The Forgotten Longing

Learning to love – surrendering into the moment with Shir

3:30 am. I just completed reading The Neverending Story. Alone on the sofa, curled up with Chica and a blanket. Just as Bastian made it back to the world of humans from Fantastica, driven by a forgotten longing in his heart to love, Shir awoke and back I went into the bedroom to nurse him and myself back into a dream.

Bastian’s ticket home was on the wings of his forgotten longing for his father who was “shut up in a transparent but impenetrable block of ice”- his grief at losing his wife, Bastian’s mother. He recognized the dream he was seeking in the darkness of Yor’s mines. Yor had told him that in his quest for the Water of Life, he will have to be able to ask the question: whom do you want to be able to love? And to truly love, you must lose the one thing you have left: yourself.

That night, I dreamt of a forest with a beautiful path going upwards, where Ron, Shir and I traveled. We reached a gazebo, where there were bhajans playing. We chanced upon this venue, yet it seemed others had planned their visit from far and wide. The music was beautiful. There was an Indian teacher there. A trusted friend sat nearby, signaling it was safe to let go into the beauty.

I didn’t want to leave or wake up.

Fantastica on planet Earth: Are those huge things over there for REAL? Shir at the zoo for the first time.

And then I understood. This was and is the Water of my Life with Ron and Shir: music and spirituality. And I wonder: can I let go of myself long enough to drink from these waters, to learn true love?

Perhaps this is my forgotten longing. I hope so.

Dream of the Big Women

Me and my watermelon from my garden!

Last night I finally understood a dream I recently had: I was attending an inter-galactic meeting of living beings from various planets. There I was, hodey-humming at this cocktail party with all kinds of aliens, including myself, an alien from planet Earth.

What really caught my eye was when in walked several extremely large women. They looked exactly like us humans except they were enormous. They walked around as if they were what we call normal, inspecting us little creatures as if we had some kind of illness.

In fact, they had a name for our illness, and promptly diagnosed us and offered me an antidote. It didn’t take long for the effect to take place and I could feel my limbs suddenly stretching out and my hands growing to immense proportions, Alice-in-Wonderland-like. It felt strange and exhilarating.

It didn’t take long for the dream to begin to take an ominous turn, with the women turning into a persecutory force to flee from that I had to outsmart. I eventually woke up in anxiety, unsure if I really succeeded in running away from the large telepathic women, who, by the way, could also reproduce without the need for men or even intercourse (it was sort of like when there was a matching of mind and heart between two Big Women there was an orgasmic explosive force that created a new being).

Last night I sat with my good friend Noa, the type of evening after which all feels right with the world again, and I suddenly understood what this dream was about. About being a big woman, about feeling whole and healthy, explosively creative, normal, strong. And about not being afraid to be all of this. About standing my full height. This is my challenge – to be a Big Woman in this dream called life.

Eating the watermelon together with my big boy

I haven’t written this blog for a while. Perhaps I’ve been running from the Big Women.

No bite is too big for him

Growing Pains

Three accidents in 24 hours, two of them with blood.

Shir at the public library. Notice the blocks on their way towards his head.

The first one maybe I could have avoided. Shir was playing on the stairs leading outside to the street and there is no banister there. Granted, I was standing right there when he suddenly flipped and rolled to the leafy ground about 3 feet below. Ugh. A few tears, hugs, and off he went to explore the world again.

Incident number two: Shir was walking his cart with blocks when he suddenly lost balance, twisted, fell on the floor and started bleeding from his mouth, probably hit his precious upper teeth on something. Ugh. A few tears, hugs, and off he went to explore the world again.

Incident number three:  Sitting in the bathroom sink, washing off dinner remnants, he stuck his finger in the drain and scraped it there, leading to yet another bout of blood. God I am an awful parent. A few more tears, a few more careful hugs (I’m wearing one of Ron’s shirts and I didn’t think the bloodstains would be appreciated), and off he went.

Shir with his wagon of blocks. Notice those arms!

And that was when it struck me. I could feel my instincts wanting to protect him from everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. Not a scratch should come across his skin. That’s it, I could hear an inner voice resolving this ordeal once and for all: no more accidents, no more blood, no more pain. I simply can’t stand it. I will now grow one thousand eyes and arms to protect him.

And that was when I felt it. I could feel my heart cringe, crinkle, shrink. I could feel the cold steel walls rising up around me, around Shir, against the big bad world.

And that was when I realized: I am facing a choice. Do I try and pretend I have some kind of control over pain in his life and monitor his every step, just to avoid this horrible sense of helplessness? Or do I continue to try and provide an atmosphere of trust for him, despite my own experiences?

Seeing his confidence and joy in the world is one of the most exhilarating feelings.

What’s for breakfast???? Joy, love and more fun!

How many times have I literally or figuratively fallen off the stairs because there was no banister, lost my balance as I was trying to move ahead, and scraped my finger because I was reaching out to some unknown? I can’t count anymore. All I know is that whenever I encounter something new – a new job, friend, place, idea – what I feel first is a rush of fear. And that rush of fear is so different from the enormous smile on Shir’s face just a short minute after drawing blood. A smile that says: Come on world, show me what you got. I’m here to love and trust, and if you watch me and listen, you can do that too.

God, please let me continue to learn from him, from his innocence, and openness, and trust, and now-in-the-moment-ness. Let me never forget he is my teacher and I am here to unlearn. Let me grow in the pain of this unraveling.

God never sleeps

I just realized this is maybe why mothers never sleep either. At least some mothers. At least me. Maybe it’s our only real chance at getting a taste of the Godliness of this world that our sleep-satiated mind is just not open to. Sometimes we have to get our head cracked open to see the magic, to feel the immense love in our life.

I am writing in the middle of the night, after waking just long enough to finish reading the book my sister Keren sent me called “Expecting Adam.” It’s about a couple of Harvard super-successful people who have a second child, Adam, who has Down Syndrome, and how he rocked their world, shaking their belief systems upside down, bringing the surreal into reality. They encounter paranormal phenomena while Expecting Adam, their hearts slowly ripping open through pain and then ultimately, with joy.

A Hard Day’s Work

I knew I was going to have A Moment tonight, as I expected to finish reading Expecting Adam. I even prepared a bowl of popcorn, one of my most reliable comfort foods. When Ron comes home and sees the burnt popcorn pot cooling outside the front door, I assume he braces himself for one of my moods, but this time it felt different. It was like I needed companionship while getting through those last pages. Like it was too immense to go there alone. And so, after a few hours of sleeping with Shir, I awoke, my cold popcorn bowl and the last fifty pages of the book awaiting me.

I turned on the lamp, and munched through the bowl, page after page after page. When I finished, I could feel a tear welling. Just then Shir awoke. Not that it’s such a surprise, given he wakes every hour or two in the night, but still, the timing was quite perfect. I came into the room with such joy, to curl up with this huge little being, comforting him back to sleep. I suddenly felt this WHOOSH of incredible love emanating from him. I broke down crying, one of those deep good cries when you feel such appreciation for Life.

Whispering sweet nothings with the girl in the park

We just came back from a day in Tel-Aviv. The ordinary is so magical with Shir. I met up with a friend and we set our meeting point outside a bird sanctuary. The place was still closed but the guard couldn’t let us just go away: he brought out a little hamster Shir could play with and pet. The hamster promptly pooped all over him with fear. This was after the train ride when Shir warmed every stranger who dared to open their arms to him. He literally went from arm to arm, playing now with this woman’s glasses and now pulling the strings on that woman’s shirt. You could sense how their morning was lighted up. After that we played in the park, where a four-year old girl literally fell in love with Shir, unable to move more than two centimeters from his face. Next we visited grandma at work, where every one of the workers held him, grown men and women alike, smothering him with kisses. He just took it all in.

Not sure about the flavor here…

My mom was talking about life, feelings, actually, a lot about her fears. We sat in some abandoned conference room at her workplace, as I pumped milk to give Shir from a bottle because he is too excited about Life to settle and nurse from me when we’re out in the world. Anyway, I didn’t really know what to say, as she once again said to me: “I’m talking to you openly, as if you’re my psychiatrist…” and then I noticed it. A book was lying there. Cave in the Snow, by Tenzin Palmo, about a woman who meditated for 12 years in a cave in the Himalayas. I won’t tangent off too much about her, though I could, and it would be worth it. BUT, the point is, the book was suddenly there. And I told my mom: Mom, this is for you. It just appeared, it belongs to no one; it came here for you. You know we all have angels watching us. To which my mom lighted up: You know, it’s true. My former boss said to me I have an angel watching over me. In my mom’s world, her “boss,” whoever the current one may be, is He Who Guides the World. Anyway, it suddenly placed our conversation in a different realm. The realm of Expecting Adam, where Martha Beck, the author, experiences many such encounters with angels.

Does he still see angels?

 

Maybe this is ordinary, but as I lay there just now next to Shir in the dark, feeling his little body glow with love, I felt this extraordinary knowing that he is here with all of this love to give, and how blessed I am to be near him. How every moment with him is a gift in itself, how every difficulty, every struggle of mine, is insignificant compared to the love he brings. I feel blessed with a gift that I feel I need to keep giving to the world. I am notorious for hating public transport, but now through Shir every bus ride, every train experience, is exciting, and an opportunity to reach out to all the strangers that we often just pass by, labeling as this or that, without connecting to this essence we all have, that Shir enables us to bring out. This essence of innocence, love, purity, trust. Maybe all babies are like that. Maybe all mothers are wired to feel that way about their babies. Thank God.

I know I may sound  trite, but it feels real. I think he is the best thing that ever happened to me.

 

Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth and Everyday Magic By: Martha Beck.

Watch the 51 minute documentary movie about Tenzin Palmo here: http://vimeo.com/45500914