Acts of Kindness Close to Home

In junior high and high school, I was the welfare rep. It was a position, rarely contested and back then, I, in coke bottle glasses and unruly curly hair, would have not have chosen an office where class voting would have determined the outcome. Plus, I did want to help. One Christmas adventure of car washes and toy selection was actually fun and I felt I belonged. I recall teasing the scion of a popular department store chain that the castoffs of rags he had contributed to polish cars must have been torn from the windows of his mother’s luxury Forest Hill mansion. For once, I fit in, able to laugh and joke as if I were one of the privileged circle that attended that school. If contributing to society was the original motive, the result was unexpectedly positive- for me, as well.

These days I receive on the internet with so much unrequested garbage, something called My Jewish Learning. ( I guess “ the cookies” reveal I’m baking Bupka.) They feature, beyond recipes, the  parashat ( portion)  or Bible story in the Talmud, a story a day: many I recall from Sunday school so many years ago when ample- bodied, friendly Buby- types introduced the ancient stories: that stood for ways to interact or behave in society, prompting the questions that frame and underline our lives.

As well, My Jewish Learning introduces words we may have heard or roughly assume the gen pop knows such as” bar mitzvah”, “kugel” or “tikkum olam.” The last loosely means to “ repair the world”, proposing social responsibility in the form of effecting social Justice or action. To explain it further and the “why” of the impetus, Daphne Freedman expounds on  tikkum olam ,

…  [ the concept is ] taken from earlier cabalistic sources, and the breaking of  the vessels which is unique to the Lurianic Cabala. In the Lurianic  corpus;  the first  act  of   the  creation  was  the  contraction  of   the  deity,  leaving  an  empty  space  for  the  creation  of   the  world.  The  catastrophic failure of  the first attempt at creation is represented…  as the shattering of  the vessels which were intended to contain  the  divine  light,  but  instead  broke  and  were  destroyed  during  the  process  of   creation. 

So tikkum olam seeks to restore light and bring goodness into the world through positive acts.

And so, every day we are able to witness the goodness of people.

Yesterday I was pleased to notice my younger daughter starting a fund for a nurse she knew. Having had a “ crappy day”, the woman emerged late at night from hospital to find her car vandalized. One wonders at the mentality that provokes people to commit car destruction. During these overwhelmingly oppressive  COVID days and the first responders standing as champions, and when a morsel of sunshine hitting your nose emerging from the gloom makes life bearable, we have to wonder at the desire “to make mischief” and further burden those either visiting or working at hospitals. Before the end of the day, enough money and a kind auto repairman responded and my girl thanked all, adding no more funds were required. A small act, perhaps, but can you imagine the relief of the nurse, that someone cared enough to make a post – and people she did not know decided to help.

That night when we FaceTimed as she lives in Pennsylvania, I mentioned the post. Her children had no idea what she had done, and she passed it off with humility, no big deal. I thought of a shard glowing in these times of darkness.

Just the previous week I had explained to my grandson who lives here, a precept my parents had passed down to me: that giving anonymously was the best way to help. My grandson queried why and we discussed the feelings of obligation, the existence  of power if one feels beholden, the one receiving help might feel awkward, embarrassed at the largess of another. I continued, Let’s say someone in your class had no shoes. He interrupted with a smirk as if all children in the world can own shoes. But Everyone in my class can afford shoes, he asserted .I continued, But let’s say the red haired kid didn’t and suddenly running shoes appeared … And so we dialogued on the wonder of making good things happen in the lives of those less fortunate. Our  simple back-and-forth was the beginning of a way to enter into the thinking of a tween all ready good hearted and empathetic, kind deeds all ready evident in his daily interactions. But it’s one thing to act spontaneously and another to reflect and comprehend the impact of our deeds.

And too, my mind skimmed to the venue of the art gallery a few years ago when they had showcased Guillermo del Toro( Pan’s Labyrinth and the Oscar- winner The Shape of Water) recreating his home study, showcasing his sculptures, artifacts and drawings. I was wandering through the exhibit with my elder girl, knowledgeable in all things film and a former filmmaker herself. We meandered, separately, involved in our own thoughts consumed by the magic and artistry.

Then I noticed her approaching a high school student, set off from her group. There was something different, distracted, even challenged about the person. Were the monsters, the twisted objects disturbing for this young person? I observed as my daughter gently make her way over and prompted a soft conversation, explaining, involving the girl who raised her eyes and began to make contact, listening to my girl, posing questions, engaging with the student who, eventually began to nod and smile. My girl stood for awhile, her raison d’être , I reasoned was to involve the student in this strange new world, diminishing the edge of fear that ghosts, goblins and monsters can provoke.. What stood out for me was the calm, the gentleness, the desire to help and being in this moment but bridging it for another. And a spark bounced and brightened my day.

And my middle child, my son, as well: “my treasures” as my mother used to refer to my sister and myself. He, whose  actions are often a bit bizarre, over the top, his handsome smile askew, but whether providing us with an outdoor feast in these days of contagion and masks or insisting he will edit my blogs( which I would never allow anyway), has begun to deliver bagels to us every Saturday morning. This may sound small, but to us, his ancient parents, it is a light that shines in our hearts. Unasked for but deeply appreciated, the soft delicious freshly baked bagels arrive. We’ve even come to expect them.

Masked and distanced, he knocks at our side door, stretches out his hand, deposits this bounty and stands back. We chat briefly for he’s a busy fellow. He, like his sisters, does not make a big thing of his deeds. And that same humility I have noted in his sisters, that it’s no big deal, couches his demeanour. That is not to say, he does not contribute greatly to big causes, whether personally or professionally such as giving blood, or supporting charities, but this new action, begun during Covid to us, his parents, lightens our days.

These are difficult times and as we wait for the vaccine and continue to stay home, our lives have dwindled so much. Pondering what will happen to small businesses, how to come together in joy or grief, how to protect who we love most, how to persist when we are overwhelmed, no one has danced through these days. And the disgraceful actions committed by Trump buffoons and instigated by the tyrant himself just last week have plummeted our souls, causing us to shake our heads, gobsmacked by the almost coup and insurrection against democracy. ( In deed, still processing that event, not unexpected but certainly not imagined would ever occur caused me to use this brighter blog conceived the day before)  

Yet everywhere, if you look, you will find those shards, those glimmers of hope. Both large and small- in spite of the ugliness that has surfaced.

We have no choice but to continue on, dragging one foot in front of the other, as my father literally did, even if it’s just out to the corner to get a gasp of fresh air, or to the market to pick up groceries. This pandemic has caused life as we know it to stall, freeze, but the bits of light- reflected off the snow, the brilliance of the planets and stars in the sky, those random acts of kindness by your family or kin, or strangers are still there.

Truly they are.

Lip Service and Children

My father used to scold me,” Don’t be so sensitive Pat”. And so I was, and am, now accepting my emotional responses are who I am.

But this week has been a strange and terrible one, one that actually caused a change in policy decreed first ,but later denied by Trump. Well at least it was reversed. The one about tearing children from their parents, recalling images of the holocaust, the gas chambers… where the separation ended in tragedy and death.

Recently I read an article by motherless Rwandan refugee Clementine Wawariya and although now living in the States, she has a problem with the words we use such as genocide. She writes,” I hated the word immediately. I did not understand the point of it then. I resent and revile it now.. it is tidy and efficient. It holds no true emotion. It is impersonal when it needs to be intimate: cold and sterile when it needs to be gruesome. It’s hollow, disingenuous, the worst kind of lie.The word genocide cannot tell you, cannot make you feel, the way I felt in Rwanda. The way I felt in Burundi….it’s not like the holocaust…the killing fields in Cambodia…ethnic cleansing in Bosnia…There’s no catchall term…You cannot line up atrocities like a matching set. You cannot bear witness with a single word.”

One might say we should celebrate the power of the people to protest, who caused the President to reverse his ruling, but ironically, I suppose, the entire horror show makes me feel helpless.As all of those victims of holocaust, genocide and autocratic societies must have, the words cool containers for the lives destroyed . In wondering what these victims could do, they must have experienced that knowledge that they were helpless, their fates determined by others or one other, and they played no role in choosing their own fate, changing the outcome of heedless power.

The images of children, the detention centres, the callousness and ease with which the proclamation came down takes one ‘s breath away. It’s more useless talk about a kinder society and instead of living out those values, the words are given lip service. Just yesterday I was told a story of school bullying where in spite of parental attempts to diffuse the situation and even direct appeals to a principal and the perpetrators’ parents, the victim was continually shadowed with whispers of ‘ loser’ from October to June, until that school year ended. How did she manage?, I asked . The mother reliving that agony related, “ therapy.” In spite of a year of torture, the mother quietly asserted she did not think much of the school. And again I thought, everyone has made such a big deal about bullying and when the beast is identified, it is ignored, the jeers and guffaws, silent looks, threatening calls and vicious silent attacks that erode children’s confidence and never ever leave them.

I taught at Northern Secondary and one year we had a principal Jim MacCarron. He was a big guy, over 6 feet tall and almost that wide. It was the years of burgeoning gangs, and I was told as well, that at the south doors, if you wanted, you could get any drug you wanted, but no one stalked or bugged you. We had kids from all over at that school, close to the size of a small city- someone said 2100- maybe, some came to play football, the so- called gifted hung out there, learning disabled and hard of hearing adolescents, regular kids, all co- existing in a dilapidated school , truly much like a community of diversity. Anyway, big Jim got word of a race riot that was building on the grounds. He did not wait. He waded right into the thick of it, right dead between the thick bodies of gangs ready to fight, and guess what?It dispersed, the rats drew back, and the scene fraught for explosion disappeared. I’m not saying Big Jim was perfect, but on that day, he demonstrated to the school, he was a person who took action.

Today it feels like the talk is just talk and while it is great that issues are out in the open, it seems to be more of the same, little change and improvement. All that is booming is technology that has created its own set of problems .

And how scary is it that my four year old grandson must be instructed how to play dead should a gunman enter his classroom, so I worry there is more talk than role models who lead by example.

And the despicable Corey Lewandowski aid of repulsive Trump mocked a 10-year-old girl with Down Syndrome who had been separated from her mother as she illegally crossed the southern border. He, in his stupidly and display of callousness, brazenly and embarrassingly cried out, “Wah- Wah.Wah.” What a world. You can put a child’s picture on a Gerber package, but obviously it holds no impact on adults with no values, morals or compassion. There are no words for that low level piece of trash, representative and extending the American government. Mrs. Trump’s Jacket from Zara said it all.

The values we once strove to uphold are mocked: honesty, compassion, goodness have been trampled upon and the leader of the free world deplores sharing, support, only intent on self- proclamation, self- serving politics. Who cares if human rights are ignored or dictators who have their own families murdered are lauded and exulted as being smart or good guys?. How is it possible that our own little Fords with scant knowledge and little apology for their ignorance have been elected here? Crass and repugnant. And even our own Justin Trudeau has promoted a pipe line that will destroy aboriginal lands, pollute the environment when two- faced he has pronounced he is for the reverse. Where have the people of honour gone?

Perhaps these are just some of the reasons I deplore politics. It’s so easy to say the right things, to stroke the consciences of the world, but double deal. And of course in Trump’s case, he just lies, not bothering to even give mouth service to what we had once been taught was for the good of others and the promotion of a just and humane society. The beast has been let out of the cage and the world has been darkened . Yeats wrote,

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Our good friends in La Jolla say they are embarrassed to be Americans with Trump at the helm. And yet people still support him, do his biddings. And the little weasel Jeff Sessions quotes from the Bible for rationale of separation of parents and children . With an arrogant smirk. And as in the crusades, the mindless find words to back up their idiotic stance, fundamentalists well versed in twisting whatever is available to toughen their stand, even though separation of state and religion is the rule. From homosexuality, abortion, child marriage, child abuse, slavery, terrorism, some advocate chants a verse , believing he has legitimized his horrendous argument. How hideous is all of this.

And yes, people are standing up. Even Stephen Colbert who nightly shines a light on the evils of Trump in the Whitehouse encouraged his viewers to call and protest the degradation of children to their representatives. And perhaps the photo ops of the distraught children helped so the policy was reversed. Well, at least that. And as brash as Robert De Niro twice affirmed at The Tonies, “F**k Trump.”

My mother used to lament that she hoped that she would leave the world in a better place for her children than she had found it. I too have that wish for my grandchildren, but I fear it will not be so.

A Birthday Holiday

Holidays are the spaces between, yet as one ages ,retires from work, life becomes in a way, a holiday. Without the demands of bosses, assignments, prescribed hours, one is freer to chart their own course. For me, the transition between work and “ holiday” was difficult as I had anticipated that I would ease out of my work world, work part time because I enjoyed the sphere I was in: it was exciting to present internationally , write policy and impact on the lives of many. But choosing between a rock and a hard place, I finally decided to take retirement, searching for some consulting gigs, hoping that writing might take me into a new career- and it did – but only briefly.

But life offers surprises and a windfall wound up propelling me into a new phase, and so I was able to move my winters to California. California has been three years delicious. Having scouted out the environs for my Christmas birthday last year, we selected Palm Springs, anticipating warmer and hopefully drier weather than San Diego had experienced in the previous two years. Although extreme sickness almost prevented one part of our clan from gathering, our littlest rallied at the last minute, her sweet smile re- emerging sufficiently to endure a five and half hour plane ride.

We have never rented a cottage so I imagine this time together resembled a summer in Muskokoa by the water up north. In Palm Springs, by the heated pools and backed by mountains, we slept, ate and played together, three groups related by Howard and myself and marriage. It is a task to remain considerate for an extended period, but two wings of the house provided early morning quiet. Food choices varied, with vegans, picky eaters, gourmets and gourmands😜, but somehow we managed to find meals that seemed to meet most tastes from roast beef to pizza. We had incredible takeout freerange chicken( apologies to Paul who thought that all the white meat was gone), amazing burgers, the Russian lady’s premier attempt at roast beef delivered on our first night as holiday traffic took four tedious NEVER- ending, not two hours of travel to gather us all at our location; and Jordan’s most valiant attempt that night to scurry back and forth to numerous stores endlessly collecting each family’s emailed list: from cherry coke to cream cheese to lactaid milk.

Cooperation is always a key, and children were parented by those other than their own. We had a jigsaw puzzle by Florine Stettheimer of silly salesgirls tending their clientele at Bendels in the 1920’s so random people stopped and placed pieces at their leisure, satisfying a need for order and calm. On the tv, my son projected group games that incorporated group drawing and concocting huge lies, so we, attended by the oldest grandkid delighted to be up late late with the adults, giggled uncontrollably at outrageous answers.We gave ourselves outrageous aliases too.Early morning swims, occasional naps, impromptu meals, and of course, glomping around the damn IPad. So it went for five days, some family members dispersing to Joshua Tree National Park, the Annenberg estate, or dinosaur parks, tennis volleys, or Howard and myself disappearing to an art museum: interested in glass works by women. We wandered and walked, coming together and being apart, moving to our own individual beats.

It makes one wonder about the notion of a family, more than just being joined by blood lines, how caring and cooperation and respect play into a group. I suppose we maintain our ties because it is more or less expected in a family, but often we reflect that we have no choice over family ties, and would we in deed bond with the people with whom we are related. But as in any relationship, there will be aspects of people we admire or really annoy us and the challenge may be to dig deeper or merely keep one’s mouth shut to avoid confrontation. Sometimes difference of opinions does arise, but during our little respite, my family was, as they say “ chill”; several sulkily cooling their heels or tongues before flames destroyed the unity of the group’s dynamics, consideration for another’s view, thoughtful of avoiding danger of sparking a momentary destructive flame.

As a parent, I listened to the resurrection of childhood memories, of trips we took together, shared accounts, both good and bad, laughter overflowing, retrieved secrets revealed by now older adults, as a special times of foods and adventures, pinches and parfaits, Prague and Montebuono, not totally consumed in their memories in the blaze of days. As a parent, you watch, you stand aside and hope you prepared the ground for their experiences, sowing seeds so some might germinate into the people you aspired they might be, reinforcing the values you deemed the right ones. “But you never know”( as my wise mother used to harp) if what you have done made sense to a certain burgeoning personality, or if life has unwound its numerous perils and unexpected twists to allow for the implementation of lessons.

A book on Mindfulness I read awhile ago softly suggested that we did what we thought best years previous- so let it go, forgive yourself for what you now understand to have not been the wisest direction or action. This is easier written than accepted, for one thinks of situations inadvertently created or words shouted or conversely not spoken that might have made a difference. These are the barbs that in your quieter moments ping your heart, too late to remedy, reminding you of a person you don’t much like. And so, cowardly here, I do apologize for those times. One hopes that with age comes wisdom.

Yet in our home, we tried to foster the growth of critical, thinking, independent souls who would make their own way in the world. So in spite of Howard and my desires, admonishments( don’t run with scissors), our children insisted on and charted their own courses. All hardworking ,admirable professionals of whom we are extremely proud, I might add. And because they are my children, and I did not want to make a speech on my transitional birthday, I will tell them how now and here how deeply I love you all, “in my bones,”again as my mother would say. And thank you for all coming together, being together, on this special occasion, hoping that these five and more days will live in their heads as they will in mine: flowers that will continue to appear from time to time, reminding us that- when we’re back in our separate lives- that we are endlessly connected, cherished and always loved- each and everyone of us.

Fanny, A Real Hero

In San Diego this week, the Jewish Film Festival is offering an incredible number of films. Some target coming of age or sports or history and war. I selected three because of location and time, but of course first perused the content of the offering.

 

So there I stood at Claremont last Sunday noon, wondering if Fanny’s Journey would deepen my understanding of the holocaust. Years ago I had taught Eli Weisel’s Night to Grade 11 students, a few insisting that it was only a story, denying that the holocaust had ever taken place. Any many many years earlier I had sunk into the leather couch at the library, eager to read more and more about plight of children during that time.

Like other films based on the events of history such as Amistad, John Adams, Victoria, or Queen of Katwe for example, the film maker fills in details, in some ways making them more vivid than in a book or script, by adding a physicality to the presentation. In Fanny’s Journey, we may have known the story of Jewish children secreted in foster homes or institutions throughout France to save them from the Nazis, but the faces of the no nonsense Fanny, the nightly cries of her sister Erika and the innocence of the eyes of Georgette sear your mind with the palpable terrors of children caught in a drama we can hardly imagine.

Fanny is fourteen and all ready responsible not just for her sisters but for a gaggle of others who must depart their safe haven when reported by a local cleric. When their most recent lodging in Italy becomes a threat, they must endeavour to reach Switzerland. Fanny and Eli, a kitchen worker, are responsible to lead the children to safety,, but when Eli bolts at the train station, Fanny must navigate by herself.

Based on Fanny Ben-Ami’s autobiography, we move with Fanny’s harrowing journey through forests, shacks, dangerous situations and chance meetings that result in lucky moments that preclude the children’s arrest. We hold our breath as the Nazi commandant approaches the shed where the children have rested, relieved that abruptly another officer calls him away at the very last second to attend to an official matter.As the terrified children, eyes huge and tongues frozen in terror, holding their breathe, acknowledge the moment of capture has passed, their bodies soften, and so too do ours.. Similarly when a recluse takes them in for only a night and explains the red berries the young children have eaten are not poison, we gulp and wonder if in deed, they will make it through to safety.

Director Lola Doillon has retained, in spite of the dire circumstances, a lapse into childhood fun. When Maurice’s money flies from his pouch, the children chase the floating notes as if they were butterflies, giggling, jumping delightedly as if there were no harm surrounding their every turn. When they chance upon a creek with water, they engage in water fights, splashing one another, just a passel of ordinary kids, fooling around. This balance of childhood behaviour balances the extreme tension of the seriousness Life and death situations in the film. Will the dolly given by the lady with the baby herald disaster.? Will the children provide their new names when questioned by police? Who is a friend and who is a traitor? These are issues that Fanny, the leader of the children, must discern. She is the Pied Piper, the hardheaded combatant of the group.

We are in awe that an adolescent manoeuvres the group to safety. Towards the end of the film, when she willfully decides to return to danger for the safety of one child fallen behind, we gasp, cogitating with her, weighing her own freedom against another’s. Would we, each one of us, be so brave in dangerous circumstances o recross a no man’s land? I fear not.

The movie although set in wartime is connected to the plight of refugees, especially today. We have only to recall the scathing photos of the 3 year old Syrian boy fleeing with his family, lying lifeless on a Turkish beach. The children, the future of our world , chess pawns by ruthless governments is a deadly game.

At the conclusion of  Fanny’s Journey, the film reveals the real life Fanny. She is a marvel, magically alive, vital and beautiful, presented relaxed and smiling. We are in awe.

The story is true, the heroine has survived and one person has changed history , especially for the others she has saved.

We as audience have shared a moment, a promise that humanity can be better, that people are courageous, that children are invested with the power to make the world better. In deed, we wish for a world where children can engage in tea parties, play with their stuffies, eat sweets, roll on the grass and be children. For children of war, their innocence is stolen, their days as carefree impossible. To keep them safe and unaware of the travesties of horror should be the mission of all.