Every Day

I clean and cook and
clean
and you, baby boy at my side
destroy faster than I can put together.
It's hard, sometimes, to wash dishes and them put them on the table
and put them back in the sink
you walk, my daughters, in sticky shoes across the floor
still damp from sponga and turn up your noses
at my attempts at dinner.

And I think, I can't.
And I think, it's too much.

And also it's cold and also we're broke and also and also and also

What?

You think that will make it all better?
I love you too, baby boy
Little girl
Big girl
But--

But there never was a but, you know.

The second you smiled

and asked me what clouds smell like

and arms flying, told me that story about Rav Shach

you, you three
you sticky picky three

take my protests

and breath

away.

Today and Today and Today.

(Still have not quite fixed the comment problems--if I have not commented back to you on a comment or on your own blog, that is why! Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Will have it fixed soon, hopefully.)

Everyone has their own personal goals and their own way of getting there. Mine is heavily wrapped up with my parenting and my writing and has to do with my tendancy to dream of the future and dwell in the past at the expense of the present. It is beautiful, the way that I can see so clearly how both pursuits of mine can help me to overcome that basic character trait of mine. My life was tailor made for me to improve.

It's something that I struggle with on a minute by minute basis. Then I recently read such a sobering, chilling, terrifying article that put it all into percpective in such a beautiful and horrible way. What if the future was out of bounds, and the present was all that you had?

How would you parent--or live--if there will be no tomorrow?

Tay Sachs Turns Mom Into Parent We All Should Be
Posted by Julie Ryan Evans

For all the parenting challenges we face in our hectic day-to-day lives, few, if any, compare to those that Emily Rapp, a self-professed Dragon Mom, encounters every day. Her son Ronan, now 18 months old, was born with Tay-Sachs, a rare genetic disorder that is ultimately fatal. From the time he was born, she knew he would likely die before his third birthday in a slow and painful process. But despite her heartbreaking situation, she parents like we all should.


In a beautiful and heart-wrenching column in The New York Times yesterday, she explained how knowing that she only has such a short time to raise her son has turned her into this different breed of parent. It's a breed made up of those with terminally ill children that no one would choose to join, but from whom we can all learn.


We are dragon parents: fierce and loyal and loving as hell. Our experiences have taught us how to parent for the here and now, for the sake of parenting, for the humanity implicit in the act itself, though this runs counter to traditional wisdom and advice.

Unlike Tiger Mom and all the hordes of us out there planning for and trying to prepare our children for successful futures and big accomplishments through every move they make, dragon moms just love and live in the minute. She says no longer do worries about things like future SAT scores or development milestones take up time and energy. "Ronan has given us a terrible freedom from expectations, a magical world where there are no goals, no prizes to win, no outcomes to monitor, discuss, compare."

How freeing would that be?

And really none of us has any guarantee that our children will be here tomorrow. Any day we could lose them to a horrifying accident or get a terminal diagnosis. We can't dwell on the what ifs and live in fear of such things, but we need to remember them more often when it comes to how far and fast we push our kids. Maybe that means letting them eat a little bit more candy and maybe it means not pressuring them to do so well in school. Maybe it just means putting it all into perspective and reminding ourselves more often that none of it really matters when it comes down to it -- that loving them and soaking up the best of every minute we have with them is what it's all about. As Rapp says in her final paragraph:

I can see my reflection in his greenish-gold eyes. I am a reflection of him and not the other way around, and this is, I believe, as it should be ... Parenting, I’ve come to understand, is about loving my child today. Now. In fact, for any parent, anywhere, that’s all there is.

Man and Superman

(a letter that I am thinking about sending to my mother and siblings)

Dear Everyone,

This morning, the day after Abba's sloshim, I didn't feel so great. But I'm getting over the flu, so that makes sense. Then I got annoyed when the baby woke up too early, but that also makes sense because once he's up, cute as he is and as much as I love playing with him, my morning is gone and I will have to write at night, which is not as easy for me. Also cleaning becomes a matching of wits and speeds. Sweeping, for example, involves me starring in the running-sweep, and him in the crawling-after at my heels...thing. (Whatevers, not so good with the made-up titles.) I sweep the pile at a furious pace, an inch away from his chubby little grasping fingers. Good for cardio, probably.

Then I got annoyed at Outdoorsman for something silly. Then, I started folding little underwear into a neat pile. Then I stopped and started crying because I didn't want to fold little underwear into a neat pile. It was the kind of crying that is real and loud and ugly. The kind that makes you need to blow your nose, not just wipe it daintily, and makes your face all blotchy.

I was holding the little tiny pairs of My Little Pony underwear and crying because I missed my Abba so much. I was crying because all I have now are stories, and stories are so nice but they end and I didn't want him to end, I wanted to write him letters again and be worried about him and jump when the phone rang.

Then while I'm wanting, I want him the way my overused rerun little memories remember him--big and strong and quirky.

It was this last word that made me realize what was really bothering me. My Abba, like every other human being on this planet, had his own unique quirks and likes and dislikes. In the stories, he just sounds like a tzaddik.

Don't missunderstand! I KNOW he was a tzaddik. I witnessed it, and so did many of you and so many of our dear friends. And it's important that his memory inspire us just as he did when he was still with us.

But I don't LOVE tzaddikim. I don't MISS tzaddikim. I miss people, quirky unique people.

When I think of Bubby, I know she lived for her family. But what makes me smile is when I think of how she ran to put on her shaitel before we took a picture. I know Sabba changed his world for the better, and I think often about his contributions to the klal. But I feel a pang in my heart when I remember his complete lack of tune when he would sing (using the word lightly) aishes chayil on friday night. Zeidy, who would sit with the women in his bulgalow colony and do needlepoint makes me misty-eyed, even though I also call to mind a man who became frum again years after the war destroyed his faith.

So. I am thinking about this book we want to write about Abba. And I am hoping that with all of the amazing stories that are sure to flow and SHOULD flow--we can also include some of THAT. Something human, something precious. Something unique. Something quirky. I don't really remember much, but I would love to borrow and cherrish the memories of those of you that do.

with you in pain and in joy,
your sister
D

Sunrise

After the meal today, which was usually quick since I am under the weather and was longing to get under my covers and stay there, Princess announced, "Ima and Abba, I want to tell you something."

I shot a quick glance at my husband. "This can't be good," I cracked.

Princess waited for quiet, eyebrows raised. "I am going to watch Turtle and Coco-pop, and you are going to nap."

Oh no no no, I was about to say. I had spent two hours this morning cleaning the house of the general messiness that had settled like a fog during the kids weeks long break from school. Sinus pressure or no, I had had enough, and set grimly to the task. I knew what the house would look like even if Princess managed to watch the other two. Which she wouldn't. Princess didn't watch Turtle very well. She manhandled him. She needed him to conform to exactly the game that she had created, and usually within two minutes of their contact together, Turtle was crying and Princess was sent to her room.

Plus, I needed the nap. I was sick. There was no question that Outdoorsman was going to be the one to stay up while I rested. So I gained nothing.

Except he needed to rest too. And there was Princess, her proud visage already crumbling as she read the lines on my face, all poised for a no.

"Isn't that a wonderful offer!" I gushed instead. Outdoorsman turned to me, lips parted, but I has suddenly realized how badly my little girl ached to show us, on her own terms, how big she could be. "We are going to bed," I said, suiting words with actions, "and keep the door closed, and Outdoorsman can you make the baby a bottle, and look what a very big girl I have!"

Through the 45 minutes that Princess rose to the challenge, I could not sleep. I couldn't get my feet warm, and in my dazed state, it took me that long to realize that I should probably put on a pair of socks. Instead,I lay there as little interactions filtered through the closed door.

Turtle cried, and I tensed, but did not get up. she can handle this, I told myself firmly. And if she can't, two minutes of crying won't hurt him. He's a big boy now. I heard Princess shushing, and his crying slowed, then stopped.

I must have drifted off because the next thing I heard was Coco-pop knocking on the bathroom door. "I need the bathroom so badly!" She called. There was a flushing sound, and the door opened. "Wait! Don't go in yet!" Princess' voice.

"But I need--"

"You need to say amen to my bracha first."

There was some mumbling, and then Coco-pop said, "Amen." That one word held a mixture of gravity and delight.

A while later Turtle started crying in earnest and I got out of bed. Princess sat on the floor with him as he thrashed wildly. She looked up at me, away from the crying baby, her face a sun.

I held out my arms, and she ran into them. "He cried and I stopped him. And I played with Coco-pop and it was for a really long time, right? Did you sleep Ima? Did you sleep?"

I was tired and achy. Her face glowed with accomplishment.

"Yes, sweet big big girl. I slept."

My Inheritance

(it has come to my attention that some of you are having problems commenting on this blog. That makes sense, because I am having trouble commenting on YOUR blogs. Not sure what the problem is, and as anything technology related makes me curl up in the fetal position, this is not a good situation. I will do my best though! Any tips--if the comments come through--are welcome!)

The kids were in, no small thanks to Outdoorsman. I was thoroughly done. Stick a fork in me done. Sitting at the table drinking tea in the middle of a toy and small random bits of paper strewn house done. Done done. On cue, Turtle wakes up and screams on top of his pretty impressive lungs. I run to his room and find him face down in a pool of medicine-and-milk colored vomit. I lift him up, and he is coated, from his freshly laundered pajamas to his freshly washed face. I yell for Outdoorsman and then carry him, dripping and screaming, to the bathroom to wash him off. "It's okay, poor little boy," I croon. "It's okay." His eyes are half closed under the stream of warm water, and I have reason to hope that he will go back to sleep quickly. He has a cold, and while he's always been quick to throw up, add some flegm to the equation and this was becoming a nightly ritual.

"Ima!" came a voice from the girls' room.

If I ignore it, it will probably go away.

"Iiiiima!" The voice insisted.

My tea cooled on the dining room table and I strived really hard to do the same to my temper. "Yes, Princess." I said in even tones. "What is it?"

"Ima, can I help you with Turtle?"

All I could think was, I am so glad that I kept my temper. I am so glad. "No, sweetie. No, sweet girl. But thank you!"

Princess began to wheedle. "Please? Please can I help you? I want to do a mitzvah."

But he was all clean, and so were his sheets. Getting Princess back to bed after she gets up is an arduous task. And I knew that i might not accomplish it without getting annoyed. "Love, thank you. I know you want to do a mitzvah. But right now, the mitzvah I need from you is to listen to Ima and stay in bed."

She began to cry. "I want to help you with Turtle. THAT'S the mitzvah I want to do."

And I thought to myself as I tucked Princess back in, I know, Love. I really do. It's what's pulling at your heart. But it's not what I need from you now.

And I know that everything makes me think about my father now, but this really made me think about my father now. Because he and my mother were Givers. They had an open door policy. I have so many stories, like the time my father found a woman and her child lost and alone in a new city. He brought them home with him and they lived with us for six months until my mother helped her get set up in an apartment. Baaleh Teshuva, foster siblings, so many people called them Ima and Abba.

My house growing up has four doors, one on each side, like Ahvraham's tent. That's all that was in my father's heart; he wanted to use what he had to help others.

And then he got sick. And at first he was so angry. My mother once said to me in a broken kind of way, "I tell Hashem, don't you know what we want to do in Your Name? I want to take kids in. I want to help lost souls. I want to feed and hold and help all of Your children. Why are you taking away our ability to do that?"

And then my father realized, long before the rest of us were granted the accentance, that he wanted to do so many mitzvahs--but they were not the ones that were wanted of him. He wanted to sacrifice for Hashem--and Hashem demanded a very different sort of sacrifice.

And my father gave Hashem what was asked of him. My father gave Hashem his smile, even when his body was painfully and slowly making him a prisoner, even as his body shut down and, 22 days ago, killed him.

To You

To my darling Coco-pop on your fourth birthday,

Your party was almost a month late. Can you forgive me? I was afraid, these past couple of weeks, to plan your birthday party. I was afraid that we would plan it and then I would be called to Sabba's levaya, leaving you alone with the cake and the balloons and dreams.

You had a lot of dreams for your party, and I did my best. When it was over, you turned to me and said, "That was a FUN party!" I'm so glad, Love! It made it all worth it, planning and hosting a party for fifteen children when it's hard for me to even plan breakfast, in these draggy kind of days after Sabba died.

You refused to believe that you had turned four until you had the party. You woke up that morning, your dreamer's face glowing. You said, "I'm four, now." You seemed to understand the gravity of growing up. You always did have a lot of emotional intelligence. You felt Sabba's illness keenly, and once told me gravely that "it's not fair," that he can't walk.

The moment of gravity passed when your face broke into a sunny smile. "When will I be four and a half?" you asked.

You are a sunny girl, a sweet girl, a girl with genuine chein. You have a unique way of looking at the world, my sunshine, and we sometimes call you Curly Brain.

Happy Birthday, my sweet inexplicably red-headed girly.
Love,
Ima

Turtle and Jerusalem

The nurse fixed me with a warm yet steely gaze. Concerned yet hard. Gentle yet firm.

Blah.

She fixed me with something soft and cliche yet something hard and cliche, and of course I knew exactly what she was going to say when she did all that, so I fixed my own face with a look like, I am ready to hear what you have to say, For The Good of the Child.

"He is very big, you know. You need to stop feeding him rice cereal in his bottle."

I kept all the warmth and stuff on. "I don't feel him rice cereal in a bottle."

Some of the looks slid off. "But you still give him materna."

"No, mostly water and a couple of bottles of milk."

"Lots of sugar, then. You need to stop--"

"I don't give him sugar. Well, I do give him fruit--"

"Fruit!" she pounced. "No more fruit."

"No more fruit?"

"Well, not so much fruit."

"Okay."

She looked a little lost. "He is very big, you know."

"I know."

It's one of those days that I feel like I can do this! I can figure out this game, I can live here!

Also, this conversation with my sister-in-law:

"I'm coming home."

"Like, to live? In America?"

"I'm thinking about it. Kids are good, life is good, even with lots of little things, but you know? I just feel like life is too short, you know, to live so far away from people that I love."

"We are the ones who live far from you."

"Yeah, because I moved away."

"But you are living at home. Because you're living where we all should be living."

"Yeah, but--"

"You are living the real life. We should all be living with you."

"But you're not."

"That doesn't mean you should be moving away from your home. We should all be moving into ours."

"Mashiach, I guess."

"Yeah."

"I miss you."

"I miss you, too."

"You ruined my rant."

"Yeah."

"I was just getting warmed up."

"Sorry."

Brainwaves

My father died.

When I am cleaning the oven or writing a story or laying out clothing for my girls, I think, my father died.

My father died. That ice-cold piece of information melts into my brain for a while,dampening whatever satisfaction I was getting from my little mundane chores.

I have this strange urge to tell people on the street while they are discussing succos plans or clothing sales or dinner. I am making fresh herbed bread and zucchini soup and my father died. I want to rip my shirt again. I want to wear it over my heart; my father died.

During the shloshim, I can't watch or do anything entertaining. Just follow the news, which I hate (all everyone does it seems, if you follow the newsites, is get murdered or get charged for something they didn't do, or murder and get acquitted for something they did do. Or get drowned. Or win some sports thing with a goal/unit/basket.) And as much as I used to think it's just fifteen minutes here or there, taking a break with a funny youtube clip or five I find myself with so much more time, it's embarrasing.

And more time to think, too. I take my coffee break with a sefer now or nothing at all. My mind is unoccupied, and what it thinks most of all is, my father died.

Breathe

Just ride it. Like a wave, they say.

I think it's also like a contraction. When the sadness comes, I need to breathe through it. It comes out of nowhere, this pain and loss I feel for a man that I have not even been able to communicate with properly in years.

He was a tzaddik, I tell people. And my siblings even got a little silly by the shiva, laughing and teasing and I join in to raised eyebrows from those who came to comfort us. Because part of us is relieved. He was suffering so much for so long. And because part of us had lost him a very long time ago.

Until the contraction comes, and the strengh of it shocks me, rocks me. This grief, it's strange. I feel less, I feel diminished in its wake. And I need to affirm to myself that he is not really gone, because of all the lives he has touched.

What can I say about a man who died too young?

That he was gentle. That he was kind. That I remember him as big and strong; that I loved him and that he loved me.

We had so many people who called him Abba by his levaya that one could get confused over who exactly were his biological children and who was a child to him, anyway.

He was a man who lived the last twenty years of his life in constant pain, constantly readjusting to new harsh realities, and the first thing that people call to mind when they think of him is his beautiful smile.

At the end, all he cared about was his family, friends, and the torah. At the end, he was lying in his hospital bed. He could do nothing; not blink, not even breathe on his own. And I kept thinking that this was was the most complete and perfect man I had ever known.

It's a wave, this grief. It's a contraction. I'm riding it, thinking of the most perfect man I have ever had the privelege to know and love.

Beep

The rain fell in sheets out the window next to his bed.

"It's so..." my mother began, searching for the word "appropriate."

"Corny?" I supplied. "I know. I already told G-d."

We all laughed until tears came. It was so corny, the rain, on the day my father died.

My brother said viduy and my sister and I sang his favorite passuk--mitzvah gedolah l'hiot b'simcha--it's a big mitzvah to always be happy--as the line that was his heart went flat. His face did not change as he died. Nothing changed. It had just been his heart--as always--that had been keeping him alive.

And it is his heart that we will remember.

And the fact that cliche as it is, as he died, the angels cried.

Tock

We sing a lot to him. The nurses don't mind; not in this ward. We sing the old songs, the ones we grew up with. The ones we remember dancing to with him after Havdala every motzeh Shabbas. I say tehilim and daven slowly, carefully, because there is no rush. I have no where to go other than this room.

This time that I have with him is an unexpected treasure, one last gift from him. So I tell him everything. I tell him about my hopes for the future. I tell him about my plans for now. I tell him about my pitfalls,how my selfishness gets in the way of me being who I want to be and how I want to be more like him and my mother.

People come and go, speaking in hushed whispers. My family is loud and we laugh a lot. Some visitors do not know what to make of this, the laughing vigil, and honestly, I don't know what to make of it. It has been one of the strangest weeks of my life. His eyes look lifeless, but his soul is here, right? We are sad, but remember when...? ends in ringing laughter.

He is here. He is not here. I want him to live forever. I want him to go, it's just too much pain in a lifetime of pain. The vaccant eyes,so dry from being open for days at a time, the mouth a hole where his smile used to be, and the feeling that he hears every word I am saying...

I call my daughters, ask them about their day. They sound so mature on the phone. They ask for presents. I promise presents. I am 6,00 miles away from them promising gifts and love and then hanging up on my children while I am walking the streets of New York arm in arm with my sisters waiting for my father to die.

Tick

The day did not pass in a blur. It passed slowly, slowly, a microscosm of his illness of the past 24 years. I got the phone call, crumpled. But then the flight was not until one in the morning, and it was only three in the afternoon. I sat down, had a cup of water. It squirmed it my belly for a while. Then I packed, cleaned up from lunch, cleaned up from not lunch, did laundry, did more laundry, did more laundry than was neccessary, rearranged the toys, sponga-ed the apartment, sponga-ed the hallway outside the aprtment, sponga-ed the steps in the building, took out the garbage.

Time passed slowly, slowly, and I had tea and a few crackers. The baby squirmed and wiggled and cried the whole flight, and I had this wierd resentment of him, of Outdoorsman, of everyone on the flight who was not my mother. Which was everyone. We landed and we inched along in the painfully slow traffic.

My mother called.

"He's still here, D." she said.

"oh--"

"He's waiting for you."

But he was not waiting for me. Or at least, he was not only waiting for me. Because I hugged him and kissed him and cried and told him I was here and I love him. His mouth gaped, bloodied and sore. His eyes were opened, glazed and unseeing. Or maybe seeing everything.

But still, he waited. Still, he is waiting. For everyone to be there? For no one to be there?

He shouldn't be here, the doctor says. No one can live with failed kidneys and their lungs filling with blood. He is brain dead, he said. He had two cardiac arrests and is bleeding out from everywhere. He is not really breathing, the machine is.

Don't unplug him, came the startling answer from the rav. Do everything you can to keep him alive.

Is he alive? I know his neshama is here, hovering over his bed. Hovering over us all. I keep feeling like he is going to turn to me while I am whispering in his ear and say, boo!

But he won't. So we wait. And wait. While I write slow Frank O'Hara poetry in my head and keep taking showers.

Things are Seldom what They Seem

I was sitting in the back corner of the room, attempting to decorate the little bag that was sitting in front of me for my daughter with puff paints that were either clogged or explosive, while at the same time trying to hear what the Morah was saying.

I failed at both tasks. The little bag looked like it had been done by paint balloon tossing chimpanzees, and I did not understand a word that the Morah was saying.

Well, a word. Or two. Just enough to frustrate the uncomfortable shaitel right off my head. Now I will talk about the schedule, she said, smiling. And then she switched towhat i can only assume was a kind of hebrew that is only spoken in mystical mountain-top caves. I divided my attention between her and the bag, willing myself to comprehend what she was saying. I could not make out a single word. Was my mind on screen saver? Did I have a little mini nervous breakdown and my word comprehension is now compromised forever? That would totally stink. I sunk into a depression and added a black flower on the bag. It is very important, she added twenty minutes later, and I jerked my head up from the ruins of the little bag, relieved that she had decided to switch back to conventional hebrew. It is very important to--Then she lapsed back into gibberish.

I sat there in my six year-old daughter's tiny little chair and listened to a woman speak in a completely foreign language. My hebrew is pretty stinky, but this was a nightmare. I had no idea if she said anything important. I have no idea if she sat there for three hours and made fun of all my blood relatives and called me fat and imcompetent.

This is ridiculous, I though furiously as I stabbed a puff paint in the general direction of the little bag. First grade is hard enough. How I am I going to do this? How can I have a daughter in a classroom and have no idea how to communicate with the teacher? For that matter, how can I do this is in this foreign country that thinks it's okay to put forty girls in one classroom and forces me to dress in a way that makes me feel like I'm choking?

I glared at all of the cute pictures decorating the walls and shot daggers of death at the paint slobbered bag on the desk. I couldn't do this. Why did I think that i could do this? I couldn't.

I would pack, I thought, and get tickets. We could live near my parents and I would finish school. My kids would speak English and I could communicate with their teachers. I wouldn't feel like a moron with my neighbors and I would be able to express myself if someone cut me in line instead of what i do here, namely, open my mouth and it keep it that way, like a dying fish.

I began to sweat, and I scratched angrily at my shaitel. I hate shaitels. There is no reason I should have to wear one.

When it was finally all over, I walked on shaky legs out the door, glad to put some distance between me and the work of art I left on the desk. An American Israeli friend of mine had a car, and offered me a ride. I accepted. She smiled at me. "Can you kind of summarize," I blurted to her on the way to her parking spot, "what the morah said? I didn't really--"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh gosh, the morah talks a mile a minute. I hope she slows down for the girls. I'm a fluent Hebrew speaker, and I didn't understand a word that she said."

Pantoum

My life is as full as their tiny bedroom
But I only feel the pain of my toe hitting the crib (again)
I bite back a scream, and one sits up, blinking--
"Ima, I had a good dream," she says.

But I only feel the pain of my toe hitting the crib (again)
And bitterness seeps in like a draft
"Ima, I had a good dream," she says.
I am warm, warm enough now.

And bitterness seeps in like a draft
The window is old, but we bought curtains.
I am warm, warm enough now,
My fingers thawed, my heart tentative.

We are mirrors, I know.
I bite back a scream and one sits up, blinking--
And I catch my breath.
My life is as full as their tiny bedroom.

Beautiful Angel

I am so sorry about all the sad posts. I was going to write a really cute one about all the things that Coco-pop has been coming up with lately, but then my father goes and almost dies, so that killed that mood.

He didn't have a pulse for a half hour, and after they got it back, my mother signed, for the first time, a DNR. Do not revive. So next time may be the last time.

Whenever I get down on life and people and the clay feet that my heroes inevitably have, I think about my mother and her great, all encompassing love for life. There are all these super corny songs and poems about love being the answer, love making the world go 'round, love being the only cure, and you know what? It's true. Love is the only thing that makes this world bearable. Love makes everything better. Life is for love. Love can keep people alive. My father is a case in point. (which, when you think about it, makes no sense. He is in a case. And we are pointing at him? I'm not sure exactly what that expression means.)

And sometimes love means saying, enough. Sometimes love means knowing when to let go.

I'm so glad and grateful for the chance to have seen him this summer, even though half the time he didn't know that I was there. He is not of this world, even though his love and my mother's love combined keeps him here. I don't know how much longer a physical world can hold within it a beautiful angel.

Royal Blood

"You hate confrontation, right? You avoid it at all costs."

I do. I hate it. I avoid it at all costs. I nodded my head at the Rabbi. Yes, that's me.

"So you get frustrated when you butt heads with your daughter. You are too affected by it. You need to remain calm. You're the kind of person that is very affected by music," he said.

"Yeah, I guess--"

"So you should always have it playing in your house. It's calming for you and for her."

I nodded. Actually, Outdoorsman had said that we should always have classical music playing. It was a good idea. The Rabbi continued. "And sleep and eat properly. And make sure that you are completely calm when you pick her up from school. You have to always be in control, even though you want to give in to her to avoid confrontation."

I nodded. Beside me, Outdoorsman was silent. He hates this kind of hocus pocus thing. I could almost hear him thinking, "Rabbi, just give us advice on how to help Princess be happy. Leave out all the "you are the kind of person" nonsense. You don't know us. Just help our daughter."

I kept my eyes bright and animated, and nodded to the Rabbi again. "What exactly do I say in the moment when she is all out of control?"

He answered, and I nodded. Say more things, I was thinking. Say more things about me. Figure me out. Tell me the thing that will make me say, "OOOh. NOW I know what it is that I have to do to be the perfect wife and mother.

When I was little, I used to dream that I was a princess. Now, I know all little girls do, but maybe not for the same reason. I felt different from everyone, and I thought--maybe if I actually turn out to really be different--a princess!--it would explain everything. It would explain me.

I guess I still have a little bit of that waiting-for-the-princess-phone-call in me. I guess I spent my whole life waiting for the magic word--Open Sesame!--that would make it all come clear.

On the way home from the Rabbi's office,we laughed a little, because everything that the Rabbi had said--and it had all been good stuff, and we needed to know that we were doing everything we can for Princess--but everything was Love and Logic (which is a wonderful parenting model) and it was everything that I knew. Even the hocus-y pocus-y stuff. I know I don't like confrontation. I know my soul needs music. I know I need to eat well and sleep to function. He spoke magic words, and guess what? They were already in my vocabulary. I had already had that phone call.

I'm still waiting, and I guess I'll be waiting a long time, because there is no magic word. It's hard work. I have to stay calm and centered and be focused and on. I have to live in the here and now and continue the journey of loving where I am living. I have to eat well and sleep well, and turn on the music and dance with my daughter. And it's a dance that is two steps forward, one step back.

Hard work vs. ballgowns. Tough one.

I think I'd still rather be a princess, but maybe a close second is learning every day a little more how to mother a Princess.

If Not Now, Then Soon

Yesterday I shocked myself into silence. Yesterday I found myself so at odds with myself that I sent everyone to bed early just so I can sort it out. And then didn't and went on the internet and lulled myself into a space of unthinking calm.

Yesterday I was so angry and embarrassed at my own daughter that I shrieked at her like a crazy person and yanked her to her room by her wrist, holding on to her so tightly I left a red ring on her skin.

The night ended with Coco-pop in the hospital (she's fine now,but that's another post)so it kind of slid out of my mind, and more importantly, out of Princess' mind. But it happened, and I sat down afterwards at my computer desk, thinking, I am the worst mother ever. I never should have had children. While in her room, Princess howled, "It is NOT kidei to be your CHILD! You are a silly SILLY Ima!"

I felt silly. I also felt overwhelmed and speechless. And other big words conoting my general incompetence and lack of available word power. She had hit me repeatedly in the park, in front of everyone, because I said that we were not having yogurt for dinner; we were having chicken. Red-faced, I spoke to her calmly and told her we do not hit our Ima, but she was overtired and out of control. I marched her home, calm on the outside but my heart was beating so hard I felt the blood in my face. As soon as we got inside my building, I lost it.

I regained it as soon as I got inside my apartment and could put the four thousand pound baby and the packages down and drink a cup of vodka and orange juice water. It was a moment, the loss of control, the wishing she was not there and I was anywhere else, the world turning red,but it's happened before. Not for real, but in my head. We are going to the park, and they are pouring water on my newly washed floor. The baby poops through his clothes. The girls fight for a half hour before going to sleep.

And each time this relatively minor thing happens, (on a scale of one to ten, one being an ice-cream cone and ten being the holocaust, I never rank more than a two. I need a different scale.) I think, I got things I want--no need--to do. I gotta write/clean/cook/have a cup of coffee. I want--no, need--to have a little time to think, and little time to myself. And THEY are keeping me from that.

I bumped into a friend of mine today in front of the supermarket. She was putting packages into the bottom of her double stroller while her kids spilled yogurt on the top. I was going home, in the opposite direction

"Princess," I called. "Let's GO. We have to get going."

This friend of mine is a calm soul with a beautiful wonderful smile. She is always looking at her children with this dreamy kind of look. "I love you," she always says to them, wonder in her eyes at their existance. "I love you," she said to them now as the yogurt dribbled into the bottom of the stroller, making sticky little smears all over the eggs, milk and apples.

"Princess," I said again. I watched the yogurt pooling in the carriage basket. I would have yanked the kids, out, scrubbed the whole thing, sighed a martyr's sigh and put them back in, promising no yogurt for a week. In a calm voice, with my heart pounding, thinking, we have to GO.

This friend looked at me. "Where are you going?"

"Home," I said, frowning at Princess who was fiddling with her bike. "I want to put them in early, because school starts tomorrow."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea. But it's only five o'clock."

"I know, I just--you know, dinner, bath, clean-up--it takes time. So we gotta go. Princess!" She started walking towards me, and we sighed identical sighs.

"We should probably go, too," she said. She eyed her yogurt covered clan. She smiled; her eyes went dreamy. "You know what my mother says to me. She says,--pointing at her stroller full of sticky progeny-- this is your destination."

And it's corny but oh is she right. I'm anxious to get to the park, but why can't the fun time start now, on the way? I want them to sleep, but I don't even enjoy myself if I resort to lazer eyes to get them to behave. The dishes get done. So does the laundry. I even get my cup of amareto coffee.

She was so disrespectful, but instead of making me pause and think--what should I do, how do I respond to this in the here and now--it made me furious.

What is my rush? Why am I so upset? Why am I hurrying them up? Where am I going?

They are right here.

The Great Equalizer

"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

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 can yell 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.