Write from the Voice of a Silent Witness

Today, I'm the silent witness. As I write one paragraph, one page for my book, under contract for Pearson on teacher collaboration for the sake of English Language Learners, (in addition to the transformative book) I've made a conscious decision to remain a silent witness.


As Davidji says:
"The witness is another aspect of who we are . . . the silent observer who can participate in every experience without becoming identified with it. When we are able to witness each moment with detached involvement, we can become more deeply aware of who we are, how we are, and why we are. It is in that moment that we can process our behaviors, see the consequences of our actions, and "feel" whether a choice is right. As Deepak Chopra suggests in his book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, when we have a decision to make, we can place our hand on our heart and feel whether it is telling us to proceed or to draw back and reconsider."

But this process doesn't happen automatically.

First, I must detach. Meditation helps. Gives me empowerment. Gives me emotional healing.
I sometimes need to hear a human voice. So that's why Davidji's meditations give me that extra guidance.
But then I may also need to hear the voice that also "reports" that has an educational value. So I listened Adam Davidson's beautiful footage report, "An Optimist in Haiti."
Then I begin to write.
As I've suggested, if you're really stuck with any book writing project, try writing a letter to the person whose is the subject of the book. To whom the book will have the greatest impact on his/her life.

For example, I write from the point of view of that lonely teacher. Or that teacher who needs more help and support.
The more detached I am. The more I am able to nail "the voice."

And this is of course, true for all areas of life, as well.

Try it.

A Healing Wish (for the Jewish New Year)

Dear Healing:

So you just can't imagine how I felt this morning after yesterday's teaching and writing marathon. Although I had spent my time productively, there was something about the day that didn't quite fit. A busy unrestful state. Not totally present in the here and now. Responding to other people, things and events from a reactionary not responsive state. This is what I have done for most of my waking life.

I think now, I know better - much better. DavidJi is right - we need to choose our friends and our supporters (he calls them our "backers" which I like better) consciously and wisely. Energy feeds energy. For example, not everyone whom we think is a friend, truly meets that criteria. So yesterday, I made a nice long list of my "ideal friend." I'd like to think of this step as the first towards achieving emotional healing. How can we think BIG - global peace, for instance, when we still need to heal parts or ourselves and being? The choices we make aren't conscious choices? The friends we choose don't nourish/satisfy us on emotional, professional and social levels?

As I wrote my list, I thought of Depeche Mode's "Somebody" - you can watch the clip here.

And from this process, I acquired something - the gift of "clarity." In one word, it was the way I expressed at the moment a state of profound love. First the circles of energy that guide me to love first my son, husband and the outer circles family and those friends with whom we speak the same beautiful guided soul language.

And then I saw my tribe emerging - it was clear that I need a tribe who can connect with me in words - a creative language. And I saw that beautifully coming to me too. I think it had to do with the fact that I am now a "transformative author" for the Mastermind series. Yesterday on our first call, I connected with the energy of the most amazing people on this planet. I'm still writing my transformative story to be published in this anthology next spring - here is the cover. I'm so excited. I can hardly wait. I'm a "pebble." I make ripples. When we are together, we can also make "waves." So I honor those voices that also make up part of my HEALING.

So my healing affirmation for today: I will make conscious nourishing choices by bringing out the best in myself as I work calmly and effortlessly.

And this is my healing wish. For today, for Rosh Hashana - the Jewish New Year and eternally.

We transform the world by transforming ourselves.

Speak as if You Found Your Tribe

In just a few moments, you'll be walking up that familiar hill to your son's school. You have waited so long for this moment to spend time with him, and you know he's looking forward to it too.

All the way up the hill, you'll be people observing as if you've lived in Pittsburgh all your life. You call it, "quiet meditating." I call it, "craziness." But .. why not? The weather's in your favor, and you got a little time....just a little...

And then, there's a stranger of a man approaching you, who chats on his cell-phone oblivious of anybody - just like you have become. He thinks probably nobody understands his Hebrew. Nobody!

But you do... only it takes a few seconds to figure it out. He has to listen first and then talk. After all, this IS America. Not everybody is an Israeli - but of course you knew that, didn't you. But that doesn't mean anything for this Israeli - so what if he listens? He talks loudly, but the thing that is most important for you is... well, you UNDERSTAND every single word!

Well, you understand that this flicker of a common language between you and this stranger of a man, is a homey moment. In your hometown of NYC, people just don't have time and don't care if you speak Hebrew because everybody speaks Hebrew, but here's the thing... Pittsburgh, as you are finding out still, is not like NYC. People have time and patience. They also speak as if they found their tribe - that the other person understands even BEFORE they say something back.

You spend a few moments waiting for your son's class to show up from gym. And as you wait, you notice the children from the other first grade class. One skips, one runs to class. The teacher reprimands those that do not conform, and tells them to go back and they walk again... this time quietly. But because they know you are watching them, they walk with a "twinkle" in their step. Maybe two. But you didn't see that - did you?


And in your son's first grade class, you find the-child-in-me-tribe. Children just need to know you are part of their tribe; you can never fake having fun playing a board game. My son proudly joined me and our moment was ours to enjoy. In your game sharing tribe, we learn to share, take turns, "pick an apple," and have a few laughs. The child next to me says, "I like your son. He has red hair." You smile.

And back outside, the sun beats on the dirty sidewalks. You reach the corner of Murray and Forward and wait on the corner for the bus to take you up yet another hill. You've decided to make it easier for yourself by not making yet another trek up ANOTHER hill. A bus is a perfect place for "people watching."

There was this man on the bus who said to me, "bless you," when I sneezed. I had just pulled my nose away from my sleeve. And there was another man catching his breath with a walker. The older man had just a few hairs left on his shiny bald head and it looked as if they were soaked in sweat. It had to be because it wasn't raining. The young man with the walker said something that made the older man go into deeper in thought; the older man chatted with the bus driver as if they had lived in the same town all their lives.

"Now I remember when you could smoke on those T's going up that hill," the bus driver said.

"Yeah - that was another era," the older man said with a nonchalant expression. "So ...these are coach seats?" (referring to the seats, you know, the serpentine bus with an accordion stretcher in the middle that gracefully opens and closes when the bus makes a turn) I had never thought of the seats on a 61D city bus in Pittsburgh as "coach seats." Wait... did he said, "Coach seats?"

I keep a glittery artificial smile to calm the stressed lady across from me. As long as I'm wearing shades - it won't be hard to pull this smile off.

So speak as if you know and found your tribe.

Your tribe is waiting for you. I'm sure you know that by now. If you don't, well, I can tell you that everybody has a tribe. Only it took me words and years of those words to find out my voice through that tribe....


**********

When I hear Hebrew on a Pittsburgh street in Squirrel Hill, I know there isn't this foreign language acting as a barrier between me and the speaker as it was before I left for Israel. I can play the role of the "silent one." Or I can respond in Hebrew. Whatever. I. Choose.

And now, that I've joined a tribe, I can be part of several - for instance, a "bus tribe," or, at "the-corner-waiting-for-the-bus tribe," a "bagel factory" tribe - everything that is language and everything else that isn't - food included. Because a tribe that is universal is also understood.

Israeli "Sunday" State of Mind

You know you are not in Israel, when you don't have to start thinking of Sunday as a workday. As Saturday evening creeped along yesterday, I began thinking, "I got to get my lessons organized to prepare myself for the energy of Sunday..." Then I stopped myself silly...

"Wait, this is one of the great perks of living in the States." You get an EXTRA day to sink into the energy of the weekend. While I was teaching in Israel and a Jewish holiday would happen to fall on a Sunday, I would immediately think, "This is the "holy" weekend that I miss.

Shabbat in Israel, which begins on sundown on Friday and ends on sundown on Saturday, goes in and out with the flash of light.

Having an extra day really does the soul an extra ounce of good. Sundays in the States are...

the "anything-you-want-to-do-day,"
so you can
catch-up

You can be:
lazy,
sleepy,
perky-ready-to-go
anything
you
want....

But truthfully, it's been a journey to find myself with "Sunday energy" ever since returning to live in the States in 2007.

Daddy usually works on a Sunday and it's time for me to catch-up on a lot of writing projects and time to spend with my son. But it's a different kind of energy. I prefer this energy truthfully.

After meditating earlier this morning, I had to make a wonderfully bureaucratic call to Israel for a pending issue and the skype call I have scheduled with my folks in Israel and our upcoming visit to NYC for Rosh Hashana put me in a Israeli "Sunday" state of mind.

That's when I dipped into the energies of Sundays past...

walking through Bryant park after eating Sunday Israeli brunches at my father's apartment right across
doing the NYT crossword puzzle,
bagels, lox and cream cheese.


Well,this Jewish/Israeli can have it all... right?

I prefer the laziness of the American Sunday, but just for now, I'll settle with the energy of writing about all this past energy vicariously.

My son however, has a Sunday energy that's all his own...but, that's another story....

Memory Writing for The Last Garin Girl (WIP - Memoir)

The Last Garin Girl - memory writing for memoir, WIP (very rough)

If you're looking by the way for a good intro on how to get started with memoir writing, here's a great article by Zinsser.

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/how-to-write-a-memoir/




I ended up staying in Danielle's room that night. Something I never thought I would find myself doing. You see, Danielle was one of those stout, annoying little twit guys in our garin (a group of young people serving in the Israeli army together for an extended period of time and serving on settlements and on kibbutzim – plural for kibbutz) who would speak Hebrew in the most annoying way, but I never said anything directly. The girls made fun of him especially when he said, "basar" and he trilled on the "r" for meat.

Or he would say, "ein ba'ayah," for no problem and elongate the 'a' syllable that was so expressive and comical. Each time he would elicit from us an uproarious barrel of laughter.

Truthfully, I don't know what made me want to poke fun at poor Danielle's accent when mine was terribly American as if I was chewing on my own cud.

Now that I think about it, he had the most lyrical and calmest accent.

He would walk bowl legged everywhere and the two Uzis or M-16's he slung across his shoulder from either side dwarfed him even further into the Gaza strip sand, but he was strong and sturdy.

When he told us that he had a [health profile] "profil tishim vsheva - 97" - I knew he would be one of those soldiers who wouldn't complain.

The kind of tenderness I tried to find in Danielle – was like finding a needle in a haystake. He was good friends with the two Gustavos – one who left the army and one who stayed – also bowl legged. The other nineteen year old Gustavo was Danielle's best friend – they both spoke a mile a minute in Spanish…


Danielle loved picking on and teasing the Russian girls. They got into water fights and he was good at pushing them into the pool when they least expected it. I can hear Eina now screaming, "Danielle, azov oti – leave me alone!" in her high pitched screech.

But yet, he never seemed to do any of these things to me. In fact, none of the guys in our garin did. I didn't come across as a tease. I was the classy New Yorker. At least I tried to be. A New Yorker with whom he had eyed forever and I could never see myself being intimate with...let alone with any of the others...

Jake from Canada who thought he was in Vietnam every time he had a gun in his hands. "I'm gonna kill those mother fuckin' Arabs!"

Or Robin from England who was constantly sneezing in everyone's faces

Or Andy who served in England's navy

Or David from the USA who always spoke to me in Hebrew

Or Doug also from the USA who was hardly to be found

Or Akiva from the former Soviet Union who complained all the time

Or Igal, his secretary who smoked all the time

Or Luis, from Spain who had an expansive imagination and predicted I would have seven children.

Or Raul from South Africa who married Geraldine, from France.

Or Darren, from England who wanted to throw all the girls from our garin including me.

Or the two Gustavos….sweet guys from Argentina

Or Larry, who lived with Indian tribes in Arizona for years, the soft-spoken one.

But Danielle.. why get intimate with Danielle? He was a hard worker – both at the base and at the kibbutz.

His forehead always lit brilliantly in the hot sun – shone until the sun burnt it one day to a pulp. I thought hey, this much be what it is to fry an egg on this guy's poor head.

When he told me he came from Uruguay and I immediately envisioned, runaway tunnels, and paradise of coves and islands. Don't know why....

But when he wasn't a soldier or working on the kibbutz, he was a flirt. And when he wasn't a flirt, he was trying to be helpful. Helpful in bed that is. It annoyed me so to see how he would stick his tongue out and rub it all around his teeth when he was around the other girls. Some sick joke. He was crass. He always walked with his boots pointed outwards – he looked like Bozo the clown with his bowl legged walk and his shirts never fully tucked in. I couldn't stand him and kept my distance. He would always miss at least one belt strap – the opposite of Andy from England who served as a fashion stylist for the guys. As once a former captain in the English navy he had always said that it was important to dress "clean" and "proper."

He thought he was sexy especially on Friday nights when we went to the disco; I thought he was putrid. Everything about him repulsed me....but once day I found myself following him to his room on a dimly lit path. That night would change me forever.

Forty Eight Hours Later

When we finally found we were pregnant on March 25, 2011, the time couldn't have been riper - what joy it would be for our six year old son to finally have a baby sister! But from the moment we received the genetic results on May 16th 2011, it seemed I was doomed.

Our baby girl had Trisomy 18. An extra chromosome. Three of the #18 chromosome instead of two. It turned out that one little #18 chromosome has more power than all the others put together. It is a tiny tornado, packing a destructive force stronger than life itself.

We quickly learned that half of all babies born with this condition die in the first week of life. 90% of them have heart defects. Most of them have other defects as well, including spina bifida, cleft palate, deafness, joint contractures, and mental retardation. Only an unlucky few survive beyond a matter of weeks, and those don't last much longer. The term that is branded in my brain from our meeting with my OBGYN is "incompatible with life". I was carrying a child that was incompatible with life. How could it be?? As soon as it hit the outside air, it would begin to die. She. "It" was a she. We could tell that from the genetic analysis too, of course. She was doomed.



My husband and I quickly signed the abortion papers. We both knew we couldn't face the thought of birthing a baby girl only to watch her die in agony. This was the right decision. We had no doubt in our minds. I was not the typical abortion patient, and yet this was an atypical situation for us.



From week six to week thirteen, I had fallen in love with the sonograms. Our baby girl was very much a real person despite that -- MY person. I loved her. I love her still.



The two days we had preceding the surgery didn't give us any time to contemplate what was going on. There were papers to sign and I had to get mentally ready by fasting and resting.



The thoughts of the moments prior to the operation room are still so clear. I remember the anesthesiologist saying, "Here is some happy medicine," and then wheeled me off. They then rolled me unto the surgery table and I said, "Please g-d, make everything okay. Please take good care of me and my child." And they said, "We will." I let them do what they had to do by putting my feeble body in their control and care.



I woke up from the general sedation as they moved me into the recovery room. Without my glasses, I tried to make out the dimly lit room. I heard buzzes and beeps, and a monitor took my blood pressure every 7 minutes or so. I thought, "Yes! I'm alive!" The doctor came in and said everything went okay and that I did great. I was so grateful for that since I really did not know what to expect.

But two days later, I have found myself online again grieving a baby girl that I never got to hold. I hope she knows how much she is loved and that one day I will get to be the Mom I never got to be… for her.



I want her to know that we wanted her with all our hearts, but we didn’t want her to have the pain and suffering that went with Trisomy 18. Not at all.



However, it's hard to still move forward when I read terms like,

"Only an unlucky few survive"

"She was doomed"

"what was left of their defective baby girl"

"this ruined life"

"the mutant child"

My baby girl was not doomed. She was not a defective baby. She was not a ruined life. She was definitely not a mutant child.

She was my daughter.


I am still in the grieving process and I don't know how long it will last. It is funny, but I feel like I love her even more after our decision to have the abortion.

Just Thirteen Weeks

I knew something was terribly wrong when my OBGYN called me at 8am yesterday morning and asked, "When would you be available to come into the office?"

Not good news. Not good at all.

I had already entered our second trimester. Much of the morning sickness and fatigue had subsided. All that was left was worry. And lots of it.

My husband's face was full of consternation when he arrived from the Chabad across the street following his morning prayer. I looked at the poor man's face - what could be worse for him - knowing or not knowing? For me however, I had enjoyed the two weeks of silence from not hearing the results from the genetics testing. Maybe it was because I gone through so many genetic tests in Israel with my first, that I was all tested out. Maybe it was I was still indulging in the pregnancy feeling that I didn't want anything to wave me over... who knows?

My husband's fear however, quickly caught up with me and I started to join the "panic and worry" club. The weather too, put a dampen on everything with its endless grey, rain and overcast that Pittsburgh is known for.

On the bus ride to the hospital, I had made a pact with myself that I wouldn't tear up unless it was absolutely necessary. After all, I had work-for-hire packets to send out, proposals for presentations to write, blog posts to write...After all, the week had just started and we were away in Florida the previous week for the International Reading Conference and Disneyworld....

Once at the doctor's office, I realized that I hadn't brought anything to read and being I am not one to waste time, I started making "to-do" lists for our trip to Israel. I was constantly asking Haim questions about this and that making sure that not one detail was left untouched. I heard the doctor's undulating voice in the hall and looked at my watch. We had been waiting exactly 30 minutes. For my husband, it was 30 minutes too long - for me, it had become to be a waste of time.

But it turned out that it wasn't a complete waste. In those thirty minutes, I had set my intention that I would react peacefully to whatever the doctor had to say. In a ritual of simple list making, I was already thinking ahead, planning myself for what may be in what was just an ordinary moment.

"The news isn't good," the doctor said when he finally came in. And at that moment, I knew all of our dreams were gone including the 13 weeks of the seed of life.

Then, there was a litny of words that I would much rather not hear uttered again in this lifetime.... an extra chromosome, the worst abnormality, severe abnormality, little chance of survival, at-risk of the mother's life, brain damage. At this point, my husband put his hand to his face and shuddered....I can't go on....

But one major thing hit me yesterday that will change me (us) forever...

People can never EVER understand what it means to go through an abortion or any life changing event (medical or something else) unless it (G-d forbid) happens to them.

For me personally, (and I think for dh, too) this news was like a "curse" as if someone had sponged up a chorus of broken and awful and evil energies and squeezed them out on us leaving us broken and in pain, left to pick up the words and emotions where we started from....


We are Jewish and for both of us, this news was earth shattering. As Jews whose influences were predominantly traditional and secular, we perhaps go the opposite in some halachic (laws) areas but, believe still in pursuing these kinds of tests due to my advanced maternal age. We believe in life and perpetuating its continuity. What perhaps distinguishes us from non-Jews, is that we don't believe in 'rocking the boat'. It was shall I say, "expected" that I would deliver to full-term and we would not talk about the pregnancy unless I started showing and people started asking. For this simple reason, we don't believe in having baby showers.

"It's G-d will," my husband said as we signed the consent for abortion to go through. "It's G-d will. What will be, will be."

"This has to be done, like, soon," I said with urgency, determination and confidence that I had never known could penetrate through my weak voice. "We're going to Israel in three weeks and this must be done way before that." Yes, let's get this over, let's clean it up, let's forget about it and hope that it would never ever return.

The amicable and amiable doctor said, "We could have you in the earliest by this Thursday. That is really the earliest we can do."

And the doctor in charge of surgery said at the end of reading all the things we needed to know as far as the law in Pennslyvania goes, "you can take the tissue home and have a private funeral."

Private funeral? Are you crazy? We are Jewish - why would we want to do that?


"No," I said. "We're giving it to the hospital for research. Maybe you can save another baby's life..."

I noticed the doctor made a note of that. "So are there any questions? Anything you want to know?"

"Yeah," my husband said. "What was it... a boy or a girl?"

She said tenderly and thoughtfully, "It was a girl," as if the procedure had been done with and there would be no more.

And that's when the tears came streaming down my face. Against everything I wanted, I cried for the crushed dreams for MY baby girl I would never see, never dress up in girly clothes and never have deep serious mother-daughter talks who, at just thirteen weeks old, would be just a remnant of a memory.

But when there's a will, there's hope. It would still take me time though to figure it out...

*****

By the next day, (today) I realized what I would be going through and a good friend from Ivry's class called me. Her voice was so good and so thoughtful, I couldn't help but cry. For 24 hours, I had blocked out everything just to not worry and cry, but now it seemed, I couldn't help it.

"Don't worry, Dorit," she said. I will go with you."

It was a voice from G-d. Suddenly, I felt it was now or never. I would need to arm myself with my tribe in order to go through with this ordeal.

And I'm still calling out to that tribe now.