From Dicitionary.com:
Homeland: [hohm-land, -luh nd] Noun 1.one's native land. 2. a region created
or considered as a state by or for a people of a particular ethnic origin: the Jewish homeland. 3. any of the
thirteen racially and ethnically based regions created in South Africa by the
South African government as nominally independent tribal ministates to which
blacks are assigned.
In 1994, I
was living and working in Manhattan, two years out of college. Everyone in NY was watching Seinfeld and
Friends. I did too. But I also watched a girl named Angela Chase
in a show called, My So-Called Life.
Before there was Felicity and Dawson’s Creek (I know I am dating myself
here – but I am 44, what can I do?), there was My So-Called Life… and at the
time I was hooked. I must admit, many
years later, after I was married and had started accumulating kids, Jocelyn
bought me the DVDs for My So Called Life for Chanukah one year. I watched them all one night! I was/am still in love with the show – the
teenage angst, the anxiety of being in high school – the grittiness of it, the
reality, the comedy – not to mention the awesome writing and acting. It is in the category of shows that sort of
outline how I matured as a consumer of the media… other serious favorites –
thritysomething, ER, xfiles… you get the picture. I knew Angela Chase -
sometimes I had been Angela Chase. I hated her, I loved her, and her friends –
the new and the old ones… I knew all of them too – I was most of them in some
way. I was having my own version of the
so-called life in Manhattan living in a one room studio apartment on East 91st
Street. The show lasted one season and then it was over. At the end of the season and that year, I
picked up and moved to Austin, TX and began a new adventure. That is just how it goes.
About six
weeks ago, I told Jocelyn we needed a new TV show to watch. We had just finished watching all of the Criminal
Minds episodes. (We are a one TV show at
a time couple – I don’t watch all those other shows like Scandal, The Good Wife
and all the ones I don’t even know the names of.. we pick one show and then
watch it until it is over and then start another one…) I heard about this show, Homeland, so we
decided that would be the next one. It
had already been out for four seasons so we could binge watch it – which is
like our favorite decadent thing to do! Other similar shows we have loved to
watch are Alias, SVU and 24, so we figured we’d love a good CIA drama. We started watching Carrie Mathieson and her
literally crazy (bi-polar) mind take us to places that were anxiety provoking
and heart stopping. I don’t know Carrie
and I do not like her in any way. I
think I actually hate her and her way too smart, quick, mentally diseased mind
– but I absolutely LOVE watching her. I
just cannot stop – I am completely and totally addicted. As of today, we have
watched all four seasons and we are waiting for the next episode to air next
Sunday… it is awesome.
The other
day I was thinking of how my current so-called life is nothing like it was back
in 1994. I was also thinking how Claire
Danes is a fantastic actor but her two characters despite their dramatic age
difference and unique plot lines are somewhat similar. Both Angela and Carrie – they embrace the whole
“the world revolves around me and my story is the only story worth telling philosophy”
– I am the star of my own movie sort of thing.
Now it is true, they are the stars in their own shows but the characters
really embody this perspective. In
Angela, it is endearing but in Carrie, it is addictively annoying. I am not
sure what any of these perspectives say or reveal about me… but I do find all
of this interesting. In my mindfulness
work, I love how this exact idea comes up all the time. I learned that part of the practice is to be
able to really get, deep inside, that “the movie playing in your head all the
time, it doesn’t always need to star you” – or even to just realize that everyone
else also has a movie going on in which they are the stars – interconnectedness
and lack of permanence solidify this notion.
The ability to be in the present, and breathe is what brings it all
together… when you can get yourself to that place. I would say that watching Homeland is
definitely not that “place” of being… or maybe it is…
But what
the hell does Homeland really even mean… Jocelyn and I have discussed this as I
thought it was a weird name for the show.
I didn’t even get it until I was reading a headline and read the
Department of Homeland Security and realized the title of the show, Homeland,
is meant to be Homeland as in the USA is our homeland… or something like that.
Today, my
so-called life has its own HOMEland. We
have our 100 year old home that we live in.
Much of this married with 2 kids life happens in this home of ours. We LIVE in our home: we eat breakfast in the
kitchen before school and work; celebrate shabbot dinner in the dining room on
Friday nights; watch My Little Pony with the kids every single night before
they go to bed; dance and wrestle with the kids on the fancy rug we bought in Morocco
in the living room; play with Legos, baby dolls, the WII, Hotwheels, Lincoln Logs,
and Little People in the play room; brush our teeth with super hero tooth
brushes in the bathrooms; put on and take off shoes, coats, and hats upon leaving
and returning in our foyer; throw and kick balls, climb trees, run races and blow bubbles in the backyard; stay up
late doing work at our desks in the study; watch Homeland in the master bedroom; read bedtime stories
to the kids in their bedrooms; store bins of holiday decorations in the
basement; take lots of family milestone and holiday photos on the swing on the
porch; and have the most amazing silly and snuggly weekend morning cuddles in
our king size bed on the third floor in our converted attic, wacky, master
bedroom with the kids… Regular,
ordinary, mundane, life in my homeland. Exhausting, exhilarating, frustrating,
joyful, busy, rewarding, exasperating life but hopefully almost never a cliff hanger,
heart stopping, anxiety provoking, adrenaline pumping spy drama. A very different so-called Homeland.
It has
been about 5 mos since I last checked in.
Last time, we were about to dive head first into the deep pool of the hot,
humid, bright and long summer Washington, DC days. And today, it is December 1,
the final march towards darkness is before us.
I get the urge to write when the seasons shift, when the light changes,
when the rhythm of life moves to a different beat. I tell myself to remember – yours is not the
only movie, even though you do often feel like a star in your own life. But it is OK to get that I want to take a
snapshot of this movie I am starring in – much like Angela and Carrie (and
Claire for that matter), it is OK to embrace the role and go with it sometimes –
but I must also remember to breathe – and I try, I keep trying.
Much of
what has happened since July 1, involves holidays. As you know, I love the holidays so – the ritual
and the performance of it – I am addicted to it. We celebrated the quintessential
Homeland holiday, July 4th with a kitschy neighborhood parade in
Palisades with our Karate school. Jonah
decided that our self-proclaimed “summer of fun 2014” should be called the “summer
of the fun” and it stuck. We summered
intensely – road trips to beaches, visits to many different pools, and even
recorded some geocaches! It climaxed with a family vacation road trip to Pennsylvania
Dutch and ended with a week long session for Jonah & Vera at Nana Camp. And
then there was Labor Day and a trip for Vera &me to California for a Bar Mitzvah
while Jocelyn and Jonah hung out in Baltimore with the Grandma and the
cousins. Jonah played a role in his
movie that weekend by IDing the guy who stole grandma’s purse while they were
at the Aquarium – very Carrie Mathieson, if I do say so myself. In September, the Jewish Holidays overrun our
homeland. And this year, we joined a
synagogue, and spent the holidays with family and new friends at services. We love our new community and we are so happy
to have found this new Homeland to celebrate the holidays and grow as a family.
We did Rosh Hashannah with family & friends. We did tashlich, just the four of us right
down street at Rockcreek Park. And then
on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year – I went to Kol Nidre services with
a good friend and had an amazing spiritual experience, only to return to my
Homeland to find my family missing – in the ER – because Vera swallowed a
penny. We all recovered from the
hospital and surgery to remove the penny in time to host guests each and every
night during Sukkot in our sukkah. We ended the Jewish holiday marathon at
synagogue where we danced with the Torah and then unfurled the entire thing!
When we finally looked up and at the calendar it was mid-October. Quickly, it was Halloween, my 44th
birthday and a big work trip to China for me for 10 days. That would be 10 days away from my Homeland. And then this past week it was Thanksgiving
in Baltimore with our family – our homeland away from homeland of sort.
Soon it will be Chanukah, Christmas and
New Year’s Eve. We will be spending
those holidays first here at home, then road tripping to NJ for another Bat
Mitzvah, then pilgrimaging over to NYC, my favorite Homeland of them all, and then
stopping in Baltimore on the way back to Washington DC to ring in the New Year
with the best of our friends here in our Homeland – this old house in which we
live our ordinary, mundane, always interesting so-called life – school, work, karate,
Torah School, Swim lessons, dance lessons, breakfasts, lunches, dinners,
Shabbots, TV, synagogue, grocery shopping, and sleeping (and all of the intense melt downs, psychotic temper tantrums, and battles of will that end in tragic time outs - we must not forget those...) This is my so-called Homeland.
But I also realize that there is a bigger world out there. And that world often resembles Carrie's Homeland more than it resembles mine - death, violence, lies. That is what is actually the scariest part of all of this. From Ferguson, Missouri to Har Nof, Israel to Syria to Iraq to Bill Cosby - the world's everyday headlines are scary. Racism, sexism, anti-semitism, terrorism, violence, discrimination, sexual assault, classism, war, social injustice and homophobia - these diseases infect our world and our lives every day. The same days that in my little homeland we stop for dinner at the local diner or pick up milk at the grocery store. It all happens - day in and day out. I try to talk to the kids about these issues, but it is hard and complicated, but I try. And often it helps to explain these issues in the context of our daily lives, and sometimes when we are observing holidays. These are my big thoughts on the eve of the first day of the twelfth month. I have no answers, only observations.
In the end, we are perpetually Homeland
for our holidays – this is our so-called life.
I embrace it. I love it. I live it.
I am the star in my own movie – this movie, that is our life. And I am oh so thankful for all of it –
including the next soon-to-be watched episode of Homeland with Carrie Mathieson…
Happy December 2014 everyone!
As it seems that my current so-called life includes no exercise and way too much eating, This post on December 1 marks my slow return to exercise -so that my days in my homeland shall be many. All of Carrie's talk of running six miles has inspired me to get back on run/walk wagon. This morning I was able to get up by 5am and out the door by 5:05 for a 30 minute fast walk. Literally baby steps, but I am moving forward. My so-called life is definitely a work in progress and public declarations always motivate me... wish me luck.
Below are way too many pictures of my "virtual" homeland and so-called life, please excuse my indulgence- but it has been 5 months... .
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