JWOW

from Five Towns Jewish Home - 9-9-21

Yom It’s a Keeper by Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., CLC, SDS

jewish women of wisdom

Hobbying Along

By Rebbetzin Faigie Horowitz

The dining room table was covered with punches, stamps, and embellishments when the young woman walked in for her appointment. Esther was a kallah who had come to discuss things with a rebbetzin in the community and was surprised to find an array of scrapbooking materials in use for a work in progress. Scrapbooking, she learned, was a relaxing enjoyable past time for this seminary teacher. Beyond a creative outlet, it yielded the additional bonus of creating memories of their lives for her adult children. They would often ask her what she was making for them and which event she was commemorating with decorative papers, stickers, and borders.

Middle age seems to be a time for new hobbies. There is excitement in the experience of indulging in a first time hobby or hobbies that are new for us. Many of us had neither the time nor the resources to explore our interests, latent or obvious talents in a sustained manner. Yes, we were interested and spent a little effort but with kids, careers, and navigating family life, our own wants were always subsumed under everyone else’s needs. Now with some leisure and some choices about time management, many of us can finally follow our inclinations.

We weren’t brought up on the mantra that we need time and space for ourselves. How many of us carved out desks and space for ourselves before we finally redid our kitchens and squeezed in a small dedicated area for correspondence and papers? How many of us gave ourselves private time? Did we know the term self-care?

We mistook time for ourselves as an indulgence instead of a need. We didn’t know from girls’ night out or going for a manicure because it makes us feel pampered. We felt guilty about taking time and money away from everyone else who was high up on the priority list – husband and kids. After all, that was our tafkid and no one said anything about nurturing ourselves during our seminary years. It was all about nurturing other people, future doros and being an eizer kenegdo.

Now it’s years and another generation later. We’ve learned some psychology. We know that we have to care for the caregiver (that’s us, girls!), and we’re more mindful of ourselves and our needs. The mantra of our children and the literature seems to be: you’ll be a better mother if you take care of yourself. You’ll be a better spouse if you air out. You’ll be a more balanced person if you enjoy without guilt. Guilt has become the enemy of modern maturity. Got to do everything and not feel guilty.

So it’s time to bring on hobbies and new interests. Jung, the psychoanalyst who was a student of Freud, makes the point that during the second half of life people tend to develop their latent skills. During the first half of life, the dominant skills, the obvious talents, are the ones we choose to develop. Especially in our careers and life choices, early on we go for what comes naturally and easily to us. However, with the confidence and past experience of developing our obvious gi�s, we are ready to venture into uncharted waters and try out those things that didn’t come so easily to us. The risk of not succeeding is less frightening at this point, and we’re eager to take on a challenge that we choose. So we may want to try something new, break out of our old job titles, styles, and way of spending our free time.

There is nothing as empowering as working at something new and making it our own. By investing real effort into something novel, we exercise our brains and prove to ourselves that they still work. Mastery gives us ownership, and at this stage of our lives, owning ability, having an accomplishment, is better therapy for our emotional ills than shopping or chocolate. We want to move ahead, do something atypical, break out in new areas and find new aspects to ourselves and our personalities. Besides new technical skills and aptitudes, we find new personal skills, too. We may become more social, more open, and more collaborative during the process of moving forward in a new stage of life.

Sometimes, the hobby is clearly connected with obvious manifestations such as drawing, sports, decorating, gardening, and music. For others, it’s an interest in something less tangible and without a product to show our husbands, kids, and friends. It may be a spiritual need and wanting to develop a stronger relationship to Hashem. Some people want time to deepen their knowledge in Torah and not just go to shiurim and be passive but to develop textual skills that they may never have acquired earlier. Others may want to take an ulpan or express themselves through writing and creating a family history.

Drying and arranging flowers was fun for me a few years ago. It gave untalented me the opportunity to create beauty without having artistic talent. I used silica to preserve flowers, with and without my microwave. Attractive vases and containers to hold the arrangements were fun to collect. This hobby ultimately proved very consuming of time and space and was mess-producing. My artistic assistant got married and moved out. Finally, it just didn’t do it for me anymore. I didn’t get enough pleasure or therapy out of it.

A while later, I wanted to see if I could write creatively. Forming a writing group was a way to make sure I would actually write. I guessed that the constructive input of fellow writers and the momentum of a regular group would motivate me to keep at the effort. It worked. I worked hard, and I started getting published. This avocation is yielding several rewards including the joy of success, self-expression, and a greater range of style. However, it is no longer hard and it’s not novel. The challenge is there but it’s not very intense. Writing is now another thing I do.

I made a decision during my time of clarity that in my second half of life I was going to allocate more time to relationships. Recognizing that this takes a greater commitment of time than I had had in the past, I made emailing and spending time with people a regular event in my schedule. These relationships were not based on carpooling, kids in the same class, or being in the same neighborhoods. They came together because of follow up on interesting conversations that entailed sharing and commonalities in outlook. Rapport grew with new and old associates because I invested in carving out the time for conversations, visits, and walks to a shiur.

Cultivating new relationships is a fine hobby for midlife. It’s sustaining and creative to connect to new people in different ways. It is fun and always new even though it’s not a challenge I have to work at. My collection is not an assemblage of porcelain or fine miniatures or teaspoons. I collect friends for pleasure. I nourish myself with new ideas and viewpoints they share from their experiences and wisdom. To date, that’s my favorite hobby.

Unlike other hobbies, it doesn’t lose novelty or challenge. It is constantly changing.

Other hobbies have lost their appeal after they lost their novelty. Part of the appeal of a hobby for me is in the challenge of mastery. It is my need, perhaps, to pit myself against a question of whether I can accomplish something in a new area.

I do know that part of the pleasure of a hobby is the enjoyment of the process, regardless of mastery.

The joy of collecting that other people have, the pleasure they take in tracking down items, and going to auctions, is not mine. But I do appreciate the process of planting, nurturing, and waiting for the outcome. Gardening for me is enjoyable even though my skills are not impressive. It’s the nurturing that appeals and so the process works well for me. I can enjoy the steps involved even if I am not mastering it, and I have regular failures and mishaps. Maybe I need a variety of interests that do different things for different parts of me.

And perhaps that is the joy of hobbies in midlife. They serve a variety of functions for the self aware. They can soothe, empower, keep us sharp, and provide new challenges at a time when we have exhausted the old ones. They can help us acquire new skills, careers, and outlets for our mature competencies. They help us enjoy the process. As long as we are mindful of what hobbies do for us and use them accordingly, we are growing doers and not merely indulging in dalliances to use our time.