hodayot [thanksgivings] for today

14:21
My Body, my Partner, my God
I give thanks to our mental agility and physical fitness,
which allowed me to grasp the chance,
- when Tomer walked away from me in order to take revenge
for my demand to act as a self-determined, responsible boy -
the chance to undertake an "initiation-journey into adulthood".

I am grate-full, that Tomer did not get lost, get hurt or hurt himself,
and that he did prove some maturity, and even caring for another, i.e. me,
and that he - after all - enjoyed this adventure, or so it seems.
I am grate-full that I did not act as "the 'not-intervening' grandma",
who dutifully does what she is asked to do, in this case:
to accompany the 13 1/2 year old boy from his father's house at Shoham
to his school in Tel-Aviv, which can be reached only by 3 to 4 busses.
I am also grate-full for the "appendix" to that 4 hour "training" of Tomer,
- my vehement demand from Deqel on the phone (not via e-mail!),
to let the 13 girls of my "Living Water Workshop" take responsibility!

I've always been fascinated
by the people in Israel
from so many different
ethnical backgrounds.

In the bus
I enjoyed this merry young lady,
which made hilarious fun
with the baby on her knees.

Finetuning to my Present - edited 2 days later

How I strengthened the trust between me and Tomer last night
as a basis for "training him in adulthood" today

Tomer could barely restrain his impatience.
When he came - and this was his very own initiative to come -
Efrat made it clear to him, and so did I,
that until Mika would be put to bed,
Grandma would not be available for him.
Even the 10 minutes of Mika's bath he wanted to use,
to show me something on the computer.
But Efrat said again: "After Mika will be in bed.".

When we sat at my desk, with a video of the Haggard Band open,
I asked about his program for our togetherness.
Efrat had demanded, that the lights were to be switched off at 24:00,
but I was very very tired, after having woken up twice at 5 o'clock,
leave alone the journey, the lack of my 15 min. rest in the afternoon,
and the enormous effort of radiating harmony and love and laughter.
So I said: "I want to go to bed at eleven, the latest!"

As I understood 2 days later from Efrat:
she had suggested that he go to bed at 10, the latest at 11
"and don't bear down on grandma, you know she can never say No!"
but he said: "I want to see a movie with grandma from 21:30 till 24:00."
So when he heard my own desire, he must have changed his program,
honoring my - rare - putting-limits.
[During Succot in Oct. 2006, when I fetched him from Tel-Aviv to Arad,
he said - after having voiced crazy desires for exploring the desert close by:
"You know, savta, you can also say "No" to me!"
He said this even twice - at different occasions, while he was not yet 12!]
He outlined his wishes for the evening clearly:
"I want to show you songs you may love - until 21:30,
and then we'll see the DVD "The Pic of Destiny",
which you've already seen partly.
(and of which I've inserted a photo of him watching it on his birthday)
which shows an amazing similarity between the hero of the movie,
when he was a child rebelling against his family, and Tomer.)

His song-video program on the computer was, indeed, so interesting,
that I didn't have to fight sleepiness.
He was shocked when he learnt of my ignorance of having mixed up
the singer "Merle Haggard" and the German Metal Band "Haggard",
[in 2013 I only find links to audios, i.e. As Heaven wept from their album: "and you shalt trust the seer"]
since the former was listed with 2 links on the very same page,
on which the English-German lyrics of one of the band's songs was displayed.
"Merle Haggard is just a bad singer, how can you even mention him!"
But he likes it - and I don't mind - when he can prove "grandma's senility".


At 21:30 there was a problem:

2012_03_12- 2013_03_12DELICIOUS      DELETION

Though there were some tricky allusions in the movie
"The Pick of the Destiny" [see also another video]
[today, for instance, just before we came near his school,
he suddenly asked; "Where can you buy hallucinatory mushrooms?"]
I was again surprised how T. knows what movie I would like,
and just as surprising was that he had seen it already many times.

At eleven he put out the lights - not at midnight -
I reached my room just in time to get Diana's call as fixed before
(to check if it is truly alright for her,
that at present I do not want to communicate with her),
and then tried to sleep
with no apprehension or suspicion of what might happen in the morning.
Though I like to open my day without any programs,
I was even a little bit looking forward to the planned travel with T.,
to accompany him "the first time of his going to Tel-Aviv by bus."

Finetuning to my Present - edited two days later

I must say something about what was planned:
When I met T. the last time,
I urged him, to finally make the transition
from letting himself be fetched and brought home by his father,
to coming and returning by public transportation.
When he asked his father, if he could come - just like that - on Tuesday
though he knew, that his father would go on flight at 20:00,
- ("will Grandma be there?")
Immanuel repeated my request: "Start to come here by bus."

"Of course" it was "impossible" to get T.'s mother's agreement.
I shall skip this painful and crucial part of this and other dramas...
But how could he return to Tel-Aviv, when nobody could drive him?
Immanuel's idea was, that I should accompany T.'s first bus-journey.

I agreed, though I -again - didn't like it,
that it was him who did the work of searching on the Internet.
T. is a computer expert, he could have done this work by himself.
But I said nothing, I even listened patiently to the exact steps of the plan,
repeated also by Efrat , more than once.
"There are only two direct busses from Shoham to Tel-Aviv University,
from where you'll have to find out, what bus goes to T.'s school.
You, Rachel, will get up at 6:30 and wake T. rightaway.
He has his yoghurt (or whatever) in the fridge and will eat it.
Then you travel with him until the school, and that's it!
You don't go in! Under no circumstances.!" was Efrat's command.
Immanuel added: "for you to return the best route would be,
to take the train from the University to the Airport Station,
and from there the bus to Shoham."
Later he said hesitantly:
"I see it's too far to walk from the school to the train. Take a taxi!"


That's were rebellious grandma came in,
unwittingly staging, what she had wanted to stage consciously:
an "Initiation-Journey into Adulthood".

In May last year I had worked out this idea,
but on too grand a scale:
'During the 2 months of summer-holiday T. and I shall travel.
We'll travel to an Asian country, where living is cheap,
where it's warm enough to sleep under the sky,
and people are poor enough to host us joyfully...
The main rule of the game:
T. will do all the interacting,
from buying the flight-tickets to asking for water and way,
while grandma "is dumb, mute, can hear, but not speak",
except when we are among ourselves .
Immanuel and Efrat came to like the plan,
but at that time they all - Immanuel, Efrat, T., his mother -
were seeing a therapist.
The therapist annulled the idea,
and part of me was relieved
that I was not to take such a horrendous assignment upon myself.

Before we went to sleep, I said to T.:
"I'll wake you up at 6:30,
but from then on you'll be responsible for yourself"
And I added laughingly: "I'll be mute!"
(he had never been informed of the "May-idea"!)

This is were I made a big mistake.
And Immanuel later stressed over and over again:
"You always do this,
like with your plan for Efrat's holiday at Carmey-Ovdat:
you work out an idea to the last detail
and then you come to the concerned person and overwhelm him/her entirely,
not at all sensing, where s/he is in his/her present life and feelings."

Believing that T. even hadn't heard that "I'll be mute!"
I intended to tell him the rules of the game -- in the morning.
'You'll do all technical interactions, while I'll be mute!'
though I could have known,
that in the morning T. cannot be talked to.
The second mistake I made, was,
that I hadn't even intended to make it clear to him,
that an important part of being responsible for himself,
would be to know, whom, when and what to ask.
[2012-03-12 - I've re-read this page so far,
but I find it too painful to go on reading ...
How over-over-over grate-fulllll I am,
that I no longer need such challenges in my life!]
Towards the end of our unplanned adventure today,
I even tried to convey to him the principle,
which has been the basis of my "Partnership-Ideology":
According to Hillel, that Jewish sage 2000 years ago,
"if I'm not for myself who is for me?"
i.e. if I don't take responsibility for myself, who does?
But there is a second line:
"and I - as for myself - who am I",
to which I answer:
I, I, I am always dependent on so many other people
(also on animals, on Nature, on Planet Earth, but I'll leave this aside now),
and to take responsibility for myself means,
to take responsibility for devicing my dependency on others!
When I came this far , he asked me to shut up...

So what happened the next morning, this morning?
I woke him up gently, saying:
"I'll take Nella out, please get up in the meanwhile."
When I came back after 7 minutes, he was out of bed, indeed.
I went into my room to order my bed and he came in
and screamed: "Where is there a clock around here!"
"Psht! You'll wake them up!"
I didn't answer the stupid question.
After all he had been often enough in the kitchen to see the big clock there.
Later I understood,
that my not-answering was interpreted by him as "muteness".


Though it would have been enough to leave the house at 6:55,
at 6:45 he took his backpack and jacket,
and seeing that he was about to leave,
I pointed to the joghurt cup, "saying" mutely:
"Shouldn't you throw this into the garbage-bin?"
"You could say something", I heard him grumbling,
but I was far from being aware, that this was the second time
he interpreted my behavior as following a rule,
which I hadn't even explained to him,
leave alone asked him if he agreed to play.

The latter - that the game was not agreed upon -
was also pointed out to me by Immanuel 2 days later,
and I can understand my behavior only
as having been staged by our Higher Selves or whatever,
in order to cause the following chain of circumstances and events.
Understanding this does not justify the mistake, of course.
But I kept stressing towards Immanuel,
that our mistakes often are being used as "fertilizers",
and not only on the long range - to this he agreed -
but sometimes right now and here,
especially mistakes which we deem as totally "dumb and unnecessary!"

Tomer went to the door mutely and I followed him mutely...
Not wanting to make any noise,
I decided to share the rules of the game with him,
once we would be on our way to the close-by bus-station.
How could I have imagined,
that a boy who knows his way around in the city as in the desert,
and who even yesterday joined Efrat to the Super-market
which is exactly behind the bus-station,
would ask me - in a harsh, commanding voice:
"Where is one going!" (not even: "where are w e going")
I smiled at him, just wanting to open my mouth ,
but he already turned away from me, into the other direction.
I waited, until he disappeared behind a corner, never turning back once.

Immanuel didn't accept, that I "had no chance to open my mouth!"
And I - on March 17 - cannot understand, why I didn't walk beside him!

I'll not describe my feelings, nor my running around at least 2 km,
all the time hoping, that he would wait at one of the two possible bus-stations.

It was clear, that T. had no difficulty in finding the station,
and of course he could have really asked me or anybody else.
But he had taken that "I'll be mute" seriously,
and now wanted to take revenge:
'If you don't take care of me,
I'll prove, that my mother is right in saying about you ever since I'm alive;
that you are an irresponsible person,
and now even Abba and Efrat will see that she is right in that!"
This wasn't my projection, but also the interpretation of the taxi-driver,
whom we were soon to encounter.

All the time I knew, that if he would return home, Efrat could reach me.
(T. has no mobile, since he simply breaks every single device,
that gets into his hands).
After chasing also through the "Sunflower Playground",
where we had such fun with Mika last evening,
I decided to wait at the appointed bus-station,
the 7 o'clock bus was already gone,
but , maybe, we would still make it to the 7:30 bus.

Efrat called me, angrily,
T. had entered, when she was just about to wake up,
and told - as it turned out later - only half the truth --
about grandma's behavior..
I responded angrily:
"Don't you interfere, I've gone through enough already,
just tell him where the bus-station is."
After some time he came to the station ,
but positioned himself at some distance..
At that moment I could no longer control myself and screamed at him.
He ran home - I caught him , I pulled him violently,
I prevented him from clicking the remote-control of the entrance-door.
"You do not burden Efrat with this matter!
Let us work this out together!
Just have pity on her, leave her out."


Much later, when we could with some rationality talk about everything,
I said:
"You know, I don't regret anything of this "initiation into adulthood",
except for the damage you've done to your interest
in feeling welcome to live at your father's and Efrat's house.
What can we do about that!"
"I don't know", he said lowly, and I felt, that he was worried too.

I could prevent about 4 or 5 attacks on the remote control,
until he ran away, and I ran after him.
He hoped, that - when he ran up a long staircase - I would stay behind,
but he could also be sure, that I wouldn't be defeated easily.
Still, in the end he managed to push himself into the door of the house,
into the door of the elevator, into the door of Efrat's flat.

Again - this part I have to skip, except for one terrible scene:
Little Mika, still in her pyjama, stood close to us,
with an expression in her face,
which even now brings tears up in my eyes.
And Efrat said:
"This will never happen again!
Now you see, why I don't want to expose my daughter to such scenes."
Meaning:
Now you know, why I don't want Mika's father accept custody for T.
All the Sisyphus work of Immanuel
to not be torn to death between Mika and T.
- down the drain again.
[If this is not depicted clearly enough - I must leave it at that.]

"I'll order a taxi from here to the school!" she said.
I voiced some opposition, but she was right:
"What do you want him to do here?
Lounge around all day and not go to school at all?
It's bad enough, that he will again be much too late!"
I heard the price: 120 NIS, not too expensive,
compared to the price of 55 NIS for the short distance to the trainstation.
This later helped me to allow myself to travel home by taxi,
I, who almost never gives in to such convenience.

We left and waited for the taxi.
I became aware, how thirsty I was,
I had not had anything to drink on this crazy morning.
Remembering, that T. could not go without me, since he had no money,
I ran up and grasped a little bottle.
When I was back again, we had to wait more,
and I became aware, that I would be very cold.
After that chase I had felt so hot,
that I took off sweater and jacket,
and was now wearing only a blouse.
"I have to bear this now", I said to myself,
and at the right occasion said to T.:
"If you wanted to punish me, you did a good job.
Not only do I waste precious hours of my day,
but I suffer from thirst, from cold and from the need to pee."

In the taxi the driver asked me, where to go.
I said: "Ask the boy!"
Hearing the answer the driver suggested "warmly"-
that he bring us only to the train-station
and that we take the train from there:
"It's not only cheaper, it's faster,
for to go to Tel-Aviv at rush-hour, will take me an hour and a half."
When asked T. mumbled, that he wanted to stay until Tel-Aviv.
There I intervened after all, seeing the chance in this plan
- though guessing, that it would cost just as much money,
and that it would take much longer in time -
"Yes, take us to the airport train-station!"

Knowing, that the next hurdle for T. would be the money,
which he didn't have,
(and indeed he said: "She is also in this car, so she has to pay!"
"Who is "she"!" asked the driver and T. said lowly: "Grandma!")
I decided to share with the driver, what drama he had entered.
He was sympathetic and helpful,
and the conversation between him and me gave me a chance
to voice some things which I wanted T. to hear:
When the driver wondered, why I wasn't married

(continuation tomorrow)