Rachel Levy Lesser's Blog

This is us in 2019 on our most recent college girls trip (to Nashville). We wonder when we will all be together again in person?!

Before I could start my video to join the Saturday morning services at a synagogue in Northern California I’ve never been to, and will probably never go to, the group text had already begun.

“Show your face, Rach!” texted one of my friends from college.

“Coming,” I texted back “only showing waist up today. Still in flannel PJ pants.”

And then the group text blew up from there. On it were seven of my college girls. And by girls, I mean middle aged women who haven’t been in college in 25 years. I could not keep up with the text banter, which felt to me a bit like whispering and giggling in synagogue while the rabbi was leading the congregation in prayer. In this case, it was one of the college girls’ son and nephew leading over 100 attendees in prayer over Zoom for their b’nai mitzvah service.

This was the fourth time the college girls were together (together apart as they say) at a religious occasion to mark a lifecycle event since the pandemic hit last spring. We all Zoomed in for a backyard family only bat mitzvah of one of the other college girls’ daughter in suburban New York a few weeks before this California b’nai. And just a month before that, we spent shabbat morning together virtually at a b’not mitzvah of yet another college girl’s twin daughters in another New York suburb. Fun fact: we learned that a b’not is a real thing and not a play on the words of not having a real in person mitzvah. We learned this while laughing so hard until we almost cried on our weekly college girls Zoom calls/happy (sometimes sad) hours which are still going strong now well into week 43.

We missed not being together in person, not hugging each other, our spouses and our kids, not getting dressed up, not discussing our outfits. And yet despite these nots, we did somehow feel together. While watching each girl’s child/children read from the Torah, we had giant smiles on our faces in our little Zoom windows watching each college girl beam with pride. Most of us teared up as we listened to our respective girls talk about their love for their child/children, recounting funny and sweet stories, some of which we knew and others which we he had never heard before. And of course we commented on what everyone in the mitzvah screenshot was wearing.

I was not able to go to my Northern Californian college girl’s older son’s bar mitzvah three years ago when we used to hop on planes, mask-less and without a giant bottle of hand sanitizer for occasions like that. As much as I didn’t want to miss her first son’s mitzvah, life got in the way. I was able to go the mitzvahs of other college girls’ older children in New York and New Jersey, but not all of the girls could. I would often describe these events to the other girls who couldn’t be there or they would do the same for me. I smiled to myself thinking how special it was that we could all be there together even in this new way for these occasions — no whisper down the lane interpretations needed.

We gathered together over Zoom at the end of this past summer to mourn the loss of the Northern Californian college girl’s beloved father. He was diagnosed with cancer, treated and died during the time that not one of us could hug our dear friend. Only one college girl who lives in a neighboring California town could walk with her from a distance. The group text during the shiva was much more solemn. We were all crying. We were all so proud of our college girl for speaking such wisdom and truth and with such strength. We all wiped away tears not wanting to smudge eye makeup even on Zoom. We all said the mourner’s Kaddish in unison. We were all there — together, and it didn’t feel so apart.

This is us on one of our 2020 plus weekly Zoom calls. The theme of this call was wear your wedding dress. Trying to mix it up!!

As much as I’d like to think I would have flown across the country in a non-pandemic world to be there for my college girl’s father’s funeral, I don’t know if I actually would have. Perhaps I would have been away on summer vacation with my own family. Perhaps my own pre-pandemic busy life would have simply gotten in the way.

Friends are the family you choose or so says one of the college girls’ mother. These friends — they are my family. I didn’t think it was possible to feel as close to them as I did so many years ago when we shared dorm rooms, apartments, off campus houses, class notes, drinks and laundry baskets. Since that time though we have shared the highs and lows of real life after college – of falling in love and building families and careers, of loss and of everything else in between. When this global pandemic first shut us all down last March, we reached out to each other in more frequents emails, phone calls and of course, the group text.

“Our schools are closed for two weeks,” first came across my phone from one of the California girls which shocked me here in suburban Philadelphia where we were still in the zone of just wash your hands and don’t touch your face. Now we manage to laugh about the absurdity of what we once thought on the weekly Zooms. “Remember when we thought we would just stay home for two weeks?” one of the girls says nearly ten months in and counting.”

It sounds crazy but in all this time of not being able to physically share so many of the moments we wish we could, I actually feel closer to all of them then I ever have. They echo my sentiment. It feels a bit like we are living together once again, albeit in a strange virtual alternate universe.

We are starting to talk about what we will do after the vaccine is more widely distributed. Where will we go on the next college girls trip? I suggested the other night that perhaps the weekly Zooms continue even after we are all inoculated. I think they just might.

The post Three Mitzvahs and A Shiva appeared first on Rachel Levy Lesser.

We celebrated our next door neighbor’s front yard bat mitzvah, outside in 2020.

I spent a lot of time outside this year. We all did, right? At the outset of the global pandemic while following the rules (I’m a rule follower!) to flatten the curve and slow the spread of COVID-19, I found myself feeling quite isolated at home. We all felt that way, right? And so in order to keep my sanity and see the people I love, I went outside. I did new things, outside. I did old things which I used to do inside, outside, and I got creative – by necessity. Here is a list (in no particular order) of some of the things I did outside, in 2020.

Took a walk (almost) every day.

Had my nails painted by my daughter’s friend. The polish lasted for over two weeks.

Listened to podcasts.

Listened to audiobooks.

Got to know my neighbors (and their dogs.)

Ate bagels, nova and noodle pudding as I broke the fast with my extended family on our back deck with hope for a sweet, healthy new year.

Ate potato latkes cooked on a camping stovetop on my friend’s driveway while wearing a fleece jacket, a wool hat and fur lined boots.

Picked strawberries, tomatillos, edamame and basil.

Drank hot coffee on my cold front porch with a rotating gaggle of friends.

This is my walking look for 2020, not shown the high wool socks pulled up over the leggings.

Drank iced coffee on my hot front porch with a similar rotating gaggle.

Drank wine on that same front (and back) porch in the heat, the cold, the rain and everything else in between with whichever friend(s) showed up.

Dove headfirst into the ocean.

Ate soft serve ice cream on a bench outside a general store with my daughter and her friends.

Sat in a sukkah.

Explored a covered bridge.

I teared up when my close friend first came to visit in my driveway in 2020. I hadn’t seen her in months, the longest stretch of time we had ever gone without an in person visit.

Celebrated my father’s 80th birthday on my brother’s back patio blowing birthday kisses and good wishes from well over six feet away.

Played HORSE on my driveway.

Hiked on a snowy trail in a park, wearing knee high wool socks pulled over two pairs of leggings.

Rode my bike.

Stood on my head (yoga.)

Discovered my favorite snack of 2020 on my son’s friend’s front porch swing while said son and friend rode bicycles down the street.

Read a blessing to my next door neighbor’s daughter as she became a bat mitzvah in her front yard.

Watched my cousin’s daughter read from the same Torah that many family members (myself included) had read from at their own bar/bat mitzvahs in my cousin’s back yard as my cousin asked the guy mowing his lawn during the service to please come back another day.

We celebrated my father’s 80th birthday outside on my brother’s back patio in 2020.

Watched my husband and kids work together to put together a trampoline over the course of 2.5 long days. The trampoline almost won, until it didn’t.

Roasted marshmallows over a firepit with the same skills I first developed in 1983 at summer camp.

Ate Chinese food on Christmas Eve.

Ate pumpkin soup on Thanksgiving.

Lost a tennis match to my daughter.

Teared up at the site of an old friend who showed up one early evening on my driveway.

Read a book.

We hiked to this covered bridge in 2020.

Wrote (the beginning of) a book.

Made a bracelet out of string.

Released a balloon to heaven on my late mother’s birthday with my husband and kids.

Used my daughter as a human blanket on a friend’s back deck after the sun went down one evening.

Drank decaf Starbucks on my aunt’s back deck one sunny, brisk morning.

Rode shotgun in a golf cart while my son drove.

Ran (one time.)

Had a conversation I won’t soon forget with a friend as we ate cookies together on my back porch in ski parkas.

Cried out loud while smiling on a solo walk a week after election day.

Planted purple mums.

The post 2020, Outside appeared first on Rachel Levy Lesser.

Welcome to the club, a club no one wants to be in. And yet somehow more and more of us seem to gain entry each and every single day. I learn about new members on the news, through a friend, a friend of a friend, a family member, a neighbor.

Even though I may not know your name or what you look like, I know you. I was you. I am you. I joined this club over 16 years ago after losing my mother to cancer. She was 57. I was 30. Some of you may be younger or older than me. Some have lost people closer to you or not as close to you. Some had fraught relationships with those you loved. Some of you had seemingly perfect ones. Some of you said everything you wanted to say to your loved ones before they died. Some didn’t say enough. Some of you have regrets, and others, no regrets at all.

I used to hear from you every now and then. As I get older and as my world grows bigger, I hear from you more than I think I should. I am referred to you through a friend or a colleague. Some people call me the grief girl. This makes me laugh. I laugh, a lot. I think that helps. I talk a lot about grief. That definitely helps. I’ve written about grief. I sometimes send you the most recent book I wrote on the topic or one of a slew of other books (see recommendations below) that I have read several times and that have helped me. I have so many pages of these books dog eared that it’s hard to remember why I refer back to any one particular page. I provide you with a list of movies to avoid in the first year of your grief including but not limited to Beaches, Terms of Endearment, Wild and surprisingly, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, which left me in ugly tears with a massive migraine.

I have a grief note I’ve written to grieving friends on my personalized stationary. Close friends refer to it as “the note.” I don’t want to send so many of “the notes” but I seem to be cranking them out in record droves. Since I don’t have enough stationary to write to all of you by hand, here is what I can share with. I wish someone had told me this when I first entered the club.

Grief is not linear. I’ve read a lot about the five stages of grief and even tried to go through each and every one according to some kind of schedule, but this didn’t work for me. I don’t think it will work for you. Grief is not linear. You won’t feel one thing at year one and another at year five and then feel all better by year ten or even fifteen. You will go days, weeks, even months without feeling the raw, guttural emotion of loss. And then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, you will break out in tears in the middle of the grocery store or while watching your daughter get her ears pierced or on a beautiful sunny day taking a walk around your block all by yourself.  Don’t expect to feel any one thing at any one time and know that you will have good days and bad days.

Put one foot in front of the other. When you are in one of those moments feeling overwhelmed by sadness and loss, not knowing how you will ever feel better, just make the next move. Get out of bed, get dressed, make a cup of coffee, start your work even if you think you can’t focus. You will get there. It takes one small step to get to the next one.

Time is your friend. Although grief is not linear (see above) time really does heal. I am not a fan of clichés but I have to give it to this one. There will be things that you can’t imagine doing or saying or feeling right now that you will be able to do one day. I promise. Years from now you will drift off to sleep with a smile on your face recounting what a happy and normal day you just had even without your lost loved one. It will feel good and then weird, but ultimately, good.

Do the work – the work of dealing with your grief. This may mean letting the sadness wash over you and dwell in it for as long as it feels right. You may need to deal with unresolved issues with other family members feeling the loss of the same loved one. Talk to your family members about this, even if it’s hard – especially if it’s hard. These conversations need to happen. You will feel better after having had them. Express what you are feeling. Do not hold it in.

Do what makes you happy. Many grieving people feel like they have to be sad for a certain period of time, some think perhaps forever. You do not. You should feel happy again and hopefully, a lot. So go and do what makes you happy, whatever that may be. Call a friend, go for a run, watch a funny movie. Cook, read, laugh. Do what you used to be before you experienced your loss. It may not feel exactly the same, but it will feel good.

Don’t ask the what ifs. I’ve gone down that road before and it doesn’t end well. I used to wonder what would have had happened if only my mother went to the doctor sooner, if only I could somehow have miraculously predicted that she would get sick, that I said more or did more. You are where you are now and asking what would have happened if you had done something differently will only cause you unnecessary pain that will get you nowhere. Don’t go there. You have better places to be.

A note on the word bittersweet. I think of this word often. I feel it even more. After losing someone you love, so much of your life will feel bittersweet. Bitter because you are feeling the giant hole left by that person you lost and sweet because of the happiness and joy you will be able to feel even after loss. This is a powerful emotion. You feel the bitterness more so because of the sweetness. It’s a healthy feeling to have. Feel it, all of it

Books (with many dog eared pages) that have helped me in my grief:

Dancing At The Pity Party by Tyler Feder

Modern Loss: Candid Conversations About Grief. Beginners Welcome by Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner

Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman

No Happy Endings by Nora McInerny

The Goodbye Diaries by Marisa Bardach Ramel and Sally Bardach

Wild: From Lost To Found On The Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed

The post Dear Grieving Friend appeared first on Rachel Levy Lesser.

On the day this past April when I hit refresh approximately two hundred and thirty seven times on Instacart unable to get a time slot for delivery from my grocery store, I signed up to become a member of my local CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. I didn’t know that until two weeks ago.

A few of my friends have been members of this CSA, or as they call it, the farm, for many years. The regaled me with stories of beautifully ripened tomatoes that fall off the vine, bags and bags of multi-colored potatoes and cucumbers the likes of which you would never see in the grocery store. In summers past, they held farm parties — a potluck where only farm members friends could attend bringing dishes made from farm ingredients. I saw farm party pictures and learned about recipes for beet cake, gazpacho and mojitos made with fresh from the farm mint.

I teased my farmer friends about their farm food porn pics, telling myself that I was just fine purchasing my produce at the grocery store. I wouldn’t know what to do with all that swiss chard, green onion and cilantro, I told myself and them.

Full disclosure: I am not a cook. I regularly cook for my family so we can have sustenance, but I am not creative or inventive, and I don’t love to cook. I don’t have confidence in my cooking skills the way I do in my baking skills. I’m a baker, which is quite different from being a cook. If I could serve cookies, brownies and cakes three meals a day to my family, I would. In the midst of the quarantine, I hosted weekly baking classes on Zoom. I procastibake. I stress bake. I bake to show love for family and friends and so I can eat the cookie dough when no one else is watching.

Also in the midst of the quarantine and the lack of response from my Instacart app, I became worried about getting fresh produce in my house, the global food chain supply, and the very real possibility that I could be serving my family cookies for dinner. And so at long last, I joined the farm.

I was pleasantly surprised with my first farm share batch in late May. I was excited to see a lovely variety of lettuces, onions, herbs and spices.

“It gets better,” one farmer friend told me. “Wait till July comes. You won’t know what to do with all of the zucchini, tomato and squash,” she said.

That is what I was afraid of. My idea of a homecooked gourmet dinner is the frozen mandarin orange chicken in the bag from Trader Joe’s or as it is known in my house, “Chicken Rach.” I’m also pretty good with penne and vodka sauce (from the jar.)

The first night home from the farm, I dumped my bags of fresh items on my kitchen counter and got to work. I sautéed the bok choy with the green garlic and the threw in my Trader Joe’s frozen bag of shrimp. My husband said it was the best dinner he ever had. And he kept saying that every subsequent night. It became a joke — but perhaps one weeded in (no pun intended) some truth.

I sautéed eggplant, tomatoes and carrots all from the farm and served them along with grilled chicken and salad created from a plethora of farm lettuce. I made a homemade tomato sauce – all from farm ingredients. My daughter and I made breaded zucchini sticks. I made a beet salad and dressed it in a homemade dressing from my farm herbs.

Yes, I did take a picture of the kale, texting it to my farm friends asking if it was rosemary right before I almost flavored my farm potatoes with chopped up kale. In subsequent weeks, I texted more pictures of farm pickings to my farm friends wanting to know exactly what I was looking at. I learned about kohlrabi, tomatillos and yellow string beans. And then I cooked with them. I made up recipes. I developed a new found confidence in my cooking stills.

I still held on to my baking roots (again no pun intended – I swear) as I made strawberry shortcake (and strawberry soup) after I picked A LOT of berries on the farm one Saturday afternoon.

My husband has joined me on the farm a few evenings and so too has my daughter and my son. We are now a farming family of sorts. I might be posting farm food porn pics soon.

It only took a global pandemic to get me to try something new, something that my friends had been doing for a long time. Silver lining? Perhaps.

Whatever the case may be, I look forward to my trips to the farm. I enjoy the clever farm emails with headlines like  “Commence the Cukes, Cool As A Watermelon and Peak Peas.” Could I write farm copy? Is that a thing? I think it is.

I have never felt this way about Instacart, about going to the grocery store and never, ever about cooking.

Thank you dear farm friends and thank you, dear farm.

The post My Summer on the Farm appeared first on Rachel Levy Lesser.

I’ve spent way too much time already this summer worrying about how my teenage kids are feeling (mentally and physically) and simultaneously trying to figure out plans to keep them busy in light of their sleepaway summer camps being canceled. It should have been my son’s eighth summer and my daughter’s sixth one away at their beloved New England camps — their most favorite places in the world, but a global pandemic had other plans for them.

When my kids got the news that camp was not happening because of the Corona virus, my first instinct was to drill into their heads the perspective I believe they should have in the midst of everything else going on in the world. I talked to them at length about this historic moment in global health, the long overdue efforts to create meaningful change to combat racism, and a divisive political landscape the likes of which I could have never imagined when I was a teenager.

“Camp not happening should be the worst thing that ever happens to you,” I repeated too many times to count and followed up with, “Do you know how lucky you are?”

“We know,” they said, nodding in unison.

I then pivoted to finding ways to keep them busy this summer — so busy that they wouldn’t think about what they were missing by not being in their homes away from home. I researched online courses and volunteer work. I urged them to look for summer jobs – outdoor babysitting, ice cream scooping and the like. I figured that if their days and nights were filled with activity, then they would forget about camp.

And then over a lively and lengthy discussion last week during our Nth (I’ve lost count!) family dinner, I realized that I had been taking the wrong approach this whole time. As my kids recounted memorable camp stories, adventures and unbeknownst to them lessons learned from camp summers past, I began to understand that no matter where they may be, camp will always be with them, even (and perhaps most especially) in times when they need it most. Camp is not something to be forgotten, to erase with the business of new activities. I, of all people, should have known this.

I have not been at my summer camp in Maine as a camper in over 30 years, and yet somehow camp seems to be with me. I have channeled that feeling of pure simple camp joy — of walking arm and arm with my camp best friends up the giant hill, past the flagpole on the way to the main lodge with my wet from the lake hair pulled back in a braid, the fresh Maine air in my face and the bright summer sun on my back. I’ve done this way too many times to count in my real adult grownup life when I am dealing with real adult grownup problems.

When the airplane turbulence is too much for my liking, I close my eyes and sing a camp song to myself, sometimes two or three and I feel calmer. The patches of rough air pass. I feel better.

My late mother, also a former devoted happy camper, kept camp with her when she needed it more than she ever imagined she would. One early morning nearly 20 years ago, when I was visiting her in the hospital right before she had experimental medication injected into her liver with the goal of fighting off growing cancer cells insider her, I asked her how she got through these treatments, which happened on a monthly basis over the course of several years. She told me she sang a camp song to herself. It passed the time, and it brought her right back to camp more than a generation ago. I understood that.

Just about 35 summers ago, as my camp friends and I packed up our sleeping bags and tents from a campground in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, one of our counselors told us to sweep the campground looking for any trash in the area.

“You should always leave any place you visit, in better shape than when you first found it,” she said then to the gaggle 20 some 11-year-old girls. I have never forgotten those words. I think of them often whenever I leave a place. I believe that camp counselor — that day — taught me what it was to be an environmentalist, before I even knew that was a thing.

Camp was where I learned to appreciate the beauty in the outdoors and in nature. That feeling is still with me today — when I take my walks outside nearly every day, when I garden in my front yard and when I stop to admire a sunset or the sound of a bird humming in my backyard. That is camp. That is with me, always.

I pride myself on not being a competitive person. I think that’s why I excel at activities like yoga, taking long untimed walks and knitting, but put me on some kind of team or in a group dynamic and my camp color war, let’s do this for the gray team, spirit comes right back to me. This sense of doing my best for the good of the group, was something I figured out at camp. It’s something I carry with me, whether I am working with other authors in a group panel, when I am working together with a team of volunteers or when I am just trying to get members of my family to do their best. This doing your best for the sake of the team, for others, for the greater good, is so much a part of what so many of us are in fact doing now by staying at home, wearing masks and social distancing to help slow the spread of the Corona virus. I even told my kids that the other day in reiterating why we are doing what we are doing now.

“It’s like doing your part in your particular race for the entire blue team at camp.” I think they got that.

As I watch them ease into their new routines of a summer without camp, I see that the spirit of camp and the lessons they learned at camp are still with them. I see that in their resilience, their adaptability and their actions towards others.

“Camp is with you, wherever you are. It always will be,” I tell them. And I am pretty sure they get that too.

The post Camp is With You, Wherever You Are appeared first on Rachel Levy Lesser.

There is no doubt that America has fallen in love with Governor Andrew Cuomo. I get it. I love him too. His late morning daily briefings are a highlight of my day. I have shed a tear or two during them when he tells me that he loves me, that he will take care of me and my family and that we can – that we will — get through this together. I believe him. I have also become a follower of the on screen television (and I believe off screen/real life) bromance between the governor and his little brother, Chris Cuomo, who is currently hosting Cuomo Prime Time on CNN from his basement now quarantined, having tested positive for the Corona Virus a couple of weeks ago.

I patiently wait each early evening to see if Dr. Anthony Fauci will appear at the White House Corona Task Force briefings. I’ve come to rely on him. I trust him implicitly, and like many other viewers of these briefings, I probably read too much into Dr. Fauci’s absence or presence each night, as well as the look on his face and his overall demeanor as I try and discern how we can best flatten the curve and find some kind of hope in the staggering statistics and heartbreaking news of this global pandemic.

There is one other figure who has emerged more recently as someone I look forward to seeing on television, someone I can count on, and someone who I believe is really counting on me — on all of us to do the right thing — to stay home and lookout for those most vulnerable in our communities. Her name is Dr. Deborah Birx, and when I see her, I do have hope. Dr. Birx is a world renowned global health official and is currently the Corona Virus Response Coordinator charged with aiding the White House in the government’s response to COVID-19. There is no doubt in my mind that she is brilliant, and that she has both the experience and the bedside manner on a global scale to tell it like it is to all of us.

But Dr. Birx has one additional asset that makes her an even more compelling figure to me. I can’t look at her without noticing her scarves – those colorful, detailed, drapey, perfectly tied and worn beautiful scarves.

I know that many powerful and extremely bright, forward thinking women have gotten too much attention for their wardrobe choices or their hairdos. There was Hillary Clinton and her pants suits and Michelle Obama with her bangs, sleeveless dresses and cardigan sweaters. I don’t bring up Dr. Birx’s scarves to diminish her scientific knowledge or her political power at this moment. I just relish these scarves. I give her credit for wearing them. I say more power to her. I believe that a woman at every stage in her life, and in any position she may hold, should dress as she wants to dress and not (as so many women have been told rather overtly or inadvertently) as the way a man would dress if he were a woman in such a position.

Full disclosure: I have a thing with scarves. In my most recent book, I dedicate two chapters to scarves. One is a whimsical, multi-colored tapestry like scarf from Anthropologie which I credit with having launched my writing career. The other is a light pink Burberry fringed scarf, which my mother gave me a few months before she died at the age of 57, and which I now believe was her way of telling me to live a happy life and not dwell on losing her too soon. That scarf is actually called the Happy Scarf and was given that name by the iconic British clothing manufacturer.

It’s also not only the fashion choices of powerful women that I have noticed lately. I have become all too cognizant of Governor Cuomo’s choice of how to best don the official seal of the New York Governorship. I prefer the seal on the Members Only type jacket he sometimes wears over the short sleeved collared shirt or the long sleeved button down. It seems more rugged and “Let’s Get This Job Done” — at least to me.

I started to take note of Dr. Birx’s scarves a few weeks ago. Their colors and patterns stood out amongst the dark suited men all standing at what I think is a socially appropriate distance, but am not quite 100% sure. I wondered if I happened to catch her on the briefings where she just happened to wear a scarf. Does she wear one every day? How many does she have? Are other people seeing this?

My father, who is not known for his fashion acumen, but rather his level headedness and optimistic spirit, called me one night to tell me that he thinks that “we all need to listen to Dr. Fauci and to the other doctor with the pretty scarves.” Normally I would have taken this comment as somewhat male chauvinistic, and I did sharply respond to him by firmly stating her proper name – Dr. Deborah Birx. And then I realized that if he is noticing the scarves, others must be too, and there may be something to them? It seems that Dr. Birx’s scarves have their own Instagram account.

What is it about these scarves? Do they remind us of someone in our lives who is loving and caring and always puts herself together no matter what the situation? In my case, that would be my late mother and grandmother. Is it just that splash of color we need to brighten up our days right now? Is it that even though the world seems to be falling apart, Dr. Birx is taking the time to pick out a beautiful item from her closet and perfectly drape it around her shoulders?

Two Fridays ago, as I used one of my last Clorox wipes to disinfect the can of pinto beans I was opening as I tried to make another version of chili that doesn’t taste like chili, I glanced up at my small kitchen television screen and saw Dr. Birx in a beautiful long and super drapey deep colored orange scarf. It may have even been a stole. I had to smile with a special blend of deep admiration and thanks.

I haven’t been able to get it together to wear something other than my daily quarantine uniform of leggings, sweatpants, flannel shirts and hoodies. Hell, I haven’t even managed to wear a bra most days.

And here is this global health official – a leader in the fight against infectious disease for 30 plus years standing before me — before all of us, having taken the time to show us her medical prowess, her helpful relatable tips, her “I know this is hard but we can do this” attitude and yes, her scarves. They tell me that she is still being true to herself, to her own unique style and for whatever reason that I’m not sure I’ll ever fully understand, that makes me feel just a tiny bit better.

The post Why Am I Obsessed With Dr. Birx’s Scarves? appeared first on Rachel Levy Lesser.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I like the Jewish High Holidays in that they provide a chance to be with family and friends and reflect on the past year of life, but fasting and making promises I am not sure I can keep are not really my thing. I also like the Passover Seder and sitting around a family table together, but then there’s the part about the plagues (the slaying of the first born never sat right with me) and neither did the gefilte fish.

Thanksgiving was my mother’s favorite holiday. “It’s the all American holiday,” she used to say. “We don’t have to rush off to services and so we can relax.” Thanksgiving was also my grandfather’s birthday, my mother’s father, who she (and really all of us in the family) adored. Legend has it that my grandfather was born on Thanksgiving day in 1908, and from that moment forward, his birthday was celebrated on Thanksgiving day. When I was little, I wondered why no one bothered to figure out the real calendar date of his birthday and then celebrate it on that date. I just googled it. He was born in November 26th.

Still we celebrated his birthday on Thanksgiving Day. My mother took over hosting from her older cousin when I was a young girl. I think it was the year after my mother’s cousin’s oven broke, and the cousin came over to cook her turkey in our oven early that Thanksgiving/my grandfather’s birthday morning.  

Although my mother hated to cook, she set a beautiful table. For Thanksgiving, she set three tables as my large extended family gathered for my mother’s favorite holiday. We all lived quite close to each other, and we all were in fact, just close with each other. I thought that everyone went to the same school as their cousins, carpooled with them and had them as their babysitters.

My mother hosted countless Thanksgivings, all complete with formal place settings, service and jacket and tie dress code. She made the turkey (which she actually did not hate doing because as she used to say, the less you mess with it, the better it tastes.) My mother’s sister, her mother and her cousin made the side dishes and desserts. We always had a coconut cake to celebrate my grandfather’s birthday, and my grandfather always gave everyone in the family a present to celebrate his day. I still have a lot of the gifts he gave me for his birthday.

The last big Thanksgiving my mother hosted was my grandfather’s last birthday – his 93rd one. The next year, the crowd was smaller. There were no more grandparents alive, and many of my  cousins had moved away with grownup families of their own. 

That next Thanksgiving, the first one without my grandfather, would turn out to be my mother’s last one. She died seven months later having only celebrated 57 of her favorite holidays. She was sick when planning that one, and somewhere in the midst of picking the menu and taking out the linens to be ironed, my mother’s sister insisted on hosting the holiday. My mother let her. She “didn’t have the strength” or at least that’s what she told me when I asked her why she wasn’t hosting her favorite holiday.

We didn’t know that the year her sister hosted Thanksgiving would be my mother’s last one. Or at least I didn’t know it. Maybe my mother did? I watched her with eagle eyes that night as she held her sister’s hand and said out loud to her and those within ear shot, “This is nice. Isn’t it?” 

I have replayed those words so many times in my head over the last 16 Thanksgivings since my mother has not been here for her favorite holiday. Was she trying to convince herself that the holidays would be still okay if she wasn’t there to host them? Or perhaps that her family would still be okay if she wasn’t there at all? 

The first Thanksgiving after my mother died, I escaped to Florida with my husband, our new baby and my father. We had Thanksgiving dinner at a family friend’s house amidst palm trees and 75 degree temperatures. It was nice, but it was really hard. I cried the whole plane ride home that Thanksgiving Sunday.

I have hosted nearly all Thanksgiving dinners since the year we tried to escape from my mother’s favorite holiday. Sometimes we had a small crowd – only one table necessary. I tried to distract myself with turkey cupcakes for the kids, surveys on proper turkey cooking temperatures or basting times. Sometimes the distractions worked. Other years, I cried myself to sleep after guests had left and everyone in my house had gone to bed. 

This past Thanksgiving, I set three tables — a first for me. The tables were filled with pretty dishes, linens, crystal, silver and flowers, with tasty and plentiful food, and most resonate to me, with people. As I looked around that night, I took note. I realized that only three people in attendance had been at those most treasured Thanksgivings of my childhood – my father, my brother and me. Only three of us had tasted the coconut birthday cake and had worn jacket and tie dress code for my mother’s favorite holiday.

The other people (and there were a lot of them) were part of a new family of mine. They were my husband’s family, my brother’s family, my father’s girlfriend and her family and a whole new generation of all of our children. All of these people, who will never know what it was to be at my mother’s Thanksgivings — they are my family. They became my family over the years perhaps when I wasn’t paying attention or necessarily looking for one.

And as I watched the conversation flow with ease and with genuine feelings that everyone was really happy to be there, my husband walked by my chair at the head of our dining room table – the same table and spot where my mother used to sit. I squeezed his hand and caught his ear. “This is nice,” I said it him. “Isn’t it?” And it was.

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Dear:

◊ Chloe     ◊ Dylan    ◊ Lily    ◊ Hunter    ◊ Seven

Home is:

◊ Insanely quiet

◊ Ridiculously neat

◊ Weird

Today I:

◊ Focused on one thing at a time for more than ten minutes

◊ Emailed pictures of you from the camp web site to your grandparents and then spent a half hour explaining to them how to view them

◊ Went out to lunch with a friend and left my phone in my bag the whole time

Tomorrow I am going to:

◊ Keep up my nine day streak of not running the dishwasher

◊ Meditate and write in my gratitude journal how grateful I am that you are a happy camper

◊ Write you a letter which may or may not interest you

My favorite activity is:

◊ Binge watching Netflix

◊ Having sex with the door open

◊ Cleaning out your room and throwing out all of these little pieces of paper you’ve been hoarding on your dresser

The food is:

◊ Sushi

◊ Ice cream for dinner

◊ Better with wine

My friends are:

◊ More fun than I remember them being during the school year

◊ Missing their own kids but not as much as I am missing you

◊ Really good at making plans

I need more:

◊ Pictures of you on the camp web site

◊ Phone calls from you without seven other kids talking to their parents in the background

◊ Reassurance that I am doing a good job as a parent

Love:

◊ Mom    ◊ Dad    ◊ Spot    ◊ Whiskers

 

 

 

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I recently read this amazing book called Cozy: The Art of Arranging Yourself In The World. It’s written by Isabel Gillies. I love her writing style. I love what she has to say. I’ve read two of her other books, Happens Every Day and A Year and Six Seconds: A Love Story and devoured them just like I did with Cozy. Cozy is part memoir, part how to, part recipe and fully awesome. Isabel says that to be cozy one must learn to identify the innermost truth of yourself and carry that into the world. She explains that cozy means creating a life where you feel safe, steadied at home and in the world. At the end of the book she asks what is cozy to you. Here are my answers.

Scarves that you can wear all day long inside and outside
Peanut M&Ms
The smell of my camp in Maine (in 1987)
A heavy rain storm when I am upstairs in my house in my bedroom.
Randomly running into someone unexpectedly I like/love in the middle of the day
Chopped salad
The first ski run of the day on a freshly corduroy-like groomed trail
A long walk with a good friend
My son’s feet on my lap during an intense NBA game on TV
Thick face cream
Being called various terms of endearment from people I love including:

“Doll” from my aunt Jo
“Love” from my dad
“Pal” from my brother
“Kid” from my cousins
“Rach” from my close friends *Note it also feels cozy when a new(ish) friend calls me Rach (instead of Rachel) because it means she/he feels close to me
“Honey” from my husband
“Mom” from my kids (It still gets me every time that I am someone’s mom)


Camp songs
Train rides
Bruce Springsteen slow songs (Brilliant Disguise is most cozy for me)
An empty computer screen and a full cup of coffee early in the morning
Holding hands in the car
Jeans that fit well
Brunch on the Upper West Side with my college BFFs
Downward dog on a new yoga mat
An unrequested shoulder rub from my husband and/or my kids
Modern Art
Knee high socks
Baking from memory
A short unexpected text from a friend that makes me laugh out loud
Worn in baseball hats
Birthday cards with a little extra note in them
Layers of clothing (usually at least three)
You’ve Got a Friend – Carole King Version (It’s the ring tone on my phone for close friends)
Handwritten thank you notes
Picking my kids up at school
A long lunch with my Aunt Linda
Linen napkins
A fresh warm chocolate chip cookie and a hot cup of tea
Orchids that flower again when you least expect them to
The sound of my kids laughing about something I know nothing about in the next room
Movie previews in the theater
British accents
Clothes shopping with my daughter
A story I’ve already heard told again by the same person who loves telling it
Writing the last line of an essay/article
Afternoon snacks in cereal bowls
Broadway musicals
The xoxo signature in an email
Productivity
Sunday New York Times (Styles section is most cozy to me)
Starbucks when it’s crowded
Day dresses with flower patterns
Antique desks
My husband walking in the door any time of day or night
Dangly earrings
Good advice
Memoirs that make me laugh/cry/nod my head when I read them
Small world stories
Exploring cities only by foot
Mismatched china dishes
A good cry that has been bottled up for a while and comes out when you least expect it
Black and white photographs
A new journal
To do lists with lots of checks on them
Cardigan sweaters
A phone call from my dad in the middle of a weekday for no reason at all
Ponytails (the kind I wear in my hair, not an actual pony’s tail)
Mint chocolate chip ice cream (not the green kind)
Yellow houses
The feeling of feeling better

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Here is a list of things I remember wanting to be when I was younger i.e. when I grow up I want to be a…

Waitress I liked writing down food orders for my family and playing restaurant with my friends. I also had a name tag which had the letters of my name printed out in the colors of the rainbow. I pinned it on my shirt and thought that was pretty cool.
Businesswoman I wanted a leather briefcase like my dad’s, and I wanted a big desk to sit behind on a chair that swirled around. I was also intrigued by a phone with different buttons you could push for different phone lines.
Doctor I think this came from me wanting to bond with my grandfather, the doctor who I adored.
Broadway Musical Star I think I might be tone deaf, but I loved going to the theater as a little girl, and I always left each show singing up the aisles, secretly wishing I could sing on stage.
Lawyer I watched a lot of L.A. Law in high school, and much later Ally McBeal — plus there are a lot of lawyers in my family.
History Professor I worshipped several history professors in college and seriously loved listening to their lectures — even during the early morning classes.
Journalist I watched All The President’s Men— a lot. I also liked asking questions, doing research and writing things down in little spiral notebooks.
Math Teacher This is kind of funny to me now because I can’t help my kids with their math homework (because they changed math) and also because I don’t think I’m good at it anymore. I used to be good at math in high school. I loved calculus. I enjoyed going up to the board and figuring out the answers to long problems. It felt so good when they were right.
Mom I always wanted to be a mom because I loved being around my own mom so much, and she seemed to like being a mom when she was with me.
Fashion Designer I was intrigued by Molly Ringwald making her own clothes in Pretty in Pink. I also thought it was cool how Punky Brewster developed her signature style even as a little girl. I imagined myself designing clothes for such people/characters in real life.

Here is a list of things I actually became when I eventually did grow up:

Ad Sales Rep This was my first real job after college. I didn’t like it, and I wasn’t very good at it, but I did get a lot of free magazines.
Camp Counselor I loved this job, and if I could still be a camp counselor, but not have to sleep in a cabin in the woods on a flimsy mattress with bats that live in the rafters overhead, then I would.
Marketer This one covers several jobs. I had a summer internship in marketing for Bloomberg News, but I can’t really explain what I did there. I worked in marketing for years at Time Inc. and loved that job. It was so fun and challenging to work on major magazines that I had read for most of my life. I also worked in marketing for a firm that created print materials for independent schools and nonprofits. I worked for great people there.
Author It’s still weird for me to write this/say this out loud, but it’s true and so I’m going to own it. My fourth book is coming out this year, and I am so excited about it. When I finished writing this one last year, I said that I didn’t have another book in me but now I think I do — maybe even several more?
Wife: Although this is not technically a job, it is something I became when I grew up. I tell my husband that they named the television show The Good Wife after me. He laughs when I say this. I like being a wife, or at least I like being my husband’s wife, and I like making him laugh.
Mom Turns out I do like being a mom. It is by far my most favorite job I’ve ever had. This sounds cliché and kind of cheesy, but it’s true. What can I say? I am a cliché.
PR Professional I like telling people about stuff (places, products, happenings, news) and I love connecting people to things and other people who I think they will like/help them. When I read Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and learned about connectors, I realized that I am a connecter, and I think that’s why I liked working in PR for several years. I still recommend things to people and people to people, but no one pays me to do it anymore.
Fundraiser No one ever paid me to raise money, but I’ve done it for many years volunteering to fundraise for an organization that my mother was involved with by working on an event named in her memory. This feels good, and I’ve learned that working with volunteers is very different than working with people who are getting paid to do their jobs. It’s not better or worse — just different
Daughter Technically I’ve been a daughter my whole life, but it wasn’t until I grew up and became a different kind of daughter to my widower father that I knew this was a more serious thing to be — kind of like a job. My dad tells me I’m his boss, which is often true, and sometimes he is like a kid to me and also like a mother but mostly he’s my father.
Sister Again not technically a job but a role that I value. It does take work to be a grown sibling and keep up a strong relationship with other grown sibling(s) you have, but as I tell my kids all the time, it’s so important. Your sibling(s) are the people who will know you for better or for worse your whole life, and if you are lucky, you get to go through the ups and downs of life with them.
Friend My friendships mean a lot to me. I work at them. I am good at keeping in touch with my friends (or so I am told by my friends.) I feel so lucky to have made the friends I have. Life would be so not fun without them. My husband tells me I’m not allowed to make any new friends. I won’t let that stop me.
Teacher I’ve taught creative writing and journaling to kids in schools and to adults in small classes. It was scary at first but then not scary at all and extremely rewarding. Teaching writing also made me realize I would be a bad math teacher.
Journalist I covered stories for several years for The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent and a few other local papers when I finally was able to put my spiral notebook and questions to good use. I also used a Dictaphone, which I thought was pretty cool.
Essayist I’m not sure if this is a real title, but I write a lot of essays for various publications. Similar to my feeling on writing books, when I complete an essay, I don’t think I can do another one, but I do. I have too many thoughts swirling around in my head, and I have to let them out somehow – essays seems to work.
Baker I love to bake and I have been told I am good at it. Although I’ve never been any kind of professional baker, my chocolate chip cookies are a little famous in part because I wrote about them for The Huffington Post. Someone asked me how I got the interview for the baker of the cookies for that piece. I still laugh when I think of that question. I like corny jokes and one liners.

Here is a list of the things that I still want to be when I grow up even more:

Social worker I am a secret (maybe not so much anymore) want to be social worker. I have few friends who are social workers, and I love talking to them about what they do. I like to help people and want to do more of this. I think that’s why I’ve volunteered for almost every nonprofit that has asked me to. I have thought about going back to school to get my MSW and even looked into a couple programs but have not taken it any further than that.
Graphic Designer I love playing around on the computer programs (I sound like an old lady!) that I know, and I want to teach myself to use the more complicated ones. I’m intrigued by various fonts, colors and typography. I used to love to paint and draw when I was little, and people used to say that I would grow up to be an artist like my grandmother. That didn’t happen but maybe I could grow up to be a graphic artist?
Podcaster Every time, I walk past the separate entrance to the unfinished A-frame space above my garage, I think to myself what an awesome podcast studio that space could be. I have a specific idea for my podcast. I’ve looked into the technology and equipment and started to write out some scripts, and I’ve put together a list of potential guests. Maybe I will finish that space one day?
Grandmother It sounds funny to say this out loud (in my head) but I’d really like to be a grandmother one day. I can’t imagine my kids as parents, but sometimes when I’m day dreaming about what kind of grandmother my own mom would have been to my kids, I realize that me wanting to be a grandmother one day is maybe a way for me to make up for the relationship that my kids never got to have with her and so too for the one she never got to have with them.
Knitter I knit scarves for myself and for friends, but I want to get better and more efficient at knitting and maybe even try to make sweaters one day. Sweaters are in fact my favorite clothing item, which is why I could never live anywhere where it’s really warm out all of the time. If I could knit my own sweaters, I’d feel so self-sufficient (and save a lot of money on my sweater purchasing habit.)
Editor I enjoy editing my own work and helping friends edit their writing, but being a real professional editor sounds so cool to me. I have an idea for a project where I would edit other professional writers’ work, and I think I’m going to move forward with it after my next book comes out.
Not Crappy Golfer I learned how to play golf five years ago. I enjoy playing golf even though I am a not good at it. I want to get better. I know this will take a lot of time and effort which I have not put into it yet. My husband tells me not to get so frustrated as people who have been playing golf their whole lives still have bad rounds. I am not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.
Confident Cook While I love to bake and admittedly will follow any baking recipe, I have very little confidence in my cooking abilities. I cook dinner regularly for my family because apparently they have to eat every night, but I stick to a rotation of the same boring recipes. I’d like to branch out and maybe even cook while not following a recipe. I worship Ina Garten and own and have read through all of her cookbooks but have not tried as many of her recipes as I should.
Professional Organizer I’m good at organizing and also cleaning out closets. A couple of summers ago, I did the whole Marie Kondo thing and got rid of all the stuff in my house that didn’t bring me joy even talking to some old sweaters and thanking them out loud before putting them in the donate pile. I think it would be fun to help other people organize their closets and houses.

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