This is the first year I’ve been personally exposed to the Israeli flower garland thing. In Hebrew, זר. Kids in gan and early elementary school wear these pixie crowns for birthdays, celebrations, ceremonies.

Naturally, the Shavuot chagiga in gan is one of them, and between his gan birthday and this, Koala’s now been fully introduced to the tradition.

And then this…

Little boys wearing flower crowns shooting at each other with pretend guns.

Isn’t that just… a little boy’s life?

Screw this.

She took us up on the offer.

As young parents trying something new and exciting often do, huz and I scrambled to get the bed made and sorted with her favorite items. The kids squealed with delight, and settled down into their places, facing each other.

Soon we found ourselves huddled outside the room, listening to their pillow talk.

“Shalosh… Arba… Osim shalosh…”

“Pesach already happened…”

“Shabbat shalom u’mevurach…”

“If we have shabbat, then we say to everybody shabbat shalom, and then we get a mamtak to eat…”

“If we go aroooound…”

“Ok, Bebe, it’s mesukan to talk when we going to bed.”

“But… but… but…”

There’s something to listening to your son using a firstborn voice to tell his younger sister:

“Ok, no more talking. I need to sleep.”

Finally, as he always does, Koala called out towards the hall – “Ima, I love you.”

This time, Bebe followed: “Ima, I love you.”

“I love you too, guys.”

And then, for the first bedtime ever, Koala added -

“I love you Bebe.”

“I love you Koala.”

I’ve been to the Kotel, the Western Wall, way too many times in the past year. Previously, I had a comfortable average of maybe once every two or three years. Maybe less. It felt long enough between trips. And the trips are always for the sake and pleasure of other people.

But throughout the last year, I’ve accompanied various visiting family members through the Old City, the pathway inevitably leading to the token Kotel visit. Some pray, some don’t. I never do.

The Kotel, the Old City, and even Jerusalem for that matter have come to symbolize discomfort, pain, ambivalence, shame, conflict. I don’t want to pray in those places. I don’t want to pray alongside people I can’t trust. I don’t want to reach deep into myself and summon a spiritual presence in such a political place.

You know where it’s lovely to pray? In a forest. There’s plenty of forest around Jerusalem. I live in it. I think it’s a not-so-big-secret that many other ancient sects of humanity get that we don’t. Man-made holiness hurts. Holiness existed before we did. Why wouldn’t we jump over each other to access that?

By all means, if the Kotel means something to you, enjoy it. Women of the Wall, Women for the Wall, women who wear falls, women who wear shawls. Men who throw garbage, men who who wear jeans, men who think learning is working, men who think working is earning.

When I’m standing in the Kotel plaza, I’m filled with anger and pain. So please, count me out. Take my spot. I hope though that between me and you and everyone else, some kind of spirituality will eventually solve our crisis.

——-

Things I can’t handle #745873: Beit Shemesh Taliban mother and daughters. Visiting the Kotel in March 2013.

Little does he realize this is EXACTLY how it happens here. #sabrakids

Loose translation:

“I have a store.”

“What do you sell?”

“Pizza and couscous. What do you want?”

“Pizza.”

“I don’t have.”

“But you said you have pizza? Ok, couscous.”

“I don’t have.”

“So what do you have?”

“Nothing.”

“So I want nothing.”

“I don’t have!”

“You said you have nothing!”

It was a dark and rainy day… oddly, since it was May 3rd in the Middle East.

We had piled into the car, giddy about the surprise rain, and drove to the nearby nursery to pick up new flowers and herbs for our modest mirpeset garden. The kids were delighted by the plants, the rain, the 10 seconds of hail. And then, clinging to the bag of soil we picked up – the snail.

We packed our trunk with the plants, the soil,carefully placed to preserve the snail. Who wants a pet chilazon?! 

When we parked and unloaded – first the kids, then the box of plants, then the bag of soil – the snail was gone. I searched the trunk while huz searched the plants and packet of soil.

The kids were anxious to find the snail. Bebe was nagging, calling over and over, “Abba! Abba! Abba”

“One second, B.”

“Abba! Abba! Look! Look Abba!”

“Just a second, Bebe, we have to find the snail.”

“Look Abba! Look Abba! Look Abba!”

At the same time, we looked towards where she was pointing… right at the snail, clinging to the bottom of the plant box.

And like that, no laugh track necessary, the four of us stood cracking up in the driveway under the grey May sky.

Koala named him Gluben (the third time he named him). He’s still kickin’ it on the porch.

P.S. I really like photographing snails.

But as I kept walking, I noticed more and more butterflies fluttering around me. Was there recently a butterfly baby boom? It felt like I was prancing around inside a Lisa Frank poster. Or I was a Disney princess singing to the wind, wearing Sauconys.

It was lovely. Fly on, butterflies.

Week 18: Perfect

No matter what they were before, they always turn out perfect.