What a beautiful story in every way. Thank you. It prompted me to write a bit of my own, just now, which I rarely share, so thank you all for the chance to post, to put this outside of my circle, to risk the vulnerability.
In 2005, I was flattened with a serious illness no one could explain. Grand mal seizure; unable to write my name, could only walk half a block, and that, only with help of a kind person holding my arm and tracking my rocky footsteps. The medical explanations were flimsy – including things like “you drank too much water "- that was a favorite -- words, I see in retrospect, spoken by doctors who couldn’t just say “I have no idea,” because they were taught they were supposed to know, and they couldn't admit they didn't because that would somehow make them question their identity and status as "the ones with answers." Sad. The experience was life changing in the most disruptive of ways; I couldn’t’ go back to my home, which was in a small farming village 60 plus miles from medical help. Friends in town close to help offered me their son’s room – he was in college – but my dog couldn’t come with me, so he was boarded with a friend whose own dog wasn’t happy about the company, and eventually attacked him. I was often on the verge of collapse. Friends, and how lucky was and am I to have had sch loving people around me, had to take turns babysitting me because it wasn’t safe for me to be alone. I remember once, two friends had to help me get out of a bathtub because I was stuck and not strong enough to get out.
Once my brain started to work a little better, I remembered a book I’d once read by the fascinating Carolyn Myss called "The anatomy of the Spirit: Seven Stages of Power and Healing. ". I asked a friend to bring it to me from home -- from the house I loved and lived in – and, it turned out, to which I’d never be able to return. In the book was a chapter about “Tribe” – the people you come from. It posited the notion that we carry our tribal stories with us, often unconsciously, and they affect our. health. So as time went by, in those long, painful hours of isolation, no clue about what was wrong or where I was going to live and whether or not I could get my dog back because letting him go would be worse than succumbing forever to this mysterious illness, I let the concept filter through what was left of my mind. It wafted through the holes in memory and ability to think,. Hints of words appeared but didn’t connect, some days there were no thoughts because I was in physical survival mode, and at that moment survival was about “how can I get up off of this - thank you my friend for letting me stay here -– bed in your son’ts room” and make it to the bathroom. Then, somehow, it occurred to me that, absent a diagnosis, true survival required me to find a pattern in my past that I could use to understand my present. And as that notion sat with me, and sit it did, one day it became clear: I could see my mother, my sister, my grandmother – that was our household – a father only present for a few early turbulent years. Their faces were above me, before me, neutral, as though allowing my examination. And in a quick flash –whose validity I never once questioned because it hit so clearly, and sat in my as though it were a truth I had always known but never turned my eyes toward it to see, I realized I came from a long line of unhappy women who all got sick young. I tooked up at their faces with love: “I love you, I said, but I can’t go with you --- cannot go down that road. I’m choosing another way.” I didn’t want to leave their memory behind, but I could not succumb to their pattern and still live.Loyalty to myself, I decided, would elevate them too. I wasn't well, but I still had a will.
It wasn’t that pledge, that realization, that cured me. But the pledge affirmed my intention and path. Some time later, I was diagnosed with the neurological form of lymr disease and suspected herpes 6 Encephalitis. Years of difficult healing work followed. The losses were enormous, on every level. I still have bouts of unexplained unwellness, if I can call it that. But the story changed, and that intention, along with an enormous amount of luck and grace, brought me forward to the miracle of this day.
First of all I had to write the author!s quote : Sophisticated gangsterism with good PR. It hit me in the heart because that’s what I feel is going on here in the USA except with lousy PR! I do remember reading in the papers, when folks actually read newspapers, the violence and strife in Northern Ireland and again the similarities here, and we can’t seem to tolerate or listen or speak to people with opposing points of view. I know I’m having a difficult time because many of the opposing points of view are so violent and full of ignorance. Even though I’m white, Jewish and a Buddhist I have always felt like an outsider in my own family, mainly because they were all silent about the elephant in the room and when I spoke about it I was told I was crazy. My sons and their families are disconnected as a family, and I know that many times the only one I can have somewhat of a conversation in depth is with my younger son. I realize in many indigenous cultures women are honored, but I just came to the realization in my own family I just began understanding honoring myself, but my family doesn’t have a clue about honoring me and themselves. Now I live in Harlem and when I first moved here 15 years ago I wanted to get involved in the community, especially politically, and I did, but I began to see I was one of the folks who gentrified Harlem that I was to be ignored and not trusted. So what do I do with all of this reality that’s quite painful? Honestly I’m trying to work it through, sit with it, not try to aggressively change anyone, and still be as loving and committed to be the best person I can be. Reality is painful but for me in some big way “the truth will set me free.” I’m a work in progress. Bless you all. 🙏❤️🌹💪🏽
Last night, I saw the most wonderful play, “The Prayer for the French Republic.”
I can't stop thinking about it.
The play takes place in France, mostly within the home of one family. It shifts back and forth between the post WWII period and modern times. We watch one family struggle, over the span of these years, with the same issues: antisemitism, a sense of belonging, identity, depression, family relationships, control. My eyes were opened to, and I was reminded of, how universal and relatable these themes are.
Almost every character was asking big questions like what it is to live in society today as a Jew( I've been asking this same question for decades. So much so that I wrote my college thesis on this topic!) and where traditions and religion and family come into play in our lives. Throughout the play, these subjects were discussed with humor and realism. The messiness and stability of family and life was all on display.
One theme, or element of the play, that really made me think, was the concept of “home. “ As audience members, we were living and inhabiting the home of the Benhamou family for close to three hours, reminding us that the home is such a big deal. Not only is it a societal, cultural place of belonging but also a literal one. Our homes are made up of the chairs and furniture we are all so familiar with, the plates and bowls and mugs and china, which hold our morning coffee and evening meals. Their purpose is to ground us and bring us together. There are doors we open to let others in, and books, games and belongings that are ours and define us.
Most importantly perhaps, home is our unique and own. It is our small and important community/society where we can feel absolute control ( that's why my Mom wants to stay in her own home at age 92!). Home is the place where we keep the outside world at bay, where we can safely say and do and be. Really, it’s the only place where we can completely be ourselves.
Home, however, is not always static. My family has moved numerous times over the past nine years. Our houses have changed; our home has not. I work hard and consciously at keeping the important things constant and there and real. Our home, no matter where it is, is a place where my family is always welcome. Here,conversation, arguments, love, humor, togetherness, trust and hope prevail. It is a place with many family photos and some of the same dishes and comforters and nicknacks that we’ve possessed for many years remain. Home is where the heart is.
The play also offered a theme of “hope. “ You got this sense that despite the friction, disagreements and challenges that the family endured, they stuck together… no matter what. Therein lies the hope. I feel that way constantly with my family, both with my nuclear and extended family. No matter what our family faces, we lean on and depend and rely on each other. That constant provides a tremendous amount of hope.
Sometimes when times are challenging, my more religious friends tell me they are praying for me. This always makes me feel better and more hopeful but honestly, I question how do I pray? I think I learned how last night. Patrick, who plays a beloved brother, reminded the audience at the end of the play, “A prayer is speaking aloud your hope.” That's it. That works for me. Prayer is speaking aloud your hope.
Two weeks ago, we learned that our beloved thirty-four year old daughter, Stephanie, has rectal cancer. Punch in the gut. Out of left field. Shocker. So what did we do? We stuck together. We prayed --speaking our hope--we figured out how to laugh a little and we all pitched in.
This play gave me a gift: it helped me open up my relationship with myself, with my family and my faith. But, I think most importantly, it reminded me that my family, my home, and my strong sense of self and values, not only ground and define me, but provide me with hope and peace, that I need now and always.
The play was indeed a prayer— for me and my family— and for all of humanity.
My country of origin, the USA...the story I was told in school, was of heroic people like George Washington, Christopher Columbus, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. I struggled with the concept of glorifying anyone, even as a young child. I was beyond fortunate to grow up with a Mom who allowed me to ask questions and she began to fill in the gaps of truth. I was sick over the truth, and yet knew that the whole stories must be told, no matter how uncomfortable it makes other people. It is not "Cancel Culture," it is Correcting the Narrative and always being open to truths as they reveal themselves about our history.
During the last practical part of my studies, I worked as a German at a hospital in South Africa and met my husband there, who had come there from Poland a few years earlier. Looking north from the southern tip of Africa to Europe it almost felt to us in some aspects as if we had the same country of origin. After a few years of long-distance relationship we decided to get married and all circumstances led to Germany as the easiest option for a life together. In a mixture of idealism, naivety and arrogance I could not imagine at the time that the conflict-ridden history of our countries of origin, especially during World War II, and the cultural differences between the countries would somehow affect our lives, and yet of course it did. In Poland, I was told better not to speak German too loudly in the supermarket, and my husband, in view of a mediocre appreciation of Poles in Germany at the time, took my surname as he felt it could be advantageous for his profession. We both realised somewhat painfully that our history lessons at school had nothing to do with truly comprehensive knowledge of the history of both countries. Political disagreements between governments echoed into our marriage, to my irritation, even when we were each critical of our governments.
We experienced what many binational partnerships experience in different facets and thus also how enriching it ultimately is to think outside the box. And I am very happy that we continue to walk together side by side until today.
But since these first years of marriage I still dream for the whole world of a sort of world history book written by a higher, magical hand that manages to present all events in a continuously balanced way, tailored to the capacity of human brains, so that we can all see ourselves more united than separated and as a consequence also act more united than separated.
My English teacher gave me this poem last week, which does not look at the earth from space, but at the space from the earth, and yet has the same core in it, perhaps some of you don't know it yet and perhaps it will touch you the way it touched me:
SINGULARITY
by Marie Howe
(after Stephen Hawking)
Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?
so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money —
nobody hiding in the school bathroom
or home alone
pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.
For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you. Remember?
There was no Nature. No
them. No tests
to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf or if
the coral reef feels pain. Trashed
oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;
would that we could wake up to what we were
— when we were ocean and before that
to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not
at all — nothing
before we came to believe humans were so important
Suleika and Oliver - HUGE THANK YOUS ❤️ other. Embracing other. Oliver, we have several of your books. We first bought them for our nieces and now our daughter. The Incredible Book Eating Boy and Stuck are particular favorites. We moved a ton when I was younger, and I learned that mean kids live everywhere. Maura the Moron:( With a learning disability, this was a particularly painful nickname. In 4th grade, after moving to WI from Worcester, MA, I spent the summer in speech therapy. Learning to find the letter R and O. I remember repeating H O T not H U T in a dorm room, when I really wanted to be outside in the “pahk” :) I was able to reinvent myself a couple of times, and honestly I am doing it again now at 48:) Because also, lovely people live everywhere thankfully:) But what strikes me the most is how the feminine was really not celebrated in my family. Being a woman was a burden. Being a mother was what prevented you from achieving your dreams. From an early age, I think I picked up on some very adult behaviors. I am still unpacking them. My mom, who was an RN, told me to go into a male dominated profession. Architecture was suggested because if I went to art school, I would probably be a teacher. Implied here was teaching was a “less than” profession. So, I always tired to fit in with the guys. As an architect, I spent years trying to live by rules, both social and structural, that were not designed for me. Generally, the women on both sides of my family had complicated lives. They walked tight ropes. I am looking to free myself of the tight rope, not into a free fall but one where I know a safety net exists. Like embracing the Philippe Petit tight rope (he didn’t have a real safety net) Believing in the humanity of this world 🌎 🌍 Motherhood is one of the many things I do imperfectly and that is completely normal, especially during a worldwide pandemic while experiencing perimenopause. I am attempting to let go of the capitalist expectations of success and be present. Damn, it is hard. I watched a trailer for the movie The Wiz the other day. Oz was set at the World Trade Center. I started thinking of memories from before 9/11 of the World Trade Center. A tight rope can be a constraint or an inspiring challenge❤️
So many stories that we're given, that are passed down to us, we have to accept as truth and we don't even realise that we can question, examine, and pick them apart. It's so worthwhile, even if it can be heavy to wade through the stories, the conditioning, the perceptions and judgements that we inherit from society.
Well this just made my morning. 🙏🏼 We are huge Oliver Jeffers fans in my family and I was having an epiphany this morning not so different from this prompt. I’m excited to journal on this prompt.
Wishing your family safety and comfort in their move and sending you a gentle hug for your heart Suileka. ❤️
I was born into a Jewish family. One struggling with being in a minority. My father, when we were young, would remind us that in the not so distant past, Jews were often not welcome in the local country club. The family attempted to assimilate into a more mainstream culture. This only created, often unexpressed, rifts between family members.
The language of Jewish prayer, at least in the reform congregation attended occasionally by my family, was a language I didn’t connect with. I didn’t prepare for a bar mitzvah, the coming of age ceremony. My family had discovered winter downhill skiing. On the mountain in the midst of a snow storm, I found my language, the wind, weather, the amazing beauty of Nature. This relationship with Beauty continued to form and inform my life. During the Vietnam war I became a conscientious objector. My parents were both schooled in the sciences. I moved towards art making. I found a path in Beauty as a potter for years. I saw Beauty in the children I worked with who were living with autism. Living in New Mexico in the early 1970’s I was introduced to Pueblo potters, dance ceremonies, and the unique drumming. Eventually I was “taken in” by the Beauty of Native American style flutes. This eventually led to playing flutes in our local hospitals for six years. COVID arrived. What to do with this? Beauty inspired taking photographs. This inspired my website: fragilethreadsofbeauty.com.
Did it all begin years ago when my father asked me to mow the lawn around the family house. He was angry with me when I refused to mow a cluster of buttercups. Beauty. Or was it years earlier when I was asked to weed the family rhubarb patch. No one showed me the difference between the rhubarb plant and weeds. This may have been the beginning of my enchantment with open spaces; I pulled everything out of the patch leaving a beautiful brown earthen patch. Beauty, in my eyes. Nature.
Let’s get back to being Jewish. I have no idea what that means. I have visited Israel and Palestine. Nature knows no political or religious distinctions nor discriminations. People are people, first and foremost in my eyes; Beauty and Nature. The Earth is my text, my sacred reading.
I can never see enough Beauty,
For if I saw it all,
I would be seeing You, again.
You, me, each one of us living creations, Beauty, Nature. 🏮
So much juiciness here in this prompt! I would extend this - in my case- to; what thoughts and behaviour need changing in one’s life for the purposes or rewriting one’s story. It has been imperative for me to examine, explore then seek to understand what unconscious and self sabotaging thought patterns have lead me to certain ways of behaving- specifically in my most important relationships. From this (painful) place of observation, trial and error, persistence and the deepest drive to take responsibility for myself and ensure I am at my best for myself and others I continue to shed what no longer serves by reworking and rewriting my most healthy self 😊💜
I am moved by Oliver Jeffers’ statement about the final moment when the astronauts see “home.” I want to change this moment in our world 🌎 and have us agree, “beings.”
Oliver’s challenge to change the story resonates deeply. I grew up in the American South. There are many things to love about southern culture, but I never understood the parochialism, racism, and division. Some of it began with our ancestors, most of whom came from Ireland, Scotland and England (white), Africa or the Caribbean, and Native American. That melting pot is the recipe for the music, food and traditions we love, but also for the pain, division and hatred that continues to this day. In college, I studied literature and fell in love with African American and Latinx writers. It helped me feel more confident breaking out of the culture. I had always challenged the disturbing aspects of the south and eventually moved away from it, first to larger, more diverse cities in the south and eventually to live and work in larger cities in the US and abroad. When I first got to DC and NYC, I loved the diversity, meeting and working with people of many backgrounds, hearing multiple languages, immersing myself in the art and music. But I eventually learned that there was still a separateness and that there were many southerners like me who gravitated to each other because missed our southern homeland, food, music, art, and warmth. We also shared a desire to overcome the tragic parts of our shared history, and many of us got involved in civil rights, environmental justice, education reform and other pursuits that we hoped would elevate the south. It felt like it was succeeding for years, and in many ways still is, but we’ve regressed in recent years. Oliver’s words about the stories we told and that we tell resonated because it feels like we’re at another inflection point in our history. My deepest hope, the story I tell myself these days, is that our youngest generation really will be able to finally break free from our racist, divisive past.
In 1994 I spent two weeks in Northern Ireland with a group of Protestants and Catholics from the United States. We listened and dialogued with journalists, academics, religious leaders, representatives of the IRA and UDA, and every day people. I was transformed by these encounters. Perhaps it’s time to write about it, particularly in relation to the present moment. Thank you. Suleika, you have truly intercontinental depth and creativity. Rare gift.
What a beautiful story in every way. Thank you. It prompted me to write a bit of my own, just now, which I rarely share, so thank you all for the chance to post, to put this outside of my circle, to risk the vulnerability.
In 2005, I was flattened with a serious illness no one could explain. Grand mal seizure; unable to write my name, could only walk half a block, and that, only with help of a kind person holding my arm and tracking my rocky footsteps. The medical explanations were flimsy – including things like “you drank too much water "- that was a favorite -- words, I see in retrospect, spoken by doctors who couldn’t just say “I have no idea,” because they were taught they were supposed to know, and they couldn't admit they didn't because that would somehow make them question their identity and status as "the ones with answers." Sad. The experience was life changing in the most disruptive of ways; I couldn’t’ go back to my home, which was in a small farming village 60 plus miles from medical help. Friends in town close to help offered me their son’s room – he was in college – but my dog couldn’t come with me, so he was boarded with a friend whose own dog wasn’t happy about the company, and eventually attacked him. I was often on the verge of collapse. Friends, and how lucky was and am I to have had sch loving people around me, had to take turns babysitting me because it wasn’t safe for me to be alone. I remember once, two friends had to help me get out of a bathtub because I was stuck and not strong enough to get out.
Once my brain started to work a little better, I remembered a book I’d once read by the fascinating Carolyn Myss called "The anatomy of the Spirit: Seven Stages of Power and Healing. ". I asked a friend to bring it to me from home -- from the house I loved and lived in – and, it turned out, to which I’d never be able to return. In the book was a chapter about “Tribe” – the people you come from. It posited the notion that we carry our tribal stories with us, often unconsciously, and they affect our. health. So as time went by, in those long, painful hours of isolation, no clue about what was wrong or where I was going to live and whether or not I could get my dog back because letting him go would be worse than succumbing forever to this mysterious illness, I let the concept filter through what was left of my mind. It wafted through the holes in memory and ability to think,. Hints of words appeared but didn’t connect, some days there were no thoughts because I was in physical survival mode, and at that moment survival was about “how can I get up off of this - thank you my friend for letting me stay here -– bed in your son’ts room” and make it to the bathroom. Then, somehow, it occurred to me that, absent a diagnosis, true survival required me to find a pattern in my past that I could use to understand my present. And as that notion sat with me, and sit it did, one day it became clear: I could see my mother, my sister, my grandmother – that was our household – a father only present for a few early turbulent years. Their faces were above me, before me, neutral, as though allowing my examination. And in a quick flash –whose validity I never once questioned because it hit so clearly, and sat in my as though it were a truth I had always known but never turned my eyes toward it to see, I realized I came from a long line of unhappy women who all got sick young. I tooked up at their faces with love: “I love you, I said, but I can’t go with you --- cannot go down that road. I’m choosing another way.” I didn’t want to leave their memory behind, but I could not succumb to their pattern and still live.Loyalty to myself, I decided, would elevate them too. I wasn't well, but I still had a will.
It wasn’t that pledge, that realization, that cured me. But the pledge affirmed my intention and path. Some time later, I was diagnosed with the neurological form of lymr disease and suspected herpes 6 Encephalitis. Years of difficult healing work followed. The losses were enormous, on every level. I still have bouts of unexplained unwellness, if I can call it that. But the story changed, and that intention, along with an enormous amount of luck and grace, brought me forward to the miracle of this day.
First of all I had to write the author!s quote : Sophisticated gangsterism with good PR. It hit me in the heart because that’s what I feel is going on here in the USA except with lousy PR! I do remember reading in the papers, when folks actually read newspapers, the violence and strife in Northern Ireland and again the similarities here, and we can’t seem to tolerate or listen or speak to people with opposing points of view. I know I’m having a difficult time because many of the opposing points of view are so violent and full of ignorance. Even though I’m white, Jewish and a Buddhist I have always felt like an outsider in my own family, mainly because they were all silent about the elephant in the room and when I spoke about it I was told I was crazy. My sons and their families are disconnected as a family, and I know that many times the only one I can have somewhat of a conversation in depth is with my younger son. I realize in many indigenous cultures women are honored, but I just came to the realization in my own family I just began understanding honoring myself, but my family doesn’t have a clue about honoring me and themselves. Now I live in Harlem and when I first moved here 15 years ago I wanted to get involved in the community, especially politically, and I did, but I began to see I was one of the folks who gentrified Harlem that I was to be ignored and not trusted. So what do I do with all of this reality that’s quite painful? Honestly I’m trying to work it through, sit with it, not try to aggressively change anyone, and still be as loving and committed to be the best person I can be. Reality is painful but for me in some big way “the truth will set me free.” I’m a work in progress. Bless you all. 🙏❤️🌹💪🏽
A prayer is speaking aloud your hope.
Last night, I saw the most wonderful play, “The Prayer for the French Republic.”
I can't stop thinking about it.
The play takes place in France, mostly within the home of one family. It shifts back and forth between the post WWII period and modern times. We watch one family struggle, over the span of these years, with the same issues: antisemitism, a sense of belonging, identity, depression, family relationships, control. My eyes were opened to, and I was reminded of, how universal and relatable these themes are.
Almost every character was asking big questions like what it is to live in society today as a Jew( I've been asking this same question for decades. So much so that I wrote my college thesis on this topic!) and where traditions and religion and family come into play in our lives. Throughout the play, these subjects were discussed with humor and realism. The messiness and stability of family and life was all on display.
One theme, or element of the play, that really made me think, was the concept of “home. “ As audience members, we were living and inhabiting the home of the Benhamou family for close to three hours, reminding us that the home is such a big deal. Not only is it a societal, cultural place of belonging but also a literal one. Our homes are made up of the chairs and furniture we are all so familiar with, the plates and bowls and mugs and china, which hold our morning coffee and evening meals. Their purpose is to ground us and bring us together. There are doors we open to let others in, and books, games and belongings that are ours and define us.
Most importantly perhaps, home is our unique and own. It is our small and important community/society where we can feel absolute control ( that's why my Mom wants to stay in her own home at age 92!). Home is the place where we keep the outside world at bay, where we can safely say and do and be. Really, it’s the only place where we can completely be ourselves.
Home, however, is not always static. My family has moved numerous times over the past nine years. Our houses have changed; our home has not. I work hard and consciously at keeping the important things constant and there and real. Our home, no matter where it is, is a place where my family is always welcome. Here,conversation, arguments, love, humor, togetherness, trust and hope prevail. It is a place with many family photos and some of the same dishes and comforters and nicknacks that we’ve possessed for many years remain. Home is where the heart is.
The play also offered a theme of “hope. “ You got this sense that despite the friction, disagreements and challenges that the family endured, they stuck together… no matter what. Therein lies the hope. I feel that way constantly with my family, both with my nuclear and extended family. No matter what our family faces, we lean on and depend and rely on each other. That constant provides a tremendous amount of hope.
Sometimes when times are challenging, my more religious friends tell me they are praying for me. This always makes me feel better and more hopeful but honestly, I question how do I pray? I think I learned how last night. Patrick, who plays a beloved brother, reminded the audience at the end of the play, “A prayer is speaking aloud your hope.” That's it. That works for me. Prayer is speaking aloud your hope.
Two weeks ago, we learned that our beloved thirty-four year old daughter, Stephanie, has rectal cancer. Punch in the gut. Out of left field. Shocker. So what did we do? We stuck together. We prayed --speaking our hope--we figured out how to laugh a little and we all pitched in.
This play gave me a gift: it helped me open up my relationship with myself, with my family and my faith. But, I think most importantly, it reminded me that my family, my home, and my strong sense of self and values, not only ground and define me, but provide me with hope and peace, that I need now and always.
The play was indeed a prayer— for me and my family— and for all of humanity.
My country of origin, the USA...the story I was told in school, was of heroic people like George Washington, Christopher Columbus, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. I struggled with the concept of glorifying anyone, even as a young child. I was beyond fortunate to grow up with a Mom who allowed me to ask questions and she began to fill in the gaps of truth. I was sick over the truth, and yet knew that the whole stories must be told, no matter how uncomfortable it makes other people. It is not "Cancel Culture," it is Correcting the Narrative and always being open to truths as they reveal themselves about our history.
This is an incredibly moving post and the prompt to transform our stories from heartbreak into hope is giving me new life. Thank you so much!
During the last practical part of my studies, I worked as a German at a hospital in South Africa and met my husband there, who had come there from Poland a few years earlier. Looking north from the southern tip of Africa to Europe it almost felt to us in some aspects as if we had the same country of origin. After a few years of long-distance relationship we decided to get married and all circumstances led to Germany as the easiest option for a life together. In a mixture of idealism, naivety and arrogance I could not imagine at the time that the conflict-ridden history of our countries of origin, especially during World War II, and the cultural differences between the countries would somehow affect our lives, and yet of course it did. In Poland, I was told better not to speak German too loudly in the supermarket, and my husband, in view of a mediocre appreciation of Poles in Germany at the time, took my surname as he felt it could be advantageous for his profession. We both realised somewhat painfully that our history lessons at school had nothing to do with truly comprehensive knowledge of the history of both countries. Political disagreements between governments echoed into our marriage, to my irritation, even when we were each critical of our governments.
We experienced what many binational partnerships experience in different facets and thus also how enriching it ultimately is to think outside the box. And I am very happy that we continue to walk together side by side until today.
But since these first years of marriage I still dream for the whole world of a sort of world history book written by a higher, magical hand that manages to present all events in a continuously balanced way, tailored to the capacity of human brains, so that we can all see ourselves more united than separated and as a consequence also act more united than separated.
My English teacher gave me this poem last week, which does not look at the earth from space, but at the space from the earth, and yet has the same core in it, perhaps some of you don't know it yet and perhaps it will touch you the way it touched me:
SINGULARITY
by Marie Howe
(after Stephen Hawking)
Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?
so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money —
nobody hiding in the school bathroom
or home alone
pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.
For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you. Remember?
There was no Nature. No
them. No tests
to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf or if
the coral reef feels pain. Trashed
oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;
would that we could wake up to what we were
— when we were ocean and before that
to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not
at all — nothing
before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.
Can molecules recall it?
what once was? before anything happened?
No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb no noun
only a tiny tiny dot brimming with
is is is is is
All everything home
Suleika and Oliver - HUGE THANK YOUS ❤️ other. Embracing other. Oliver, we have several of your books. We first bought them for our nieces and now our daughter. The Incredible Book Eating Boy and Stuck are particular favorites. We moved a ton when I was younger, and I learned that mean kids live everywhere. Maura the Moron:( With a learning disability, this was a particularly painful nickname. In 4th grade, after moving to WI from Worcester, MA, I spent the summer in speech therapy. Learning to find the letter R and O. I remember repeating H O T not H U T in a dorm room, when I really wanted to be outside in the “pahk” :) I was able to reinvent myself a couple of times, and honestly I am doing it again now at 48:) Because also, lovely people live everywhere thankfully:) But what strikes me the most is how the feminine was really not celebrated in my family. Being a woman was a burden. Being a mother was what prevented you from achieving your dreams. From an early age, I think I picked up on some very adult behaviors. I am still unpacking them. My mom, who was an RN, told me to go into a male dominated profession. Architecture was suggested because if I went to art school, I would probably be a teacher. Implied here was teaching was a “less than” profession. So, I always tired to fit in with the guys. As an architect, I spent years trying to live by rules, both social and structural, that were not designed for me. Generally, the women on both sides of my family had complicated lives. They walked tight ropes. I am looking to free myself of the tight rope, not into a free fall but one where I know a safety net exists. Like embracing the Philippe Petit tight rope (he didn’t have a real safety net) Believing in the humanity of this world 🌎 🌍 Motherhood is one of the many things I do imperfectly and that is completely normal, especially during a worldwide pandemic while experiencing perimenopause. I am attempting to let go of the capitalist expectations of success and be present. Damn, it is hard. I watched a trailer for the movie The Wiz the other day. Oz was set at the World Trade Center. I started thinking of memories from before 9/11 of the World Trade Center. A tight rope can be a constraint or an inspiring challenge❤️
The musical SOUTH PACIFIC'S lines of "you have to be taught, carefully taught to hate and fear/you've got to be taught from year to year..."
So many stories that we're given, that are passed down to us, we have to accept as truth and we don't even realise that we can question, examine, and pick them apart. It's so worthwhile, even if it can be heavy to wade through the stories, the conditioning, the perceptions and judgements that we inherit from society.
I really enjoyed both of these essays today :)
Well this just made my morning. 🙏🏼 We are huge Oliver Jeffers fans in my family and I was having an epiphany this morning not so different from this prompt. I’m excited to journal on this prompt.
Wishing your family safety and comfort in their move and sending you a gentle hug for your heart Suileka. ❤️
I was born into a Jewish family. One struggling with being in a minority. My father, when we were young, would remind us that in the not so distant past, Jews were often not welcome in the local country club. The family attempted to assimilate into a more mainstream culture. This only created, often unexpressed, rifts between family members.
The language of Jewish prayer, at least in the reform congregation attended occasionally by my family, was a language I didn’t connect with. I didn’t prepare for a bar mitzvah, the coming of age ceremony. My family had discovered winter downhill skiing. On the mountain in the midst of a snow storm, I found my language, the wind, weather, the amazing beauty of Nature. This relationship with Beauty continued to form and inform my life. During the Vietnam war I became a conscientious objector. My parents were both schooled in the sciences. I moved towards art making. I found a path in Beauty as a potter for years. I saw Beauty in the children I worked with who were living with autism. Living in New Mexico in the early 1970’s I was introduced to Pueblo potters, dance ceremonies, and the unique drumming. Eventually I was “taken in” by the Beauty of Native American style flutes. This eventually led to playing flutes in our local hospitals for six years. COVID arrived. What to do with this? Beauty inspired taking photographs. This inspired my website: fragilethreadsofbeauty.com.
Did it all begin years ago when my father asked me to mow the lawn around the family house. He was angry with me when I refused to mow a cluster of buttercups. Beauty. Or was it years earlier when I was asked to weed the family rhubarb patch. No one showed me the difference between the rhubarb plant and weeds. This may have been the beginning of my enchantment with open spaces; I pulled everything out of the patch leaving a beautiful brown earthen patch. Beauty, in my eyes. Nature.
Let’s get back to being Jewish. I have no idea what that means. I have visited Israel and Palestine. Nature knows no political or religious distinctions nor discriminations. People are people, first and foremost in my eyes; Beauty and Nature. The Earth is my text, my sacred reading.
I can never see enough Beauty,
For if I saw it all,
I would be seeing You, again.
You, me, each one of us living creations, Beauty, Nature. 🏮
So much juiciness here in this prompt! I would extend this - in my case- to; what thoughts and behaviour need changing in one’s life for the purposes or rewriting one’s story. It has been imperative for me to examine, explore then seek to understand what unconscious and self sabotaging thought patterns have lead me to certain ways of behaving- specifically in my most important relationships. From this (painful) place of observation, trial and error, persistence and the deepest drive to take responsibility for myself and ensure I am at my best for myself and others I continue to shed what no longer serves by reworking and rewriting my most healthy self 😊💜
I am moved by Oliver Jeffers’ statement about the final moment when the astronauts see “home.” I want to change this moment in our world 🌎 and have us agree, “beings.”
We can change the story, but first we must change ourselves. 🕊
Oliver’s challenge to change the story resonates deeply. I grew up in the American South. There are many things to love about southern culture, but I never understood the parochialism, racism, and division. Some of it began with our ancestors, most of whom came from Ireland, Scotland and England (white), Africa or the Caribbean, and Native American. That melting pot is the recipe for the music, food and traditions we love, but also for the pain, division and hatred that continues to this day. In college, I studied literature and fell in love with African American and Latinx writers. It helped me feel more confident breaking out of the culture. I had always challenged the disturbing aspects of the south and eventually moved away from it, first to larger, more diverse cities in the south and eventually to live and work in larger cities in the US and abroad. When I first got to DC and NYC, I loved the diversity, meeting and working with people of many backgrounds, hearing multiple languages, immersing myself in the art and music. But I eventually learned that there was still a separateness and that there were many southerners like me who gravitated to each other because missed our southern homeland, food, music, art, and warmth. We also shared a desire to overcome the tragic parts of our shared history, and many of us got involved in civil rights, environmental justice, education reform and other pursuits that we hoped would elevate the south. It felt like it was succeeding for years, and in many ways still is, but we’ve regressed in recent years. Oliver’s words about the stories we told and that we tell resonated because it feels like we’re at another inflection point in our history. My deepest hope, the story I tell myself these days, is that our youngest generation really will be able to finally break free from our racist, divisive past.
In 1994 I spent two weeks in Northern Ireland with a group of Protestants and Catholics from the United States. We listened and dialogued with journalists, academics, religious leaders, representatives of the IRA and UDA, and every day people. I was transformed by these encounters. Perhaps it’s time to write about it, particularly in relation to the present moment. Thank you. Suleika, you have truly intercontinental depth and creativity. Rare gift.