Cynthia Samuels

9/11 AND ART

One of my favorite books is William Gibson’s PATTERN RECOGNITION. It’s the story of a "cool hunter" named Cayce Pollard . Her job is to help worldwide companies evaluate their logos and design for "coolness ." She’s a gypsy, finding Pilates studios in the cities she visits and completely engaging the reader (at least this one.) Behind her quite remarkable self, however, lies her grief of the loss of her father in lower Manhattan on September 11. It’s a shadow that haunts all the elegant activity, spectacular writing and remarkable plot lines that are part of any Gibson work. Published in 2003, it was one of the early novels dealing with the horrors of that day in 2001.

There have been several since then, as well as, in the past year, three movies including Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center. IMDB lists 11 altogether, not counting Stone’s new film. Apparently, at least to those I know who’ve seen them, several of these films are pretty good.

Last night I finished a book saved, in its last chapters, by that terrible time. THE EMPEROR’S CHILDREN, by Claire Messud, got spectacular reviews — front page in the Sunday Times Book Review — and sounded great. What it is is a kind of lesser BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES about lefties living on the West Side (the Beresford is on the cover — not too subtle, right?), their offspring and several other 30-somethings who went to Brown. The whole point of its 431 pages is to reveal the phony side of the lives of the politically correct with their Central Park West apartments, their kids – haunted by parental successes they can’t match, and the rest of the crew ten years out of college and aimless. It’s all OK – but not great. Then, in the middle of a serious act of betrayal by Grand Old Man liberal and a friend of his daughter, two planes hit the World Trade Center — right outside the window of her apartment. Everything that felt so false for all those pages is rendered just as superficial as we thought it was.

I’m not sure it’s enough for me – maybe if I hadn’t lived 20 years on that very West Side and admired many of those people myself – all the while realizing that maybe many of them weren’t who I wanted them to be, it would make more sense. I’m not sure why the book irritated me so and maybe that makes it better than I’m telling you it is – but it’s in my head and it’s making me mad. Can someone else can help me figure out why?

MIRACLE CENTRAL

I know it says “Miracle Central” up there but this is NOT about religion. At least not exactly. I’m at the Cleveland Clinic – one of the most amazing hospitals in the world — so my husband can have his yearly checkup. Why do we fly to Cleveland every year? Even the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame wouldn’t bring us more than once.

We’re here because at this hospital four years ago a doctor cut open his chest, and then his heart, and saved his life. It pretty much was a miracle. So we like them to get a look at him once a year — to make sure he’s ok. It’s harder for me to walk into the hotel here than it is for him, I think. He was in congestive heart failure and scared but kind of beyond reality the day we arrived, and then he stayed in the hospital while the boys and I stayed at the hotel. After the surgery he was on medications and then struggling to get his strength back. The small details of illness, and families hoping for the best, were lost on him. Two years ago, when we made an extra trip to go through the same surgery with a good friend and his family, we were so focused on the particulars of his situation that the human dramas beyond them faded well into the background.

But tonight, sitting in the “club lounge” of the hotel attached to the hospital, listening to people with cancer and heart disease and weird combinations of neurological and heart problems and their families – and watching them laugh and tease one another and struggle to be brave, I was just knocked out. First of all it’s a beautiful thing to see — we see it every year when we come here — the way families take care of one another and support each other — and the other families they meet over breakfast or coffee — through what is a truly terrifying experience. Until you see a loved one on a gurney, being wheeled down a long hall toward life-and-death surgery, as alone as he will ever be — as you stand with your kids trying to smile for him — you can’t imagine.

Secondly – it’s an outrage to see such magnificent health care and realize how few people get it. This hospital is run so brilliantly and with such pride; each staff member so competent, confident and gracious that you just want to hug all of them. It’s still possible to offer good health care in the US — and it’s as much about good management as it is about money. I wish you could see it. We should NOT be allowing the wonders of American health care to fade away without a fight. If you want to see what we’re losing, come to Cleveland. Don’t give up those miracles without a fight!

PUMPKINS, HAYRIDES AND MICKEY MOUSE

I’ve wanted to go on a hayride since Annette Funicello did – in maybe "Spin and Marty" or maybe "Annette" — not sure which (these were Mickey Mouse Club stories, for those who are too young to recall.) Today I got my hayride – but it wasn’t the romantic kind with the guitars and the moonlight.

Instead, we went with two amazing children and their equally amazing parents to a pumpkin festival. There was a hayride (pulled by a tractor, not horses.) There was a petting zoo with goats and lambs and pigs. There was a simple wooden climbing thing in the shape of a train, with a tunnel and a caboose and a dining car (picnic table in a kind of box.) It was just wonderful and, nostalgic as we are for the early years of our own kids, we were ridiculously grateful to be included in this family adventure.

We also were amazed that there were no souvenirs. No muzak. No fancy, produced play apparatus. The same stuff at this orchard/pumpkin patch/pre-school heaven must have been there for 25 years. And the kids were having a blast. They didn’t need fancy stuff or animated stuff or even stuff with fresh paint — just a gorgeous fall day, parents (and their friends) who loved them and their imaginations. I know this sounds really corny but after years at Disneyland and Disneyworld and Universal City (and we had fun — we did) I was just so struck by the simplicity of this place and its impact on these very very happy kids running around in a big field, putting pumpkins into wheelbarrows to take home, eating popcorn and racing their parents up and down the paths.

No moral to this except if you have friends you like who love your kids, bring them along.

YOU HAVE TO READ THIS

I want you to read my piece – the one in the link below. I really do. But you also MUST read this from a mom named Mir — at her blog WouldaCouldaShoulda. It’s the best "birds and bees" story I’ve ever read. She will become your new must-read. And she should be.

OUT OF THE CLOSET

I sometimes write about the beginnings of this Jewish life I am trying to live. Today a piece I wrote this summer appears in the Orthodox Union magazine – called Shabbat Shalom. It’s about the day I made our home kosher. It’s pretty straightforward but for anyone who wonders how I can write about Patti Smith and observant Judaism in the same post, it will be interesting. Actually, I’m pretty proud of it. Here’s a preview – then you can go read it.

October 18, 2006 I Have a Kosher Home

Today I kashered my kitchen. Well, actually – a lovely Tunisian friend named Riadh and his catering team did the work. I just designated things milk, meat and parve and called the Rabbi to ask if I had to get rid of all my knives and whether you had to polish the silver before kashering it (you don’t.) Strange things happened. The idea of giving up my mother’s bread knife had me close to tears. The idea of never using my blue mugs (now dairy) when I served dinner on our white china (meat) made me angry. Was I sure – I asked myself – that this was the right decision – a commitment that, once made, I would honor as a matter of principle as well as faith

I wrote it because I was asked to – but it was valuable to have to describe something about our Orthodox life in concrete terms. There’s a 12 step saying "fake it til you make it." I’ve discovered that it works well in a quest for faith too. When Woody Allen said 90% (or 85 or 95 depending on the source) of life is just showing up." he was right. If you’re not there trying you aren’t going to get very far.

So take a look and let me know what you think. This has been an important passage for me and it flies in the face of the secular nature of the political and social circles in which I’ve always lived. So many people are moving in the other direction – Europe – always a place I felt supremely comfortable – is mostly secular now. So is the progressive universe in which I spend most of my time. Even so I feel a sense of peace that I haven’t known before as I make my way slowly toward more and more observant living. Probably part of the reason is that no one is pushing me — my husband and I determine the speed and nature of our evolution and it’s often not at precisely the same rate. But we’re getting where we need to go and learning to accept the discipline. Our children have come, I think, to at least respect what we’re doing; at the same time, we need to remember to respect their right to decide their own spiritual lives even if the decision differs radically from ours.

That’s enough. Read the piece and comment here, will you? I want to know how it looks from the outside.

PATTI SMITH, CBGB AND AN OBSERVANT LIFE

I’ve never been to CBGB OMFUG. Why do I care about a punk music club whose entrance was always spattered with graffiti and most of whose musical appearances were by people I knew almost nothing about — except Bruce Springsteen [he wrote this with Patti Smith] , Patti Smith [two favorites: People Have the Power, Peaceable Kingdom], Joan Jett [I Love Rock and Roll] and a few others? (I don’t t know the lore all that well – but it always seemed to me that women really got a crack at center stage at CBGB.) I think it was just nice to see it there – waving its fist in the air. It has closed – maybe to reopen, maybe not – and I’m just kind of sad to see it losing its lease to what some have called "the suburbification of Manhattan."

Patti Smith, whom I had the honor to meet at last year’s Media Reform conference in St. Louis, was a real CBGB heroine and I felt, meeting her, a deep connection. We’re the same age. She’s a heartbreakingly honest person who lost her husband way too soon (and wrote People Have the Power partly at his instigation) — a mom and a singular human soul. The music she made was remarkably articulate (she is a poet after all) and inspiring. I’ve linked above to two of my favorites — one of which, People Have the Power, was an anthem of the Vote for Change election tour in 2004.

So what do the final days of a gritty music club where I never went have to do with my life as an observant Jew? Believe it or not – plenty. Both of them were fascinating universes I always observed from the outside and wondered about. Both stood for making one’s own way to truth. That search has taken me, for some reason I’m still grappling with, to the Orthodox Jewish community where I’ve found a home and spirit that brings a new kind of meaning to my life.

At my last big birthday I complained to a friend about my age and her response was "but you’re completely reborn in this new life – you’re not old AT ALL!" In some ways she’s right. I certainly feel that there’s a universe I’m traveling through that’s new, moving, inspiring and mysterious. Sometimes though it’s also a pain. For the past several weeks, from Rosh Hashanah (the New Year) to the end of Simchas Torah (Ending the annual, week-by-week reading of the Torah: the five books of Moses – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy and beginning again) the holidays consumed days of time: in synagogue, inviting guests to meals and going to meals at friends, building and dismantling a sukkah and observing the prohibition on driving and work. Since this year many of these days fell on weekends it meant NO catching up on work on Sundays and no farmer’s market. (two weird examples, I admit.) Since it’s the end of tomato season that last was sad though not critical to the future of the human race or my household. Even so, all these small requirements, which I try to follow since I’ve made this commitment, can consume time and tax serenity and spirituality. I’ve come to love the prohibition on the Sabbath and enjoy the quiet days reading, taking walks, visiting, napping and sharing ideas. But the surrender to and acceptance of all these rules is a peculiar experience and I grapple with it daily. Even so, the quest, like that of the young rebels who put CBGB on the map, is a great adventure – and the learning is exhilarating.

Go listen to People Have the Power whether this post makes sense or not. It will make you happy on a Monday – although that’s easier here today since it’s the third amazingly gorgeous fall day in a row – with leaves turning and leaf smells beginning to fill the air. Which, I just realized, takes us right back to faith and gratitude for the world’s beauty when it shows up.

CHARMED, I’M SURE

I work at home much of the time. Usually I watch C-SPAN. But I tripped over a show called CHARMED (more) that most of you probably already know and I find that I’m … well…charmed by it. In case you’re as clueless as I was, it’s a long-running Aaron Spelling (no surprise there) series about three sisters who learn that they’re witches — good witches of course — and not only good witches but the official CHARMED ONES. Apparently the power of sisters radically increases the power of witch-hood. Anyone with sisters could have told you that.

The longest running series with female leads, the show ran for 8 years and is now in multiple reruns on TNT, which is where I found them. They’re gorgeous, smart, sensible and dedicated to vanquishing evil and saving the world. Just like the rest of us, right? They love each other, they grow, learn, fall in love, have children, and fight demons with their powers — all at the same time.

I don’t know what it is. I have two sisters and we love each other and used to have sister power hugs every holiday when we were all together and now, with all of us over 50, still love each other and our sister power even through its occasional glitches and frayed moments. I love women — always have- and get what it is about us all that’s so wonderful. But none of that explains my affection for a television show about women younger than my sons and their do-gooding, loving, thrilling, gorgeous lives. I’m more of a West Wing/Six Feet Under/Sopranos kind of girl. Go figure.

I don’t think I’m going to try. Any time great, brave, committed, generous women are out saving the world – whether they’re Amy, Lauren and Maxine, Cagney and Lacey, CJ, Donna, Abbey and Amy, or Rose, Georgina, Lady Marjory and Mrs. Bridges, it’s a cause for celebration. So that’s what I’m doing. Celebrating the charm of the Charmed Ones and glad that they keep me company once in a while.

ANTI-TERRORISM ADS IN MIDDLE EAST

There is a new anti-terrorism campaign running on TV networks across the Middle East. I have no idea if its reach is worthwhile but it is encouraging so, assuming that most of you don’t get all the newsletters and links that I receive, I’m telling you about it here. The first ad seems remarkably understated and the second quite melodramatic but it’s interesting that they exist. I do tend to be a bit of a Pollyanna about such things so include here some of what AP has said about the campaign – but watch a sample on the link below before you read on.

[Click here to view]

According to AP: “The U.S. government refuses to say clearly whether it’s involved in the commercial, which began airing this summer on Al-Arabiya, Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. and several Iraqi channels at a time when violence was raging in Baghdad and between Hezbollah and Israel. . . .A Los Angeles warehouse district filled with 200 cast members stood in for the market during the ad’s filming earlier this year, according to a statement by California-based 900 Frames, which helped produce the commercial. During the filming, 900 Frames said that the group behind it, the Future Iraq Assembly, wanted to remain anonymous. The group, which also is behind a series other of Iraq-specific ads, describes itself as an independent, non-governmental organization, comprised of a number of scholars, businesspersons, and activists. The Assembly’s site gave an e-mail address but did not respond.

If anyone is in a position to know more about this or to live in that part of the world and have perspective to offer, I hope you will do so. The news has been so terrible and the prospects of our position in that part of the world so dreadful that it is encouraging to see people stepping up to take responsibility for trying to put the fire out -at least for those in Iraq. What do you think? I’m especially interested in what my friend Lori at Sand Gets in My Eyes, living in Saudi Arabia, thinks and what ad maven Liz at Mom-101 has to say — and in YOUR ideas.

Spirit, Sukkot and Love

I’m in the middle of considerable chaos. If you’re an observant Jew you spend this week eating all your meals in something called a Sukkah. It’s a sort of four-walled canvas room with a roof made of branches or corn husks or bamboo because you have to be able to see the stars at night from inside. The idea is to remember the Jews wandering the desert living in "booths." It sounds so weird it’s hard to explain but it’s also lovely and romantic and a great way to have company in the crisp autumn lunches and evenings. It’s all lit with sparkly white lights (like Christmas decorations) and great fun.

The chaos comes from the cooking and planning. I had a big lunch last Saturday and because it was the Sabbath had to cook it all in advance. It was damp and chilly but fortunately someone had lent me a crock pot so I put the soup on low just before the Sabbath started on Friday night and it was still hot for lunch on Saturday. One of my guests was a vegetarian so I also made salmon, tabouli, eggplant casserole and salad. A friend brought brownies and I made banana bread. But it took FOREVER and learning how to arrange everything to serve outside added to the stress. Everyone loved it but I was exhausted.

One friend of mine does 16 people at a time (I had 11 counting us) and I’m damned if I know how. I am still learning how to do all this -especially in a kosher kitchen. The food DOES matter – it’s a sign of respect both to God and the holiday and to those who have entertained us so graciously as we made our way into all this so I get great satisfaction once the chaos has subsided but it’s tough along the way. I am blessed in having friends to guide me and answer stupid questions like "can I use a "meat" infusion blender and still serve fish?" Kosher niceties…

The funny thing is that the life we’re building now, around religious observance, sukkahs, fasts and prayers, builds a community that feels like the first real one since our days in the peace movement. The goals are strangely similar too, a better world, better selves and great, common goals.
I guess part of all this is the deep loss I have felt as those feeling dissipated in our days since the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements. How amazing that the route back to them goes through the oldest of pathways.

ATONEMENT, APOLOGIES, AMENDS

Tonight is the beginning of a very holy day in Judaism – the "shabbat of shabbats" – the day of atonement. The saying goes "On Rosh Hashanah ( the New Year – last week) it is written, on Yom Kippur (tonight and tomorrow) it is sealed." God inscribes us in the Book of Life for another year.

You ask to be forgiven for all your sins and turn to those in your life to apologize, not just to God. You have to mean it. We are told that God knows we are not perfect and seeks our pursuit of virtue and repentance from our failures in those pursuits.

I have to say until the past couple of years, when I’ve been involved in observant Judaism (yeah I grew up Reform) I never felt the impact of the day, really. Now though, it is something I take fairly seriously — including fasting from sundown to sundown. Tonight we have some families having pre-fast dinner at our house and then we will all walk to services together. Three kids under two will be among them. The presence of children really brings home the value in trying to live a good life. They will be inheriting so much that is bad in this world that any move we can make toward virtue is a plus.

I haven’t really done the human to human apology as I should I don’t think. I hope by next year – my third in this new life, I will be comfortable doing that. I have however, tried to be honest within myself and move toward real efforts to behave ina better way.

I’ve written about this before but the other thing that fascinates me is the similarities between the 12 steps and observant Judiasim. Again here, the steps include listing all one might have harmed and "trying to make amends to them all" unless an approach might do damage (I guess reveal secrets to others etc.) On Yom Kippur we make the same approach to God.

If I can get myself to feel that I’ve moved in that direction – I know I’m far from spiritually ready to carry out the whole journey – it will be a wonderful way to move through the new Jewish year, appreciate the beauty of the changing leaves and the silvery winter to come. Shanah tovah.