A Slice of Life in Jerusalem

Devorah Lifshutz is an American writer living in Jerusalem. In “Promises to Myself,” her contribution to my hot-off-the-press anthology Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering, she writes about her attempt to bring up her first-born child in English. Here, she shares a slice of life in Israel:

“It’s the last week of spring break for yeshiva students, that is, and three of my sons have gone North, joining the annual exodus of young men to the  resort spots in Northern Israel (the site of the second Lebanon war, if you remember that) and I’m filled with trepidation. They are good boys, rising at dawn and and going to bed close to midnight, spending their days and nights in the study hall, thrashing out the ancient battles of the Talmud.

 ”It’s tough and exciting–a Bais Medrash is noisy, full of life. It is a place where people talk and occasionally yell at each other–that is the stuff of Talmudic learning. The Talmud  is , as expected, complex, even convoluted and occassionally poetic, even whimsical and as the Jews have known for centuries, it  sharpens the brain. This is what I wanted for them, a classical education  with the Talmud as the ultimate classic text.

“I can see that in my boys, in the way that they think, they speak, in their finely honed analytic skills, rare in our restless, high speed culture.

 

“I’m intensely proud of them, especially my oldest who has overcome his learning disability to take first prize in a Talmudical essay competition, but I’m nervous. Spring break, especially the week following the Passover holiday, which  is now, is a time to cut lose and these are boys who don’t cut loose very much. This is their time to swim, ride bikes, have cook-outs and play.  And as is the case with all young men, that can mean driving too fast, and taking other unnecessary and unwarranted risks,with potentially disastrous results. So I’m holding my breath and praying. Isn’t that our job as mothers–to give them roots and wings? I’ve spent years of my life making sure that they didn’t crawl down the stairs or  ingest the Lego block or  ride their bikes without wearing helmets.. .and now they are grown, the oldest one’s face covered with the stubble of his brand-new beard—grown during this period when Jewish law forbids shaving.  I don’t know their exact plans, just something about kayaking near the base of the Jordan river, and sleeping in tents on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.  I’m just waiting, waiting for them to come home and whispering a prayer that they return as they left, safe and sound. ”

Day of Dread

Yesterday was the dreaded home visit from my son’s teacher.  Although I’ve heard from others that some schools in the area are offering the option of at-school parent-teacher meetings in lieu of having the home room teacher drop in at the kid’s home tocheck out his/her living conditions, we were not given that choice.  Odd, isn’t it, when privacy is suddenly such a big issue in Japan that we’re not even allowed to know teachers’ addresses so that we can send a New Year’s greeting?! 

Anyhow, I’d told my son’s teacher that the originally desginated time would not be possible for me because I have to pick up my daughter from school.  He told me Friday evening that he’d reschedule and get back to me. 

Yesterday, after I picked him up from school, my son told me that his teacher was coming for the school visit that day.  This was news to me.  Jio had no idea what time he was coming, and there were no messages from the teacher in his notebook.  I wasn’t sure if perhaps Jio was mistaken, or if the teacher was going to make a commando home visit.  Then, about five p.m., the phone rang.  Teacher was trying to get to our house via his in-car navigational system, but was lost at some shrine.  Didn’t he have a map?!  I ran out into the rain to meet him and led him to our house.

Since I didn’t know for sure when he was coming, I hadn’t prepared tea or coffee or anything.  During the visit, I couldn’t find the opportune moment to jump up and make tea.  As it was, we were interrupted four times – by the guy who came to collect for the newspaper, by a delivery guy, by my daughter’s need to go to the bathroom, and by a phone call. I think there is something to be said for having a parent-teacher meeting in the peace and quiet of a school room.

Five Things I Love About Being A Mom

I’ve been tagged by Kate over at Expat Mama to come up with five things I love about being a mom, so here goes (in no particular order):

1. My kids make me laugh.  Especially my daughter. Ever since she was a tiny baby, she’s had this incredibly infectious laugh, and now every day she does something nutty or funny. She has a great sense of humor. Thanks to her, I laugh every day.

2. They provide reason for celebration. Every time they learn something new, every time they draw a picture, or come up with an interesting observation, every time they bring home a report card, or are appointed class leader, or  hit  a baseball, we have something to celebrate.  Just the other day, my son came home beaming because his music teacher told him that he has a beautiful voice – another reason to celebrate.

3. They allow me to revist my childhood.  I love watching my daughter dress her dolls in the clothes that my dolls wore. I love re-reading the books that I enjoyed in childhood with them.

4. They make me feel young. Although I am old enough to have college-aged children, having young kids makes me feel at least a decade younger.

5. They’re always happy to see me when I come home.  There are hugs and kisses, even if I’ve only been gone for a couple of hours.

And now I tag Dee, Illahee, Katia, Cathy, and Deborah (if you like).

Little Tiger?

Yesterday I took my son to baseball practice for the very first time.  The deal is, he tries it for a month, and then, if he’s committed, he gets a Tigers uniform. I picked him up at school, and he changed from his school duds into his baseball practice uniform in my tiny Kei car.  He doesn’t know how to tie his shoes, so I had to do that.  I think we taught him once, but I guess he forgot.  He’s always worn shoes that close with velcro. Anyway, it’s not his fault.  We forget to teach him things.

“If the kids start saying ‘gaijin, gaijin,’  just ignore them,” I said.

I also wanted to say, “If the coach hits you, you have to tell me!” I know coaches are always hitting kids in Japan, but I don’t want anyone touching a hair on his head. I didn’t want to prejudice my son, though, so I didn’t say anything else.

I knew we’d be late because practice starts at 4:30PM, and he doesn’t finish classes until 4:10PM.  The other kids on the team go to public school which finishes at least an hour earlier. Already, I was formulating apologies and excuses in my head. I was also thinking that I’d like to tell the coach that my son will sometimes be absent due to trips abroad, he’s got family in America, there are other things besides baseball, blah, blah, blah. But when we got to the ball field, I discovered that the coach is around sixty and he wasn’t super warm and friendly as I thought he’d be, since my husband knew this guy and had told him we were coming. Uh-oh, I thought.  This guy is old school. So all I said was, “Uh, sorry we’re late. The boy was in school. He’ll probably be late again.”

A bunch of boys swarmed around my son and started asking him questions. They showed him where to put his stuff. No one called me a “gaijin.”

I drove home.  My daughter and I ate our lonely supper and we waited for my son and husband to come home.

I thought about all the practicing he’d have to do.  Three hours every day after school! Saturdays and Sundays! The boy will have no free time! Maybe he’ll hate it, I thought. But then he came home at almost 8PM, a big smile on his face. He was talking about his new friends. He told me that he hit a double, and then crossed home plate. He’d never played a real baseball game before, just pretend baseball with his dad and sister. My little Tiger! He was so happy, and so was I.

Another Review of Call Me Okaasan

Minamimuki blogs about her favorite essays in Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering  here.

Ichiro’s Ulcer

We’re about to sign up our son for a kids’ league baseball team.  Although he has always enjoyed playing catch and hitting balls with his dad, he hasn’t shown quite the same fervor for the game that my husband supposedly had at that age.  My husband blames me.  Because our son has spent most of his time with me, an indoor non-athletic mother who likes to read, he has turned into a kid who enjoys reading books and has to be cajoled into playing outside.  I believe he has also overheard me complaining to my friends about the huge time commitment required by team sports.  He has also noted that baseball has occupied his father for his entire life, and he’s a boy who enjoys having a bit of free time.

So maybe I did brainwash him a little.  I feel a bit guilty, so lately I’ve been encouraging our son to give baseball a try.  His dad says that he shows some natural talent, and who knows, maybe he’ll love it.

However my husband argues that at the age of ten, it’s already way too late.

“Too late for what?” I ask him. “It’s not like he has to become a professional. He can just enjoy playing the sport and make some new friends.”

When I heard that the kids practice Tuesday-Thursday, with games every Saturday and Sunday  year-round, I said to my husband, “Promise me this.  Promise me that if we want to take a family trip or do something special, we’ll skip baseball and do it. We won’t let it dominate our lives.”

Perhaps it’s too early to suggest to a recent high school baseball coach that all baseball all the time is not a good idea.

He cited Japan’s second World Baseball Classic victory, which to him, proves the superiority of Japanese baseball over part-time American baseball.  He talked about Ichiro.

My husband is a big Ichiro fan, but to me, the poorly shaven Mariner is a perfect example of what happens when the work/life balance is totally askew. According to Robert Whiting’s book The Samurai Way of Baseball, from the age of seven, Ichiro practiced hard every day. His father left work at 3:30 every afternoon to take his son to a nearby ballpark where the boy threw 50 pitches, hit 200 balls, and fielded 100 balls. After dinner and homework, they went to a nearby batting center where Ichiro took 250-300 swings against a pitching machine.  They’d often stay till 11PM. Whiting writes, “This routine went on every day for several years, regardless of the heat or cold, rain or snow…Once, denied permission to leave practice early to play with his friends, he sat down in the middle of the field in protest and refused to budge. The father angrily began to throw balls at his son…”

Ichiro is, undeniably a great baseball player, but is he happy? He always seems humorless on TV. He seems to have a great relationship with his dog, but he doesn’t have any kids and, if media reports are true, he cheats on his wife. His life is all about baseball, all about proving that Japanese baseball is the best.  And now he has an ulcer.

The Night Visitors

I think last night was my last night as a baseball widow.  My husband went to a farewell party with the teachers of his old school and many, many parents of players he’s coached over the past twelve years.  There were over a hundred guests.

I stayed home with the kids, of course.  We had hot dogs and then watched “Twilight” on DVD.  Jio wasn’t all that into it, but I told him there was a scene of vampire baseball, so he wound up watching the whole thing. 

Around ten, I was getting the kids ready for bed.  I was in Jio’s top bunk reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to him when the doorbell rang.  Who could it be? I wondered. My mother-in-law? I went downstairs to check.  I was wearing mis-matched pajamas and my hair was still wet from my shower.  I turned on the light and heard the chirp of ladies’ voices, then slid open the door to see two impeccably dressed middle-aged Japanese women.  They were in suits and make-up, and one was holding a huge bouquet of flowers.  They’d just come from the farewell party. “The men are going out for more drinking,” they said, “but we wanted to bring this by.”  They also handed over a meticulously assembled scrapbook. It was very kind of them, but I’ve never felt like such a frump.

Flower Child

I’m always watching Lilia, paying attention to what she likes and what she’s good at, trying to imagine her future.  When she was small and enjoyed digging in the dirt, I thought, “Aha!  She can be an archaeologist when she grows up.  She doesn’t have to be able to walk or hear to dig up stuff.”  I pictured her in the desert, cleaning artifacts with a little brush.  When she draws stories-in-pictures, I imagine her as a manga artist.  And when she folds the laundry or drapes herself with fabric remnants, I can envision her designing fashion or working in a clothing store. 

Today, I had another idea.  There was a bouquet of flowers on the chair.  My husband got lots of flowers upon leaving his old job, and since we don’t have enough vases, they’re kind of strewn  around.  While I was upstairs, Lilia grabbed one of the bouquets and cut off the ribbon.  She meticulously divided all of the flowers – the baby’s breath, the roses, the tulips.  Then she crawled over to the shelf and took down my Otani-yaki vase without breaking it.  And then she cut the stems to varying lengths and rearranged the flowers in the vase.  Her result was very pleasing.  Jio said, “She can work in a flower shop.”  “Yeah, maybe.  Or she can be a master of ikebana,” I replied.

Why We Love Japan

In today’s newspaper, there was something about a 35-year-old guy who complained about the excessive smoking in his office and was subsequently ostracized by his co-workers and then fired.  Can you imagining something like this happening in the States?!