It\u2019s been almost twenty years since I finished high school, and yet, no matter what, on the night before school starts I get filled with anxiety. I can\u2019t sleep, I wander around the house like a restless spirit, full of worries that only grow stronger\u2014especially now, because it\u2019s not about me anymore, but about my children.<\/p>\n\n
So tonight, in an attempt to calm myself, I decided to invite a few important women to a special party.<\/p>\n\n
The first to arrive, singing a funny gibberish song from Gevatron, was Liora, my homeroom teacher in second and third grade. Liora is smiling, loves to sing and also to draw. She paints on the classroom boards a special kind of creature, a bit like the mysterious “Alfi” but not quite\u2014something original. And she has such a sharp handwriting; I have no idea how she manages to write each letter exactly the same every time.<\/p>\n\n
At the end of the year, she made us pocket albums with pictures from various events. I especially loved one photo where I look sad, because just before it was taken one of the kids accidentally stabbed me in the leg with a pencil. The tip might still be in my leg. And yet I love that picture\u2014the expression on my face is very familiar to me.<\/p>\n\n
At Purim, which we celebrated in third grade during the Gulf War, Liora brought face paints to the classroom, ones I had never seen before. I painted the map of Israel on my entire face, divided into alert zones, which were then marked with letters. Minutes after I finished, the alarm sounded. We ran for our gas masks. I remember how calm Liora was while helping me put the mask on so it wouldn\u2019t ruin the face painting. Even I didn\u2019t care anymore\u2014I was terribly scared. How much I regretted Israel, suffocating and sweating inside the mask, and how much I admired Liora\u2019s desire to protect it.<\/p>\n\n
Later, when we no longer studied at school, she continued teaching us at her home or in a neighborhood shelter, in small groups, always with a smile. More than happy that the war was over, I was happy to return to the classroom routine with her.<\/p>\n\n
Next, with measured, steady steps, Nogah arrives at the party. She was my homeroom teacher in the last two years of elementary school. Nogah was serious, a science teacher and many other subjects. To me, she was nothing less than a genius. With her, there was less room for jokes, but many moments of silliness, creativity, performances as a way to learn, and sometimes even as a substitute for written assignments. She had a deep understanding of the meaning of this middle age, between childhood and adolescence, investing a lot of time and energy in relationships between boys and girls and improving the atmosphere among cliques. I didn\u2019t understand how she could see me among everyone, and I felt that she actually saw everyone among everyone else. To me, this was then (and still is today) a marvelous and superhuman ability.<\/p>\n\n
Nogah comes to the party with lots of delicious, elaborate food. Her husband had a catering business, and as a kid, it amazed me that there were dads who worked at something not related to the army, especially a dad who worked with food! Truly science fiction.<\/p>\n\n
I keep a special place next to me at the table for Zohar, who was my homeroom teacher for three years of high school. Zohar was truly a child herself, even back then we understood that, and as years pass, I realize more and more how rare she is; a 27-year-old teacher entering a class of 16-year-olds, a brand new teacher fresh out of the box, with such love and passion for education, teaching, and literature. It was impossible not to fall in love\u2014with her and with the subject. It simply wasn\u2019t an option.<\/p>\n\n
But that\u2019s not why I invited her.<\/p>\n\n
I invited her because of the time she called me after class to accompany her to the teachers\u2019 room, where there was a small, inner room. She invited me in, locked the door behind her, and said I wouldn\u2019t leave until I explained what was going on and how she could help. Writing this, it sounds a bit intimidating, maybe even intrusive, but it wasn\u2019t. It was very important\u2014to cry it out, to throw it up\u2014and then I knew I wouldn\u2019t have to do much for her to call me again. She would know when I needed her and act accordingly.<\/p>\n\n
She always insisted on creating visibility for me, special places, truly special! Where I could contribute something, where my name would be written somewhere, so I could sign it.<\/p>\n\n
There is so much chaos in this experience, those years of adolescence. Even if you are lucky enough to have the coolest parents in the world\u2014they are still, in many cases, \u201cdinosaurs,\u201d who don\u2019t understand anything, certainly not you. It\u2019s so rare to meet, at that time, an adult who not only runs with the crazy pace of life and doesn\u2019t just complain about \u201cthe moody, self-absorbed, always grumpy teenager,\u201d but also sometimes stops for a moment beside this becoming person caught in an unspeakable hurricane and says \u201cHey, let\u2019s sit together for a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
There is so much chaos in this experience, those years of adolescence. Even if you are lucky enough to have the coolest parents in the world\u2014they are still, in many cases, \u201cdinosaurs,\u201d who don\u2019t understand anything, certainly not you. It\u2019s so rare to meet, at that time, an adult who not only runs with the crazy pace of life and doesn\u2019t just complain about \u201cthe moody, self-absorbed, always grumpy teenager,\u201d but also sometimes stops for a moment beside this becoming person caught in an unspeakable hurricane and says \u201cHey, let\u2019s sit together for a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
So to Zohar, whom I\u2019m sure is still a child at heart, I keep a special place and the best slice of the cake. There were days when I felt she was my savior. That\u2019s the least I can do.<\/p>\n\n
After them, two arrive together. They met me after the army and right after their wedding, jumping in headfirst without delay, as a very young student at the Kibbutzim Seminar:<\/p>\n\n
Tamar, a fiery redhead, a strong and present woman who taught a course on the philosophy of education and basically made me realize I was in the wrong place, and that what I really needed to study at that stage was philosophy and art in general\u2014a path much more suited for me to enter the world of therapy than education. I drank in her lessons eagerly; every week she gathered beautiful and interesting bouquets of thoughts that ran through my head in disorder. How comforting it was to know these things were already considered, processed, and written, that there was somewhere to read them, that there was a cultural and ideological context. How good it is that there is no limit to all that.<\/p>\n\n
With Tamar came \u201cE\u2019kal\u2019e\u201d, a teacher of the kind you don\u2019t find these days anymore. I can\u2019t believe how much I learned from her in one year and how much of it still passes on to my children. Remember when we used to study nature? Well, \u201cE\u2019kal\u2019e\u201d lived it\u2014not only taught it but still lives it today (I know because later we discovered various connections through different circles, so we had the privilege to meet even before I decided to hold my special party. Unfortunately, we met not only in happy moments). Thanks to \u201cE\u2019kal\u2019e\u201d I know that the bright green leaves of the bougainvillea are not petals, it\u2019s a marketing trick; actually, its flowers are pretty small and unimpressive, the chrysanthemum is a sophisticated inflorescence and not a single ordinary flower, grass knows how to clone itself, I also know the names of all parts of an egg (there\u2019s more than yolk, white, and shell), lots of things about insects, and many facts about the world that might seem unimportant but are really important to me. And I know that Bialik caused one of the most common misunderstandings when he wrote \u201cA Nest for a Bird,\u201d because that\u2019s \u201cE\u2019kal\u2019e\u201d\u2014she writes creative tests and never misses a chance to connect different worlds<\/p>\n\n
They both, city mouse and country mouse, so different, and together they taught me a very important lesson about letting go, about parting in a fitting and precise way. They really encouraged me to stop after one year of studies and start anew at the university, and they were with me afterwards, in spirit.<\/p>\n\n
Sometimes someone sees something in you before you see it yourself. How lucky I was to hear what they had to say and how lucky they were direct enough to tell me, without ego, with a vision of me, and a desire to do good for me. And if I gained all that from just one year of studying at the education college\u2014it was worth it.<\/p>\n\n
I leave the gate open; it\u2019s already pleasant outside in the evening, the garlands hang on the trees, colorful and bright. The table is long, accommodating and nourishing a long row of influencers who opened my heart and changed my directions, lecturers who introduced me to the world of therapy in such a special way, teachers who later became colleagues, professional instructors, workplace managers, coordinators\u2014but it still feels a bit strange to look back on them this way, still feels too close and a bit personal here.<\/p>\n\n
Many moments of grace come to mind now, and I remember that anxiety of a bride setting tables, \u201cBut what about that one, and what about the one who once wrote me a letter, and the one who initiated a joint meeting, and even the one who punished me in such a way that I never did something forbidden again,\u201d the list goes on.<\/p>\n\n
It seems the party helped me achieve the goal for which I gathered it\u2014to briefly take off my worried hat and put on the magic hat, even if it usually wasn\u2019t that magical, the hat of the child, the student, to be thankful that at least every few years I was lucky enough to meet someone who understood, who understood me. Who saw something in me and made sure to send it back to me, maybe so I could see it too. I didn\u2019t always succeed, and I didn\u2019t always understand why she bothered. Now I understand, and now I hang that feathered hat back on the hook and put on again one of my current hats\u2014the mom hat, of a mom with a daughter who in a few hours will start her last year of elementary school, a son who will start his first year as a student, and a tiny one who is starting pre-pre-kindergarten, and for the first time will be in a \u201cbig kids\u201d class. Today she already told me \u201cI\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll like the teachers, so tell them not to be offended,\u201d and I feel how this hat is heavy but a little less tight on my head, and maybe, just maybe, there\u2019s a chance that my children will meet such wonderful people along the way, and they too will want to organize such wonderful parties one day. And while they are working on their guest list\u2014we can remember them together and I can say, \u201cWhat wonderful partners I had in raising my children, what wonderful gifts exist beyond my own limits that I couldn\u2019t give myself\u2014they received. How lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s been almost twenty years since I finished high school, and still\u2014no matter what\u2014on the night before the school year starts, I\u2019m filled with unease. I can\u2019t sleep, I wander around the house like a sleepwalker, my mind crowded with worries that only grow stronger.<\/p>\n
And now, it\u2019s not even about me anymore\u2014it\u2019s about my children.<\/p>\n
So tonight, in an attempt to calm myself, I decided to invite a few important women to a very special gathering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1"],"yoast_head":"