I had lunch today with Gary, my Portland Rebbe.
He's a lovely human being and I really like working with him.
He's also become a friend.
Our conversation began with me holding back tears while I tried to let him know where I was at and all that I was struggling with. I worried that if I couldn't play guitar I would not be as useful in our monthly Friday evening gatherings at his shul.
He assured me that nothing could be further from the truth.
"So you'll sing what you can, and maybe play a little drum when you can, and you may feel broken right now but you'll still bring your whole self every month and N (the other fellow with whom we've been working this year, more grounded in tradition than I am) will be quite thrileld to see the guitar go for awhile. Nothing else has to change."
I admitted to him that when I led the tefilah service with the religious school kids, I felt so lost in my own faith right now that teaching them made me feel like a fraud.
"You're not a fraud," he said. "You're one of the most authentic Jews I've met. You're so honest about where your head and heart are and what that's like. You admit when you're struggling in a world where we are constantly told not to show our weaknesses. But our vulnerability is what makes us authentic. You have nothing to worry about."
I could have cried again. But I didn't.
And then, the Rabbi told me he'd been diagnosed with ADHD in his early forties, and his youngest child had been diagnosed at age seven. I was surprised. He said, "I don't know what it must be like to find this out in your sixties, but know that you're still you and you are loved by your people and that is really all you need to remind yourself of. The rest will become clear whenever it becomes clear. Do the counseling and the meds and the naps and everything else and keep being you."
Then we talked about a friend of his who had lived in Japan for years and had learned the craft of Kintsugi, the art of repairing broken pottery with precious metals.
Gary showed me photos of his friend's work on his iPhone and we talked about brokenness and wholeness. Then we talked about eyeglasses for people with color-blindness. Gary is color-blind, Using an app on his iPhone, he showed me what he sees when he looks at a bowl of Guacamole: it was a little bowl that looked like it was filled with baby shit. Then he flipped on the app and the guac became a respectable green.
"Reds are amazing," he gushed. "They're mind-blowing."
He told me he's going to get a pair of glasses that will allow him to see color. They've come down in price and he has sixty days to decide if he likes them or send them back for a refund.
I was shocked. I hadn't known there were special glasses to help you see color. I imagined it was rather like a deaf person turning on their new cochlear implant for the first time. Wild.
I gave Gary some Jewish text study books I knew I would no longer need. He'll find someone who wants them. (I kept my book-bound Torah and my copy of Pirke Avot, because they've always been my favorites and who knows? Maybe I'll want to dip into them again at some point. I'm taking my Mussar books to Powell's to sell, because someone in my current emotional state probably doesn't need to keep a notebook of their character flaws just now. If I want to stydu Mussar it will wait for me.)
And when I got home, my head was stil "fwip"-ing like mad and I felt SO drained and exhausted, but also better. I still don't know where I am or where God is, but I knw where my people are and that is a good thing to remind myself of whenever I need to.
About the "fwip":
I've experienced this for over ten years, since before I began perimenopause. The "fwip" is a tiny sound inside my head that happens when I'm depleted, emotionally ragged, and it sounds and feels like a little "fwip" sensation that shows up inside my head, in my ears and behind my eyes. I sometimes feel dizzy along with the sound/sensation. I've asked multiple doctors about it and one of them guessed it was a kind of pain-free migraine.The others had no clue. I still get the "fwip" now and then, especially when I'm really depleted. So I'll try to get decent sleep tonoght and hope it clears up. It can be annoying if it keeps going all day, whenever I turn my head or just my eyes in another direction. And it can be accompanied by dizziness. But at least there's no physical pain.
Tomorrow, counseling and hopefully no more "fwip" so I can take a walk or a little bike ride.
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