Lil' Corner of Joy

Whenever I had a bad day as a child, my mother would promise me that a good day would follow the bad one. She’d use the Arabic expression “yom assal, yom bassal,” meaning “honey day, onion day,” which to me, at least, always sounded as though it is predicting a bad day after a good one rather than the other way around. I won’t argue the point, however.

Yesterday I had a bad day. I woke up feeling irritable. I forgot Uri’s violin at home and had to add an extra trip to Portola Valley to retrieve it. I got too preoccupied ordering tickets to Israel and was almost late for my pilates class (I really don’t like driving stressed). I felt overwhelmed and over-excited, and though I kept appreciating little things that happened (like how well Eden read Hebrew or the beauty of the deer I saw on Arastradero Road), the general tenor of my day remained the same: off.

So I really hoped that I would get up feeling better this morning, more grateful, more appreciative, happier. I was quite disappointed when I woke up still feeling like I wanted to run away. The desire to flee only intensified when I checked my email and discovered another rejection letter. Reading it, I found my doubts returning: is my book good enough? Perhaps the agents know something I refuse to acknowledge: that kids are less interested in fairy tales nowadays. The weight of doom hang over my shoulders, and I knew if I ever wanted to fly again, I need to move, far and fast.

This is where having a personal trainer can really come in handy. Janie took one look at me and said, “let’s run!”

Instead of running away we run to the Baylands. The sky stretched blue overhead, worry-free and open. A single egret stood with its back to us, resting within the tall grasses. Ducks floated in the quiet water of the bay. I let my mind rest on the line of the horizon, allowing the movements of my legs to become all of me, step, step, step, step. Deep inside I felt faith return. I am a novelist. This is who I am. There are many stories growing inside of me, complex, worthy of being told. Their boundaries are far beyond the limits of my body, my computer, my typing hands. These characters already exist, waiting not to be released but to be given a voice, a page to explore.

I am a novelist.

I have a long to-do list for today. First on it was this blog, but after it come other chores, less pleasant: make doctor appointments, answer emails, prep some stuff, cook food. But today, because I’m inspired by the beauty within and without, I am going to start by writing. Not just this blog, but my long-term stuff. I am a novelist. I have to write.

I don’t like to think of myself as a perfectionist. Being a perfectionist implies a need for striving, as though I’m not quite there yet.  And I definitely want to be there.

I woke up feeling off balance this morning, and I find it entirely impossible to rest in the awareness of feeling this way. I want to fix it, solve it, resolve it, change it, eradicate it. My thoughts revolve round and round the question: why am I feeling off today? And the answer: I’m afraid of not being enough.

Not being enough is, for me, the essence of perfectionism. I remember reading many years ago a parenting book promoting the concept of the “good enough mother,” the idea being that good enough is good enough. We don’t need to be perfect. But if I’m not good enough no matter how hard I try, reaching the “good enough mother” benchmark is impossible. My own perfectionist standard of what good enough is for me defeats any attempt to get there.

My son asked me this morning why I did not write a blog post yesterday. I answered that I had spent the entire day with them and had no time. I worked more than an hour with Eden on her Hebrew, read them more than fifty pages in Uri’s book from school, cooked goat stew for dinner, played rummikub with Eden, set up a new system of charting our responsibilities during the day, helped Uri with his violin practice and in setting up the clarinet, and more. Yet it was not enough. I did not write a blog, did not write a synopsis for the two agents I still want to query, and did not even look at my book.

I know perfectionism is more of an obstacle than an aid to almost everything I do, whether it is my parenting, writing, cooking or housekeeping. I aspire to grow as a human being, but sitting here today, it seems to me that despite my worthy goals, really what I’ve been pursuing is perfection. I have been struggling like mad with the need to be more and more and more.

Frightening thought, but sobering too. So I think today I’m going to try a new direction. After all, being off balance should make it easier to take a fork in my road. I’m not quite sure what that fork will be like, but it looks quite springy from here, with flowers growing by the side of the path and white clouds hanging like a herd of sheep in the clear blue sky. I think, strangely enough for how I felt this morning, that today is going to be a good day. An imperfectly sunny day. Partly because it’s such a busy day there’s no way I can make it perfect, and partly because, for a change, I will not!

I don’t like watching television. Of course, I’ve watched my share of programs when I was a child. I loved the Friday afternoon British series that used to play on public TV in Israel, back when we had only one channel. I loved watching James Bond movies, the A Team, and the series about that guy who stole the fancy army helicopter. But nowadays TV holds very little attraction for me. I’d even go so far as to say that when I watch it, I get up off the sofa irritable and headachy.

This morning, therefore, when my daughter Eden asked me to watch a movie with her, I really wanted to say no. The thought passed through my mind, however, that I say “no” a lot. “No, you can’t watch a movie on a school night.” “No, you can’t have candy before dinner.” “No, we can’t go bowling right now.” I thought to myself, how many times is she going to want to watch a movie with me? Soon enough she will be grown up and have time only for her friends. So I said yes, and we watched a movie.

As expected, I ended up grumpy. Eden and I worked on her Hebrew for a while, and I struggled to remain patient. We then went out for some shopping, which I hoped would cheer me up. I tried to forget that I promised Eden I would also take her to see Puss in Boots with a friend at 5. But time, as we know, waits for no one, and at 3:30 my poor frayed nerves were getting more and more harassed, and I was thinking about the expected second movie of the day with anger and frustration. I was looking for a reason to cancel, any reason at all.

Two minutes of reading In Kristin Neff’s Self Compassion, however, and I am a new woman. As though she knows exactly how I feel, she reminds me: the past is but a memory, the future is a fantasy, but the present is a gift.

Funny what it does, remembering that there is nothing but the here and now. In the long run, in the grand scheme of things, how important is it that I “messed up” my day and watched more movies than I’m used to? How important is it that I missed writing the blog or didn’t send that query I wanted to send? Spending time with my daughter, quality or otherwise, is more important to me now, and I suspect will be more important to me in all the nows to come, than any other project. Being here with her now, on her terms, without having preconceived notions, expectations or agendas, is truly a gift for both of us. Just being here, together, now.

I read a quote by Jerome K. Jerome this morning which said: “It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch each other and find sympathy. It is in our follies that we are one.” The quote appeared in Kristin Neff’s Self Compassion, in a section on interbeing, the idea that we are all interconnected, one with each other and the world

Today, after I read his compassion quote, I googled Jerome, wondering if he was still alive. Turns out he had died back in 1927, long before I was born. So I guess I missed my chance for having tea with him. I’m a little sad about that. I think he would have made an amazingly funny tea-mate.

My mother gave me Jerome K. Jerome’s wonderful Three Men in A Boat (to Say Nothing of the Dog) when I was still in elementary school. I loved it! I loved how immensely innocent Jerome pretends to be when he tells about his long-term liver disease which he diagnosed himself by his also long-term laziness (one knock on the head, he says, is a better cure for it than many pills). I loved his stories about Harris and George, how they got stuck in the maze (I will never forget them going in circles right by  the half-eaten roll again and again), how Harris was attacked by the swans, how all three were almost run over by a boat in the river, and how even an undertaker with a dead body did not want to sit in the same train car Jerome rode with a package of specially stinky cheeses.

One of my fondest memories is going with my mother to the library. My mother had somehow arranged so that we were able to borrow twice as many books as were generally allowed. We would move from shelf to shelf, looking at the books, and my mother would suggest ones she thought I might enjoy. A huge pile went home with us, and during the week I would quickly devour one book after another. Soon enough, I had run out of books in the children’s library, and my mother and I began the same ritual in the adult section. I read Ivanhoe, Quentin Durward, The Red and the Black, The Winds of War, King Rat, and many, many others.

Growing up, these books were more real to me than many people. When it was difficult for me to feel interconnectedness with the world, whenever I felt too weird, I could identify with a character in a book and feel a little less sad. As I followed Jerome’s blundering passage up and down the Thames, laughing at himself, his friends, and anyone who dared brave the river with them, the world became a lighter, more humorous place also for me, and for that, Jerome K. Jerome, I am grateful.