Bliss

My whole being is on fire. The love courses through my veins, pulsing hot and thick, making my limbs tremble.

He sits, heavy in my lap, drowsy and weighted, his hair smelling of sweetness and standing out in puffy spikes like it does after each bath. He gives a contented sigh and melts in further, nuzzling his cheek against the soft of my sweatshirt and letting his eyes close.

There were hard days and long nights. A thousand dreams were born and died, a thousand tears traced letters down my face and into my arms. A million whispered, feverish prayers, a lifetime of yearning…

And now, this. This moment, this golden boy, this gift beyond all the fleeting dreams I ever had. I look into his face, trace the lines on his eyelids, feel the soft warmth of his sleeping breath. He is alive, warm and heavy, and my breath catches.

There will doubtless still be hard days and long nights. There might be times of whispered conversations with G-d and days of tears and longing. But right now, holding this living, breathing, wondrous gift, holding him tight and feeling his aliveness with every heartbeat…this is tasting a tiny bit of gan eden.

I am a mommy.

Child

They take me around everywhere.

**

Sometimes they take me to a nice place, like the benches on the side of the building where I can watch the children from the other apartments play and laugh and run around. Sometimes they knock into me which makes me upset and then I yell at them but usually they’re nice and they say hello and good morning to me.

**

Other times they take me to places I don’t like. I get angry and I tell them I don’t want to go but they take me anyway. She tells me that I have to come but I don’t want to listen. I yell and curse in every language I know, which makes her angry, too. They take me by the arms and help me walk while I spit out my anger. Why are they so mean to me? I did nothing wrong…

**

We are walking across the street. I think there is a house behind me, but I don’t remember where we are coming from. I am sad and a little upset and I am mumbling under my breath because I don’t know what else to do. She is asking me what is wrong, but I don’t know how to answer. So I keep mumbling. Then she smiles and says cheerfully, “We are going to Chani’s house! You love Chani!” I don’t know who Chani is…. All I know is Chana’le and she lives down the dirt path from my house and I have not seen her in a few days. The trees are turning colors.They are pretty, but they are so different than any trees I know. They are short and their leaves are yellow. I have never seen trees with yellow leaves. I feel confused.

**

We go into the house. She puts me into a chair and ties a big napkin around my neck. I feel tired, and the chair is stiff. And I feel hungry, but my hands shake and the food spills off the fork. She feeds me a little. But I am angry at her still, so I eat slowly and I spit some things out and I tell her she is bad and evil. She is patient with me. Why is she so nice?

**

Around the table are many children. They talk fast and I cannot understand anything they are saying. They all come over and say hello to me and wish me a gut yom tov, and they all seem to know me. I do not recognize any of them, but one little boy looks like my brother, Shmuel’ke. I wonder where Chana’le is. They are all talking fast and loud. I am tired of listening and eating. I fall asleep in my chair.

**

Sometimes my dreams wake me. I’m a little girl, standing in the dirt-floored kitchen, watching my Mama mixing challah dough. And then I’m a few years older and I’m standing in the forest and it’s cold and everyone is lying on the ground except me. I cry out and get tangled in my blanket. I hear her coming down the hall in her heavy slippers. She comes over to my bed and strokes my face. “It’s ok, Mommy, it’s ok…you’re just having a nightmare.”

But she doesn’t understand….. My nightmares are not when I sleep. In the dreams, I know who everybody is. In the dreams, I know the houses and the roads and the forests. When I’m sleeping, I understand. When I wake up, the nightmares begin…

To my Tante Adele...

May you soon find comfort and peace even within your nightmares.

kashering the insides

I sit back on my heels and feel the fridge behind me. Gratefully, I slump against it and let the muscles in my arms and back relax.

I’m exhausted.

And my oven is still disgustingly filthy.



Some halachos are relatively easy to keep. If you were lucky enough to have learned to say brachos as soon as you started to talk, remembering to make them on food can be something you do without any effort. Or something like helping the elderly shopper next to you read the price it says on the label of the can of corn she’s holding. Or being kind and friendly to the woman who runs the cash register at the dry cleaners. Sometimes keeping mitzvos is easy; they're the kind of things that don't take up much energy and you know they're the right thing to do. Then there are those mitzvos that are not just easy, but doing them makes you feel good, too.

And then there are the mitzvos that are tedious and hard. That sap you of physical energy and wear you down. That sometimes you secretly wish you didn’t have to keep.


So I sit here on the floor leaning against the fridge, my arms heavy and aching, my nose burning from inhaling the cleaner I’m using, my knees raw from kneeling on the hard floor for hours, my arms scratched from reaching into too many sharp corners, feeling like there is no end in sight. My oven is hopeless. I’m feeling kind of hopeless, too. (Do I get a new oven? New grates? Do I just keep cleaning? Is there a halacha that permits one to stop cleaning after having cleaned a certain amount of hours? And what in the world is wrong with the couple who lived in this apartment before us?!? How in heaven's name can you live in such a disgusting kitchen???)



And then suddenly I think of my grandmother.

Cleaning the floors of a Polish police station on all fours. Without rubber gloves to protect her hands. Probably with poor cleaning utensils to help her with the job. Scrubbing hard, because her life depended on it.

And I think about my great grandmother, and her mother, and hers. They cleaned, too. They kashered their homes with just rags and cold water and perhaps some soap if they could find it. They toiled for hours over their kitchens.

Why?

Because Hashem said so. So they did.

And I sit here with steel wool and cold grease cleanser and paper towels and Windex and rubber gloves and hot running water. And I complain that it’s too hard to keep a kosher kitchen?


I take a deep breath. I go back to the oven grates that are sitting in the bathtub and scrub as if my life depended on it.


Because does it not?

What does my life depend on if not keeping His Will to the best of my ability?


And I sort of feel proud to have such hardworking women standing behind me. I can almost hear them whispering small words of encouragement. They would be proud of my work, I think. This is hard for me, and I am tackling it with all I have, despite my exhaustion and the niggling thoughts of giving up. As I scrub, I take my mind off the aches and instead feel grateful for the tools He’s given me to help me keep His mitzvos. I whisper my thoughts upward as I work.


Soon…perhaps in one hour, perhaps in many…my oven will be clean.





And I'm beginning to feel a little cleaner, too...

mishap....?

i lost a key.

but

it's okay.

cuz look--

it was so close...................................

imagine i'd lost the enter

....................or the backspace

i'd be stuck with long-winded-paragraphs-going-on-foreverwithoutbreaks

........and lost of misrtakes

so i lost a key

but see?

i'm lucky

..

Mosaica

in..........and..............out....................

........................in..........out........

.................in.......................

...................out......................................

.....sporadic.......................

..................................................halting

.........................frag-

................................mented....

splinters.........

..........................shards

.................................................twinkling

.......................................mockingly.............

...........as I

..lay.....

......................................................pant

..............................................................ing

....how....

.......................................?

You

..You...

........see it...

.............whole

.................streamlined

...............unblemished

............unbroken

.........pure

not.........................as...........

...................I............................................

.........................for me...

................................................strewn

......fragments...

......................glittering...

...........................................razor-sharp....

.....but that's

.............................because...

..I.....................................see it..............

......from......................

..........................eye........................

.........................level.......................

.......................................................as I

.......struggle...........to

.....................stand.

..But You

............see things

...................from clearer

.................................angles.

...........................You see

....................not broken

...............shards of

.......glass...but

mosaics.

.....And......when.........I

...........am............finally....

..able......................to regain..

..................my..........

..............................balance......

................I.....can..

..................start

................to

..........see

.......it

too

.

big

i am
the small one

the stepladder girl
the tiptoe stander
using wooden spoons to get down the cocoa powder
asking attendatns to reach the size small from the top rack
too short to be noticed at the deli checkout counter

i am small
in a too-big world

a fast world
pushy
swift
strong undertow
of ostensible enormity

it's noisy
and big
vast
confusing
distorted
intimidating

but i am light
lithe
agile
i can jump up
climb
if i need to

and i can see the small things
that the big people miss

i may not reach the cocoa
or the highest rack
or the deli counter
...
but i can reach the grass
and the puddles
and the stray lost objects
and the inchworms

and

...the other small people

big, really

in a small way

Chaos theory

To the casual observer (who on that day happened to have been a teacher's assistant candidate, poking her head into my classroom on her interview tour of the school), the room was arranged in various gradations of barely controlled chaos.

As always, when I sense a newcomer to my room, I quickly scan the goings-on around me and try to see what kind of an impression I'm making on my guest.

What was known to our class that day as snacktime must have appeared to have been a three ring circus to Little Miss Petrified-But-Smiling-As-If-She's-Immensely-Enjoying-Herself. About a quarter of the class was sitting in varying stages of decorum, although Dena was still tipping her chair back on two legs, even after her twice-learned painful lesson from yesterday. Rikki was calmly pouring the contents of her water bottle onto the table and her neighbor's skirt (bless you, Mrs. Diamond, for only sending in mini water bottles!!), four other girls were loudly cheering in a sort of game they developed similar to a beer-drinking contest, Ahuva was attempting to fly off her chair, hummingbird-stlyle, Yael was innocently trying to stick her cucumber spear into her unsuspecting friend's right ear, Rochel's fruit cup peaches had flown everywhere, and Devorah and Chedva were running over to tell me that, wonder of woners, Chana Simcha had made her way into the potted plants again and was attempting to submerge her nose in with the radish sprouts (remind me next time that potting soil and five-year-olds do not make good companions, will you??). In fact, most of the children were either being very loud or very active or very sneaky, but besides for the lovely darling in the plants, I was not worried.

The assistant-to-be hopeful stood by the door, looking slightly overwhelmed. First taking in the entire scene of flying children, and then directing her attention to each individual commotion, I could see her gulp and almost heard her thoughts screaming, "Will my class be like this too?? This is nuts!! I can't do something like this...." The director, well familiar by now with my little brood, just smiled knowingly at me and proceeded to usher the poor girl down the hall to a (thankfully for her) much more dignified and rather dull class. I chuckled and turned back to my children.

AsI surveyed the classroom once more, I tried to picture purely what she saw: Children being very loud, leaving their seats, jumping up and down, making trouble and messes and who knows what. And to be very honest, that's exactly what was going on.

But things were really very, very different from what she perceived. Because although it seemed to any outsider like unrestrained chaos, there was in fact a very strong backbone of stability and mutual understanding in my class even at the exact moment that they looked so positively flying. I've spent a year with my children, and as a result of observing them day after day in countless situations and experiences, I've come to understand each child with a comprehension that even allows me to predict what they will do next. I know each one's needs and wants, what she will respond to, how she will cope when X happens, and I know that I have control over the classroom. I know that when I say, "Girls, guess what time it is?" they will automatically all jump up and put their garbage in the garbage can and wipe up their messes and come on to the carpet. And that's exactly what they did on that day, as they do every day. At this point of the year, I allow them to be a bit more silly than they were in the beginning, to sing a little louder and come out of their seats more and even do a little bit of harmless trouble for creativity's sake, and that's because I know them so well, and they in turn know me so well, that it's okay at this point. No, not just okay, but good for them. And good for me. Good for their development and happiness and love of school and of life...

And then, with the slowly dawning realization that sometimes creeps up on you when you're not particularly looking for it, I became conscious of the fact that I had just experienced one of the most essential life lessons without even putting my mind to it. On that day my classroom was not just a place for children to learn; it also turned out to be (to the ever-esoterically-inclined characters like myself) a small-scale model of the School where all of us learn our Lessons.

So often we observe what happens around us, and it seems to us like utter pandemonium. We see untold pain, confusion, suffering, horrific events, frightening accounts of accidents, abuse, mass destruction...and we ourselves often stumble around blindly, not understanding or knowing why or how or who or when... To the observers, there is no design, no plan that this is all following. It is simply nonsensical and irrational and in a state of acute disorder.

But things are really very, very different from what we perceive. There is a Plan. There is Someone directing all of this. This is not chaos, but rather a finely orchestrated and executed design which we find ourselves living through. He knows us so well, in fact better than we even know ourselves, understanding exactly what's good for us and what's not. And He will always make sure that we are safe and well cared for and learning in the optimum environments that we can.


And so so often, whether we find ourselves either as the student teacher observing from afar, or as a child in the class experiencing it firsthand, we will look around and say "This is nuts! I can't do this!!..." But we can. Because there is the knowledge that we can just look to the Morah and remind ourselves that she really knows what she's doing by now. That she really has everything under control. That she's doing everything in her power to ensure the best learning and growing experience for her students. That there is a security and stability even within the seemingly confusing environment.



Life can be confusing. Very, very confusing. But I've learned that I'm sent my messages at exactly the time I need to hear them. My G-d is so good to me...

I was blessed with a very productive and growth-filled year. Thank you, my precious little teachers, for helping me learn so much.....

Oh, cuties!!.......you will be so missed...