Active hope and a seven year old moon-o-phile

Active hope is the antidote to cynicism says Maria Popova, utterer of much wisdom and author of the weekly Brain-pickings which a friend put me on to, leaving me asking myself how I did without it.

The Tree of Hope now stands in the centre of the Old City and here is the first cut of the film I made about Mark the talented sculptor, and the making of it.

https://vimeo.com/185045037

password: hope

And in this region where despair so often reigns - we find examples of hope nestling in the thorns in the most surprising places. At a recent event at a Jerusalem street which houses Arabs on one side; Israelis on the other; we find art on the inhabitants' walls. One such inhabitant hands me his card which reads: 'The head of the parents committee in Turi schools. A peaceful man.' And his neighbour, an Arab who works with Ultra Orthodox Jewish ambulance first aid teams so he can be at the scene of the accident more quickly than if he were driving his own vehicle because of stringent security restrictions on Palestinians. And the extremely moving visit I paid with a new friend, to Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem, just the other side of the separation wall, very close to the birthplace of the Pea, where I met Abdelfattah, the head of Alrowwad for culture and arts. A doctor of science, he turned his back on work as a biologist to throw himself into theatre, and toured the UK this summer with his troupe - all young people from the camp - including to the Edinburgh Festival.

Popovawrites: 'Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naivety.'

But I think she's also right to include the word 'active' alongside. Everyone's looking for hope, and most people want things to be better. Just this week we held a fashion show to sell unwanted, quality clothes, and raised nearly $4,000. It came from nothing - unused clothes formerly dangling dejected in our closets - became a something. Everything can be a something.

St Grace explains. 'It's good, a sale like this madam, because when you buy, you feel good, you feel peace, right?' She was fully involved and donated lots of new or nearly new clothes for the cause, and shopped for many of her friends.

I notice that all our friends want to come, want to join. We internationals can also be negatively influenced by the Holy Land's complex political situation. And it makes us shy - more reluctant to creep out of our holes and fly a hopeful flag. And often we can stand around and wring our hands and feel guilty that things look like they're getting worse. And yet we're still living here - so does that make us complicit?

But the flag of hope is flying this week. And our new seven year old is in the mix with his heart and his soul. 'Give me a child before he is seven...' Well if this seven year old man child is anything to go by, 'Shop til you drop' is something for naughties-born males.

A good chunk of our money is due to the spending of the Lozenge himself: bangles for some of girlfriends in class; a wallet for his best girlfriend's Mum; an emerald green silky Ra-Ra skirt for the Pea; a pair of leggings for Tilly T his cousin; a couple of tops for Daisy his other cousin; some shorts for himself and a tie for Daddy.

He shops. Then he drops. Half way through their night time poem, called Benediction, by James Berry, I notice both dwarfs are fast asleep with their sticky heads deep into their pillows, while I stumble through our nightly ritual by torchlight.

'Thanks to the ear that someone may hear; Thanks to seeing that someone may see; Thanks to feeling that someone may feel; Thanks to touch that one may be touched; Thanks to flowering of white moon and spreading shawl of black night holding villages and cities together.'

The Lozenge loves the moon. It was his first word. So the birthday card I give him has a huge full moon on it with a small person looking up at it surrounded by the night.

He reads his own birthday card with the moon on it, and looks happy and interested.

What else about this seven year old? He skips often. Almost as often as he sings. He still runs naked unabashed. He makes me my lunch: a gouda cheese sandwich, firmly pressed down with a shadow of fingerprints on top. He carries his 13kg-worth of sister and belly laughs at her first attempts

at words.

He goes to school on the little white bus every morning driven by Yacoub the driver 'with the ball-y head'. Rashimi has made him a card with: I LVOE YUO LARUIE on it. For which the Lozenge must be grateful as he ensures a birthday cupcake is delivered to his brother's classroom. 'He won't be expecting it but he'll be really pleased.' When I tell this to J, who has a big brother who was not at all nice to him, J says this means more to him than anything in the world.

We go out for the Lozenge's birthday dinner with 9 small people and one other adult (not a recommended ratio). One little Palestinian friend disappears on the Lozenge's scooter over the brow of a hill out of sight on our way to the restaurant. 'Haaaaaadiiiiiii Cooooommmmme Baaaaaack!' I yell running as fast as I can after him. The other 8 small people look perturbed and run off in pursuit of Hadi. Now I've lost all of them. Bad plan. The other Mum intercepts Rashimi from a small train about to run him over. Then they scoff chicken nuggets and grilled cheese sandwiches. I feverishly grasp a bottle of beer.

Half way through my burger the Lozenge says he needs a number two and could I assist in the bottom wiping in a bit. Seven...hmm. I insist he's great at doing it by himself. But no. Another bite into my burger and the Lozenge says: 'Mummy, I've got something really cool to show you. Please come and look.' I'm reluctant. And I take a while. But finally, I get there.

'Look Mummy', he says pointing up to the dark sky. 'Look. The moon'.

J is back any minute, and my only concern is our little Pea who has no words really, yet she has reasons of the heart, that cannot be spoken. 'Dadda' she says, pointing a shining index finger at Palestinian local men in the supermarket. Dadda she says as she clambers onto other friends' Dads' laps. She cuddles Mikel the father of Rashimi's best friend; and Beni our friend from Kosovo - and doesn't let him go. She is perhaps feeling J's absence more than any of us, and shows this more clearly with no words at all.

But she's standing proud too. She can rise up from the floor, legs wide apart like Petya my Granny's Bulgarian weight lifter home-help used to do. And she can walk three steps, stiffly, as though she has wooden legs.

So both of the dwarfs have fallen asleep mid-poem after our clothes sale. And we've raised all these dollars for doctors in Aleppo which feels so near only 700 km away, yet so unutterably far. And I think of all the seven year olds and four year olds and one year olds learning to walk and talk, and trying to fall asleep with their Mums under this same moon, and I wonder how the world is ever going to get through this.

Active hope needs to go live.
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Be fruitful, be a raisin

The kindly man at the supermarket checkout in our Eastern Jerusalem district is dressed in a black tie, black shirt and black trousers. As usual he greets me warmly as I hurriedly bundle my wares from trolley to desk as the Lozenge and Rashimi toss me paper bags of sugary morsels which, like magpies, they've collected. 'I'm sorry,' I say. 'Are you mourning someone?'

'La, la' meaning: 'No no' in Arabic. He shrugs. 'Just I'm wearing black today - no one die'.

'Not becuase of Shimon then?' I joke. For a couple of seconds he looks blank and I fear I've overstepped our line of mutual respect. Then suddenly he gurgles into a laugh as he gets what I mean. 'NO. Most certainly NOT because of Shimon!'

Shimon Peres' familiar face with slightly sad brown eyes, is emblazoned over local newspapers this week and though he is mourned by Israelis as being one of the longest living bastions of peace and progress; most Palestinians view him as pugnacious a rotter as any other Israeli leader past or present. After my supermarket joke, I do end up putting my foot in it with a Palestinian friend at a dinner this week. 'So what do you make of Shimon then?' I ask. And he unleashes a furious tirade about all Israeli leaders since Jabotinsky being the reason for the loss of his own homeland. 'They had a plan then, they have a plan now - which is to take the whole place for themselves based on nebulous writings from 3,000 years ago. I honestly can't believe you ask me this question,' he says.

Forgiveness seems an unattainable reach. But just look at what's happening in Colombia and their almost-peace agreement.  So close. And this would not have been the case 20 years ago. There must always be hope.

Because of Shimon's funeral and the visit of world leaders to Jerusalem, the school is closed for the day, and my fabulous Italian friend and I have to postpone our fashion for a cause sale to raise money for Syrians. Ironic.

The dwarfs are delighted to have another day tagged to their Rosh Hashanah - Jewish new year - holiday. The Lozenge begins his Friday with an experiment: putting a raisin in a glass of water and leaving it there for a few days. 'I want to turn it back into a grape,' he explains. I wonder secretly to myself if this would work with humans. I've completed one more year of life this week, and after nearly two months of living without J and working and tending two dwarfs and a pea day in, day out - I am feeling like a raisin myself. It will be unfortunate if J returns from his Baghdad pod-life looking grape-like.

I have a good birthday despite the absence of J. I receive 2 naked card invaders at 6.15 who jump into my bed and cover me in kisses. The Pea joins us in our festivities that evening with friends at our local restaurant. She astonishes everyone with her pizza techniques, eating an entire slice without me having to cut it up; then grinning at us all with greasy chops and a black olive stuck to her chin.

We are happy and healthy but I'm ready for some man-power. The morning ritual of waking, feeding, dressing dwarves and a robust Pea, and skooshing dwarfs out of the door to get on the school bus can mean I sometimes rush things. Maybe I rush everything, in fact. 'Mummy this morning you must have put my PANTH on inside out,' says Rashimi. 'Because all day I had an inside bottom.' The Rashimi explanation for a wedgie.

But he and particularly the Lozenge have been reliable and generally unflappable this first stint of J's absence. 'We all rely on the Lozenge,' says J. J relies on him to support me. I rely on him to support me. Rashimi relies on him as an older brother, as does the Pea. He is seven this week. In Jesuit speak: 'Give me a boy before he is seven and I will make him a man.' He is also manning up with some good observational skills. As I pack up for a recent camping expedition, asking myself under my breath if I'm mad to be doing this, on my twenty fifth trip to the garage with tents and cold bags and duvets and swimming gear, I say: 'Guys can you just stop talking to me for a few minutes while I try and gather my thoughts.'

'What thoughts?' asks the Lozenge.

Well, exactly. I think I had a thought a few weeks ago. But it's gone again.

But after all the exertion of packing up the car, the smalls and I and our Swedish friends share a stunning sunset which we have to ourselves:

and to fall asleep under a bright, full moon with the sound of lapping waves a few metres from our tent, make me glad as glad to have tried it.

These happy little faces the next morning explain the glee of the adventure after their 11 hours of sleep while I have lain awake all night with my lapping-water surround-sound and moon glow lighting.

A dunk in the water at 6.30am...

Selina the fairy-godmother arrives from Paris, direct to our beach to camp to hang out with us. She appears in the dead of night and the dwarves are ecstatic to see her in the tent beside me in the morning. She spends all day in the sea with one dwarf on her shoulders, and another dangling from her neck and appears to enjoy it. Gold is not more valuable than a visitor like this, when in my situation. We spend merry days with her, and then two more girlfriends breeze in for a long weekend. I may be a raisin but I have some good girls on my vine who have put the energy back and a bit extra for spares.

A new friend, Munther, from the West Bank drops off a tiny snake in a bottle for the boys to inspect. He then disappears. Is he really a friend? He asks if we want to keep it - St Grace is appalled. She's not afraid of much, St Grace - but snakes are her worst thing ever. I guess in Sri Lanka you get some scary ones. I explain to her this one will be 2 metres long when fully grown according to Munther. She hugs the Pea more tightly to her bosom in terror.  So politely, I decline. 'You mean longer than you Mummy. Wow - that will be one big snake,' says Rashimi.

So the Pea's first pet will not be a Palestinian viper it turns out. Her new activity is singing along to the call to prayer, and her first word is: 'Cheers!' as she clinks plastic beaker with her brothers. A promising sign.

One of the obituaries of Shimon Peres says his character epitomises this quote by Nietszche. I read it and it makes me feel a bit better about being a raisin:

'One is fruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions; one remains young only on condition that the soul does not relax, does not long for peace.'

I like the idea of not allowing oneself or ones life to become too peaceful, in order to stay young. So I'll take this vignette onto my vine with me this year, and hope that by being a raisin, life can be fruitful.