My heart hurts. Literally. It’s been going on for a few weeks. The pain exacerbates whenever I have these circling thoughts about my dad. Just over a week ago, I learned about the broken heart syndrome, where a broken heart (which I have about the situation with my dad) causes a heart attack, mostly in women. I’m frightened that my dad’s toxicity may end up causing me a heart attack and killing me. Which might make my dad happy in his twisted way, because then we’d be joined in suffering, his ultimate form of bonding, and he would have claimed my life, which he strives to own.

My dad is literally making me sick.

Shortly after my contract ended with the organization that brought me to Los Angeles, my father started emailing me, fairly regularly, telling me how worried he was about me because he knew that I am self-employed and therefore unable to qualify for unemployment, and am I OK, and do I need help, and he wants to help me, and he’s not sleeping well because he’s worried about me, and I should let him know if I need help, yada yada yada.

Sounds loving and caring, right?

But that’s just the Sirens playing their pretty harps. Oh how do I explain the manipulative madness that is my dad? He makes more noise than contribution. He strives for worry points – in other words, if his face is all contorted from worry, and he’s not sleeping, and he’s all twisted in knots and miserable on your behalf, then he is actually helping you out. When in fact, during your time of need, he is making it all about him. So that you end up not only having to deal with your own crap, but also taking care of his emotional duress, purportedly generated on your behalf.

If heaven forbid you should fall for his antics and think that maybe, just maybe, this time it is genuine; and you ask for his help, he ensnares you in a trap of control and dominance and humiliation. So when those “I want to help” emails started coming, I ignored most of them, sending back the occasional vague and neutral reply that thanked him for his concern and let him know I would tell him if I needed his help.

But after two months of his persistence and my increasing desperation — as my bank account tanked, and my credit cards maxed out, during the launch of my company — I asked my dad for a loan, promising to pay it back as soon as one of the bank loans came through for my business. That’s when I got the email (seriously, how did I fall for it again?) that my dad doesn’t have that kind of money, but that he wanted to make sure I knew he was not abandoning me, so I should tell him everything that was going on in my life, so that he could help me figure out how to manage it.

Gee. Usually he dangles a couple hundred Benjamins in front of my face, in exchange for his offer to control me. I politely thanked him for his “consultation” offer and informed him that was not the kind of help I needed, but that I would let him know if that changed.

I continued to get emails about how my dad wanted to help me think about things. I also got the occasional $100+ check for the Jewish holidays. Confirmation that my dad had at least a little money to spare, but that it had to be on his terms and for his reasons, not when I actually indicated that I needed help. Oh yeah, and when one of his checks bounced, I got a whole lot of noise about whether the bank charged me, and if so how much, and no you know what never mind, he’ll send $50 to cover it. Eeking out the brownie points instead of just sending the damn check.

As my company developed collaborative relationships with multinational corporations; as I scheduled radio interviews on local radio and national television; and as various service providers stepped forth to contribute tens of thousands of dollars to my company launch, my dad was sending me emails encouraging me to go to the welfare office and get food stamps. In fact, once he was so excited about the urgency of this helpful idea that he sent an email on a Jewish holiday, despite being observant, and told my mother to call and suggest the idea to me as well.  

Meanwhile, my dad owns three homes in two countries, and around the time of our email exchange, he shelled out dough to remodel the condo.

I grew up with my dad saying he had no money. I’d ask for something I needed – like, you know, a hair dryer – and he would tell me he didn’t have the money. Which is why I spent years sitting perched in front of a heater vent for an hour at a shot, drying my hair. But then all kinds of money would suddenly be available for something else – ie, something my dad deemed worthy.

As my mom was on the verge of foreclosure and bankruptcy, my dad assured us he was scrimping and saving and living on fixed income and unable to do this and that. We thought this time it was for real. Then he lost close to $1 million in the bank crash. Who the hell knew he had that kind of dough? I couldn’t believe I fell for it again. So I have learned never to trust when my dad says he has no money. The man puts on a good show.

As I write this post, I’m realizing that I’m angry. I’m angry that I can’t talk to my dad about any of his behaviors, because he responds with refrains like, “I won’t be your whipping boy” and “I won’t be put on trial,” instead of considering his behaviors and their impact on those around him. It’s like a man punching you in the stomach but then getting all outraged when you tell him that he has just hurt you. My dad is the perpetual victim.

I hate the way things are so muddy. I think that’s what manipulative behavior does. It’s not clean abuse, but twisty abuse. The rhetoric is all about love, as it always was when my dad was abusing me as a child. It makes me constantly question myself, feel bad, wish things were different, offer the benefit of the doubt for my dad’s intentions, and try to find a way to stay connected without falling prey to the toxic crap. I think it would be much easier if my dad was just a cut-and-dry asshole.

1. Bike activists
2. Holistic health practitioners
3. Freestyle dancers
4. Jews – Middle Eastern, observant, and/or progressive
5. Musicians – drum circles and bands
6. Entrepreneurs
7. Writers

My next step is to find ongoing community groups that match my interests, then to make a point of going to those places regularly and letting the Universe take it from there. But do I go to other interesting events here and there as well, or in a place like LA, is that just a waste of my time? Stay tuned…

And that messes me up. It deprives me of a certain level of trust and closeness that I would like to have with family, at least with my mom if not with anyone else. And then I feel guilty for not being close enough, for needing to put distance, for not trusting, for not feeling safe. I feel like I’m hurting the other person by taking care of myself.

It’s the never-ending spin cycle in the washing machine. Over and over and over again. The narrative never changes.

My mom has powerful psychic and healing energy. I like to imagine that we come from a line of witches, being that my maternal line is Irish and Danish on my grandmother’s side and Welsh on my grandfather’s side. I visualize Celtic dancers and medicine women prancing around a tree.

I have always been called “too sensitive,” which is code for being profoundly empathetic and connected to all living beings. I have come to understand that I have used food throughout my life as a buffer between myself and the harshness of the world, because without that food taking the edge off, things feel extremely raw.

My mom was obese throughout my childhood, and my grandmother and great grandmother were alcoholics. I wonder if they too needed something to take the edge off their sensitivity, though my mom says she doesn’t feel anything with or without the food. Maybe she’s developed some kind of mechanism of numbness that’s become a habit by now.

As a teenager, my mom was able to move physical objects with her mind – specifically, bowling balls. As the story goes, my mom sucked at bowling, but as a teen in the Midwest in the late 1940s and early 1950s, she had to do it. So she’d throw the ball down, and as it headed toward the gutter, she would take her hands and energetically move the ball toward the center – successfully striking out the pins.

At some point, she noticed this behavior was abnormal. Once she became aware of her extraordinary power, she became scared of and squelched it. With at least one exception: Decades later, when she could not find her keys at a hotel where she was staying, she sat in her room, got quiet in her mind, and asked where the keys were. An image of her keys came to her, behind the curtain in the lobby downstairs. She went downstairs, moved aside the curtain, and sure enough, there were her keys.

Anyhow, my mom says that she otherwise pushed down that energy until she went through her life-endangering accident in November 2008. After the accident, my mom was unconscious for the greater part of a week, during which I was by her side day and night – channeling healing energy, singing, praying, running her artwork across her fingers, acting as a positive affirmations soundtrack in her brain…until she came back to consciousness. I continued directing all my healing energy toward my mom and requesting the healing energy of her friends, my friends, professional healers, and prayer circles — both when I was by her side and when I was hundreds of miles away — as she progressed in her journey to complete recovery.

Six months after the accident, my mom was lucid and functional again. Now, one and a half years later, my mom is stronger than before the accident. Doctors say it’s a miracle that my mom is alive at all, much less fully recovered. My mom credits me with saving her life. I remind her that the effort was a partnership – me coaching her from the outside, her working it from the inside.

“You brought my power back up, and now I can’t push it down,” my mom has told me. She believes that her innate psychic energy was responsible for her ability to heal thoroughly. I have no doubt that is true.

Its reemergence has worked to my advantage, because as it turns out, my mom is one powerful distance energy healer. I’ll call her when something hurts, and I will know the minute she starts sending me healing energy; because whatever is hurting instantaneously will stop hurting. Take yesterday, when my back went out. I was literally hobbling around my apartment, hanging on to things so as to make it from one side of a room to another. Immediately after I asked my mom to send me energy, my back was pain-free.

But here’s the thing: My mom has been on such a mission to find out the exact impact of her every nuanced energy vibration, that her behavior has become demanding, invasive, and controlling. She wants to know exactly what I feel, when I feel it, and where I feel it. She wants to match up every shift I feel with precisely what she was doing at any given moment. She also has wanted to know exactly where I am at any given moment, so that she can visualize where she’s sending the energy.

I have told my mom a few times that this behavior crosses my boundaries. While she has modified some things – like not asking exactly where I am – she has persisted with others. For example, when I shared with her that I knew she was sending me healing energy because my back immediately stopped hurting, she then wanted to get into an involved conversation about when my back started hurting again, later in the day, and what she was doing at the time.

I told her this morning, yet again, that I did not want to have that conversation. She said, “Well I need to know what’s happening, so that I can be a good energy healer.” “So ask someone else,” I said. “But you’re the only person I do energy healing on,” she replied. “Well too bad,” I said. “I don’t want to do it this way.” It all felt very yucky and almost creepy. Then I was hit with the inevitable feelings of guilt that I was being mean to my mom or doing something wrong. Because lord help me if I set boundaries in this family.

Tonight, I mentioned in passing that my back felt normal today. “That’s because I sent energy,” my mom declared. Suddenly I felt violated. I hung up the phone. Then I called back and expressed my anger. “I don’t understand why it upsets you,” my mom said. “You don’t need to understand!” I barked. “You just need to respect it.” Fine!” my mom barked back, clearly pissed. “I won’t mention anything about energy ever again!” Because, of course, it has to be either-or.

I hung up extremely upset. Something so pure and healing had become so toxic. Which is typical for my family. As a child, the love I received was tangled up with leaky sexual energy, covert sexual abuse, control, manipulation, passive-aggressive behavior, and other incessant boundary violations. The terms of love were so screwed up that it was better to receive no love at all. Which was kind of like choosing starvation over a diet of straight processed junk food.

At any rate, so this thing tonight left me on the verge of crazy. I was shaking internally and physically. I felt energetically raped. It’s as if my mom had turned me into a science experiment or guinea pig, against my will, to serve her own purposes. Instead of just being a mom and sending loving healing energy to me, and at the most, thinking with me about how I wanted that energy delivered and discussed. Or rather, responding to how I wanted it delivered and discussed, because I’d already told her my wishes and boundaries several times.

Plus, I came to realize, my mom has developed a certain amount of arrogance and a bit of a Gd complex. While she undoubtedly has an extraordinary gift, so do I. And so do Gd, angels, loving Spirits, and whatever other healing energy forces that may be out there, bouncing around in the Universe, impacting people in positive ways. Who knows exactly what is making my body feel the way it does at any given moment. The important thing is that I ensure as much as possible that I live in and am surrounded by positivity, to maximize my healing capacity.

This morning, when I was trying to explain to my mom why it bugged me when she tried to rope me into answering the who-what-where-when-how-why questions, I said it was like the insanity-inducing 10 point pain scale that doctors keep trying to force on pain patients (and that my mom herself despises). In my experience, the very attempt to externally quantify or qualify either pain or healing effectively diminishes the power and potential of healing pain.

It’s like trying to ask a painter to deconstruct and analyze a painting while she is in the process of painting it. The question itself, not to mention the attempt to answer the question, may destroy the creative process, grace, inspiration, magic, and intuitive connection to the Universal Life Force that together create the painting, through the vessel of the painter.

The deconstruction and analysis introduce a completely different energy field. Now if the artist is herself inspired to share her process, if deconstruction and analysis comes through as part of the creation, that is another thing altogether. Similarly, if I am inspired to participate in a conversation with my mom about what I feel and when, then the energy is synergistic and part of the healing process. Anything imposed, however, is always directly in contradiction to healing.

The last time I lived in LA, in the early 1990s, I made exactly one friend during a three-year stint (my best friend ever since), and while I had a ridiculous sexual experience here and there, there was no boyfriend to speak of.  Then I moved to Berkeley, and whamo! Instantaneous friends, string of boyfriends, and warm community. Same thing when I moved to Israel. Years or decades later, those people still comprise  my inner circle. Maybe that’s why I haven’t gotten rid of my stuff in a Tel Aviv storage unit. A part of me is still there, in more ways than one.

Anyhow, clearly LA is just not my scene. I’m not sure how much of it is my doing and how much of it is the city’s doing, but I’ve decided to make my social life a public experiment and figure out if it is possible for a hotheaded, car-hating, non-TV-watching, radical feminist, anti-racist activist, Iraqi-American Jewish, part-punk, part-traditional, mostly vegetarian, physically and energetically sensitive, dancing musician and writer type such as myself to find deep, meaningful, and long-term friendship, romance, and community in Los Angeles.

Even writing that makes me laugh at the odds. Here is what I see as my major challenges:

1. Most of the Jewish community seems very conservative – definitely among the Middle Eastern sector. The pockets here and there that are progressive unfortunately are also decidedly obtuse (albeit self-congratulatory) when it comes to Jewish multicultural awareness. I’d rather hang out in a scene that has nothing to do with me than hang out in a scene that is supposed to be home but that really, seriously, isn’t.

2. To paraphrase the Wendy’s commercial circa 1983: Where’s the feminists?

3. While I believe that my kind of people are in the dance world – mostly, freestyle dance jams – those scenes are unsafe for people with hypersensitive bodies, especially when the gatherings are crowded.

4. While I would love to attend music performances, the crowd aspect again makes it unsafe for someone with a hypersensitive body.

5. You have to drive to get anywhere around here, often on a freeway. In Los Angeles, getting in a car and heading out onto the road feels tantamount to entering a combat zone, replete with tanks. Hell, even getting on a bike or walking down the street feels unsafe. LA has a violent car culture, where shaving off five seconds trumps preserving someone’s life. Usually it seems like a smarter decision to just stay home.

6. This place is seriously spread out in terms of physical geography. I don’t encounter the same people repeatedly at the various events I attend. If I did, I could organically develop relationships with these people. Instead, I have to make the effort to follow up on shadows of connection I make here and there, as I float from place to place. And given that distance and traffic factors, getting together seems like a major endeavor – requiring a couple of hours commuting time, in addition to whatever time we’d need to put aside to meet.  

I think my strategy needs to be honing in on a few places and committing to going to them repeatedly, even if some aspects of them annoy me, and even if it’s scary to get there and back in a car. I might just give up on following up with people when I meet them once, and instead focus on establishing a community base.

I think I also need to accept that I’m not willing to drive more than 10 miles or 30 min, whichever comes first, to get to an event, and stop trying to make myself do otherwise. I also might want to start my own gatherings — as I’m doing with the dance community I’m developing. Maybe I’ll start a Meetup.com group for Jewish multicultural misfits. We’ll see. Anyhow, stay tuned as I head off on a mission to get a social life and report back.

I end up distracted from taking care of myself, because I’m busy taking care of them. Or I end up even more stressed out than I was initially, because on top of everything else, I actively have to push back against their smothering or controlling behavior.

My parents need me to need them. In the case of my father, he needs me to need exactly what he offers, the way he offers it, regardless of whether it’s even in the ball park of what might actually help me. Heaven forbid I politely decline his offer of assistance. Then I have to deal with all his anger and drama and misery, because he feels personally rejected.

Let’s not even get into whether he will ever once respond favorably to what I actually need from him.

In the case of my mother, if she is not able to give me what I need at the time I need it, heaven forbid I should hang up the phone and take care of my needs elsewhere. Suddenly she’s all red alert, as if I need to be put on suicide watch. It is off the hook. What ends up happening is that I not only have to deal with whatever I am dealing with, but I also have to take care of my mom’s freak-out.

For starters, the dynamic triggers an emotional reaction to years of her crazy behavior, when I was upset and needing space as a kid. I would run to my room and lock the door. My mom would come pounding after me. She would stand on the other side of the door, screaming and wailing and coming damn near close to banging down the door. She would alternate that behavior with writing and slipping 10-20 notes underneath, begging me to let her in. Of course, the more she went at it, the more I needed to hide.

In addition to triggering old stuff, my mom’s freak-out crosses my boundaries in present time. In the case where I’m upset at something my mom said or did, the last thing I want to do is have to assure her that everything is OK. But if I don’t call and do that, my mom’s freak-out will escalate. I will get multiple emails, text messages, and/or home phone messages.

The more my mom’s freak-out will escalate, the more my own stress will escalate, because I will be poignantly aware of her distress. I will get reminders every which way I turn. I acutely and physically will feel what she is going through. Rather than focusing on what I need to do to take care of myself, I will end up worrying about her worrying about me. It will take over my consciousness.

So when my mom crosses my boundaries, it’s less of an energy drain and violation to just do what she wants – ie, call her — and get it over with. It’s a setup.

My mom always has said that when I was six, she could have dropped me in the middle of Manhattan, and I was so smart and resourceful that I would have been fine on my own. Her behavior, however, regularly indicates that if she doesn’t run to my rescue, something horrific will happen. Talk about interfering with someone’s mojo. I actively have to protect myself from her inadvertently psyching me out or jinxing me.

Today I was experiencing some generalized existential angst. I called my mom, and when she answered, it was clear she had been sleeping. My mom sleeps on and off throughout the day and night, so there are no right and wrong times to contact her. For general conversations, I don’t mind speaking with her when she is sleepy, but in this particular instance, I needed her to be fully alert for the conversation.

So when she confirmed that she had been sleeping, I said that I would talk to her later. I promptly hung up, without waiting for her to respond, because I knew she was going to get into a protracted protest about wanting to “be there for me,” despite the fact that I had not even said why I had called. I didn’t want to subject myself to that behavior. Sure enough, I heard my mom pleading, “No, no, I can talk!” as I got off the phone.

Being that just a couple of days earlier, we had our umpteenth, yet this time seemingly effective, conversation about how my mom needs to stop getting all OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) on me, I had hoped that maybe on this occasion, my mom would just let things be. But she called me back right away on my cell (I didn’t answer), and when I got home, there was a message waiting on my home phone: “I know that you don’t want me to call, but you called me from your cell, and given the circumstances, I think this call is justified and not an instance of being paranoid.”

Circumstances? What circumstances? That I called from my cell? That she could hear in my voice that I was upset? Ergo, send the cavalry?

The ridiculous thing about all this is that my mom’s worry is completely ineffective at responding to anything if it were in fact happening. The other night, for example, I called my mom because my heart was in pain (literally), and I was feeling frightened. I had already gone to the doctor, who had informed me that the only thing that could be done was a stress test – which essentially would check out my heart during exercise. Since my heart has been hurting around the clock – ie, when I’m not exercising — that seems kind of pointless to me.

Anyhow, so I was sharing with my mom that I think my heart pain has been caused by the skyrocketed stress I’ve been feeling with regards to some recent drama my dad pulled on me. My mom’s response made me feel worse, so I told her I wanted to go. She said OK, and I hung up the phone. When I woke up the next day, there were three messages on my voicemail, a text on my cell phone, and one or more emails, all from my mom. I deleted them all without reading or listening, and just straightaway texted my mom that I was ok.

As it turned out, my mom hadn’t gotten back to sleep that night, because she was all worried about me. But here’s the thing: If the situation was in fact dire enough to be that concerned, why not do something about it – like call the police or an ambulance? Aside from which, being that I calmly said, “I’m going to go now,” how was that in any way an indication that something horrific had happened or was going to happen? Why must I stay on the phone as long as my mom wants, or leave a conversation the way she wants, for her not to go into crisis mode? It’s disconnected from the reality of what is actually going on for me.

In writing this, I realize that the reason I don’t just let my mom suffer from an extended anxiety attack (ie, give her some “tough love” and refuse to call back) is not just because of compassion but because of concern that she might work herself into such a tizzy that she’ll end up with a heart attack or not pay attention to what she’s doing and, as a result, injure herself. I recognize that my response to my mom in a way parallels her response to me. Perhaps it’s just bad training that I got from her.

Or perhaps, being that my mom has severe ADD and an anxiety disorder, and being that at these times, it is clear that she is very actively going nutso with distress (ie, I’m not just imagining the possibility), it’s a highly realistic scenario. I certainly don’t want to take that chance and let her worry herself into the grave. So I feel trapped.

I just read Peter Knobel’s essay, “An Expanded Approach to Jewish Bioethics,” in the book, Healing and the Jewish Imagination. I found it comforting. I often feel adrift at sea in the Jewish world, because there are so many ways the Jewish community neither reflects me nor rises to my expectations of how it should operate. This chapter outlined some words that really resonated with me – virtue, values, respect, and merit, to name a few. And the chapter laid out issues in a way that made me really happy, because it rang my Jewish bell.

I am Super Jew. A flaming Heeb. My thinking, my personality, my essence is fundamentally in alignment with the Jewish way. And yet what is that Jewish way? There are so many distortions of the Jewish way as I understand it. These distortions are rampant in our community – leading to my constant state of distress. I see hypocrisy everywhere, which confuses me and hurts me and isolates me.

When I grow up with Jewish values of accountability — of taking the time each year to reflect on whom we have harmed and to humble ourselves before those people and ask forgiveness; and when my orthodox Jewish father, my primary Jewish teacher, refuses to do that reflection and take that accountability in the most intimate setting – his family, with regards to the most egregious of crimes – the violation of a child’s emotional, physical, and sexual boundaries; and when a purportedly egalitarian Mizrahi rabbi to whom I turned for help chose to cut off communication with me, effectively punishing me, instead of rising to the occasion of my trust and fulfilling his responsibility as community spiritual leader, I feel utterly lost, confused, and bewildered.

When I align myself with the Jewish world against the anti-Jewish hostility rampant in the rest of the world; when the Jewish world then rejects, invalidates, demeans, and renders invisible all Jewish identity except that from Central and Eastern Europe; and when the non-European Jewish community then dismisses and degrades me as an irrelevant or worthless female, except in relation and service to men, I feel utterly lost, confused, and bewildered.

“Jewish ethics begins with an assumption that there is a duty to Gd,” says one of my favorite passages in the chapter I read today, “Jewish life is centered on the performance of commandments…deeds that are obligatory in nature. We are asked to imagine that we will be called to account for what we do. Therefore it ultimately matters what choices we make, because our choices have an effect on our destiny and on the destiny of the human race. We seek a just society through these [commandments]. Therefore a pure autonomy…is modified by the harness of obligation…

“[O]urs is an embedded or relational autonomy. In Judaism, while individuals are of inestimable value, our range of choices is harnessed by the fact that we are embedded in community and family and that we are governed and limited by our obligations both to the self and to others.”  

I love this shit. I believe whole-heartedly in it. I spent my life devoted to and loyal in my pursuit of it. So where the fuck is it.

I have expectations. Standards. From infancy, I have cherished and pursued that which is great, lofty, and noble. People might like to claim it is not possible, especially in a child so young. But to quote to the best of my memory a poem I wrote many years ago, “You live in murky waters, so you see me through the filter of your dirt.”

It is possible. And true. There exist in this world people who are genuine through and through, whose core value from a young age has been pursuing heart-felt connections, freedom, authentic love, and understanding. Nobody is perfect, but there does exist in the world those who prioritize and invest their energies into questioning, self-reflection, and improvement of the individual and collective selves. I am one of these people.

When I revolve my life around what this essay refers to as “’virtue’ – that is, the explicit seeking of good and noble behavior in every ethnical decision we make,” that antiquated value that has fallen by the wayside in favor of shiny BMWs and cosmetic surgery, and when the people and communities I love and cherish instead choose denial, ego, dominance, convenience, and that which is superficial, I feel utterly lost, confused, and bewildered.

Where am I. Who am I.

And here is where the struggle is lifting: I am recognizing that I am really, really different. And that there are others out there who are also really, really different and feeling equally alienated from their families, communities, and society at large. I am recognizing that I will always stand out against the backdrop of any crowd, like it or not. That just by the nature of being myself, I will always be the pot-stirrer, shit-kicker, trouble-maker. That I will get the strange looks. That what I say will usually be coming out of left field from most people’s point of reference. That most people may not see me when I am standing eye to eye with them.

And that it is OK.

In my sexual behavior, my behavior as a patient in the medical system, my behavior as a daughter in a traditional family, in whatever I do, there will be a tension between my desire to be an intimate part of that which is established and my refusal to take part in that which feels ingenuine or toxic.

I think what is shifting is that I am letting go of the struggle. I am accepting things as they are and actively seeking out my tribe wherever I find them. Perhaps the shift can be explained this way: I am letting go of my expectations, without lowering my standards. For example, I do not expect most men to get me or be able to sustain a relationship with my bodacious being. But I do not accept in my life anything less than a man who gets me and is thrilled to rise to the occasion of a genuine relationship with me over the years.

And so I was able to go to a party last night wearing exactly what I was wearing, without trying to “dress up” – a motley crew of a pin-striped white-and-blue Oxford shirt, funky white pants with a silver-studded peace sign on my ass, white jogging socks with white–and-blue sneakers, an orangey-red wool cape, a multi-colored wool purse from South America, and red glasses with a twist on the Cat’s eye look. I went up to random people and introduced myself, but I wouldn’t shake their hands, and I usually didn’t say why.

The reactions to me were varied. I won’t say I didn’t care when people seemed particularly uninterested in talking with me, but it also didn’t bother me all that much. My focus was on getting back out into the world, exactly as I was, without any attempt whatsoever to reconcile who I am and what is socially expected of me.

Perhaps my new serenity can be thought of as a truce: I am no longer expecting society to play by my rules (even though I whole-heartedly believe those rules are in society’s interest and even though society may in fact purport to play by those rules but fall short). But I still am not playing by society’s rules. Instead, I am putting forth my vision and thinking to all those who care to hear it and see it and join me in my path – whether through the way I physically walk through the world or talk among groups or put my thoughts into writing.

So I contacted the rabbi to talk about my feelings from a personal perspective, and she was very positive in her response. We met today to discsuss. I came as an individual in the community, period. I did not inform her of my two decades of ground-breaking work on Jewish multiculturalism. I did not send her ahead of time any of the plethora of articles I have written on the topic, for mainstream and Jewish periodicals. Nor did I send her a link to my bio, with its laundry list of prestigious institutions where I have offered Jewish multicultural seminars to educators and students, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.

I left all my credentials and body of work behind, arriving  metaphorically naked as the rabbi and I met for the first time. On the surface, everything was cool in our conversation. But somehow I left feeling shamed, angry, humiliated.

Part of it may be that before leaving, I offered her one of my babies — one of the last ten copies of my book, now out of print. Granted, I explained to her that I needed to lend it to her, rather than give it to her, for that very last-ten reason. Regardless, as I recall, she neither thanked me nor seemed particularly interested in the book. The vibe I got actually felt like something along the lines of irritation that I was asking her to read it. As I recall, the only comment she made was, “It’s great you have a book,” which was pretty much missing the point of both its existence and why I was handing it to her.

Other than that, I think the yucky emotional residue stemmed from me trying really hard not to challenge the rabbi in her thinking, but rather, to focus on her positive intentions. But I ended up walking away feeling as I had felt when I was 20 years old – following the extremely distressing meeting that instigated my becoming a Jewish multicultural educator. That day twenty years ago, leaving the Jewish Office at Columbia University, I promised myself that I would never again ask a Jewish community leader to please, please include non-European Jews in the presentation of Jewish life. Instead I would launch a movement demanding that inclusion.

And yet, there I was today, essentially making that request again. Which leads me to conclude that the only way I can intersect with the Jewish community is in fact as I have been doing it for two decades — as a professional Jewish multicultural educator. Becuase either way, I end up in conversations where I have to challenge (or suffer from) a whole lot of Euro-centric presumption. And at least in the latter capacity, I get paid for it.

Anyhow, I’m still processing this whole conversation and my feelings around it. I do believe that this rabbi had good intentions, and I genuinely appreciate that she took the time to meet with me. But I am left, yet again, wanting and — perhaps more importantly — expecting more from the leader of a progressive Jewish community. Because among other things, the closer that something hits to home, and the less home-like it actually is, the more it hurts.

The rabbi addressed the issue of the synagogue being predominantly Ashkenazi, and therefore, catering to an Ashkenazi audience (which in itself is a loaded comment, but I’ll save that for another time). “It just happened that way,” the rabbi said. “We didn’t intend to bring in any specific group.”

Right. But when the point of reference is white European, that’s who you are going to attract. (Well, that plus the assimilated or resigned non-white, non-European types.) It’s simple math. If you want to attract a different demographic, you have to change your way of thinking about, talking about, and practicing Jewish identity, history, cultural norms, and religious traditions.

Communicating allows the chance for transformation. To be heard, seen, understood, recognized. To grow. Communicating, sharing our innermost thoughts and feelings, allows magic to happen. As the ring on the finger of a guy I dated said, “Obstacles are opportunities for transformation.”

Of course that guy disappeared on me without communicating. So much for the ring. And the guy. But I firmly believe in that message, and I have lived it out in my life.

The problem for me is, most people don’t seem to be into that way of operating. Most people seem to be into shutting people out and caving in to fears and not risking authentic expression.

The deepest way someone can hurt me is by disappearing on me. Not only does it feel disrespectful to our friendship and to me, but it doesn’t allow either of us the opportunity to learn, to grow, to reach that transcendent nirvana state that lies on the other side of conflict.

I recently had a situation where a gal pal pulled some bullshit on me. Rather than being the one to communicate about it, I just said something along the lines of, “OK fine,” with an irritated tone. Not only was I half-asleep at the time, but I just didn’t feel like yet again being the one to do the communicating, certainly not in that moment. I’ll leave it up to her to raise the issue, I decided. Besides, I knew I always could discuss it down the line if and when I felt like it.

I’ve been in this place where I’m experimenting with treating relationships the way I treat my business, which is very pragmatic. In my professional life, I accept things the way they are and think how I can work a situation to my advantage, instead of crying about stuff that isn’t going the way I want it to. I move fast and furiously, like in some jacked up video game or military action, where you just go go go.

It’s too soon to tell if the gal pal has bailed ship, or if she just hasn’t come around to talking yet, but I was discussing the situation with my 12 step sponsor this afternoon. I expressed my frustration at my friend’s lack of communication initiative thus far. “But she is communicating,” my sponsor said.

Good point.

It’s true, and I’ll be the first to admit it: I think my ideas about communication are superior. I think that everyone will get along a whole lot better and be a whole lot happier if they do it my way. It’s basic. It’s simple. And it can save a whole lot of heartache and who knows, even wars:

1. Be honest with yourself.
2. Do your work to ensure that you can communicate clearly, effectively, and lovingly.
3. Express your authentic feelings, even when it’s scary.
4. Listen with genuine care to other people’s experiences.
5. Stick with the conversation process, even when it gets hard.
6. Acknowledge your part in a fucked up dynamic, apologize where it is appropriate, and do your work to clean up your side of the street.
7. Acknowledge your limitations, and state your boundaries clearly yet compassionately.
8. If you need to walk away, do so in a way that is clear and respectful.

I get it that I have expectations in relationships that other people did not necessarily sign up for. I get it that in a way, my being judgmental of other people’s styles of communicating (but seriously, slamming a door out of anger and saying everything’s fine? Are we really going to call that communicating?) is being disrespectful of their choices on some level.

But how about standards.

I’m thinking of it similarly to the whole fascism/democracy thing: In a fascist state, people with democratic ideas are not allowed to express those ideas. In a democracy, however, people with fascist ideas are free to express them (as long as doing so is not life-threatening, of course — the line of which is ripe with controversy).

 If you don’t want to communicate with me, fine. But can’t you just tell me that? And while you’re at it, can’t you just explain to me why?

I come from a long line of Iraqi Jews who do everything by subtle hints. When my seven Iraqi Jewish aunts did not want my mom running around barefoot, they all bought her shoes. My mom, a European-American mutt from the Midwest and South, thought they had some kind of shoe fetish. She kept thanking them for the shoes and continuing to run around barefoot.

I get the grace and sensitivity that can go hand in hand with more subtle forms of communication. You don’t burn bridges, you don’t out-and-out offend people, you don’t risk changing a dynamic, yada yada yada. But you also can confuse the hell out of people, create tons of misunderstandings, and lose opportunities for connection, growth, and the ecstasy that come with them.

Anyhow. I do see a place I can grow here: Recognize non-communication as a form of communication. Stop feeling mad at people for communicating in ways that in my book are dysfunctional and ineffective. Recognize their way as the way that works for them. Respect it, even if I think it’s idiotic. (Wait, am I respecting it, if I think it’s dumb?) And either stay the hell away from those people, or connect with them in a way that is cautious and, in my book, superficial.

Of course, I think that cautious and superficial connections are sad and boring and cheating everyone out of an amazing connection to Divinity. Which, seriously? Just feeds my recent hermit tendencies.

Decades of hurtful and antagonistic behavior on her part has left me wanting nothing to do with her and resentful that people keep calling her my sister and informing me of her latest shenanigans. These reports inevitably trigger me and leave me in some state of misery or other for hours, days, or weeks at a time.

So I did work with my 12-step sponsor on the issue of resentments. And wanting to be in charge of the show, which leads to butting heads with the universe.

I am pissed that my sister has behaved in ways that have had a ripple effect on my life – in other words, that do not allow me to quietly go my way. I am resentful of the way that people compare her and me according to superficial markers (like having a PhD or physically birthing a child) and go on to make all kinds of judgments based on these markers — drawing conclusions without knowing shit about her, me, or the back story.

I am pissed that we remain connected through a web of biological circumstance and cultural norms. And most of all, I am pissed that I cannot be part of her life. Because despite everything, I love her and miss her and would throw down my armor in a heartbeat. And I hate being reminded of it.

There is only so much narcissism, jealousy, victim mentality, and abuse that one can take before throwing in the towel. At some point, I had to accept that my sister’s behavior is toxic to my well-being, and I had to close the door. When people sledgehammer it open, they fuck with my sanity and serenity.

Why do people insist on treating biological relations as sacrosanct, despite circumstance? Wake up and pay attention to the staggering levels of family violence and to the extreme betrayal and dysfunction running rampant in family webs. Give people the choice to separate from those who are unhealthy for us, and let us live in peace with that decision. Respect it.

Why insist that we stay connected to people who are poison? Are we not far greater beings than our biological stamps?