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#SixtyPartsJoy (or Nullifying The Not So Good) These past sixty days have belonged to something my friend, Toiby (IG: @toibycontinued) and I called the #SixtyPartsJoy Project. The premise is a teaching of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He says that because Adar is the Jewish month of joy and there are 30 days of Adar, when there are two Adars there are 60 days of Adar - or 60 days of joy. This number 60 is important. There is a concept in Jewish law that if something not-kosher is accidentally added to something kosher, it is still considered kosher as long as there is at least sixty times more of the kosher thing. In other words, one part non-kosher is nullified within sixty parts kosher. The Lubavitcher Rebbe says that if someone practices joy all sixty days of Adar the not good in their life will be nullified to those #SixtyPartsJoy. So, each of the past sixty days Toiby and I have tried to do at least one thing to increase joy in our lives. … and I am sure you’re all wondering, did...
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an ode to my mother, the magic maker   I clearly remember being 5 years old. I remember the intoxicating smell from big cans of Benjamin Moores the day my mother let me paint my own furniture. She stripped me down to my underwear with the little flowers, pulled my hair into a messy braid, tore three holes in a Hefty garbage bag that became my "artist's smock", and my 3 year old brother and I spent the better half of a Sunday painting our bed frames on the small porch of our apartment overlooking the lake where we would feed the turtles. I can still feel the plastic against my skin, the dried paint under my nails.  That apartment became our castle, our refuge. We'd come home after a long day braving school and the real world, and wash off any remnants of reality dancing in the front yard sprinklers. We'd trudge up the stairs with our uniforms heavy with the weight of the water and leave them in a sopping heap at the front door. We'd climb from Welcome ...
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this is what healing looks like. On the second floor of a big glass building is a young boy with a still bloodied scar down his chest. He is plugged into life saving machines that pull blood through a sore rib cage and stuck with needles. A small tube runs across his face administering oxygen; his hands and feet are strapped to the bed. It’s hard to believe, but this is what healing looks like. The many people that orbit the boy have had their share of clash in the past. I personally have not seen the boy’s father since the day he came to tell me that he would no longer be mine, but here we are together again in a dark room where the only light comes from the green numbers on a monitor that tell us the boy is alive. He gives me a long tight squeeze and although this is not how I imagined it, this is what healing looks like. The young boy’s even younger brother stands glued to the floor where he stands. He has never seen his brother like this. I have, this is not the first tim...
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here Although the tiniest, this post is the one most special to me from my trip with my wonderful friend Chaya (yes, she really does deserve all these complimentary adjectives I’ve been throwing at her in these posts). When we started plotting the Great American Road Trip it was a series of destinations: San Diego, Sedona, Petrified Forest, Carlsbad, Albuquerque, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, and back to Miami. This is a logical thing to organize when embarking on a cross-country trip, especially one with a deadline. How long it should take us to get from place to place, and how long we would have to spend once we got there before getting on our way to the next one. That all changed once we actually started driving. Once in motion and on a “road trip” every inch of our route became “there”, because we were on a road trip. The whole journey is the destination. Every song. Every gas station. Every mile. The views flying told us “We’re there!” over and over and...
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victory “You will always remember where you were when you heard the Twin Towers had fallen.” “You will always remember where you were when you heard Kennedy was shot.” You will always remember where you were when you heard of the select few stand out global tragedies.  But can you think of one beautiful, brilliant moment of pure victory that you shared with thousands of brothers and sisters worldwide? I can. I had been sitting in a car for almost 7 hours en route from San Diego to Sedona. The first day of our road trip. The last day of Chanukah, the eight candles lit the night before on a city street corner. Persumei Neissa. We had driven through countless beautiful landscapes just within the first few hours, but nothing to compare to the red rock of Sedona. We were listening to a podcast that had to be paused to listen to a Whatsapp voice note from my brother. Over the car loudspeaker played, “...my mother is going to pick him up soon…” Chaya: Is he talkin...
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the stillness When I told people I was driving across the country with my friend (Chaya, greatest travel partner of all time. G-d bless this girl’s soul.) they asked a lot about how much driving that is, how many miles we would be moving, how many hours we would each have to drive. No one asked about the blissful moments of perfect stillness. I couldn’t have predicted the utter now-ness, the pure halt, even if they had. Yes, we did travel many miles, but we were fully experiencing where we were - and who we were in those moments. We were just somewhere in the middle of nowhere drinking it all in. We listened to SO MUCH music, played podcasts (The Hilarious World of Depression and Serial - both highly recommended), filmed the passing scenery, and talked and talked and talked. Each stop left us with something (usually an iron on patch :D, but all jokes aside I really did feel myself becoming more person with every new city, like rings were being added to my core the way they do to...
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