It occurred to me, as Jake ate his lunch at Green Sage today, that having your child drop pieces of pork sausage in your lap may not be the most appropriate way to honor Yom Kippur.
Normally, I would spend this day fasting, meditating, reflecting. Not, I must explain, in any kind of religious service. I tried it once and it didn't bring to me the same meaning that I took from the holiday—searching for ways to be a better person, to avoid repeating any mistakes I may have made over the past year, and to remind myself of the things that are important in life. Instead, I have started spending the day alone, at home, writing and thinking and just being.
But pregnancy interferes with fasting, and a toddler off from preschool for the day interferes with meditation and reflection. I did, Mike reminded me this morning, have both the option and the excuse to bring Jake to the house of one of his teachers instead of watching him myself. He visited her last week when school was closed for Rosh Hashanah and had an awesome time, or so he tells me.
But somehow, today, even though I couldn't have my usual Yom Kippur of introspection and calm, it didn't seem right to have someone else care for Jake.
And so, uncertain of why I wasn't taking the easy way out by sending him to someone else's house for the day, grumpy that his nighttime cough had triumphed over my attempts to get him out of my bed and back into his last night, I resolved to find fun, meaningful things to do with my child.
Like, first on the agenda, going to the kids' gym downtown that we have heard about but never before visited.
We arrived 15 minutes into the one-hour session for Jake's age group, greatly delayed by my inability to find any clothes that fit my not-my-usual-size-but-not-maternity-clothes-sized body. Worse than having to wear pants that are two sizes too big (and therefore add extra room where I don't need it), however, was choosing the shoes to match.
You'd think it would be a simple matter, pulling on a pair of shoes. But once the days of flip flops pass, I find myself stymied. Tennis shoes or clogs? Socks or bare feet? What on earth matches too-big black jeans with skinny legs?
Not, I concluded, the shoes I was wearing when Jake and I dashed into the gym at 10:15.
Happily, we had to remove our shoes when we got there, so I could concentrate instead on those first moments of utter terror Jake experienced. He clung to my arm as if molded there by plaster of paris before I could coax him to take a walk, hand in mine. Slowly, he ventured onto the trampoline sunken into the floor. And declared that he liked it very much.
This declaration consisted of saying, "Dat, dat," until I identified this wonderful new phenomenon as, "Trampoline."
"Trampoline," he said approvingly before running across it again.
Forty minutes later, when the session ended, Jake was quite loathe to leave the gym, and probably my promise that he was going shoe shopping with me didn't help much. But I was back in my hated, ill-matching shoes, and I have long harbored an interest in owning a pair of black Chuck Taylor low-tops. I never quite thought I could pull it off, but today, when I should have been reflecting on the important things in life, all I came up with were those Chuck Taylors.
Off we headed, to Discount Shoes, the only place in town I knew I could count on finding them. Miraculously—or perhaps portentously—we went directly to the correct aisle. Jake picked up a hot pink pair for me, but I told him only black would do. I searched for my size. And searched. And searched.
How could there be no size 7 1/2 black Chuck Taylor low-tops?! Was there a god somewhere trying to tell me something?
Jake and I ran (in his case) and strode (in mine) the aisles looking for a suitable substitute. But I've waited years for this moment. Nothing else would do.
So we returned to the Chucks. Maybe they ran big, I thought, without much hope. I tried on a pair half a size smaller than I normally wear. And–angels singing and clouds parting–they fit perfectly.
Certain that buying shoes on Yom Kippur was just the right thing to do after all, I scooped them and Jake up and ran to the check out.
Whereupon I was informed that they don't take American Express.
Like a thwarted consumer in a bad commercial, I sadly informed the cashier that I am between Visa cards–my last one having slipped out of my pocket and onto the street last Monday, where it was picked up by a kind soul who called the bank and left a number where I could reach him. But, as much goodness as there is in the world, can you really with total security not change your account when a stranger has been holding onto your card for more than enough time to, oh, jot down the number?
Hence, I have no Visa for a few days, and no black Chuck Taylor low-tops.
Whence My Spirituality?
So the question remains: Was it wrong of me to crave those shoes on Yom Kippur? Was the challenge before me rather to let go of caring about how I look and instead see my way clear to what's truly important–that I look this way because I'm going to have a baby, for crying out loud?
I do concede that going to Discount Shoes is probably not what I should be doing on Yom Kippur. But when you're trying to keep a toddler entertained until nap time and a bit fried on a non-fast compromise of nothing but fruit juice, there are no such facile conclusions.
To me, the opportunity this particular Yom Kippur offered me was to be with my child and see his beauty, to let him trump fixing my faulty internet connection or working on my book proposal or getting ready for our trip to the beach this weekend. And if that meant going to the gym and buying him a lunch of pork sausage at Green Sage and, yes, taking him to Discount Shoes, where he happily ran up and down the aisles grinning at all the people grinning at him, then that was, I feel sure, the right thing to do.
But what about my attachment to buying things that I think will somehow make my life better when they really have no effect on it? What about my inability to let go of body image, even when I'll never have a better reason to do so? What about the time to reflect, improve, commit?
Here's where I start to think about my spirituality. And, more specifically on this day, why it is that I am drawn to Yom Kippur of all the Jewish observances (and then only loosely).
The really beautiful thing about yoga is that you have the opportunity to practice reflection and commitment daily. It's the same sort of beauty that people who are committed to observing other religions get to experience as well. Is my commitment to eating only foods that will nourish my body and spirit any different from another person's commitment to keep Kosher? Is my daily meditation any different from the daily call to prayer?
Even though I—like so many other people—would describe myself as spiritual but not religious, I can't say I really know what the difference is, when you come down to it. I suppose to me it's the commitment from within rather than the strictures from without. But whatever you call it and wherever you draw the line between the two, the bottom line is that all religions seem to boil down to the same thing.
Reflection. Commitment. Love.
And, even in the aisles of Discount Shoes, isn't this what I experience every moment I am with my child?
Coming Back to What Really Matters
One of the hardest tenets of yoga for me to practice is letting go of earthly things.
I know, with absolute certainty, that I will never live an entirely ascetic life. I'm not sure that's possible once you're a mother with kids who, like it or not, want certain things. But even if I didn't have a child, it's not me. It's not where I am yet in my journey.
I understand that possessions will not change my life in any meaningful way. There's that rush of buying a great new top, finding the place to wear it the first time. But after a while, you sort of forget about it. Eventually it is on its way to Goodwill. Or the consignment store if the excitement disappeared so quickly you never wore it after that date with your steady partner, when all you did was sit in a dark movie theater and a cheap restaurant where no one seemed to notice just how hip and hot you looked.
Still, for better or worse, I tend to feel pretty crappy when I look crappy. It's stupid, I know. My husband will not love me any less if I look more casual, a few pounds heavier, even, heaven forbid, my real age. In fact, he'd probably love me more. My child will not see me any differently.
So why do I? Why do I look in the mirror and wonder who that person is? Why do I feel lighter and happier and more able to smile when I like what I see?
The further I walk into that mirror, the further I get from my heart. And the further I am from my heart, the less able I am to let my inner beauty shine.
When I finish a yoga class, make-up-less, wearing baggy clothes, my hair dirty and in a ponytail, I still feel beautiful. That glow of my skin comes from deep inside, not just from my blood circulating a bit. It comes from feeling centered, from feeling beautiful.
I know that when I find my daily meditation, when I find the time, and the space in my crowded brain, to commit to my practice, I feel beautiful. I can pull the right clothes out of the closet, and even find the shoes to match. I'm not trying to create someone I saw last night on Gossip Girl. (In fact, I have seen no one on Gossip Girl because I don't watch it, but if I did, I'll bet I'd be dreaming about owning some of those outfits that are several decades too young for me to pull off.) I am centered deeply in myself and my open heart.
Which, really, is what Yom Kippur is about as well. It is one full day to commit to finding the purity in one's heart, to letting go of anything we regret doing over the past year, and to purifying through a 24-hour fast.
Whether circumstances allow me to commit fully to that intention today or not, I can honor the fact that, in the ways and times I can, I commit to it every day in some way in this life that I am living. Striving, in other words, to be truly beautiful people.
Try a Little Meditation
I'm convinced that a big part of fasting is getting to the point where you simply can't do anything but sit and be. You can't even think too much because your brain cells are sugar-deprived and therefore not firing those synapses with any particular accuracy.
There was a time in my life when I fasted weekly. Every Sunday I'd take a morning yoga class and then know that for the rest of the day I was going to, literally, rest. No raking leaves. No grading papers. Walking the dog was okay because she was a basset hound and therefore content to meander slowly and show me just how to dreamily appreciate what was around me at that very moment instead of planning ahead to something else.
I realized there was something odd about having to fast in order to slow down. And yet it also felt right. It brought me to a state of calm, a place where I could really feel who I was.
I'm not suggesting anyone fast every week. (At the time I had no partner, no child, no one expecting anything from me on a Sunday afternoon.) But I am suggesting there is a point to the Yom Kippur fast.
More importantly, I am suggesting that there is a way—short of fasting, certainly—to arrive at that same place where you can just sit and be.
The first step is giving yourself permission. Which is my only suggestion for you today.
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