I'm so glad you enjoyed this; I was thinking of you when I decided to write some of this up & share it on the blog!

Thanks for your comment, Beth! The RWB Fellowship is a one-year fellowship; the 18 of us have been brought here 4 times this year, from all over the country (and one coming from Vancouver Island), for four intensive retreats. After tomorrow night, we'll be RWB alumni, and will be part of the growing network of Rabbis Without Borders. We'll remain part of the cohort's online community and the alumni online community, and once a year we'll be invited to gather with all of the Rabbis Without Borders at Pearlstone retreat center outside of Baltimore. I'm really honored and delighted to be part of this amazing community. And: I can't wait to introduce Drew to the dinosaurs! Though I'm realizing today that he may be equally excited about things like streets full of yellow taxi cabs.

I think you're right that happiness requires neurotypicality. Certainly during the periods when I've been depressed, happiness has seemed implausible at best. Which seems at first blush like an obvious statement (of course happiness and depression do not easily coexist!) but I think there's a deeper point here, which is that when one is not fortunate enough to be neurotypical (or to be able to approximate same via therapies, of which medication may be one), happiness is impossible to reach. And I think it's easy for someone in that position to imagine that if she only tried harder, she could reach gratitude and joy -- which isn't necessarily so. Hooray for being in a place where you can cultivate happiness and long for more!

Thanks, Dave. The text column is variable width (grows and expands with window size / monitor size.) I can certainly enlarge the default font, though. I'll keep poking at it.

Hi again Anon, As a poet, I want this collection of mother poems to reach readers for whom it might be meaningful, especially women who've struggled with postpartum depression. And some of Hugo's blog readers may be those women. If his reposting of that poem leads even one woman to read the work I wrote when I was struggling, and to feel less alone in her own struggle, then I'm glad. I'm not interested in policing who can and can't read or praise my poems. As a rabbi, I believe that each of us is created in the image of God -- even people who make hurtful, awful choices -- and I believe that the path of teshuvah, repentance / return, is open to everyone. An analogy: when I'm blessed to be able to do prison ministry, I go into that work knowing that some of the people to whom I'm ministering have done things I find unconscionable. But that doesn't change (what I understand to be) my religious obligations to relate to them with compassion and to take their teshuvah at face value. I don't condone rape. And I don't condone substance abuse or the awful acts to which that abuse can lead. But I perceive that Hugo's process of teshuvah is genuine, and I honor that. My festival observance will likely pull me away from this post & its comments for a while. (In truth, I'm not sure I have more to say on this even after the festival is over, but I definitely won't be returning to this post until after chag.) If you celebrate Shavuot, I wish you a joyful one.

Thanks for chiming in, Anon. I've been reading Hugo's blog for many years, so I've read his essays about his past. Anyway, I hope that if you decide to read the poems, you find them meaningful.

I am so entertained that we managed to post about the same subject on the same morning -- on opposite coasts and coming from different traditions, sure, but still. :-) How delightful.

Thank you, David -- I appreciate these kind words so much! Wishing you blessings for Shavuot.

Oh, Monica, I feel where you're coming from, so much. (Our little guy also had colic; I remember it well. ::shudder::) It is okay to not love the experience of motherhood. It really is. And, in my experience (one kid, now 3.5), it gets SO MUCH BETTER than it was when he was an infant -- on every conceivable level, life has improved and improved since then. Not that it helps you much now, but -- it won't always be like this. Anyway. I hear you and I empathize.