Refrigerator Blues

Our refrigerator had a near-death experience. It died for 24 hours. It’s a rather small refrigerator, but it has faithfully stored our organic vegetables and other goods for the last six years. And I did not feel like spending money on a new one today. But alas, one cannot survive in this day and age without a refrigerator. Shucks, I did not feel like wasting money on such a mundane household object. We could buy a huge trampoline with that sum! Or a new bicycle! Not something as boring as an electrical appliance that wasn’t supposed to kick the bucket. Not yet.

Ah well, such is life. Very seldom according to our plans. I gathered our frozen vegan-burgers, breads, and other knick knacks into our fungus-infested picnic cooler, to be transported to our friendly neighbors. The ice began to thaw, drip-dripping as it did throughout the night, covering the kitchen floor. Shir came by to check out the action and I occupied him by giving him pieces of ice to place in the garden and watch them melt. It started to get fun. Suddenly, there was a breath of life. The fridge turned on for a few moments. Was it a breath of life or a dying gasp? I decided to treat it like something that still has life in it. I cleaned it meticulously, silently hoping for its resurrection, wondering if I will actually allow myself to use the money we just “saved” on something decadent, like that delicious trampoline or maybe some fun stuff for the garden I want to build.

A moment of unforgettable bliss with Shir on a huge swing overlooking a river, in Wales

The fridge was clean, each and every plant in the garden now had its own personal ice cube, and we reinserted the electric cord.

Bzzz.

A soft soothing hum. Alive!

So what is the point of this whole story? Well, I must confess, I did not defrost the refrigerator for months. I saw the ice packing in the back and just made do with less space inside as the ice continued to claim more territory. I simply ignored this annoying chore, wishing it away, making do with less. As the humming became increasingly louder each night,  I convinced myself white noise is still a good thing to have around a sleeping toddler.

Packing up on energy with a fruit juice at Starbucks in London. Bunny also wants some.

But it didn’t go away. It got worse. It froze over, until it became defunct and shut itself down. Until it got the attention it deserved and needed. That is what happened.

I just started reading the book Psychic Deadness by Michael Eigen. I think I am a bit like that refrigerator. If I don’t defrost once in a while I can’t just go on ad infinitum. I can go on for a while, making do with less and less space inside as parts of me get frozen and trapped, but eventually, I will shut down, make a scene, act dead, look dead, feel dead. Until I get the love and warmth and attention I absolutely need for my survival.

And when I get it, I’ll be back on my feet, humming away quietly to myself, as if nothing ever happened.

When will these blissful moments Shir has with himself last more than 10 seconds?

Sleepy Mama

What is liberation? I have been contending with this issue most of my adult life, trying to break free of one thing or another. The causes keep changing, each one seemingly more worthy than the other. Now it is bad sleep.

What I realized is that if I am constantly wanting to be liberated from something then perhaps that very desire is caging me in. Perhaps true freedom is not wanting to be “over there” but totally embracing where I am right now. I mean, duh, we all know that. But it’s like I think I’m starting to really get it. And to do that?

Okay, here’s what I got to: liberation from shame.

That’s it.

That’s my big insight.

SHAME is my self-imposed captor.

And if I am only “ready” to share this insight when I am fully liberated from this demon called shame, then I am still waiting to be “over there” – where happiness lies –

So I’ve decided to come out of hibernation and share my shameful truth with you: My 20 month old does not sleep through the night.

Bliss. Nursed to sleep on the train home from a fun morning in the city. Transitioned to bed for more booby and sleep with Sleepy Mama.

Big deal, right? As if that’s something to really be ashamed about.  But it has been for me.

“Doesn’t sleep through the night” is an understatement…he nurses to sleep, and wakes to nurse, sometimes every hour and a half, sometimes more. Sometimes he doesn’t leave my boob for hours and we both sleep like that. Yes, he sleeps in our bed. Yes, my husband and I have no time together.

So what is the shame all about? I’m trying to figure it out – that’s why I’m writing here.

Maybe it’s because I too haven’t slept through the night for over a decade – due to my own sleep issues. So I feel like I’m dragging him down the rabbit hole with me. In other words, it’s all my fault.

Maybe it’s because I actually sometimes enjoy his warm little cuteness next to me at night. And sometimes when I can’t fall back asleep I know that his nursing will release the oxytocin that will help me fade back into dreamland. Not that that’s always a nourishing place for me either.

Maybe it’s because night time is the time of secrets and this is my big secret – I actually have no idea what I’m doing as a mother. I can cover it up during the day but at night all the demons are set free.

So I’ve decided to talk about my shame around this issue , and I invite anyone else who feels this way to share. It’s so lonely to feel there is something deeply wrong with me.

So what liberated me enough to write this blog?

Just saying it like it is: I am stuck. I am playing out my own needs through my son. Perhaps, maybe. And then realizing: so what, we all do that one way or another. So now that that’s out of the hat, let’s see what we want to do about it.

And so Ron and I have been talking about sleep. Shir’s sleep, my sleep. It was so stuck I couldn’t even talk about it. Finally, I can talk again.

Nothing has changed yet, but we have a new plan. A sleep plan. That will come in my next blog.

I’ve decided to use this blog as a way of supporting myself, and hopefully others, through this growth challenge.

Please share your own experiences, feelings, thoughts – I would love to hear them.

More coming soon.

Love,

Aya

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.

Unlimited

“If you stay within your limits, your limits will grow.”

Stay with that sentence a moment, as I did during my online Feldenkrais lesson this morning.

If you stay within your limits, they will grow.

Wow.

I am sometimes obsessed with the sense of my limitations – my sense of not having enough time, not doing enough exercise, not writing enough, not spending enough time with a particular family member or friend, not sleeping enough, not reading enough to help my patients more…in general, I am not enough of this or that…

There were many less blueberries by the time we left the pancake stand at the healthfood store

SO what if, for just a moment, my limitations were not the end of the world. And what if I played the game of accepting my limitations, of course in the hope they will stretch, but okay, just watching the mind as I bargain for more, but still acting within my limits.

Such as right now: It’s 11:24 and at 12:15 I have to go pick up Shir from his (perfect) day-care (that we finally found), leaving me less than an hour to write this blog, get annoyed at my camera for not downloading all the adorable photos I took of Shir eating pancakes at the healthfood store (you will have to imagine that), cleaning the house (I am officially sick of that), transferring the laundry to the dryer, taking a hot shower (oops, too late for that, forgot to turn on the hot water), working on translations (don’t feel like that anyway), typing up my notes from the course I took on Native American Medicine Cards (it’s good I never get to that, because then I always feel I have something really “worthy” on my “to do” list other than life-maintenance chores), and the list goes on.

But what did I do this morning in my limited time?

I talked to my mother.

I hugged Ron for a few precious moments before he went out to work.

I did a Feldenkrais class.

I neatened my desk.

I browsed the papers from Income Tax, thinking I really should fill out those forms in the near future when I can actually look at them without hyperventilating at the same time.

And here I am.

Just made a date for tomorrow with my Feldenkrais teacher who spent the last month in Kenya.

There is a fullness in my heart.

Thirty minutes of fun on a toy car that moves nowhere! Now THAT’s freedom within limitations!

Off to the laundry. And it’s still only 11:39. Time has just stretched.

Much love to you all. And think about it, there is a fullness in the acceptance of our inevitable partiality, a growth in the knowing of our limitations.

 

Coming From Nowhere

At the museum for old buses – I’m holding the ticket puncher, but nowhere special to go, just right here

I have been hiding out. Afraid of writing the wrong thing, feeling the words slip away as the months charge by, the moments blending into one big sloppy oatmeal mush, from which Shir carefully picks out the raisins and goji berries every morning.

I have been officially stuck, and these words are my lifeline, as always, in my quest for unstuck-ness. I have been trying to “figure it all out” – the big What-To-Do-With-My-Life which usually involves a heavy dosage of escape fantasies (let’s go caravanning for three months in the US, no, let’s go for one month in Europe and two months in the US, no, let’s go only to the US, no…), with their blockages (what will we do with all our stuff, what about the cat, gosh that annoying cat keeps ruining my life! I’m sick of her, can’t she get run over already…oh my gosh, I’m a horrible human being to think that…how can I spend my time thinking of something meaningful to do with my life when it involves abandoning my cat, what kind of ungrateful person am I? I don’t deserve to go anywhere, I should go do the dishes), leaving me just where you saw me over the last, what is it now, at least six months?

Feeding the horses behind our house – a magical moment in Nowhere-land

That’s right, nowhere.

I like how nowhere can be divided into NOW-Here. That little space bar is what makes all the difference – just a little bit of space and I can go from literally outer space into this present moment.

And that’s what Shir offers me all the time. The intensity of life within which each moment of peace and space has just that much more potential UMPH to it. So I decided to sit and write once more, because there is nowhere else to start again but right here, where I am. The apologies are mostly to myself, for thinking all those moments lost in circles are unworthy of being written or shared or dared to be acknowledged.

Another spiritual experience – mommy’s cashew-cocoa mousse

So here I am, in my ankle-length green woolen sweater I have taken off over the last two months only to shower, feet freezing, getting ready to join Shir for his mid-day booby-assisted nap.

Tomorrow Shir, Ron and I are about to embark on our first spiritual family adventure – a five day retreat with Tenzin Palmo in the North of Israel. Ron and I will take turns in the meditation hall and with Shir. I think 18 months is a good age to go to one’s first Buddhist retreat.

Did you say mousse?

If Only…

It’s been over a month. That last post was written a few weeks ago actually.

Our first crops from the garden I planted and lovingly tend every day! A dream come true…

It’s been intense.

It’s been amazing.

It’s been revolutionary actually.

So much has happened.

Every minute sometimes.

Every day.

Every time I look at Shir and feel this bursting feeling in my heart: I am happy.

And then it strikes….my new “IF ONLY”

So here it goes:

If ONLY I could sleep, ah, then life would be perfect. But would it? Wouldn’t I just move on to my next desire? There’s a nice long list…

If ONLY I found the right day-care for Shir, ah, then I would have time for myself, and then, ah then, life would be perfect.

But wouldn’t I then start to fret about what am I REALLy doing with my life? I mean, raising a child is all nice and dandy, but what about my work? Okay, throw in the garden I planted. But what about my work?

Ok, and then…if ONLY I got myself together with my work ideas, projects and so-called career. What if I did EXACTLY what I wanted to be doing career-wise, was satisfied, feeling I was helping people, making a difference in the world, while earning an honest living.

But…but…but what about my creative expression?

AHHH. There’s that children’s book I want to work on, and the booklet of poems and pictures I want to finally print, and the paintings I want to get to (the canvases and paints are in a plastic bag collecting dust for about 3 months already). Oh and this blog I want to develop more.

Okay, let’s say I can put a nice fat V on all of that.

What about that anxious feeling deep inside that never really goes away, only rests now and then? How do I work on THAT?

Oh Mom, talk to the hand…

I need to meditate. Maybe I should do chanting.

And what about all the friends I want to keep in touch with and just don’t have time? Do they really understand I don’t have time, or are they hurt by me? How can I never ever hurt anyone in my life but still remain open and loving and create close connections that allow us to touch and be touched?

I guess I just want a perfect world.

I’m reading a book called “Toxic Nourishment” by Michael Eigen. I can’t really say I’m reading it – I read just a few pages and I mostly just think of the title all the time and the challenge of the paradox it offers: how life is an intertwining of both toxins and nourishment and how the two are inseparable.

Think about it: Toxic Nourishment. Every time I think of that title, I feel both a sigh of relief and a knot in my stomach. What nourishes us is also toxic and what is toxic can also be nourishing. Heck, I wouldn’t be a psychologist today (or in general, who I am) if I didn’t have my fair share of toxins. And vice versa: I wouldn’t be able to deal with various toxins (such as NOT SLEEPING – but we are NOT discussing that now!) if I didn’t have so much nourishment in my life.

To be here, in life, truly, is to agree to that. Ah, the human predicament.

Until we are enlightened.

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.

Don’t Worry Be Happy

This is my new full time job. So simple yet so complicated at times. So here’s how I understand this line:

Do not worry – this incorporates the DOING part of our brain – the part that continually wants to “get ahead,” whether it’s a doctorate in psychology or that extra load of laundry (shucks, I forgot it in the machine, is it smelly already or can I get away with hanging it now?)

So to that doing mode I constantly run to, whether physically or in my head (as I’m nursing Shir to sleep and I instantly form a list of at least ten things I want to do the moment he de-laches…) I just say no, not going down that path again.

What me, worry? No chance…

How, pray tell, to do that?

Then comes the second part: Be happy. This is all about BEING. Happiness is our being. It’s reconnecting to that essence, reaching for it. And this is work, this is the full time job. Espeically in those moments when I just want to feel sorry for myself or am starting to rag on myself (how does SHE do it – the career, the three kids, the house, etc….and I’m barely raising one child and saying no to anything that looks like a “real” job…). Sometimes it’s a stretch. Sometimes it’s mental gymnastics, training new muscles to work rather than relying on the old ones.

Being happy: Shir and Uriel, friends from the womb(s)

The Indian mystic Meher Baba coined this phrase and Bobby McFerrin put it to music in 1988, when it became a hit. I’m sure you remember it. However, the full phrase is “Do your best. Then, don’t worry; be happy in My love. I will help you.“

I try to remember to say this to myself in the following circumstances:

1. When trying to put Shir to sleep when really only God knows when that will actually happen. I ask myself: have I done my best? If so, then I can let go, and trust it will be okay.
2. Coordinating a mother’s group (with a new friend named Avigail) – our first session two weeks ago left me with two drooling babies in my living room and half a nervous breakdown because, guess what, Shir wasn’t falling asleep…so now I made a conscious decision to continue to do my best despite that setback, and leaving the rest…
3. Figuring out what I want to work in – ten minutes ago I just got another job offer – to be an educational psychologist starting September…I don’t know yet what I want to do beyond eating the spinach noodles with tahini I am wolfing down now as I write…
4. I planted a vegetable garden (miracle of miracles) and I am watering it with love every day…just doing my best…. Chica has turned one of the patches into her new bathroom… I moved the eggplants from there…I am, after all, trying to be an attachment parenting mother…

So even now, in writing this blog, is this my best? In my ideal world, of course not. But under the circumstances? Yes. This is what I can do right now. I could have skipped the whole exercise and made a better sauce for this pasta, but I decided my best would be to write, and share. To share my moment of not worrying and being happy. Now to go hang up the laundry before I forget again!

And now, just in case you want to hear that old tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

 

Do You Hear the People Sing?

So here’s my letter of resignation that I won’t be sending to the job offer I just received to work as a shrink in the public health system:

Dear XYZ,

Our interview four months ago left me very excited to work for you. I felt you saw me for who I am, when Dr. X kind of leaned back in his chair, not pausing very much before he slanted his gaze at me and proclaimed: “You’re a bit of a rebel, aren’t you?”

I’m not going to no school

I was so moved I almost cried right there.

So I guess now I am rebelling. I’ve succeeded in squeezing back into my pre-Shir jeans, but I’m not sure I can fit back into my pre-Shir state of mind.

I have been revolutionized by Shir’s birth. More than I thought. More than I knew to imagine. I don’t want to suppress my own little French Revolution. The monarchs of my country no longer serve me; the people are dying and hungry. The people are: my dreams, my creativity, my not-knowing, my right to remain ambivalent, my joy.

I am so happy. I realized this the other day as I was walking with Shir in the carriage: this is it, this is my life. I’m not waiting for anything to happen. Okay, I’m constantly planning in my head: do I want two children or three? Does that mean I need to get a move on it and continue procreating? Or is two enough? And what is enough? And how much is enough to give Shir?

Okay, fine. So I obsess. But that’s just how I am. But am I waiting for something? I won’t lie. I’m waiting for many things. But I’m also suddenly not only waiting. I think I’m finally here. Ron, Shir and I had lunch together today. Just a regular day. Shir was mashing his bread and tahini all over his face, while simultaneously checking and re-checking the law of gravity. Ron made a delicious meal. I just finished meeting my one client, who I love.

My newly designed garden has two little celery plants, two zucchini plants, one watermelon and four tomatoes. I’m hand watering them till I get in sprinklers. That’s all. And it feels like enough.

Thank you for the offer. I’m going to have to say no. Just because there is a yes I can feel building up within and I want to give it time to emerge. Not just yet.

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