Horizons

I've decided to try being brave and assertive, so I submitted The Mitzvah and the Mayhem to Horizons.

Now my mind is marinating in post-active hesitation instinct.

Wish me luck.

(Thank you, Ms. Stx!)

A Case of the Blurries, aka Faux Medical Definition #2

Ever since I made my subconscious decision to attend seminary in Israel next year, I have been beset by a strange, fluttering phenomenon called the blurries. In laymen's terms, blurries are the eccentric little shards and pieces that make up the mosaic of an overall worry- the anatomy of a worry, if you will. In their purest clinical condition, they usually consist of isolated trivialities that concern small, seemingly insignificant (though not unreasonable) aspects of the overall fear. For example, if one is anxious about an upcoming exam, the worry can often be broken down into blurries such as, "What if I cannot read the teacher's handwriting?", or "Where will I put my notes during the test?" Even when blurries are subconscious, they contribute greatly to the overall sensation of discomfort and unease and so magnify the general consequences of worry.

My personal list of seminary-related blurries includes:

• Where will I buy my shampoo?
• What if I can't find the right toothpaste?
• Where will I do my dry cleaning?
• What if I can't figure out how to update my blog via email?
• What if I can't get up for classes in the morning?
• And what if the label on my hair iron was serious when it said "Do not use with power adaptor"?

I have yet to put my finger on a practical antidote for the blurries, although I hypothesize (with copious trepidation) that experience may hold the significant answer. This is Doctor M. Agination, signing out and saying "this too shall pass."

Backcover-itis

Undoubtedly the worst sensation that can afflict a reader is what I have feebly dubbed "Backcover-itis". I'm sure you know what I mean- that awful gap in your psyche that arrives just as you finally close the comfortingly weighty volume you have startlingly quickly become accustomed to dragging to the ends of the earth with you. Though it's more of a subtraction than an addition, really, like a piece falling out of a puzzle, or dropping a doughnut and being left with nothing but the hole. Your twin/pocketbook/comfort food of the past days or weeks is gone. The mystery is solved, the romance consummated, the tragedy settled. For a little while, you aren't quite sure what to do with yourself- your hands expect pages to turn, and your eyes are suddenly dehydrated for lack of fresh wording. You could reread, but such rebound reactions rarely result in successful recovery. You could begin a new book, open your mind to new people, places and problems, but often it's difficult to muster any interest when you are still so enamored with the previous set of such. Indeed, I've found that the there are few remedies that satisfactorily sate the void more successfully than the old fashioned option of patience. Time often receives much of the credit truthfully owed to memory, and forgetfulness has a highly underestimated quantity of usefulness. Letting the book recede gracefully from your conscienceness is the easiest and simplest manner in which to recover from your infatuation. Of course, if you are anything like me, the process must be completed after every tome you put down... But I've found that such practices often get easier on repetition.

(On a side note- I've set up a Yahoo address, so if you'd like to e-mail me, it is inkasrain@yahoo.com.)

Maintain the Chain

The wonderful author of Seraphic Press has tagged me for this survey. Aside from the honor, I am especially grateful because it gives me something to do on a fast day. I hope my answers satisfy!

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. It's a amazing portrayal of prejudice, group mentality and perseverance. Valuable in any time.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Ahhh... well, yes. Leoff Ackenzal, from The Charnel Prince by Greg Keyes. He is a sweet, brilliant composer who risks his life to perform his music. Silly, and yet...

The last book you bought is:

Technically? The Kaplan Guide to the English Language and Composition AP. But I brought Shadow & Claw, by Gene Wolfe at the same time, so let's call it that.

The last book you read:

The Plot Against America, by Phillip Roth. Not my ideal experience, to say the least.

What are you currently reading?

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, once again. The timing is ideal- it will be residual in my mind without running the risk of Potter overload.

Five books you would take to a deserted island.

(I'm going to extrapolate 'books' to mean 'series'.)

-The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
-Harry Potter 1-7
-Malazan Book of the Fallen Series
-A Song of Ice and Fire
-The New York Public Library Desk Reference.

Who are you going to pass this on to?

-Thunder of Spring
-ShirChadash
-Teach and You Will Learn

Living Color

The product of three months of sweating in art class. It looks better from a distance, I promise.  

Claustrophobic Universe

People are infectious. All it takes is one acquaintance and before you can say "antisocial tendencies," you have three best friends, five long lost cousins and twelve people who know someone who knows someone who's dentist sat next to Julia Roberts in an airport once. Sauté carefully in the skillet of what my friend calls Jewish Geography (and I call Diaspora Group Benefits) and bam! You've got a nice, hearty helping of people to invite to parties.

Not that this is a bad thing. Please, it comes in handy sometimes! For instance, through the wonder that is the Internet I have been endowed with the knowledge of at least six girls who are going to Israel with me. It's an eclectic group, to say the least. We range from the relative mundanity of New York to the exhilaratingly exotic realms of South Africa, at least from what I have been able to decipher. Of course, nothing is set in stone until we get on the plane to go home- the older the grape vine, the softer the grapes, and ours has been around since language came in style.

Retire-spent

Today, I had a perfectly ordinary economics class with my English principal, Mr. Lasky. The atmosphere was restlessly cheerful with the slightest razor of tension that always keeps his class so phenomenally spicy. He taught us how and why to buy health insurance, and how to avoid being left penniless in our old age (striking terror into my very soul along the way.) I scribbled down my notes and as endlessly entertained and intimidated by Mr. Lasky as always. At the start of the year, I decided in awe that he could have been born as anything from a medieval vassal to Bill Gates and click in seamlessly. He is the most dynamic, confident teacher I have ever had.

Two minutes before the end of class, Mr. Lasky told us that he was retiring. I started to cry.

I feel... I don't know how I feel. Mr. Lasky has been a teacher for forty years. He's been the Dean of public schools. He has taught at my school for twenty-two years. It's seems impossible for him to be anything except a teacher. He's... he's Mr. Lasky, he exudes administration. And why did I react the way I did? Everyone was stunned, everyone was sad, but almost no one else was crying. It isn't as though I had a particular connection with him- I still get scared walking past his office! I don't know why it's so hard to take in. It won't even effect me, technically- I'm lucky, my sister won't be his student at all. It's just... maybe it feels like graduation has all of a sudden come early, and I'm not prepared. Maybe it's a tiny alarm going off in my head, "Change is coming! Change is coming! Your feet are going to be knocked out from under you!" And I know it's true, but I can't do anything about it.

Strange Little Story

Consider yourself cautioned.

“Plethora.... “ Alice bent heavily over the tattered paperback volume on her lap. It was recess again, but as always she barely noticed. Her only concession to the daily one-thousand-eight-hundred seconds she expended on the courtyard was that she now slouched cross-legged on icy concrete with her back to the pockmarked brick wall. The rest of the day she was slouched in scared wooden desk in a somber classroom with paper windowshades and three year old posters on the walls. Alice didn't like the classroom either, but at least there the world was smaller, and she could take care of her friends in the desk.

“What are you reading, Alice in wonderland?”

Alice shuddered. One of the mean little boys was near her again, and now it was leaning over her with it's sticky sweet breath and gooey fingers and wet, wet...

“I said, Alice Balice, what are you reading??”

She raised her head slowly to glare at the awful imposing creature, squinting to protect her eyes. Dirty dark hair in strands like seaweed, grubby skin with a greenish tint, a mouth rimmed with faded crimson crust. Coat bleached from rolling in the snow, dangling off him and open because the zipper was broken. And the sneakers...

With a surge of detached dismay Alice suddenly found herself ensnared by the rapturous miasma of those sneakers. Brown and sweat stained, they were so thin that Alice could see the boy's toes between the tattered fibers. She watched in wonder as the lacy membrane stretched and strained with every shift in weight. Almost, almost, she could see each thread grimace and sigh with the limbo, hear the creak as they bent atop of their eternal neighbors. She could cry at their torment, she could give each a name, group them into families long forgotten...

“C'mon, Alice, what are you reading? Lemme see, c'mon!”

Alice barely noticed as her book was lifted from between her slack, waxy fingers. Would they recognize each other? What would she...

“The dictionary?”

The reverie died.

“Alice in wonderland, you're reading the dictionary?”

He throat was suddenly clay. Her book... it had her book? How dare it, that horrendous, dirty... She tried to regain her feet but stumbled in her fury...

A shrill gong fell like fire on her ears, and she crouched down, curling within herself. Dimly, she heard a thump next to her, and the swollen roar of people choking doorways. Alice blinked, and gathered her fallen comrade to her chest. The one-thousand-eight-hundred seconds were gone.
Unsteady on uneven feet, she wove her solitary path back to the dark, refrigerated classroom. She hoped the glue had kept an eye on the new pencils, like she had asked it.

I'm not really sure where that came from...

Consider the Source

Recently, I've become fascinated with the nature of the origin. I do this every so often, plunging into an obscure query that no one quite knows how to respond to. A few months ago it was 'What are tissues made of?' Ah, the ringing silence that followed that one...

My current confusion causes me to ponder whenever the mood strikes me, where do things come from? Senior Cut Day, bottled water, bean bag chairs... What was the motive? But names, in particular, elicit extensive meditation. Hebrew names, for the most part, are one way or another traced back to history I know, but where does the name, say, Amelia come from? Or Frederick? Or Lucille? Did they come from words perhaps, from Latin or Greek? From a plant name? And ultimately, how did that object, that static noun evolve into a term that could entitle a person for the rest of their lives? Why is Violet an accepted (if slightly outdated) name, while Begonia is not? Who decided that Pearl and Ruby made appealing names, while Amethyst and Opal do not? And why? I always seem to end up at the why of things. I walk through the maze of a problem in my mind, following the tracks others have made on similar quests, fighting not to become ensnared by every unique niche, until as always I return to this door. I can actually see it, plain and worn from countless shoulders rammed against it in frustration, vaguely glossy after endless backs have sunk down against it in defeat. A small, nondescript sign dangles lopsidedly from a nail, asking, lest you have forgotten, 'Why?'. This mundane portal exudes a tantalizing, almost seductive aura of satisfaction, close to irresistable as it evokes wave after wave of humanity's most ancient goad- curiosity. And halfway down the door there hovers a nearly invisible keyhole, into which fits a miniscule, prefect, glowing key. But you must bring the key with you to the door, and once you arrive without it, you must begin all over.

I don't know whether this phenomenon is a blessing or a curse, but I suppose the origin problem can be quelled in kind with 'why'- The answer is not always the end, as long as the beginning is just as strong a motivation.

An Exercise in Esteem

I admit that poetry contests were never precisely my cup of tea (usually because deadlines are a personal poison) but as anything my dear MN suggests is worth a considerable amount of time and effort, I have decided to submit a poem to this contest.

Redemption

United
Stands the Nation,
Trembling with trepidation,
Blind in the depths of their contemplation,
Savoring their inspiration,
At the foot of the Mountain.

Divided
Lies the Nation,
Huddled in their limp prostration,
Discarded is the congregation,
Lost is the hope for divine salvation,
Sentenced to damnation,
As the City burns.

Indifferent
Sprawls the Nation,
Blind and content in their rich situation,
Unaware of condemnation,
Deaf to all abrasion,
They wallow in abject adoration,
Of their hollow fortresses.

Finally One
Thunders the Nation,
Shining in the halo of their glorification,
Alight in sacred jubilation,
Glowing from the fire of their fresh consecration,
The last coronation,
And the Lord of the Hosts reigns acknowledged by all.

I wrote this last year. What do you think?

The Shabbos Sisters

It is a very odd thing to be in school on Shabbos. Physical differences abound, obviously- I totter around in my three inch heels and skirts that kiss the crevice below my knees where ordinarily I scurry around in thick-soled loafers and floor sweeping black pleats. My hair is smooth and tame and the bags under my eyes are (I hope) marginally lighter than their accustomed hue of thunderstorm gray. But external differences are dwarfed next to the revolution in mindset. Five days a week, my role in school is generally restricted that of a student, with occasional pinch-hitting as a friend and messenger. On Shabbos, however, I participate in a program that organizes groups to occupy girls from the ages of five to eleven on Shabbos afternoon. My charges are a collection of fourth grade girls, the size and dynamic of which varies from week to week. Along with a friend, I attempt to entertain these girls for an hour and a half, utilizing every childhood game I can recall (which are not many- my sister and I usually preferred entertainment of the imaginary genre). While my authority operates strictly on an individual basis, it is still quite a jolt to suddenly occupy a position of leadership in the very room where I am often reprimanded for tardiness. The oddity is yet compounded by the fact that I was a great devotee of this program when I was younger, and my memory still reveres the leaders of my past.

Being a leader in this program is an enormous lesson in patience. I had not ever before considered the overwhelming volume of energy it must take to be a teacher. Baby-sitting, though the presiding hobby of my peers, has never held any attraction for me at all. I do not particularly enjoy taking care of children, particularly those I do not know, and money was never something I had much desire to procure for myself. And yet somehow, for some reason, I became a member of this program, and have had to tap into reserves I had no idea existed.

Today, for instance, my co-leader was unable to come, and I was left to exert order over what quickly became a large, raucous gaggle of nine or ten girls. One girl in particular, who had not attended in several weeks, posed a particular problem. For some unbeknownst reason, she and another girl became exceedingly wild and erratic, progressing to the point of mild insanity. And of course, as with all children still so easily susceptible to group mentality, the fervor caught on. No game was able to distract them for any useful length of time, and as yet more girls arrived, I was soon reduced to a powerless figure attempting to make myself heard above a din I could never hope to rival. A game of limbo, suggested by the overall head, became a squabble over the height of the bar (which I attempted to suspended by holding one end and pressing the other against the wall) and whether girls had or had not violated the rules. (I had never known limbo could be so absurdly complicated!) In addition to which, my shoes, which I had removed in order to stand on a chair and raise the bar, were quickly seized by the two aforementioned girls and paraded on small, sweaty, wholly unwelcome feet. They undid the buckles and then squabbled over which of the two could wear them when. I eventually had to pad around the ground floor and basement in my school in nothing but stockings until I located the culprits and was able to regain my much abused heels.

Let me not give too negative an impression, however! Amusingly enough, I have actually enjoyed some previous weeks experiences, though at the beginning it was extremely rough going. There are four weeks left of this program- hopefully the future will mirror the past more than the present.

The Interstice

Into nighttime's sundered calling
Slips the whispered breath of beams
Through the mantle, almost falling
Heralding the death of dreams.

Pale satins softly growing
Ink diffused on virgin silk
Heaven's histories aglowing
Laced with morning's golden milk.

Stage's gauzy veil rising
Leads celestial players forth
A signature of each suprising
Dawn that guides the sunrise north.

Nineteen Days...

The theory behind creating a blog, as far as I can suppose, is to allow your thoughts, opinions, and musings to enter an arena where anyone who wishes can view them, and in turn impart their own pebbles of personality. This, of course, has many facets to it, both positive and negative, and each blogger establishes his or her comfort margin as he or she posts.

Although I initially started Ink As Rain as a pseudo-diary for my friends, I am absolutely elated and honored by the feedback I have received in the process. I adore posting, and every comment elicits an extensive range of onomatopoeia. Every day brought literary opportunities I had never recognized before, and I found such a wonderful method to express them...

Before February 18th.

On February 18th, I became aware that a particular individual had slid into the ranks of the readers of Ink as Rain. Believe me when I say that the presence of this person is an immeasurable insult to everyone here. This individual has inflicted unbelievable suffering at the hands of this person, and this person has embraced behaviors and habits which can kindly be described as disgusting.

I don't want to drag out what this person's betrayal has done to my life. I have already composed several posts regarding this that remain unposted, all of which contain such bitter, unincompassibly angry invective that I am slightly intimidated by the force of my emotions. But now that I know this person is reading, I feel utterly trapped. To continue while this person reads is abhorrent to me, but at the same time I desperatly wish to continue my blog.

I have spent the past nineteen days grappling with this Gordian Knot, and I remain at a loss. I feel terrible to dredge this up here, in front of you all, but I am in desperate need of advice. I hope that perhaps the perspective of bloggers will help me find an answer.