Last November, our granddaughters introduced us to the card game Skip Bo. It's sort of a card version of Rummikub, and my husband and I took a quick liking to it.
We've played hundreds of games since then, and somewhere along the line we started chuckling about the life lessons you can learn from playing Skip Bo:
What I've Learned from playing Skip Bo
Have patience In Skip Bo, sometimes your opponent can have a turn that seems to go on forever. All you can do is sit there and watch and wait until they've run out of moves. But, eventually (well, unless they finish out the game), your turn will come.
Real life application:Patience is a virtue that can ease your life.
Look around carefully In Skip Bo, make sure, before you put down you 'end of turn' card, that you've checked the entire playing field very carefully. Missing an available move can cost you the game.
Real life application:Be aware of your surroundings.
Stay cool, and have fun Just about any game can become nastily competitive, and Skip Bo is no exception. We've learned it's much more fun if we cheer each other on.
.Real life application: Life is sweeter when you have a smile on your face.
Never give up Sometimes, especially when your oppenent has one of those never-ending turns, you can't imagine any way you'll win the game. But there have been countless times when one of us was sure they'd lost the game by a landslide, only to wind up winning in the end.
Real life application:Never, ever give up- not on your dreams, not on your aspirations, not on love. No matter how hopeless the situation seems, don't give up hope.
Right now, in my life, I'm rooting for Skip Bo. I saw the surgeon a couple of days ago, and now I'm scheduled for a biopsy. My appointment isn't until the end of April, and then we'll have to wait for the results, so we've got lots and lots of waiting ahead of us. Patience is certainly going to be an important virtue, but, if I wind up in a difficult scenario, then it's that last Skip Bo lesson- 'never give up' that we'll be turning to again and again.
Yikes! I didn't realize how much time had passed since my last posting!
It's not that I haven't had anything to write about. There's actually been times when I sat down to write- I just never actually started typing. I've got little scraps of paper all over the place, with long and short jottings of ideas for blog entries, and even some with experiences I absolutely, positively wanted to write about right away.
So I guess it's sort of ironic that when I finally pushed myself to sit down to write, the topic turns out to be 'waiting'.
We wait for so many things in life- for a lover to call, for a child to be born, for school years to end. We wait for smiles to start and tears to dry, for the weather to clear or for a storm to start.
Some just simply wait for time to pass.
It's all well and good to say that we shouldn't consume our lives with waiting; that it's up to us to make things happen. But, sometimes we aren't in control of events, and our only recourse is to wait. We can fool ourselves by finding all sorts of things to keep us busy so that we don't seem to be, or don't feel, that we're on edge waiting for that phone call, email, or test result- but that's all just camouflage. Waiting is hard; it's painful; it's frustrating.
I have a mantra that I use when the things I try to ease the stress of waiting don't work. I take a deep breath, and say:
"I am patience."
Sometimes I have to repeat it several times, but eventually it helps me clear my head and push aside my frustration, and move on- at least for a little while.
Sometimes you know that the wait will be short. Today, for example, I had to wait a bit for the roads to be reopened after the US Vice President passed by. As I sat in traffic, I wondered if he realized how many people his entourage was inconveniencing (that was after I asked why the heck he had to travel via a major highway instead of helicopter!), but I knew I'd soon be on my way.
I've learned ways to amuse myself while waiting on line at the post office, the bank, and the supermarket. That waiting is always fun here, as Israelis aren't known for their patience. I've enriched my Hebrew vocabulary in all sorts of interesting ways while waiting on those lines :-)
I have a friend who had to wait 2 weeks for the results of a biopsy. I don't know how she made it through that wait. I asked her about it, and she said that it wasn't easy, but she had no choice, so she managed somehow.
Unrequited waits can be tough. We wait for our weekly Friday morning phone call from our son, and we're on edge until his call comes through. If he misses that call, or if we don't get to speak to our grandchildren on the following Sunday, life just doesn't seem as bright. But we pull ourselves together, and get on with our week (hmm...or should I say 'camouflage')..
I'm stuck in the midst of a very frustrating waiting game right now. Two weeks ago, as I was putting lotion on my neck, I felt a lump in my throat. I was able to see my doctor the next day, and he sent me for an ultrasound which confirmed the presence of the lump. My doctor says the next step is surgery, but when he called to make an appointment with the surgeon he insisted was the best, he was told that he was out of the country for a conference, and wasn't scheduled to return for over a week.
So, I waited. The day he returned to Israel, the surgeon's office called to set up an appointment. But the earliest they could squeeze me in isn't for another 2 weeks, so I'm waiting again. Then, once I see him, I'll have to wait for an open date for the surgery. And, of course, once I have the surgery, there will be that other waiting....
In June, for my birthday, I treated myself to a 4-night cruise to Cyprus, Rhodes, and Mamaris, Turkey. I sailed on a reconditioned ferry, run by a small Israeli cruise line. We sailed out of Ashdod, and I soon learned that, aside from some crew members, I was the only English speaker aboard.
I wasn't fazed by that. I've been living in Israel for almost ten years, and by now I'm fairly fluent in Hebrew. I chuckled when I realized that all announcements were going to be only in Hebrew, but again, no problem- I understood every word. Food wasn't an issue, either, as after 10 years my tastes now often lean more toward the Israeli than American.
I signed up for shore excursions in each port, and once I decoded the Hebrew words for Cyprus, Athens and Rhodes (each roughly pronounced as 'Kafrisin', 'Atoona', and' Rodoos'), not only was I able to understand the guides' narratives, but I was able to participate in the question and answer give and takes that were a part of their repartee.
A substantial part of my enjoyment of that cruise was how easily I felt I fit in - no language barrier, and culturally, at least to the storekeepers in each port, I was as much of an Israeli as anyone else on the ship. For someone who will forever be known locally as an 'American,' being thought of as just another Israeli in the group was nice.
In general, although my accent will always disclose my immigrant roots, I've been pretty well absorbed into Israeli society. We have Israeli friends, with whom we speak only in Hebrew, and there are even some popular Israeli songs that I find myself humming more often than old English language favorites.
But, every now and then, we find ourselves in a situation that flies our immigrant status in our faces.
This past Saturday night was one of those times:
One of our friends is a retired music teacher, and every year he holds a sing-a-long in his home. 30 or so friends cram into his living room; song lyrics are projected onto a wall, and his sons accompany us on piano and flute.
My husband and I did our best to join in the singing, but we soon were stealing mirthful glances at each other. We were surrounded by friends who were belting out songs they had grown up with, and we enjoyed joining in as soon as we caught onto the melody. But aside from the occasional song we recognized (and gave ourselves a happy squeeze when we did), we were definitely in new territory.
To anyone who had grown up in Israel, or who had raised children or grandchildren here, the evening's songs were old, comfortable favorites. But to 'lone immigrants' like ourselves, who have no young ones at home or nearby, each song was a new revelation.
What a joy to be in a room filled with friends and song; all of us having a great time! And, while we were trying to catch on to each melody, we had a chance to carefully read the lyrics of each song, and gain a greater appreciation of their loveliness that we would have if we had been able to join in the singing from the first chord.
As we sat on that small couch towards the back of the living room, we knew we were also sitting on a small island of immigration- and that for as long as we lived in Israel, that couch would never be far away. To the surprise of neither of us, we're perfectly fine with that. We'll always have new lyrics to learn and enjoy, and the accompaniment of friends to help us learn the tune.
Gleeful painter (and maybe writer), vegan, grandmother, with an itch to travel, and a very positive outlook on life. Contentedly living in the Jerusalem hills.
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