Where do I belong?

This is the first year in many years when I have not been in some way responsible for organizing programming for others on the national holidays that follow Pesach:  Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut.  And my kids are older.  As an organizer, and as a parent of small children, there was a way in which I stood outside my own experience as I was busy mediating the experience for others.  This year I am much more inside my own experience, and it's harder.

This week felt like a spiritual trough on a number of levels:  Pesach ended, my parents left the country, and everyone went back to work/school.  I completed a project I have been working on for three months, one that engaged me daily with studying Tanach and Mefarshim (Medieval commentators).  And it was Yom HaShoah.  Completing the Tanach project felt like it removed me in some way from a dialogue with God I had been in, or from being a spectator to a dialogue with God.  It was on the book of Job, and as the book unfolded I especially came to love the ending chapters, but also to love the engagement with the questions it raises. 

Yom HaShoah also felt like it removed me from a dialogue with God, a time of being confronted by God not made manifest.  I felt I could not stay home and in the day I went to the Conservative Yeshiva to hear Ruth Vleeschouwer and Rabbi Pesach Schindler, who escaped Germany as children - Ruth to being in hiding in Holland and Reb Pesach against all odds to the United States - tell their stories.  I took great comfort in God made manifest in their tellings - in Ruth's humor and self-awareness, in her return to Judaism and her commitment, and in Reb Pesach's quoting Tanach references throughout his talk, his ever present commitment to teaching and referencing Torah as a guide for life.  Leaving their presence I felt loss, and challenge, and deep questions about how on earth such atrocities could have happened, as well as faith in the triumph of the human spirit.

In the evening I went to the choral group I have joined (composed 100% of native born Israelis) and was reminded how hard it is to find where I belong during this period of the year.  I did not grow up here.  I don't know the songs or the social/cultural cues.  Israel is no longer a nation of immigrants, but a nation of children of immigrants.  The stories told are the stories of the parents and grandparents.  One does not hear much about recent immigrants.  On the one hand, I have come to identify with the country and the national holidays.  On the other hand, when I step outside the community of English speaking immigrants I most often spend time with, I feel a large gap.  I spend a bunch of time with native born Israelis, but I always feel I don't quite fit.  Of course were I to spend this part of year in the United States I would no doubt feel quite ill at ease there. 

As much as I am a Zionist, and I am a Zionist, I am not sure where God is in all this.  I can't accept simple answers or platitudes.  I appreciate that we live here in a sovereign Jewish state but I see all the difficulties and challenges that creates, including our own abuses of power.  And I feel the tenuousness of our presence here, a sense of threat from the turmoil and nations that surround us.  I can only hold on to King David's words in 1 Chronicles 29:15 - "For we are strangers before you and temporary residents like all our ancestors, our days are like a shadow upon the land and there is no hope."  And then he asks God to turn all our hearts toward God.  To prepare our hearts.  May this be a strong Omer period of turning and of preparation.  And if my days are a shadow, let me work to turn it in the right direction.

Not what I signed up for

I don't mean this to be a rant, or a complaint, nor for it to sound depressed or weary but....

I find I am living a life that seems like "not what I signed up for" in a world that is "not what I signed up for."  I guess that's the essence of a midlife crisis.  I put it off when the kids were little, but I feel it very strongly now.

A young woman who used to be a student of mine in Hebrew school when I was a congregational rabbi is now a young mom, and she signed me up for a facebook group called "What's for dinner?"  I can't bear it.  I spend a good deal of time thinking about what to make for dinner these days, more than I used to, but I cannot bear that this is what young women twenty or thirty years my junior are spending their time doing.

I grew up in the women's movement.  I worked in the battered women's movement, fighting for justice.  All kinds of questions I thought were asked and answered seem to come around on a daily basis.  I frequently wonder, "what were we doing?  did nothing take from all those hours and years of hard work? was there no real change?"

It doesn't help that I live in a country heavily influenced by Orthodox Judaism and hang out on facebook and in person with lots of Orthodox women.  They (mostly) didn't have the upbringing I did or the same expectations. 

I don't know what I was thinking when I moved to Israel, but then as now my life is significantly affected by being shomeret Shabbat, in whatever fashion I am.  I don't naturally move in secular circles and haven't since around 1990.  Certain freedoms aren't available and I am naturally thrown into a culture that isn't naturally mine.  Though I work hard to be involved with Israelis and participate in Israeli culture (study every week in Hebrew with Hebrew speakers, joined a Hebrew speaking choir), I don't mix naturally there either. 

Last year I hit menopause with a bang and with it kind of ricocheted off the career advancement ladder and out of management.  I found I can earn almost as much money working from home 25-30 hours a week doing intellectually challenging work as I earned working 40-45 hours at my management job.  I traded my career identity for the opportunity to be home more for my kids and family.

So I spend more time making dinner, washing dishes, doing laundry and grocery shopping.  And trying every day to value these tasks and believe in them.  Here I am in a tough place.  Gittinomics is the book that made the most sense of this for me - he explains that you will either do these tasks or pay someone to do them for you.  I already pay car mechanics, electricians, plumbers and handymen (note: all male) and now an accountant, but I have never felt that I could comfortably pay someone to clean my house.   And if you can't do that you probably can't work full time, raise kids, etc.  You can't be the middle class executive type I was trying to be for so many years. 

And yet I feel like I am constantly fighting the expectations of Bryn Mawr/my family/my ambitions when I try to get comfortable in my new life.  It's like I am wearing a suit that doesn't fit.  And I didn't slow down and get off the stress track because I "wanted" to.  I had to land in hospital to figure out that what I was doing wasn't working for me or anyone around me.  For the last 4-5 years I was in my job, I went to work every morning feeling like I was underwater and below sea level with all the tasks that were on top of me, never getting to level and certainly not "on top of things".  And no David Allen books or Asana software could fix that. 

I'm not unhappy with my de-stressed life, but I'm not comfortable either.  I have a million questions about gender, and the purpose of life, and what I am doing and not doing.  I don't feel I was "sold a bill of goods" by the women's movement or falsely told that I could "have it all."  I still hold by two sayings - my brother says, "you can have everything you want, but you can't have it all at the same time."  And I heard somewhere, "you can do anything you want in life if you are willing to pay the price."  I decided to pay the price of my career identity and importance in the world in trade for a quieter, happier family, a saner life and better physical and mental health.  But it still doesn't feel like "what I signed up for."

What Happened - About Lucas, parental fear, and Tzuk Eitan

הייתי השבוע בדיון על צוק איתן ועל פחד הורים וישבתי שם ופשוט רעדתי.  הצלחתי להגיד כמה מילים והרגשתי איזה הקלה קלה אבל הרעד המשיך ובסוף רציתי רק להכנס למיטה ולבכות.  בדרך הביתה חשבתי על התמונה הזאת של ילדה מתכרבלת במיטה וגיליתי שזה משהו שאני זוכרת מחברה שלי, ג'יל, שאחרי הלוויה של אביה היתה במיטתה, בוכה.  הייתי בת 10 בערך.  הפגישה הראשונה שלי עם מוות. 

משום מה, הבת שלי גבי משורשת בעולם הזה ואני לא דואגת לה.  פעם, כשהיא היתה בת שנתיים היא רצה אל הכביש.  אני עדיין מקבלת צמרמורת כשאני חושבת על זה.  אבל כעיקרון היא נזהרת, שומרת על עצמה, מתקשרת.
 

הבן שלי הוא משהו אחר.  מתקופת ההריון לא הייתי בטוחה בקיומו.  הייתי בשמירת הריון ומישהי אמרה לי לנצל את הזמן להתחבר עם התינוק שלי והרגשתי "איך?"  עד הרגע שהוא יצא לא האמנתי.  ואז הכל התחיל – האי נוחות שלו בעולם, האסטמה ודלקת הריאות בשנה ראשונה ובהמשך.  מתוך 5 שנים הראשונות 4 פעמים דלקת ריאות.  הלילות עם אסטמה ובמקביל הסיפורים של גיסי וגיסתי על לוקס והאסטמה שלו.  הם היו באותו גיל.  היו לנו משפחות מקבילות, לכל אחת בת ובן, באותם גילאים.

ואז הנורא מכל – הטלפון ב11:30 בלילה.  כשבשרו לנו את הבשורה על לוקס, שמת בתאונת דרכים בגיל 4 וחצי, כל החדר התמלא באור.  לא אשכח – אולי גם זאת סיבה שרציתי לחזור לחדר שלי השבוע.  אני יודעת שיש מעבר מן החדר שלי לטרינידד – שם אנחנו נמצאים עם קרובינו.  ללוויה של לוקס אלן נסעה לבד וגם למות של אביה לא נסעתי – אני נשארתי במיטתי מחוברת איכשהו דרך המעבר הזה.

לוקס היה ילד עטוף בצמר גפן – לא יצא מהבית בלי ליווי מבוגר.  המטפלת שלו חיכתה לו מחוץ לגן כל השעות המעטות שהוא בילה שם.  אמר לאבא שלו זמן קצר לפני מותו שהוא לא צריך ללמוד לקרוא כי הוא לא עולה לבית הספר.

לעומתו סשה היה ילד של סכנות – טיפס על חומות, חיפש גירוי סנסורי בכל מקום.  קבל תלת אופן והתאמן במרפסת על נפילות ממנו – איזה עשרים פעמים נפל, בכה ב"כאלו", הקים את עצמו לעשות שוב.  

אחרי מותו של לוקס שאלתי את עצמי איך?  איך אני אגדל אותו?  אם לוקס ששמרו עליו כל כך מת, איך אשמור על סשה?  אין לי סיכוי להצליח.

כשלוקס נהרג סשה בא מגן ואמר – מצאנו את הנשמה של לוקס בחצר.  זה היה אדום.  נחפור ונוציא אותו ונחזיר לו.  

זה פחד הורים.  חשבתי שהאמנתי בה' אבל גיליתי שהאמנתי בסנטה קלאוס.  חשבתי שיש עסקה ביננו לבין היקום – שמים תמיד את הילד בכסא בטיחות ושום דבר לא יקרה לו.  ה' הפר את עסקתנו.  

מאז מותו קשה לי בכל ברית מילה – כשאומרים "קיים את הילד הזה לאביו ולאמו" אני צועקת בפנים.  מה?  גיסי וגיסתי לא היו ראויים לזה?  באיזה תמימות עומדים ההורים בטקס.  כששרים "המלאך הגואל אותי" אני מתמלא בדמעות.  איפה היה המלאך?

צוק איתן – בזמן שהתחילה נפילת הטילים, חמי נכנס לבית חולים וגילו ולא גילו את המחלה שהרג אותו בעוד 4 חודשים.  בזמן שהתחילה המבצע אלן העבירה בקושי קייטנה ממקום פתוח לבית ספר סגור ואז יצאה לחופשה מתוכננת לארה"ב עם הילדים והשאירה אותי כאן, לעבוד.  חלמתי על הזמן הזה וציפיתי להרגשה של חופש.  קבלתי פחד, בדידות, ודאגות.  לנסוע דרך חוסן או לנסוע דרך ההרים ב"שטח פתוח" שם לא יורטים בטילים אם שוגרים.  והיו לנו 150 סטודנטים שבאו מחו"ל, לא בטלו, ואני נותנת תדרוכים איך להגיע למרחב מוגן .  מלמדת תהילים ואומרת שאני מחפשת אמונה שימושית – אמונה שתחזיק ותחזק אותי בימים אלה.  

ויוצאת לחופשה, וחוזרת, ואלן בטרינדד עם אביה, והיא חוזרת, החגים, אני פתאום חולה, אז עוד טיסה בבהלה ואלן יושבת ליד אביה ביום האחרון שלו.  ואני מקבלת בשורות במיטה ומתקשרת דרך המעבר הרוחני הזה להיות לצידו ולהיות עדה למעברו.  ומחליטה לשנות את חיי. 

What Happened? Part Three

I've been thinking about Part Three of this story for weeks.  Finding so much I want to say and then wondering if everything I plan to write is lies, or at least a skewed way of thinking about things.  And I've been stymied about how to write this part of the story in a way that honors and respects my parents.  What is written below doesn't really convey the angst of this change in my life.  I still have days where I just don't know what happened.

My grandmother, my father's mother, left school at 12 years old, I've been told, to care for her new baby brother.  That's how old Gabi is now.  Then she went back and did a secretarial or business course, and worked until she married.  She told me, I am pretty sure, that she and Grandpa were very pleased she did not have to work after they got married, that this was very important to them, a point of pride, that he supported her.  Of course, she worked like crazy at home - her home was spotless and she was a consummate homemaker.  Every morning, she fresh squeezed Grandpa orange juice. 

My mother, her daughter-in-law, was the first woman in her family to go to college.  Her own mother wanted her to go to secretarial school.  She got a Ph.D.

I grew up between these two formidable women.  Grandma has been gone 20 years but her presence is very real in my life.  She was my only grandparent for 22 years after my grandfather, her husband died.  (My mother's parents had died relatively young - my grandmother before I was born and my grandfather when I was 4.)

My parents were super happy to be parents and often talked about how important it was to them to have children.  But at the same time, I felt that their work was more important to them than anything else, or maybe more that work was what defined a person's identity.

I noticed how deep my feelings about this run when I was on my first maternity leave.  Since I gave birth late, I had been out of college and working full time or in graduate school for like 20 years.  On maternity leave, my identity was "mom", but sometimes it felt more like "milk cow" and I noticed how hard it was to feel good about myself in that circumstance.

So when I figured out last year, in the wake of my illness and Vlad's death, that I really wanted to "make the main thing the main thing" and to be home more, to focus on my kids and to have the flexibility to travel more and see my parents more, to be available to my partner and to maintaining our home, it was very confusing to me, because it has meant giving up a professional identity that has been really important to me for 30 years and a career I have had for 20 years.  This is the first time in well over 30 years that I am not either a) working for a non-profit organization or b) a full time student or c) both.

What I miss most about my former job is my colleagues and the professional identity.  I can't believe I chose this kind of disconnected freedom.  My feelings are not so closely connected with earning money or working, because I've been working pretty much every day since I left my job.  I have work.  What I don't have is a job.  I opened a business so I can get paid, and I am trying to earn a certain amount and to be fully employed by the work I am doing, but I don't see myself as "building a business", I just see myself as working for myself and for clients who choose me to work for them.  It's much looser, less connected, and less demanding than what I have done before.  It feels oddly relaxed.

Then there are the dishes.  And cooking.  And homework, 4th grade homework.  The grocery shopping, the orthodontist appointments, the prescriptions, the taxes, and the house.  I wish I liked housework.  I don't like it any better than I did before I quit my job.  I will never be my grandmother.  But I do a bit more of it.  And I cook dinner every night, and do the dishes, and walk the dog, and don't feel exhausted.  I have time to notice my children and feel good about them - to listen to what they have to say and to try to respond to what they need.  I am way more relaxed at home.  I can say yes more often. 

I saw a woman with a beautiful dog a few weeks ago, and she was saying how they might give the dog up because they didn't have time to walk it as much as it needed.  I figured if my lifestyle didn't work for my dog, it was time to change my lifestyle.  Thanks Popeye.

What Happened - Part Two

Here goes with Part Two of the story:

Insomnia.  Ever heard of it?  If you are menopausal, or even peri-menopausal, you probably have.  It's part of life for many people, I believe I inherited a tendency to it from my mother, and it got worse when I hit my late 40s, early 50s.  I think my mistake was believing it was something I had to learn to live with, instead of something I had to actively work against.

By the time I wound up in hospital, I had been losing 2-3 hours of sleep for up to 10 nights a month for a couple of years.  I would wake up in the night, and then my washing-machine mind would start churning.  It was almost always about work, or stuff I had to do.  And after learning from coaching that I needed to work harder, and losing a couple of assistants in short order, I got the bright idea that if I was up in the night anyway, I might as well go to the computer and work.  Bad idea.

When Vlad died I had a lot of insomnia (just as I had had when my mother in law died years before), and with all the health problems I was having, the doctor put me on sleeping pills which I took for a short time.  When a random stranger told me I was having sleep problems, and I learned that part of fibromyalgia is a sleep disorder, I started really working at sleeping by exercising in the morning, going to bed early, and most importantly, making myself stop my washing-machine mind through prayer and meditation and telling myself I was going back to sleep.  It worked, but I had to be very strict with myself.  No getting out of bed!  No ruminating!

When I went back to work in December 2014, I had just started on hormones and was not feeling a whole lot better.  I mean, I got my sleep back, so that was good, and I was exercising every day, so my heart felt better.  I still had headache and fibromyalgia issues, and I still had the cognitive issues (aka brain fog) which are part of fibromyalgia.  One reason I went back to work was because I didn't know if I would ever feel better and if I wasn't going to get better I wanted to stretch my sick leave for as long as possible.  So I went to work 3 hours a day in December and 5 hours a day in January.  I found out what it was like to be home in the afternoon, and I found out what it was like to say, "no, I can't make that meeting, go ahead and schedule it without me."

I told my boss I was not sure about my future in my job.  I took back most of my job but I didn't teach and I didn't work in the evenings or early mornings (like I had done for a decade).  That relates to another cause of the changes in my life - the kids.  Everyone thinks little kids are the hardest, but little kids go to bed, and if you are lucky, at least a few nights a week, you can count on your brain still being awake when they go to sleep.  But all of a sudden I was going to bed early and my kids were going to bed later, and working at night started to seem less and less attractive or possible. 

In February, I went back to work sort of full time (my old at the office schedule, without the evening and early morning and middle of the night hours).  And that week my boss was terminated.  I had spent two and half years learning the best ways to work with him, and I had a lot of respect for his vision.  But now he was leaving.  They say when you get a new boss, not only does your boss get a new job, you get a new job. 

It became immediately apparent that my goals for my time and what my job needed were not going to be compatible.  My new boss was in New York, which meant meetings that started at 4 pm Israel time, exactly the hour I was trying to be home for my kids.  My boss who was leaving had done the fundraising solicitations - I wanted to do them, but that too required phone work in the late afternoons and evenings. 

I did what everyone recommends - look for a job when you have a job, it's easier to find one that way.  I went on some interviews and some informational interviews.  These clarified a few things for me.  And I also realized something - I could not walk out of a job I had held for 14 years and walk right into something else.  I needed time to say goodbye, and I wanted a break.  After losing both my in-laws, I wanted my kids to see their grandparents.  I wanted to see my aunts and uncles.  I saw how many family members Alen had lost in a short time, and I imagined what the next decade might be like in my extended family.  I wanted to put these things first, now, while they are possible.

So, I made a plan to give two months notice and to take my kids for six weeks with their grandparents and a week in London to see my aunt and uncle.  My last day of work was a Thursday.  On Sunday, Gabi graduated from 6th grade and on Monday I was on a plane with the two kids. 

That's part two.  Time for bed.  There will be a part three, and who knows how many more???? 

What Happened - Part 1

Because it's been a year of incredible change, and because there has to be a time when I stop, and look back, and put some form on the story, make it a narrative and have, not closure but a vantage point, I've been feeling the need to write this post.  For friends and family and people who might learn something from it that they want to learn, but mostly for me.

I decided the story should really begin about two and a half years ago in the spring of 2013 when two things happened - I became set to be the "last man standing" of a three person team that had run my workplace for a decade, and that same week I got the opportunity to receive free coaching from someone who was training to be a coach.  My coaching goal was to put myself in the best possible position to succeed with the changes that were happening at my work.

A few things stand out from the coaching, which was on the whole enjoyable and inspiring.  One was that my coach had me make a list of what I loved about my job.  It filled a page, and when I read it to him, he said there were probably few people on earth who loved their jobs as much.  The other was that he had me track my time from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed on two full days.  In this, I discovered that I spent almost no time speaking to my partner or doing anything with her.  Like less than 10 minutes of each day was being devoted to the person I love and have committed my life to.

I asked my coach about work/life balance and he admitted he had yet to figure that one out.  He was a workaholic who stayed up late a lot trying to find more hours in the day.  I figured that probably wouldn't work for me, but took his advice to work harder.  I forgot that a 50 something man and a 50 something woman don't live in the same physiological universe.

That was May 2013 and in the months that followed I tried to internalize what I had learned, while coping with external circumstances.  I tried to force myself out of the office at 3 pm two days a week (it worked for about 8 weeks maybe) to make my partner happy, and at the same time to deal with a ridiculous level of turnover in support staff.  I had some wonderful student interns that year and I continued to work hard and be hopeful of success.

In the summer of 2014 we had a war, my father in law Vlad became ill, and I took only a short vacation.  After the vacation, Alen went to see her father, I came home with the kids, and our boss put us on a new project management system, Asana.  With this, I was going to organize my entire world.  I made lists of home projects and work projects, assigned tasks to my colleagues and was sure I had things under control.  I also had a lingering infection and over Sukkot developed sudden shoulder and chest pain, high blood pressure, intense headaches, and the anxiety that one would have in such a situation.

After going back and forth to the emergency room a few times and a short hospital stay, my heart checked out and they said, "stress."  I said, "What do you mean, stress is my middle name, I have lived like this for years."  Right up until menopause, that is.

My mother told me that regular exercise was the key to stopping the menopause related heart irregularities that run in our family (my sister got them just a bit after me).  While I was in hospital we adopted a dog and from the day I got out I have walked every day.  This walking slowly changed my life completely.

When I got out of the hospital I stayed home for a week like they told me, and when I got back to work my boss asked me if I needed to take some time off and I was like, "I just did."  But by then Vlad was in hospital in Trinidad and  after I was back at work for a week, Alen called me at work and said she had to fly out.  She got on a plane with Gabi, who insisted on seeing her grandfather, and they were at Vlad's bedside the day he died, which was one year ago.  I was here with Sasha and the dog, not sleeping, and with a headache that lasted 6-8 weeks (finally turning out to be an atypical migraine brought on by, you guessed it, menopause).

I stayed out of work for a month and thought a lot about my father in law.  The best years of his life were the last ones, when he lived with his son and his family, saw his grandchildren every day, went sailing with his sons, cooked meals and listened to his favorite music.  I thought about what could be learned from his life and about what it really means to put family first.  I doubted whether I could continue to be the person I had been at work.  One of the scariest parts of my illness was losing my ability for complex thinking and handling complex tasks.  I could not teach and if someone wanted to talk about something complicated I had to ask them to write it down.

Over the course of these week of trying to provide emotional support to my family, grieving, medical appointments, receiving tons of support from the community, and learning to take care of myself, I lost my desire to help other people with their problems.  It just disappeared.  For years I had been the go-to person, priding myself that I would try to help every single person who walked into my office with whatever they needed, and suddenly I just didn't want to do it any more.  It was startling, and it was real.

And now I have to go grocery shopping, so stay tuned for part two of the story!

What I would do with Yotam Ottolenghi's leek fritter recipe if I had it all to do over again

Two leeks
One small onion
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped parsley

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup bread crumbs
150 g yogurt
1 tablespoon baking powder
 2 eggs
cubes of bulgarit - about 1/3 of a container (feta in the US)

Chop the onion small and the leeks in slices
Saute in olive oil until soft - about 15 minutes
Add the parsley and spices to the sauteed leek + onion

Make a batter of the flour, bread crumbs, yogurt, baking powder and eggs.

Mix the vegetables into the batter.  Add the bulgarit.

Put on greaseproof paper in spoonfuls (think big cookies) and bake about 20 minutes at 170 C or 350 F.  They should be browned and set like cookies.

This is only slightly different from what I did.  This leaves out the sugar and butter from his recipe.  (I used oil instead of butter but it was really unnecessary.)  I would add the eggs - he had just one egg white.  If you don't want to use two eggs, try it with one.

Serve with yogurt or sour cream, or make a fancy sauce by adding garlic and lemon to one or the other.

Let me know if you make these!!!!