Sirens’ Call: Choose Stillness in a Restless World

When I think about this war, I notice how the world slows down, and wish it didn’t take missiles to make that happen. I think about late morning coffees in pajamas; eggs, salad, and cheese for brunch, and all of my kids under the same roof. I wish the world was created differently, without pain, that seeds did not have to break down in darkness to grow into the fresh green sprouts of the future.

The insignificance of all the things I was stressing about before the first siren thrills me. Bureaucracy is on hold, so is thinking I can control my life or anyone else’s. That first big boom reminds me that I am not in charge of anything except the choice to either cower in fear or let go.

I want to try a new recipe, play cornhole with a cold beer in the middle of the day, and clean the corners of my house where the dust and dog hair always settle. I want to hold my people close, knowing I can not promise that they will be okay, and appreciate the honesty that I never could.

I am a dreamer with my feet planted firmly in the ground. Even they weren’t, the blasts that shake the walls of my house could wake Rip Van Winkle. There is no living in a fantasy these days, even as I wander in vineyards to pick calendula for skin cream, or walk in fields of lupine and gather wild asparagus for dinner.

Sirens are in the background, even when all is silent. People are staying indoors, I have the world to myself but I see smoke, hear of houses destroyed, and know families in trauma. Pilots fly overhead, making it safe for me to lie on my back and watch the clouds shapeshift before my eyes.

Would I appreciate these things without the war? I did, but not as I do now; alarms jolting me into appreciation multiple times a day. I used to hate the grocery store and now there is gratitude in shopping without interruption. Homecomings have become holy; my stunning, soldier daughter with shining blue eyes and long curly hair came home last night. I inhaled her scent and buried my nose in her neck, staying long enough to fill my lungs completely.

Over dinner, my kids talked about how the house would collapse if there was a rocket that landed even close. I know they are right, we have no safe room and in the world of the three little pigs, we built a house of straw. The big bad wolf is always trying to blow everything down these days: our gatherings, our houses, our morale. I don’t look at the news, I silence the warnings on my phone, I meditate. It is my way of trying to starve the wolf. But he appears everywhere. He is always the topic of conversation. I usually smile and nod, not contributing to the fanning of the flames of fear. Nothing is certain when missiles fly through the sky, but nothing is ever certain.

I wonder if it is all a divine plan to force us to accept our roles as vessels to work for the greater good. But even if this is a holy mission, there are so many things that are hard to accept. So many things that are not the way I want them to be. War meant one thing when I read the word in print and it means another when I see the lines of missiles zigzagging across the sky or when my children call to tell me they watched a rocket fall in the valley below our home.

I appreciate the honesty that these times bring, the need to be real, to stop living in the stories, to stop feeling stressed about stupid meetings or expectations not met. I let go of criticism. Nothing really matters when a rocket could obliterate you any second. I buy the expensive cheese, a big sushi dinner for my family, and wooden patio furniture. I am growing and living and giving. I am alive for this very moment. To sit with my laptop in a coffee shop and listen to the men at the next table talk reservedly about how the war means they have had to ‘make a shift’.

I think Gd is talking, and even though I don’t really like his tone these days, I also know that when he doesn’t shout, we rarely listen. Maybe the time is now. Maybe I can still do my daily yoga and cook wholesome meals. Even when other people are glued to the news, I can gaze at the woodfire through the glass, inhale the aroma of her tea, and quietly sit, an island of calm in an ocean of sirens.