Up to Now and Now

I love running. It’s something I came to relatively late in life, not taking it seriously until I was 34, and after a childhood of believing I could do no such thing, as well as a teenagehood of always being the last one around the track during fitness week (and long after gym class was over). If someone had told me then that I’d become a runner, I would have handed them my large bag of Cool Ranch Doritos so that I could use both my hands to grab my sides as I doubled over.


I love running for many reasons, not the least of which is that during runs I solve a problem: most often a painting problem, sometimes a writing problem, and, when lucky, a nagging suspicion about myself that, if investigated, might shed light on the whys and wherefores of my current crisis (because I’m always in crisis, it seems. I think I might love crises more than I love running because, unlike running, it’s never too cold, or rainy, or I’m never too tired, or achy to indulge a crisis . . . but I digress).


A few days ago, during a long run, and at a time when I was relatively crisis free, and, therefore, casting about for some new problem to chew on, this thought bubbled to the surface: what’s the deal with the way I sprinkle my Jewishness all over my blog like so many salty chunks of feta crumbled over everything from toast to post, even when it’s totally unnecessary and maybe even overkill?


Why this need to trumpet my cultural heritage to which I have only the most tenuous thread of connection since my parents are effectively ignorant on the subject and so were never able to transmit anything useful to me, except to let me know I was, indeed, a Jew? In typical running-epiphany style, I realized it comes down to this: the old high school saw of needing an identity, and of needing to belong.


There were exactly two Jews in my high school (I mean real Jews, not may-as-well-be-Protestant Jews, like me). Both were girls and both were beautiful and thin and clad in polo-identified gear, which I believe facilitated their ascension into the great Pantheon of Perfect that ruled the school.


During Passover, however, they suddenly became out-in-the-open Jews, munching faux miserably on their faux sandwiches comprised of two matzoh crackers containing, simply, butter and raspberry jam, loudly complaining about how much they missed leavened bread. They really did say “leavened,” scratching a verbal chalk circle around their already shining heads. My own mistakenly-made-that-morning ham and cheese sandwich on leavened bread clearly designated on which side of the circle I belonged. (Since then, I have had a bad relationship with yeast.)


(BTW, if you have never tasted the surprisingly delectable combination of dry, unsalted motzoh crackers slathered in salty butter and topped with sweet and tart raspberry jam, you need to befriend a Jew this Passover and treat yourself. That, and chopped liver.)

The thing is, despite their coveted position within the Firmament of Fab – impossibly, enviably – the Passover production propelled these angels into an ever more rareified layer of social strata, garnering them– impossibly, enviably – an even higher position among the stars. They were like two princess sisters who had captured the love of their people but refused to live among them, insisting on their pointy castle where they remained adored but touchless.


Although I could legitimately claim Jewish blood on both sides of my family, I knew less about Jewish holidays, traditions, and Yiddish catch phrases than most of my gentile friends. But don’t misunderstand me. I was not surrounded by the Goyem either. I was a girl of maybe one or two friends, usually belonging to other groups, but who had stepped outside their pack to confide in me on the sly. I didn’t so much have a social circle as occupy each corner of a social square where individuals from the four main bloodlines –preppy, stoner, nerd, artsy – intersected with me for but a moment in social time in order to scratch some momentary itch.

Looking back, however, I can see that I did perform an essential service -- enabling each group to stay its course without, god forbid, intersecting -- but no one ever seemed to notice or thank me for my function (which may explain my attraction to the editing vocation, being used to the unfame behind the curtains). I did, however, get all the empty space inside the square, which became the repository for all my longing to belong, and which also efficiently imprisoned my soundless yawp.

But here's the thing: it’s not like I naively think that my Jewishness will put me in touch with like-minded people I will unconditionally adore (and vice versa) based on our shared culture.

Amongst my Jewish friends, some of us are staunch Zionists, which I am not. Some are atheists, which I am not. Some are Buddhists, which I aspire to. And we don’t all agree on all kinds of things. And yet. I wonder if I tend to elide differences because belonging matters more. When I was in Berlin last year, I felt so invited back by the Germans in my position as a displaced Jew. I suddenly had caché, kind of like the caché certain of my colleagues have in the art world thanks to the colour of their skin and their sexual orientation. Even they would agree. And I'm not trying to dismiss their talents. The only difference between them and me is that they actually do work that deserves the credit they have earned despite their caché. Me? I have done nothing to educate myself on being Jewish, or to support/express my culture. I’ve just claimed the title and hoped no one would check the deed.


Lest I paint a skewed picture, let me admit I did belong before high school. And how! I grew up in an exclusive community of expats in Manila, where my father worked for the Asian Development Bank. My friends were from all over the world, but what bound us together was our privilege. We got superiorily educated at an International School, we all belonged to clubs with pools, and despite the cliques that formed around stoners and soccer players, we all attended the same parties and we all got very drunk at a very, very, VERY young age. We just didn’t do it in basements as I saw it done here, to my great contempt, upon my return to Canada at the sophisticated age of 13. No, we drank Singapore slings poolside with people in uniforms serving us.


In those days, I knew who I was. I was a Canadian living overseas. I had freedom of movement (mostly because my parents were too busy at their jobs, or at the club playing tennis, to notice what I did after school). I travelled with my family to exotic locations every summer, and went “home” once a year to see the grandparents. I thought I owned the world and everyone in it.

At university, I belonged again. A late bloomer, I botched most of high school until I realized that if I did not get certain grades, I would be doomed to secretarial school, my mother's greatest aspiration for me, believing that every girl should be able to support herself. Her heart was in the right place. So, at the 11th hour in grade 13, I decided to study for once in my life, and that’s how I gained entrance into Queen’s, another bastion of privilege at which I felt at home. Yet it was not the privilege with which I identified. It was with those who were questioning everything. That was something I had been quietly doing since childhood, but had learned to keep quiet about it, or be ostracized. At uni, I focused on questioning the history and politics of womens' experiences ...


... and found articulation for all the things I had always felt were wrong but for which, up to then, I had not developed a vocabulary.

At university, I found my voice. And I let her rip.


In Manila, throughout our seven-year tenure, I had never stopped being affected by the purposefully maimed children who tapped at our car window, asking for money as we sat in a black cloud of traffic.


Someone had scratched out their eyes or broken their limbs to make them look more pathetic. As a child, I understood that their lives were catastrophic, even if their limbs had been whole, that their need was beyond desperate, and that in the face of their unforgivable condition, I was helpless. The adults taught me to keep my window rolled up and soothed my tears with words that never made sense, “we can't give them money every time they ask." I never understood why not. I still don’t.

Since my high school days, I’ve definitely found belonging in a variety of groups. For instance, my running group in Montreal made up of folks of all ages, from all walks of life, with all manner of experiences and history, all coming together around our one insane addiction.

And, recently, I landed what seems, so far, like a dream job and one that has instantly expanded my sense of identity and belonging.


I am the Outreach and Communications Coordinator of an organization called Gender at Work, a not-for-profit that rights the embedded wrongs of gender discrimination that leads to social, cultural, political, economic and you-name-it gender inequalities. G@W helps other organizations develop their own best practices for improving womens' lives in their own communities (most of the work is being done in India and Africa right now), with the goals of ending poverty and domestic violence, and placing women in key leadership roles in order to bring about deep-structure transformation of internalized discriminatory attitudes and values. My job, in a nutshell, is to collect and disseminate the stories that come out of the work being done, to bring attention to the actual condition of women around the world, and to inspire more positive action and change.


You heard right: my job is to help get stories told! Hello? Pinch me!

For me, the word “story” does not designate fiction, per se. Or, actually, it does, but the word “fiction” does not designate a lesser form than so-called fact. The two things are one, equally important, and not much different from each other (just ask a handful of French theorists). And both are vital for healing individuals, communities, cities, states, cultures, and the world. I deeply believe that stories are no less than lifeblood transmissions. And they require the only naturopathic ingredient that can truly remedy any ill: people and their good will.

Once hired, I received e-mails from everyone at G@W welcoming me into their fold with such warmth that I felt we were sitting in a comfy living room, real time. I will meet them all this week at a retreat in Antigonish. This mostly virtual org (since most of us live and work around the globe) will become a flesh-and-blood org for a week. But the thing is, I already feel as if I know these folks. I know that some people find virtual communities a lesser form of community, but, truthfully, that has not been my experience. In all my online living rooms and office spaces, I have felt connected to people I don’t know as much as to those I know. My friends and colleagues online (as well as my online friends and colleagues) are legion. And they have given me a sense of belonging in ways I could not have imagined.