I’ve been staring at this milemarker, ahead on the road, for over a year. Glancing at it, squinting at it, trying to make out its shape. Secretly sometime between 28 and 29 I started really looking forward to reaching it, and calling it my own. And now that it’s here, I feel a gladness, a satisfaction, and indeed some gelled ounces of justification. As if instead all the wisdoms from my youth I now feel at least some validation in sharing. I reluctantly recognize the role my own mind has played in this maturation. Many speak out and do more at far younger years simply because they do not spend time splashing about (or masochistically exploring) pits of doubt.
As the countdown to the big 3-0 neared, I will admit (with some hilarity) to experiencing something that reminded me of the apprehension leading up to the new millennium and the Y2K hype. I was turning 30. Period. Full stop. Was my entire system going to have some sort of meltdown? Some sort of terrifying unexpected emotional collapse that would inevitably be followed by a system-wide failure? It seemed unlikely but the uncertainty sat in my stomach like a sandbag.
And yet, a few minutes after midnight on Feb. 12, as I sat with Zoli watching the credits of “Love and Death” roll down the screen quite the opposite happened. Worn out from the anxiety of the day and numbed by the familiar Prokofiev’s music at the end of my favorite film, I had actually forgotten the whole 'turning older' thing until Zoli, rather joyfully announced, “Well, it has to be after midnight by now ... so happy birthday!” And then, almost in slow motion, I detected the smallest but most indisputable internal exhale. As if my cells were gladdened by the truth, that yes, I was finally, officially 30 (whoo-hooo!!!) before I could consciously celebrate it. As if all year I’d been walking around with a sweater stupidly hanging around my neck and finally, finally, I could pull it down… snugly, warmly, over my torso.
In reality I realize, I am older each day, and some days I can feel how age and maturation occur and accrue in microscopic moments, perhaps like one of those pictures that close up contains a million images but at a distance an entirely different and beautiful shape emerges. The Rebecca I am in this moment, on this day, is someone I have been evolving into and on these microscopic levels am continually, in every moment, evolving from. Sometimes I become impatient, almost violently emotionally hacking at these small images, the small moments, wanting to force them to reveal some vision or truth about my life. What is the full picture? How I will achieve or contribute something of meaning? Who will I experience it with? When/how will I experience suffering?
Per usual, I am musing over thought-provoking podcasts and various books. I just finished Do It Anyway by Courtney Martin, and I’m in the middle of reading Healing the Heart of Democracy by Parker Palmer and Terror in the Name of God by Jessica Stern. I would recommend all of these books, although the last chapter of Do It Anyway contains more nuggets of gold than the rest of the profiles in the book. As I began to write this blog post the first sentence that came to mind was, it feels good to write this. In sum, I had an urge to mark or record some wisdoms to date, as well as reflections drawn from these authors. So without further ado...
1. I know very little. And even more significantly, I have control over very little. This is easy in the abstract but can be harder in painful day-to-day moments.
2. “Gut feelings” are not the be-all and end-all. Good things have happened when I’ve made decisions about experiences for which I cannot intuit any outcome or path ahead. (Living this presently…)
3. People are resilient. (Mom)
4. Sleep really is the best medicine.
5. I believe in the value of rituals and religious traditions. Even if we do not fully understand them it is significant to me that my grandparents, and my great grandparents, and most probably my great-great-great grandparents celebrated the Jewish New Year and I still celebrate it today. The fact that I can visit a Jewish Museum in Sarajevo or Budapest containing historic religious objects and be intimately familiar with all of those objects and because they are objects I grew up (haggadah, seder plate, shofar, talis...) also seems significant. Judaism as more than a religion but indeed a collection of traditions and an Identity as well as the role of tradition in my modern, very multi-faith worth are things I'm still figuring out.
6. The only constant thing in life is change. (Dad)
7. To do what you love is a truly incredible privilege. (My parents)
8. Nothing is thicker than blood. (Dad)
9. Success requires a dedicated and intentional commitment from both mind and body. (Aaron)
10. The loss of local community is a true disease that must be fought one unexpected neighborly visit at a time.
11. Experiential learning really is the best and most profound kind of learning. (Kim Cummings)
12. Cross-generational mentorship is a prized blessing.
13. Friends are lifelong investments.
14. Friends change.
15. Loving someone means not owning them, not possessing them, and supporting their growth as a person independent from me.
16. An intuitive friend told me recently, “Rebecca, you may be one of the most intentional people I have ever met. And this is also your Achilles heel.”
17. Happiness is a power you command. (Bao Bui)
18. Sharing a meal, or an experience, bonds brings people together. Human glue.
19. Always be generous. (Dad)
20. Assume all the other drivers on the road are complete nincompoops. (Dad)
21. My strong feelings about something or someone is first and foremost information for me and about me. It is not necessarily anyone else’s truth or experience. Not everyone can recognize this division. Sharing feelings can have real consequences.
22. With the exception of pet rocks, relationships require effort and time. All of them. Family. Romantic. Friends.
23. My sister is very, very, very, very, very important.
24. Just as all the important relationships in my life require time and effort, so does my relationship to myself. I must strive to remain an interesting person to myself, to pursue new interests, to learn new things, and be a person with whom I enjoy spending time, respect, and admire. (Dr. Schmeichel)
24. You should have two rocks in your pocket. One rock that represents, “I have much to give, look at my incredible strengths” and another that stands for “I am humble, I am nothing without others, I have so much to learn.” (Rabbi Talve’s rabbinic blessing to Elyana Harris)
26. Our communities lack spaces where we can speak to each other about the condition of our souls (Parker Palmer).
27. “Good failure” is what we must strive for. In addressing the current world’s many ills and sufferings, I will fail, indeed, I am lucky if I change anything. But it doesn’t mean I should not try. (Courtney Martin)
28. What should we do with our confusion or pain? Try to share it in community. (Courtney Martin)
29. Patience is good but too much patience leads to inaction. Nothingness. Better to seek good failure. (Courtney Martin)
30. Underneath the clothes and the skin, the cultures and lifestyles, I continue to have an unquestionably firm faith in our biological and particularly, emotional sameness. Whether in St. Louis (Ferguson or Ladue), rural Missouri, Mostar, Iran, or Syria. People are people. We experience love and loss, heartbreak and joy, excitement and grief. We seek community and purpose.
I enjoyed listening to Krista Tippet's interview with Scott Atran, who interviewed young people who went on to join Al-Qaeda (amazingly, Atran found that in 2008 his young interviewees' top mentioned heroes were a soccer player, Barack Obama, and Osama Bin Ladin). I'm also enjoying Jessica Stern's analysis in Terror in the Name of God. I agree with Stern when she articulates the moral dilemma of interviewing terrorists and empathizing with them but found myself nodding when she argues we can empathize with a person's feelings while at the same time strongly condoning their actions. In sum, I think it is important to differentiate that it is peoples' actions that are evil, not people themselves. We are all made in God's image and Stern's book probes to understand why terrorists have chosen certain, very evil destructive actions (while believing said actions to be morally strong and defensible). This feels particularly poignant in light of the recent senseless shooting of three brilliant young Muslim students at UNC.
31. How is it that our species is smart enough to have developed the technology which removes someone’s heart, and replaces it with another but yet we still have profound violence of all kinds – physical, emotional, economic not just in families but in whole communities? In whole states? Why do we still have world hunger? Why are there still many people committed to the moral justifications of violence in a religious war? Why is there still so much violence?
If I know nothing else in this life, I can always return to the fact that I am here to bring love into the world. That's why we're here. That's what I believe.
Reporting from Sarajevo. 15. februar. 2015.
Rebecca