28.06.2024

I'm having a bad CFS day, symptoms wise. It's after 4:00 here in Israel, and I haven't yet been able to get out of bed, or even to sit up.  

I had so many dreams about Carrie: that I'd picked her up from work on the bus, but we were on a strange bus together that was taking us further and further away from home.  

At some point, I had to get off the bus, and go back to our apartment, while she continued on. 

When I got there, the hallways of the building were clogged with the remnants of disassembled boxes. I made it into our apartment, and began the painful task of selecting, and packing up our books, knowing that I had to leave this place too.

I really miss her right now. It's a physical ache. I would give my right arm to be able to hug her again. To press my face into her neck and inhale her.

These are moments I don't know how I've managed to survive her death, or how I can continue to do so, eventhough I know that that's exactly what I have to do.  

Baby steps on tender, cut-up feet that refuse to heal.

A minor international incident

A minor international incident occurred today in Rami Levy: I'm in the chumos section, when all of a sudden, the siren: red alert! 

A guy and I make eye contact, as I ask, "?יש פה מיקלט" ("is there a shelter nearby?") 

A woman in a hijab abandons her cart and runs; another woman in a mesh top with tattoos does not abandon her cart, but also runs. 

The man with whom I'd made eye contact, calmly walks over to my cart, as I too am considering abandoning it and running– SOMEWHERE, and I figure, he probably knows I'm about to split and he just wants to take my watermelon, (because it's a really perfect watermelon, practically worth taking your chances in a Chizbullah missile attack,) but no: he picks up my backpack, which I'd placed in the cart, opens the top pocket, and pulls out the culprit: my phone.

The red alert was in Majdal Shams.

He smirks, as I melt into the floor tiles.

14.04.2024, Haifa, ii

So, last night, while Iran was sending us suicide drones and ballistic missiles, I was hiding out next to our bomb shelter, with one of the sweetest guys I've ever met, Samir Khoury. 

Yes, Samir is an Arab.

Yes, I am a Jew.

No, it wasn't awkward, or weird, or tense. Samir did everything in his power to distract me from what was going on, (not that I was particularly freaked out, but Samir is a good host.)

He made us good Arabic coffee, and gave me his penultimate cigarette, which refused to stay lit for some reason, so I kept asking for his lighter. 

"Stop asking," he said, "you aren't a guest, just say 'give me fire'", so I did. 

When it was time for the "all clear" around 4 this morning, I began picking up the glass cups, with their layers of mud in the bottom, to wash. 

"What are you doing? You don't have to wash them, just leave them, I'll take care of them" he said.

"Hey, " I answered, "stop treating me like a guest."

"Ok, so maybe you do the rest of the dishes in the sink?"

"What do I look like, your maid?" 

People in the West seem incapable of imagining any world where we, Jews and Arabs live side by side, and not only appreciate one another's company, but genuinely love one another like family, and yet, this is as much a reality as the other extreme, and a far preferable one at that. 

Did I mention that Samir is my landlord, by the way?  

One of the most frustrating aspects of the protestors in the West is that they are so intent on spreading this narrative that we are natural enemies, that the animosity is an inevitable result of us mixing, but it's not. Not everything in this world is friction.  

Had one of Ali Khameini's missiles gotten through to Haifa this morning, Samir and I could have died together; same fate, Arab and Jew, both of us Israelis, equal under the law. 

Like I said in a previous post, there are many sociocultural problems here, and yes, there is racism, (show me someplace where there isn't!) and yes, we need to work on it. And we are. Stop trying to divide us, to drag us backwards.

14.04.2024, Haifa

This city, at dawn

Belongs to the birds, and I trust them

Far more than an app on my phone; I know

If suddenly a thousand wings frantically pummel the air

Outside my open window

My soul will follow them

No gentle, soft things,

Practical, stoic things, they are warriors

And I feel protected under their wings. 

They are busy at serious business this morning

A silly, yapping dog across the redandyellow rooftops knows this

He's concerned

They're convening their war council

Making their plans; I'm an interloper

Who wandered blindly into their territory

They know this

I've heard them talking, and

I'm grateful my hosts have bigger fish to fry. 

12.04.2024

 Some impressions and thoughts on coming back to Israel after so long: 

Haifa is really beautiful. The air feels like some vital nutrient my body's been woefully missing and craving for years, but settling for something artificial in its stead.  

The morning light feels "correct". 

The pigeons constantly threaten to fly in through my open window, only to turn suddenly, within its frame and disappear; they're loud, both in wing flapping and coos.

The word that keeps coming to mind when I try to describe what being back feels like, is "normal"; it's both disappointing and promising. 

There are so many Arabs here. It's honestly wonderful. There's no apparent suspicion of interpersonal animosity or awkwardness, only warmth, a sense of community and equity, and an apparent, almost passionate desire to support one another, like family: Arab and Jew alike. The outside world's accusations of apartheid feel laughable from here. On a separate note, I want to learn Arabic; it seems like the right thing to do, and a considerate way to honour this sense of fraternity/sorority. 

It's not heaven, not by a longshot. I don't think it's the greatest place in the world. I've no desire to wax poetic about it, in fact, to do so would feel like a dishonest disservice; if you love someone, truly love them, it's not because they're perfect, but because, in their imperfection, they're perfect for you. I may be falling in love again with this strange, normal, troubled, embattled, misunderstood place that nostalgia had, for so long, rendered a series of flat, simplistic elements.

21.03.2024

When my mother died, my father spent his time waiting. 

He watched TV, and he waited. 

He had his coffee and bowl 

Of Dole grapefruit every morning, and he waited. 

He slept each afternoon for hours, ate his Lean Cuisine dinners, fed Jack, then was back in bed by eight each night to watch more TV before falling asleep by 9, only to wake again at seven, and do it all again. 

When Carrie died, I thought

All that was left to me was to wait. 

To fill my laborious days with

Small distractions. 

I wrote

And I waited.

I slept

And I waited. 

I scrolled on Facebook, and YouTube, bought things I didn't need, tried to fill the hole she left, and I waited. 

On October seventh,I woke to a world that had

Torn off its mask,  and

I couldn't wait anymore. 

It's why I'm coming home. 

Not to die, but finally to live. 

I have waited long enough

To

Become

No more; it's time instead,

To be.

I have signed the papers. 

I will sweep this heavy, grey dust from my wings, and

Fly     Again

Toward blue, open air.

06.03.2024 ii

In a dream I saw myself 

High in the branches of a

Cherry blossom tree      

I read a book

My mother's book, I was so Young, unjaded; free

I said be

Ware, those thin branches are stronger than they look

They'll break your bones, even as they

Break beneath you

And at this tree's base

You'll lie bleeding

Defeated

These beautiful blossoms have 

Tasted others' blood

After all, 

This is why they are this particular shade

Of pink. 

06.03.2024

Behind me, it stretches 

Sometimes frayed, but never detached,

This root

Five thousand years long

There are knots here and there of varying size and complexity, and

Sometimes parts, worn so thin as to be imperceptible to the naked eye

The colours change

From greyed browns to the

Vividest orange

––

Today 

There is a new orange sundress– bought on a 

Cold, rainy March day in New York for 

Slow April coffees in Tel Aviv

And hot, humid, impatient waiting at bus stops 

And (Hopefully) 

Slow evening walks along the tayelet

––

It's true, I have lost so much

What I'd thought were my actual roots

My parents

My love

Artifacts of lives lived 

My sense of safety, and

I will lose yet more

This is only inevitable

Yet the root will remain

Anchored deep in five thousand years of soil 

And when finally, I too 

Am soil

This is my prayer:

That fresh shoots should spring up from what was me

And the young eat the fruit I'll have left behind.

27.02.2024

There's a page on Facebook that showed up in my suggestions, that's all about Miami Beach from the 50s - the 80s, and, scrolling through all the pictures, I'm filled with a visceral, and often painful kind of nostalgia. There's a certain blue-ish yellow cast to the light in these pictures, and I can feel the strong, acidic sun on my sunburnt arms and back; I can smell the Solarcaine, and the way the old hotel rooms smelled: slightly musty, and extra air conditioned,  and with 40 plus years of old cigarette smoke and suntan oil and perfume still clinging to their blackout curtains. 

I remember the summer we were on Hollywood beach, and that scratchy,  white, gauze shirt I wore daily. It was the summer that "Personal Best" came out, and I was 12, or 13, or 10, and I remember running on that beach, wanting to be Mariel Hemingway, feeling both excited, because her character was like me, and wanting to celebrate this visibility by embodying it, yet hoping that nobody would be able to tell that that was what I was doing, afraid of the possibility of exposure of such an intimate truth. 

I remember how- in the evenings, at Rascal House, my shirt still stuck to my body from the combination of heat and sweat and suntan lotion and Solarcaine, as I pulled the pumpernickel and onion rolls from their basket, scooping out their insides with a probing index finger and stuffing them full of the delicious "health salad" from the stainless steel bowls. I remember feeling exotic, with my wild curls untamed, my tan, and the carved, coconut wood, monkey head pendant I wore on that trip tight around my throat, a souvenir from one of the open front shops along the boardwalk.  

So much triggered by images of a gone time. 

The pain is in the reminder of the many things lost that I'd taken for granted.  The quiet presence of my father, before life had made him bitter; my mother's fat, soft hand on my side as I- sleepy from a day in the sun, lay my curly head in her lap.  The innocence and hope and naive belief that nothing would ever really change that much, because the now, back then was so interminably long.  

It all feels so close still, as if  by turning my body in some, certain way, I might still reach out, and touch it, but it's gone.  Even the places in which these memories are set have disappeared, and the people, and the culture that they'd embodied, gone. Gone. 

Gone,  and I think–

I shouldn't stare at these pictures anymore for now.  The past has a way of seducing us with its idealised perfection, and I know myself far too well;  I'm in grave danger of drowning in that blue-yellow light.

24.02.2024 II

Can we please speak again of other things, like 

How the delicate blossoms of the almond trees always remind you of my favourite Van Gogh, or 

How the brave lupines have already returned 

Painting the drowsy Jerusalem hills in purple? 

Do you remember, my love, that soon the markets will be filled with baskets of dark, shiny cherries

(Your other favourite reason for stained fingertips,  remember?)

Would you tell me how pretty I look in my

Old yellow sundress 

Eventhough I've pulled it, wrinkled

From the bottom of the clothes pile in the corner, 

How you've missed my shoulders in sunlight

Can we please just speak of 

Something soft for a moment

I know well how our world is burning

But must we constantly sit by in its 

Scorching heat? 

Others will surely watch it. Meanwhile, my love,  look up 

The harsh, winter light has already changed her slant.

24.02.2024

Broken

A stone in fragments I 

Return to the land

Coarse dust

Hoping that she will remind me 

How once,  I knew 

How to put myself back 

Together again

But she too is broken

(A finer dust)

And maybe I'm going home 

After all

To be 

Dust amidst dust

Here in this world of 

Whole     Hard       Stones 

I fall 

Settle  lost between cracks

But at home

I am buoyed, as 

Only the wadi wind knows how to do. 

11.02.2024

Please, don't ever 

stop 

pointing out the 

cracks in the walls 

where sunlight leaks in;

on my own, 

I only know how to see 

locked doors.

05.02.2024

 דברו איתי על האופן שבו כל הנשמות מנוקות לאחר שאנו משאירים מאחורינו את בשרנו; ספרו לי כיצד כאב ואובדן ושנאה וכל הדברים הנוראיים האלה הם רק חלק מהחוויה הארצית שלנו

אין לי מושג אם אאמין לך או לא, אבל יהיה סיפור נחמד

💔

02.02.2024

I

Like some old ram-

shackled stone house, am

Haunted 

Not only by ghosts of a life once lived 

Of people who I have loved and lost

But by a life I lack even the 

Pluck to meet.

If only she would court me gently on softened steps so as 

Not to spook me or send me running toward

Nightmares, and fantasies of 

Needless sleep

I might love her 

I might lay down beside her and 

Welcome her into my body

But she is brusque

And loud

Inconsiderate and more and more inconsiderable 

And I am growing impatient with her ways. 

23.01.2024

If I could be honest with you, I mean, really, really honest, I'd tell you how lately, several times a day I have to forcibly keep myself from downing my generous cache of oxy and xanax, more out of terror at an uncertain future,  than simple hopelessness. 

If I could be honest with you, I mean, really, really honest, I'd tell you how the only way I can see myself surviving beyond this, or any given week, is if somebody came along and took me by the hand and promised to help me to navigate this nightmare world as if I was a child. 

If I could be honest with you, I mean, really, really honest, I'd tell you how I'm as terrified that someone will offer me help, as I am that no one will. 

If I could be honest with you, I mean, really, really honest, I'd tell you how what terrifies me is the thought that whoever offers me help will come to realise that I'm a fraud of a human being

Not even plastic, but paper

So easily torn

So easily torn to shreds.

31.12.2023

I had decided

That for the sake of self preservation

I'd regard the New Year as insignificant, to 

Do nothing to mark the occasion

And yet

In the upper right-hand corner of my phone's screen, it reads 

"11:48"

And I feel as though the seconds are ticking down to my execution. 

11:49

I wish it would pass 

Unceremoniously as any other night

But this night is different from 

All other nights;

On this night, the heel of a boot grinds into me

The coarse white ashes of my previous life

Abrasive

Leave tender, and bloody, and raw indentations. 

11:52

11:53

Alone. 

11:54

בדד

11:55

לעולם ועד 

11:56

חלאס

נמאס לי

Enough. 

 Sometimes, in the midst of that strange, dreamless sleep between dreams, 

An image 

Some random, mundane object that was a fixture in my parents' house pops into my head, and my body jerks violently awake, short of breath, heart pounding. 

It's all gone. 

The enormous "I'll Drink To Anything" mug that held two regular mugs worth of coffee 

The green, oval cigar tin from the middle section of the downstairs medicine cabinet

The enormous, wooden headboard in my parents' bedroom that made a specific sound I've never heard replicated, when it banged against the wall whenever someone sat on the bed

Gone. 

All this familiar ephemera–

Elements of a world I once knew, sacred only for their profanity

Things affixed firmly in time, place, soul 

This world in which I now find myself can only be characterised by familiarity's absence

I reach out in all directions

Try to snatch "home" elements from the aether.

They cost so much

None of them are the same.

19.11.2023

The moon

Takes note 

Remembers 

The sun

Boisterous, hopeful thing

Is unbothered.

For once

Let us dance together

Under the sun

Plant sweeter grapes

Grow stronger grains

We'll let the moon 

Keep her records

The times our vineyards were barren

Our fields dry and cracked

And one day, we'll gather together

Eat good bread dipped in olive oil

Eat sweet, cool grapes

And read, but the

Pangs of our hunger 

Will be too distant anymore to hurt us. 

13.11.2023

When I hear you say, 

That "Zionism is Terrorism"

I understand:

You want me to hate myself for

The crime of existing. You

Want me to apologise for the

Crimes of your ancestors. 

I'm a betrayal; an indictment of your

White Guilt

I'm your scapegoat

How dare I refuse to comply? 

02.11.2023

Thursdays are bad. 

It's on Thursdays, I do my shot, so it's like I get PMDD every week, which is particularly strong on Thursdays. 

This particular Thursday marks one year since my partner passed, and is two days before what would have been our 19th anniversary.  

On this particular Thursday, 1,538 beloved members of my family have been murdered since 7 October, and so much of the world doesn't seem to care at all.  

On this particular Saturday, I've received my third Facebook restriction for talking about this fact.

On this particular Thursday, I'm tired.  

On this particular Thursday, I badly want to rest.  

On this particular Thursday, I went and took inventory of the pills I've squirreled away, or rather, I held the amber, plastic bottles in my hand and read their labels; my late father's Oxycodone, and my own amassed fortune of Alprazolam. It was comforting, but

On this particular Thursday, I quickly put them away, lest I forget to resist my own hand.  

On this particular Thursday, I'd promised myself I'd do the dishes piling up in the sink, make the bed, and put away the laundry, so that I could get to the rest of the laundry that I desperately need to do,  but I've done none of this. 

Instead

On this particular Thursday, I'm going back to bed.  

Maybe sleep will- at least for a few hours, calm this empty ache that's for so long been eating me like a cancer.