Beauty in the ordinary

Any parent will be able to testify that parenting and child-rearing is a difficult and often thankless job. From the moment you find out you are pregnant, you have to come to terms with a new reality; your time is not your own, and you will need to subordinate your own needs to those of your children. That's not to say that the moment you become a parent, you get it right every time. Far from it. We snap, we lose our temper and patience, and we constantly are engaged in a struggle against shouting out: "Can't you just amuse yourselves for just five minutes?!? Is that really asking for too much?"

I became an aunty when I was eleven years old, and doted on my nieces and nephews so much that I knew from an early age that I wanted to be a mother. During periods of my teenage life, I would often have the kind of dreams that are so beautiful that you wish you never woke up from - dreams about giving birth and having a baby. Granted the dreams were romanticized, and the labor didn't involve excruciating agony, but rather were Hollywood-inspired, where my face was glowing with joy and ecstasy, and I was enveloped in this deep sense of serenity. It was picture perfect, and I couldn't wait to turn the dream into reality.

At the age of twenty-five, I became a mother, and while the pregnancy left much to be desired, and there were times during Eliana's first year when I was itching to be back at work, and found myself bored at times, I never in my wildest dreams - not even those that occupied my teenage years - could have imagined the elation that accompanies parenthood. When you get married, you learn to look at yourself in the mirror. For the first time, you are not the only person who has to live with your behavior, and your actions are held up to the mirror, and you see yourself as someone else sees you. Parenting is an extension of that. You learn that you have endless capacities for love, and you learn that even though you are a shameless shopaholic, nothing brings you more pleasure than buying something for your children, and seeing the look of joy on their face. And you learn that nothing makes you happier than knowing that they are well, happy, and feel safe.

I am sure I am not alone in feeling that as a parent, you grapple with the urge to wrap your children up in cotton wool, and do your upmost to protect them from anything unpleasant in the world, but of course, not only would it be impossible, you would be stunting their development. They have to fall in order to learn how to stand up on their own two feet. 

When Eliana was about eight months old, she was sick with a high fever, and she was miserable for days. She was lethargic, she wouldn't eat, barely drank, and her sleeping was erratic. It was as if a dark and heavy cloud had descended upon our house, and I was racked with fears, most of them irrational. It was Friday night, and Josh and I had just finished eating Friday night dinner, and after four days of Eliana being lethargic and totally disinterested in toys, we saw her crawl over to a toy car, and start playing with it and giggling. Without saying a word, Josh and I looked at each other with such relief and happiness. Later, we discussed how at that moment we really understood what it was to be a parent, to feel such immense love for your child that your happiness is contingent upon their happiness and wellbeing. We were so relieved to see her come out of her misery that we were ready to do jigs and dance round the room.

Now, four years later, we are often sleep-deprived, and my conversations with Josh when the kids are around are inevitably always cut off. I can't remember the last time I was able to finish a sentence when the kids are around; there are always interjections and requests and fights between the girls to mediate, but even with all of that, your child can say just one sentence, or give you a smile, and it will make all the exhaustion and frustration pale into insignificance.

Yesterday, I picked up Eliana from gan, and I told her that I missed her all day. My (not-so-little) girl looked me in the eye indulgently, and said, "But Mummy, I can't stay home all day. I have to go to gan and see my ganenet and see my friends." It was such a beautiful and poignant moment, and it made me think how important it is to hold onto these moments in your heart, because they are the ones that will carry you through the sleepless nights and the endless demands on your time and energy. 

After Josh and I got married, Josh was telling a good friend of his how our wedding day passed by in a blur, it all happened so quickly that it was hard to remember what happened. His friend replied that life is like that, it goes by so fast that you have to consciously remind yourself to live in the moment, and when you are experiencing something that is amazing, you need to stop yourself from moving on to the next experience, and be at one with it. It is all about finding beauty in the ordinary day-to-day routine of our lives. 

Stranger than Fiction

will ferrel in stranger than fiction

I don't have time to write much, but if you haven't yet seen the movie Stranger than Fiction with Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, and Emma Thompson, go watch it now!

Lately, the barometer of a good evening in front of a movie is that a) I will stay awake; b) I will be mildly entertained by the end. Stranger than Fiction not only exceeded my expectations, it blew my mind. Incredible acting, brilliant storyline, extremely thought-provoking, hysterically funny at times... I was more than a little misty-eyed by the end. Definitely gonna buy this DVD.

Ciao for now.

Fighting inertia

I don't know if this is just me, but when I am extremely pressured with work, and have a to-do list that contains more items than there are minutes in the day to do them, I am far more productive than when I actually have time on my hands, but am somehow unable to get my act together. Know what I mean? Until Shavuot, I was working on three editorial projects simultaneously, yet I still managed to go shopping, make phone calls, ya di ya, yet here I am now, enjoying a brief hiatus before the commencement of my next project, and I have become Queen Procrastinator, concocting a multitude of excuses why it is best for me not to fulfill the most menial of tasks. 

Oh well. Still no excuse for not blogging, I know. Truth is, I have had a lot on my mind lately, mainly about what is happening to this country of ours, G-d help us. My husband's aunt, who made Aliyah from Milwaukee the year I was born, 1978, spent the Shabbat with us. She has lived in Jerusalem for the last thirty years, and has raised six children in this country. I was talking to her on Friday night about what is going on politically this country, and how hopeless things seem to be right now. Sometimes when I speak to Israelis who have been in the country since almost the establishment of the State, my spirits are buoyed. They have seen the good times and the bad times, and they have a sense of perspective that we newbies lack. I was hoping that I would hear some reassuring words from Josh's aunt, who is a deeply spiritual and passionate woman, but she too expressed a sense of helplessness that has been weighing me down now for a while.

If I am to be honest, I have to admit that I am not too hopeful about the future of this country. I want to believe that before we can see the light, we have to experience dark, and all of that, and that we have witnessed miracles before, but somehow it feels different now. I don't know that as a Jewish people, we necessarily deserve this country. Perhaps we might delude ourselves into thinking that we are entitled to this country, that it belongs to the Jews, and it is therefore our inalienable right to hold on to it, but what are we doing as a Jewish people, as a nation, to DESERVE it?

If we look at the current government, we will not find one individual who has not faced indictment. If we look at our educational system, it is enough to make you weep. Children in chiloni (secular) schools are not learning about Zionism; they are not learning about the history of Israel; they are not learning about Tanach, and the festivals.  The few secular Israelis in this country who actually care about instilling in their children a sense of national and Jewish identity have to send their children to religious schools in order for them to receive the most rudimentary education. We know an exceptionally nice secular Israeli couple who live in our neighborhood, and run a food store in Modiin, and they told us that even though they are not religious, they feel that they need to transfer their children from the secular school to a religious one because their teenagers' faces were blank when you ask them who were Golda Meir and David Ben Gurion.  So again, what exactly are we doing RIGHT in this country that entitles us to hold on to it? We [and I am talking about the majority of Israelis] don't turn up to vote for elections; we try to mollify the Arab world at the heavy cost of our own security and soldiers' lives; we are constantly and futilely seeking the approval of other governments; we are apathetic and indifferent about what is going on this country, and instead fantasize about green cards and ways of leaving the country. By giving up on Gaza, we have shattered the ideals and hope of the young settlers whose passion has been extinguished, and who have become old and burnt out overnight. So what do we do as a response to the upheaval and psychological trauma that has afflicted our country? Do we learn from our mistakes? Do we avoid the pitfalls that were responsible for our downfall? No. That would be too logical. We are talking of giving up the Golan, going back and repeating our mistakes, resulting potentially in more bedlum, more chaos, and ultimately, the downfall of our country. The Jews of Sderot are suffering on a daily basis, and instead of providing them with refuge and support, the government is encouraging them to stay put. On Friday night, when we were discussing the situation over Challah and chummus, as Jews are wont to do, Josh said that the Jews of Sderot ought to stop paying their taxes as a way of protecting themselves. That way, the police will arrive on their doorsteps, arrest them, and they will find themselves in the haven of a police cell, where at least they are safe from rockets.

When you take a look at the insanity in Israel, it is all too easy to throw your hands up in the air, and say: What can we do? We are totally and utterly powerless. The government is doing nothing to protect us. Lives have been lost and terrorized in vain. What can we, as individuals, do to effect positive change? The best course of action might very well seem to be to pack one's bags, and leave. But for all those people who have made Aliyah to Israel, who have thrown in their lot with the Jewish people, for better for worse, I don't think we left behind our families, our cushy jobs, our luxuries, to give up that easily. I think that apathy is a luxury that we can't afford, and that small steps, even though they may seem to be inconsequential, can go a long way in boosting our individual, and ulimately collective, morale.

Josh's aunt was telling us about the organization VAT (Victims of Arab Terror) that provide financial and emotional support to those people who were either directly affected by terror, or who have lost family members to terrorist attacks. She told me that she was feeling a similar sense of malaise, but that she heard about this organization, and decided to attend an event in which victims of terror gathered to share their stories. People whose lives were torn apart, people who lost limbs in terrorist attacks, who lost their children, who had every reason to give up on life and humanity, were sharing their stories, but were living and breathing testimony to the enduring strength of the human spirit. They were not bitter or angry or despondent, nor did they talk about leaving the country. They talked about the miracles, the beauty of Israel, and the hopes for better times. I was deeply moved by her description of the event, and it made me feel that perhaps there is something we can do. You just have to be able to push aside the all-consuming feelings of frustration at the country, and focus on helping people in whatever way you can - whether it be someone in the street, opening up your home to Jews from Sderot, or donating money to worthy causes in Israel. There is always something you can do.