What Life Does

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Nicki

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This is what life does. It gives you four children, spread over eight years, and you wonder how you got yourself into this mess and if you’ll ever, ever get out of it and you pray to G-d to clean it up so that you can take a small break, just a breath really every so often, not even that often, but enough to take in small sips of quiet air untarnished by squeaky cries of “mommy mommy mommy…” And then one day you realize you don’t want it to be clean. You look up from the apple you’re slicing – “with cinnamon please Mom” – and see four faces, so different yet all undeniably yours, and you not-so-suddenly but very, very completely understand how much you love this mess that’s yours and oh please G-d keep me in it, just like this: slicing apples, spilling milk, “Don’t hit your brother,” school lunches and a new pair of shoes every other week.

This is what life does. It gives you a friend who gives you a mug. Olive green and cream, monogrammed with a swirly lower-case burgundy ‘n.’ It’s slightly rounded in the center and a little larger than usual, and is the perfect size and shape for holding in your two hands. You drink tea from it every single day, and every day you marvel at how she knew you always wanted that mug. Even though you never told her.

This is what life does. It wakes you with an alarm that sounds like loud crickets chirping in your ear. Rude. It’s still dark outside and you wonder, not for the first time, if you are certifiably crazy. It’s 5am and if you hurry you can make it to the supermarket and get your grocery shopping done before your 6am workout. That is crazy. But doable. And no fight for parking. It gets you in a dark, candle-lit spin studio with ten other women way before the sun rises and there is something warrior-like and badass about it. Maybe it’s not so crazy. The spin instructor is the perfect amount of inspiring and kick-your-butt and she urges you to “take ease in the recovery” and to appreciate what it means to “endure instead of push ahead or back off.” These are wise, essential words to hear at 6am… or any time.

This is what life does. It makes you smile and remember your grandmother whom you loved with all your heart. She was the only gran you knew who said “shit” and she let you stroke the soft, crinkly skin under her neck. She wrote you quirky, amusing letters which she would fax to you across the miles. Her fish ball recipe is included in one. You make them a few times but they will never taste as good as hers. Nothing will. And that’s okay. Life gives you memories of Granny Mary’s ginger cake and long, meandering walks with her on the beach, collecting shells. And a blanket that is over 20 years old crocheted by her long and knobbly fingers, the ones that look exactly like yours.

This is what life does. It hands you a book and says, “Read this!” So you do, and you are lost in the world of its words and images and characters and story, and reading is easily your greatest and simplest pleasure. You never want it to end and you hope that one day you will write a book that people will love to read as much as you love to write.

This is what life does. It holds you in a time zone on the other side of the world, far far away from the ones that you love. And no matter how hard you try to catch up to the time difference between you, it’s always too early or too late and days and then weeks go by without hearing her voice and your one urgent hope is that you get to talk to each other before the baby’s born.

This is what life does. It draws you to the scale day after day, weighing and measuring and calculating BMI and body fat percentage, and did the red wine and dark chocolate last night show up on your hips this morning. And what if it did? Would that be so terrible? And you know without a doubt that it would. It would be terrible. And the next morning you step on the scale again.

This is what life does. It presents you with every possible opportunity, affords you luxuries you take for granted like water and electricity and soap and Internet on-demand and TV and a car and easy access to any food you want and and and. And it gives others nothing. And when things go wrong for you, you say #fwp (first world problems) and feel bad and uncomfortable for having when most of the world does not.

This is what life does. It gives you a page and you write 800 words on it and you want so much to make a difference in the lives of thousands but all you can really do is make a difference in your own.

Inspired by the poem “Starfish” by Eleanor Lerman and by the prompt “What Life Does” by Linda Schreyer.

Acid Wash Jeans In Israel. Awkward.

Posted on April 11, 2015 by Nicki

source: fashionsizzle.com

By all accounts it should’ve been an okay-ish year. A year I survived, mostly unscathed. Except for the perm, but that was finally growing out. At the very least it should’ve been an awkward year. New school. New friends. Braces and acid wash jeans. And also… fourteen.

But it wasn’t. I was no George Michael rocking my acid wash jeans, but it wasn’t awkward. And it wasn’t okay.

t was the year my family and I lived in Israel, which I’m pretty sure was not something I was dying to do as a newly-minted teenager: leave my grandparents and cousins, the friends I’d been with since preschool, the community I’d grown up in. I had just started high school and nothing was more important than what was said on the gray stairs between classes or what happened under the trees at lunch recess.

I did not, however, get to hear the whole conversation on those stairs because I went to live in a place I knew about mainly from my parents’ adventures and stories, from history books and too-quick family reunions. A place where language was not the only barrier I’d have to figure out how to climb over.

It wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t okay. For me, it was the absolute best.

While “Faith” hit no 1 on the Billboard charts, my tightly manufactured curls started to loosen and grow and before I knew it, even my dreams were happening in Hebrew:

In Israel, I learned what it means to “live in the moment.” To be spontaneous and present and to enjoy where you are right now, because you never know what tomorrow, or even the next few hours, might bring. This meant impromptu barbecues on the beach whenever the weather allowed. It meant meeting for ice cream at 11pm, even on a school night. It meant finding new places to explore, new foods to taste, new views to behold as often as possible. To my 14-year-old self it meant life was mine for the living.

It also meant independence. The back of my mom’s car had been the center of my world until then, as she schlepped my sister, my friends and me to ballet, drama and home from school. Much like the minivan is for my kids now. But in Israel we walked almost everywhere. Or hopped on the bus. The 29 bus remains my favorite means of public transport anywhere in the world. Its route ends at the beach.

1988 was the year I saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” for the first time, at a small movie theater in Ramat Hasharon. I will never forget that day. It was raining. I thought I would run into Brad and Janet any minute for days after that. Just a jump to the left…

I learnt to play Five Stones (which is similar to or exactly the same as Jacks). The game involves nothing more than your hands, five small objects and two tiny balls. There is no greater commitment than to sit cross-legged on the floor, and transcend language and emotion. This is a wonderful way to forge everlasting friendship.

The history and story of my people were everywhere around me. Indeed I lived history every day. Which is both overwhelmingly powerful and magical to think about. Layers and layers of ancient ruins. Soil touched by biblical hands. The very sea that parted. We went on a school tour to the Negev, where our guide made a wrong turn. We literally wandered in the desert for hours that seemed like days with no food and very little water. I’m not sure I fully appreciated this as an egocentric 14-year-old, but this past summer a family friend showed my kids the hill where “David killed Goliath.” They got it.

Garbage Pail Kids hit their peak in Israel in 1988. They remain a colorful part of my life since that year. A darkly hilarious parody of Cabbage Patch Kids, I don’t know what they represent other than a cynical view on all things cute and cuddly. Perhaps that’s enough. I love them for their creative, whimsical names which are brilliant in English and even more brilliant in Hebrew (Lilach ba-Pach is my all-time favorite. Translation: Lilach in the Trash. Doesn’t sound as good).

“To Kill A Mockingbird” went completely over my head during English class, but Boo Radley found his way into my heart without me knowing. A recent reading of the great novel brought back smiling memories of those scorching hot Israeli school days and an exasperated English teacher trying to impart all of Harper Lee’s brilliance to a smelly bunch of eighth graders, who were more restless than Scout in the first grade. If I met that teacher now, I would tell her it worked.

It was a year of adventure, independence and a whole new world.

A year of fun, excitement, new friends, family, unparalleled experiences.

A year of history, my history, at my fingertips, and my entire future at my heels.

That year was not awkward. And there was nothing “okay” about it.

The best year. Ever.

This is a Finish the Sentence Friday post, inspired by the prompt, “When I was 14…” Hosted by Kristi from Finding Ninee, and co-hosted by Kerri from Diagnosed and still okay and Dana from Kiss My List. Dedicated to the Kitah Chet class of 1988 at Tali School, Hod Hasharon, Israel. Thank you for a wonderful year.

Conversations In A Minivan

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Nicki

One of the best parts of my week is driving my oldest son and his best friend to their karate practice. Not the driving part. Driving sucks, especially driving a minivan. The part I love is being in this small space with two teenage boys, no eye contact possible, and hearing what (if anything) they have to say.

Sometimes it’s just a random comment about school or the idiot driver in front of us. Sometimes there’s real news to share, like his sister was accepted into the college of her choice. Mazal Tov! and how does he feel about her being gone next year, he’ll be the oldest in the house… good, bad, indifferent? Sometimes there’s nothing to say at all, and I turn up the AltRock a little louder and notice them staring out the window, each lost in thoughts of the day that was and still to come.

Yesterday we briefly discussed the benefit of memorizing a poem for English class (“Jabberwocky”), the “Miracle of Life” video they watched last year in 7^th grade which they wish they could unsee (I don’t know how this came up, but it sounds like a realistic portrayal of childbirth), and that the proudest moment in each of their lives to date is their bar mitzvah.

These two boys have been friends since the first day of preschool. At two years old they found each other and connected over Legos, which is one of only three things they have in common: Legos, karate, and soccer. Where one is adventurous and loves the outdoors, the other is happy at home with a book. One plays Minecraft, and the other the guitar. Defense versus attack on the soccer field. One likes to row, the other skis black diamond.

They don’t hang in the same crowd at school, and as they get older and the differences in their interests are more defined with each passing year, it would seem that they’d naturally drift away from each other. They don’t even attend the same summer camp.

And they are closer than ever.

I listen to the way they interact with each other on the way to karate every Tuesday and Thursday, and I marvel at their easy friendship. They agree and disagree, call each other out and laugh at the same jokes. There is a comfort, security and closeness between these two that transcends their daily lives of different social circles and activities.

“Both of your proudest moments are your bar mitzvahs?” I ask, with a smile. “Well yeah,” they reply, almost in unison. “We haven’t had such long lives yet,” one of them adds.

It’s true. Their lives are young.

“Thanks for the ride,” they both mumble as they grab their green belts and slam the car doors. Neither of them is wearing any shoes and they pick their way carefully along the tarred road. They are deep in conversation.

Their lives are young, yes, and full of the promise of more friends and girls and teams and schools. More opportunities to not do things together. But that doesn’t matter at all. They’re both working toward a black belt in karate.

These two are best friends. And I have a feeling they always will be.

This is a Finish the Sentence Friday post, inspired by the prompt, “My proudest moment was…” Hosted by Kristi from Finding Ninee, and co-hosted by Tarana from Sand In My Toes and Kerri from Diagnosed and Still Okay.

My World

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Nicki

Thick, swirling fog is caught in the bare branches of the trees. It sits on the slated angle of the roof. Creeps against the window panes. It is close and quiet. A duvet of the palest, whitest, gentlest gray. It conceals the Bridge and the mermaid Bay. Keeps them secret, hidden. But I know they are there. The hilly streets. The tall buildings. The colored houses. The wild Pacific beyond. And then palm trees and pineapple rain and more Pacific. And then and then and then…

It’s all there. I can’t see it, but it is out there. Big. Vast. More than I think I can imagine.

And I am here. Where it is small.

Where there is a faint alarm waking him up in the room next door. Will he wake up? Will he turn it off?

Where her door squeaks open as she makes her stumbly, early morning way to the bathroom. We should oil that door.

I am here, quiet in my bed, looking out through those windows at that soft, heavy fog slow-dancing over the vastness that is the world out there.

I am here, in my world where there is a boy who says everyone, everything is “annoying”. I don’t know what that means anymore. I yelled so loud yesterday my throat hurt for hours.

In my world the skin around my eyes is more wrinkled than ever. “I look old,” I say. “Not old. Just tired,” she replies. I burn my finger while cooking the stew.

In my world he wraps his little arms tight around my neck. “Love you too,” he murmurs against my cheek. His brother yells good night from behind the bedroom door.

In my world I go to a funeral. How is it that you go to bed one night with your life one way, and when you go to bed the next night it is completely, nonsensically, unbelievably different? We say psalms and share memories and I am thankful for religion and ritual.

In my world I have a car accident. It’s not my fault. I am wearing a seat belt, and have both hands on the wheel. I am not speeding. “Fools Gold” by Fitz and the Tantrums is on the radio. I love that song. I sing. I see the car about to hit me. I swerve, but not enough. I am fine, but my car is not. Sometimes even if I do everything I’m supposed to, there is still impact. In my world the jasmines have started to bloom. They are beautiful and fragrant and full of spring. They’re my favorite and I stop to take a photo. I smile and I’m warm in the January sun, and I forget that they’re early. Too early.

In my world I think about the friends who have silently floated away and I wonder if they’ll ever come back. I miss them. And I drink tea and watch TV with the ones who are always here.

In my world my sister makes me laugh every day. My son tells his sister she’s an idiot. I look at them, exasperated, and wish my brother lived closer than 10,000 miles away.

In my world I drop my husband at the airport. “Thank you for taking me,” he says. “Will you be okay without me?” If I tell him no, will he stay? I selfishly wonder for the shortest, most amazing second. “Yep!” I smile. Kiss him. He’s gone a lot.

In my world I visit a friend in hospital. I’m nervous and worried about her. The machines beep and swish and her hair is frizzy around her face. Her eyes light up when I walk in the room. They twinkle like always. I touch her bruised hand and I’m not nervous anymore.

I look at the swirling, gray fog and notice what I can’t see. It dissolves slowly under the yellow sun, and now there is a narrow slice of the brightest, clearest blue.

In my world.

This is a Finish the Sentence Friday post, inspired by the prompt, “The first thing you must do to take over the world is…” Hosted by Kristi from Finding Ninee, and co-hosted by Michelle of Crumpets and Bollocks and Anna of Fitfunner.

New Kid in the Neighborhood

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Nicki

It sucks to be the new kid. Lonely and intimidating. It feels like everyone is noticing you, snap-judging you and the dorky whiter-than-white shorts you chose to wear, but really nobody is… and you’re not sure which you’d prefer.

I was 13 when my family left South Africa. I departed the cozy womb of my small 8^th grade class at the only Jewish high school in Pretoria, and entered the loud, frenetic, unfiltered school of new everything in Hod Hasharon, Israel. The faces I knew even better than my own, the voices I had heard every day since Kindergarten, the secrets and jump-rope games (24 Robbers Came Knocking at My Door!), netball practices and Liquifruit juice boxes, blue blazer with the school badge and sensible black shoes… all were replaced with unfamiliar, uncomfortable, daunting and overwhelming.

I stood in the doorway of my new class, in my ridiculous white shorts, my almost-grown-out perm caught up in a scrunchie (omg I know, but it was 1987) and tried to smile as every strange face turned toward me. Gulp. Then turned away. Double gulp. Would I ever feel familiar here? Would I ever learn all their names? Recognize these voices? Would anyone ever greet me, never mind tell me a secret? Who wears white shorts when she wants to blend in and be cool? We called the teachers Shmulik, Malka, Naomi… Mrs West, Mrs Burger and Mr Coetzee were unimaginably far away.

Within weeks, I had ditched the white shorts. Learnt how to play Five Stones and basketball. Fell in mini-love with a cute, shorter-than-me boy named Dani. And shared laughs, secrets, dance moves and sleepovers with my new friends. Lonely, scary and intimidating made way for happy and comfortable. Hebrew colored my dreams. Unfamiliar became home, and I never did miss wearing that blue school blazer.

Twenty three years and a drastic hairstyle change later, I was once again the intimidated, lonely new kid. This time with a baby in my arms, a clingy child wrapped around one shin, and a flailing, angry seven-year-old. Who inappropriately and very loudly declared to all those gathered on the blacktop in excited anticipation of the first day of school: “I’m not going to school with these freaks!” He didn’t declare it loudly, I correct myself. He yelled it. And by all those on the blacktop, I mean the entire student, teacher and parent population. He too was a new kid.

Heads turned. The baby cried. My little girl tightened her koala-grip on my leg, and I tried to dash after my indignant, scared boy who didn’t know what to do with these new feelings of bewildered and uncomfortable loneliness. I felt them too, and I wished for any length of badly-permed hair to hide behind, instead of the short spikes that were surely standing every which attention-grabbing way on top of my head.

New year. New school. New teacher. New friends. I hoped. For both of us.

It had been decades since I had been the new kid. Since I had felt out of my element. Lonely and alone. And there I was, wishing I were anyone, anywhere else, the 36-year-new kid, feeling 500 hundred shades of glaring invisible on the blacktop.

My newly minted first-grader was mad. He hadn’t wanted to leave his old school. The friends he had known, played with, shared meals, toys, germs with since he was two-years-old. That was my decision. And his dad’s. And as my heart shattered on the blacktop into so many sad and lonely pieces that first day of new school, when he floundered and raged against a decision that wasn’t his, I wondered if we had done the right thing. For him or for me.

“It’ll be okay. Here, give me the baby,” a kind, firm voice said in my ear. She had a baby and a clingy kid of her own to deal with, but she whisked mine away so that I could help my distressed son. And myself. Her blue eyes looked straight into mine, “First days are hard. It’ll be okay.” I passed the baby into her waiting arms. And I believed her.

Four years later, there is not a new kid my son doesn’t notice. Befriend. Invite over. He shows them the pass-through in the fence between our house and the neighbors’, and all the kids fill water balloons and throw them at each other. They leave flip flops, hair ties and other bits of themselves in their wake.

“It’ll be okay,” the blue-eyed-stranger-now-friend said, when she drew me out of my lonely, bewildered new-kid moment on the blacktop. It’s not okay. It’s wonderful. Because of her. And all the moms and dads and kids and teachers and grandparents and people like her. It’s a small-ish town, with a big, big heart. Where everyone is a neighbor, a friend, someone to help, to care about. And hopefully the new kids don’t feel new for very long. Especially if they do not wear white shorts!

This post was inspired by the Finish the Sentence Friday prompt, “When it comes to my neighbors…”
Hosted by Kristi from Finding Ninee and guest host Allison from Go Dansker Mom.