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.”

To love or to hate?!

Momma was sad in last few days. I am struggling very hard with the thought of how to teach you angels to be in love with our very beautiful ugly world.

So many times the ugliness can prevent any positive emotion toward the world that we live in and yet they are so many people that are in love with this world and when you ask them about it, they describe the world that they see through their rosy glasses...it is their version of the world, their reality which does not include the ugliness…

They say ignorance is bliss…that maybe so, but one can argue that ignorance can be a crime of conscious!

We live in a beautiful ugly world…what a paradox! Just like life itself.

While I am typing these words, think about how many war is going on simultaneously between different countries and nations; how many genocides are happening; how many children are dying from hunger; how many people are suffering from lack of freedom in all its shapes and forms; how many people are suffering from fast spreading diseases that one can argue being man made or not; how many little girls being sold for prostitution; how many fathers have to sell their kidneys so that they can use the money for their sick children; how many mothers have to travel across the world and be nanny to other people’s children in order to put food on their own children’s table; how many little girls have to be sold in very young age to marry to much older men in order to become slave to them in every means…

Watching a documentary about women in pre and post invasion in Afghanistan brought me into the state of uncontrollable sobbing and tears. Your daddy first tried very hard to calm me down and joke about all the pregnancy hormones but very soon he just looked at the TV screen with a sad look on his face and shook his head constantly.

With all these sadness, I still want you to never hate the world that we live in.

The act of “Loving”, on its own, whether it is in the shape of Eros, Philia or Agape, is one of the most beautiful scenes of our world….Just that alone, worth living…trust me!

Both time when I got pregnant, so many people told me how courageous I am for choosing to bring new lives in this world. I am not sure how much of it is the matter of courage and how much is the matter of hope.

I believe I am hopeful…Hopeful that new lives, the babies that are coming to this world, will one day make a change.

For you my son: I hope with all my heart that you become a man that respects women from all ages and backgrounds. I wish you become a man realizing that women are precious, unique and honorable. They are different from men but equal to them…after all we are all belonging to human race. I hope you become a man that doesn't hesitate to cry when it is needed and doesn't hesitate to show his love and compassion….and at the same time I hope you be courageous enough to confront evil with knowledge, wisdom and a strength that comes from humility.

And for you, my baby on your way: I am not sure you will be a boy or a girl. Either one of them is precious beyond words. I hope you become a human being that respects all beings from all backgrounds, to love life and to be a compassionate and honest adult.

And for both of you: I hope you not only become tolerant toward differences but cherish them in life…I hope you become adults that try to change our world toward more compassionate and loving place. Even if what you do will be some small tiny steps, it will be so priceless.

When my time comes to leave you, I will have such a peaceful moment if I realize that I helped you in any way in becoming kind, compassionate, considerate and honest human beings. What an easy sweet last breath that will be!

“There is a war going on out there….

….and no one ever told me about it!”

That is what I told my friend when we were walking toward the car - I said the sentence with certain degree of surprise and amusement. I think she was more amused by my cluelessness.

Well the story begins when I found myself in a three - ring circus.

I was accompanying my friend to a causal, friendly (!!!) gathering between numbers of mothers that want to become “good friends” but in more accurate terms they are just acquaintances.

It was my very first attendance to such a “fun get together”(!!!), considering that my nature is not built in a way to find friend “this way”….truly no judgment or questioning for the people that can do this road. In all honesty there are times that I thought my life would have been easier if I was swimming with the other members of any “school of fish”.

When I had the little boss, a few good hearted moms suggested to me to join these “club” like gatherings that all the new moms are there and “the babies can be together” and mothers can be so at ease by sharing their stories and all….

My first response was that “but the babies are not going to be together…mostly they sleep or suck the breasts or bottles and even later on they will only parallel play until around 18-24 months”….and their response was that “but you need an adult company otherwise you will go crazy!”….

I really did not need one. To the surprise of the people that really don’t know me, I am really good and in my element when I am JUST with my baby (doing his type of activities that changes with his age). My adult company usually arrives around 6 pm in the shape of the better half or once in a while it will be my close good couple of friends for 2-4 hours.

I am a solitary person; I told you so, didn’t I?!

Anyway, against my better judgment I accompanied my friend….mostly because my dear friend did not want to attend this first “mom’s night out” alone (between semi strangers I may add!) – She nagged for weeks that I am much better in small talks and everyone naturally talk and tell their stories to me… and I can go with her and be a buffer zone for her…-

Well I went….I became surprised and even amused…but deep down I ended up being utterly disappointed and sad by our gender….

In the middle of all those chit chatting and birth stories and goo goo and ga ga…suddenly my radars gave me some alarming alerts. Like a good German Sheppard my ears moved!!!!

The heated “topic” which more and more sounded like an argument, was between two teams: Working moms vs. stay at home moms (Mothers that were studying were in the first category)….

And for the life of me, I DID NOT know that apparently this “war” was going on for a long while.

The issue was more about the subjects such as which one is better or more precisely which one is more admirable and which group has it tougher and works harder….and therefore is a better woman and a better mother.

Well, as usual, I decided to only listen. That is a homeopath hat which very naturally fits my head. If one does that type of listening – the type that is just takes the role of observation- an enormous amount of information about the personalities can be gathered.

Very soon, I just noticed how much this situation is important to each mother in the group. I mean they talk about it with such an investment of energy and emotion…I could see some degree of guilt, lack of self confidence and not being sure of their decisions were playing a role in this “boxing match”…

Oh guilt the good companion of women and let’s not forget the constantly questioning our decisions, that good old friend of mothers….

While my position was enormously amusing and comfortable, it did not last long. Two of the mothers, knew me in my profession due to few people that were / are my patients. So out of no where I realized the eyes are on me and I am being asked “and what do you think?”…the person that asked this question did not waste any time to “recruit” me in her group: “working mom”. She continued with the same breathe “well you are a working mom. I know how busy your practice is. You must agree with us”.

My friend chuckled. I exchanged a familiar look with her…the look that says “Well I guess I am diving in”….

I looked at the other group, the stay at home mothers. They were looking at me with some degree of hostility. Truly that is what I felt…and interestingly there was no need for that.

“In all honesty considering that I cut my hours of practice a lot and practice only in the weekend, I don’t think I fit your category well enough. After all during the week I am a full time stay at home mom (silence for few seconds)...and I am LOVING IT”!

Well I think that last sentence was a punch…not that I intended…well I am not sure whether I intended or not!

Suddenly everyone was talking at the same time. Among those sentences I could hear “no, still you are a working mom”, “you know you can bring a stay in Nanny and go back to work full time”, “I know a very good person that can take care of your child”….and so on.

So I had to just make sure my voice became loud enough when I talked again: “but you missed my point, I love it. I even consider totally putting my practice on hold for a while. Don’t get me wrong, I have a job that I love, but still I CHOOSE to be a stay at home mom. Not because my job was not successful, not because I did not like it or forced to give it up. I think if a woman has a blessing of making a choice then she can make a choice based on what she likes and suites her life….and believe it or not for this stage of my child’s life I like to be a stay at home mom and be with him. That is me. Not that I say everyone should be this way or not….”

Well apparently that last sentence was not forceful enough. The working mom felt attacked. This is when one of them said something that unfortunately brought me out of my “observation” position….I became engaged. Up to that point I was just there…observing….right at that moment I became “invested”…this is how easy it is to suddenly become part of a war!

One of the working moms stated that in order for a woman to bring up a “complete” child and make him or her better member of society, she has to work and “actively” be part of that society. Otherwise the woman does not have ANYTHING to contribute to the “education” and “mental and emotional intelligence” of the child. The child of working mother will always have a more mental and emotional stability….because he or she will have exposure to others and not be “pampered by mother all the time”……

Oh how that touched a sore point in my heart…..

The reality is that I have absolutely no doubt about the decision that I made, I am very secure in what I chose in my life as a mother.

While other mothers became offended as a mother and some of them became extremely emotional, that woman’s statement did not touch me as a mother but surprisingly it touched me as a child!

I had to collect myself…because what she said brought up a life time of memory, loneliness and pain.

Suddenly I found myself talking and this time very emotionally invested: “Did your mother worked when you were growing up?”

She responded that no but her mother always wanted to work and always complained that why her father was oppose to it, that she made sure all her daughters love working because that was HER dream and it became their dreams….and then she turned to me and asked: “WHY?”….

“Well, I am the child of a mother that worked full time. She had a very high prestige and extremely high demanding job. She loved it and never thought anything other than being a working mom. So as a result I am the child of a mother that worked full time and even more than full time. I can testify that there was absolutely no emotional stability for me as a child. I was always more mature than my age, I had to learn to be independent much sooner than my pierce, I had to watch my mother go through all the routine of household while she was so tired that she could not talk a single word… and I felt so sad for her that I had to make sure to not add anything to her chores…all of these while I was a toddler, a child and a teenager. My mother made sure that I was educated and trained in many different subjects of science, literature, arts and sports; but the reason behind her decision had nothing to do with being a working mom…mostly it had to do with her very perfectionist personality….”

Well the rest of that night was a history…at the end no one really came to understand anything about other person’s point of view. So sad…so sad….

I think majority of the women do not have the blessing to choose. Our ultra work oriented societies (especially the western, first world countries) demand working woman go back to work and sometimes the maternity leave is not even for one full year.

The job provides not only the second income but in some countries it brings the much needed health insurance for the family. Some women are single mothers and have to work to put the food on the table….so all these aside, a small percentage of the women have the choice: to go back to work or to stay at home.

Don’t get me wrong, a second income ALWAYS makes the life easier. No “if” or “but” about it.

So the choice comes when they can “afford” to survive and live with one income – not as easy as with two incomes but still can survive.

Right at that moment, the woman has to admit to herself that whatever choice she makes is based on her personality and preference….which was made by her childhood, her upbringing, her understanding of what kind of person she is and how she needs and wants to be in life, her feeling and perception toward motherhood, her parenting style, her relationship with her partner and so on….

Did my working mom have an influence on my choice in life? It had an influence consciously and subconsciously. I had no doubt about it. But so did so many other factors, including the awareness that I gained about myself as a woman and what I need and want in life, the type of parenthood that I aim to reach, as well as my relationship with my partner and some other aspects….

In my opinion, none of these elements has anything to do with other members of the motherhood society. Why do we need to attack other people’s choice in order to make ourselves more at ease with our choice? I always wonder that!

Let’s face it, motherhood is NOT a job, a mother is never off the clock. Whether a woman decides to stay at home or go back to work, each one will have 24 hours demanding duties, both have responsibilities that the other does not know anything about it.

None of them has a privilege over the other, non of them is a better or worse mom…they are just women, trying desperately to live their lives, the lives that contains the choices that they made, the choices that the society forced them to make and the choices that their gene and up bringing engraved in their psyche….

Oh life would have been much easier if the daughters of Eve would have been more compassionate to one another!

A miracle that we call LOVE

I am a solitary person. Anyone that knows me well, can tell you that very easily you can categorize me as “introverted”. No matter how talkative I may “seem” to the outside world (which I do seem like that), I live inside my head and heart.

Let’s face it, we can talk for hours and not say a thing that is in any relation to “us” as an individual…

Maybe this is why I like this blog land so much. I mean there are not more than 5 people that connect my two worlds to one another….

I can be free here…what a freedom it is: anonymity…One can be much freer here than in the “real” world…that outside illusional land…

Every time I come to my blog land, I find such grate materials in “nothing” and they end up being “everything”…all these “nothings” that meant more to me than so many some things that I talked about in my daily routine of life…

My friends tell me that I am “close”, “keeping so many things to myself”, that it takes very long time for me to let someone come to my intimate circle. They are truly accurate in these descriptions.

In my book of life the term “friend” is being used very loosely in western society – and for that matter “word” in general is being used so carelessly by human race…no consideration for its deep hidden power.

Like Eskimos that have many words for the “snow”, I have different words for what society calls “friend”…I call a person a “friend” when they are truly a friend…. So my intimate circle for sure has only an entry visa for the people that are friends to my heart.

There is only one place that I am totally and completely my true self, free with no boundary: at home, with those I love the most in this world.

And this little home of mine became a whole universe, became bigger than universe… full of love, life, energy, activity, and passion….Life changed. The breath of life visited my little home and shook it profoundly, little more than 2 and a half years ago…

I, who once couldn't stand to sleep with anyone touching me, can only rest easy with a little toddler toes and elbows poking into my back.

I seek him out, this little creature of chaos, untamed energy, drool, noise and toddler’s sweat.

I pull him onto the sofa; he crawls onto my lap, move around to make his place comfortable over the spot between my knees or on my chest and under my chin.

He settles into me, cheek on my chest, soft curls tucked under my chin.

OH how he draws me out of my head and into his world. I am present and in the moment in a way I never thought I could be….no mastery in Zen, you just need an “in loveness”….

He is my everything….My work, my frustration, my exultation, my solitude, my energy, my rest, my bliss, my soul, my life, my heart, my peace.

I breathe his breath, the air that leaves his lungs…I smell his hair…I feel his body…and I wonder “can I ever love anyone like this?”….

And right at that moment I look down at the tiny little bump on my belly, the bump that is becoming more and more visible to the outside world…I get my answer right there and then….with no need to see the little one that is there in me, I just feel how much I love him or her….the miracle is not having one child or ten for that matter, the miracle is how love expands, grows, becomes a universe all on its own….and there is not a single split or crack in it…it just becomes more…more…an infinity….what a miracle LOVE is!

Three is passed…

They say a picture worth thousands words…

Well for the glory of this news I will put up two pictures with one massage:

For those of you who can not see them clearly- from top to bottom it says:
Pregnant (OH YA!)
Positive (Hooray)
TWO lines (And that is yes and yes and thousand YES)

Got it?

By the way the first one is the digital pregnancy test. Since I saw the ad on TV, I was so eager to use it one day. They made it sounds so COOL…When I was pregnant the last time, this was not in the market (it feels like the last time was so many years ago...)...and I can testify that this digital one truly holds its reputation in the ads: it is the most advanced and sophisticated piece of equipment that you ever peed on:):):):)

I was speechless from joy when I found out….I had to hold back my tongue and sometimes bite it, so that I won’t scream the news from the rooftop (my better half and I stick to the tradition that does not tell anyone until three months is passed)…

Well my dear blog, three months is passed…

In all honesty before taking the test I just knew it…I knew it exactly the morning that my better half reported that the night before I did NOT wake up when our son called for me. He told me, for the first time ever, it was him that woke up without my voice calling his name.

The better half was highly amused about this whole incident, mostly because the only thing that works like magic and makes him jump out of bed –without even knowing why he is doing it or what time it is or what should be his next move- is my voice calling his name with a certain (hmmmm, well) force :):):)

His exact words to me that morning were “Oh ya, you were pretty unconscious”…and right there and then I knew it!

For a very light sleeper like me (who jumps out of bed with the slightest noise through baby monitor), only the fatigue of the first trimester can put me in the unconscious state (and for those of you who experienced pregnancy, you know which fatigue I am talking about!)…I knew that I am pregnant with no need for any test…but OF COURSE I took all three tests….Hello my name is “Obsessive” and I need to be sure and DOUBLE SURE and ….!!!

Saving all the glorious details of discomfort -which let’s just be on the record here and say: who ever named the stupid “morning sickness”, was someone without a uterus….Morning, shmorning….it can last 24 hours a day and I am not kidding about that….you wake up in the middle of the night to go for very much needed pee…and then you have to wonder whether to sit on the toilet or bend with your head down!

So even with all that and much much more..... I ABSOLTULTY LOVE, ADORE AND CHERISH being pregnant….I loved it with the little boss and I love it this time…

In my perception, pregnancy is such a primal sensation and in this day and age that unfortunately none of the primal sensation survived thanks to our fast paste technological life, I for one cherish any primal feeling that I can experience….it taps directly into that part of human psyche that is collective, universal, eternal and beautifully divine.

So far in my life being pregnant is the single experience in the world that can make me naturally feel unbelievably close to another being and close to divine at the same time…so close to another soul that there is no beginning and no end, there is no boundary that separate us for that nine months…it is pure bliss of heaven….

That sensation of being “ONE” with another soul, “ONE” with universe and ultimately with divine is beyond words…to be the holy alter for creation…it is magical…it transcends time and life…it is living in eternity every single minute for 9 glorious months…

So no need for any more words...they just clutter the feelings...only one more thing:

Thank you God for granting me this bliss one more time…
I am beyond thankful to God and to this soul that chose me and unbelievably humble for the opportunity to accompany another angel in her / his journey from the start….I hope I will be worthy of this gift and the blessing.