Recipes for a Sacred Life: True Stories and a Few Miracles

by Rivvy Neshama

  Seaward said we should speak about our miracles, perhaps so others can be open to their miracles or feel hope when hope is what they need. Yet sometimes it feels strange to reveal them, not just because people may roll their eyes, but because they feel like special gifts, personal and sacred, not to be talked about lightly. Still, I have two miracles I feel ready to share, maybe because they’re your basic down-to-earth miracles, nothing surreal or otherworldly. They are curiously similar in the way they end. And they have a common beginning as well, for they both involve my daughter, Elise.

  The first is the more mundane: I had to find a dress for Elise’s wedding. My mother had subtly and not so subtly let me know that what I had worn at my son Tony’s wedding was more suited for a hippie gathering—say, Woodstock. And in truth, while I loved my Navajo beads and white moccasin boots, I had felt a little clunky. At Elise’s wedding, I would be redeemed. But then I found out that many of Elise’s guests—including the partner of her father, my ex-husband—were having gowns made. So, the bar was raised. No problem. I was even more determined to find something special, though it wouldn’t be easy, since the only style I’m comfortable in is kind of hippy.

  John and I flew to New York a few months before the wedding to visit the kids and to find me a gown. The night before The Big Shop, we were out with our friend Kenny, who asked, “What kind of dress are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Something pretty.”

  Kenny shook his head and explained, “You need to have a clear picture of what you want if you hope to find it, especially since you’ve only got one day.” Then he asked again, “What kind of dress are you looking for?”

  And I suddenly knew: “Rich gypsy!”

  The next day, we were up and out before the stores opened, and our search soon led to Henri Bendel’s, “New York’s legendary Fifth Avenue boutique . . . for trendsetting women from around the world.” While John worked on his laptop, I flipped through racks of gowns, gossamer and flowing, and then spotted a shorter frock hanging on a door, perhaps rejected by someone else. It was sheer and black with red beaded roses, and a gold satin ribbon encircled its waist. It looked like a flapper’s dress from the twenties, with rows of gold sequins trailing from its hem.

  I walked toward it, but just then a tall, friendly saleswoman appeared and asked if she could help. I told her my challenge and she guided me to a spacious, mirrored dressing room. Then she brought in a selection of gowns for me to try, including the black one with the glittery gold trim.

  “Can I wear black to my daughter’s wedding?” I asked.

  “Look at the roses, look at the gold,” she said. “It’s hardly black.”

  Since she looked very chic herself, like someone my mother would trust, I trusted her too.

  So I tried it on and felt instant love. It reminded me of the Halloween costumes I wore in my girlhood, when I first knew I wanted to be a gypsy, not a princess. Still, as I turned this way and that in front of the mirror, making the gold sequins shimmer and swirl, I could see it wasn’t quite right. That’s when the saleswoman, whose name was Elaine, left the room. She returned with a handful of pins. First she pinned this and then she pinned that, until I looked in the mirror and smiled at what I saw. John agreed: “Rich gypsy. This is the one.”

  Elaine brought in the seamstress, who finished all the pinning, and then she handed me her card. “Fashion Consultant,” it said right next to her name, and underneath was her email: GypsyWoman@hotmail.com.

  I was stunned, told her why, and we both laughed. But a few days later, when I called her at the store to see if the dress was ready, I was told this: “Elaine’s no longer with us. She left on Sunday—the day after you bought your dress.”

  The second miracle had a more somber beginning. Elise was pregnant, an event we were all excited about. Then, in the third month of her pregnancy, her radiologist saw something that could be worrisome and said they needed to operate—and soon. Elise was deeply saddened, afraid that the anesthesia could harm the fetus and aware that there were other risks. I was scared too. I didn’t know anyone who had surgery while they were pregnant, and I felt so sad that she had to face this.

  One thing I knew: I wanted to be there with her. But the date for the operation was when we were leaving for Mexico, with nonrefundable tickets. And to get a ticket for New York just a week in advance could be unbelievably costly, especially since I didn’t know when I’d want to return and needed some leeway. On the positive side, we were booked with Frontier Airlines, the one that calls itself “a whole different kind of animal.” Okay, Frontier, show me.

  I called them and spoke with a woman named Angela, who had a young and pleasant voice. “This is a complicated problem,” I started off saying, but then, I felt so scared—scared for the baby, scared for Elise—that I started to cry.

  Angela made comforting sounds and encouraged me to talk. So I explained it all: Mexico, New York, Elise, and the baby. “Don’t worry,” she said gently. “I understand. I had to have an operation in my pregnancy, too, just around the third month. I was so scared! But now my son is four years old and healthy as could be!”

  Well, this got me crying even more. But while I was busy crying, Angela was busy taking care of things. She made our Mexico tickets open-dated. She booked me into New York with their least expensive ticket. And she wrote into the computer that for medical reasons I could change the return date at no extra cost.

  “That should take care of it,” she said. “And if you have any problems, just call me at this same extension. But I wrote everything down in the computer, so anyone can help you.” Then she added, “Most of all, don’t worry. Believe me, it will all be okay.”

  I hung up feeling lighter, hopeful, and blessed. And that night I wrote a thank-you note to Angela, but I didn’t know her last name. So I called Frontier and rang her extension. Someone named Patty answered and told me this: “Angie doesn’t work here anymore. Today was her last day.”

  Well, Angela, wherever you are, thank you. And yes, it all turned out most beautifully okay.

  There are only two ways to live your life.

  One is as though nothing is a miracle.

  The other is as though everything is a miracle.

  —ALBERT EINSTEIN

  GRACIAS, GRACIAS

  Once a week I go to the house of Patricia Ramirez. I go because I’m part of a program called Intercambio Uniting Communities, a nonprofit that started in Boulder. They train volunteers to teach English to immigrants at whatever location meets their needs. That location is often their home so they can learn while watching their children. I go to the home of Patricia Ramirez.

  It’s a small house that somehow manages to be big enough for Patricia, her husband Eddie, their three children, and niece Rosario, who came here from Mexico to find a better life. Well, Mexico just happens to be my favorite country to visit. So now, once a week, I get to feel like I’m there, in this house of bright colors that has images of Guadalupe on every wall.

  Sometimes I feel tired or too busy and don’t want to go. But I do. And almost always, the hour I spend there is a high point of my week. When I sit with Patricia and Rosario and they learn new words and I speak a little Spanish, I feel the contentment that comes from doing exactly what you’re meant to be doing at this moment in time.

  Patricia’s youngest child, Marie Cruz, is always there too, and she learns just by listening in as she brings me her toys to show and share. The whole family likes to share. It’s impossible to leave without them offering food and drink or a homemade gift.

  One week I went there on a Saturday, and that was the best time of all. When I entered their house, I was embraced with chatter, laughter, and good smells. Rosario and Patricia were in the kitchen, cooking a special soup made with lemons, pork, cilantro, and whole ears of corn. Eddie was sitting at the dining-room table helping his son, Eddie Jr., with his schoolwork, while teenager Kathy sat on the sofa, chatting endlessly on her cell phone. T
he TV was playing a telenovela, Mexican soap opera, and Marie Cruz was playing with a friend and her many toys.

  I went upstairs with my two students, where we sat on a bed as they read from Frog and Toad Are Friends, a children’s book I love. We also talked about our lives so they could practice speaking English. They spoke of growing up in a dusty rural village, where daily outings to street markets gave them mangos, chilies, and a sense of community.

  When I left that day, Patricia gave me a large container filled with the freshly made soup and, as always, said “Gracias!” many times. “Gracias, Rivvy. Gracias for coming. Gracias.” I breathed in the smells of the soup, the children’s laughter, the faith, the noise, and the family’s love, and I said “Gracias” too.

  LIFE, DEATH, AND LAUGHTER

  Some of the best times of my life have been times of all-out laughter. Laughing until I cry when I’m with my sister Susan, who no matter what can get me laughing—at life, or love, or at myself. And laughing growing up because my father, Bernie Feldman, was the funniest man I ever knew. He was our live-in Jewish comedian, and he could tell jokes like no one else.

  In Jewish tradition, the best jokes are stories, passed on with the right accents, pacing, and suspense. A Catholic friend of mine, being thoughtful, once sent me an email of fifty Jewish jokes. None of them seemed funny. You’ve got to be there, they’ve got to be told, and no one told them like my dad.

  My father died young, after many years of terrible pain. When his emphysema worsened and he was in Abington Hospital’s intensive care unit, John and I flew there to visit him and quietly entered his room—where he was just beginning to feel better, but pretended for our sake to be feeling worse (“Oy!” he moaned. “Oy vey!”).

  And then he told us a story (“This is true,” he’d always say first), which evolved into a raunchy joke about reincarnated rabbits. It was one of his best, and he told it pitch perfect, until the nurse came by to scold us because we were laughing so loudly.

  “Some people here are critically ill!” she said, forgetting that one of them was Dad.

  It wasn’t long after he died that his doctors told Mom how much they missed him. They missed his spirit and courage . . . and how he always made them laugh.

  I guess you could live a sacred life without laughter.

  But tell me this: Why would you want to?

  The Creator made humans able to walk and talk, to see and hear . . . to do everything. But the Creator wasn’t satisfied. Finally, the Creator made humans laugh, and when they laughed and laughed, the Creator said, “Now you are fit to live.”

  —TRADITIONAL APACHE STORY

  I was going to tell you the joke about the rabbits.

  But, like I said, you’ve got to be there.

  A GOOD DAY

  I was feeling overwhelmed—finishing a community project, preparing for our grandchildren’s first visit to Boulder, cleaning the house and cooking dinner, watering the sunroom plants (how did we get so many?), booking airline tickets to London to attend our niece’s wedding . . . I was also feeling it was a lost day because I wasn’t doing my work.

  Then I remembered Susan Jeffers’ advice in her book End the Struggle and Dance with Life. Create a huge life, she says, not one focused solely on goals and aspirations, but one that is “filled with many equally important components.” The way she sees it, “it’s all important,” meaning the friends, the home, the family . . . the work, the world, and the fun.

  I had remembered that it’s important to keep a sense of balance and not just work, but I’d forgotten that each part of the circle gets equal credit.

  So I reviewed my day—what I had done and what I was doing—and saw that it was all good. Then I put on a Beatles CD and started dancing as I cooked, feeling grateful for these many parts of my life. I loved how the house looked so neat and clean. I was relieved that we were finally set for Gillian’s wedding. The rice and beans smelled spicy and nourishing. And as I watered the plants, I enjoyed their beauty and touched their soft leaves.

  This is it, I thought. This is my life. And sometimes, living sacred just means being present—moment to moment, day by day.

  When my grandson Brendan was four and a half,

  I asked him if he ever had a bad day.

  “No,” he said.

  “Never?” I asked.

  He thought a bit and then said,

  “Yeah, but it ended good.”

  THE LORD IS WITH ME . . .

  OR WHATEVER

  When my mother was eighty, she read a line in a hymn that she really liked. In English it meant “The Lord is with me, I shall not fear.” And since my mother doesn’t read Hebrew, she looked at its transliteration and found that to be “Adonai lee-la ear-ah.”

  Soon, she started saying it to all of us whenever we were about to fly, or have surgery, or felt scared in any way. “Let’s say it together,” she’d insist, and we’d recite along with her, “Adonai lee-la ear-ah”—The Lord is with me. I shall not fear.” It kind of became our family prayer.

  I liked it, and I liked saying it with her—so much so that I’d call her from my cell phone each time I’d board a plane. We’d say those words together, and I’d feel a wondrous calm.

  Then, one day, I found that line in a prayer book. But the true transliteration was “Adonai lee-V’LOW ear-ah” and not “Adonai lee-LA ear-ah.” So! All these years we’d been saying the wrong words, and God knows what they meant. Some family prayer!

  I didn’t want to tell Mom and get her upset. Still, I was a little annoyed by her habit of muddling up words (a habit I’ve inherited that annoys my daughter). So I decided that whenever we’d say it together, I’d say it correctly and loudly, thinking sooner or later she’d switch to the right words. But she didn’t. I worried it wouldn’t work for her—I mean, if a mantra has powers, it helps to say the right words, no?

  Then I read a Zen story about a poor peasant who wandered for miles to find a master and ask for his guidance. The master asked him if he had a spiritual practice. The peasant said he had one prayer that he’d repeat all day, which he then recited for the master.

  “No!” the master shouted. “You’ve got it wrong! That prayer goes like this.” He taught the peasant the correct prayer and felt relieved that he helped save this poor man’s soul.

  The peasant thanked him gratefully and walked away. But when he reached the river, he just kept on walking, walking on water as if it were land. When the master saw this, he ran after the peasant shouting, “Wait! Forget what I said! Stick to your old prayer, and never stop!”

  So my mom kept on saying “Adonai lee-LA ear-ah,” and now I do too. It’s catchy, you know? And so was her faith.

  DO THE RIGHT THING

  I was a beatnik in college. I wore black tights, smoked French cigarettes, and majored in philosophy. The boys I dated also majored in “phil.” It felt very Jean-Paul Sartre/Simone de Beauvoir. But as my mother noted, it didn’t put me on a career track. It didn’t even have staying power. I read umpteen books, yet all I remember now are a few sound bites (“God is dead”—Nietzsche), or some motif, like the caves in Plato’s Republic. Worse still, I recall endless discussions on What Is Real and little guidance on What Is Right or how to do the right thing. With one exception, Kant’s categorical imperative. It goes like this:

  Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

  Right. In poor man’s English that means before you do anything, imagine everyone else doing the same thing and it still being okay. Kant called this the ultimate moral dictum, and I called it brilliant. I could no longer tell “just one person” a piece of gossip or stay silent if our government did something grievously wrong.

  It was Kant’s categorical imperative that helped me explain to my second-grade students why littering “just one candy wrapper” could lead to an environmental disaster. And it was Kant’s CI that let me tell my own young children that they couldn’t pick “
just one flower” from Central Park, because if everyone did it, there’d be no flowers left.

  “But,” Tony protested, “not everyone is going to do it.”

  “Tony,” I said, “don’t be a smart-ass.”

  Still, there are conflicts that require a more subtle measure than Kant proposed. For those, I go to my heart or gut. Deepak Chopra says that sensations in our body can help us make the right choice. I find it’s true. As I prepare to heal a friendship or share something I’ve repressed, I imagine what I’m about to say or do and check how it feels inside. If it feels bad, I drop it; if it feels good, I move ahead.

  And in those times when I’m truly confused—or know what to do but feel too angry to do it—I reflect on a picture on my office wall. A sepia print from the 1920s, it shows a Native American man looking up at the mountains, and the words below it say, “When in doubt, go higher.”

  So I do. I go higher and reach for my spirit. And the view from there is all I need to do the right thing.

  Reach higher,

  Reach for your soul.

  —RUMI

  (Billboard sign on boardwalk at

  Venice Beach, Los Angeles)

  THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS

  I felt a little bad when AARP, The Magazine started coming in the mail. It arrived spontaneously one day as if to announce “You’re old! Think retired! Think golf! Think death!” And it kept on coming, bimonthly, in case I might forget. Then, in its spring 2006 issue, it featured an interview with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama of Tibet. This was good news. I didn’t mind being part of the AARP gang if the Dalai Lama was on board. Seeing his blissful, smiling face on the cover seemed so incongruous that it was perfect. So was the interview.