A Corner of My Mind

Days of Wonder.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the details of living that we forget what life is all about. Then comes along what social scientists call, a life cycle event, and you have the opportunity to remember. That’s where we are right now—in the most positive way possible. Our daughter just had a baby girl and we are reveling, not only in the baby, but in the miracle of birth. It is a time that finds us in awe of creation.

Joeli was born in the morning on New Year’s Day. She is exactly one-week-old as I write this. I am in Seattle helping out Joeli’s mom, dad and big brother and I wouldn’t give up these days for a trip to Bhutan (a place I’d love to visit, but probably will never get to J.) I can sit holding her for an hour, just watching her. I don’t need the television on, the Internet running or the phone at my ear. I am just immersing myself in the moment—I am so aware that life doesn’t get any better than this.

I’m not talking perfect here—sleep deprivation, poopy diapers, breast feeding challenges for my daughter, getting my grandson off to school early in the morning and other issues—these are all part of the package. But with all of it, in the foreground is the awareness of how special this time is. For this whole week, it is as if our world has stopped spinning, and we are in the cocoon of new birth.

“Look at her stretching,” my daughter will say. “Four days ago she was doing that inside of me!”

Yes, exactly, I will think. Sometimes when I’m holding Joeli against my heart and she kicks her tiny feet, it flashes me back to when I carried my own kids deep inside of my body.

This has been a time that has brought us all back to the basics—to all that is good in our nature. There is a simplicity to our days that has stopped the chatterbox in my head that insists on planning, listing and achieving. I know, even as I in-put this and prepare it for my blog, I am already leaving that place. I want to resist, but have to be realistic.

Maybe it’s because I am older that I have been able to stop and enjoy this time. When my other grandchildren were born, I was still working, still had parents who needed care, still in a frenzy to get it all in. As an older grandparent, the impatience of middle age is behind me and I have been able to step off the merry-go-round of my normal life.

Maybe it’s Joeli, herself. Whatever, it has been wonderful.

Entitled?.

I agree with Peggy Noonan. Steve Jobs’ final words: “OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW!” “were the best thing said in 2011.” Noonan also wrote, “”Oh wow” is not a bad way to express the bigness, power and force of life, and death.”

I think she is right on. When faced with a year of natural and human made disasters that left many of us speechless with horror or disillusionment or pain, it felt comforting to know that a man who was a visionary in the world of techno-development, saw death as an astounding happening. It gives us the sense that there is more than what is visible here in front of us…and that death is not the end. You sense that there is a bigger picture that we are not capable of knowing.

You do wonder what it was he saw when he looked away from his family’s eyes.

I remember my mother doing the same thing when she was dying. She did it often in the final days. I would say she was going to the other side. I know she was seeing something or someone that gladdened her when she looked above my head and behind me. I remember sitting next to her one day when my dad brought in a baby picture of my daughter. Mother, who had seemed to be almost comatose, grabbed the photo and slapped it onto her forehead. She stayed that way until Dad brought a picture of my son. Then she took his picture and did the same. I remember thinking that she was eager to go to the other side, but was hesitant to leave us behind. I think she was trying to manipulate the process by trying to imprint their images. If she could take the memory of the children with her, she would gladly go.

When my dad was edging towards death, I sat with him every day too. Once he started awake and said, “Who is that?” There was no one in the room other than him and me. I thought maybe he was seeing someone I couldn’t see… . “I don’t know ,” I said. “Who do you think it is?” He knew from my tone that I had gone “Woo-Woo” on him so he just rolled his eyes and sank back onto his pillows.

Dad used to roll his eyes a lot that last year. I remember my sister coming into town, armed with the decision she was going to talk straight to Dad.  “He probably wants to talk about dying,” she said. “I’ll give him the opportunity.” So she did. As she talked about his approaching death, Dad, who really wasn’t interested in that topic, rolled his eyes at me behind her back. I fixed him a strong martini and handed it to him. He sipped gratefully.

What’s weird is that now my dog rolls his eyes at me in just the same way. Every time he does it, I think of my dad and wonder about reincarnation.

We don’t realize how entitled we are–we Americans, I mean.

I’m not talking about the one percent. I’m talking about the 75 percent. Maybe that percentage is off–I was never good at math–but a lot of us Americans feel entitled to a good life. We feel if we work hard and save, that in the end, we should be able to have nice things, go on vacation, be safe, have a car and maybe a house. There are the uber-rich, sure, who have no roots in reality. But, all those people you just saw running around in the malls, trying to buy the latest and the coolest, don’t fit in that category.

It’s become so apparent to me this year how lucky we are. What we take for granted just doesn’t exist for so much of the rest of the world. Yesterday, our hot water heater went out. We were without hot water for 24 hours. I boiled some water on the stove to wash the dishes. We went without showers for a day. I put off doing a load of whites. We survived ! 🙂 It does make you think about the people who don’t even have running water. And I know that includes many Americans.

When I walked out of the grocery store yesterday, a middle aged woman was standing with a sign in the parking lot. I had just donated a bag of groceries inside the store. I have decided that this is the way to help the hungry, not by giving handouts. But I decided to talk to her. I asked her if she knew about social services. She said she was a graphic artist who’d been laid off by Nickelodeon, and her insurance had just run out. She was living in her car. She’d never thought she would be in this position and didn’t know what to do. I told her she had to get herself into the system–that this is why we pay social security. I told her to call Jewish Family Service or Catholic Services. These agencies help people in crisis. I said that begging for money wasn’t going to help her out for long. I gave her twenty dollars….Whether her story was true or fabricated, I can’t tell you. Her sign was lettered perfectly as a graphic artist’s would be. In the old days before Elizabeth Smart, I probably would have taken her home with me. But you can’t be too careful with strangers, right?

AS this year ends, it is time to celebrate our good fortune. It is time to be thankful for all we have. Happy New Year.

On our family trip to Hawaii.