December 8, 2023 Edition
Editor: Salma Neghive
Published by JPlease Press
San Miguel De Allende, México
YIDDISH WORD OF THE DAY
SHPILKES
I always love using Yiddish words and sharing them with others, particularly when I can use them in a sentence, or explain them relative to my personal experience.
One of the definitions of “Shpilkes” is, ants in your pants. A sense of agitation. When I got graduated college, a friend who also grew up with Yiddish spoken a little in his home, named me, “Shpliky.”
Wherever I was, I thought I should be someplace else. I vibrated at a different RPM than most (and, truthfully, still do). Even if I was not physically moving around, my internal engine was always “on.”
I never disavowed the nickname, I simply saw it as a part of me. Now, from the rear-view mirror, I can understand why that energy, that “too muchness” (for some) must have been challenging. That unseasoned JP who was always trying so hard to be seen, understood, “successful.” The one who was trying to be a Big Macher (another great Yiddish word!) to fulfill my Mother’s belief that I could be some Wunderkind (who knows in what, not sure that mattered).
SHPILKES
I always love using Yiddish words and sharing them with others, particularly when I can use them in a sentence, or explain them relative to my personal experience.
One of the definitions of “Shpilkes” is, ants in your pants. A sense of agitation.
When I got graduated college, a friend who also grew up with Yiddish spoken a little in his home, named me, “Shpliky.”
Wherever I was, I thought I should be someplace else. I vibrated at a different RPM than most (and, truthfully, still do). Even if I was not physically moving around, my internal engine was always “on.”
I never disavowed the nickname, I simply saw it as a part of me. Now, from the rear-view mirror, I can I can understand why that energy, that “too muchness” (for some) must have been challenging.
That unseasoned JP who was always trying so hard to be seen, understood, “successful.” The one who was trying to be a Big Macher (another great Yiddish word, look this one up!), to fulfill my Mother’s belief that I could be some Wunderkind (who knows in what, not sure that mattered).
I now see that, whatever my genetic energy or wiring may have been, at least part of my Shpilkiness was surely a learned reaction or response to personal experience. Those beliefs each of us takes on as a result of growing up and seeing what we see, believing what we do. Our particular lens on the world.
I can’t remember what life was like before my mother got cancer when I was 8, all I know is that given who she was as the “MyWayMatriarch,” the familial triangulation that ensued, and her unbridled control of, and outspoken desires (hers, not mine) for, me, there’s no way I was, or could have been, a happy-go-lucky guy. As soon as she got sick, whatever “was,” was no longer. The “perfect child” had to be even more perfect.
Sadness, anxiety and guilt took hold, and fueled so much of who I became, how I moved through life, and the choices I made…especially relating to the two women who stood under a chuppa with me and said, “I do.” Although I couldn’t have wrapped words around this when I was younger, the fact is that wherever I was, wasn’t where I thought I should be. The present moments were always tinged with darkness, a lack of peace or joy, sometimes painful, often agitated.
Even if the circumstances looked OK to the outside world. It was how I was on the inside. I was feeling either I was “too much” or not enough.
I was either running away from (what was), and/or running to (what might be). Probably both, simultaneously. Burdened by the past, and looking to the future with a hope for something else. Anything else than the feelings inside.
“Being Shpilky” grew out of this belief system/lens/narrative/construct. It wasn’t until I started settling in differently as I got older, learning (how) to quiet down, shift my energy, embrace the spectrum of feelings and traits that we all have. Meditation, spiritual seeking, became elemental to my unfolding.
I came to learn that the byproduct of my inability to live in the moment, my holding on to the past or believing that the future was where it was at and could be better, is that I made decisions that have lifelong implications from those singular choices.
Every choice, each moment, is a “sliding door” moment. We have choices about ways to go and what to do. When we’re uncomfortable in our skin, when we’re not coming from a place of integration and self-love, when we are operating out of fear more than faith/love, we’re creating a breeding ground for trying too hard. For externally filling voids in our lives.
And, those choices become even more impactful in how they play out in other aspects of our lives. When we’re rushing and moving and seeing life as an outside, not inside, job, we’re unable to pause and reflect. We don’t think we have another way. It’s bullshit that “people can’t change,” we CAN shift aspects of who we are, in the direction of where we want to go. If we have intentionality and a belief that we can.
Being Shpilky is a reminder of a small part of me, one that rarely rears its head, yet it’s still – and always will be – an ingredient in my stew, no matter how chill I may be, how transformed or quieter I may be on the inside.
I’ve been called both “the most chill intense person” and “the most intense chill person.” I appreciate now, more than ever, the (wide) Spectrum of Me. I’m at the most joyous and integrated place within that I have ever been, by far, and have been cracking my shit open, and unlayering, for years, each day trying to be an even better version of myself than I was the day before.
And, the most beautiful byproduct of this bumpy road less traveled is an awareness of how essential it is to provide wisdom/experience/perspective for our Youth. Because it takes a Village. And after years of daily meditation as an elemental component of my life that helps keep me in balance, I’m able to Pause. And reflect. And be. Because it’s sometimes hard for me to look back, and truly sense and feel compassion for that younger version of me. My powerful, intense inner vibration has often created as many challenges as it has, gifts.
And, with the lens through which I NOW look at life, I can get, on all levels (see/feel/know/understand) that without each and every sliding door that came before me, I wouldn’t be here now. And an essential reminder of the absolute necessity of embracing. All elements of who we are. To be able to get to a place of not only acceptance, of a celebration of ourselves and our journey to get (t)here.
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This looks like an awesome space to share your current musings as well as some of the long & winding road that landed you into this Here & Now somehow.
Very glad to be on this magical mystery tour with you, my friend.