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My last message was very angry, and anticipated the break of my marriage. Ela was very upset with it, especially because she asked me to discuss it with her before I send it, so here I apologize publicly. I even took it off the net so that random people will not read how angry I am. It seemed like a point of no return. The only thing that gave us hope was that a year before, in Turkey, we had a big fight, and decided to work on ourselves in order to make us happily married. We wrote a list of promises to each other which we thought we can't keep, but we'd try anyway. A year later, we looked at the list and it was irrelevant. All the promises were either kept or not demanded anymore.
So we began seeing a marriage councilor (very expensive, but worth it), who taught us how to view our challenges not as a "someone has to give up" or "we need to compromise", but "we can find a solution we are both happy with". As you might recall, Ela wanted to have a girlfriend, and I said "NO WAY!" Looking at it this way, there is no option for a compromise. Looking more closely at "why doesn't she need a girlfriend" and "why I will never agree", we discovered that I can tolerate her having a girlfriend, but not having a whole world of lesbian scene that I'm not allowed to know. That I can't have her going out at night and meeting friends, that she won't take me with because it will spoil her fun. That made me feel I was being pushed out of her life altogether - How can I compete on my place next to Ela against a beautiful woman? And it makes me feel unattractive and unconfident.
So we started to work on my self-esteem and Ela tried to make sure I always feel wanted and loved while she'd started dating a woman. She didn't tell me at first, but when she did, and I met her, I really liked her. We went out together a few times, and so far I feel ok about it. She doesn't seem like a threat to me since she respects my position as Ela's husband, and because it doesn't seem they could have a long-lasting relationship (she's a Jewish American Princess). She has a very high opinion of Ela, which makes me feel Ela is the Jackpot, and that I'm lucky to have won this Jackpot, and I deserve it, and I'm a great guy. Besides, I had a haircut and finally everyone likes my hair. I started exercising... So I feel good about myself and more in love with Ela than I ever was.
This whole talk of breaking up made Ela feel financially insecure, so she started looking for a job. She got two - a journalist in a spiritual on-line magazine www.eolife.org, and a writer for an advertising agency. It is not a huge salary but she works from home and can basically work anytime she wants. She is very good in what she's doing, her bosses love her work, and I'm very proud of her.
Then we went to the Solar eclipse Rainbow Gathering in Turkey. We went only for a week since I didn't want to miss work so much. I'm a little ambivalent about it. On one hand, it was a wonderful gathering; small enough to meet almost everybody but not too small to be boring. A lot of Iranian people arrived and there was an exciting Iranian-Israeli talking circle about peace. On the other hand, it was very cold. It rained almost every day, and we had heavy hail a few times. We could hardly sleep at night, and our tent leaked a little. Sequoia was cold and therefore very demanding. All in all, we had about one and a half fun days out of a week. Great fun, but I'm not sure it was worth the trouble.
The eclipse itself was amazing as eclipses are. Sequoia was very afraid of it. She cried when it started, and wouldn't look at the moon covering the sun, but as the first ray of light appeared, she got happy and laughing again. A spooky thing happened afterwards: a big drumming and dancing circle started around the main fire, and Ela took pictures. There was one Iranian guy who looked like Aladdin, and whenever Ela tried to photograph him, there was only white light instead of a picture. At first Ela thought the camera was broken, but all the photos that were without him became perfect. We suspect he just doesn't want his picture taken.
Flying there was very funny. The whole plane was with ravers going for the "Soulclipse" trance party. They were happy, friendly and tipsy as ravers are. They cheered the stewardesses (who didn't speak English). From the airport we took a taxi with three old Israeli witches who got us almost all the way to the gathering with their magic power. They even arranged a lift with the police. Going back was a little more stressful. Our flight was scheduled for early Sunday morning, and we arrived to Antalya on Saturday looking for a hotel. We left our bags in a room while they were cleaning it, and went out to buy Sequoia ice-cream. When we came back the room's key disappeared. Since our bags were there we couldn't get in. The girls there didn't speak English (the guy who accepted us disappeared conveniently), and were very rude to us, as if it was our fault that they lost our key. Eventually they broke in through the windows, made me go in and fetch my bags, gave us our money back and kicked us out. I screamed at them, and they screamed back, and Ela screamed at them, and we left, feeling it is too late and we are too tired to find a better place. But we easily found a better, cheaper room just around the corner...
So we went out, calculating our money to have exactly what we need for the taxi to the airport, and we bought a few things... and than I checked my e-mail and found a message from my travel agent (who happens to be my father), that out flight is only at 20:00, and we have another day to spend in Antalya! What shall we do? So we went back to the hotel, feeling stressed and tired, cancelled our taxi, and went to bed.
Then I thought - and what if my father is wrong? It is a too long delay. It doesn't make sense. So I called him and asked him to check again. He said he talked to the guy in the office and that's the time he gave him. I said "Check again. Check the Tel-Aviv arrival list". And he did, and it was in 10 in the morning. We were happy that I was suspicious, and we hurriedly packed our bags and went to sleep.
The next day was fine. We missed the train, took the bus instead (stupid idea), got lost... but not much more.
And now to the grand finale: Last Sunday night Ela and I had a big fight. I was very tired (for reasons that are not important right now), and furiously angry (for reasons that are not important right now). A friend of us was staying with us and in the heat of anger I smashed her cell phone on the wall (pieces of it are everywhere in the house), and threatened her (I believe I was far from actually hitting her, but she got very frightened.) Then I calmed down, but they were too scared and they left the house. I don't blame them. Ela and Sequoia slept for two nights in a friend's house.
So it is Passover now. Sequoia and I are at my parents. Ela says she agrees to try to work it all out, which is great and wonderful of her, but I still feel shitty and sorry and hating myself for going backwards after things began to be so good, and quite pessimist.
Love, Moddy.
Today is a good day to become an optimist.
PS
A quick note: this is a group mail I wrote a month ago and for some
reason never sent. It's a little out of date but all still relevant,
I guess, not much new has happened. Ela quit her job at the
advertising agency, though she still works for the spiritual magazine.
She broke up with her girlfriend, partially because I made the
relationship too difficult, and she's thinking about going to India
for a while. Due to our current relationship problems, we gave up on
my visa application to Australia, for the moment. Basically, we're
still in the same position and things are tense between us.
Oh, and today is Ela's birthday.
Love, Moddy.
Today is a good day to be nice to your wife.
It has been such a long time since my last message - since May 17th! five months. I read that post again and realized that I left you in suspense (if you are interested in my life), but so much has happened in those five months that I find it difficult to sort it all out. The last thing I wrote was that we cancelled our attempt to get a visa to Australia, and that everything was tense. I failed to mention (maybe because it happened after my message was written) that I had threatened Ela to fight for custody of Sequoia (so she can't leave Israel) and that we stopped going to the marriage councilor - we decided since our relationship is over, there is no point.
Ela started a housecleaning job twice a week, and got more work with the magazine (she now writes all the 'news'), and got offered to house sit in one of the houses she cleans for a fortnight. At around the same time our relationship got better. Ela's friend saw us together and commented to Ela 'why are you so mean to him?', and she started to make a conscious effort to be nice to me. I responded by being nicer to her. Meanwhile a war started in Lebanon. Ela freaked out as only normal people can (I don't consider Israelis to be normal), and the thing that freaked her out the most is that no-one around her was freaking out! There were refugees from Haifa all over Tel-Aviv, and it seemed normal! Ela's urge to leave Israel was now acceptable to me. We do live in war zone, and though I'm used to it, I can't expect my wife and daughter to.
Thus, understanding each other better and acting more nicely to each other, the tension dropped a little, to a point that I began to work on the visa application again. Ela was a bit reluctant to work on it herself, feeling that once again it is not going to happen, but we made the effort of getting ourselves together and we put the application in.
The process was easier than we expected, since basically we had all the needed documents, and as it went in the end, we didn't need to stress so much. The thing that got us into trouble was my inherent inability to hide the truth - for example, in the doctor's examination I volunteered the information that I think I had hepatitis when I was 9, but maybe it was just a flu. It cost me 500 shekel to do an extra blood test for hepatitis B (which I'm vaccinated against anyway).
So we had a few weeks of happiness - we were almost happy, optimistic, we waited for my visa application to arrive. Ela got her first proper job as a doula, which is what she really wants to do in her life, and thus participated in her first hospital birth.
And then she got sick.
I blamed her for getting sick. She got sick by doing all the stupid things the doctor told her specifically not to do, so health-wise she got to a point worse than she was a year ago. It was just too much for me to deal with. I was so angry, but she needed my help and support, and I mostly gave it, but at the same time we were talking of breaking up.
But we didn't. Ela got better, though she still suffers from certain problems (she is always tired). I started to read books about unschooling that Ela ordered from Amazon for us, to see if and how we are going to unschoold Sequoia. One of those books, "Unconditional Parenting" changed a lot of the concepts I had about life and relationships. The book talks about how and why parents should show unconditional love to their kids, and how common parenting practices (like punishing and praising) are detrimental to that goal. I started to use these methods on Sequoia, and then on Ela too, and finally on myself. It made our relationship much closer, and even after big fights I don't feel like "this time we are breaking up". Our love is stronger than that.
We do have big fights, of course. Last week Ela hit me (painful elbow in the ribs) and I responded by saying "I call the divorce lawyer first thing tomorrow morning". In some sense the fights are even stronger than before - I'm sure enough with myself and my relationship so I don't back off automatically whenever Ela shouts at me.
Sequoia is much less annoying lately. Maybe because we treat her better after reading these books, or maybe it's just the age, but she doesn't freak out much anymore, and agrees to more of our suggestions. It is possible to reason with her why she needs to have a shower or eat vegetables. And of course she's gorgeous and funny and smart like a maniac. She has deep and imaginative ideas and she can express them now.
The craziest thing she said was when we talked about how the spirit leaves the body when someone dies, and Ela suggested that sometimes the spirit leaves the body and goes to another body. Sequoia said "Like me, when my spirit became sequoia and I was in mama's belly?". We were a little surprised and aksed her who she was before she was our baby. She thought a little and said "I was an old old girl. And I went in the water. I fell in and I coughed and I couldn't breath in the water. And I coughed water and my spirit left my body and I came to be a baby Sequoia"
The last thing that really happened was that we sold my apartment. The process was very tiresome and tense. We asked an agent more than a month ago how much our apartment was worth, just for the sake of curiosity. He said '175000', and we said it is too little, but we may sell it for 190, which is what I had paid for it 7 years ago. He sent us potential buyers and annoyed the hell out of Ela, and we got fed up with him and put an ad on the internet, asking for 200,000. It was Sunday.
In the next days we received dozens of phone calls. By Tuesday more than a hundred people saw the apartment, while sequoia was chasing them and hitting them and shouting at them (poor thing). The people made higher and higher offers, before we had time and energy to think how we are going to sort out all the offers, and on Friday we agreed to sell for 210,000. However, the man (a father who buys it for his daughter) hadn't given us a first payment nor signed anything, and while more offers were coming, the man procrastinated the meeting. On tuesday the daughter came to see the apartment, told Ela she wants to go to the lawyer and sign immediately, but ten minutes later called me to say she cancels the deal because she thinks the renovations would cost too much, and two hours later her father called and said that he convinced her to take it, but it was too late for them - I had decided not to sell to him.
We showed the apartment two more days, and now all three of us got totally exhausted and freaking out, so without waiting any longer sold it for $214,000 (and got the first check for 5000). Maybe we could've got more.
So: we leave Israel in Decmeber - date unknown. The gathering starts on 22nd, and we would love to come earlier and be in seed camp, BUT two of ela's best friends in Israel are due to give birth in mid Decmber, and she wants to attend the births, and we don't know what date it will be, and we need to buy the tickets now. Ela is very stressed about this decision, but we can't delay it much longer.
After Thailand I'll go back to Israel for two months with the family (my company pressures, and I'm still not absolutely ready to go), and then fly to Australia. We have no idea what we'll do there. I started to look for a job, but maybe we want to travel around a little before that. Advice is welcome.
So basically life is good. Mostly from the inside - my perspective shifted, and I'm just happier.
Optimism? Me? I guess.
Love, Moddy.
Today is a good day to repay old debts.
The decision of when to go to thailand was not ours in the end. We called the travel agancy and we couldn't get any booking after Dec 4th, so we booked it. No chance that ela would attend her friends' birth. The decision made us more relaxed as decisions usually do, but got us into the stress of achieving all that we wanted in two weeks earlier.
So we cruised through finishing the apartment selling contract and selling our stuff. It was very similar to selling the apartment - ela published an ad in an Internet site for english-speakers-in-tel-aviv, and the phones came immeidiatly. We sold everything we wanted to sell except for a few things that a friend took. I sold the car to a friend from work, and we moved in with my parents.
Packing turned out to be not as big a stress as it should have been. The main problem was that in the middle of all the packing and planning and writing lists and having impossibly many tasks each day, ela got sick. Bronchitis this time. This was the last straw for me - not only I need to work so hard on all the things I need, BUT I have to do it alone AND look after Ela. I started my days at 7 in the morning, rushing with my bike all over tel-aviv, arriving to work late, rushing home to my parents and only at 9 arriving home to take sequoia... After three days I freaked out.
But I feel much better now!
Eventually Ela got better. We didn't do many things we planned to. We didn't make a good-bye party. we didn't say good-bye to all the people we wanted to. I didn't find a job in australia... but we hope nothing that was really necessary was neglected, and that I can finish everything when I'm home again. I'll be back in Israel in Jan 26th.
Ela did manage to upload more photos to our album at photos.yahoo.com/elamajikfaerie, so if you're a big fan, you are welcome to look (she is amazing, in my unbiassed opinion)
We flew off yesterday. Long flight and long connection in Amman. We carry 3 big backpacks (one of those is the tipi), two smaller bags, a stroller, water bottles, and a little girl. way too much. We arrived tired to the arms of our rainbow friends in Bangkok and in a few days we will go to the gathering.
Have fun!
Love, Moddy.
Today is a good day to see old things in a new light.
I wanted to write about the gathering, and all that happened there, but I have a different story now.
At 1:50 pm, Sunday, January 21st, I came to Rai and Valentine's place to give food to Ela. Ela had been woken up 12 hours before that since Rai's labour started. She was with them all night, without resting much, and without eating. My arrival was in perfect time - the top of the head just popped out, and it was huge - at first I thought it was the whole head, but it was just part of it. Rai was not crying, but in deep pain; Ela suggested that she would stand up, and while Christoph and Valentine were holding her, she gave the last pushes. Evrin took photogrphs, Ela checked and encouraged, and Lali held the baby's head. Blood everywhere.
And then the head popped out completely. Ela tried to turn the body to an easier position, and directed exhausted Rai to push more. It took a few minutes, but finally she was out. I was the first one to see that it was a girl - very big, very pale, and out. I ran out excitedly toward main circle, shouting "It's a girl!".
I came back 20 minutes later with a piece of cake. The baby laid asleep in her mother's lap, still attached to the placenta, looking very pale and not moving. Ela said it is rare, but it happens. She also said that she couldn't feel the heartbeat at first, so she had resacitated the baby, and though she is very weak, she was still breathing. Ela and Rai started to taste the food - amazing fried eggplants on rice, topped with tahini made by Odelya. I fed Rai big chunks as she was at last happy to eat. Every couple of minutes Ela asked if the baby's heart is still beating, and Rai assured her that it was. We started to clean up. Davide picked the dirty blankets and put them to soak. Ela went out to wash her hands in the sea. Lali went to look for some more food. I took Sequoia out since she and Merlin made too much noise, and we started to get used to the miracle that just happened. Around the camp people started to join up, singing "mashalla mashalla". The camp prepared for a celebration, and everything seemed normal again.
At around 3:00 Ela came back from washing and checked the baby again. She said "Her heart is not beating", and Rai said "It is". We started praying. Ela began resasitation again. Fear fell on me, with a constant thought "she's already dead", which I tried to chase off with the mantra "wake up, you're alive!". Someone came out and told the crowd, and they circled and set in silence. Sequoia began to cry outside so I went out to take her farther away, and I somehow realized that she understood and she was mourning.
I played a while with Sequoia outside, until I realized that Ela was out, too, crying and hugging Davide. I came to her and we cried silently together. She lived for one hour, maybe 80 minutes from crowning until we lost hope, and in that time we experienced a whole possible range of emotions that we couldn't really understand nor absorb.
A little later Devide took a wrapped body out, and went to the hospital. We were all walking shocked along the beach, and people came to Ela saying "It's not your fault", as if they know what happened and whether it is her fault or not. People came to comfort me, and I thought "Why do they come to me? Am I supposed to grieve more than anyone else?"
Later we showered. We didn't go to food circle but fell asleep. In the morning I met Devide. The doctor determined the cause of death - the brain was full of blood. Some brain damage happened in the course of the labour. They issued a death certificate and burried the body in a Budhist temple. When Ela went to change the dressing of her wound, the doctors took a special care to explain to her that there was nothing she could do. That the fact the baby breathed at all is a miracle.
Two days after the birth we had a body-less funeral. We built a small boat and a crib out of coconut leaves. People put gifts in the crib - Ela cut off a dreadlock and put it. I put a poem that I had written a few days before and suddenly seemed so appropriate. The boat was sent off to sea.
The father named the baby "Feliz", which means happiness. He said he is greatful that his child naver knew sorrow or pain or fear. If they could revert time they would do exactly the same thing - giving birth at the same place, with the same people around them.
Someone told a story at camp. They said that the Jewish tradition, talks about people who were pious all their life and could have gained the right to enter heaven, but had died a few hours or days before the could accomplish it. These souls are then reborn and live for the time assigned to them. They are born to the purest possible parents, so they can spend their first and last hours in bliss.
Love, Moddy.
Today is a good day to come home.
------------------------
Here is my poem:
You have come
To shake me all over
To make me all sober
As we still beat the drum
You have come
To shatter my defence
And now there's no pretence
You can still beat the drum
At the end of the night
The players got off the stage
The silence is full of rage
Can you still beat your drum?
My dream is too bright
I sleep on a bed of stone
I'm hiding beneath the throne
I know that I'm not alone
Can you still beat your drum?
You have come
And I have no place to go
There's so much I need to know
Come to me. Beat your drum.
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