24.12.2024

The first time I landed in Israel, I dropped off my enormous duffel bag out of which I'd live for the next 14 months or so at the moshav, changed into fresh clothes, and "tremped" my way out to the main road where I could catch a bus to Tel Aviv. 

As we left the more rural areas of agricultural fields and got closer to the city, I began to see more and more signs in Hebrew. 

Maybe it was the exhaustion, (I hadn't slept in over 24 hours,) but I began to sob. For the first time in my life, I was home, and I was in love.  

This last April when I returned after all these years, I didn't cry. I didn't really have any powerful reaction at all. In fact, everything felt completely "normal" to me; I never encountered that blissful shock to the system that had once felt like the liberation of shedding old skin. 

It's late December, and that moment still hasn't come. Everything is still just normal, almost boringly so. And yet, as I sit outside on a grey, blustery, Haifa winter day, my face gently lashed by the harbour rain, I can't help but feel that this... THIS, is incredibly special: this normalcy that I can almost take for granted. In fact, I've never felt this normal before.  

13.12.2024

In the centre of Haifa, on Horev Street, there's an old, abandoned Bauhaus building. I think it's a house, or at least it was at some point. It lives on a hill above, and removed from the street behind the privacy of a rough stone wall. 

She looks like she's silently witnessed a hundred-million moments, notable, mundane, and everything in between.  

There's something I need you to understand, since you've never been here before: on these dark, cool nights, especially the nights of the new or old moon, the softest black, velvet blanket lies over the city- freezing us all in this timeless space. If you find yourself here in these special moments, you might notice how we, (I'm including you in this,) become ghosts, maybe even haunting our own lives from a separated dimension.  

I love to walk these dream streets, to hear the baying jackals and the rustling leaves‐ magic that even the occasional ambulance siren or revving scooter can't diminish.

I want to tell you why I've brought you here, to this spot, to stand on this sidewalk with me beside the busy boulevard, and stare at this house. Really, I want to tell you a secret; are you listening? This house terrifies me, but not for the reasons you might think.  

I'm terrified, because I want to go inside. I want to go inside and become part of its story, the soul that looks out from its black windows, but really, this too is not what scares me. What does scare me, is that if I get inside, I might discover that I feel nothing, that it's simply another old, soulless shell. I'm afraid of losing the gorgeous possibilities, the stories I've told myself in one awful, banal, wonderless moment. 

Perhaps it's better to linger outside, to press my fingertips on the rough, stone wall. To continue to love her from this sidewalk by the noisy boulevard.

05.12.2024 : Gratitude

And when I die

They may say that I just

Never amounted to much:

I never sought fame,

Or won some big game, or

Caused new blooms to bud,

But I have saved lives as anonymous as my own,

And I have leapt– blind

Into frontiers unknown.

I have loved, and I have lost

And I've learned when to forgive,

But most important of all

Whether noticed by others or not

Not once have I ever forgotten to live. 

26.11.2024

Uch.

The sink is full of dishes again and I have no energy to deal with them.

It's not emotional this time, 

Stam,

I have no energy. 

I could really sleep all day if only 

I didn't need to get to the Misrad Hapanim

And my manicure is chipped

(Only 5 days in! Can you believe it?)

And I've run out of food, and 

I'm sick of all the offerings on Wolt.

I push down the switch on the electric kettle

Pour the coarse brown granules of instant 

Directly from their jar into a tall glass 

"too much", I think, and pour even more. 

Outside, the bright cold light is still 

As it lies across the silver surface of the sea

And if I crane my neck, I can see the white, snow covered top of Har Hermon.

18.11.2024

The Haifa sky is roaring tonight, except

Neither rockets, nor jets, but the

Most delicious storm is rolling through. 

My eyes burn a bit and I want to sleep, but I'm

Loathe to miss even a single crack or 

Lash of rain against my window.

No matter what, it's always been too long. 

In NY, maybe once every few years we'd get a windowpane shaker, but even those were

Nothing compared to those daily storms that 

Marked my Florida summer youth.  

Age twelve, I'd run, 

Ill advised out to soggy golf course across the street 

To twirl in the drops,

 catch

As many as I could in my curls

My dad used to say I was a duck. 

(He wasn't half wrong. )

But now I'm being silly

Drowning in nostalgia when right now

Right here — 

The cracks and lashes already decrease in frequency.

Oh, now, regrets:

Already, it all sounds so much further away.

Kintsugi

How many breaks can a bowl endure?

Even if beautifully repaired each time

With lines of gold 

An elegant map of its traumas,

With each new fall, 

And more lines added

How long before it

All breaks down? 

A memorial cast in gold exists only for others to appreciate. 

Pompeii

Already, I am a ghost amidst the ruins.

No one who even would have cared I'd ever lived remains. 

My memories, sensations, passions, dreams,

Words –

All turned to ash

Already blown away. 

20.08.2024

On the edge of a drowsy afternoon nap

Rumbles– made softer by distance and water

And were this not August, in Northern Israel 

They might even be thunder 

(indistinguishable but for context)

I close my eyes, and drift off into them

Something like the sea:  something

Bigger than me.

05.10.24

7.10 type 

Nightmares all night.  

First, red alerts, not 

terribly terrifying, just 

Missiles overhead, 

We'd seen this all before, so

We sought shelter, 

Good citizens, even as we 

Watched them magically turn into 

Chrysanthemums in the high sky

Reduced to an annoyance. 

Even a banality. 

It happened again

Fifteen minutes later

This time we stood,  under

A concrete overhang 

These were further away

Some even took pictures with their phones

And once again, but 

This time, something different:

Against the backdrop of exploding stars, 

Parachuters drifted

Softly to the ground. 

We'd seen this scene before, so 

Those few who had guns, 

Stayed behind, and 

Fired at the sky, 

While the rest of us ran to find

Someplace to hide

Strange places: 

An airplane bathroom

An overhead baggage bin

(I don't know why we were on a plane,) and

Others that only existed in 

Dream logic, but

One by one 

(or two, or three at a time) 

The monsters found us

Even coaxing us out, through

Reassurances, we'd 

Come to no harm

But we knew better

Having seen this before

Remembering those who still

Languish under Gaza

We knew

Our nightmares were just beginning.

..........

*Written while half-asleep, in a bomb shelter, after having been woken out of a deep sleep by Homefront Command.

27.09.2024

Not ten seconds 

Past ten minutes 

After the last audible blast,

Already, outside

Trucks beep as they reverse

Wolt scooters rev to life

(At first, I swear, they sound almost like azakot)

Horns blare, and

Impatient workers shout over the din 

As if nothing of potential great consequence had just happened

As if all of this was completely normal-

Our fragile lives, dependent 

Upon a technology that 

Still feels like a miracle

And although I, a sceptic, 

Do not believe in miracles, 

Here I am, now 

Showered and dressed

Legs tucked beneath me, hot

Coffee on the couch

And from my window

The bay looks particularly blue today

Stark Mediterranean contrast to the

White roofs that lay like low tables between us

And the red and white 

Candystriped arms of the bay port cranes

Turn the world from my window into 

"le Tricolore"

I pour a second cup from my Moka pot

And turn up The Beatles

To dance with myself 

The small, white puffs 

That had punctuated the sky

Have already dissipated 

No longer distinguishable from

Ordinary clouds.

Inbar Frishman

Friday, 27 September, 2024

09:23hr, Haifa

25.09.2024 II

Up here, on Carmel

Above Haifa Bay

The early Fall wind is a 

Loud, yowling banshee

Poking long fingers through cracks 

And cracked windows

Below in the street

And under the cars 

Heat cats 

Join in on her chorus

(Out of sync)

But Boisterous as Berlioz'

"L'imperiale" !

25.09.2024

Just now, I ran to do my 

Sink full of dishes 

It's been building, and 

Haunting me, this task, 

For days, but

Having heard Al Adha through my bathroom's open window,

I thought, "Maybe a break in the uncertainty 

Before the alarms might 

Abruptly wail again

And I'd have to abandon my task, and run 

To the place where I've done so much waiting of late."  

But also, 

It's a noisy task-

Doing the dishes. 

Apart from the sound of the running water, there's the 

Claques and din of wet dishes colliding

I've been afraid, you see, I'd thought

I might miss the alarms- they're not

Always that audible, but

Emboldened by the

Thought– "they'll be busy praying"

I set out to conquer my

Own Mt Everest.

Whoever would have thought that

Doing the dishes

Would become a task I looked forward to?

26.08.2024

I've just woken up after far too little, poor quality sleep, to reports of the suicide of another Nova survivor, and already, the day has its cold, clawed hand wrapped around my thoracic spine.  

I can't believe it's been almost a year. 

In 40 days, it will be a year.

A year of our burnt, crushed and crumbling innards struggling to keep us alive, while the world mocked us. 

A year of waiting for the pain to lessen– even only a little bit. 

A year where our souls have transformed into something we'd never thought we'd own in these generations,

And now, another family's first year has been reset to zero, where it all begins again.

And I can't keep up with the dishes in the sink. 

And the scrubby sponge I replaced just last week already smells sour.

And I– 

I have to shower, get dressed and do my makeup so I can get to the lawyer's office, 

but the gravity of the day 

Is nothing compared to that of the void.  

I swim furiously against it, in the 

Non-substance of hypoxic air.  

20.08.2024

 I need to feel something nice today. For a while now, I've been staying in bed, not because I'm physically unable to function (at the moment,) but because I've been deep in trauma response and depression. This is a bad way for me to be, because if I don't interrupt it, inevitably, I'll spiral into inertia to the point where that familiar little voice begins chattering away in my ears, telling me that the only way out of this rut is to die, and that's really not what I want. I'm not ready. 

It's like an addiction, suicidality; it's the soft, warm, comforting place to which I invariably disappear in the face of overwhelming helplessness. It's the only place wherein I feel I have agency, when existence is too painful, or even simply too much.  

It's a constant, patient, unjealous lover who courts me with promises of certainty and commitment, where otherwise, none can be found.  

I'm not ready though. I've other loves to explore, and I know beyond the shadow of a doubt, that when I am, she'll be there, close enough for me to surreptitiously reach out behind me- even with just my fingertips, and ever attentive, she'll take my signal, then she'll take my hand and gently say "come my love, let's go home".

13.07.2024 II

I desperately need someone to invade my life,

Stuffing rolled up bundles of 

Boisterous beauty in all its corners

To hide them in crevices I might not see for years,

In backs of shelves, 

Behind boxes and stacks of papers

And stuffed into the toes 

Of old shoes and boots

Small, soft gifts to discover in 

Moments such as this

When hungry, 

I hunt on hands and knees

Candle and feather, 

(even for crumbs)

But all that I find in these 

Strange, dusty corners, 

For what it's worth

Someone else's ghosts

An insincere, and

Badly rendered copy of 

That which I'm missing.

13.07.2024 I

It's hard to turn a house into a home when you're alone.

There's no shared memories 

Stacked haphazzardly in corners, 

Nothing to soften the sharp echos of

Bare foot slap on hard tiles 

I make my dinner at my kitchen counter, 

Alone

Cut small tomatoes into plastic bowl

Add in 

Olive oil and garlic, 

Then pasta and toss with

Pepper and cheese

I light the shabbat candles for the first time in my new apartment

But the light here isn't golden and warm

There's a blue cast to it that 

Haifa's lights outside my dark window mirror- cold diamonds tossed across a

Black, velvet valley that swallows light

And there's none of the mess from our shared life here

These walls seem extra bare, and that and the high ceilings sharply contrast with the

Warm, jewel-tone painted walls of our New York City apartment. 

Carrie

I'm so afraid that in the move, I might have 

Left your ghost behind.

I imagine you

Sitting alone in our disheveled nest

Amidst too many books and too much unopened mail crowding every surface. 

Google tells me that that mess is 5731 miles away, 

But that's probably from JFK to Ben Gurion 

And after all 

The Upper East Side isn't Queens

And Haifa isn't Lod

So it's probably even further when you consider

I wonder if maybe you might still find me in the placelessness of dreams–

(I wish you would)

And when you do, will you

Please hold onto the back of my skirt's waistband

The way you used to 

(Teasingly, I thought) 

when you didn't want me to leave the house

You see, 

I know myself

How easily I can be

Hypnotised by those 

Cold, Blue lights

And how, forgetting my step 

Fall headlong 

Into that 

Bottomless, black velvet valley that swallows light.

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.