Out of the Zone

Posted on January 31, 2018 by Nicki

The rickety wooden staircase leads to nowhere. But that isn’t the problem. Not really. There are only three stairs, and while they are made of little more than splintering 2-by-4s thrown together with a few rusty nails, they look solid enough to hold a person, or even two. And I know they are stable — I’d seen my husband and two of my kids walk down them only minutes before.

So I know they don’t really lead to nowhere. But when all that’s between the last creaky step and the firm ground 72 feet below is a beautiful but flimsy canopy of bright-green leaves, it is challenging to think rationally.

At least for me.

No, the wooden staircase to nowhere is not the problem. The problem is I don’t like being too high up. I never have. Most of the time I like to feel my two feet — or hands, or knees, or some part of me — fixed to the earth. I like to take deep breaths, and close my eyes and feel steady. It’s where I’m most comfortable, most myself.

I don’t go on rollercoasters and I hate the flying swing at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, and if I find myself at the top of the Empire State Building or walking across the Golden Gate Bridge (because how can you visit New York City or San Francisco and not do either of those things), I never go too close to the edge.

Of course, I do have to leave the safety of my solid and unmoving comfort zone, usually to take a flight or to swim in the bay. My heart races a little and my fingers tingle and the blood rushes in my ears for a few seconds, but I can feel the airplane seat beneath me or the salty water around me, and I breathe and close my eyes and my heart slows and I can keep going.

And yet here I am. Some 6 dozen feet above the earth, standing on the edge of a wobbly staircase, with really nothing between me and the safe ground below because even though those lovely green leaves are full of light and energy, they will do little more than gently wave as I fly past them. I’m about to leap so far out of my comfort zone I wonder if I’ll ever return. And I’m terrified.

I am in a harness, I try to reassure myself, and I am safely strapped to a zipline with multiple cables. I carefully watched as the guide strapped me in, checked and then checked again. My head tells me over and over that I cannot fall through the forest, that I can only soar above the treetops and land safely on the platform on the other side. Most of the trees I will fly over are close to 1,000 years old.

Two of my kids are waiting for me at the other end of this zipline. It’s 250 yards long, the longest on this treetop tour. Two are waiting for me to take the leap. I don’t want to do it. My heart is pounding, my ears are roaring, and all I can think of is the nothingness I will feel around me as I zoom down the line.

“Mom, are you OK? It’s your turn,” my daughter looks at me with worry in her green-gray eyes. She knows I’m scared. I think she is too, a little. But her eyes are bright, more green than gray, and she looks happy and alive. With my encouragement, my kids venture out of their comfortable spaces all the time, and always without regret. They try out for teams and plays, they go snowboarding and waterskiing, they learn Torah, they try new foods, they go to sleep-away camp… I can do this.

I propel myself forward off the edge of the step and into the rushing warm air. For 20 seconds all I can see and smell are thousands of gorgeous trees, their leaves waving encouragingly. I smile and reach my arms out wide. I close my eyes and breathe. It’s magical here, high above my comfort zone.

This essay first appeared on Jweekly.com.

Home Is Where I Am

Posted on July 23, 2015 by Nicki

When my son comes home from anywhere he bursts through the back door with dusty sneakers, bits of his day caught in his dark brown hair and on his thick eyelashes, and always an exuberant: “I’m ho-ome!”

His voice is strong and the singsong words bounce off the kitchen walls and reverberate up the stairs. Often there is nobody around to hear them, nobody in his physical space to receive him, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t pause with his hand on the door or stop to listen for rustling in the kitchen or footsteps in the rooms above, before announcing himself. It is the house he is telling about his homecoming. “I’m home,” he says to the taupe-colored walls and wooden floors, the dusty windows and the dishes in the sink. “I’ve come back and I am happy to be here.” And the house, his home, beams at the sound of his voice, gathers itself around his tall, gangly body and welcomes him. Home.

It’s not always easy, to come home: a sibling could be spoiling for a fight, a nagging mom might kill his buzz (Don’t bring those dirty shoes into the house. And wash your hands. With soap!), maybe we’re all out of his favorite snack, or someone’s playing their music too loud or watching an annoying show or borrowed his earphones without asking.

Still. Home is home.

“I’m ho-ome!” I murmured to the passport control officer at Ben Gurion airport. I must have said it too quietly. He didn’t even blink. “I’m ho-ome!” I told the guy at the rental car counter. He continued reading off the insurance policy and pretended I hadn’t said a word. Maybe he doesn’t like to be interrupted. “I’m HO-OME!!” I yelled at the top of my furious lungs to the women who claimed my chairs for their own at the pool. “Go away, you’re annoying us,” they replied with a condescending flick of the wrist, as if I was an irritating little sister. Ouch.

And yet. Home is home.

The radio in the car is set to Galgalatz, and the catchy combination of popular Israeli and other music makes it the best station to listen to. In my opinion. Biglal hamusika (for the music) is the tagline and a sexy, gravelly male voice fills the car every 15 minutes. That might also be a reason to listen. I turn the volume up when the news comes on and sometimes I even understand three full sentences. Last night on our way home they played Abba’s “Super Trouper.” Biglal hamusika. Every home needs a memorable soundtrack.

The kids kick the ball to each other and bury their legs in the sand as the sun streaks orange and pink above an inky sea. Their play transcends all language, time and distance: catch, giggles and hugs mean the same in English and Hebrew and all of the adults look at each other in wonder. “Next year he’ll know some English,” someone says. It really doesn’t matter, we all think. The sunset is magical and so are the connections.

And then it is Friday and we’re out of milk and pita. Maybe I’ll get a challah and creamy white cheese and the small, crispy cucumbers the kids like to eat whole. And popsicles. But the line is so long and the scanner stops working and now the cashier needs change so off she ambles. I think she forgot to come back. It’s been more than five minutes and I can see rivulets of icy juice pooling in my basket. “Tsk” and “Dammit” I mutter to myself. The woman behind me catches my eye and shrugs toward the heavens. Ma la’asot? What to do? I hear her thoughts. I shrug back. She’s right but really this is ridiculous, the line is growing longer and restless. I pay for and pack my groceries in a determined, not-so-quiet hurry. “Shabbat Shalom!” the slow-going cashier calls out as I turn to leave. It’s hard to be frustrated with someone who wishes you Shabbat Shalom.

Not everyone cares that I’m home. They honk at me if I linger one second too long at a traffic light and flash their lights if I drive too slow in the fast lane. Maybe I’m annoying with my expectations and my terrible Hebrew and my children who won’t eat anything with sesame seeds. But there are ways this place gathers itself around me and my family, holds us close in its warm waters and bustling markets, tells us stories about where we’ve come from and how we got here and inspires ideas about where we might go next.

And so… ma la’asot, what to do? I am home.

Parts of this essay were written during an online writing group with the incredible Jena Schwartz. Todah ve’ahava, Jena.

Where’s The Pot Of Gold At The End Of This Rainbow?

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Nicki

Artwork by Jed, age 5

The house is finally, blessedly, quiet. The sound of my fingers tapping these letters out on the keyboard is the only one I hear. And when I stop doing that, there’s a faint, grumbly snoring floating on the air next to me. That’s Pretzel the dachshund, curled tight in his old doggie dreams.

The house is so quiet, so still, so peaceful because the kids are in bed. I kissed them all before they fell asleep (not the teenager, he doesn’t like to be kissed… yet). Good night, sleep tight, love you. The TV is silent. The kitchen is closed. And my husband is out of town.

Again.

He travels a lot. Every week. Usually for two or three days, but lately it’s been for longer. Maybe five. Maybe all week. Usually to Texas or Florida, but lately it’s been further. The Philippines. Or Bangladesh.

Usually I’m fine with it. He’s always traveled, for as long as we’ve been married and even longer than that. I’m used to it, and so are the kids and Pretzel the dachshund. Some days the kids forget he’s gone. “Can Dad take us to school?” they chirp, wild hope in their bright morning eyes. He’s been gone two days.

We’re used to it. We’re fine with it. We get on with it. Usually. But lately, it’s too long. It’s too far. It doesn’t feel right.

We’re a seven-colored rainbow when we’re all together: mom, dad, four kids, one dog. The violet and the red don’t always get along, the green and the yellow hide the remote from each other, and the orange needs to be taken out every hour. It’s not a gentle arc of harmonious hue, when we’re all together, but the colors do blend more happily when all seven are present.

It feels long and too far away this time, it’s true, but there are a few shiny positives to one less color in the house:

Less discipline! This is not necessarily a positive for me, but I’m sure the kids appreciate one less parent hearing them argue, threaten and hurt each other. Which means a fifty percent reduced chance of being yelled at or banished. Favorable odds for them I’d say.

Breakfast for dinner, breakfast for dinner, breakfast for dinner! Cereal, toast, eggs any style, even bagels and cream cheese. My husband actually does like a bowl of cereal at night every once in a while… But the kids don’t notice that the breakfast they ate for breakfast is being served again for dinner, every night. As long as they’re eating something, they’re happy. And as long as they’re eating, and are one step closer to bed, I’m happy!

Schlepping multiple kids to different places all at the same time is hard enough when there are two licensed drivers around, and damn near impossible when it’s just me. But here’s where my heart warmed to see one big brother help one little brother at the baseball photos today, because I couldn’t do that and drive to the karate tournament. Sibling assistance is a terrific way to combat sibling rivalry!

The silence. It’s truly golden. Once those kids are in bed and it’s just the dog gently snoring next to me, I do appreciate the few hours of complete solitude. If only it didn’t drag on for days.

So the rainbow is a little short on color right now, and sometimes it even feels a little washed out with one shade missing. But there are moments in the day when it shines pretty bright… and of course the pot of gold at the end is that we’re almost halfway through that long week, and soon he’ll be home. With presents.

This post is a sequel to Please Switch to Airplane Mode, written last year around this time. It’s interesting to see how things change. And stay the same!

This is a Finish the Sentence Friday post, inspired by the prompt, “When it comes to St Patrick’s Day…” Hosted by Kristi from Finding Ninee, and co-hosted by Kelly from Just Typikel and Lisa from The Meaning of Me.

From Nashville, With Love

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Nicki

(hit play – turn it up, way up)

“Hot, fried, and awesome. You know you’re in the right place when there’s live country music… at the airport!”

I’d been in Nashville all of four hours when I sent this text back west to California. Four hours. Hardly enough time to fall properly in love with a place. I’d glimpsed the muddy Cumberland River, deduced that the tall AT&T building was the Nashville skyline, looked down a hot, still 4^th Street and wondered where the hell everybody was on a Thursday afternoon. Downtown Nashville. Not a soul in sight.

But I was. In love.

There’d been that live country band serenading me as I walked my red boots through the Southwest terminal. The best devilled eggs I’d ever tasted at lunch. The only item not fried at the friendly Southern where the hot chicken burns, and the cocktails go down way too easy. There was that southern accent flirting with me in the hot, steamy air, the twang that melts every bone in my body, and enough y’alls to send me to heaven and back again. And there was Johnny Cash. Just there. On the street. In an abandoned parking lot.

We have murals in Oakland. They’re beautiful. They brighten the darkest underpasses, and bring colorful life to bare street corners. They’re of typical Oakland-ish scenes: Lake Merritt and the geese, Fairyland and the famous Grand Lake Theater, and the most iconic are the giraffes on the structural pillars holding up the 580 freeway. I don’t know what they symbolize, but in Oakland we have giraffes. In Nashville they have Johnny Cash. And Willie Nelson.

Tennessee calls itself “the state that made country music famous.” This was my dream trip: Music City.

I’m not usually the trip-planner – I leave that to my husband. I don’t have a list of places I’d like to visit, or sights I must see. We’re a large, beach-lovin’ family so most vacations we pile into the minivan and motor down the California coast. If we have an opportunity to go somewhere adventurous, he and the kids have the strongest opinions. I let them decide. We always have fun.

I’m also not a milestone-marker kinda gal. Birthdays are birthdays – whether you’re 10 or 25 or 37 or 60. Yes, celebrate, feel special: party, balloons and cake, happy birthday, the end. (Except if it’s your bar or bat mitzvah – then it’s a really big deal, spiritually, religiously. Or if you’re 70 plus. That seems like more of a reason to go all out to me, having loved and endured and lived, really, for decades).

But suddenly never-turning-40 me was almost turning 40, and it felt like some kind of milestone. And my country-music-loving heart was starting to long for a visit to just one dream destination: Nashville.

Screw not marking a milestone – I wanted to go to Nashville. For my 40^th. With my husband. And my friends. And absolutely no kids.

“It’s going to be like a dream come true,” I emailed a friend a few months ago. And it was.

I had imagined watching country music greats perform live. Dreamed about seeing those large, bearded guys with sunglasses and enormous cowboy hats pulled down so low you could see only their mouths move, tapping their weathered boots and playing the fiddle faster than a train hurtling down a track at midnight. I had wondered about this seemingly mythical southern city, where a guitar was practically the state emblem and whiskey flowed like water. Fantasized walking in my red cowboy boots past a honky-tonk bar, catching a tune and tapping my own heels to the country beat.

But I could never have imagined it would be so perfect.

The Charlie Daniels Band at the Grand Ole Opry May 9, 2014

I never dreamed it would be The Charlie Daniels Band singing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” that I saw live at the Grand Ole Opry. A speeding midnight train had nothing on that fiddle. Could never have imagined that the honky-tonk bar from my fantasy was every few doors on Broadway, with a live band downstairs and a different one upstairs and where guys and gals of all ages turn out in their country finest – classic to hipster – and dance the night away: two-stepping, hip-swaying, clapping, spinning and twirling to more country music I could ever have hoped to hear.

And I could never, ever have imagined how it would feel to be in the City of my Dreams, with people who love country music, Nashville, fried food and classic cocktails like I do, who wanted to buy boots and go to the Johnny Cash Museum. With people who had arranged kids’ schedules, and sitters, and skipped work on Friday, given up Mother’s Day with beloved kids and moms on Sunday, schlepped from New Jersey and Oakland (and damn it’s a schlep), and who wanted nothing more than to celebrate just like I wanted to celebrate, who wanted to celebrate me with me. People who know me, who love me (or maybe know me yet still love me!), and whom I love.

I could never have imagined how that would feel. Like the first lick of caramel ice cream, water-skiing on the lake, tight hugs, love letters, warm pajamas, bonfires and marshmallows on the beach, winning a trophy, sweet juicy peaches, kisses and a breathtaking purple sunset all at once.

Josh and Lisa sang to me in the hotel lobby, a song they created specially for me, to the tune of Dolly Parton’s “Nine to Five” – they were nothing short of foot-tapping, finger-snapping a-ma-zing. Deb and Larry crooned the beautiful tune “A Life That’s Good” from my favorite show (Nashville, obviously!). Amy stopped Jared, The Matte Gray Band’s lead singer, on his way to the bathroom so that Bill could take a photo of all of us with him. When a country band can play Garth Brooks, White Snake and everything in between, that’s fantastic to the max. It was perfect. All of it.

I hate when trips, any trips, come to an end. I get moody and sad when it’s time to pack. I sigh heavily. Mooch a little. Ryan usually shoots me a warning look, one that says: “Don’t go down that wishing road.” He knows how much I hate to go back to “real life.” How I “wish I could stay here – wherever here – forever.” He reminds me that even the any “here” of my wishes would eventually become “there” – the place I have to go back to.

But I sat on the plane heading back to California so full of happiness I probably could’ve floated the whole schleppy way back home. I wasn’t sad it was over. I wasn’t wishing I could stay “here forever.” Because it was a dream come true… in ways I could never have dreamed.

From Nashville, with love.

(thanks, Deb, for this line)

Eiffel For This Color

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Nicki

Me & the Eiffel Tower – Feb 2012

Expectation. Tricky… I think I confuse it with Hope. And they’re not the same at all. One is a strong belief that something is most likely to happen in the future. The other is the desire for something to happen or to be true. The difference is subtle… but definitely present. To think something is going to happen or happen in a certain way means I probably have sound reason to think it will. Expectation is generated in my brain. To want it to happen is a feeling, often lacking circumstance or reason. Hope comes from my heart.

When I was 22 years old, my boyfriend (now my husband) and I backpacked around Europe. I had graduated college the year before, he was still in Law School, and we’d never done anything quite like that together before. Our student days were spent apart – my campus was a 2-hour flight or 12-hour drive away from his – and the longest time we’d ever consecutively spent together was a week. Clearly this story does not end with broken hearts – we’ve been married 16 years this month, and it took us five years to do that. But while we saw snow together for the first time in Switzerland, walked the canaled streets of Venice bent over double from the weight of our backpacks and delighted in Paris, we did have to manage expectations – of ourselves, of each other, of being together – no matter what hope we held in our hearts. Like in any relationship.

In a town in Italy – my almost-40-year-old brain has difficultly remembering which – I was tired of walking, and cold. I needed a hot drink. And a chair. Both of which I reasonably expected to find in any of the dozens of Italian cafés lining the streets. Hopefully I would be re-energized after just such a break.

The price of a hot tea increases some if you drink it while sitting in the cozy café – it is cheaper to take it to go, or to drink it standing at the counter. Neither of which were appealing to me right then. I just wanted to sit down.

But the rand-lira exchange was not favorable in 1995, and Boyfriend had planned it all out so carefully, and this detour and drink were already unexpected so there would definitely be no slow sipping of tea while seated.

I was disappointed. He was right. (Of course, at the time I did not tell him he was right – I told him how insensitive and idiotic he was, and I may have shed a few tired and frustrated tears). My expectations of tea and rest were not completely realized, and so I was disappointed. But I got the te caldo to go and I’m sure we found a lovely bench somewhere on the street, and the rest of the day went on as wonderfully as all the days before and after – which was what I had hoped for that trip: days of wonder discovering Florence and Zurich, the Spanish Steps, Avignon and the Eiffel Tower.