Category: Parenting

Family, Love, Parenting, Relationships

The lump in my throat called life

Jen

The first sensation

is a swell

in the space

behind the back of my tongue but before my

esophagus.

What is that space called?

High up

on the other side of gagging?

I call it my crying space.

The space tears come from.

Ha!

You thought crying started scientifically in some space

known as

ducts,

No way, Jose.

Crying starts as a lump —

there in that undefined on the anatomical map because it’s function is almost obsolete

like the appendix.

Except it functions still.

I know it because I try to make it stop sometimes and it won’t.

Good cries

Bad cries

Nervous anxious I don’t want to talk to you right now cries

How could this happen I don’t understand it cries

My baby’s okay my baby’s ok my baby’s o.k. cries

And you …

you little one little new one little brand new life that just began first as an idea then as a mister mister then as a real live thing in the world as a lump in my throat cries.

You started in someone else’s belly but for me you start now as a lump in my throat trickling up through that space between my esophagus and the back of my tongue.

I breathe in relief and gratitude and respect for your mother.

(I also sigh a long sigh called MOTHERHOOD because this is what all mothers silently sigh the minute a new baby is born and all our collective memories swirl together in an almost scream.)

But then I stop.

You are you. Something new.

The lump, I swallowed it.

You are in my stomach now. In the space I hold allllllllll my love. All my love is there. So much. Too much. Old love. New love. If I could keep it all there I would but I can’t and it turns into lumps sometimes. But what’s there in my belly, all that love, keeps me alive and going and facing forward.

Love. New love.

New life.

You.

Love, Mindfulness, Parenting, Philosophy

Guns are just a metaphor

Jen

This is not a post about gun control. It’s not a post about violence prevention in our schools or in our towns.

It’s a post about growing up — my growing up — as a mother.

And the single greatest lesson I have learned in my ten years, 364 days of parenting.

Ready?

I know nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

If I look at myself now from the future, this will always be true.

Each day, as a mother, I am growing and learning and changing. And when I look back at the mother I was two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, I understand instantly how little I know. And in knowing this, I know everything.

When my son, who is turning 11 this weekend, was a little boy and started to amass little boy toys, we had a rule (my rule): No guns in the house.

As my son transitioned from dinosaurs to Playmobil, the rule shifted a little: No handheld toy guns in the house. But Playmobil policemen were allowed.

And as he grew, in a house that didn’t allow guns, he still played with imaginary ones, as boys do. I could’ve attempted to enforce a new rule, “No pretend guns with clothes hangers,” but by that time I started to realize, just a little, that I might not be able to prevent imaginary gun play and so I instated a new rule: No video games or computer games with guns.

This, I knew, would prevent my son from turning into one of those scary people on the 6 o’clock news; I just knew it. Video games and TV were really the culprits in the downward cycle of violence in America. If our children didn’t see it on TV or in video games, we’d all be safe. I was certain of it.

But, as you probably have gathered by now and mothers more seasoned than I already know, my son grew older. He started to do things on his own — when I wasn’t around. He played shoot ’em up computer games at friends’ houses where rules didn’t get in the way, and watched Clint Eastwood movies on YouTube. And one day, last year, got a Nerf gun as a gift from his classmates for his birthday.

On that day, I had to choose: Would I rescind a parenting decision I had made 10 years prior? Or stick to my guns, so to speak?

I let the Nerf guns in.

I held up my palms to the air that day and looked skyward and said to someone (or no one) in that defeated mother’s voice:

“What, really, do I know?”

And an answer came down from somewhere or nowhere: You know nothing. And yet …

And yet, my son seems to. He seems to know something.

A year later, the kid has amassed a Nerf collection — guns, foam bullets, a vest.  And despite this, seems to know the difference between right and wrong. Play and reality. Seems to be able to function appropriately with peers — completely against my assumption 10 years ago about what happens to boys when they start playing with guns.

In a twist that feels unfathomable to me — a woman who once thought her sons would never handle a toy gun — my son is hosting 20 of his friends today at a paintball party. It makes me uncomfortable a bit; it does.  I find myself asking this morning: What does this say about my son that he wants a paintball party? Worse: What does it say about my parenting that I am allowing it?

And the only answer I can come up with is:

I know nothing.

This is my BIRTH-day gift.

This knowing does not release me from fear or from self-blame for whatever my son may choose to be or to do in the future.  But, rather, allows me to be free to love in the best way I know how … today.

I am certain that I will keep making rules for my children. Just as I am certain I will always be afraid for them.

But, I suppose, that with each passing year, as I understand more and more how little I know about what my raising them will ultimately lead to, I will allow myself to let go.

To trust them to raise themselves.

And hope that my loving them was enough.

Because really, I know nothing.

gun cake

Letting Go, Parenting

Life Lessons of Learning to Ride a Bike (Part II)

Jen

Who knew what a wealth of life lessons teaching your kid to ride a bike would provide?

(Who knew, actually, what a wealth of life lessons parenting, in general, would offer. Not me! Can I have my money back? Just kidding… sorta…)

Three years ago, I remarked on the magical moment of “letting go” a parent and child both experience when the child finally decides to ride a bike solo.

But what about when a child approaches an unexpected corner, a little too fast, and starts to careen around and down a steep hill?

What about when said child starts to scream, “MOMMY – I CAN’T STOP!” and said mommy is a good three blocks away, completely incapable of doing anything but watching and screaming back?

Yup.

Unexpected life lessons. 

Thank you, bike.

This lesson ended happily, without injury, but with a harsh wake up call for mom and son.

There will be times when I simply cannot help him.

There he was — the seven year old, the one who tends to need me the most — screaming in panic for help.

Far away, I watched the bite-size version of him descend the steep hill in our neighborhood. I didn’t even run. I knew instantly there was nothing I could do to protect him; to keep him from heading full-speed on his brand new bike onto the prospect of oncoming traffic (worst case scenario) or a major wipe out on the concrete (best case scenario).

In slow motion, I took in my surroundings. My daughter behind me, stopped atop her own bike, watching the scene play out. Another parent, to my far left, previously relaxing on his back porch reading the newspaper, now standing — also concerned and also powerless. There in the distance … my son.

What would happen?

How would it all end?

And then …

Time stopped. Or my heart stopped. Or they both did.

Most important,he stopped. He found the strength to stop.

On his own.

Later, when I reached him, he would tell me how scared he was; he would tell me about his own moment of realization — that mommy couldn’t possibly come to his rescue; that he would indeed need to help himself.

He told me that in that very moment he said to himself, “You can do it. You have to.”

I told him that I had said the very thing in my own mind. This was the message I sent to him from too far away.

In that moment, we both let go of each other.

Understood that this was something that had to happen sooner or later.

This letting go. This not-so-blind trust in the process.

This love. This faith.

This long distance relationship.

oliver rides

Modern Life, Parenting

The small victories of a working mother — flash poetry

Jen

“There’s a clean shirt in your backpack!”

<Door slams! Bam!>

First

to sign up for parent-teacher meetings.

Small victory.

Showed up on time —

early pick up, after all.

Small victory.

Pushed the migraine aside

(til tomorrow)

in order to be present

today

for preschool Chanukah party, songs, dance, and black light.

Huge victory.

Grater?!? Where’s the grater?

Found it.

And it’s clean.

Ready to make latkes. Here you go.

Take it. Take the potato, too. Wait don’t forget it’s late already past over there under the couch no upstairs in your room under the laundry basket i don’t know maybe okay fine call me at work later and let me know you’re home so I don’t worry I’m always worried what did you eat today tomorrow I promise tomorrow i know I’m sorry on Monday.

I’ll make it to the party on time.

Clean shirt in his backpack. Clean shirt. He’s got a clean shirt.

Memory, Mindfulness, Music, Parenting

Love Song for a Vampire

Jen

If I had nothing else to do in my life right now — no full-time job, no school, no household chores, no parenting, no community commitments — I might decide to drop everything and pursue a journalistic investigation of music and memory.

Truth is, I am doing this already on a very personal level. For those of you who follow the blog, you might have already sensed my budding fascination in some of my recent posts (Check out “Both Sides,” Don’t You Remember You Told Me You Loved Me,” and “Seeking the Language of Music“). These snippets appear in large part due to a long form piece I am in the early stages of writing that explores how music shapes a person, and how a person, often unknowingly, shapes her Self under the spell of music. It’s about how embedded music is in our memory, how memory sticks because of its attachment to music, and how, we can or do use music to maintain memories we deem integral to our sense of Self.

But what about the memories that don’t stick? The ones we let sink down into the darkened depths of forgetfulness? Either on purpose, because they are too painful? Or accidentally, because we think we no longer have use for them?

I am finding that all it takes is a journey … an intentional journey of remembering … for those memories to ascend on their own from the deep. We have a drawer, I’m realizing, we didn’t know we had access to. It’s our subconscious — And we can open it and take out what we need if and when we need it. Of course, there are times a memory surfaces before we realize its usefulness. And then it’s up to us to make the connection.

One such memory levitated to the surface of my consciousness yesterday, seemingly from nowhere (though I am starting to understand that nothing surfaces from nowhere.) It happened like this:

<A few haunting notes tap tap tap on my brain>

What’s that?

<Paying closer attention now>

Are those train horns?

<Even closer attention>

It’s certainly familiar…

Wait, is it this?

No… no, not quite that. Something similar, though.

Wait a minute.

Oh my God.

<Startled look on my face>

<Heart skips a beat>

<Can’t catch my breath>

Oh my…

It’s this.

<Sigh>

I haven’t thought about that in years.

And it all comes flooding back.

The memory — the very visceral experience, actually — that I hadn’t recalled in oh so many years was that of listening over and over again on my Walkman freshman year of college to a love song. In particular, “Love Song for a Vampire,” performed by Annie Lennox off the soundtrack of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (a film I have never even seen …surprisingly.)

The introduction of the song, indeed, sounds like train horns. And maybe that’s all it took yesterday, as I rode the train from Binyamina to Tel Aviv, for a memory to stir, to shoot up like a bubble waiting to be uncorked. All it took was the sound a horn makes.

I searched for the song on my smartphone, but couldn’t get to it due to a bad connection. So I obsessed a little all day long until I could return to the computer. In the meantime, because I had time to kill on the train, I pondered.

Why? I thought. What purpose does this memory serve now? Why do I need it? How does it apply?

I still don’t know the answer.  It’s on the tip of my tongue, just like the song was yesterday, and while I don’t see the purpose yet, I know this memory will be a valuable one in my writing. This piece (this book, this short story, whatever it becomes)  — it’s not just about music and memory. It’s not a clinical piece. It’s about me. About my own passage into middle age. About coming to peace with my past in the face of my present and in the prospect of my future. It’s about accepting myself for who I was and who I am now — acknowledging and embracing the differences.

It’s about forgiving — yourself, others, the cruel linear aspect of time.

And I think, in there, lies the key to “Love Song for a Vampire.”

Maybe.

In the meantime, I’m listening…

 

Culture, Family, Parenting

Hebrew Language Tip 135: Turn your curse word into a casual remark

Jen

What You Need to Know About Me Before You Read My Tip

I like to curse. I think people who curse are cooler than people who don’t. I think people who don’t read blogs because the author uses curse words are over-sensitive. I used to have a blog called The Wellness Bitch. I like to scream, “Fuck,” really loudly when I stub my toe or drop something on it. When I say Fuck really loudly when I get hurt it makes me physically feel better. All my kids, ages 5 – 10, have said the F word out loud at least twice with my permission. (Two of them have a hard time differentiating between the F sound and the Th sound so at least one of them probably said THUCK. ) I have to hold back sometimes from saying to my kids, “Are you fucking kidding me?” because despite how much I like to emphasize my surprise, I know I don’t want them saying that phrase to their friends or teachers. All in all, I want to live in a world where people curse, but don’t want them cursing at me. For instance, I don’t want to ever be on the recipient end of “you are a f-ing …” well… anything.

Tip

If you like to curse, move to Israel where nobody gives a SHEET about cursing. Three year olds drop their pacifiers on the ground and say, SHEET!  10 year olds miss a goal on the soccer field, and they scream, SHEEEEEEET! Not to mention, every one and their 90 year old grandmother says “dafuk” which is basically a morphed Hebrew version of the F word.

That Said…

It should have been obvious (but it wasn’t) that curse words not in your native language lose their strength.  Which is why “shit” is something Israelis of all ages say by the way, without a second thought. (Including my own angelic little 7 year old.) Israelis don’t even consider “shit” a curse word. It doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to English speakers

But say “Lekh tezdayen!” to an Israeli and you might just make them flinch, or so I learned the other day when I said it a little too loud in my office coffee break room. Silly me, I thought I was being the cute immigrant. Turns out I was being foul.

Lesson

Words have strength … until we decide they don’t.

And that, my friends, is one to grown on.

Parenting

How to survive parenting when you’d rather be getting drunk

Jen

I love my children.

But some nights — especially Thursday nights (the Israeli equivalent of Friday night) — I’d rather be out at a swanky city bar with friends on my way to a Friday morning hangover than hovering over the bathtub trying to convince a screaming five year old that I have not even put shampoo in her hair yet, let alone allow it to stream into her eyeballs.

On nights like these, I am thankful for my remaining sense of humor.

For Playmobil.

And Instagram.

So I could finish washing the dishes in peace, I told my daughter she could go to her room and pick out five Playmobil figures to bring in the bath with her.

(Washing the dishes in peace is my sad sorry pleasure on this particular Thursday night.)

When I met her in the bathroom, this is what I found.

playmobil parade

I call it:

“The UN Daycare Field Trip to My Bathroom”

Enjoy.

And have a Cosmopolitan for me!

 

Community, Family, Food, Kibbutz, Living in Community, Mindfulness, Parenting, Relationships

Smells of Shabbat

Jen

One day in the future
My son will need some air.
He’ll leave home
Seeking solace
If only for a minute or two.

On his journey toward temporary peace
He will come upon
The smell of roasted potatoes with rosemary
Two minutes to go til burning
The scent will float beneath his nostrils
And he will remember tonight…

Walking with me
Up and down emptying streets
Through quieting paths
Around quickly passing cars
Parking on the other side of the gate.

A walk
A gasp for air
A last chance to let go of all that was
And open to
what will be
This week

Letting Go, Mindfulness, Parenting, Relationships

Learning by metaphor

Jen

You know you are meant to learn a lesson when it’s offered to you in metaphor three times in one week.

Last week, I wrote an ode to Yom Kippur. One of my friends commented by referencing a Dvar Torah given by a friend and neighbor during the holiday:

She used driving a car as symbolic of seeing into the future (forward) and the past (rear view mirror) at the same time. She said it may be the only time in life that we actually have that unique opportunity to do so. She spoke about being on auto-pilot and how lucky that we have 25 hours of Yom Kippur to actually stop.

Being a little obsessed with time travel, and still hopeful that one day I will be able to travel both into the future and into the past, I really appreciated this metaphor.

Driving a car is a little bit like time travel — or at least a little bit like the megalith “Guardian of Forever” in The City on the Edge of Forever (Star Trek, episode 1×28).

star trek
Courtesy Wikipedia

There are times, if you pay careful attention, when you may be privilege to what’s behind and what’s ahead, even if there is little to do to change it.

Yesterday, as I drove home from work, I passed by a 6 kilometer bumper-to-bumper back up. As I realized how long the traffic jam was, I started to feel more and more compassion for the drivers sitting in the jam on their way home from work. They had no idea how long the backup was — but I did.

Then, as I slowly made my way around the curvy bend just after the village of D’meida, but before Kfar Manda, I approached the end of the line. There, as cars slowed to a stop, I felt compelled to open up my window and shout:

“Turn around! You’re about to hit a major traffic jam! There’s no way out.”

I felt overwhelmed with sympathy for these people who had no idea what was about to happen to them.

Only minutes before, they were grooving to tunes, catching up on the news, joyfully anticipating a reunion with their kids at the end of a long day.

And now…

stuck.

I didn’t call out my window, though.

Even if I did, I asked myself, would they have heard me? Understood me?

Would they have listened?

Would they have done anything in response?

Many wouldn’t have understood. And even those who did, would use their own evaluation of the situation and past experience to decide what to do.

I chuckled to myself.

It’s a bit like parenting.

You think you know more than your kids. You’ve been there; done that, after all.

You worry. You nudge. You shout:

“Don’t do that!”

“Be careful!”

“You’re making the wrong choice!”

Sometimes they listen. Sometimes (rarely) they value your input.

But usually they don’t.

Like my daughter, for instance — who slammed the front door on her finger last Friday.

She closed the door with her hand in between the jam, despite 2 1/2 years of warnings from both me and my husband to please not.

Evidence that you can offer advice, insight, admonition,

But people — not just kids, but grown ups, too — usually need to learn from experience.

They hardly ever make decisions based solely on the advice of others.

Even if those others are knowledgeable.

Even if they can see into the future or the past.

* * *

Today, on my own drive into work, I found myself stuck in a traffic jam; almost in exactly the same spot as the jam yesterday.

Traffic sat still for a half hour. The minutes ticked away.

A few times I contemplated what to do.

Stay in the car and wait this out?

Try to make it 10 car lengths ahead and turn left to try to go around?

Do a k-turn and return home?

I chuckled. Clearly, there was a lesson to be learned with this whole car metaphor.

I checked Waze.

There was a major accident ahead. It had been there for over an hour.

I thought back to the day before, and then made a k-turn to return home.

I drove slowly, a little bit tripped out by the accident I never saw and the whole car metaphor.

I meditatively contemplated the take-away.

Is the only source of knowledge experience, as Albert Einstein once said?

Are we doomed to ignore others, until we experience things for ourselves?

Probably.

Or at least until we figure out time travel.

Love, Middle East Conflict, Parenting

Sex and gas masks and the absurdity of it all

Jen

You know you live in Israel when your in-laws offer to take 2 of your 3 children for a sleepover, you return home with your husband and sleeping 3rd child, you strip off your clothes, get into bed and your first thought is not “How much hot sex with my husband can I have right now?” but “Oh shit, <said in-laws> have two gas masks (if any at all) and room for approximately 2 1/2 adults in their walk-in closet miklat.

Conversation with husband follows:

“There are 10 people sleeping in the house tonight. Who do you think they’ll give the gas masks to?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No seriously. Do our kids get preference because they’re Israeli … you know… the other ones are just visiting. They knew the risks of vacationing here without gas masks when they bought the tickets.”

“Seriously, don’t worry about.”

“No I’m serious. There is no room in that closet for all of them. Plus, there’s no door.”

“Nothing will happen.”

“You always say that.”

“It’s 11:00.”

“Shit? Really? I guess they’ll be okay until morning.”

And what happened after that is left to your imagination…

gas-mask-kiss

Health, Parenting, Politics, Survivalism, Terrorism, War

What’s worse? Jet lag or war?

Jen

As if jet lag, back-to-school prep, protecting my kids from a polio outbreak and returning to work after a 2 1/2 week long digital detox wasn’t stressful enough, now I have to worry about a Syrian attack before Thursday.

Wait.

TOMORROW is Thursday?

Holy crap.

HOLY CRAP.

I should have bought more Tums while I was in the States.

Or I should have taken a longer vacation.

Either way, I am in deep doo doo because my stomach just can’t handle the stress.

Last night was the first full night sleep I have gotten in three days. THREE DAYS.

And tonight I have to attend a women’s birth circle on Hannaton. (Don’t ask.)

I have no time to clean out the MAMAD!

No time!

No time before Thursday!

Do you hear that John Kerry! No time!!!!!

Okay, I’m breathing.

And eating Tums.

And hoping all of this goes down the way of the Japanese dinosaur prank.

It’s scary for a few minutes until you realize the dinosaur is wearing jeans.

Letting Go, Love, Mindfulness, Parenting, Relationships, Survivalism

Fast or Slow, This is Life

Jen

I read and sighed and groaned with interest this morning, “The Day I Stopped Saying Hurry Up” by Hands Free Mama.

Her words resonated with me and stabbed me like a fork in the heart.

I know I hurry my kids too much.

I hurry through life too much.

And I know I don’t deserve an award for the fact that I hurry them a lot less now than I used to.

Or that I hurry life a lot less since I moved to the country.

But maybe I do deserve a pat on the back.

Just a little one.

Because there are certain people that have a really, really hard time slowing down.

They have a hard time sitting still.

They have a hard time being far away from action, from access, from information.

Because action and access and information make those particular people feel as if they have control over their very fast-moving, often frightening and sometimes frustrating lives.

I am one of these people.

Our busy, busy world of  24/7 cellphones, emails and carpools only accelerates my in-born madness.

I was born running.

Running my mouth.

Running my head.

Running the world the way I want it to run.

Running away from scary ideas or circumstances.

Running towards change, adventure.

For people like me, slowing down is infuriating and unnatural.

Until we do it.

And reap the very quiet rewards.

It’s still unnatural, but we can be trained to understand how slowing down sometimes works better and faster than running.

= = = =

I sometimes fantasize about the End Days — the day after the solar grid is taken down by a Coronal Mass Ejection and we’re all forced to live Frontier House style.

I’m sure I’d still be running in the End Days, but less like a lower paid, less inspiring Sheryl Sandberg. and more like a nicer Mrs. Olesen

Little House Mrs Oleson

I have this fantasy that if the world was forced to slow down, I would slow down too.

Because I want to experience life.

And I realize that running past or through life, blurs the experience.

But I also accept (with bitterness) that not all of my real life (the one I chose, and built, and need to maintain) can operate on slow, as much as I do appreciate what Hands Free Mama illustrates as the benefits of slow living.

My challenge — above and beyond trying to live slower — is to acknowledge that THIS is life.

Fast or slow

THIS is life.

This making-the-lunches

This sitting-with-my-daughter-for-ten-minutes-at-preschool-before-heading-to-work

This watching-my-son’s-school-performance

This taking-the-car-to-the-shop

This scheduling-the-parent-teacher-conference

This waiting-for-bloodwork

This wrapping-the-present-for-my-daughter’s-friend

This making-sure-all-three-kids-brushed-their-teeth

This listening-to-my-husband’s-day-at-work

This showing-up-for-book-club

This calling-the-plumber

This schlepping-the-kids-to-that-experience-we-really-want-them-to-have

Sure — I can and most definitely should– SLOW DOWN.

Because the slower I live life, the better I process it.

The deeper I experience it.

And the more vividly I remember it.

Slow works wonders.

I, too, have found that living life slower   (…and taking pictures with my camera or my mind)

MAKES LIFE LAST LONGER.

pee wee

But slow is hard.

And there are days I simply wish I could wind the world backwards the way Superman does

and there are days I wish I could simply freeze everyone and everything in it like Piper Halilwell.

Because that’s the only way I can imagine slowing down.

But then, there are days — moments of unexpected presence and awareness and awe — when I fully realize that THIS is life.

Fast or slow

This wanting

This noticing

This fixing

This laughing

This burping

This farting

This regretting

This missing

This needing

This freezing

This sweating

This balancing act

This being alive in this very awkward, too short, not-exactly-as-I-planned-it moment

THIS is life.

= = = =

Handsfree Mama, in her poignant and beautiful post, writes “pausing to delight in the simple joys of everyday life is the only way to truly live”

YES!

But this begs a question in my mind: how do we move through the less than simple (but required), the less than joyful (and often scary) parts of life?

May we move through those moments quickly?

Is “fast”, not “slow” what these moments call for?

Or do they also call for slow?

Dealing with the rotten eggs life sometimes throws me is where I tend to struggle the most

I want to run past those moments as quickly as I can

I want fast. not slow

= = = =

Will I one day, on my deathbed, understand that

THIS

too

is

life.

Those moments I ran through?

Will I suddenly smell the sweet smell hidden deep inside the rotten eggs of life and will it smell like cookies baking?

I don’t know.

Born a runner

I am trying to stop running

I am trying not to wish myself out of this moment.

I am trying not to judge this moment either.

THIS life.

Which is easy when you are in the middle of something magical, but not so easy when you are moving through something hard.

Fast or slow,

rotten or sweet

THIS is life.

Born a runner, I am trying to say those words

slowly

with a smile

with conviction

THIS is life.