Look at me! Look at me!

"Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me now!...
...I can hold up the cup
And the milk and the cake!
I can hold up these books!
And the fish on a rake!
I can hold the toy ship
And a little toy man!
And look! With my tail
I can hold a red fan!
I can fan with the fan
As I hop on the ball!
But that is not all.
Oh, no.
That is not all..."

(The Cat in The Hat By Dr. Seuss)

I have no idea why it has taken me so long to post something new. I guess a long bout of insomnia along with everything else in life that needed to be balanced and checked have prevented me from doing something of my own.
Last night I made an early new year resolution - I have to start writing again. There was a reason I had to open a blog, there must be. Otherwise why bother.
So I'm giving this a real go for myself. I welcome you to join me reembark on this journey. Or it might be just one I'll be taking on my own, with the risk of other people reading along...
The past few weeks have been draining in many ways and I'm still sorting my way around. Feeling like the crazy Cat in the Hat - no words spoke more to me lately than these. The fundamentally wrong life race of running to stand still. I can't remember the last time I did - stand still that is... Even my sleeping patterns have been eradicated to a point I really can not remember a full nights' sleep...
In the late night frustration of the fleeting night sleep I looked into what I really wanted to add to my quality of life. My family and close friends far away a lonely path had emerged. The physical distance crystallizing the ultimate truth, we all walk lonely walks. We choose individual careers most of them involving long hours in front of computers, on the phone, reading information - basically alone.
I'm trying to establish a new kind of path for myself, one that I will enjoy the meaning of, one which can be shared.

Calamity?

About 12 years ago I was at the Holocaust museum with my younger brother and mother. I was all of 18 and already a "veteran" Holocaust scholar.

I had spent the previous summer in Berlin, Poland and Czech Republic with a youth exchange group of Germans and Israelis - an intense summer of touring major Holocaust landmarks.

With us was a living witness who's story we had followed.

Coming into the museum I knew nothing would touch me - I was already immune to the horror. I could not have for seen my mum's reaction. If memory serves me she fainted and my brother and I had to carry her to one of the benches outside. That day she had a major migraine and my brother followed suite.I couldn't really get it. My youthful arrogance clouded me.

Today 12 years later I walk around this museum again. I never asked my mum what went through her mind today I think I know...

Probably the fear of it, the thought that she a born catholic might have doomed me and my brother to some calamity, by marrying a Jew and raising us in Israel - was too much for her to handle... maybe I'm reading too much in to it or maybe I should just ask her.

ziploc parenthood

the day zoe was born was the day i had vowed to remember anything and everything.

but i don't.

though i frantically photograph, write, inhale any breath of her that i can.i feel as if i'm documenting like there is no tomorrow. this blog is also part of the documentation frenzy. but why? why do i even bother to find the camera, take the time to write her first words? it's as if something has taken over me. some might argue it's the hormones taking charge. i think it might be an effort to delay the inevitable parting from my child.

every day she grows i'm instatinasly happy and sad. happy that she acquires new skills, sad that she will soon be out of my reach.

the day we brought her from the hospital was the day fear started to resonate in me. the fear of not being able to be there for her. the fear that if something happens to me, no one would be able to really care for her as i do. so in a way i mask this fear of forgetting, parting, parenting with "zoom-in" and "zoom-out" shots of daily treasures. moments that all i really want to do with is freeze in a air-tight Ziploc bag and keep with me forever.

fresh start

well this was a long time waiting... and now I'm kind of frozen - no worries it will come soon. i think... i hope...
ever since Zoe was born thoughts of balancing acts of life are racing in my head and this might be the stage to share them, maybe not. But as my dear dear husband has always said to me - part of knowing what you want to do in life is just trying things out. I might like this I might not - who knows but I think I should at least try...
So here it goes my first post - kind of exciting ( i guess) ;)