Dish and That, Get it? Instead of This and That. Duh, Schwartz

I e-stalked Peter Bebergal, co-author of The Faith Between us, another book I’ve been reading. It's great soul food, lots of spiritual nourishment that helped in the faith restoration department—you know, faith in oneself and the-dirty-little-secret-that-is faith in God. By the by, authors P&K take God out of the closet, introspectively, passionately, humorously and beautifully. I love it. You know the drill, run.read.now.



Ya’s all know that I’m a big proud Jew, that’s true. My relationship with God has also evolved and shifted many times. One of the things I adore the most about being Jewish is the latitude (I feel) it affords me to ask questions and search for enlightenment and atonement on my clock and on my terms. I digress. After sharing with Peter how much his book has impacted me (you must read it, really. Peter and Scott Korb wrote it, Jewish and Catholic, respectively.) I was telling him about this dame I ran into while waiting for an elevator en route to a doctor’s appointment. She asked me what I was reading (I schlepped The Faith Between us for moral support).



I told her what the book was about and why I thought she should read it. To say she had an adverse reaction would be a compliment—“Ewws” and “Yucks” followed by, “Books about religion make me SO angry.” Etc. Etc. Etc. This, after saying, “I’m a Jew like you.” A dame that presumptuous, please, a fast friendship had to be born. I followed her into the waiting room and pleaded with her to read Scott and Peter’s introduction. She did. PS: She fell so in love with the book, she asked me if she could keep it. Of course I gave it to her, duh.



I know I’m droning on. Anyhoodle…



I noticed that Peter and I are on a panel together at the Pilcrow Lit Fest, Re-Routing: Recovery and other things that change the creative process, moderated by poet, Adam Deutsch. Other fabulous authors on the panel, Gail Konop Baker, Lynn Brewer, Rachel Cline, Cristina Henriquez and Amy Sayre-Roberts (I couldn’t find her webbysite).



I mentioned that to Peter in an email, and he asked me about my yarn re: recovery. Talk about a pausey-pause moment. I needed to think about that hard because I haven’t talked about it with anyone except my family, a handful of friends and my psychiatrist. I wrote a lot about it in my forthcoming title, Emotionally Pantsed. Though it’s not something I talk about. My roid of thy has been this crazy secret, categorized in shame and guilt. Of late, I feel a culmination of fear and need to start dishing about it from all perspectives.



I spilled the abridged version to Peter and felt dirty afterwards (overly dramatic enough?! I know). Still. That gave me the confidence to blog a wee bit about it here. I felt the same queer ass dirtiness. Oy. However, something incredible happened. I got emails from two bloggers (I won’t mention because I’m a freak about protecting people’s privacy) conveying their thyroid mishigas, and asking me to share mine. It was incredible. I knew that I made the right decision to start draggin' my ass outta the thyloset (ha). It took a day or two to email the deets. I guess what held me back was wondering what they would think of me after reading about it because I'm still figuring a few things out-- It’s a process. Then again, what isn't?! PS: The comments on the post were so supportive and menschy and I so appreciated that.

On a super up note, I am figuring it out. And I like that. It's slow, yes, but it works. I'll also be dishing more about it.