My mother

By LUCCA GINSBURG
My mother was a working woman. I remember that she used to complain of being too busy and not having any time for herself.
"I am looking forward to the time when your father and I will not be working anymore, and you will get married and get out of the house!"
Of course no other possibility but marriage was considered as a means to get me out of the house!
"I’ll be an elderly lady," she continued, "I don’t intend to ever be an old lady! I’ll be able to hang out with my girlfriends who may also be ladies of leisure by then. I’ll be able to read a book undisturbed and go see a movie and maybe even take your father along!"
With a great sigh she realized that freedom was still a long way off. Of course by that time she also did not realize that war was just around the corner, and reading a book or going to the movies will be the least of her concerns.
I am now what my mother envisioned then, a lady of leisure. Living in the Elisha Towers which could very well represent the proverbial ivory tower, I am free of most of the usual demands of everyday life - like paying electricity and water bills, checking them, running after repair people when my washing machine, my TV, my microwave or whatever else may be out of order, and other big and small matters. Take for example, yesterday, when one of my closet drawers was stuck; I immediately had a young man here who fixed it. He admonished me gently:
"Look you can’t place six kilos of underwear in a regular sized drawer! Discard some of the stuff or put some of it some place else, and this won’t happen again!"
Well "discarding" and "someplace else" are two of my major problems!
But this is not my point. What I want to say is: Why oh why, when having a definitely comfortable life, I am I still so busy?
I hardly crawl out of bed when I am already trying to arrange my daily activities in my mind. I realize that if I go to the library, which I really should, I may miss the lecture on self-improvement, and really why shouldn’t I self-improve myself? On the other hand eight books have been lying around my house, and it is only due to the tolerance of the librarian that she doesn’t pick up a phone and tells me off! We also have a beautiful library here in the house but I am greedy reader.
Having reached a not quite satisfactory decision, the phone rings. One of my neighbors informed me:
"I have to have a tooth pulled! My very last. You know how terrified I am of the dentist. Will you come with me?"
"Who went with you when you had your other teeth pulled?"
"My husband was still alive. He hated the dentist more than I do. Every time I had a tooth pulled he fainted! When I gave birth to my first child one could hardly revive him; there I was lying and hurting badly, and all the doctors stood around him. My doctor warned me that if I take him along for my next birth, I may just as well look for another doctor!"
Well, ignoring my previous plans, we were soon on our way to the dentist and it was a painless good-bye to the last tooth.
Just back in the lobby, the chairman of our house committee approached me:
"We have a meeting today at 4:30 I hope you can make it!"
Truth is I wanted to go to the sauna - and maybe swim a bit.
Every day is again a day of picking priorities - and they never end up being those which I decided on in the early morning when I got out of bed.
Oh and minor dramas happen here all the time.
A few days ago our all-ladies yoga class was joined by a man. Big, burly with an impressive moustache, he wanted to see if he could do the yoga exercises along with us. After a short while he got so entangled in a half lotus position, with his hands and feet in places which were usually unreachable. He cried out in distress. It took quite a while until we detangled him, and he finally limped out of the room as fast as he could. I suppose this ends his yoga career, which had hardly begun.
Fact is, although I am not exactly a lady of leisure, I enjoy the drama and adventure which every new day brings!
Lucca