the dream house

On Barbie, belonging, and building the Jewish creative community I needed

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

As a little girl, I was obsessed with Barbies. The glamour she embodied, her can-do spirit, her effortless beauty—that bitch even looked gorgeous and serene after my brother took a Bic lighter to her tits—all of it was like a drug to me.

Hours could pass while I was in a state of flow, alone in my pink floral-wallpapered room, getting my dolls dressed, braiding their hair, thinking up dramatic storylines for them.

But I longed for the Dream House. All my daydreams featured the pink plastic A-frame home that I was sure would bring me a feeling of wholeness. I’d never wanted anything in my life like I wanted that house. But at some point, it became clear I was not going to get it.

So I built my own.

Without Pinterest or Instagram, all I had for inspo was my imagination and my instincts, and it turned out, they were enough.

I had two built-in shelves at the back of my walk-in closet, which became Barbie’s ground level, basement/garage, a main level for her living, dining, and kitchen areas, and a second floor for her bedroom. For light, I plugged a table lamp into the nearest outlet and snaked the cord underneath the closet door. Barbie’s wall art consisted largely of thumbnail images of celebrities like Kirk Cameron and Alyssa Milano, clipped from the pages of Teen, Tiger Beat, and YM.

For years, the closet was my cozy hideaway. (I won’t say exactly how many years but it’s fair to say I was a late bloomer.) There, I could shut the door and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist while I sank into a world of my own design. I remember emerging from the closet during a hurricane to find a huge oak tree downed in our yard. I never even heard it crash down.

On a Zoom call with my Jewish women’s Artist Way group recently, one of the members shared how much she loves our weekly meetings. “I always look forward to Tuesdays,” she said. As I saw nods in every little square on my screen, my heart expanded.

When I realized that the stock version of an online creative community was not for me, I built my own. And even though it is not 1985 and I do have Pinterest and Instagram, just like when I was a kid making a Barbie house in my closet, everything I needed for this project was already in my grasp.

I had the understanding that if I was feeling isolated (if not unwelcome) as a Jew in many of my online communities, then I couldn’t possibly be the only one. I had the impulse to put my idea out there—a virtual 13-week Artist’s Way group for Jewish women—and see what happened.

I knew I had the skills and the desire to facilitate a group. I knew I didn’t have to make it complicated or sexy. And as long as this offering lit me up, all I had to do was follow the excitement, sit down and write up a sales page that felt like me, and hit publish before I talked myself out of it.

And it is even better than I could have imagined. I’ve always believed that some kind of magic happens when women get together, and this is no different.

We cheer for each other when we show up to our creativity. We discuss what it means to live a creative life, why it matters, and how we connect with our creative spark. And we wonder aloud if Julia Cameron is serious about all the assignments she’s asking of us because my God, doesn’t she know we have lives!?

Sometimes I think my seven-year-old self wouldn’t recognize the woman I’ve become. The shy, unathletic kid who would have traded her Jewish identity in a heartbeat for a Christmas tree is now a stand-up comic with a gravel biking obsession who takes pride in her heritage. But I’m still the little girl who knows how to build whatever her heart yearns for.

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What if your creativity was sacred?

Jewish tradition begins with creation, and teaches that we are made b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of a Creator.

So what does that mean for your writing, your art, whatever lights you up creatively?

That’s what we’re digging into in B’tzelem: Created to Create, a 75-minute online workshop I’m giving in collaboration with the Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning on Wednesday, March 4th.

Using Jewish texts, we’ll look at creativity as a spiritual practice and discover practical ways to reconnect with our creative spark in everyday life.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, disconnected, or you just want to invite more creativity into your life. this class is for you.

Fee: $0-$36

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What I’m obsessed with right now

• My 30 jokes in 30-days joke writing/ posting streak. Check it out on Instagram or TikTok.

• The Being Jewish podcast. I learned more about Iranian history and Persian Jewry in 80 minutes than I did in 47 years on this recent episode featuring Mandana Dayani, Matthew Nouriel and Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh. I also got some lessons in comedy and spirituality during a recent episode featuring Modi Rosenfeld.

• This sleep mask. I wear it every night.

• The Tyme 1.25 inch curling iron. This is not an affiliate link, although I am placing this product in a sponsored gift guide I’m writing for Yahoo. They sent me a free product to try, and I LOVE it. I’m very clumsy with heat tools, but this one is very user-friendly, it heats up fast, and it never catches on one or two strands of hair like my old curling iron.

• This American Woman by Zarna Garg I was tearing through the audiobook when I ran out of Spotify credits last week. I have never been so excited for a new month to begin as I am right now.

• I got a set of Olive and June press-on nails at Target and I’m very impressed. So impressed that I recommend them despite a sizing error that threatened to cut off the circulation to my left pinky.