On Invisibility

In my last post, I mentioned feeling invisible sometimes. How and why does this happen?

To start with, I am the youngest of three in my nuclear family (five, including the siblings I didn’t grow up with). Apart from my mother and I, everyone else was a Leo: strong, bossy personalities. Being the youngest meant that I often wasn’t old enough to engage in the many serious conversations my family had concerning my mother’s precarious health, my father’s emotional abuse, my parents’ failing marriage, and so on. As a result, I grew up the kid in the room listening to the adults – a quiet observer.

Growing older, I would add my two cents when I could, but by this time a dynamic had been established that was difficult to undo. I would always be the youngest, least experienced, least knowledgeable. It’s not that my opinions or demands weren’t respected, they just didn’t carry the same weight.

On top of that, my father’s emotional abuse drummed into my young, developing mind that I should just sit there and not talk back. After all, what can a child say to a raging adult man? Not much. The few times I did try to speak up, I was shot down so forcefully to make me quake with fear. Thus developed the habit of accepting and even internalizing bad behavior.

Later in life, I would also (except for a brief period) be the unmarried, predominantly single, and childless member of my family. I don’t care what anyone says, but people who are unmarried and childless are not taken as seriously as people who are married and have children. Full stop.

It’s not surprising then that I get along with strong personality people, and that strong personality people get along with me. The problem is that, inevitably, these personality types act as if their lives, issues, and dilemmas are more important than mine, as if I’m there to simply listen, as if I’m not actually there.

I can’t tell you how many times people have gotten into my car, or entered my house, or showed up at some agreed upon meeting and just started talking about themselves, as if picking up a conversation that we were (not) just having. If they ask me how I’m doing, it’s only perfunctory, not a genuine inquiry into my well being. Because as soon as I answer, the conversation turns back to the other person.

When I do bring up my own issues it tends to feel like an imposition, and I rush through it, aware that the other person only has a finite amount of attention to spend on subjects that don’t revolve around them.

Then there are people who feel as if they can behave in any way around me – I guess they feel that comfortable. But they’re wholly unaware of how uncomfortable I am with their behavior, and of little to anything outside of themselves.

I don’t blame anyone for these situations. If anything, I blame myself.

The fact is around certain people, I revert to being a passive person who tries to avoid conflict at all costs. This doesn’t mean that I never talk about myself, or behave loudly, or make bold statements. But when faced with a stronger personality, I retreat.

When someone is loud, I am quiet. When someone continually talks about themselves, I listen. Sometimes I play a silent game where I wait to see how long it takes the other person to notice that I haven’t said one word. Believe it or not, some people just keep on talking.

I tell myself, it’s not worth saying anything because that’s just who they are, and they’re never going to change. When I have tried to set boundaries, or point out bad behavior, people usually become defensive, or they’ll say they hear me and then forget the next time we’re together. So, there’s no point in bringing it up.

Except years of not saying anything, not standing up for myself, not telling people to shut up and listen for a change, has caused a well of emotions to build up. I’m at the point now of avoiding certain people because I just can’t take it anymore, I won’t take it anymore, and I don’t have the energy to confront them.

Instead, I choose the company of people who do see me, who do listen, who do notice things and pay attention, who reciprocate, who are aware enough to have genuine conversations.

By the way, the flip side of all of this is that the ability to be silent, retreat into the background, and just listen and observe, can be a very useful skill – especially if you’re a writer. When people just go on and on, I take mental notes. I notice more than they ever will, more than I’d like to, frankly.

This is what makes me a good writer. And a good director.

And, I hope, a good friend.

This is also what I meant by using my “writing voice” more often.

I don’t know why, but I can write things that are difficult to say out loud. Writing helps me organize my thoughts and fortifies my soul. So, I will keep going.

PlHave you ever felt, or do you ever feel invisible?

The Dividing Lines of Loss

A few weeks ago, at a party to ring in the New Year, I entered for the first time the home of a woman whom I’ve only recently begun to know. I’d heard that she was a fairly recent widow (she lost her husband a few years ago), but it wasn’t until I attended this party that I got a sense of her late husband. Besides the fact that there were books and knick-knacks that clearly belonged to him still on the bookshelves, many people mentioned him to me. “Did you know ____?” they asked. When I said no, they sighed and shared a small memory. One person told me that he was a lot of fun, had a great sense of humor, and always lit up the room. Another person said he was “the consummate gentleman.” A third person told me the last time they saw him, he’d ordered a martini and joked about it possibly being his last because you just never know.

Even though it was a joyous party, I couldn’t help but feel the presence of his absence… a man whom most people at this party knew and missed, and whom I found myself wishing I could have met. The evening reminded me of a particularly painful but somewhat subtler aspect of loss that is sometimes overlooked… the loss of being able to share the person with others.

When my mother died, I used to categorize people into two groups: People Who Knew Her vs. People Who Had Not Known Her. I lost her when I was 22, so the first group was comprised mostly of family members, friends of the family, and childhood friends who used to casually say hi to her when they’d come over for sleep-overs, or when she was heading out to grocery shop while we hung out. To this day, these people are dearer to me than I can articulate, and the bond I feel towards them is palatable.

To the second group (people who did not know her), I would always try to explain who she was. Once when I was working abroad for a short period during our first year together, I wrote Kaz a long letter describing my mother:

My mom is on my mind tonight. I really wish you could have met her.  It’s always tough when I meet new people that I care about, and I can’t introduce them to her or vice-versa. To not be able to share my mother with someone I love really hurts. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to introduce her to you now. I mean, I know I’ve talked about her before, but I’m not sure if I’ve accurately described who she was. 

She had a great sense of humor, and was goofy like me. I think we would all have laughed together a lot. She was young at heart, open-minded and curious about the world. She loved to travel, meet new people and experience new things. When I was a kid, she was always dragging me to some new place to visit, an art exhibition or museum or independent movie theater. She was an avid reader, and LOVED music. She would have loved that you know so much about music and have access to it.  

She was a great role model in many ways, not the least of which in how to deal with adversity, how to keep going no matter what, how to not give up hope, how to “maintain” like you’re always telling me (she would have loved that motto).  She went through so much—her body was frail—but her will was incredibly strong. Maybe that’s why I’m thinking of her now. I’m so stressed out and wish I could call her and hear her voice. She actually spoke in somewhat of a whisper due to the multiple tracheotomies during her heart surgeries. Each one messed with her vocal chords, so she really only had a “voice” in the morning, or after naps, the rest of time it was a whisper. 

Whenever I was down, she would tell me to “think happy thoughts,” or she’d encourage me to draw something, or write a story. She was always encouraging me to express myself and write about what I know. She was a great listener too. It was one of her greatest attributes, that she could listen without judgment and give good advice. And she was so loving. Even when we didn’t get along, I knew that she loved me and would always love me, no matter what. I know that you and I grew up differently—me with siblings, you as an only child—but on this we can relate, no? Our mothers were there for us through thick and thin (when our fathers were not). They loved us unconditionally and were the people that we could always count on. 

I’ll be honest. Sometimes I feel jealous of you because your mother is still alive. You’re so lucky. Losing my mom was, and still is, the biggest thing that has ever happened to me, and I miss her every day. The pain of losing her never really goes away. It just subsides, so that it’s not at the surface. I hope you don’t mind me sharing all of this you. I know she would have loved you, and vice-versa. Anyway, thanks for listening…

Kaz’s death, three years after I wrote that letter, created another dividing line. Like with my mother, the people who knew him hold a special place in my heart. The few people who knew both my mother and Kaz… well, they are the rare gems in my life.

Maybe because of these losses, I’m more sensitive to the desire that I see in others to share the essence of their lost loved ones. I recognize the urge to try and communicate who the person was, what they were about, how they sounded, dressed, moved. Like the  person who invited me into their home recently and revealed a guest bedroom they’d decorated specifically to honor their late mother. Maybe that sounds strange to some, but I totally got it. Walking into this room, which even smells different than other rooms in the house, I immediately sensed the essence of a feminine, kind-hearted, intelligent, classy woman… a lady in every sense of the word. I was moved by the care in which the room had been lovingly put together, every detail considered, and my heart surged with compassion for the person who’d created it.

We all struggle to keep our loved ones alive in some way… if not alive, then at least remembered. Parents try to explain to their children who their grandparents were… show them photos, tell them stories. It’s never satisfying enough. Nothing can sum up the whole of a person, and often people don’t have the patience to listen. But we do what we can, learn to accept the limitations… and perhaps (if we’re lucky) we find other ways to express the person’s character.

Hiatus No More

Hello? Anybody out there? It’s me, Niva.

It’s been seven months since my last blog post. A very dramatic seven months, indeed. I moved from the rural area I once lived in to a small town; I started a second PT job, buried my father’s ashes, and have become more involved in local issues and politics.

And I still haven’t been writing.

Some of my new friends don’t even know I am a writer. Many don’t know about the situation that brought me to upstate NY in the first place, the loss and trauma that proceeded that move. I don’t go around talking about it, so why would anyone know unless they ask? Even when they do ask, I tend to answer in vague terms.

I told myself that I’m on a writing hiatus because I need to “live life” for a little while, which is all well and good… except what the hell is the point of life if I’m not writing? That’s what I do. And I miss it.

There have been signs here and there that I need to get back to it. Take, for instance, this conversation I had with a woman – let’s call her J – around the beginning of the year.

We were engaged in a business meeting when J unexpectedly said, “Do you mind if I share something personal with you? I know we just met, and I don’t usually do this, but I read some of your writing online and feel like you would understand.”

“Go ahead,” I told her.

“I haven’t even told some of my closest friends… but my husband was recently diagnosed with Stage IV ___ cancer.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said quietly, trying to keep pity out of my voice.

“Can I ask you some questions? I don’t know who else to talk to,” she said.

Of course, ask away, I told her.

She proceeded to ask me numerous questions about Kaz… how had I handled the news of his diagnosis, how involved was I with his care,  what was his mood like, how had I kept him motivated, how long did he fight it, when did he start to accept the inevitable, when did I accept the inevitable, was I there when he died, what was that moment like, how had the whole experience affected my life, how long did it take for things to feel “normal” again… and more.

As I answered all her questions, in the back of my mind I was thinking, you are who I’m writing my book for. In fact, I wished I could have just handed her my book and said, “Read this. All the answers are inside.”

Answering her questions brought me back to memories and moments that I hadn’t thought about it a long time. It took some effort to recall them without getting emotional, and I didn’t want to get emotional because it wasn’t about me, it was about her (I was relieved that she didn’t get emotional either).

Her expression was actually one of wonder, and intense listening. She was clearly hungry for information, which made my heart ache. I remember being in her shoes, painfully curious about what the future held,  desperate to speak to someone who could illuminate all the dark corners, hungry for answers in what was a perpetual state of not knowing.

I left our meeting feeling raw and somewhat drained, and sad for what this couple was going through, but also inspired. I told myself that when I returned to writing, I would keep this woman in my thoughts… and write to her.

It also occurred to me that maybe I haven’t been writing lately because I don’t want to “go back” there anymore. I wanted to focus on the present and the future, and take a break from the past.

Then the other day I met another woman who had left New York City several years ago to be her mother’s caregiver… her mother had had the same type of brain tumor as Kaz and succumbed to it nine months after diagnosis.

When we discovered this huge thing in common, it was like a light went off behind both of our eyes. We hardly knew each other, and yet we instantly knew so very much about one another. As she put it, it’s rare to meet another person who has witnessed, and been intimately  involved with, the slow decline of a loved one, especially to an illness that affects the neurological system.

“People need to hear your story,” she told me. “Why did you stop writing?”

I explained to her my theory about wanting to live life and not keep going back to the past, but even as I said the words, I knew the hiatus was over.

Another impetus has been the election.

There is so much divisiveness and negativity in the non-stop news cycle these days, and so little empathy and compassion for one another, even less so for the marginalized. I find myself wondering about all the aspects of life that transcend politics, rhetoric and differences. Where are the voices that will bring us together? And what can I do personally to make a difference?

Well, this is it. I have thought about this blog so much, about you the readers, and my fellow bloggers. And I’m here to say that the bitch is back.

Looking forward to catching up with you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Peace Baby (day 3/30)

A little over nine months before I entered the world, my father returned to Israel from the States, where he had been looking for work, and immediately flew into a rage about something related to my mother’s friendship with another man. My mother was a social woman and had many male friends, as well as female friends. In Israel that was normal. Despite my mother’s reassurances, my father was beside himself. He threw a fit, and then stayed locked in their bedroom for several days, not interacting with the rest of the family, not even coming out to eat (my mother brought him his meals).

According to my siblings, one morning my father reappeared as if nothing had happened, and everything was fine again. “A few weeks later, she told us she was pregnant,” they would later tell me. “You were the peace baby.”

That year, 1970, Yom Kippur was on October 10. I was born on October 11, 1970. Because everyone had theoretically atoned for their sins the day before, my mother always told me I was born on the “cleanest day of the year.”

She was pregnant with me all through that hot summer, working in the stationary store that she had inherited from her parents, the reason why she and my father had moved to Israel in the first place. My father was traveling back and forth to the States that summer trying to find a job because the store wasn’t bringing in enough income. So, my mother was often alone while working pregnant in stifling, non-air conditioned heat, dealing with notoriously rude and demanding Israeli shoppers, and then coming home to deal with my siblings, who turned 10 and 6 that summer.

In September, my father came home. A few weeks later, my mother went into the hospital on the advice of her doctors. My father told me she was in the hospital when her water broke and the contractions started. That’s when her best friend Talma, who was a nurse in the same hospital, called my father at the store. He finished the work day, and then went to the hospital, arriving after my actual birth. Like with my older sister and brother, my mother had given birth without my father present.

When I asked my father to describe the day I was born, he said, “It was an ordinary day.” “An ordinary day?” I laughed. “That’s how you describe the day your youngest daughter was born?”

But that’s how he saw it… just another work day, that happened to end with a new baby. Things were different back then, I guess.

The first thing he did was check on my mother, who was resting but still awake. There had been no complications. Once he confirmed that she was fine, he went to see me, and my mother’s friend Talma went with him. The maternity ward nurses brought me to the looking glass, all swaddled up like newborns are. Talma congratulated him on having another daughter. They had decided to call me Niva, which my mother told me means “a beautiful expression” in Hebrew. If I had been a boy, they would have called me Niv (now my nickname).

As the story goes, a day or two later, when my father came back to the maternity ward to pick up and take me home, this time with my brother and sister in tow, the nurses once again met him at the window with a swaddled baby girl. My father peered down and shook his head, “That’s the wrong baby.” At first the nurses protested, but my father insisted. After a few minutes, the nurses conferred amongst themselves. Then they put that baby girl back, lifted up another baby, and brought me to the window. My father nodded.

My siblings watched this exchange with wonder. From then on, they loved to tease me about possibly being the wrong baby and actually belonging to another family (clearly not the case, as I look exactly like them, but you know how siblings can be).

Later in life, I would delight in asking my mother what kind of baby I was. “You were an easy baby, always smiling. You only cried when you needed something, and as soon as you got it, you would stop. You were always happy.” My brother and sister, who helped take care of me, confirmed this.

I also asked my mother what it was like to give birth, something I always found it impossible to imagine her doing. By the time I was a child, she was already frail. Some of my earliest memories are of her in a hospital. As my siblings and I grew up, we seemed to tower over her. How could we possibly have come out of this woman? How could she have carried all three of us and gone through childbirth three times?

She shrugged. There was nothing to it, she said.

I always found that hard to believe, but maybe she was one of those lucky women who have easy births. She did have wide hips… hips of life one might even say.

Some Enchanted Evening (day 2/30)

All of us, at one point or another, have asked our parents how they met. This story is based on what my mother told me…

July, 1958. My mother was a 22 year old student at the Cleveland Institute of Art, sitting in the back seat of her American cousins’ Buick on the way to her first summer job. Her first job ever. She had grown up in a wealthy family with cooks and maids, and had a history of medical issues, so she had never worked a day in her life. Now, she was to be the art counselor at Bellefair, a summer camp for emotionally disturbed children.

The cousins hadn’t anticipated how far Bellefair was from the city. When they pulled up to the entrance of the grounds it was already sunset and the gate was closed. There was no phone to call anyone, so all they could do was wait. After a while, the cousins got antsy. They couldn’t wait all night.

“Just go,” she reassured them. “Someone will come for me. I’ll be fine.” The husband didn’t want to leave her standing alone in the darkness, but his wife reassured him. “She’ll be fine. It’s the country,” she pointed around to the empty fields.

As they drove away, the Buick’s tires crunching on the gravel, my mother sat on one of her suitcases and looked up at the sky. It looked different than the sky in the city, which always had a haze to it. This sky was a deep almost-black navy blue highlighted with millions of stars. She lit a cigarette and studied the constellations. She was nervous about what lay ahead, but also excited. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but she had a feeling something was going to happen to her this summer.

At the same time, in the soft light of the camp’s office, the camp director was reviewing the list of expected arrivals for the day. Everyone had arrived except the art counselor. “Take the jeep and check the gate,” he told one of the male counselors, throwing him the keys. With any luck, she’d be there.

My father lit a cigarette before hopping into the jeep, and then drove through the bucolic grounds towards the gate. There in the distance stood a shadowy female figure, whispers of smoke rising from her cigarette. When he made the last turn, the jeep’s headlights shined on the woman for a few seconds before throwing her into complete darkness again. She had jet black hair in a close-cropped pixie style, full, naturally red lips (she wore no make-up), and, though he couldn’t see them yet, he would soon discover that the had large ocean-blue eyes.

As the jeep approached, she couldn’t see the driver because his brown skin blended with the darkness. All she could make out was his white uniform until he pulled up and hopped down. His skin was the color of honey. “I’m Harold,” he said, extending his hand. “Varda,” she said, shaking it. Their eyes met in the darkness, then he turned to pick up her two suitcases and a box, which, he noted, contained only records by black musicians like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday.

He drove slower back to headquarters so that the suitcases wouldn’t fall out, and so he could talk to her for a few extra moments. She was from Israel. Her name meant “rose” in Hebrew. She was an artist, 22 years old, in her second year at the Cleveland Institute of Art. He was 29 years old, born and raised in Cleveland, and had served in the Army.

“Are you a doctor now?” she asked him.

He laughed. “No, why would you think that?”

“Because you’re wearing all white,” she answered. He shook his head, still smiling. “I’m a counselor, just like you. But I live with the kids. We all wear white uniforms.”

She nodded. He was so handsome, she couldn’t think straight. His shaved head, skin tone and body type reminded her of the actor Yul Brenner. Her left thigh was only three inches from his right thigh, her torso even closer than that, and she felt heat on the left side of her body. She felt the urge to place a hand on his right arm, outstretched towards the steering wheel. Instead she gripped the jeep’s frame just above her head as they bounced along towards the office.

In the next few days, they would see each other again, first by chance on their respective ways to work, in the cafeteria, at counselor meetings. Then they began taking walks together, sitting next to each other at meal times and during meetings. The first time they kissed, they found it difficult to stop. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

He had dated more beautiful women than her before, but none as intelligent, exotic and kind. He could talk to her about history, art and traveling. She made him laugh. But what really captured him was her innocence and lack of prejudice. The more time they spent together, the more people began to stare, and then to frown. Progressive as Bellefair was, it still didn’t approve of a black male counselor consorting with a white female counselor. Varda didn’t seem to notice the growing tension around them. Or if she did notice, she didn’t care. She was oblivious to social mores. She related to him as a man, not as a black man, though he sensed that his blackness was part of the attraction.

She possessed a rebellious, independent spirit similar to his. Her history of bad health – rheumatic fever at three years old, cancer at 15, surgeries and a permanently scarred neck which she would always cover with a scarf or turtleneck, thin sleeveless ones in the summer – her being Jewish and an artist, all lead to her identifying as an outsider.

He was an outsider too – an educated, intellectual, world-traveled black man in a white world that refused to see him as anything other than “just another Negro.”

By October, they had married. It all happened so fast that they didn’t think it through, or maybe they did. They would always be outsiders.

Remembering (and Writing About) Love

I’m not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day, not just because Kaz isn’t around to share it with me, but because it seems forced and commercial, not to mention superfluous. Every day should be about love in my book. And people should express it in their own ways, not feel pressured to do so by some public measuring stick.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m a little sad. I’m happy for anyone who is enjoying this day and celebrating love. It’s just impossible to not think of Kaz and remember times gone by.

My favorite Valentine’s Day (which I wrote about here) was the one when we had the least amount of money and went camping in Joshua Tree National Park. The only expense was the price of the campsite ($15), wood for the fire ($20), and the food and wine, which we would have had anyway at home. During the day we hiked. At night we ate dinner and talked. We had no entertainment other than the fire, the stars and a radio. It was lovely.

As a writer attempting to capture our story, it’s easy, cathartic even, to describe scenes like the camping trip. Less easy is to describe what it felt like to be in love. (To be fair, I think this has been a challenge for writers since the beginning of the written word.) Some folks who have read my memoir draft have commented that while it’s clear that Kaz and I really loved each other, they found themselves wanting more of the “being in love.”

How does one write about being in love? To me, it’s not very effective to say, “I had never felt so happy” or “I felt like my heart might burst,” even if it is an accurate description. It’s easier to write an argument – a moment of conflict – than it is to describe those silent moments where everything was happening on the inside.

Maybe it’s because I come from screenwriting. One is never supposed to write how the character feels, unless the character is saying how he/she feels, a slippery slope which only the greatest screenwriters can pull off. One is supposed to write the scene in such a way that the reader knows how the character is feeling without being told.

I recently discussed this with a friend, and she asked me describe out loud what it was like being in love with Kaz. This is what I said:

“I remember looking into his eyes and feeling like the rest of the world had just faded away. It didn’t matter if it was for several minutes or a split-second. In those moments, it would feel like there was only us, like we were inside a bubble. Inside the bubble we didn’t need to speak out loud because we could speak with our eyes. Outside the bubble was everyone else.

Looking into his eyes was also like looking into a mirror. I saw him… but I also saw myself. I saw myself the way he saw me. In his eyes, I was more beautiful, more intelligent, more talented… always a better version than how I saw myself.

There were moments when he would take my hand and bounce it lightly in his, or just play with my fingers, or he would squeeze my hand and I would squeeze back. It was this private thing between us, a way of communicating without words. We did it when we watched television, on long drives, in public, when he was sick, all the way to the end. Actually, that’s how I knew we were at the end… when he stopped squeezing back.

At concerts, he would always find the best spot in the crowd to see the stage and let me stand in front of him. He didn’t dance, but he would put his hands on my hips as I danced.

There were other moments when we would make each other laugh, or we’d be hanging out in the kitchen, drinking wine, cooking dinner, just talking about our days… and I would suddenly feel the sensation of fullness, like my heart had expanded to fill up my entire body, like my heart had become my body. Sometimes I would hug him out of the blue because… I just had to. Moments like this would always be followed by a hint of pain, because I never wanted them to end.

I used to fall asleep before him when we watched TV, and he would always guide me to bed and tuck me in. My mother used to do that too when I was a child. She would sit with me for a few minutes before I fell asleep. Kaz was the only other person who ever did that, and it always made me feel so good and safe, like I could trust him with my life.

When we were in nature, like in Joshua Tree or driving up the coast of California on Route 1, everything sort of sparkled. I know that sounds silly, but that’s how it seemed, like everything had a layer of diamond dust. I used to feel like a divine presence was with us, like the heavens were pleased, like my mother was smiling down from above. One of the ways I knew that Kaz was special was this certainty that my mother would have loved him, and vice-versa.”

It was a good exercise to describe these moments out loud. I often wonder if I’ll ever feel like this again. In any case, I never want to forget what it feels like to be in love.

Wishing everyone a love-filled day, every day. xo

Me looking at the Joshua Tree sunset, pic taken by Kaz

Saying I Do, And Saying Farewell (New Essay on Narrative.ly)

Friends,

I wrote this essay about me and Kaz for the online publication Narrative.ly. I’d be honored if you would check it out and leave a comment below if you’re so inspired. Later this week I’ll post what I learned from the experience of writing this piece, which went semi-viral this past weekend.

http://narrative.ly/second-acts/saying-i-do-and-saying-farewell/

The journey continues!

Thank you.

Niva

New Essay on Modern Loss

Friends,

I’m happy to announce that my essay is up on Modern Loss. Please check it out: http://modernloss.com/forever-girls

Thanks for the support, as always.

Niva

A Mother’s Will to Live

Yesterday (March 18) was my mother’s birthday. She would have been 78 years old. She died at age 56. My mother had been seriously ill at different points in my childhood, so I had contemplated her death many times, beginning at 5 years old when she needed her first open heart surgery. Not that I understood what “death” meant at that age, but I was aware of the possibility that she might not come home.

Somehow though, miraculously it seemed, she did come home… over and over, after every operation. By the time I was 22, my mother had beat the odds so many times, to my young mind she seemed almost invincible, like a frail old tree that has managed to survive multiple natural disasters.

For this reason, despite her history of bad health, it was a shock when one day three weeks after my 22nd birthday, she collapsed in front of a neighbor’s house while walking the dog. Two hours later my brother broke the news, and I too collapsed (he caught me). It felt as if the entire world had been yanked out from under my feet.

My mother was the anchor and center of our family, the one person my siblings and I knew we could always turn to and rely on, a constant and unwavering source of unconditional love. She was an artist, music lover and world traveler.  She went back to college in her mid-40’s to finish the degree she had abandoned when my parents married. She finally learned how to drive after they split up twenty-five years later. In the year before she died, she and a high school girlfriend did a European road trip, visiting Switzerland, Italy and Germany. She also visited New Orleans for the first time, and returned saying she could move “in a heartbeat” to either New Orleans or Florence, Italy.

She spoke English, Hebrew and German fluently, the latter only with older relatives. It always surprised me to hear her laughing with her aunts, or saying something under her breath to her brother, in German. She once told me that she liked writing poetry in English more than Hebrew (her native tongue) because English had so many more words to choose from. She loved movies, literature and laughter. A few of her favorite authors were Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, James Baldwin and Somerset Maugham.

She was beautiful: rosy cheeks, jet-black hair (later, salt & pepper) and deep blue eyes framed by beautifully arched eyebrows. Her only regular beauty regiment was applying face cream and plucking her brows. She never wore a stitch of make-up, and she never died her hair. She was opinionated, but also fair-minded and wise. My older siblings and their friends would often seek her counsel. Me being the youngest and barely out of the rebellious teenage years, seeking her counsel (and listening to it) was still relatively new. We were just beginning to make the transition from the traditional mother/daughter hierarchy to adult(ish) friends when she died.

As cliche as it sounds, there was something special about my mother. She once found a shiny bauble on a Tel-Aviv sidewalk, only to find out that it was a diamond worth over a thousand dollars. The boyfriend of a friend, upon meeting my mother for the first time, gave her the crystal necklace he was wearing off his neck. His girlfriend urged her to accept. Strangers, children and animals were all drawn to her.

Hours before she collapsed, she had received, separately and completely by coincidence, wonderful news from both of my siblings, news that she had been waiting years to hear. My last conversation with her was a bit more tense (something I still regret), but we did speak about the college film I was directing, and I knew she was proud of me. My siblings and I have a theory that, with all the good news she heard that morning, she might have died of happiness.

We never asked for an autopsy because we felt like her body had been through enough, but her doctors had their theories. They also revealed their genuine surprise that she had lived as long as she did. These men of science credited her will to live as the reason. 

Physically frail but iron-willed, she left her mark on the world.

My mother and me

Missing The Clarity of Love and War

It’s been 2.5 years since Kaz passed away and though I’m better than I was early on, I’m still not back to feeling 100%. There are many reasons for this and many manifestations, but the one that keeps kicking me in the shins is my inability to focus. I am distracted by everything: music, television, food, my phone (gateway to the internet), computer (gateway to the internet), dog, friends, family, colleagues, even my own thoughts.

How to Focus by John T. Roosevelt (www.rsvlts.com)

It’s more than just a lack of focus. Planning ahead in any concrete fashion is challenging, as is staying motivated.

Part of the issue is having a lot going on: full-time job, personal life, dog, film script, television script, book, blog, networking, and now a job search. I’m not working on everything at once, but the time I do spend on creative pursuits feels thin and scattered. Progress happens so slowly it’s almost imperceptible. I keep thinking of the metaphor: How do you eat a whale? Answer: One bite at a time. 

But it’s more than the whale too.

A friend recently told me, “We can only concentrate on three things at a time.” In her case, she has her day job, her personal life, a part-time job and one creative project.

Another friend is producing an independent film (extremely time consuming), while trying to get multiple other projects lined up, maintain her personal life and take care of her dog.

Yet another friend is balancing a day job, her art career, a family (including two teenagers, husband and dog), and staying connected with her artistic, professional and personal community.

Each of these women manages her time and priorities to accomplish a great deal on a daily basis, even more on a long-term basis. Each is driven by Love and Passion. I know because I used to be like them… when Kaz was alive.

In the two years before he got sick, I produced and directed three music videos, a full production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, wrote a feature screenplay, worked for three months as an assistant editor in Mexico, and one year as a production manager in Los Angeles.

During the first half of his illness, I managed to write a spec television script. In the second half, I could only manage to write in my journal. But I continued to work a full-time day job while being his caregiver… and being his caregiver became my focus.

As I’ve mentioned before, there were aspects of caregiving that felt like  production, except this time it wasn’t a music video or film – it was life or death. This time I wasn’t motivated by ambition and creativity, but by the desire to keep Kaz alive, and us together, for as long as possible. Nothing had ever felt as important. While others resigned themselves to the inevitability of the sinking ship (including Kaz at one point), I was hell bent on keeping the ship afloat.

Of course, the ship did sink. And ever since, I haven’t cared about anything as much. I haven’t given up on my life or dreams, by any stretch. I do strive forward in my own hap-hazard kind of way. But what still eludes me is the fire-in-the-belly passion and laser focus that I felt during those days of intense highs and lows, when every day felt like a battle and a gift, and every moment agonizingly precious. Do I need life or death stakes to stay motivated? I hope not.

In any case, the new ship remains docked while the Captain struggles to chart the best course. It’s just me and my dog on this ship, and as much as she helps to keep me centered, in no way does she (or our current existence) compare to what was. Nothing could possibly compare to that.

It’s selfish to miss the days when Kaz was sick. I don’t miss them. But I do pine for the passion we felt. The clarity of purpose. The empowerment that came from being pushed to our limits and not falling apart. The inspiration of watching each other be so courageous. Neither of us had ever felt so alive or focused as in those days of love and war.

One day I will experience that clarity again. It might be the day I quit my job. It might be the first day of production on my next film. It might be the day I look into my child’s eyes. But this day will come, and when it does, I’ll be ready.