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.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
Presence and Presents of Potter: In the Chamber
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Presence and Presents of Potter: Tears in the Mirror
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.
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.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Presence and Presents of Potter
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."
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."
Friday, January 05, 2007
The Dance I Do
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.
- 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.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
My Circle
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
The Tortoise Won the Race
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Passing for Future
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Media
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?
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?
Friday, July 14, 2006
Saturday, July 08, 2006
On Being Stared At
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.
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.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Many Colored Mirrors
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.
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.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Never a Dull Moment... Yet
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.
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.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Life as I Know It
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
The Prayer
"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!"
"Yaldah!"
How many?
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.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
What Stays With You
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.
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.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Breathing in Majdanek
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.
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.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Gift of Life
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.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Not in Kansas Anymore
"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."
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Reflections on the Negev
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.
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