On The Lines

We are often asked how much time we are spending here in Israel. My stock answer until a couple of weeks ago was " Chetzi Chetzi" which means "Half and Half"...it's about right when it comes to describing my life in a time frame but it says very little about what it's like to divide your time between two spaces.

Thanks to my brother in law, I now have a much more elegant and descriptive phrase to use. In Hebrew it's "Al HaKav"... which means "On the Lines" or commuting, .and is really spot on.

Our life situation is very much experienced On the Lines.

As one who tries to practice Mindfulness, my aim is to try and be in the present as much as possible, to live and experience the moment in order to get the maximum out of life. It means focusing on what I am doing in the present without letting my mind flip to thoughts that are either in past and future, it involves concentrating on the now in order to be more productive and to be able to give my full attention to those who are trying to engage with me without being lost in thought. Easier said than done.

Being Al HaKav means that wherever I am, a bit of me is always somewhere else. It's cognitive dissonance, contrary to all that Mindfulness practice dictates, which according to Jon Kabat Zinn's famous book  is interpreted as  " Wherever you go, There You are" . On the other hand, if I didn't practice Mindfulness, it would be so much harder, my body would be in one place while my mind would be elsewhere, not a good recipe for a life well lived.

Somehow the Almighty and the path our life and that of our family has taken dictates that we should be for the time Al Hakav, because we are the filling in the sandwich. Our children and grandchildren live in Israel and my parents and my husbands' ailing mother and sister live in Manchester. Competing demands for time, attention and care, actual and imagined, pull us in both directions... . Until the day that we can be successfully cloned...we will be Al HaKav. For most of the last three weeks, David has been in Manchester and I have been here but it is what it is and there's no point resisting it, we have been where we needed to be. .

A couple of months ago, a good friend of mine gave me some advice that she thought was for my own benefit.  She thought that I should not be posting so much on Social Media, mainly Facebook. She was tired of people commenting to her about my activities ( she's not on FB so wasn't aware of many of them). She felt that I was exposing myself to gossip and judgement. She was partly correct... and I was feeling quite vulnerable at the time, having just made Aliyah very quickly and with no explanation ( which incidentally I didn't and don't owe anyone ). So I tried to take her advice but it's made me feel cut off. The reason I like using FB and social media is precisely because I am Al Hakav... it helps me bridge the gaps and keep in communication with friends and family who I don't always have time to have long telephone chats with...for me it's the perfect way to keep in touch.  So to my friend, I'm truly sorry if you feel that I have let you down... but when you are On the Lines, you have to do everything you can to make sure you don't fall off!