The Pain Factor

I have a unique point of view on the High Holidays this year. I am viewing everything through the haze of pain. A little more than a week ago I broke 5 ribs in a mountain bike crash. As anyone who has broken ribs will tell you, it's tremendously painful. Even now, post-crash, I can hiccough, burp, reach too far with my arm, twist in my seat or any number of other seemingly innocuous actions and be in agony.

Rosh Hashanah services are a social affair. I am almost universally known in my community -- I held a position of leadership for 5 years and I interacted with every subgroup of the synagogue.

Pain tends to make one anti-social, however. I had no interest in the traditional Rosh Hashanah hug -- especially a surprise hug or a friendly arm around the shoulder. So I wore a sling, which I don't really need, but I figured I needed the visual signal: Don't Touch Me.

Unfortunately, the sling also sends another message: I'm Hurt and You Need to Know What Happened. I tried to keep the explanation short and sweet every time. Broke some ribs mountain biking. Yup, it hurts a lot. Oh, about 4-6 weeks. Yes, definitely, good drugs.

And since the time for conversation during and around services is limited, the above interaction was 90% of my social interaction for the day. I had very little time to catch up on what my friends were doing, and I found myself the constant object of sympathy, which I would have expected to enjoy more than I did. Who doesn't want to be fussed over?

Me.

Being fussed over is like receiving a constant stream of compliments. It's nice for a while, but responding to each and every instance is exhausting.

I was also distracted by pain during the service. My attention wandered to the physical rather than the spiritual. My chair had no arm rests, so balancing myself while standing and sitting was difficult and painful. The sitting and standing itself had its own complications, and eventually I found a place in the back to stand. Sitting pushes the rib cage down into the abdomen. Owwie.

Half of the prayers flew by me. Partially because I was in pain, but also because I was not able to participate in the singing and reciting of the prayers. There just wasn't enough breath available. Listening to prayer is not the same as praying.

Pain also makes you grumpy. My patience with the rabbi's 45-minute sermon was nil. When my children dragged their feet about leaving, neither of them wanting to part with friends, I was snappish. In short, I didn't feel very spiritual at all.

The irony of Rosh Hashanah is that it is all about renewal and second chances, but there is only one chance per year to be part of the kehilah, the community that only comes together for High Holidays. I feel as if I was distracted and absent.

Most of all, I am saddened by the missed opportunity I had to share with my community. I was originally slated to speak from the bimah today about the Akedah, the Near-Sacrifice of Isaac by his father, Abraham. I have been thinking about it for weeks and working through idea after idea. After all, it's quite possibly the most-discussed story in all of Judaism, and it's so important that we read it every year on Rosh Hashanah. I was excited to write it (made impossible by the drugs) and deliver it (made impossible by the lack of stamina and breath). I miss being a teacher, and this was a way back in. Perhaps I will post it here. It is still asking to be written.

So I am poised to move on through the 10 Days of Awe to Yom Kippur in a continuing haze, one which I can only hope will lift occasionally. I am at once too distracted to partake in self-reflection and so isolated and alone that self-reflection is the only option some days.

Cut Apart

Beautiful Fotos: 1

Shall we dance?

I am no Tony Romo

The rumor mill has it that Dallas Cowboys' QB Tony Romo will play Monday night despite a broken rib that punctured his lung. His doctor has apparently pronounced him "healed". What is this quack, a revival faith healer?

This morning at 4:45 a.m. I woke up in a sudden crush of pain and restriction in my chest. I could barely breathe, I could not move, and I made a desperate flail for my husband, to wake him up. We very nearly called 911.

Earlier in the week I had been enjoying the mountain bike ride of a lifetime. Swooping back and forth on a gorgeous trail up at Winter Park, Colorado's Ski Resort. In the summer, they haul your bike, and you, up the mountain and you ride down. Evan and I first did this together about 15 years ago. It can be fast and furious and the scenery is unbeatable. On Sunday, I had split off from my family to take on Long Trail, an intermediate-level descent. There were trestles to cross, lots of lightning-fast berms and switchbacks, and gorgeous natural surroundings of the high country.

Just minutes before my crash I had stopped mid-trail to just look around. Up at the sky, over to the next range of mountains, down the perfect;y carved trail. I was happy, I was riding extremely well,and I was up for so much more that day.

Where Long Trail intersected the main road a hazard awaited. Another trail crosses the road here and a small group of young riders came bombing through the intersection with egos so big they probably couldn't even see me coming toward the trail at the same time. I stopped (too hard) and flew over the handlebars to land on my left shoulder. Shoulder hit road. Road pushed shoulder into ribs. Ribs cracked.

It's been a painful week, and this morning it got much worse. That middle-of-the-night attack prompted another trip to the urgent care and another set of X-rays. Only this time, I now have 5 fractures. Not cracks. Fractures.

All of the supposed healing that happened this week was for naught, and the pain was in vain. Now I have to re-walk that road from the beginning.

Who let the unicorn poop everywhere?

Can a candidate who endorses evolution be elected? Ask Woodrow Wilson.

I find it depressing that, 89 years after President Woodrow Wilson made this statement, men of education and intelligence reject evolution. No wonder Richard Dawkins is so militant.

GASP!

The sign-up sheet for after-school activities came home with both of my kids today. I’m very pleased that my schools even have enrichment programs – I know many around the country that don’t – but I am not all that pleased with the offerings:

• Chess Club
• Yoga
• Cheer & Dance
• Writing
• French
• Spanish
• GASP – Girls Accessing Science Program

The description for the GASP program: The Girls Accessing Science Program is a wonderful chance for young women to explore the world of math and science. Discover the importance of science, from day to day activities, to careers that can span a lifetime as you work with fellow students and positive role models from the local community.

I am not unaware of the issues in education over the past, oh, 300 years regarding girls and science. My very own mother was discouraged from pursuing a college degree in anything even though she had a keen interest and high marks in science in high school. She graduated high school in 1961.

And yes, there are still idiot marketing stunts like this one from JC Penney, which lets the wearer claim that she is "too pretty" to do homework. Oh, how I wish I had a boy brave enough to wear that shirt to school. Sorry, teachers, he's too pretty!

My concern as the mother of two children who have keen interests in science, is that the school system has made some sort of assumption about Ben -- that he has great "access" to science and is, because he is a boy, well served by the regular science curriculum. He doesn't need increased "access" to science or increased contact with male role models in science because they are readily available to him. Simply because he is a boy.

According to many, the gender gap in schools has swung the other way. Nicholas Kristoff cites these sobering statistics from the book, “Why Boys Fail,” by Richard Whitmire:

• ¶The average high school grade point average is 3.09 for girls and 2.86 for boys. Boys are almost twice as likely as girls to repeat a grade.
• ¶Boys are twice as likely to get suspended as girls, and three times as likely to be expelled. Estimates of dropouts vary, but it seems that about one-quarter more boys drop out than girls.
• ¶Among whites, women earn 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 62 percent of master’s degrees. Among blacks, the figures are 66 percent and 72 percent.
• ¶In federal writing tests, 32 percent of girls are considered “proficient” or better. For boys, the figure is 16 percent.
• There is one important exception: Boys still beat out girls at the very top of the curve, especially in math. [Author's note: It's this exception that seems to be making the rules.]

More girls are pursuing higher education than boys, and within a decade, colleges will graduate two young women for every young man. All of us girls who felt that we were shunned from pursuing math and science careers might ant to stand up and cheer, "You go, girls!" but at what cost?

Passing the Torch, For Reals

Even the smallest changes in life take some time to get used to. A new haircut. A new furniture arrangement in your living rom. A new pet. A different keyboard or mouse for your computer. We've all done it -- gone to plunk ourselves down on a couch that's moved; hunted for the open-apple key on a PC keyboard; looked at ourselves in a mirror and done a double-take.

The big changes in life, no matter how much advance notice we have for them, take much longer to become reality. In December of last year I decided that I was leaving my job as the religious school director for our synagogue's religious school. Since then it has been a long process of transition, from announcing my decision to friends, family and coworkers to letting the congregation in on the news to being celebrated numerous times as the school year drew to a close.

There were tears of sadness, regret, relief and joy.

I kept thinking of this iconic last scene, from the Mary Tyler Moore show: here

But the real moment where change sinks in just arrived a few minutes ago. It is the eve of the first year of Sunday School for which I am not the director. I have not spent the past month frantically preparing for school's opening day. I will not get up at the crack of dawn to buy snacks, make coffee, and check every classroom for readiness.

School begins at 9:00 a.m. and I am planning on arriving with my children in tow promptly at 8:59. I will then proceed to skillfully avoid getting trapped into conversation with other parents and quietly disappear to spend three uninterrupted hours with my husband. We will brunch. We will ride our bikes.

Change will be sealed.

Remembering 9/10

9/10/2001 was one of the happiest days of my life. We celebrated Ben's bris at home -- I feel honored to have witnessed my son being brought into the Jewish covenant with God and I felt the presence of my grandfathers as we gave Ben their Hebrew names. The rabbi gave a wonderful teaching about how it takes just one person to change the world, and each new soul brought into the world has an equal chance of being that one. I was filled with joy and hope for this new little life.

The next morning, 9/11/2001, I woke to what I thought was a fiction excerpt on NPR. The first tower had just fallen -- "It's just gone," the correspondent said. I spent they day cuddling my new baby in the back of our TV room, wondering what kind of world we had brought this precious life into.

But I still remembered what the rabbi said, and I whispered to Ben, "Maybe you're the one." Maybe he is...but just in case he's not, you and I should be "the one" too.

The Jewish New year is coming, and this is the time of year when Jews reflect on the past year and make plans for the next. Why not plan to try and be the soul that saves the world. What can you do in this next year to make a difference? What will you commit to?

May we all do our part to bring peace and wholeness (shalom and shalem) to ourselves, our family, our neighborhoods, our cities, our states, our country, our world.