You're never fully dressed without a smile

I volunteered at a soup kitchen today. We fed hundreds of people, literally -- I'd never seen such a big soup kitchen, and I've been working in them since middle school. Best of all, for a few hours, our clients weren't getting ignored on the sidewalk. They were treated with respect: we waited on them, like in a full-service restaurant. More bread, sir? Can I refill that coffee for you, ma'am? 12 more rolls to go, so you have something to eat tomorrow?

One man stopped me as I walked by his table. "Excuse me, Rachel?" (I was wearing a name-tag.) "Do you have teeth?"

It's not a question that I get too often. I'm a graduate student at NYU; I live in a beautiful apartment in the East Village; I've never had a cavity. I wasn't sure where this conversation was going, but I answered him anyway. "Yes, sir. I do."

"I don't!" He grinned, pulling back his lips to show me. He'd fibbed, actually... He clearly had two or three teeth that were simply refusing to rot away. Compared to my full mouth of pearly whites, though, I could see where he'd round down.

I wasn't sure how to respond. Apprehensively, smiling gently, I said, "I'm sorry, sir."

He was having trouble eating the carrots and broccoli on his plate, he explained; he couldn't chew the food we'd given him, and it was going to be his only meal that day. We brought him more soft dinner rolls and extra dessert.

Every time I volunteer, I count my blessings in one way or another. In Kazakhstan, I realized how much I needed to cherish my community and its potential. In high school, I constantly insisted that everyone was capable of something greater, that all of my peers (no matter how popular or geeky) could contribute to something larger than themselves. Today, I was reminded to smile.

High hopes

When you are down,
lift your head off the ground -
there's a lot to be learned,
so look around!

I've been a Phillies fan since I was a little girl. "Fan" actually doesn't seem like a strong enough word to describe my love for my team...

When I was four, I announced to my mother that I was married. Naturally, she was curious about who her "son-in-law" might be. My dad had the Phillies game on, and I pointed at the TV with glee: "That's him!" To my mother's horror, the TV camera had zoomed in on the husky bearded catcher, spitting tobacco as he squatted behind home plate. (I swear, my taste in men has improved since then. I'm more of a Chase Utley girl now.) Several months later, while in the bath, I told my mother that we'd divorced. "He was a smoker," I informed her sadly, shaking my little four-year-old head so seriously that the scene would've been believable if I hadn't been surrounded by rubber duckies.

I guess you could say I've had a penchant for storytelling since I was young, too. Now, of course, my stories are much more fact-based. I had a long week of grad school, full of tough editing choices, emotionally draining group projects and intense classes...

But it was worth it. I'm figuring out what I want, what I know, and remembering who I am. It took a little venting to friends, and a couple servings of dessert, but I'm back in the game now.

The Phillies won tonight, too, with "Doc" Halladay pitching the first post-season no-hitter since the 1950s.

We've got high apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes...

Here I am

"I found your old diary."

My mom was visiting me for my birthday, sharing girl talk and gourmet food with me to ring in my 22nd year.

"Um, what?"

Apparently, I'd given my childhood diary -- with Simba emblazoned on the front, I might add -- to my mom a long time ago. Oh, the silly choices that a high school girl will make in order to have more room for make-up in an old desk drawer... My mom laughed as she recalled what she'd found when she carefully turned the pages, which were stiff with glue from movie tickets and restaurant napkin rings that I'd pasted in as mementos.

Basically, every year, I wrote one entry. "Dear Diary, I am so sorry that I haven't written in you in sooo long," I would begin. Each entry was a time capsule, a seven-, eight-, or nine-year-old's idea of a year in review. I shared about the boys I liked at the moment, the classes I'd loved, and the adventures I'd had, promising to write again soon... only to fail miserably. Reportedly, one year, I even offered to name my diary, like a teenage boy naming his first car, hoping that personification might help to guilt me into logging my secrets more often.

I promise not to name my blog. And I promise not to offer any lame excuses about why all was quiet on the western front here this summer. I'm not even going to apologize.

You see, every time a friend or family member asked me why I hadn't blogged in a while this summer, I lamented that nothing exciting had happened to me. "What would I write about? I just sit at a desk all day," I constantly insisted. This is true. I did, in fact, slouch in front of a computer screen all summer. My summer internship taught me a lot. I know now that I need windows -- or, at least, that SAD can strike in the summer if you're inside all day. I know now that my hunch about not having the stomach for hard news was right-on. Telling tough stories is important; reporting on gut-wrenching crimes has its purpose. But it's not for me. I need joy. I need interaction.

I needed to learn about new media in a less sedentary, more innovative way. And grad school has granted me that opportunity. There is life beyond my computer screen, and experiencing it doesn't have to mean choosing a new career. It just means that I have to listen to my gut. I am a great reporter. I have a weirdly fierce love for women's lifestyle magazines. And I need to hold strong to that.

Or, as Mufasa would say, I just need to remember who I am.

I cherish my loved ones more than words can express. I bake when I'm stressed; I make a mean batch of cookies. I did, in fact, do a lot of cool things this summer -- sometimes even in the vicinity of my poorly-lit office. I love a good story, and I think everyone has one. I'm a New Yorker. I'm a daughter. I'm a friend. I'm a perfectionist. I'm a writer. I live every day with the goal of learning something new, and laughing along the way. I couldn't be prouder to be part of the young Jewish community. I believe in love. I believe in the power of my pen (or my keyboard?). I believe in beauty, and music, and prayer, and peace. My name is Rachel Liane Slaff, and this is next chapter of my life.

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. - Joan Anglund