I am very pale. (A paler woman, who can find?) It’s always been a noticeable  trait. Some tell me I have porcelain skin. Others wonder if I’m ill (and  actually, I have been, but we’ll get to that).

So: I am white, I am Jewish, I am married to a rabbi, and I am, with my  lovely husband, raising two amazing kids of color, one of African descent, the other of African and European descent.

The title “A Woman of Pallor” came to me years ago as a play on Woman of  Color (which I’m not, but my daughter will be), and Woman of Valor, the  title of a hymn (known in the Hebrew as “Eshes Chayil,” and drawn from  the book of Proverbs) that Jewish husbands have traditionally sung to  their wives, extolling their virtues, and particularly—from what I can work out—their supernatural ability to be all things to all people.

I am not all things to all people.  I am trying to offer  more, to be  better—particularly in the wake of many years of being alarmingly  low-energy and often ill. But I am also assiduously trying to  be satisfied with who I am and what I bring to the table.

This blog is a dumping ground for my personal writing—about motherhood, race, adoption, derekh eretz (being a good person), fallibility, and much more. It’s about memories.  It’s about finding out in my mid-40s that I have Celiac disease and  completely having to overhaul my diet.

It’s about losses of all kinds,  and leaps of faith, and navigating murky cultural waters.

It’s about  trying to be a “woman of valor,” against all odds, failing much of the  time, but trying nonetheless. And it’s about remembering that we’re never in this alone.