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Fascinating Facts

July 1, 2005 by

Last week time came up behind me, grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me.

My two oldest grandchildren graduated from sixth grade.

I think it was maybe about five years ago that I was in sixth grade. I remember it well. Mr. O’Barr had borrowed my huge and beloved “Fascinating Facts” book—the one that told me that Chinese people eat eggs that are very old and that a murderer had been caught because his image remained in the eyes of the victim. I could hardly wait to get it back as I read it every night. Each day in school, we would practice for graduation. We learned a large number of songs that we were going to sing in two part harmony. I didn’t mind the singing, but standing on the bleachers for hour after hour was less than comfortable.

Meanwhile, at home, my parents were getting ready for a vacation to Florida. My graduation, you see, was in January, at the end of the first semester of school because at that time, two classes a year entered school, one in September and one in February. We were going to move on to seventh grade and junior high school within a week of our graduation. My parents’ vacation lasted for two weeks and they came back about a week before the graduation.

My mother had bought me a large wardrobe of new dresses because graduation meant at least 4 parties and 2 dances and I couldn’t wear something that was old. Even though this was only the mid 1950s, there was already social pressure. My first “grown-up” party was when I was in fifth grade. I remember my mother coming home from the store with a bag for me. It contained stockings and a garter belt! It was, after all, in the era before pantyhose were invented.

When my parents returned from Florida, they brought me an additional dress. It was navy linen and had a navy linen short “bolero” jacket with red piping and a red cloth flower on it. I couldn’t wait for the celebrating to begin.

The Saturday night before graduation there was a dance at our school. My father drove me and a friend to the dance. While we were there, Larry Silverman, a tall, lean, blond boy asked me to dance. At the end of the evening, he asked me if I would go out with him for ice cream. I went to the pay phone and called my mother. She told me that it would not be polite to my friend to leave without her and that I should return home with her and then my father would drive me back to the dance and we would pick up Larry and my father would drive us to the ice cream parlor. So, on my very first almost-date, my father sat outside in the cold in his car waiting for Larry and me to finish our ice cream, and then he drove us home.

Monday morning when I got up, my mother looked at me and said, “What happened to you!” I didn’t know what she was talking about. She said that I had a rash on my face. I looked into the mirror, and she was right. She looked at my neck and then my arms and legs. The rash was there too. In fact, the rash was all over my body. My mother was not pleased. I didn’t understand yet what was bothering her. She said to me, “Did you kiss Larry Silverman?” The question was completely shocking. The thought had never entered my mind. I am certain it hadn’t entered Larry’s either. The implication, of course, was that kissing causes rashes. Alas, it was not the imagined kiss, it was measles.

So while everyone was graduating and partying, I sat on my bed and my beautiful new dresses hung in the closet.

Mr. O’Barr never returned my “Fascinating Facts.”

Filed Under: Ramblings

All in all, I would rather be in Croatia

June 1, 2005 by

A couple of months ago I got the news. I was going to be asked to be a witness in a criminal trial. I would have to give testimony to support a former client. I was not thrilled. In general, my experience with courts has not been pleasant. In Lawton, Oklahoma, I had served as an expert witness a couple of times and it was less than enjoyable. The whole idea of an adversarial proceeding in which every word was scrutinized reminded me of nothing so much as an argument with my mother. But I digress…

In the US, I was a native speaker of the language of the court proceedings. In Israel, although my Hebrew is fluent, it is not native and therefore there are nuances and expressions that Israelis use and understand that elude me. So naturally, I was wary and reluctant. It was kind of like the way my then 5 year old son must have felt just after he started the fire in our living room: “maybe if I just get into bed and close my eyes, it will all disappear.” Well, the fire didn’t disappear and with the arrival of a notice from the court roughly equivalent to a subpoena, neither did the trial.

The prosecutor called me and asked for information. A second call came to change the date to nearly a week earlier. A third call came to change it back. Then we received a call from friends who wanted to know if we would like to join their trip to Croatia and Slovenia which was to take off the night before the anticipated testimony.

I called the prosecutor’s office. I explained that we had an opportunity to go on a trip and asked if there were any possibility that I could testify before or afterwards. The clerk sounded understanding and after checking with the prosecutor said that he regretted that there was no alternative.

Yesterday, the prosecutor called me to go over the facts and the points she wanted to make with my testimony. She helped me with some of the technical Hebrew phrases. For example, bruises are translated into Hebrew as “blue marks.” And professional journals, she told me, are “professional newspapers.”

So this morning, having no idea of the extent of the morning traffic to Tel Aviv, I left my home at 6:50 a.m., in order not to be late for the 8:30 summons. I was at the door of the courthouse at 7:30. Unfortunately, the doors open to the public at 8:00. I sat and read the book I had brought, and waited.

At 8:00, I got into line to wait for the security check and finally, I arrived upstairs at the courtroom. My former client was there. Little by little the other participants arrived and finally today’s session of the trial began. I was asked to stay outside while other witnesses were testifying. During that time I repeated to myself phrases that I knew would not come naturally to me. I kept reassuring myself that my hesitations over language could be of use because it would give me time to think. As the time passed, I just wanted it to be over because I was feeling more and more tense.

Finally, I was called. I hooked on the microphone and swore to tell the truth. Before the prosecutor could ask me the first question, the defense attorney began spewing objections. I say “spewing” because I am pretty certain that I saw steam rising from her and I certainly felt as if I was engulfed by a stream of lava. I was “irrelevant”, she asserted. However, it took her more than five minutes to say that. Then the prosecutor responded for another minute or two. Then two of the three judges tried to answer while the defense attorney continued spewing. The mayhem continued for about another ten minutes during which I was asked little more than my name, qualifications, time period during which I treated my client, and general impression of her condition at intake. Then the next eruption took place. At that point, the questioning was stopped and I was thanked for my participation.

I went back to the parking lot, paid, and left. All in all, I would rather be in Croatia.

Filed Under: Ramblings

Is anybody listening?

May 16, 2005 by

One of the first things I noticed about Israel is that everyone is involved in the country in a way unlike anything I had seen in the US. Every minimally educated Israeli can recognize a large percentage of Knesset members and cabinet members by sight. They can tell you who is a member of which of the myriad parties, what party he or she used to belong to and whether he or she is someone you can trust. Politicians seen on television or in a restaurant are always identified by their faces. Most politicians are identified by their voices on the radio. There are no places to hide.

Israel is simply too small a country. It really is just a very big family. If in the US there are six degrees of separation—that is any random person is connected with any other somehow through only six sets of relationships, in Israel, the number is much lower. In fact, it is rare for us to meet anyone with whom we have no one in common.

Similarly, everyone is involved in the political situation. The country from long before its founding has been under attack. The shomrim guarded the earliest modern settlements from marauding Arabs and in 1929, long before statehood, the Jews of Hebron were massacred. So here we are a big family who have constantly been under attack by our neighbors since before we were born (not to mention throughout history.) That pushes emotions pretty high. Everyone here realizes that survival is a constant struggle. All of us know that we are vastly outnumbered by people who seek to destroy us. So what do we, the common citizens do about it?

We fight with each other.

Actually, although most of us are capable of civil debate, we usually express our strong opinions to those who already agree with us. It saves our noses and cuts down on the use of gauze pads. We are a hot-blooded people and there is nothing more emotionally stressful than a debate over what the government should or should not be doing.

Now add to the mix two more elements (at least… my almost brother is sure to remind me of the ones I forgot) Add the fact that Israel has a limited concept of democracy and the need of Israel never to anger the US who is our benefactor and protector.

Now what we have is a bunch of hot-headed people talking to other people who agree with them and getting more and more stirred up about the rightness of their approach to survival. They decide that they are so right that really the other side should not have the right to oppose their ideas even by what in the US would be called legitimate protest or civil disobedience. They believe that what they want to do is the only course of action acceptable to the US government, So what we have now in Israel is prior restraint. That is, possible protestors and organizers of possible protests are being arrested and questioned for days and sometimes weeks. Today, as the people opposed to the expulsion from Gaza prepared for peaceful demonstrations, buses of young people were stopped and not allowed to proceed so that people could not get to the demonstrations.

In the end, the protest was effective. At intersections all around Israel from the north to the south, protestors held signs and chanted, “Jews do not expel Jews.” The message was expressed, but will it be heard?

Filed Under: Israel, Ramblings

Weekend in the Golan

May 16, 2005 by

We went away this weekend with a group of people to a place in the Golan called “Keshet Yonatan.” Keshet, which means “bow” (as in bow and arrow), is the Hebrew equivalent of Kuneitra, the nearby Syrian town. Keshet is the name of the village where Keshet Yonatan is located. The name Keshet Yonatan has a dual meaning since it means both Jonathan’s bow (referring to Jonathan, son of King Saul) and Jonathan’s Rainbow. Indeed, the entrance to the community is decorated with rainbows. It was named in memory of Yonatan Vodak, who fell in the Yom Kippur War.

We stayed in what used to be a field school, a group of buildings with spartan accommodations that was used by the Nature Preservation Society for seminars and as a homebase for hiking in the area. Our room was capable of sleeping seven people! Fortunately, we weren’t asked to take in five strangers.

On Saturday afternoon, all of us took a three hour walk through fields of waving grasses, past cows and horses and stacks of hay. We walked past a lake that serves as a reservoir, Standing at the edge of the lake was a sole white horse standing so still, he looked like a piece of statuary. We continued on and walked through fields of high grasses. As the pace quickened, so did my pulse and suddenly looming before me was a most overwhelming sight—a very high mountain with ruins of some sort at the top.

“Oh,” I said to my husband, “that must be the mountain that I am going to watch you climb.” He just ignored me. He knew that I wouldn’t opt out. So we made our way along with the rest of the people, through the tall grasses and briars and brambles and up the rocky path to the top of the mountain, climbing over boulders and feeling the prickly stickers on our ankles and calves.

When at last we reached the top, we continued walking through the ruins to a shady place and listened to our guide, a young woman who was doing her national service, talk about the battles fought in the area during the Yom Kippur War. We heard of the bravery and the innovative thinking that enabled a scant, under-equipped force of Israelis to vanquish the large, well-armed Syrian army.

Descending from the mountain, we walked back through the village to our base and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with the group.

After the Sabbath, we walked and looked up at the stars. Even there, the street lights interfered, but not nearly as much as the near-daylight of lit streets in Modi’in.

Sunday morning after breakfast, we left for another hike, this time through woods not far from the Syrian border. The woods were dotted with flowers of every shape and color from deep purple to lavender to pink and red and yellow and white. I couldn’t help thinking that the landscaping was beautiful. We looked down at a huge lake and horse and cows far in the distance. The winds blew a cool breeze on an otherwise hot day and we made our way with awe and thanksgiving for the beauty in the world.

On our way home, we stopped along the east side of the Sea of Galilee (the Kinneret) at Ein Gev where there is an excellent fish restaurant situated in a park-like setting along the shore. After a relaxing meal, we continued home.

Filed Under: Israel, Ramblings

Mother’s Day

May 8, 2005 by

So it was Mother’s Day. Funny, something that had been a given since my birth is foreign to my experience these days. In Israel, Mother’s Day which has been transformed into Family Day, is observed in February. Most people who were brought up in the US completely forget about US Mother’s Day after their first year or two here.

I flash back to memories of my childhood in Philadelphia when my sister and I would walk to Castor Avenue and go from shop to shop looking for something special to give to our mother. How difficult the choice was! Nothing was good enough, pretty enough. What would she like? One year there was a small pink marble bowl on a pedestal that looked like a birdbath. Sitting astride the smooth shiny marble edges were two rough white marble birds. I loved it. We had it wrapped up and brought it to our mother. So intense was our anticipation of her joy at this quintessentially perfect gift that I have no memory of her actual reaction. I do know that it sat on the windowsill in the living room for many years.

Mother’s day was all about pleasing our mother, something that wasn’t such an easy task. I always wondered what it would be like to be the mother.

Well, what I can remember of my days as a mother of young children is some priceless gifts made of wood and tissue and glue and cardboard. I remember a plaster cast of someone’s hand and a fingerpaint print of someone else’s. But more than that, I remember the bright smiles and the exchanging of secret glances. I remember hugs and picnics and lots of laughing.

This morning, my older daughter called and asked if we would like a visit. She brought over her little girl, not yet 2 months old. Abigail looks so much like her mother did on a Mother’s day some years ago when she was one day old and her grandmothers came to visit me in the hospital. Then as now, I felt a sense of wonder and awe at being a mother, at being able to continue the line from the past into the future. Then as now, I am grateful to G-d for the privilege of being a mother.

Filed Under: Family life, Ramblings, Relationships, Spirituality

The Runaway Bride

May 4, 2005 by

Now it can be told: I was a runaway bride

Well, gee whiz… what’s so new about a bride running away? It’s exactly what I did.

I grew up in a home with the quintessential Jewish mother. Just getting up in the morning made me feel guilty. I was afraid to make myself anything more elaborate than coke for breakfast because it might change the karma of the kitchen. I remember my mother’s sense of betrayal when I chose to study philosophy instead of elementary education (which was what girls were supposed to study!). Only her friend’s comment, “she must be smart to study philosophy” made it OK.

In my social setting in the 1960s, the only way to be able to become an adult and make independent decisions was to leave home. But back then, a woman didn’t leave home until she went away to college (and since my parents were paying for college, they were able to prevent that), or get married.

So it was no shock to anyone who knew me well that by 19 I was engaged. When the engagement didn’t result in a wedding, I knew that I needed to get moving once again and so at 20, I got married.

And then I ran away……

with my husband to start a new life together…. And so far, it’s worked out, but we’re only 38 years into it.

Filed Under: Family life, Ramblings

Guest article: Breasts

April 18, 2005 by

This is an article written by Rachel Inbar Fertility Stories

For me to be writing about breasts is at least as surprising as it would be for me to write about cars. I’ve had them for a while and I know how they work, but mine were never anything special.

The first time I ever noticed a change (except for their early growth that made it painful for me to walk down stairs) was when I was pregnant with my first child. I had gone from an “almost A” teenager to a “barely B” young woman, when in my fifth month I zipped past “close to C”, “definitely D” and found myself ever-nearing E. You wouldn’t believe the stretch marks… or the sag (they say it’s genetic, but would it really have happened if they’d never grown so much?).

If you’re going to have breasts that sag at age 25, they may as well be small ones that are easy to hide… It was also good that mine hadn’t been the kind to show off before the sagging began, so it wasn’t nearly as disappointing as it might have been otherwise.

I breastfed my daughter until she was 6 months old. It was convenient and I loved the power of being the only one with the magic of being able to calm her at any moment.

I later breastfed my twin son and daughter (though rarely simultaneously) until they were almost 9 months old. I once pumped 2 quarts of milk in a day and calculated how much money I was saving on formula… OK, so if they weren’t good for show, at least they were low maintenance and economical.

My youngest daughter was born recently and again I found myself remarkably close to “ever-nearing E”. As we were leaving the house for a party in her honor, my middle daughter commented, “Aren’t your breasts too big?” to which I responded, “Yes, but I don’t have time to change them now, so let’s go!”

And of course she was right, I feel like such a fake… It was just a few years ago that my sister and another good friend asked me (after a very successful diet) if I still needed a bra… They thought it was funny… (It wasn’t that funny.) So for now I’m checking out how dresses look when there’s something to put in the top part. My bathing suit top doesn’t fit (!) and I even have cleavage (me, cleavage?!?). Mostly, I think it’s funny and I’m trying to remember to enjoy it while it lasts.

If there’s one thing I will remember about my breasts after all their ups and downs, this is it: there’s nothing sweeter than seeing your baby’s sleeping face resting peacefully on your bare breast.

Filed Under: Ramblings

Norah Jones

April 7, 2005 by

My husband mentioned to me this morning that Ravi Shankar turns 85 today which made me wonder if I was remembering correctly that he was Norah Jones’ father. I did a search and found out that yes, he is. Amidst the information I found was a rather contentious conversation about what, if anything, his talent had to do with his daughter’s given their lack of contact for most of her life.

It reminded me of one of the most interesting parts of getting to be a grandmother. Four of my children are parents and as I look at their children, I see features that belong to my parents, my in-laws, and the grandparents on the other sides of the family. I notice how cousins sometimes look more alike than siblings and I wonder how some genes have more power than others to predominate over generations.

I see not only their physical features, but their personalities and preferences. Can it really be that the love of pens and papers that my father had and that my sister and I shared and that my daughters share really has been genetically encoded? What a joy it was taking my granddaughter to town one day and stopping into a stationery store and seeing her fascination with exactly the same objects.

Of course that goes both ways. One daughter-in-law can’t really understand why none of my children are sports fans. I jokingly told her that there were no known sports genes on either side of the family. Was it really a joke?

As a therapist, I have been engaged with the nature/nurture controversy for years. It seems that the pendulum has recently swung in favor of nature based upon a number of studies. In view of the demanding lifestyle that most parents live and often their lack of time and energy for their children– in the creation of human beings, that might have been a very prudent design feature.

Filed Under: Family life, Parenting, Ramblings, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , ,

Hello

April 6, 2005 by

I would like to welcome surfers worldwide to my new blog.

I will be writing on a variety of topics that are related to family life, child rearing, interpersonal relationships, and spirituality. I will be sharing experiences I have had that influence my feelings on these subjects and will be sharing the expertise I have acquired through my education and training.

Filed Under: Ramblings Tagged With: , , , ,
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