A Momentary Pause: welcoming the new year, 5780

Entering this new year has been a bit different this year, to say the least. I spent most of my life staying outside of, separate from, content with being needed rather than loved. Afraid of being loved.

And this whole past year, I've felt a change. Not a tsunami of change rolling over and crashing into me, but something infinitely more gentle, certainly less dangerous, a blessing, no longer a curse - because yes, love, for so long, felt so much like a curse!

This past year, because of my weakness, because of my vulnerability, I have learned to find strength in asking for help. I have learned to accept that I am not less than. It's hard. It still doesn't come naturally and I don't always act with grace, but I have learned to lean in to you and so roll on.

What a gift! It is not that it took my heart stopping to have learned this lesson. It is that, and the coming of this new year that have given me the opportunity to pause for a moment, to reflect on just who I am as I enter 5780. And here's what I found, the greatest truth of all:

I am loved.

Thank you for helping me find this gift. And in case I haven't acknowledged it, or said it enough, I love you right back. No strings, just love.

A happy, sweet and joyous new year. Shana tova u'metukah!

And, in case you missed it, I wrote the poem below to honor this journey I've undertaken, to acknowledge all of the twists and turns and difficult moments that had brought me here, to this place - of God and you and me and love.


The Longest Journey

The longest journey

begins with a breath -

   breath being one of the names of God -

and ends in Breath:

   as the name of God is a prayer: amen.

It is played out

on a bridge more narrow than fear

and wider than Heaven,

and gathers together
the battered, embattled rubble

of broken days and history.

It is - as if it ever wasn't - love,

that journey of unknown proportion,

coming not because of,

nor in spite of, but 

a love that is whole

and endless

   and love -

      God, yes!

         Love,

             in all its infinite

                 and glorious

                    unknowing

                       boundlessness -

                          Love.

                          Love.

That is the journey.
That is the breath

That is the name
of God

Amen.

Triptych: a death in three parts

Part I
06 September 2010

My brother is dying.

As I write this, he is laying quietly, oxygen mask covering most of his face, sedated beyond recognition. He's been like this for days. Every so often, his breathing becomes labored and he becomes agitated. Great rasps then, desperate, gasping rattling breaths. So much so that we strive to breathe for him, will air into him. The nurses come to inject more of whatever it is medication that they are giving him, into the ever-present tubes that snake in him and around him.

The meds are not life sustaining.  They are palliative. We hope.

The doctors say it will be soon.

And so we watch, and wait. We sit in a dimly lit hospital room, the sibilant hiss of the oxygen so constant that it is almost inaudible. Almost, but not quite. There is so much that is almost, but not quite these days.

I have been composing this particular post in my head for almost two years now. I want so much to honor him, to celebrate him and his life. I do not want to sink into the maudlin. I do not want to appear trite. I want this whole, painful, drawn-out, uncomfortable, scary, sad mess to be over. I want everything back to normal. I want my brother to be healed. Made whole. I want him to be at peace.

I want to blame someone, something. It feels as if there is so much blame to go around.

But this is not about blame. As easy as it would be to sink into that messy pit, all shiny and burbly and self-righteously fatuous, thereby avoiding all the hard stuff, like love and meaning and fear and a thousand other difficult and honest things - this is harder.

This is about my brother, who is dying, and me trying to find some meaning in that.

I cannot talk about his death, find meaning in it, without talking about his life. He was intense and passionate and fiercely protective of those he loved. He was stubborn and opinionated. He was courageous beyond measure. He was human beyond measure, and so had his moments.

He lived on caffeine and nicotine. For decades, he walked around with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other (and one tucked behind his ear, just in case). He moved constantly - walking, pacing, jiggling a foot when sitting, tapping out a rhythm to some private noise in his head. It makes watching him now, so still and silent, all the more difficult, because it is the antithesis of him.

He hasn't opened his eyes in a few days. The last time he spoke to me, he said "This is not - this is not - coral!" Coral? What? The drugs, perhaps the cancer, perhaps both, were stealing words from him, even as they stole his grace, his energy, his life. It meant something to him, surely, but the path to meaning, to connection, was becoming buried and tangled. They tell us, the nurses and aids and doctors, that he can hear us even in his stupor. So we talk to him, reassure him that he is not alone, that he is loved. We tell jokes and stories. We sit, quietly and lovingly. We hold his hand and comfort him through touch (we comfort ourselves through touch).

My baby brother is dying, and there's not a god damned thing I can do about it. All I can do is be with him, witness his journey through that dark and shadowy valley, love him. And hold his hand.


Part II
08-09 September 2010

Mom called while I was at work. "Come now. The doctors say it's a matter of hours."

I felt the ice in my center radiate outwards, a sheath of cold and darkness. God no. Please God no.  Not today. Okay - not ever, but really not today. Sundown will be Rosh Hashanah, the new year, the celebration of the world's creation. God will open the book of Life and Death tonight. God will record who will live in joy, who will die in pain. Please: don't let my brother die.

Don't let him die before I can say good bye.

Another round of sitting. Hand holding. We soothe and comfort and cry and watch. There are no masks now. His breathing, labored and difficult and strangled only a few hours earlier is quiet. Steadier. They've taken him off oxygen and he is breathing on his own. Slowly. Shallowly. We gather around him, quietly talking, reminiscing. We are learning how to care for one another again, be a close family again. After years of wear and tear, strain and hurt, we are learning to love each other again. We are fragile and cautious and have on kid gloves.

For Randy, we will do this. It is one more way to honor him.

I can't sit for long. Sitting with family is both easy and hard. It is as if our voices are rusty. If not our voices, then perhaps our hearts. We have been separate for so long. It doesn't take much time to find those familiar patterns, sink back into the rhythms that defined us for decades. What is more difficult than re-learning and re-establishing those rhythms, is reaching out to others, to prepare them for the worst. After all, we are here, together, with Randy, cocooned by our love and fear and sorrow. But we are here, together. The others are outside, separate. Although we try to bridge that endless chasm, we fall short. We are here. They are not here. There is a difference. They love him, us, no less, but there is a layer between them and this death, a thin, membranous shield. There is that microscopic difference, though the sorrow still flows in steady waves, carrying us to one another close as breath, as light or air. But, there is a difference.

The hours wear on and we continue our vigil. Randy continues to breath, to dream, to struggle against pain. It is almost sundown, almost Rosh Hashanah. "Go," urges my family. Pray, and talk to God. Find comfort and peace and struggle and light. And so, tenuously, I welcome the new year. I can lose myself in the music of the service, in its rhythms and cadences. It is the birthday of the world and God's Book opens. I shudder at that thought, even as I sing those ancient hymns. It hits me, suddenly, that this is merely another kind of vigil.

Thursday morning. Randy has had a rough night but he is stable. Ish. The nurse tells me it could be any time. Mom tells me to go to services, to pray. Another holy vigil. A small solace in the face of despair. In going through the motions of that holy dance, I get lost again, for a few hours. I feel surrounded by something, protected, sheltered. I even manage to sing B'Rosh Hashanah without stumbling, without trembling:

"On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed:

How many shall pass on, how many shall come to be;

who shall live and who shall die..."

The shofar sounds at last. I rush back to the hospital.

And so we sit, and wait. A softly, murmuring watchfulness. Randy lays quietly, his breath soft and slow. He hasn't opened his eyes in days. We talk softly, we surround him with our love, with music and stories and love. And one last time, Randy opened his eyes and smiled and died.

Part III

23 October 2010

It's been over a month since my brother died.

Those first few days were an impossibility. Grief so palpable I could feel it rise, slow and inexorable, threatening to drown me. Guilt just as present, because I lived, because I don't have cancer, because whole minutes, sometimes hours would go by and I would realize that I hadn't thought of Randy once, that I wasn't grieving, that I may even have laughed or smiled or forgotten for just a split second that Randy had died.

We buried him on a magnificent day in September. The sun shone in a cloudless sky. The leaves rustled, still summer green with just the barest suggestion of gold. There was a coming together that day. A sharing of sorrow and grief and memory. There was a gentleness that seems to be missing so often from the quotidian pace. There was a sheltering grace in that day. It went too fast and spun too slow. It was filled with sadness and laughter and family and love.

It was about honor and courage and frailty. Death was there, certainly. But life too. Little boys tumbled like puppies, shrieking with laughter and competition and exuberant joy. Adults did their own dance of remembrance. Sadness laced our speech, but we carried one another to firm ground, sheltered one another with peace and strength. Randy's final gift.

I miss him. There is a... missingness. The quality of something missing. Slightly empty and lopsided. But only out of the corner of my eye, in hindsight. It is a passing thrum, a tremor of memory and desire. I think about stories I want to tell him. What I wouldn't give to just sit with him for a few thousand years, not saying much of anything, or maybe saying everything, coffee in hand.

I miss him, and there are bills to pay and laundry to do, and work and school and oil changes and piano lessons, and... life. There is life, an abundant and full dance - sometimes a waltz, sometimes a two step, something that fills the space of the day. If you're lucky, it morphs suddenly into a jitterbug or the Charleston, a celebration of life and joy, before slipping back to familiar paths.

I miss him. I remember him. I love him. And that's it. That's the deal. It's what matters - not the completion, but that we journey for a time together, touch each other's lives and hearts and souls. We remember, and we live, and love and grieve. And we go on, whether it's done or not, whether it's complete or not. We walked a lifetime together, my brother and I. I am grateful for our journey, for the lessons he taught me, for the light he shone in my darkness.

Ever and always, Randy.
Zichrono liv'racha

The Longest Journey: a poem for Tisha B'av

The longest journey

begins with a breath -

   breath being one of the names of God -

and ends in Breath:

   as the name of God is a prayer: amen.

It is played out

on a bridge more narrow than fear

and wider than Heaven,

and gathers together
the battered, embattled rubble

of broken days and history.

It is - as if it ever wasn't - love,

that journey of unknown proportion,

coming not because of,

nor in spite of, but 

a love that is whole

and endless

   and love -

      God, yes!

         Love,

             in all its infinite

                 and glorious

                    unknowing

                       boundlessness -

                          Love.

                          Love.

That is the journey.
That is the breath

That is the name
of God

Amen.

For Tisha B'av

I am meant to follow: an approach to the Days of Awe

The road is mystery still,
yet David's harp urges me
and the horns of Abraham's
dilemma push me,
and Jacob's ladder is crowded
with angels. They move aside,
not without some attitude,
so I may stumble up those
narrow rungs; still -
elevated though I am,
there is only dust
and a blaze of Glory
in the far distance.

I am meant to follow,
with open hands
and open heart,
to feel the quickening
of my blood
that moves in equal time
with my shame
and my joy, my fear and
love, my grief and my ecstasy,
So that I may claim them
all, as they have
claimed me;
so that I may dance
at the gates
and be whole.

Walk with me

Walk with me, he said
Walk with me and we'll explore
This next patch of road coming up,
That's just a bit under-taveled
And holds a bit of mystery still.
Walk with me. and oh!
the adventures that wait
for the both of us,
just beyond the brambles
a,nd that patch of wildflowers
If you would just walk with me,
Walk with me,
Walk with me,
And be my love.

Sing with me, she said
Sing with me this song of my delight
A new tune, of liquid notes
that flow like water
and sound like the taste of honey,
sweet and rich upon my tongue
Sing with me, this secret melody -
sacred and holy and filled
with such joy! Just sing,
Sing with me,
Sing with me,
and be my love.

I have known your soul forever
And felt your heart call to me.
So let us rise, my beloved.
The road beckons
and the melody spills forth
with such sweet insistence.
Together we will walk,
And together we will sing,
Together, with the scent of wildflowers
and the feel of your hand
in mine.

Omer, days 13 through 16, give or take:

I've had better weeks. I've had better days. Of course, the converse is also true: I've had worse weeks, and certainly much worse days. Let's face it - life can get really crappy sometimes. I am grateful to have learned the gloriously annoying lesson of "this, too, shall pass," and I barely even grit my teeth when I say that.

There was a time that I felt as if I had to climb a ladder in order to get to crappy. There was a time I lived in the land of forever for ever bad thought or feeling or day I had. The good stuff was always fleeting; the bad stuff was eternal. I knew it. I'd gather all my crappy baggage and crawl into that crappy neighborhood that lives inside my head, and I'd set up camp near the busted out buildings and tumbleweeded vacant lots, ready for, well, forever.

I knew, more than anything else, that I would feel just as crappy and bad and sad and lonely and less-than tomorrow, and the next day, and the next week and month and - you get the picture. I was a tragic figure, ready for my close up.

So, it's been a crappy week in a year or so of crappy weeks. There've been some good times hidden in these days. Some of them brilliant and filled with light and wonder. There has been joy, and play and gifts unimaginable - not necessarily anything big and grand. Often quiet and unlooked for, like opening a forgotten box wedged into the back of your closet, only to find a press of dried cornflowers and the squidgey marks of a tiny, brightly colored handprint made just for you. Mostly though, there's been a lot of crap strung between those glory days.

And it's ok. I'll take all the crappy days, along with the good ones. I've been around long enough to know that sometimes, those days are one and the same. Take the other day, for instance.

It started off well enough. Oh-dark-thirty is quiet. The cat waits for me to start moving so that she can climb onto my chest and purr for a while. Not a bad way to start a day, even wishing it were closer to six than to three, even wishing she'd lay with her head facing me instead of my feet. Coffee is next. And the poking and prodding with several needles of varying sizes. It gets tot he point where you really can't feel it anymore. One of the tiniest gifts, to be sure. If I wanted to get all spiritually, I could stretch it to a big one - thank you, God, for the grace of better living through chemistry and technology, and access to all the medical miracles that sustain me. Too many people are dying because they don't have it nearly so good as me. Peapod delivery in the barely-lit morning, and the boy is up like a flash, putting the groceries away before I can even wake him and "ask" which we both know is more command than ask, but we like to be polite about it. Hey - this day is kinda looking up, yeah?

Breakfast of cheerios and banana and milk - and really, can there be a more perfect breakfast? No, there cannot. It's my go-to, ever since I was pregnant with The Boy, nineteen-plus-a-smidge years ago. CNN is on in the background - we are so close to some drastic upheaval, I can taste it - even as I worry about the unintended consequences that might flow from all of this turmoil and nastiness and change. Studying at the table, the window open behind me. Mostly spring. It's a great frikkin day.

The boy left, CNN gives way to MSNBC. This textbook is boring as all get out. Time for hummus and chips. Time to take a nose dive on the kitchen floor. The hard, ugly red-Spanish-tiled kitchen floor. For some reason, I mumble "nonononono" as I go down. I've been doing that a lot - falling and mumbling "nononono!" as if my comment will magically stop the falling from happening. It has the exact same effect when the cough starts to attack me, or my legs and feet start to cramp: none at all.

And I thought the carpeted dining room floor was uncomfortable yesterday. Ha!

Well, at least no broken bones this time. Small favors. The day begins to spiral downwards. It can be like that, you know? No matter the lessons I've learned over time, about chance and crappiness and joy and God, I can careen madly down that hill at breakneck speed, in a heartbeat. Forever comes awfully fast in my world. Instead of class, I was looking down the long tunnel of staying home to nurse my fear.

But today, oh today! There was a gift. There was grace. There was love. These were the lessons of the day: stuck in my aloneness, in my fragile body and overwhelmed spirit. It began with a text. Specifically, mine to a classmate, to let her know I wouldn't be in class. Her response was quick.

"Are you ok? Do you need me to come over? Please say yes if at all necessary."

Do I need someone to come over? To do what? Stare at me? Watch me be fragile? Pity me? "Thanks," I texted back. "I'm ok; freaked a bit, but ok." Nothing to see here, folks. Pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain.

The phone rang. "I'm coming over." Then she hung up.

And she came over. She hugged me and talked to me. She asked what I wanted. She asked what I needed. She waited for me to answer every question. I was surprised (not really) that I still have no real vocabulary for this - no true ability to articulate what it is that I want or need. She was gentle and loving and patient. She asked what I wanted for lunch. "I can get it," I said. "What can I get you?"

I refused to let her see my need. This Fixer of Broken Things cannot - will not - be fixed.

"Don't be silly! I came to help you," she said.

Ugh. I hate showing vulnerability. I hate that I need. "I hate being so weak," I mumbled. Like my insistence that a "nonononono" will keep a thing from happening, I cling to the belief that all my various ailments and complaints are subject to my will alone, while I tamp down the fear that all my vulnerability makes me less than and my need will swallow me whole and drag you down with me.

"Oh honey! I didn't come over because you needed anything. I came because I love you,"

And there it was - clean and clear and filled with such exquisite beauty - love. Not because of. Not in spite of. No qualifiers at all. Just love.

There's a lot of crap in my days. My weeks. Months. I carry it with me, as burden and badge of honor both. It is comfortable, a known quantity. It is exhausting, really. But there are these moments, skipping and slipping through all that curious dross of mine that lift me and set me free, that remind me that there is love, unfettered, unbound.

For all the moments, every single one of them, let me say, amen. For the lessons - all of them, but especially for this gift of such breathtaking grace, let me say, thanks.

My Father's Music

My father can play three songs on the piano. One is Debussey's Clare de Lune. The other two are also classical pieces. I have no idea which ones. But I would love when we would go to my Aunt Laurie's house-- immense and modern, with huge rooms and (to my eye) impossibly high ceilings, her baby grand sat in sharp relief against the white walls and white shag carpet of her white living room-- and my dad would play.

I sat next to him on the piano bench, almost too eager to breathe, barely containing myself for the length of his short repertoire. He didn't know the entirety of any of the three works, but he knew enough to keep us all transfixed. Before the last note died, I would burst out "Again, daddy! Play it again!"

And he would. He would bring his large hands-- so much more comfortable holding a golf club or a cup of coffee-- he would bring his hands up and  begin to play. And for those few minutes, I was mesmerized by his hands, fluid and graceful, saying everything that mattered, everything that he couldn't say: Of course I'll it play again. I love you.

Dad wasn't much for words. Used to make me crazy. Read this, Dad; can you believe what it says? Watch this, Dad; what'd'ya think? Listen to this, Dad-- what do you say?

Hmmmm.

That's nice.

I guess so.

I don't know.

Hmmmm.

I was like a puppy all during my childhood and adolescense, jumping and wagging and slightly desperate for his attention. Notice me, Dad. Engage. Talk. Debate. Argue. Something. Anything. And mostly, I would skid head first into the wall of his quiet.

But when I asked, he would lift his strong hands to the keyboard and play for me, one more time.

Years later, long after I had moved out of their house into my own, we would joke about it (well, "joke" in the very-few-words-but-still-shared-sentiment of my dad's world). After I had talked to my mother for however long she would grant me, after the obligatory how-are-you-what's-new-are-you-dating-anyone back and forth of our conversations, she would invariably end our call with "Here. Your father wants to talk to you," and she would hand the phone to my father.

"Hey Dad."

"Mmhmm."

"Poor Morry," I would say, laughing. Morry was my grandfather, my mother's stepfather. Her mother would do the same thing, every time. Whenever she was done with her part of the conversation (always in some weirdly truncated shorthand, so worried was she about the toll charges that she was sure would bankrupt her or us), she would shove the phone in Morry's hand, insisting that he wanted to talk to us. After a painfully uncomfortable and mostly silent minute or so, peppered with pat questions and unheard answers ("How are you, Papa?" "Fine, fine.") that trailed off into gentle sighs that filled up the remaining space, until we could all (thankfully) hang up.

"How's it going, Morry?" I would tease my father.

"Fine, fine," he would say. I could hear his distracted smile loud and clear.

"You don't wanna talk, do you, Dad?"

"Not particularly. Everything ok?"

"All good, Dad. I release you-- you can hang up now. Love you."

And so it went. I understood the why of his reluctance at some point, finally. He made his living with his words. If he wasn't talking to a client, he was arguing their cases in court. He spent his days talking, so by the time we picked him up at the train station at 5:45 every night, Monday through Friday, week after week after month after year, he was done talking.

Dad lived in a world that merely shadowed our own, intersecting it in the background and the in-between times-- early morning just before leaving for the train or the golf course; dusk and dinner, sitting at the head of the table, inhaling whatever meat-and-potatoes dinner Mom had made. My brothers were lucky. They had Indian Guides and Little League, smaller and infinitely more tender points of intersection. I was always so jealous that they had found this private, boy-language that engaged our father in a way that I never could.

For me, almost always, he was a silent, bread-winning presence, a not-quite stranger who came and went according to his own rhythms. Every so often, I would find the bridge between our worlds and be filled with the music he coaxed from the piano, a language all our own.

We grew comfortable in our every-so-often conversations. They rarely veered from the gentle paths we had carved for them. "How's it going?" "Fine, dad. Go ahead, Morry-- you are released." What more needed to be said? Love was wrapped around every letter, every vowel in those short sentences.

My story would end here, in that gentle back and forth game of verbal shorthand at which we had become so adept. It would - it should - but doesn't. Apparently, those warnings they slap on the side of a pack of cigarettes are true: smoking is dangerous for your health. For Dad, it became true in spades: throat and tongue cancer. When he was diagnosed, we were told that if he had to get cancer, this was certainly the best one to get, since it was mostly curable and survival rates are quite high. Of course, an 89% survival rate is high until it's used in connection with your dad. Then it's impossibly small, while 11% looms larger than mountains and sky together.

After a year of chemo and radiation and hope and prayer (not necessarily in that order), the doctors found that while the tongue cancer had been eradicated, the throat cancer seemed to have snagged on his vocal chords, wrapping them in strands of ugly, deathly cells. There was no choice but to remove the voice box. And so, on September 10, 2012, dad underwent a trachyectomy.

I went to visit him, shortly after his surgery. He was still raw and tender, still a little lost and unsure.  Always a man of small conversations and few words-- he was wrapped in silence. We had gotten him a white board to write on. We wanted to get him an iPad or Tablet. He refused them all. He was too impatient, too used to the rhythms of talking and vocalizing. He would start to write, and then his fingers and thoughts would tangle, and he'd push the board to the side, waiting mutely for us to fill in the blanks.

And then he would bring up his large hands, swirling them through the air between us, fluid punctuation to whatever he was trying to say. Impassioned, expressive, swooping movement meant to be his voice:

Ferris wheel, ferris wheel, fireworks!

Or something to that effect. I read his hands about as well as I read his lips. I realized, though, that the words didn't matter. Or didn't matter much. I was transfixed, once again, by his hands, saying everything that ever needed to be said-- everything he had always said-- I love you.

Love you back, Dad. 

Happy father's day. 

Omer. Day 23 (and a few toes, maybe an ankle's worth into Day 24)

I found an old Facebook post, written a couple years ago, a reflection for the Omer, Day 26. I love to see the drift of days and counts over the years, that odd dance the Jewish and American calendars do. For this day alone, Facebook tells me I've written on Days 19 and 39. Today I'm contemplating Day 23 (which is all to quickly slipping into Day 24).

The post started with a phone call from a friend. For the life of me, I cannot remember which. How horrible, to have been so moved by connection with a friend that I felt compelled to write about it, and now, just a couple of years later - nothing. I have guesses, but they are hopefully imaginary at best (so wishing to know, I can almost see a face through that fog, grasping at anything that feels reasonable, knowing full well I'm provable wrong).

The gift is still true, still real and powerful. It feels both heavy and light at the sane time. I am bowed, not bent, with the grace of it, still. And so I offer it again, a reminder to me to pay attention to the gift of kindness and love,

Last night ended with a phone call. An old friend. We've drifted, and our relationship has morphed pretty significantly over the past decade or so. Still, we are connected in ways that are profound and forever. I am amazed that I am in a place to be able to name it thus.

His question, when you translate it into its base components, was "Who am I? Have I always been this, or have I changed?" He told me, after asking his question in a little more PG-rated version than I've written here "This is hard. I'm asking for honesty. I trust you."

I cannot imagine a more important question. It is the heart, I think of everything I seek, every word I've ever written: who the hell am I? And then the cascade, all flowing from that single point, reflected and refracted to infinity, each one catching the light and bursting with hope (and desire, and fear). Have I changed? Where do I fit? Do you love me? Am I ok? What will happen? What will be? How can I-- ? When will I-- ? What if I-- ?

I cannot imagine a more treasured gift. "I trust you." There was a time not many would have (could have) said that to me with any real honesty. But here was this person saying "I give you the power to hurt me; I trust that you will be gentle and kind."

I bowed under the weight of that. Was silent for a moment, to honor that gift and give thanks for it. Someone asked me once to define "love." I cannot think of anything more true than "I give you the power to hurt me, and trust that you will not."

This is the gift, the truth, the weight and the grace of it. I am so very grateful for this drift of time and ritual that has reminded me of it once again.

If not now

Who would have strength
to stand, truth to power -
a tightrope walk
against the wind,
with no net below
except for the hand of God?

Who would walk the road
less traveled, the one of
rocky crags and razor wire?
That curves into a
perilous wood and
still look up with hope?

Who would sing the song
of dissonance when it
is easier - far easier!
to slip into the stream
and be carried
by its current?

Who would dare
to demand justice,
show mercy,
offer comfort
shout defiantly -
who would love
in the face
of hate?

Puah stood, and Shifra
by her side, choosing life
and the cry of babes over
one man's harsh decree.
And Miriam, the one of
timbrel and drum
she danced across a river
and sang a song
of freedom's call.

Who will stand
now, if not for me?
who will rise
now and march
now and sing a song
of freedom's call
now? Who,
if not for me?

Once more, and
yet again
if not now
When?

Head to Heart

The longest journey

begins with a breath -

   breath being one of the names of God -

and ends in Breath:

   as the name of God is a prayer: amen.

It is played out

on a bridge more narrow than fear

and wider than Heaven,

And gathers together

the battered, embattled rubble

of broken days and history.

It is - as if it ever wasn't - love,

that journey of unknown proportion,

Coming not because of,

Nor in spite of.

Love that is whole

And endless

   And love -

      God, yes!

         Love,

             in all its infinite

                 and glorious

                    unknowing

                       boundlessness -

                          Love.

                          Love.

                          That is the journey

                          That is the breath

                          of God.

Amen.

For Tisha B'av

Ten Thousand Doors

Ten thousand doors.
Ten thousand rooms.
Ten thousand shades of
Beige, with floors of wood
and wool and pictures on the walls,
framed photos -
that capture time in black and white.
Each carried from room to 
room to ten thousand rooms 
of endless beige,
carried trough ten thousand
doors that open and close:
Pictures to capture
a life, of whispers and sighs,
of moments framed by light and
coffee cup clutter. 

An infinity of doors and walls
and pictures hung,
Suspended, bursting with
Life, of whispered
hope and shouted sighs,
that pierce the walls 
built 'round my heart.

And laced through all that
dust and coffee cup clutter,
through ten thousand doors.
and ten thousand rooms
of ten thousand shades of 
infinite, endless color and beige,
There is you.

Ten thousand doors and you,

the home of my heart.

Waking

There is something

about waking,

about light that 

tiptoes in through your 

shaded window

and soft cat feet

hiding sharp cat claws,

and insistent cat sounds

that twist and twine

with the light 

and the softness

of waking

next to you.

There is something 

wondrous in waking

next to skin that smells

of sleep and 

sweat, and your 

fingers - so deftly

explore the landscape

of my body, 

its contours and 

vast planes, and trail,

like liquid fire,

to twist and twine

with soft light

and insistent sound

and wondrous delight.

there is something

about feeling your 

breath, the weight 

of you, the soft light 

of you, the wondrous delight 

of you, the heat of 

your touch, and the 

insistent beat of your

heart, a pulsebeat 

syncopated rhythm,

insistent,

thrumming,

filled 

with an

endless measure 

of broken 

half notes,

a delicate and 

stumbling gait

of love 

and infinite grace.

Surviving Childhood and other lost arts

I once had an argument of sorts with my son. It started when I told him he had to put on his helmet. “If it has wheels, you’re wearing a helmet,” I said. He looked at me with a mixture of pity and annoyance. He immediately dropped the handle of his scooter – the one that he couldn’t live without; the one that he had begged for, the one that would make his life complete and whole and perhaps even cure the common cold – he walked away, shaking his head in disgust and went back into the house. No helmet for him.

I did a mental double take. A helmet? Where the hell had that come from? I never wore a helmet when I was a kid. Had they even been invented then? Who the hell wore helmets, except for those dweebie, nerdy little kids whose noses ran all the time, their asthma inhalers jammed into pockets, chronically underweight and over-smart? I had my doubts that even they wore protective gear.

In that instant, it occurred to me, to ask the very air around me – how in hell did we ever survive our childhoods?

We certainly did not live in the protective bubble that seems standard for the kids of today.

When I was brought home from the hospital (after a week-long stay, where mom went into labor and woke up several hours later, presented with a clean and swaddled baby girl, the miracle (and mess) (and pain) of childbirth not even a ghostly memory), I travelled in style on my mother’s lap. In the front seat, with the little triangle window open so she could tap the ashes off her cigarette (Kool extra longs). This was the original car seat – mom’s lap. My older brother sat in the back, perched on the hump, arms dangling over the front seat, moving in frenetic jerks between mom and dad as he tried to capture their attention away from me so that it could be properly be placed on him, the Crown Prince, balancing precariously with every turn and sudden stop.

And so opened the floodgate of memory, poised on the unlikelihood of survival from an unprotected childhood.

• No car seats, no seat belts and we fought over who got the middle seat and who got to ride in the front. It wasn’t a question of age or size that determined seating order, but pushiness and the sheer volume used in calling dibs;
• No helmets or knee pads or wrist pads (oh, my!);
• We walked to school. Alone or in small groups, down crowded sidewalks and across busy streets, not a crossing guard in sight. And if we were early, we played on the playground – tag and red rover and elimination and dodgeball and whatever other fiercely competitive game we could think of that involved winners and losers and outs and shame – until the bell rang and we lined up, by age and class, waiting to march and shuffle and shove our way into the building. Rain or shine, hot or cold. Every day;
• We came home for lunch. Bozo and Ringmaster Ned and the Grand Prize Game, coupled with cream of tomato soup and tuna sandwiches, and then skipping back to languish through our afternoon classes;
• We rode our bikes in the street, ran with the neighborhood kids till way past dark, swam in retention ponds and hidden creeks;
• We drank out of garden hoses. Hell, we drank tap water;
• Boys played little leagues, girls were Indian Princesses. Paths did not cross. Roles were very clearly defined – X’s went one way, Y’s the other;
• We played with cap guns and watched violent kid shows, like Tom and Jerry or Bugs Bunny. We played cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians. We were totally politically incorrect;
• We had Christmas Break and Easter Vacation, regardless of religious beliefs (or lack thereof). We sang Christmas carols and loved them.

And this is just the immediate stuff, the unconscious stuff. I’m sure if I really gave it some thought, I could come up with eleventy-seven more examples of how my childhood may seem so horrifying to the parents of today, me included! We seem so determined these days. So intent on protecting our children, from skinned knees to broken hearts. We want to keep our children safe and watched over. Unscathed by the reality of life.

In the same vein, we seem so much more present for our kids, more involved in their lives. Sometimes too involved, I’d venture to say. It happens: the Little League parent who gets a bit too argumentative and demanding, of the kids and the umpires and the game itself, who looks foolish and crass, a caveman visiting the 21st century. We push and prod and demand excellence, and try to temper that with humility. We over-schedule them and over-stimulate them, and wonder why they have the attention span of small flying insects. We filter where we can and hope the message and the medium don’t provide fodder for some future therapy session.

We do the best we can.

That’s the bottom line, I think. We do our best and we love them as best we know how, as fully as we can. In every generation, we find a way to love and watch and teach and sustain.

One more image, in this pool of memory and love, that I feel the need to share:

My father, like most fathers of his generation, paced nervously in the Father’s Waiting Room, smoking and drinking bitter coffee, awaiting my triumphant appearance on the the planet. My mother was unconscious, drugged to the gills, oblivious to the miracle she was about to produce.

Fast forward a thousand lifetimes, to the day of my son’s birth.

I was terrified. I was in pain. I was not drugged. I begged for drugs. I was denied. Apparently, you need to dilate to at least four centimeters to qualify for drugs. I never made it past three. An hour. Two. Five. More. More pain that I could ever imagine being in. More fear than I could ever imagine surviving. The monitors lost my son’s heart beat a couple of times. The doctors searched high and low every time it got lost, finding it just on the edge of sight, the edge of a miracle. Finally, one of the several hundred masked strangers (all claiming to be my doctor) came to my husband and me and said “We can continue this and hope for a natural childbirth, but there’s some risk to you and the baby. We’d like to do an emergency C-Section.”

“Do it,” we said. We were a team, we were united. While my husband could not bear our child, he could be as present as possible. He gained weight with me, came to our doctor’s appointments, read and trained and craved and worried and gloried right along with me. And he was with me as they wheeled me into surgery, held my hand as the spinal took hold. He turned green but did not faint or get sick. He was stoic and resolute and watchful and willing the doctors to not blow it, not make a mistake. He was there, not pacing in an antiseptic and crowded waiting room.

And then our son was born.

And here’s the extraordinary thing:

Our son was born, squalling and red faced and mottled, pale skin. He took our son from the nurse. The boy was barely cleaned of gunk and swaddled in blue, and my husband took that small boy-child, all six pounds, one ounce of him in his huge hands, so dark against the boy’s pale, pale skin. He took our son and held him high, so that God could see our son’s face all the more clearly and know him all the better, and love him all the more fiercely. My husband held him high, his hands so big that they nearly swallowed that boy. And then he brought our son to his chest, cradling him tenderly, more gently than a bubble suspended in sunlight.

And he danced.

Slow an stately, with a gaze of absolute and unconditional love, my husband waltzed around the operating room, turning and swirling with this small life, this perfect boy, this gift of love. His feet carried him close to me, his lips grazing mine. He showed me our son, our beautiful boy. And I kissed him. And all the fear, and all the questions, and all the doubt were no more, gone in an instant, quick as laughter. In its place was pure light.

We’re divorced now, my husband and I. There was a lot of pain and anger and hurt that went into the divorce. It took a long and slow time to learn to be civil with one another, to become friends again, to learn that we are family – like it or not – forever. And mostly, we like it. Even so, there was more pain than I could have imagined, a different pain than that of childbirth, more searing and vicious. It’s an effort, but I try to remember, instead, the beauty of our marriage, the joy and the glory and the absolute love that held us together. This is the image that sustains me, that reminds me that there is power and grace and forgiveness in love.

Seven Blessings

On this day,
this holy day,
there is sweetness,
and blessing,
and love
Beyond measure,
Without end.

On this day,
this holy day,
there is created
a canopy of heaven
and sweet grass
upon which we stand -
You, who carries
the breath of God,
And I, to stand
beside you.

On this day,
this holy day,
I will bind me to you
And you to me.
Seven times bound,
to sanctify,
to celebrate
the becoming of one.

This day,
this holy day,
I bind my hands to yours.
And I will know light,
even in darkness,
In your touch,
gentle
and liquid,
like fire
or silk,
Bound together
in the ever
for always.

This day,
This holy day,
I bind my heart to yours,
To beat out
the rhythms of our lives.
This simple rhythm,
now synchopated;
Textured,
Cadenced by joy
that lives in
each beat and
Breath.

This day,
this holy day,
I bind my love to yours.
I feel the weight of it
settle, like cloth of gold.
And I am lifted,
and I find
Ease
and rest
and I am whole.

I bind my days to yours,
To the endlessness of
Time, and
Need, and
Tender
Aching
Want.
I bind my life
Within the bounds of yours
And there will I dwell
And know love.

Tempered by Love (an Enough Essay for my son)

I picked my son up from his father's a few Sunday mornings ago. The mechanics of that particular statement just boggle my mind. That I have a child - a sixteen year old, no less - is one of the more astounding facts of the universe. That I have a sixteen year old and have not yet managed to break him -  no sprains, no breaks, no major illnesses - that's even more miraculous. He’s navigated a trauma or two, but they have been no more than the small dramas that are part of growing up.

I fear breaking him. I remember when we weaned him from his bottle. I sat outside his room while he screeched and screamed for hours, begging wordlessly for his bottle. What kind of mother was I, for God's sake? How could I deprive him of the one thing that would bring him any comfort during that long dark night? If I just gave in, if I would only relent-- silence! Blessed silence and a happy, sleepy, sleeping boy! My actions were sure to produce some hell-spawn, I was sure of it. I whimpered hopelessly to my mother on my cell phone, "Please tell me this will not be fodder for some therapy session when he gets all sociopathic on me in a few years, all because I wouldn't give him his bottle."

I could hear my mother, who has suddenly become infinitely wiser over the years, roll her eyes. "Don't be silly," she said. "You all went through it, you all turned out just fine. You all wound up in therapy for completely different reasons."

Oh yay. Something to look forward to.

He has been amazingly resilient, this not- -so-small-anymore man-child of mine. He has weathered a lot in his small life. Nothing big and dramatic, just the normal flotsam that seems to comprise struggling middle class suburbia in the 21st century.

From the time he was born, his dad (then my husband, no w my ex) and I both worked full time, leaving the house before sun up, coming home in the dark. Our son shared that schedule, off to daycare at the crack of oh dark thirty, where he interacted with strangers for 11+ hours a day. And in time, we were the strangers. We were absentee parents and we lived under the same roof as our son.

He survived the barely noticeable tension of two parents coming together from two completely different worlds, that just-below-hearing-level buzz that sets your teeth on edge for reasons you can't quite pinpoint until you're exhausted from trying to find the cause. Everything was an issue, because neither of us realized there were any issues to be had. Discipline. Religion. Family. Holidays. Friends. School. Even his diet became an issue during his first twelve months. Pick something, anything. We approached life so differently, and our son became the unwitting battlefield for our philosophical disagreements.

At five, he was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss. Now there are some words you never want to hear in the same sentence, uttered by a doctor: Neurological. Profound. Congenital. And the best words of them all: We don't know. They ran every test imaginable, and they still don't know how or why he has an 80% loss of hearing in his left ear and a 20% loss in his right.

At six, thing between his father and me started to get tense. By seven, our family life was rapidly deteriorating. Despite my best intentions, my son was witness to our private hell writ large. And loud. We yelled and screamed and stomped and struggled. We did it all wrong. There are lessons in conflict resolution that he has learned that will take God only knows how long for me to un-teach, if that's even possible. Fodder for my own therapy sessions, I think...

By eight, it was all over but the shouting. Even separated, my ex and I continued to shout. We fought and argued and cried and repeated it all, again and again. Life got dicey in ways I couldn't ever have imagined. This was not the life of a nice Jewish girl from the suburbs, dammit. I shielded my son as best I could, but I could not shield him from everything. Things got worse. Things got better. It was an emotional tug-o'-war, and I was tangled in that taut rope, straining to get my end clear from the muddy middle. Sometimes I think I even succeeded.

My son seems to have survived all of this. He may not even be the worse for wear. He is sixteen, taking his first steps – sometimes giant leaps, sometimes a small stutter step - at independence from me. He is at once shy and bold and friendly and mean and smart and smart alecky and happy and sad and whiney and a thousand other emotional adjectives. There are days when I want to sell him to the highest bidder. Ok, not days: minutes, maybe an hour at most. When he gives me the sixteen year old equivalent to being weaned from the bottle, and all I want is blessed relief from that incessant incantation of Mommommommommommom. Just five minutes, I want to plead. Give me five minutes of peace, a chance to breathe.

But mostly, he is this incredible gift: fragile as a soap bubble that floats, higher and higher, catching the sunlight, reflecting clouds and sky. But tough as steel, as leather. Enduring as love. I love him fiercely, passionately, wholly. Without reservation. Unconditionally. I, who swore I would never have children, who was convinced that the maternal instinct had skipped me entirely, I have been gifted with the care and feeding of this boy, this almost man.

I tell him every day, and have, since the day he was born: nothing you do or say could ever make me love you any less than I do now, and I love you more than the earth and sky put together. I may be afraid that I will break him in some way, but I also have made it my mission to let him know that he is enough. Ever and always, he is enough, and he is loved. And wonder of wonders, despite my faults and failings, he knows. So, while I may provide him with endless fodder for some therapist's couch some day, that fodder will ever and always be tempered with love.

On the Periphery

Love lives on the
periphery.
it slips about
in liquid
lithesome
ripples,
just out of
the corner of your eye,
like a shadow
or a memory
of smoke
or light.

My heart can feel it,
eager and
quickening,
pulled along a
tidal edge of
desire
and need.

I feel its
electric current
play against my skin,
moving with a
pulse-beat rhythm,
and I long to
follow,
to carry and
be carried
out to the edges,
into the corners
where love lives
and lingers
and slips in
delicate
recursive arcs
that connect
each beat
each breath
each secret and sigh.

My breath is caught
in that slipstream,
a heartbeat stutter,
filled with
shadow,
edged in light.
And there,
love finds me,
naming me-
   inviting me-
      urging me
to dance.

And oh!
I so long
to dance!

Fringes

I don't remember my childhood. At least, not in any contiguous pattern, a fluid arc of cause and effect, with beginnings and middles and ends. There is no cosmic projector whirring and spinning through dusty light, flashing a story line - neither love story nor horror film nor some tender coming of age film - on some interior screen, while I sit on a worn plush seat, a spring pushing against my thigh and the butter from my popcorn making my fingers shiny with grease, while I watch, in rapt attention.

There's not even a vague disinterest, viewing my life as if it were someone else's story I was watching from some distant, disconnected height. There's no boredom, or sadness or wistful hope. There are just huge patches of not much of anything - no dust bowl and tumbleweeds, no darkness and a keening, plaintive wind, none of those common tropes. 

No trope, and no memories, although, if you ask my mother, she'd say I just remember the bad stuff. That may be truer, if truth can have a comparative, a greater than or lesser than finality. It's not that I have no memories. It's not that I only remember The Bad Stuff, cataloging all the pains and hurts and disappointments of childhood for later review and recrimination. There was love and joy and frustration and sad and wonder and love and pain, over and over and over again. It was all the warp and weft of our family.

But I don't have those stretches, those seamless and flowing pictures of time and love. Or of pain. What I have, I realized, is picture frames - brief flashes of color and light that surprise me and take me off guard in a disjointed array.

The frames of my father are mostly small. There’s the color of his coffee – a rich caramel that steamed against the unnatural whiteness of a Styrofoam cup. There’s a feathered headdress, worn in the days before political correctness, as he and my big brother who was all of seven or eight, but he was so much bigger than I, and older, and closer to my dad, who came home from the office, tired and spent, but who could muster up just enough energy and attention to do Indian Guides with my brother, and who promised we’d do Indian Princesses when I got older.

There’s the stats book for the Little League teams he managed, first for my older brother, who started young and in the outfield – right field, the home of lost players who hadn’t yet gotten the hang of the game and so were placed there, where they could do little harm – and who got better, year after year, all the way through the Pony Leagues. He coached my younger brother the year of the locusts, whose carapaces littered the ground and made walking noisy and slightly disgusting. I kept the stats every season, even the Year of the Locusts, so that I could sit next to my father on the bench, so that I could tag along into his world of sports and sons and attention. It wasn't Indian Princesses, but it was a place near him and so I hoped that it would be enough.

There’s the frame that holds the picture of my brother, standing between my father’s legs, his hands clutching my father’s and a look of gleeful terror on his face as my father lowered him slowly. “Keep your arms stiff. I won’t drop you!” he would say to my brothers, who both couldn't wait to play this heady and terrible game of Trust, as it was called in our family parlance. A simple game – how low could you go, how close to the floor could you go, with only our father there to hold you, keep you from falling and crashing to the floor? I would watch in envious and eager anticipation for my turn, so sure that this time, please this time, I would have the courage to play, but it was always next time for me.

There is one frame, though, one small picture that is mine alone. Mine and my father’s. It is the picture of us, sitting together in shul, so close that I could feel the wool of his suit against my face and arm, sheltered by his nearness, carried gently by the drone of his voice as he prayed in a language that was at once familiar and strange, and the cadence of his chanting lulled me. He would hold me close, his arm wrapped around my shoulder and his tallit covering me. Sitting there, sheltered, I would play with the fringes of his tallit, wrap them around my fingers, stretch them until they lost their elasticity and shape. His hand would cover mine, to still my fidgeting, and it would linger there, tangled with the fringes, connecting us.

These small picture frames of love and longing come, in flashes of light and heat. When I sit with my son, so close that our shoulders bump, and my arm laces through his – because he is too tall for me to wrap it around his shoulder now – and we pray together, in a language at once ancient and new, and my tallit shelters us both, my son takes the fringes and he stretches them and tangles them and wraps them in his fingers, these fringes of love.

I return, again and again, to that small picture frame, now large enough to hold us all, to shelter my memory with love and grace.

#BlogElul 23 - Love

"And it kicks so hard

It breaks your bones.

Cuts so deep 

It hits your soul.

Tears your skin

And makes your blood flow.

It's better that you know

That love is hard."

"Love is Hard" 

James Morrison

I want love to be all hearts and flowers and grand romantic gestures. I want it to be noble and patient. I want it - need it - to be selfless even if it's selfish at the same time. And healing. And holy.

God - I need love to be holy.

What I get though, for all my wanting, is hard. Love is hard. And it hurts. It wraps around my heart and squeezes, slowly, so you can't breathe and you just want to stop feeling anything at all. But, you know, it's love, and it doesn't just stop when you want it to. It just keeps... hurting.

I am not in a happy-hearts-and-flower-love place right now.

I may never have been. 

Frankly, I don't get love. I don't think I ever have. Which is a terrible thing to say, I'm sure. But this is Elul, and I am called to be, if nothing else, honest. So this is honest.

I never doubted I was loved as a kid. Mostly. But love came with strings and conditions and secret codes that changed the minute you thought you decrypted them. And love hurt. It broke you into a gazillion pieces - pieces so small and jagged and sharp that your hands came away bloody every time you tried to gather all those gazillion pieces up. 

At some point, you just stop. Or at least, I did. You stop trying to figure it out, stop trying to feel it - or not feel it. You'd give anything to not feel that pain twisted with hope, that thing that makes you feel like hollow fire, that thing that just pounds you and pulls the rug out from under your feet and whispers all your insecurities to you in the dark. Because you know it will be taken away, the minute you give in to it.

You know that nothing you do will ever be enough to be loved for longer than a minute or three at a time.

And the stupid thing is - the stupid, naive, sad thing of it is: for all you know about love; for all you know how tragic and hard and ephemeral it is; for all you know that it will not last, will be taken away, you are a moth drawn to that incandescent arc of light, and you dance along that path and feel its warmth as long as it lets you, as long as you are able, until you are singed and burned and broken.

Again.

At some point, you are scarred enough that, really, you're more like the Sorceress in the fairy tales you love so much - and you love them (love, you're pretty sure, or whatever passes for that, because you just don't know) because the world they inhabit is so pure and clean, and the evil is evil and the good, good and it's all just so easy to get to happily ever after, even if there are horrible quests and adventures in the middle, because you know that Destiny is waiting to deliver that Happy Ending - but that Sorceress, she removed her heart, keeping it locked away in a secret hiding place, so that it would be safe. And if that meant she could never love anyone, not really - at least she could never be hurt again. Fair trade.

Safe. Protected.

And then you have a child. And that child finds all your secret places, without even trying. And that child looks at you as if you could slay dragons and heal plagues and talk with frikkin God, just to say hello - he just expects it. So you do. You do all of those things, and you find the heart you were sure you had buried somewhere long away and far ago, and you hand it over, as if it were nothing. As if it had never been broken.

You start to think that happily-ever-after may be a real thing, which, in your books, is just another way to say redemption. Not that everything with this child is heart-and-flowers all the time. That would be wrong and disturbing. No; this is a real child, who has tantrums and gets angry and snotty and demanding and is kind and giving and selfish and smart and annoying and you wouldn't give up a nanosecond of any of it - in hindsight; in the moment, sometimes you'd give anything to sell him to the highest bidder. But you don't. You just love him. And wonder if what you're feeling really is love, because this is the most singular and glorious thing you've ever experienced, until you stop questioning it and you just do it. You live it. Every day, you're just in it, with him, and it really doesn't matter if you can define it or nail it down or parse it six ways to Sunday. 

And then comes the day when he hurts to the breaking point. Or maybe just beyond that place. This isn't the normal, every day hurt of childhood - or even pending adulthood and the madness of puberty. This is a shattering. This is a hurt that snakes around his soul, and you thought you knew powerless before, when you got sober, and stayed sober for a couple of decades, but this is a whole new kind of powerlessness that brings you to your knees - because there is nothing you can do, at all, to heal that boy. Nothing. All you can do is watch him hurt. 

It's killing you, and you have no idea what to do, how to fix him, how to shield him. And you're sure that you have failed him and broken him. All you can do is love him, and hope that that's enough. 

And while you may not ever have done this for yourself, while you may know, without any doubt, that love is hard, and it huts and it cuts deep and gets taken away - for your child, that boy who is hurting and once looked at you as if you could dance with giants and play tag with the sun - for that boy, you are willing to believe that maybe, please God maybe, that love is, in fact enough.

(c) Stacey Zisook Robinson

2014

The Texture of Shadows for parashat Toldot

We danced,
My brother and I,
a twisted tango of love and hate.
He cast such shadows--
long and textured,
big enough to hide in.

Thief,
Liar and thief--
You stole my parents
And I loved you--
Would have died for you,
Given it all to you--
If you had only said the words.
Instead
I hid in your shadow
That blazed and shimmered
And grew mighty--
Long,
And longer still,
It covered all the land--
My birthright
My heart.


Thief--
You stole from me
Everything,
Stole the light of heaven,
And my father's eyes,
That were so dim
And faulty,
Until he could see only your shadow:
Dark and luminous
And richly royal,
A cloak that swallowed light.

An absence of color,
Your shadow was,
A cloak of lies for him,
And a comfort for our mother
Who needed its comfort.
She loved you best.
And I,
I loved you all.

You played on ladders
And tangled with angels;
And demanded the curse of
Blessings
And names.
You took my mother's love,
Stole my father's touch
Until there was nothing left for me
but the raw desperation  of
silence.
My brother--
all liquid cunning
and silvered lies.

You took it all
You thief,
You liar and thief,
While I begged,
Hungering for the easy grace of their
Notice,
Living a poor and pale echo
Of your sheltering
Sweltering
Smothering
Life.
You turned hard rock into the kingdom of
Heaven
And betrayal into a nation of
Sand and stars.

And you knew God;
And so you were blessed
And cursed
And loved.

And now here,
at the river's edge
on the border of night
and shadows--
You knew God,
But I learned forgiveness,
And so I bless you
And curse you
And love you
More.


c Stacey Zisook Robinson
27 March 2014

Love Song (To Nate, on his fifteenth birthday)

First off, Nate-- let me say that the Lego Grand Emporium building set, with its 2,200 little Lego pieces and little Lego people and its great big Lego price has been ordered and -- so the the online store assures me -- is on it's little Lego way. Please note that, this year, I am totally on top of it: it's still weeks before your birthday.

This essay is something completely different. Call it my love song to you, my beloved boy, a pre-birthday present and my Valentine's day gift to you, all rolled into one.

I know, I know-- stop rolling your eyes. It's a mom thing. After fifteen years - fifteen! - you shouldn't be surprised. My guess is, you're already halfway expecting it, and please (consider it your gift back to me) let me persist in the belief that deep down (maybe really, really deep down) (I'm a sappy mom, not a complete fool) you are secretly pleased that I am writing you this love song. Or at least, will be, in some distant future when weird mom things like this seem much less weird, and much more, well, loving.

Fifteen years ago, I was cranky and bloated and out-of-sorts-uncomfortable. I couldn't sleep. Not enough, anyway. One thought kept twisting through the hazy fog, of my pregnancy-cursed forgetfulness: "I don't know about this whole motherhood thing, but I do know that I don't want to be pregnant anymore."

Not much has changed in the last decade and a half. I'm still cranky and bloated and out-of-sorts-uncomfortable. I still can't sleep much; I fall asleep ok; it's the staying asleep that proves to be problematic. I still don't want to be pregnant. I still have absolutely no clue about the Motherhood thing. At all.

Frankly, I don't care much about the maternal instinct that I swear I still don't have. I much prefer looking at babies to actually, you know, having them. Or holding them. Or playing with them. Certainly not changing them. Toddlers? They're cute, mostly, but they're also generally covered in fluids I'm not particularly fond of. They also get caught in that endless loop of repetition - "Again, mommy!" times infinity, until you just want to pound spikes through your forehead. It may bring comfort to a toddler; it is an endless, trackless void of madness for me.

The elementary years are somewhat better. If personality development and such are not quite on the right track, at least we're in the car in the parking lot looking at the right track (sometimes only looking at a track, which, let's face it, will do in a pinch for those desperate enough, and there were more times than I care to count that a track was close enough and better than no track at all).

I tried. I tried really, really hard. You asked questions. Sometimes incessantly. Your voracious curiosity demanded to know why, or what or when. Problem was, when I told you, your immediate response to my answers was always "No. That's not it. That's wrong." For a while, when you were very young, I could get away with "Because that's the way God made it," which was a close cousin to "oh dear--the gumball/sticker/fake tattoo/cheap plastic toy machine at the grocery store is broken..." but you are a smart child and those answers didn't hold for long.

I despaired that you would never make the leap from linear thought to abstract reasoning. Metaphors? Ha! Don't get me started. You lived in a world of straight lines and unbending rules (never mind the monsters under the bed that were apparently (mostly) vanquished by the glow of a 25 watt bulb that seeped from the six inch crack left by your open closet door). You seemed to demand that I live in the straight and narrow with you.

There were times, my darling child, that I wanted to run away. Or hide. Or beg "Five minutes, baby. Please-- just give me five minutes." But that proved to be nearly impossible for you to give. What saved me  were these occasional flashes of incandescent brilliance-- leaps of fancy and abstraction that dazzled me and startled me and fairly took my breath away. You so clearly "got it."

At six, you declared that when you grew up, you would "build houses for all the poor people, and make sure that they had enough to eat." At ten, you burst into tears - not because Representative Gabby Giffords had been shot, and not that there were a handful of others (including a young child) caught in the wake of those senseless bullets -- but because there was no outcry for the young boy who'd been murdered (also by senseless bullets) on the south side of Chicago only a few days before. You cried out: Where was the justice, the attention, the president's speech for the poor black child lost to urban warfare? Why just the richer, white people in Arizona? At twelve, you chose your the Torah portion for your Bar Mitzvah to be Sh'lach Lecha; the one about the giants and the spies, yes-- but you chose to talk about the commandments we were given on how to treat "the stranger"-- the outside-of, the kept-apart one, the Other.

Oh, may darling boy-- you so clearly get it. You have no shyness in telling me you don't believe in God. But you believe in kindness; I'm good with that. You so clearly have a sense of righteousness and compassion that I swear will heal the world. I have no doubt that you will build the houses, fight for justice, demand that we treat one another kindly and with love. You are that boy, and I am so amazed at the grace and the gift I have been given in being your mom.

Don't get me wrong, beloved-- you will have your struggles. You know that already. And I won't be able to heal your hurt every time. Or even any time. You know that, too. I will not always have words of wisdom, sage advice, or answers (easy or cryptic, take your pick). There will be moments of speechlessness and hurt, and a heaping pile of seething anger. On your side. And mine. We are who we are, right? 

But given all our faults and humanity, I can promise you forgiveness. I can promise that nothing you do or say will ever make me love you less. I promise open arms and comfort. And love. Ever and always-- love. What you taught me-- that there is love, unconditional, infinite and filled with grace. 

A decade and a half later, I still have no clue about a maternal instinct. Frankly, at this point, I could not care less about maternal instinct. I'm your mom. For good, forever, learned or innate, messed up and glorious and neurotically anxious and trying to keep up -- I am your mom. It's the most important truth of the universe. I can't imagine a life, a world, a minute, a day where I am not your mother.

And for that, I am forever grateful, and will be forever blessed.