HH #184, and Wishes For a Wonderful Year

Many thanks to Barbaric Yawp for compiling this week's offerings.  Apparently there is now a Facebook to go with this HH business.... Again, I am inspired (desperate?) to ask, where do y'all get the time?  Facebook?  Do you people work or does someone pay you to blog?  (If it's the latter, count me in).

Either way, I would like to wish everyone a wonderful, peaceful, happy and healthy New Year. 

שתהיה שנה של אושר, בריאות, ונחת לכולנו.

And, of course, a year of balance.

Shana Tova,

ALN

Vote for Leah!

Leah is a 17-year-old entrepreneur who wants to take her magazine, Yaldah, to the next level.

We can help!

How?  Either go to Juggling Frogs for some more background info, or else jump straight to the Wells Fargo Someday website, register, watch, and vote!  (Note, Leah's project was submitted under her mother's name, "Evelyn from MA," since Leah herself is still a minor.)

Best of luck to a creative girl,

ALN

We Keep Them Around for Blog Fodder

At our Friday night dinner table the conversation turned, as it sometimes does, to a discussion of vegetarianism, including an attempt on the part of my eldest to more clearly define the diet parameters of the label "vegetarian."  She herself has decided recently to include herself among the vegetarians of the world, so the topic is of special interest to her.

We had two of our regular guests, both young men after high school, one vegetarian and one omnivore, and soon the topic veered toward the theoretical question of whether cannibalism counted under the rubric of meat-eating.

My eldest was in shock.  Eating people?!?  she grimaced,  ICCCHHH!  Then caught herself and added,

Oh... I know we're not supposed to say "Ich" about someone else's food, but that really is disgusting.

Without missing a beat, she turned to me:  Mommy, you're not going to blog this, are you?

You bet I am....

Keep the balance,

ALN

Why I Will Be Thanking G-d This Shabbat

This Shabbat, I will (b"n) be saying Birchat haGomel , the special prayer one offers in a public forum after one's life has been spared by accident, illness, childbirth, travel, or some other potentially dangerous situation.

OK, so there are lots of good reasons to thank G-d.... this despite a U.S. economy spinning out of control, the fact that we have already begun seeing the repercussions over here in Israel, and many other tragedies...

It just takes a second and a half, and an exercise in imagination, to understand what was, versus what could have been...

Yesterday I was returning from the bar mitzvah of a patient who has recently completed treatment for leukemia (in and of its own, a reason to celebrate).  Driving from there to work (for the first time all week, thanks to a nasty flu virus) I almost lost my way, when suddenly I realized I'd been paying way too much attention to the signs along the road, and not enough attention to the traffic that had come to a complete standstill in front of me.  

With a second to spare I looked left, saw there was no oncoming traffic, and pulled into the next lane, giving me time to brake slowly and safely.  I have very little doubt that this one critical second was the difference between me continuing my day as an employee in the hospital, and not as an emergency room patient.

הודו לה' כי טוב, כי לעולם חסדו.

Drive safely.

Shabbat Shalom,

ALN

I'm Honored

A big thank you to Leora over at Here in HP for bestowing upon me and several worthy colleagues - SuperRaizy, JugglingFrogs, Baila and Hadassah -- the all-new Late-Night Mommy Blogger Award.   (Now I guess I'll have to stop saying I've never won anything except that one $5 lottery ticket, back in 1987).  Thanks, Leora!

As always, keep the balance,

ALN

Who Shall Live

Definitely worth the six minutes:  Who Shall Live.

Thanks to Jameel for sharing.

A year of blessing to us all.

ALN

Receiving is Giving, Part 3

The Unacknowledged Thank You.  Many years ago, when I was still a beginning therapist in the hospital, feeling like a very small cog in a very big wheel, I worked with a little girl I'll call N.  N was extremely familiar with the hospital, having "recovered" from a life-threatening illness only to endure recurrent long-term hospitalizations for the ongoing, irreversibly damaging side effects inflicted by the original treatment.  At first, I intensely disliked N.  Her voice was whiney, her face scarred, her body misshapen, and her behavior ungrateful and dismissive.  After years of being in "the system," N and her mother knew everyone, in every relevant department.  If one physician or nurse said No, they would work their way up the chain until they got to someone who would give them a Yes, in writing.  Then, only then, would they praise that person up the wazoo, while cursing all the rest.

Many of our school staff members worked with N throughout her hospitalizations, and I myself worked with her over a period of seven years.  At first her artwork was perseverative, lacking creativity and originality.  She stuck with variations of the same image, drawing it over and over, in different media, sizes, and colors, but always sticking with the one theme she knew and loved and could trust to stay consistent in her rocky world.  Even as N grew, reached majority and was transferred to the adults' unit, we continued our regular art sessions, until slowly, she began to branch out and blossom.  She began asking me to teach her new art  techniques.  She requested additional images to study and work from, until reaching a point where she rarely returned to her earlier, repetitive theme.  She began to feel better physically, and worked feverishly through an endless list of staff members and friends for whom she prepared thoughtful gifts in the form of her own original artwork.

All the while, N tended to express her wishes to me in the form of commands, with the please added on as an afterthought, an external politeness she was taught would work to get her what she wanted.  Bring me this, Get me that, Maybe you could buy such-and-such a kind of [very expensive] paint?  On occasion, she did remember to say thank you.  Despite this, I grew to feel close to her and appreciate many of her positive characteristics, and and I looked forward to our sessions.

Throughout the years, N was the beneficiary of many expensive and scarce medical treatments that the hospital went out of its way to provide.  On the last day of her hospital stay (after which she was released to live at home and continue her treatment as an outpatient) the hospital staff held a party for her, during which she and her mother distributed cards and gifts to every last medical staff member and social worker in the room.  

At the time I felt it ironic and insulting that among all her acknowledgements, there was no mention whatsoever of me, who was present at the party, nor of any of the many additional school staff members who had accompanied N throughout all those years.  Nothing.  Not even a thank you.

At first I didn't know how to interpret her behavior.  I thought, Could she really have forgotten all of our time together, all the work she had done, and how much meaning it held for her?   Did she really think it was of that little value?

Then I stopped to think.  As a form of closure, I went over my session notes.  I talked to colleagues.  I did some research on the psychological implications of  showing, or not showing, appreciation within the therapeutic relationship.  All of this helped me make sense of N's behavior.  N and her mother, were simultaneously furious at, and indebted to, the medical establishment, whose original treatment had "caused" her handicaps, and whose later treatment had, at least partially, redeemed her from them.  This family had always made their way through the system by showing people genuine gratitude, contaminated by their feelings of anger at the system which was responsible for all of this in the first place.*

N's involvement with the hospital school, on the other hand, was a perk, an option, a factor she did not associate directly with her medical condition or its treatment.  By extension, it remained an element of her hospital stay for which she could choose to show appreciation, or not.  We were one body within the hospital to whom N did not owe the debt of her life.  In that light, I now understood just what our role was.  We were the only form of hospital  "treatment" she could like or dislike,  thank or not thank, accept or reject.  And she had chosen, for all that, to accept us.  What bigger thanks could we ask for?

Keep the balance,

ALN

_____

* I do not mean to suggest malpractice on the part of the hospital.  The side effects that afflicted N were the unfair and unpreventable results of the life-saving  treatment she received for an illness she suffered as a young girl.

Receiving is Giving, Part 2

This is a tough one, yet another of those therapy issues with no clear-cut answer:  the subject of thank you's.*

I used to feel really uncomfortable when a patient, or more likely, his parent, thanked me after a session.  They don't owe me that, I would squirm and tell myself.  I'm just doing my job.  

What flawed thinking, on many accounts.  Here's why:

Giving Strengthens.  Human beings were not created to receive without giving, and no one in her right mind would choose a position of constant receiving, nor the sense of powerlessness, hopelessness and utter dependency that would follow.  One of the first phrases my kids ever uttered was Self.  SELF!  and with good reason.  By learning to express their own independence, my kids were strengthening themselves and their feelings of independence and humanity.

Receiving is Giving.  I addressed this a bit in my original post.  For hospitalized children, and especially their parents, saying thank you is one way they can give, in a setting where they are constantly on the receiving end:  Countless medicines to fight the disease and the pain;   Food delivered on a tray;  Clean sheets with the hospital's name printed on it.  Even every-day tasks, the ones that characterize a "normal" life -- such as cleaning the floor, cooking pasta, folding shirts -- are no longer an option.  To this add endless non-profits and tzedakah organizations who, despite the most wonderful intentions in the world, sometimes increase the families' feeling that, yet again, they are the objects of someone else's generosity.** 

 

A simple thank you is a way of giving, of re-establishing feelings of identity and wholeness, and of expressing love for self and others in the form of gratitude.  To accept a straightforward thank you with honest appreciation is to move toward restoring the balance between giving and receiving.

I'd Like to Hear It.  As for the professional, it's nice -- maybe even necessary -- to hear thank you for one's efforts, at least some of the time.  Who, after all, doesn't want to be thanked, even while she's punching a clock?  Work is work, and seeking some sort of recognition or appreciation, in addition to a salary, is nothing to be ashamed of.  For most of us it would be false modesty to deny this.  When I came to that new understanding, it became so easy to hear thank you, smile and reply "Your welcome," sometimes followed by, "it's my pleasure" or even, "Thank you too, for sharing your ideas with me."

Yes, there is a hospital story to go with all of this, but that'll have to wait for a later post...

Keep the balance,

ALN

_____

*For those of you wondering why I suddenly have so much time to post, it's becauseI have been stuck at home with the flu for three days.  I'm already feeling much better, but it's too much of a risk for kids with low blood counts to be exposed to my viruses.  At one good thing is coming out of it... I have time to write.

** No wonder so many families, upon finishing treatment, run to establish an NPO of their own, in a worthy and understandable effort to reestablish the sense of give-and-take equilibrium they felt prior to their experience with illness, as well as trying to help others benefit from the "insider" knowledge they have gained.

Names and Implications

Though I've chosen not to use this blog as a forum for political commentary, we expatriot Americans in Israel are facing two important elections, and some of the issues that come up along the way are too important -- and interesting -- to ignore.

One semester of linguistics does not a cultural linguist make.  But as a dabbler in the topic, especially one concerned with civil liberties, I found Brent Staples' NY Times editorial on racist use of language to be worth a read. The piece isn't long, but here's a taste:

Mr. Obama seems to understand that he is always an utterance away from a statement — or a phrase — that could transform him in a campaign ad from the affable, rational and racially ambiguous candidate into the archetypical angry black man who scares off the white vote. His caution is evident from the way he sifts and searches the language as he speaks, stepping around words that might push him into the danger zone.

I'm very aware that for many Jews, Obama's campaign has raised eyebrows and questions regarding how an Obama presidency would or wouldn't benefit Israel.   Regardless of your views in that regard, the Mr. Staples raises here are a jarringly important reminder that there are many, many people out there for whom basic issues of race are far from resolved.  Wish it weren't so...

Keep the balance,

ALN

The Five-Minute Bedtime Challenge, Part 2

Ricki's Mom offered a reality-check challenge to my challenge, so here goes:

Introducing the Five-minute Bedtime RELAY Challenge. Relay Challenge rule adaptions, as follows:

1. No two people can be at the same station at the same time.  (One kid in the bathroom, one outside at the sink with toothbrush, one getting on pajamas, one straightening out room or backpack for tomorrow).  

2. Every minute, call "TIME!" and they all have to switch stations. Encourages teamwork and coordination, don't ya think? (Again, extra time is allowed for proper tooth-brushing. Parallel teammate brushing also encouraged, if mirror space allows for adequate elbow room).

3. Winning is all-or-nothing, with collective team reward or lack thereof.

Double-blind study, anyone?

Keep the balance,

ALN

It's "Over" -- Now What?

A Family in Transition

When things come in waves, I'd like to believe it's not by chance.  More plausibly, it's a matter of suddenly paying attention to a person, feeling, event or idea that, until now, I let lie safely beyond my radar.  It took a long time for me to become attuned to the stage following treatment, usually less intense than the period during treatment, but often no less difficult.

Last week, two mothers of children had finished their treatments, independently approached me, wanting to talk.  This is a normal event in the hospital.  A central aspect of working with children with long-term, life-threatening illnesses includes getting to know the children's parents, who are their primary caretakers, the central figures in their lives.  Conversations with parents often focus on life outside the hospital, giving us a window into the part of their lives we rarely see.  

All too often, the only reason I ever have to visit a child's home is in a vain attempt to comfort the child's parents after she is gone.  Only then, and way too late, do I get a small glimpse into her real environment, the home she left behind to come to the hospital.  There, her siblings and cousins, her kitchen and family room, the place to which she constantly, urgently, begged to return.    How much longer do I have to be here?  When can I go home?  When?  

But here I am, focusing on the loss, while leaving behind the majority of children, the eighty percent who heal and move on.  

How can I explain the concept, when so many ways, there is no such thing as "moving on."   One conversation was with K's mother, an extremely organized, straightforward mother of ten. 

I thought, Here we are.  We've finished chemotherapy, finished with the operations.  K only needs to come to the hospital every once in awhile for her check-ups.  I just want to forget it all happened, go back to my regular schedule -- the laundry, cooking -- regular things.  But her brothers and sisters still want to hang out with other siblings of cancer patients, and I don't want them to.  

I want to move forward, but the strangest thing has happened:  I no longer have the patience I once did.  I don't want to just sit down and read my little boy a story at bedtime.  After all of this, you'd think I'd have learned to have even more patience, but I don't.  It's very frustrating.  Do you think I'm a bad mother?

I assured her that I do not think of her as a bad mother, because she's not. I think you're a normal mother who just went through an abnormal experience, I told her.  You want it to be over, finished, so you can go on to the next thing.  But it doesn't work that way.  Your children have chosen to be in the company of children who are like them, who can understand them the way no one else can.

The rest of our talk focused on her family's gradual transition back into "regular" life, which, in so many ways, will never exist for them.   We talked of how K must now shift away from being the center of the family's attention, back out to the periphery along with the rest.  How her brothers and sisters are clamoring for their mother's attention, making up for lost time, but she is occupied with processing her experience and no longer has all the patience required to deal with their every-day troubles.  How she herself goes from place to place, from duty to motherly duty, but she is isolated by what she has been through, by her thoughts of what could have been.  She interacts with others but remains apart.

K's mother:  Last night I went to my daughter's asifat horim.  I tried to concentrate, talk to the other mothers.  But I just couldn't.

ALN:  It just wasn't the same --   you now know something they don't know.  You've been through something they haven't, something they couldn't possibly understand. You know what it's like to have cancer hanging over your daughter's head, over her life.  Everything's different now.

K's mother:  Yes.

_____

K's hair is growing back.  She remains a wonderful girl, beautiful, smiling, extremely popular and confident, a notably bright and creative student who will have no problem in school.  She spent part of the summer with a tutor, catching up on her math and computer skills.  Throughout her treatment, she approached everything with a directness that I envied.  Even her indirect, artistic modes of expression contained a straight-forward openness and optimism that impressed everyone around her.   

I give credit to her mother who is struggling to balance her own need to move on, with that of her children who, for now, are exactly where they need to be.

Keep the balance,

ALN

Balanced Parenting

Thank you to The Rebbetzin's Husband for this beautiful post on parenting.  Like him, I don't feel I am living up to it, either... but it's worth a try, and he gives us some excellent guidelines.  

ALN

Agunot: What's Being Done, and What You Can Do

Please jump over to  The Rebbetzin's Husband, who gives us a crucial reminder of all the successful, behind-the-scenes efforts to release women from their recalcitrant husbands.   With every success, you have turned a family's world back around, strengthened the community, and restored the faith and hope of many.

(By the way, the same thing also happens in my line of work... we hear about all the tragedies, but in reality 80% of pediatric cancer patients survive their illnesses.  We, too, have to remember to constantly inform the public of our successes, in order to balance out the pain of the failures).

Meanwhile, on the aguna / msurvot get front, there is much work to do.   Jameel has photos up on The Muqata.  Finding these guys brings the women one step closer to freedom (until we manage to institutionalize the solution), and now we have the technology to advance the issue.  It was heartwarming to hear that the Rabbinate as an institution is taking a step in the right direction, in addition to the many efforts, large and small, of rabbis all over the world.

For the record, That Guy I Married and I set up not one, but two pre-nups:  one with the Beit Din (Rabbinical court) and one with the secular Israeli court system.  Then, soon after the wedding, we let all our friends know we had these agreements, with a full explanation of how we arranged for them.  May we never need them.

Keep the balance,

ALN

Home in Turmoil

(No, thank G-d, the home in question is not my own, only the artwork).

This piece, Home in Turmoil (28x28x5 cm, mixed media), culminates my reflections of a year's work with a family struggling to hold itself together despite aliyah, divorce and remarriage + kids, financial struggles, and mental health challenges.  (This therapy took place not in the hospital but in a private family clinic where I also used to work).

At the center of the therapy, at least in the beginning, was the couple's school-age son, a bright and creative boy whose sense of calm and wholeness was disrupted by the fear and aggression that constantly threatened to overwhelm him and his family.  He could not focus in school; his bizarre behavior mostly defeated his desperate efforts to make friends and keep them.

Home provided him relative but sporadic feelings of safety, but even that was not enough to contain him and frequently his anger would burst through the boundaries, leaving him and his family powerless and enraged.  He relied on his acute sensitivity to discern when to trust someone enough to reveal that it was not him, not really him, rather the evil voices in his head who were responsible for igniting a mental anguish despite his will and far beyond his control.

Time progressed, therapy continued.  The physician's repeated attempts did not manage to keep the boy's multiple prescriptions in check with his fluctuating, pre-adolescent body-mind.  A three-week period of relative quiet and stability would be harshly interrupted by an unpredicted, unwelcome burst of fury, attack and withdrawal.  

Focus shifted to the parents as they struggled with their son, and with one another, to contain the damage.  Hospitalization was considered, disregarded, reconsidered. Financial factors, family issues, additional medical options -- all discussed.  The boy withdrew further and further into his dark, painful world until he refused altogether to return to therapy, leaving behind feelings of chaos and helplessness for the boy, his parents... and his therapist.

I wish I could say the answers are always out there, that it all works out in the end.

Sometimes, despite everyone's best efforts, it just doesn't.  It's true, the successes outnumber the failures.  But the failures, the if only's, are what stick in the mind, the heart, and sometimes, the artwork.

Keep the balance,

ALN

Back to Balance... Or Not

Ah.... it's good to be back.  

The school year is in full swing, the kids are back in school and I'm back at work.  Finding time for it all --  blogging included --  has become the task of the season.  How dare you go to work instead of blogging?  deadpans Dad.  Even Mom, who doesn't fully get the blog thing, called a few days ago wondering whether I'm still alive, for lack of published evidence.  

Returning to the Jblogosphere after over a week's hiatus feels something like jumping back onto a nonstop spinning carousel;  it's simultaneously thrilling, dizzying and weighted down by false starts.  As much as I've missed it, there has been plenty to keep me busy around here. Included below, an abridged record of the flurry, a kind of back-up disk for my sleep-deprived mind:

Things to Do Instead of Blogging

1.  Back-to-School Night (known in Israel as an asifat horim, lit., "gathering of parents"), one for every minor inhabiting the household, and sometimes more.  (RivkA explains it here in all its glorious detail).  Even the daycare centers here hold a back-to-school evening, usually in order to spell out the additional charges they request, for everything from toilet paper to art supplies to enrichment activities.  These events are painfully long and drawn out and can drag on for three hours.    This year, as a balance- and sanity-preserving measure, I skipped the preschool one altogether.  I hope they'll still let my son graduate.

2.  Working in the art studio, making paper and carving linoleum prints for greeting cards.

Here they are, drying on the mini-blinds:

Close-up of the same print as the one up on top, in a different color palette:

Supplies (Carving knives, water-based printing inks, soft-rubber brayers, carved linoleum printing blocks, card samples)  The art table is a low-budget home-made model:  an old wooden door on a frame of leftover construction wood.  Works for me.

My friend Q has a large studio where she makes handmade paper of amazing quality.  A few years back we added on our own, much smaller studio to our own house, but a full work schedule meant it often sat unused.   Going back to my artwork is probably adding years to my life.  At least that's the feeling I get from it.

Indoor plumbing repairs.  Particularly unsuccessful new hobby;  definitely sticking with my day job.  Note the bucket under the studio sink.  Guess why it's there...

Scheduling my kids' extracurricular schedules.  Another less successful venture.  In keeping with Israeli tradition, my kids are now signed up for various after-school creative ventures.... only problem is, the schedule is still new and I keep forgetting to send them on time...

Catching up on Srugim and other stuff.  I'm up to episode 12, and I'm wondering how things will hold together now that the geographic focus has spread out beyond the Swamp itself.  Last night we watched the first couple hours of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice, which follows the book down to nearly every last detail (which is why it takes about six hours to watch.  (I'm just amazed that we have such a detailed historical record of all those line dances... and how did they manage to get their hair arranged so neatly with no running water in the house?).

Work, work, and work.   More work.  Don't know why this one's so far down on the list, actually.  Time-wise, it's way on top.  Lots to do:  Strengthening our connections with the families, designing a class schedule for the school year, helping our new staff members find their way, meeting with medical and mental health staffers, inviting patients' schools to meet the department.... the list is endless.  Despite this, I'm still making every effort to leave work on time.  Balance, balance.

Dancing around the living room, music on full volume.   I do this with the kids, but between you and me, I would do it anyway.  (Just ask my former roommates -- Friday afternoon was Disco Time in the kitchen.  Remember Cate Blanchett in Bandits?  Only she, as always, looks amazing, and I look like, well, never mind....).

Getting some sleep.  Only kidding - I just added that one for Mom.  Amazingly enough, even without blogging I haven't managed more than five hours a night.  I'm still waiting for someone to invent a pill with no negative side effects...

All the other stuff:  Laundry  Dishes  Cooking  Homework help  Bedtime   Stories  Wiping noses (and other places)  Commuting there   And back   Shopping  Phone calls  Hair cut  Bank statements  Emails  Visiting neighbors  Shul meeting  Cleaning aquarium  Guests here  Floor clean  Food ready  Table set.... Go.  Shabbat.

(Speaking of keeping the balance...)

Shabbat Shalom,

ALN

The Five-Minute Bedtime Challenge

The scientific world has yet to prove what all parents have long ago accepted as fact:  the evening hours between six and eight o'clock, plus-minus, are indeed the most long and exhausting two hours of the day.  

Why is this?  Could it be that light-speed transition from never-ending workday to carpool to neighborhood grocery stop to home?  Or perhaps it's the time-swallowing vortex, eldest-daughter-instigated, last-minute pancake-fest, evidence of which is clearly visible on every horizontal surface from kitchen to dining table, and the occasional vertical surface between. In any event, we have every reason to believe that the Fear of Limited Energy Theorem is at work.

In steps the Five-Minute Bedtime Challenge, only recently (30 minutes ago) devised and formulated by Alternative Reality SuperMom,* and now in Phase-I trials in participating households.**  

Parameters are as follows:  

1.  Gather all household children in one place, preferably in close proximity to their sleeping quarters.   

2.  Announce at the top of your lungs, In one minute from now, the [Your Family Name Here] Family is taking on the Five-Minute Bedtime Challenge!

3.  Outline the Six Challenge Requirements:   Clothes in laundry hamper, 30 seconds.  Pajamas on, 60 seconds.  Bathroom break, 30 seconds. Teeth brushed, 90 seconds. School clothes out, 60 seconds.  In bed and lights out, 30 seconds.

4.  Note the current time and shout, Ready, set, GO!

5.  Option A:  MC the entire event in a loud, fast-paced, motivational sports announcer voice.  Option B:  In a fast-paced auctioneer's voice, alternate words of encouragement with a ten-second incremental countdown.

6.  Call Time's up! and reward your team by jump around like a crazy maniac while waving your hands in the air and cheering their accomplishment with all the genuine enthusiasm you can muster (for this part you might need to call in Alternative Reality SuperParent).

7.  With your last remaining kcal's of energy, run to your computer and let me know how it went.

Ready, set.....

Keep the balance,

ALN

_____

*  Alternative Reality SuperMom is the entity that, to the benefit of all concerned, took over Regular Mom's body just when the latter was on the verge of collapse.  A SuperDad version is, of course, also available.

**  If you would like your household to be considered for participation in Phase II trials, please submit your typed applications, in triplicate, to the Comments section.

Shabbat in the Swamp

I'm not actually familiar with the history of the moniker swamp (Hebrew:  bitza), used to describe those Jerusalem neighborhoods -- Rehavia, Katamon, and Baka among them -- populated by serious numbers of religious singles, many of whom are pushing 30,  and then 40.  Upon finishing up this post, I have waiting  my neighbor's CD containing ten episodes of Srugim, some of which I have willingly spoiled for myself, either by reading Jameel and others (Jameel, I blame only myself) or by seeing the website previews.  I have promised That Guy I Married that I will not watch all the episodes at once.

Instead of a swamp, I might have chosen to call it a forest (as in, getting lost in, or perhaps missing it for the trees), but I can understand the implications associated with getting stuck in a swamp.  On Friday evening, walking back from Congregation Shira Hadasha (where, with all the women's involvement in public tefila [prayer], the fictitious but utterly believable Na'ama would probably feel extremely comfortable), I found myself stuck between the conversation of Abstract Potential, and that of Concrete Potential.  Translation:  the engaged thirty-somethinger in front of me was deep in wedding-and-marriage conversation with a female friend, while the pair of unattached single women behind me were engaging in a mutual status update regarding a guy they knew who had just broken up with his girlfriend that morning... from all appearances, they reported, he was ready to move on, igniting the question of whether one of them could make second-party inquiries at this early stage.

I felt left out, but not in a bad way. 

Later at supper, a healthy mix of singles, marrieds, and almost-marrieds (including the above-mentioned single women and engaged couple), I sat next to the (married) hostess.  We caught up on jobs and kids and learning and other stuff.  We discussed life in the swamp from the standpoint of those no longer experiencing its singlehood swampiness.  We agreed that were we to date now, after having been married for so long, we would be much better at it.  After all, now we know what it means to have a long-term relationship, and we no longer care as much what guys think of us.  In other worlds, we would finally feel free to be ourselves.

(Perhaps her husband could attest to this in both our cases, since a mutual friend set up the two of us on a date over a dozen years ago, after which, it was reported to me, he came home to his roommate and said, I don't know why I'm going out with your bashert!*  His roommate?  That Guy I Married, of course).

He and I (That Guy I Married, not the other one) still do make time to go on dates, though not as often as we'd like, which at least is a good sign.   Being human, I sometimes wonder (don't we all?) what it would be like to be single again, going on all those dates, with all that unbridled potential.  Thing is, I know it wouldn't be fun, at least, not at my age.  The date itself, after all, is just a means to an end, and so packs with it that horribly heavy burden of expectations, unresolved hopes, and extreme pressure.  For my married friend and me, talking about dating was easy... but we just as easily acknowledged that we're extremely relieved and thankful not to have to be doing it, and we don't envy our friends who do.  She and her husband make it a point to invite singles of each sex to their Shabbat table on a regular basis... I'm not aware of whether these events have led to any long-term matches, but at least we know her husband has already earned a point.

(As for me, I'm happy to return to a certain youthful state via other means... later this Fall I'll be joining a new program of study at the university, in a field closely related to one I dreamt of as a child.  I'm really excited.  I can't wait to be myself... again).

Keep the balance,

ALN

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* Bashert:  Yiddish for preordained, "meant to be," usually used in reference to a spouse, but not necessarily.  

Wrapping Up Early

I was just talking to That Guy I Married, going over our plans for Shabbat and wrapping up the week.  Why do I feel I can wrap up the week by Thursday morning?  Because (drum roll....) I HAVE A DAY OFF WORK.  Yes, you heard correctly.  This year, I'm getting Thursdays off.  Yee-ha!

Why is this such a big deal?  For one thing, it took me a few years to convince myself, and then my boss, that this is a matter of mental health.  I don't want to name names or label labels, but it turns out that over the years I have displayed what one could possibly refer to as workaholic tendencies.*   So say my friends, my parents, and a few of my colleagues - not the physician colleagues, of course, for whom 12-hour days mean they're just getting started, or for software engineers, for whom all-nighters are just another day at the office.

And then there's my father-in-law's cousin's wife, T, who also happens to be our neighbor, and who can be seen some evenings mobilizing the baby carriage with her left hand, while conducting lawyerly business through the mobile phone in her right.   She is a warm and wonderful friend and mother, and was a high-powered DINK career-woman for years until baby-boy came along.  After returning to work, she spent the next few months asking the rest of us how we manage to do this thing we do, leaving work on time to pick up the kids, organizing trade-off child-care arrangements with husbands and relatives, and generally carrying on our lives with not a minute to spare.  I'll tell you, T:  We don't sleep much.  But you knew that.  Just wait 'til you have to attend a parent conference at the kindergarten, like the one I ditched yesterday evening because, well, basically, I'm sick of them.  You'll run back to evening work meetings in a flash.

I'm hoping that the day off is only the beginning of the process of, well, separating from my less-than-balanced tendencies in favor of some normalcy, if such a thing exists.  Some things aren't gonna change;  I still try to get to work early, 7:30-7:45, so I can get some work done in peace, and because, fact is, in order to be taken seriously in a hospital, you have to be seen early and often (and sometimes late and often).  Early in the morning, when most of the kids are still sleeping, and before all the nonessential personnel and outpatient families have arrived, there is a kind of quiet that hangs over the department and lets me arrive more slowly and prepare myself --  body and soul -- for the coming day, from within a peaceful moment and not a flurry.  

An additional repercussion of getting an early start?  It encourages me to leave work on time, infinitely easier said than done in a world where there is always another sick kid to work with, another parent who needs assistance acquiring a private teacher at home, or just a listening ear, another physician who requests that we strongly encourage her patient to finally get out of bed and into the classroom. There is always that kid I didn't reach today, the social worker I forgot to call back, that staff meeting that drags on and on, until that hour I'd saved for him at the end of my day has long since passed.  

That's when thoughts of my own kids start creeping into my head.  They lurk and curl around my brain, tugging me toward my locker to gather my things, pack up my workbag, and head toward the stairs.  They are relentless, consistent, comforting in their insistence that a colleague might be available to help this child or that parent, but at the end of their 8-hour school day, I'm the only one my kids want, and expect, to see.

Keep the balance,

ALN

_____

* The fact that this term attracted no notice from Blogger's spellcheck leads me to believe that I am far from the only one to need it.

A Close Second

Today, the second day of school, was a problem-and-solution day, of sorts.  

The problem:  Keeping the balance.  

The solution:  Well, we'll see...

Yesterday, all of my kids -- evenly spaced as they are -- entered new educational frameworks, each one different from the next.  That Guy I Married played super-Abba, taking off a whole day of hi-tech fun (and hi-tech salary) so he could see the kids off in the morning and be there for them in the afternoon.  This left me free to play slightly-above-average, severely-underpaid educator-therapist team leader, coming in to work on the opening day of the school year.  

(I know people like to harp on teachers over some misinterpretation of our "extended-vacation" status over the summer months.  For the record, I, and many others in the [special] education system regularly work through most of July, and often into August.   Special ed. can't wait around for September, nor can hospitalized kids. When we're not physically present at work, we're often writing up student reports, running after medical and para-medical staff members, and going over lesson plans for next year. This summer I took advantage of a portion of my optional summer holiday to visit family in California).

This morning, I had a little talk with myself, hemming and hawing and debating (What about this patient? What about my meeting with the head nurse?  What about-- ?).  Then I remembered:  This year, I've already committed myself to the challenge of finding more of a balance. Case closed.

I left work an unheard-of (for me) three hours early, to pick up my little one from pre-kindergarten. (In Israel the first day of gan (kindergarten) ends at 10:00, the next day at 11:00, purportedly to get the kids used to the system more gradually.  Or maybe it's to allow the teachers some relief from their young charges' constant state of eardrum-bursting hysteria throughout the first week of September -- you be the judge).  Over the years I had gotten used to being at work on the first of September, and not being around for my kids' first day of school.  I'd even managed to quiet that What kind of mother are you, anyway?pang of self-serving guilt that I now realize is basically useless for dealing with the situation.

Having shown up at the gan mid-morning, I'm still stuck in the floaty, foreign-body feeling that can accompany an unusually abrupt transition from work to home... my little boy, meanwhile, had been witnessing the arrival of his friends' parents, and is now clearly relieved to see me.  I ask if he wants to give me a quick tour of his new gan, and he proudly leads me through the door and into the mess of of toys the kids have left behind, dispersed and abandoned across the floor.  

As we exit the building, I get a work call from a patient's insistent, persistent parent, who has now contacted me daily for five days in a row, regarding a problem that, as I have explained to her numerous times, is not within my professional jurisdiction.  NO!  my head shouts at her.  You will not interrupt me now... I have left work and come home, to my own kids and my own business. I am off-duty.  Leave. Me. Alone.  Out loud, I firmly remind her that I will look into solving their problem and update her within the next few days, but meanwhile she must wait.  I buckle my son into the car and drive him home.

A couple hours later the school bus has dropped off my newly-minted first-grader, who, predictably, has forgotten to get off the bus at the afternoon day care.  I soon understand that had she remembered, I would have missed it all, that wide I'm home! grin, those eager gushes of Mommy, today we had math class, and the teacher gave us homework, and I need another notebook like this one, and... welling up and overflowing out of her as she plunges her hand into the depths of her new purple wheelie backpack and, with a gratified smile, presents me with a stapled bunch of worksheets.

She and I sit down together at the dining table and color in linear arrangements of animal pictures to show which ones are in front, which are behind and which in-between.  We compare and support each other's tendency to color outside of the lines, or to use the "wrong" color on purpose.  She is super-satisfied with this activity, and I secretly rejoice over her satisfaction, and at our united commitment to imperfection.  There'll be plenty of time for her to follow all the rules, but not today.   

And so, in the end, I was there, touring my boy's new gan, sharing my daughter's first homework assignment of the year.  Yesterday I missed the first day of school, but today I came in a close second... 

Keeping the balance?   Absolutely.

ALN