Maryam, 2002_06_14; last update: 2005_11_15

Before I managed to sculpt this rare balance,
an avalanche of what I feel were asuric blows,
buried me and brought me close to despair.

I'm stunned by the line I've phrased just now:
"I feel" - in present tense -
and "asuric blows".
What do I know about "asuras" anyway?
But maybe it's about time to understand?
I'll move this difficult sculpture to pp25,
and still tell the game with the little ones:

Wednesdays all four are with me
from 1.30 PM until next morning.
Some time ago I gave up demanding from them
that by the end of the day they should tidy up.
"It's not my business to educate you", I told them,
"and why should I waste my energy on anger."
They, of course, soon took my work for granted.

One day the chaos was so overwhelming,
that I couldn't wait until they would be asleep.
The floor was strewn with just about all the bits and pieces,
which I use to pick up for them, wherever I find such,
mostly next to the big garbage-bins outside the house,
for which I, in my job as house cleaner, am responsible.
So I crawled on the floor,
gathered, for instance, the about 200 painted pebbles,
that formerly belonged to an artificial aquarium,
while the four happily created more disorder.

I felt, that I shouldn't stick to my decision,
for surely I was denying myself,
and if I wouldn't move my anger through my mouth,
it would escape as a stinking fart from my behind,
sooner or later.
But I couldn't come up with an idea of what to do.
So I kept silent, hoping I would control myself.

This photo shows another occasion of eating at the versatile "stage", [a container platform, which I once picked up somewhere. It's covered with a cloth I cut from a teenager dress which I found in the garbage room.] Wednesday this week was the 12th of June, Arnon's sixth birthday. Here they eat the much favored "4 o'clock meal" with a candle and flowers.

"Sooner or later" - Itamar, the main 'chaoist' -
overthrew a small foldaway table with tea and cups,
which he himself had wanted to put next to the low dinner-table,
used also as "stage", another piece of garbage I had recycled.

Poor Itamar.
My lightenings and thunders rolled over him,
as if he had committed the worst crime.
While the kids fell silent with shock,
I speedily processesd my guilt and shame,
and then I taught them in kids' language
about the link between denial and trigger.
Luckily I had a good example:
"Do you remember, Itamar,
that during lunch some food fell on your knees,
and you looked at me fearfully,
but I didn't say anything,
because it had happened by accident.
Now too it was just an accident.
So why was I so mad this time?"

And then I came up with a solution:
"I understand now, that I don't mind tidying up after you.
But I do mind, that you take it for granted.
That not one of you saw me crawling on the floor.
That not one of you said:
"thank you, grandma, for doing this for us."
So now I want to win you over to this simple game:
When it's time to tidy up,
I want each of you, yes each of you,
to ask me to tidy up.
And if I manage to do this, while you are still awake,
I want each of you to say: "thank you, grandma, for tidying up."

This sounds like I'm teaching them a ridiculous manipulation.
But who said, that manipulation is always bad?
Particularly, if both parts, or at least one part, is aware of it?

Of course, I still have to give them a hint, like:
"we'll soon have dinner, what'd you think should happen now?"
Then they ask me, one by one,
in the most charming tone, if I would please please tidy up.
And I smile, watching the effect their manipulation has on me.

[2005_11_15: This manipulation game works on "Grandma Days" up to this day,
despite the change of the exterior setting: I now "host" the kids in Micha's house.]

Once when only Yael and Itamar were with me,
i.e. there was less chaos,
Yael said: "I'll tidy up myself", which she did very nicely.

This is, of course, only an example of an agreement,
which helps us to neither override, nor letting override.
And it does NOT help me with Tomer.
But I want to be really grateful for small favors.

"Cushion War!" exclaimed Tomer. I often collaborate with this wish. This time I pointed to his cousins, but soon there were tears.

Maryam, 2002_07_02

Arnon and Yael were pleading with each other:
A: "But I need you, Yael, to help me.
I can't do this project alone."
Y: "But, Arnon, I'm telling you that I don't want to, now.
I promise you to help you another time."
The pleading became more and more stubborn
and the voices expressed more and more despair.
Moreover Yael felt, that Arnon didn't even hear, what she had to say.
Her voice became shriller and shriller:
"Arnon, you are not listening, not listening."

Finally I exploded and mocked their kind of arguing:
"but I want", "but I don't want", "but I want", "but I don't want."
Having thus moved my anger, I asked if they wanted help.
When they both said "Yes" , I turned to Arnon
since he was the actor, while Yael was the re-actor.

In kids' language I reminded him,
that if I have a need, a wish, an interest,
and am dependent on someone to achieve this,
I must win him/her over
by proving that we have a common interest.
Neither has to give up his/her wish, need, interest,
but at least one of them has to take responsibility
for making 1+1=3.
"And now, Arnon, instead of playing with your tongue,
you should cry, because I see tears in your eyes."

At this moment Yael jumped up and said:
"I have an idea, I'll tell Arnon a joke",
and she dragged him vigorously into another room.
I heard them laughing hilariously.

After a little while they came back carrying our selfmade kiosk
and installed it in the middle of the room.
Yael: "Arnon had the idea to set up a kiosk for jokes",
They were excited that they had indeed made 1+1=3.

Soon they were selling jokes to Itamar and Ayelet.
Later I saw the two cousins sitting underneath the kiosk.
"What are you doing now?" I asked:
"We pretend to be famous people who get letters
and we are reading them to each other."
They both had become six lately and don't know yet how to read.
But imagination made up for it.

Maryam, 2002_07_16 to SJ - another "healing person" who was terribly triggered by me.

"I want to pick up two threads:

" First: you say I am not listening.
I am not aware of it and it's nothing that other ragers have thrown into my face.
On the contrary, even people, who didn't like me, conceded that I'm a good listener.
But maybe, I can do something in order for you to FEEL that I listen.
Please, tell me again what it is that I don't hear.

"Second: you say I'm not respecting the author of RUOW.

"SJ, balance between free wills will be the end result of all our healing.
It's not there yet,
and it probably cannot be accomplished at all between people,
who have no physical contact.
(Ceanne, who never answered a letter and did not respond,
when I was in Colorado in 1995 and wanted to visit her
- stated - to other people, not to me - that she wants no contact with me).

"But lets assume, Ceanne did agree to "work it out with me",
which means "to balance between our wills",
then there would be two main possibilities:

"Either one of us would be won over to the need of the other
as being much greater than the own need.
Or , if we would realize that both our opposing needs are equaly vital,
we would start with the real work, which is "to make 1+1=3".

"How does this process work in my "circle of loving dependency"?

"The first step is listening to each other,
until all triggers and judgments are being taken care of.

"Then when the two net needs will be on the table,
my experience is, that in 80% of the cases, one person withdraws her demand.
This was the case, when I decided to not publish "Virtual Interactions" any longer.
No denial! No giving up! No compromise! is permitted.
When I "surrendered" (in the positive sense of this word),
I did so because your and so many other people's need is much more vital than my need.
Once I let go of my need for mutual transparency, I saw a new path for myself,
which before was blocked by that need....

"Still there are 20% where my need is as vital as the need of the other.
There is no recipe, how to make 1+1=3.
I've given a kids' example in pp28b, last entry [see above].
And it's only people who are dependent on each other,
who will even start with this process.

"But then , if they do, there is immediate reward by the very following of the process.
I have watched this again and again in my life and in the life of the three children couples.

"Of course, there is always the danger,
that one partner regresses into denial of his/her need.
But since these couples are committed to 1+1=3,
they soon enough attract a trigger
which reminds them of their true path.

"I hope, you can see now, why the term "respecting someone"
is no better than "being polite",
which according to the books is loaded with denials."



2002_10_21; 7 o'clock in the morning ; last update; 2002_10_23

This 'deja-vu' of what happens right now on Gilead-Hill,
one of the "illegal" Jewish strongholds on Palestinian land
which the Minister of Defence has ordered to take down!

Converting my German&Hebrew book into website pages
compells me to look again at the war of Jews against Jews,
which in the year 70 and finally in 133 following the Bar-Kokhba-revolt
gave the Romans the chance to blot out any trace of Jewish nationhood,
and to spill so much Jewish blood,
that the earth "needed no fertilizer for 7 years".

And right now I read in the Hebrew net-news,
that Zalman Melamed, the head of the Westbank rabbies,
who stir and instigate the rebellion of the Jewish "settlers",
put out a "psaq-halakha", a decree of religious law,
"a total, absolute interdiction for any person in Israel,
to evacuate any Jewish stronghold in the land of Israel."
[2002_10_23 Today he withdrew and said, it wasn't obligatory.]
I'm reminded of the wisest of Israel's Sages, R. Aqiba,
who sided with the rebels in messianic illusions,
and was blamed harshly by his colleagues:
"The hair of your corpse will grow from the earth,
and still the Messiah will not have come."

And the powerful Israeli government,
who distracted 2000 soldiers&policemen from "vital security tasks",
to fight the growing number of "settlers", has so far been powerless.
They override Palestinians day by day,
 they cannot override their own people.
To choose Shabbat for evacuating the stronghold,
was more than tactless, more than tactically stupid.

No coping with each other,
no winning over each other,
no attempt to make 1+1=3.

And why do I, I, I create this in my life?????

Next day, 2002_10_21

Yesterday I didn't know yet, to what page I should link my reminiscence of the ancient Jewish terrorists,
who in order to force the people to join their insane rebellion
went as far as burning down the stocks of wheat, meant to feed Jerusalem during the Roman siege.
The ensuing famine sped up the catastrophic defeat of the year 70 AD.,
which by Christian theologians is considered "the end of Jewish history".
But it wasn't the end, there still was a chance to regain some kind of independence under Roman rule.

This morning I continued with my work of scanning, editing, marking, inserting the pages of my book,
and what did these pages contain? Exactly the chapter about the holocaust of 133 AD and the table,
in which I had so painstakingly compared the eight different versions of the midrash about Zekharya.
[see English Digest 5 and Conversion of the guarantor into the revenger: Zekharya ben Yehoyada ]

Yesterday, after 10 days of "calm", there was another terror attack,
in which 14 people were killed and 40 wounded,
and Israeli retaliation is certain.
It occurs to my mind,
that the ancient analogy may refer to the Palestinian terrorists more than to the Jewish settler rebels.
But there is no contradiction, and I'm not responsible for the Palestinians,
I'm responsible for my dependence on my own people , on its rulers and rebels,
who in turn are dependent on the Palestinians.
Israel in the interdependent world of 2002 is not the independent Rome of 70 and 133.

2002_11_07

I am just catching my breath from an astounding accident.
[on 2003_05_06- seen in the context of my training for wrestling with T]
It's a day before Tomer's 8th birthday and the second Thursday
since Ronnit began to study again - on her day off from her work.

Thursday starts with taking the smaller ones, who sleep here anyway,
fetching the bigger ones and bringing them all to school in Ronnit's car.

No sooner did I return to my flat than I got a phonecall from the police:
"Your grandson had a little accident!
He hit a car with his bike, don't worry."
"Which grandson?"
I asked and it took a while to clarify that it was Alon. They asked,
if I could join the ambulance, which was about to bring Alon to hospital.

Alon's mother, who had left for work in Tel-Aviv before the kids got up, called:
She was already on her way to the hospital and she was terribly mad.
Two days ago she had strictly forbidden Alon to go to school by bike.

While sitting next to AL, giving his body and soul some healing,
I let myself feel the gratitude, that he was alive and almost well,
except for a broken front tooth and minor bruises and scratches.
I received the message:
It was AL's unconcious manner of communicating to his mother:
You override me out of fear that my brother may be hit by a car.
So I let myself be hit by a car to show you that you override me.

Yesterday AL (11) came as usual to let me help him practise the piano.

In the middle of his joyous play he got a call from his mother who told him,
that Tomer had again jumped from the window and run away from school,
and that therefore he must fetch him and today bring him all the way home.
Usually Alon has to only help Tomer cross the road, which is twice a week.

Alon's mood sank into hell.
He could not focus on his music any longer,
and when I stopped our lesson and suggested to continue the next day,
he said with pain & anger: "But I still haven't solved the problem with Tomer!"
He started to cry and to describe the torture of dragging his troubled brother along.

Tomer

I could identify with him for more than one reason and was quite triggered myself.
I listened, held his body close and begged him to see this ongoing lesson of his life:
to learn to stand up for himself,
to not let anyone override him,
but to learn "to work it out" with people.
"I am not telling you to disobey your mother.
But please make her communicate with you,
until you come to an agreement,
which both of you can live with."
I suggested that he call his mother right now, which he did.
Of course, he failed to even communicate his predicament,
leave alone stand up to her.
I urged him to find the right moment in the evening,
and stressed, that practising to stand up for himself,
was a million times more important than playing the piano.

"Did you talk to your mother?" I inquired in the ambulance.
He shook his head.

After he had been examined and the injuries had been taken care of,
I went back to Modi'in with Alon and his deeply distressed mother.
Lately she spends more time in hospitals and medical checks with all 3 kids than at work.

In front of Alon I came back again and again to the problem of who would fetch T.
Finally, when I myself could not come up with a viable solution, I proposed myself.
If Alon could cope with taking Tomer on Wednesdays,
I would replace him on Tuesdays,
in addition to Mondays, when Alon and Tomer are staying with me anyway.

I hope, I did the right thing, since my "availability" is prone to be misused.
But contrary to the English saying: "When in doubt, leave it out", I believe:
When in doubt, what compassion demands, just follow your feeling.
And bear the consequences, if your action turns out to having been wrong.

Arduous and tedious is the path of my ex-daughter-in-law and so is my path with her. In this painting of hers I can touch her true self.

2003_05_06

How strange, that - in opening this page to insert the letter,
in which I've been coping the whole day with a new blame
of my "overriding and trampling down the privacy of another",
See above, 2002_07_16 to SJ
I find this composition and remarks concerning Tomer's mother.