Turtle and Peace in the Middle East

Outdoorsman is a big man. Not a fat man; a big man. The football coach in high school cried real (manly, I am sure) tears when Outdoorsman stayed loyal to his chosen sport of La Cross and refused to join the football team. He benches his body weight with his legs. He likes fishing and beer, usually at the same time. His face glows when he works with his hands. He is Man. Frequently, he roars.

Turtle is, limb for limb, feature for feature, his mini-me. Except for my eyes, which seem to be superimposed on his chubby-wubby face with Photoshop, he is all Outdoorsman. He was the first infant that I have ever seen with broad shoulders. 

And, like most manly men, he is secretly a softy. 

I'm talking about Turtle, of course! Outdoorsman is ALL man. No soft sides at all! (He's also reading over my shoulder as I write.) 

So, Turtle.  He is a sensitive little boy who runs after other children in the park with his arms outstretched--not to hit, but to hug. They run from him anyway, and sometimes he has to hold them down to administer the hug, but it is with love, you see. 

He is also sensitive to whatever bug is going around, poor baby. This year he has had mono, ear infections, strep, numerous little 24-hour stomach bugs and...I think that's it. He also had a hairline fracture, but that's not a bug, that is a five year-old boy jumping straight onto his leg. OLD ENOUGH to know better. (I have totally let go, of course.) 

Then, for shavuos, instead of learning torah and being mekabel naaseh v'nishmah and eating cheesecake and lazagna, we ended up in the hospital because my poor little sensitive boy with the broad shoulders and the girly eyes turns out to be allergic to mosquito bites. 

We also ate cheesecake. But not happily. Not happily at all. 

He got bitten too close to his eye, and needed to get intravenous antibiotics. Outdoorsman and I took turns with him in the hospital for two days. We chased him up and down the hallways and stopped him on numerous occasions from pulling out other children's IVs. 

There are so many emotions that were brought up from all of the tiny little worlds that happened over our forty-eight hour hospital stay; 

--The chiloni nurse's reaction to our telling her that we want to move to neighborhood X even though it is not so chareidi because it's okay with us not to live only around people who are exactly like us; "I never heard anyone say that before," she said. And smiled. 

--My wonderful, wonderful friend who stepped in and watched the girlies and said, "Don't say thank you, it's the only natural thing to do!"

--the couple who brings food to the hospital every shabbas and yom tov--challa and little containers of gefilte fish, baggies of croutons to go with chicken soup, plates piled high with liver and potato kugel--I don't come from that world, but my heart was warmed by such a heimeshe feast even as it gave me indigestion. They've been doing it every week for a very long time. Then the woman  asked; can you take over for us? We laughed, and she said, no seriously. And we are thinking about it.

--All the sick children! My G-d, all the sick children! I could cry a river over all of the sick children.

--Outdoorsman lining up awesome chavrusos for himself for shavuos night; and then, not being able to learn at all. What does it all mean? He finds meaning; he always does. 

But this post will be about Turtle's attempt at making peace in the Middle East, so I will end with that.

I mentioned Turtle's tenancy to hugging, right? 

So there was a thin little boy there, and his mother hovered over him. Turtle ran after the little boy with his arms outstretched and hugged him over and over again while I shot apologetic glances at his mother, who wore a pretty scarf. She tied it differently from mine. She was an Arab. 

"He's not contagious," I said quickly. "It's from a mosquito bite."

She gestured that it was okay, and we watched the two toddlers play. I made sure that Turtle would not knock her slight-looking boy over.

"Aich kar'im lo?" I asked.

"Abdulla," she answered. 

She looked tired, and I said "I hope he feels better."

"He won't," she said. "He has hemophilia."

"I'm sorry," I said. Tears sprang to my eyes, as they always do, and I usually look away, blink them away, but instead, spontaneously, I let her see, that there were tears in my eyes for her. I saw her own eyes widen in surprise. 

Turtle played with Abdulla and I noticed all of the Arabs watching him, watching and smiling at my big boy-boy. "Chamud," said a man with a severe mustache, his arm around a pale girl around ten. Another Arab man brushed Turtle's hair away from his face and was rewarded with a scowl. Laughing, he put the lock of hair back and winked at him. Turtle laughed back.

Outdoorsman hates that they use our hospitals. He says it's like a curse from the torah, that we cure our enemies. I refuse to see them as anything other than people, but even I will admit that I am afraid of them, when it is dark and I'm alone in the house and there is a strange noise coming from the bathroom. (It's the pipes, it's the pipes, go to sleep!)

But here, in the pediatric ward...we all love our children, don't we? 

Don't we?

There was another Arab woman there. She smiled at Turtle  and at me. She did not know any Hebrew and she kept trying to talk to me in slow, clear, Arabic--don't we do that too, to foreigners, as if that will help them understand?-- but I did not know what she was saying. Whenever we bumped into each other in the hallway, we smiled brightly and apologetically at each other and shrugged our shoulders. 

Dancing in the Darkness

I was hunched over Facebook, reading the various 'what's on your minds' of the asifa, some gleefully bashing

--Oh, I told you, I SAID they wouldn't say anything meaningful--

to saddened

--I thought they would say something to help, not just compare us to dor hamabul and mitzrayim--

and I was nodding and shaking my head and drinking a lot of coffee. Why don't they GET us, why don't we have the leaders like those of yesteryear (I shamefully use words like 'yesteryear' when melodramatic enough)

and that's when the music started.

No, not in my head, I'm not completely over the edge yet--but outside.

The mood I was in was black, ye ken, and foul indeed. For reals, though, there has just been so much, so much happening lately to shake my faith in our leaders, to feel orphaned and alone.

Outdoorsman agrees, but he also has something so strong in him that I do not have. He is a baal teshuva and also a smarty-pants who came to this life through philosophy and logic, not through the people who claim to represent Judaism, and he does not shaken easily. He'll even say sometimes, "Wouldn't it be funny if we were all wrong and everything was really on its head? And they were all right?" It's enough, sometimes, to entertain that idea, enough to know that with all of my blustering, I know nothing.

But sometimes, although I might play devil's advocate the other way, I can get so disheartened. Like this asifa. What is it, I ask of you? Was anything new said? Was it necessarily to  speak in Yiddish to a crowd of Americans? What are we becoming? Are we smaller than our nisyonos? Do our gedolim not believe in us? If they did, they would give us tools, not just make us feel really small, too small to climb such insurmountable heights.

But then, the music.

And the foul mood, yes, made my first reaction--I just put the baby to bed, and he's teething! Turn that down!


But then the music got louder and louder and I closed the windows in the kids rooms and  I went to the window in the living room to see what was going on.

There was the largest, most gaudily decorated truck I have ever seen, with winking lights of all colors and a flame that was actually a flame-colored cloth blowing around in a glass box affixed to the front of the truck.

Following the truck were my people.

All different kinds of them.

Black hats and no hats, beards and clean shaven, white shirts and colored, all dancing, dancing, dancing, to the blaring music. At the sides, little girls with their hands on each others shoulders made long, giggling trains while the boys seemed more determined to cause bodily harm with the torches that they held.

And in the center was an old, old sefardi Rabbi in a long white robe, holding a Torah covered in hard, glittering silver. Even from my fourth floor perch I could see that his eyes were closed and tears were on his cheeks.

I felt answering tears on mine.

Sometimes right and wrong, together with right and left, melt away. Nothing else really matters anymore, not really, when we all put our arms around each other in the presence of our holy Torah and dance.

(although if they wake up Turtle, there will be hell to pay.)

Our Futile Search for a Pet

Outdoorsman says, when I wax poetic about how wonderful it will be in our larger apartment, that the size of the apartment doesn't matter; no matter what, the kids will always be clinging to my skirts.

Three days ago, Coco-pop, who had been playing downstairs with a neighbor, came running into the kitchen where I was washing dishes with Turtle attached firmly to one of my legs. "Ima!  Come see!"

"Can we keep her?" said Coco-pop, as soon as I approached the spot that she had led me to, to the right of the garbage room.

Why do we always assume cats are she? was my first thought.

My second one was, oh, no.


The kitten was just a few days old, by the looks of her. She was mangy too, and shaking from paw to whiskers from some unknown but probably deadly disease. Outdoorsman had given her a little dish of milk, but she looked too young to know what to do with it.

Tears came to my eyes, and, annoyed--it's just a cat!--I blinked them away. "Sweetie, this kitten is too young to take home. She needs her mother. Let's leave her here, for her mother to find." and I turned away.

Turtle was fascinated, and I had to hold him back from certain kittenacide. Coco-pop pouted, and Princess pretended to be upset as well, even though I could tell that she was relieved. Things that can jump unexpectedly  frightened my hyper-aware eldest daughter.

The next morning, I went to check on the kitten. I pretended that I was doing nothing of the sort, however. I lugged out my garbage bag half-empty instead of my usual preference of stuffed-and-almost-ripping-and-slightly-oozing, and went to the garbage room. I let my eye drop casually on the spot she had been yesterday.

She was gone.

Slight hope sprang in my heart. If she was gone...she couldn't be dead, right? Maybe she was okay.

Why did I care so much, is the deeper question, I thought as I tossed my too-light load into the garbage  bin, making sure, as I always did, that no cats were inside waiting to be squished by a well-flung garbage bag.

Well, they are mammals and they can feel pain. So it makes sense that I care about them. 

This morning, I walked into my building and stopped in my tracks at a sudden movement that streaked in front of me.

The sudden streaky movement had a tail and whiskers. "It's the kitten!" said I.

But it couldn't have been the same one. This one was the same color, but frisky and healthy and bigger. A healthy sibling of the poor sick one? "Oh, can we keep it?" I said to Outdoorsman. He smiled in a way that can be construed as condescending, if one were to construe it.

I walked towards it, and it darted up a flight of stairs. Then another. Then another. We were on the third floor, now. "Here, kitty kitty," I crooned.

As I edged towards it,  I had a horrible premonition. "No, kitty, no! Don't--"

It jumped.

Down the stairwell.

A high-pitched scream may or may have not escaped my lips. I quickly looked down the center stairwell, and saw a set of ears and a tail. "Oh please, don't be--"

It wasn't. I saw the ears twitch, and then she got to her little feet.

Yes, I had to wipe away more annoying tears. Yes, I hate to see creatures hurt. Yes, darn it, I refuse to kill moths, bees, or even cockroaches. I do allow myself the occasional mosquito, especially when I am covered in a fine layer of bites, but I still feel a twinge of self-disgust. And I think, I ended a life. 

I refuse to analyze it, though.

Suffice to say, while I love pets, they do not seem to love me. Our hamster died of mysterious bumps, our old bird flew out the window, (we have a new one; keep your fingers crossed!) our chameleon died of what I hope was old age, and kittens jump down stairwells to avoid me.

Which puts my kids and their skirt-clinging into perspective. Hey, at least there, my feelings of love are firmly returned.

This was supposed to be Princess' Birthday Letter, but that will wait, now.

To my almost-niece, with the unknown name in the unmarked grave,

Your Ima wanted you so badly.

She wanted a girl, you know, and then she just wanted to get pregnant. Then you were both, and she was so happy. She's one of those perfect pregnancy people, she doesn't get nauseous and her little baby bump stays cute and pert until labor. This is annoying for people like me, but we were all just so happy for her we overlooked her unfair gorgeousness.

When they first realized something was wrong, the doctors thought it was Downs. Your Ima and Daddy took some time to think about that, about welcoming a child with Downs Syndrome into their home, and they decided that yes, they can do this. They can shower you with love and get your love in return.

When it was discovered to be much much worse than Downs, it was very hard.

And when they lost you before they even saw your face, (it would have been horribly, terribly deformed) held your little body (a twisted hunk of flesh) it was so, so hard.

Your Ima said that at least she knows that she can get pregnant again. Your Ima says that there was a reason for your almost-existence. Your Ima says that she was surrounded by people who love her, and it was the most  horrible experience, but also, somehow, beautiful.

Almost-niece, we all cried for you. We all loved you. I wonder why you were almost here. I wonder why you didn't stop to say hello before flying back up to your home in heaven.

And I wonder why we can't even know your name.

All my love,
Your almost-aunt

In Which My Father Tells Me To Shut Up.

I can't leave well enough alone.

I was there when he died, which is more than I ever thought I would have.

 When I cried for more, I got a word document.

 Then I got greedy again. I wanted him, I wanted to see him, not his sightless body before he died, not his philosophy, found in the computer.

 I grew preoccupied with how it would be when he finally came to me in a dream.


"Hi D," he'd say. "My pesach kneidel. I love you." 


 "Why did you have to leave me?" I would say.

And he would answer, and it would all make sense, everything.

Then I would say how I have no one to ask for advice, and he would say, about what, and we would talk, and he would give me his opinion on the neighborhood that we are looking into, and the apartment. He would reassure me that living in Israel is the right decision for us, and that all the little things that are tangling up my life right now will pass.

 Then he would promise to be back.

I would dream about the dream before I went to sleep.

I would wake up every morning feeling let down.

 Finally, he sent me a note.

 We were in my mother's house, cleaning the bookshelves for Pesach, and Outdoorsman deigned to roll up his manly sleeves and help with the girly chores. The first sefer than he opened was an old gemorah. A note fell out and fluttered to the ground. Outdoorsman picked it up. "Whose handwriting is this?" He asked my mother.

She took it from him. A soft smile fluttered to her lips and her eyes brimmed. "Abba's," she said. She blinked a few times, and handed it back to Outdoorsman, who read it and then held it out to me.

"I think it's for you," he said.

It is now in a picture frame above my computer.

 "Every hardship I should say Hashem I accept your punishments. And not curse. Mikabel B'ahava!"

 Which is my gentle father's way of telling me to shut up and leave him alone.

 Got it, Abba. I'll stop being such a kvetch.

 Thanks for the note.

 I love you.

I am who I yam

"How do you feel about being broad?" Her question is open and honest.

She is that rare tall-petite combination that is was my futile goal. Even when I was dangerously thin, thinner than my petite friends, I learned that bones don't shrink. No matter what I do, I will never be petite.

She continued. "Because I used to wish that I was broad shouldered, like all of the models, you know? I have big hips"--she pointed at her slender lower body--"and I feel like if I had broad shoulders I would be in proportion, you know?"

So I told her my speech, the one I tell myself all day every day. That no one takes us apart inch by inch the way that we do to ourselves. That we are more than the sum of our parts. And that FOR G-D SAKES WOMAN, YOU DON'T HAVE BIG HIPS.

"Am I just going to have to keep telling myself that?" She said in frustration, twenty minutes later, when we were on to inner beauty and outer beauty. "Am I ever going to feel it?"

Yes and no.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Just like everything else in our lives.

Is it the human condition? To hate what we have and covet what is not ours? It must be, because we are commanded not to.  And we must be able to overcome it, because we are commanded to.

In America, I went to the DMV to get my...yes, alright, I went to get my permit, and it's a long story, and I'll post about it someday, but you should know that the pimples and angst are clearing right up.

SO ANYWAY, I went to get my hm-hm, and sitting in front of me in line were two women, their backs to me. One had a head of kinky curls, the other's was stick straight. When it was their turn, they stood and I saw--the curly head belonged to an Asian woman. The straightened hair's owner was black.

So, long windily, I am here, with my kids, and they want want want, because apparently everyone's mother gives their kids those huge ices every single day.  My cries of "I am not their mother. This is not what we do in our house. It is not good to have sugar sugar sugar all day long! Who wants some ice water??" is not met with resounding understanding and gratitude.

Maybe when I accept myself so totally it will roll off of me in waves and they will, too.

Maybe I should just give them the ices.

Back In Bidness!

I'm going to go out on a limb here. Bear with me.

 Jet lag sucks.

 I know, I know, I'm sure I'm gonna get flamed for this, but I feel like someone had to finally take a stand and say it.

 You know when it is the worst, though?

When you don't have it, but the progeny do.

We had a relatively normal flight in. It was actually the first flight that I can remember that I was not vomited upon, which is a pretty low standard now that I am saying that out loud, but you know, if you keep your standards low you stay happy for longer! So there was no vomit whatsoever on the flight and so I was as happy as an unvomited-upon lark. Or unvomited-upon anything, really, because all uvomited-upon peeps be chillin!

 So. ANYWAY, we landed, we smelled only of plane and not of stomach contents, and then we got into our ride and were thinking, this is great. This is a good omen. Because this has been a kind of tough year for us, and we are ready for things to get better. So not that we believe in omens or anything, but this seemed to be a good omen.

 So it's a good thing we totally do not believe in omens because then we opened our front door. And everything in the whole world had gone into our apartment to curl up and die. The stench of death was thick enough to gag on. It was pitch black, and yeah, the electricity was turned off. As was the phone, the internet, and everyone other means of contacting the outside world and yelling, "Help! My apartment DIED!"

 So yeah. Lots and lots of meat and chicken and fish and cheese were grimly dumped and many much of the washing and scrubbing and phone calls to the various responsible parties were made and there was much gnashing of the teeth and pulling of the hair. Which brings me to the jet lag.

 Ooooh, the jet lag. Turtle sleeps in half-hour increments and Princess decided that she is actually above sleep, she is more of a crying and screaming and freaking out and driving me out of my gourd kind of girl. It does agree with her. Coco-pop is like a little angel at night, but because the other two are making so much noise, I keep running to check her pulse. Coffee is my best friend and I tell her all my secrets. Like, "Child abuse is illegal, right? Right? RIGHT?"

 Hold me.

In Which My Husband Throws Me out of the Car

So many things, so little with the writing of them down! I will now write down a few of those things in terse, jerky sentences, like I am being debriefed. Just because right now I am wearing a hat, and I feel all secret angent-y and mysterious.

-Turtle on the airplane. Five minutes into the flight, I was wearing the dinner that I had just fed him, in decorative swirls. Of course, I had brought changes of clothing for everyone but me. Trapped on a 12-hour flight,I smelled. For a long, long, time.

-My sister's wedding. It was beautiful. My sister. She was beautiful. And when my mother walked her down with my brother instead of my father, I cried. The ugly cry, not pretty delicate wedding tears. And my Ugly Tears Face may or may not have been in every. single. picture.

-My kiddies playing with their cousins. It makes me so happy and so sad, how well they play together. Why don't we live here? I want to live here. Then they cousins all pull out their ipads. Oh yeah. That's part of why we don't live here.

-Me playing with my siblings. We missed each other. We be loud. We be jokey. We be us; tall and loud and at times shrieky with laughter. The family that my sister married into watches us. They are small and quiet and smile politely. They watch us. We are used to this sort of arrangement.

-I met my editor! She is sweet and so pretty and gracious. I was nervous to meet her in person for no real reason, but there you have it. Outdoorsman waited in the car with the three screaming, jet-lagged progeny. I told him I would be a minute. I wasn't.

I got back in the car. "Sorry!" I said.

"No problem," he said. He smiled at me. "How was it?"

"Good! She is nice, and I met a bunch of people. I think they like me. They said it was so nice to meet me." I was quiet for a minute. The car moved around three inches through the traffic. "What do you think they meant by that?"

"By what?"

"By saying it was nice to meet me."

"That...it's nice to meet you?"

"No, really. Maybe they hated me."

Outdoorsman laughed. I didn't. So he stopped and blinked for a while. The car moved along another three inches. "Why would they hate you?"

"I was nervous! So I was awkward! And she asked me all these friendly questions and I didn't ask her any questions and maybe that was rude? And maybe my scarf was ugly? And everyone wore shaitels. And my skirt made me look like I had a big stomach. And they asked me to edit and I said yes."

Outdoorsman grabbed onto the one sentence that floated out of my mouth in a sea of hysteria that made sense to him. "You don't like editing."

"I do! I edit stuff for people all the time."

"That is critiquing, not copy-editing. It's different."

"Oh, gosh! You see? I got all nervous, and now I said I'd do it-"

"So tell them you can't that it's not your thing. Stick with writing. Plus sheva brachos are tonight, and cleaning, and we told Ima we'd go shopping and start cooking for Shabbas. You won't have time. Tell them."

"Yeah. Okay. They totally hate me anyway." I brooded. "That's probably what they meant by saying that they liked my writing."

Which is when Outdoorsman didn't push me out of the car, but probably should have.

They say that when you come back home, you revert to the age you were growing up there. If so, I totally got in touch with my teenage self with that last scenario. And with my 30th birthday peeking at me behind my fingers covering my eyes, it actually makes me glad to be one year further from 16.

Other than that--it is so so nice to get together with my family for good, happy reasons. I am so glad I am here. And my editor is really nice. It's not her fault that I am coo-coo for coco-puffs.

Now I have to go write an e-mail and explain that I won't edit, at least not now.

Me saying no to someone?

Piece of cake!

Yeah!

Mhm.

Wish me lucks?

In the Valley of the Shadow

It was so nice to bump into her; I hadn't seen her in a while. She was the kind of friend and lived the kind of distance that you keep meaning to visit and you think about all the time, but then it just never happens.

She was all dressed up, and then I noticed that her kids were, too.

"So fancy, C! What's the occasion?"

"It's the day, today. The, you know. We came to say a bracha."

Tears sprang to my eyes. I wasn't there, but every mother has been there;why aren't they home yet? Maybe there was a--non,no,no, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation-- you tell yourself, but the images pass in front of your eyes unbidden--a car, driving up on the sidewalk, your husband, your children--screaming--

For most of us, they come in ten minutes later, and you say, "I was so worried! Where were you!"

And they say, "Oh, we bumped into what's-his-name,"

And five minutes later it is all forgotten.

For her, it really happened. She was home with her one-week old, resting. Her husband took the kids to a kiddush, giving her a little break.

The rest is every mother's nightmare. Except that, against all odds, they all lived.

"Today?" I repeated.

She nodded. "We made a seudah last night."

"Do I say mazal tov?"

She laughed, startled at the idea. "Yeah. Mazal tov!"

Her kids needed the bathroom, so I herded them across the street to my apartment building. "Hold hands! Princess, hold hands! Hold hands, everyone!" Eyes on the traffic, on the people, we crossed.

We made it across.

In my heart, I said a bracha.

Who is This Girl I See?

When her teacher told me to get her into Gam Saffah, so that she would be able to learn how rules worked, how to sit in a circle with everyone else, how to color in the lines and speak Hebrew fluently, I thought, Good. She won't go through what I went through, to figure it all out. No one will take advantage, no one will abuse my dreamy little girl the way I, ever the dreamer, ever not living in the present, was taken advantage of and abused.

But now I am not so sure.

Someone wise once told me that the worst thing that a parent can do is live through their children. I always thought that this was meant in terms of ambition, like those mothers who live through their daughters who are child actors or pageant queens.

But maybe it also means that we should not see ourselves in our children, because our reflections can block the real light that they are casting.

Because, she is not me. She is she.

Is it the way that you are like me, little girl, or the way that you are unlike me that I love best?

"Ima?"

"Hmm?"

"Um...um...Ima! I can't remember the word! Ima!"

And I feel with you in that. I lose words, too, when they are most important. I get teary-eyed when you do that, little girl, and when I tuck you in at night I give you extra kisses.

You look expectantly towards the ceiling when directed to find your shoes near the couch, and my nickname was Space Cadet when I was little, coined when I went down to the basement to get a case of plastic spoons and emerged an hour later bearing a lone jar of mayonnaise.

You are bewildered by large groups, and I remember, after most of junior high was crowded in social confusion and hiding books and sketch pads underneath school books, deciding that to become popular was simply a question of science, and I figured it out like a formula. (Then promptly lost interest.)

You are so like me, my little girl, my Coco-pop.

And then I see your brown button eyes, so unlike my narrow green ones. Your auburn hair--I was blonde at your age--the tiny mole beside your upturned nose that you got from your Abba. You see things that I would never see, because you are not me. You are you, I sometimes realize with a start, when you surprise me with a thought that I would never think.

You are you.

I love you, my little sweet girl, my monkey-in-the-middle. Just like me.

I love you when you surprise me by being you.

I need to think if Gan Saffa is something that I need to heal my own kindergarten self, or something you, my-daughter-who-is-not-me, needs.

I need to clear the mirror, and look straight at you.

And you know?

I love you--the whole you--best.

Opening Night

Princess' morah, who has been teaching first grade for 25 years, called three times to make sure that I was coming. First, I decided not to come because of the music, but when she called, alarm in her voice, I asked my rav and was told that I could go.

The second time she called to tell me that if I couldn't come, she would make a section of the party without music for me. Touched, I guiltily told her that I could come, and I'm sorry for not telling you earlier.

The third time she called was because Princess had told her that I would be leaving early since a play that I was directing had opening night that very same night. She called to make sure that I would not be doing that. My heart sank--this was going to be tricky--but I promised I would stay.

After all, the siddur party started at 4:00 and the play was at 8. How long could the siddur party possibly be?

As the siddur party sang its way into the third hour, I experienced a not entirely unpleasant out-of-body experience. I floated above the 40 singing girls in their costumes of ruffly blue, and the music teacher who was blasting prerecorded music so that the singing girls were only faintly heard, and the morah, who was gesturing to the singing girls to clutch their siddurim tight and close their eyes in a mimicry of devotion.

Part of the floating me was a little hysterical at the time. Did I mention it was already three hours long with no end in sight? And that I was directing a play, and opening night was in, like, now?

And that it was an hour past Princess' bedtime, and she was yawning onstage and her cheeks were bright pink. She was halfway to her second wind, I could tell, but for now,she looked like she wanted to burst into tears.

Another part of the floating me was kvelling. My little girl, all grown up. I can't believe it. I had just spent four hours pushing, getting her out into this world, yesterday.

The rest of the floating me was eyeing the food set up all around us many, many, many (many) hours ago. I was starving. Did I mention I was directing a play? I hadn't eaten since breakfast. Yesterday.

I came back down and into my own body with a thunk. Hunger can do that, I think.

This is crazy! I looked at the professional videographer that a parent had hired, and all of the grandmothers (Tova's mother and mother-in-law flew in from America for this, my seatmate had whispered to me). Everyone seemed to be smiling.

What is wrong with me that this entire spectacle seems like one long overdone Israeli tzedaka campaign? The overly dramatic songs. The long winded speeches. The slideshow with pictures of the Bais Hamikdash in flames.

Another hour past and the girls filed offstage to accept their due hugs, praise, and candy, not in that order. I waited in line to thank the morah for all her hard work. My coat was on. I had to dash to the play the second we finished talking.

The morah was dancing with the girls as they wound their way offstage. I met her eyes. Her eyes were filled with tears.

"I'm so glad you could make it!"

"I had to ask my rav," I told her in my best Hebrew, "but he said that I could--"

"Yes! Because it is very important!" A tear wound its way down her cheek. "It is very important."

I pressed her hand and flew to the door. And was startled to a standstill at a few thoughts.

It's a different culture. Just because I don't understand it doesn't make it wrong.

and

Princess has a siddur now! She is so big!

and

The morah was crying. Because I came, and it is so important that I was able to come. I put a hand to my cheek. Inexplicably, I was crying.

Mother, may I?

There is a huge decision that we have to make. A really big one. One that makes me want to be 16 years old again, and I HATED 16. Being a grownup is so overrated. Just when you can finally do whatever you want, you find out there is a catch; it's not RESPONSIBLE to do whatever you want.

So I did what any responsible grownup would do.

I called my mother.

"So what should I do?" I said, after I explained it all.

She paused, thinking, and then said, "Jump in the water and a net will appear."

I totally got shivers. Wow. "Wow," I said. "What is that? Zen? Kabbalah?"

"Monk," she said.

"What monk?"

"No, Monk. Adrian Monk."

Great. I am now being inspired by a TV show.

"That's all you got for me?" I said, a trifle ungratefully.

"No, because it was really funny, and then later in the episode he was actually in the water,like drowning, and he's like, 'a net will appear, my--'"

"Yeah. Thanks. I got it."

"Really. It's a leap, you're right, but what else can you do? The second option is not much better."

"Rock and a hard place, Ima. And no, Monk did not say that."

We laughed and hung up and now I have a massive headache.

What is the fine line between foolhardiness and faith? Does your intentions have anything do to with it? When do you leap, and when do you stay on the ground that may not be the best place for you but at least it is solid?

How do you know that when you leap there will be a net waiting to catch you?

Because I know people who have leaped, and drowned.

Half a Mind

"So she was put in this big room with a few other patients, and like a nurse always in the room."

Yeah, I thought. I know that room. "Uh huh," I said.

"And I guess because there is no night or day or whatever, people go a little crazy. So she went crazy, my mother-in-law! She called in the middle of the night and said into the phone, 'this is it. I am calling to give my last will and testement.' She thought she was dying!"

My friend was smiling. Like, isn't that the funniest thing ever? I pushed my plate away.

"So we all rushed to the hospital! It was like 2 in the morning, and we ran down the hallway and--"

"I need the bathroom," I said. And I was only halfway out the door before the Ugly tears came.

She didn't mean it. No one means it. It's me, not you, and I know that. And sometimes it's fine, you can talk to me about the shiva call you paid or your grandfather who is doing poorly. And sometimes all you have to mention is the dead cat you found in your yard and I see it all again. I see the line on the moniter going flat. I see his skin turning yellow, so quickly, I didn't know it happens so quickly. How they left the respirator on for what felt like forever and so his chest was still going up and down even though he was gone. And my mother rushed in and started talking to him, quickly, desperately, and then her phone rang and it was my brother, and she said, "No, run, you can still make it, he is still here--"

And I blurted out--"No,Ima, no! Didn't they tell you? He's gone!"

And she looked at me, her eyes went round and her face went slack and she crumpled and I grabbed for her.

And misaskim called and I left my mother with my sister and went out because I couldn't hear them and I had to tell them what we needed, chairs and cloths for the mirrors, and where we lived, and my brother came barelling down the hallway and I had to tell him too, no, no, he's gone.

He's gone. But nothing else changed. Cats also die and mothers-in-law can also go to the hospital and I can cook shabbas and laugh on the phone with a friend. I still get overwhelmed with weeks like this one, when I bit off a little more than I can chew, and the kids stay up too late.

Nothing changed and everything changed all at once, and sometimes I can lay out clothing for the kids and then sometimes my mind goes, he died right before my eyes. And I can write and say inspiring things about him, and I can be so grateful for the time I had with him, and still--sometimes--all I can think is having to be the one to tell my mother. Of my brother, his cheeks red, running down the hallway and meeting me coming out the door while I was on the phone with misaskim. "Did I miss it? Is he still here?" he said.

He's gone, I said.

Oh G-d. Oh G-d. My father is gone.

Time Enough

It's not just me, I know. We all get busy. It's efficient, I think. To bathe them first and then give them dinner in pajamas, and them smoothly trasition them to bed. I read them a book, we say shema.

And it is good, it is efficient, and probably better for them, to bathe when they can play and not when they are cranky and attempt to drown each other.

Everything has its times. You don't start baking cookies at 5 oclock, or they will be late for bedtime. Homework is right when you come home. And you come home right after school, because we go to the park after homework is done and lunch is eaten.

I have a friend who baked challas with her kids a hour before candlelighting. I was there for shabbas and I was thinking, then when is clean-up time? It turned out that there was no cleanup time, and I ended up sneaking into her kitchen to sweep because yes, I am that crazy. I spent the whole shabbas wishing I was her. Then after shabbas the maid came, and I said, oh. So that's how she does it. Because I need it clean. And she doesn't, and then anyway someone cleans it for her, so that's why she can sit on the couch with her kids, braiding their hair, while the table is covered in crumbs, and the drink--look at it!--it's still spilling slowly onto the floor! Drip. Drip. Dri----ah! I can't take it anymore! I confess! I confess! My need to clean is stronger than my need to do what you are doing right now, dear friend, which is gazing deeply into your daughter eyes and saying, "I love you. You are my treasure."

But I want that. I want to do that. I just want to do it in a clean, efficient house. I want both.

Yesterday, I sent Princess to get Coco-pop from gan. I wait on the corner and she runs up to get her. She feels grown-up like that, and I don't have to bounce the stroller up a gazillion steps. Win-win. Efficient.

The sound of wailing filled the Jerusalem afternoon a full moment before Princess dashed over to me, out of breath. "Coco-pop fell on the steps!"

I ran over as fast as I could. Coco-pop was lying on the steps, wailing, and a woman was bending over her. "I'm here! I'm the Ima! Thank you!" I called in Hebrew.

The woman didn't move away from her until I was almost on top of her. Her hair was orange and poufy like cotton candy, and if I was not a very polite and adult woman, I would have reached out and touched it. Her nails were blue and short.

I smiled my thanks again, then assessed the situation. Coco-pop was crying, but nothing was torn and there was no sign of blood or broken anything. "You okay, sweety?" I said as I picked her up and dusted her off.

She wailed, and nodded."I feeell," she said.

"I know. That must have hurt. You're okay," I said.

The woman was still standing there. "Hold her," she said to me.

"I am--"

"Hold her close to your heart."

Awkwardly, I pulled Coco-pop closer. She hiccuped.

"Keep on holding her. Let her feel your heartbeat. Feel hers. It is healing for both of you."

We were in the middle of a busy sidwalk. I help Coco-pop so close that I could hear the beating of her heart. Carriages angled around me.

"It only works if you can hear her heart and she can hear hers. Keep on holding her, and don't let go."

I held her for another minute or two, until Coco-pop pulled away and took my hand. "You know Ima," she said as we started to walk, "I saw a bird in the Chatzer and it was maybe dead but then it flew away and it wasn't even dead!"

Hold her close to your heart, or it doesn't work.

I looked up again to see the woman, but she was gone.

Shalom, Shmee D. Mah Shlomaich?

I reached for the phone and dialed a number. After being on hold for eleventy hours, a woman picked up.

My head pounded. My stomach lurched. But I took a deep breath and faced my fears. "Shalom," I began.

I never thought it would be this way, with my Hebrew. I never thought that after living here for nearly 8 years, the language would still be such a problem for me. Words were always my thing. I revelled in expressing myself using them.

But maybe it's because of the dependability of English words that I have a hard time putting myself out there using ones that I am not super comfortable with.I am not used to taking risks and having people laugh at me. I am eloquent, dernit! I do not sound like my Polish grandmother!

But here I am, panicking, with a list of phone numbers in front of me. I am trying to:

A-get Coco-pop into a special gan with physical therapy and speech therapy and every other kind of therapy that her teacher says she needs. So this involves calling the neurologist to make an appointment. I call. I stumble, but get the words out--I want to make an appointment for my daughter. Because her morah says.

There is genuine relish is in the woman's voice on the other end of the line as she informs in Hebrew faster than a speeding bullet that "Well! It's not quite so easy! First you must get a hearing test done. Then you must get her eyes checked. Then you must fill out these forms that we will tell you we sent to you months ago every time you call but really we didn't because we love when that little squeaky note of hysteria enters your voice but you can't even say anything because your Hebrew makes small children hide under their blankets. Then there are more appointment to make but we will not tell you about that until after it is too late to get in. Okay? B'seder? Yala, bye."

B-Find us another apartment. I cannot continue talking about that. Because I will cry and it will be the kind with a runny nose, and it will not be pretty.

I went to ulpan. I have Israeli neighbors. It's a made up language with so few words! What is so daunting about it? Why does it make me cry?

Heart to Heart

I don't remember what she was crying about. I didn't buy her a treat? A party missed? That was it, yes, she had a birthday party and somehow I had gotten the date wrong, but she wasn't mad at me because she had also remembered the same wrong date. (Hey, maybe they had told us the wrong date! Just occured to me.)So she wasn't mad, but she was so SAD, she was sobbing so hard she could barely walk up the steps.

"You don't even really know her!" I pointed out, frustrated at her level of sorrow.

This, suprisingly, did not help.

"There will be more parties, better ones!" I said.

She sunk down on the filthy staircase and howled like a--oh, I'm stuck here. Like something that would sink down onto a filthy staircase and howl.

"Princess!" I said sharply. "those steps are gross! Get UP."

She did not get up. Her pain and her decibal level increased to a level that could probably make it into the Guinnes Book of World Records under Saddest Girl Ever Over a Missed Party.

The door two steps down opened. I cringed and looked down. It was the only neighbor in my building who did not cover her hair. "Ma kara,motek!" she asked. What happened?

I flushed and made a face like, kids. gag me with a spoon. "She missed a party," I explained in my halting hebrew over the noise of Princess missing a party.

"Ah...." her lovely brown eyes widened sympathetically. She looked at the pathetic lump formerly known as Princess and said, "Zeh kashe." It's hard. "Aval, hakol l'tovah!" But everything is for the good. Her eyes were still sympathetic. They were also completely sincere.

And Princess stopped crying. She stood up, shakily. "Can you maybe buy me a treat?" she said, swiping a full arm across her nose.

"Yes, I can buy you a treat," I said. I waved at the neighbor lady. She waved back.

"Zeh kasheh la," she said again, before she went back inside her house.

Not anymore, I thought as we headed towards the makholet. A fleeting whisper of a thought,why couldn't I say that? accompanied me all the way there.

Ice Cold Derriere Ponderings

We don't have heat.

Things that cause me to flap my hands like a possessed chicken as a result:

Coming out of the shower.

Getting out of my bed.

The hot water urn finishing, and me only on my fifth cup of coffee.

The toilet seat.

To name a few.

But sometimes I think that you know, it's winter, and it's cold in my house, and that makes sense.

In fact, sometimes I think that that is one one of the reasons that I live in a country where the butcher doesn't wear a hairnet or gloves;

For the salmonella! realness of it all.

Have you ever been to someone's house on the summer and they have the air conditioner on so high you need to wear a sweater? And the heat on so high that you strip to your lightest layer? Is't that a little weird?

I feel cold when it is cold, and hot when it is hot. I do not glide up an elevator and barely realize that I live on the fourth floor; I trudge up 4 flights of steps, because I live on the fourth floor, and that's a lot of steps!

I live on the plane of existance that I live on.

Speaking of planes, I think of this when I travel by airplane. I think a lot of the disorientation that we dismiss as jet lag is really our mind and body saying, "huh? Where are we?" Because we are 6,000 miles away in a different country now, and you know that feeling when you leave your stomach on a bump on a country road? So our head is still back there, and our body is feeling the pull between two continents. There was simply not enough time to get from here to there, so we must still be there, our minds insist while our bodies go check out the local color.

Not to bite off more than I can chew, but there are so many things in our lives that play out this way, our body feeling the pull as our brains cannot settle in one location.Instant food, for example. I did not cook that, says our brains when the pizza gets delivered. what just happened? And we overeat, to compensate for the lack of preparation, for the lack of dicing, preheating, the smells, the anticipation.

Either I am right about this, or I am just trying to make myself feel better about my ice cold toilet seat.

Yeah, that's probably it. Ignore this whole post. I hear Dr. Pizza has a coupon in the Pirsumit, and I need another cup of (instant) coffee.

Quiet as a Mouse! Quick as a cat! And other Stupid Animal Activities.

Angry quiz time!

You might not have known that this blog has quizes, especially not angry quizes, but now it shall! Because I am angry and I will quiz you and then explain myself, and then--well, I have not thought it through 'til the end, but it will do something, like make you feel annoyed for me, and then I will feel better because you are annoyed,which makes no sense, that I should feel better because you are upset now, but it is human nature, and that is why they coined the cliche "misery loves company."

That was called an opening, because the quiz is about cliches!

Question number one: What comes to mind when you hear the phrase "at a snail's pace?"

A SNAIL, right?

If you said "snail" then you got 100! Ding ding ding!

Not things slowing down. Just a stupid little snail, and maybe even a squished one that your son stepped on.

That is an example of a cliche that is the worst of both worlds; it is a cliche, and therefore boring, and also? IT DOESN'T EVEN WORK. It adds nothing to the story you are writing. It is a pointless sentence. And in a short story, what does not add only serves to detract.

I can spent an unlimited amount of time on a story. I can sit on a word for a full hour, and then come back to it the next day. I need my words to work for me. I need them to enhance the telling of the story. No slackers in my fiction.

When it's non-fiction, it's even more important to me.

When it's something personal, even more.

When it's about my father...ah. I can take forever. At the end of the process, I know it by heart.

Then you send it in to the magazine. And they publish it. Yay, right?

Then you buy the magazine and rip open the plastic while walking up the stairs pour yourself a cup of coffee and curl up on the couch with it.

You find your story.

And sitting there, where it does not belong, they put a snail. Or to be more precise, they replaced this sentence:

"Time passed slowly, slowly."

with

"Time passed at a snail's pace."

????

And. They changed my tense. They messed with my italics. They changed another sentence so that it is now INCORRECT. And they stuck a squishy, stupid snail where it does not belong.

I know that when you publish things they get edited. But my wonderful experiences up until now made it clear that it was to make it better, not worse! To enhance, not detract!

That was the end of the quiz, by the way. It was just one question, so you can put away your pencils and pat yourselves on the back, because I know that you got it right. No one thinks of anything besides "snail" when they view that sentence.

And now no one with think of anything besides "snail" when they read my story.

Mommy Brain

I
just
don't
want
to.

But I'm doing it, picking
up
the everything,putting
back
the everything,
little cars
go in the car box
cereal bowls, crusted with uneaten corflakes and milk
get washed with warm water and soap
raisins smeared on the floor
get scraped up with my fingernail
and the garbage, down down
down
and around the back
all before he wakes up.

He wakes up.

I give him cornflakes and cars
and raisins and he smears them into the floor

Then reaches up

to me

for more.

I say,

"Say, raisins!"
"Say, more raisins!"

And give him some more.

2012

First I was all, New Years was on Rosh Hashana! This First of January means nothing to me!--and resolved to ignore it. This was easy enough--it was on a motzai shabbas, and I spent it doing dishes and sponja in a bleach-stained t-shirt.

But I guess I'm American enough that while I've been feeling fine without watching the ball drop or even drinking a cocktail or seven, my fingers are itching to write a New Year's resolution.

So here it is, in the privacy of my own blog! Which is so private! Except for you guys! (You'll pretend for me, O Internet, right?)

So, I resolve to love more and judge less. And when I find someone impossible to love and not judge, I will pretend in my mind that s/he is a little tiny puppy that no one wanted because he was the runt of the litter and he is sitting on the stoop of my house and it's pouring outside and also he hurt his paw, and all he wants is somewhere dry to curl up. Life was hard for this little puppy! Have some pity!

Look at those eyes!

I resolve to shut off my computer in the afternoons when the kids are home. This is a hard one. Because sometimes I set them up with a game and the baby is napping and then I can just quickly go to the story I've been working on and--!! But, kids have a built in radar that detects when you are doing something that does not revolve around them, and they will know. When their little detector beeps they comes running over to you, but when I'm working on a story I am a zombie and respond to their requests for help with words like "Howzza?" and "wazzzat?" It takes one child striking another to snap me out of it, and then we're all annoyed. No. This year, I will not just for one second...

There will be more dancing and singing around the kitchen with a wooden spoon for a mike while we wait for our cookies to cool on the counter.

Speaking of cookies, sugar is bad for me. I mean, it's bad for everyone, but I have a really low tolerance for it. When I was expecting Turtle, I got off of sugar altogether because I actually got high from it.

That was seriously on my ceiling.

And I felt great when I was off of sugar. My kids are picky picky eaters and I'm fallen into a bad cycle of "treats for food," but I need to get out of that. Sugar is no good for anyone. It is so hard in this country, where teachers liberally give out taffies and chocolate for everything from a mitzvah note to a scraped knee, and my neighbors' kids charge up to my apartment wanting to share from a bulging bag of goodies, and I'm left to feel like the Grinch when I politely refuse. So I can't cut it out completely, but I can try to stop the complete sugar takeover. If anyone has ideas on how to go about making my kids feel undeprived with that when their classmates bring chocolate spread sandwiches to school, I am all ears!

I will be real with myself. I will rejoice with my accomplishments and not automatically move on to the next thing that I need to do without enjoying what I did already. Like stopping halfway up Everest to see the view so far.

I will call my family in America more. The time difference is a pain, but I love them and want to tell them that.

I will smile when my husband walks into the door and hug my girls when they come home from school. I do that, but I want my heart to always be there.

I will work hard when it's time to work and play hard when it's time to play. I will live.

I will hold on to the NOW and know that each moment is the best moment that I can possibly make it.

Oh, and I will somehow get Turtle to sleep through the night. Child, it is time.

Any tips on that will be met with hugs and even tears. Thanks in advance.

It's going to be a great year!