Book Review: The Phantom Tollbooth

03 Apr 2012 2 Comments

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Book of the Week, Family, Hawaii, Mothers and Daughters Tags: , , , , ,

Please forgive my absence and interruption of the new weekly blog features so soon after they began. I was away for two wonderful weeks of vacation with my family and embraced the art of relaxation.

We had a great time and I am happy to be back and blogging ahead.

Perhaps it was coincidence when I started a weekly book review that  at the same time my sister was co-hosting a book event in the Kansas City Jewish Community  in memory of my mother Gloria P. Gershun who started the Jewish Book Fair in that area many years ago. But I think not.

Divine intervention? intention? Or maybe it is my mother’s influence ever in our hearts and spirits.

I certainly did not see a connection on the timing when I began, but I do now. Among other things, my mom was a librarian, a children’s librarian. My sisters and I grew up with books as an integral part of our daily lives. All three of us love to read. We had a mini library in our house when we were growing up–these days they call them book shelves!

No wonder my sister and I were doing book stuff at the same time.

Hers was more directly related to my mom, of course. Thus I have decided to share the book that they featured at the event last month: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer.

While it does not have  a Hawaii connection, the author is Jewish (which I did not know until recently) and I LOVED this book as a child. I still have my copy from way back when that my younger girl enjoyed reading a few years ago.

And now I have a copy signed by the author thanks to my sister (and the author). Mahalo.

This is less of a review and more of a recommend. Perhaps my favorite places that the characters Milo and Tock visit are the Doldrums and Dictionopolis, especially the Doldrums. To this day I can feel the images and mood that Juster creates just by the mention of the word Doldrums.

You are never too old to read The Phantom Tollbooth. Perhaps on the 50th anniversary of its debut is a perfect time. And if you want to borrow a copy, if you promise to be very careful with it, I might lend you one of mine.

Do I need therapy for my therapy?

05 Nov 2011 10 Comments

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Family, Mothers and Daughters Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I would not describe myself as a shopaholic. I am not that extreme. But I could definitely be considered a shopper. It’s in my jeans.

My mother was totally a shopper. You could probably refer to her as the Queen Bee of shoppers. She gleefully put together a fall, winter and spring wardrobe every season. I think she chose her last residence for its proximity to Chicos, Talbots and Coldwater Creek that were just down the block. The Jewish Community Center was nearby as well.

My sisters and I have definitely inherited her propensity for supporting the economy (not to mention a definite resemblance in the good looks and charm department as well). We got a lot of practice growing up.

I can remember many a childhood evening spent with my mother and sisters at Southern California’s Buena Park Mall. We tried on clothes at the local Sears, J. J. Newberries and smaller clothing shops. We’d always stop half way through our excursion and call my father from the pay phone in the middle of the mall to let him know we were going to be a few more hours.

I think he was happy for the time to himself and the quiet calm in our home on these evenings. Three Gershun girls can make a lot of noise.

These days my oldest sister does most of her buying online. The younger one is more like our mother and a regular at Kohl’s and T.J. Maxx and always happy to take us there when we visit since we do not have those gold mines in the shopping arena in Hawaii.

I fall somewhere in between.

A few years ago I began to refer to it as retail therapy, noticing the  positive emotional payoff after a satisfactory excursion to Pearlridge Mall or Ala Moana Center.

I definitely took that form of therapy to an extreme after a few major life changing incidents like divorcing my first husband or several years later breaking up with my new boyfriend when we were dating before we made up and he became my second husband.

My overwhelming feelings during those difficult times were not assuaged by the purchase of a new pair of shoes or a cute jacket. They required much grander gestures: redecorating or buying moderately expensive jewelry.

Over the past few years I have tempered my shopping habits. The combination of only needing a wardrobe for one season in Hawaii, trying to stick to a budget along with a concerted effort at trying to be satisfied with what I have usually work to keep me from visiting the local stores and malls a bit more than I used to.

However, recently I have been shopping up a storm.

When I told my friend Linda about this and that I had several things to return at Macy’s, she said that she does that a lot too. She referred to it as “Bulimic Shopping.” It totally made sense.

I also got this from my mother and I know that my younger sister does it a lot too. I purchase way more clothes than I need or convince myself that it looks good on me in the fitting room. When I get home, I realize that I was fooling myself and wonder, “What was I thinking?” So I take it back.

Some times I simply find something that I like better and buy it knowing that I can return the other stuff later.

I started to look at my recent shopping patterns and have clearly identified myself as a bulimic shopper.

Binge and purge.

If you saw all of the receipts stuffed in my wallet you might be inclined to think that I am a hoarder!

In my defense I will mention that I recently lost a bunch of weight (25 pounds, thank you very much) and am in need of new clothes. The old ones are two sizes too big. So I deserve a bit of shopping for a stylish wardrobe to hang in my closet and from my now visible hip bones. It’s a reasonable reward.

But I’ve been doing that buy and return thing A LOT!

Perhaps the shopping is also replacing the eating? It certainly takes my mind off of the food. Some times I go so far as to consider it exercise too. If I shop for an hour is it an hour of walking? Do you think I should seek professional help?

However you look at it: genetic propensity, retail therapy, bingeing and purging,  if not taken to the extreme, shopping  can both fill the basic need to be clothed (in a moderately fashionable) way) and be a reasonable form of recreation.

So, thank you mom and sisters and Linda for sharing this habit and its many symptoms. I do believe I will drop the kids off tomorrow at Religious school and hit the mall….just for an hour or so.

Confessions of a Jewish Mother–My daughter starts high school

09 Aug 2011 1 Comment

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Family, Mothers and Daughters, Parenting Tags: , , , , , , ,

My oldest child starts high school tomorrow. I keep thinking, “This is it.” We have arrived. The next four years are going to go by really fast.

As my husband describes it, “She is in the chute.”

I imagine her standing at the top of a ride at the water park, grabbing  the bar and swinging gleefully down the wet slide, emerging with a joyous splash in the pool below.

While I know that this is her journey, her rite of passage, I am finding that it’s a pretty big transition for me too. She is enrolled in a  new school and I’m starting to feel like the new kid on the block myself.

I imagine myself in line behind her for that same ride, thunking and bumping my way down, not so gracefully,  water shooting up my nose as I try to keep up with her, hoping for a smooth landing.

We are both navigating new hallways.

She attended the same small school for grades two through eight. She was in the same class with her friends for seven years.

Not only have they been in the same class, they have celebrated at birthday parties together, gone on trips together and played on teams together.

I know their families. We have watched our children  blossom and learn. We have volunteered together, driven carpools together and raised our kids side by side.

Together, together, together.

That’s all about to change. She is officially a member of the freshman Class of 2015 at Kamehameha High School’s Kapalama Campus. A wonderful and unique opportunity and a huge change.

There were a total of 60 kids in her eighth grade. This year she will be among 450 freshmen attending classes, most of whom have been at the school since kindergarten, fourth or seventh grades.

We are “New Invitees.” We both have to make new friends.

On the first day of school she will face that lunchroom, look into the sea of students at the tables and wonder where to sit. For many, alliances have already been formed. She already knows a few kids, but she enters without her usual safety net.

I remind her that she will find friends in her classes and clubs and sports. They will form bonds. It will just take a bit of time.

I can totally relate. Until now I knew exactly what to do. At her old school  I knew all of the staff and the teachers and the parents. I knew the Head Master by name and he knew us. It was a very intimate environment.

I will also have to make new friends. At parent orientation I faced that same lunch room and had an inkling of how she feels.

Luckily, I am not shy and quickly found a seat  and began to get to know my fellow parents.

I admit that I feel a bit out-of-place. While my daughter is part Hawaiian, I am not.  After 18 years teaching at Wai’anae High School which has one of the highest student populations of native Hawaiians in the state, I am used to being a minority. I have often been the only white person in the room. This time I feel a bit more conspicuous.

I am also used to being one of the few Jews around.  There were only a handful at her former school and not very many of us live or work on the west side of Oahu.

Kamehameha is no different. We know one other Jewish family who has kids in the elementary school. Adding that they  go to chapel during the week, I am not sure that I will be visiting her classes at Chanukkah and teaching the kids how to play dreidle. I am wondering if her absence will be excused for Rosh HaShanah.

And talk about new hallways. Island Pacific Academy’s Middle School takes up one entire hallway and shares a few classrooms with the high school upstairs.

According to the Kamehameha website, the campus is 600 acres, has more than 70 buildings, an Olympic size swimming pool, tennis courts and an athletic complex with a football/soccer field, track and seating for 3,000. It is home to 3,196 students in grades K-12.

On our first few visits I got lost and worried that we wouldn’t find our way around. It took a while, but I have finally figured out where to park.

Ninth grade classes are concentrated in two main buildings. But she will have to walk up and down the hill to the dining hall and the performing arts center. “Think of it as exercise,” I told her.

Entering high school is a big transition, period. It doesn’t matter if it’s a new school or not. The beginning of ninth grade can be daunting for both students and parents. Classmates have changed over the summer. New kids arrive from other schools. Teachers and procedures are unfamiliar. And it all counts like it has never counted before: academics and athletics, extracurricular activities and social opportunities.

It’s exciting and scary all at the same time. She is in the chute.

She has a great opportunity ahead and we will both do just fine. In no time she will have lunch mates and new Facebook friends. She will join clubs and go to football games.

I will attend meetings and school events and volunteer. I will check the website for homework and announcements. I will meet the parents of her friends. I will find ways to connect.

By the time she graduates in her white Kamehameha muu muu a the Neal Blaisdell Center, singing her school song, it will be in her heart and a part of our family.

We will survive high school.

Dating advice to my daughters…..

09 Aug 2011 2 Comments

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Family, Mothers and Daughters, Parenting, Relationships

Be a lady, let him pay, don’t fart.

Confessions of a Jewish Mother–My daughter rode the bus

16 Jun 2011 Leave a comment

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Family, Mothers and Daughters, Parenting Tags: , , , , ,

Now that I have claimed my identity as a Jewish Mother I am compelled to share my adventures in this arena of my life.

Today was a prime example. My 14-year-old daughter rode the bus all by herself for the first time today. For her, it was not a big deal. For me, it was monumental.

I am finding that  her blossoming busy schedule is coming in conflict with my generally robust line-up  of commitments quite often  lately and I just can’t be in two places at once.

I have resigned myself to the role of chauffeur rather than escort as my children reach adolescence (not to mention ATM machine.) But I cannot be at their beck and call every hour of the day. I do have a life of my own, you know.

Summer vacation brought a change in her schedule which added some conflicts with mine. We had to find a creative solution to get us each to different locations at the same time. Thus, the bus.

I often look back on the privileges my own parents afforded me and at what ages they were bestowed. My mother was pretty over-protective and I figure if she let me do it, then I should probably extend that opportunity to my own daughter.

I was allowed to take the bus from Buena Park, CA to Huntington Beach with my friends the summer before ninth grade in 1974.

Today I let her ride the bus to the local park where she is a Day Camp Jr. Counselor–15 whole minutes–so that I could attend my weekly meeting at the Rotary Club of Kapolei.

Like I said before, I was nervous. When I asked her what she was worried about, the only problem she foresaw was finding the right timing to pull the string to signal the driver to stop at her desired destination.

I told her that she was perfectly capable of handling the logistics. I gave her the printout from The Bus website that delineates her route. I reminded her that she is the one who usually navigates the airport when we are traveling on the mainland. She is usually the first to find the way to the ticket counter or baggage claim.

I told her that the thing that concerned me was, “Stranger danger.” This is when she reassured me.

“I’ve got my iPod for that,” she said.

That’s when I  knew it would be okay. My daughter would ride the bus to her volunteer job, she would ward off contact with any predators with her iPod headphones plugged snugly in her ears and she would pull the string at the right moment to disembark and cross the street and start her day.

I put bus fare on the counter, reminded her to text me when she arrived and went off to my meeting.

I won’t tell her that I checked my phone every few minutes until she got there. Or that I was tempted to text her and check on her progress, remind her to be safe or put on sunscreen. I simply waited for the words, “I’m here.” I replied, “Have fun” and relaxed to enjoy the rest of the meeting.

The mother of them all

07 May 2011 Leave a comment

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Family, General, Mothers and Daughters, Rites of Passage Tags: , , , , ,

In a recent dinner conversation, a friend of mine said that she identifies herself as a runner.  It led to further conversation as to how we each identify ourselves.

My husband said all the right things, “Soldier, husband, father, etc.” I did too. I gave several responses: mother, wife, community volunteer, writer, etc…. I even heard myself saying, “Retired Teacher!”

What I found disconcerting, however, is that in all my complexity, I craved some sort of clear-cut, all-encompassing, simple  label that I could use to brand my entire identity.

It wasn’t until days later when I was thinking back on that particular conversation that I came up with the perfect answer: “Jewish Mother.” I am a Jewish Mother, an identity of which I am exceedingly proud.

I remember the first time somebody referred to me as such. I did not feel so grand. I envisioned the stereotypical Jewish mother who interferes in the lives of her children, feeds the world, is demanding and controlling. Think of Fran Drescher’s mom in the TV show The Nanny.

How could I be seen in relation to that?

When I was a teenager in Southern California’s Orange County in the late 1970’s, we joked about another stereotype: The Jewish American Princess, or JAP for short. That’s how my friends and I referred to some of the  girls  who went to the same Jewish weekend camps as we did.

We saw them through the perspective of another stereotype: spoiled, materialistic, whiny and demanding. Semi-privileged that we were, we only viewed ourselves as borderline.

Borderline seemed okay with me, a bit glamorous, a tad alluring, while still human and reasonable (as reasonable as a teenager could be.)

I took that image  with me to college, Borderline JAP, and wore it pretty well. I taught Hebrew School and continued with the camps. I associated with new Jewish friends and learned more about my faith. I enjoyed a reasonable amount of comfort, but  came nowhere near the ostentatious style of others that I met.

This borderline status was still hanging in the back of my closet almost 20 years later when my friend Mark from L.A. was visiting us in Hawaii. He was the first to call me that name, “Jewish mother.”

Like I said before, my reaction was not so positive. While he did not mean it as an insult in any way, I felt a bit rattled.

I had not worn my college clothes in a very long time.  But  they were still hanging around in the back of my mind as a connection to my past. While I had no illusions that  I would fit into them again some day, I had not thrown them out either.

After the initial shock I realized how much I had changed. It has been a VERY long time since I could even be remotely mistaken for some sort of princess, Jewish American or not.

I had been a mother for longer than I had been in college. I wouldn’t let my daughter near a princess dress or tiara or anything. If I were to be described in any royal terms, “Queen Bee” would be a better choice.

I had to rethink my identity.

I quickly cleaned out my closet and left my memories to yearbooks and photo albums. But I was not quite ready to fit into my new skin. I had not made the full transition to Jewish Mother, even one without the negative stereotype.

That term was reserved for the ladies at the Temple who help with the Oneg Shabbat after services on Friday nights, the Sisterhood President, my own mother. But not me, not yet.

That was several years ago. I am happy to announce that I did grow into my own skin. I have a lovely wardrobe and I wear many hats.

After driving the Hebrew school carpool for years, making latkes for the Temple Chanukkah party, feeding my family plus many of Waianae High School’s journalism students and volunteering to donate matzah for the Sunday school’s model seder, I am pretty sure I have earned the proud status of Jewish Mother.

Yes, I might be a bit overprotective of my two precious daughters and I might care very deeply about the welfare of the ones I love. However, I am not meddlesome or overbearing, more like loving and caring.

A Borderline Jewish Mother is a perfect description.

My daughter won first place in the science fair

20 Jan 2011 2 Comments

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Family, Kvell, Mothers and Daughters Tags: , , , , , ,

The reason I am posting this blog entry is not because I am bragging about my daughter who won FIRST PLACE in her category in the Science Fair at her school today. Yes, of course I am proud of her. What mother wouldn’t be? Jewish or not.

But there is more to the story than  her FIRST PLACE award and that is the story that I want to tell.

There’s two parts. The first one is about expectations. I have often been accused of setting very high expectations: for myself, for my students in a past life when I was a teacher and for my children. I can’t help it. My parents had high expectations of me and I learned my M.O. from them.

I have learned on my own that for maximum results I need to strike a reasonable balance between demand and motivation when it comes to getting those expectations met. In my experience, teenagers do not respond well to too much pressure, especially my daughter.

I was not at my stellar best when it came to communicating expectations in regards to this particular project.

Her award is the “I told you so.”

I was not as supportive and motivating as I should have been. I suggested, not too subtly, that she should have done more research and worked harder. I nagged her to finish it early so she would not be working at the last-minute. It did not create the most joyful environment.

She did say that she was glad she finished it before winter break so that she could relax while some of her friends were still stressing about getting it done.

When they announced her first place award at the assembly I was duly humbled. She had it under control all along. I will give her more credit from now on.

The other thing I can’t help but think about in relation to her success on this project is that it has to do with her Bat Mitzvah. How are a science project and the  rite of passage for Jewish  thirteen-year-olds connected you might ask.

The way I see it, not only does becoming a Bat Mitzvah have great significance in relation to her role in the Jewish community, it also affects her secular life as well.

Making a presentation in front of her class was no big deal after leading a congregation filled with family and friends and community members in prayer–in another language. Writing a 5 paragraph essay was a drop in the bucket compared to composing and giving an introduction to  a Torah portion a Haftarah portion and a D’var Torah.

This rite of passage served to deepen her connection to our Synagogue and the wider Jewish community.  It also enhanced her confidence and reinforced skills that she will apply as a leader in her secular life as well.

While it will be a long while before I am prouder of her than I was a year ago, on the day of her Bat Mitzvah, I will take every moment I can get, like her FIRST PLACE award at the science fair today. Even if this particular one comes with a bit of chagrin.

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