”You know, Mommy, the 4 Questions aren’t really questions – they’re more like statements,” said Eliana.

Asher sang the entire kiddush, the prayer over the first cup of wine. Shaya did the 3 of the 4 Questions in Hebrew, showed us his paper-plate frog and sang “No, No, No, I will not let them go…”

Invoking the memory of my late grandfather, my children negotiated the return of the Afikomen (I gave them Barnes & Noble gift cards and silver dollars, just like Grandpa Artie gave me) and we ate matzo ball soup, hard-boiled egg in salt water, brisket and matzo seven-layer cake.

It was a blissful night and by the time we all fell into bed very late, the perfectly circular moon brilliant yellow in the night sky, we were connected in a way that I’d always hoped I’d reach with my children. We cuddled and watched the National Geographic special on the scientific plausibility of the 10 biblical Plagues before drifting off to sleep.

When I was a child, the Passover seder lasted an hour, with my grandfather presiding over the head of the table and everyone present reading an English paragraph or two. We sang a few verses of Dayenu, ate my grandmother’s strawberry fluff and homemade gefilte fish and strategized under the table how to steal the Afikomen from between the pillows on which Grandpa sat.

At my first Orthodox seder, in Jerusalem in 2000 alongside my then-fiance and 30-some of his relatives, I learned that I was obligated to ingest a gigantic shmura matzo sandwich with romaine lettuce leaves, haroset and horseradish – and I could not eat the real meal, nor even speak, until I did so.

I didn’t love it nor did I love the way my soon-to-be nephews fell asleep on the floor of the hotel ballroom because it was hours past their bedtime and the adults were so focused on following every single word of the Haggadah. Later, I hated the weeks upon weeks of preparation, scouring my house, locking up cupboards with duct tape, covering the counters and lugging trunks full of dishes from the basement.

For me, Judaism has always been a personal pilgrimage to meaning – not to rule-following nor to God-fearing. Just striving to find definition for our days, inspiration and the rich flavors of a shared heritage.

Last night, as we drove away from my parents’ house (we surprised them after our private seder by ringing the doorbell and proclaiming, “Elijah’s here!”), the kids and I spotted the very full yellow moon.

I almost couldn’t drive, I was so focused on the craters of the orb, so clear in the night sky. “I think the moon is coming closer to the Earth,” Eliana theorized.

“It’s like we can reach out and grab it,” I said.

“But we can’t, Mommy,” Eliana said. “It’s all the way in the sky.”

“Maybe there are aliens living there,” Asher suggested.

“Aliens aren’t real,” said Eliana. “Do you believe in aliens, Mommy?”

“Well…it’s hard to believe that we are the only living creatures in the whole universe,” I said.

“But people can’t live on other planets,” Asher said.

“True. So maybe other types of creatures can and they are aliens,” I said.

And we drove home, toward the moon but never reaching it, pondering the meaning of it all and the many definitions of existence.

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Last night, I cooked until midnight, then crashed into bed exhausted. In my Orthodox life, I used to do this every week.

Of course, back then I didn’t work as much as I do now and I didn’t spend as much focused time with my children. I got things done. Make challah – check. Make brisket – check. Make chicken soup and freeze it in huge containers for several Shabbats in a row – check.

And when it came to Passover, I cooked for WEEKS, in my basement, using the 1960s Hotpoint (which is super cool and cooks better than my 7-year-old GE in the kitchen). I cut vegetables on a wood slab in the laundry room and washed dishes with special sponges in the utility tubs

And then I froze everything I’d made – brisket, chicken, roasted vegetables, matzo kugels, soup and matzo balls – because I was cooking in advance of the holiday so that I had ample time to clean every crevice of the house and change out the regular dishes with glass ones for Passover.

I covered counters. I taped up cabinets. I used special dish racks reserved only for this holiday and avoided the dishwasher for 8 days. And I didn’t begin the seder until well after sundown, which means my kids were never able to stay awake for even the beginning.

Not so now. Post-divorce, post-start-my-life-over, post-claim-my-life-and-write-my-own-definition, I have told you already how I now realize that the Orthodox life didn’t work for me. The Jewish one does, of course, and so it has been two years of deciding which rituals, which rules, which observances to keep and which ones to amend.

My ex-husband doesn’t like it and rightfully so – this isn’t what any of us bargained for way back when we first fell in love.But I just can’t sign on to a religious observance that made me miserable.

And so tonight, well before the sun sets but at the perfect time for my 3 angels, we will sit just the four of us around the dining room table, and recount the story that made our people a nation.

We will remember thousands of years ago when the Jews were slaves to Pharoah in Egypt. And I will tie in modern-day semblances, too – like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., just days before his death likening himself to Moses, who glimpsed the Promised Land but never stepped foot inside it.

And then we will spend a week getting back to basics. Together. We will savor the flavors of our heritage and we will all take part in the storytelling so that what we do today has meaning for all of us around the table.

And by the time night falls, we will climb into our beds and take comfort in the knowing that we are part of something bigger than just ourselves – but that each of us is a powerful individual without whom our tradition would have no relevance.

It’s not sacrifice the individual for the community, at least not in my house.

Both are equally relevant, equally powerful, equally poetic.

Have a good holiday everyone. Remember to savor the moments.

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Ok so it took a day or two and asking my son to help me remember what he said that evening together in the park.

It was between hopscotch and the climbing structure that Asher said, “Do you know the key to getting out of quicksand, Mommy?”

“No,” I replied.

“Don’t struggle,” he said. “It makes it worse.”

Hmmmm…I thought. That’s a metaphor if ever I heard one. Which I said to my 8-year-old boy only to hear, “What’s a metaphor?”

“Um…it’s when you say one thing but really it means more than just the words.” I got a quizzical look and then we were at the playscape and that was far more compelling.

But really. The key to freeing yourself from quicksand is to not fight against it, because it’ll only sink you further in.

Take it for what it’s worth, people.

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So I know it’s cold and rainy and possibly even snowy today in metro Detroit but spring IS dawning – with the launch of my new corporate website at www.yourppl.com.

Not only that – but Sunday night I had a great party of about 20 amazing women here in my living room, and the Eliana tablecloth once again commanded the crowd. Yes. I have a tablecloth named after my daughter mainly because I bought it in the throes of energy I felt mere hours before I went into labor with my delightful little girl.

That was 6 1/2 years ago and I am still laying my table with the periwinkle blue cloth made in India and decorated with red and yellow flowers. It gets comments every time – just like my sweet  girl does.

Life has been busy, you know. Yesterday as I waited for the mechanic to replace the brake rotors on my minivan, I pored over a family restaurant menu that offered just about everything. This was not a high-end restaurant, but I was blissful as I opened a tall packed menu that promised eggs and bacon, chicken soup, spinach pie, grilled cheese, coneys and fruit plates, patty melts and liver and onions.

I like an anything-you-want menu because life is never like that. Every day we face limits and the need to make choices. In most areas of life, I cannot even remotely have anything I want and really the menu that offers it all won’t quite deliver because you and I both know I cannot possibly ingest a little bit of everything.

But a woman can dream.

It’s the promise of sky’s-limit generosity offered up with a pickle. My daughter always wants what’s on my plate or her brothers’. I’m like that too. At 38 years old, my father laughs when I order way too much food. It’s the maybe-I’m-missing-some-fantastic-flavor, never eclipsed by the idea of being satisfied with what’s on my plate right this minute.

I am, of course.

My new website epitomizes the kind of work and style of my company, Your People LLC.

I have the three best kids in the entire world.

I am surrounded by good people, in my work and in my personal life.

I have finally found the love I always knew was out there but never held in my soft hands.

I know I say it a lot but that’s because it means something: It’s All Good. It really is. Go to your day.

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For some reason, it seemed easier to invite eight of Asher’s closest friends for a sleepover to celebrate his birthday than do an all-out shindig at some expensive playspace. And so I sent the invitations and culled the replies to a final tally of one girl, eight boys, 3-year-old Shaya, 6-year-old Eliana and Eliana’s best friend snuggled in my house last Saturday night.

And who would have expected the little boys to be so moody? I found C. in the basement, in a pop-up tent, sulking because B. was being mean to him. W. couldn’t sleep without his stuffed puppy (cute) and so he thrashed and kicked and rolled around the family room floor as the other boys drifted off to sleep. By midnight, it was Shaya asleep in my bed, me nodding off to Scrubs reruns and W. la-la-la beside me on the covers.

S. arrived after the hockey game elated to take part in the party. Everyone was happy to see him. Suddenly, he was grief-struck in sobs.

“I missed the pinata!” S. cried.

“But you went to the hockey game,” I tried to reason.

A. piped up: “I missed the pinata and I didn’t get a hockey game!”

“Take it up with your parents,” I told him.

No one wanted to play the board games that Asher had set out in “centers” around the main floor. My sensitive son was wounded, so A. offered to do “whatever the birthday boy wanted because it’s his party.” Still, no one played the games.

Two boys were concerned that my house wasn’t kosher enough for them. The girls seemed ok.

When did boys get so moody? Don’t get me wrong – they were adorable and full of heart and love and kindness. But honestly, the 6 girls who slept over last fall for Eliana’s birthday were a piece of cake in comparison.

There’s always someone who doesn’t show, of course, and the kids who come whose parents I’ve never met but for some reason they don’t mind letting their kid sleep at my house. In contrast, Asher has sworn to never attend sleep-away camp. That’s ok with me.

I like having the house to which all the kids flock. Last summer I was giving out popsicles and homemade muffins to a gaggle of neighborhood kids who came to play on our swingset. Their mothers thought I was running a day care. I only heard it through the rumor mill of course since none of them surfaced for a coffee klatch.

Last night, as Asher and I played tag on a nearby playground and raced each other around the “running track,” as my son calls it, the subject of metaphor came up. I don’t remember the actual context – and I wish I did, for my son is so profound – but it was something to the effect of fish should swim with the current instead of fighting to head upstream.

I explained what a metaphor is. He ran off to play.

It was a moment. For him, for me, then lost in time under the setting sun, the spring breezes and the questions left unspoken.

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Sunshine helps. And so does loving where you are at this very moment, doing what is right in front of you.

The people you’re with. Whether it’s perfect silence in your corner office or you catch a glimpse of blue sky out the quiet window. If the music playing on your computer speakers is from a CD someone you love made for you over the course of two weeks.

If, as you sit in this moment, you recall little bits of perfection – in the hug from your lover the night prior, the navy blue paint of your bedroom walls, the taste of your favorite coffee, the fact that your children are at school happily on their way.

And then there was the weekend just ended – of sunshine and clear air and walking along city streets, drinking in the sites that have been waiting there for us to notice.

The knowledge that you are not only OK, you are exactly where you should be and everything is truly going to be alright.

The belief that you can do exactly everything you want to do and do it with grace.

The notion that the possibilities are endless and the world has opened its arms to you.

The idea that forever begins right now, and you are at the head of the line.

The comfort that you have chosen good people to fill your life with and discreetly waved goodbye to those who drain you of your purpose.

And the innate knowing that you are making a difference, as you set out to do, and making this world a better place. That is our mission. Get started.

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When I was a journalist, I’d pitch a story, get the assignment, do the research and interviews, then finesse the words so the story sang on the page. It was fun, it was poetic, it was artistic. It was a simple process, really.

PR and Marketing can be simple but whenever people are involved in a process, it somehow gets muddled.

Picture this: I’m in a meeting with a client and I lay out all the possibilities of what Your People LLC can do to bring attention to their company, to their product, to their event.

We can tell their stories to the media and hope they’ll pick up on it. But then the client has to deliver on the increased attention.

We can tell their stories in ads on the radio, on TV, in newspapers, and online. But then the client has to deliver on the increased attention.

We can plan events to drive people into the store or place of business. When we get the people there, the client has to deliver on the increased attention.

It’s all about relationships and about follow-through. There are the steps that companies like mine create to drive traffic and attention. And then there are the processes that a company has to have in place, seamlessly and without fail, to handle the what-happens-now.

Seth Godin wrote a great blog yesterday about doing the work. Back when I was Orthodox, I read a book called Thou Shalt Not Want, about the religious take on work and income. Its quick point: you have to do the appropriate amount of work to earn enough – not kill yourself, not slough off.

Bottom line: Marketing and Public Relations do not include a magic wand to instantly make more money and nab more customers. We all have to do the work and build relationships in order to improve business. Bottom line.

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