The Power of Women

I was urged by an elderly member of Temple Micah to attend an “afternoon tea and discussion” hosted by Women of Faith, an interfaith group that has been in existence in the DC area for over 30 years.  I went somewhat out of a feeling of obligation, but came away with my eyes opened.

I happened to be seated across the table from Maudine Cooper (pictured above), the afternoon’s speaker and also the President of the Greater Washington Urban League.  She gave us a historical perspective of her organization and charged us to do something to make a difference in the world.  She suggested that it might be something as insignificant as saying hello to people we meet on the street, in the Metro, and in the grocery store.

As we broke into small group discussions, I noted that my table was a mixture of Baptists, Catholics, Muslims, and Jews.  It couldn’t get much more diverse.

We focused a lot on the idea that what we teach our children can make all the difference in the world.  If they are taught respect and tolerance for everyone around them, if they are taught to love instead of to hate, so much of the divisiveness in the world will simply disappear.  One person mentioned that many of us need to teach our parents and our elders the same lessons.

We remarked at how similar we really are, despite our different races and religions.  As each table got up to report on their discussion, it was obvious that many of the same discussions had taken place.

To close the afternoon of thoughtful reflection, we stood in a big circle holding hands and offered a communal prayer with various women offering up spontaneous thoughts and the group responding with AMEN in between.  I clasped the hand of a soft-spoken African-American in my left hand and an outspoken Jew in my right hand.  But as far as the circle went, they were both just women of faith.

As the result of the afternoon’s discussions, I plan to get to know my neighbors better, inviting them over for an afternoon tea.  I suddenly realized that some of them have lived in my neighborhood for quite a few years and I still don’t know their names.  It was the suggestion of 89-year-old Dorothy that planted the seed for this idea.

I also plan to pursue a joint choir project with the music director of the Shiloh Baptist Church, hoping to blend some Jewish melodies with some Gospel sounds. 

Even my shelter kids may benefit from the afternoon.  The Urban League speaker offered to donate Scholastic books that have been given to their organization for just such a purpose.

I look forward to the next meeting of this group, which will undoubtedly be in a mosque or church.  This obligation turned into a pleasant surprise.

Inspiration

He (not the boy above) was just a little boy, this 13-year-old who gave us lessons in optimism and activism today.  He started off his bar mitzvah weekend by reading a poem about love of family at last night’s service.  Today he was called to read the Torah.

Gideon lamented the fact that his birthday falls on September 11, forever a date that will strike fear in our hearts.  He has come to peace with this by determining to make the world a better place in his lifetime.  He challenged us to not only be optimists, but activists as well.

For his bar mitzvah project, he is collecting bicycles which will be sent overseas as part of the Bikes for the World project.  You can read more about how to participate in Gideon’s project here. 

What actually brought the most tears to our eyes this morning was Gideon’s 98-year-old grandfather who had traveled from New Rochelle, NY, to be a part of his grandson’s special day.  He came up to the bimah using a walker.  After doing his aliyah with other family members, he took some mike time to tell Gideon how much he loved him and what a great job he was doing.  He said he had prepared all week for this trip and thanked everyone in the audience for coming to celebrate his grandson’s bar mitzvah.  This was indeed family at its best.

Gideon had one of the most challenging portions of the Torah – the one where God tells Abraham to take Isaac, his son, up on Mount Moriah and sacrifice him.  It’s hard for people of all ages to comprehend.  Gideon’s question to our rabbi Danny was just how closely we should follow what God tells us to do.  Danny summarized his remarks by saying, “In every act there should rest a grain of doubt.”

So much food for thought.  But meanwhile, if you have an old bike lying around, please consider giving it a new life abroad.

Seasonal Soup

As the weather gets cooler, my thoughts always turn to soup. The week’s CSA offerings were my inspiration for this soup that both looks and tastes good.

Red Lentil-Collard Soup with Lemon

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
1 leek, chopped (white part only)
1/2 pound collard greens, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 quart chicken or vegetable broth
2 cups water
1 cup red lentils
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
Juice of one lemon

In a large pot, heat the olive oil over high heat until hot and shimmering. Add onion, garlic, jalapeño pepper, and leek and saute about 4 minutes.

Stir in collard greens, tomato paste, cumin, salt, and pepper and saute for another 3 minutes.

Add broth, water, red lentils, and carrot. Bring to a boil, then cover and turn down to low. Simmer 30 minutes or until lentils are soft.

Optionally blend the resulting soup, leaving some chunkiness.

Add lemon juice and serve.

You will LOVE this soup!

Making It Up

When I was recently complaining about not having any great inspiration for something to write about, Bulletholes suggested that I just make it up.  He's a master at blending fact and fiction, making it impossible to tell them apart.  But I guess he didn’t realize who he was talking to.

From my earliest years, I had difficulty with make-believe.  I had a hard time pretending.  As a result, at the age of 10 a (boy)friend and I built a dollhouse that took up half of my room.  We make bunk beds and upholstered living room furniture and even a drop-leaf table.  Our dolls had their own car.  Granted the dolls weren’t real, but everything else was!

A friend once suggested that I write a novel, but the thought of having to invent an entire story that took up hundreds of pages seemed just too daunting.

But my husband seems to have a different view of writing fiction.  Ever since he took a course in “Flash Fiction” at Chautauqua, he’s been anxious to write.  So it’s no great surprise that he’s jumped on the bandwagon of National Novel Writing Month, with the intention of writing a 50,000 word novel during the month of November.  That would be this month. 

When asked what he was going to write about, he finally revealed that his novel is based on this escapade we had last year on the Amalfi Coast.  As scary as it was, it apparently has provided inspiration for his book.

That’s a lot of words to write in a month.  I figure it’s at least 125 pages.  I think he’s at about 2,500 words right now, so we’ll see what happens.  I never thought about being married to a writer, but he may be on his way to defining a new career!

Five Paces Behind

My almost-80-year-old friend Betty keeps me supplied with nuggets from the Internet.  Many of them are things that make you smile, like cute animals or scenes from around the world.  This one is a little more serious:

Barbara Walters, of 20/20, did a story on gender roles in Kabul, Afghanistan, several years before the Afghan conflict.

She noted that women customarily walked five paces behind their husbands.

She recently returned to Kabul and observed that women still walk behind their husbands. Despite the overthrow of the oppressive Taliban regime, the women now seem to, and are happy to, maintain the old custom.

Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, 'Why do you now seem happy with an old custom that you once tried so desperately to change?'

The woman looked Ms. Walters straight in the eyes, and without hesitation said, 'Land Mines.'

It’s somewhat bittersweet that what was once tradition has now taken on a greater significance.

Aging with Dignity

This past couple of days I’ve thought a lot about aging.  I’ve seen the gamut in terms of how people grow older.  But most of all I’ve come to realize how important to me it is to grow old with dignity.

My husband has been suffering for some time with a foot ailment that makes it difficult to walk.  So in the interest of being there for Zelda’s big day, he swallowed a lot of pride and ordered a wheelchair for transit in the airports because his feet simply wouldn’t have made it otherwise.  He asked me if I wanted one too since walking is still not my forte.  I initially said yes, but my son convinced me that I didn’t really need one, especially if I took my cool cane, and he was right. 

But I must say going through security with a person in a wheelchair is a breeze.  He got the chair and I got the benefits as well.  But I quickly realized that my cane and his chair put us in a whole different category as far as others in the airport perceived us.  It was a little unsettling to come to that realization.

In Chicago I did all the driving and we made sure to minimize the amount of walking he had to do.  It turned out just fine and no one there had to even know about his foot ailments.  After seeing a slew of specialists it will be nice if someone finally comes up with a good diagnosis and a treatment regimen, but until then he is definitely more disabled than I am.

Those thoughts about dignity hit home with me yesterday when I happened to go up to the 8th floor of the Self-Help Home in search of Zelda.  Stepping off the elevator I looked straight ahead into an open bathroom door where a male nurse was assisting an elderly man, who happened to be a rabbi, to clean up after going to the bathroom.  I could see the look of shame and discomfort as the rabbi saw me and kept asking the nurse to shut the door.  He eventually did, but not before I realized how awful the rabbi must have felt to be showcased to strangers in such a situation.  I felt angry at the nurse for stripping the rabbi of his dignity.

There were other situations where I realized the residents had surrendered their dignity and were were just going through the motions of existing.  There was Henry, who 2 years ago had seemed so alert and interesting, saying he was just there temporarily until his foot healed and he could go home.  Now he wheels himself around in a wheelchair and avoids eye contact, apparently accepting the fact that he will be in assisted living for the rest of his life.

I saw a woman last night who was sitting in a wheelchair at the nurses’ station.  She had fallen asleep with her head on the counter.  No one seemed to notice or care.  She was not demanding any attention.

Last night as I was going to sleep, I had nightmares about what would happen to me at the age of these people.  I so want to be like Zelda, feisty until the end, living independently until age 98 when her failing eyesight made it dangerous to do so.  I want to think my caregivers will be people who remember my dignity and allow me to retain as much of it as I wish. 

We’re home again and life is relatively back to normal.  I hope someone else is remembering to cut up Zelda’s food, which she no longer can see, in our absence.  I see a gray cloud off in the distance signifying my old age and hope I can hold it at bay for a few more decades.

Playing Tourist in Chitown

We sat with Zelda and Marge and Estelle at breakfast. Estelle no longer speaks and depends entirely on Zelda to read her mind and tell the staff what she needs. Marge is clearly demented and keeps saying things like “I don’t remember. Do you?” and “Forget the children,” which we interpreted to mean that her children had long ago forgotten her. We watched several angry outbursts on the part of the residents and I marveled at the PATIENCE of the staff to deal with their PATIENTS. I remarked on how COMMITTED they seemed to be to what might be a thankless job and wondered that they didn’t all have to be COMMITTED after doing their jobs for a few years.



On that morbid note, we decided to venture out into the world where a greater percentage of people still have their minds to play tourist for the day. We took an hour-long boat tour which focused on the city’s remarkable architecture. It was way too much information to process (even a second time for me since I did it last year), so I spent my time taking pictures of big buildings as we wound through the city on the Chicago River.



After getting off the boat, we strolled around the Navy Pier, where I rediscovered this bronze sculpture and my husband and his cousin visited with Bob Newhart.



We then went to The Spice House, a store that literally takes your breath away upon entry because they grind and package all the spices they sell. I came specifically to buy Silk Road Seasoning, a delightful mix of the spices that would have greeted Marco Polo all those years ago. Unfortunately not everyone had been equally charmed by this mixture and it had been discontinued. But one savvy salesperson found the “recipe” and helped me put together a collection of spices that I could mix together on my own. My suitcase is going to smell so good on the way home tomorrow.



We’ll have a farewell dinner with Zelda tonight at the Self-help home and get ready for a morning flight home tomorrow.

I once again concluded that Chicago is such a great city, serving as a gateway between east and west. I’m just sorry Zelda doesn’t have more family around as she lives out her final years in The Windy City.