Oh, How I Wish...

"Oh, how I wish you would give me a little brother or sister!"


That has been a common refrain the last two weeks, though I keep explaining that one does not simply order a baby from the store or wish it into existence.
We were walking home from Gan one day with Raphaela's friend and her very pregnant mother, and Raphaela asked her, "Are you pregnant or are you just getting fat?"


Yesterday Raphaela and I walked to the new Gazelle Nature Reserve near our house and spent a lovely Shabbat morning there, so comfortable we were in the puffy beanbag sofas that we could have stayed there all day.  Every time a woman walked by, Raphaela would jump up and ask them, "Do you have a baby inside your stomach?" Israel being Israel, it so happened that every woman she asked answered  yes.


But I was most pleased when my daughter told one of these women, "You know, once you have a baby, you can do and be anything that you want, even when you are a Mommy.  Like, my Mommy is a doctor and a Mom, and she can even be a doctor when she will be a Grandma."


Score one for the home team, someone is listening to my feminist ramblings.

Snow Day

Israelis, for all their collective bravado, see the slightest sign of rain and turn into 1950's wives who have just seen a mouse:  "EEK, rain!  Pull out the heaters, stock up the fridge, batten down the hatches, drive like morons!"

With talk of snow on the news, Raphaela came home last night from Gan and informed me that if it snowed overnight, there would be no school tomorrow.  When we woke up around six am, the ground was wet from rain, with no flake in sight, and so I sadly informed her that she would be going to Gan today.

At seven am the snow began, though the news reported that school would go on as scheduled.  As the flurries became more intense and started sticking on cars and on the ground, I suspected that we would have a Jerusalem Snow Day - no Gan, no work - and the eight o'clock news confirmed it.  Raphaela immediately ordered me to call her best friend and arrange a play date, and told me a story (in advance) of the fun they will have and the snow adventures they will share.

 

 

Of course no one wants to go outside in this weather, and after several attempts with friends, Raphaela expressed anger, "Why doesn't anyone want to come to our house?  Why doesn't anyone want to play with me?"

 

I explained that she should not take the snow personally:

 

Mommy:  Do you remember yesterday when your hand were so cold when we walked to Gan?

Raphaela:  Yes.



Mommy:  Do you remember how sad you were in the cold?

Raphaela:  Yes.

Mommy:  Do you want your friends to be sad and cold like that, just to come to your house?

Raphaela: (pause) Yes!

 

That attempt at empathy backfired, and now both my daughter and my cat Harry can sulk because they are stuck in the house.

Empathy

Raphaela has always shown a depth of kindness and concern for others, and in the past, her nursery teachers have mentioned that she is "affectionate and sensitive." 

I never liked the word "sensitive," in my head it implies a fragile egg-shell quality, one which makes a person so reactive as to be inapproachable.  Some members of my family still believe this to be true about me, and often sugar coat rather than present me with straight forward honesty.

Note:  While pregnant, with a double dose of estrogen and other hormones coursing through my body, I did not become that bitchy emotional stereotype.  Actually each day brought more happiness and peace of mind; every time I threw up I thought to myself and smiled, "This means that it's working..."

Years of maturation, life experience and with the help of therapy, my inner strength and force of personality has managed to emerge, and I am happier and more balanced for it.  And while certain situations still make me feel nervous and attacked, that former me, the pushover introvert that I was throughout high school, has been permanently exorcised.

Today Raphaela and I watched a video on the New York Times site, "A Day in the Life of a Piano."  A series of stop-gap images, the trailer for the five minute clip warned that we should have tissues prepared for the conclusion (spoilers!).

Indeed, at that shocking moment, I burst out in tears and Raphaela, so horrified by the scene, ran out of the room sobbing.  Both of us "sensitive," and both us in extreme empathy for a lone piano on the sidewalk in New York City.

I would not have shown her that video had I known the ending.

Breathe...Breathe...

As a fairly transparent person, I 'trust' the readers of this blog with most of the details of our lives and with my feelings, and yet there are events and feelings that I do not share;  mostly because it is something that I myself cannot process.

If I were to summarize the last three weeks of my life, I would say that I have pushed beyond my own comfort zone, opened myself up to possibilities and felt extremely vulnerable...and have gotten bitten on the ass more times that I can count.  My personality and commitment preclude me performing a task or behaving only half-way, and so I put myself at greater emotional and physical risk.

Oh, I play a good game of acting like all is fine and dandy, that beyond the little things that characterize day-to-day with a toddler I function, most of the times happily.  But being a parent is hard, don't let anyone tell you otherwise, and a single mother with no family support system in the country is even harder. Some days are better, and some periods of time try the very core of my being. 

If I were being honest with myself, I would venture a guess that having immediate family in the country would not be as helpful as I might imagine, and about which I fantasize on a regular basis. 

A highly intelligent and independent business woman, an experienced and trained doctor falling victim to the failing global economic crisis, even harder, especially since I am the sole provider and wage earner in this house.

(Our new Finance Minister, the handsome and yet vacant-headed Yair Lapid, ran on a platform of easing the existence of the poor and the middle class in Israel. Meanwhile, one of his first acts include raising VAT, a move which will directly and most negatively impact the poor and middle class in Israel.  I will either have to raise my prices and lose clients, or keep the status quo office fees and pay more for everything else, leaving even less income in my pocket.)

My body image has also suffered a blow, with the recent break-up from my boyfriend and because quite simply, my abdominal area is hardly swimsuit ready.  So I could join a gym and start running and swimming again, but my concerns about our finances makes me feel like this membership represents a luxury, a privilege I cannot afford.  With a lack of reliable baby sitters, I would only be able to work out during the day when Raphaela attends Gan, and thus I would not enjoy myself and relax into the workout, because I would be thinking about the patients I am not seeing and the money I am not earning at that time in the gym.  To quote my sixth grade teacher from New York, "It's a vicious cycle." (Actually, if memory serves me correctly, my teacher was talking about head lice, but no matter.)

Then, last night, at the Bar Mitzvah of the son of a old and dear friend, Raphaela spent the first hour of the event making it difficult for me to carry on any uninterrupted adult conversation.  When she saw that we would not be leaving for home when she requested, during the beginning of the dancing, she spent five minutes throwing up on the floor, a stream of tomatoes and other appetizers she had eaten.  I think it even surprised her, the strength of will she employed to bring on the vomiting;  she said to me in wonder and amazement, "Mommy, a waterfall of tomatoes just came out of my mouth, how does that happen?"

Mission accomplished, Raphaela won, we left the Bar Mitzvah quickly, slipping out the side door because of my embarrassment and shame, with me feeling like I cannot hold it together as a mother or as a woman.

I am tired of the struggle.  I wish I had the luxury to choose something different, I wish I didn't feel so stuck and so frustrated, like such a failure.

Expressive Kavannah

When I first moved to Israel, I took an art class called Expressive Kavannah, which combined meditation, movement, lessons from Judaism and philosophy, and culminating in expression through art (sculpture, drawing, painting etc.).  I enjoyed the class, but got busy with 'stuff', and it has been too many years since I granted free reign to my creative side;  note that taking photos of Raphaela does not count, as much as I love her.

Happily, the teacher re-activated the class and I attended the first lesson today;  my ability to allow the creative impulse to flow, to let go of the contraints of my reality worked out better than I expected.  The theme of the meditation was Genesis, the concept of creation vs creating, and the idea that the Universe can respond to our needs in an infinite number of ways.

And my Christmas list is long, my friends.  One of the reasons I can take a class in the middle of the afternoon is because work remains slower than I would like, I worry about paying the bills and having enough left over to take care of mine and Raphaela's basic needs.  At least three "older women" from my neighborhood (ie women my age, without children) have gotten engaged or married in the last week, and I wonder when I will meet the my soulmate, and a loving father for Raphaela.  I thank G-d every day that I have not yet ruined my daughter, and hope that I can continue to figure out what I may be doing wrong, before it negatively affects her.

For me, this painting started as a representation of the Big Bang and space, infinite possibility and a far greater perspective on the stressors of our life, when we realize that we are but a speck on planet Earth, and that Gaea is but a speck in the Andromeda Galaxay, and that our galaxy is one of many expanding millions of stars. (With thanks to Douglas Adams...)  At some point in the process of the image, I stopped thinking rationally and realized that my Earth was tapping into the energy of the Universe with a psuedo umbilical cord , and that I was actually grabbing to hold onto the Sun as as source of power and strength.  The movement of space became a wave form, crashing over my fears and frustrations, and the empty space an invitation for abundance in every aspect of my life.

Without noticing, my brush went on thick and intense, in van Gogh like strokes, as I layered color on top of color.

The existential creation question is asked:  how could we fallible and finite humans exist in the place where the Higher Power lives, in his/her perfection and infinite-ness?  The Zohar answers that G-d receeded, that he/she took a small step back to allow for us puzzling creatures to live and grow and make mistakes.  That is the white area of my painting, the unknown future and the faith I need to tell myself that it will all work out.

I present this piece, entitled "From Chaos, Order"