Friday Dispatch: Finding My Balance
11 things as we begin 2025
Friday greetings,
I’m going to kick off the new year with 11s. (If you are intrigued by this practice, be sure to scroll down – there is one spot left in the new cohort of the Sound of Real Life Happening group!)
One night many weeks ago, during a Jewish Studio Project webinar, I dug out some antiquated Hebrew textbooks (sfarim atikim!) to rifle through, along with scissors and glue. Now, this small collage is tacked on the wall above my desk. Each time I glance up to read it, the words evoke something ethereal and sensory and familiar, at once distant and intimate. Soul-rousing.
M.J. did a Tarot reading for each of us for the new secular year on Wednesday. My primary card for 2025 was Temperance, which carries a message of balance, moderation, harmony, patience, and inner peace and calm. (Yes, please!) The whole reading was very affirming that this year is a lot about spiritual and psychological alignment with my divine purpose, and one of the best things I can do is allow the current momentum without getting hung up on every single detail, while also taking my time. As January gets going, my intention is to continue anchoring more and more in daily practices that help keep me present while trusting the longer-term trajectory.
There was also something in the reading about initiation into adulthood. Given that I will turn 51 in 11 days, one might wonder, am I not already an adult? Obviously yes – and. This reminds me of a moment yesterday at Glenmeadow, the retirement community my parents now call home. I went to lunch with my mom, and since there were no two-tops available, we sat down at a larger table. Before long, we were joined by George, Joan, and Jay. (Have I mentioned how much I’m enjoying getting to know some of the other residents there? There’s something so sweet about walking into the dining room and someone looking at me then saying to my mom, “Oh, she must be yours.” Also, George can cut a rug, as we saw on New Year’s Eve!) Anyway, knowing that George had previously lived in Springfield, I asked if he grew up there. “I’m not sure I’d say I grew up!” he quipped, and we all laughed. Perhaps we could all say the same. Perhaps we are continuously growing up.
What I’m really getting at here has to do with life cycles and caregiving and roles changing. When do we become adults? I don’t think it’s a one-time thing, but a series of moments and thresholds and rites of passage, some pronounced and others quiet visitors who slip in and out while we’re busy changing the laundry or thinking deep thoughts. Along the way to learning balance, sometimes extremes are the only way to begin to feel out your power or perceived lack thereof, your values, and ultimately your path. I look back on my high school yearbook senior quote from John Waters (“Life is nothing if you’re not obsessed”) and shake my head a little at the raw irony of it. I didn’t know anything back then about anxiety disorders or OCD; we didn’t have social media and 10,000 ways of self-diagnosing, and even therapy was more of a placeholder than anything.
What I did have was falling asleep at night listening to the Cocteau Twins after reading Anais Nin stories, and intense friendships, usually with just one person at a time, and Russian poetry and oh so much longing and loneliness, and Marlboros and a tendency towards the romantic and an inner pull to faraway lands and languages and a defiant sense of self I couldn’t quite place in the world yet and a closet full of journals that two decades later I would let go of in the name of not living in the past.
What I didn’t yet understand: Jews can’t not live in the past. My dad will be pleased if I throw in some Shakespeare here: “Whereof what's past is prologue; what to come, in yours and my discharge” (act 2, scene 1 of The Tempest, 1611). The past is our rudder, our point of reference, and our instruction manual. It can also be a template for what not to do. This, of course, is called learning. And while some of it may seem irrelevant, it’s always in motion, right here in these words, right here in this finally quiet moment at my desk after a super intense stretch, right there in the hospital room, right here in the upcoming inauguration, right here in the fissures and friction and right here in the way new things grow in the most unlikely places and have a way of tapping on us on the shoulder when it’s time for our lines. This is Torah.
Maybe adulthood is about learning how to harness the past to inform and hold us without becoming a vortex or a black hole. Life is never stagnant. How do we learn from the past? How do we heal old wounds and not inflict new ones on ourselves or others? How do we accept and integrate what was? I always say it is no coincidence that so many Jews are practitioners of Eastern traditions. As God wrestlers – the literal meaning of “Israel” – we need this balance of bringing ourselves into the present. And the beautiful thing that I’ve been discovering since my 20s is that we don’t need to leave Judaism to find these. What could be more grounding in the present than to wake up and recite the same prayer of gratitude every single day when our eyes open and our feet touch the floor? What could be more mindful than acknowledging the blessing of having food to eat and water to drink, the obligation to do good work in the world, and the reminder in our texts and traditions that we are partners in creation, not mere recipients of it? This print, a gift from my beloved college advisor Peter Juviler z”l, sits on my desk. It reminds me of this conversation between East and West, not to mention Rabbi Hillel’s famous teaching of the whole Torah while standing on on one foot.
I’m curious as to how my rabbinical studies will transform my living relationship to the mitzvot (commandments). One thing I do see is that understanding and observing these creates structure, without which our days can feel like a free for all of tasks and reactions and emails we will never keep up with. What hems us in? What guides us? What keeps us from swinging into extremes in a world increasingly prone to extremism?
Going back to the message of temperance, my reading also brought forward the power of alchemy, which is also a way of avoiding extremes, bringing opposites together, letting thoughts flow, discerning where assessing becomes obsessing, and not allowing things to get stuck in the mind or body. A gentle discipline that includes taking care of my day-to-day needs on a super basic level – food, sleep, showering, putting on real clothes, and the like – resonates deeply right now, given how many things I’m juggling.
I have a photo on my desk of my kids when they were maybe two and five. Their backs are to the camera and they are walking, arms swinging, one foot in front of the other. Aviva is ever so slightly ahead of Pearl, holding his hand. I look at this image and smile through grateful tears. We are not meant to walk through this life alone, not a one of us.
My mom has amazing balance. A lifelong dancer and long-time yogi, at 81 she now stands on one foot while tying her shoes. A few days ago, she demonstrated this for me and suggested I start doing the same. I flash on her standing in the doorway of an ancient ruin in the Negev, and return to the found poetry on my wall: my garden/my blood/my heart/my mother/with me.
Life can be wobbly, my friends. Offer a hand where you can and find what steadies you when the world shakes. Quiet the mind, open the heart.
If you were to pick one thing to practice this year, what would it be?
Shabbat shalom and love,
Jena
The Sound of Real Life Happening 2025 - ONE SPOT LEFT
Here’s the low-down: I was born on January 14 at 11:11am, and the number 11 has always felt like a magic portal to me. Several years ago, I created a writing practice that consists of writing lists of 11 things. It has taken on a wonderful life of its own as a form, and it has also become the basis for this annual group. The 2025 cohort begins in just 12 days!
Read more on my website or jump straight to registering.
Here are the most important details:
This group has FOUR sessions during the year (January, April, June, October).
Each session lasts 11 days.
During each 11-day session, we practice writing 11 things per day.
At the end of each session, we gather on Zoom to deepen our connection.
This is a year-long commitment.
It’s wonderfully simple, small, and special.
There is ONE SPOT remaining. We begin January 11.
Join HerStories for 30 Days of Energizing Your Writing Life
Another fantastic January offering, this one from the wonderful co-founders of the HerStories Project and Midstory Magazine, Jessica Smock and Stephanie Sprenger. They’re hosting a month-long community experience for midlife women embarking on a new writing undertaking.
Learn all about it and register here
This promises to be an energizing way to start the new year, and I’m super honored that they reached out to me to be one of nine workshop presenters!