A woman phones.

“I’m so angry. I can’t stop being angry. I’m embarrassed to say it but I’m even angry with Heaven.”

I listen.

“I don’t know what to do. What should I do?” She begs for an answer. “I’m not feeling so different. The truth is I’m not angry with Heaven or even anyone else just … I think they’ve upped the ante in the world. Things are happening at such speeds that people are having a lot of trouble holding on.”

I don’t know what to say. She’s too hurt too mad at the world.

“I don’t know what to say” I tell her. “These things are kind of out of my department.”

But she goes on because she can’t stop. And I don’t say anything I just let her get the steam off but again she says “Tell me what to do.”

And again I say “I don’t know.”

But she doesn’t want to hang up until I offer something — some suggestion some word of comfort. I try to hear what’s really going on behind all that anger and it becomes clear.

“You need to cry” I say.

Silence.

“Listen I’ll call you back in about 15 minutes” I say. “I also have to finish my morning cry.”

“What?” the woman says. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing thank G-d. I cry every morning davening. A cry a day keeps the doctor away.”

“You cry on demand?” she asks.

“No.”

“So what do you cry about?”

“Everything. There’s lots to cry about. But it’s not a complaining kvetchy cry it’s more of a release so I can go on and be happy for the rest of the day instead of storing up pain in every part of my body.”

“You have to cry?”

“No. If it comes it comes.”

“Oh you scared me. I thought you had some kind of weird ritual where you force yourself to cry.”

Long silence.

“I haven’t cried in ages” she says toying with giving herself the permission to cry.

Later that day I take someone for a doctor appointment. This particular doctor has his office in the former apartment of his parents who had come to Israel and actually founded their neighborhood built right after the Six Day War. The furniture they brought in their lift is still in the apartment. At that time apartments were about three rooms. The waiting room used to be the living room.

I’m a little nervous. A little frustrated at a situation or two. Angry at drips on the kitchen floor. Tense from a taxi driver who didn’t stop yelling at everyone on his cell phone. But I notice while I’m waiting in this waiting room that I suddenly feel completely relaxed.

The whole atmosphere. The two old wooden end tables with porcelain lamps and old-fashioned copper lampshades. The thick beige silk-budded couch covers. A set of four wooden carved folding chairs. Two matching brass mirrors. A rocking chair. I sit on the dull green-and-royal blue sofa for two. And somehow in this room warm and thick with knowledge with struggle and release I feel the security of time. Of how small things pass.

The perfect neatness is so comforting so soothing so strongly protective that I start to relax. I remember I need to make a call but my cell is out of gas. I ask if I can use the phone. The doctor gives me an old rotary phone explaining it’s the same one his parents used. I hadn’t seen one in ages.

When I start to dial I have to hold back the tears of how my mother and father and grandparents are not here to share in our lives in Israel. And I realize how hiding behind all that nervousness frustration and tension like rain hides behind grey clouds were these feelings.

The same night the women from the morning calls back. She says “I just read a story and a tear formed inside my eye.”

It sits right there behind the anger.