Memory

My Fake Memoir

I want to meet this poet.  “We think of the past and present as being completely separate, but, in fact, your memory is something that can only happen in the present…”

Nice.

I have been thinking about memory a lot lately.  It’s the fault of my sisters.  Both my sisters have proposed alternate pasts for our family lately, in such amazingly different ways.  One of my sisters has been encouraging me to write a fake memoir.  It is a good idea, I think.

My favorite memory:

We are swimming at night in a lake in Minnesota and I am telling you a story.  The story is about people who gather light for half the month and deliver it to the moon.  For the other half of the month they bring the light back to earth along the path the moonlight makes on the surface of the lake in which we are swimming.

I don’t remember the rest of the story.

I don’t remember how to get to the beach where we swam.

I don’t even really remember if it was you I was telling this story to.

But it is a memory I go back to, time and time again.

So much catching up to do….

A Short Conversation:

Me:  Habibi you are so smart!

Habibi:  I am not so smart…I’m not as smart as you.

Me:  Well you are 3 and I am 38, so I’ve had a lot longer to be in school and learn things, but you are very smart.  You know,  someday you’ll be 38 and you’ll be so smart, and you’re going to do such good things!

Habibi:  (Just hugs me)

I think the two kindest things anyone has ever said to me are:

“Would you like to give him his bath?” and “I’m not surprised.”

Both, of course, were about Habibi.   The first was not long after my ex-wife and I had separated and we were working out how I was going to spend time with him.  He was so tiny.  He is so big now–almost 4.

Why was this so nice?

Because it set the tone for me to do normal parent things with him.  As much as I love taking him out for adventures, it is the normal parent things that mean something to me.  Someone once gave me a book about being a divorced father, and there was a section in it about not falling prey to the quality time trap.  We are allowed to have normal time together–it is a gift that all started with my ex-wife suggesting that I give my kid his bath.

“I’m Not Surprised”

Someone who I have not seen in years, in way too many years, suggested that my parenting was quite good and followed it up with that addendum.  Wow.  Complimenting a parent’s parenting (or child) is the best way to comppliment them, of course, but suggesting that there might have been even an inkling of that present so very long ago…wow.

I have been telling Habibi a story.

Really a series of stories about a set of characters who are, frankly, none of your business.  Prior to him, I really only told one person stories, and it was a long time ago.  It is actually incredibly difficult, and I don’t know that I’m particularly good at it.  But the thing is, and this is the thing: he loves this story and these characters something fierce.  Do all kids love having their parents tell them stories?

I will be, perhaps, more attentive to this thing now.  I am still looking for a job.

Wow

…do I ever want a cigarette.

Habibi was in a terrible, tired little boy mood today. This, for him, doesn’t mean a tantrum, but a kind of sad little shutting down. He just wants to go home. No park, no ball, no monkey bars–just home. And then…for me, the terrible feeling that I may have done something wrong. Have I failed as a playmate–or (far, far) worse, as a parent? When I picked him up he wanted to go back to my house, but now that he and his mom have moved there is no time for this. At 4:30, with traffic, it would take close to an hour to get from where they life to where I live. This just isn’t working. I’m going to have to move, but of course, with the layoff, I can’t right now.

Kate was in town today

and, as usual, she said something really wise. Actually she said it about something else, but it fits here, too. She pointed out that I had mentioned accepting the pain of letting him go as part of our time together. The pain of adjusting to every new part of his life: his growing, his new school, his living further away, all of these things are just aspects of my life as his father.

Habibi reminds me of the Amidah, or maybe the Amidah reminds me of Habibi

the first prayer of the Shemoneh Esreh begins by stating that God is the God of the Patriarchs (and Matriarchs), and then discusses God’s might, mercy, and redemptive power. The Patriarchs and Matriarchs were not perfect–check Genesis out if you don’t believe me–and neither am I as a parent. The best I can do is accept that the difficult times are part of the whole. And…maybe I can accept that there is some order to the world through that.

Who knows?

I’ve been thinking…

Saturday morning I was sitting in services, being given not the once-, not the twice-, but the THRICE-over

by an ex-girlfriend’s fiance. It was really funny. Really. Habibi’s mother’s fiance didn’t make such a show of checking me out when we met (and I didn’t check him out at all–we just shook hands and talked about toys), AND I’ve known Habibi’s mom for 20 years, AND I am the father of her child. Apparently this guy (the one from services) gets awful jealous. I learned this when I received and apologetic email from my ex-girlfriend. She felt I might have been uncomfortable. Not so much, really.

It’s been way too long since I’ve posted anything.

Over a month, to be precise. My mezzuzah seems not to be bringing me so much overt luck, exactly. For instance, I was laid off. This is not lucky. Funny, though–I am not exactly in a spiral over it. The cool yoga instructor I used to work with suggested that I should look at it as an opportunity. She said I should get a job as a teacher. I am looking into it. Who knows? Things happen, and we have to deal with them.

I also started therapy again. What what a great thing therapy is. Yesterday, we spent almost the entire hour talking about Habibi’s mom and her family (she got married this past weekend). I should have given myself more permission to be upset about that. Because, well, I am. But…it’s regret mixed with happiness. If I loved her and probably still do, I need to recognize that her new husband makes her happy. And–get this. I can tell that he does, because she’s actually being warm towards me for the first time in years.

Still. Sometimes I’m just downright nervous. That other shoe is up there somewhere.

Pressing my luck.

Here’s the thing: The thing? On the doorpost? I think it’s working. After a fashion, at any rate.

Because…. Ever since I put it up, and it’s been greeting me when I go to my room in all it’s clunkiness and prayer,  I’ve been feeling luckier. Or, as I said, better. About stuff.

Little stuff, mostly.  Sometimes big stuff, too (more on that, later).  Who knows about big stuff, though.  You have to be careful with that–longer lifespan and all.  Little stuff, I suppose, is different

For instance, the woman at the dry cleaner’s.

I brought in my clothes to be cleaned–light starch on the shirts, please–no creases on the pants.

After having been caught in the rain, there were all sorts of weird marks on my favorite shirt. So, of course, I showed them to the dry cleaning woman and all but begged her to see if they could be removed; I really like that shirt.

She had her processing plant get them out.

But that’s not the point. It’s how she had them get the marks out. She told them that it was for one of her “very good customers,” and that it must be one of my favorite shirts because I bring it in all the time. See? She knows me. This is a gift. There can be an intimacy within commercial transactions. Go figure.

Requisite Habibi story for today:

Today, we went to the zoo with Grandpa and Grandma B and two Big Cousins.  Then to pizza. Pizza is key. The pizza guys know us.  We are regulars, Habibi and me, and we don’t have to mess around with such pedestrian foolishness as menus.  Or ordering.  The pizza guys know what we want.  The pizza guys like Habibi.  Today, while we were waiting, Habibi crawled up onto my lap, put his thumb in his mouth, his head on his shoulder and played with my hair with his free hand. 

As we were driving home the following interaction occured:

Habibi: Why is Grandpa B your daddy and Grandma B not your mommy?

Me: Because Grandma J is my mommy. But Grandpa B is my daddy, just like I’m your daddy.

Habibi: I’m glad you’re my daddy.

Me: Oh, Habibi, I’m so glad you’re my boy.

Here’s something interesting (it’s about JDate):

Really it’s about unintended consequences.  There are so many where the Internet is concerned, but this one is sort of the second best unintended consequence from JDate, of late.

I have a friend who has recently gone back on JDate and has begun to use it in earnest, as have I (earnest being a strange choice of words, as I have no idea what I am looking for…), at any rate, our shared e-daing experience has returned a closeness to us–one that we haven’t felt in years, since a cruel trick of geography was played on us.

Oh. Wait. I forgot to give my Minyan review. I’ll do it next time–I promise.  Suffice to say, even the Glare of Welcome was not enough to ruin my Shabbat Morning experience.

Idolatry?

So, after I got completely soaked walking to the Metro in the rain trying to go to services on Friday night,

I spoke to John Boy, who asked me if I had ever heard of the superstition about bad luck being related to worn-out klafim in one’s mezzuzot. She asked if I had a mezzuzah. I told her I didn’t, aside from the one I found covered in dog hair, when I was cleaning out our mother’s apartment. She suggested that I go buy one…and bury the klaf from the dog hair covered one.

Yesterday I bought a mezzuzah.

I felt kind of weird about it.

Not because I am opposed to mezzuzot.

But… I am opposed to purchasing things to change one’s lot in life. That seems more like, well, idolatry, or at least “Judy-ism,” (based on my mother’s shift from zero-interest in Judaism, to purchaser of all Jewish items), than Judaism. I don’t really want to believe that a mezzuzah will change my luck. The last time I lived in a house with a mezzuzah, some pretty rotten things happened, after all. Then again, some really wonderful things happened there, too.

At any rate, I bought a mezzuzah and put it up and felt better–not luckier, but better.

Part of the Shema, inside every mezzuzah, says:

“And you shall love יהוה, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all of your might. These words, which I command you this day, will be upon your heart…”

Once, a long time ago, I heard a story about a child who asked her mother why the Shema commanded us to keep the words of the Torah on our hearts, rather than in our hearts. According to the story, the mother replied, “So that when our hearts break, the words fall inside, where we need them the most.”

Moving back to the woman from the radio program that made me cry so much yesterday,

At the end of the program, they quote from her book:

“[If you are] … in Unitarian Universalist terms, completely and wholly in love, then you are in heaven no matter where you are. If you are not in love, you are in hell, no matter where you are.”

I am broken hearted, and I know I shouldn’t be, but every time the door slams behind me when I drop Habibi off at his mom’s, it feels a little like I have died.

Maybe I put up the mezzuzah at just the right height for the words to fall down into my heart–or to remind me that, rather than think about how I have to give him back, I should remember that my time with Habibi is a gift.

And I am so wholly in love with him…

Everything about him is so wonderful to me…from his little nose, to his huge opinions, to everything that he learns every day, as a preschooler should. Not only that, but there is an unbroken chain of love that I have felt for him since I whispered to him as he curled inside his mother’s belly.

Maybe that’s why I felt better–I was reminded about love and, being reminded, I felt more confident.

I have, at times, felt that I failed him, but I think that is somehow immodest on my part. My own feelings of failure should never be superimposed on what he may or may not feel. Besides–he seems reasonably pleased with me as a Daddy. So long as I am good at that, everything’s cool.

So it wasn’t the thing, after all, but the fact that it reminded me to act.

Those words that sit on our heart waiting to be needed are also meant, after all, to be taught to our children–that’s the next line of the prayer. I can teach Habibi by loving him, and I can teach him by example.

I think this could be the first step. If I am to be whole, I should focus on something I do wholly, like loving him. If I accept that there is something for which I should be grateful, I am in a very good place to begin my journey.

I am grateful for Habibi’s presence in my life and my love for him allows me a measure of fearlessness. I teach him, protect him, and play with him with the confidence that our laughter is a kind of prayer, that his confidence, curiosity, and developing mind are all prayers.

I think this love might be symbolized by the mezzuzah.

I gave the other, dog-hairy, mezzuzah back to my mother and told her to have her rabbi bury its klaf.

It all begins with the bathroom floor.

Suppose you dropped 90 brand new lithium carbonate tablets all over a (relatively clean, but still…) bathroom floor.

As you looked at them strewn all over hell and back, how would you react? Would you be overcome with a sense of helplessness that made you cry? Would you become enraged, knowing that your insurance company wouldn’t pay for another month’s supply?

I just picked them up and put them in the bottle, and decided to go about my business for another month, knowing that there would be plenty of times for me to feel despondent or enraged over my month-long relationship with this refill.

3 lithium a day sometimes just isn’t enough.

Lately, it hasn’t been anywhere near enough.

So I am doing something new; for the next year I am going to look at the world through a different lens, and I am going to start with God.

I have always seen God as a bit of a feckless shitbiscuit (more on this, later). This year, I am going to open myself to a healing God, and I think I might be able to do so without losing contact with humanity. At least I pray as much.

I think I’ll be able to do it, because this made me cry so much this morning: http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/braestrup/

I love the idea of being “religious, but not spiritual” so much that I have claimed it for myself, but I think I have missed the mark; I want to improve my aim.

So here’s the plan:

I will spend the next year working on my Jewish life, learning, creating a community, attaching myself to people. I will write about it here. Sometimes I will even be funny. I will change some people’s names.

When I was telling Kate about this today, she said I always sounded calmer and more confident when I talk about Judaism, and I should go back to school–who knows, maybe after this year, I will think about it. I’ll only do it if I don’t have to miss a single minute of Habibi’s life and I get to be funny.