Last Week: Darkness and Light
More contradictions. And a Chanukah song.
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Dear ones,
Tonight is the fifth night of Chanukah, a celebration of light in the dark of winter. The days are very short — sundown was at half-past four today — and they feel very full of darkness. And still, there are fragments of light here and there. Tiny oases in which to catch one’s breath before plunging deep down once more.
Today, Big Kid ran out of his new after-school program with a huge grin on his face. “Happy dance!” he exclaimed, and began to hop around on the patchy grass. As I write these words, Baby is bobbing up and down with a drooly grin on her face. She turned one over the weekend! And we got to celebrate with family and friends! In a time of great isolation and estrangement, these tiny moments feel massive.
And, joy of joys! My baby sister (who keeps reminding me she is not a baby) gave birth to a perfect, tiny human. He is all sweetness and softness. I am both in love with this teensy miracle of a person and heartbroken that I don’t get to hold him. Hold her. Be there with both body and mind, instead of just thinking all day about how she and her partner are, about the family they’ve become.
I was supposed to be in Israel right now, you see.
Light. And some darkness. Entangled.
Here on this side of the ocean, my wife and I have begun working with a parent counselor who is advising us on how to parent Big Kid. Folks, this has changed the whole game. Finally, we can voice our specific concerns and let off steam and wonder if we’re crazy. She holds space for it all. She gives us advice on how to help our kid that’s based on actual information about actual kids who struggle the way he does. Most parenting advice isn’t actually applicable when you have a kid like our Big Kid.
Last week, she told us to try to “minimize frustration” for him. Don’t sweat the little things, basically. He wants a specific book? Just get the damn book. He wants to go run around in the middle of dinner? Fine. She pointed out, astutely, that life for someone with sensory perception as extreme as his is hard enough. “Be the safe space,” she said, “so he only has to deal with frustration at school. That will give him more bandwidth with which to do that.”
So, that’s what we’ve been doing — and it’s working. He’s calmer, more able to communicate. He doesn’t have as many meltdowns. He’s open to conversations about possible outcomes. And I’m thinking about how this is solid advice for everyone right now.
Frankly, handling life itself since I woke up on the 7th of October has been unbearable. Every day is an existential crisis that won’t end. The grief is a river that has swept me and everyone I know away. The rage is volcanic. The fear is paralyzing. The shock, the terror, the feeling that there is nothing left to stand on.
Not sweating the small stuff has been a very productive exercise. There are very few things that seem to really matter.
For example, this morning I was supposed to teach something at the team meeting I attended. I was not prepared. I had nothing to say. Because what could I possibly teach? Everything I thought I knew on October 6th is no longer a sure thing. Even I am not who I was. I could have freaked out, of course! That would have been my reaction a few weeks ago. Today, though, I thought “minimize frustration, pal,” and pulled a book off the bookshelf. It was Dark Fields of the Republic by Adrienne Rich. She knew what to say, as she always does.
In the end, it was a good meeting. We laughed. We cried. We felt the shakiness of reality together. By choosing to just show up as myself, by trusting my team of co-workers, I think we made a healing space in the world. And, Lord, we need more of those these days.
Below, I’m adding the two poems we read. Let me know what you think?
One last thought, before I sign off. On Shabbat, my older sibling came over to help with the kids and told me that it’s been really rough to get through the days. Everything is a trigger for what’s going on back home. We talked about how it’s both calming and difficult to be around the kids. Sometimes, being with little ones is a great distraction. How can you wallow when you’re making an ice-skating rink in a frying pan? Or building a tree house out of cardboard boxes? Other times, playing hide and seek, you think of all the children hiding in bomb shelters, in tunnels, in buildings without shelters, in tent-cities, in vain as bombs rain down on them. It’s hard not to think of the dumb luck of our children’s safety. Of our own safety.
So much darkness.
I’ll try not to let it consume me. In a few days, I’ll have another long email, chock-a-block full of information and thoughts. For tonight, I’ll leave you with poetry and a Chanukah anthem my wonderful wife composed. Let me know what you think?
Wishing you a week of oases. Of breath.
B’shalom,
Mikhal
