hodayot [thanksgivings] for today

9:04
My Body, my Partner, my God
I give thanks to my breathing,
be it awarely, consciously moving my tension,
or be it unawarely, when you, Body, take over control.

[no time to sculpt my many thanksgivings]

Finetuning to my Present

Continuation of yesterday's
"Initiation Journey into Adulthood" with Tomer

Tomer sat behind the driver and I next to Tomer.,
so that he may not have understood what the driver said,
but he could not help hearing what I said as clearly for his ears as possible.

One thing was to warn T. and one thing was to encourage him.
When the driver used the term: "revengefulness"
for T.'s walking away from me,
I stressed this and he helped me by underlining in his own terms
what I had really understood only lately:
It is the feeling of "qorbanut", of victimhood, of powerlessness
"all the world is to be blamed for me being so miserable",
which drives people into the one situation, where they can feel powerful:
taking revenge.
This is also the main reason behind the suicide attacks:
blowing themselves up, and taking as many people with them as possible,
gives the terrorists a feeling of power - at least once in their lives.
"I just read a deep article about that", I added.

But then there was also the chance to strengthen T..
The driver - as so many of my hitchhike drivers - insisted upon knowing,
why I stayed all alone in Arad instead of living with a partner.
"You are picky, aren't you!"
"My desire is for a man who is equal, truly equal to me.
And if I can't get such a man now, I don't want anybody.
T., by the way, - one of my ten grandchildren
is probably the one who is most similar to me and most equal.
We often have a relationship like between friends.
I've experienced his enormous potential in everything,
and that's why I push him so much, to finally be his real self!"

Later, when we twice had to wait so long for a bus to come,
there was a context in which I could remind him of his "real self",
then in the desert, 6 weeks before the year 2000,
when he acted as my Guardian Angel.

The context was his parody of my constant reminder:
"How should I know?"
when he asked after having gotten off from the train.
"I'm only your guardian angel. I can't take responsibility for your life!"
So when I screamed for the umptiest time:
"Stop spitting, when you are near me!"
he countered:
"A guardian angel is not supposed to ask for anything for himself!"
He was right!
"I'm human, after all, and can be disgusted, hurt and angry,
and what's more important:
your way of training in growing up must include your coping with me
and the possibility of me feeling those things and reacting to them."
We must find a more exact term for the role, in which he cast me,
when he chose to force himself into this planet,
knowing that this was vital for himself and for his other actors,
but that his job could be done only,
if I, as his grandma, would be around.
"Have you seen the movie, Angels above Berlin?"
As usual he said: "I'm not interested in hearing about it".
I insisted to tell him one scene.... which seems to prove,
that a guardian angel
cannot even prevent a person from killing himself,
if that's what he has chosen for himself.

Back to the taxi from Shoham to the airport trainstation.
The driver prepared T. once more: "Will you pay me?"
To my surprise T. turned to me and said politely:
"Will you give me the money, grandma?"
So I handed him my purse , he paid, and got a receipt.

In the enormous compound of the airport
T. found the entry to the trainstation without problems.
He stood before the ticket automat - again asking for money.
At first he was bewildered - where to go and what to pay.
I said: "I would go to the box office, I'm scared of automats."
This, of course, was a challenge for him
and even when there were some problems,
he did not falter and did not go to the box office.
Nor did he oppose my request to take out a ticket for pensioners.
It was his idea to also pull out a return-ticket for me
(for which I had no use later - it has become my "souvenir" of our journey.


His handling of the automat gave him a boost
and he behaved more humanely towards me.
He stood on the long escalator which descended to the platform,
while I ran down the staircase on my two feet.
Being faster than him, I asked, if I could now take his picture.
"No!"
So all I could do, to document our adventure,
was to take his picture from behind, when he strolled along the platform.

He figured out, where we had to wait - there were two possibilities -
and until when.
I said: "Could you, please, give me your jacket, I'm so cold!"
"No", he said, but as if apologizing, showing me,
that underneath he was only dressed with a sleeveless thin T shirt.
"Then let's go into the sun".
But the sunny spot we saw was beyond the asphalted platform.
This was forbidden, and so I kept strolling behind him.
At one point he dared to say: "I want to be alone."
He sat behind some structure in the middle of the platform,
and I sat down beside him, saying:
"I know, that you want to smoke.
You know, what I think about this,
but I appreciate that you somehow announced this to me,
instead of just doing it."
Then I went on to that sunny spot to warm myself,
until a guard came, afraid of my strange behavior.
"There is much sun on the other side of the platform."
I went to the other side, passing that corner - deserted.
I wasn't afraid this time - T. could not run away from here.
I saw him coming towards me: "There is much sun over there!"
he said, and even gave me his jacket.
It was announced that the train would be 10 minutes late.

Slowly our relationship returned to almost normal.
"Do you know South-Tel-Aviv?"
This question and my response to it made him share some things.
How he uses to come here, by bus or even all the way by foot,
to meet his "friends"....

But the test came, when we arrived at Tel-Aviv University.
At first he had the upper hand, since he knew his way around.
"How do you know, that we have to leave through this tunnel
and not through the opposite one?"
"Haven't I arrived here from Kfar Wradim often enough?"
"Yes, but then you came from the North" (from Naharia, when his father and Efrat still lived at Kfar-Wradim in the Galilee - until December 2006)"
[Later Immanuel asserted my doubts:
we should have taken the opposite tunnel,
and from there one single bus would have taken us to the school.]
But when we stood outside, he felt at a loss:
"I think, we have to take a taxi from here. It is very far to 'Schuster'!"
"For 13 1/2 year old boys taxis do not exist!" I said lightly, but determined.
He did not object, but neither did he budge.
"Do you know what "Schuster" is, by the way?"
"It's a street, I think, the name is German and means shoemaker!"
"It's a mall!"
"Part of taking responsibility for your life is to know,
when and whom and how to ask for help!"
No answer.
"Remember the path we walked from inside the trainstation to here:
what possibilities did you have to ask people?"
No answer.
Finally he walked into a certain direction,
and I said:
"You know, I too was very shy when I was young.
I would walk for 5 unnecessary km just to avoid asking someone.
but I had to find my way in many countries in many languages,
so it's easier for me nowadays, but still not easy."
and - how lucky - soon he discovered a junction, which was familiar to him.
"Now I know exactly what we have to do:
we'll take the bus Nr. 21 from the station over there on the other side
(of a very wide road)
and then we have to change to another bus, Nr. 24."
"How shall I find my way back in this maze?" I asked
Now it was his chance to guide me, grandma.
"I'll tell you exactly what to do!"

After a while he announced that he would go behind the station.
It was then, that I surprised him by clicking the camera, on purpose.
"Why are you doing this!"
"If you do something that I don't like,
I'll do something that you don't like,
it's simple."
Sometimes - only sometimes - this is an effective method!..

Eventually Nr. 21 arrived, we entered and he paid for himself and me.
I had informed him, that for me the ticket should be "for a pensioner".
Since the bus-driver looked at him and then at me queerly,
T. obviously felt ashamed and in the next bus asked me,
"please pay for yourself"

While we waited a long time for Nr. 24, we got more into talking.
"I imagine, what a big issue my mother will make of this!"

"And what about your school - what will you do when we arrive?
will you just walk into class as if this was the time to start school?"
"Yes, of course. The school doesn't care a shit, the school is shitty."
"So why does it have the reputation
of being the ideal school for boys like you?"
(by the way, he told me, that there were only two girls in the entire school )
"Why do people believe, that drugs are good?"
"That's not the same.
Only people who close their eyes, can believe that drugs are good."

Later:
"Would you give me another 5 NIS for my way back from school.
I've forgotten my card at home, since I stayed overnight at Shoham."
That was tricky! I had agreed to buying a choco at the trainstation,
but making up for his lack of responsibility concerning the bus card?
"No, T., maybe you could walk home." He made a cynical remark.
"Then borrow the money or find another solution.
It's not up to me to spare you the effort".
"This journey wasn't shorter than if we had stayed in that taxi,
nor was it cheeper", and he quickly made the sum of all our tickets,
including the two cups of choco.
"But I'm content, that this "Initiation Journey into Adulthood" came to be.
You know, I'm less concerned about your smoking and getting drunk
than about your tinoqiut and qorbanut (behaving like a baby and like a victim).
And now you have proven to yourself, that ~~~~~~"
Of course, I had always known that he could find any place he wanted.
But being brainwashed incessantly, that "if your father wants you,
then he better make the effort and take you and return you",
he had come to internalize that he was entitled to behave like a baby,
while at the same time he could walk all the way - at least 6-7 km - at night
to that scating hall (or "darker places" ) and have no problem finding it.
I believe, that he couldn't deny the feeling of achievement and pride,
that the journey had granted him.

When we left the Nr 24, he told me again,
where to enter the bus in the opposite direction,
and then warned me to not enter the school .
"But I so urgently need to pee!" I said, voicing one of my little sufferings,
first the cold, then the thirst, then the bladder.
"Not in the school! no way! I show you another place."
He led me to a huge park: "That's a pretty park", I said.
"No it's ugly!"
"How come, you call it ugly?"
"Because it's next to the school!"
"I can understand that!"
We left the park behind us, crossed a crowded road,
finally reached 'Schuster' , the mall.
"Here is a McDonald with a toilet, you can go in there!"
"And you?" "I'll wait for you."
That was nice, because we were already close to the school.
I entered, saw people at the counter and no door to a toilet .
It wasn't only my shyness, which let me escape.
T. wondered - having seen my urgency - and I told him:
"When I and my partners were living at Metzoqee-Dragot,
I was allowed to park my bus there under one condition,
that I would be responsible for the removal of garbage
and for cleaning the toilets.
I had nothing against this job, but what really annoyed me, was
that often a bus with tourists
would drive up all the 5 km from the Dead Sea to us,
just for letting the tourists pee in my toilet!
They didn't want to be guests of the business,
they wouldn't even buy anything at our kiosk,
they simply peed and left me with dirty toilets.!"

I made it a point to tell "disgusting" stories,
for the emotion they would arouse, would let him remember them
and - hopefully - take an example.
Already to that taxi-driver in Shoham I said - hoping T. would grasp it:
"T.'s mother doesn't allow him to drive in busses .
Can you imagine, how I feel remembering my own childhood?
From the age of ten we had to use two trams to get to school.
This meant to leave the house at 6:45 ,
in winter it was pitch-dark...
to enter a fully packed tram,
and nobody had warned me or taught me what to do,
when men were reaching for my private parts,
which happened almost every day."

We approached the school which calls itself "Broshim", Cypresses.
"You'll stop there at that garbage bin and not go one step further."
I agreed.
"But how shall I find my way back to the bus-station",
I made myself stupid, - in fact, to be on the safe side I marked every turn.
It was a chance for T. to humorously throw at me what I had told him:
"You are a big girl, you can ask, when you loose your way."

When he couldn't spot me any longer,
had passed the gate and the guard and walked up the stairs,
I took a photo [see yesterday].
For several minutes he did not enter the building.
And I felt suspicious:
'Does he wait for me to disappear and then go somewhere else?'
But my task ended her.
He finally entered the building, and I needed to trust .

"You know, that even Abba's plan wouldn't have worked out well.
He hadn't taken into account,
that even the direct bus from Shoham would only reach the University,
and what then? We would have to take two busses
and wouldn't have arrived here until 9 o'clock."
"That is true", I said - pondering if this meant,
that T.'s visiting his father via public transport was no option after all?
[As I told already:
Immanuel did take into account that we would need one bus,
but not, that T. would leave the train-station through the wrong exit!]

The time was now 10:43 and I had no strength to follow this route back.
In front of 'Schuster' - a taxi station.
Knowing the price I asked them to take me to Shoham.
It was the turn of a driver, whom I later asked for his name: Avi.
His colleagues explained the route to him and to justify himself, he told me;
"I'm totally new her, started only 3 days ago.
I was a taxi driver at Tiv'on, but married a woman from Holon,
where I live now."
We fell silent and I enjoyed the unfamiliar ride through the Ayalon Highway.
I had told T., when we waited for the Nr. 21 bus
and he explained to me, in what area we were exactly:
"You know, I haven't been in Tel-Aviv for 3 years except once.
When I fetched you to come with me for a holiday in Arad.
We took a taxi from your mother's and then missed the train,
because we were waiting on the wrong platform."
"I remember",
"and then you walked around
and somebody stole your case with all your CDs",
"I remember exactly".


Then there was a chance to talk about what had brought me to Tel-Aviv,
and why I - out of all people I - was returning to Shoham by taxi.
I felt, that I could make the time more interesting for the driver,
and at the same time "move" my experiences and feelings
by talking about them.
It turned out, that he was, as he said, in a similar situation:
"I've divorced and left a daughter, 13 years now, with my wife,
who is without a profession and very dependent on me."
When we stopped in front of the house Ha-Mitzpeh 51 at Shoham,
and were still talking, he said:
"Often my wife calls me, that she cannot handle the teenager, etc.
Then I talk to my daughter and beg her:
'You know it has been difficult between me and your mother,
so please help me now, to get along with her '
(instead of making it more difficult),
and since she is a good girl, she really tries."

"I'm glad for you. And it's easier with girls, or so it seems."

He also said, like the driver in the taxi from Shoham to the train-station,
who also identified with my son's predicament,
since he also had divorced -
though only when his daughters were ready to enter university -
one makes her Ph.D. in maritime sciences , he was proud to tell, -
that the relationship with the ex-wife was getting better,
and that they - said the first driver - were even celebrating festivals together.

I was glad for them, but sad for Immanuel.
Avi asked: "But why did your son marry her at all?"
"I'll tell you the truth behind the reasons and denials,
as it was made clear to me by a friend just before they married:
"You must take some responsibility for it, Rachel:
It is difficult for any child to grow up with a mother like you are.
This pushed him into the role of 'the knight on the white horse',
who comes to rescue the oppressed girl."

I know my role in the dramas of all my children.
It is very, very humbling to know

"Where you once believed yourself
to be only good and righteous,
you will find your goodness
has also had its shadow."
as is said in "A Letter from God to those doing the Healing Work".

My feeling now?
It's 17:11, shortly before Efrat and Mika will come home
(Mika to her mother in the car yesterday:
"mi yekhakkae li ba-bait?" "Who will wait for me at home?")
I've played my role during the 5 hours in the Democratic School,
training those girls in becoming responsible for their lives.
But though Deqel and I have to re-arrange the "staging"
of "The Living Water Workshop", (see documentation on March 14 and 18)
I was content with what we reached,
and no finetuning into problematic behaviors is needed.
Quite contrary to my experience with the "Initiation Journey".
Immanuel wrote me an e-mail:
"I need to hear from you urgently.
I've a bad feeling about the journey with T. yesterday.
I want to know, if this feeling is justified or just a fear of mine."

There wasn't yet a chance to calm him.
And on the one hand this was good,
for I still need to work through all those experiences
to reach a balanced estimate myself:
It was good, wholly good!
And thanks to our "Higher Selves" or whatever,
for creating those circumstances.
I don't know the aftermath for T. with his mother,
but as to Efrat, I do hope,
she can see the rightness of what was staged
without and against our conscious will.

With Mika in the kids center "aetgar" = challenge across our house.
- on the one hand a granddaughter with a dummy
and and on the other hand a grandson who is a "Parkour"-jumper

Sliding is boring, the challenge is jumping
without being hurt by hardware or other kids,
and without hurting those who bathe amidst the colored balls

It took me some doubting, until I chose this picture,
which would make an impression only if it would be moving.
But I want to remember this moment of a prolonged activity:
She drove through the rooms and corridors of the center
and gathered some bits and strips from the floor.
Finally she found a remote corner showing the back of big drawers.
Between the drawers she discerned an almost invisible cleft.
The challenge was to squeeze a small strip into it until it disappeared.

When Mika was just about to be put to bed,
after the usual ritual of reading a story and singing songs ,
she remembered the "Yakinton", planted months ago by Immanuel.
It has started to blossom in a corner on the veranda.
This one is truly white,
as it is in the song which she loves to sing more than any other,
which was the reason for my birthday-present:
a pot with a Yakinton, though mine was violet, and it has withered long since.

The Yakinton-visit recurred the second night, my last night at Shoham

The following series was taken already a month ago,
but there never was enough space or a fitting context to insert it.