Ink as Rain

Presence and Presents of Potter: Proselyte

2007-06-06T22:25:00.000-04:00

Episode Four

"Please read it."

"No."

"C'mon, please? It's really good!"

"Nooooo."

"But you'd really-"

"Nooooo!"

And so it had gone for countless weeks. My sister begged her, our best friend, begged, pleaded, wheedled, extorted... but to no avail. And though by now both my sister and I were both deeply devoted to these books and this boy, even though his state-side popularity was growing, no amount of kindly coercion seemed able to crack her resolve.

Until one day, when we happened to visit the zoo.

***

It was a hot, free-admission Sunday at the Bronx Zoo. Why not go, our mothers had mused, and try and see the new gorilla exhibit? Excellent idea. One that was, alas, shared by 85% of the greater New York area. I hope the gorillas, at least, enjoyed it; we were stuck in a very nasty mess of traffic, and would have had more exposure to primates that day by snacking on bananas.

However, this trying experience did give us one more positive and more lasting outcome. My sister, my friend and I sat arm-to-arm in the back seat of the crowded mini-van, bored and helpless in the sea of smog and vehicles. At last, our friend turned to my sister. "Oh, just give me something to read!" she said.

My sister, ever awaiting her moment of weakness, handed our friend the first volume. There were several long minutes of relative quiet, then...

"This is good." she said, looking at us.

My sister replied "I know."

"No," said our friend, and that deep earnesty was kindled in her eyes and her voice. "It's really good."

***

By the time we arrived at the zoo, it was all we could do to get her our of the car.

Presence and Presents of Potter: In the Chamber

2007-05-28T07:06:00.000-04:00

Episode Three

My legs were numb, my eyes raw. My back was curled tight over this little book, this little book that seemed to exert some phenomenal pressure as it rested on my lap.

My lips were parted, perhaps in awe, perhaps in anticipation of a scream. Maybe to ensure that I continued to breathe as my desperate friend fought off those terrible symbiotic monsters. With him I felt the stab of betrayal in a blind and foolish trust; swallowed the agony of helplessness, of fear like shards of frozen glass as the dreaded answers came. Deadly serpent and fatal dream together encircled my friend as he fought for his life, and the lives of others dear to us. I watched him stab the serpent and felt the terrible wave of shame and fear (and was it... relief?) as he began to die at the hands of his enemies. And the same instinct, same ice-cold realization gripped me as I watched him, as though in liquid time, stab that dark little book.

The gasp of a girl echoed in my ears- perhaps it was Ginny.

When it was over I walked through my night-darkened house, looking for a room with enough light to wash away the sense that I had died and been reborn.

Presence and Presents of Potter: Tears in the Mirror

2007-05-22T08:44:00.000-04:00

Episode Two

I knew who they were before he did.

It wasn't a difficult puzzle. Red hair and tears in green eyes, black hair that stuck up in the back... I knew.

But when he realized, that line, that wall between him and myself... it dissolved. Vaporized, as though it had never been and never would be again.

They were there for the first time. These people who loved him, and therefore loved me, totally and without reserve. There were no toddlerhood hysterics to recall; no adolescent travesties to come between us. There was the love of two parents to their infant child, and the unbearable pain of the child, who was no longer an infant and was suddenly drowning in an ocean of colossal emotion. There were no complexities here, just that gasping sense of a flower given too much water all at once. Because... we were helpless, and helplessly alone. How to fit a love so huge into bodies so small? How to express this bruising gratitude, and give voice to the sudden, aching, unslakable lust for more? How were we to swallow this incredible pain that this love was now always... ever... trapped in a mirror?

My hands shivered on the pages, and aching, steady tears slowly washed my cheeks. The weakness of grief trickled through me, the friend of a foreign and familiar anguish like the pain of the sand, as it takes another tide.

Presence and Presents of Potter

2007-05-20T16:36:00.000-04:00

Episode One

It was a bright, crispy sort of day, one of those days where the seasons melt together and create a dizzying sort of barometric blur. The cold was too warm, the sun was too milky, and the wind was at once too harsh and too mild to retain a coherent identity.

The school bus whined to the corner, and after landing flat-footed from our hop down from that oversteep last step, my sister and I began to make our way home. We were engaged in an ongoing and well-disguisedly monumental battle of wills.

The words of the argument, I do not recall, but the sentiment of "No, I told you, I'm not going to read it!" had certainly emanated from my side of the discourse. "It's really, really, really good!" was just as surely the force of my sister's answering argument."

Just tell me what happens," I know I said, brassly displaying my 12-year-old aptitude for literary flippancy. "Fine," said she. "So there's this boy named Harry-"

"Well, duh."

"And he's an orphan, and he lives with his aunt and uncle, who don't like him. They tell him to go to his room while they have a dinner party... but when he gets there, there's an elf called Dobby on his bed. Then-"

"OK!" I said. My eyes slipped to the sidewalk beneath my feet, a small span of concrete that remains dear to me to this day. "OK," I said, without really knowing why. "I'll read it."

The Dance I Do

2007-01-05T00:52:00.001-05:00

Over the past few days (read: immeasurable span of time) I have been conducting a trying and persistent conversation (read: exhaustively fruitless argument) with myself. It generally plays out something like this:

- I want to write a book.

- So write a book.

(Pause; sigh.)

- I don't have anything to write about.

- Oh, come on.

- No, seriously. No ideas. Zilch.

- What about-

- I knew you'd bring that up. You know I have no idea where to go with that one.

(Sigh.)

- So write an outline.

- But I don't know what should happen. I even introduced that girl who was "familiar," without knowing who on earth she was! Talk about your stupid rookie mistakes.

- But-

- Look, I told you. I have no ideas.

(Pause; sigh.)

- Write about what you know- and don't tell me you don't know anything! You know about your community, about divorce, about... ahh...

- But I don't want to write a commentary! Every time you write about a community from the inside, it's automatically a commentary on them. You end up judging them and fostering misconceptions... and you can't write how everything is perfect because it's not true and anyway, that wouldn't be much of a book. Speaking of which, it's not like I'm ever going to get published anyway.

- Don't say that...

- It's true! Do you know how many writers there are out there, who not only have ideas, but write outlines and do rewrites and work for years on one manuscript?? I can't... I can't do that kind of thing.

- Because you're lazy.

- Yes! I am. I've never claimed not to be. Even for things I love, I'm lazy. And it takes me like a week to get one computer page... I don't understand how people can write books. I really don't. It's so hard. I just don't have that kind of drive.

- Huhm.

- Oh, you think? And... and and and my writing isn't as good as it used to be.

(Silence.)

- It's, it's clunky now. It won't flow, I can't hit the sentences like I used to. They're so short, and the rhythm is always off...

- You're not a bad writer, you know.

- I know that. Of course I know that. But... but I want to be spectacular. And published. And read.

(Silence.)

- I just don't think I have it. I haven't even been able to keep the blog up. Remember how people used to read it?

- I remember. It was nice.

- It was nice.

(Silence.)

- I... I just don't think I have it anymore.

(Pause.)

- Plus the new Blogger changed my colors back, it's just too bright this way. And everyone has the "Thistleway Rose" whatever it is. I worked so hard getting the colors right last time... I guess that's technology for you.

- Yup.

- Yup. Hey... thanks for letting me talk.

- It's my pleasure. I hope you get published someday, I really do.

- Yeah... so do I.

My Circle

2006-12-17T21:53:00.000-05:00

The world is shrinking. We are all so close, so tightly bound. It seems we could feel the breeze across the world, if we tried hard enough.

Yet for me, the world seems larger than ever before. Every day, new phenomena are born for me. Seeing an arrest; fielding questions on topics I did not know existed. I smell a waking city; my pulse beats with one that will not sleep.

And every night, I sleep a little smaller. Not less- I am the same, but my setting has swollen.

Often, my surroundings take in things I do not like. Hatreds and love irrational; logic and feeling unsound. They crowd me, peck at my moral and intellectual structure, or else they coo and whisper their shadowed allure. It is a dangerous business, growing this world of mine. And defense is often hard to come by.

But every night, before sleep (that wonderful symphony of deepest truth and lies) I fold my arms beneath my pillow. The circle that forms begins at my heart, and stretches, warm and deep, to my head. In my circle, I think of all that I know, all that I believe, and I savor the musky tang of reality. This is real, I think, slipping safe and solid into my circle. This is true.

And even the bright light of day could never outshine my clarity.

The Tortoise Won the Race

2006-10-18T16:05:00.000-04:00

I realize that my last post was a bit of a downer, and really rather jarring as a two-month wallpaper for my blog. But let's face it, shall we? College is hard. There is a lot to adjust to. Primarily, there is quite a hefty volume of paper that I now seem to be responsible for. Background readings, short assignments, syllabi, reports, textbooks, midterms (oh my!) It's more than I am accustomed to, and it's taking time to learn how to make a full course meal out of something that was once much-anticipated dessert.

But I'm getting used to it. I have met a number of very lovely people with whom I hope to become closer, and there are many friends from previous years whom I am learning to know even better. I can derive a real and consistent pleasure from at least one of my classes (naturally, this course is a workload heavyweight) and I even dabble in extra-curriculars.

I am going to be fine. I'm going to get to the end of this race. Slowly, steadily... Happily.

Passing for Future

2006-08-22T21:05:00.000-04:00

Out front, through and away from the building with the sleek revolving-door. I am walking in Manhattan, clutching a tall, hot paper cup, striding with purse and plastic bag swinging. I am waiting for the light, crossing Lexington, moving toward other avenues with famous, impressive addresses. Alone, independent.

But the liquid in my cup is one-fourth milk, and steeped with five packages of plastic sugar. It's still bitter. To bitter for me, accustomed to sweet.

And the plastic bag holds two sandwiches in plastic triangles, that I juggled around the crowded college cafe before I succumbed to the dread of eating alone, again.

My purse is a tangle of easy-reach cords and technical gadgets designed to make life easy, simple. Somewhere within is buried my accursed ID card, which I must show to my doorman to enter the building. (I don't wear it on my neck. I don't want to look stupid.) After twenty seconds of awkward, one-handed searching, I produce my empty plastic card case to which my key is attached. This, presented on a platter of an innocent, bashful smile, finally reward me entrance.

I sigh to my brightly dismal dorm. I hope this isn't really college.

Even my room pretends to be something it isn't.

Media

2006-07-25T21:26:00.000-04:00

What I say means little
I have often found.
My "no"s and "yes"s disappear
In oceans of opinionioned sound.

And what a sight! That sea.
A vision that they cannot see,

For in the time that one would need
to land an island in the greed

The sea would take its due
And look!
Poor see-man,
He has drowned.

---
Hello, everyone. I am back from my wonderful year in Israel, happy, slightly writers blocked and at a loss how to express my anguish and frustration for this latest episode in Israel and the Jewish People's perennial struggle for existence.

(That's where this poem came from.)

Please tell me- how are you?

Future

2006-07-14T19:47:00.000-04:00

If I

forget you

may I lose

my right

hand
.

On Being Stared At

2006-07-08T23:57:00.000-04:00

I stand slowly and move toward the wall. Hoping, willing, that the direction I'm facing is east. Praying prematurely that G-d will make me invisible.

Three steps backwards. Tight, furtive steps, and then I move forward. Three steps. Focus...

But they're looking at me. I can feel it as I stand, as I bow incrementally, as I strike my chest so softly. Their eyes are like spotlights, like dull lumps in an old mattress. Innocuous, but unrelenting; I squirm, but I cannot escape them. I'm from New York; I'm not used to such scrutiny!

I tried to find a quiet place, a subtle cranny where I could pray in privacy. I looked, and looked, but such a place does not seem to exist in Disneyworld. This small pavilion was the best available, and it would suffice, if not for the family behind me. They sit, and eat their ice cream, and gaze in fascinated bewilderment at this vision in front of them.

If you want to know, ASK!!

So I pray. What else can I do? They are still on my mind, but I push them to the rim; for the moment, I've stopped them from swimming in my thoughts.

Three steps backward. I ask for peace as I bow again. Forward now...

At the end, I smile at my mother, sitting at a table with my sister. "Ready to go?" she asks. She knows- I nod, and we leave.

But on our way out, I hesitate, and direct closed smile to my silent peanut gallery. Why? Why not? I can't approach them, walk up and demand an explanation for their careful, ignorant study. At least I can show them... something. Prove I know they were staring, that... that I'm a person, too.

So I spread on my grimace-hybrid, and the father grins back at me, an arc of something that looks rather like sympathy.

He thinks I'm crazy.

I am frozen.

There's nothing you can do. Be dignified.

And so I walk away, with the sounds of the park and my pulse thundering in my ears. Shocked, but oddly gratified. The reality of my good fortune crystallized again for me, for a moment. The goodness I am given; the greatness of my difference.

But find a better place tomorrow, please.

Many Colored Mirrors

2006-06-29T20:23:00.000-04:00

What is Israel?

Is it that place on the news, that Iz-reel country torn by war and scattered with brown, screaming faces? That place everyone brings up when they want to seem sophisticated, where all those strong-men in green (you know, with the big guns), are all over, glaring and beating up women right there on your TV screen?

Sounds like an ugly country.

Or is it a location of historical interest- that place where and myth and moral and blind belief blur so black that even logic struggles to pierce the morass? So much of society roots itself there- how fascinating for you! Even a walk in the streets is a history lesson. See here, the remainders of Roman architecture- over there, the Crusaders' battleground. So much to see, and photograph, and place in albums, and forget... wonderful.

Or rather dull. I think, anyway.

Well then, maybe for you Israel is modern. A thriving state of metropolis and shopping malls, of neon lights and stereos and crashing trains. People are rich, people are rude, people are pretty, people live! Just like anywhere else, right? Different language, of course, but hey- even the street signs are written in English. Oh right, they have that army thing. Great souvenirs, much better than Greece.

Bewildering.

So maybe it's the religious place. That place you want, mostly, and people want for you. And maybe you don't know why you want it, or what it is, or why you are really going there. And, maybe, it's not even something you feel- not when you land in Ben-Gurion, or when you walk around Haifa, or meet your first taxi driver.

And maybe you'll feel it at the Wall- maybe not. Maybe Tzfat will reach you, or at the foot of a mountain in the Negev. But maybe not.

But you'll feel it some time. So is that what Israel is for you?

Maybe. Anyway, it's a lot closer.

Never a Dull Moment... Yet

2006-06-25T19:46:00.000-04:00

I'm afraid I've gotten used to being busy. I am decidedly ill equipped to cope with this difficulty.

You see, I've just spent approximately nine months steeped in a Cuisinart marinade composed primarily of study and haste. When I was not in class, I was going to class, or else I was leaving class and rushing to a meal. Baring this, I was hurrying to a supermarket, or trying to make it to the Kotel with daylight left, or rushing to catch the last precious minutes of hot water supplied to our dorm.

It was hard and fantastic, and more consuming than anything I had done before. Therefore now that I have returned to my lovely, comfortable abode, in which there is always hot water, and there is always food, and there nothing to do, I find myself in a quandary of boredom which appears entirely unfamiliar to me. Do to this (I suspect? I hope??) I am also sustaining a decided lack of literary inspiration.

Well. Life will pick up.

It always does.

Life as I Know It

2006-06-17T22:24:00.000-04:00

Dear World;

You have changed over the past year. Changed rather a lot.

I know you might disagree- "So I'm a little older," you might protest. "Does that mean I'm any different?"

Yes, my dear world, you are different. You are a little bit smaller from the last time I really looked at you. (Are you appeased?) You are also more transparent, and somehow infinitely more colorful. Most of your lines are sharper, though many seemed to have blurred beyond scrutiny. You are more cruel than I can comprehend; you are sweeter than I can imagine.

Dear World, change is frightening, I know. That moment when you gaze into your mirror of cosmos, when you turn back the pages of the diary written in stars, and you do not recognize yourself... Is there a greater pain or terror in existence?

But look close, my friend- Read between your careful lines. Oh, how you have grown! Pure, living reality has sprung from rote facsimile. You have learned to breathe on your own, to take your careful steps around the Universe all on your own. You can see for yourself, for now you can truly see.

The World that was was wonderful. The World that is is real.

And there is ever work to be done.

The Prayer

2006-05-09T16:33:00.000-04:00

"Yaldah," they said

"Ah yaldah, a shekel!"

Their hands, soft and old

As they grope for my coins.

She asks me for twenty

A bill, in exchange

My wallet is open and

then

"Yaldah!"

How many?

The coins clicking

dubious

and cool

in my palm.

Another face,

Another bag,

They thank me

the recievers...

"Chassunah! Marry!"

They bless me

again.

"Slicha,"

I whisper,

My voice stunned

to silence.

"Ratzah l'hitpallel..."

I guesture at the Wall.

The hands leave mine

they are gone

when I leave.

What Stays With You

2006-04-16T19:11:00.000-04:00

Someone in front of me rifles through a rattling plastic package. "Oh!" she says, thick annoyance souring her voice, "We're out of the cherry flavor."

So spoiled?

Pulling on a thick sweater (it's seventy one degrees!) but I'm still cold.

So selfish?

Eating, cake and fruit, snacking in frustration. "There's nothing here to eat", I say.

So pampered! Don't you know, don't you know how many those crumbs would feed??

And standing in the train station, packed in the crush of traffic, so uncomfortable. But there is space to breathe, I think. And they could push us tighter, and harder, until my legs are lifted off the ground, and I can't move, not at ALL, and I'm so, so scared, because I don't want to die...

But the crowd moves on, beacuse we are not in a gas chamber. And I must move on as well, wading through these modern luxuries, trying to preserve my new sensitivity while never forgetting to live.

Breathing in Majdanek

2006-04-09T18:36:00.000-04:00

The black sign smiles down from the black building, friendly and benign. The letters are white and curvaceous, winking sweetly at us, as we pass beneath it's hungry, seductive gaze.

The sign reads "Bad und Desinfektion I."

Bath and disinfection. We file inside.

Numbly, I wonder how I have come here, how I am so arrogant as to think I could survive where hundreds of thousands of my sisters and brothers have perished. We walk slowly through chambers designed to quiet the condemned, watching our surroundings and drinking them in as if these were to be our last living sights as well. The entranceway, where our hair would have been cut. The bath room, where rusty showers suspend like a sprinkler system from the cement ceiling. We walk in the footsteps of so many, and I feel their quiet eyes upon us as our shod feet fall where their bare soles had shuffled. I swallow, and whisper Tehillim, and pray we do not disturb their rest.

In the last room, the gas chamber, the stench of chemicals pervades. The walls are streaked and stained with green residue, which clings to the cement like some morbid facsimile of living moss. Fingernail scratches scar the confines, following final moments scrabbling for life as the vices of death took hold. The scars grow fainter as they draw closer to the floor.

I begin to shudder as my mind struggles to encompass my surroundings. Tears swell my vision, and my very being is racked with a silent hacking I realize are sobs. The screams of the past echo around me, billowing in a deafening final protest. My feet stand on a wooden pathway raised above the floor. Step down, some terrible force commands me. Stand where they stood, die where they died. Step down! Not for several minutes can I bare to leave the "comfort" of my pathway, but I do. I step down, and join my sisters, for the few moments my sanity can sustain it.

Reality is thin in the gas chamber. There is a sense, somehow, of both terrible pressure and a vast, inescapable emptiness. The fabric of the world is frayed and weak, there where so many souls were choked from their bodies. Time is slower, and existence seems to float, very gently, in the currents of Eternity like some ancient cobweb. I continue to tremble as we mouth the Shema together, and as we leave the chamber of death. Alive, I wonder, as we shuffle out. A miracle. You do not walk out of a gas chamber.

I breathe deeply as we stand finally outside, reveling as the cold April air enters my lungs. I breathe as if I am breathing for the first time.

Perhaps I am.

Gift of Life

2006-04-06T22:58:00.000-04:00

If I could count each flake of ash
If I could breathe for every soul
If I could cry for every tear
How long until I fill the hole?

The hole undug for every grave
The lives unlived, the days unsaved
The freedom snatched from every slave...
The payment for the gift they gave.

But though in their valley of death I do walk
Lo irah rah, ki Atah imadi,
Peace for the dove, and blood for the hawk;
From the nights in the fires
Are reborn the free.

Not in Kansas Anymore

2006-03-13T12:57:00.000-05:00

"BADATZ! BADATZ!!" The cry frantic as a plea for life. Crush of voices and feet and plastic bags, hemmers and hawkers swirling in the whirlpool's dance. Beggars wedged in sunken lives, bleating pleas for... their hands asking for money, their eyes begging for... other things. Light leaking sullen through the canvas tarp, not bothering to illuminate. Rain pecking and preying on the feeble and the frantic, fraying patience like thread. Poultry flesh, meat and fish lie strewn about their butcher's stands, their ripe sour reek seeping into living skin, into hair and cloth and vision, mingling with the rain and the rats. Then sweetness like Eden, sweetness of nuts melting in their shells, of dazzling fruit swathed in sugar, of pita so fresh it evaporates in your mouth. And light, not from above but from mountains of tomatoes glowing faintly through the dim, and from the shimmering heat rising from immaculate lines of sticky cakes. And the noise folding over it all, wreathing the scene... the screams of the vendors, chatter of coins, crackle of packaging, slither of a thousand feet on dewy concrete. The barks from haggling passerby, crunch of vegetables pulled from vines, flapping of breathing produce, the buzz of Hebrew and Yiddish and English and Arabic and French and Japanese, all sucked and twined into one bellowing, seething mass of staccato communication swelling like a wave brought up from the ocean depths, and crashing so as to eradicate thought-

"So that's the shuk."

"Yup."

Reflections on the Negev

2006-02-22T10:57:00.000-05:00

There are... mountains all around me. I think.. I don't know. Are they mountains, these mind-stunning epiphanies? I feel as if my chest has been crushed by a war hammer. Massive spasms of purest rock, straining, stretching up from mystery... Red and purple, blue- green! Have you ever seen green rock? Have you ever been swallowed by a crater, left hoarse and gasping by frozen waves of beauty so enormous as to stifle thought? I raise my eyes to the mountains, is all I can think of. I shield my eyes from the heat of it, even though my back is to the sun. Did the king, as he wrote his words? Did he see himself from afar, a passing speck all-encompassed by Limitless Sight? From where will come my salvation? Is this is my salvation? A redemption witnessed by that which to me is infinite, is incomprehensible... My salvation will come from G-D, the Maker of the heavens and earth.

I breathe again.

A Life Is Not Of Questions Asked

2006-01-09T21:33:00.000-05:00

Boy, time flies, time flies...
she says.
I think,
Again? I know.
Or thought I knew, more like.

Brooklyn accents spoken thick
Like cream cheese, on a sesame bagel.
Good times, right?
The best, but always over
even before I blink.

Relic stories, drifting
In my hazy mind, so foolish.
Of a bridesmaid- believe it, now she's fifty
And friends who remember when my mother was born.

It seems that things should disappear
Instead of thoughts, in the end.
Unfair, I think,
I'd rather have the memories.
Which weighs more, the thirtieth day
Or two hundred magnets?
Or watches, all from Swatch, of course
But why?

Why- the answers
I never know
Those that she knew, I think.
But she never asked the question.
Only just went through the alphabet
the letters of love,
With never a why
Like letters she got in the mail- and sent!
Our only honest pen-pal.

I love to hear from you,
I know.
(I should call more often)
Too busy, though.
And how is school?
It's good,
I'm safe
Like Jackie Robinson.
And by tomorrow...
I'll be a genius.

I love you...
too...
Again...
I'll call...
I'll try
I know...
I try
She never asked.

_____

In memory of my Grandmother.

I Walk

2005-12-11T12:29:00.000-05:00

Today I walk
Up heaven's hills
In stolid steps of petty ills
I go whither my concsience wills...
I walk.

Some days I walk
In mountain-sky
The sun assaults the brown and dry
On feeble footing, far and high...
I walk.

I walk in desert, sand and sea
Alone, in friendly company
Where never had I thought to be,
I walk with them
I walk for me.

At night I walk
In sleepy knolls
In foreign yet familiar roles
I sing as sleep assaults my soul...
And in my dreams
I walk.

Is Anybody Home Away From Home?

2005-11-08T12:41:00.000-05:00

I am comfortable here in Israel. It would be a lie to deny that to myself, however startling the realization. My bed is, in fact, my bed. My books, incredibly, fit into my meager bookshelf. My shelves and closet exude an air of chaos cloaked by neatness eerily similar to that of their American counterparts. So yes, I am comfortable here.

And I am happy. I am sad as well, because I miss my mother terribly, along with missing consistent privacy and temperature control. But on the whole, I have little to upset me unduly. My classes are stimulating beyond my wildest imagination, my mentors are infinitely and unconditionally generous with every power at their disposal, and every evening the sunset blazes into my room with an explosion of scouring vitality that brings even my drab walls alive for precious moments.

I am content, and I am happy.

But I am not at home.

Israel is home, I know. And I do know- I feel it. There is something here that defies expression, an ineffable click of completion that fills you, inflates you, diffuses into you from the very air...it is nowhere else in the world. I can't explain it, but I know it is there.

But still, I do not feel like this is my home, now. I am attached to so much in America that I cannot be broken from. I have relationships, ties that distance, for all it is spanned now by technology, cannot help but freeze.

Let me intercept any thoughts that I feel pressure to move here. It is the last, if it is there at all, of many, many sensations that occupy my conscious and subconscious attention. But I feel stuck in something of a paradox. I live in Israel, but I live in New York. New York is home, but I am at home in Israel. It seems impossible to reconcile the two without denying some vital facet of the truth.

I'm sure I will, with time. For now, though... I feel rather displaced. It isn't unhappiness, just... unsteadiness. A constant glance over my shoulder to find my sister; a jolt, as I realize I am a suddenly foreign. So many small things that suddenly seem so vast.

Back and forth I go. Where I stop...

M.

PS: I receive all comments through e-mail, so I've been seeing the swarms of BlogSpam currently plaguing Ink As Rain. I apologize profusely, but I don't know how to stop it. It upsets me to no end, seeing this worse-than-nonsense clogging up my lines of communication. Please bear with it until I can find someway to remedy it- if you can, surely I can.

Beginnings

2005-10-24T16:26:00.000-04:00

How to start this post?

It's almost as difficult as starting a blog to begin with. I would imagine that a hefty percentage of people who set up blogs give up before they even start, because they simply can't think of how to begin.

Beginnings are always terribly irritating patches of time, aren't they? Even when the start of something just seems to meld into the middle, the beginning is harder, and you can't really define what becomes easier except to shrug and offer "I suppose I got used to it."

The first beginning of my seminary year was, thank G-d, an atypical initiation into the rocky seas of Semiindependant Living. After the initial flush of applications, interviews and results of last year, the white gloves of description seemed to slough off the palms of our encouragement squads, and their smiles became rather like badly brewed coffee. "You'll hate the first two weeks," they said matter-of-factly, and my stomach dropped. "Oh, but the rest is all worth it! "Wonderful," I thought. "With my emotional clock, that means I'll be sobbing into my pillow for six months, and by the end of year banquet I'll be thinking "Well, this might work!"

Of course, it wasn't easy. It's astounding how quickly one forgets how to make friends when you've been surrounded by the same faces for years, and it's slightly disturbing how insignificant details can turn into major points of tension with roommates who really are very nice people. There are girls I don't like, and meals I can't eat, and hills (literal and figurative) that I can't climb yet. But there are also new and unique friends, the discovery that I really can do my own laundry, and stores of strength I never thought I possessed. I have learned about myself- I never thought I was particularly practical before I went to Israel, or that I could ever
take a taxi by myself. I never imagined I would make my bed out of my own violation, and certainly never that I would (or could) sponga my dorm room.

Strange, how adversity breeds resilience.

I am home briefly for my brother's Bar Mitzvah, (a memoir in itself, I assure you) and then staight back to Israel. I do anticipate that my second beginning will treat me with a kindness akin to its predecessor, but wish me luck all the same. And if the e-mail function on blogger works as I hope, I may be able to update with some modest frequency.

Oh... I said I would tell you of any updates from "Horizons." I got an e-mail saying that unfortunately they couldn't use my peice, though they did encourage me to send it in elswhere.

I guess I'm officially a writer now!

(no subject)

2005-10-16T11:14:00.000-04:00

And we return for a brief testing session...

September 5th, 2005

2005-09-05T17:33:00.000-04:00

My Israel-induced hiatus is upon me. I am leaving for the airport in two hours.

So one million heartfelt thank you's to everyone who has helped and encouraged me. Mr. Avrech, Pearl, Stx, Josh, Coffee Mom, Ilan, Yingele, MN, GZ, Rabbi Fleischmann, eli7, and all my beloved "Anonymouses"... what can I say? Your influence upon me has been enormous , in so many different ways. Every comment brought a glow my face, and the thought that so many spectacular writers appreciated and enjoyed my little musings has touched and inspired me both on the blog and in the dimensional world outside. I am infinitely grateful, and am deeply indebted to you all.

I hope to be able to update, even if sparingly, over the year, but if not or until then,

Shalom o lihitraot!

Love, Michal

An Overview of the Incomplete

2005-09-01T01:15:00.000-04:00

There are so many things I wanted to do here that I never did.

I wanted to tell you more about my family, because I embody them more than anything else in the world. I wanted to tell you more about my school and my teachers, more about my friends. I wanted to think more about my friends. I wanted to tell you about my socks, and my hair, my cat Shea and my love of baseball. I wanted to say how glass and crystal entrance me, and how deeply I abhor shopping.

I wanted to write more about Harry Potter, more about singing, more about art class. I wanted to tell you about rescuing kittens in my backyard, and how I couldn't read four pages into "Flowers for Algernon," because I was crying so hard. I wanted to change my template.

I wanted to tell you about finding taxis in London, accidentally tracking the Live 8 concert in Hyde park, and finally seeing Les Miserbles after missing it on Broadway. I wanted to tell you about the Vatican and our insane tour guide, about waiting an hour and a half between courses at meals, and about the animals in Venice. I wanted to write about the wonderful people we met, and the odds we managed to beat together.

I wanted to tell you about reading outside on summer evenings. I wanted to write about autumn, and the intangible something in the breeze as August ends that tells us it is September. I wanted to tell you how many tutors I have had in the past twelve years, and what spectacular women they all are.

I wanted more poetry, more stories, more follow-through. I wanted to write a play. I wanted to philosophize, and to update every day.

I wanted to write fewer one-line entrances.

But I didn't want it all to end so fast.

On the Other Side

2005-08-31T12:38:00.000-04:00

This is Har Nof, Yerushalayim. My home for the next ten months.

I want to bury myself in bed and whimper.

The list of items I still need to buy is shrinking. I have thousands of shirts, more skirts than I could have even remotely conceived of, and I am positively swimming- no, drowning in socks. I still need a shoe-pocket, clothing hangers and shower slippers. And a bath mat. Oh G-d, I had completely forgotten about the bath mat.

My mother's penchant for list making would be painfully useful just now.

I can't decide which terrifies me more, the fact that I still have things to buy, or that I will soon have nothing left to do but pack. And leave.

I need to settle on books to bring. I'm still working my mind around that idea... which books, out of the hundreds in my house that I have read and loved, do I bring with me? Or rather, the question is more aptly phrased, which ones must I leave? Should I bring all six of the Harry Potter series? Is it traitorous not to when I am taking the whole of "Lord of the Rings"? Should I try new books, or take comforting favorites? "Series of Unfortunate Events" or Garth Nix? Steven Erickson or George RR Martin? Should it worry me that I haven't even considered bringing a single book that fall outside the realm of Fantasy? And where on earth am I going to keep them all?

Tonight's unhelpful image: I am standing at the mouth of a long, dark, smooth tunnel through which I am preparing to walk. It is utterly silent, except for the swarm of humming insects buzzing and clicking and whirring around my head, jostling me with constant reminders of a dozen things I have forgotten. But I don't know what they are saying, and I have no time to respond to them or meet the needs they are blaring. I just have to walk.

Do I walk?

Tick... Tick... Tick...

2005-08-29T21:43:00.000-04:00

I am leaving in exactly one week.

I am terrified.

I feel as though I'm on an icy slope, speeding faster and faster through raw, frigid darkness, and I can't stop. Or as though I am lost in thundering, monstrous, crushing waves with no movement, no air, and no escape. Or as though I am completely alone in some tiny prison that grows smaller and more terrible with every passing second...

Oh, the limits of imagery! I'm groping for words that melt through my fingers like sand. I want to go to Israel, of course I do; how can I so badly want to stay home? I'm being blinded by constant flashes of irrepressable foreboding, breaking into shudders and blinking back tears at inexplicable moments. I'm sobbing myself to sleep, I imagine, or I am curling in utter terror as I reach Har Nof.

It will all be so different, so hard. I'm not nervous, I'm not anxious... just terrified.

I have to let this rest for now. Changes in condition to be recounted tomorrow.

I Don't Want to Say...

2005-08-25T12:12:00.000-04:00

Every day, I check my blog. I know nothing is new, of course, just as I know perfectly well I haven't come near this dear "Create Post" page in over a week. But still I check, hoping for a comment, an inspiration, secretly wishing that I've put up something brilliant in my sleep. But there is only the same, because this blog is mine, and it is my own responsibility.

This blog has been mine for almost half a year. Six months of joy, of tears, of giddiness at the realization that people enjoyed and, even more, respected all of my silly little bits and pieces. I could not believe, could not even imagine that so many wonderful, fascinating strangers would care so much.

But I have not posted for a while now, because I know that every post could be my last, my inevitable empty goodbye. I am leaving for Israel on the 5th of September, and I do not think I will be able to maintain my blog when I am there, though I'm sure I will have more inspiration than I ever could have hoped for. Sooner or later, I will have to say goodbye.

This is not goodbye. This is a test for myself, a defiant challenge to the harness of laziness weighting my shoulders. I will post again before I leave, as often as I possibly can. I will determine the force of my farewell. And I will not be overcome by the inevitable.

So until tomorrow...

Good night.

Dear Nava,

2005-08-15T22:47:00.000-04:00

You are a girl in my graduating class. You have been for twelve years. I know you on a courteous greeting-chat-goodbye basis. We are not remotely close; I have never been to your house.

You intimidate me to no end of expression.

I saw you one week ago Sunday, at a hot, dusty sleepaway-camp in the Pocono's. We were both visiting our brothers. Your hair was blown and fixed back beautifully, and you wore a light blue cotton skirt, a neat black top and beaded flats. Your cheeks were faintly rosy, and your skin glowed with a pale sheen of delicate sweat.

I was wearing a jean skirt that had seen better days, and my hands were filthy from scrounging for pebbles to lob into the lake.

You saw me first, and called to me. If I had seen you, I might not have spoken. Nodded, perhaps, maybe waved. But I wouldn't have approached you- I wouldn't have wanted to, and I wouldn't have thought you wanted me to. We spoke for a few minutes, about absolutely nothing, and you ran to catch up to your mother. I went back to not skipping stones.

Yesterday, Nava, your father died.

I had no idea he was ill. I had never thought about your parents, or your life, or your siblings. You were only Nava, slim and suave and pretty, and excellent in all of my most loathed subjects. You were just Nava, another girl I put in a bell jar.

I don't know if you are still going to Israel; I know you were planning to. What will you do if you don't? Go to college? I know your mother will need you, you are the oldest daughter of many younger siblings and your mother does not drive. And what will you do if you do go? Sit in your classes and avoid celebrations, and think of your mother and your brothers and sisters who are mourning at home, trying to mend a life that has split wide open?

Yesterday, I was counting the minutes until the fast day was over.

Yesterday, Nava, you were calling around the neighborhood, telling people that your father had died.

And I do not know what to do.

A Thesis on Food Preparation

2005-08-08T20:07:00.000-04:00

Some people (professionals, I like to think, as well as those with strict organizational tendencies) naturally cook from their heads. They measure ingredients meticulously, calculate boiling temperatures and calorie counts, and endorse the practicality of slicing vegetables julienne. These are the dieters, the culinary artisans who substitute applesauce for oil when they bake, and push Splenda into realms of use it was never intended to enter.

Others approach the art of cooking from their (metaphorical, certainly not physical) hearts. From grandmothers to five year olds to bachelors with a flair for improvisation, taste and satisfaction are the goal- adding the complications of substitutes and artificial cheese is simply avoiding the point. Butter is a staple, and measuring instruments? Ha! Feeble crutches for the faint of heart. Recipes are to be memorized, buried and altered at instinct, and an excess of any kind is not an error but an opportunity for seconds.

As for myself, I fall somewhere in the middle. I am a thoroughly cautious cook by nature, though I endeavor to embody the latter set. My most successful concoctions arise from impulse, because for some inexplicable reason it is nearly impossible for me to alter written recipes and as exactly as I obey them, the results never emerge as satisfactory as the author promises. It has taken quite a long time, but I have at last begun to tire of the irritating smugness that seems to uniformly plague the authors of these misbegotten tomes, and rely more often on my own intuition (though this course of action is far from foolproof- ask my smoke detectors.)

My mother is a category in her own right- she cooks from her hands. She rarely bothers with recipes, as she has invented most of her dishes and simply alters their ingredients to allocate whatever mixes, sauces or spices currently reside in our pantry. My mother can pour almost anything on chicken (from orange juice to diet coke), and it will taste delicious. No one believes her when she confides that her ratatouille recipe consists solely of chopped up vegetables and maranara sauce. My mother does not use a vegetable peeler- she simply slices off the peel in great squarish chunks, a practice she could perform perfectly with her eyes closed that I have never been able to remotely imitate. Her piece de resistance is her Shabbos soup, a solid, chunky concoction built of potatoes, onions, soup mix and other canned vegetables that (without offense to the clear chicken broth of tradition) merges to form unquestionably the most intoxicatingly delicious concoction that has ever been seen or tasted on the face of the earth. My sister and I can make the same soup exactly, and as tasty as it often is, it is never remotely as sumptuous as my mother's.

Others may scoff at her seemingly casual approach I am sure, but without question I know that there is no other chef, cook, baker, method or cookbook I would rather imitate than my mother. The soup alone is worth any amount of derision.

Divine Intervention

2005-08-04T19:46:00.000-04:00

Good ideas arrive at the absolute strangest, most inconvenient moments possible. This particular snip came to me last night in the shower. (Happenstance? I think not!) It may be the first story-concept I have ever dreamed up that could potentially go somewhere.

There was a spider in the corner of the sewing room.

It was quite a large and repulsive spider, Nehri thought. Muddy brown and speckled with dust, the creature would certainly fit comfortably on Nehri's broad thumb nail. She could hear the frustrated click-clack, click-clack of its pincers as it struggled for purchase on the slick paneled wall, and wondered if the thing's web had gone dry.

Nehri has been watching the spider since sewing instruction had begun, nearly twenty minutes ago. She quite despised spiders, as she did all insects, but the battle of wills here- the spider's, the wall's, her own ability to bite down on her disgust - had fascinated her enough to ensure her silence thus far. He's running out of time, though, she thought distantly. Even if I manage not to vomit, one of the other girls is bound to spot him soon, and that will be the end of him.

She tore her gaze from the spider's struggle and gazed around the silent instruction room. Everyone knew today's pattern, of course- it was the first day of term, and each year they were assigned the same simple stitch to start- but most other girls were studying the ceiling with glassy eyes, minds whoever-knew-where as their practiced fingers completed the task independently. The few who managed to maintain consciousness had tucked a letter or slim periodical into the seat in front of them and read as they worked. Nehri supposed she would have done the same, had not that fascinatingly vile creature caught her eye.

She swiveled in her stiff-backed seat to resume her study of the spider, and to her dismay let out a reflexive little gasp as she realized that he had succeeded in his efforts and now clung tenaciously to the dark rafters above her. In the thick quiet of the sewing room, her exclamation seemed to ring like a plague-bell, and twenty-five sets of heads cricked as one as they snapped toward the source of the noise. Nehri flushed in the sudden glare of attention and curtsied to Madam Kar, the sewing Leader.

"Forgive me, Madam," she murmered hoarsely in answer to the Leader's questioning gaze. "I... I stuck myself."

"Bloodily?" came the crisp response.

"No, Madam."

"Then return to your work." Nehri sat with a grateful sigh, new petticoats crackling. Leaders at the Border School tended to be overcautious when confronted with anything of a remotely serious injury, but one would need to be missing a significant volume of skin to even begin to impress Madam Kar. An infuriating quality if you needed sympathy, perhaps, but for the moment Nehri would have her no other way.

Nehri raised her eyes cautiously to the beams above her, scanning despite herself for the whereabouts of that accursed insect. She had begun to wonder if he had fallen among the students when she finally spied him hovering over the cherry wood doorway. A trickle of bile soured her mouth, and she swallowed as the ugly thing disappeared into the wall.

Inspiration-less

2005-08-03T21:09:00.000-04:00

Isn't it infuriating how just when you are veritably drowning in time to do exactly as you please, you can come up with absolutely nothing? I am leaving for Israel in 34 days, and I so dearly, desperately want to write something before my surroundings shift so completely that I will be thoroughly lucky if I manage to get up on the right side of the bed in the morning. But every idea I eke up turns into fizzing, blackened pile as soon as I come up with a title.

And so, I will do as I always do when I am thus afflicted: post a picture. The following is a small drabble I pieced together on Photoshop based on the Series of Unfortunate Events novels.

The Lives Outside of Mine

2005-07-28T22:54:00.000-04:00

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.

Expressions

2005-07-26T21:07:00.000-04:00

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.)

A Question of Verbosity

2005-07-25T21:24:00.000-04:00

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...

Travel Log One: British Air, If You Dare

2005-07-19T09:54:00.000-04:00

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...)

Days in a Life

2005-07-18T17:10:00.000-04:00

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.

Unnecessary Numbers (Or, A Far Less Glamorous Odyssey)

2005-07-17T07:07:00.000-04:00

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.

In the Immortal Words of L. Frank Baum...

2005-07-15T14:14:00.000-04:00

"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.

Hiatus and I

2005-06-28T22:26:00.000-04:00

Putting an official stamp on my thusfar coincidental absence from Updating, I am happy to say that tomorrow I will, IY"H, be embarking on a rather ambitious and uncharacteristic vacation involving weekends, several airplanes, and more than one country to whom I do not owe citizenship.

Are you intrigued?

I am.

Much of the story, albeit with (I imagine) a great deal less tension and heat stress, to come in approximately two weeks.

Stay tuned...

...and out of the open water...

M.

Into the West

2005-06-26T01:04:00.000-04:00

I only just finished watching a large chunk of documentary concerning the production of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. It ends with the goodbye parties and ceremonies and speeches of each castmember at the conclusion of filming. It's touching and tearful experience on many levels even if you haven't followed the making of these movies as I have, and it ties in very well with the song composed for the end credits of the final movie. The song is called "Into the West," and I have adopted it somewhat as an anthem for endings and goodbyes in general of which I have currently experienced many. Taking a leaf from TorontoPearl's wonderful book, these are the lyrics.

Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You have come to journey's end.

Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across a distant shore.

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping.

What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home.

And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
All souls pass.

Hope fades
Into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time.

DonÂt say
We have come now to the end
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again
And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping.

What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home.

And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the West.

I know the song is rather rife with "Lord of the Rings" symbolism and reference, and of course I am biased (the first time I heard it I burst into tears), but I think it maintains a certain untouchably poignant sentiment nonetheless.

Lessons Learned

2005-06-20T07:04:00.000-04:00

I am sitting in my mother's gradually accelerating car, luxuriating in the innate inertia of the passenger's seat. I am curling back against the sun-warmed upholstery, dipping my toes in the constant ebbs of exhaustion that threaten to sweep me into emotional oblivion. I am trying not to think.

My mind and memory throb dully with the day's unrelenting assault of ceremonial symbolism. Graduates, straighten your caps. Graduates, pick up your corsages. Graduates, walk down the aisle. Graduates... turn your tassels... Tiny, glaring rectangles of light still speckle my vision, an unpleasant residue of innumerable camera flashes trying to plant ephemeral emotion onto solid memento. My sweaty palm tightens around the empty scroll I am handed, threatening to crush the feeble facsimile of academic notoriety.

And through it all I smile, because my tears have already been expended.

In the car, I am slowly slipping into the serendipity of a daydream when my mother slows the car at a stoplight. She points, her smile effervescence with joy, to a small square building across the intersection.

"Didn't you used to go to school there?" she rhetorics proudly, frankly, kindly.

It is a few moments before I recognize her pun, and understanding is bittersweet. But the past tense is my sudden, unwelcome remedy and no volume of copious exhaustion can keep such simple truth at bay.

The Silent Falls

2005-06-09T18:07:00.000-04:00

How can one describe the place
Where Niagara is falling?
This place it seems that human eyes
Were scarcely meant to see.

The words that flood my head
Stretch like thread across a chasm
Measured and fine, and perfectly accurate
But pitifully, obviously empty.

The power of this place is... penultimate
Awesome and awful and brilliant
The crashing and pounding thunders my chest
And smothers my heartbeat while whispering
That nowhere is safe from her fury.

I imagine that eloquents before me have tried
To capture Niagara in meters or prose
And perhaps, another day, I too will follow,
But not yet.

For while new in my mind Niagara remains
And the fluidity flows in the memory
My attempts will be useless, because the knowledge retains:

Freedom is breath for Niagara,
And she will not brook her restraint.

Spread a Little Sunshine

2005-06-05T16:12:00.000-04:00

Stx has tagged me to perform five Random Acts of Kindness- something I quickly and brutally discovered is a lot easier said than done. Here are my attempts:

1. I bought my brother two Harry Potter CD's that he really enjoyed but wouldn't ask for.

2. I helped my mother unload the car from grocery shopping and stocked the fridge without being asked (or silently guilt-tripped) into it.

3. I cleared the table on Shabbos night even though it was my sister's turn.

4. I brought my mother orange juice in the morning, because she likes to have orange juice in the morning.

5. I watched my friend's little brother in my backyard for a few minutes. (Ok, so he's adorable and I didn't have to do much, and it wasn't for very long , but I think it can still count... right?)

And to add to the survey if I may, I'll cite a Random Act of Kindness that someone performed for me:

1. A few weeks ago when I didn't feel well, a girl in my class walked me home- of her own initiative. In the middle of the day during lunch period, I might add.

And now for the fun part. I tag...
- Mr. Avrech
- TorontoPearl
- Shir Chadash

The Beautiful Distance

2005-06-02T22:48:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday as my class made our weary way home from Shabbaton, we made a detour. We turned off the highway by the sign that said "New Square, New York" and we entered a different world.

The world in New Square is like nothing I have ever dreamed. It is possible, perhaps, that my visiting view tinted the scene with an imaginary piety, but somehow I don't think this is the case.

New Square is the central community of the Squverer Chassidim. It is a place where women and men walk down separate sides of the street, and where tricycles on the sidewalk are identified in Yiddish. In New Square, the Rebbe holds court over all decisions made, be it physical or mental, public or private. This is a place where the streets are laid on foundations of deepest faith, and where there is not a television, radio, video game, or computer to be found. In New Square, it is fashionable to be modest and it is popular to be happy.

My school had long ago adopted the tradition of sending senior students to spend a few hours in New Square, but I never could understand quite why. What was to be gained by gawking at "the other half," so to speak, for a few hours as though they were actors in colonial Williamsburg? What more did we need to know of Chassidus then what we had already been taught through history and community folklore? I wasn't scornful exactly, but I admit that the idea seemed like something of an insult to our intelligence.

But that was until Sunday, when finally I walked through this little, private world and began to understand. When I went to New Square, it was as though a closet I had thought locked and musty opened to reveal a glowing pasture of radiant vitality. There were little girls, rambunctious and lively as any I have met, answering our questions with bewildered glee. There were the women we watched, women of forty and fifty with cheeks smooth as glass and eyes bright as morning. There were the girls of our own age, almost all to be married within a span of two years who finally explained how this was quite alright, and I saw a trust in their eyes for their parents and for G-d that I could never hope to rival. I watched as men walked down the street, foreign and austere to me, but as they passed their female counterparts I could almost feel the baritone reverberations of purest respect.

And I saw the Squverer Rebbe shatter my ingrained misconceptions as he walked, swiftly and straight backed to his chair and spoke in a voice that rang with purpose and pride.

Now I understand why I went to New Square. In watching those I had thought were trapped, I freed myself from prejudice.

City Lass, Country Bound

2005-05-31T00:15:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned below, my schoolwide Shabbaton was this past weekend, and it was as diverse an experience as such gatherings typically are. I am by nature a negative person, but I will dry- excuse me, try to avoid saturating this recounting with too strong a dose of pessimistic partiality. The experience was best characterized by a few choice nouns (mostly of the tactile variety) so I will follow history's advice and use those guidelines to recount the weekend's events.

1. Wet- The rain started mid-afternoon on Friday, a wild, torrential country storm that raged for two hours and then pattered out- unfortunately, not before the gusts had succeeded in wiping out the power on the entire location. The lights went back on by 8:00 that night, but the rain started again at 5:00 the next day and continued to drone down, drenching and relentless, until Sunday morning. In addition, reluctant as I was to shower in hotel quarters, my dear friend S kindly offered to wash my hair in the sink after Shabbos. Although the experience certainly added to the drippiness of the weekend, it was an immeasurably salubrious and generous act on my friend's part and I really can't thank her enough.

2. Musty- Fairly predictable, as the Shabbaton took place in a converted camp grounds that had seen better days (I hope.) Every room, every chair, every rank, ratty rug wafted with age, wear and habitation The resulting odor was... unpleasant, to say the least. I ended up sleeping in pajama pants, socks and my robe for disgust and fear of invading critters.

3. Greasy- Despite my most concerted efforts to prevent my hair from transmogrifying into something resembling a very old, very rancid Caesar salad, by the time Shabbos was over my scalp was limp and slick with obvious, unpleasant 'lubrication', shall we say. Nothing I tried, from clipping back my bangs to tying on headbands of varying widths and thickness over the front of my hair (which only made me seem 22 and quite married) succeeded in masking the overt greasiness- thankfully, the problem was finally assuaged with S's help. Also regarding such unctuous splendor, the food served at the place was quite savory and tasty, due largely I am certain to the copious volume of oil infused in every bite. I am fairly confident my cholesterol rose over the weekend, but it's better than eating dry food, I suppose!

4. Minutiae- One thing I hate about Shabbatons is the ever-present threat of some external disaster occurring. For instance, what if my hair frizzes in the damp? What if I forget the right color eyeshadow? What if my tights rip, or no one else is wearing round toe shoes? Everything is magnified, and appearances become the unofficial, unbreakable guidebook. Be pretty, be classy, be original, be stylish... An endless, relentless cycle of invisible obligation. Everything is imagined, of course, but ay ay ay! I'd tear my hair out, if bald patches weren't the fashion faux pax of the past three centuries.

5. Song- I had joined the Senior choir, although I didn't have time to practice as I had somehow been given the job of skit Co-Head. Luckily, the choir more or less crumbled by Shabbos afternoon and I was able to join. I learned a gorgeous song ("B'Shem Hashem Elokei Yisroel, b'yimini Michoel, u b'smoli Gavriel, u milfonai Uriel, u mayachori Rephael. V'al roshi Shechinas K-L.") The choir didn't turn out terribly well (read: it crumbled like a piece of paper) but even practicing was nice. There was also quite a bit of singing involved at mealtimes and just before Shabbos ended. I strained my throat a bit, but it was honestly worth it.

In spite of what may mislead, I really didn't have a terrible time. I was fortunately not involved in any major politics, although I did have a birds eye view of several circles of conflict. Sunday was a completely separate kind of experience and it needs an entry of it's own, so I will conclude this here. I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day!

"Then Close Your Eyes and Tap Your Heels Three Times; And Think To Yourself...

2005-05-29T17:12:00.000-04:00

I'm home from my school Shabbaton. All fifty-two glorious, drenching, mind-bendingly stressful hours of it.

I'm exhausted. I'm slightly nauseous. I am so sweaty, my clothing must think I am some kind of canine, or teenaged male.

Something in particular happened on the way home that I would like to recap, but I have a stringent obligation to collapse at the moment so that will have to wait until later.

In conclusion... I'm sure everyone can finish the quote in the title, but I you can't I'd recommend a set of dentures and a childhood.

Something Like Suppression

2005-05-26T15:37:00.000-04:00

There is a morass of graduation expostulations sludging through my mind that I don't want to succumb to. Hackneyed, tired, sentimental ribbons of similes and metaphors and paragraphs straining one and all to describe the gaping abyss of the graduation syndrome. (Example: It is a perceived, imagined danger that only poses real risk to the utterly supine....) I don't want to join (or at least fall further into) the endless annals of syrupy, lachrymose laments of graduates past. Every thought I am thinking, every swelling, seditious emotion has swept through legions of souls in cap and gown clad figures, and the result has spilled over millions of empathetic eyes. I know the drill so well: Terror, excitement, loss, joy, push - pull, stay - go, change, boredom, comfort, laziness, ambition, the feeling that your suddenly standing on a pedestal that is quivering under you but you can't get off and G-d, what happens if you fall...

It's too much of the same. It's like a formulaic drug that everyone takes and everyone feels, and then a year later you are tall and strange and cynical and it's "Oh yeah, graduation. I was crying so hard... how could I have been such a dork?"

I hate this limbo, this feeling and not wanting to, this conformity when all I want to do is say good-bye with grace. But there is nothing I can do, except cry and quiver and mourn until June is over and the stinging reminders of everything missing fade away.

That's all I can do, except not write about it.

A Crucible? No Kidding, and Thanks for the Warning!

2005-05-22T01:09:00.000-04:00

Cryptic note of caution:

Should one ever endeavor to view the film "The Crucible" based on the play of the same name by Arthur Miller from any span of time between 12:00 PM and 9:30 AM, I must strongly advise you to STOP and consider the overwhelming psychological ramifications of such a decision. If you fail to heed this warning, it is the unfortunate truth that the only remotely successful cure for the resulting waves of smothering depression is an hours-long marathon viewing of Friends and other such saccharine slices of televised cotton candy.

Such as the one that I (at yes, 1:00 in the morning) am about to drown myself in.

Good night, and good luck.

Physical Education

2005-05-19T22:34:00.000-04:00

Thirty girls aslouching by the dank and sallow wall
Clad in uniformity, they wait for Captain's call
To reaffirm their status in regard to basket-ball
And again condemn my feeble dreams of aptitude to fall.

They cluster in bi-conscious cliques of devious design
Each praying she will be the lucky first to leave the line
And when the hallowed Captain grants the honor to her kind
It stings, although I knew the name she'd call would not be mine.

And one by one the girls on every side of me alight
Their height, their speed, their status has awarded them this right
But small and round and reading, I seem not to garner sight
And so I stand alone in place and wait the silent fight.

The battle skews the moments into agonizing years
As the thought that rings around the room assaults my callused ears
The college-student Coach stands dumb, her power disappears
So I curl up within myself, and choke away the tears.

Eventually the game ensues, apologies unspoken
The ball is gone, the room is cleared of any tactile token
But I emerge once more with something new in me awoken
A knowledge of the finer ways an innocent is broken.

The First Last

2005-05-15T13:23:00.000-04:00

Yesterday afternoon was the final session of the program I wrote about in The Shabbos Sisters. I was looking forward to spending time with the few girls who had continued to attend, who's company I had strangely come to enjoy. I wasn't sad, just eager to complete my surprising tenure as a group leader on a confident and satisfying note. It was a happy ending, or so I had though.

Unfortunately, because it was the last week, many girls who hadn't come in months decided to return for one last hurrah. The numbers weren't overwhelming, about six or seven girls in my group, but the bulk of them were some of the worst behaved little heathens I had ever met. How difficult can it be to respond in positive to "Devora, please stop screaming," or "No Bracha, you can't take the entire bag of lollipops for yourself" ? They became so out of control that even the girls who were normally better behaved went wild- if I hadn't been so appalled, I would have been able to write a pages-long thesis on the complete lack of resistance to social facilitation of fourth grade girls. At one point, there were about five of them shrieking some nonsense at the top of their lungs, and each canine-pitched catcall resonated louder and louder around the useless acoustic perfection of the detention room until it got to the point that I actually had to walk out and let my friend deal with them alone for a few minutes. My friend did manage to coerce them into playing some sort of game, but the level of noise was still significant enough to make thought processes difficult, and by that time the session was all but over.

Overall, it was a highly disappointing conclusion to a difficult and often unpleasant undertaking. I know I tried my best and I'm sure I have grown somehow from the experience, but I can't help but wish my efforts had been awarded a more satisfying sendoff. Hopefully my upcoming good-byes, which antagonize me far more than I anticipated yesterday's to, will resultantly be eased by the ordeal.

The Master of my Fate

2005-05-10T01:16:00.000-04:00

This is my favorite necklace. It's comforting on several levels, especially when I am feeling hopeless and uncreative. And of course, I adore subtle tactile symbolism.

But if I really were "the master of my fate" in the fullest sense (which is not necessarily a power I would be entirely at ease with) I wonder; what would I do?

Well...

- I would publish at least one book.
- I would learn to ice skate.
- I would take a regular yoga class.
- I would learn to speak at least three languages fluently.
- I would meet JK Rowling.
- I would take gymnastics lessons.
- I would read more "classics".
- I would sing on a Broadway stage (with or without an audience.)
- I would take cooking lessons.
- I would climb a rock wall.
- I would take all kinds of dancing lessons.
- I would meet Robin Ventura and Todd Zeile.
- I would watch "Gone With the Wind" in its entirety.
- I would discipline myself and learn to play the piano.
- I would go to Greece, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

It's an interesting thing to think about. I never realized how badly I wanted to climb a rock wall before, or go to Japan of all places. Isn't it fascinating when you discover bits of yourself that you never fully felt?

And because it is spring, and it is nice to try fresh things, I will put this to you. If you could do anything, what would you do?

That Someone

2005-05-04T19:26:00.000-04:00

I really hate checking back here and realizing that it's been almost a week since I've written something. Unfortunately, the next three and a half weeks that (oh, G-d) represent the conclusion of my high school career are quickly beginning to resemble a very large spring being pushed into a very small thimble- something's got to give. Though I suppose I should be thankful; it's difficult to mourn graduation when you are grinding the finals millstone until your nose is raw.

Example A: Tommorow is the first part of the Advanced Placement English Exam. I'm not sure why I signed up for the thing, it's impossibly difficult and practically useless in terms of college credits. Or perhaps I do know why- I signed up to impress my teacher. Such touching motivation.

The exam is at eight o'clock in the morning. I will most likely go in with far too little information or time to have a chance to score well. I'm worried, but not for the test. I think I am worried because I should be worried. I should care about this, or at least try to. Everyone else does. Why am I missing this drive that seems to come to everyone else so terribly easily?

I feel like I am driving down a road, and at the end there is a sign that says "Graduation. Mature Persons Only." Only it isn't a place, just an abyss where everything safe and familiar is gone, and I have nothing to grab on to for support. In reality I know it isn't nearly so drastic, but the only framework I've ever really known is dissolving around me. What am I without high school, with something so similar yet so strange looming ahead of me?

It's almost as though I won't be myself any more. I'll be someone new and capable and unfamiliar, all of a sudden. Without warning or preparation I'll be someone grown up, comfortable and invincible in everything she does. Someone without fear, who doesn't need or enjoy the things I so take comfort in now.

It's ridiculous. It's impossible. But I can't believe how terrified I am of becoming that someone.

Holidays and Broadway Plays

2005-04-28T13:34:00.000-04:00

There is a de facto custom in my family (or to be accurate, among my mother, my sister and myself) that ordinates our attendance of a Broadway show on any Jewish holiday with a substantial Chol HaMoed period. I believe this evolved from a time when, due to the demands of school and smaller children (and smaller children in school), it was difficult for my mother to locate a period of time that would be amenable to the late nights, fancy clothing and Manhattan evening traffic that accompany such an endeavor. Although by now these obstacles have shrunk considerably, (attending a play on a school night is less of a parental taboo when you fall asleep before your children do) we still attempt to continue the tradition and so make sure to attend a show at least every Succos and Pesach.

This year, we decided to attend a performance of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a musical freshly minted from Off-Broadway and receiving that alluring kind of secret attention reserved for the truly unique of the Broadway resume. It is currently in previews and opening in May, the fact of which heightened the excitement of the experience for me- somehow, seeing a play in previews gives me the euphorically superior feeling of having discovered something special.

I wasn't remiss in my anticipation- the play was absolutely fantastic. I doubt I've ever laughed so hard, with such genuine mirth (in a theater exhibiting live people) as I did on Tuesday night. It would take far too long to explain each distinct dynamic of the show, but everything from the dialogue to the setting to the lyrics was just brimming with a refreshingly pure sense of fun. Additionally, it is staged in a very small theater, so the experience is very intimate and has a distinctly improvisational aura about it. (For example, they select four people from the audience to be part of the Spelling Bee, and these people remain onstage until they legitimately miss a word. Apparently they have had several audience members go unpredictably far in the "competition," but they also have a list of fail-safe obscurities to ensure the play can eventually reach it's designated conclusion.)

Unfortunately, as in most things today, "Spelling Bee" includes a distinct infusion of unnecessary lewdness. It wasn't overwhelming (it mostly consists of one girl struggling the fact that her parental figures are both men, and a boy dealing with... puberty issues- although this in particular is given it's own song and is severely distasteful) but it is certainly significant enough, in my opinion, to restrict children under 13-14 from attending.

Overall though (and I do feel somewhat guilty in saying this) if you are aware of these issues from the start, "Spelling Bee" can truly be a fun and energetic experience. I do recommend it as a play that adults in particular should be able to appreciate. It has such a fresh, unique giddiness about it, that you almost can't help walking out with a smile.

"J" Ne Peux Pas Attendre Pour Vous Montrer

2005-04-22T16:11:00.000-04:00

I just love influencing my friends. It's a hobby I've come to engage in regularly of late. Certainly it is far from easy (they are a brilliantly stubborn bunch, and require increasingly clever tactics to elicit their defeat) but to be honest, any victory would not be a sliver as exhilarating if it lacked the preceding battles.

When I do emerge successful, my bone of contention can yield truly unprecedented results. Case in point: My dear friend J, who will follow the trend and be known online by her first initial only, has begun her own blog. In this instance, the struggle was not even so drastic- I merely beseeched her to pay a visit to Ink as Rain. So imagine my bemusement and elation when I visited my comments and found a link to what J has deftly entitled "Skating Pencil." J is a wonderfully earthy and perceptive writer, and I urge you to habituate her endeavor- it will surely be worth your while.

Wishing everyone a healthy, happy and meaningfull Pesach (and/or a nice warm week!) Oh yes, and the above title is courtesy of "AltaVista Bable Fish Translation." I speak not a word of French.

Non-Partisan Natural Narcotic

2005-04-19T19:00:00.000-04:00

People watching is always an entertaining hobby, but it is a particularly fascinating study in the springtime. Spring is, I think, the only time of year people venture out of doors in full honesty, without attire driven airs or agendas. Winter intrinsically stifles individuality by necessitating layers of insulation, while in summer all clothing is manipulated by an subconscious desire to avoid heatstroke (from a temporarily non-judgmental position, of course.) Fall, although more potent a competitor, primarily marks the return of inhibition and subtlety, not the freedom of spring.

Spring is something special. She calls you near, coaxing and innocuously coy, until you stand spellbound within her grasp. She envelopes you in a perfect embrace, slips you into a state where every sensation is so utterly pristine that you almost can't breathe. And then, when you least expect it, spring carefully removes your shell, in an act not of exposure but of removing a burden you have carried too long to remember.

It is incredible to watch people thus affected. There is an easy, rolling grace to their steps and a contentment in their stature. They dress as themselves, shedding any costumes donned for public approval. And most miraculous of all, their eyes focus naturally upwards, reveling in the pure, heady boon they don't recognize.

It's That Time of Year

2005-04-17T11:21:00.000-04:00

My mother and my sister are among those fortunate fellows who are blessed with the ability to clean. They can stare down closets without batting an eye, organize hurricanes of paper, and stuff so much clothing into one garbage bag you'd think they were on a shopping spree. That's not to say they aren't pack rats in their own fashion, but somehow things get thrown out all the same.

As for myself, I keep everything (literally), and then I forget about it. My dresser is crammed with anything from third grade class notes to cheap favors from parties I probably didn't want to attend to begin with. I have teddy bear mugs stuffed with odd pieces of broken jewelry and unsharpened pencils, dolls I bought years ago, artfully arranged once and then left to gather dust, and dozens of souvenirs I bought on pre-historical family trips. All of which would be novelty rather than hazard if I didn't know for a fact that there are countless seditious packages of sweets burrowed slyly within my self-inflicted labyrinth.

And now it's Pesach, and I have to pick through it all again. That is, if I can get back into my room- Sister has taken it upon herself to clean today. Then I have to tackle my knapsack, which in and of itself could fuel several different horror films and their myriad of sequals.

But that's for another time.

Tide and Time

2005-04-13T00:56:00.000-04:00

Sitting on the metal seat
Knees tucked up below her chin
Is my friend
Looking for her future.

Wondering where the past has been
When suddenly we were old enough
To fear what would not sting
Or burn us palpably.

It is not knowing that strikes her
So suddenly somberly thoughtful
We tiptoe an expected line
Who's end is lost ahead.

It is, I think
Like traveling
To a place beyond our scope of thought
Described with love, but futile.

No matter how clearly
They relay what is seen
We lack the ability
Or the will, perhaps, to understand.

And so my friend sits, thus exposed
With me beside her quietly
I feel the torment inside her being
As though it is my own.

But somehow still I am detached
As she has fear where have shadow
And I cannot protect her from
The howling future vacuum.

The Eighty-Four

2005-04-12T00:37:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I wonder if ignorance is bliss.

I am ignorant of much, but there is one thing I know. I know my greatest flaw.

I am lazy. Cripplingly, stiflingly, nauseatingly lazy.

I was going to call it procrastination, but why give it the dignity?

Would I be better off if I didn't realize? The result is ultimately the same, I get next to nothing done. The only difference is in the pounding guilt in my head and the growing weight of uselessness in my stomach.

It's so hard to fight laziness. In essence, you are battling your own comfort, your own satisfaction, everything that contents you. You are wrapped in a cocoon of safe, warm, cloying happiness, but inside you squirm with a nervous energy you can't control. And then of course, you begin the arguments, the endless circular bouts of logic and lassitude that go around and around... "I have work to do." "So nu, go do it." "But I don't want to." "Fine, don't do it." "But I have to." "Be quiet maideleh, you've already filled your guilt quotient for today."

And so it goes.

I bring this up today, because today I received an 84 on an English test.

There. I've said it.

I am dazed. I just don't get 84's in English. History? Maybe. Science? Probably. Math? If I'm lucky. But English? No, never in English.

It's entirely my fault, of course. I've been sliding through my teacher's fingers avoiding every stitch of work I possibly could manage. I handed in something like two essays out of seven last semester, and still pulled a 98. Unfair? Very. A brutal mind trap for someone with as little work ethic as I? Unbelievably.

The test was on The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. I didn't read the entire book (wonder why?) but I had a good grasp of the themes and plotlines.

I missed the test day. My teacher was not happy.

So I took it home over the weekend to finish, and to my utter astonishment and delight, I actually did. I put it off for a few hours, but at eight o'clock I sat down and answered the questions. It wasn't difficult. Themes, check. Symbolism, check. Characters, check...

So imagine my surprise when my teacher handed back my paper with a decidedly guilty aura and the news that on two questions I had failed to elaborate satisfactorily on the emotional aspects of Gregor's transformation and it's ramifications.

Missing emotional subcontext? Me?

So that is the tale of my English eighty-four, a grade that will live, if not infamy than certainly in bemusement.

I am almost happy I that I received that grade, though. It's a release. The worst has happened, and I am still here, and writing to boot.

Gam zeh ya'avor?

No.

Gam zu l'tovah.

What I've Noticed

2005-04-10T23:06:00.000-04:00

Various things I have observed since spring has set in.

1. Authority pressure to go outside is less, but the resulting guilt when you don't is greater.

2. There is only one flower in our garden. It is blindingly yellow, and sitting in the middle of a bush. I guess the free spirits always come first.

3. Being outside without a coat feels like floating.

4. I have trouble walking when I have to concentrate on the weather.

5. Baseball isn't a game, it's an antidepressant. (Yes, even for Mets fans.)

6. I have a strange strain of writer's block, which is why I am writing so many lists. I feel like I've used up my mental stocks of poetry- I keep reaching for one, but the cupboard is bare. I am itching to write a poem right now...

Silent Light

2005-04-07T20:00:00.000-04:00

Daylight savings is better than my birthday.

Daylight savings is better than mint-chocolate chip ice cream.

Daylight savings is better than reading.

Blasphemous it may well be, but this time of year elicits all stealthy versions of the truth, and I must confess- Light gives me an exhilaration that cannot be rivaled by any distractive entertainment. I'm not quite sure of the reason, as by all appearances nighttime suits me better. I revel in the silent splendor of moonlight, I thrill in getting lost in the inky anonymity of darkness. But somehow, light lends me a kind of freedom unparalleled by any affected midnight disguises. Freedom of movement, freedom of thought, freedom of sight... When it is light, I can move without inhibition or fear, and I can really, really see. Observation is my lifeline, my shelter in places where the press of people overwhelms my senses, and the clearer I see, the stronger I feel. Light does more than highlight the daytime... Light elucidates my mind.

In Anticipation

2005-04-04T21:30:00.000-04:00

I have Israel on the brain (as I'm sure you may have noticed), so I have drawn up a rough list of must-read books that will probably be released while I am away. I rely upon the goodness of my sister's reading glasses to transfuse me at her earliest convenience with;

-A Feast for Crows, by George RR Martin
-The Knife of Dreams, by Robert Jordan
-The Bonehunters, by Steven Erickson
-The Will of the Empress, by Tamora Pierce
-A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Twelfth, by Lemony Snicket
-The Blood Knight, by Greg Keyes

Here's to healthy writers and hasty publishers!

Picking Battles

2005-04-01T10:15:00.000-05:00

Within the system of education that I have been raised in, it is often common practice among teachers to incorporate into their lessons a caution on the dangers of what is unofficially known as 'the outside world' (Tova Mirvis got that much right, at least.) The more docile of students receive the lecture with a bland, "duly noted" sort of attention, while those of a more... independent nature often seize the gauntlet and engage in eager debate with the teacher. In fact, woe is the woman who attempts to initiate such a dictum without proper preparation, because there are few more stubborn creatures on earth than teenage girls with an ax to grind against an unsatisfactory answer.

For myself, I try to adopt a less tendentious position. In such classroom discussions I often feel like the center of a fulcrum, though I have no illusions that I am half as steadfast as I ought to be. I tend to list more to the position of my peers in practice, though very often my conscience gives me a nudge and whispers, "She really does have a decent point, you know." But full concession is restricted by of a combination of what I hope is honest disagreement and what I admit is the realization of the fact that cynicism feels so sinfully pretty on a seventeen year old ego.

Horizons

2005-03-30T19:56:00.000-05:00

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

2005-03-29T09:44:00.000-05:00

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

2005-03-27T18:28:00.000-05:00

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

2005-03-24T13:48:00.000-05:00

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

2005-03-24T09:30:00.000-05:00

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

Claustrophobic Universe

2005-03-20T23:23:00.000-05:00

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

2005-03-17T21:24:00.000-05:00

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

2005-03-16T23:33:00.001-05:00

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

2005-03-15T22:18:00.000-05:00

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

2005-03-13T18:47:00.000-05:00

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

2005-03-12T22:40:00.000-05:00

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

2005-03-09T23:22:00.000-05:00

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...

2005-03-07T19:20:00.000-05:00

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.

Apolitical

2005-02-17T21:58:00.000-05:00

I am blessed to have friends without politics. From what I've gathered from the conversation of some of my more peripheral acquaintances (and yes, I admit it, the movies) high school is barely high school without backstabbing, three way phone calls and ambiguous text messaging that leave you in one sided relationships. And I won't get started on the sewage those of the opposite gender introduce into the mix! Just listening to a very smart, rational girl I know recount the epic of her various beaus made me dizzy.
My friends have no boyfriends. My friends don't have cell phones (though not for lack of trying.) We rarely even speak on the phone, except for the occasional homework query. My anti-social tendencies are a running joke between the three of us, and yet somehow they lure me out too subtly to recognize. Topics for conversation are plucked from the air around us and we fill the spaces with laughter. We can be quiet together, tired together, in pain and in horribly rotten moods together, and begrudge each other not a moment. Competition is not a factor between us, and I have never complained about one to the other. It is to them that I owe every particle of public confidence, humor and happiness I posses.
And somehow, together, the future does not scare me.

Mind Sliver

2005-02-14T22:47:00.000-05:00

A small, strange clip of poetry that came to me just now...

Keep closed the drapes on sunny days
And eyes at sunset's lurid rays
Beware of time's confounding maze
When mirrors blind all future ways.

Odd times spawn odd inspiration, I suppose.

Weekend Review

2005-02-13T19:10:00.000-05:00

This past Shabbos I attended my Senior Shabbaton (weekend retreat). It was an interesting experience on many levels, most particularly because it was so refreshingly low key. I have nearly always returned from such school gatherings stained bone deep with exhaustion, but today I suffer from no such adverse afflictions. To be honest, I can't quite decide if I enjoyed the experience or not- I am most unequivocally not the sort of person who is at ease in social situations, however innocuous. Spending a night away from my own bed and bathroom is also not a prospect that makes me particularly comfortable, nor is it pleasant for anyone to suffer through a screeching headache from lunch until dinner. However, if I did not quite adore the experience, it certainly was a considerable improvement on the past formula. There was a lot more laughter and a lot less emotional discomfort than in any previous Shabbaton, and for the first time there was Taboo, which I found to be an excellent game. I did not consider not going (Senior Shabbaton, after all), but for the first time I do not regret my decision.

In other news:
~This is the last week of in-school practice for Production. My throat is in tatters and the drama is horrendous (to the extent that I feel lucky not to be in the audience), but I can't help but to feel excited. (My newfound proclivity for optimism is frightening me, by the way.)

~I've finally sent out my application to Stern, with a remarkable 48 hours to spare. Now I have only one more acceptance letter to worry about...

~Speaking of which, this Tuesday is the Red Letter day for Seminary responses. I received one letter this past week, an appreciated but disturbingly brusque form informing me I had been accepted. (It went along the lines of, "We like you. Come. Give us money," as my sister said.) I have one more Seminary letter coming. It should be interesting to see the verdict...

~Aurthur Miller, a great American playwright, has passed away. This is a sad and strange occasion for me, as to my knowledge he is the first author whom I have read who has passed away during my conscious years. I wonder if my English teacher will bring it up tomorrow. Somehow, Mr. Miller always seemed immortal.

No Business Like Show Business

2005-02-08T22:09:00.000-05:00

Every year for the month of February, my high school plunges into an eclectic morass of paint, harmony, vinyl silk and takeout tins. Franticly photocopied practice schedules paper the walls. Teachers stalk the halls with frozen smiles, envisioning the masses of "excuse" notes and guilty grins that await in their classrooms. A stroll up the stairs will result in several near collisions (from above or below) with hoarse, wild haired girls clutching scraps of cloth or sheet music. The very air hums with the potent afterfumes of sweat, coffee and tempera.

Ah yes. Production is coming.

Production is our yearly (or bi-yearly, depending on the rank of the opinionater) play. It usually consists of a tame drama drawn from quasi-recent Jewish history interspersed with choirs, dances, ensembles and the occasional 'stomp.' Practice begins in mid November, stalls over finals and resumes with death-defying ferocity in February. This year, as in every previous year, I am in choir (although this year I am in two instead of the meek and provincial option of one). Thanks to my especial zeal to participate in my senior year I am now required by all but martial law to attend practice sessions from five to eight o'clock at night. It is extremely difficult to concoct the proper metaphor to express the experience of standing in my painfully vain leather shoes and trying to sing a decent soprano with fifteen other talented but increasingly exhausted and temperamental girls for three hours. Suffice it to say that after my first attempt at such an obscene marathon last night, I swore a solemn oath never to undertake anything of the sort ever again. Thankfully, I was able to negotiate a two hour stay tonight and tomorrow with another full shift only on Thursday. As it is, I am quite flabbergasted at the volume of homework I seem to be already sitting atop of. (In truth I suppose it isn't all that much, but it's still difficult to get done after such a day!)

Well, I did sign up for this. By March (ah, March!) it will all be over. More on Production to come yet, I'm fairly certain.

On an entirely separate note, a sincere and heartfelt thank you to everyone who reads and responds to my blog. Your comments mean more to me than you can know.

Pessimists Anonymous

2005-02-06T18:21:00.000-05:00

Because Spring Semester officially begins tomorrow (at 8:15 AM sharp, of course), and because tomorrow is Monday (the unassailably worst day of the week behind Sunday) I have decided to count my blessings and write a list of things a person more optimistic than I would deem 'fortunate', 'happy' and other such depressingly positive adjectives.

1. There are twenty-two days left of February, in my mind the last official month of dear father Winter.

2. Not only do I have a book club meeting next Motzei Shabbos, but I have actually finished the book with more than forty eight hours to spare.

3. Because I have finished the book ('The Plot Against America', by Philip Roth) I can finally luxuriate in 'Harry Potter and the Order of the phoenix' again.

4. Speaking of which, 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' is being released in a mere 159 days.

5. My sister has finished the series she was reading ('Finovair Tapestry', by Guy Gavriel Kay) so after 'The Plot Against America' she can read 'Deadhouse Gates', by Steven Erickson, a book that I have been all but chemically manipulating her towards ever since I finished it.

6. My friend Goldie passed her road test. That's bound to come in handy.

7. The Superbowl is today, which means that football season is over and baseball season is beginning.

And I've reached the limit of my optimism for the moment. A successful exercise, though- seven thoughts for seven days can theoretically equate a full cup, I think.

The Mitzvah and the Mayhem

2005-02-03T23:24:00.000-05:00

Sunday morning. A blindingly bright, frigid day, the kind that always evokes the particles pair of sunglasses and down parkas. My mother and I had just run an errand and were returning to the car with the resigned, shivering stroll that winter so deftly breeds, when we were approached by an elderly woman. She was the sort of lady whom you try to avoid in public, deterred by a concoction of intimidation, pity and awe, the woman you kiss at family greetings and pray never to become. She wore a black felt coat with a colorful kerchief draped over her dull, thin hair and tied beneath her chin. Her body was like a fragile cane, the shoulders hunched and rounded, the head pitched forward in an intrinsic gesture of concentration. She was crying, whimpering in helpless terror.
She came up to us like this, a beacon of need almost painful in its stark clarity. Her desperate eyes passed over me and swung to my mother. Did we know where she was? Did we know where the stores were? The stores, the stores, she was on the bus and she went to far and she got confused and the bus driver didn't tell her where they were and oh, where was she, so confused...
Gently, my mother took her by the arm. Where did she want to go? The beauty parlor, it turned out. Which beauty parlor? She wasn't sure, the one near the synagogue- it was on this side of the street, where all the stores were. Of course, the synagogue, said my mother, she knows where that is. Our car is right over here, why don't we drive her down and we can find where she wants to go? It isn't any trouble, no trouble at all. A simple thing, and we help this lady into our car. Silently, I scurry into the front passenger seat, awed by the tumult ensconced in a body so frighteningly small.
As my mother pulled away from the curb, she delicately brushed aside all protestations of gratitude and asked the woman about herself. Her husband died a few months ago, she has a daughter in Florida and a daughter upstate, and grandchildren. She was so terribly grateful, she hoped she could reciprocate in some way. My mother steered the car, gentle and steady as cursive, down the sunny, snow bleached streets until familiarity dawned on the woman. As she helped her down from the car, she told my mother her name was Dorothy, and could she perhaps buy us coffee, or anything? No, my mother told her with a smile. She was glad to have been able to help. And Dorothy went to get her nails done.

Sailing Flight

2005-01-30T14:19:00.000-05:00

I remember how we walked
Down the dank wooden dock
Giddy trepidation,
Gilded by fear and surreality.

I remember white and clean
The tenets of this memory.
White, the boat and sky and vision bleached,
Clean, the air and aura.

Skimming over water
Blue and black and green
Buffeted by cool, dry wind,
Somehow wet and warm as well.

Stopping and sinking
Into waves of humidity
Stepping into plastic strappings,
To keep us somehow flying.

That day, somehow, I wore a tee shirt
With sleeves that didn't lick my elbows
It was white and stiff with pool chlorine,
And I took off my skirt to fly.

Up we rose, as the boat fled beneath us
Drawing us after with a rough rope of twine
We giggled and shrieked, my sister and I,
Our legs foreign, bare in the open.

Behind us, suspended in the heat of the height
A yellow balloon blossomed in the humidity
The distant boat or the false flying sun,
Which kept us afloat, I cannot recall.

And then it was quiet,
But the warm whisper of wind
We hung in the white and drank in the solitude,
Thick and rich as tears.

We sank back to earth
Ten minutes later
To the porcelain pocket in steely dark ocean,
Our rope and balloon disappearing.

How much smaller and colder
The earth seemed just then
How busy and noisome and angry,
To the sterile silence of sky.

I put on my skirt as the others took turns
Riding the milky expanse
They came back enameled, each one of the four,
In clean silver sweat and the residue of clouds.

And especially I remember
As we clambered to the mossy dock
How unnerving it was,
Recalling the sky.

The day was different
And I was different
I remember most clearly of all,
Since the moment I sailed the uppers of water.

Twenty-Four Hours

2005-01-25T18:17:00.000-05:00

Today, I sat the first half of my English Regent, and as a result wrote one of the ugliest, most insipid essays I can imagine remotely feasible. It was based on an article and chart about "irrigation and food production", and it was so horribly, wordlessly dull that I'm aching with boredom just remembering it. The other essay I had to write was on a passage read to us about vaudeville. English 12 has now destroyed any tender feelings I may have harbored towards that horrendous little miming, ethnically and socially diverse, universaly appealing entertainment stunt.

Oh, I hate Regents. Every single one, every single time is always like this. So deep and concentrated extends my loathing that I, who could give Hallmark a run for sentimentality, can barely summon up a shred of nostalgia at the thought of taking my last Regent. I cannot wait until this time tomorrow. Less than twenty-four hours.
Yes.

Tomorrow, I have to take the second part. At least it's a particle more stimulating. A thematic essay based on an article and poem incorporating 'literary terms' (another hideous contrivance), and a focus question that could be on absolutely anything.
Twenty-four hours.

(On a much, much happier note, JK Rowling has given birth to her third child, a daughter named Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray. Best wishes to Jo and her family!)

Completion and Snow are Relative Concepts

2005-01-23T20:57:00.000-05:00

I think (think) I've finished the yearbook poem. I'm still not sure about the last four lines, though.

A dream is an internal thing
A personal endeavor.
The hope, desire, will or wish
That stays with you forever.
Yet dreams are but the building blocks
The trickle to the stream,
Insubstantial as ambition
As incongruous as steam.
For reality to blossom
From imagination's bed
Guard your dreams not only in your heart,
But also in your head.
From there your path is smooth and clear,
Built not of clouds but stone,
For success smells so much sweeter
When you can taste it as your own.

In other news, I have two feet of snow outside my house and I have just been informed that school will resume as scheduled tomorrow. And I have no boots. Add 'impossible' to my list of relative concepts. Positive thought for the day: I am still taller than the snow.

Edit: Revised the last four lines.

From there your road begins in truth,
Built not of clouds but stone.
For success is sweet in growing,
But is purest when it's grown.

Dabblings

2005-01-21T15:44:00.000-05:00

Don't laugh at me, but I'm writing a story. Or trying to, anyway. It's based on Purim (not exactly original, I know) and I really need feedback from people who aren't blood relatives of mine. Please tell me what you think, I'm very insecure about my fiction.

The straw mat of the palanquin was draped in bright silk, but Haddassa could feel the rough wicker weave through the delicate gauze. She shifted, lowering her head back to the slick pillows and tried to feign the lazy grace that had personified her companions of the past year. Gritting her teeth, Hadassa grimaced at the tense, rigid lines of the body that refused to adopt any semblance of calm and moved into a sitting position.
Instantly, the two wenches by her side began twittering in forced anxiety. Was she in discomfort? Did she need refreshment? Was the heat effecting her? Anything at all she might require, she need only request...
Haddassa demurred quietly, waving the girls away. Needs were relative, she had learned early in her life. The palanquin was stifling even in the waning heat of the Arabian twilight, and the rough weave of her frugal dress chaffed every loosely draped inch of her body, but these were familiar, almost welcome discomforts. Haddassa would gladly have tripled these paltry inconvenience if it would only quell the helpless terror percolating to a boil within her. Not since the previous night had she been able to snatch a single quiet moment for herself, and she had spent much of the night enveloped in such a state of frantic prayer that she had quickly fallen into an exhausted, dreamless sleep. Desperate for distraction, Haddassa began to slowly relive the day so hastily past. She had not been roused until a full hour after sunrise, when the most delicate of morningscents permeated her awareness. She opened her eyes slowly and instantly regretted the reflex as she took in the scores of eager maids and manservants crowding her room.

So- should I continue?

Have a good Shabbos!

The Reek of Rejection

2005-01-20T15:15:00.000-05:00

Sigh.

Yesterday, I received my first Seminary rejection letter. And it stings.

I don't know why this is getting to me. This was my last choice school. I made a split second decision to apply. I don't, and I didn't ever, even want to go there! It's much bigger than the other schools I applied to, and the curriculum is much more academically focused then what I'm looking for. My interview was dull and brief. I even had a strong suspicion I hadn't been accepted. And it isn't as though I have nowhere else to go- B"H, I've already been accepted to my first choice school. I need absolutely nothing from this place.

But still, when I found that ominously slim envelope in the mail pile... It really hurt. What did I do wrong? I sent them one of my best essays- didn't they like it? My grades are pretty good- wasn't it enough? True, the interview was no epiphany, but I didn't do anything wrong- did I?

And the letter they sent was so brusque and cold. "Dear Miss M, We enjoyed meeting with you but unfortunately due to the large volume of applicants we will not be able to admit you at this time..." Nobody even signed it at the bottom. It felt like I was chaff they were blowing off, as if they were bored with me.

And I feel so guilty for being upset. I know there are dozens of girls who will be rejected by schools they really want to attend. Girls who aren't accepted anywhere. Girls who's parents won't even let them apply in the first place. What right do I have to be dejected over one adverse letter?

Sigh...

This too shall pass.

Cold

2005-01-18T18:10:00.000-05:00

I hate the cold. Oh my gosh, do I hate the cold. That awful, cloying, creeping shiver that pounces on and through any surface less than a quarter of an inch thick and makes the Abominable Snowman want to crawl into bed with the a moan, pleading the fifth. Uhg. Still, I didn't quite believe my mother when she mentioned that today was projected to be the coldest day of the year. Please, it was 25 degrees- nothing could possibly get colder than that!
The joke was on me, apparently. Not only was my thermometer slipping into single digits when I woke up this morning but the windchill was lounging at an absurdly obnoxious -4. (What vindictive meteorologist came up with windchill anyway?) Neither of which would have irked me as much had my sister not awoken with a nasty splash of the flu, meaning that I had to walk to school and back alone deprived even of the minimal diffused warmth to be derived from any company whatsoever. Mmm, and I also found out I have yet more work to do on the school Literary Journal that my fellow editors and I have been slaving over since last May and submitted for review in September...
Ah well, at least my midterm went alright. To do: study for my second to last final, think happy thoughts!

The Play's the Thing- or is it?

2005-01-17T19:22:00.000-05:00

I love electrifying plays. You know the kind, an experience that grasps your heart in it's fist and dangles you from the gilded ceiling until it lowers you down and cackles gleefully in your ear. I saw Twelve Angry Men on Motzei Shabbos, and oh my, was it phenomenal! The acting was supreme, the set was brilliant and the whole experience was just perfect. Best of all, my amazing mother somehow got third row orchestra seats... I honestly couldn't stop babbling until we reached the car.
It's funny, but I've never (in all my 17 years of vast experience...) found anything that gives me the same kind of intellectual, emotional high that seeing a play does. A special book can come close, but it still doesn't envelope me as unequivocally as a play does. Still, if I had to choose between the two, I think I would have to take the books. The headiness of a play is nearly priceless, but it's still worth less than the intimacy rewarded by a good book. (Oh dear, just look at me vacillating again!)

Place Holding Poetry

2005-01-14T02:31:00.000-05:00

Just a little poem I came up with about a week ago...

If sun should mount the stars at night,
And aught but clouds the dew alight
When right is left and wrong is right,
Then fear has fled for death of sight.

Oh, and the begining of one I'm trying to write for yearbook;

A dream is an internal thing
A personal endevor.
The hope, desire, will or wish
That stays with you forever.
Yet dreams are but the building blocks
The trickle to the stream,
Insubstantial as ambition
Incongruous as steam.

Photographic Memory

2005-01-12T02:00:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I continued my as of yet unsuccessful quest to find photos to fill my yearbook page. In doing so, I stumbled across a picture from last Chanukah, though it seems like much, much longer. The picture is of me and another girl (whom I barely know) framing someone in the center. This girl is tall, thin and porcelain pale. She has frizzy, wildly uneven dark hair- hair that has its own cognition. She is wearing a silk Oxford shirt with thin multi-colored stripes, and a bright red neck scarf spills onto the shirt in an artful flair.
Instantly, this girl is different. She is a startling contrast to the two subdued creatures framing her. At a glance, it is obvious she is an artist. In her clothing, in her eyes, in her her long bony hands that fall like albino spiders over our shoulders. Study her further, and you will read the fierce intelligence in her eyes, and a flair for words which puts me to shame. She is larger than life, a Greta Garbo incarnate who answers only to the highest of authorities. She is brilliantly gregarious, a carnival mirror reflection of reality. And it is here that I begin to pull away.
This girl is my polar opposite in every cognitive process conceivable. I am the base to her acid, the salt to her pepper. Her presence is like cumin and jalapenio in my mouth, bringing fire to my eyes and my brain. Her body swings and her hands flail as she talks, so fast I can hardly hear her. She listens to my mean, measured responses like a child greedily eyeing candy, and then off she goes again, a blur of red and white my eyes cannot follow. Oh, the places we will go, she and I, San Francisco and Manhattan, an unincompasable capacity of imaginary purchases stacking up in heaps beside us. Even as she speaks, the urge for silence and space narrows to a single point of concentration in my brain. Maybe she has to go. Maybe she should call her mother. Maybe she should catch the train. Anything, anything for quiet and peace and a reprieve from the sizzling guilt building in my soul.
I know this girl, and I know she knows me. How she must ache at my cruelty, my intolerance, my lassitude. But... what can I do? My friend and I, we are the same poles of a magnet. Our very similarity, out shared interests have forced an invisible wedge between us. One of us must flip, reverse our polarization, if ever we are to again become compatible.
The only thing is, I've never been terribly flexible. And I find myself wondering, do I want to be?

Vicariosity

2005-01-10T22:53:00.000-05:00

I've recently been pondering the odd state of vicarious trivial sorrow. To be more specific, why am I sorry that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt have separated? I don't know them, they don't have children, and they certainly don't care about my problems. The success, failure or even mere existence of their marriage has no effect on me whatsoever. Aside from a cursory "Oh, too bad" (if that), I shouldn't even be thinking about it. Oh well. I think I've been mulling this over because I've just finished that sort of book that is so tragic and realitstic you end up completely wrung dry of emotional strength. It's fantasy (of course) but the characters are so lifelike and compelling, they stay with you long after you finally close the book. (And I do mean 'finally'- this last one was about 1180 pages long.) So I've just been sobbing over horrors befalling people whom, not only do I not know, but don't actually exist. I guess it all works out in the end, though- fiction is fiction, and Jennifer Aniston can still say she was married to Brad Pitt!
Oh, and in other news, Idina Menzel has taken her last bow as Elphaba. We'll miss you, Idina!

Quotation annotation

2005-01-09T02:19:00.000-05:00

"We're almost there and nowhere near it. All that matters is, we're
going."
- Gilmore Girls

All right, so I didn't quite imagine starting off a blog with a quote from a WB show, but it's I think it's interesting. Hopefully I'll come up with something a little more original in a bit. Till then...