Me and a piece of clay

A note: Dear “A reader”, you asked a question in your last comment and I thought instead of writing couple of sentences in the comment box, I better tell you the whole story. I appreciate you and everyone that come and visit me here…I especially appreciate all of you that leave your footprints behind. Thank you!

Little boss picks up one of the biggest pieces of his wooden blocks and put it on his shoulder and tries to keep it there with the help of his neck and little chin. He looks at me and says: “Mamma look, I play Violin”….and then he starts tapping on the block with his tiny fingers and starts imitating with his mouth part of the tune from Mozart Violin Concerto 5 and then somehow switches to the tune of “in the jungle the mighty jungle the lions sleeps tonight”….

He does not know what he is doing. He is not even aware of the two tunes being separate pieces of art in technique. He just likes both of them. He heard the Violin concerto on mommy’s ipod (and is on the list of his favorite and that means we listen to it over and over) and the “jungle and lion” – as he calls it- somehow was sang to him as a silly song by mommy and daddy since he was a little baby. He looks at me all the time and I am sure he can see the absolute delight look on my face. I tell him: “Do you want mommy to accompany you with the Piano?”…his immediate response: “No mamma, do it with Maracas”…and give me his Maracas toy. Considering the fact that I played Piano since I was 5 years old, I am very good at carrying any rhythm with almost anything, but you have to admit it is little amusing to add the touch of south American native instrument to the famous Violin Concerto 5!

The game is over and he moves on to the next object of his desire and I….I move on to one of the many choirs of the day while I am deeply occupied with my thoughts about the concept of “hobby”….

Have you ever thought of how and when a person starts picking up something that can be called his hobby?
You can say a lot about someone’s personality by the hobby or hobbies that they have….but every time that I use this method and line of questioning during case taking in my practice, I also consider and keep in mind that when and how they chose their hobbies.

I mean was it really chosen by them or for them?

I play Piano almost all my life. I still can remember being in front of the Piano with my legs swinging on the bench and far away from the ground. But one thing that I am certain of, Piano is chosen for me. My mother loves the instrument and apparently was her favorite all through childhood and teenage years….so somewhere in that love affair it was only natural for her to want that for her daughter….

Well while according to every instructor that I had – and some of them were famous names- I was really good and talented at playing piano, I have to say I hated it….I hated it until I was in my late teenage years when I realized I did not hate the music and piano only the performance in front of every one or anyone. So one day in my very early 20’s I decided “that is the end of that” and I ONLY play for myself…I think it broke my mom’s heart but that was not something I was about to compromise.

So can playing Piano be considered as one of my hobbies? I highly doubt that.

The same is with down hill skiing. That was my father’s choice (he is really semi professional in that one) and I was only 4-5 years old. I am really good at it too and I did not mind doing it although I was not really passionate about the whole ordeal. Somehow couple of years ago I decided that I really don’t want to go for down hill skiing and maybe I start cross country…..

The list of the things that can be considered as my “hobby” can go on and on…and in front of each and every one of them the influence of my parents (either their direct choice despite my resistance or high influence the type that only a parent has on a child) can be obvious….until a few years ago…

A few years ago I went through a period of my life that was incredibly difficult, hellish and painful. Now that I look back I can see the whole ordeal like an alchemical chamber where under sever pressure and heat the metals go through purification…
Purify? I am not sure how much I became purified but I can say with absolute certainty that I learned so much about my true self, life and love. Some aspect of me as a being totally got destroyed and I rebuilt it brick by brick…..It was truly a “Saturn return” in my personal chart :)

During that time I started some new adventures - Mythology, Astrology and Alchemy was part of that. Interestingly no one was surprised by my new choices of “hobbies” and apparently they were along the same line of their “perception” of me…..Until I stumble upon sculpting with clay…

Well it is safe to say that apart from my better half and my homeopath everyone was shocked that I am working with clay! I still can remember the surprise in my parents voice when they heard of “the new thing”, they were extremely supportive but never the less surprised…my dad even told me that don’t I want to try the pottery wheel instead of sculpting? I was actually not surprised by his suggestions. Pottery wheel is more within a boundary, which fits his personality so much better.

I still can recall how everything started. I remember in those days I used to see patients from 8 am to 8 pm and there was really not that much else to do. One day in a conversation with a friend, she told me she was working on a piece of sculpture and she really wanted me to see it considering that she believed it was in the line of her therapeutic road. I asked her about it and she told me about this place that she goes to work with clay and makes sculpture and she started it couple of months ago following the whole ordeal of her breast cancer and all that she went through. We made a plan and I went with her mostly to see her work and still I can recall my first encounter with the place and its energy.

It was a studio in the basement of a building with no sign or flashy advertisement. You walk in and the immediate feeling is damp and earth…“the raw encounter with life”; I vividly remember that was what I thought.

On one side there are rows of pottery wheels and on the other side the spacious tables for making sculpture with hand and clay. Not that much order, lots of dust, huge sinks and heating chambers for the works….
There is no class for sculpting in the sense that class is being known to people – there were regular classes for pottery with wheel. But if one wants, there are few artists that work there regularly and you can go and start your work and ask them to teach you some essential techniques and sort of hiring them as your instructor per hour on the side line…but they only teach you techniques and the real work is what you do and what you wish….You purchase the clay each time and a fee for using the equipments and utility. The owner was not really into business aspect of the whole ordeal and the place was more for the gathering of already artists as oppose to “classes” and all….

That was one of the quickest decisions that I made in my life. I decided then and there that half a day every week I will go there and work with the clay. I was not really attracted to the pottery wheel and the concept of free work was so much more alluring for me. At the same time I did not even know what am I going to do…what am I going to expect….what does it really mean to work with a piece of clay and create a sculpture?

In all honesty the whole experience was a very cathartic one for me, a therapeutic experience in a very fragile time of my life, in a time that I was building myself and my life piece by piece. I believe NOTHING is by accident and things come to one's road just at the right moment for the right purpose…I call it divine timing and divine reason…who am I to understand when and why it happens exactly at that time?!

Well that is how my Wednesdays started to become... The first day there, I chose a nice lady that was working on her stuff to guide me when and where I needed it. She was a very interesting Korean lady and just by looking at her you could feel the presence of grief in her being. Later on I came to appreciate her extremely silent being and ultra respectful manner in the choices of her circle of students. She would teach few of us the essential technique or terminology that one needs – like any other art- but it was really the whole trial and error method. In order for me to understand those techniques the first day was mostly creating some ordinary stuff….the usual and basics. But even with those ordinary pieces of bowels and vases (which now are in my better half’s home office like extremely valuable Venetian pieces) I had an incredible feeling upon touching the clay.

After that session I chose what I wanted to make and she NEVER, not even once, told me that it is beyond my reach or I am not ready for it. She was actually very interested in my very mythological choices of topic. There were times – many times- that I did not even know where should I begin and she introduced me to the concept of sketching of the vision….she would give few suggestions of where one can begin and then would go to her own station and work. There was not that much talking in the studio. When you are working with clay, the whole conversation is between you and that beautiful piece of raw material.

A piece of clay has a sensational feeling under ones’ fingers and hands. There were times that it reminded me of a horse and the rest of the times, it just reminded me of nothing that I ever knew before. Horses also need tremendous respect. In their presence you better remember the respect that their dignified beings deserve or without the respect there will not be any cooperation.

A piece of clay might bend under your wet fingerers and palms, but there is spirit in it that is present at all time, a spirit that needs your respect and cooperation in order to listen to you to shape….and even while it is shaping to your vision and perception, there is always his / her soul present every step of the way.

It is very interesting for me that among everything else in this universe, in Islamic Irfan and mysticism (not Sufism but Irfan), there is the mythology of “God created Adam from a piece of clay and then blow his holy breathe in it and it came alive”. This simple myth says so much about the belief in general. It always created a sense of respect in me toward that particular spiritual path.

Since little boss was born, I rarely had a chance to go there. It is truly difficult to make a set schedule when one is a mother of a baby or a toddler for that matter (especially when there is no relative living where you live!)…and with sculpting you can not just go one week and then don’t go for few weeks. The work needs some kind of persistency, at least each work in the duration of creation. I miss it very much; I miss the energy of that silence, the power of clay and the voice of people’s creation. There are times that I feel I just drop by and see what is going on and interestingly always something comes up….that place is not for “just drop by”….

Above all a piece of unshaped clay showed me how to have patience…the fact that life is so unpredictable even when you plan everything and use all the techniques correctly…especially when you think you are in control that is the moment that all things go out of control.

The unshaped clay taught me that being in control sometimes is the worst thing for the flow of creation and therefore flow of life, that most of the time one needs to shut the mind and let the heart just be….that the respect for every THING in this world is an absolute must….that life is beautiful even when things go wrong….that there are times that you make everything “beautiful” and “perfect” but in the heat of the heating station the fragile piece of beauty can not last and will be broken to pieces and there is nothing you can do…after all that was the nature of that piece. You can mourn the loss and time and energy but ultimately you can only start from the scratch and do it again and again and again…and that is JUST LIFE.

It is truly an awe moment when the final work comes out of the heating station (and especially if you are lucky enough that the work is not broken or damaged). The initial reaction is always “not exactly turned out like my perception”, or “the glazing is so much different from what I saw in other pieces”… and then you look and “see” there are aspect of it that is not you and still is you…The creation can never be one way street. I do believe even God considered the spirit of the clay when he made Adam…don’t you think so?

After all we are not exactly the mirror image of him…..

An open letter to parents…all of us out there!

I wonder when did it all start…this “generation gap”, this “misunderstanding” between a parent and a child….was it chicken or egg first?

In last few months I am deeply sad and seriously in thoughts for the way that all of us, one way or another – make negative impacts on the most beloved beings in our lives. It is not hard to be shocked when you turn on the news and hear about all the abuse and murders that is being done by no others than parents. I remember in April / May the case of that Austrian man made me have nightmares and enormous sadness for weeks and weeks. So while in the one end of spectrum there are these unbelievable monsters, they are not who I am referring to here. I am referring to all of us, the ordinary people that bring human beings to this world with hope and joy and do our best to provide for them – physically, emotionally and spiritually I hope!

And then somewhere down the road, we are the sole responsible of inflicting wounds on their psyche….wounds that are so hidden and so deep that might not be healed and very well might be transferred to the next generation and the generation after that.

I was thinking of a particular example that I hear so often. When parents can not understand why their “grown up children” can not accept them the way they are….after all they are old, aged and no room for “change” anymore….
Well what do you expect?

Did you ever accept that child JUST the way she or he was?
Did you accept her / him with all the fears, anxieties, stubbornness, sensitivities, low self confidence…..?
Or did you try your best to “change” her / him? To make her / him a better version?

Do you even accept your child when she / he is no longer a child...is an adult with a life to lead and a role to fullfill?

And that is the big million dollar question…..did you try to make her / him a better version of “herself/ himself” or a better version period?

It is like sculpting with clay. A good clay artist always cherishs and honors the clay just the way it is. Then with love and respect to the “being” of the clay, she or he will start smoothing the edges…..

I mean becoming the better version of oneself means you already accept and cherish the clay that you are working with, even if the clay will not end up being your version of anything (ESPECIALLY if the clay does not end up like your vision!)….

But making someone the better version means the version that she or he is or will choose to be is NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOUR STANDARD.

So in the name of parenting, how many of us did or do that on daily basis?
How many of us want to “change” our children with the big excuse of “improving you and your life”?
How many of us are so disrespectful to their “being”?
How many of us are even aware of this abomination?

How many of us told our children “stop crying, you are a big girl/ boy now”…“Why are you afraid of everything?”….“Why don’t you have many friends?”…. “Why can’t you be social?”….“Why are you so sensitive….or have no self esteem?’’… “ You have to do this, because I say so and I know much better than you”…"too emotional, too this, too that, not enough this, not enough that".....shall I go on or does these sentences sound familiar to us?

Lately I seriously doubt and challenge the concept of “a parent is a self less being”…are we? What does that mean in your dictionary?…let’s just be clear of the meanings word for word.
Are we sure we are not selfish? I mean are we sure what we are doing is not the core definition of selfishness?

Well not only we try to “change” our children, we are not satisfied with the people in society, in our circle of friends or family. They also are not “good enough”. We also NEED to change them, to make them “improve” themselves…of course all is in the name of love and care and being a responsible human being….I mean come on!

When did we fall asleep and woke up in a parallel universe that everything has another meaning?

The reality is that we give / gave examples to our children all their lives, that nothing or nobody is GOOD ENOUGH for us….that everyone INCLDUING THEM (sadly, so sadly) needs modification to become “better” for our existance…and then one day that child is an adult and stands up to our face and tell us that she or he DOES NOT accept us the way we are…that why can’t we do this or that? That why can’t we change?

And what is the typical answer:
I am “….” old, I can not change anymore…didn’t you know that I am like this all my life? Why can’t you let me be?

Well of course the child can not accept us the way we are, after all she/he was an excellent student in our classroom. She / he learned that nothing is good enough unless it fits our way of thinking…..our way of life...our way of good and bad, right and wrong....strong and weak....

So welcome to the never ending fight between generations….welcome to rage, disappointment, sadness, hurts and wounds that never heals and ongoing saga of was it chicken or egg first?

This one is HIS story not mine….

Somehow the time of the year that falls under Scorpio sign, does not agree with me!

For so many reasons that most of them are as old as my soul, I feel miserable in this glorious period of time. Either it is the strong aversion that I have to the influence of Planet Mars; or the mighty Hedas, the lord of the underworld, which does not agree with my shadow that much; or because of all the memories of doom and gloom that somehow echo for me in this month…or maybe, just maybe it is simply because of the lack of sunlight and all the grey days that come with this time of the year – after all not everything HAS to have a deep spiritual meaning, ha???!!!!!!

Scorpio came and passed this year and I survived it one more time - although it was a tough tough month for me. Somehow the energy of misery, even if it is just in your mind, can bring more hardship one way or another. Apart from being unbelievably busy day and night for many different reasons – which made me realize that I literally do not have as much energy as I had years ago (and lets not forget the belly that is growing and truly takes me off my balance every step of the way) - everyone in the household (including Oma and Opa that are visiting us) were sick with viral cold… not once but twice! So as soon as one round of cold was over the second round started and somehow I ended up being the last person in each series and with being pregnant and all, at the end my body just totally collapsed from absolute and pure exhaustion!

In all honesty the concept of physical exhaustion is not that familiar to me. As much as I am personally very familiar with mental and emotional exhaustion and somehow can write volumes of book about it, the concept of “body” gives up was very foreign to me. I guess it is time to admit it loud and clear: I AM AGED!

But this particular Scorpio time of the year brought another milestone for little boss and me!

Little boss started his toddler program. To say that I “agonized” for days and night in last few months over this milestone, is just putting it mildly. In all fairness the "agonize" part mostly had to do with the shadow that follows me personally since I was a little girl…..

The little boss’s program is the first step in the type of the education that my better half and I chose for our children. For now it is 3 hours in the morning and the first two weeks was supposed to be transitional. That meant, I had the “back to school” tune in my days!

Little boss and I attended the classes and I participated in his class – mostly like a shadow- so he will get use to it and all. By nature and by profession I did what I do the best in life: Deeply observe.

Looking at all these little toddlers and the way that they interact with their surroundings, how each and every one of them cope with the concept of “separation anxiety” and change in their daily routine of life, how the adults look at these little ones and try their best to assist them…and above all how the adults deal with their own shadows.

According to all the teachers and professionals in the school, little boss handled himself really amazing…so good that they told me the transitional period can be only 4 days for him. The class has a one way window that parents can drop by at any time and stand there as long as they want and see what is happening with their kids. That can give you a clue that how I did spend most of my days of the remaining 2 weeks. After all what the teachers were perceiving as “little boss is adjusting grate” was little bit different than what I was perceiving.

I am not sure is it a curse or a blessing - personally I think it is not a blessing even if it won’t be a curse....Little boss internalizes his emotions and only shows the raw form of it to me the most and then my better half and in some extend to Oma and Opa.

As I am typing these words I shake my head in sadness because I just hear the voice of everyone: “He is just like his mommy….OH MY GOD! How much he takes after you….WOW! it is like looking at little you….” And this internalizing part is exactly what comes from my glorious gene pool. I learned to internalize all my emotions (fears, anxieties etc.…) since the early age of 3 or 4. The little boss is doing it at least for a year now and God knows how much I am trying to teach and encourage him to “Let it out!”….

So not like most of the kids in the same boat; he did not scream, he did not cry, he did not kick and protest that he does not want to go in….they did not have to push the mommy and daddy out of the door and hold the child in. My little boss listened to me very carefully when I told him “is that OK with you to stay here today without mommy? Let me know if that is not OK with you…. Mommy will come back very soon and pick you up and we can go home... and until then you can play with Mrs…….”….

He stood up straight, squeezed my hand hard, pushed his head to my face when I was kissing him and whispering to him how much I love him… and then he let go of my fingers and went into the class with his teacher – chin up and body tensed. I ran out of the door and went behind the window that already became my best friend in the world…and watched.

I watched EVERYTHING….every time that a muscle in his body tightened, every glance that he threw toward the door, every time that he stood in the middle of the class in silence…. and I keep note of the fact that he did not chat AT ALL – my very very chatty boy!

I watched every time that one of the teachers with so much care came to him and tried to introduce him to a new activity…and I watched how my little boss most of the time followed the teacher and did his part in the whole thing…..and then when the time came for me to pick him up, I would go to the door and would watch him running into my arms and kissing me and chats all they way back home about the things that he did (mostly the highlights in his perception) – and he did not know that I watched every minute of it- and in between each sentence he would tell me “I Yove You SOOOOOO Much Mamma”!...and I would react as if this is the very first time I become aware of his daily activity and “OH MY GOD, how proud I am of you…such a good boy…I LOVE YOU SOOOOOOOO MUCH”…..

And the day after and the day after…and every day they told me “OH MY GOD! He is adjusting so amazingly….” And every day I saw the rule of the universe: we might control our fears and emotions at one place but inevitably it will catch up with us sooner or later.

Little boss would come home and from that moment on, he DID NOT want to let go of me. I HAD to be with him ALL THE TIME…he had to play with his toys and mamma had to sit there and cheer him or just simply breathe and be present…. The tantrums and nagging and cry over everything and nothing….The “I want this, I want that, I don’t want this, I don’t want that”… the 5 times during the night waking up and crying “where is mamma? I want mamma”….

And the morning would come and it was a brand new day once again….

On the way to school he is so happy and telling me what he will do again. It seems that he truly enjoys his school, I can not debate that part what so ever….and still the impact of all the changes in his routine of life and the influence of the steps toward becoming an independent being in the world, show itself in the afternoon and night….the total NEED to have Mamma close by, the absolute life line of “mommy hold me”, “In mommy’s arm”…

We are dealing with him going through all that as best as we know how. He is trying to process and cope as well as going through terrible two and the cherry on the top I guess is the nasty viral cold that somehow loves our household and for sure has the intense effect on his mood!

Above being affected as HIS mother, the whole ordeal punched my psyche and heart in the places that carry deep open wounds…

I attended daycare/ Kindergarten, very very early in life and through all my childhood. I would have given SO much to not go to those places. God knows how much I wished for my mom or a family member to take care of me…. You have NO idea.

One of the earliest memories in my life is crying so profoundly and deeply when my mom was dropping me at the daycare. I can remember her back toward me walking out of the door. I still remember it like it was yesterday. My parents carry a huge guilt for all that. I think I came to a peace with the whole ordeal but until 5-6 years ago, I was truly bitter by the whole experience.

I think the choice of me staying home after becoming a mom, was partly- not all of it but partly - because of this whole ordeal. When I was a little girl, I wowed to myself that I will not bring a child to this world, if that child has to go through that much loneliness and forsaken feeling that I felt.

I can tell you my experience during the whole kindergarten- or whatever name it had- was PURE HELL. I hated it with passion... Interestingly no one could ever understand me because everyone in our family and circle of friends was in the same situation and they seemed “NORMAL”!

So years and years after that when finally I opened up and showed all the wounds that I had and all the scars that I carried because of the whole ordeal, my parents’ feeling was the combination of guilt and the fact that they did not know what else they could have done at the time, with being both full time at work and no other alternative…

So the last few months I agonized of the prospect of my baby going through a similar experience. The thought of him crying in pain while I have to leave him behind and go, was a nightmare that I had and yet I knew I am doing the best at this time and choosing the most nurturing way to prepare him to stand up on his own….

What I did not imagine was his silent reaction, his choice of carrying it all within for that three whole hours…an eternity for two years old! What I did not count on was how to deal with my little boss trying so hard to face the challenge so bravely and with superhuman effort for his very young age and loose all his control for the rest of the day and night….

Now I wish he would have cried. There are still good number of kids in the same class that started their course in September and yet every morning they cry and scream from 30-45 minutes. I know because I am watching them from my beloved window! The better half teases me that very soon the school will charge us half of the tuition fee because of my amazing attendance behind the window! But it is only his third week and let’s not forget that it is not only the little boss who is going through the separation anxiety, mamma also has her share of this emotion at this time (and this time around, the separation anxiety is because of being separated from my baby)!

Now I know very clearly, all the worries and anxieties were part of my story not his. I, on my part, used all the superhuman efforts in the world to not allow my story influences his…to not allow him pick up on my fears and apprehension. For now, I am waiting for him to choose his way and unfold his story just the way he wishes. The only thing I can do is to try to smooth the harsh edges for him…and maybe, just maybe I make his experience in life more cheerful and magical than mine……or at least less lonely than mine!

One thing is very clear: his milestone; regardless of what it is; will always be a shining star for me in the month of Scorpio….any memory attached to him is something that I cherish with all my heart and soul…and this particular one had a voluble lesson for me. It showed me that some wounds will start to heal, even if many many many years are passed...just by watching him going through his days....just by watching him....

For "TÊTE-À-TÊTE" and her soulful post

When we started to get to know each other, we used to stay on the phone for hours and not realizing what time it is, day or night….

When we started to get to know each other, phone was our best friend; the kind, loyal, trustworthy, keep it all to itself and warm third party that was connecting us no matter where we were and what was happening in the world around us….

I fell in love with the phone and he used to say – almost in every conversation- that how much he salutes Mr. Graham Bell!

Then the era of totally different time zones came along…and fax became as good a friend as the phone (yes, yes…. I am from Dinosaur era when emails was started to be just an item in conversations!)…fax became even better than the phone considering the heavy burden of the phone bills…and sweeter than that was the letters and the cards that we would send to one another….fax became the method for the daily reports and letters carried the luxury of deep conversations…. Pages and pages of handwritten letters….the papers that was bringing the touch of the lover…the perfume of his soul!

It was very obvious from the beginning that I am the writer in this relationship but in all honesty, for every letter or fax that I sent, he did send one immediately in return….so many times he was the one that would send a card not in reply to mine but just because… The tone of our writings was always different. I was what he calls “the deep, soulful” writer and he was what I call “fun, silly” one!

While I used to nag that why he is so silly in his writings and why can’t he go “deeper”, I came to cherish and be unbelievably dependent to the lightness of his being, such an amazing compliment to my unbearable heaviness…..

I brought him to the world of Prophet and he took me to the world of simplicity.
I talked about all that I knew in the books and he shared with me what life is really all about.
I played for him the voice of Charles Aznavour (the frequent background voice while I was growing up) and he played for me the sweet melody of silence.
The same silence that always used to make me nervous and anxious became an ocean of wonder and peace IF it was shared with him….

By chance I heard a song: “Is Your Love Strong Enough?" by Bryan Ferry (not a type of music that I liked or ever listened to) and for a while I used to whisper some of its verses for myself:

Just one step at a time
And closer to destiny
I knew at a glance
There’d always be a chance for me
With someone I could live for

Is your love strong enough

Like a rock in the sea?

The agony of all the physical distances between us was one of the most difficult things I ever went through in my life. It was taking all my energy, all my existence...it was eating my soul…and being such an unfair person by nature, I took it all on him. The bitterness in my voice, the anger in my writings…he was always my punching bag…the sadness now for me is that I think he also took all the blame on himself; while in all honesty there was no one to blame. That was life… that was the road that we had to go through, it was not right or wrong, correct or mistake, IT just WAS!

Years passed…I grew up so much and gained certain level of maturity and still remained as “heavy” as a lead!
His gained maturity did not touch his childish soul at all and God knows how thankful I am for this.

Life went on…the daily routine of life happened, the one that can consume you beyond belief, the one that can make your life passes by years after years and one day you open your eyes and realize you did NOT do ANYTHING and yet you DID SO MUCH!

Phone is no longer a necessity to connect us but I think both of us still reserved a soft spot in our hearts for this device.
We once in a while write letters for each other and cards are now mostly for special occasions…he leaves me quick notes here and there, one of those “post it” yellow, pink, green little squares, with funny words and smiley faces…and he does not know this but I keep every single one of them as if they are my most cherished possessions in life.

Now we do not need to talk via a device. We talk all the time…or shall I say most of the time I am the one that talks and he is the one that listens and comments here and there, and interestingly his comments are always deeper than life and more soulful than love itself…and there are those times that I fume over the fact that why he is not “talking more deeply and lengthily” and he laughs and jokes and makes funny faces and I remember what a blessing it is to have such a beautiful, innocent “depth” in being…

After the little boss came, my solo trips for my job are rare commodity. But he goes to business trips frequently and we find each other in different time zones once again…no time for lengthily chats and still those quick moments of conversations are what we enjoy so much…whether it is through quick frequent phone calls, emails- not more than a line or two- or constant text massages just to say where we are and what is happening with the life around us….

Life goes on, love changes…

I have a personality like a rock, changes do not come that easily to my doorsteps. If 20 years ago someone would have told me that “love changes”, I would have imagined that “it will be the end of my life as I know it”…today I think “life goes on, love changes and that is the most beautiful thing in the universe”…If this love is the one that “they” call it a “true love” then I have to say: any change is welcome as it only makes it more and more beautiful…It just might makes us go through HELL to cherish the result!

"IT" says good bye....

I look at my little 2 years - old baby boy and whisper to myself in wonder: “So this is when all begins! This is when it “sinks in” one way or another….this is when human being starts to realize that all good things come to an end, that what they are enjoying so much unavoidably comes to an end”.

Little boss is struggling with this “reality”...whether it is his beloved bath time that comes to an end or the Thomas the train show says goodbye or when the play time is enough and we have to go for a nap….He protests so hard. He can not understand why Thomas has to suddenly go or why mommy is telling him that “it is time to come out of the bath”….

For me it is a mesmerizing subject. Maybe because all my life I dread with passion, approaching “the end”…In all honesty I rarely enjoy the moments fully and completely, mostly because I KNOW it will end and that sadness, that deep feeling of loss, prevents me from enjoying the blissful moments. I think I have only 10-12 specific blissful moments in my life that I did not think of the next moment when all comes to an end. So looking at my beloved little boss, I am truly amazed by how quickly it all begins.

My better half and I mostly approach the subject by repeating to him that it will come again, he will have another bath, another Thomas’s show, Thomas needs to go and rest now, “Zoboomafoo” is going to eat his food, Bob the builder will build another project very soon, he can play after the nap…while all the time in my heart I feel this is really not a good way to approach this whole ordeal. So couple of days ago, while he and I were going through one of these episodes, I decided not to give him the illusion that “it will come back”. Because in all “reality”, “IT” the way that “IT” was, will never again come back. So I just held him tightly and decided to talk my points in his language as good as it gets – a little chit chat between mommy and son, something that we are already very used to it.

I told him: “Honey, I know how you must feel. Not feels good”.
Little boss suddenly became calm: “No good momma…I want that bath please!”.
Me: “But bath time finished. The end… You know: Bath time says good bye, “Tabooya” (His made up word for finish)”.
Little boss – in my total astonishment became Silence and then looked at me…: “Tabooya, goodbye….”
Me (putting my foot even deeper in my mouth!): “Tabooya, good bye….every thing says goodbye. Sometimes they will come back later and say hello again. But then they say Tabooya again”

(In my very stupid adult way I prepared myself for the big question of “WHY?” and instead my little boss in his absolute wisdom that only comes from the purity of his age asked me…)
Little boss: “Where go? Goodbye and where go?”
Me: hmmmm….Silence…
(And thinking: I heard about all the questions that will come and we the almighty parents don’t know the answers but I did not know it will be this soon!)

Me: “Well my love, I never thought of it this way. I don’t know”
Little boss: “Call it come mamma…“Bath” where are you? I am here.”
Me: “That will sometimes work but “bath time” will not come back right now. It needs some time”.

And this was when he decided that enough is enough and if “this bath time” is not coming back as soon as he wants, he will not wait anymore and he can go to his next project….such a healthy attitude really. Why should we wait for something that is not coming when we want them to come back!!!!???

I went through all the rituals that night. I sang and read and kissed and hugged endlessly and eventually put him in bed and walked out of his room….I went and sat somewhere in silence and in the dark. The whole ordeal touched so many things some where in my psyche….I travelled in time…to a crispy beautiful afternoon in June years ago…

Destination: A local ice cream café in the fairy city of Prague!
This particular ice cream café is a very small and clean place. One of those place that tourists are not aware of it. You can see local there as their usual customers. It is in “Staré Město” (Old Town) not far from St. Vitus Cathedral….in this little place I had one of my best ice creams.

I can truly say the only other ice cream that its taste stayed with me until now, is from a little Café in my beloved Italy and in the city of Balsamic vinegar; Modena. Some where hidden in Centro storico, there is this little warm place with the aroma of caffè espresso. No matter what season it is, you walk in and you feel the warmth of Italy – even if it is mid December or January. The owner, Luigi, gives you one of those famous Italian smiles and shouts “Ciao Bella!” and you feel you are indeed a “Bella” walking in this store. He tries very hard to make sure you are having his famous Cioccolato or at least Straccicatella Gelato and swears for you that his Tiramisù flavor is even better than the one in Treviso or Siena itself (the two cities with the claims that Tiramisù were their creation! What can I say, Italians really take their food seriously)… In all honesty there is something more than a Gelato or Tartufo in that small place. The whole experience makes it memorable, like anything else in Italy - not Tourist Italy but Italian Italy. By now I concluded that there is something in the soil, water and language of Italy that makes one believes whole heartedly in “La dolce Vita”. But writing about my beloved Italy can be the subject of another post all together….


Back to Prague….
In that particular afternoon, in the company of few of my loved ones, I had a truly “memorable” ice cream. Whoever knows me, knows that I am not an ice cream person – or sweet person for that matter. So when I almost licked my bowel of ice cream my better half smiled and said you really liked this one ha?…and I replied: I can not believe it is finished so quickly. He said: why don’t you order another one? Well, I was truly full….I sat there, looked at the old town with its fairy landscape and the life that was going on in the street and in the air…while I could hear the voices of the happy conversation of my company in the background. It was a combination of peaceful and exciting moment. One of those rare moments in time that you have the two extremes side by side and actually enjoying the contrast. I looked at the table and noticed everyone is done with their portions and the conversation was already about the plan for that night and let’s get ready to go….Suddenly I felt such a deep sadness in my bones. I could not believe my perfect moment was over. Why did it have to be so short? The rest of that day, that sadness stayed with me….In my mind, I wanted the taste of that ice cream again….

Few days after that, in another beautiful afternoon, I made sure the planning go somehow that we all go back there for another ice cream. We walked in and out of total coincident even sat on the same spot. Every one ordered ice creams and I was the only one that ordered the same flavor – did not want to spoil my moment by any surprise!

We had our ice cream, chat, laughed and looked around but in my disbelief, as delicious as the ice cream was, it was not as good as the first time…..

That day I went for a stroll on the Charles Bridge. I stood in the middle of the historic sight and leaned against the wall and looked at the Vltava River for a long time. I was watching the flow of the water and thinking about the memory of my ice cream.

No matter how many times you repeat an experience, it always is a new event. It does not matter how many times you push the rewind bottom and listen to your favorite music, it is not the same as the first time you heard it, as the first time it took your breath away.

There are times that you might even feel better, more blissful and happier when you are listening to that music for the 100 times. But is it really the music that you are hearing for the 100 times? It never is….it was not “the ice cream”, it was that moment, that spot in the universe and time where so many perfect roads came together and created the perfect experience….

“IT” will never come back my son. Another “IT” will come, sometimes even better and more joyful than the first “IT”…but that “IT” says good bye and goes and echoes in the memory of the universe where everything lives over and over and over again for the very first time!

When I was not looking…

They say: “when you are not searching, you will find it”…they say: “the best thing happens when you least expects it”….
Well I think at least for once, “they” are correct!

I was not searching at all, I did not expect ANYTHING that day…I woke up to that very ordinary day and did my very ordinary things and went to that very familiar place…and there you were. I was among my "sister- friend"s and you were among your good friends. I turned around and met your eyes staring at me…your eyes that were blinking with stars in them…and somewhere deep down in my soul I knew I am at the presence of a miracle!

I was too proud to acknowledge what is happening. I resisted it for long time. You on the other hand, are always much healthier than me. Your pride is always more balanced than mine. You knew that there is no reason to deny the most profound love of all.

Surrender to loving you was indeed one of the most glorious moments of my life.
Your existence in my life is the highest miracle of all….
Any blissful moment in my life somehow originated from you…you are in the center of all that is blissful and magnificent for me.

You look at me and I know you are reading me inside out, no need for words, no need for explanations…no need to hide anything from you…you accept me with no condition, no judgment, no prejudice….and that was how it was from the first “hello”!

To be myself with you, with no censorship and hiding, is the easiest thing in my life…and “that” you know so well, does not come naturally or easily to me!

Indeed from the start I knew I am “home”, the only home that I ever know in my entire life. You are the one that I come to, no matter how far I run away in my wild searches in life. The stars in your eyes are the North Star that helps me find my way back to “home”, no matter how lost I am or ever will be…

Just a simple touch of your hand can free me from all the demons and self made prisons in my life.

You, my love, are the only one in the universe that gives me unconditional peace in life…a luxury that is so rare for my turbulent personality.
You lift all the worries, all the fears, all the frustrations and all my running away.
Ah how easily you take away my unbearable heaviness of being…

You bring hope to my heart, erase my sadness, and bring the deepest desire in me to be better version of myself: to exercise forgiveness more and accept flaws as if they are unique beauties in a masterpiece called human being. Your unconditional tolerance for people always amazes me….

And above all, you make me laugh no matter how sad or mad or hopeless I feel. You are possibly the only one in the entire universe that can bring out the deep, from the core laughter, to me…the kind of laughter that is with no boundary, the kind that makes one loose herself in the moment of life….I never know how you do it my dearest dear!

You came to “be” in this world, few years earlier than me and at that moment all the Gods in the universe were smiling upon my soul…you were the miracle, the beacon of hope and love that was coming to be in my life.

I cherish your being with all my heart and soul.
I go to the most sacred alter of my life, to pray to all divinity in the world and give thanks for the blessing that is your soul…

Thank you for “being” my dear love, my closest friend.

I love you more than any words in any language can describe…but then again my love, you know the depth of my love for you…no need to talk, no need to write….just to gaze in each others’ soul….

Life moves on....

“And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?”
He said that a lifetime ago, so casually and carelessly…

I told him: “Wow, where is that from?”
He replied with sudden seriousness in his posture: “Does it need to be from anywhere to make it more or less true for a person?”….

…..

It was the first time that I saw the face of a “loss”. I was too young to process the reason and too old to EVER forget the pain. It was the first time that I saw with my own eyes, it is not a myth when one’s hair becomes ALL white just over a night. It was the first time that I saw life can be so unfair. The unfairness was no longer in the books or the media or even the stories of the neighborhood…the unfairness hit unexpectedly, out of absolute no where. It was the first time in my life that I wondered about the big question of all: “and what is the lesson in this one? Does she need any more lessons after this?”

I saw her stunningly beautiful face collapsed under the unbearable heaviness of the pain. She stopped all the clocks, cut off the telephone line and let her life stops for eternity. For her the stars did not blink any more, the moon and the sun disappeared forever. For me, she being still alive is the unfairness of all….Death can be such a mercy sometimes….

It was the first time that I understood what did Auden meant by:
“He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest…”

Eventually for all his friends, life did move on. Surprisingly the force of life is stronger for youth. We carried his torch as much as we could. We, his “soul – brothers” and “soul – sisters”, flew away in different directions…each had our own cross to carry…as that is the definition of life. We experienced the bliss and sorrow of life, each in our own way and we continue to experience that in our daily routine of life.

I grew up so much in the years that followed. I aged beyond my years not by passing of time but by my experiences in life….I hit the bottom of my abyss and felt so many times life is not worth living even for another single breath…and I flew high on the wings of the most profound bliss and thanked all Gods in the universe for being alive just to experience those moments…..and like most of the people, most of the time I lead a simple life in between those extremes.

We lived and she lived "HIS" life through each and every one of us. She became our surrogate mother and our children became her grandchildren, the children of the one that she will never have…

…..

I called her yesterday… we both knew it is few days earlier than THE day. We talked; we even laughed…a progress for this time of the year…a progress that comes only when so many years are passed.

I could smell the familiar aroma, hear the familiar sounds, and watch the passing of the familiar autumn day from her window…that friendly window that I miss so much....

I could see the familiar pain…so far away and yet I could reach and touch her pain.

The pain that did not become less, no matter how long is passed…
The pain that is intensified by the hundred echoes of the memories…
The pain that is prolonged with the imagination of the life that could have been….that should have been…
The pain that only became more hidden by passing of a time that feels like an eternity…

And “That” pain is heavier than ever for me, “HER” pain that I feel more than before since I experienced “the heart of a mother”….

“There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels WITH someone…”
My thoughts flew away: where did I read this? I wondered….

And then his words, echoed in time “no matter where it is from, nothing makes it more or less true for one person”…I swear I heard the ringing of his laughter….

You were so right my dear friend; No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books, either to discover or to control himself..…I smiled….

We were saying our usual goodbyes…don’t worry for me, I love you, I miss you…

And then her sudden seriousness, the mirror of that other familiar soul: “Promise you will take care of yourself, you have no idea how precious your life is for me”…and then her whisper in the phone: “Wish you were here...”

The silence that is pregnant with all the things that she wanted to say...

I said with hidden tears in my voice: “You will remember my flowers for him, won’t you?”
And her reply: “Always!”

To be or not to be?

Have you experienced one of those moments in life that everything that comes to your road is pointing to one subject?

Some call it synchronicity, some call it pure coincidence...and a particular friend of mine thinks the whole thing is because a person is sensitive to that subject at that moment of time, therefore she notices it more frequent but the frequency of happening it, is exactly like always....

I do belong to the camp of synchronicity....but in all honesty most of the time I think "WHO CARES WHAT IS THE REASON. IT IS HAPPENING AND THAT IS THE BOTTOM LINE"!

So in last couple of weeks, I hear sentences like this so often:
"Oh you are pregnant with your second one, how brave you are!", "I am not sure how can I bring kids to this world. Look at the situation in the world, the recession, the genocide, Darfur...", "I think I have to have full self awareness before become a parent", "Kudos to you, you are really brave to put your heart for more anxiety, heartbreak and fear out there", "with this terrible world, I am so fearful to become a parent".....and so on.

Interestingly I hear these things from strangers in the grocery shop, patients in my clinic, my acquaintances, my friends and even read them in different blogs (mommy blogs and non mommy blogs)!

The whole thing put me in a loop, one of those that you think and think and think and then you realize you just went so deep that you don't even know which way is up and which way down?!

Today a patient told me something that made me come out of my loop and have an answer to it all...at least an answer for myself. She said: "I am always afraid if one day in the future the child will tell me: why did you bring me to life? What is so good about it when there is so much terrible things around us".

Believe it or not, I am not that much out of touch with disasters in our world. Not only by nature I lean toward pessimism - believe it or not! - but thanks to my profession I come in touch with unbearable individuals' suffering: from people as young as 3 years old kids battling with sever terminal cancer, to men and women in their prime of life going through blindness and so much more thanks to MS, to people that are hitting the bottom of the abyss of depression, to a wife that witnesses his husband disappears right in front of her eyes after 45 years of marriage thanks to Alzheimer's.....I see men and women at any age, healthy in body and sick in mind, go through many different kind of addictions and throw away what ever time they have on this earth.

I am not blind to the cruelty of our race, to the rape and genocide that happens ALL the time at one part or the other of this planet we call home. My heart aches for the children that are being sold right at this minute as I am typing these meaningless words. I go to a rage with the thought of child abduction and child slavery. I feel a sinking sensation every time that I think of the women that has to sell themselves to bring food for their children....

I am aware of the pressure that still is on women...no matter which part of the world they live in. Some are as obvious as in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and some are as hidden as in US, Canada and Europe.

It is a long time now that I realized that human race is the most cruel and senseless of all the animals...a race that can kill another human so merciless, or worse than that, a race that can torture and abuses another being in every sense of the word....

I also live in this world that the cost of life is going to the roof, that soon we will need a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread....I am living in the same world that politicians are talking sweet and acting cruel, in the same world that the word "patriotism" is being used so carelessly and as a mean for any action, in the same land that freedom is just a myth and deep down the fear rules us all....

I live in this world that "Machiavelli" would have been so proud of his "Prince" every day of the year. I am breathing the same dingy air of lie, deceit and corruption. I am living in the same society that the race to gain power is the highest nobility of humanity, a world that intolerance for the individual rights for life is nothing but poetry.....

Shall I go on my friends?....

Believe me, I am not telling you all this to persuade you to become a parent. I am as "pro choice" as it comes, for EVERYTHING IN LIFE. I believe people make choices for their lives and all of those choices deserves the highest respect of all, even if we disagree...especially if we disagree!

Most of the time I question the actions and not the intention. So I am the advocate of choice no question in it. Those that know me well, know that I actually believe, WITH ALL MY HEART, that not everyone needs to be a parent - or should be for that matter- in order to fulfill their lessons in life. We come to this world for a reason or two and not necessarily that means we have to bare children of our own or care for any child at all to fulfill our "destiny" - what ever this controversial word means!

But I am going through all these meaningless words one after another to ask you only one point:

Have you ever looked at sunrise? did a sunset ever took your breath away? Have you smelled a flower and felt mesmerized by it? Did you listen to the silence of the nature and think of the grandness of it all? Have you looked at "Botticelli's primavera", listened to "Moonlight sonata" and gazed in the vision of "Gaudi" and felt in awe of the ability of another human being? Did you think of mother Theresa and her unbelievable selflessness despite the deceit of the religion, the abyss of her depression and the darkness of the world? Have you looked up in the starry night and went to a silent prayer for the vastness of the world?

Have you ever fell in love? Did you feel the ache of every cell of your body in the yearning of touching the hands of the beloved? Have you gazed in the eyes of the lover and sank in there for all eternity? Did you ever feel love...even if it was supposed to come to an end one day in the near or distant future?

If the answer to any of these is "yes"...then my friend, do you think was it fair for you to miss this "life"? Was it better for you to not have been born? did you prefer to miss the feeling of LOVE in ANY shape or form?

After all:

"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."

Just one of those days….

Just one of those days….

My sister - friend gave birth to her first child very far away from me. Although a few of my frineds’ kids call me aunt, I feel I just became an aunt today. She gave birth very far away from me, in a totally differnt time zone and her husband called me less than 15 minutes after the birth, very early morning my time, and we cried and laughed and cried more on the phone…and then I called my better half that is on a business trip and is on totally another time zone…I woke him up and cried and laughed and chat and he was yawning for half of it and speechless from joy for another half…..

Just one of those days….

My sister- friend called me from hospital and after a serious cry and laugh and cry and chat….she told me about the night and day that she had and how all ended up in my nephew being born….and then she, being totally consumed with fatigue, adrenalin rush and good amount of Prolactin and “happy” hormone (the one and only: Endorphin) asked me the big million dollar question:
"Tell me something. The rest of the child rearing can not be as hard as my last 15 hours…can it?”

I laughed and teased and avoided the answer altogether….after all it is not that often that we, mothers, can be high on such natural happy hormones!!! Why spoil it for this sweet sister of mine?!

Then I put the phone down and had to deal with one of those toddler days…one of those days that if someone would have pulled out every hair on my head, would have been so much easier and less painful than going through all the tantrums, terrible twos pattern of behavior, whining, non stop talk and question, refuse to do anything that is being asked for and do everything that is a big NO NO NO!

One of those toddler days that Mamma did not say much other than:
Don’t do it!
Stop it there Mr.!
Don’t even think about it!
I know your trick my boy!
Where do you think you are going?
And what does that cry mean now?
Please be gentler
Watch where you are running to
Hello, mamma is calling for you
OK time for "time out"!

Just one of those days….

He is in his crib now and tries to fall asleep and I am sleeping with my eyes open, the irony of life...

I am typing these words and thinking of my sister – friend…Oh my dear sweet sister. The labor is so much easier than the child rearing. It is a tough role, it is exhausting, it will push your boundaries beyond anything in your life, there are times that you want to cry out of exhaustion and desperation, there are times that you are truly clueless and unbelievably out of any patience, there are times that you feel how can I go on one more minute and above all there is that good old guilt and second guessing of the mothers….and yet at the end of the day while you go through all that roller coaster rides and the three ring circus acts, while every cell in your body aches and the pain can be felt in every muscle and bone of your half broken body, you just smile…

Even when smiling is too energy consuming: you still smile!
Even if your facial muscles don't work anymore, you will still smile in your heart!

Just one of those days….

A lifetime of events, a blink of my eyes!

I did not need any alarm clock to wake up much earlier than necessary!

My body’s alarm clock worked perfectly on its own. Every cell in my being remembers the exact hour and the minutes of the most important moment of my life.

I needed to be as close to him as I could physically be, exactly at those minutes. Call it mothers sentiment, call it woman’s logic of heart!

I tried very hard not to wake up my better half. I tipped toed toward little boss’s room, very aware of all the creaks and cracks sound…. walked in very slowly, breathing deep to take in his adorable smell and the peaceful energy of his room.

There, in the dark, is he… my first born baby.

Wow! In just few minutes he will be officially two years old and yet look at him… How tiny he is, this baby of mine.

As always, blankets all on one side far away from his body… his most beloved teddy bear close to his side.

I bend into his crib (as much as my growing belly allows me) and adjust his blankets and touch his hair…a gentle touch, as if only air brushed his hair.

He releases a loud and deep breath and I can see his peaceful face. My eyes can see so much better in the dark than in the light (the joke of the family) and I use this blessing right there and then to look deeply in every line of his sweet face and peaceful body.

His hair, damp with sweat - the sweat that smells like tuberose for me (and I am not kidding here. It really smells like tuberose – my favorite flower way before I had him!)….the little tiny drooling line beside his cheek….he is every inch a baby.

No matter how much he is grown up compare to two years ago…compare to that very first moment that they put his naked body on my naked belly and chest…compare to that moment that still the umbilical cord was connecting us together, one body, two souls!

My baby….my baby!

In a blink of an eye, I go back to that moment two years ago: my heart was in my throat, ready for my whole world to flip off its axis…and still I did not know what is going to happen. I was as ready as I could be for everything to change in my world, excited and totally consumed with fear and anxiety….I knew I was in for the emotional makeover of my life but as God is my witness, I never thought it will be this profound and this divine!

Becoming a mother is for many women, the time that they most mature. Suddenly the things that should have always mattered and never was in my horizon did matter…. and the things that once consumed me blew away like hot air balloon!

Two years is passed… a lifetime, a blink of an eye!

I kneeled beside his crib, put my face to its side, breath in and tried to take in every breath that comes out of his sweet body.

In this quiet and dark, he is no longer a toddler that climbs, runs, screams and throws tantrums. He is no longer the little guy that runs to mommy because of a “boo, boo” but does not have enough patience to stay still in order for me to make the “boo boo” better….He is no longer the toddler that tries to do stuff “myself, I, me”!

He is just he, my first born, my first baby, always a baby, always soft and vulnerable and in need of me, always in need of me.

I put my hand inside his crib, fingers toward his tiny hand but afraid to touch it in case it will disturb his peaceful sleep… I am thinking of that moment, the first moment of the most important encounter of my life… I looked at the clock and that is the exact moment…suddenly his fingers grab my index finger. My heart sinks in…I looked at him: he is sleeping…and yet his hand is holding mine…I am back to two years ago exactly this moment…

My baby, always my baby!

Je Me Souviens…

Autumn is here…my bittersweet fall!

Already the last week was a prelude to the symphony of my emotions; an avalanche of feelings…

Like every year I become more silence, words can not carry the depth of the feelings and life experiences; words - in any of the languages that I know - can not do justice to emotions….

So I cherish the silence of my mind and dive deep into my being, go for a swim at the very deep end of the ocean….overwhelmed with bliss and sorrow…

Heart is such a mystery…one can carry the two extremes side by side, at every moment in life…

Oh how I love autumn…and every year I fall deeper in love with this season….

Memories…
That is what autumn brings back to me…year after year!
More than anything: memories…

Am I in love with this season or just consumed with my memories and experiences?

Those moments that made me who I am today!
Those events, emotions and lessons…for better or worse, they shaped me and re-created me over and over….

The best of my life, the worst of my life…and all in between…
A landscape of events and places which mixes and overlaps with one another in a manner more than perfection

Like a drawing that I can never see anywhere other than the deepest, most sacred corner of my heart

I can not forget anything
I choose not to forget anything….

Each year fall returns and I do return with it to the poetry of my heart.

I remember…

Remember my son...

My dear "Little Boss",

In 2 weeks you will be 2 years old. Couple of months after that you will start your “Toddler program” and while it will be only for 3 hours a day; still I am anxious for the change that you will face in your daily routine of life. It will be your first step in the type of education that your father and I chose for you. In just a few months we will welcome your new baby brother in our life…another change in your world…you will need to share your kingdome my sweet king!

So many millstones are just ahead of you….so many changes, so many new challenges and so many new rewards. Lately mamma’s nights are consumed with all these thoughts, the happiness that these changes will bring and the unknowingness of it all….

Are you ready to deal with them? Am I ready for them? And above all, how can I make the changes less shocking for you? How can I help you to adapt and move on happily? It is so important for me to make your life happy, for you to realize happiness is so precious…

I am anxious and sometimes fearful for all the known and unknown things that are in your way, and yet from the moment that you were born, one of my promises to you was to help you to fly high with freedom, courage and hope….today more than ever I have the mixture of fear and courage…this day more than any other day!

On this day seven years ago, at 8:57am, our world, the way that we knew it, changed in so many ways. This day became one of those days in the history book that people would always remember where they were and what they were doing at exactly those minutes that tragedy happened to the “free world”.

Your knowledge from that day and the events that followed it will be from history books…and yet my history books showed me that the writers are the sole owners of the authenticity of “our history”!

Things undeniably changed from this day seven years ago…for a while after that people were nicer to each other, made decisions with more humanity in heart and mind, priority in life changed and kindness came to the society.

Then time passed on and the world found itself consumed with bitterness, prejudice and fear, in a war that seems never ending and above all everyone gradually accepted a very high price on their human rights as the necessity for “safety”.

Land of the free? Not anymore
Home of the brave? I am not sure

The fear of unknown, of the evil that we do not see; the type of fear that people of Middle East live with it daily and hourly for such a long time; became part of the daily routine of many lives. The “hope” vanished from many hearts and gives its place to fear, anger and hatred.

Mothers realized that no matter what they do to make sure their babies are safe and sound, still bad things happen to very good people…still anger and hatred can destroy lives, souls and even the future of the world….

Such hopelessness can easily come to the hearts…

My dear sweet love, I look at you today and I wish I could shield you from all the heartbreaks and dangers that are ahead. But my dear son, the reality of life is that our time here is brief and some of it will be tragic. There will be sadness for which we cannot prepare ourselves, and yet we have to embrace the lessons in them. There will be fearful moments beyond imagination and yet we have to be brave.

We have to; HAVE TO my son; not give in to fear or hatred. They WILL lead us down the wrong path, a path that will take us further away from our human soul and lead us closer to our animal side.

As anxious as I am (and believe me my son I am a very anxious person), still I want to tell you to take chances. Play in the sand, even though there are some very sick people in the world that hide infected needles in children’s sandbox. Play with the mud and get dirty…look around and take it all in. LIVE my son, LIVE fully and completely…and make sure to take precautious too as I told you so many times, life is precious...your life is precious beyond belief my sweet boy.

Look both ways before you cross a street, but cross the street.

Above all my dear sweet son, make sure to be kind, forgiving, considerate, compassionate and understanding…play fair my son!

Remember, there is ALWAYS two sides to every coin….

I love you beyond words,
Mamma

Doubts, second guessing, intuition and more...

She is a dear friend, not so close to me but never the less “dear”. She is also expecting, one month ahead of me. This will be her third child, the first two being boys. When she heard my news, she was genuinely excited: “Now we share something that makes us even closer and closer than before”.

A month ago, she called me and with the first “Hello” I knew something hit her hard. My heart sank in. The thoughts always go to the worst scenario when you are talking to pregnant women in distress.

S: I just came out of my ultrasound.
Me: Everything is good and fine, Ya?!
S: OH yes, the baby is healthy... It’s a boy….
Me: OH MY GOD that is SOOOO exciting. You found out the gender.
S: Yap, It’s a boy! I will have three boys, no girls…I need you to help me to get over my shock. It must not be good for the baby…We wanted a girl this time…I really really wanted a girl!
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ME: “S” called me today. They are having a boy.
My better half: WOW that is amazing. What an energetic household that will make.
ME: Silence
HIM: BTW I think they wanted a girl.
ME: How did you know?
HIM: Blink, Blink
ME: I have a confession to make…Blink, Blink
HIM: I feel like a priest or something:):)
ME: I never thought of it until today…I think I will be a better mother to boys….
HIM: How do you know that? You never had a daughter!

ME: Logically that is a correct argument. But women “feel” these things….and let’s face it I never was a girly girl, even as a child. I was never into dolls and tea parties. People goo goo and ga ga over the outfits for girls and I look at it and think it is good for a doll but not for practicality of daily life…my daughter will be very disappointed with my not so feminine side! I am really afraid I will disappoint my daughter....

HIM: I forgot the famous women’s “feelings”…and while you are at it, let’s not forget “pink” is your least favorite color hahhaha

ME: I am serious. I feel our baby is a boy and I think I also WANT THE BABY to be a boy, don’t you think the two brothers with close age will be good for each other? You can argue that I really don't know that, being the only child and all...

Although “They” say “Girl will stay and boy will leave”. For my selfish side, daughter is better in the long run I guess….still I think I will be better suited as the mother of boys….Maybe at this stage of my life I still did not learn to be a mother to a girl, maybe it changes in couple of years…I don’t know!

HIM: OH sweetie, I think no matter a boy or a girl, they will leave us. Only you and I stay for each other….
ME: Blink, Blink

HIM: Well the good thing is that we want children / babies, not gender, who cares it is a boy or a girl:):):)…Keep in mind “they” also say: “Mama’s boy and Daddy’s girl”…so in that way boys will be closer to you….

ME: Deep down I agree, WHO CARES IT IS A BOY OR GIRL. If I could, I would have had a dozen of children, half boys and half girls…But still I have a feeling, an intuition. Until today’s phone call I did not think of it one way or the other…now I can not shake it off!
I think I can teach my boys to be kind men, the type that “feel” and “talk about their feelings” and don’t hesitate to show their emotions because they are “A MAN”, the type that respect, cherish and honor women. I think that is one task that mothers can help their boys the most with….

HIM: In that department, I totally agree with you. You will be amazing for this task. And as for the talking and sharing the emotions, look at the little boss, he carries a conversation with you longer than I do…:):):)
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“They” do say: “Mamma’s boy and Daddy’s girl”.

I had / have more similarities with my father, similarities in hobbies, interests and above all in our personalities…We shared our books, love for history, philosophy, horses, skiing, never ending debates and so much more…everyone think I am a mirror image of him in personality. We share an especial bond even in my never ending discussions with him!

But deep in my heart and soul, I am and always was a “Mamma’s girl”. Our personalities are not the same - maybe except the anxious gene and the planning ahead….and yet I feel the most security in her presence, the most comfort and peace. I share the most hidden corner of my being with her. She never talks and I always like to have a discussion about issues. She never expresses her love and I love to show how much I love…. and still with the exception of my better half, I was and am “myself” the most with my mother.

From the outside everyone assume that I am daddy’s girl but to us and to the people closest to us the umbilical cord between my mom and I never stopped working….
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In the car, on the way there I tell my better half (trying my best convincing tone): “Let’s not find out what is the gender. You know they can not guarantee that they are correct and there are examples of them making a mistake in announcing the gender with the ultra sound”.

My better half can not control his laughter. “You can not even wait to open your gift for more than 10 seconds. Every time I have to go to million and one strategies to hide a gift for you and you make the house upside down to hunt it. I make a deal with you, if YOU choose to not find out, I am OK with waiting…but I make a bet, you CAN NOT do that”….he laughs all the way there…
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The technician finishes with all the technical stuff and goes out to bring him in and “Let the fun begin”. I sit up and bend to see the monitor. “OH he knows me so well…I can not control myself!”…

The screen is divided into the last 4 pictures. One shows the four chambers of the baby’s heart - priceless…the other is a little tiny hand on the face with the thumb in the mouth, I could recognize the nostrils and the lips - I have tears at this point....the third is the spine and the fourth….OH MY GOD, I know the gender!

The door opens. My better half and the technician walk in…he bursts into laughter, I look like a child with her hands in the cookie jar. “YOU COULD NOT WAIT, COULD YOU?!”….“Hey, I know what is the gender, It’s a ….”.

The Technician protests: “I did not tell you yet. How would you know?”…My better half: “Well the thing is that she is familiar with the ultrasound pictures”. She interrupts: “But let me give the tour myself…, “this is…this is ….look at…and this is….let’s move around…now here….and do you want to know the gender?”

My better half challenges me with his look. I reply: “OH YA, we do want your professional opinion on the subject”.

“Well you were correct. This “not so little thing” in there can only exist in BOYS. You are having a boy”.

My better half and I cheered… that kind of laughter that comes with tears... Excited, cheerful, no words to explain it…

“God willing I will be mother of two boys for now”…and as for the future and later on…it is in divine’s hand!

One more year...

I woke up earlier than usual. Everything needed to be done and prepared earlier because of an appointment early in the morning. So the race started: wake up, shower, dress, prepare for our day ahead, pick the little boss from his crib, kiss him head to toe, hugs, chat, sing and dance and pretend it is all a big game when I am changing his diaper, washing him and putting clothes on his energetic body…In my mind there is no time for diddly doo…and still I am doing it just for his smiles and giggles.

Looking at my better half, he sneezes since last night, nose blocked, tired eyes…I am worried for him. I am tired, I am frustrated and no patience for any domino effects that his nasty colds usually bring to our households…. For me it is so much easier to be sick than witness the sickness of the ones that I love. But this time it is not me alone, little baby is moving in me. Hungry, impatient, like the little boss I guess…

Move on…move on….

I quickly look at the headlines: The heaviness of the world around me weighs on me, even if it is not necessarily MY experience but still MY WORLD. Sadness seems everywhere. So tough to search for hope and all…

There's so much misery around us; so much to fear and….I just put my hand on my little belly. My angel in there moves and I know hope does exist….

Multi tasking…that is what mothers do. While sitting not so patiently for my appointment, I check my emails with my i-phone. I really like my new toy but if I did not have it, then I could have closed my eyes and rest for a minute instead of responding to emails and all….Life is becoming even more complicated. Oh if only I could shut the world just for a little five minutes?

One email talks about some nasty things that happened to some good people.
My thoughts linger on horrible things I never want to face. I can't turn away. I can't shut them off. Worry. Worry. Worry. I can only worry.

Truth is I've always been this way. Anxieties and worries are my companion. I learned to live with them artfully; I learned to survive them skillfully but never left them behind.

The race of the heart, worries that are like the ripples from a pebble that someone tossed in my stream, my mind whirling silently in the space, full of never ending circles...on and on and on…

Daily routine of life continues…

It is toward the end of the day. Putting the last dish in the dishwaser, chatting with little boss from one side and better half from the other; trying to concentrate on what he is talking about: Democrat, Republican, Obama, McCain… while I am singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” for little boss…and promising my little baby in me that Mamma will sleep earlier tonight! I think! I hope…

Better half goes silent right in the middle of his heated talk. He gently stands behind me and his arms circle my body, hands on my belly….tries very hard not to breath in my direction so that his cold does not come to my doorsteps… my hands rest on his, I put my weight on his body, I am finally weightless, even if it is for a moment in time…both of us stand still in that pose, no need to talk, no need to move….looking at what is in front of us: little boss sitting on the kitchen floor and playing with all our pots and pans…banging them, laughing and chatting.

His gentle kiss lands on the back of my neck, he rests his forehead there and smell my hair…still avoids any breathing in my direction….and right there and then the lightness comes to my heart….even if it will last for a short few moment; I am thankful, I am free….

He lifts all the worries, all the fears, all the frustrations and all my running away.

He takes away my unbearable heaviness of being….just the same way that he did nine years ago on this day…just the same way that he did the first moment that I laid eyes on his cheerful face and sparking eyes all those years ago…a lifetime ago…Just the same way that he will do it for all my eternity… I know I am home!

Join me in my camp…by choice or by force!!!!!!!

As good as I am in playing Chess, I stink in Backgammon!

My father taught me both of them – or taught me the Chess and attempted very hard for the Backgammon!

Both he and my better half are amazing players in the later one and I am always in awe in how can they do that.

Well I did not learn that much Backgammon from all those extensive training that my father had planned for me…except one sentence!

I think this one phrase stick to my grey cells because being a 7 years old kid; it was a strange sentence coming from my extremely logical father …

And that magical sentence is:
“Backgammon will teach you that 2+2 is not always equal to 4”.

He said that and he never thought in his wildest, very logical imagination that this simple sentence is what her daughter’s core life is made of, that this sentence is the most natural thing for her daughter…

Years passed and I grew up and heard the ABBA song “The winner takes it all” and fell in love with the part that says:

“The gods may throw a dice

Their minds as cold as ice

And someone way down here

Loses someone dear

The winner takes it all

The loser has to fall

Its simple and its plain

Why should I complain.”

We roll our dice and move our players and although luck, or synchronicity or whatever you want to call it, plays a role in the whole game of life, we still need some sort of strategy, some kind of planning… and ultimately we learn that sometimes no matter how much we plan and prepare ourselves for what is ahead in life, things will not work and go according to our master strategy…that our good old 2+2 is equal to zero or infinite or anything in between….

I learned that the hard way…that no matter what a good player I am in life, how much I prepare myself and plan and strategize, “The Gods may throw the dice” and there is NOTHING I can do other than modify my life and move on…..

The unexpected side of life, the unpredictability of it makes me shiver to my core and even right at that moment of fear an adrenalin shot of excitement develops somewhere deep in my being….

Does having a “faith” helps in dealing with all the unexpected in life?

Just by using the word “FAITH” in a sentence I opened myself for numerous prejudgments. I think, thanks to all the organized religions and specifically all three major mono-theist religions, the word faith is associated with some of the negative connotations….as if when you have faith you must be sitting on your "a…" and letting someone else lives your life….as if having faith is equal to being passive in life….

And in the same breath, there are some people that believe lacking faith is equal to doom and gloom…and is a major abomination for all the holies in life….

You hear a sentence like:
“Faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate." From Richard Dawkins.... and then you also hear one of my personal favorite quotes from no other source but Star Treck:):):)

"That's the thing about faith. If you don't have it, you can't understand it. And if you do, no explanation is necessary."

Regardless of what you think or believe about faith or lack of it for that matter, my problem starts when one person tries very hard to convince the other to join his/ her camp…..and the normal method of convincing is nothing short of verbal harassment….after all people mostly want to belittle each other's choice of life…to just tell them: “my way is better, is more correct, is right”…Oh that stinking battle of right vs. wrong!

What is it with us human race? Do we need the strength that comes from number? Does our personal belief and individual choices need some sort of “majority makes it more true”?

Sometimes I close my eyes and think all the wars that is going on in different corner of our world, happens everyday, over and over, in a smaller and sometimes spiritually nastier scale, between two people: being two neighbors, two colleagues, teacher and student, two paretners, two siblings, two friends, parent and a child, two lovers…..all in the name of “sharing ideas”, in the name of “giving you advice”, in the name of “teaching you”…..

What a nasty lives we lead sometimes….

And then we wonder why we do not have peace in Middle East!!!!!!!!!!

Love, change and beyond… Part One

Note: Thanks to “Tête-à-tête / Parinaz” for re-opening my Pandora box….

So many times in any given week, I tell to myself if only everyone could be brave enough to take steps to know and live their inner dreams, we would have been living in a world much happier and considerably fairer.

Today, after many ups and downs in my life, I believe that we all have the ability to change the path that we chose to walk in, to change the life that does not make us happy, to recognize our most inner wish and dream….we just don’t all have the courage to act.

To exist is to change- whether this change is in a “maturing” direction or not.
I think to mature is to go on and create oneself endlessly…But the reality is that even the changes that we long for them the most, bring a certain level of melancholy…after all what we leave behind is part of ourselves. It is mourning for a death and the joy for a birth…in order to enter another world, we have to end and die in the previous one….and that needs tremendous courage.

But I also learned, in my not very calm life, that there is another element that is a “must” and a “necessity” for any change. Courage comes only secondary to that.

A need, a desire, a force…that is what is a “must” for a change. I think right there lays my dilemma. What does each one of us use as a force, in order to change? I wonder….

One of the scariest changes in my life came when I totally switched the course of my career. I shocked many people when I stopped being a student in a master degree program for molecular biology and started the road in a life time study of holistic medicine. I remember in a letter to a dear friend, I broke the news with the Robert Frost poem: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”

Today, years after that turning point in my life, I can not begin to understand the fear that surrounded my decision making moment. Was it abandoning the familiar and choosing the unknown? Was it the discomfort of starting from point zero? I don’t know…..But I remember very vividly what gave me the courage and became the force for that change: I was utterly unhappy and bitter with the road that I had in front of me.

One day the total lack of enthusiasm, hitting the rock bottom of unhappiness with my daily routine of life and never finding the answer to “why do I continue with this road?” made me JUMP….Jump from one side of the cliff to the other….and as Frost said: THAT MADE ALL THE DIFFERNCES.

I think the force there was the good old primal desire for survival. The bitterness would have killed me in a way that no “angel of death” could have!
Like any animal in this world, I had to survive….and to do that I had to change!

“They” say “love” can be a source for a change, “they” say “love” SHOULD be a force for a change….
Should it?
I don’t know….

Or maybe I should say: I am not sure I agree with the perception of majority of population about the love that brings “that sort of” change…and that always is a paradox to me.

All my life, the one constant point that kept me from drowning, was LOVE. Love was, is and always will be my North Star. I am an endless eternal lover. I love, love with all its sweet glories and bitter pains, with all the pains that comes from too much tenderness. I love, love with all the wounds that it brings me because of my own limited understanding of love at any given moment of life. It is a bleeding willingly and happily.

In the words of a sage: “love is a disease no one wants to get rid of. Those who catch it never try to get better, and those who suffer do not wish to be cured”.

As masochistic as it might sound, I do not regret any painful time that is caused because of love and longing that comes as a result of it. I bare my scars with honor, I cherish them like a woman that cherishes the pain of labor in order to taste that single moment of bliss of seeing her baby for the first time……

I have enough experince in my life to understand lust can be mistaken with love. I also came to understand and celebrate different types of love: from the roller coaster of Eros, to the safty and security of Philia, to the blissful, heavenly feeling of Agape….

To love so deep that you wake up and give thanks to be alive one more day, only to love again – that is the pure purpose of life….Loving on its own, in how ever shape or form it is, worth living in this world….

Does this make me too idealistic? If that is the case, so be it.

In all honesty, I gave up on the concept of ideal and real years ago…I am not sure anymore what exactly is realistic in this world, while reality changes so dramatically with each and every perception.

Having said all this about love, I do not belive LOVE brings any change other than making one person a better version of herself / himself. I am not sure love SHOULD bring ANY changes other than that….

And this is my paradox….

Should a lover be a reason to change? And if yes, does that change really a change? What if one day we will open our eyes to a whole new world, a world that does not “feel” that person any more? Should we get rid of the “changes” and move on?

We love, what the lover’s love. But do we ignore and abandon what we love as an individual?

I cherish the word of one of my all time favorite authors, Saint Exupéry, when he said “Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction”.

In all honesty I cherish more the gazing so deeply at each other in order to find each others differences, uniqueness and deep inner beauties and ugliness…to find, celebrate and love them is a heavenly dimension of love, a dimension that can add so much to the lovers’ “growth” and “maturity”.

I think more than anything I believe in what “Prophet” said – and hope to love like that before I take my last breath:

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”