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.

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.

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.

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?

Future

If I

forget you

may I lose

my right

hand
.

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.

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.