Day Nine, In Which It Is Thursday

 Another retroactive post. I just haven't had the capacity to sit with this at the end of the day.

Thursday is "just" a workday, but this Thursday was also the day I had coffee with a retired professor from my undergraduate studies.

I think part of this project -the most important part- is exploring how embracing the spiritual practice of hair covering as a married Jewish woman affects my mind-body connection, but I think another part of it is discussing the places and people with which I experience life as a more-than-before observant Jewish woman because how I identify with myself has more context than simply how I feel about myself or my choices. I'm not sure if that sentence made a lot of sense.

Maybe I can loosely relate it to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I cannot pursue self-actualization if my concerns are about my safety or my acceptance. If I am or even perceive myself to be targeted or cast off because of my identity as a Jewish woman, then my focus is not on my higher needs, and I am not progressing in a healthy manner. Expressing myself Jewishly in a variety of situations helps me to build confidence in my safety and my place in society, which then allows me to move on to ideas like education, spiritual fulfillment, and self-actualization. This is just me arguing the validity of the things I want to talk about on these blogs, but even that seems important: me demonstrating (if not to you, then to me) the importance of my experiences on different levels. Anyhow.

My professor had not seen me in a few months, so he was not aware of this change in my observance or why it was taking place. He didn't say anything. How was it that I feel so different when I am being perceived as a Jewish woman, but they don't see me as being anything other than what they know me as?

Side note: a while back, a non-Jewish friend of mine and I were having a conversation about something Jewish. I don't recall what. But she looked at me and said, "I guess I just don't think of you like that." I responded with, "Like what? Jewish?" She looked sheepish and said, "Yeah." And I've thought about that for about eight months now. Is it insulting? Is it validating? This intrinsic part of who I am doesn't play into how others see me? Am I safer because of it? Am I less Jewish because of it? What does it mean??? But I digress.

When I mentioned the hair covering and such, he said he thought I was just wearing a hat as people do from time to time. Is the beret not enough of a statement? If I wore a sheitel (wig), the act would go completely unnoticed. If I wore a tichel (scarf), I would feel so self-conscious that I'm not sure I could leave the house. Am I flying so much under the radar, even riding this new level of observance? Will that change if I continue to this into the warmer weather? Is that a thing I want to do?

I've been trying to stay in the moment and not identify with this more than the present moment allows for. What is my experience in that moment? How does it lend itself to the mind-body connection in the moment? 



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