Tag: Dad life

Ten Days of Interlude

I returned to Tel Aviv, alone, having shed several layers of emotional skin but still leaving my heart and soul with my family back in Toronto. They, and Canada more generally, let one month of acutely accumulated stress, fear, indecision, discomfort, doubt and guilt, fall right off. In fact, a certain weight and tension just wasn’t there as soon as I crossed the outbound border. And thankfully, partially due to exhaustion, but mostly thanks to my tank being replenished, I opened the door to our apartment renewed and in good spirits.

I went out for a cheeseburger (Tel Aviv’s unofficial second street food after shawarma) and noticed that the vibe in the neighbourhood resembled more what it felt like when we first arrived rather than when I had just left. Largely due to the temporary ceasefire that had happened in my absence and also the increasing squeeze on Gaza that, relatedly, left Tel Aviv less affected by rocket fire.

I decided, with salt on my fries, that if things felt ‘fine,’ I would pretend that they are fine. That I could be fine here. That it’s a regular, normal place.

I went back to work, fought off my jet lag and tried to keep the connection with my family, so live and profound days ago, aglow. I found that I could read. I could hear and feel music and not just listen. I was buoyed by the loving reality of my family, shared moments, experiences, the knowledge that this will hopefully be our final separation for some time, if not ever.

I walked to the beach boardwalk on my first Saturday back and noticed how many more people there were than before, how relaxed and at ease everyone seemed. I looked out at an incredibly beautiful dimming sun set over the windy waves. And wondered what it looked like from Gaza. I squinted down the coast in an effort to actually see the place, beyond the bends. My stomach knotted. I decided not to return to the beach because it didn’t seem fair.

Later that week it rained quite heavily and I imagined how it felt in the tents of Khan Younis and Rafah. Day by day, I started to lose the recently shared connection with Dalia and the boys, because of the time difference, and work, and distance, and simply being apart. I again got choked up thinking about missing moments, walking into Aleksander’s empty room, watching videos of Elia starting to crawl. I would look for them in my dreams, try to find ways to pull tomorrow closer, pretend that I was fine and everything was fine.

The reality of what’s happening in Gaza weighs down my spirit like a leaden vest. Even when I try not to look, it sneaks into my heart. Tears and pain and anguish beyond all comprehension.

I want to invite all the spirits of the Gazan children into my home, to share a moment while I search for my kids and they search for their parents. Show them love and that the world can be a good place. Take them to a bustling beach with a beautiful dimming sunset and tell them that everything is fine, that they live in a regular, normal place, that they can take a walk, go to sleep, share a laugh.

Relaxed and at ease.

Three Magical Years of a Beautiful Little Life

Aleksander turns three today.

It’s unfortunately a little bittersweet as today also marks the longest time I’ve been away from him. Mommy, Aleksander and baby brother Elia left Israel, where I now sit writing, exactly two weeks ago and their return date remains uncertain.

As though I needed any reminder of how much I miss and love him, the absence of his little steps, kicks, smiles, snuggles, kisses, hugs, laughs, looks and general amazingness really crystallizes my absolute devotion to him, and joy and gratefulness of being his dad in all the moments, big and small.

I’m not sure when exactly it happened but we have a fully fledged toddler on our hands. Kind, decisive, occasionally difficult, exploring, enthusiastic, aware, alight, loving, warm, thoughtful, energetic, clever, fun, funny, polite, dynamic, eager, precise.

It still remains an absolute pleasure and privilege to witness Aleksander’s growth and development up close. Seeing baby steps turn into toddler phrases over a million little increments, all along his path to becoming who he’ll be.

This year Aleksander graciously welcomed his little brother Elia into our family and onto the planet. Since the very first moment, he’s been nothing but caring and considerate as a big bro. Gentle, inclusive, excited. He has inhabited his new role naturally, not needing too many pep talks or guidelines about how to love, support, hold, help and cuddle our sweet newborn. Aleksander has always had a generous and compassionate heart and it’s deeply rewarding to see his character in action as our family has expanded.

If the first year of his life was about newness and adaptation; the second movement; this past year has been about communication. He’s gone from a handful of words to fairly coherent sentences between his second and third birthdays. It’s allowed us to get to know him even better, understand his needs and perspective, delight in his creativity and worldly wordiness. He chats and chats, jokes and explains, dances and jumps, directs and distracts. I love his sweet little voice, so sincere, so true.

I’m swooning a bit aren’t I?!

It’s hard not to. Dalia always says that, as a family, we’re meant to be together. And as challenging as parenting can be, especially now with two, there is not a single thing on Earth I can think of wanting to do more, in any given moment, than spending time with my’s Aleksander. Doing something or doing nothing, it doesn’t matter, because it’s actually doing everything.

Aleksander, my big boy, I love you beyond words and beyond anything. I love you will all my heart and forever will.

Thirty Days of Solitude

Entry 1 – Sunday, October 22, 2023

My family left Tel Aviv about a week ago, as decided by the Canadian Ambassador to Israel, who sent all diplomatic families with children under 16 out of country, under an evacuation order to be revisited in 30 days.

They left on Sunday or Monday and maybe arrived in Canada on Tuesday. Days are not my specialty at the moment.

I don’t think I’ve ever experienced as profound and sustained sense of relief as I have since they left. Seeing their smiling, peaceful faces in the boring and beautiful suburbs of Toronto is almost indescribably uplifting for me.

Grandmas, grandpa, uncles, aunties, cousins and friends have welcomed them with warm, kind, loving embraces.

On my end, being in an empty home alone feels extraordinarily quiet. Going from an active family of four with two little ones, to a family of one feels a bit like a sound and energy vacuum. But at least they’re safe.

I’ve been working so much that there hasn’t been too much time for reflection. Perhaps a good thing. When I reflect, my head usually spins and my gut wrenches.

The news is brutal. The children, the pain, is tough to watch as a father. The Tel Aviv reality is normalish, which also somehow feels upside down. Iced coffees and parks and poke bowls, mixed with posters of the missing and taken.

I feel best at home or at the office. Where I can design at least some of the context of my experience. Bomb sirens go off and I play records. I sweep the floors, water the plants and even put up all our pictures on the walls. In forced anticipation for my family’s return into this comfortable apartment. Hoping, maybe impossibly, that we might be able to pick up where we left off when / if they return. To a country that will never be the same. To a city that we were just beginning to settle into, that now feels like one of the world’s possible next targets.

I have several go bags packed. I used to laugh off the idea of go bags, now I wake up early to pack and repack them. I have a pouch, backpack, two duffel bags and two suitcases ready next to the door. I carry my passport in case, God forbid, I’m not at home and need to leave. This all seems, officially and unofficially, unlikely, but not impossible.

Dalia says Aleksander heard an ambulance on their second day back home and told her they need to ‘go to the room’ (aka bomb shelter). My colleagues tear up when discussing their kids and how they’re doing. Several co-workers have been to several funerals. Gazan children go to sleep and sometimes wake up, or not, under the rubble of their homes.

Feelings are big.

And here I happen to be, just off the epicentre of these big, global feelings.

So far, mostly in exhausted but stable solitude.

Will my family come back or will I get picked up with my bags before then? Time will tell.

And then I’ll tell you.

Entry 2 – Saturday, November 3, 2023

I’ve entered into the Heart of Solitude. 

It’s been three weeks since my family left. 

The first was spent working long days and closely in touch with them. The second was a hollowing out. Then, since missing Aleksander’s birthday last weekend, I’ve mostly been inside out. 

My home and soul are quiet. Too quiet. I seem to be living almost entirely in their absence. I tear up when I see pictures of my kids. My voice wobbles when I speak with them over the phone. I look at parents with their kids here and stare somewhat blankly. 

I got bad news this week then good. It looks like we won’t be separated beyond mid-December. Six more weeks of solitude. It’s not a great amount of time but at least it’s not indefinite. 

I’m hoping that, somehow, I may be able to see them before then. 

Meanwhile, I flip channels on the couch, do squats with water jugs in the living room, go to African mass on Saturday mornings, play music and do my job. 

It’s a very bizarre place to be outside of my solitude. November mornings here are sublime for their light and weather. People drink coffee on patios and play with their babies on blankets in the park. Gaza is about 70kms away. A 45 minute drive on a Canadian highway. 

If you go out for food at about 8pm, something like a third of people have guns. I dare not talk about current events with almost anyone because I don’t really know anyone and I definitely don’t know what anyone is thinking about current events. But I can feel the rawness and anger in the air. More often bordering on righteous rage.

So I try to keep to myself. Sheltering back in my Solitude. Dreaming and praying of when I’ll see my family again. And maybe more importantly, as time goes on, when we might be able to settle back into a normal life. You know, no bomb sirens, or life altering Hezbollah speeches. Just grocery trips and tying shoe laces.

Breakfast and snuggles and daycare and kicking the ball in the hallway. Kissing my sweet baby’s cheeks and making him smile. Holding my wife’s hand and helping her with the boys. 

Regular life in a regular place.

Entry 3 – Tuesday, November 14

The thirtieth Day of Solitude.

BUT IM FLYING HOME ON FRIDAY FOR A VISIT SO WHO EVEN CARES ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE ANYMORE??!!!?!?!

LEEETTTTTSSSSS GOOOOOOO

Tel Aviv, Tel Avivians and Us – One Month In

We arrived in Tel Aviv from Rome exactly one month ago today, on an all too easy 3.5 hour flight down the Mediterranean. In hindsight, the straightforward nature of the travel logistics did not align in any way with the otherwise almost complete life overhaul between these two relatively close cities and countries (if not necessarily cultures).

All that to say, waking up in our apartment in Rome, with newborn and toddler one day, and falling asleep in a new home in Tel Aviv the same evening made for some serious sensory whiplash.

Alas, all is going well – or somehow better than I had honestly anticipated given those circumstances. Aleksander has started French school and mostly integrated without a hitch (on espère); Elia continues to grow, sleep, nurse, and has even begun to smile and coo; Dalia is making the most of her second go-round of maternity leave, walking the boys on the boulevards with iced coffee in hand and making activity dates with school moms; and I’ve begun my new job (same job, different place) and have found lunch, coffee and grocery spots as needed. The basics seem to be mostly covered.

Tel Aviv is a bit hard to describe. In parts, completely dilapidated, hipsterly-so, and in others, modern skyscrapers and construction cranes, à la Dubai. Kensington Market one moment and Bay Street the next. Plus, add a beach.

I’ve never had the pleasure of living in a proper beach town and I used to joke that I never trusted people who did because ending your day in flip flops and a sandy wavey sunset just doesn’t feel real enough real life.

In any case, the beach is about a 25 min walk from our home and we may have already caught a few sublime sunsets while buskers sing radiohead tunes, people do agressive calisthenics or play beach volleyball (strangely enough, just as often with their feet), and Aleksander climbs world class play structures while getting covered in dust-fine sand. Like I said, not really real life stuff; pretend temporary life indulgences.

Otherwise, the city is not very readily classifiable. Tel Avivians like to compare it to Miami but I’d say they’re overshooting on that one. There’s definitely more American street culture here than any other subset: burgers, beaches, lattes, longboards, athletic wear, etc. But, of course, this is not the U.S. I can’t say that we feel it’s particularly European either, somehow too casual for that, and certainly on an entirely different wavelength than Rome: smaller, younger, beachier. So, Tel Aviv is Tel Aviv, maybe at best it’s the Mediterranean lovechild of Montreal and Barcelona, that was then immediately estranged from its parents.

Tel Avivians appear to be the type of people drawn to such a place: keen to live in a (mostly) Jewish beach paradise.

There are lots of 20 somethings (and older wannabes), patios and tattoo shops. There are also loads of families (or maybe that’s mostly who we notice in the AI inspired playgrounds). And then others: Orthodox Jews zipping by on e-bikes; Russian grocery store clerks; Eritrean line cooks; Filipino nannies; almost middle-aged tech looking bros; aspiring cross-fit champions on every square metre of the kilometres-long beach boardwalk; 19 year old Israelis in their military training camo, at the coffee shop, automatic weapon in one hand, current love interest in the other; grannies on quiet park benches.

Regardless of all that, we’re pretty occupied just doing us, surviving, settling, adapting, starting to look ahead from a novel perspective. Life with two kids under three is full. So far we’re thankfully approaching it with some serenity: soaking in as much of Elia’s newborn vibes as we can, smelling his little baby head and kissing his squishy cheeks a million times a day.

School dropoffs aren’t proving to be as romantic and laid back as in Rome. The price of absolutely everything is so astonishingly high as to almost be physically painful. And, of course, we’ve gone from two plus years of actively integrating into Roman life – the language, gestures, food, rhythms, piazzas, countryside, olive oil and gelato and mozzarella. To doing a full cultural reboot in less time than it takes to watch The Godfather trilogy. Hummus, Hebrew, Rosh Hashanah. And that’s all without effectively leaving this city. The beach bubble of Tel Aviv. The beach bubble within an Iron Dome.

We still don’t entirely know what to expect here over the next three years but so far it’s comfortable living and often feels like a city built primarily with children in mind, so in that sense, we’re off to a positive start. And we look forward to see what this place and its people have in store for us.

– Yom Kippur, 2023

ArrivederLa Roma! Che Grande Piacere It Has Been

Here I am again in Santa Marinella, probably the fifth time this year and tenth time since we arrived in Rome over two years ago. This beach town has pulled ahead of the other beach towns near Rome, accessible by train, as our preferred spot to get out of town and dip our toes in the mesmerizing turquoise blue of the Mediterranean. Aleksander is asleep after a short walk in his stroller, having taken the same boardwalk route I took with him the first time we came here and never since.

Elia is home with mommy because even as a three week old Roman born baby, he’s still not quite ready for the midday August beach heat. I’m snacking on a calamari fry, sipping on an aperol spritz in the fifth row of the beach club, two to the left of the overpriced one I really like, reflecting, about to impossibly write about the impossibly wonderful time we’ve spent in Italy. Since, by all indications, in about two weeks we’ll be heading to our next home, country, posting, in the Middle East.

There are literally a thousand possible different starting points to this essay but maybe I’ll start at the realest recent one. A few days ago, Dalia’s mom stayed home with the kids and sent us on our fourth date in the past three years. Thanks to general newborn parent exhaustion and a few other Roman contributing factors (i.e. it being a Sunday in August), we ended up at a neighbourhood pizzeria that I somewhat adore and Dalia barely cares for. Over a truly weak salami and cheese spread and decent half-litre of the house red, we haphazardly surveyed a handful of big, pressing, sometimes competing feelings.

When I described some of my recent long city walks during Aleksander’s naps, where I’ve uncharacteristically decided against podcasts or music for the benefit of strictly city soundscape listening and maximum Rome vibe absorbing, where we’ve meandered according only to a nostalgic heart’s desire and where I’ve actively leaned into the acknowledgement that Roman life, for us, is but a passing reality, soon to become an epic dream, I teared up.

I am (very, very) tired and entirely emotionally overwhelmed by the beauty, blessing and privilege of taking mundane daily walks on the ancient uncomfortable cobblestones of this epic place. Of looking up at buildings that are intricately beautiful in a way that just may never be in fashion again.

That we have one child forever born in Rome and another who’s Italian (mama mia daddy) makes us feel, well, like children.

That Dalia and I used to walk to the Colosseum so much that we eventually got bored of it.

That Aleksander kicked his soccer balls in St. Peter’s Square like it was the local schoolyard.

That we saw the Trevi fountain with only 15 people there.

That we have at least eight gelato spots citywide when the urge hits.

That our families, from top to bottom, got to visit this incredible place with us, maybe even because of us.

Same goes for some few dozen friends.

That we’ve been able to travel to, eat in, sleep restfully in at least ten of Italy’s finest cities (of a possible approximate 50 – the beauty knows no end in this country…).

Sperlonga
Matera
Verona
Lake Garda
Milan
Assisi
Ischia
Florence
Orvieto
Taormina
Venice
Cagliari
Polignano a Mare
Positano

That I’ve had enough amatriciana, Dalia enough carbonara and the both of us enough cicoria to last for three future generations.

That I now leave Italy and complain that coffee is far too big and weak and expensive.

That I talk with my hands when my foolish Italian runs out and that’s almost always been enough.

That I arrived with a mostly negative impression of ‘the Italians’ and now I feel almost exactly the opposite.

That my colleagues have been the most caring, balanced and complete people that I’ve ever met. That the Canadian Ambassador to Italy knows my name and occasionally laughs at my jokes.

That our Sri Lankan doorman has seen Aleksander’s growth from infant to toddler more regularly and consistently than anyone but us (and preciously trained him to bellow: ciao bello! whenever they part).

That our neighbour and stand-in nonna, Lola, cries every time she mentions our departure.

That we live across the street from a convent and when I’m catching the morning or evening light from our balcony, I occasionally see nuns ironing their habits or sweeping their rooms.

That this place exists; has for the better part of human civilization, existed; and while this planet is still inhabitable and worth inhabiting, will continue to exist. And then our little family’s story co-existed here from Easter Friday, 2021, until the end of August, 2023. It already doesn’t feel real and I’m still here.

Rome is the best, deepest, oldest, alivest, beautifulest type of place and the fact that Rome has been our normal everyday Home for two plus years will never not astonish, delight and humble me.