840 Vernon: The Moms on the Bus Go Round and Round!

Monday, December 29, 2014

by Randi Brill Zieserl, Am Shalom Board Member, Trip Participant, and MOM

In a matter of hours, we will officially begin our last day in Israel. It feels as though I have always been here, so absorbed am I in what I’ve seen, experienced, and learned. On top of this personal journey, however, I’ve also had another big job, that of being a mom on the run, in Israel with my family. We lived the tacit understanding that while the rest of my little group was officially and happily off duty, I was very much still on. My day jobs had been tabled, but my mom jobs have been in full force. It’s been a pleasure to focus solely on my family, though that theory was tested daily when I woke the girls.

It took a lot of work to ensure everyone was ready and fed when the bus pulled out each day. Less hearty folk would pale with such tasks before 7:15. After the flurry of bathroom trips that no one needed until I forced one and all to go, we erratically boarded the bus. Once I knew my little team was on board with backpacks, cameras, devices, and jackets, I’d fall into my seat. As Rabbi Steve instructs each Shabbat, I “took a breath” and spent my first minutes on the bus in quiet, albeit quick, transitional solitude. We’d made it to the bus in one piece; let the day begin.

We lived, not by the book, but by the bus on this trip. The bus drove more than our group. It drove our wake-up times, our bathroom times, our “everything,” so it seemed. We all adapted quite well. I think back to last Friday (which seems like months ago now). When we first boarded this diesel-fueled chariot of ours, we were all so timid, gently finding an open seat, unsure of others in our not-yet-formed mishpachah. These first seats soon became “our seats.” Kids swapped seatmates on a whim, but the rest of us stayed fairly consistently in our designated seats and sides of the bus.

We got on and off the bus many times in a day, treating it as transport, bed, and communal kitchen in one. The bus became a large purse, housing our treasures, purchases, finds, and of course, Sharpie-identified fleeces and water bottles. It also safely kept our store hold of ridiculously unhealthy snacks, fruits, and group-made candy. Of course, if one cannot fluently read the fine print in Hebrew, who’s to know how terrible any given snack really is for one’s health? We’re in Israel, after all. What’s eaten in Israel stays in Israel (even though it will undoubtedly leave on my hips).

After each incredible visit to a wonderful place in Israel, the Am Shalom sign distinguished our bus from the myriad others, a sort of beacon when we were too tired to walk one more step. We’d reboard the bus, relieved and somehow also certain that Shlomo would be waiting like a sentry—shadowing our explorations as both protector and navigator.

My Israel-trip mom activities formed a pattern I stuck to with religious veracity. (OK, so why not, given my location?) Every night, I organized everything, taking errant things out of various bus bags to efficiently reload for the next day. I unearthed missing socks, empty water bottles, and ancient pottery shards. I looked for lost headbands and stepped on hair barrettes.

I even developed a new definition for clean clothing. Any garment worn once was technically still clean until it became caked in cave mud or could otherwise walk itself to the dirty clothes suitcase. Even the girls, true fashionistas at heart, were quite content to wear what I offered up each night. (Once we are home, it will be my extreme pleasure to remind them they not only lived, but also thrived, wearing items retrieved from the green laundry suitcase. Don’t you wonder how that will play in Glencoe?)

I smile at all of my thinking BI. (BI = Before Israel, of course.) So many people said this trip would change me. In the deep, empowering ways one expects, it absolutely has. It will continue to impact and transform my thinking and my actions. It also transformed my thinking about not only my mom jobs—it has made me see differently the universality of moms everywhere.

Our bus was filled with moms of little ones and grown children, and combinations in between. I observed all moms on board quietly count kepies to be sure each child of our group was safely on board. These same moms reached absently for any child’s hand as we navigated busy streets or steep mountainside. On this trip they all became all of our children. When one was sick, everyone worried. Sunscreen and hand sanitizer became universal. The kids went to any mom to get some. Some of our “moms” are not even yet officially parents, but their instincts are so great in this area that they “just did it” without thinking. It does take a village.

I often looked beyond our little bus family and gazed out the bus window. Four thousand years ago, five hundred years ago, and just yesterday, a scant century ago, this amazing land was filled with mothers in villages. I am worried about my child’s cough, hoping she will get through the long plane ride without too much discomfort. I calculate how soon I can call the doctor from Newark to book an appointment for the minute we return home. This and airplane safety (and where the DVDs have gone) are my worries. How fortunate!

The mothers of long ago didn’t have such luxury. They sent their children off to work and often didn’t know if they would see them again. They were not focused on college acceptances. They were worried about survival. A case might be made that to survive in today’s complex days, one’s children must be armed with the right degrees and wisdom, but it is not the same.

I think of how complex this land of Israel truly was—and is. Moms here worry about the safety of their children 24/7 in ways that most moms in Chicago are fortunate enough not to know first-hand. We saw many young soldiers in uniform wherever we went, all children of mothers who no doubt worry. Instead of college degrees, these determined young women and men are armed literally with machine guns that swing casually from their shoulder straps, their definition of survival so different from our own.

Now this amazing trip winds to a close. We fly home tonight. My mom work now escalates to tackle its most major work effort so far, that of packing to go home (in almost the same number of bags with which we arrived). I must fit in dirty clothes and “must-have” rocks, memory-laden food wrappers and other acquisitions.

As a mom, I will be grateful, not only for this experience, for the wonderful families with whom we’ve so bonded, and for safe passage home for all. I am already grateful for my own local piece of Israel and my own outstanding “local reps” at a very rare place, not half a mile from my home—Am Shalom, now my continuing anchor to this powerful trip and to Israel.

I’m already in that building a lot, but sense even that will increase. When I’m there, I will surely spot something new in the artwork that rivals any gallery we saw here in Israel. I will look differently at the stones in the lobby, and I already know I will now feel many even deeper connections—because of this trip. Rabbi Steve is bound to make a reference that will now resonate differently. Cantor M will sing a song that will reach me even more than before because this trip. As for Rabbi Phyllis and me, we are sure to share a glance or two as Rabbi Pam negotiates with Sadie or as Solly bops from lap to lap as she monitors from the bima.

Yes, the moms on the bus do go round and round—the world, the times, and the children. We all do have other jobs, but none so special and treasured as this one, no matter where we moms are, no matter when we lived, and no matter our particular brand of challenges. We are moms, first and foremost. How lucky are we! Next year in Jerusalem.