August 13th, 2014 – Ceasefire distractions on tap – Let My People Know / talk about it now

one a.m. recess

sample of R.E.M.

Hong kong dreamscape

Enough of the same bombed-out photos of our neighbours’ hood. Last night’s dream made me a photographer documenting nightlife in Hong Kong. This was a flash, glamourous gig. Thank you unconscious mind!

There were no people, I was looking at angles and the effect of neon lights on the lines of buildings.

reminder to reader: All this is emerging during the mind cleanse regimen that I’ve embarked on. That’s all

I remember the drawing class I attended on Kibbutz Nir Oz where Rahel D, kibbutz artist, had piled up a bunch of wooden chairs and instructed us to sketch the negative space. I tried. I really did. I also tried to sketch my hand without judging. It must be, I thought, an acquired taste. Like the time I was told to listen to the Grateful Dead’s Sugaree via the space between notes.

So I looked between wooden chairs, between fingers. I listened between sounds, but stuff kept getting in the way. Perhaps it was a matter of not enough LSD. Too late now. These days I think of my liver and my equilibrium and back away from unusual recreational drugs.

. . . . .

Here it is, Wednesday morning. Another day of ceasefire and I realize that while we’ve had a break from rocket attack, real life has begun to seep into my days. My jet-lagged stupor is no protection as I slowly begin to take on assignments. Hanoch Piven has asked for my help. He wants to come south with a team of therapists to work with our local Eshkol population. As wonderful as this is, I will need some skills to make this happen.

Telephone skills? Can I manipulate a telephone sufficiently well to make myself understood? I haven’t spoken Hebrew in ages and when I do, I insert liberal amounts of gesture to make myself understood.

And I need people skills. Unfortunately, this comes just as I’ve come to terms with my mild state of social autism, especially significant during times of war-time stress.

There must be a way to navigate the committees and the faces that comprise them to get to my required Yes!

It’s not just Hanoch who needs me, I need me. By luck, I have a chance to enroll in a marvelous course “Teaching Mindfulness to Children.” This is a newly expanded course, and by some miracle, school has granted me the appropriate day off and there’s still room in the class. Now, I only need to find a way to pay a small fortune. I need the kibbutz for this. (Note: the kibbutz grants permission to only a few to go out to study, with a chance for financial help if one’s petition is accepted. There’s also a matter of submitting a request before the deadline (which I hadn’t) and then being called upon to speak to committee members)

Perhaps there’s a mantra for this.

I also sense that the new school year is approaching. I’ll need to keep myself strong while a million little nudniks claw away at my reservoir of energy. Demands for my attention, from meetings to dealing with special situations, each replete with smiling faces. That’s how it is, but at my advanced age, I prefer to keep myself in one piece while I respond. I’ve decided that my survival depends on dedicating time to chomp on salads – this has become my favourite pastime during summer vacation – the ability to chew lettuce as it’s meant to be chewed.

My gravestone: Her life was made happy by ample greens.

And while I’m contemplating death, I must manage to schedule the puppet bodies I need to create – shoulders, chests and arms. I’ve already made my peace with leaving off legs. No problem. But I need shoulders and arms.

These will have to be sculpted. This requires time and cooler weather to sit in my lovely little wooden workshop which tends to steam up in this 36 degree weather.