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Unraveling a yarn

July 10, 2006 by

Yesterday I responded to a notice on our community mailing list. A woman had posted that she had a garbage bag full of yarn and knitting needles and she was giving it away. Since I use yarn frequently these days to make blankets for my new grandchildren when they are born, I could not pass up the offer. So I called her and arranged to pick up the yarn.

When I got home I started going through the bag. There were multiple balls of the same colors and types of yarn—a nubby gray-green, a very thick off-white, a very thin red, and some nubby off-whites. However, there were also works in progress: about half of the back of a black sweater with red rectangles, but with no further yarn to finish it; the front of a salmon-colored mohair vest for a thin person, most likely a child, and a small aqua mohair skirt still on the round knitting needle.

I began to feel like an intruder on the knitter’s world. I wondered about her. I understood that the woman who had given away the garbage bag full was not the knitter. No one would give away their half-finished work. A perfectionist would finish it. A defeatist would throw it away. It had to have belonged to someone else.

But what happened to her? Did she pass away, in the middle of her work? Did she become disabled so that finishing it was not an option?

I picture her sitting and working. The black and red sweater, I imagine, was for a grandson. I recall my own mother knitting, most likely a sweater for herself, and one of my sons asking for a sweater too. Did this woman’s grandson ask for a sweater? Did she sit and knit it with the anticipation of his delight when she presented him with it?

Was the salmon vest for a granddaughter? Did she think of the child’s dark shiny braids contrasting with the brilliant hue of the sweater? And the skirt? Was this a skirt for another granddaughter? Was this the beginning of a project that included a skirt and a top that the child was going to wear to a special occasion?

And now all that is left are the pieces—pieces of potential—of a life that reached out to others and left things unfinished.

But I wonder…. Did this woman who devoted her time and energy to others express her love in other ways? Did she smile and tell stories as she knit amidst her family? Did she leave them with happy memories of a warmth and acceptance that will stay with them always?

And I wonder… I used to think that leaving a project in the middle was a negative thing, but I suppose that if I had my choice, I would be engaged in creating until the very end and the unfinished pieces would only be more evidence of the love that I felt for my family. I would hope that they would be able to see those unfinished pieces and smile, picturing my happiness at attempting to bring more beauty and love into their lives.

Filed Under: Family life, Ramblings

I’m back

July 6, 2006 by

No, I have not been captured by aliens. I have not been ill. I have not been upset, depressed, or preoccupied. I have been traveling. For the last 9 days, we visited Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia.

As long as I can recall, I have had a mental map of Russia as a dark and frightening place. After all, throughout my childhood they were trying to “bury” us and we looked upon them as an evil empire. And, indeed, there was repression and a lack of any semblance of freedom. Russia and its satellites, the USSR, were closed to the west. They feared democracy and capitalism. They suppressed religion. People we wanted to participate in Jewish prayer or even study Hebrew were harassed and often arrested. But now, a decade and a half after the breakup of the Soviet Union, it is a travel destination.

To say that it was beautiful would be an understatement. We visited palaces filled with such opulence that it took one’s breath away. We saw the onion-shaped spires on the cathedrals, painted and formed with the appearance of marzipan candy. We saw the canals St. Petersburg. We saw the hundreds of fountains of Peterhof. We saw art that was indescribable in the Pushkin Gallery, the Kremlin Armory, and, of course, the Hermitage. In the Hermitage, we were able to see the hidden collection—paintings that were stolen from private families by the Nazis. These paintings were brought to St. Petersburg after the Second World War and hidden. They were only shown for the first time in 1995 and to this day, one is not permitted to take any photographs of them because the Russians do not plan to return them to the families who had once owned them. Among these paintings were a large number of paintings by impressionist masters.

So beauty was one large theme of the trip. Beauty was everywhere: in the underground stations, in the beautiful neo-classical buildings, in the large number of parks and gardens. We enjoyed a number of performances of folklore, a capella singing, a circus, and a ballet. The people on the streets too were beautiful. The Russian women, by and large, dress well and are lovely to look at.

Another theme for me was that of the resurgence of Jewish life in Russia. Particularly in Moscow, the community is active and there is life. There is a large community center in Moscow that offers classes and cultural activities, but also affords the Jewish people there exercise equipment, a gym, a library/resource center with about 50 computers, a large performance hall, and a very elegant kosher catering facility that serves delicious food. The building is modern, spotless, and is used each day by hundreds of people.

I felt in Moscow and St Petersburg what I had felt in Budapest—people trying to recover from years of repression and neglect. Everywhere things were being rebuilt and renovated. Workers stood on scaffolding chipping and patching and painting the walls of buildings in warm ochres, and blues and roses. One got the feeling that in a few years, everything will be painted and fixed and the cities will be even more beautiful than they are now.

I have posted a selection of the pictures I took.

Filed Under: Ramblings

The Real Israel

June 21, 2006 by

When I lived in Oklahoma in the 1980s and talked about visiting Israel, the people I knew would urge me to be careful when I was in Beirut. I would explain to them that Beirut was in Lebanon, a country that I had no plans to visit. They would respond with something like, “Well, you need to be careful anyway” as if they didn’t buy a word of what I was saying.

Recently I met with people who were visiting Israel for the first time. They were surprised at how modern and Western it is. They talked about the friendly people and the clean rest room facilities and water that can be drunk and modern hotels and skyscrapers and delicious foods of all ethnic varieties. They had expected the ancient ruins and the historical monuments, and of course, the breathtaking vistas, but they were stunned with the modernity and the cosmopolitan feeling that pervades.

So it didn’t surprise me when another family we met recently reported hearing from someone in their Midwest American city the following about Israel, “We’re talking sand. We’re talking camels. We’re talking burkas.”

All I can say to that is come and visit our little piece of paradise. See it for yourself! From the mountains of the Hermon, covered with snow in the winter to the sparkling gulf at Eilat to the wooded trails of the Galilee to calm waters of the Kinneret to the bustle of Tel Aviv to the breathtakingly beautiful city of Jerusalem—Israel will wow you! And come and see our hi-tech industries, setting world standards. Enjoy sitting in a sidewalk café. And most of all, enjoy our most precious products—the bright-eyed, smiling children. Israel will lift your heart and your soul.

Filed Under: Israel, Ramblings Tagged With: , , , , ,

Pictures

June 19, 2006 by

As we gear up for our trip to Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg) I felt compelled to get a few of the pictures we took in Slovakia, Austria, and Hungary onto a site where they could be viewed. Google-owned Picasa has a beta version of a web picture interface to which I posted my pictures.

These are but a few of the 800+ pictures I took, so feel free to ask for more.

And just wait until I return from Russia!!!!

Filed Under: Ramblings

Grandparents

June 18, 2006 by

Next week I am going to be talking to a group about making memories for your grandchildren. I have asked my children to collect stories about grandparents from their children and to share any memories they might have as well. I would welcome anyone’s input. Specifically, what are some memories you have of your grandparents? What things did they do with you or for you or say to you that were important to you? If you have a story you would like to share, please do.

Oh, and HAPPY FATHERS DAY to all of those loving and terrific men who mean so much to their children and grandchildren! Check out today’s Writer’s Almanac for a special Father’s Day edition. Make sure you bring your handkerchief.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Parenting

Loyalty

June 14, 2006 by

My first awareness of the Holocaust was, probably like most children who grew up in the 50s, the story of Anne Frank. I didn’t even need to read her diary; the story was being told everywhere—in school, at home, on television. What I understood was that Anne, a girl like me, had had the misfortune to live in the wrong place at the wrong time and had died all too young as a result of the evil perpetrated by the Nazis.

The story touched me on a very deep level. I had lived while she had died. She had deserved to live as much as I had, but I was alive and she was not. And therefore, in some way, I had to make it up to her. I had to fulfill the wishes and hopes she might have had. I had to do all of the good that Anne and other girls like her had not been able to do themselves. I owed it to them. I owed it to their memories.

It was a burden, however, it was necessary. And it didn’t feel like a burden that could be shared with other Jewish girls my age. It felt like a personal obligation that I myself had to fulfill.

As time went on, I took on more obligations. I felt obligated to make my parents and grandparents proud of me. My maternal grandmother became so close to me that her suggesting that Hebrew school was important was enough to make me continue on through Hebrew college long after she passed away. It was to honor her and to pay her back for the warmth and love she showed me. I adopted the obligation toward my maternal great-grandmother, a woman for whom I was named and about whom I know very little. I learned that she was hospitable and it was to her that all of the new immigrant relatives would come when they reached the US. They would stay with her until they found themselves employment and homes. And so being hospitable was a way of paying back my obligation to this woman I had never met, but who gave birth to my grandmother who bore my mother to whom I owe loyalty as well.

So it comes with such pain to me when I see young people throwing aside their ties with their past. It pains me not only in a cosmic sense in which kindnesses of the past deserve loyalty in the present, but it pains me because what they throw away is precisely what helps to make life significant.

Many years ago, I took a course called “General Semantics.” Our professor spoke of the major difference between humans and animals being that people are “effective time-binders”—that we are able to transmit experience from one person and from one generation to another. When people reject the good that has come before them, are they not diminishing themselves as humans? Isn’t preserving what was best in those who came before us not only the just and right and good thing to do, but exactly what makes life significant and helps us find meaning in a seemingly random world?

I wonder.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Spirituality

Friendships and Patience

June 13, 2006 by

After our trip to Austria and Hungary, it’s been nice to settle in and be at home for a while and enjoy the fact that nothing much exciting is happening.

Actually, my detached feeling is not all that different from what I have experienced most of my adult life. Having moved 800 miles away from home with my marriage and never having returned to live in the city I grew up in, I have been detached from my earliest years and the people who were part of them.

In our travels, we lived a number of places (I am currently living in my 18th home since I got married) and through the years we have met some wonderful people who have been like family to us and with whom we still correspond. However, every once in a while, when I receive a note from one of my oldest friends in the States, a classmate from when I was about 14 years old, as I did today, there is a special warm feeling of affirmation that I get that makes me smile even to think of it.

It reminded me once again of how important we are to the people we have met and how little we realize it. In supervision last week, one of the therapists said that she was afraid she wasn’t helping her clients. She wasn’t getting any positive feedback from many of her clients. I tried to explain to her that the impact we have on others is not always apparent, and certainly not immediately apparent. It is only through the lens of weeks, months, and sometimes years, that the interactions we have had with people come to be seen as having been helpful and precious. –Which is why it made sense to me once when a client I had ended the session by saying, “thank you… I think.”

So here’s to friendships and patience. May they increase!

Filed Under: Ramblings

From the trenches…

June 11, 2006 by

After I posted my last article, “Friendly Persuasion,” I received a comment from my son Ben. Not only is it well written and well reasoned, but he is down there in the trenches now… raising with his wife 6 fabulous children. His comment follows my posting. It’s worth reading.

Filed Under: Family life, Parenting

Friendly Persuasion

June 11, 2006 by

One of the hardest things about being a mother was, for me, the fact that my children would argue with each other. These were often not calm disagreements, rather interchanges that escalated in tone and volume until finally I would have to intervene to save my own sanity. Sometimes I would send the children to their rooms. Sometimes I would send them outside. Sometimes we would discuss what was happening and try to problem solve by clarifying who did what and how some resolution could come about. What I didn’t do was give them any clues as to how to resolve disputes in a more productive way,

What I should have done is to sit individually with them and ask them to tell me how they saw the situation and then how they thought their sibling saw it. If they were unable to supply the sibling’s point of view, I should have tried to guess what it was and then ask the child to rephrase it to ensure that the child had heard and understood. Next, I should have asked the child to try and think of what he or she could have done differently in light of what their sibling was thinking and feeling. Could he or she have found some common ground, a compromise, a trade-off?

I should have taught my children that the least likely way to get what you want is by name-calling, yelling, screaming, hitting, kicking, and threats. I should have taught them that a smile, a nod, a real concern for the other and their point of view all go a long way toward resolving a conflict. I should have taught them to find out what the other one really wanted and to see if there was a way that both of them could get what they wanted. I should have taught them that respecting the other person is a prerequisite for coming to a satisfactory resolution. I should have done that not only for my sanity’s sake, but to help facilitate their effectiveness as adults.

I like to think that they learned those skills in part by watching what their parents did. Sometimes, if we are lucky, the message gets through even if we are not consciously transmitting it. However, with all of the anger and pain and violence in the world, actively teaching children the art of conflict resolution might just be a priority.

Filed Under: Family life, Parenting, Relationships

Blogs…

June 5, 2006 by

Some women like to brag about their children. I suppose I am one of them, but for reasons of non-embarrassment, I restrain myself. I would brag about my grandchildren, but don’t, for the same reason. However, today, I am unable to restrain myself any longer. For today, my grand-dog Poofy, has begun to write his very own blog. I have always appreciated his soft white fur, his uncanny ability to tell the bad guys from the good ones, and, of course, his gentleness with my grandchildren. But today I am truly proud of his groundbreaking achievement of writing a blog. You can catch up with him at: giveadogablog.blogspot.com

Filed Under: Ramblings
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