The Power of Perseverance: Lessons from a Dreidel

Posted on May 31, 2024 by dinafried

My 20-month old grandson, Manu, has become obsessed with his dreidel, a toy top typically played with on the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah for “gelt,” which are coins or coin-shaped pieces of chocolate.

But Manu doesn’t know about chocolate, yet. And he’s shown no interest in the letters on the dreidel, which traditionally determine whether you win or lose, depending on where the dreidel lands. In fact, he rarely waits for the dreidel to land. For him, the joy is in the spinning.

“Spin it here!” he shouts, trying out his toy stove, my knee, the couch, the piano. “Grandma, spin it!”

Photo by Shel Horowitz

I never knew a dreidel could spin so well on upholstery.

He also tries places that never work: the curved handle on the umbrella stroller, the side of the bookshelf, the pointy roof of a Lego block. There is a thing called gravity–LOL.

But Manu doesn’t mind at all. He picks up the fallen dreidel and hunts around for another cool place to launch an attempted spin.

His optimism is a good lesson in not being afraid to try out what might seem impossible. This week I took my first tentative steps toward diving into a longer project, another YA novel. Writing bland and sketchy prose, I tried to let the characters in my head take their first few breaths on stage, figuring they’d reveal more about who they really were when they got to trust me–and I, them. My five handwritten pages are looking very much like the beginning of a “shitty first draft,” as coined by Anne Lamott in her wonderful book, Bird by Bird—a must-have for any aspiring (or semi-established) writer.

And from Manu’s perseverance I’ve learned something about approaching work that’s past the “shitty-first-draft” stage. Just as he refuses to be put off by places the dreidel won’t spin, I need to do a better job on not giving up so quickly on places where my writing doesn’t sing. Often I can substantially improve a piece by finding a better verb (or sometimes noun or adjective). If a word sounds flat to me–either too overused, not clear enough, or having a sound that clashes with everything else, I can painstakingly search for a word that comes closer to what I’m seeking. And I’m not at all ashamed to admit that my best buddy in this process is a fabulous on-line thesaurus called wordhippo.com, which breaks each word down to its possible meanings, and gives quick and clear definitions of the alternative selections to prevent me from falling further into the muck.

Who would have thought I could have learned so much from spinning a dreidel. I guess, as the words on the dreidel say–a great miracle happened here.

Humility and Spiders

Aside

My grandson, Manu, has become obsessed with the Eeentsy Weentsy Spider. We’ve spent large chunks of the last three days singing the song and looking at a small strand of spider web dangling from the hallway ceiling. “That’s the eeentsy weentsy spider’s house,” I tell him. He doesn’t seem to mind that the spider isn’t there, or that I’ve chosen not to reach up and grab the web for him. I think it’s the idea of a spider and a spider web that intrigues him more than the actuality. In fact, today, I couldn’t find the spider’s web at all, but it still didn’t stop him from looking longingly at the ceiling and talking about the spider as if it were there.

I’m impressed with his ability to switch gears to imagination when reality is less satisfying–a common attribute of children that we often lose as adults. Sometimes, I still miss the imaginary friends I had when I was three (maybe because they loved me unconditionally and there were never any relationship issues to work out, LOL!) But when I can access it, imagination has served me well in getting out of my stuck writing places, especially when I’m trying to fictionalize something that had its origin in a lived experience. The further I can get away from what really happened, whether that’s changing everything I can about a “character’s” appearance and demographics, altering the setting, re-thinking alternative ways the chain of events could have played out, etc., the freer I am to get past my own vulnerability to the emotional truth of the story I want to tell.

Tim Green from Bradford, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

And then, of course, it’s hard not to think about spiders without conjuring Charlotte’s Web, which we must have read to our daughter (Manu’s mom) at least ten times–before she was old enough to read it to herself at least ten more times. And I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen the movie. The book is about a pig on a farm who befriends a spider, who saves him from becoming ham and bacon by writing words in her web: “Some Pig,” “Terrific,” “Radiant,” and “Humble.”

Of these words, the one that sticks with me (with web-like sticky threads) is “humble.”

Having two books come out in the last six months has been a challenge to maintain what I consider an appropriate level of humility, especially as book marketing experts encourage me to scream, scream, scream from the social media rooftops and spend my days looking for places to plaster my “products” anywhere they might be seen.

And that is SO not my style.

I admit I may have a problem with too much humility, which the Mussar (a Jewish spiritual learning paradigm) equates with a tendency toward self-effacement. Yet, even posting about recent things I’m proud of (like getting short listed for the grand prize and winning first runner up in short stories for the Eric Hoffer Award, or doing a podcast about Here in Sanctuary–Whirling on the Bill Newman Show, or announcing/sharing upcoming readings or poems that were accepted in various journals feels like I’m on the edge of too little humility (equated in the Mussar as arrogance).

But, hey…I just got that all in, even if it was back-handed.

I don’t want this to be another “Dina Kvetches about Marketing” post. So, I’ll just say what I said to my friend, Alice, when we were studying the Mussar together: I want my writing to be recognized for what it’s saying and how it’s saying it. I don’t want it to be about me. In other words, it’s the message, not the product, and I’m not really interested in me or my books being thought of as commodities.

And if all this is just rationale for more self-effacement, I’ll counteract it right now by sharing a poem from Here in Sanctuary–Whirling, because it’s about a spider.

NOTE FROM THE AIR BNB IN TEXAS
“Please Don’t Kill the Spider”

He has a name: Septimus
because he lost a leg somewhere.

You might find him by the toilet.
Don’t shriek as you do your doo.

His poison is all in your head.
Didn’t you read Charlotte’s Web?

Humble is the word that matters.
Confront your failings. Take a selfie

if you’re lucky enough to spot him.
And put on your boots, hat.

This is cowboy country
land of brash bravado.

Where’s your gun?
A spider could be lurking under your pillow.

Unseen children taken at the border:
their parents’ lost limbs.

When in Doubt, Go Out

Posted on May 10, 2024 by dinafried

Back when my children were young, and my partner and I struggled to keep them entertained, our motto was always, When in Doubt, Go Out. Even when the weather was nippy, it was worth the struggle to get on the snowsuit and the boots for a change of scenery and an infusion of fresh air. I was glad they never minded taking a walk in the stroller, and I enjoyed watching them get up close and personal with grass, rocks, snow and mud.

My 19-month old grandchild, Manu, doesn’t like the stroller. It can take half an hour to get him outside, but once he’s there, he does like walking around his neighborhood, exploring the lawns with the animal ornaments, looking out for cars and trucks passing by and planes flying overhead. Like my children, he loves substances and can happily entertain himself moving handfuls of grass clippings from one place to another, or splashing in a puddle, or sifting through piles of rocks. Really, it’s all about discovery.And discovery shouldn’t end when you’re 2, or 3, or 4. One of the best parts about playing with kids is that I can also enjoy the feel of clipped grass in my hand, or pay extra attention to the crescendo and decrescendo of a soaring plane as it enters and exits my orbit. There are many days sitting in the sun and having an hour-long rock exchange with Manu feels far more enticing than staring at the screen with its brain numbing cathode rays and all those murky words, even if I was the one who wrote them.

Especially if I was the one who wrote them.

Photo: D. Dina Friedman

So, whenever I get stuck in my writing, I go outside.

In the spring and summer, my go-to activity is gardening. I swear, I get my best ideas from pulling weeds.

Photo: D. Dina Friedman

Some people hate weeding, but to me getting rid of weeds feels like chaos I can control, as opposed to trying to get rid of the clutter in my house, which feels like chaos I can’t control. There’s nothing like the feel of dirt on my hands, and the satisfaction of digging up and tossing out clumps of stuff I know I don’t want. Way easier than chopping out paragraphs I struggled to perfect only to realize they just don’t serve the story.

Photo: D. Dina Friedman

In the winter, I walk in the woods and say “wow” every time I come to a landscape that delights me. I have a soft spot for the Hansel-and-Gretel look of a path through the snow-covered trees, especially when illuminated by the bright sun. But even when there’s no snow and the air is damp and raw, I try to find beauty in the gray light. This is also a good lesson for disentangling my writing messes. Somewhere in a draft that may seem hopeless, there’s often a spot worthy of a photo-op, a place to explore close-up, long view, and from different angles.

And this coming winter, I’m looking forward to exploring the tactile pleasures of the snow with a 2-year-old, feeling the joyful tingle of cold on my back as I wave my arms back and forth making angels.

Tuning In/Tuning Out

Posted on May 3, 2024 by dinafried

I have always claimed, only half in jest, that tuning out was my superpower.

Too much nagging or irrelevant banter by members of my family or in social situations. No problem. I nod my head and hopefully make the appropriate noises while the rest of my brain lounges in some woodsy retreat cabin of my imagination.

I’ve been thinking a lot about “tuning out” this week as I recover from a minor concussion. For several days, my poor brain just refused to tune out anything, making it impossible to look out a bright window, or be in a space with too many clashing colors or in front of a screen with its array of flashing videos and words, words, words against the bright. blue light.

And whenever I tried to do too many of these things, my brain went haywire, and I had to spend the next hour in a dark room with the shades drawn. If only I could have had one of those float tanks!

But now that I’m–thankfully–about 80% recovered, and preparing for my book launch of Here in Sanctuary–Whirling this Sunday, I’m also thinking about tuning in.

When I went to the border in 2020 I was determined not to fall into the distant malaise I often feel when the news becomes too overwhelming. While I know that there’s just so much sorrow one can handle, I knew that my role was to tune in as much as possible–so I could feel the joy of the teenager bounding across the bridge waving his white paper. I made it! he exclaimed. I got asylum!

He was reportedly the only person in weeks that people had heard about who received a positive outcome form the infamous tent courts. And as witnesses gathered around to offer him a place to stay for the night and assistance to get to his brother in Florida, he told us the key to his “success.” I told them the gangs had killed my entire family. Other than my brother, I have no one.

How to fathom the depths of that?

How to comfort the woman in the writing workshop sobbing over the picture she drew of her missing child, or the beefy young father folding into his arms in tears as he recounted his kidnapping together with his seven-year-old daughter. She told me she was hungry, and I had no food to give her. I couldn’t take care of her.

Don’t Look Away! the sign read on the American side of the border, where witnesses stood every day, reminding us of our responsibility not to tune out.

As a writer, I’ve tried to take that responsibility seriously, attempting as best as I can to capture the joy, the sorrow, and the emotional complexity of salient moments, both in my work as an immigrant justice activist and every other aspect of my life. It’s a way of extending the witnessing work I did on the border, and letting others live that experience, or any other experience I feel compelled to share, with as close a lens as possible.

Yet at the same time, I recognize that to be effective in whatever we feel compelled to do, we need to take time to take care of ourselves, allowing our brains to rest in the dark room, or the land of the imagination, or whatever other equivalent a person might have in order to take a deep breath, regroup, and press on.

Hope to see some of you on Sunday! I’ll be reading poems that hold the joy as well as the sorrow.