Long before I discovered where I was politically, I needed to find where I fit in spiritually.  I was born into Judaism, but religion was not part of our every day lives.

We were “holiday Jews, “attending shul only during the High Holy Days.  I understood the liberation of “my” people, through the Haggadah, read each spring at Passover.  I understood Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, having lost my Grandfather when I was very young. My comprehension of Judaism ended there.

Jeannie Werther, my best friend in elementary school, attended classes in Judaism as part of her long road to Bat Mitzvah.  One day, we had a play date scheduled after school and I went to class with her.  My eyes were opened to an undiscovered part of who I was.  I asked my parents if I could also attend the classes, which they dismissed as a passing phase.  So, regardless of their decision and without their knowledge, the following  week I left school with Jeannie once again.  While my parents were frantic, thinking I had been abducted by a child molester or kidnapped for ransom, I was happily sitting in a classroom, learning how to be a Jew.

In Junior High, brought on by a fascination with Godspell and the story of Jesus, I befriended Mary Conklin as my new BFF / Catholic tutor.  She loved her religion, and would positively glow when she returned from retreats.  She presented me with my own rosary, which I concealed from my parents.  After all, if they would not support my interest in being a better Jew, they certainly would not be thrilled by my interest in converting to Catholicism.

By high school, I was searching for unorthodox options.  I read a few books on witchcraft, but quickly dismissed that option.  At the time, Wicca was either non-existent or unknown.

In my early 20’s, a friend of mine brought me to a meeting, where she practiced Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism.  People sat cross-legged in front of an alter adorned with fresh fruit, flowers, water and a scroll and chanted, “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.” Following the ritual chanting of the full Lotus Sutra, participants would stand and give testimonials. They would exclaim how they chanted for true love, and found it, a new job, and found it, a new refrigerator, and found it.  After a month of meetings, I decided that I, too, needed stuff. With my friend and a senior member of the group, I traveled to Brooklyn, where I underwent my conversion to Buddhism.  It was only then that I learned that the true goal of Nichiren Buddhism was world peace.

I received my very own scroll, and I set up an alter in my bedroom.  Twice a day, I would chant, wishing for true love, a better job (and, also, world peace.)

But my inquisitiveness, as always, was my downfall.  I began to question what I was actually chanting.  I asked for an English translation and, after a few months of not receiving the answer (no matter how diligently I chanted,) I rolled up my scroll, dismantled my alter and ate the apples in the bowl.

I left the concept of religion alone for a while.  Then, while undergoing radiation therapy for Hodgkin’s disease, I met many people who were finding great comfort in their faith and my search began anew.

Shortly after, while living in California, I learned that a co-worker also taught Hebrew and Jewish Studies to elementary schoolchildren.  I had every intention of joining her class, with absolutely no qualms about being the only adult, but the 4 PM mid-week time conflicted with work, so my goal of becoming a Bat Mitzvah was dashed.

After I returned to New York I learned that a new friend, who was Thai, was Buddhist. (Real Buddhism, not the pop culture version that I had practiced.) I pressed him endlessly about his religion.  I realized that I was far too Western in my ideals to fully embrace Buddhism, although the Noble Eightfold Path has become my touching stone for times of stress in my life.

I concluded that I would take the best of what I had learned from Jeannie, Mary, Tali and Tawee and live as a spiritual person without feeling obligated to an organized religion.

My religion is the beauty of a sunset, the first firefly of the season; it is in the rabbit that stops so close to me that I can see it’s nose twitching.

This week, while taking in a few moments of sun outside my restaurant, I noticed a strange flat squiggle in the parking lot.  On further inspection, I discovered that it was perfectly identifiable as a snake, which apparently was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  For some reason, I was drawn to it, and was fascinated that, even after heavy rains and hail, nothing could wash it away.

The following day, I took a stroll during a break and found myself looking, once again, at the snake.  Perhaps, I thought, this is my spiritual guide.  Given a choice, I would have liked it to be a snow goose or a leopard, but spiritual guides are not ours to choose.  I was dismayed, thinking of all the negative connotations of snakes, until I realized that snakes are only evil within organized religion, which I don’t participate in.  I found myself liking idea of the snake as my spiritual guide.  It is the symbol of the Gadsden flag, and it was the snake that, figuratively speaking,  first said,   “Take the red pill.”

Fulfilled at last, I looked around to admire the beauty that surrounded me.  I watched as a finch hopped from the grass and across the parking lot, repeatedly returning to a storm drain.  It alternated between chirping and trilling.  When I returned a few hours later, the finch was still repeating its agitated actions.  I walked over and peered through the heavy iron grate that covered the drain.  Inside, were two baby birds standing in a few inches of stagnant water.

Perhaps it was fate that our afternoon crowd had thinned out, and only our friends remained after a leisurely lunch, enjoying a visit.  I announced a rescue mission, and Rich and Robert found a crowbar and somehow managed to remove the heavy iron grate.  Robert and I were able to guide the baby birds into a long-handled dustpan with a broom.  We gently placed them on the grass and stepped away.  Stunned and wet, but no worse for the wear, they were soon joined by the two adult finches that stood protectively by, as their babies’ feathers dried in the warm afternoon sun.  Shortly after, they took flight and disappeared into the summer sky.

Hello, Nature.  It’s me – Ellen.

Rise up this mornin,
Smiled with the risin sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin, this is my message to you:

Singin: dont worry about a thing,
Every little thing gonna be all right.

A few days ago, during the fifth day of torrential downpours in the Northeast, more than one female friend complained of a”bad hair day” in their Facebook status updates.  No wonder that hair care is a multi-billion dollar a year industry!

My hair and I have a long history.  I was born with a tumble of thick waves.  For the first ten years of my life, it was my mother’s battle to tame my hair.

For most of my childhood, her solution was to pull my hair into bunches that were like two swatting horsetails on either side of my head.  It was pure relief to release my hair from its torturous manacles before bedtime.  However, by morning it would, once again, be an unruly, tangled mass.  I would sit, calmly eating my Cocoa Puffs as my mother would wring her hands in despair.  She wondered how she could have spawned such a wild-haired little ragamuffin, so in contrast to her perfectly sleek hair and my sister’s straight and even locks.  She often compared me to the neighbor’s sheepdog, Tidy, who was anything but.

When we went to visit my grandparents, my mother would spend extra time doing battle with my hair to achieve the “Rich Girl” style.  She would pull the front locks tightly back over my crown and fasten them securely with a jumbo barrette, while the rest of my hair was left to spiral and swirl into natural waves.  I would complain bitterly after an hour.  My head literally throbbed and often moved me to tears.

In a last ditch effort to control my hair and save me from repeated anguish, my mother took me to have my hair straightened at a place recommended by my father’s cousin.  (My cursed hair came from his side of the family.) All of the operators and clientele in the dingy walk-up in the heart of Times Square were either Latina or Black.  I was delighted.  Finally, people who could relate to my hair issues!

Hours later, as we headed home, my mother cooed that I looked just like a little ballerina.  (Have you ever seen a ballerina with frizzy, wavy hair?  Her point exactly.)  Unfortunately, two months later my curls fought their way out again.  I begged my mother to bring me back to Joffrey’s, but the experience was too much.  She threw her hands up in the air, and left me to my own devices.

The ’70′s, a decade without any fashion sense, was my era of hair bliss.  I parted it in the middle and let it do its own thing. The only issue I had was when I was in a play set in the Smoky Mountains.  Being a “Method” actress, I cajoled my hair into two braids and pinned them on top of my head.  After the dress rehearsal, during the director’s notes, I took out the pins.  Much to the amusement of other cast members, my braids stuck out horizontally.  A fellow actress asked if I had wires in my hair, exclaiming that I looked just like Pippi Longstocking.  Her remark was neither a compliment nor an insult.  It was a statement of wonder and awe that my hair could simply defy gravity.

After college and living on my own, I finally had the freedom and money to experiment with hair color.  I called my friend whose father was an executive with Clairol, and was fast-tracked into their “test model” pool.  I thought I would look fetching with auburn hair, and was put into the “red room.”  On a cold snowy winter day, I let the scientists at Clairol have their way with me.  The color was not quite what I expected, but it was close.  The timing was perfect – my family was gathering in Manhattan to celebrate an occasion.  Tonight would be my relaunch.

I stepped off the crosstown bus outside my apartment feeling rejuvenated.  As I stopped to admire myself in the side mirror of a parked van,  my smug smile turned into an expression of horror.  In the direct sunlight, my hair was a bold shade of purple that only the most die-hard punk rockers sported in Picadilly Circus.

I raced upstairs and frantically called Clairol.  The perky receptionist thanked me for reporting the color change.  “You don’t understand, ” I wailed,  “I can’t go to dinner like this!”

The colorist explained that, because my hair was so thick, there wouldn’t be enough time to fix the problem immediately.  He told me of a product I could buy that would remove “most” of the color.

A half hour later I poured the precious contents of Metallix over my purple tresses and waited impatiently for the slick, slimy concoction to work its magic.  After a seemingly endless twenty minutes, I turned on the shower.  A sputtering of cold water dribbled feebly from the faucet.  I realized that, once again, I would not be gifted with hot water in my quaint turn of the century apartment.  Gritting my teeth, I turned the handle to the “tub” mode, and stuck my head under the freezing water, sudsing and scrubbing at the oily purple mass that was my hair.

Less than an hour later, dressed appropriately with my freshly-washed hair cascading down my shoulders, I greeted my family at Le Cirque.  “Your hair is pink!” my sister hissed at me.  I nodded benevolently, happy for the vast improvement.

You would think, gentle readers, that I would have learned by now to let nature have its way.  But I was determined to reinvent my mousy brown hair into something spectacular.  After my “single process” experience, I decided to try highlighting.

I booked my appointment at a local salon.  A tight rubber  perforated cap was placed over my head.  With a crochet hook, the stylist proceeded to pull out a dozen hairs at a time.  When I looked like Pinhead from “Hellraiser,” the exposed hairs were smothered in thick bleach.  The experience was far more painful (and malodorous) than the “Rich Girl” style of my youth.

Next I tried the “foils” method of highlighting.  I had no idea that the process would take hours.  When my boyfriend showed up at the salon to meet me, he was faced with a bewildered girlfriend with fifty foil packets sticking haphazardly from her head.  I believed that this would be the moment the relationship ended.  But he simply said, “Cool.  Can you wear your hair like that tonight for ‘The Dead Kennedys’ concert?”

The highlights worked for me.  I mastered the art of blow-drying and my smooth hair shimmered with sun-kissed strands.  Then, I went to California.  I was staying with an actress friend, a Hungarian-born natural blond.  She convinced me to join her for a “touch-up.”  Her hairdresser, a part time colorist / part time call girl, worked out of her home.  As Lizbet and I waited for our locks to transform, we chatted and sipped wine.  After the rinse-out, I seated myself in the chair in front of the mirror.   The reflection was not a golden-haired surfer girl but a New Yorker with albino-white locks.

No one in California noticed anything odd about my appearance.  However, when I returned to Manhattan, I felt very conspicuous, especially when an inch of dark roots gave me a zebra-like appearance.

I found the nearest salon that had a window sign proclaiming “All color services – walk-ins welcome.”  I asked to speak with the colorist.  A tall graceful black man with green eyes and sporting a tiny silver hoop in his ear looked at me compassionately.  He took both my hands in his, and led me to a seat.  “Darling,” he said, “We need to clear an entire day for you!”

Stephen worked wonders and I followed him from salon to salon for years.  Eventually, as I moved to various states, my quest would begin anew for that “someone special.”  Every time I visit a  stylist for the first time, I tell her not to try and tame my hair.  “No matter what you do, ” I explain, “it has a mind of its own and will ultimately do what it wants.” The smart ones follow the curl and the ones who don’t never see me again.  I’ve had my share of bad haircuts (like the one that made me look like a show poodle – I didn’t go out for four months) and bad color (but nothing quite as bad as my flirtation with punk rock.)

Eventually though, armed with an arsenal of products and a professional hairdryer, I have come to terms with my hair.   I acknowledge that there’s a little beast in all of us.  Mine just happens to be my hair.  Fortunately, we have learned to co-exist peacefully.

Before mega-malls, before outdoor “lifestyle” promenades, before the Internet, people used to shop ” downtown.”  During my era, there were 2 places to buy jeans, Teen Haven,” where we’d go with our mothers for neatly hemmed and pressed denim pants or Googleplex, a head-shop which sold, among other things, Landlubbers.  These low-slung, hip-hugging bell-bottom jeans perfectly accented my curvy post-pubescent shape.

A decade later Googleplex and Landlubber went the way of Huckapoo and Wayne Rogers shirts.  Designer jeans were in style: Sasson, Gloria Vanderbuilt and, of course, the jeans that made Brooke Shields famous for claiming that “nothing” came between her and her Calvins.

The next step in jean evolution was the emergence of jeans that were so tight they literally left no room for anything between you and your Georges Marciano’s, not even imagination.

When trying them on, it was standard practice to lie on the floor of the dressing room in order to zip up.  We took to shopping with our girlfriends, so they could maneuver our immobile bodies to a standing position, close the ankle zippers and slip on our stiletto shoes, to allow us to admire ourselves in the dressing room mirror.  The question then was never, “Do they fit?” but rather, “Can you breathe?”

It is unfathomable, looking back, how we managed to get ourselves into these jeans by ourselves once we bought them, or how we allowed fashion to dictate that this was the outfit of choice to go disco dancing.  We grinded, we hustled, we bumped, while silently singing, “I will survive!” which had nothing at all to do with the Gloria Gaynor song.

Twenty-five years later, I can dress myself, breathe and, yes, even dance, thanks to the miracle of cotton spandex.

But I started out to write about good genes, not good jeans.

I celebrated a birthday this week.  I don’t feel any older but, after the year I’ve had, I definitely do feel wiser.

The weird thing about getting older is, well, getting older.  Age may be a state of mind but nobody tells your body this little secret.

I am sure that my contemporaries who have children have mentally adjusted to their  age.  They witness their children’s milestones: graduating from high school, graduating from college, getting married, having children of their own.  Without children, however,  life becomes a straight road without these mile-markers. One day you look back in amazement at how far you’ve actually travelled.

Most days I feel the same as I did twenty-plus years ago but then I notice a couple of new gray hairs (I won’t say where) or that my dimples have somehow become elongated,  Each sign of physical age is a startling surprise.  No one takes me for my age and I thank good genes for that blessing.  I am in the best shape in my life, a result of the physical aspect of owning and running a restaurant.  But, at the end of the day, my right hip aches and if something falls on the floor, my husband and I look at each other, hoping the other one will bend down to pick it up.

All in all, I’d like to think that I am growing older graciously.  Our nieces and nephews see my husband and myself as hip (unless, of course, we actually use the word “hip.”)  I still revel in the fact that we get to sit at the “adult” table at holiday dinners, although I’m usually sitting at the annexed bridge table by dessert.

I still believe that you’re only as old as you feel and, most days, I feel pretty damn good.  It’s rewarding to know that I can still fit into those jeans from long ago, but it is even better to possess the common sense that comes with age that tells me not to even try.