A subway car is a capsule, a cross section of humanity momentarily crystallized in as inoffensive a setting as stainless-steel and plastic can conjure. Every crevice of society can be seen on the subway at one time or another, the respectable, the questionable, the inconceivable, and all possible contortions of "the other half."
These people fascinate me. A sliver of my mind is always itching with the sizzle of unanswered questions. Who are the people I see on the subway? Why are they there, and where are they going? How did they come to look as they do, as tired or preppy or mentally unbalanced as they do? What does their clothing mean- is it choice, statement or necessity? Where do they live, and what are their livelihoods? When they look at me... what do they see?
I have no regular contact with these masses. Television is about as near as I come, and I am not so naive to imagine that life imitates art as exactly as it likes to pretend. I stare, glassy-eyed at these foreign lives with a swelling concoction of anxiety and fascination, a mist of unfamiliarity tinting and amplifying my curiosity.
I've yet to find a cure for this mild obsession- I don't even know where it comes from. But I suppose the curiosity is half the allure. I suspect many of the answers would raise issues I doubt I would enjoy discovering, and it's nice to know there is one aspect of my life I will never grow tired of.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Expressions
What are tears?
Clinically, medically, yes- I understand. The eye is a delicate organ which must be properly hydrated and cleaned... But this is not my question, nor does it hold any visible connection with emotion.
I cry at different sorts of times, different than I would expect. I cry when I read books that touch me, or when my sister makes me so angry I could scream. I can cry at the movies, or at disappointing news.
When my grandfather died, I did not cry right away. When my grandmother sobbed while cupping my face and smiling to soothe me... then I cried.
Right now, there is a well inside of me, I can actually see it in my mind. It is murky and clear at once, pale blue with hazy white clouds sliding across the gently rippled surface. I cannot see how deep it is.
This well keeps all my extinguished tears. It brims with the tears I blinked away at graduation for sheer exhaustion, the whimpers I swallow when I watch the wretchedness of the homeless, the helpless, enervated grief throbbing inside me when I flinch away from pictures of the Holocaust.
This is the well that I fill afresh every time I watch my brothers leave the house with my father and all I can do is boil over with inexpressible fury, because I am so sick of crying.
When I shed these terrible repressions, they leak from my eyes like dirty oil, flowing turgid and cold and opaque down my cheeks. I am sure they mean my eyes no aid, or else they would not burn.
---
(CoffeeMom- if you don't mind, could you perhaps email me? {inkasrain@yahoo.com} There are several things I would like to express to you- all of a positive nature, rest assured.)
Clinically, medically, yes- I understand. The eye is a delicate organ which must be properly hydrated and cleaned... But this is not my question, nor does it hold any visible connection with emotion.
I cry at different sorts of times, different than I would expect. I cry when I read books that touch me, or when my sister makes me so angry I could scream. I can cry at the movies, or at disappointing news.
When my grandfather died, I did not cry right away. When my grandmother sobbed while cupping my face and smiling to soothe me... then I cried.
Right now, there is a well inside of me, I can actually see it in my mind. It is murky and clear at once, pale blue with hazy white clouds sliding across the gently rippled surface. I cannot see how deep it is.
This well keeps all my extinguished tears. It brims with the tears I blinked away at graduation for sheer exhaustion, the whimpers I swallow when I watch the wretchedness of the homeless, the helpless, enervated grief throbbing inside me when I flinch away from pictures of the Holocaust.
This is the well that I fill afresh every time I watch my brothers leave the house with my father and all I can do is boil over with inexpressible fury, because I am so sick of crying.
When I shed these terrible repressions, they leak from my eyes like dirty oil, flowing turgid and cold and opaque down my cheeks. I am sure they mean my eyes no aid, or else they would not burn.
---
(CoffeeMom- if you don't mind, could you perhaps email me? {inkasrain@yahoo.com} There are several things I would like to express to you- all of a positive nature, rest assured.)
Monday, July 25, 2005
A Question of Verbosity
I have encountered a slight snag in my grand plan to transcribe the events of my vacation, and as I'm sure you can deduce the problem. In my wide-eyed anticipation, I had neglected to factor in exactly how long it would take me to complete such an endeavor, given the scope and scale of the trip. And believe me, it would take quite a while; I have hemmed for nearly a week before I mustered the energy to return to the "Create Post" screen. At the rate I am going, it is unlikely I would succeed in completing the travel log before I leave for Israel on September 5th- not an idea that overwhelms me with pleasure.
This deadline in mind, I've decided to lay aside the log for now and focus on other items. It is a pity, because it was a great deal of fun to write, but given that it was an awful lot of work (and that it has been my experience that the longer the post, the smaller the odds it will be perused in full) I thought it would be better to continue with smaller, more manageable things.
So as of tomorrow, I will (to borrow a phrase from TorontoPearl) return to regularly scheduled blogging. Now, if I can only discover what on earth has driven my sidebar into seclusion...
This deadline in mind, I've decided to lay aside the log for now and focus on other items. It is a pity, because it was a great deal of fun to write, but given that it was an awful lot of work (and that it has been my experience that the longer the post, the smaller the odds it will be perused in full) I thought it would be better to continue with smaller, more manageable things.
So as of tomorrow, I will (to borrow a phrase from TorontoPearl) return to regularly scheduled blogging. Now, if I can only discover what on earth has driven my sidebar into seclusion...
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Travel Log One: British Air, If You Dare
It is unconstitutionally early when my mother shakes me awake. The awful feeling of pending movement swells inside me that which besets me when it is dark outside and in my room but the light from the hall bleeds in like a blinding stain. Evidently I eventually arise, gaining speed as the impetus of dozens of invaluable items yet to pack fuels my sluggish motions. Into my oblivious brothers' rooms I scurry to kiss their sleeping lumps goodbye, one last whimper and stroke doled out for my bewildered cat, and then we are miraculously off in a cranky, rattling, graveyard-shift taxi. None of us speak very much for a while as we stew in our adrenaline and dreadful excitement; though a small part of us each is monotonously praying that the taxi, now bucking and lurching like an angry Italian cook, will remain intact until we reach the terminal. As if on cue, the driver puts down his cell phone and calls dubiously back to us:
"Vhat tkegmeenal?"
"What?" says my mother, startled out of her reverie.
"Tkegmeenal, tkegmeenal!" he says loudly. There's a Russian mafia too, right? my brain deadpans unhelpfully.
"Oh, terminal! British Airways."
"Vot?"
"Bri-tish Air-ways."
"Jket Bloo?"
We in the backseat exchange glances of jovial unease. Wow, I think. I'm going to be in Reader's Digest.
"No, no," says my mother, calling over the crackling radio and clang of the tires. "Bri-tish Air-ways. British. England!"
"Ohh,ohh! Hok-hay."
The same discourse is repeated at least twice before we swerve up to British Airways curb at JFK, though by then we are hardly in a position to complain about conversation. The driver unloads our three massive valises and our three stomachs collectively drop as we realize that he is quite barefoot.
Barely containing our hysterics, we stumble into check-in and encounter British Queue #1. We stand in line for at least half an hour, hushing our voices and imagining that even feeble whispers reverberate around the eerie silence of the early morning airport. We are joined in line by several fascinating character studies including American Collegians (Tee-Shirt Skirt and Alpha-Guy), Brits On Holiday (Chic Chick, Token Sister and Random Mum) and of course a Chassid. Finally, we are briskly and rudely checked in by a woman reminiscent of McCarthy plus a questionable accent and get through the Infernal Metal Detector where major procedural dilemmas face us; basket or bin? Separate mini-crate for keys? And what about earrings? Should my mother take off her shoes?
(The answer to that was a grunted "mmuh" from a grumpy official, so my mother had to walk through barefoot.)
At last declared legal, we stroll a bit through the airport shopping (which is pitiful, but that's a luxury you loose at JFK Departures) though we still manage to stock up on batteries and Certified Kosher M&M's. As we prepare to board, my mother makes her last calls on an American cell phone for two weeks (I think she might have set a velocity record.)
Our seats on the flight are three by a window, which I dolefully request as I slide surreptitiously into it and barter for with empty assurances that I will switch soon with my sister, wedged (as she so often seems to be) in the middle. But her resentment switches imperceptibly to well disguised smugness as the American Collegians slide into the seats in front of us. She gets Tee-Shirt Skirt. I get Alpha-Guy, who immediately and without a hint of courtesy pushes his seat back to its limits, and then forces it at least another inch through sheer brutality.
Charming.
The flight, once I adjust to having less legroom than your average amoebae, proceeds relatively smoothly. Our kosher meals come without incident, a comfortingly vile concoction of chicken and peas, at barely nine o'clock EST. A careful combination of crossword puzzles, popcorn novels and watching half of "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" (tragic and difficult to follow, but rather enjoyable) greases the hours sufficiently enough.
During landing, I notice that the girl behind me, whose reflection I am watching in my window, is still listening to music. I can feel the percussion through my seat, and it irritates me so that I focus my attention on Tee-Shirt Skirt, who engrossed in a full-flow, one way discourse with Alpha-Guy dissecting what I soon decipher is the despicable Tom Cruise. To my surprise, I fully agree with her. Well, I think, there is really no accounting for taste.
At Heathrow airport, we scurry down several flat escalators and receive our first lesson in British Law: On any mechanical distance spanning apparatus, those who wish to remain stationary must stand to the right, and leave the left side clear for those who wish to facilitate the speed gained from the mechanism by walking upon it. My sister is silently rebuked by a stony faced business man for leaning on the left; between that and the signs posted every two feet "Please Stand to the Right," we manage to catch on.
We then stand on British Queue #2, for Customs, a process that, love England dearly as I do, I have no desire ever to repeat again. It was impassibly long, moved in inches, and was so deafeningly silent I felt as though I was acting out some deviously designed piece of satirical social art. Finally stamped, visually scoured and sanctioned, we hasten to retrieve our luggage- by some divine mercy, our pieces came trundling around within a short span of minutes. We then use both a currency machine and a human vendor to exchange a relatively small amount of dollars for even fewer pounds (approximate exchange rate: $2 = 1 £) during which we study the aforementioned Chassid being collected and carried off by his compatriots.
This done, we purchase tickets to the Heathrow train to Paddington Station and wait for quite a while for the train to arrive, during which we are instructed several times to "Mind the Gap" and stand behind a yellow line positioned at least three feet behind the track. (There was, incidentally, significantly more room in the Forbidden area of the line than behind it.) On the train, we are joined by two women tittering in French and a clod of boisterous Irish businessmen- one of whom picks up my overlooked sweatshirt as we disembark and hands it to my mother, grinning that I had "forgotten my cloak."
After running pell-mell around Paddington Station looking for the exit (in British, Way Out) and a taxi (we pause for a minute to grin ruefully at several large banners urging Londoners to "Back the Bid" for the 2012 Olympics, knowing full well that London doesn’t have a chance) we wait on British Queue #3, the taxi line. Also preposterously long, though it moved somewhat more quickly, and at least we were allowed to talk.
The hotel was twenty minutes away, and my mother is in a state of purest bliss. It is her first time in London, and even in the dark through tinted windows, she can't get enough. She was so excited, I was concerned she would suggest touring right then and there- thankfully the hotel room (which my mother and my sister fell thoroughly in love with) proves a solid enough anchor to keep us indoors, at least until dawn.
---
(Don't say I didn't warn you...)
"Vhat tkegmeenal?"
"What?" says my mother, startled out of her reverie.
"Tkegmeenal, tkegmeenal!" he says loudly. There's a Russian mafia too, right? my brain deadpans unhelpfully.
"Oh, terminal! British Airways."
"Vot?"
"Bri-tish Air-ways."
"Jket Bloo?"
We in the backseat exchange glances of jovial unease. Wow, I think. I'm going to be in Reader's Digest.
"No, no," says my mother, calling over the crackling radio and clang of the tires. "Bri-tish Air-ways. British. England!"
"Ohh,ohh! Hok-hay."
The same discourse is repeated at least twice before we swerve up to British Airways curb at JFK, though by then we are hardly in a position to complain about conversation. The driver unloads our three massive valises and our three stomachs collectively drop as we realize that he is quite barefoot.
Barely containing our hysterics, we stumble into check-in and encounter British Queue #1. We stand in line for at least half an hour, hushing our voices and imagining that even feeble whispers reverberate around the eerie silence of the early morning airport. We are joined in line by several fascinating character studies including American Collegians (Tee-Shirt Skirt and Alpha-Guy), Brits On Holiday (Chic Chick, Token Sister and Random Mum) and of course a Chassid. Finally, we are briskly and rudely checked in by a woman reminiscent of McCarthy plus a questionable accent and get through the Infernal Metal Detector where major procedural dilemmas face us; basket or bin? Separate mini-crate for keys? And what about earrings? Should my mother take off her shoes?
(The answer to that was a grunted "mmuh" from a grumpy official, so my mother had to walk through barefoot.)
At last declared legal, we stroll a bit through the airport shopping (which is pitiful, but that's a luxury you loose at JFK Departures) though we still manage to stock up on batteries and Certified Kosher M&M's. As we prepare to board, my mother makes her last calls on an American cell phone for two weeks (I think she might have set a velocity record.)
Our seats on the flight are three by a window, which I dolefully request as I slide surreptitiously into it and barter for with empty assurances that I will switch soon with my sister, wedged (as she so often seems to be) in the middle. But her resentment switches imperceptibly to well disguised smugness as the American Collegians slide into the seats in front of us. She gets Tee-Shirt Skirt. I get Alpha-Guy, who immediately and without a hint of courtesy pushes his seat back to its limits, and then forces it at least another inch through sheer brutality.
Charming.
The flight, once I adjust to having less legroom than your average amoebae, proceeds relatively smoothly. Our kosher meals come without incident, a comfortingly vile concoction of chicken and peas, at barely nine o'clock EST. A careful combination of crossword puzzles, popcorn novels and watching half of "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" (tragic and difficult to follow, but rather enjoyable) greases the hours sufficiently enough.
During landing, I notice that the girl behind me, whose reflection I am watching in my window, is still listening to music. I can feel the percussion through my seat, and it irritates me so that I focus my attention on Tee-Shirt Skirt, who engrossed in a full-flow, one way discourse with Alpha-Guy dissecting what I soon decipher is the despicable Tom Cruise. To my surprise, I fully agree with her. Well, I think, there is really no accounting for taste.
At Heathrow airport, we scurry down several flat escalators and receive our first lesson in British Law: On any mechanical distance spanning apparatus, those who wish to remain stationary must stand to the right, and leave the left side clear for those who wish to facilitate the speed gained from the mechanism by walking upon it. My sister is silently rebuked by a stony faced business man for leaning on the left; between that and the signs posted every two feet "Please Stand to the Right," we manage to catch on.
We then stand on British Queue #2, for Customs, a process that, love England dearly as I do, I have no desire ever to repeat again. It was impassibly long, moved in inches, and was so deafeningly silent I felt as though I was acting out some deviously designed piece of satirical social art. Finally stamped, visually scoured and sanctioned, we hasten to retrieve our luggage- by some divine mercy, our pieces came trundling around within a short span of minutes. We then use both a currency machine and a human vendor to exchange a relatively small amount of dollars for even fewer pounds (approximate exchange rate: $2 = 1 £) during which we study the aforementioned Chassid being collected and carried off by his compatriots.
This done, we purchase tickets to the Heathrow train to Paddington Station and wait for quite a while for the train to arrive, during which we are instructed several times to "Mind the Gap" and stand behind a yellow line positioned at least three feet behind the track. (There was, incidentally, significantly more room in the Forbidden area of the line than behind it.) On the train, we are joined by two women tittering in French and a clod of boisterous Irish businessmen- one of whom picks up my overlooked sweatshirt as we disembark and hands it to my mother, grinning that I had "forgotten my cloak."
After running pell-mell around Paddington Station looking for the exit (in British, Way Out) and a taxi (we pause for a minute to grin ruefully at several large banners urging Londoners to "Back the Bid" for the 2012 Olympics, knowing full well that London doesn’t have a chance) we wait on British Queue #3, the taxi line. Also preposterously long, though it moved somewhat more quickly, and at least we were allowed to talk.
The hotel was twenty minutes away, and my mother is in a state of purest bliss. It is her first time in London, and even in the dark through tinted windows, she can't get enough. She was so excited, I was concerned she would suggest touring right then and there- thankfully the hotel room (which my mother and my sister fell thoroughly in love with) proves a solid enough anchor to keep us indoors, at least until dawn.
---
(Don't say I didn't warn you...)
Monday, July 18, 2005
Days in a Life
Two major milestones have scooted up and placed themselves beneath my feet today, (and all before lunch, too!) They were like any other milestones really, looking like ordinary days until you take a step and realize that you are standing in birthday cake, if you're lucky. Of course, you know they are coming up, but all the other stones are so hypnotic that you can't imagine you will ever walk fast enough to earn a slice of the sweet sticky (hopefully confectionery) stuff suddenly staining your socks.
The first milestone (and I can't quite reason why it has earned the title "first," except to chalk it up to logistics) represents my eighteenth birthday. This occasion has thusfar proven less glamorous than it did from the Kodak viewpoint down the road at my seventeenth; I have already been informed by several hyper-politically-minded-but-surely-jesting-relatives that in no uncertain terms am I ever permitted to check a vote for a Republican. ("America the free," thought I.) Really, you wouldn't believe what a nice helping of family stew can do to the taste of birthday cake- I might as well have tossed droppings on the milestone.
The second stone, simultaneously more public and private than the first, is less of a stone, and more of a book, though to be fair it was a really bit of both and the lines often blur in cases like this where it's so close to each that you can't tell. This book isn't quite as thick as you had hoped so it's a bit of a wobbly stop and rather easy to stumble over if you aren't watching out for it. Fortunately (because I abhor stumbling on anything, much less the Path of Life) I am nearly always on the lookout for books in the road, even at night when it is harder to read. This particular book has been rather well publicized lately (I am certain you can surmise the title) and I had been watching for it for something of a long time. Today was the day that I finished this book, and I laid it back down among the cobbles where it turned back into a stone. I still have the book, but it is now no longer a milestone; only a book albeit a special one.
I suppose that's why I prefer paved roads to cobbles. The monotony draws some objection, but I bring my books wherever I go anyway.
The first milestone (and I can't quite reason why it has earned the title "first," except to chalk it up to logistics) represents my eighteenth birthday. This occasion has thusfar proven less glamorous than it did from the Kodak viewpoint down the road at my seventeenth; I have already been informed by several hyper-politically-minded-but-surely-jesting-relatives that in no uncertain terms am I ever permitted to check a vote for a Republican. ("America the free," thought I.) Really, you wouldn't believe what a nice helping of family stew can do to the taste of birthday cake- I might as well have tossed droppings on the milestone.
The second stone, simultaneously more public and private than the first, is less of a stone, and more of a book, though to be fair it was a really bit of both and the lines often blur in cases like this where it's so close to each that you can't tell. This book isn't quite as thick as you had hoped so it's a bit of a wobbly stop and rather easy to stumble over if you aren't watching out for it. Fortunately (because I abhor stumbling on anything, much less the Path of Life) I am nearly always on the lookout for books in the road, even at night when it is harder to read. This particular book has been rather well publicized lately (I am certain you can surmise the title) and I had been watching for it for something of a long time. Today was the day that I finished this book, and I laid it back down among the cobbles where it turned back into a stone. I still have the book, but it is now no longer a milestone; only a book albeit a special one.
I suppose that's why I prefer paved roads to cobbles. The monotony draws some objection, but I bring my books wherever I go anyway.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Unnecessary Numbers (Or, A Far Less Glamorous Odyssey)
In the seventy two hours since I have been home, I have had twenty-two hours of sleep. Yesterday, I collapsed into bed at eight PM. My eyes snapped open and two AM, and I couldn't sleep until eight o'clock last night, when my system gave in and let me sleep for an hour and a half before it was time to collect our four copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I felt like there were several bull rhinoceroses dozing on my back, and that I had been asleep since, oh, the 90's. And I still haven't started Harry, because on top of my exhaustion I gagged on an Advil last night, and went to bed at eleven thirty- twelvish.
And I wake up today, and stumble through five different room before I found a functional clock gleefully exhibiting that it was a quarter to seven. Then I remember that (oh, oh yes!) this clock is fifteen minutes fast.
I'm considering legal recourse.
And I wake up today, and stumble through five different room before I found a functional clock gleefully exhibiting that it was a quarter to seven. Then I remember that (oh, oh yes!) this clock is fifteen minutes fast.
I'm considering legal recourse.
Friday, July 15, 2005
In the Immortal Words of L. Frank Baum...
"There's no place like home..."
I must amend this prolific statement with the following. "... And nothing like a familiar currency."
Though that doesn't ring quite as well, now does it?
I will resume with ruminations of a less plagiaristic bent as soon as I shake off my jet lag, G-d willing, most likely with a volume of detail higher than you had ever dreamed of asking for. Hopefully I will not loose my readership by boring you all into a stupor of excessive imagery.
But in the meantime, I will drop two hints pertaining to the countries I have visited over my leave of absence. Hence:
-In the first country, the primary method of survival for foreigners is to shut down your every social impulse and keep your mouth firmly closed.
-In the second country, patience is a patron saint in every occasion save those pertaining to public transportation.
Foreigners may indeed be correct in their generalizations, but I must admit the following sentiment with as fervent an expression as I can textually convey- It is very, very good to be a spoiled American.
And to all those to whom this pertains, I wish you a good Shabbos and a lovely, luscious reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
I must amend this prolific statement with the following. "... And nothing like a familiar currency."
Though that doesn't ring quite as well, now does it?
I will resume with ruminations of a less plagiaristic bent as soon as I shake off my jet lag, G-d willing, most likely with a volume of detail higher than you had ever dreamed of asking for. Hopefully I will not loose my readership by boring you all into a stupor of excessive imagery.
But in the meantime, I will drop two hints pertaining to the countries I have visited over my leave of absence. Hence:
-In the first country, the primary method of survival for foreigners is to shut down your every social impulse and keep your mouth firmly closed.
-In the second country, patience is a patron saint in every occasion save those pertaining to public transportation.
Foreigners may indeed be correct in their generalizations, but I must admit the following sentiment with as fervent an expression as I can textually convey- It is very, very good to be a spoiled American.
And to all those to whom this pertains, I wish you a good Shabbos and a lovely, luscious reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
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