There are certain activities we do with our kids that have special resonance because we feel we are handing on part of ourselves, our talents, or our history. It might be a holiday dish you make once a year that you share with the next generation. You might love passing on your knowledge of needlepoint or chess, or re-reading your favorite book. Beth Kissileff started a mother/daughter book club, which is a fantastic idea. If anyone else has done anything like this, please let me know at emma@thecomebackbook.com. I would love to share your experiences and your tips with other parents. Beth sent in the following essay about her first book choice and I love the way she analyzes her chosen book both from her persepective as an adult and a child.

The most fun part of having kids is getting to re-experience childhood. Watching Sesame Street, going sledding, eating gloppy chemically enhanced macaroni-and-cheese and loving the artificial orangeness of it, making your own Play Doh in completely surreal color hues with food coloring—and re-reading beloved books.

When a friend and I decided to start a mother daughter book group, I knew instantly what text we’d begin with. I adored Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins as a kid, so, without glancing at it as an adult, assigned it to the group.
What I remembered about reading the book as a child was the thrill of seeing how a girl survived on her own, without help from anyone else, on a deserted island. I carried a notion of the idyllic nature of life alone—no pesky younger brothers to tease you, or parents to nag. When I was a child, I thought the book’s protagonist had a great life.

I had forgotten how sad the book is. Karana, the protagonist, is left alone because her people need to flee the island they have lived on for centuries. Her father is killed by dishonest traders, and few adult males are left on the island after the battle. When the group decides to flee, Karana’s 6-year-old younger brother is accidentally left behind. She jumps from the boat with her entire people on it and swims back to the island where he is alone. The next day she finds his body—he has been killed by wild dogs.

Gruesome stuff for kids. And yet, the message of the book is an uplifting one, of survival and resilience. The heroine finds ways to save herself, and finds friends and companions among the companions. Karana even makes herself cool clothes—a fabulous cormorant skirt and sea-otter-cape outfit, accessorized with abalone shell necklaces and bone jewelry.
The interesting thing about the mother/daughter discussion was that the mothers liked the book much more than the daughters. Perhaps we know better than our kids the importance of resourcefulness, of being able to say to yourself in any situation, "I have everything I need to get by." Ultimately, isn’t that what we as parents want to bequeath to our children?

In the book, Karana realized that the wild dogs who have killed her brother have become bolder. She knew she needed to do something about the dogs if she is to live comfortably on the island. She set a fire and smoked a few dogs out of their cave and shot them with arrows. The leader was wounded, but survived. Karana took the wounded dog back to her compound, nursed him back to health, and made him her companion. This episode led to a discussion about the meaning of reconciliation and forgiveness. This was a dog who had killed her brother, yet she was able to make him her pet.

Karana is able to change herself in larger ways as well in her 18 years alone on the island. She overcomes her fear of making weapons, something that had previously been reserved for the men on the island. Being alone gives her opportunities to do things she would never have done otherwise.

One of the book’s most poignant moments occurs after Karana nurses a sea otter who has been wounded by hunters back to health. She decides that she does not want to do any unnecessary killing. O’Dell writes of Karana’s decision:

Ulape would have laughed at me, and others would have laughed, too—my father most of all. Yet this is the way I felt about the animals who had become my friends and those who were not, but in time could be. If Ulape and my father had come back and laughed, and all the others had come back and laughed, still I would have felt the same way, for animals and birds are like people, too, though they do not talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.

Perhaps it had been Karana’s sense of confidence that I had found so appealing when I was a kid. It is rare to find a girl so self-confident and in charge of designing her own life. She figures out, over the course of the book, how to take care of herself and enjoy her situation, making connections with animals and briefly, with a woman who accompanies a hunting party. I’d love to be able to shield my children from some of the horrid parts of life, but it is my job to equip them with tools for survival, so that they will always be able to say, "I can manage because I have the means to do this."

We don’t know what challenges lie ahead, for us, or for our children, but we can let them know that they are equipped to face them. Kids don’t have a sense of what difficulties they will be up against over the course of their lives. That, too, is one of the great joys of parenthood—seeing our children’s innocence and trying to let them have it as long as possible.

Beth Kissileff is the author of a forthcoming novel, Questioning Return. She has taught English literature and Jewish studies at Carleton College, the University of Minnesota, Smith College, and Mount Holyoke College. Her writing has appeared in The Forward, The Jerusalem Report, New York Jewish Week, Hadassah, Lilith, Zeek, Jewish Book World, and The Torah: A Women's Commentary. She loves to read with all three of her daughters.

Tags: book clubs, Island of Blue Dolphins, Play Doh, sesame street

I love lists. Here’s why:

1.They’re concise

2. They’re aesthetically pleasing.

3. They give me a sense of control.

Wendy Braitman shares my list love. On her website, firstpersonsingular.org, she has already given us 94 Reasons the Man I’m Dating Isn’t Right For Me followed swiftly by 94 Reasons Why the Man I Haven’t Met is Right For Me. If you enjoy writing neatly in a vertical column, send me your practical, silly or serious lists to emma@thecomebackbook.com. Meanwhile, for Your Comeback, Wendy has created a brand new list: Despite What My Mother Told Me, There is an Upside to Being Single.

Hair length is not up for discussion.

Your chores are your own.

The decision of when to leave parties is completely up to you.

You get to choose between the window and the aisle.

No in-laws to ingratiate yourself with.

Far less laundry.

Temperature in the house (and car) is exactly as you like it.

Flirt away!

No one to tell you not to wear that sheer blouse.

Music selection (and volume) is your call.

Your good mood isn’t at risk because of someone’s bad day at the office.

More time for hobbies.

No reason to account for those expensive shoes you just bought.

Closet space for those shoes.

You get to decide what movie to see, what time to see it, and where to sit.

Knowing those cookies you’re looking forward to will still be there when you want them.

Hope of new sex.

Sidestepping the expectation and ensuing disappointment when you’re not listened to.

Not compromising on your career path, even if that means being a workaholic.

A quiet night’s sleep.

Toilet seat is exactly where you left it. Down. And on that note, bathroom is cleaner.

No need to temper that obsessive love for your pet(s).

During the dark night of the soul, not having to wonder if you’ve settled.

Having loads of gay friends.

Vacations never need to include camping.

Recounting your sagas the way you want to, without fear of being corrected.

No bickering. Really. We don’t “bicker” with friends.

Along those lines, no reason to nag.

When that towel is on the floor, there is only you to blame.

If you want to be on time, be on time. If you want to be late, be late.

Not worrying that it somehow reflects badly on you when your spouse gains weight.

For those still getting newspapers: getting first crack at the sections you want

Not fretting over whether you’ll get a gift for important life cycle events.

No one holding a mirror up to your most annoying traits.

The most comfortable chair in your home is always available.

More room on the bookshelves.

You can sleep on a diagonal.

Expensive body wash lasts at least twice as long.

Way fewer crumbs.

There’s no one to answer, “Do I look fat in these pants?”

Wendy Braitman is a 20-year media veteran, who began her career in San Francisco as an on-air journalist and producer in radio and television.

 

Tags: firstpersonsingular.org, single life

Today's piece, from David Dawes, describes a situation that many of us will be able to appreciate. Having been born and brought up in a religion, he found it had little to do with his intellectual—or rational—understanding of the world as an adult. A trip to the Vatican and his father's illness made him aware that religion, prayer, and spirituality might have nothing to do his rational perceptions but were still vital to his life.

I've very much enjoyed all the thoughts on religion that you have sent in. Thank you everyone. We will return to this subject on a regular basis.

I was born into a Catholic family and baptized as a baby. I attended mass on Easter, Christmas, and maybe six or eight other Sundays each year. I fell in love with rationality as a teenager, did well academically, and convinced myself that rational analysis solved the issues that needed solving. I dropped the church, seeing it as an anachronistic collection of odd practices and ideas that had no utility for me.

It took me decades to realize just how much Catholicism determined my outlook. We are all imperfect; do unto others; be diligent; notice your mistakes and try to do better: I was still pretty Catholic in outlook, just not in practice. I also noticed I felt a little better during and after going to Mass, but since I mostly only went on Easter and Christmas, I chalked that up to the beauty of the service and the music. I didn’t think in terms of grace and exaltation at that time.

I married a Catholic woman who believed. She prayed for me to return to the church, and made sure our children got some indoctrination and took First Communion. I went to church due to her influence—I wanted to keep her happy.

In February 2001, I got to fly to Rome for a sales conference. I was able to go to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum of Religious Art. In the basement under St. Peter's, I saw a golden crucifix with a large multifaceted gem. It was simple and beautiful, and it touched me on some level I didn’t recognize. I tracked down a description and found that a jeweler and a gem-cutter had worked together to create and donate this to the church several centuries before. I now think that it touched me spiritually, that I felt grace just looking at it. The feeling was somewhat foreign to me outside of Mass, so I didn’t quite get it, but I felt it. With all the art and archeological treasures in Rome, I felt it repeatedly and powerfully.

My father suffered from scoliosis, which twisted his spine and then his ribs. This eventually left him paralyzed below the waist. As he recovered in the hospital, his kidneys failed. We were told he had a few weeks to live. I’ve never felt so helpless. My mother insisted that the doctors had told her to expect she could bring him home after 2 weeks, and she was going to do so. Being in a hospital and paralyzed was horrible for my father.

I couldn’t sleep; rationality was a joke. Rationally, my dad would be dead in 2 weeks. He’d never meet his grandson, never be around to talk to. I just couldn’t fathom it and couldn’t bear it. I tried to find a way out. What would my wife do? She’d pray. I hadn’t tried that yet, so I prayed. I felt grace and calmness as I prayed. I threw myself on God’s mercy, admitting I had no power, and prayed that Dad would live long enough to get to know his soon-to-be-born grandson. I was finally able to sleep, thank God.

Two weeks to the day after my father went into the hospital, my mother and brother went down to get him out. The nurses and doctors opposed the thought of my father leaving. Mom argued for eight hours that Dad preferred to die at home, then wheeled Dad out and brought him home.

Within days of returning, my father's kidneys kicked back in. His blood recovered quickly, and he was as fine as he was ever going to be as a paraplegic. He recovered enough to take the dog for runs down by the beach from his wheelchair. He attended my son’s baptism, and was able to get to know him for the first few years of his life.

Dad died years later after a full and happy life. His last years were progressively harder as his health issues mounted, and when he finally died, I was as ready for it as I was going to get.

Praying not only granted me the grace needed to endure his suffering; it also miraculously led to his cure. As a rationalist, I could explain away his recovery as a coincidence, a fluke, with nothing to do with my prayer. Somehow that didn't seem that likely any more. There is more to life than my earlier love of rationality had allowed me to believe.

As a therapeutic/creative effort, I occasionally try to write songs. The words are often not put together consciously; they just sort of bubble up. I consider myself to be a happy, well-adjusted person, but the song lyrics that bubble up are almost invariably downbeat and depressing. One day a particularly powerful verse (at least to me), which included the phrase “to try to fill the aching spiritual void,” bubbled up.

Wow! I thought. Do I actually have an aching spiritual void? The answer was obvious as soon as I thought about it. Without a spiritual life we are helpless—or at least clueless—in the face of the most important events in our lives. We don’t have the tools to understand or survive the worst that life can throw at us. Perhaps some see my need for higher meaning and spirituality as a crutch, but sometimes it’s hard to exist without our crutches.

Many things grant me grace: praying, Mass, confession, volunteering, being of service, experiencing art, accomplishing useful tasks, listening to a great performance, sharing, and loving. I am now a confirmed Catholic and I receive the sacraments available to me as frequently as I can. There is grace all around us, and we are finely tuned—dare I say evolved—to experience it if we don’t blind ourselves by oversimplification.

David Dawes: "I am a Seattle-area family man—with a wife love so much I married her twice and three wonderful children—and a software engineer and music- and robot-hobbyist."

Photograph of cross by Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images.

Tags: Catholic, Rome, scoliosis, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican Museum of Religious Art

I was the singles columnist for San Francisco’s Jewish newspaper, J Weekly, when, out of the blue, a reader wrote to me: "I have an amazing Jewish man for you to meet. He’s my husband’s best friend."

I was in my 30s, a single mom of a preschooler. Y. was a 44-year-old Israeli building contractor, gruff and charming. We went on a first date, a second, a third. I took the leap of love. When my friends cautioned that he’d never been married, or even lived with a woman, I waved off their concerns. Two years later, we couldn’t make it work.

During our painful breakup, I lashed out and hurt him—in my column, in black and white, for the entire local Jewish community to read all about. I was harsh. I said he was "good with animals and kids—but not women."

I said a whole lot more, but by the time the column ran, five months later, my kid and I had moved to another city. Still, the damage had been done.

Y. called me the day the column came out. Someone must have tipped him off, because he’d never read my columns before this. He called me "evil" and said that he’d never forgive me for hurting him in public.

His call was followed by an e-mail from the woman who’d introduced us. She reprimanded me for "trying to publicly shame and denigrate" Y. I responded right away and copied Y. on the message. I was sorry I hurt him, I wrote.

I never heard back from either one of them. It didn’t occur to me at the time to try a different way of reaching out.

After all, e-mail has become my primary means of communication. With it, I’m able to keep in touch with friends around the world. It’s fast, it’s concise, and because it’s about monologues, not conversation, it saves me an incredible amount of time.

But that convenience, I’ve begun to realize, has cost me something: closeness, intimacy, and genuine emotion. E-mail is factual, not authentic. Fingertips on a keyboard can never express nuance or capture the sound of a voice choking up.

Clearly, if I was ever going to mend fences with Y., I needed to find a better way to ask for forgiveness.

I put the question to Rabbi Mark Bloom of Temple Beth Abraham in California. "The main approach in asking for forgiveness is: any way you can," he told me. Then he explained that the key to connecting is face to face. Not Facebook.

"So much of technology can be misleading when we need to engage in deeper relationship issues,” added Rabbi Eric Weiss, executive director of the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center in San Francisco. "The speed of technology can sometimes be confused with the sincerity of communication."

If I was ever going to learn the lesson of forgiveness, I needed to start connecting in a more authentic way. I e-mailed Rabbi Bloom again and half jokingly suggested that we meet in person to discuss my problem. To his credit, he took me seriously and invited me over.

Sitting in his office, I felt a little as if I were in therapy. I explained my problem with Y., and he surprised me by saying he already knew; he used to follow my column (the shame!). We talked and talked.

And then, one afternoon not long after, I was driving past the marina where Y. often walked his dog. Just seeing the place made me heavy with sadness. So, I picked up the phone and dialed my ex. I asked if I could meet him.

We hadn’t spent more than five minutes together in the past year. But this time, we spent an hour walking and talking. There was no anger or blame.

"I’m really sorry," I said, looking into his eyes as I spoke the words.

"I’m sorry, too, Rach.”

Then he opened his arms. There’s no such thing as a hug online.

Photograph courtesy of Rachel Sarah.

Tags: rachel sarah, single mom seeking, single moms

My daughter Sasha and I walked the dog together last Monday night after dark. This would not be newsworthy but for the fact that it was the first time we’d done so in nearly six weeks.

My family lives in Harlem, on Sugar Hill, on the same block where our local serial rapist, who was finally caught on Sunday night, sexually assaulted and robbed his fourth and latest victim, by crawling through her bathroom window via a fire escape. That attack, aside from his weapon of choice, a knife, was an anomaly for our rapist. Normally he simply overpowered his victims as they were entering the front doors of their buildings.

Before we go any further, let’s just get a few facts out of the way: I was attacked multiple times in my early twenties, and the best way to deal with these assaults, as I’ve learned over the two decades since, is simply to list them in the order they occurred and move on:

1) Attempted rape by a man who broke into my college dorm room around lunchtime. I escaped. He was arrested but released on personal recognizance. He never showed up at the trial.

2) Robbed at gunpoint while with a male friend, by a man in the early evening on a quiet, safe street, as we made our way home from a dinner out.

3) Robbed at gunpoint by a man crouched in the back seat of a taxi at Penn Station, while his accomplice pretended to be the driver.

4) Sexually assaulted by three drunk men on a dark street. Lots of groping, no penetration. I beat one of them until his eye bled.

5) Date-raped by an acquaintance.

6) Sexually assaulted by an elderly rabbi whom I was interviewing about his friendship with Arafat. I tried to push him down a set of stairs; bystanders intervened.

I mention these random assaults not for shock value but for background. Women recover—or never recover—from these types of crimes in different ways, and my own road back to normalcy has taken the form of what from the outside might look like either denial or a devil-may-care attitude toward danger but from the inside is what I like to think of as a carefully calibrated distinction between calculated risk and actual risk.

I recently moved our family to Harlem, which would give us more space for less money, after noticing on an Internet crime map that the Upper East Side often has more crimes and rapes per square inch than Sugar Hill. I am nothing if not rational about what is worthy of my anxiety and what is not, and I refuse to live my life as if a giant bus is just around the corner, waiting to crush me the minute I step off the curb.

Or rather, I live my life understanding that a giant bus is around the corner waiting to crush me, but I have little-to-no control over where and when. For while my attackers may have stolen my innocence and peace of mind, they also gave me two gifts: knowledge that every ugly crime one can imagine, aside from murder, is survivable, and a realist’s ability to distinguish danger from DANGER!

Enter the serial rapist: not just the amorphous threat of a threat—the one that’s always there for us women, because of the vagaries of our reproductive physiology—but a real Threat with a capital T. In my neighborhood. Where my 12-year-old daughter’s job is to walk the dog after dinner.

So I took over that chore of hers, because I promised my husband when I brought the dog home—against his and our eldest son’s wishes, both of whom were vehemently against dog acquisition—that Sasha and I would do everything, and I’ve taken a certain pride in keeping that promise, in the same way my husband has taken a certain pride, from time to time, in breaking it. But after the third attack, when it became clear that the rapist was targeting the very sidewalks where my dog likes to do his business, I asked my husband to either walk the dog himself or to join me. It was after 10 p.m., and I was both scared to go out alone and angry that I was scared and, truth be told, humiliated to have to ask my husband to be my bodyguard.

So when he responded that he had too much work, well, you can imagine how well that went over.

“Are you kidding me?” I said. OK, shouted.

“Come on,” he said. “I married you because you’ve always been able to deal.”

“Yes, but there’s a serial rapist in our neighborhood!”

I hated the way I sounded. I hated my fears. I hated my husband for being immune to the danger. I hated having this fight. But I hated the rapist most of all. He—or rather the threat of him—was getting to all of us. My adolescent daughter most acutely, who felt hemmed in by the new restrictions over her movements, but even my 14-year-old son was spooked by the presence of all those news trucks and reporters on our sidewalks, while our 3-year-old, who’d often listen to his Peter and the Wolf CD before bed, suddenly decided, after the third attack, that the wolf was simply too scary.

My husband relented and walked the dog with me every night between attack No. 3 and last Sunday night, but neither of us were happy about it. Nor was my daughter, who used to enjoy her evening jaunts. A few days after the fourth attack, I was having lunch with my new neighborhood friends, Leah and Maude (not their real names), both mothers of sons. We were all trying to laugh it off—self-protection through black humor—until suddenly I blurted out, “Yeah, but I have a 12-year-old daughter!” and the three of us, for a moment, fell silent. Then Leah went back to trying to get me to laugh it off, albeit less jollily.

The day the story broke about the rapist’s capture, Leah wrote me an unnecessary email of apology for having made light of the situation after I voiced my fears. It was her way of coping, she said, because one time, years ago, a man had entered her bathroom window via the fire escape, raped her, and and kept her prisoner for the next five hours.*  (Note to self and to all city dwellers with fire escapes near tiny bathroom windows assumed to be impenetrable: If you’re going to go to the trouble to put bars on your big fire escape windows, go ahead and put bars on the little windows as well. Apparently, full grown men can squeeze through them.)

I was hoping to have been able to wait a few more years before talking to my daughter about what it means to be a woman in the world—that there are real and menacing dangers, and yet she can’t live her life as if they’re always out there—but I guess this period of actual danger has been as good a time as any to talk about the distinction. And Monday night, as the two of us walked the dog past the TV trucks, smiling and joking with all of our female neighbors, who were suddenly and unusually out in droves walking dogs, going for strolls, entering and exiting our neighborhood deli, the sense of sorority was palpable. Yes, of course there could have been a new criminal just around the next corner, waiting to pounce on any of us, but for that one moment in time, after our serial rapist was captured, we were all simply tickled to be out after dark without our menfolk, on the night before the fall solstice, with the still-warm breezes blowing through our hair.

“Thank God they caught him!” one woman squealed with delight, as our dogs sniffed each other's butts.

“I know,” I said. “We’re so relieved.”

*Correction, Sept. 26th: The original sentence incorrectly said that the rape continued for five hours.

Deborah Copaken Kogan is the best-selling author of Shutterbabe, a memoir; Between Here and April, a novel; and a newly released book of comic essays, Hell is Other Parents.

Tags: dog walking, Harlem, New York Ciry, Rape, Sugar Hill

My husband and I were both born and brought up Roman Catholic. We were educated in Catholic schools, married in the Catholic church and our children have been baptized and will receive Holy Communion. But Bill—who likes to decribe himself as a "collapsed Catholic"—doesn't believe in God or in life after death or in the very concept of religion, while I do. It's not something we fight about. Accepted or rejected, our religion gives us a common language, some cultural reference points, and a sense of tradition that we are both comfortable with. I'm keenly aware, however, that religion—like politics—can be a source of enormous conflict in a relationship. How do you live with a belief system that you passionately reject? How do you come to terms with customs that make no sense? How do you celebrate holidays without meaning? Today, Jessica Ullian describes how she and her husband found common ground.

On warm Friday nights, my husband and I often invite our friends over for a barbecue Shabbat dinner. We grill kosher hamburgers and chicken, drink lemonade, and use our hands to eat off paper plates. At some point, as the sun goes down, the two of us quietly step indoors, and he stands by my side as I light the Sabbath candles and say the prayer. Now and then, a chorus of voices—male and female—rises with mine when we sing the blessing over the candles with my parents. My family has always said the prayers together, man and woman, parent and child. I was well into my 20s before I learned that it’s not common or appropriate. The first time we celebrated a holiday with my parents and brother, my husband remained quiet when we all gathered around the flame.

Shawn and I are both Jewish, but over time, the places where our rituals diverge have led me to think of ours as an interfaith marriage, rich with both culture and the potential for conflict as we set out to form our own traditions out of those established by our families. Before I met Shawn, I thought of myself as more observant than average: I had been bat mitzvahed and could passably read Hebrew. I fasted on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and strictly adhered to a no-grain diet for the week of Passover. But when he came into my life, he introduced me to a new form of the Jewish faith, with rules and terms that were as foreign to me as those of a Catholic or Hindu. A friend, offering a kindly warning, once told me that depth of practice, not doctrine, is what makes or breaks a relationship. Years later, I think there is truth to his words. Our relationship once foundered, and nearly failed, over this issue. Yet our marriage today is strong, because we set aside the notion of different beliefs and searched for a faith that would be ours.

Eight years ago, the idea of a spiritual divide was unimportant: We were each other's high-school crushes, happily reunited through a chance encounter years after moving on to college and careers. I had left our hometown to become a journalist in New York; he had lost his mother to cancer and found solace through mourning with an Orthodox community. In our first months together, we were more than willing to make small sacrifices to see each other: he'd phone me on Friday nights after sundown to talk for hours, and I'd take the train back to Boston on Saturday mornings to see him when he came back from synagogue in the early afternoon.

As we moved past that early period, misunderstandings abounded, and resentments grew. The Friday phone calls ceased. Shawn thought it was a step forward; he was finally comfortable enough to explain his Sabbath rules to me. But I only knew that where once he wanted to talk to me every day, now he needed to be out of communication for 24 hours each weekend. The fact that he was not visibly observant in other ways—he didn't wear a skullcap or tzitzis fringe, ate at non-kosher restaurants, and, thanks to his French-Canadian father, had blond hair and blue eyes—further confused me. Some rules clearly mattered, while others didn't, and no guide from the Israel Book Shop in his neighborhood could explain why.

More discoveries emerged. I learned the Friday night happy hour he'd attended with my friends early on had been an anomaly. Normally, he explained, he wasn't even willing to enter a bar on the Sabbath. The cold leftovers we ate when I visited him on Saturday weren't for convenience's sake; he wouldn't light the stove to reheat the food or make a cup of coffee. In the winters, when night fell early, he would be lost to me for the Sabbath before I even got home from work. Summers, when sundown came late, meant that we couldn't make plans for Saturday night until well after 9.

We stayed together, bound by the idea that finding each other after letting our high-school friendship wane meant something. Then his stepfather died unexpectedly, and Shawn embarked on the traditional 11-month mourning period, during which he prayed at synagogue three times a day, and avoided television, movies, music, and parties. I stayed with him. When his mourning was done, I left. In mourning, he had again moved further into the world of the Orthodox, and I feared to follow would mean giving up too much. Our differences could no longer be packaged into one weekly 24 hour period and set aside.

A year later, we reconciled for the reasons that people in love do—laughter, trust, passion, affection—but we had not yet reached a resolution on our faiths. Another friend, when I told her of our reunion, said, "Fool me twice, shame on me."

But there was a difference, now: Neither of us considered a second break-up an option. Unless we were willing to commit to each other for good, there was no reason to get back together at all. This time, we took our relationship as bashert—the Judaic idea that a man and wife are selected for each other by a higher power, long before birth. It proved to be the step toward unity that changed our approach to our religion and to one another. We had a responsibility to figure this out together, to choose a faith that would be neither his nor mine, but ours.

Today we make decisions about what we practice by asking each other what the rules mean to us, not to the Jewish people, or to God. I understand that Shawn doesn't celebrate Shabbat only because it's a commandment; he celebrates because he needs a break from his two businesses, his commute, his BlackBerry that buzzes day and night. In turn, Shawn understands that a prohibition against cooking on Saturdays doesn't offer any respite for me; our time spent together in the kitchen on those mornings is a shared joy we both look forward to all week. Our Friday night dinners are a time of prayer and reflection, as well as an opportunity to enjoy our friends, our food, and our home in a way we rarely find time for on other nights. (Technology has made our lives easier, too: I can program our dishwasher before sundown on Friday, host dinner for twelve, and wake up to a relatively clean kitchen the next day.)

Our wedding took place on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend in 2007, in the backyard of my parents' home on Cape Cod. We hired a kosher caterer, and had a barbecue. Everyone agreed that the all-beef hot dogs were fantastic, and the chocolate mousse a marvel of non-dairy proportions, in keeping with the prohibition against serving milk and meat in the same meal. The traditional seven blessings recited by our friends were adapted from a Web site specializing in interfaith marriages.

This is not to say that we've figured it all out. ("We need to have a mezuzah on every doorframe? Every single one?" I asked incredulously when we moved into our first home.) There are days when I grow frustrated by the prospect of missing a Friday night party, and times when Shawn unhappily meets the demands of the secular world and breaks the Sabbath. We don't yet have children, and we know that will send us into entirely unexplored territory, replete with more warnings from well-meaning friends.

Yet excitement now trumps our uncertainty. No label—reform, Conservative, or Orthodox—describes how we live, and there are rules we cannot help but break at times. There are Judaic principles we share, and areas where we disagree. But finally, we know what we believe: that our Sabbath table is a place where differences can be shared and celebrated. That we will honor each other’s families and traditions, even when they conflict with what we prefer or believe is right. That when any number of voices rise in thanks and praise, we are too lucky and blessed in each other to stay quiet. We believe in bashert. We sing together.

Jessica Ullian is currently an editor at Boston University's alumni magazine. She holds an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and an MFA in creative writing from Boston University

Tags: bashert, Judaism, Religion, Shabbat

We're married!

As predicted, it happened. The wedding day was perfection. From the moment I woke up on that Sunday until I fell asleep next to my husband, I was one happy nuptial clam. I had a donut and large iced coffee for breakfast. I made multiple trips in my family's golf cart. I tied pompoms on the pier and roof with the help of my bridesmaids. I got dressed with my sister and my best friends, I was photographed with my beloved family, and then I married Dan! We exchanged vows and rings, kissed, took more pictures, ate a delicious dinner, and then danced and danced, and talked and smiled. As friends have begun posting photos on Facebook, we both keep commenting on how happy we look. It's terrific to realize that you looked as happy as you felt.

The wedding day was wonderful. My parents were thrilled with everything,and my in-laws had a fabulous time. Friends and family sang during the "talent portion" of the party and beautiful toasts were made. I might be biased, but it was a wonderful wedding—a fabulous way to begin a marriage.

I made a vow, a week before the wedding, not to worry about anything. I reflected on my (albeit brief) yogic past and thought, "I will ride these emotions like waves, I will not worry about a thing; events will happen and that will be the way they happen." And you know what? I miraculously stuck to it. However, and this is a big however, not everyone else made that vow. Keep that in mind as I segue into "the week before the wedding," which will forever be a distinct time in my brain.

Imagine the following: travel, lots of money being spent, emotions running high, exes thrown together by mutual friends, and families spending time together. It's stressful. Even if it's for a wonderful occasion, it's stressful.

It was remarkable. If you had asked me to sit down and make a list of the hot-button emotional topics in each wing of the family, I would have written down the very issues that came up the week before the wedding. In addition to the above "emotions running high," I should mention that the week of the wedding everyone stopped sleeping. I might not have been worrying, but I was also not sleeping. I took sleeping pills a of couple nights and still woke up, alert and ready to go at 6 a.m. That might not sound early, but when you're going to bed at 1:00 a.m., it's not quite enough sleep. Especially if you are me. Other members of my family fared even worse, averaging three hours a night. As any overtired 4-year-old knows, you are more likely to cry if you haven't had a nap.

I'm not going to get into too much detail here because I am related to everyone I'm talking about (either by blood or law), but let's just say the week before the wedding had plenty of bumps. Some were interpersonal, some were hardware-related, and some were both interpersonal and hardware-related. And there I was, riding them out like waves. At one point my sister asked me what I was going to do about a particularly sticky situation that had arisen. "I'm not going to worry about it," I said. "Maybe you should," she said. Dan handled that situation. I'll be honest: I had a couple of ... edgy moments and said a couple of sharp things that were not very "wave-riding" of me, but, hey, emotions were running high, and I apologized afterward. I'm sorry again, Mom.

But, like magic, all of the drama evaporated Sunday morning. Everyone was excited, happy, and most importantly, relaxed. And we all just rode that wave all the way in, if you will.

I'd like share my best advice about wedding days:

1. Hire a "Day-of Coordinator." If you have a full-time planner, then never mind, but if you don't, please hire one. This person works as a stage manager, herding the bridal party around, timing things with the caterer and photographer, telling the bride to relax, and cuing the aisle-walking. Our DOC, Kerrie Underhill, was terrific and allowed all of the Moloneys to relax and enjoy the day—tables were set up, flipped, put away while we we're busy hugging and kissing.

1a. Relax and trust the Day-of Coordinator. It's his or her job to make the wedding happen, not yours.

2. Enjoy yourself. Enjoy the ceremony! Enjoy the party, if you're the type who enjoys parties. I was told to "be present" so many times that during the ceremony that I was actually thinking, "Be present, be present," and so I had to relax my mind a little. I looked around, smiled at Dan, at my family in the front rows, and listened to the poem our dear friend read (Frank O'Hara's Having a Coke With You). Remember: You aren't performing; this is a ceremony with your favorite people (or as many of them as you could fit in your venue), and you shouldn't be worried about messing anything up. Look at how Zen I am.

3. Take your pictures before—if you are doing formal portraits, that is. If you are signing a Ketubah, you will no doubt do this, but if you are having a secular wedding (as we did) or a non-Ketubah-signing wedding, you can choose to do the traditional reveal at the altar or do a "first look" before the ceremony, and then get all the big group shots out of the way. You will probably want to spend some time at your cocktail hour (gin-and-tonics and short ribs, anyone?), and this way you aren't away from your own wedding for an hour or so after the ceremony.

4. You should go on a honeymoon. I mean it. If you think that's silly or expensive then allow me to rephrase: You should go on a trip right after your wedding with just your spouse. It doesn't have to be far away or luxurious—in my opinion, those things are added bonuses, but a tent—a tent far away from your cell phone and your to-do list—would suffice. Heck, that might better suit some outdoorsy types.

One assumes that honeymoons, for a long time, existed as an opportunity to have sex with your partner for the first (and then second, third, fourth ... ) time. But even if you've been living with your spouse for years, you should have a honeymoon.

By 4:00 p.m. the day after the wedding, I had a full-blown cold. This is what I like to refer to as a "closing night cold." My body holds off whatever sickness is trying to make an appearance until I don't have anything to do. Except fly to Hawaii. We were completely wiped out, physically as well as emotionally. Weddings might be the happiest day of your life but let me tell you, if you're looking to unwind, they're a terrible option.

And if your prenupital lead up was anything like mine, you will have barely seen your new spouse. You will have both been entertaining out-of-town friends and family,often simultaneously and separately. And now! Now you are married! You are each other's next-of-kin! You'll want to celebrate that privately, luxuriate in your new status, as well as gossip as husband and wife about the party.

You will also want to sleep.

We flew to Maui, rented a car, went to our hotel, had a snack and fell asleep at 6:45 p.m. Hawaiian time. We woke up at 6:15 a.m. It was great. We had decided to splurge and stay at the Four Seasons Waliea. They had a great promotion and we decided to go for it. We saved up money. Let me tell you, the FS Waliea is the bee's knees. They knew it was our honeymoon, so we were upgraded (to an ocean view), there was chilled champagne involved, and everyone called us Mr. and Mrs. OurMarriedName, which was good practice. I tried out referring to Dan as "my husband," which went well. When you are tired enough to go to bed at your 7-year-old self's bedtime, you'll realize how glad you are not to have opted for a grand tour of Western Europe or hiking trip.

A honeymoon is also a good time to realize that your husband's wedding band is too big and should stay safely in the room while you swim in the ocean.

It's also a wonderful time to just smile at each other and repeat "We're married!" over and over. After the prewedding craziness and then the actual wedding, it's wonderful to be reminded of what that was all about: you and your partner spending your life together. It doesn't hurt if that journey starts on white sand.

PS: I realize that it is a luxury that we are married, and not everyone in America has the right to marry their partner, something I wish were different.

Photograph courtesy of Bridget Moloney.

Tags: Four Seasons Waliea, Hawaii, honeymoon, Kerrie Underhill, Maui, wedding

Federal law says it is illegal to refuse to hire a woman because she is pregnant. But how does the law work in Hollywood? Heather Kristin lost a job as an extra when she told the casting director she was a few weeks pregnant. She recounts the experience and her reaction to it below. Like many women, Heather made the best of a bad situation, taking the opportunity to revaluate her life choices. Should she have had to? You tell me.

“Would you be interested in extra work on Sex and the City 2 tomorrow?” the casting director said on the phone.

“I’d love to,” I said, practically jumping out of the shoes I had been trying on inside the apartment I shared with my husband. Over the past 15 years, I had worked steadily with her casting agency and was excited to return to my favorite set.

“I’ll call you later with the call time and what outfit you should wear,” she said.

“By the way, I’m pregnant. Only a couple of months. No belly yet.”

“Wait a sec,” she said, putting me on hold.

“I’m every woman,” sang Whitney Houston full blast on the other end. My heart quickened. Why was I on hold for so long? Was my first pregnancy an issue?

Minutes later, she returned to the phone, “Sorry, sweetie, I can’t risk it. My friend blew up at three months, and tomorrow’s filming is an office scene with three women. You’ll definitely be seen on camera. I’m gonna have to find someone else.”

Seen on camera. At last, my dream come true.

“But,” I pleaded. “I can still fit into my size 6 jeans from Forever 21!”

“No, no. I can’t risk it.”

“Look, seriously, I’m 123 lbs,” I said, adding an extra pound in case I gained one during the night.

“No. I’ll call you sometime.”

And like a bad breakup over the phone, I hung up and felt numb.

Refusing to accept my expanding belly, I stripped off my clothes, shoes, and hopped on the scale—something I never do at noon, after eating.

The digital screen flashed 122 lbs.

I shifted my weight and the numbers stayed the same. I couldn’t believe I had lost a job because I was 5'6" and 122 lbs. Besides being discriminated against, I felt rejected. Only weeks ago, I was a photo double for Jennifer Lopez’s unpregnant co-star, wearing a designer dress, riding in a Rolls Royce, and on another set dined with Pierce Brosnan at the Plaza Hotel. I still remember at age 8 my first extra job on the set of Sophie’s Choice, eating cotton candy at Coney Island and waving to Meryl Streep.

Were those days of walking between the star’s shadows and pretending to be someone else really over?

Clearly seeking validation, I logged on to Facebook and scanned my photos of when I had worked as Kristin Davis’ stand-in on the HBO series Sex and the City. Back then, I wore overalls and weighed 130. For years, I filled up at the craft service table on set and worried about gaining more weight. But I didn’t fear losing my job, because Charlotte’s character wasn’t supposed to be the skinny one. That was left to Sarah Jessica Parker, and when she became pregnant in real life, the crew worked around her situation. Day after day, I watched her belly grow and wondered what it would be like to have one of my own.

Even though it felt like a lifetime ago, some part of me (maybe the growing part) wanted closure on my fantasy-filled career where brownstones were lit, streets shimmered, and crews powdered noses for close-ups. Again it was like a bad breakup. I needed one last goodbye.

But who was I? The career that had defined me was being threatened, and I wasn’t a mother yet.

I checked Facebook again. In a moment of sheer desperation and insanity, I vented about losing the job and posted my weight for everyone to see.

One friend wrote: “You had sex in the city and now you’re pregnant.” End of story. End of episode. Yikes! Was I ready to accept the consequences?

Another friend wrote: “What would Carrie do?”

Carrie Bradshaw would put on her best outfit, go shopping, and grab a cosmo with the girls. So that’s what I set out to do, minus the alcohol. I headed for Herald Square, listened to Gershwin on my iPod, and tried on size 6 outfits at H&M, BCBG, and Forever 21. I looked fabulous, but also bloated like I'd had a few too many nights out. Then I reminded myself that the small bump on my belly nurtured a baby, not cocktails.

I entered a maternity store and tried on something Carrie would never wear: an oversized beige sweater. As I paraded back and forth in the mirror, I couldn’t imagine fitting into it anytime soon.

A pregnant lady with kind eyes walked over to me and said, “Here. Try this,” And she handed me a pretend belly. “You strap it on and you can tell what you’ll look like in three months.”

I blushed, thanked her, and wrapped it around me. I was huge, and it was fun to pretend again. Except this time, my make-believe belly was going to be a reality soon. It struck me; I wasn’t forever 21 and was being forced to grow, inside and out.

After dinner, I crawled into bed with my husband. But I couldn’t sleep. I felt my bump and climbed out of bed. 'Til sunrise, I re-read a few dozen scripts that I had collected from my days working on Sex and the City.

As I read, I realized the industry is never going to change, but I could. It was time for me to live a different kind of life. Instead of walking around in the background, behind some movie star, listening to them recite their lines—my own stories are worth telling. I was finally ready to move forward and reinvent myself, even with a baby wrapped around my expanding hips. The next morning, I enrolled in a memoir workshop and decided to follow Carrie’s footsteps—not in her Manolo Blahniks, but as a writer.

Heather Kristin is working on a memoir about performing at Studio 54, playing the violin on street corners, auditioning for Pee-Wee Herman, being home-schooled, and homeless—all before age 11. She hopes to write a follow-up memoir about love and the city in times of change.

Correction, September 27, 2009: the original version of this article said that Heather Kristin was an extra for Charlotte in the Sex and the City sequel and that she was fired. She had previously been a stand-in for Charlotte, and she was not fired. She was not hired after she informed the casting director of her pregnancy.

Tags: Carrie Bradshaw, Manolo Blahniks, sex and the city

Many of us instrinctively pray when going through periods of adversity. Others find that tragedy can cause them to lose their faith. Religion can be a source of real comfort when a wife loses her husband. When her husband was killed nine years ago, Melba Simons Brown found that her most sustaining form of support came from her belief in God. She could lean on her faith and draw strength from it. She descibes her experience below. I'm interested in hearing from anyone else whose life experience has affected her religious belief. If your faith has been strengthened or weakened by a period of emotional turbulence, write to me at emma@thecomebackbook.com. Just put "religion" in the subject line.

There is a place in Fort Worth, Texas, called the WARM Place. WARM is an acronym for "What About Remembering Me." It is a place for grieving children and their families. I was a client at the WARM Place. Every other Wednesday night for 18 months, I sat in a room with 12-20 other adults sharing tragic stories of loss. I would say, "My name is Melba. I lost my husband Steve on August 28, 2000, in a military aircraft accident. I'm bringing up my two girls, Meredith and Bethany." Nobody ever wanted to walk through the door at the WARM Place. Anybody who ever did was glad it was there. It is a place of healing. Healing hurts.

When my husband died, he was 41. I was 39, and my girls were 10 and 13. If there was ever an ideal family, we were it. My husband was the kindest man I have ever known. On the day he died, I said to my girls, "I have had more joy with your Daddy in 17 and 1/2 years than most people experience in a lifetime. When he gets home tonight, I'm gonna' tell him that." He didn't come home that night, or any other night after that.

After many days of being surrounded by family and friends while preparing to remember and celebrate Steve's life with the final farewell of burial; we were left alone. We were still very much loved and supported by friends checking in, mowing the lawn, cleaning the pool, bringing meals, and sharing tears, but we were alone.

I hated to be asked "How are you?" I know that phrase is uttered with the utmost respect and concern. I know that it is a very natural query. But the only answer that anyone is expecting is "I'm good." I was not good. I felt like I had been run over by a bus, a train, a car, a truck, and a plane. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, and I couldn't think straight. My head hurt, my back hurt, my neck hurt, my stomach hurt, and my heart hurt—but other than that I was good.

Before the accident, I had never read anything about grief. Somehow, I knew without being told that we had to grieve. In order for us to get to a healthy place, we had to experience the raw gut-wrenching emotion of missing and remembering the man that we loved, so that we could be whole again. In my very great sorrow, I did not want to miss out on the joy of the daily life that I had always experienced with my girls. I knew that I had to grieve, and that I would strive to place the joy of motherhood on a higher plane than the sorrow that permeated my life, my body, and my home. I learned that joy and sorrow can reside in the same heart. I had not known that before. I had never before been sad.

I have long known that I am a strong woman. I have often wondered when I was given this strength. I know it is a gift from God, and I am grateful; but when did it arrive? Was it bestowed upon me at birth, or was it acquired through 17 years of marriage to a man who loved to fly fighter jets, a man who loved to travel, a man who left the ground every time he went to work, a man who delighted like a little boy in aerial dogfights at 30,000 feet?

Grief is a long hard road, and strength is a faithful friend. In the many hard, lonely days, weeks, and months after the accident, there was never a day that I wanted to stay in bed. I wanted to get out of bed. I wanted to parent and enjoy my children. I was determined to be happy, again.

I read Jeremiah 29:11. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." That's where I laid my faith. I could look forward to the future. I had been promised that there would be good and prosperous days ahead. God said it, and I knew it was true.

Many times since then I have said, "I learned many things that I never wanted to know." Some of the lessons were about daily living, and others were more far reaching. I have learned that life isn't always fair; but God is always good. That life is short, and joy and sorrow can reside in the same heart. I have learned to live my life on a different plane. On this plane, I don't fret when the refrigerator breaks down, the lawn mower won't start, or I spill 48 ounces of blended fruit all over the kitchen. I live on a higher plane, and I live, looking forward to heaven!

I would encourage someone who is grieving to see a counselor. For me, counseling was a place to "vent," and I was regularly reassured that I was not crazy. I would encourage a griever to read about grief. I read voraciously, and it cast a light upon my darkened path. Reading put courage into my sad heart. I would recommend that you cry every tear that wants to fall, to weep and wail, and to lay down in the floor and sob until there is nothing left to spill. I would advise you to delay important decisions for a minimum of one year.

I contend that there is another side to grief. There is a place of equilibrium. There is life after loss. It is not an easy path, and I would wish it on no one; but it is a very real destination. It can be reached through fervent faith, intentional grieving, and a strong determination to be happy again.

Melba Simons-Brown, a graduate of Texas Tech University, lives near Chicago with her second husband and his teenage son. Her daughters are now in college. Melba enjoys reading, sewing, bicycling, and travelling to see her daughters.

Photograph courtesy of Melba Simons Brown. Photograph of a cross on homepage by Stockbyte.

Tags: counselor, God, Jeremiah, widow

Infidelity, sexual intrigue, lying, cheating—these are the forbidden words of marriage. But is it still realistic to expect wives to remain faithful to their husbands? Kate Morris is an English writer who turned the age-old assumption that men stray while women stay put on its head in her novel, The Seven Year Itch, which this summer became one of the U.K.'s hottest beach reads. The book is currently waiting for U.S. publishers to fight for the right to bring it out here, but meanwhile, you can buy it here. Below, Kate explains why her own life experience prompted her to explore this touchy subject in fiction.

It was about six months after my seventh wedding anniversary when I became aware that I was finding random men attractive. I was interested in nearly every man I met, including my son’s gay headmaster. Before marriage I had been very discerning, but after seven years of marriage, it was a different story.

What was going on? Perhaps it was because my children were out of nappies and I no longer felt like a joint proprietor of a small, noisy nursery school. Perhaps I was worried about growing older and wanted to be admired. Conversations with my husband had become predictable. We no longer talked about art or literature or film; we talked timetables and children. One lunchtime, I realized with shock that we were both scheduling operations, him something to do with his knee, and me a hernia. It was all so mundane, unsexy, and middle-aged. To make sense of it all, I began to write a fictional column for Tatler magazine in England. The woman I invented had been married seven years and inevitably looked outside her marriage for love, something I didn’t dare do.

My agent suggested and sold the idea for my novel, The Seven Year Itch. I began to think more about the subject from a woman’s point of view. Why is that men have traditionally been the ones to stray from their marriages? Is it because when a couple divorces, the average income of the woman often plummets by 20 percent or more, while the man’s stays the same or in some cases rises? The assumption is that after women start a family, they want stability for the sake of their children. Women may daydream about having affairs, but they don’t actually go searching for men. They don’t want to deceive their families. And when would they find the time or the energy to skulk around bars? Is it simply that their sex drive isn’t as strong as a man’s? I wanted to write about what happens when a woman does follow her heart. What are the consequences?
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I have a friend who has recently taken a lover. She is not married but is in a long-term relationship, and has four children and a stressful freelance job. She says her relationship is stale and she is enjoying the attention that the new man gives her. Her partner doesn’t know yet. I have another friend who has been married for about 15 years and has not had sex for two. She describes her husband as white, flabby, and sweaty, and does not want to have sex with him, although she loves him and feels lucky to be married to him, as they get on very well. He has rejected her sexually, and she has learned to live within a sexless marriage and no longer even wants to have sex with him. But the other day, she confessed that she had asked a single girlfriend to find her a lover.

There is no doubt in my mind that women enjoy the thrill of the chase, the intrigue, and the passion of a new affair, just like men, but are more concerned with saving the sanctity of their marriages and keeping it together for the children. It’s unlikely that they are going to seek out extramarital sex, or meet someone on an airplane and take off, leaving their children behind. A married girlfriend of mine lost her husband to a woman he met on an airplane. He’s a documentary maker and travels all the time. He has left three children and a devastated wife and even moved countries to be with his new girlfriend.

Ellie, the character in my book, takes a lover, but only for one weekend, and she knows it's wrong but feels justified. Her husband, Jack, is an actor, who has been made redundant from a daytime soap, and he’s now under her feet and suffocating her with his demands. At the time I was writing the book, I didn’t have any female friends who had conducted affairs, but I could imagine Ellie’s frustration. She has been a stay-at-home mother for a year or two. The last straw is when she goes into Gap and hears herself saying, “It’s a shame you don’t do those shirts with the teddy logos any more.” But Jack does not support her idea to start a business, even though they now need the money. The book is a chastening tale and had a surprising ending that some people were disappointed by and others loved.

Maybe if all marriages could get back on track, after infidelity, perhaps the odd liaison would enliven a stale marriage. I don’t have the answers though. I just don’t know.

Kate Morris lives in London with two children, Jude, 8, and Belle, 5, and her husband, Luke, a photographer. She has published two novels and is currently just starting work on a third. She blogs at Easy Living Magazine.

Tags: infidelity, marriage and commitment, The Seven Year Itch