Everybody's Jewish Mother

by Judith Fein

I was sleeping on a cot in her living room. Early morning sun was streaming in through an opening in the white linen drapes and she was standing over me.

“I was thinking about it all night,” she said. “I can’t believe you don’t know who Usher is!”

“Usher?” I asked, dragging myself from dreamland.

“Yes, Usher. Have you been living under a rock? He sings R &B, has won 5 Grammies and is a major philanthropist.”

I looked up at my 91-year-old mother.

“Okay, ma, you win. It’s important. I’ll find out all about Usher,” I conceded.

She doesn’t just know about Usher. At 85, as a result of her rabid interest in Eminen, she gathered her dear ones at a restaurant in La Jolla, threw some signs and began: “My name is Mickey and I’m here to say/I’m coming out as a rapper today.” The mouths of her guests and the entire staff of the restaurant fell open.

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My Shrink, the Bike

by Nancy King

By the time I was nine years old I had been yearning for a two-wheeled bike for two years and three months but there were none to be found—not in stores, not in newspaper ads. The bike my parents and I finally found was second-hand and three sizes too big, just because FDR decided making war materiél was more important than manufacturing bikes for little girls too impatient to wait for WWII to be over. When my dad looked at the bike he said, “Nancy, it’s much too big for you.” True. When I sat on the seat my legs dangled, at least a foot from the ground, but I could have sworn I heard the bike saying, “Buy me. I may be too big but you’re big enough to ride me.” I begged and pleaded until my father gave in. The bike was mine. Now all I had to do was figure out how to ride it. I had the will, could I find the way? On top of our hilly street, my father let go of the seat and even though I could barely reach the pedals, I found my balance and freedom—away from parents and sister and squabbling kids on the block. Off I went, to ride wherever I chose to go, full of confidence.

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The Reluctant Shaman

Rachel E. MannI could write about my two trips to the former Soviet Union, the first during the time it was being speculated by the old Sovietologists that Andropov had died because he was no longer showing up in Politburo photo shoots, and the second the summer of the coup when a drunk Yeltsin danced on a tank in front of the White House in Moscow.  These are among a number of outer trips in my life.  But for me, the outer journeys are just juicy manifestations of a bigger and far more important inner journey that led me to becoming a reluctant shaman.

Just declaring in a public forum that I am a shaman takes the breath out of me. To say that my life is a trip may actually be an understatement.  I mean, I think it’s a truly crazy trip when you realize you suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression and a chronic pain condition called fibromyalgia and simultaneously you suddenly find yourself meeting spirits who come to help you, or you are wandering in the Underworld where you meet and retrieve lost parts of yourself, and you encounter the traumas of your ancestors and even the world as a whole. In the process, I have met some interesting and amazing men and women, in this more ordinary realm of life, some of them whom I call the “new shamans” of the West.

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Long Life's Journey To Home

by Marian Warren

"You have to come down if you want your stuff," Beatrice said. "There's termites under the building and I have to fumigate."

I can't remember what I stored with Beatrice while exiting Los Angeles for rural Kansas , but lately I've been missing certain photos, journals and scripts. In ‘04, I fled after 20 years of trying to make a career and happy love life. My friends begged me not to go:

"You're the last person in the world who should move to Kansas !" said my charming boss.

"One thing I'm hearing about where you're going...No available men," said my handsome therapist.

"You won't be able to find a job. People will see you as an outsider. Like when I moved to Florida ," said a well-meaning friend.

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Yes, I pray—but not to your god

by Eric Lucas

They approach a bit haltingly, these young women attired in pastel fabrics.

Eric Lucas“How long have you been saved?” they inquire.

“Saved?” I respond. I know what they’re after, but one has to let this conversation run its course.

“Well, I saw you praying, and I was so glad to see another believer here in the restaurant.” I raise my eyebrows. “What church do you go to? Baptist? Church of Christ?” They plow on earnestly.

That’s when I drop the bombshell, my own personal bazooka round aimed at American religiosity.

“I don’t go to church,” I say, pleasantly.

Silence.

“But you were praying,” they accuse me.

Yes, indeed, I was praying. These encounters invariably take place when I am on the road in America, have surrendered to expedience and stopped at a fast-food outlet for dinner. It might be Anaheim, it might be Amarillo. Wherever I am, I say a personal, silent prayer before my every meal, and have done so for 25 years. That’s a long time; my prayers were born in a search for spiritual discipline, and they have nothing to do with any religion. Not Christianity, not Judaism, not Islam. I don’t pray to Christ, or Yahweh, or Zoroaster, or Allah or even Mephistopheles. I don’t like organized religion. Doctrine annoys me. Scriptures are superstitious malarkey.

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LIKE A ROLLING STONE

by Judith Fein

Yeah, life is a trip all right. A potentially life-altering trip.

A few hours ago, the sun was smiling on Santa Fe. We’ve had winds more vicious than dogs, white snow when purple lilacs should be blooming, sun, no sun, and today, sun again. The kind of sun that makes you fling open your front door, slide your tootsies into your tennis shoes, and hit the streets. Which is exactly what I did. You’ll see I am not kidding.

My husband Paul and I were walking downtown, past the Plaza, babbling about this and that and also that and this when suddenly I tripped over some dumb nib sticking up out of the sidewalk cement—obviously placed there by a jinn when I wasn’t looking. I flew up into the air, hit the curb, careened against the curb and landed about 12 feet from where I had taken to the air, Superwoman fashion. Paul, who normally has faster reflexes than a sprinter at the start of a race, just stood there, his jaw slack. Then he ran to help me up.

“Yes!” I screamed, stretching my arms skyward. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

I am sure Paul thought I had fallen on my head. He screwed up his face into a question mark.

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