"Turtle is a blah-blah-blah blah!" Princess shouted, exasperated when Turtle ruined fifteen minutes worth of puzzle time with one sweep of his chunky busy arms. She didn't say blah-blah blah, but that is what I heard.
"What did you say?"
She said it again.
"Is that Hebrew?"
"Yeah."
"What does it mean?"
"Like..." she screwed up her face, concentrating. "It means, like, he's oatmeal. Like, soggy oatmeal. You know."
I didn't know. I didn't know what she was talking about. I told her so.
She rolled her eyes a bit. "It's like...oh, I don't know how to say it in English, Ima!"
And maybe I was tired and maybe I was thinking a little bit too much about my father and maybe I was feeling fat but when she said that, I left the room to cry a bit and maybe to eat a little bit of chocolate.
I always thought that when my kids finally learned Hebrew I would find it adorable. Outdoorsman on the other hand didn't like how the language sounded phonetically and dreaded the day they entered the Israeli school system.
In real life, Outdoorsman gets a kick out of our biligual kids, and I feel a knot in my stomach whenever I hear them speak in Hebrew.
Because of what it means.
It means that her brain, understanding a different way of expressing itself, will be wired a little differently.
It means that the first thing that jumps into her mind won't mirror mine, won't have us looking at each other with shared amusement, shared understanding, but with our own impressions of what really happened.
It means that my daughter will be in a situation such as the baby ruining her puzzle and she will think about something--an expression, most likely--in Hebrew, and it won't translate. I won't understand what she is getting at. Her being a native Hebrew speaker will cause a rift between us and I will never, ever fully understand her.
And that makes me cry.
And eat chocolate.
And even as I beam proudly at her, with her big girl packback and her brand new uniform, my heart is squeezed with fear. "Don't go, my baby," I am thinking as I smooth her skirt and fix her headband. "Don't go. Don't go where I can't follow."
But if I am honest, I can remember when Princess went to her first year of gan, which was English, and when she came home with an idea in her head that I did not put there, that was put there by somebody else (I do believe the idea was along the highly intelligent lines of "I'm gonna make this dolly dead because she is a mushy-tushy-pishie!") I had to go to bed early with a headache.
I know it's the job of every mother to know when to let go. I know that my fears are just an extension of every mothers fears as she opens the golden cage.
And gives her baby the gift of flight.
And, okay. We're talking about oatmeal. Mushy oatmeal. Which is so weird and I will never understand that applying to Turtle.
I'll never quite understand it, but I can know what I have to do, anyway. And I can know that I have to be okay with it. I cannot be uncomfortable with it, because it is a part of her. And if I am uncorfortable with it, I will be uncomfortable with her, hence creating the very rift that I afraid of in the first place. A self fulfilling prophecy.
I turned back to Princess, an idea forming in my mind. "Do you mean mushy like mushy cause he's...uh..."
She looked at me. "Like what?"
I lost the idea. Ah. "I love you, Princess."
She smiled, a questioning crease fading between her eyes. "I love you, Ima."
And that will just have to be enough to bridge any gaps.
Right?
Ah
Monday, August 29, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Natural Course
The first words that popped into my head when I saw my father for the first time in a year and a half is,
My father looks like a baby chick.
And the words popped into my head whole, like I wrote them, like I was writing them, like I was writing about it on the spot, like I was a reporter for National Geographic. (Page 45: After a 20 year study, at this point, the MS sufferer begins to resemble a baby chick.)
My eyes skimmed over his form, skinny to the point of horrifying emaciation. He had been thin for a while already, but there was nothing to him now at all. His white skin was stretched over his bones, his fingers shaped into claws, His face was frozen into a waxy mask, his eyes half closed. The only thing that stood out in sharp relief, beak-like, was his nose.
I took a shaky intake of breath and smiled, grazed his cold cheekbone with my hot lips. I felt my blood pumping in my ears, in my chest, making me hot all over, and I felt big, too big, with my working muscles and sinews and nerves and bones covered in a layer of fat under my skin.
My mother squeezed my hand when she saw my face. "Baby," she said to my father, "D is here. From Israel."
"Tell him I'm happy to see him."
"You tell him you're happy to see him."
"I'm happy to see you." The girls clung to my skirt. I shifted Turtle on my hips, opened my mouth again, and let it hang that way for a minute. Did he see me? His eyes did not flicker, his face did not thaw. I let the babble that had been building up in the back of my throat spill out. "I miss you. We miss you. We think about you all the time. This is Turtle. He's really big, right? Like for his age? Everyone say he is. Turtle! Say hello! See, he's smiling, he's happy to see you."
My father makes an effort; his teeth are clasped together and I realize he's trying to make me feel better. He's trying to smile back.
I smile too, and suddenly, tears are spilling down my cheeks.
Abba!
The National Geographic reporter inside of me paused. Like a baby chick,she whispered. Because of the nose like a beak and his skinny cold body and his open mouth. Like he's waiting for feathers to grow.
Abba!
"I know," my mother said.
Abba!
"I know."
My father looks like a baby chick.
And the words popped into my head whole, like I wrote them, like I was writing them, like I was writing about it on the spot, like I was a reporter for National Geographic. (Page 45: After a 20 year study, at this point, the MS sufferer begins to resemble a baby chick.)
My eyes skimmed over his form, skinny to the point of horrifying emaciation. He had been thin for a while already, but there was nothing to him now at all. His white skin was stretched over his bones, his fingers shaped into claws, His face was frozen into a waxy mask, his eyes half closed. The only thing that stood out in sharp relief, beak-like, was his nose.
I took a shaky intake of breath and smiled, grazed his cold cheekbone with my hot lips. I felt my blood pumping in my ears, in my chest, making me hot all over, and I felt big, too big, with my working muscles and sinews and nerves and bones covered in a layer of fat under my skin.
My mother squeezed my hand when she saw my face. "Baby," she said to my father, "D is here. From Israel."
"Tell him I'm happy to see him."
"You tell him you're happy to see him."
"I'm happy to see you." The girls clung to my skirt. I shifted Turtle on my hips, opened my mouth again, and let it hang that way for a minute. Did he see me? His eyes did not flicker, his face did not thaw. I let the babble that had been building up in the back of my throat spill out. "I miss you. We miss you. We think about you all the time. This is Turtle. He's really big, right? Like for his age? Everyone say he is. Turtle! Say hello! See, he's smiling, he's happy to see you."
My father makes an effort; his teeth are clasped together and I realize he's trying to make me feel better. He's trying to smile back.
I smile too, and suddenly, tears are spilling down my cheeks.
Abba!
The National Geographic reporter inside of me paused. Like a baby chick,she whispered. Because of the nose like a beak and his skinny cold body and his open mouth. Like he's waiting for feathers to grow.
Abba!
"I know," my mother said.
Abba!
"I know."
Monday, July 11, 2011
Oh, what a world
The sun is smiling. When I am inside with the blinds closed and the ceiling fans on and an ice pack on my head, that is. When I am outside, the sun is still smiling, in a I'm-coming-to-get-you scary movie kind of way. Everything sticks to everything. The insides of my knees stick together when I walk. My shirt sticks to my back. My scarf sticks to my head. And the kids stick to me.
I don't know what it is about the heat that makes me want to kill someone just with my eyes. When I have a day in which I did not mentally murder, I feel good about myself. And that's when I realize that in the winter, when it is raining and cold and damp, I have no drive, no motivation. So when I get up and write or play patiently with the girls or do the dishes, I feel like a high-powered business woman. Look at me go, I'm the energiser bunny. And THAT'S when I realize that I have no idea how much free will I really have, or how much I am simply driven by whims of my nature and changes in the general nature of the world around me.
Maybe today I slept well last night and ate well the day before and that's why I am a fountain of patience and folded all of the laundry.
Maybe someone told me that I look pretty, and that's why I told my husband what an amazing person he is.
Maybe Princess ate all her chicken, and that's why I am patient when she tantrums 15 minutes later.
Sometimes, it's even conscious. My father is doing so poorly, and the magazine rejected my story, I remind myself as I slump in my chair and decide to veg out with a book instead of something contructive, like re-writing the story or writing my father a letter.
Are we all just chain reactions to what is going on in our lives? I recently saw a book called Age 6: Loving and Defiant. And it went on to describe Princess to a T.
Is there a book out there called D: Age 30: Wherever the Winds will Take Her? (Or maybe D: Vampire Slayer. Oooh, pick that one.)
On the other hand, today I was in such a bad mood walking the girls to gan. It wa hot. The sun was laughing. I lost my lenses so I can't wear sunglasses and the world was shimmering through my teary eyes. Princess decided that she doesn't want to go to gan, and I heard her through my throbbing sinuses. I took a deep quavering breath, and said nothing, just kept walking past her gan to Coco-pop's gan.
In the end she decided to go after we went to Coco-pop's gan, and I'm not sure how calm I would have been had she decided to come home with me since I had so much planned for this morning not the least of which involved enjoying a bit of silence, but the point is, I was calm for that moment.
The point is, I think, not that I overcame the heat and didn't shoot bullets of fire from my eyes.
The point is, yes, maybe we are all chain reactions. But just like we are in the middle of one,we can also start one, can't we?
Because then as she turned to go to gan, she smiled and blew me a kiss. "I love you Ima," she said. Then skipped into gan.
It is over 100 degrees today, but I think that even had it been cold and rainy, my heart would have melted anyway.
I don't know what it is about the heat that makes me want to kill someone just with my eyes. When I have a day in which I did not mentally murder, I feel good about myself. And that's when I realize that in the winter, when it is raining and cold and damp, I have no drive, no motivation. So when I get up and write or play patiently with the girls or do the dishes, I feel like a high-powered business woman. Look at me go, I'm the energiser bunny. And THAT'S when I realize that I have no idea how much free will I really have, or how much I am simply driven by whims of my nature and changes in the general nature of the world around me.
Maybe today I slept well last night and ate well the day before and that's why I am a fountain of patience and folded all of the laundry.
Maybe someone told me that I look pretty, and that's why I told my husband what an amazing person he is.
Maybe Princess ate all her chicken, and that's why I am patient when she tantrums 15 minutes later.
Sometimes, it's even conscious. My father is doing so poorly, and the magazine rejected my story, I remind myself as I slump in my chair and decide to veg out with a book instead of something contructive, like re-writing the story or writing my father a letter.
Are we all just chain reactions to what is going on in our lives? I recently saw a book called Age 6: Loving and Defiant. And it went on to describe Princess to a T.
Is there a book out there called D: Age 30: Wherever the Winds will Take Her? (Or maybe D: Vampire Slayer. Oooh, pick that one.)
On the other hand, today I was in such a bad mood walking the girls to gan. It wa hot. The sun was laughing. I lost my lenses so I can't wear sunglasses and the world was shimmering through my teary eyes. Princess decided that she doesn't want to go to gan, and I heard her through my throbbing sinuses. I took a deep quavering breath, and said nothing, just kept walking past her gan to Coco-pop's gan.
In the end she decided to go after we went to Coco-pop's gan, and I'm not sure how calm I would have been had she decided to come home with me since I had so much planned for this morning not the least of which involved enjoying a bit of silence, but the point is, I was calm for that moment.
The point is, I think, not that I overcame the heat and didn't shoot bullets of fire from my eyes.
The point is, yes, maybe we are all chain reactions. But just like we are in the middle of one,we can also start one, can't we?
Because then as she turned to go to gan, she smiled and blew me a kiss. "I love you Ima," she said. Then skipped into gan.
It is over 100 degrees today, but I think that even had it been cold and rainy, my heart would have melted anyway.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Enough
Once a month, I write a letter to my father. I tell him the latest news, as pertaining to my little family. I write about the weather, I write about how the kids are getting so big, I write about how much I miss him.
And I do.
But I'm going in now to the states for a visit, and I'm scared. I'm scared of what I will find. I am scared of what is left.
Everytime I go back for a visit, he is diminished, less, in body. He is so skinny now, his fine-boned face skeletal, his arms and legs like threads. But this time, I have been warned, he is diminished also, and significantly, in mind.
I don't know how to continue this post, how to lead it to its positive ending. The last paragraph should read something like--and he's so special, and so wonderful, and still has a beautiful smile. But I'm crying as I write, and I can still picture him as he was just last year, and he was so much better then!--and he made me cry then, too.
Am I just supposed to appreciate each moment? Is there a way that I can say that that doesn't sound trite, a way that I can say that and really feel it? Enjoy this visit. Maybe next visit he won't even know who you are. Enjoy this visit. Maybe next time...maybe there won't be a next time.
Maybe his wonderful smile should be enough for me. I want his wonderful smile to be enough for me. I will kiss his bony cheek and hold his hand with the slender, tapering fingers that I did not inherit, look into his green eyes which I did, and tell him that I love him. And when he smiles back at me, it will be enough.
And I do.
But I'm going in now to the states for a visit, and I'm scared. I'm scared of what I will find. I am scared of what is left.
Everytime I go back for a visit, he is diminished, less, in body. He is so skinny now, his fine-boned face skeletal, his arms and legs like threads. But this time, I have been warned, he is diminished also, and significantly, in mind.
I don't know how to continue this post, how to lead it to its positive ending. The last paragraph should read something like--and he's so special, and so wonderful, and still has a beautiful smile. But I'm crying as I write, and I can still picture him as he was just last year, and he was so much better then!--and he made me cry then, too.
Am I just supposed to appreciate each moment? Is there a way that I can say that that doesn't sound trite, a way that I can say that and really feel it? Enjoy this visit. Maybe next visit he won't even know who you are. Enjoy this visit. Maybe next time...maybe there won't be a next time.
Maybe his wonderful smile should be enough for me. I want his wonderful smile to be enough for me. I will kiss his bony cheek and hold his hand with the slender, tapering fingers that I did not inherit, look into his green eyes which I did, and tell him that I love him. And when he smiles back at me, it will be enough.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
One Afternoon in Jerusalem
We were all walking back from the dentist, and it had gone better than I thought it would. No one had actually tantrumed, and aside for the moment when I thought that Coco-pop was going to bite the dentist' finger, all the little girls in my life had kept their cool.
It was a little bit of a walk, getting back home, but it was downhill, which is a rare pleasure in Jerusalem (I thought the line was about Jerusalem being SURROUNDED by hills, not built on them, but then, I have killer muscular EVERYTHING now, so that's good)and there was a breeze in the air. The girls held on to either side of the stroller, which contained a sleeping Turtle. We passed by a small food stand, and the salty/sweet smell of popcorn wafted in on the next breeze. On impulse, I bought a 3-shekel bag of fresh popcorn, and the popcorn man filled the bag with a large metal scooper and handed the bulging result to Princess.
And we walked, the girls munching handfuls of popcorn, licking their salty lips with the tips of their tongues.
"Ow!" The procession stopped abruptly. I looked down. Coco-pop's eyes were filling with tears. She held a hand out to me to inspect. "I bit my finger!"
I bent down, took the finger, and kissed it. There was a half-moon of dirt behind the nail, and her skin tasted like popcorn. She smiled up at me a little sheepishly. "Maybe I thought it was popcorn. But really, it was my finger."
Princess hooted with laughter, her dimple flashing. I followed suit, kissed the finger again, and so did Coco-pop, delighted at her new-found ability to make everyone laugh. And suddenly, out of the clear blue Jerusalem sky, a wave of happiness hit me. I staggered beneath the weight of it, beneath the weight of the treasures that I had been entrusted with.
Who will they be when they grow up? Flashed in my mind as my laughing girls worked their way through the rest of the bag and we walked slowly home. The rest of my mind frowned at the stray thought. It's enough, the rest of my mind said. It's enough just to walk down the street and eat popcorn, and maybe have a chance to kiss a dirty little finger and make the sun shine again in the brilliant blue Jerusalem sky.
It's enough for now to hold their hands. It's enough that they don't know yet about letting go.
It was a little bit of a walk, getting back home, but it was downhill, which is a rare pleasure in Jerusalem (I thought the line was about Jerusalem being SURROUNDED by hills, not built on them, but then, I have killer muscular EVERYTHING now, so that's good)and there was a breeze in the air. The girls held on to either side of the stroller, which contained a sleeping Turtle. We passed by a small food stand, and the salty/sweet smell of popcorn wafted in on the next breeze. On impulse, I bought a 3-shekel bag of fresh popcorn, and the popcorn man filled the bag with a large metal scooper and handed the bulging result to Princess.
And we walked, the girls munching handfuls of popcorn, licking their salty lips with the tips of their tongues.
"Ow!" The procession stopped abruptly. I looked down. Coco-pop's eyes were filling with tears. She held a hand out to me to inspect. "I bit my finger!"
I bent down, took the finger, and kissed it. There was a half-moon of dirt behind the nail, and her skin tasted like popcorn. She smiled up at me a little sheepishly. "Maybe I thought it was popcorn. But really, it was my finger."
Princess hooted with laughter, her dimple flashing. I followed suit, kissed the finger again, and so did Coco-pop, delighted at her new-found ability to make everyone laugh. And suddenly, out of the clear blue Jerusalem sky, a wave of happiness hit me. I staggered beneath the weight of it, beneath the weight of the treasures that I had been entrusted with.
Who will they be when they grow up? Flashed in my mind as my laughing girls worked their way through the rest of the bag and we walked slowly home. The rest of my mind frowned at the stray thought. It's enough, the rest of my mind said. It's enough just to walk down the street and eat popcorn, and maybe have a chance to kiss a dirty little finger and make the sun shine again in the brilliant blue Jerusalem sky.
It's enough for now to hold their hands. It's enough that they don't know yet about letting go.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Microcosm
The mesibat sof shana seemed to take a deep breath as it launched into its second hour, and so did I. I kept the camera rolling, focused on my daughter, and gave the baby another piece of bamba. I would enjoy it more, I think, if I could hear her. She had been practicing the songs for over a month, and I could not even hear her over the woman singing on the CD. All the girls’ voices were muted compared to the deafening strains of the electronically singing woman and her entourage of little girls singing in head voice.
I peeked over the camera at my little—big!—girl’s grave face and watched her perfectly executed motions. The props were beautiful. They must have cost hours of painstaking work. The Morah was incredibly creative, and I desperately wanted to enjoy the show that she had created. But I couldn’t, and I didn’t. When it was finally over and we walked home, Princess balancing her plate full of cake and cookies and candy, she chattered on about she didn’t take any taffies because she didn’t want any more cavities in her teeth, I smiled and nodded, and felt and odd feeling. Probing it, I realized that I wanted to cry.
“Did you have a good time?” I asked Princess. I held her hands as she jumped off the wall surrounding our building.
“Yeah, except for the treats.” Her face grew stern. “Because they shouldn’t give so many treats when people could get cavities.”
“You took a lot of treats,” I said, tucking my smile into one cheek.
Princess blinked for second, but only for a second. “Cause Baila took tons. So I took tons. Because I didn’t want her to feel bad.”
“Ah.”
She crammed a piece of chocolate cookie into her mouth and made an exaggerated face. “I don’t even like it.” She licked the crumbs from around her mouth.
It took me the whole day to figure out what I was feeling, probing the odd feeling like a lost tooth. Or like a lost child, looking for his mother, right before the panic sets in.
Kindergarten. I’m standing on stage, and I’m a fruit. Maybe an apple, or an orange. It is my turn to sing, and I decide to do so before the music’s cue. I start off loud, and end on a note that perhaps has never been heard before on this earth. The applause is deafening, and I wave my arms over my head to the face that is beaming the most, in the back of the crowded auditorium; the face of my mother. Even then I knew how hard it was for her to miss work to come my performances. I sang my little orange—or apple—song just for her.
I stared my daughter’s class picture, and thought back to the two-hour long performance, my daughter’s grave face, her lips mouthing the words instead of belting them, like the little girl I had been had done.
Something is wrong here, I thought with a start. Something about my little girl singing so loud but her voice not heard. Princess' elegant costume, so different from my apple costume that I made myself. The teacher gave us oak tag and markers, and set us loose. We wore the outcomes on elastic strings tied around our necks.
Maybe it’s one of those times, simply a case of cultural difference, but I feel somehow that this is one difference that I cannot wave away. I want to hear my child’s voice, however off-key it might prove to be, to see her beaming face instead of the still carving staring austerely ahead.
“It just scares me so much!” I said to a friend of mine the next day. It was hot, we were both pushing strollers, and the streets were full of people just like us. I pushed the disturbing image of mirror images stretching across the street, all pushing identical strollers, all griping. “The lack of individuality. Perfection is all that counts. The final product. Oh my G-d!” I felt tears burning, or maybe it was just so hot and there were so many of me in the street, kids tugging at their skirts, that my eyes went blurry. “My little girl doesn’t count unless she fits the box that they’ve already made for her!”
My friend agreed with my assessment and we threw around words such as microcosm and cognitive dissonance. Then we both went home to make lunch for our husbands coming home at the exact same time from Yeshiva.
I peeked over the camera at my little—big!—girl’s grave face and watched her perfectly executed motions. The props were beautiful. They must have cost hours of painstaking work. The Morah was incredibly creative, and I desperately wanted to enjoy the show that she had created. But I couldn’t, and I didn’t. When it was finally over and we walked home, Princess balancing her plate full of cake and cookies and candy, she chattered on about she didn’t take any taffies because she didn’t want any more cavities in her teeth, I smiled and nodded, and felt and odd feeling. Probing it, I realized that I wanted to cry.
“Did you have a good time?” I asked Princess. I held her hands as she jumped off the wall surrounding our building.
“Yeah, except for the treats.” Her face grew stern. “Because they shouldn’t give so many treats when people could get cavities.”
“You took a lot of treats,” I said, tucking my smile into one cheek.
Princess blinked for second, but only for a second. “Cause Baila took tons. So I took tons. Because I didn’t want her to feel bad.”
“Ah.”
She crammed a piece of chocolate cookie into her mouth and made an exaggerated face. “I don’t even like it.” She licked the crumbs from around her mouth.
It took me the whole day to figure out what I was feeling, probing the odd feeling like a lost tooth. Or like a lost child, looking for his mother, right before the panic sets in.
Kindergarten. I’m standing on stage, and I’m a fruit. Maybe an apple, or an orange. It is my turn to sing, and I decide to do so before the music’s cue. I start off loud, and end on a note that perhaps has never been heard before on this earth. The applause is deafening, and I wave my arms over my head to the face that is beaming the most, in the back of the crowded auditorium; the face of my mother. Even then I knew how hard it was for her to miss work to come my performances. I sang my little orange—or apple—song just for her.
I stared my daughter’s class picture, and thought back to the two-hour long performance, my daughter’s grave face, her lips mouthing the words instead of belting them, like the little girl I had been had done.
Something is wrong here, I thought with a start. Something about my little girl singing so loud but her voice not heard. Princess' elegant costume, so different from my apple costume that I made myself. The teacher gave us oak tag and markers, and set us loose. We wore the outcomes on elastic strings tied around our necks.
Maybe it’s one of those times, simply a case of cultural difference, but I feel somehow that this is one difference that I cannot wave away. I want to hear my child’s voice, however off-key it might prove to be, to see her beaming face instead of the still carving staring austerely ahead.
“It just scares me so much!” I said to a friend of mine the next day. It was hot, we were both pushing strollers, and the streets were full of people just like us. I pushed the disturbing image of mirror images stretching across the street, all pushing identical strollers, all griping. “The lack of individuality. Perfection is all that counts. The final product. Oh my G-d!” I felt tears burning, or maybe it was just so hot and there were so many of me in the street, kids tugging at their skirts, that my eyes went blurry. “My little girl doesn’t count unless she fits the box that they’ve already made for her!”
My friend agreed with my assessment and we threw around words such as microcosm and cognitive dissonance. Then we both went home to make lunch for our husbands coming home at the exact same time from Yeshiva.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
New Digs
So, something I could never have predicted--I like living on the fourth floor!
No, really. I'm not just saying that while blinking back tears. And yes, there are many many (many!) annoying aspects to living up so high without an elevator. But I love it. I look out of my window, and I see trees. I see people from way up high, and it makes me feel slightly above it all, not in a snotty way, but in a taking-a-deep-breath kinda way. Also, no one is tramping past my door. Instead, it is I who tramp past their doors. Hehehhehe. Which means that I canyell at the kids sing with the kids and no one will hear.
I heart my new apartment. It is old, it is high up, it is crammed with our stuff, but it is also full of life and love and laughter and singing--and I am overwhelmed with gratitude for it.
No, really. I'm not just saying that while blinking back tears. And yes, there are many many (many!) annoying aspects to living up so high without an elevator. But I love it. I look out of my window, and I see trees. I see people from way up high, and it makes me feel slightly above it all, not in a snotty way, but in a taking-a-deep-breath kinda way. Also, no one is tramping past my door. Instead, it is I who tramp past their doors. Hehehhehe. Which means that I can
I heart my new apartment. It is old, it is high up, it is crammed with our stuff, but it is also full of life and love and laughter and singing--and I am overwhelmed with gratitude for it.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
70 Faces
Four days before Pesach, we went food shopping. I lost the kids in the candy isle as my husband and I went from item to item, inspecting the kashrus, kitniut content, and the outrageous special-for-Pesach price and comparing each to our standards of kashrus, ashkenazic non-kitniot eating background, and wallet. Promising the kids some candy as soon as we paid for it, we lugged our overloaded carts to the checkout line.
"Look at that," Outdoorsman said quietly.
I looked. Ahead of us in line was a family that apeared to be chiloni, not religious. They, too had a large shopping cart and were waiting paitently for their turn. "What, them? What about them?"
"Look at what they are buying."
Matzah. Cheeses. Candy. Tuna. Nasty looking kosher for Pesach mayonaise. Just like what we had in our cart.
I was tired, and thinking about all the cooking that I had to do. "Same as us. A little lighter on the eggs. What about it?"
"I don't know how religious they are. They seem to be chiloni. Maybe they are traditional or something. But they are buying food kosher for Pesach just like us."
"Because that's what's in the store. I don't think they're thinking about it."
"Exactly. Exactly. They are just buying what's in the store. They are not thinking about it. And it's all kosher for Pesach."
My bleach-stained hands hurt. The kids remembered the candy in the cart and decided to ask for it early. "So?"
"So." my husband's eyes were shining. "This is what they fought for. This is what they are fighting for. Don't you see? It's a parking lot open on shabbas. It's food that they want to keep kosher. We don't get it, and we think that we can do better. But they see a war going on, and this--" my husband swept his arm out to encompass the whole store--"this is a battle they won. And the people don't realize it, don't think about it; but in spite of themselves, they are keeping kosher. Even on Pesach."
Maybe I think that I have a better strategy because I don't even understand the war.Or maybe the path to showing your love for Hashem's torah is as varied as the people, the beautiful people who are keeping Pesach or shabbas on purpose or in spite of themselves because a battle has been fought and won.
"Look at that," Outdoorsman said quietly.
I looked. Ahead of us in line was a family that apeared to be chiloni, not religious. They, too had a large shopping cart and were waiting paitently for their turn. "What, them? What about them?"
"Look at what they are buying."
Matzah. Cheeses. Candy. Tuna. Nasty looking kosher for Pesach mayonaise. Just like what we had in our cart.
I was tired, and thinking about all the cooking that I had to do. "Same as us. A little lighter on the eggs. What about it?"
"I don't know how religious they are. They seem to be chiloni. Maybe they are traditional or something. But they are buying food kosher for Pesach just like us."
"Because that's what's in the store. I don't think they're thinking about it."
"Exactly. Exactly. They are just buying what's in the store. They are not thinking about it. And it's all kosher for Pesach."
My bleach-stained hands hurt. The kids remembered the candy in the cart and decided to ask for it early. "So?"
"So." my husband's eyes were shining. "This is what they fought for. This is what they are fighting for. Don't you see? It's a parking lot open on shabbas. It's food that they want to keep kosher. We don't get it, and we think that we can do better. But they see a war going on, and this--" my husband swept his arm out to encompass the whole store--"this is a battle they won. And the people don't realize it, don't think about it; but in spite of themselves, they are keeping kosher. Even on Pesach."
Maybe I think that I have a better strategy because I don't even understand the war.Or maybe the path to showing your love for Hashem's torah is as varied as the people, the beautiful people who are keeping Pesach or shabbas on purpose or in spite of themselves because a battle has been fought and won.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Clash
It all starts off so well in my head. I am, after all, a giving person, a loving person, and I would do just about anything to make someone smile. So of course I could be patient with Princess today. I am patience. I am the soul of patience.
It all goes down hill from there around thirty nanoseconds after she wakes up. Because thirty nanoseconds after she wakes up is precisely when I am up. Woken up, rather. "Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiima!"
"ghahab," says I pulling hair out of my mouth.
"Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiima, Princess hit me!"
"I didn't even! Coco-pop hit me first!"
"No, no! I didn't!"
"Cuz she made a funny noise!"
"Cuz she has the baby!"
"I had the baby first!"
I stumble to the bathroom, and she pounds on the door. I stalk out and give her the death glare. This is accomplished by focusing tired, bloodshot eyes on the victim. It helps if the hair is in a frightening tower of tangle and if you really, really have to go to the bathroom. It adds sincerity to the glare.
The morning ends with my nerves frayed, and one or both of them crying.And I? I feel like a failure.
Start the morning right, Outdoorsman tells me. Start by smiling at her and wishing her a good morning. Start by giving her a hug.
It's just so hard, sometimes, I tell him, to hug a porcupine. A porcupine with the energy of one of those tiny little dogs who run around and smash into walls. A porcupine who rolls her eyes at me and looks at me, waiting for me to let her down.
It's me, I know. It's something in me that tenses up when she walks up to me, when I should be projecting a sea of calm. It's something in me, something despicable, that wants not to be bothered, wants everything to fall into place while I while away time at the computer, existing as an observer instead of a participant. There is something in me that clashes with her strong will to control things, her lust for life and living while I, uncomprehending, just want another cup of coffee and a conversation about the state of the world. I watch. She lives. She runs into me, barrels into me, demands hands-on participation and understanding while I am perfectly content to stand in the sidelines with a pad of paper and a pen.
I am a writer, an actress. I mimic, I write what I see. She is not. She is so real, so alive, so glowing with potential, we are like two magnets with oposite forces, falling away from each other at a touch.
My darling, sweet, brilliant, overwhelming child. I know that I am supposed to teach you, but maybe we can figure this out together. Teach me to embrace you without us both bruising each other. Teach me to understand you in your lust, your need to be.
There is enough room for both of us here. There is enough room in our hearts for both of us.
It all goes down hill from there around thirty nanoseconds after she wakes up. Because thirty nanoseconds after she wakes up is precisely when I am up. Woken up, rather. "Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiima!"
"ghahab," says I pulling hair out of my mouth.
"Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiima, Princess hit me!"
"I didn't even! Coco-pop hit me first!"
"No, no! I didn't!"
"Cuz she made a funny noise!"
"Cuz she has the baby!"
"I had the baby first!"
I stumble to the bathroom, and she pounds on the door. I stalk out and give her the death glare. This is accomplished by focusing tired, bloodshot eyes on the victim. It helps if the hair is in a frightening tower of tangle and if you really, really have to go to the bathroom. It adds sincerity to the glare.
The morning ends with my nerves frayed, and one or both of them crying.And I? I feel like a failure.
Start the morning right, Outdoorsman tells me. Start by smiling at her and wishing her a good morning. Start by giving her a hug.
It's just so hard, sometimes, I tell him, to hug a porcupine. A porcupine with the energy of one of those tiny little dogs who run around and smash into walls. A porcupine who rolls her eyes at me and looks at me, waiting for me to let her down.
It's me, I know. It's something in me that tenses up when she walks up to me, when I should be projecting a sea of calm. It's something in me, something despicable, that wants not to be bothered, wants everything to fall into place while I while away time at the computer, existing as an observer instead of a participant. There is something in me that clashes with her strong will to control things, her lust for life and living while I, uncomprehending, just want another cup of coffee and a conversation about the state of the world. I watch. She lives. She runs into me, barrels into me, demands hands-on participation and understanding while I am perfectly content to stand in the sidelines with a pad of paper and a pen.
I am a writer, an actress. I mimic, I write what I see. She is not. She is so real, so alive, so glowing with potential, we are like two magnets with oposite forces, falling away from each other at a touch.
My darling, sweet, brilliant, overwhelming child. I know that I am supposed to teach you, but maybe we can figure this out together. Teach me to embrace you without us both bruising each other. Teach me to understand you in your lust, your need to be.
There is enough room for both of us here. There is enough room in our hearts for both of us.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
A Beautiful Mind
Whenever I'm away from America for too long, I start to get afraid that I won't see my father ever again, and there is so much that I want to tell him, about my life here, about my kids, about what's in my heart. Outdoorsman suggested that I write letters, e-mail them to my mother and have her read them to him. I started a few months ago. I send him a new letter every month, and my mother reports to me after she reads the lateat one. He loves them, she tells me. He glows when I read them to him.
I sent a new letter a while ago, and my mother has not yet told me how my father liked it. I asked her if she has had a chance to read it yet to him.
She paused. "No. Not yet. Sorry, I just don't think he'll understand it."
I had sent it a week ago. Usually he is lucid at least for a few hours in that span of time. "Is he okay?"
My mother sighed. "He thinks that he's in Florida."
"Ah."
"Ya."
"Did...you ask him if it was nice?"
"He smiled. I think he had a good time."
"Could be worse, then."
"Yeah. I'll let you know when I read the letter to him."
"Thanks. Tell him I love him."
"I will."
"And to send me a postcard."
We laughed. We hung up. And I cried, because my Abba, who has lost everything, is also losing his mind.
A friend of mine just lost her father. He was a strong healthy man, and he was diagnosed grimly 2 years ago. He lived on borrowed time until last week. We had once jokingly referred to ourselves as the Dying Fathers Club, but I had known all along that she would leave the club before me. I am sad for her; she clung to hope until almost the end, when hospice took over her father's care--and a teeny tiny part of me? Is not sad for her. Is glad for her. Because it's OVER. The tension, the--is it now? Is this it?--that has been my companion for so many years--gone. It's horrible. It's so sad. But he is at peace, and you are not jumping when the phone rings at an odd hour, or running through the plans of where to leave the kids in your head late at night when you cannot fall asleep.
It's true, when they are gone, you cannot talk to them ever again. But I can't talk to my father now. He's too far away. His body is here, true. But his mind? His mind is in Florida.
I sent a new letter a while ago, and my mother has not yet told me how my father liked it. I asked her if she has had a chance to read it yet to him.
She paused. "No. Not yet. Sorry, I just don't think he'll understand it."
I had sent it a week ago. Usually he is lucid at least for a few hours in that span of time. "Is he okay?"
My mother sighed. "He thinks that he's in Florida."
"Ah."
"Ya."
"Did...you ask him if it was nice?"
"He smiled. I think he had a good time."
"Could be worse, then."
"Yeah. I'll let you know when I read the letter to him."
"Thanks. Tell him I love him."
"I will."
"And to send me a postcard."
We laughed. We hung up. And I cried, because my Abba, who has lost everything, is also losing his mind.
A friend of mine just lost her father. He was a strong healthy man, and he was diagnosed grimly 2 years ago. He lived on borrowed time until last week. We had once jokingly referred to ourselves as the Dying Fathers Club, but I had known all along that she would leave the club before me. I am sad for her; she clung to hope until almost the end, when hospice took over her father's care--and a teeny tiny part of me? Is not sad for her. Is glad for her. Because it's OVER. The tension, the--is it now? Is this it?--that has been my companion for so many years--gone. It's horrible. It's so sad. But he is at peace, and you are not jumping when the phone rings at an odd hour, or running through the plans of where to leave the kids in your head late at night when you cannot fall asleep.
It's true, when they are gone, you cannot talk to them ever again. But I can't talk to my father now. He's too far away. His body is here, true. But his mind? His mind is in Florida.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Peppers and Papers
She rang loudly, and a few times, and I answered the door instinctively, the way you swat a masquito. I had had a headache for days, pounding away at the base of my skull, and any noise was unbearable, as was any pressure on my head. My scarf was half off my head, and the baby had just fallen asleep. I had decided on a quiet cup of coffee before tackling the rest of the kids toys, to clean and then to pack.
She walked in. She smiled. My heart sank when she asked me for a cup of coffee and put a large folder down on the table. I scolded myself. You have everything. She needs to ask.
"I have come a long way to see you," she said.
I looked at her. Had I made a hasty judgment? Was she here about something else eltirely? But no, she was pulling out papers and they were signed by rabbanim, it looked like.
The baby was not asleep after all, and lert me know it a minute into her speech. She was divorced, she said, and just married off a daughter. She had many debts. Her husband had been abusive, and she was in therapy. Also, she had a medical condition that required surgery. Covering all pity grounds, the part of me that just wanted a quiet cup of coffee (read: all of me) said. I shocked myself. When did I become so cynical? I would give more, I would give more, I decided. I would give ten shekels. Would I miss it, in the long run? And it would mean so much to her.
I smiled, got the baby, and went to the jar of change to count out ten shekels. She was still talking, and taking out pictures of the bride, the groom, some grandchildren, letters from the doctor. "Don't get money yet," she told me, "first see the pictures."
"But I have--" I was holding ten shekels. "I have--can I give you..?"
She did not look at my hand. "Can you maybe give postdated checks? Can you maybe give five thousand shekels?"
"I have ten. I can give you ten."
"Maybe three thousand? I heard very good things about you. I heard wonderful things about your family?"
"Who told you? Who told you good things? I don't understand." I clutched the ten shekels like it was a lifeline. "I can give you...can I give you twenty?" For no reason that I could understand, tears came to my eyes. "I can give you twenty." My fingers made a clumsy stab into the jar and I pulled out a ten shekel coin. I held it out. My hand felt stiff. "Here."
"I am so sorry." She sat serenely, drinking her coffee. "It must be a mistake. I do not know how I could have made a mistake like this."
I took a deep breath, let it out. "There are a lot of people with my last name. Myabe they meant someone else."
She shrugged. "Maybe." She sipped some coffee. "You know, I might need surgery."
"I am so sorry. Hashem should give you lots of strength. And money. My heart is heavy for you. I wish--"
"Can I sit for a few minutes?" she gestured vaguely around. "I need to rest. because I am sick."
"Yes, yes! You can rest!"
"Can I use your phone? I can pay you back."
"No, no, use it! Use the phone! You don't have to pay me back!"
I handed her the phone, put the baby down with some toys, and looked around widly for something to do. Lunch. I should make lunch. I took out the cutting board. I pulled a bag of lettuce, cucumbers and peppers out of the fridge. The peppers looked, suddenly, too expensive. They had been expensive, which was why I had only bought four of them. I put them back. I laid everything else out neatly, and attacked a cucumber. I would get an early start on lunch while she was here. I could have my coffee later.
I started thinking about my new apartment--which is not new at all, but much older than the one we are in right now, but that's okay, as long as I organize it properly--
"Oh, I understand if you cannot give me, it must be a mistake, I heard so many reports that you are such a giving person...who? I don't remember, but it must be a mistake, I am sorry to bother you."
She paused. Then she dialed another number. "Chany?" She said. "Do you have the list for me? Yes, from today. Also, maybe this family are really not--yes, well, I am happy for you, but I only got twenty shekels. Yes, I told them--the wife, she was the only one--but--okay, I am writing down the addresses. Say them slowly. I can only give you one, I am sorry."
An hour later I was still pretending to prepare lunch, and she was still on my phone.
***
Then I was trying to explain my feelings to Outdoorsman.
"I don't think it was the lines that she fed me--and everyone--or the money, or my stupid thing that I do when I can't stand my ground or whatever. It's that it just all feels so yucky and I thought I was going to feel good."
"Is that why we do it, though, to feel good?"
"Yes! No. No! It's a mitvzah, but also, it should feel good! Shouldn't it feel good? Like, um, like you did somthing, you overcame something or whatever, and you--no?"
Outdoorsman gave then elequent reply all the contemplation it deserved.
I pouted. "No?"
"It would be nice. But you know, that's how Hashem looks at us. Like we ask for these things, all the time, and then that's it. We show no appreciation when He answers. When it hurts, it's all we think about, but not afterwards."
And that's when I realized that my headache was gone; had been gone for hours.
She walked in. She smiled. My heart sank when she asked me for a cup of coffee and put a large folder down on the table. I scolded myself. You have everything. She needs to ask.
"I have come a long way to see you," she said.
I looked at her. Had I made a hasty judgment? Was she here about something else eltirely? But no, she was pulling out papers and they were signed by rabbanim, it looked like.
The baby was not asleep after all, and lert me know it a minute into her speech. She was divorced, she said, and just married off a daughter. She had many debts. Her husband had been abusive, and she was in therapy. Also, she had a medical condition that required surgery. Covering all pity grounds, the part of me that just wanted a quiet cup of coffee (read: all of me) said. I shocked myself. When did I become so cynical? I would give more, I would give more, I decided. I would give ten shekels. Would I miss it, in the long run? And it would mean so much to her.
I smiled, got the baby, and went to the jar of change to count out ten shekels. She was still talking, and taking out pictures of the bride, the groom, some grandchildren, letters from the doctor. "Don't get money yet," she told me, "first see the pictures."
"But I have--" I was holding ten shekels. "I have--can I give you..?"
She did not look at my hand. "Can you maybe give postdated checks? Can you maybe give five thousand shekels?"
"I have ten. I can give you ten."
"Maybe three thousand? I heard very good things about you. I heard wonderful things about your family?"
"Who told you? Who told you good things? I don't understand." I clutched the ten shekels like it was a lifeline. "I can give you...can I give you twenty?" For no reason that I could understand, tears came to my eyes. "I can give you twenty." My fingers made a clumsy stab into the jar and I pulled out a ten shekel coin. I held it out. My hand felt stiff. "Here."
"I am so sorry." She sat serenely, drinking her coffee. "It must be a mistake. I do not know how I could have made a mistake like this."
I took a deep breath, let it out. "There are a lot of people with my last name. Myabe they meant someone else."
She shrugged. "Maybe." She sipped some coffee. "You know, I might need surgery."
"I am so sorry. Hashem should give you lots of strength. And money. My heart is heavy for you. I wish--"
"Can I sit for a few minutes?" she gestured vaguely around. "I need to rest. because I am sick."
"Yes, yes! You can rest!"
"Can I use your phone? I can pay you back."
"No, no, use it! Use the phone! You don't have to pay me back!"
I handed her the phone, put the baby down with some toys, and looked around widly for something to do. Lunch. I should make lunch. I took out the cutting board. I pulled a bag of lettuce, cucumbers and peppers out of the fridge. The peppers looked, suddenly, too expensive. They had been expensive, which was why I had only bought four of them. I put them back. I laid everything else out neatly, and attacked a cucumber. I would get an early start on lunch while she was here. I could have my coffee later.
I started thinking about my new apartment--which is not new at all, but much older than the one we are in right now, but that's okay, as long as I organize it properly--
"Oh, I understand if you cannot give me, it must be a mistake, I heard so many reports that you are such a giving person...who? I don't remember, but it must be a mistake, I am sorry to bother you."
She paused. Then she dialed another number. "Chany?" She said. "Do you have the list for me? Yes, from today. Also, maybe this family are really not--yes, well, I am happy for you, but I only got twenty shekels. Yes, I told them--the wife, she was the only one--but--okay, I am writing down the addresses. Say them slowly. I can only give you one, I am sorry."
An hour later I was still pretending to prepare lunch, and she was still on my phone.
***
Then I was trying to explain my feelings to Outdoorsman.
"I don't think it was the lines that she fed me--and everyone--or the money, or my stupid thing that I do when I can't stand my ground or whatever. It's that it just all feels so yucky and I thought I was going to feel good."
"Is that why we do it, though, to feel good?"
"Yes! No. No! It's a mitvzah, but also, it should feel good! Shouldn't it feel good? Like, um, like you did somthing, you overcame something or whatever, and you--no?"
Outdoorsman gave then elequent reply all the contemplation it deserved.
I pouted. "No?"
"It would be nice. But you know, that's how Hashem looks at us. Like we ask for these things, all the time, and then that's it. We show no appreciation when He answers. When it hurts, it's all we think about, but not afterwards."
And that's when I realized that my headache was gone; had been gone for hours.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
A Moment in Time
The lemon trees outside my window are just as beautiful as they were a few days ago, and the plum tree is even more magnificent. Its covered in tiny white flowers. I have a hard time looking at them though. When I raise the triz in the morning, I give a quick glance to check if it's raining, and then look away, back to my pile of half-packed boxes.
I wish I could be more like Coco-pop, who mixes up her tenses because she has no real sense of time. Maybe then I would be able to enjoy my trees even though they won't be mine anymore, come next week.
What is so strange is how angry they make me, how I don't feel like they are real, how I feel like this whole past year was a lie. It wasn't, right? It happened. I moved to this little haven on the edge of the jerusalem forest, we put down a brand new parquet floor that made the whole apartment light and airy, and we hung outside while the kids splashed in the pool and ate plums straight from the tree for dessert. I went into labor with Turtle here. We had BBQs with friends, my family visited, I did 84,000 loads of laundry, and cleaned double as many dirty diapers. I laughed here, I cried here, I found out that my Bubby had died here and that my father was losing his mind. We celebrated birthdays and got sick and got better and Turtle got his first two teeth. Princess learned how to read here and Coco-pop learned the power of the kvetch here and Outdoorsman got his first real start as a kablan here and I got my first story published. Here.
The house is not the home. The family is the home. So why does everything about this place make me want to eat a pound of Rocky Road and watch Disney cartoons while curled up in a big fluffy blanket?
Maybe because this whole thing remnds me that it is not, after all, mine. That it can be taken away at any second. Therefoore--it was never mine. These were never my lemon trees, never my parquet. Such a strange thing, this need to own a little square of the earth, even if that square of earth is not on the ground, but on a fourth floor somewhere. A little tiny box in the sky, and we sqeeze it to our chests and hold it depserately, as if it grounds us, as if it proves us real.
One apartment or another--what is the difference? Really, what? So we will be inconvenienced for a few weeks, moving. So I will not have my bit of outside. I have to say goodbye to my trees.
I have what is important. And I have my memories of this past year.
Now, if only I had enough boxes.
I wish I could be more like Coco-pop, who mixes up her tenses because she has no real sense of time. Maybe then I would be able to enjoy my trees even though they won't be mine anymore, come next week.
What is so strange is how angry they make me, how I don't feel like they are real, how I feel like this whole past year was a lie. It wasn't, right? It happened. I moved to this little haven on the edge of the jerusalem forest, we put down a brand new parquet floor that made the whole apartment light and airy, and we hung outside while the kids splashed in the pool and ate plums straight from the tree for dessert. I went into labor with Turtle here. We had BBQs with friends, my family visited, I did 84,000 loads of laundry, and cleaned double as many dirty diapers. I laughed here, I cried here, I found out that my Bubby had died here and that my father was losing his mind. We celebrated birthdays and got sick and got better and Turtle got his first two teeth. Princess learned how to read here and Coco-pop learned the power of the kvetch here and Outdoorsman got his first real start as a kablan here and I got my first story published. Here.
The house is not the home. The family is the home. So why does everything about this place make me want to eat a pound of Rocky Road and watch Disney cartoons while curled up in a big fluffy blanket?
Maybe because this whole thing remnds me that it is not, after all, mine. That it can be taken away at any second. Therefoore--it was never mine. These were never my lemon trees, never my parquet. Such a strange thing, this need to own a little square of the earth, even if that square of earth is not on the ground, but on a fourth floor somewhere. A little tiny box in the sky, and we sqeeze it to our chests and hold it depserately, as if it grounds us, as if it proves us real.
One apartment or another--what is the difference? Really, what? So we will be inconvenienced for a few weeks, moving. So I will not have my bit of outside. I have to say goodbye to my trees.
I have what is important. And I have my memories of this past year.
Now, if only I had enough boxes.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Discovery
It was to be a Day of Discovery.
That’s what the sign said, anyway.
I love museums, but being thirteen, I was obligated to roll my eyes, just a bit,
at the window of bubbles.
the bike that powers a windmill,
and to edge away from the huge doorway that announces your height and weight.
I had gained twenty pounds and six inches overnight
and stood uncertainly in my new size 8 ½ shoes.
This too, was new, that my older siblings were out with friends,
and I, the middle child,
too old for the younger kids, to young for the older kids,
was pushing the stroller, in charge of the matzah and eggs and chocolate and cheese.
My father was last up the steps, past the sign.
I heard him breathing.
He leaned against the wall, hands out like a man who was blind,
Trying to make sense of the world with his hands.
I unwillingly caught a glance between my parents.
I looked instead to a one way mirror, and stared at my eyes, my chin, my nose.
Were my eyebrows getting thicker, my nose longer, my chin red?
This whole year had been a fun-house mirror, and I turned back to my parents,
Which was a mistake.
There was a man and he was bringing a wheelchair. It was yellow, and
who was it for?
Someone old.
Someone else.
“Do you need a wheelchair at all, sir?”
but how ridiculous, he will say no--He is not old
or someone else
But then he sat down
(on that silly--does he see it’s yellow?--)
and suddenly, he was.
He was there in the mirror, too,
and so was I, a child adult in height,
features strange and unfamiliar,
a glint of silver earrings, (forbidden by my school) visible when I shook my head no, no.
That’s what the sign said, anyway.
I love museums, but being thirteen, I was obligated to roll my eyes, just a bit,
at the window of bubbles.
the bike that powers a windmill,
and to edge away from the huge doorway that announces your height and weight.
I had gained twenty pounds and six inches overnight
and stood uncertainly in my new size 8 ½ shoes.
This too, was new, that my older siblings were out with friends,
and I, the middle child,
too old for the younger kids, to young for the older kids,
was pushing the stroller, in charge of the matzah and eggs and chocolate and cheese.
My father was last up the steps, past the sign.
I heard him breathing.
He leaned against the wall, hands out like a man who was blind,
Trying to make sense of the world with his hands.
I unwillingly caught a glance between my parents.
I looked instead to a one way mirror, and stared at my eyes, my chin, my nose.
Were my eyebrows getting thicker, my nose longer, my chin red?
This whole year had been a fun-house mirror, and I turned back to my parents,
Which was a mistake.
There was a man and he was bringing a wheelchair. It was yellow, and
who was it for?
Someone old.
Someone else.
“Do you need a wheelchair at all, sir?”
but how ridiculous, he will say no--He is not old
or someone else
But then he sat down
(on that silly--does he see it’s yellow?--)
and suddenly, he was.
He was there in the mirror, too,
and so was I, a child adult in height,
features strange and unfamiliar,
a glint of silver earrings, (forbidden by my school) visible when I shook my head no, no.
Monday, February 21, 2011
This and That
So! We ripped out the floor that we installed less than a year ago and set fire to the landlords' cat. (and they don't even have a cat!) And now we are looking, looking looking, for a new place to live.
I can't really believe this. I can't believe that I have to say goodbye to my trees. I can't believe I'm uprooting my kids again, so soon. I can't believe that cleaning for pesach will be bitter and pointless in terms of spring cleaning, since we will be out of here a week after pesach. On the positive side, maybe I'll get more schar, since pesach cleaning will just totally be for the mitzvah! Also on the positive side, this is for sure not as bad as other things, like, say, the Spanish Inquisition. Because people got burned at the stake and stuff, so that was probably way worse.
In a totally unrelated side story to distract myself from my woe and angst, Princess was chatting with her friend in the park. She suantered back to where I was spinning Coco-pop on the merry-go-round, and I asked her what she had been talking to her friend about.
"Oh, you know," she said airily. "Nothing really, just life."
In another unrelated side story, Turtle just started eating vegetables! My mother's heart is beating with joy as I mash a sweet potato for him.
In a related side story, I am thinking about buying my landlords a cat. So that I can set it on fire.
I can't really believe this. I can't believe that I have to say goodbye to my trees. I can't believe I'm uprooting my kids again, so soon. I can't believe that cleaning for pesach will be bitter and pointless in terms of spring cleaning, since we will be out of here a week after pesach. On the positive side, maybe I'll get more schar, since pesach cleaning will just totally be for the mitzvah! Also on the positive side, this is for sure not as bad as other things, like, say, the Spanish Inquisition. Because people got burned at the stake and stuff, so that was probably way worse.
In a totally unrelated side story to distract myself from my woe and angst, Princess was chatting with her friend in the park. She suantered back to where I was spinning Coco-pop on the merry-go-round, and I asked her what she had been talking to her friend about.
"Oh, you know," she said airily. "Nothing really, just life."
In another unrelated side story, Turtle just started eating vegetables! My mother's heart is beating with joy as I mash a sweet potato for him.
In a related side story, I am thinking about buying my landlords a cat. So that I can set it on fire.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Mothers and Daughters Take Two
I tried to explain myself to my mother a couple of years ago when she said, "You sound more and more like you’re thinking about staying in Israel. Are you staying in Israel?”
“Staying? Like, what am I doing with the rest of my life? Ima, I don’t even know what I’m making for dinner tonight.”
“Make tuna patties and mashed potatoes.”
“I love that, but my kids hate it.”
“D, are you planning on staying?”
I tried to explain how I felt about living here, but it came out in a jumbled mess, a tangle of words. Halfway through living the life that I love to live, the ideals of lower happiness thresholds and not living in a fashion parade, I petered off. "Um, how does that sound to you, Ima?"
"Like you're a little confused." She laughed a little.
I laughed, too. "I am. A little confused."
"That's okay. You'll work it through."
The thought of not living near my mother, of not raising my kids close by, is hard. It used to be harder. It used to make me cry. I guess a lot of it has to do with the mother-daughter relationship in general, but it also has a lot to do with our mother-daughter relationship in particular.
I will not mince words when it comes to describing my mother. My mother is superwoman. She is a small trim howling force of nature, but instead of knocking trees over, she will probably just polish them and trim their leaves properly. Then she’ll ask them about their problems, and if there is anything that she can do to help.
My mother raised the ten of us while caring for a sick husband and being sole breadwinner. We had foster siblings, and sometimes she invited into our home whole families who needed her help. She could write a book about the people who walked through our door for a shabbas meal and ended up staying for months, or years. Maybe I’ll write it for her. And all the while, during her ten-hour daily working shifts and trying another radical diet for my rapidly deteriorating father, and feeding, clothing and listening to all of us, she had time to become my best friend. She is disciplined but flexible, organized but spontaneous, regal but sometimes hysterically inappropriate.
“I figured it out, how you do it,” I said to her once over the long distance phone line while trying to rock the baby with one hand and clean the stove with the other. I don’t remember where the phone was. Maybe it hung midair.
“How I do what?” I pictured her, as she was in the morning, putting on makeup while keeping an eye on the latest in my father’s never ending stream of new home attendants and the phone held to her ear by lifting up her shoulder.
“You know, how you do everything. You’re an android.”
“Um. Thanks?”
When people ask me how I have it altogether, I answer, first of all, I don’t, but if I seem to, it’s a gift from my mother. I know what it looks like to have a full plate, to have more than your share to deal with. And what I have is not a full plate.
I have made different choices than my mother has. I live in Israel, a country she was born in but left at age ten, I did not finish my master’s program while she has a successful career, and I am still desperately trying to figure how to make love “multiply” as she often claims it does, but I like to think that we are most alike in our differences. Sometimes, though, like with a puzzle done wrong, I have to squeeze a few of the pieces to make it fit, and I know that at the heart of it I am like the little girl who doesn’t think jumping into the pool is worth it if her mother is not watching. So she yells, “Ima, look at me! Look at me! Look at me!” until her mother looks up and smiles. Then she can jump.
Princess and I once sat together on the couch while she went through everything part of her body and said to me, “It’s just like yours, right?” And I assured her, yes, sweet girl, your toes are like mine and so are your teeth. So are your freckles and so are your knees. She beamed, and her joy was almost audible, at the thought of our alikeness. We are not alike. She is just like her father, but just then she needed to be me, so I let her be me.
Who are we to fight it, this strange dependence on the approval of our mothers, our need to, at times, be our mothers? I thought of this once at three o’clock in the morning, (if one can call what pops into one’s brain at that hour “thoughts,”) as I fed my newborn. A minute ago, this brand new human being had been screaming, confused, maybe even frightened, in pain. Will it ever stop? Then, suddenly—there is food, there is warmth, there is the blessed relief of the yawning hunger, and there is the blurred face of mother gazing down at her.
As for me—my mother is an android supermom with a slightly inappropriate sense of humor. I didn’t have a chance.
* * *
I once played a character in a musical who turns out to be going through life in the shadow of her mother's approval, and isn't quite sure who she herself really is. The director asked me to improv a short resolution for my character. I thought for a moment, and then said, “Sometimes late at night when I couldn’t sleep I would allow myself to feel the pain of being split in two. There was what I wanted for myself, and there was what my mother needed me to be. I became what she needed me to be. I gave her the greatest gift I could give to her; myself.” I said a couple more lines about needing to also find my own way and do chessed for myself. The director said that wrapped it up nicely, but I felt a little hollow.
Life is not a two hour musical. Nothing is wrapped up nicely, and no ribbon is long enough, especially for something as unwrap able as a relationship, and especially one as complex, as beautiful and as horrible as a mother and daughter’s relationship can be.
* * *
The other day, Outdoorsman was greeted by the sight of a mountain of clean laundry piled on the couch first thing in the morning. It had not been there the night before. “Did you do this in your sleep?” He asked me as I poured him a cup of coffee.
“No, just every time the baby woke up I threw in a load.”
He shook his head. “You’re becoming more and more like your mother, you know.”
I felt a warm flush of pleasure before suspicion set in. My mother is his mother-in-law, after all. “You mean that in a good way, right?”
When I light the candles every week on the windowsill overlooking the Jerusalem forest, I daven to be the mother that my daughter needs me to be and the daughter than my mother deserves, and to be the sum of those parts and yet uniquely me.
I know that life is not a musical, but sometimes the little girl waiting for her mother’s smile can have a mini perfect ending. My mother is not overly demonstrative, but on our sixth anniversary, my mother sent a card. She wrote, "I want you to know that I'm so proud of you. You're living the life that I would love to live."
“Staying? Like, what am I doing with the rest of my life? Ima, I don’t even know what I’m making for dinner tonight.”
“Make tuna patties and mashed potatoes.”
“I love that, but my kids hate it.”
“D, are you planning on staying?”
I tried to explain how I felt about living here, but it came out in a jumbled mess, a tangle of words. Halfway through living the life that I love to live, the ideals of lower happiness thresholds and not living in a fashion parade, I petered off. "Um, how does that sound to you, Ima?"
"Like you're a little confused." She laughed a little.
I laughed, too. "I am. A little confused."
"That's okay. You'll work it through."
The thought of not living near my mother, of not raising my kids close by, is hard. It used to be harder. It used to make me cry. I guess a lot of it has to do with the mother-daughter relationship in general, but it also has a lot to do with our mother-daughter relationship in particular.
I will not mince words when it comes to describing my mother. My mother is superwoman. She is a small trim howling force of nature, but instead of knocking trees over, she will probably just polish them and trim their leaves properly. Then she’ll ask them about their problems, and if there is anything that she can do to help.
My mother raised the ten of us while caring for a sick husband and being sole breadwinner. We had foster siblings, and sometimes she invited into our home whole families who needed her help. She could write a book about the people who walked through our door for a shabbas meal and ended up staying for months, or years. Maybe I’ll write it for her. And all the while, during her ten-hour daily working shifts and trying another radical diet for my rapidly deteriorating father, and feeding, clothing and listening to all of us, she had time to become my best friend. She is disciplined but flexible, organized but spontaneous, regal but sometimes hysterically inappropriate.
“I figured it out, how you do it,” I said to her once over the long distance phone line while trying to rock the baby with one hand and clean the stove with the other. I don’t remember where the phone was. Maybe it hung midair.
“How I do what?” I pictured her, as she was in the morning, putting on makeup while keeping an eye on the latest in my father’s never ending stream of new home attendants and the phone held to her ear by lifting up her shoulder.
“You know, how you do everything. You’re an android.”
“Um. Thanks?”
When people ask me how I have it altogether, I answer, first of all, I don’t, but if I seem to, it’s a gift from my mother. I know what it looks like to have a full plate, to have more than your share to deal with. And what I have is not a full plate.
I have made different choices than my mother has. I live in Israel, a country she was born in but left at age ten, I did not finish my master’s program while she has a successful career, and I am still desperately trying to figure how to make love “multiply” as she often claims it does, but I like to think that we are most alike in our differences. Sometimes, though, like with a puzzle done wrong, I have to squeeze a few of the pieces to make it fit, and I know that at the heart of it I am like the little girl who doesn’t think jumping into the pool is worth it if her mother is not watching. So she yells, “Ima, look at me! Look at me! Look at me!” until her mother looks up and smiles. Then she can jump.
Princess and I once sat together on the couch while she went through everything part of her body and said to me, “It’s just like yours, right?” And I assured her, yes, sweet girl, your toes are like mine and so are your teeth. So are your freckles and so are your knees. She beamed, and her joy was almost audible, at the thought of our alikeness. We are not alike. She is just like her father, but just then she needed to be me, so I let her be me.
Who are we to fight it, this strange dependence on the approval of our mothers, our need to, at times, be our mothers? I thought of this once at three o’clock in the morning, (if one can call what pops into one’s brain at that hour “thoughts,”) as I fed my newborn. A minute ago, this brand new human being had been screaming, confused, maybe even frightened, in pain. Will it ever stop? Then, suddenly—there is food, there is warmth, there is the blessed relief of the yawning hunger, and there is the blurred face of mother gazing down at her.
As for me—my mother is an android supermom with a slightly inappropriate sense of humor. I didn’t have a chance.
* * *
I once played a character in a musical who turns out to be going through life in the shadow of her mother's approval, and isn't quite sure who she herself really is. The director asked me to improv a short resolution for my character. I thought for a moment, and then said, “Sometimes late at night when I couldn’t sleep I would allow myself to feel the pain of being split in two. There was what I wanted for myself, and there was what my mother needed me to be. I became what she needed me to be. I gave her the greatest gift I could give to her; myself.” I said a couple more lines about needing to also find my own way and do chessed for myself. The director said that wrapped it up nicely, but I felt a little hollow.
Life is not a two hour musical. Nothing is wrapped up nicely, and no ribbon is long enough, especially for something as unwrap able as a relationship, and especially one as complex, as beautiful and as horrible as a mother and daughter’s relationship can be.
* * *
The other day, Outdoorsman was greeted by the sight of a mountain of clean laundry piled on the couch first thing in the morning. It had not been there the night before. “Did you do this in your sleep?” He asked me as I poured him a cup of coffee.
“No, just every time the baby woke up I threw in a load.”
He shook his head. “You’re becoming more and more like your mother, you know.”
I felt a warm flush of pleasure before suspicion set in. My mother is his mother-in-law, after all. “You mean that in a good way, right?”
When I light the candles every week on the windowsill overlooking the Jerusalem forest, I daven to be the mother that my daughter needs me to be and the daughter than my mother deserves, and to be the sum of those parts and yet uniquely me.
I know that life is not a musical, but sometimes the little girl waiting for her mother’s smile can have a mini perfect ending. My mother is not overly demonstrative, but on our sixth anniversary, my mother sent a card. She wrote, "I want you to know that I'm so proud of you. You're living the life that I would love to live."
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Argh
There's this blog that I follow sporadically and the guy was ranting on and on about this rapist or murderer or maybe someone who smokes in the kiddie park? Someone bad and evil and probably has bad personal hygiene, too. You read his prose, and you feel all, YEAH!They're bad and evil! Because they are. Black and white staring you in the face evil? I love to hate me some of that.
When I was little, I used to daydream horrible daydreams about horrible things happening to me, because of horrible people. It took me years to figure out that having a sick father with no one to blame--except G-d, perhaps--left me with only the dreams that one day I can point a fingure and say--YOU did it! YOU are bad! Because of YOU, everything is horrible! There was no you, and that was hard.
A friend of mine who has fertility issues has a neighbor who has to be heard to be believed. She spent her whole pregnancy complaining to my friend about how tired she is, and now she complains to her about having to, you know, mother her baby.
It's outrageously insensitive and she is probably a thick blockead to not choose who to complain about her stuff to a leeeetle more discriminatingly, and being outraged at her is so satisfying. This world is so gray, everyone has their own perspectives, and half of us know that even as we are mad at the lady ahead of us in line that is taking too long or the jerk that cut you off that they have a side to their story too, and that we've even done what they are doing, once or twice. When you find some annoyance or hate that you can really sink your teeth into, it's so satisfying, it's like love.
Our landlord is kicking us out. Out kids make too much noise. Thing is, we just moved in a year ago, and they saw that we have kids then, and one on the way. We even asked them for a five year contract because we were so sick of moving. They said no, but not to worry, we could stay if we were good. We are good. We are so good! We fix everything ourselves. (We=Outdoorsman, while I watch, because I am better at watching, and it's important to do what you are good at.) We pay on time. (see: disclaimer above.) We are nice. We are sweet. They are NASTY people, and I wish that I can hate them and live on that self-righteous indignation. But I know that life is not so simple. I know that they hard lives, and I know that she just lost her sister, and I know that they are bitter about young chareidim taking over their neighborhood just when they were ready to settle down in quiet retirement in the house they built when the state was new.
Life and people are all shades of gray. I know that. I do.
I also know how much easier it would be if everything was black and white.
Who wants to help me pack?
When I was little, I used to daydream horrible daydreams about horrible things happening to me, because of horrible people. It took me years to figure out that having a sick father with no one to blame--except G-d, perhaps--left me with only the dreams that one day I can point a fingure and say--YOU did it! YOU are bad! Because of YOU, everything is horrible! There was no you, and that was hard.
A friend of mine who has fertility issues has a neighbor who has to be heard to be believed. She spent her whole pregnancy complaining to my friend about how tired she is, and now she complains to her about having to, you know, mother her baby.
It's outrageously insensitive and she is probably a thick blockead to not choose who to complain about her stuff to a leeeetle more discriminatingly, and being outraged at her is so satisfying. This world is so gray, everyone has their own perspectives, and half of us know that even as we are mad at the lady ahead of us in line that is taking too long or the jerk that cut you off that they have a side to their story too, and that we've even done what they are doing, once or twice. When you find some annoyance or hate that you can really sink your teeth into, it's so satisfying, it's like love.
Our landlord is kicking us out. Out kids make too much noise. Thing is, we just moved in a year ago, and they saw that we have kids then, and one on the way. We even asked them for a five year contract because we were so sick of moving. They said no, but not to worry, we could stay if we were good. We are good. We are so good! We fix everything ourselves. (We=Outdoorsman, while I watch, because I am better at watching, and it's important to do what you are good at.) We pay on time. (see: disclaimer above.) We are nice. We are sweet. They are NASTY people, and I wish that I can hate them and live on that self-righteous indignation. But I know that life is not so simple. I know that they hard lives, and I know that she just lost her sister, and I know that they are bitter about young chareidim taking over their neighborhood just when they were ready to settle down in quiet retirement in the house they built when the state was new.
Life and people are all shades of gray. I know that. I do.
I also know how much easier it would be if everything was black and white.
Who wants to help me pack?
Monday, February 14, 2011
Zero
Wanted to share with you something amazing that my husband wrote. Comment, please please please? I want to encourage him to start his own blog!
It’s easy to be tough about things in the morning, but night is another story. By day you’re a conqueror, a force, but when night comes in the voices do too, the dread comes.
I realize now that it’s been like this as long as I can remember. As a child, I don’t know how old, I lay in bed every night and hoped and maybe prayed that the house wouldn’t burn down. And I think it struck me about five years ago that I’m still just hoping things will be ok.
I can point fingers in every direction. Maybe things were too unstable for a child to handle. Maybe I’m also a holocaust survivor, in a way. Maybe it’s just my job to get over. Everyone’s got something – maybe this is mine. But pointing fingers doesn’t help. How could it?
The world around me has always seemed to swirl with carefree people, and I’ve always felt left out. What’s their secret? That’s the question I’ve asked for years. I’ve tried in earnest to find it. But not even prosperity has brought me the security, the abandon that I seek.
But as I get older, and gradually discover people like me, people I can be friends with, likeminded people however few they are, I find that they’re often as tormented as I am. So I’m trying something new. I’m deciding that I’m right. That really we are hanging from a string and destruction lies in wait. That sooner or later all houses will burn down, and that no matter how hard we try it’s not enough to change that reality.
Perhaps that’s what this modern age is here to do. It’s here to educate us to reality. There’s no more job security. There’s no more financial security. There’s no more national security. Everything causes cancer. And everyone is really out to get you.
The last realization that we need before the end of days is that with all our work, with all our self improvement and prudent planning. With all our self-righteousness and posturing we’re all equal in regard to The Creator. We’re all equally poor. We’re all equally ignorant. We’re all equally defenseless. Zero multiplied by a hundred is still zero. That zero is human existence. And no matter what we multiply that existence by. Whether by wealth, or by knowledge, or by beauty, we’re all equally worthless.
And I’m happy.
It’s easy to be tough about things in the morning, but night is another story. By day you’re a conqueror, a force, but when night comes in the voices do too, the dread comes.
I realize now that it’s been like this as long as I can remember. As a child, I don’t know how old, I lay in bed every night and hoped and maybe prayed that the house wouldn’t burn down. And I think it struck me about five years ago that I’m still just hoping things will be ok.
I can point fingers in every direction. Maybe things were too unstable for a child to handle. Maybe I’m also a holocaust survivor, in a way. Maybe it’s just my job to get over. Everyone’s got something – maybe this is mine. But pointing fingers doesn’t help. How could it?
The world around me has always seemed to swirl with carefree people, and I’ve always felt left out. What’s their secret? That’s the question I’ve asked for years. I’ve tried in earnest to find it. But not even prosperity has brought me the security, the abandon that I seek.
But as I get older, and gradually discover people like me, people I can be friends with, likeminded people however few they are, I find that they’re often as tormented as I am. So I’m trying something new. I’m deciding that I’m right. That really we are hanging from a string and destruction lies in wait. That sooner or later all houses will burn down, and that no matter how hard we try it’s not enough to change that reality.
Perhaps that’s what this modern age is here to do. It’s here to educate us to reality. There’s no more job security. There’s no more financial security. There’s no more national security. Everything causes cancer. And everyone is really out to get you.
The last realization that we need before the end of days is that with all our work, with all our self improvement and prudent planning. With all our self-righteousness and posturing we’re all equal in regard to The Creator. We’re all equally poor. We’re all equally ignorant. We’re all equally defenseless. Zero multiplied by a hundred is still zero. That zero is human existence. And no matter what we multiply that existence by. Whether by wealth, or by knowledge, or by beauty, we’re all equally worthless.
And I’m happy.
Monday, February 7, 2011
To A Friend, waiting for a miracle
I have Things to complain about times three.
The laundry times three, the kvetching times three, the missed naps times three. The Lego I stepped on at three o'clock in the morning on the way to give the baby a bottle. The yogurt that gets finished too fast, the milk that gets spilled. Times three. The ripped books, the sticky floors and fingers. The dinners I spent time on that get poked and uneaten, the game of Candyland with two missing pieces, the...
...blog entries that get interrupted and I lose my train of thought so they stay, unfinished
Unfinished
When my baby wants to be held and I'm busy, and I hold him thinking about the million things I have to do, I also try to think about how much heavier it is to hold nothing at all.
Which is not exactly what i wanted to say.
Maybe there is nothing to say?
The laundry times three, the kvetching times three, the missed naps times three. The Lego I stepped on at three o'clock in the morning on the way to give the baby a bottle. The yogurt that gets finished too fast, the milk that gets spilled. Times three. The ripped books, the sticky floors and fingers. The dinners I spent time on that get poked and uneaten, the game of Candyland with two missing pieces, the...
...blog entries that get interrupted and I lose my train of thought so they stay, unfinished
Unfinished
When my baby wants to be held and I'm busy, and I hold him thinking about the million things I have to do, I also try to think about how much heavier it is to hold nothing at all.
Which is not exactly what i wanted to say.
Maybe there is nothing to say?
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Writer's Block
My writer’s block is small, cold to the touch and has an ominous black cloud and other clichéd truisms hanging over it. I hesitantly knock on its single entrance. “Enter!” A single bark. It is impossible to identify the voice’s owner. There is no handle on the door. I try banging my head against it, and it swings open.
Inside, I am surrounded by shapes, colors, sounds, pressing bodies and pulsing lights. I hear fragments of conversation.
“Oh yes, it was yesterday, while washing dishes—“
“Old, and poor, and she was still smiling, and life would never be the same—“
“He keeps thanking me for the fish, and I didn’t give him any fish. He has a feeding tube—“
“A mother and a writer and just no patience this morning—“
“Am I fat or sad? Sometimes I can’t tell the difference—“
“Whose idea was it, anyway? I think that Society—“
I recognize everyone. It is my party. “Oh!” I say joyfully. “Here’s where you’ve all been hiding!” I decide to get to work at once. I roll up my sleeves, open my laptop, pour myself a cup of coffee. “Now!” I clap my hands together, and the noise and lights stop. Everyone stops talking, looks at me.“Good! Now, you, you and you, over there. You taught me about humility, and in a sort of fresh way, too. You! Excellent! You make an ironic entrance, especially if I take off your hat. Can you take off your hat? You don’t mind, do you? It’ll make a better story.” The being I addressed rolls its eyes, but complies. Excellent. Things are getting along swimmingly. I rubmy hands together and open up a new document.
That’s when the mumbling starts. I looked up. “Listen,” I say sternly. “Please don’t make noise while I am writing.” The mumbling only gets louder. The lights start again, and someone starts in on an electric guitar. An electric guitar? How did that get in here? The noise gets louder and louder and the lights get brighter and brighter and everyone starts pushing and I cannot breathe. It is all too much, too much, and I open my mouth to scream, and then it’s all gone. I am alone with my own shadow.
The computer in front of me beams a slow blue light. I blink at it. There are some words there. “The essence of humility is knowing what your talents are and knowing why you have them and where they come from. Just the other day, I saw a man. He had no hat.”
I have no idea where I was going with this.
“Where was I going with this?—“
I hear my own echo for a moment, and then nothing.
Inside, I am surrounded by shapes, colors, sounds, pressing bodies and pulsing lights. I hear fragments of conversation.
“Oh yes, it was yesterday, while washing dishes—“
“Old, and poor, and she was still smiling, and life would never be the same—“
“He keeps thanking me for the fish, and I didn’t give him any fish. He has a feeding tube—“
“A mother and a writer and just no patience this morning—“
“Am I fat or sad? Sometimes I can’t tell the difference—“
“Whose idea was it, anyway? I think that Society—“
I recognize everyone. It is my party. “Oh!” I say joyfully. “Here’s where you’ve all been hiding!” I decide to get to work at once. I roll up my sleeves, open my laptop, pour myself a cup of coffee. “Now!” I clap my hands together, and the noise and lights stop. Everyone stops talking, looks at me.“Good! Now, you, you and you, over there. You taught me about humility, and in a sort of fresh way, too. You! Excellent! You make an ironic entrance, especially if I take off your hat. Can you take off your hat? You don’t mind, do you? It’ll make a better story.” The being I addressed rolls its eyes, but complies. Excellent. Things are getting along swimmingly. I rubmy hands together and open up a new document.
That’s when the mumbling starts. I looked up. “Listen,” I say sternly. “Please don’t make noise while I am writing.” The mumbling only gets louder. The lights start again, and someone starts in on an electric guitar. An electric guitar? How did that get in here? The noise gets louder and louder and the lights get brighter and brighter and everyone starts pushing and I cannot breathe. It is all too much, too much, and I open my mouth to scream, and then it’s all gone. I am alone with my own shadow.
The computer in front of me beams a slow blue light. I blink at it. There are some words there. “The essence of humility is knowing what your talents are and knowing why you have them and where they come from. Just the other day, I saw a man. He had no hat.”
I have no idea where I was going with this.
“Where was I going with this?—“
I hear my own echo for a moment, and then nothing.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Good Enough Redone
“I don’t think that it needs to be cleaned under there. No one is going to see under there,” I addressed the headless torso lying halfway under our car. The torso slid out and became my husband. He struggled to his feet and dipped the sponja cloth back into the bcket full of soapy water. He was humming. His eyes were bright with religious fervor. He dived back under the car. I guess the difference in our approach to cleaning the car is in our relationship to the car. I would consider cleaning it a chore. My husband looks at it as bathing his firstborn child. When he washes his car, angels sing.
I don’t really understand the love between a man and his car, but I do understand getting lost in the desire to do it right, especially if it’s something that you love. As a teenager, I loved writing, I loved reading, I loved acting. Journals spilled out of all my desk drawers, filled with my poems and angst-filled prose. I read 20 books a week, and I was always the main part in any production. I spent years of my life practicing my lines in front of a mirror.
I never really thought about how I would be as a mother. I was never the kind of girl who drew pictures of herself in wedding gowns and had all of her children named before they were born. When I thought about it at all, I assumed I would be good enough. I was raised well; I could get away with it. I did not count on not wanting to get away with anything.
When my oldest daughter was born and they placed her on my chest, over my heart, the first thought that sprang to my mind was, it’s you! I didn’t realize that it would be you! And my whole world changed, and narrowed. I worked at home, to be near her. I catered while pregnant with the next one, letting her play with the eggshells and her own set of bowls and spoons on the floor. When my next daughter was born I babysat, her with the others. When my third was born, my husband’s business took off, and in my spare time, with him on my lap, I try to make something of my writing.
The problem is, raising kids is not washing a car. Although my husband, who watched the skies open up 2 hours after he finished rubbing the car down with a diaper, would disagree with me, in general, a physical thing that one wants to get finished, gets finished. Kids don’t get finished. Kids don’t even really sleep. And a victory of one day does not a victory of two days make.
Like the other day. It was going to be sweetness and light and honey and a thing of beauty and a joy forever in terms of the absolute amazingness in which I was going to be as Mommy. I would start off by singing "Good morning" to my precious progeny when they entered my sleeping haven. Then I would give them breakfast as I smoothly floated about the immaculate apartment, gathering things up for gan and preparing perfectly balanced lunchboxes. The baby, already (mysteriously, now that I think about it) fed, would gurgle happily on his mat. Angels were going to sing, too, I think.
The problem started at 4:30 AM. The day, that is, started at 4:30 AM. The girls were up and eating yogurt before the sun even got its pants on. 4:30 is not really my hour of glory, I must admit. I prefer to spent it drooling on a pillow, truth be told, but I stumbled out of bed and took a deep steadying breath and pulled out the coffee.
"Good morning, girls! Who want to get dre--Coco-pop, off the baby. Who wants to get--"
"Ima! Can you pour us orange juice and also I spilled my yogurt on my shoes."
"Ima, Princess doesn't let me use the glue."
"Ima, Coco-pop is using the big scissors and I told her you don't let and she didn't listen."
"Ima, Princess pulled my hair!"
"Ima, Coco-pop is yucky!"
"Ima, the baby is crying."
So he was. And so were they. And there was a huge pile of laundry that I forgot to fold from last night that was being used as--well, not exactly sure as what, but it entailed the used-to-be-clean articles of clothing being dragged through puddles of semi-dried yogurt.
I tried. I did. But at the end of the morning, the apartment is in shambles, my nerves shot, and Coco-pop went off to gan in tears. I'm afraid I said something to the effect of, "She gets it from your side," in rather a hiss when Outdoorsman came home for breakfast.
After I put the baby in for a nap and started seeing which items of laundry could be salvaged I sat down to two cups of coffee and sighed.
Why can't I pray and aim for a GOOD morning? Why does it have to be perfect or nothing? Why does my home have to be immaculate, my writing perfect, my children doting and sweet? And I see the same look in Princess' eye when something doesn't go her way--okay, might as well let it all out. Day's ruined anyway.
Why can't I aim for a decent start and for everyone to be mostly happy? I can't sing first thing in the morning anyway, I would scare small sparrows out of the lemon trees. I see it in my children when they don’t understand something on the first try, the frustration and the automatic reaction to give it up as a bad job. Why do something if you can't do it perfectly? Is this what I am passing on to my kids? Don't bother if it's not going to be guaranteed perfect?
Tomorrow, I will be pretty good. I will be good enough. And the good-enough angels will sing, in my glorious morning voice.
I don’t really understand the love between a man and his car, but I do understand getting lost in the desire to do it right, especially if it’s something that you love. As a teenager, I loved writing, I loved reading, I loved acting. Journals spilled out of all my desk drawers, filled with my poems and angst-filled prose. I read 20 books a week, and I was always the main part in any production. I spent years of my life practicing my lines in front of a mirror.
I never really thought about how I would be as a mother. I was never the kind of girl who drew pictures of herself in wedding gowns and had all of her children named before they were born. When I thought about it at all, I assumed I would be good enough. I was raised well; I could get away with it. I did not count on not wanting to get away with anything.
When my oldest daughter was born and they placed her on my chest, over my heart, the first thought that sprang to my mind was, it’s you! I didn’t realize that it would be you! And my whole world changed, and narrowed. I worked at home, to be near her. I catered while pregnant with the next one, letting her play with the eggshells and her own set of bowls and spoons on the floor. When my next daughter was born I babysat, her with the others. When my third was born, my husband’s business took off, and in my spare time, with him on my lap, I try to make something of my writing.
The problem is, raising kids is not washing a car. Although my husband, who watched the skies open up 2 hours after he finished rubbing the car down with a diaper, would disagree with me, in general, a physical thing that one wants to get finished, gets finished. Kids don’t get finished. Kids don’t even really sleep. And a victory of one day does not a victory of two days make.
Like the other day. It was going to be sweetness and light and honey and a thing of beauty and a joy forever in terms of the absolute amazingness in which I was going to be as Mommy. I would start off by singing "Good morning" to my precious progeny when they entered my sleeping haven. Then I would give them breakfast as I smoothly floated about the immaculate apartment, gathering things up for gan and preparing perfectly balanced lunchboxes. The baby, already (mysteriously, now that I think about it) fed, would gurgle happily on his mat. Angels were going to sing, too, I think.
The problem started at 4:30 AM. The day, that is, started at 4:30 AM. The girls were up and eating yogurt before the sun even got its pants on. 4:30 is not really my hour of glory, I must admit. I prefer to spent it drooling on a pillow, truth be told, but I stumbled out of bed and took a deep steadying breath and pulled out the coffee.
"Good morning, girls! Who want to get dre--Coco-pop, off the baby. Who wants to get--"
"Ima! Can you pour us orange juice and also I spilled my yogurt on my shoes."
"Ima, Princess doesn't let me use the glue."
"Ima, Coco-pop is using the big scissors and I told her you don't let and she didn't listen."
"Ima, Princess pulled my hair!"
"Ima, Coco-pop is yucky!"
"Ima, the baby is crying."
So he was. And so were they. And there was a huge pile of laundry that I forgot to fold from last night that was being used as--well, not exactly sure as what, but it entailed the used-to-be-clean articles of clothing being dragged through puddles of semi-dried yogurt.
I tried. I did. But at the end of the morning, the apartment is in shambles, my nerves shot, and Coco-pop went off to gan in tears. I'm afraid I said something to the effect of, "She gets it from your side," in rather a hiss when Outdoorsman came home for breakfast.
After I put the baby in for a nap and started seeing which items of laundry could be salvaged I sat down to two cups of coffee and sighed.
Why can't I pray and aim for a GOOD morning? Why does it have to be perfect or nothing? Why does my home have to be immaculate, my writing perfect, my children doting and sweet? And I see the same look in Princess' eye when something doesn't go her way--okay, might as well let it all out. Day's ruined anyway.
Why can't I aim for a decent start and for everyone to be mostly happy? I can't sing first thing in the morning anyway, I would scare small sparrows out of the lemon trees. I see it in my children when they don’t understand something on the first try, the frustration and the automatic reaction to give it up as a bad job. Why do something if you can't do it perfectly? Is this what I am passing on to my kids? Don't bother if it's not going to be guaranteed perfect?
Tomorrow, I will be pretty good. I will be good enough. And the good-enough angels will sing, in my glorious morning voice.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
LinkWithin
