A Shooting

It was with a feeling of cold sick horror that I read a name in this morning's paper - Demaria, a 19 year old boy was gunned down in Richmond yesterday morning. He was on a run with 22 others, residents of housing projects, young people trying to change their lives around. They were on a training run in midmorning,  training for vocations. Amongst the people running were his father and brother. Their trainer and those running heard and saw a white SUV come screeching toward the runners. Everyone saw them gun down Demaria, even continuing to shoot as he lay, dead, on the pavement.
Over my morning coffee I read the article, and honed in on the name. Could it be the Demario I know? But he is Demario, not Demaria, maybe it is a typo; please no, don't let it be. A quick calculation, Demario was back in Richmond for spring break, that means he must now be gone, back in college, away from the killing streets.
I felt clammy, my heart beat faster and a wave of nausea overcame me as I flashed onto the image of three young men lying dead on Cutting Boulevard. A tarp was being placed over one of the bodies. The other two were lying nearby, still uncovered - I saw jeans and sneakers as I drove past, feeling faint and very ill. How long ago had I seen them? Four, maybe five years ago, also gunned down in midmorning.
No, this could not be the Demario I know, but he is someone's Demario, and he lay on the streets, uncovered for a long while, as police took in all the details, the tireprints, the runner's footsteps, they questioned traumatized witnesses ...
and the horror goes on.
I

Dayenu

During the seder, one of the songs we sing is Dayenu. It reminds us to be grateful for what we have now,  in this moment. instead of  wanting more, something better, something else..
Because of the work I do, I am always reminded of the need to be thankful and to count my blessings. I am grateful: for my health, for the fact that I have work, for my home, for my friends, for my family.
It is during this time of Passover that my different lives come together, melding, unifying, ehn continuing on their separate paths. I spent the first night of the holiday with people I know very well from the kibbutz I lived on. A couple of them I have not seen for at least 25 years, and here they are, in Albany, and we celebrated the seder together.
Another seder was spent with the south african part of my life. And in this part there is a melding, for many of the south africans also lived in Israel.
 Then, on the very last day of Passover, I was on skype with a cousin in South Africa when my phone went. A good friend from the kibbutz called to tell me of the very sad passing of the daughter of  friends of ours, as well as a friend who lives on the kibbutz.
It is these events that again remind me to be grateful. To be thankful for our lives, and our health.
In the midst of all of this came a really gratifying day at work on Friday. A day in which, once again, I was reminded of the benefits of early intervention.
I have been seeing a girl for about two years. She was referred because of premature birth and a severe cerebral hemorrhage. She has a shunt in her brain, and, until Friday, she could not walk. She has been seen by myself and a physical therapist for almost two years. For the first year she did nothing but scream with both of us. When I came to the home she would smile until I sat down to work with her. She then began to scream and cry (although there were no tears) until her caregiver, in this case, her grandmother, came back to sit with us and protect her from me. Her mother takes her to physical therapy, and there she did the same thing, screaming every time the physical therapist tried to touch her. This hysterical scenario continued for almost a year, until one Friday, when I got there, she smiled and no longer cried. This too, was a mystery, but a pleasant one.
She has never ever tried to walk, although we both have tried to get her to crawl and to get up by herself from lying down to sitting without help. She did get orthotics and always indicated to me to put them on when I came, but she remained sitting in them.
This Friday I came in. She had just woken up and did not have her orthotics on. She turned to smile at me when I came in. I sat next to her and she pointed to my bag because she wanted to see the toys I would produce from my large black bag.
She scribbled on an etch-a-sketch, then put simple puzzle pieces together, then suddenly, to my amazement, I saw her pulling to stand  at the sofa. She turned around and walked, without orthotics or shoes, on the wooden floor, all the way to her room!
 That is it, she is walking, she is also using her left arm and hand.
All of this is because of persistent work on the part of her therapists and her mother. Without this intervention, she probably would never have walked.
It is so gratifying and exciting to see these changes which will just get better and better, towards a fully functioning independent being!

The Exodus

I am not reading the book of the same name by Leon Uris, nor am I watching a re-run of The Ten Commandments. It is simply that as Passover approaches, my thoughts inevitably turn to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. I have been with groups with Israelis, and they are NOT an easy group to travel with at the best of times. I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been for Moses to lead this group of people from a known slavery to an unknown, and most likely, unimagined freedom.
A few years ago I joined a group of Israeli war widows for a tour of the Pyrenees and Basque country.
This tour was advertised for what it was, a week in the spanish side of the Pyrenees, and the Basque country. The itinerary laid out the towns in which we would stay and the areas we would see each day. We were not embarking on a journey into unknown and unchartered territory.
On the very first day, after traveling a few hours through rugged mountains and gorges, the woman sitting next to me declared that she had enough of scenery, she wanted to go shopping. "When will we get to Madrid?" she inquired. I told her that this tour did not include Madrid. She hadn't realized this, she saw a tour to Spain and arranged to come on the trip without reading any further.
This scenery she could see in the Golan heights - we would have days of scenery, how awful. If only she had realized ....
Others agreed with her. Furthermore, the restaurants didn't serve kosher food. This caused further rumblings. Some others seemed to understand that they wouldn't get kosher food in Basque country. They brought cans of food with them, and were not inclined to share this with the others who had not had this foresight.The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao - maybe the architecture was interesting, but who wanted to waste time in museums? Cathedrals are of no interest whatsoever. Guernica - yes, awful what happened to the civilians there, right now there were suicide bombings in Israel, Guernica was even before the Second World War.
The accommodations were not good, even the weather was not up to par - too cold and rainy. In short, it seemed that many of the participants were utterly miserable from the moment we left until we returned. I can only surmise that they were, in fact, quite miserable both before and after the tour.And so I think of the exodus, the decades before, and the decades after.

Time

For the past few months I have been thinking about time, and what it really means.

It is a measurement that we absolutely need in order to exist, but it is just that, a measurement - we exist in this constant continuum of now, like some vast cosmic swimming pool. 

I have led, and do lead, three very distinct lives. The first part of my life was in South Africa, and I carry within me distinct memories of people and events and smells that all are in me now. 

Then I have my life in Israel, with its own very distinctive memories. 

Then there is my life here in America, equally separate and distinct from those other lives, and yet, all the time those three lives exist in me, sometimes overlapping. Like molecules moving about the three lives bump against each other, sometimes become part of each other, and then move on again. All is a constant ebb and flow.

I have had the privilege of meeting up with cousins and friends from my past over these past few months. Despite the passage of decades, of separate lives that have been and are being lived, we instantly recognize each other, and all that ever was between us exists in the eternity of now.

How fitting then, that just when I am grappling with these very elusive  concepts, I went on a trip to Yellowstone. It is as if the vastness, the magnificence of ever-changing nature, mirror the thoughts that have been with me. The cosmic swimming pool is the caldera in which Yellowstone exists now, and has existed for aeons.

And now I am back from Yellowstone, but all I have to do is to close my eyes and immediately be transported to that magical place which exists on our planet, along with all the magical places, and somehow despite their very separate and distinct regions, they also all exist within each other, as we do, within each others' lives, eternally.

Warning

This entry comes with a warning. It contains graphic descriptions of meat eating. The subject matter may be disturbing to some readers. If you have any objection to the consuming of meat, please don't read. I am, in fact, not a big meat eater. I was a vegetarian for about 10 years, but that was a while ago. Now I mostly eat chicken or fish, but I don't describe myself as a semi vegetarian. I consume animal products. Every year, with the onset of cold weather and long nights, my thoughts turn to meat, and meat dishes. One thing I loved in South Africa was oxtail. Tender oxtail in a tasty sauce prepared by my mom. The name oxtail is self explanatory - it is, obviously, the tail of an ox, but for some idiotic reason I do not think of it as such. I had not eaten oxtail for many years, in fact, I forgot all about it. Some years ago my sister, brother-in-law and myself visited an uncle in Connecticut. He has a home in the country. It snowed. This is the type of weather which is completely unfamiliar to us. We reveled in it. My uncle prepared oxtail and at first smell happy childhood memories came to the fore. Since that visit, I make oxtail at least once every winter. I buy oxtail that is cut and sold in sealed plastic bags. One year I went to Ranch 99, the asian supermarket in Richmond, and on the spur of the moment decided that that night would be my once a year night to make oxtail. I went to the meat counter and a woman barked something incomprehensible. I asked whether they had oxtail. She nodded, walked away, and came back and handed me an oxtail over the counter. I nearly dropped dead. This was not neat pieces of meat in a plastic bag that bore no resemblance to anything. This was an oxtail! I blanched. What on earth did I think oxtail was? I absolutely could not handle that tail she was handing over to me. I made a chopping motion with my hand and she withdrew the tail, placed it on a wooden block, held a cleaver above her head and she chop-chop-chopped very quickly, and handed me the tail in a plastic bag. I bought it because I was too embarrassed not to buy it, but I could not bring myself to cook it. I gave the tail to a neighbor who had no such compunctions. She cooked and ate it and that year I did not partake of oxtail. However, that incident became a memory that soon faded and I began buying oxtail again, hermetically sealed. Last night was really cold, and I made an oxtail stew. Delicious.

Work

A riveting conversation at work today with a 19 month old girl. Girl points to a green block and says "yellow" Nesta: "green" Girl: "yellow" Nesta: "green" Girl: "yellow" Nesta: "green" Quite fascinating, our different perspectives and opinions!

What are the Odds?

Last night I returned from a Thanksgiving vacation with dear friends in New York and Connecticut. I flew JetBlue from JFK Airport to Oakland International. A week before I had flown out of Oakland on a red-eye. The flight was full; families with babies, dogs (who seem to be the latest passengers) old people, young people. It was a singularly uneventful flight, which for me is the very highest compliment one can give to a flight. At JFK last night I sat at the gate and engaged in one of my favorite pastimes, people watching. I saw many of the same families and passengers who were on the plane a week before. I even saw two of the same dogs, a teacup poodle and a coiffed maltese. Approaching the area of the gate I saw a father in a big broad brimmed black hat, he had a grey beard and payot, (the side curls of religious Jews.) His son also wore a wide-brimmed black hat. They both wore black suits. A young girl in a dark blue dress accompanied them. I looked at them and thought, "I am not on my way to Israel, they are not flying to Oakland, this cannot be." We boarded the crowded plane and I looked ahead at my row. The family were standing next to the very aisle seat I had reserved - MY seat. When I reached my seat the young girl was strapped into it. "Excuse me," I said politely, I am in 12C." Her brother said "yes, yes, she will move," and he muttered to her while their father kept everyone waiting in the narrow aisle as he first put in their rolling luggage sideways, then frontways, then backwards, until a woman reached up and shoved it firmly in. The girl unstrapped and moved reluctantly into the middle seat. At her feet was a very large brown cardboard hatbox which she pushed under the seat in front of her. Directly across from me sat her brother, then her dad. As we taxied down the runway her brother, Shalom, called to Rachel, then he leaned over me and handed her a parcel wrapped in aluminium foil. She unwrapped it to reveal a hefty sandwich of hallah bread with some kind of meat and lettuce. I couldn't resist - "I hope it is kosher," I said to her. Very seriously she assured me that it is. Her tray was down with the sandwich on it and every time she took a bite crumbs covered the tray, her lap, my lap, and the lap of the man next to her. Shalom leaned over me again, this time to hand her a salad. But just then the plane was readying for takeoff so she had to put up the tray and passed the food back to Shalom.He then passed her a prayer book and she opened it and read the prayer for safe travel. Her brother and father prayed next to me, and I decided to join in. Rachel had lovely blue eyes and was quite a sweet little girl. Once we were in the air she got her food back from Shalom, who also passed a few cookies along. Then she told him she was not feeling very well and she closed her eyes. It was a night flight and quite soon everyone, including myself, began nodding off. I was rudely awakened by a bump and thud. A sleeping Rachel's head had fallen onto my shoulder. We both startled, she muttered "I'm sorry" fell back asleep instantly and back came her head. It remained on my shoulder for the rest of the flight. After five and a half hours the pilot announced we were beginning our descent into Oakland. Their was a hustle and bustle as everyone sat up, put their seats back and closed their trays. Not Rachel who was fast asleep. Across from me both Shalom and his father had fallen asleep with the same open mouthed poses. I did see dad begin to move and he nudged Shalom who also began to stir. I gently patted Rachel and put her tray up for her. I know Dad saw me, so did Shalom who gave me a half smile. One would think Dad would have said something to me, maybe a teeny weeny hint of a smile, a nod of thanks, but of course he didn't acknowledge my presence. We deplaned and the three headed out of the airport without a backward glance. Oakland, not Israel, and I have to be the one next to the religious Jews - I think God is trying to tell me something, but it is not clear what!