Category Archives: Health

But Nobody Died!

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Our youngest son, Rafael, moved with his family to New Jersey last night. We don’t know how long they’ll be there. We don’t know why they moved.

Neither of their excellent jobs requires the move. They have a beautiful house here that they renovated just 5 years ago to their exact specification. Their garden is flourishing, as are their kids. All four kids have many friends and are happy here. They have an active social life with friends and with their siblings/cousins. The other grandparents live a 15-minute walk away, are retired, and are always happy to have the kids over, pick them up, and take them places.

The given reason is that they get itchy when they’re in one place too long. They seek adventure (in New Jersey? 😂) They seek a challenge when things are too settled and smooth. Our son fears getting stodgy (he’s 42). At 40, having made partner at the most prestigious law firm here, he quit to do something else. He didn’t want to get stuck in a rut.

I sort of get it. I was that way myself. But once we had kids, I reframed my need for change into something more compatible with having first one and then, within 7 years, five kids. I changed professions six times; just about every 2 or 3 years. I wrote a few books. Once the kids were a bit older we traveled…a lot.

And, of course, the biggie – we moved from the US to Israel.

Rafael and his family moved to the US once already. They spent 5 years in Silicone Valley. He’s a hi-tech lawyer so that made sense. It provided him with the lift he needed to become one of the younger partners in his law firm. We missed him. The 10-hour time difference and 16-hour flight were brutal. But it made sense. And once was enough.

This move makes less sense to us.

Of course, we’re ten years older.

My in-laws were devastated when we moved our own young family to Israel. My mother-in-law literally keened and wailed when we parted at the airport. But, we felt, we were moving toward something. It was an ideological move. It was living our dedication to Zionism. We still feel that way.

What kind of ideology could possibly warrant a move to New Jersey – the state Americans love to mock? Clearly (to us) they are moving away from something and not toward something.

I get that, too. Living in Israel is not for the faint of heart.

Although it has one of the strongest, most stable economies in the world, wages are relatively low, real estate is ridiculously priced out of most young families’ reach, and many families struggle to get through the month. None of this applies to Rafael, who is blessed with financial stability.

Israel has been at war from the moment the state was established in 1948. Sometimes the war is more volatile and sometimes less, but it’s a constant threat. Our neighbors make no bones about hating us and have consistently made clear their goal of destroying our state and killing us all. The past two years, since the atrocities of October 7th, have been traumatic for every single family in Israel, and continue to be so.

Hard times, however, seem to strengthen Israelis’ resolve, not weaken it.

The divisiveness in Israeli society over politics and religion seems to be more of a factor in people leaving Israel than the war. The exaggerations and fears on each side lead to a lack of tolerance that feeds on itself.

For those of us who left comfortable lives in the US (or other Western countries) to live in Israel, we take a dim view of those who leave. It would be more accurate to say that many of us look upon it as betrayal of an ideal; betrayal of the country. In addition, given the current ugly anti-Semitism in the world, we believe that Jews should be aware today more than ever that Israel is the place for Jews to live.

We worry about our children and grandchildren’s safety. We worry about our grandchildren being taken out of a place where they are like most everybody else – it’s not an issue – and put in a place where they are ‘the other’.

We believe that our son and daughter-in-law have a tremendous amount of talent and skills to give to our country, and that our country needs people exactly like them.

And, perhaps most of all, I’ll miss being able to drive an hour whenever the spirit moves me and enjoy a good cup of coffee and great conversation with my youngest son. He’s the best! I’ll miss all the many special things about each and every one of those four delicious children. And, yes, sometimes, of course, I feel that strong twinge of sadness and loss in my heart.

Tisha B’Av is the day that our first two holy temples were destroyed. The date is commemorated with a 25-hour fast and special prayers. When tragedy strikes and someone is very sad we might say she has on her Tisha B’Av face.

That’s the face I see on many of our friends lately when considering our son’s departure with his beautiful family.

And, ironically enough, I want to console them.

“But nobody died! They’re only going to New Jersey!”

As hard as it is for us to imagine, they’re off on what they see as an adventure for their family. We made our choices. Some of them were great and some not so great, but they were ours to make. And if they turned out to be not so great, we readjusted and reframed and began a new adventure. Or at least I hope you all did, because we sure did. Why be stuck when life is so fleeting?

I, personally, believe they’ll be back in a couple of years. After all…New Jersey. And in the meantime, how fortunate that in this day and age there’s Facetime and WhatsApp and convenient flights.

They’re a happy, successful, healthy couple with four amazing, funny, quirky, interesting, healthy kids. We’ve had them near us for five blessed years and, G-d willing, we’ll have them near us again one of these days.

So chin up, friends, no Tisha B’Av faces, please.

Like Father; Like Daughter

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I was looking for something in an old file the other day and came across a letter my father sent me 33 years ago. It was the day he found out that his cancer had returned and the prognosis was not good. In fact, within six months he would be dead.

When I showed it to my partner, he said that it looked exactly like something I might have written. The sentiment is mine, Even the language is mine. And it’s very 2024, even though it was written in 1991.

My Dad. What a special person. A complicated man. A man never quite at home with his emotions. Quick to smile; slow to hug. A very active inner life. A very active public life. But most often not emotionally present for those of us he shared a house with.

I like to think things would be different today.

So here’s that very special letter, with those very special thoughts, lessons for us all, from that very special man who was my father.

  It was an idyllic morning in sunny Sarasota.

  I stepped outside the hospital, blinking in the sunlight. The everyday sights and sounds were different; they were as never before. The deep blue sky, the gently moving leaves, the traffic flow, the people — all seen in a new light.

  I reflected on how casual I had been, before my traumatic experience, to such common phenomena and to so much else in life — indeed, to life itself. And so I resolved to spend wisely whatever of life was yet to be mine; not to squander it. For life, I saw with stark clarity, is an incalculable gift. It should be held close, made the most of, constantly enriched, and cherished.

  That is one half of the lesson I learned there, standing in the sun. There was another.

  The wondrous sunlight enveloping me, could I retain it? Could I keep that sun from setting? Had I tried to halt its slipping away, and inevitably failed, how frustrated and saddened I could have been. But if that were my reaction I’d have transformed the glorious moment into one of regret and sorrow.

  But it is not only the sunlight which must slip away. Our youth and our years, our senses and our lives, these must go also. And we must accept their inevitable departure; be ever ready to let go.

  That is the other half of the lesson.

  This, then, is the paradoxical conclusion. Hold fast, hold close the precious gift of life, but with arms so loose as to be ever ready to release it; with arms virtually open.

  Is this an impossible challenge? Physically, yes; mentally, emotionally, of course not. We do it repeatedly throughout our lives. We give away our hearts in love, and we have more heart to give. We wear out our minds in deep thought, and we have a better, sharper mind. We are smitten by pity for the deprived, and we are the stronger for it.

  The key word in the conclusion about life is ‘inevitability’.

  Aware that life must and will inevitably end, each of life’s moments becomes all the more cherishable. The sole unknowns are the when and the how; when and how these moments will end. The choice is between succumbing to fruitless agonizing — fear and dread of the when and how — or living those moments richly, fully, gratifyingly; savoring them and saying, in effect, “I’ll relish this as long as I may, and whenever it ends I’ll be grateful for having had it — and hope there are some others who will be grateful that I had it also.”

  I imagine nodding heads. It does seem logical. But is it unduly difficult to transfer from the thought process to one’s inner being? To transplant the idea into actual, living reality? To live by it?

  It is not difficult. We do it again and again in our daily lives.

  Look. We are enthralled by a spectacular sunset. We are immersed in passionate expression of our love. We are transported by a rapturous violin concerto. Do we destroy such moments by dwelling upon their transitory nature? Our minds tell us these moments will pass. We know it. But do we permit that knowledge to suck out our enjoyment? How infinitely sad that would be. And in truth, we don’t, do we?

  So it is, or so it should be, with life.

  Life, that wonder-filled possession, is ours to keep for a while. Think of it as the wise sage Bruriah, wife of the Tanna Rabbi Meir, did, as a divine loan. How wholesome, how sensible, to make the most of the temporary gift while accepting that one day, any day, it will be taken back; that one day, as in Joshua Leibman’s lovely Day in the Park fable, the Great Nurse will beckon, “It’s time to go home now.”

  And, so, hold life close, with open arms.

  Of course, I have had frequent occasions in my life to recognize life’s precious worth — in peak moments of joy, or when escaping serious dangers. And, of course, I have long known that being mortal, my life must end at some time. But my acceptance of both of these truths was tucked away inside me somewhere. They were concepts I did not question. They were “givens”. I was never challenged to affirm them. I was never tested. How, then, could I be certain? When the Angel of Death confronted me, how would I really react?

  I have been tested now.

  And I thank God that I found, find, myself in total accord with the balance; with the synthesis of holding life close and readiness to let it go — of holding life with open arms. And in cognizance that I really believe this, that it has penetrated my inner being, I am warmed, strengthened, grateful, at peace.

  For you who may read or hear this, I pray that you find the wisdom to enjoy life, to cherish it, to make the very most of it for yourself and for those with whom your life is entwined; to hold it close — all the while accepting its inevitable departure without fear, frustration, or dread; prepared to let it go.

  And if you do that, if you really make that belief your innermost conviction, you will be among the most fortunate of mortals. For you will not only rob death of its anticipatory fright, replacing that with inner peace, but your life will be enriched beyond measure.

Amran Prero, March 1991

Addendum: I was with my father for the last few days of his life. We watched television together, chatted about my kids and about Israel, and he told me about a series of dreams he had on the nights leading up to his death. He was calm, at peace, happy, and in good spirits. He laughed at Tom Selleck’s Magnum P.I. as usual, giving him a constant barrage of advice.

He truly held life close with open arms.

Whatever happens, I’m satisfied

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In Israel parents teach their children a saying very early on in life – Whatever happens, I’m satisfied. It rhymes in Hebrew and expresses a futile hope on the part of parents that it will nip complaining in the bud.

Pretty ironic since Israelis (and maybe Jews in general) are among the most, ahem, discerning (read critical, judgmental, complaining) people I’ve come across in my extensive travels. And I am one, so I’ve had plenty of experience.

On the positive side, perhaps that’s why we’re the start-up nation with more technological and medical innovation than any other place on earth. That squinting one-eyed gaze at everything around us and thinking…hmmm. I could do that better.

On the not-so-positive side, it’s a pain in the rear end to be so often surrounded by people who are almost never satisfied with the way things are. The food in the restaurant is never quite right even after an order reminiscent of Jack Nicolson in Five Easy Pieces (I’ll have omelette plain, with a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no butter, no lettuce, no mayonnaise, hold the chicken). The room temperature is too cold or too hot. The teacher doesn’t pay enough attention to my kid or singles her out for special (not good) treatment.

I wasn’t feeling great the other day. Stuffed up, headache, scratchy throat, didn’t sleep well. Here I am in southern India. Home of Ayurvedic medicine. Decided to get an Ayurvedic massage. For the uninitiated, this involves total nudity and more oil than a Mediterranean diet calls for in a lifetime.

The very sweet young woman spoke no English – zero – and my Malayalam is pretty rusty. There was absolutely no possibility of any request whatsoever. None of the usual massage direction – harder, softer, higher, lower. Nada.

As I lay there swimming in oil I thought THIS is the opportunity of a lifetime to fulfill that Israeli saying – Whatever happens, I’m satisfied.

I found thoughts popping up about how I might prefer this, that, or the other thing she was doing but they disappeared as quickly as they arose. They were irrelevant given our mutual lack of communication skills.

Ultimately, after she wiped off a lot of oil and I pulled my shift over my head – this not being my first rodeo I knew that less is more is the rule when committing to a Ayurvedic massage – I showered and crawled back into my stuffed up, scratchy throated, headachy nest and realized my headache was gone, my throat a bit less scratchy, and that prickly low grade fever feeling had disappeared.

I woke up this morning with more energy than the past couple of days. Had a peaceful, flexible hour on my yoga mat, and sat down to ponder the potential of “Whatever happens, I’m satisfied.” She knew what she was doing and any direction from me would have just gotten in the way.

It’s a continual conundrum in my mind. This contentment with what is versus the striving for improvement.

What do you think?

PS The above photo was taken from this very balcony three years ago. The most peaceful place on earth, Thumboly Beach


Here and Now in the Land of Polymyalgia Rheumatica

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Here are some things we all know:

Nothing lasts forever.

Attitude makes all the difference.

Sleep makes moving in the world possible.

Family, friends, and neighbors – love – make us stronger.

And, yet, sometimes when bad shit happens, we just want to curl up under a comfy duvet with a good book, ignore the phone, ignore all the things we know will make us feel better, and WALLOW. Does it make anything better? Nope. Does it at all change the bad shit? Unh unh. Not a bit. Do we know it’s counter-productive even at the very minute we’re doing it? Yep. But there it is. We’ve all been there.

So I’ve had an image of myself for a very long time. Maybe since I was seven years old. Dysfunctional family. I’m the youngest. Given/took on lots of responsibility from the age of seven. I’m not complaining. It was quite empowering. It was a process that has served me well all my life. And as I aged that image stuck with me. Healthier and more flexible than my cohorts. Quicker, more energetic, more adventurous. Sure, my body was creaky and achy in the morning, but it didn’t prevent me from doing all the stuff I wanted to do.

And then…Polymyalgia Rheumatica. Otherwise known as WAKE UP CALL.

One day teaching six yoga classes a week and driving all over tarnation to visit grandkids. The next day taking 20 minutes to get dressed using strategies that would make a contortionist proud. Legs didn’t lift on their own. Shoulders didn’t rotate on their own; or otherwise.And the pain? We won’t even go there.

Two weeks of that. Googling MS, ALS, and every other dire possibility. To be honest, I didn’t really wallow all that much. Scared myself silly but not a lot of wallowing. A few minutes every morning when I contemplated maneuvering myself out of bed. Sometimes in the middle of the night when the pain of turning over in bed woke me up.

But, here’s the thing. Not just writing a post to rehash the last one.

All those things above that we all know? They’re all true! And they add up to another thing we all know about – resilience. The capacity to recover from difficulties; the ability to spring back; elasticity.

After two weeks, I received a diagnosis and could take MS and ALS off the table (whew!). Uncertainty is such a basic and inevitable part of life, but sometimes it’s more challenging than others. Weird as it sounds, I made my peace with dire diagnoses and death during those two weeks. Glad I can pack them away for now but also glad to have done the work.

All my life I’ve been super careful about medications and medical interventions in general. Recreational drugs are one thing. Drugs that ruin your liver, lead to dialysis, or send you out into the streets looking for opioids are another. Aches and pains? One ibuprofen, maybe a couple of times a week. Torn meniscus? No surgery for me; I’ll treat it with yoga, thank you very much.

So here’s reality staring me in the face in the form of steroids. Steroids! Yikes – the boogeyman of medications. They eat away at your bones. Lead to mood swings. Water retention. Moon face. Can cause skyrocketing sugar levels.

On one side, all those side effects and a lifetime of avoiding medical intervention. On the other side decreased pain and increased mobility.

Not even close.

It won’t last forever. I’m relishing in every minute of walking, slowly, carefully, avoiding stairs, in the glorious autumn weather. Sure, the steroids make sleep elusive but on the 3rd night when I’m so exhausted that I actually sleep for 4 or 5 hours straight, wow!, living takes on a new meaning. I hired a cheerful, energetic cook, to free up my good hours for other things and happily peruse the refrigerator feeling like I live in a restaurant.

I can laugh at the list of 11 medical appointments coming up over the next 5 weeks. Hell, I can laugh at anything.

In Buddhist philosophy, there are lots and lots of lists. One of them is a list of five obstacles. The fifth is considered the most difficult. The fifth is doubt.

I spent a bunch of time during that first two weeks, and occasionally during the past week as well, standing, huffing and puffing, in front of that fifth obstacle. Taking deep breaths. Gauging its height. I gathered 20 years of dharma talks and yoga poses and psychology books, the love and support of family, friends, students, and neighbors, the lessons of my own strength and possibilities learned early in my dysfunctional home, the belief in the meaning of life and God’s plan, took a running leap and now find myself on the other side of doubt.

It’s a tricky disease, this Polymyalgia Rheumatic. Some people are on steroids for a year and wean off them and are fine – maybe an occasional flareup. Some people are on a low dose of steroids for years, or until they die (of something else).

I have good days and not-so-great days. I take advantage of all those things we know. I thank goddess for resilience. And I invite doubt for a nice Indian tea from time to time.

If you thought you knew…

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I thought I knew about aging. After all, I turned 60 a full decade ago. In kindness to my knees, I stopped teaching hip hop and aerobics. Took up yoga instead. Out of kindness to my brain, I became more selective about the books I read and the movies I see. Out of kindness to my heart, I stopped following the news. Out of awareness of the generation gap and changing society, I became more curious about how my grown children were making child-rearing and professional decisions and less opinionated about all that.

I thought my practice of acceptance of the aging process in so many areas was pretty admirable.

Aching knees, varying levels of lower back pain, a 15-year acquaintance with sleep problems, sight issues.

Check, check, check, and check – all accepted graciously.

I think of myself as an optimist but not disconnected from reality. I realize that sickness and death are inevitable. Looking around me at friends with cancer, MS, joint replacements, and a general decrease in energy, I sometimes wondered what awaited me…specifically.

But no more than the occasional and very brief thought.

And then over a period of a week my quadriceps decided to work at 25% capacity and provide unwelcome pain, my shoulders and collarbone joined the party, and my knees refused to be left out.

I went from 90% mobility to 20% mobility over that week. One morning it took me twenty minutes to get dressed. Pain moved in as a permanent body mate.

I felt and walked like a 90-year-old woman…and not a healthy one.

In the past ten days, I’ve seen my family doctor 3 times. I began a series of tests for everything imaginable. Being fortunate enough to live in a country with excellent national health insurance and health care, the bureaucracy is daunting but the availability and affordability are there.

I’ve gone through the process of learning to let go of activities I love like a ninja on steroids. I haven’t driven to visit with grandchildren or taught a yoga class in over a week. I haven’t met friends for coffee, shopping, or a museum visit, either. My walks have gone from 4 or 5 kilometers a day to 1 kilometer on a flat surface…on a good day. Cooking, which I love, has become the simplest preparation with the least standing time. And sometimes I leave the whole thing to my very supportive, caring husband.

I love to read, but when that’s pretty much the only thing I can do it gets old. I love to watch tv series, but I’ve discovered the limits of that, too. I’m super appreciative of my friends who drop by to chat, pick up a few things at the grocery store for me, or just check in to see how I’m doing.

I’m pretty careful about the meds I’m willing to use and how much. I’ve always been very stringent with things like ibuprofen and even simpler pain medications. My pain threshold is pretty high. I went from an ibuprofen or two a week, to one a day, to two a day, and then on to something stronger. Waking up to debilitating pain in so many joints and muscles every day has turned me into a junkie for the 3-7 hours of significantly decreased pain that a Naxyn 500 pill can give me.

My kids are great. They call. They listen. They’re supportive.

The hard truth of this thing, though, is that all of the wonderful people in my life give me a big morale boost and are very logistically helpful, and necessary, but ultimately pain is an individual experience.

Twenty years of meditation and learning Eastern philosophy have been helpful to me in so many areas of my life. And I’m finding that they get me through the occasional moments of deep feelings of loss – loss of mobility, loss of the activities I love, loss of comfort in my body – and allow my natural optimism to revive from occasional panic.

Exercising my deep, mindful breathing muscles and doing a lot of acceptance, living in the moment, and letting go. My ego gets in the way from time to time and the monkey chatter gets really loud, but so far I mostly can reach that sweet spot of equanimity.

Hopefully, we’ll get to the bottom of this. Find a diagnosis and management plan that works. Hopefully, I’ll be able to go back to some or all of the activities I love. Hopefully, we’ll still make that 4-month trip to India in late February.

Meanwhile, it’s been one of life’s toughest lessons yet and I’m grateful for all the many blessings in my life that are coming to my aid.

Loss and The Two Arrows

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There are a bunch of things that no one tells you about aging. Or maybe they tell you but it goes in one ear and out the other. Not relevant. Things that register in the way the laws of physics register – ya da ya da ya da.

As I turned 60 and even more after 65, I became aware of the physical aches and pains that go along with aging and, in my case, are the price for having jumped and danced around and, taking advice from The Eagles, taken my body to the limits for decades. I remember an orthopedist once telling me to keep teaching hip hop, hiking, and doing whatever I loved because ultimately even sedentary people have joint aches and pains…but they have a lot less fun getting there. I totally agree. Even on the mornings that my knees wake me up with a call for help.

It’s some of the other things about aging that I never gave much thought to (or any).

  • finding conversations of people under 40 uninteresting
  • having read every permutation of book and movie plots ad nauseam
  • being cold (or hot) when no one else is
  • losing friends to illness, lack of mobility, or death
  • aging differently from significant people in my life

YIKES!!

It turns out that an inevitable part of aging is loss and grieving for those losses. Big losses and small losses. And some losses are harder than others; not necessarily the “big” ones.

We all do it differently. And it all looks different on other people.

I remember having no regrets at 50. Ha!

I remember letting go of hip hop and aerobics in the blink of an eye. Didn’t seem like fun anymore. Traded my spandex for yoga pants happily.

I remember not even entertaining the notion of a sedentary life requiring programmed exercise. Counting steps? Furthest thing from my mind.

I remember a time when illness and death weren’t even a tiny part of my thoughts.

I’d read about (other, much older) people complaining that many of their friends had fallen by the wayside one way or the other. I’d heard them extolling the virtues of cultivating younger friends to combat loneliness. Scroll up – in one ear and out the other.

My partner “lost” his mother 10 days ago. My mother-in-law died. She wasn’t a nice person. Not a good mother. A narcissist. She was lively and charismatic and loved to be the center of attraction, but her children and friends paid a heavy price. She had dementia for the last five of her 93 years and didn’t recognize my partner or his sister who, in spite of a complicated and challenging relationship, made sure her last years were comfortable. If emotions were rational, no one would mourn her death. But if emotions were rational they wouldn’t be called emotions.

emotion – derived from the Latin term emovere;

to agitate or stir up. The affective aspect of consciousness

My parents are both long gone. My father died thirty years ago and my mother about twenty. Fortunately for me, I made my peace with both of them while they were alive. They weren’t partners in the process, but the possibility of relating to them with equanimity in life was a blessing.

My partner wasn’t so fortunate.

Watching his mourning process has been thought-provoking and, yes, emotional. A loss of innocence. A loss of possibility. A loss of the luxury of avoidance. A recognition of the loss of reconciliation. A loss of the comforting delusion of immortality.

My mother had bi-polar disorder. The shadow of her disease lurked everywhere. Sometimes it blotted out all joy and normalcy; sometimes it was a vague and disquieting sadness in our house. It was always a sense of waiting for the other shoe to fall. I was entrusted with her care from a very young age. I gained confidence and self-esteem that’s served me well throughout my life. I also harbored resentment and fear of chaos in the world.

I used to imagine myself a very small figure, wrapping my arms around my knees, head bowed, before a huge Mr. Clean-type genie, rising out of a magic Aladdin’s lamp, arms folded, scowling down on me. I didn’t understand the image or why it recurred so consistently and persistently throughout my life.

Imagine him with a turban, beard, and ferocious expression

The image vanished, never to return again, once I worked through my relationship with my mother. It was a loss I recognized with gratitude. I forgave my mother, without her permission, and realized one day that I felt a loving, empathetic sadness for her; a brilliant woman whose life was taken from her by a crippling disease no one understood at the time. A tragic loss. No second chances.

Not so with my mother-in-law.

The frightening image my partner has of her is his to tell, not mine, but he has one no less frightening than mine.

It’s difficult to accept that a person can be unkind, cruel, and totally lacking in compassion. How much more so when it’s your parent; the person entrusted with your care, emotional and physical? It’s tempting – no, imperative – to search for an underlying reason to shed a more sympathetic light on such a parent.

He searched. We searched. The round of reasons we tried to fit into the square peg bulged and defied imagination.

Ultimately, the physical loss of his mother grew into the loss of innocence. The first kind of loss is met with a simple grief. She was, after all, turning 93 two weeks later and hadn’t been herself for years. The second kind of loss is far deeper and creates a grief that is painful at any age, but magnified at 70, after so many years of pretending, ignoring, excusing, and hoping.

Two of our sons were at their grandmother’s funeral to support my partner and express their respect for family ties. When I talked to our older son before he left to meet us at the airport, he asked how his father was doing. I explained that he had many unresolved issues with his mother and now they’d never be resolved. I added how important it is to confront unfinished business with a parent in life. Hint, hint. (He moved on.)

There’s a lot of loss involved in aging. Loss of a parent. Loss of freedom from pain. Loss of mobility. Loss of long term friends. Loss of mental acuity. Loss of hearing. (Shall I go on?)

A Buddhist parable addresses the problem of suffering. It describes the two arrows in every difficult situation in life. The first is the arrow of pain, in this case loss, and the second is the arrow of suffering. The first is inevitable but the second is optional. It’s the arrow we shoot into our own hearts with our reaction to the inevitable losses that come with aging.

So many circumstances are beyond our control. My mother’s disease; my mother-in-law’s nature.

We can only prepare ourselves by nurturing our souls. By taking a deep dive into ourselves and becoming familiar with the particles of a higher power which exist inside each of us. By honing our ear to hear the pure voice of equanimity which resides there.

Many years ago I weighed the option of starting a hospice center. I had a conversation with the man who created a small hospice center in Jerusalem. At the time he was in his early 80’s. He exuded empathy and kindness. We spoke after I took a tour of the center with a staff member. I was surprised to see that each of the rooms had two residents. I asked the founder of the center if it was disturbing for the residents to witness the death of their roommate. His answer equally surprised me. He said that with the work done with the residents, every death since the center’s inception had been peaceful, and inspired serenity in those who witnessed it.

Choosing equanimity isn’t a one shot deal, and it’s not easy. It takes diligence and practice and work. Committing ourselves to the effort doesn’t ensure total success, or success every time. But to quote a poet by whom many of our lives have been enriched, Mary Oliver,

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

India to Israel: Corona Again

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For those of you who read my last post – yes, we made it home – by hook or by crook and by the hair on our chiny chin chins.

For those of you who remember the days when people used to kiss the tarmac when they arrived in Israel – for security reasons it’s no longer possible, but the feeling was certainly there for us on March 19, in these times of Corona.

We spent 27 hours getting home from India on Ethiopian Airlines and didn’t even grumble about it. Seventeen hours in Addis Ababa? No complaints. A long line in the airport (several times) to have our temperature taken? That’s fine, thank you. Rowdy passengers (my partner calls them ‘enthusiastic’) unrestrained by the crew? Peachy.

The main thing was to get out of India and back home.

Things changed literally from every morning to every evening and then again the next morning. Prime Minister Mod’i, like many of the world’s leaders, proclaimed increasing restrictions from announcement to announcement, the difference being that he is responsible for 1.5 billion people – 17% of the population of the world! A critical mistake on his part could very well mean millions of Corona deaths; maybe tens of millions.

Within days all pending visas were canceled, and India closed its borders to foreigners. Within twelve days the skies were closed – no flights in or out.



One by one, the 29 states in India began closing their borders to foreigners. After that, one by one, they began requiring all foreigners present within each state to leave.

Cab drivers began to refuse foreigners. Guest houses did as well. The railway system shut down. Over a period of 10 days, intercity buses were canceled. Foreigners asked to leave their lodgings had limited options for travel elsewhere. Some began sleeping in the streets.

Within ten days Mod’i enforced a one day lockdown from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Four days later he proclaimed a nationwide lockdown…period. Anyone who’s experience the open market in Delhi or the crowded streets in Mumbai can imagine how eerie a sight that was.

By March 25th all domestic flights were canceled.

The Israeli embassy started organizing private buses to transport stranded Israeli citizens to Delhi and Mumbai to be close to an international airport for extraction.

In Israel, the restrictions of movement are barely enforced. In India, the police canvassed the streets beating non-complaint people with sticks.

We reserved flights with 5 airlines. They began canceling the day before take-off until we were left with Aeroflot and Ethiopian Air. We chose Ethiopian because Europe seemed unreliable with Russia announcing the closing of its borders for the day of our flight. After trying to get confirmation that our flight would still fly, calling Aeroflot offices in Israel, India, and Russia – including a conference call with a friend in Israel, me in India, my friend’s sister-in-law in Russia, and an Aeroflot agent in Moscow – the confirmation was still shaky.

We arrived in Israel at 3 a.m. Two friends had left one of our cars in the airport parking lot (one drove his own car to return both of them back home). No one spoke to us at the airport. No one asked us any questions or took our temperature. No one asked how we planned on getting home even though we were officially in quarantine once we touched down on Israeli land.

Go figure.

  • Home Again

Our friends in Israel stocked our fridge and freezer. They decorated our home with welcome home posters. We even had daily visits with several of them on our back porch – six meters from us and on their own chairs. Friends are the best! We found out later than one of them called one of our children to enlist her aid in convincing us to leave India.

My Corona symptoms disappeared once I’d spent a few hours in my own home.

Friends we made in India were in touch with us – some more than once. They were all in lockdown but doing fine. Of course, none of our Indian friends are homeless or live in slums with collective toilets and corrugated roofs. They expressed happiness that we made it home, and, interestingly, appreciation for our sensitivity to India’s needs by leaving them to cope with Corona on their own.

We can’t go out for another eight days, not even to a pharmacy or grocery store, or to get exercise within 100 meters of our house, like others can do. But we’re fortunate in so many ways – first and foremost that we are healthy, and our children and grandchildren are healthy – and then:

  • We spent five months together in India and became even closer so that being together in our home with very limited contact with the outside world is not at all a hardship
  • We have a spacious house and even a yoga studio
  • We have a comfortable back porch with a large, lovely backyard
  • We live in a community where the youth are happy to help and have organized to do shopping and bring it to people’s homes
  • We have neighbors who pick up our garbage from the end of our front walk to throw it away.
  • We have enough income to survive these crazy times if we budget ourselves properly

Of course, we worry along with the rest of the world, listening to the horrific statistics of deaths and illness. Personally, I keep busy with yoga, meditation, reading and binging on tv series. All day I have a Pollyanna-ish feeling that all will be well soon, only to be brought down to earth when I listen to the evening news.

We check in with our children and grandchildren, with our friends and our siblings when the level of worry rises too high.

And we pray, along with other inhabitants of our beautiful earth, that we’ll emerge on the other side of this crisis more grateful for our lives and our many blessings, and with renewed commitment to ease the friction, poverty, and distress in the world.

If nothing else has taught us how interconnected we are, surely the map of COVID-19’s progress throughout the world is proof.

Is There a Spiritual-Material Spectrum?

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Rishikesh is one of seven holy cities, Sapta Puri, in India. Aside from being alcohol-free and vegetarian, the city is a spiritual center, pilgrimage location, yoga and meditation center, and home to many Sadhus.

A Sadhu is a religious ascetic who has renounced the worldly life. He often lives on the street, with only the essential belongings for survival – his clothing, turban, towel, sandals, and beggar’s bowl. He is dependent upon the good will of others to provide him with enough money to buy sustenance-level nourishment each day.

On my way to yoga in the morning, after crossing the Ram suspension bridge, which is blessedly motorcycle-free at that time of day, I meet only cows, dogs, and Sadhus, all waking up after a night spent outside.

Sadus may be said to be at one side of the spirituality-materialism spectrum. As I wait for my sweet yoga teacher, Gagan, to arrive on his motorcycle, sharing the pergola which overlooks the Ganges with the same Sadu each time, I can often hear a passing Sadu chanting quietly or not at all quietly.

“Ram. Ram. Ram. Ram. Ram. Ram. Ram.”

Though they’ve renounced family, home and worldly endeavors and accoutrements, I’ve noticed that they tend to hang out in twos, threes, and fours – a social group of sorts – and they gather their few belongings safely around them or cover them with a tarp on a nearby bench. Some take advantage of government incentives and work at ashrams where they receive food and shelter in return.

As my yogi says, human nature is one of collecting: things, acclaim, friends, knowledge, money. Another distinction between other animals and the human animal.

We ate dinner with a group of 20 strangers in Delhi not too long ago. Nice people. Friendly. As travelers are wont to do, people spoke freely about their lives, philosophies, travels, and families. The two men who sat closest to us got into a long conversation (with my partner) about their various, and, it turns out, multitude of real estate investments all over the world. The ones they sometimes live in, the travails of having renters, the value and tax issues of different locations.

Neither was Bill Gates but neither was a Sadu either.

We’ve been in India for over three months now. It’s a long time to be out of mainstream living. With each day that our work commitments, family and friend socializing, and community presence gets further away, our bonding to each other and our investigation of personal values and beliefs becomes more intriguing. There’s more time spent observing, thinking, integrating and softening.

It could be that the inherent nature of India is friendlier and more conducive to this transformative process. It could be that an extended period of free time would create the possibility of this process anywhere.

In India specifically, as we travel, meeting other travelers, shopkeepers, restaurant and guesthouse staff, yoga practitioners, musicians, and language teachers, we can’t help but observe their everyday life and that of passersby. Some of them become a regular part of our day for the week, two or three that we are in their vicinity. We seem to be seeing the spirituality-materialism spectrum in real time.

Spirituality is in the air.

From JP, the owner of our guesthouse near Munnar, who gets up at 4 am each morning for 20 minutes of yoga, to the shopkeeper in Rishikesh who closes his shop at 10 pm, bends down 3 times to kiss the step in front of his shop door, touches the doorframe and then his forehead before getting on his motorcycle to head home, to the clearly well-to-do middle-aged Indian couple who travel to The Ganges to dip themselves in holy water annually, to my lovely harmonium teacher who has a smile for the pesky monkey who pushes open her door when she shakes her head in that ubiquitous, multi-meaning Indian wag and says “He, too, is one of the gods’ creations.”


The human nature of collecting is evident, too.

The same people mentioned above charge money for their goods and services. In general, they unabashedly charge foreigners more – sometimes shocking attempts to charge 10 times more. A Sadu might complain about a donation of 10 rupee (“But a chapati costs 20!”). One South Indian man we befriended had a candid conversation with us about his constant efforts to accumulate more wealth. The yogi with whom I practiced four years ago didn’t charge money (he reluctantly accepted my ‘donation’ of $75 for 10 classes) and this time made his charges clear before we began (less than $6/class).

So where does each of us choose to be on this spirituality-materialism spectrum?

Does being a Sadu, at one side of the spectrum, preclude a bit of materialism? Does being Jeff Bezos preclude a smidgen of spirituality? (btw, did you know that there is not one woman on the list of the top ten richest people in the world?)

Gagan believes that it’s easier for those who have wealth to take on spirituality. Perhaps this originates from his vantage point as a Sikh yogi whose path of relative poverty and practice was inherited, clear from the age of 10. Perhaps he envisions those who have large bank accounts as having the luxury and ease to choose to invest time in introspection and seeking spirituality.

It seems to me, from my vantage point of never having had to concern myself with the possible absence of my next meal or a roof over my head, that it’s easier for those who have not been educated to chase ever-improving material circumstances to take on spirituality.

Clearly Gagan and I bring different life experiences to our sense of things.

Seane Corn is one of the most famous (and wealthiest) yoga teachers in the world. Her net assets are reported to be over 20 million dollars. Not anywhere near Bill Gates’ estimated 100 billion dollars, but still not too shabby. While her exhibition-type, extreme style of yoga is not my cup of tea (maybe I just wish I could have her flexibility), I’ve admired her for years for her tireless work for altruistic causes. Her organization, Off the Mat into the World, offers yoga practitioners the opportunity to volunteer to build community centers in Africa, train young people to teach yoga and meditation in their villages and towns, and offer online courses for leadership initiative. A vegan, Seane teaches 250 days out of the year, and, when not teaching, calls a tiny yurt in Southern California home.

Miriam (not her real name) is a talented artist, living in a rural area of Israel. Her husband of 25 years is most often in the US where he teaches religious studies in a small community where there would be no religious learning if he didn’t offer it. They have little in the way of material wealth, other than the modest, heavily-mortgaged home Miriam lives in, and, sadly, have no children. Their daily lives are committed primarily to the deepening of their spiritual lives and sharing what they believe are their God-given talents – painting and teaching. Miriam offers half-day and full day retreats for women, providing spiritual, artistic and nutritional nourishment, charging on a sliding scale according to means. Her walls are covered with her beautiful original works, into which one can gaze, imbued with Kabbalist and/or personal spirituality.

(not Miriam’s work)

Most of us are neither Seane Corn nor Miriam. We’re neither millionaires nor Sadhus. Some of us may not give a second’s thought to spirituality or ethical behavior or the meaning of life; others may think about it fleetingly or in depth once a week, or at random times.
All that stuff has been in my thoughts for as long as I can remember. Sometimes it led me to political activism, sometimes to volunteer work, sometimes to prayer, sometimes to regrets, sometimes to books, sometimes to an open heart.
I’ve been blessed with 3 months of unrestricted time, a partner who’s happy to listen to and share philosophical thoughts, and surroundings that welcome it all.

We live in an age of moral subjectivism, relative realities, political correctness – some may be tempted to call it an age of wishy-washiness. We hear that there’s no objective right or wrong, better or worse, too much or not enough. It’s all what you choose for yourself. The glorification of the individual, regardless of…well, pretty much anything.

But, hand on heart, don’t we all actually know what having enough looks like? I’m guessing it doesn’t resemble Jay Leno’s collection of cars or Imelda Marcos’s shoe closet. It most probably isn’t even reflected in most American’s refrigerators or leisure time.
I’m a member of a FaceBook group of people traveling in India. Recently there was a post about whether or not to tip in India, and how much. Some of the responses were eye-openers. From ‘Indians don’t tip.’ to ‘It’s good enough to round up.’ to ‘They earn so little that 10 rupee significantly increases their income.’ (10 rupee is the equivalent of 15 cents)
Seriously, guys!?
Then there’s the feeling that we’re too busy to walk the breast cancer marathon or visit the aunt who’s broken her hip or volunteer at the literacy group downtown.

We each choose our own path, even though sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. We have internal voices that may sound a lot like one of our parents, our seventh grade teacher, our partner, our eighteen-year-old self, our rabbi, our neighbor, or all of those people and others besides. Voices that narrow our choices to, well, theirs. Or what they wish they’d chosen.

Confusing…and noisy. Hard to hear our own internal voice with all that racket going on.

Gagan shared his own belief about all this choosing, whether it’s about spirituality, materialism, or how much time to look at a screen of some sort. If you never regret your choice, your choice is good. (I wish you could see his expression and hear his voice as he says that.)

When I pushed him…what about an addict who ends up dying from his addiction?

The answer – If the addict dies with no regrets, then the choice is good.

Say whaaaat!?

That’s going too far for me, but I get it when he elaborates and adds that trying to guide someone else’s path is like trying to steer a passing car. Unless the driver pulls over, stops, and asks for directions, your shouts will just make you hoarse.

I’ve spent many hours perfecting work and making deadline only to find that the client didn’t bother to provide necessary material – and didn’t care. I’ve spent money and time fulfilling a promise that the person on the receiving end, it turned out, didn’t value much, or may have even forgotten. I’ve worried about people’s “wrong” decisions that turned out not to be so disastrous in the long run, or even had their positive aspects.

So if I believe people are happier with spirituality in their lives, authenticity, or altruism, or other people, I choose to resign as one of those internal voices that points it out.

I’ve chosen to integrate those attributes into my life and to respect your right to choose to integrate some, all or none of them into yours.

No regrets.



Let Them Drink Tea

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Yesterday was a travel day. Yep, we ventured out of our little piece of heaven. Traveled forty minutes on the sometimes barely existent road in a tuk-tuk to Munnar – the big city in these parts – town of 38,000 inhabitants.

 

Our plan for the day was to check out Munnar and then go on a TripAdvisor tour called The Tea Trail which included a visit to the Lockheart Tea Museum and Tea Factory as well as a visit with the tea pluckers as they’re called, and the chance to pluck some tea and follow it through until it turned into a cup of tea. We should’ve been suspicious right away since, the tea process being what it is, there’s no way our freshly picked tea leaves could turn into a cup of tea within an hour.

But all in good time.

The twisty, uphill road into Munnar, aside from being narrow and deeply rutted at least half the time, was breathtaking not only because of the near-collisions but also the fantastic views of the tea, which grows all over the place in extremely well-ordered glory, under a dramatic sky with clouds wisping around and in front of mountain peaks.

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And then, suddenly, and for no apparent reason, there was this.

 

Why carrots? Who knows. But they were incredibly fresh and their color was the brightest I’ve ever seen. Tempting to buy but we had nothing imaginable to do with them so we sadly gave them a pass.

After a discussion about our finances just days ago, we’d decided to be more cautious with our spending (read“my” for “our” and “I” for “we”). But within minutes I’d bought handmade chocolates for one sister’s upcoming birthday and a mini-kurta and smaller box of chocolates for the other. This necessitated our third post office experience – the oddest and funniest yet. But that will appear in a much later post with tips for the traveler to India.

There’s a saying that everyone you meet is your teacher. Way back in Mumbai we had a young man guide us through the Mumbai markets. He was sweet  but not much of a guide. We didn’t learn anything about Mumbai markets but we did learn little tips for getting along in India. One of the most useful of his instructions concerned bargaining – always start with an offer of 1/3 the asking price. Sounds insulting but it’s right on the mark. You get a feeling when the seller is finished and really won’t go lower. The final price will be 1/2 to 2/3 of the original price and everyone will be happy.

Our tuk-tuk driver from Munnar to the pick-up point for the tour started at 300 rupee ($4) and ended up taking us for 200. It was a 25-minute drive similar to the one from Ayursakthi Riverdale to Munnar – bumpy, with hairpin turns. He dropped us off at 14:10 for our 14:30 tour. It was a beautiful location overlooking the tea fields. We’d brought warmer clothes so the chilly mountain air didn’t lessen our enjoyment of the luscious green surrounding us.

At 14:40 there was still no sign of our guide/car and TripAdvisor wasn’t answering emails so we began walking the 500 meters downhill to the Lockheart Tea Museum through the enchanting (enchanted?) Eucalyptus tree forest.

My partner’s knee had started giving him grief in the morning. Downhill aggravated his discomfort more than uphill. He’s very fit – a gym fanatic – and definitely not a complainer, but at some point I waved down a tuk-tuk to take us the rest of the way, fuming at TripAdvisor and planning my scathing review of the tour we’d paid for.

At the museum and factory there was still no sign of TripAdvisor other than their stickers all over the place. The cashier spoke no English but the word TripAdvisor gained us free entry. We bumbled along on our own in the amusing museum with its silly relics – like ‘an English bathtub’ and a rusty old iron – and fascinating photos. Once again we found ourselves wondering about British rule. Every photo showed a work crew or social group with at least 15 Indians to every Brit. How in the world did they control India for 300 years?

As we sat at a picnic bunch overlooking the plantation, pondering the lovely view, TripAdvisor and other questions, a woman came running over and asked if we were with the French group. We said ‘no’ and once again tried to explain that we were a TripAdvisor ‘group’. She turned a puzzled face to ours.

No  French. No TripAdvisor. No worries. She herded us to the factory entrance where a pleasant man with excellent English said he’d been told we’d arrive at 10 (Eureka!), which was later corrected to 13:00, but happily agreed to guide us through the factory if we would just put on little blue crime-scene booties.

The tour was very interesting. Who knew?

Turns out that all tea – black, green, and white – (white?!) – Orange Pekoe, Earl Gray and Chai – is made from the same tea plants. Black tea is made from the lower leaves, green tea from the top two leaves only, and white from the lone bud between the top two leaves.

Black tea is more processed, going through three drying stages, one of which lasts either 30, 60 or 90 minutes, a heating process, and one of three grinding options. Green tea is processed far less and white tea is barely processed at all.

Black tea is ground fine, finer or even finer, while green and white tea are not ground at all.

Finally, the death blow to my teabag drinking days, we saw that black tea, in its final stages, is separated out by color-sensitive  cameras into leaves, stems and fiber. Some tea is packaged with only tea leaves while other are packaged with a mixture of leaves, stems and fibers. It’s the second kind that goes into teabags.

Ugh!

The stems have no flavor but add color. The fiber adds bulk. The first is labeled ‘Orthodox’ tea and the second is ‘CTC’ tea. I never noticed that on boxes of tea but I’ll be looking for it.

When we had a tea tasting experience at the end of our tour we could definitely discern the difference. The CTC tea had a very  bitter aftertaste and the taste in general was less pleasing. Sadly, the white tea, which is coveted, has the most health benefits, and is very expensive, was flavorless. 

On to the fields where we were too late to meet the all-female tea pluckers. Yes, that’s what they’re called, though it may be a translation from some other language.

Turns out you have to arrive by 13:00 to actually meet those plucky women who are paid the equivalent of $5.65/day to pick 27 kilo of black tea with machines or 400 grams of green or white tea by hand. Pick less than 27 kilo and the per kilo rate drops. Oddly enough, a lower per kilo rate is paid for every kilo over 27, also. Go figure.

Pluckers who are permanent employees are given free lodging but we couldn’t figure out why some workers are eligible while others are not.

22.4 million tons of tea are bought annually in the world. That’s one heckuva lot of tea. China is first in the world of tea production with India a solid second and many other countries, like Sri Lanka, trailing behind.

The Lockheart Tea Factory sells tea to Twinings, Tetley and other tea brands. We might be able to see their export name, Harrison, on some boxes. I’ll be looking for that, too.

The lovely woman who accompanied us in the tea fields lives seven kilometers from the factory. She takes a short cut through the forest, which reminded us of the children we saw in Peru walking home from school up into the mountains. She laughed when we exclaimed at her daily journey saying that she’s still fat. While I found her pleasingly rounded, I wouldn’t have called her fat. Indians don’t find that a derogatory term, though, and use it freely about themselves and others. 

She kindly arranged a tuk-tuk to come get us, realizing that my partner’s knee was bothering him. She negotiated a price and we were off. The young driver was truly a maniac on the road, even more than usual, but we negotiated with his sweet brother (picked up along the way) a good price to wait for us while we ate dinner and then drive us back to Ayursakthi Riverdale.

Weighed our options ⚖️ – possible death on the road, good price, possibility that none of the other many many tuk-tuk drivers would be willing to risk life and limb on that road at night – and confirmed the deal.

He took us to a pure veg restaurant where we had what was very possibly our best meal yet. Manchurian Mushroom, Green Pea Masala, Coconut Rice, Garlic Naan, Coffee and the best Masala Chai I’ve had so far – all for a total of about $6.50. Our dinner was served on big banana leaves.

No forks in sight.

Indians eat with their hands – actually one hand;their right – which is why only foreign tourists get forks in many restaurants and why there’s a sink or two in the restaurant. Washing one’s right hand is essential after the meal. Before the meal is optional.

Some foreign tourists emulate the eating with the hands thing. I have to admit, I don’t get it. Adopting customs that are pretty, like wearing a kurta, or practical, like the Indian version of the bidet, is nice. Using a banana leaf instead of a plate is genius. Roll it up & throw it out after dinner. No dishes to wash! But foregoing forks? Really? A bit silly, imo.

Lessons learned from our Munnar Tea Outing:

1. It only takes 3 minutes to steep tea leaves and is well worth the wait.

2. The Lockheart tea trail tour is great! Do it! But it’s done just fine without the commission  to TripAdvisor and the added hassle of trying to hook up with them. Go on Monday – the only day the manual plucking of green and white tea is done. Get there before 13;00.

3. Pure veg restaurants probably prepare better veg meals than restaurants that provide veg and non-veg options.

4. Locals know the better restaurant choices. Ask them.

But what about the family?

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This trip started out as one of those ‘round the world’ tickets where you have to keep traveling in one direction – east or west – and can’t cross any specific ocean more than once. I must’ve played with that planning tool on the Star Alliance site for twenty hours or more over the course of several months.

Tel Aviv – St. Petersburg – Mumbai – all over India – China – Bora Bora – Alaska – Oregon Coast – California – Salt Lake City – Mount Rushmore – The Badlands – New Mexico – San Antonio – Fort Lauderdale – New York City – Toronto – The Bay of Fundy/Nova Scotia – Iceland – Tel Aviv

Juggling weather, direction, time.

How much is too ambitious? Australia, yes or no?

Should we rent an RV to travel around the US? A car with motel stays? Flights for the long bits?

But then the time came to make real decisions like renting out the house for the year and what to do with my yoga studio and my husband started hemming and hawing. There were hesitant chords of concern about leaving our lives for so long. I tried to ignore them. Gloss over them. Treat them like background noise.

A year. Twelve months.

I had to admit to myself that it was sounding like a really REALLY long time to me, too.

The house wasn’t the problem. Neither was the studio. Though I love both.

It was the kids, the grandkids, and the friends who have become no less our family in the 30+ years that we’ve shared a life.

So twelve months became ten months became six months and here we are with the second month of our six-month trip drawing to a close.

In this technological era, it’s pretty easy to keep in touch with people. We share our amazing surroundings and the interesting people who inhabit them with a WhatsApp group for our English-speaking friends daily. We post on FaceBook for our Hebrew-speaking friends or send separate WhatsApps or emails. We send messages to our family WhatsApp group, too, and keep in touch with them with video WhatsApp weekly when we can find a strong enough WiFi connection, or with audio WhatsApp when we can’t.

We spoke with our youngest son and his wife yesterday from an isolated snack food kiosk in the jungle as they drove home from an office party in Silicon Valley, California.

We remember the days, not too long ago, when we sat in Internet Cafes, paying for the internet per minute and waiting endlessly for the atrociously weak and slow connection. Then there was Ko Mak, an island in Thailand, where we had to hike an hour to the other side of the island daily for the only internet connection because I had left Israel in the middle of interviewing candidates for a position and had to go over resumes.

Earlier there just was no internet – impossible for our grandchildren to envision – so we made the occasional phone call when we could.

It seems that most of the important people in our lives are healthy and major crisis-free so far during this trip.

Before we left we knew that one friend was scheduled to have a small, probably cancerous, tumor removed from her kidney, and after we left we received the good news that all had gone well with her surgery.

One granddaughter had an ugly eye infection that seemed to linger endlessly. Endlessly finally came to an end after way too long a time for my taste. Her swollen-closed eye then returned to normal.

The worst of it so far has been a shocking but benign head tumor with sudden, unexpected, surgery that’s meant weeks of rehab for a neighbor who’s like a younger sister to me. That was a tough one because I knew that my presence could’ve been important for her morale, but, thankfully, her recovery seems to be going well.

Life is full of surprises – big and small; pleasant, unpleasant and neutral – and they don’t cease when we’re far away from our usual haunts.

So here’s the deal.

Relationships with people are one of the most important ingredients in the tasty soup of life. There’s our relationship with ourselves; our inner world. The one we take with us wherever we go, whether it’s to the living room or to India. Then there are all the others.

The ones we choose; the ones we’re born into; the ones we birth; the ones we marry into; the ones we grow into because of circumstances; the ones who are part of the landscape of our lives.

There are even relationships we’re semi-unaware of until they’re brought to our attention.

There are close relationships and casual relationships. There are close relationships that become casual sometimes and casual relationships that become close at others.

There are relationships that take us by surprise and relationships like old slippers – comfy and constant.

But there’s one reality of important relationships that my husband has pointed out to me many times – they have a past, a present and a future. If one of those elements is missing, the relationship is a like the one with that second grade teacher you had in elementary school. She may have been one of the most significant people in your life when your were seven but she’s only a fond memory today.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a relentless technological freak. I love the newest, the most creative, the most surprising new concept, gadget or app. I’m that person that buys the out-of-the-box FaceBook solution for neck tension and was one of the first to contract out administrative projects to freelancers online fifteen years ago. I never give up communicating with people in the Mayalayam spoken and written on my translation app in spite of dozens of puzzled expressions. I trust Uber and Waze and UpWork.

I prefer email and WhatsApp to phone calls or personal business meetings. If you WhatsApp me, chances are you’ll get an immediate reply sixteen or seventeen hours out of twenty-four, even from the tropical jungle of Kerala.

And yet.

I’ve learned to embrace another reality about relationships.

The important ones cannot, ultimately, be sustained with technology. They can be maintained temporarily in a loving electronic space when watered sufficiently – pardon the mixed metaphor – but they will eventually rise from the lower berth to the 3rd tier berth of relationships and become your second grade teacher.

It’s true of best friends, of sisters, of kids, and probably most of all of grandkids, who have the disadvantage of being too young to have solidified any relationship enough to withstand the loss of perpetual physical proximity.

I love to travel. Someday I may not be able, physically, to climb into a train berth or even get on a plane to travel to another exotic location, but I’m guessing I’ll become an armchair traveler. Meanwhile, I look forward to the next four months in India, a week in Greece with my daughter and granddaughter in July, and am already planning to rent a little place for three months in Guatemala next winter.

But I won’t be fiddling with that ‘round the world’ Star Alliance again in anticipation of a year of travel. I have a feeling that I won’t even be looking at six months again. I’m so happy that we grabbed the opportunity to take this incredible journey. I’m seriously enjoying every single day.

While I tend to feel ageless, I am aging. But that’s not the thing. It’s not fun to do many things I used to have fun doing but I’ve barely noticed that I’ve stopped doing them. I’ve moved on to things I may have once thought slow or unexciting and get a huge kick out them now.

The thing is that all the people I love are aging. Yep, even Alex, our youngest grandchild. And certainly our family-like-friends who have almost seventy years on her.

I want to be IN those important relationships. I don’t want a single one of them to become my second grade teacher and I don’t want to be theirs.

I’m so grateful that I’ve birthed, married into, grown into, chosen, and been brought by circumstances into relationships with multi-faceted, quirky, wonderful people whom I love and, wonder of wonders, love me back.

One of the best things about my life is that I’m fortunate enough to live in time that I can nourish both my love of travel and my love of relationship, if I can only remember to balance them and adjust to the times. After all, I could’ve been born under a bridge in Mumbai.

Happy Monday to all from 20 kilometers from the middle of nowhere.