) for 40 days is so enormous as to be absurd almost beyond words.

This year I have decided on a radical approach to Lent—I am going to do more of something I love and less of things I do not love. Specifically, I have committed to the discipline of reading one poem each day for 40 days, and writing about what it reveals. This is not really radical, because my belief is that unlike the giving up beer approach to Lent, which treats us as if we are spiritual babies, this approach will bring me more into an adult-adult dialogue with myself and the world, which I believe is what God would prefer anyway.

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February 17, 2010 10

Because there are all kinds of love poems

I wrote this poem for my sister-in-law last summer when she was very kind to me at a difficult time. “An der Ringkirche” is the street where she lives, and ‘Ringkirche’ means “the church near the ring.” You can see a gorgeous, almost magical 19th-century church right outside the window of their apartment building. This poem tries to describe a moment when a small gesture made me feel truly loved.

June 1-An der Ringkirche
for katja

After months of struggle
in this hard interior country
I am landed here–
a clean sunlit room with one white orchid,
and air that rings round and rich
with cathedral bells.

In the center of the glass table
someone I love has left a gift–
pale gold perfume.
When I spray it into the sunlight
it makes a living glimmering cloud,
and as I step through it I breathe, Yes.
Yes: it can be as easy as this.

LCS
2/10

February 11, 2010 1

a heart-felt holiday

A repost from December 2009. It’s worth it.

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Having neither spectacular accomplishments nor grave misfortunes to report, and, to be honest, having exhausted the vein of humorous family anecdotes over the years, I will tell you instead that we are all well and fine, and hope that you are too.

Instead of Srajek family details, which are really much the same as any other family’s day-to-day lives, I offer this story about something that happened to us this time last year, at the start of a long Midwest winter.

In our local paper there used to be a kid’s feature called “Letters to the Editor,” where school kids responded to a question from the editor, and then some responses from each school got published. One week last December, Jacob’s answer to the question “What is the top item on your Christmas list this year?” turned up in the paper. He wrote that since he wanted to be a carpenter when he grew up, he had “always wanted” a carpenter’s plane.

If he didn’t get that, the number two thing on the list was “lots of nice building wood,” a response that makes him sound quainter and less electronically minded than he really is, but, well, he was probably writing what he knew had the best chance of getting published (they’re never too young to play to the crowd).

About a week after his response appeared in the paper, we received a letter in the mail from a woman we did not know. She apologized if we were not the parents of Jacob Srajek, said that she had looked us up in the phone book, and she hoped her writing was not an imposition to us. A clipping of Jacob’s letter was neatly taped to the corner of her own letter, which was printed on paper with a decorative floral border.
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December 11, 2009 1

why laundry is better than meditation

About seven years ago, Jack Kornfield, meditation teacher, writer and psychotherapist, wrote a book called After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. As someone who feels pressured by concepts like enlightenment and mindfulness, I was thrilled when I first saw this book. Its common-sense title gave me a secret feeling of relief. I hoped it meant that I wasn’t the only person who was deeply uncertain about the possibility of finding joy in the mundane aspects of my life. I even hoped it would say that ecstasy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, just to take the pressure off. But, as when I came across a book in the library called, “Prayers for Dark People,” and giddily assumed it was for people like me who want legitimate space for weirdness and doubt in their faith lives, it didn’t pan out. “The “Prayers for Dark People” turned out to be a book from the 40’s for African Americans, and Kornfield’s book is more about how ecstasy IS actually all it’s cracked up to be. And, with the right mindset, you can find it pretty much anywhere, like the laundry room.
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December 5, 2009 0