K.I.S.S. - L O G    2 0 0 8
Keep It Simple Sweetheart

Intro to k.i.s.s.-l o g + all dates ~ Library of 7 years ~ HOME ~ contact ~ SEARCH ( of Latin characters only!)                  my eldest granddaughter's video-gallery

"to feel better requires that you become better at feeling"
June 23/ Sivan 20, Monday, still 53 days - between Arad and Shoham
Parting from my obsession to complete this page--- on June 26

back to past ~~~~~ forward to future

In 2005, I walked from "Rakhaf" down to Samira's family ,in order to bring them the 6 tents,
as a physical reminder of a mobile Hosting Business which they should realize as pioneers.
When I arrived, there were no model tents in my backpack! What a sign! it was not yet TIME!
And yet! Months later I walked down the same path with Rotem, when she suddenly stopped:
"What is this?" there lay dispersed~~~ 5 of the 6 models~~~ trampled over~~ but still whole!
Having been exposed to desert air, sun, soil, animals, people... they returned to me - as a sign!

Why this reminder from Eitan Tam?
Why my strange idea, to go back and live in my tent,
if my children will move from Shoham to Bet Nehemya?
Why the strong memory of Rotem's discovery -
while I lost her creation - she found mine?

Eitan Tam from "Tadiran" responded to my letter: He lives, like my son Micha, at Mazkeret Batya, where "the building boom destroys everything", and in the 4 years, since we met, 3 grandkids were born, one is called Mika! and the others have the "earth names:" Peleg (rivulet) and Regev (a clod of earth, in German the metaphor of a peasant's land. The reason for his sudden e-mail? "Every time one speaks about the planet, green energy and the like, always, indeed always your image comes up, in admiration, and the memory, how much you tried - in the frame of your project - to imprint this theme in people's mind." In my response I mentioned the coincidence of his letter with a quest from the Society for Nature Protection, to join there fight against the catastrophic project of a canal, which should bring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, and how this very Society evicted me from the Dead Sea in 1999, because "your opinion is not ours", my opinion, that only people who love themselves, can love and protect nature, and that part of their program, therefore, should be, to teach people to love themselves.

Yesterday - when I went out into my little garden during sunset - I saw spots of beauty:

My pomegranate tree, left of the gate entry, - I keep tying back its branches, so Ofir's tractoron won't break them, when he passes by. The fruits are not yet ripe, and therefore clean of worms. "You could envelope each fruit in a paper bag", said Ofir, "I could give you such". "No, no! I want to enjoy their beauty NOW, even if later there won't be much left to eat!"

Opposite these glorious pomegranates and the magnificent tree seen through the twigs - on the other side of the gate-entrance I enjoy this pretty wall with the descedants of plants I once stole from a park..           As to that magnificent conifer, from which the blackbird's singing keeps delighting me: I now ran over to my neighbors who worked both outside: "Please tell me finally, what is the name of this tree?" "We grew it from a pot ! It's called Araucaria" (since it's pronounced Arocaria, it took me some time to find it) It is also called Star-Pine, though it's not a pine. Araucaria excelsa

3 perspectives of my - wild - Tipuana Tipu (mikhnaf naaeh)!

In the noon-pool yesterday + in the morning-pool today and once more in the noon-pool on my way to Shoham (bus, train, train, and car with I., E. and Mika) new lyrics attached themselves to the Shakespeare-Schubert "To Sylvia" (i.e. to Romantic Love). The process of how "my" lyrics create themselves as well as its result - a new song - was again amazing. My only "input" had been my "intention": "a song for Efrat's birthday on July 5, which will help her to live her drama", and what a thousand words nor an image could not have compressed into an "over-all" message, was achieved by 3 times 3 short lines, based, of course, on my research of the "Ruth-Efrat" or "Female Thread of Redemption in the Bible": Ruth-Efrat, who is that - YOU? kalah, beautiful, loving! A stepmother, but not killing, wombing her son as her daughter! A sign of redemption! Heaven on Earth! You chose actors for the entire drama! The final edition and recording will be done on July 5 Comment to the English translation: "kalah" means both: bride and daughter-in-law, or as I prefer to call Efrat: daughter-in-love. The word "killing" horeget" rhymes with "stepmother" khoreget. "rokhemet", in the Bible only once in this form, but common in its other form "me-rakhemet" having compassion on, is derived from rekhaem-womb. The womb is for me the metaphorical space, where there is no polarity between light and darkness, water&non-water, and where there is no polarity, there is no choice, and where there is no choice, there is no responsibility, and where there is no responsibility, there is no judgment.

YESH!
The house at Bet Nehemya is "ours"
(i.e. will be rented from August 1).

When the trinity came to fetch me from the airport trainstation and we drove home,
Efrat suddenly said: "the house is down the drain!"
"WHATTTT?" I was shocked, "but why? Immanuel was so sure....!"
"The owner, Mirjam, insists on 6000 NIS, she says, somebody else is ready to pay the amount,
and tomorrow she will decide in his favor.
Of course, this is an all too transparent manoeuver to pressure a candidate,
but both my children were so pressured by the very price, that they backed off.
The price is, indeed, horrid, but that's how prices are now,
and to turn the chance down because of 500 NIS was bad calculating.

I let it sink in.
After all, I wasn't asked to offer my opinion.
"zminah, lo yozemet", "available, not initiating"
is the status of a mother of grownup children.
But this was one of the few situations,
where I needed to interfere.

I understood it during our sitting "together" after we came home.
Tomer's transition from mother/Tel-Aviv to father-stepmother / Shoham
loomed and lurked around, until the tension made it hard for me to stay put.
Luckily Mika was "pestering" her mother so much, that she gave in:
"Let's talk tonight, this is Mika's time to play, the more so as we go away!"

Sensing the fear and frustration in my son's face and body posture,
I saw myself "taking the initiative"!
First concerning the near future of and with Tomer.
The technical, practical problems are too many to be listed here.
Nor do they really matter.
"There is only one point of departure for Efrat,
the acknowledgement of the fact, that it was her who has chosen this drama,
it was her who has chosen these actors and the constellation between them."

"But she doesn't believe in that!"

"She SAYS , she doesn't believe, for it's always easier to stay in the victim-role.
But deep in her soul she knows that she is the one responsible for her drama,
fight this fact as she might.
And if you yourself know this fact, about her drama as well as about yours,
then you won't waste your energy on resisting the very existence of the drama,
and instead invest your strength in coping with being triggered by specific situations."

[And he knows that
"a trigger comes to point out a hole in your wholeness, that now wants to be healed".
"Yes", sighed my son, "everything would be easier, if I myself wouldn't be so triggered".]

"But there is at least one exterior circumstance, which could make things a lot easier:
When Efrat had the prospect of a house with 5 rooms,
enough space in house and garden and the wild environment for Tomer to roam in,
this would build Efrat's self-confidence, that she will be able to "handle" T. after all.
[The plan is, that T. will be in a boarding-school and not at all "around all the time")
but the very thought,
that his "belongings" (few as they are) may crowd into the present - already overcrowded - flat,
makes Efrat fear, that she will loose her mind..]

"But I shudder, when I think of 6000 NIS! Who are the people who can pay such rents?"

He knows that I myself have nothing but "National Insurance": 2180 NIS per month.
He knows that of this I pay 1050 NIS for rent-everything-included, even cable TV.
He knows that I'll think twice, before I spend 5 NIS, if the spending can be avoided.

To my surprise, I heard myself argue in the wisest and most efficient manner:
"Think of the alternative!
If you had the choice between a place to live in for 2500 NIS,
then, of course, you would not think one moment about that house for 6000 NIS.
But the only option you saw yesterday during our skype-talk, was,
that the landlords would reduce the price to 5500.
If this is what you lack: let me give me 500 NIS from my savings every month."

Immanuel laughed about the absurdity
(he and his siblings are paying for my teeth,
though I had tried to insist on paying the 709 NIS per month for 3 years,
they literally imposed on my, that they would divide this debt among them,
which means that each of the three is paying 235 NIS per month.
In addition Immanuel pays for my website (about 50 NIS per month
since his stepsister Dita and daughter Elah also take advantage of www.empower.co.il)
and - since I'm not entitled to a credit-card - Micha pays for my cell-phone
(which is - on the average - not more than 40 NIS per month,
since I've limited my communication with people mostly to technical interactions,
and since it's more convenient for him to pay the little sum together with his own payment]

"You may laugh, but I am serious.
Unlike you - and forgive me for bringing this subject up again -
I am fuzzy with spending 5 NIS on what I don't deem as necessary etc. etc.
but then - by saving - I am always capable to pay for big thinks that ARE necessary!"


He smiled , with a bit of shame: "Yes, and I don't think, this can change."

"It will change, if you know your preferences and priorities.
This house is obviously the first and overall condition for the integration of T. in your trinity!
How much do you "save", if you don't take the opportunity, which you were so excited about?"

"The price of two visits in a restaurant!" he admitted.
"Well then, you'll cut two from your many visits in restaurants!"
He again smiled with a little bit of shame,
and both of us were thinking of what Efrat would soon voice:
"For us this is a main factor in the quality of living, and we want to live NOW!"

"I have an idea", I cut short the argument,
"let's all drive to that house again, right now!
Maybe this will help you to decide."

Efrat and Mika came back to the veranda at the right moment and Immanuel said:
"My mother sees the issue with the house from a different perspective", etc. etc.
Then phone-calls, and though the people who presently rent the house, did not answer,
we set out to drive the ca. 3 km and, when those tenants, a family with 4 kids, refused to let us in,
we roamed around the house and the enviroment
and it became absolutely clear,
that this house was THE house.

And, indeed, close to 10 PM, while Immanuel was immersed in a business talk,
(he, together with a friend, creates a website for an inventor of a device,
which would, if used all over the world, cut down electricity considerably.)
Efrat entered my room, sat on my bed, across my seat in front of the computer:
"It's ours! The house!"

I exclaimed - in the slang of our young people:
YESH! [(we) have it ]

In their back : "The house !"

And again: "the house"

Below "the house" - a neighboring yard with technical equipment, not so nice to look at from the veranda, said Immanuel, but the eyes have enough other options to focus on.   The wall around the yard is unique and beautiful: old cut down trunks of olive trees, each a sculpture with a long, long history, which I might imagine one day together with Mika, if indeed this time there will be "time". So far Immanuel could never stay in a flat for long. This will be his 27th move to a new space of living. ["The worst thing is yet another transport! For all those expenses for transport I could have established my own transport company!" And the "threat" of a future move is there already: Mirjam, about 34, the director of a hostel for autistic people in Tel-Aviv, yearns to marry,, and if she finds the one she seeks, she'll move into this house herself. But should we worry?

Since Mika had heard the neighing of horses, we walked a bit down the road to watch the horses from afar.             Then, when we walked up again and passed the house, Efrat awaited us around the corner. She had tried to have a word with the present tenants after all. It wasn't pleasant, but some info might be valuable.

FOR RENT

It was dark, when we came home. I quickly fixed the dough for the Pfannkuchen, fried them and set the table, but the minute I invited the six grandchildren and Efrat to sit down to eat, Micha came to fetch his kids. Since my youngest son, too, is a fan of his mother's Pfannkuchen, he ate three of them, though he claimed that he had already eaten. Towards the end of the meal Efrat gave a show to Mika with the Prague puppets, and while Mika laughed with delight , the rest of us enjoyed all three: Mika, the main audience, Efrat, the actress behind the five finger puppets, and the show itself.

The last hour - after Micha and his kids were gone - showed this idyll on the veranda: Itamar fast asleep, leaned against his tired sister, who in turn leans against the dog. Rotem, whom I could no longer dare to photograph, sat next to them in Efrat's chair and involved me in a meaningful conversation...

back to past ~~~~~ forward to future 2008/2012


Intro to k.i.s.s.-l o g + all dates ~ Library of 7 years ~ HOME ~ contact ~ SEARCH ( of Latin characters only!)                  my eldest granddaughter's video-gallery

whole&full-filled, never perfect&complete

Keep It Simple Sweetheart
K.I.S.S. - L O G    2 0 0 8