Feeling sad and scared

[LondonMummer]

I'm feeling incredibly sad and scared tonight.

So scared for my young cousins who are probably about to enter Gaza.

Utterly bleak about the desperate situation for so many Palestinians.

Genuinely frightened for the impact all this may have may have for those of us in the diaspora.

Heartbroken for the hostages and their families.

It's overwhelming

A man I work with has 4 DC, all of whom have been called up. He said last night that things were likely to change in the next two days. For always. It was chilling.

It’s terrifying. Just watched the news at 10 with a father in Palestine writing on his stillborn baby’s shroud. The poor innocents on both sides. I’m Jewish but a child is a child and a civilian is a civilian. I can’t begin to imagine the fate of the hostages that were taken on the 7th and the torture their loved ones are going through.

it’s just too much

It is terrible to see so much energy devoted to hate. My heart is with yours here, I know what is at stake.
There is some wicked manipulation at the heart of this and I despair that I cannot get my teenage sons to see it. All that passion and no perspective is a dangerous mix.
I know I'm not alone to feel this, we are just a less vocal crowd. You are not alone.

I've just seen Piers C*rbyn's rant from the London protest and it's ended me. I know it's easy to relegate him to hard left crankdom but there's a lot of people who agree with him, and many more who will hear this stuff and believe it.😔

I've just put my phone on after Shabbat went out and feeling desperately sad again after a great day attending a double bar mitzvah of twins.

There was a big pro-Palestine march in my city again. All the anti-Semites out in force.

There was a pro-Palestinian rally in my city also. DF was in the city centre and said there looked to be over 1k there. Praying and shouting. So frightening and depressing seeing so much hate whipped up to a whole new level. I listened to Any Questions on Radio 4 at lunchtime and there were some pro-Palestinians in the audience, shouting if panelist’s made any points about both sides needing to work together or condemning Hamas.

I was also at a Bar Mitzvah today and the party was in Central London tonight. As we came out through Leicester Square tube station with my son this evening there was a huge flow of people from the London rally flowing in.

I actually don't begrudge people the right to hold a march or wave Palestinian flags but I certainly wouldn't have wanted my husband and son to be wearing kippot as it felt quite febrile.

On a more positive note there was an elderly lady with a huge magen david on the tube sitting opposite an older man holding a leaflet for the rally. Somehow that felt better, it was London, with us all rubbing against each other with different views and different politics but without antagonism.

How do you erase the images from your mind, of what Hamas did, especially in the kibbutzim? The babies and children? The ones taken hostage? The orphans.

I just read something incredibly disturbing, and I can't sleep for thinking about that poor soul.

Purple. It’s just so hard . I don’t know what to tell you. Other than keeping as distracted as possible and focusing on the good thIngs and good people around us.

When our DM was desperately ill and dying, my oldest DB made us all go for a walk in the park before we went to the hospital for the day. He said it was important to see some of the beautiful things near us, before we saw the heartbreaking and cruel ones. That was i suppose ‘self care’, 20 years before self care started to be a ‘thIng’

@Cropcycle in a very similar vein I was saying to my cousin who lives in Jerusalem that when everything gets too much - all of this, Covid etc, I find myself needing to just be outside in the living world.

She sent me this amazing poem which I've now put up on my wall

Wendell Berry. The Peace Of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

That poem is beautiful.

I'm going to take the children for a walk in the local woods tomorrow.

That is so beautiful LondonMummer. I remember on those walks feeling we should be at the hospital not in the park, but in hindsight, that half hour respite, before we faced whatever the rest of the day might bring, taught me something important - a reminder that out there, flowers grow or rest, leaves bud or fall depending on the season, there’s different weather, different smells, different faces to see. When so much is shifting and hard to understand - these are the constants we can hold on to.

PurpleChrayne. A walk in the woods is a lovely thing to do.

Do you remember in lockdown, people painting pebbles and stones and leaving them for others to find? I’m going to start doing that. Just little things to put a smile on someone’s face, or for a child to discover.

@LondonMummer
That poem is beautiful, thank you. There is a dedication on a bench that I see daily about finding solace in the beauty of nature and I try to.

I am Jewish, I live within walking distance of 2 synagogues and yet on Sunday morning I saw posters of the kidnapped torn down and defaced.

@LondonMummer that poem is so beautiful, and so true. I can't thank you enough for posting it. It has helped me today as I am in a very dark place, largely unrelated to the current devastating situation. Seeing something outside oneself, particularly in the natural world, in very dark days is often the tiny glimmer of hope one needs.

I also wanted to stand in solidarity with you all. I hope you don't mind me posting. I am utterly appalled by some of the things I've read on MN of late and can only imagine the increasing well of anxiety and fear you must all be experiencing. It's horrific and shocking and wicked.

I am not Jewish. My niece converted before her marriage. There is family in Tel Aviv. A very dear old friend used to say 'you always need to know when to leave.' I thought I understood, but I've never understood that better than now, and it's heartbreaking.

It's very sobering to have demonstrated, that the veneer of civilisation is just that- a veneer.

May this section remain your safe space.

I'm so sorry to hear you are going through something so hard and so touched that the poem brought you a moment of solace. There is something about it that is quite perfect.

Thank you also for your kindness. I've stepped away from the rest of Mumsnet for a bit as it's all been quite overwhelming but it is lovely to have this quiet corner of the internet for solidarity and good souls.

I hope your struggles do not ensure and that we can all return to a more peaceful world before too long.

Thank you @LondonMummer . I went outside for a walk after I posted and was rewarded with the most beautiful rainbow over my little valley.

Know that you have really really helped another soul today. X

This is wonderful.

And so have you 🙂