At the Kotel

I went to the kotel last week. We don't go very often, and usually with kids. This was quieter (just us grownups) and I was hoping to get some time to think.

I moved through the rows of chairs, forward and to the right, and up the steps towards the inside room which fits no more than 10 women; it offers privacy and intimacy for prayer, quite a different feel from the outdoors public affair that praying at the kotel typically involves. I felt that the privacy would be soothing, but I only lasted a few minutes. I kept fidgeting and looking through the door at the sunshine and breeze.

So back down I went, and as I took the last step, a woman appeared within my sight. She looked middle-aged and heavy-set, wearing a plain cotton dress with a shawl, a scarf covering her head. She held her hands outwards, and called her tefilot out intentionally loudly, with a voice that carried. While she chanted her prayer, she jumped up and down, rhythmically, in time to her words:

I love Eretz Yisrael, more than I love my own body!
I love Am Yisrael, more than I love my own body!
I love Hashem, more than I love my own body!

I found her mesmerising. I loved the brashness of her statements, and the loudness of her declarations. It seemed to me she was teaching people how to pray: honestly, wholeheartedly and with humility. (It doesn't fit our typical definitions of humility, to jump and yell in front of a crowd, but read those words again.)

Then I opened my siddur to pray. And closed it again. I spent some time thinking about what to pray for. Truly, that time was a luxury that I cherish. Because when you stand at the kotel thinking about what you want to pray for - right here and right now - it had better be good. And by "good" I mean, genuine and true. When we can figure out what we want from life, when we know what to ask for, it is a beautiful and precious thing.

(Photo: This is not a picture of me! I took this picture with the praying woman's knowledge)

Life After Baby: Our Bodies, Ourselves

We give birth, and our bodies, our miraculous amazing bodies that produced the complete package of a new human being, appear to betray us. Right after birth, they go stretchy, leaky, achy and needy. What’s this? You have, till now, been a strong capable woman; why is your body not letting you get up and strut your stuff?

The baby is, say, two days old, you know his face, the shape of his hands, the way he relaxes while nursing. Your beloved says something casually about picking up a book or carton of milk, and he pops out to run an errand. You are completely alone except for the baby, which is fine, which is better than fine, it’s wondrous. You are curled up on the couch together, and you are admiring his impossibly long eyelashes, when you suddenly realise that you cannot wait one more second for a long drink of cold water. You look around, and realise that the only water carrier candidate around here is you. “Fine,” you think cavalierly, “I can do this. How hard can it be?”

You forgot how tired your muscles are, and how you have this dragging sensation in your lower half when you stand. How walking requires actual effort. When you walk up the two stairs to your kitchen, you cannot just stride up, but place both feet on each step, one after the other. You stand in front of the open fridge drinking your ice-cold water, gulp by gulp, and realise that you are actually contemplating the walk back to the couch, the walk you have made, oh, about a million times without a moment’s thought. What is it, a matter of fourteen steps? Isn’t that something? Just fourteen steps, and you’re girding your strength for the long trek back.

When you try to explain this to your mother later, she’ll nod and say something supportive about how tiring it all is, but really what you mean is: Isn’t it unbelievable? That my body just switched gear like that?

It is unbelievable. Your body carried life and brought it into the world. And now it demands rest and food and drink and nothing more. It begs you: nothing more, please. Your body has worked so hard that it is now forcing you to sit and rest. Your energy is going to be used exclusively to nourish the baby and to heal your body. You can trust your body. It is awesome.

(Photo credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stilles_Mineralwasser.jpg)

Praying in Gratitude

Today, for the first time in a long time, it rained. As the grey clouds gathered in the morning, I realised that I didn't know what brachah to say on the yoreh, the first heavy rainfall after the summer in Israel.

After searching through many siddurim, I found it in the Rinat Yisrael, a beautiful paragraph of thanks for rain after a long dry spell. The brachah opens with the phrase:

"We thank you, Hashem, for each and every drop that You brought down for us."

When the rains came, I was in the car. I parked, and listened to the noise on the roof, and watched the car windows become flooded and streaked from the rain mixing with the dust and sand that had settled there over the last many dry months. I took out my siddur and prayed.

I am especially grateful that I am in Israel and able to say this brachah, and there is a genuine gratitude for rain in this part of the world, whether people are the prayerful type or not.

What struck me with this tefilah, though, were the words "al col tipah v'tipah", "for each and every drop". This choice of phrase brings our gratitude into sharp focus. Instead of seeing rain, we appreciate each drop. What other areas of my life can I apply this to, where I typically see the broad picture and miss the tiny elements of blessing?

May we learn to count each and every drop of blessing in our lives; may the Land of Israel be blessed with plentiful rain in the right season.

(Photo credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rain_on_grass2.jpg)
(You can see the text of the tefilah here: http://www.kipa.co.il/ask/show/74833)

On the bus

I'm sitting in a bus shelter waiting for the bus to Yerushalayim. The weather - this last week in October - is balmy, all warm and breezy. As I wait for the bus, I listen to women from Ethiopia chatting to one another in high voices that pour out a language that flows like bird-song.

At my bus-stop is a young woman wearing sandals with the fewest and finest possible silver straps required to hold the shoes to her feet. Her toenails are a deep red. Her feet glow like jewellery.

When the bus arrives, the driver is a young man with slicked back hair, but he's not impatient. On the seat across from me is a man wearing a kippah serugah and a Pink Floyd t-shirt, working on sheets of math problems. Behind me, a middle aged woman from Russia with long thick hair is wearing enormous chandelier earrings. In front of me, a woman answers her cell phone. "Mazal tov!" she cries "What did she have? Oh, this is achlah for you! Bye, Mami! Mazal tov!" We pass a bus-stop where a woman is dressed in ordinary modest clothing - she wears grey and black, her clothes are clean and neat. She is reciting tehillim from a small book.

The views as we drive towards Yerushalayim are beautiful, rolling hills planted with row upon row of trees. This is an ordinary day, an ordinary bus ride. Ordinary and magical.

Book Love: "Having Faith"

I love to read. You know, the way that other people love to breathe. I read way too late at night, and I steal moments during the day to get my fix. I have become friends with the librarians in every city I've lived in.

Sometimes I want a happy fictional ending to smooth off the edges of my day before I sleep; sometimes I want some great non-fiction to sink my teeth into. Mostly, I just want the heft of a book in my hand, and the look of typeface at eye level. I want to be engaged in reading and to learn something new.

The way I see it, a good book about women's health is a gift from above, an unbeatable combination that feeds my mind and soul. So when I read a book that makes me say "Thank you, thank you for writing this!", I figure I should share the booty.

Sandra Steingraber is an ecologist. In her book "Having Faith" she describes her pregnancy, birth and postpartum experiences. She also leads us on an exploration of these from the scientific perspective of a biologist. A woman's body is, as she reminds us, a baby's first environment. She describes the impact of toxicity in the world on pregnant mothers and babies in a writing style both compelling and poetic. She writes with hope, and, of course, faith.

"Having Faith" is more important, more interesting and more illuminating than any mainstream pregnancy book. This one is the real deal. You'll be glad you read it, and it might just change your life.

(photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1184809)

That Quilting Thing

Since childhood, my hands have always kept busy with things artistic, usually a pen. I created with calligraphy (in two directions, if you please), book-binding, paper-cutting - all gave me great pleasure, both in allowing the creative spirit to move me, and in the satisfaction of producing things of beauty.

But in quilting, I have found a therapy that moves at my speed. (Friends, quit laughing right now.) (I am known for projects that take upwards of 5 years to complete. Small projects.)

Quilters famously have UFO's (UnFinished Objects), the result of dropping one project for a more urgent one. More urgent, perhaps, for emotional reasons: a friend who lives far away needs a hug, so you set aside your current project to sew her a quilt and send it to her to do your hugging for you.

Or more urgent, perhaps, because you just found this Kaffe Fassett fabric, and you are forced to go shopping (oh dear, again? Sigh. Well, if I must.) to find fabrics that contrast, but perfectly... And there's a different kind of urgent, right there.

I got turned onto quilting by a book, "Quilting Lessons" by Janet Berlo. This is not a how-to book; this is all about what the writer learned from quilting. Janet Berlo is a professor who was struck by writer's block at around age 40 and sunk into a deep depression as a result. This book contains the essays that she wrote in the subsequent two years, during which she quilted full time, through and out of her depression. The essays reflect her moods, often dark and self-absorbed, and describe her relationships, good and bad. What I found so compelling was that in quilting she found - she created - her own healing space.

Life After Baby: A short message to our beloveds

Men-folk: not imagine that when your gorgeous baby gets tired, he stretches his little arms and yawns his little yawn, and smiles gratefully when his mother lays him gently in his crib for a 3 hour long nap. Think again.

Imagine this: he falls asleep nursing, and your wonderful wife cannot figure out how to climb out of the couch she has sunk into without waking him. She tries anyway. Imagine the sound of a baby screaming in your ear.

Take two: After being shown around the apartment several times, your beautiful baby consents to fall asleep on your wife’s shoulder. How long does she need to hold him like this before she puts him down? Because, here’s the thing: she really needs the bathroom. She gently, oh so lovingly lays him down, together with the blanket she wrapped him in, that hopefully has her scent, she doesn’t even suffer from Sudden Arm Drop this time, and he lies down, asleep. Thank you God. Your wife goes to the bathroom, and before she’s finished washing her hands, he’s awake again, and singing at the top of his lungs.

Get the picture? New Dad, I know you’re cross-eyed with exhaustion too – stretched in more directions than you can count – but please make a couple of sandwiches before you leave for work and put them in the fridge for your beloved wife. Cut up some fruit, maybe, and put some crackers in a bowl. This Mama needs her fuel.

(Photo credit: http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=239682)