27.10.2022

 We New Yorkers are experts at staving off loneliness, so long as there's a 24 hour diner nearby our apartment, so long as we can afford to avail ourselves, (at least for the moment).

The girl in the booth across the aisle from me is talking to her male friend:

"I'm really hungry! I think I'll get the panini ala vodka. Ooh, with chicken! But they have broccoli too. I like broccoli."

Her friend doesn't correct her and the waiter suddenly shows up at their table. 

"I want the panini ala vodka" she says. 

I lean over: "I think you really want the penne ala vodka" I say, smiling.  She laughs: 

"Oh right! I'm really drunk" she says.

"Good for you!" I say,  "I just didn't want him to bring you a pressed sandwich soaked in vodka."

Until

 The panic attack rose while I was in Whole Foods like a wave of nausea I had to keep down or I'd collapse into a screaming, sobbing ball, punching the sides of my own head in the spaghetti sauce aisle. 

"Have the two of you discussed what measures would you like us to take in case your heart stops?" 

It was a routine question, but the way in which it was asked...

The young doctor was almost apologetic, nervous.  She'd spoken as if the question wasn't really "if", but "when". 

Carrie, of course, wanted all possible measures taken.  The young doctor tried to dissuade her: "You know what that means?  That there will be a breathing tube as well as compressions,  and that you'll likely need to remain on the ventilator until..."

The unspoken end of her sentence was the loudest sound I'd ever heard.

Inertia

Nothing so crass as pills or opened veins,

Neither rope, nor belt tied o'er the back of the bedroom door

No

If I lose you, 

I will sit here, 

Neither eat nor drink

Fallen prey to inertia

While the world decays around me

Buries me in its weighty detritus

'til my roots rejoin the earth

My constituent parts 

return to the soil

(My "self" will be already gone)

For who am I, to 

stand in the way of

Entropy?

After all,

It's not personal; 

(Nothing enormous ever is, is it?)

It's just the natural order of things.

This is a strange and different country, this grief, over the things that are 

Promised to leave me.

Although I've been here before, I know only very few words in the local tongue, and 

Barely any of the customs.

The cuisine too is strange 

(and potentially poisonous)

But nonetheless, for now, here I sit:

A polite guest at my host's table 

Fork and knife and spoon in hand.

Homecoming, 30 April 2022

In my childhood's room where you and I once shared a narrow mattress perched precariously on broken box spring;

(Did we fuck on that mattress? I can't remember anymore.) 

Well, that bed, the one I grew up in, is long gone now;

Likewise, the back breaking, broken box spring.

Instead,

What was once my room in this house now holds:

A few unimportant books, 

My mom's clothes, 

and the too soft, plastic covered mattress she slept on in her rented hospital bed 

in the middle of the living room when she became 

too weak to make it upstairs anymore.

Now it lies on the floor, 

And I, on it

Neath leopard print cotton sheet I once stabbed and slashed in a fit of my own young rage 

(Was I 17? It's such a 17-year- old-me kind of thing to do.)

And instead of you this time, only the cold ghosts of my own past lie pressed beside me,

Skin on skin,

against my 

naked back.

 השורשים שלי נשארים תמיד 

 גם כשרגליי אינן שם

 הראש שלי, הלב שלי עדיין

 .והארץ שלי היא נשארת בי

Tzror HaChayim

 A poem I wrote many years ago: 

(This poem now has a title, after nearly 20 years, thanks to Philip Ohriner .)

Some people live in a perpetual state of exile

But exile is not always

imposed by place

There are those who are left there by the

passage of time

and those who were simply born mis-

fits into this world

All who are in exile however

have something in common: 

we carry small pieces of our

native worlds with us

like pebbles

(some are worn smooth,

some remain tenaciously jagged and sharp) 

We carry them in our pockets

or sometimes in our shoes.

 I had a dream where I remembered suddenly that I'd been using the space between my toes as book storage,  so that I'd always have certain books with me,  but then,  I realized that I shower everyday,  and started worrying that maybe the books weren't in the best condition anymore,  so,  I took them all out from between my toes,  (marveling at how long my big toes were.. they were like 8 inches long! Afterall,  these were full size books, ) and looking through them,  and saw that they were absolutely fine! In fact,  one of them,  (it was an old, green,  "everyman's library" type hardcover book) when I opened it,  the old black and white pictures in it of a polar bear and very fluffy white dog,  were still moving.  

But what does it all mean?

Radio off, we drive in silence 

She beside me, we listen to cricket gossip 

I, driving, write this poem: 

The Kerhonkson roads have a smell in late summer 

At 62 Farenheit, and 70% humidity, 

They smell of old wood houses and 

wet green roadsides 

ancient trees with porous bark 

Occasionally, skunk (a smell I like.) 

My t-shirt sleeve grows wet by the open window, and 

slow motion moths change direction before the windshield 

white wings blue in dashboard light

We round a bend where 3 local boys died 

truck split in half on a telephone pole

(the newest ghosts of Samsonville Road) 

I hold the wheel a little tighter, we're almost home

"There's a pickup behind us, better signal early, so he doesn't rear end us" -my practical wife pulls me out of my own head 

Inside now,  "remember to put the ice cream away before you sit down to write" she says as she disappears down the hall.

So we're headed into another heatwave it would seem, which is obviously the perfect time to FINALLY receive the heavy leather motorcycle jacket I ordered off Amazon. I chose it after exhaustive research, vacillating between the one with side laces and the one without, calling the manufacturer to ask the weight of the jacket, having immediate buyers remorse after checking out because maybe I should have chosen the one with the laces afterall, oh well, or maybe I should have gone with that one that had the braided detail oh god what did I just spend a hundred something dollars on what was I thinking??? When I was a 13 year old suburban punk kid living in North Miami Beach, Fl, I washed so many cars at 5.00 a piece, going door to door after school everyday until it was dark out and I could no longer even see whether the cars were clean so I could buy my first leather motorcycle jacket out of the Sears catalogue. It was a hundred dollars back then, (which was a lot more than a hundred dollars is now,) and even though the South Florida heat was oppressive, along with my combat boots, I would wear my heavy, leather jacket which I'd made even heavier with all the band pins on its lapels every single day, (because I was THAT punk) eventually ripping out its lining in a misinformed attempt to make it slightly less hot. It eventually fell apart, because apparently the lining is more integral than I knew, and I wouldn't get my next leather biker jacket until many years later when I was living in New York. I've since had several; some of them painted and studded, some left plain, but here's the thing, they were all men's jackets. They all fit my body, or more accurately, failed to fit my body in very boxy, awkward ways. I've never had a women's black leather biker jacket until today. When it arrived this morning, I unwrapped it from its grey, plastic bag and unfolded it, laying it out on the bed. Unbuckling its belt, I unzipped it, and immediately unzipped the winter weight full sleeve liner and removed it. It's SO much lighter than all my other jackets, some of which, I kid you not weigh 20 lbs. I put it on, and stood in front of the full length mirror we have in the bedroom. It stopped where my hips began. I zipped it up. It closed over my chest like it was made to. I lifted my arms. The sleeves didn't cover my finger tips, but stopped at my wrists, where, sleeves are supposed to stop. "Please don't paint this one" Carrie said, and I laughed, as I turned this way and the other looking at myself. When I'd bought all my other jackets, I was trying so hard to be something I wasn't, something I could never really be, and they fit my body in ways that constantly reminded me of that fact, which is to say, they didn't fit me at all. I'm so glad I'm able to stop pretending. This fits me so much better.

To be a Jew who is, generally speaking,
a leftist,
or more specifically speaking, compassionate, empathetic,
soft hearted, etc,
is to have a heart that is
layered in scars,
broken, superglued and stapled back together
so many times you can't even count anymore.

To be a Jew who cares about her fellow humans
is to be reminded again
and again
and again of how disposable you are,
why your struggles
"just don't matter that much right now"
"are distracting" or "derailing"
"you're taking away from the real struggles people are facing!"

To be a Jew, generally speaking,
is to keep fighting anyways
even if nobody fights for you
holding on to hope
that if push comes to shove
"They'll come through in the end"
(whether you think they really will or not.)

What if I told you that those fire kites and balloons from Gaza are just readying the land for a new crop of beautiful wildflowers and that the rockets that fall on us are really full of seeds that will one day sprout all kinds of vegetables and fruit- tomatoes so delicious you'd think God had tended them with her own hands, the sweetest, reddest watermelon you've ever tasted, peppermint and garlic and even peaches and plums and figs will grow from the dewy, fresh field that's been prepared by the loving kindness of our cousins who've worked so hard and sacrificed so much to send us those beautiful kite and balloon lanterns, like stars or promises floating in the summer sky.

There's a mustard yellow, velvet chair that's deep enough for me to put my feet underneath myself when I sit in it. It's next to our living room window, and it gets alot of light on sunny days. It's where I often sit when I have phone sessions with my therapist, it's where I used to sit to meditate, and it's where I like to go when I need some time to myself, to read, to write, away from the TV that's always on in our bedroom since its on/off switch broke off. (It's old. )
This past Saturday was a freakish 77°F, and mostly sunny. I'd known about the forecast since Monday? Tuesday? and I'd been looking forward to possibly getting out somewhere in my powerchair to enjoy it before the return of our regularly scheduled 40°s and 50°s rainy days. Unfortunately, the night before, my heart rate had stayed hovering somewhere between 102 and 118 bpm for hours, leaving me dizzy and with the worst migraine I'd had in weeks. On Saturday, I was still wiped out and didn't get to go out to enjoy the weather. Instead, in the late afternoon while our south facing window still filled with Springtime light, I sat in the gold chair, my legs folded beneath me, my lap covered in a burgandy throw my mom sent us years ago.
Chronic illness has a way of reconfiguring our desires. Three years ago, maybe two? full of the urgency of a first hot Spring day, I would have been on my way to Riis beach with my bestie, a backpack of snacks and my usual Riis look of a short skirt, a bra and my punk vest. These days were the days I lived for, the chance to see and be seen by the Riis Queer-noscenti, and to feel the warmth of the sun and of the community.
I still miss this world so much, but it's become so much harder to access. I rarely have the spoons to be social anymore, even though I miss my friends. Even more, I miss myself. I know that sounds corny, but I miss being the Sarit who goes to shows, who goes to Fat Femme Clothing Swaps, who works (I don't miss sex work itself, but I miss so many things that it gave me, ) and who goes to Riis.
My world has become small. Being able to shower, get dressed and take my powerchair to the supermarket up the street feels like a huge outing, and tires me out like a huge outing.
I've had short periods since I got sick where I felt honest to goddess close to normal, and I've learned to never take them for granted. When they come now, whether they're a day, a week or a few hours, I treasure them and do everything in my power to make the best of them. But they're rare.
For now though, I look forward to warmer, sunnier days, and I'm grateful for my velvet chair by the living room window.

"May the bridges I burn light the way"
-Dylan McKay, Beverly Hills 90210
...
May the bridges I burn be well selected for burning.
May I have done due diligence, checking that they might not have- with some care and repair, continued to serve as good connections.
If the above is satisfied, and only if,
May their embers float harmlessly into the sky
never to burn me or trouble me again.

Today is yom hashoah, Holocaust remembrance day.
I was born in 1968, 23 short years after the end of the Holocaust. (For comparison, 9/11 was 17 years ago. Think about how close that feels.)
I grew up surrounded- and I do mean surrounded, by living survivors, some of whom were younger than I am now, hearing their first hand stories of life and death in the ghettos and camps. None of the movies I've seen, and I've seen pretty much all of them, even came close to touching on the horror of these accounts: the violence and egregious sadism enacted upon women, children, men and families is somehow uncaptureable on film.
I've heard first hand tellings of infants ripped from their mothers' arms, and literally, physically ripped apart by laughing SS guards before their suddenly silenced bodies were tossed onto a pile; I've heard first hand accounts of witnesses who watched as a young SS sat casually on the edge of an open pit, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he fired a tripod mounted machine gun into line after line of the naked bodies of Jewish fathers, mothers and children who held hands for the last time.
I carry these and other painfully lucid memories, many of them as if they were my own. I am a child of these stories. For those of us who are aware, we're watching what looks alot like a repeat of what led to the first Shoah.
This is why we say #NeverForget. #NeverAgain.

I've made and worn punk vests since I was 15.
My first, a bluejean jacket I'd cut the sleeves off of, thick layers of acrylic paint stiffened the back until caked with South Florida sweat, it would stand on its own, leaning lazily in the corner of my North Miami Beach bedroom.

Recent vests have been yellow floral, blue pokadot, blue or black denim, trimmed in lace at the collar and pockets and/or pierced with pyramid or arrow point studs, and held together with silkscreened canvas patches stitched on in dental floss. My most recent was half of a 50.00 gift card, bought at the Fulton Street Macy's in Downtown Brooklyn. It's black, has been kept relatively unadorned except for a back patch that says "Believe Survivors", one pin that says "Black Lives Matter", another that says "I can see right through your bullshit" and a third that simply says "End Violence Against Sex Workers".
It has pockets, allowing me easy access to my phone, my wallet and a knife without having to go into the backpack on the back of my wheelchair. This vest is largely utilitarian, and I almost always wear it because of that, even if it doesn't quite go with whatever else I'm wearing.

Today my therapist and I were talking about survival. I was talking about how ill at home I feel in my sick body so much of the time. About how I spend so much of my time dissociated from my body, especially when I start to bleed heavily from places I shouldn't be bleeding from, or when my illness becomes apparent on my skin in visible rashes like the Bartonella rash I have right now on my left tit.
I recognize my own internalized ableism in this struggle, as well as the privelege and costs of living with largely invisible illnesses.
We talked about the time two or three years ago when assaulted on 6th Ave, I spun around and for the first time in my life, smashed the nose of the man who'd violated me, and we talked about the very different kind of vulnerability of being in a wheelchair, strapped to the floor of a bus when a man with beer sweat and visible and triggering masculine anger demands my attention. We talked about the particular kind of vulnerability that existing as a Femme in a wheelchair in the world entails.
We talked about the way that for most of my life when my agency had been violated, I'd disappeared into suicidal ideation or attempts, and how- now that I've decided to survive, to make it to at LEAST 50, that's no longer an option or a comfort. We talked about how scary that is.
Today, she told me I was one of the most resilient people she'd ever encountered in her practice.
While my imposter syndrome did acrobatics to argue and disprove her assertion, part of me felt seen and validated. I realized that I am resilient.

At 15, my punk vest was my armor. Its stiffness and weight were reassuring to my queer, autistic, depressed, trans, extremely sensitive, scared, scarred and embattled body.

Tonight, I wrapped myself in my therapist's validation. This feels like the most fitting punk vest I've ever worn.

Mouse

Turns out, you were right to fear us afterall,
Even with our best intentions, we broke your fragile back.

In mystical Judaism,
Each time one is very sick, or
Faces extreme, threatening adversity,
One is given a
New name, to add on to the names one was given when they entered this world
[adversity some might say in its own right]
I have so many names
Each one the hope of a
New life
Was once Avram Tzvi Ben Aryeh Leib
Now Sarit Michelle Ben-Aryeh
I will collect one day,
A hundred names
I know I will face a
Hundred adversities
Let my names then fill a page
Let my lives fill a hundred books

In Gratitude

When I got my new powerchair
I wanted her to feel like mine
Like
Some extention of my being
Legs because mine no longer work the way they did, or
Wings because I never had them to begin with
Except I did
I didn't know that my ancestors had carried me for a million years already
Would carry me for a million more
When I got my new powerchair
I wanted her to feel like mine
To name her and so I went to my community
The ones who'd given her to me
And I asked them
But none of the names felt right
Until I thought of what she does
What she is
Like my ancestors- those who've taught me/who teach me how to live in this new body
She carries me
And that's what I'll call her
She Carries Me

For every hard assed, soft hearted Femme who has other Femmes' backs when the shit goes down

For every Femme who already knows, who teaches others that there's an "after this" where the air is still clean

For every Crazy, Sick and/or Crip Femme who spends precious spoons just to stand with other Femmes in crisis, or even just reaches out to say "I see you"

Thank you.
I see you too.
And I love you with
All I've got.