Innisfree

Two Shuls. Budapest

2011-11-06T22:06:00.000+02:00

The Danube is a grave
and this synagogue is an ark,
heavy with Yiddish and
autumn light.
Let's go dancing- white starched
tablecloths and American jazz.
Let's go dancing back to a time
before the river saw what it saw.

But the world is a river of
drowned and we are an ark.

Grasshopper. Lynx. Sparrow.
These too are contained in us. Two by
two.

Oh, hear the child in the
silver willow.
Hear the weeping mullberry too.
Lo, how terrible it to be an ark;
how full of of awe is this place:
the very gates of heaven.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

2011-10-22T23:21:00.000+02:00

The first thing I thought when I saw him was, "he's just a boy". Being interviewed on Egyptian t.v., he seemed thin and pale, disoriented, but lucid. He seemed like anyone would seem being set free after 5 and a half years of captivity. He seemed real.

I didn't fight for Gilad Schalit. I didn't go to one protest, or step inside the tent set up in front of the Prime Minister's house even once. I didn't even take a yellow ribbon for him. This is partly because I don't do politics. I don't do slogans. I don't go to rallies, even when I truly and deeply believe in the cause. I hate crowds, and I hate dogma. But mostly, and shamefully, I didn't fight for Gilad Schalit because it was too painful. I couldn't stand to see his parents, his friends, his eyes. I couldn't fathom that this day would come and I couldn't bear the grind of days and normalization of the weight of absence. I couldn't stand the way the tent faded into the background, just another part of the Jerusalem landscape.

The deal to free Gilad doesn't sit well with me. It doesn't sit well with anyone, I imagine. Its implications for the region are unsettling to say the least, not to mention the issues of ethics and justice. But then I think that human justice is so inadequate in any case; and that that the dead are dead, and nothing we do, or don't do will change that; and that I would like to think that the people I cared about who are lost to me now would rather Gilad alive even though they are dead. And isn't ironic that those who helped kill are now pawns in a deal to help save a life? May that stick in their throats and twist their stomachs and haunt them forever. And then I think, maybe there are some who are just going back to their families. Maybe they have mothers, and fathers and sisters and children. Maybe they have faces. Maybe they have room for peace in their hearts, no matter how unfathomable that may seem. Mostly, I think that life- a heart that is still beating- is always preferable. The world is so full of unimaginable things- both terrible and wonderful. We cannot know the future. We only have the world as it is. We only have a heart that is still beating.

And I think, perhaps, that I prefer to live in this society- the one that took up Gilad's image as a symbol; the one the forced the government to keep its end of the deal- we give you our sons, our daughters, our fathers, our friends and pieces of our lives, and you give us the promise that you will do everything in your power to return them to us. I think I feel safer in a society that is willing to sacrifice potential safety for the real, concrete safety of an individual who paid way more than his dues. That's part of our social contract as well. Sometimes, we are not given the choice but to die for our country, but death itself is not a value. Sacrifice itself is not a value. Life is. But maybe that too, is dogma, and I contradict myself.

And then he stepped off that helicopter and I thought, "he's just a boy." He's just a too skinny, too pale boy. But even that is patronizing. He's not a boy, he's a young man- a young man who spent too many years in the dark. He's not ours, and he's not a symbol. He's not justice, or injustice, safety, or danger. He's just him, whoever he may be, with his own hopes and dreams, his own terrors and demons; his own dark eyes. His suffering and his freedom belong only to him. I spent all day watching, thinking, isn't this a miracle, to see someone awake from the dead? Isn't this a blessing, to watch a symbol become a person? This fragile thing. This life on shaky legs. We can stop watching now. The cage door is open. Let's let him fly free.

Don't know much about history

2011-09-09T01:02:00.001+03:00

It's official-I have a master's degree in Jewish history. Graduation day isn't till June (Israel is weird that way), but who cares. I have that little piece of paper and that's all that matters. It's been a long road, and suddenly here I am. How odd.

Writing for the writer

2011-08-21T22:31:00.001+03:00

In my minds eye it is a Polish
February, though in reality
it is August in Chicago-
and our Rabbi-hunched and grey-bearded,
is discomfited by heat, not snow, in this tree-shaded
cemetery.
His frail voice, as always, like the
rusted hinges of gates I have never had access to,
rises and falls. This private judgment day. This private pulpit.
What have these, the dead, to outweigh the deeds of the living man
that they should stand for him?
He stands for himself- quietly honest
an unassuming searcher. More beloved, I am sure.
But these are cruel thoughts.
The Rabbi, I know, is filled with love
and worry, and the dead hold their own counsel.
It is only that I am very scared.

How does one write for the writer?
What careworn words could be mustered
with precision and grace into prayer?
I have only this-
a clock in the hallway, always stopped.
A pile of coats.
He is in the kitchen-
sweet onion and summer squash-
or perhaps he is dozing in the wellworn chair,
his hand laying lightly on the gray glaring cat.
When he rises, the imprint of his body will remain
and that too is a prayer
of sorts.

How do I will lungs not my own to breathe
from afar
grasp fatherly hands that have never graced
my head but whose
blessing is always felt?

when will there be good news?

2011-07-11T16:02:00.000+03:00

It's been a rough little while. But, there is good news. After over 6 months of radio silence, with me fearing the worst, I finally got an email from B. He is fine. His family is fine. They are overjoyed at the birth of their new state. Good news.

Girl, you'll be a woman soon

2011-06-12T10:48:00.002+03:00

I'm small. I'm 4'10" and weigh something about 35 kilo. Sometimes, this works to my advantage. In the kitchen it most definitively does not. Beyond the simple fact that certain things- like lifting pots and reaching the baking paper that lives on top of the cabinets- are more difficult for me, it also means that I have to fight for my womanhood. In the kitchen I am called- הילדה- the girl. Never mind that at 30 I am not the youngest woman in the kitchen by far. Exasperating the issue is the fact that though I am not the youngest woman, I am the only woman without children. Israeli society, more-so than American society from what I can tell- highly values motherhood and children. (This is not inherently a bad thing at all. Maternity leave laws here are head and shoulders above American one). When the rest of the women sit around discussing their kids, (and/or grandkids) the only thing I can contribute are niece stories and stories about my cat (which always makes me feel a bit like the crazy cat lady.) It leaves me a bit on the outside and a bit more vulnerable to being condescended to.

In one of our first business management classes we were instructed to list our first impressions of our classmates and to say whether or not, based on those first impressions, we would buy from them. The point of the exercise, obviously, was to illustrate the way first impressions color our interactions with people. Upon further discussion of what we could do alleviate any negative first impressions that might keep people from buying what we're selling, I was told, point blank, by the teacher, "you need to gain 10 kilo." I have had my cheek patted. Even the head of the kitchen, who I adore, upon seeing me in a skirt for the first time, exclaimed-"you look just like a doll!".

One would think that by this point in my life I would be used to this. But, up until now, my size has pretty not really been a factor in the work I do. Mostly I have spent my time using my brain, not my body. In the academy nobody is really interested in whether you have children or not. You could have ten, or none, so long as you get your papers in. So it took my a while to figure out how to deal with this new situation. I've come to learn that the way to deal with it is by working hard- by being the onion chopper, the potato peeler, the dole-er of food; by not leaving the kitchen until the last surface has been washed down, even after I've been dismissed. I try to be reliable, to be conscientious, to let the other women know that hey, this is my kitchen too. And paradoxically, by swallowing my pride and asking for help. I'd rather have someone help lift a heavy tray than spill it all over the place. I'd rather say, "I need to sit for five minutes", than do a half-assed job on the floor. I've learned to talk to myself in the kitchen like I talk to myself in the pool. Pace yourself. Pay attention. Breathe.

It's a process, this.

Cubbie Watch: erm, we beat the White Sox once.

Book Rec: Faithful Place, Tana French

Leave-taking

2011-05-10T22:01:00.007+03:00

"Our souls are love and a continual farewell"- W.B. Yeats, "Ephemera"

I. Lake-tide. Dogprints and

driftwood.

A screen door slams into a wood frame

like a ball

hitting a leather glove.

From a train-

American lives.

II. Listen, when I left

there were hyacinths in my

mother's garden.

Wrigley Field was freezing.

I held other people's children

close to my chest.

What else is home

but the moment before?

III. In New York, another

childhood, though I am

not in the places I once was.

Here are the floor tiles of

my grandmother's building.

Here are the Bensonhurst fire escapes and
dark brick

and the comforting rumble of noise,

as I lie awake in a strange, sleeping room.

In Harlem, on the way to the

airport, two lovers

part. For what else is

love but a continual farewell?

The Diameter of the Bomb

2011-03-23T21:15:00.000+02:00

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
 and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
 with four dead and eleven wounded.
 And around these, in a larger circle
 of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
 and one graveyard. But the young woman
 who was buried in the city she came from,
 at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
 enlarges the circle considerably,
 and the solitary man mourning her death
 at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
 includes the entire world in the circle.
 And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans
 that reaches up to the throne of God and
 beyond, making
 a circle with no end and no God.

-Yehuda Amichai (trans. C. Bloch)

Almond trees

2011-03-03T13:17:00.000+02:00

What do almond trees do at night?
In day the hummingbird and bees make it
a pastoral spring
against a blue sky.
This could be England, for all the soft green, petals
and song.
But at night, pale ghosts
to whom do they speak?
Is this power,
or just memory of light
like the moon's memory of the sun?

Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?

2011-02-23T22:45:00.000+02:00

As the winter has progressed my life has settled into a predictable pattern. I spend a few weeks trying to juggle my various jobs, responsibilities, etc. until I finally manage to settle into some sort of schedule. Then I get sick. Then, once I recover, I scramble to play catch up, settle into a schedule... and get sick. I think this has been my sickest winter in a long while. (In fact, I am at this moment recovering from the cold from hell) Obviously something has to change, I'm just not sure what that might be. Right now I'm working three jobs- two part time jobs (research and writing) and one uber-part time job (cooking- which is only 6 hours a week). Theoretically, if I work out my schedule right, I have time to do a number of things- swim, take care of my plants and kitchen and house. But of course that never really happens (see above) and I'm left wondering when I'm ever going to find the time to get my haircut, go to the dressmaker or host my friends for fresh pasta. The problem, I think, is not so much time, but the various stresses that come with each job. I am learning all at once to be a boss, a writer with deadlines and a feeder of people. During the course of one day I can go to work, make decisions about my colleagues' work (boss hat), field an email from annoying editor (writer hat) go home, write an article, (writer's hat, again) and then realize that the next morning I have to get up at 6:30 to go cook (thankfully that happens only once a week). Just writing about it exhausts me. I'm wearing too many hats.
The boss job should probably go. It makes me anxious. I don't like making decisions that could potentially impact someone else's research and I don't like dealing with the higher ups. When I was just a grunt, I was just a grunt. The work I did got reviewed by somebody else (now, me) and the higher ups didn't know I existed, or if they did, they didn't care. Now, I've got vacation days and sick days, but I also have to worry about the fact that one day a scholar may call me up and tell me that I'm just wrong, or even worse, the dude in charge may call me up and tell me that my team isn't producing enough material, is doing a bad job, etc etc. The good news is that our funding runs out in September, and if on the off chance it is renewed, I run out in September, or at least that what I keep on telling myself.
The writing and cooking are blog posts all on their own. In short, I think I like it. Both its. I'm learning to deal with annoying editor and I enjoy writing. Even silly inconsequential articles for kids have their value. I'm also learning a tremendous amount in the kitchen - and not only about food. I'm surrounded by women whom I would have never met were it not for the fact that we work together. We come from such different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. Mostly, I am very glad to have met them. Right now writing and cooking feel like the places I want to be. So I think I'm gonna stay.

Cubbie Watch: Spring training! Oh, time of eternal hope.

Book rec: Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

Sometimes I get nervous when I see an open door. Close your eyes. Clear your heart. Cut the cord.

2011-01-15T22:00:00.002+02:00

I had plans for my birthday. Big plans. Plans that involved not only celebrating reaching 30, but also the imminent conclusion of my thesis. It was going to be epic. (Ok, so maybe going out for drinks with a bunch of friends is not quite epic, but if you knew me you would concede- it was epic for me). And then. Then, I was sick. Miserably sick. Entirely too sick to celebrate. So, I canceled the party and crawled into bed, and thought, "well, fuck. What a year this is going to be."
I had a lot of time to think, lying in bed for the next four days. And most of what I had to think wasn't all that pleasant. Thoughts of my thesis made me feel anxious and thoughts of my future made me feel adrift. Here I was preparing myself to hand off 4 years of my life- a piece of my identity- without any clear idea of where I was going. Sure, I had ideas about what I wanted my life to look like in the future- but in terms of the next day- of, you know, the moment after I handed my thesis- I had no bloody clue. I was filled with this overwhelming fear that whatever I did the coming year would be as horrifically unbearable as my first year in Israel. I couldn't help but to anticipate that this coming evolution in my identity- from student to something else would be just as painful and lonely as my transition from America to Israel. So there I was, generally miserable and depressed, not sick enough to be unconscious and not well enough to actually do anything, meditating on the great wide unknown that was my life.
Then I got an email a friend way across the ocean. (You know who you are). Masked as an email from the Chicago Cubs, it said: "We heard you had a cold on your birthday, so we went ahead and signed Kerry Wood to compensate." I started to laugh and then to smile the way I hadn't smiled in days. Everything was going to be just fine. My boy Kerry was coming home and the world was right again. But more than that, absolutely more than that, the email was proof that whatever the year would bring, I was going to be ok because I have friends; friends who would go out their way to make my world bright and steady; friends who know what I love and love me. And when eventually I was well enough to celebrate I was moved beyond what I could express at all the people that came to sit with me, not only to celebrate, but just to be and to enjoy each others' companies and be friends; to fill each others lives. And that is a gift.
The email was also a reminder that the world is not quite as cold and confusing as I might think. Yes, sometimes you send people you love back into the chaos that is Africa and you have no way of knowing if they are safe and well. Sometimes, whole forests go up in flames. But sometimes, a pitcher will turn down millions of dollars to come home. Sometimes, an organization will make room for that player, because it's the right thing to do. These things don't always match up. They don't weigh the same amount in the weight of the world. A life weighs more than a game. A forest weighs more than a game. But, sometimes you are reminded in the small gestures of life that the love you put into the world comes back to you. And that is a gift.
These past few weeks of post-thesis life have been a gasping race of change. I have, in the span of three weeks (in this order)- taken a job writing for a small children's magazine, joined a micro-business program that helps women open culinary businesses, and accepted a (sort of) promotion at my current job. It's a lot and I'm terrified. I told a good friend that I felt like I was in one of those time-lapse videos that show a caterpillar turning into a butterfly is 30 seconds, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen in nature. I'm also pretty sure that my body is in an active state of revolt (don't ask me about my back). But. But. Come spring, (fingers cross, send a prayer up to the baseball gods.) Kerry Wood will take the mound at Wrigley. And as for me, I'm doing what I want to do. I'm cooking. I'm writing. My friends and family have my back. It's going to be hard, all this new, and it's probably not going to be pretty, or graceful. But it's time to fly.

By the way, dear, you know I"m never going to erase that email, right? Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Book Rec: The Mockingjay Trilogy, Suzanne Collins

Cubbie Watch: Let's do this for Ron, boys

Thesis Watch

2011-01-03T18:16:00.001+02:00

is done.

I got a girl in the war, Paul, the only thing I know to do, is turn up the music and pray that she makes it through

2010-12-07T18:46:00.000+02:00

After a little over 3 years here in Israel, B. and his family are returning to Sudan. Their decision to go home is a result of a number of things- the impending referendum on independence for Southern Sudan in January, some aid money from a charity organization, and the growing realization that they can't stay in Israel forever and that it might be better to leave voluntarily while the kids are still young than to be forced out when they are older. For a while I was angry at B. for taking his family back into danger. But it's his life, his family and his decision. And he really believes in South Sudan and he wants to be there at its inception. It's his home and that's where he wants to be. Now, I am mostly very sad and scared for them. All the little (and big) things in my life right now pale in comparison when I think of this family I love making their way back to Africa and starting their lives there. B. believes that South Sudan's succession will go smoothly and even if there is a war, he will be far from it. I am not that hopeful. He also believes that one day it will possible for me to come visit them in Sudan and for his eldest daughter to come to university here in Israel. I can't imagine that future. Then again, there are many people who have, in their lifetimes, witnessed they never could have dreamed of. In the meantime, there's nothing I can do but pray. So this is my prayer:
I pray that your journey back home be without incident. I pray that humanity's capacity for kindness will win over its capacity for evil I pray that you find your home as beautiful as your remember it. I pray that the country you build will flourish and grow. May it be filled with peace and justice. May your rains come as they should and your sun shine on your faces. May you see your children be tall and beautiful. May you carry their children on your shoulders. And I pray that you will remember me and this country. Remember the bad- how hard it was to be asylum seeker here. And let that be a warning. But also remember the good- the kindness and community you found here and the laughter beyond words. I pray I will see your faces again.
"I'll pray and then I'll sleep" (Marilynne Robinson, Gilead)

May all your wildest dreams come to pass.

Music Rec: Girl in the War, Josh Ritter

Two hearts are better than one

2010-12-02T17:22:00.001+02:00

This Thanksgiving I did not roast a turkey. I didn't make stuffing, or cranberry sauce, or pumpkin pie. My apartment was quiet and empty Thursday evening. Instead of hosting friends, this year for Thanksgiving I got all snazzied up, pulled on my slinky, sexy brown dress and with great joy attended the wedding of a great friend to the most gentlemanly man I know. It was a spectacular wedding- joyous and energetic and low key and suffused in love and good will.
So this year I am thankfull for friends, and friendship and love and the strength of will and conviction it takes to face the world with the absolute belief that goodness awaits.

Thesis Watch: In the hands of my adviser

Book Rec: Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichel

Abraham

2010-10-23T23:20:00.002+02:00

This is true belief. To say,
I do not believe
when you are trekking up a
mountain alongside your son and
the widening chasm of
all the world's indiscriminate elements-
the overturned earth,
the blight,
the smoke rising from the valley-
are spread before you.
To say, even with the knife in your hand.
Even in the moment of your indiscrimination,
to say,
No.
In these I believe.
In the warmth of a living body.
In the circling hawk.
The ram in the thorns.
The laughter from within the tent.
All the sharp edges of life.
In these I believe.

You will be blessed with children
tenfold.
But not another word will pass between you.
You think He has learned His lesson
And He thinks you have learned yours.

When you're a stranger

2010-10-05T18:42:00.006+02:00

When I first moved to Israel I was enamored of the produce here-tomatoes that taste like tomatoes! Cucumbers that taste like cucumbers! And most of all- seasons: artichoke season that comes along with fresh garlic and broad beans in the spring; two weeks of cherries and apricots in early summer; four months of strawberries and chestnuts in the winter. Then I went to Italy and bit into a piece of arugula and was spoiled forever.
I traveled to Italy in late July to meet my sister in law at the Jewish Studies conference she was speaking at in Ravenna. Theoretically, it would have been a good idea for me to attend the conference as well, but the idea of sitting and listening to people talk, even about subjects I care about quite a bit, just seemed like all kinds of wrong. So, instead, I did a lot of wandering, mostly without a map. I wandered through Ravenna, drifting into vegetable gardens and being gifted with a tomato straight off the vine. I ambled through Byzantine churches and Baptisteries, eyes upward to behold the most spectacular mosaics, shot through with color and detail and emotion. I spent a day at the beach (named, rather hilariously- Big Mama Beach- no, really.) and dipped my foot into the Adriatic, which I found to be disappointingly similar to the Mediterranean. (My Lake Michigan bred limbs are always bracing themselves for the shock of cold water. And I'm always slightly disappointed when it doesn't come.). I trekked into the heart of Pisa for a quick glance at that leaning tower and, when, after dozing off on the train ride from Pisa to Rome, I opened my eyes to such riot of bright colors and sea, I thought I had mistakenly wandered into a Monet painting. In Rome, having parted with my sister-in-law I met friends, and ate and walked and ate and walked and read and walked and ate and talked and walked and laughed and ate. Because, really, what else does one do in Rome?
I found myself, during all this wandering in a foreign country where I didn't speak the language, with a lot of space for my own thoughts. I did a lot of thinking. I thought about art. I thought about Moses's hand reaching down to stroke a lamb in the great mosaic at the church of San Vitale. I thought about how, in all of the mosaics Jesus' birth and death belonged to the women, and his return and kingship belonged to the men. And in the Galleria Borghese, I thought about Mary herself, the look in her eyes as she looked down at her son-full of surprise and joy and sadness- as if she knew from the outset what life held in store for her child. I thought about how moving I find religious art, despite the fact that I am not a Christian. And standing in front of Bernini's David, I could not help but smile, because I thought I recognized this David, with his concentrated poise and cocky frown, all drawn back and in mid-motion. This is the Goliath slaying David Michal fell in love with in the Bible. I thought about religion and power and exile.
I thought about myself away from myself. I thought, in a gray dress on the seashore, laughing with a sheepish, brown skinned boy as we tried to communicate with only a few words and our hands, that here I might be beautiful to someone, and more importantly, I might be beautiful to myself. I thought, running through the streets of Pisa with my sister-in-law, getting soaked to the bone by a summer storm, not wanting to say goodbye, that family is all the more precious when you are in a strange place. And, at the outset of our shabbat in Rome, during which we sat and read and ate and were quiet, watching the clouds and dusk gather over the rooftops, as my friends chatted in the dark room behind me, I thought, there is nothing more sweet than friendship. I thought that there is nothing more important than discovering who you are when you're not where you're from.
Last week, I traveled to Tel Aviv to take advantage of the mandatory vacation time that comes with the high holiday season in this country. I had planned on visiting the Museum of Art, which, to my great shame, I have yet to see, hit the beach and hang out with some friends. Instead, I ended up primarily seeing friends. It was lovely, in all the ways seeing friends are lovely, but by the end of the day I found myself slightly anxious and irritated and I realized that I had needed some time by myself, in an art museum; at the beach. I needed to be away from my life and all those familiar things. I needed to be in a foreign country for a bit and have that first sharp bite of arugula again.
On my way to Tel Aviv I ran into a guy that up until that point I only knew in the virtual world. I introduced myself to him and we laughed about the fact that despite the fact that we both live in Jerusalem and have many friends in common, we were meeting for the first time on a random bus in Tel Aviv. I asked him what he was doing in the city, and he said he was trying to find the beach. I told him that it's pretty easy- you just walk West- and we laughed about that too. Then I got off the bus and as I turned around, trying to orient myself, I thought, well, aren't we all? Aren't we all trying to find our way to that great, wide, open space?

Thesis Watch: Almost there, really

Book Rec: Beach Music by Tim Winton

Cubbie Watch: T. Colvin's scary vampire impersonation is pretty much symbolic of the whole season

In Rough Country; (with apologies)

2010-07-19T22:06:00.001+03:00

In rough country
where thistles kiss bare
legs, you are sun colored
with dirt that accumulates another
layer of being to your body.

You will come home to a summer cabin
ring-swollen, ravenous and delirious
on live-wire insects still thrumming with
life in this
cool, dark place.

Thesis Watch: 2/3 of the way there

Book Rec: ביום שהמוסיקה מתה

Cubbie Watch: Thank God for the Blackhawks.

What happens to a dream deferred?

2010-05-23T21:13:00.003+03:00

The culinary course has been canceled. In fact, the whole culinary arts program at the college has been shut down. I'm not really surprised- the powers that be did delay the opening of the course three times before officially nixing it- so I caught on pretty quickly. To be honest, I'm not really sure how I feel right now. I suppose I'm angry at the college for slamming the door on a dream of mine. (Yes, there are other culinary arts programs in the country, but none of them are practical for my life right now). But mostly I'm feeling a whole lot of....nothing. I've been eking out the latest rewrite of my thesis, going to work, making my way through a large editing project I've undertaken and just existing, which is harder than it sounds. At some point I know I'm going to have to get off my butt and figure out a plan of action. One day my thesis will be done, the project will be finished and my job will no longer be relevant and I'm going to have to figure out where I go from here. Today is not that day.
What happens to a dream deferred? Who knows. But today I made roast chicken.

Thesis Watch: I'm entrusting you guys (by you guys I mean, all one of my readers) with the responsibility of never, ever letting me rewrite again. That's it. I mean it. It's the final rewrite.

Movie Rec: The Messenger. Ben Foster. 'Nuff said

Cubbie Watch: Erm, Carlos Silva?

can you hear the horses coming?

2010-05-05T19:35:00.003+03:00

In a conversation I was having with a friend recently I described my emotional sense of self as being "like a cell waiting through osmosis" and I thought that that line was a lovely bit of unexpected poetry, but I had no where to put it. That happens sometimes. I had a snatch of something-"and all your colored horses come crashing to the ground"- rolling around in my head for years until it found its place. Writing's funny that way.

Thesis watch: I'd like to say it's done, but it's not.

Book rec: Lowboy by John Wray

Cubbie Watch: Yeah, I'm watching.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree

2010-03-09T18:23:00.006+02:00

This is my dream: One day I will own a little place called Innisfree. It will have a bright, open kitchen with a view of the sunlit garden. At the front, beyond the kitchen, it will be lined with rows and rows of bookshelves. There will be couches and chairs and low places for children to sit. In this little place I will feed people. I will feed their souls and their bodies. I will point them to books that I loved; that opened up new worlds for me. I will say, "Read this. Have an adventure. Fall in love with a fictional character. Understand the world just a bit differently." Then, I will hand them a sandwich, or a bowl of soup, or a plate of pasta and when they eat they won't think of Jane Eyre's Thornfield, or Hari's Damar, or Touqueville's America-they will think of no place but home.

In this past month I have taken the first step towards Innisfree. I signed up for a course in the fundementals of cooking at a local college. It's not culinary school and it's not a downpayment on a little bookstore-cafe, but it's a start and it's certainly a far-cry from everything I have been doing in my life up until this point. The reactions to my news from people in my life have been varied. I've gotten a "that's great. I'm so proud of you" (Surrogate mother, Carol.); a "I didn't know you were serious about culinary school" (real biological mother, Mommy); a "that's awesome, go for it" (sister, S. and friend, N.) and a "but you already know how to cook" (real biological father, Abba). For my part, I am excited and I'm terrified. Change is hard for me, especially when that change involves the actuallization of a fantasy. I'm afraid I don't have the financial wherewithall to pull this off. I'm afraid that I don't have the strength of character or stamina to survive in the kitchen. I'm afraid I will never learn a proper dice, overseason my stock, chop off a finger and burn the place down. I'm afraid I will fail. I'm afraid I'm not meant for this. I'm afraid of my own evolution.

So for the past few months as I have been contemplating this change in my life, I have been feeling alternately elated, and backed into a corner by my own fears. When that happens I often immerse myself in other peoples' worlds. I read a lot of blogs. I watch a lot of tv. I try to find places and stories that resonate with me so I can see some sort of reflection of myself. But sometimes the cacophany of other peoples' voices becomes too loud and it becomes difficult to hear my own. It becomes hard to express myself, to create my own narrative. So if I have neglected this blog, I'm sorry. I simply haven't felt the compulsion to write in a while. I have been too busy navigating the web of other peoples' words and trying to face down my own dreams.

Change is hard, man.

On to Innisfree

Thesis Watch: Evidently I was never taught how to properly write a paragraph.

Book Rec: Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantell

Cubbie Watch: Oh look, spring training! Oh look, we've lost Guzman for the season already. It's gonna be a good year. Sigh.

children get older, I'm getting older too

2009-12-24T19:44:00.002+02:00

There's been a lot of change in the past month. I turned 29. My adviser returned my thesis to me. And my brother (plus sister-in-law and the four niecettes) moved to New Jersey. In the scheme of things it is probably my brother's move that is the most monumental, though it's difficult to feel from so far away and so far removed from myself. Birthdays happen and my thesis is inching closer to being done, just as it was a few months ago, but the change in my brother's life actually effects the makeup of our family. My parents are slightly hysterical about the fact that their grandaughters are now a two hour plane ride away as opposed to a two minute drive and I'm beginning to fear that Chicago as home won't be home without my brother, sister-in-law and those four little rascals there to greet me. I know I won't see them any less or be any less part of their lives, but I've always sort of taken it for granted that this story would play out in the place I know best and that home would somehow grow and age, but not change. The move necsitates a reimagining of the future and reevaluation of rootedness. As for my parents, this will probably change the way they relate to all their children. It is hard to know, now that we have all moved away from Chicago, whether we will be more adult in their eyes, or whether they will just hold on tighter. Who knows? I for one, am looking forward to now having to deal with my brother on his own terms. Until now family news has been, for the most part, filtered through my parents. Now, I'll have to get it from the horse's mouth. It will hopefully be a maturing of a relationship that should have grown up years ago.
As for my birthday, it was a birthday, low-key and friend-filled. There are more changes for me in the near-future. Once I hand my final draft of my thesis in, it's a whole new world- one that will hopefully include a job and culinary courses, but that's still over the horizon, west of the sun. One day at a time.

Book Rec: The Likeness, Tana French

Thesis Watch: There is nothing more tedious than editing footnotes

Thank you providence

2009-11-27T11:21:00.003+02:00

I am pleased to report that this thanksgiving featured neither illness nor gas shortage; just good friends, good food and a turkey named Margaret (who, yes, was also good food, but since she was the main event I feel that she warrants a category all of her own).

As I said at the meal, I am thankful for thankfulness- that I have been instilled with a sense of gratitude that is not specified by its religiosity, but is rather secular and all-encompassing. Thankfulness is a great unifier. All of us, regardless of which deity or non-deity we believe in possess the ability to consider those things which we are grateful for in our lives. During my childhood thanksgivings in America, there was a sense (that is still with me today), that on this holiday as opposed to all the other holidays specific to us as Jews, we joined a larger mass of humanity in the celebration of thankfulness. And for this I am thankful.

Thesis Watch: It's in the hands of my adviser now

Book Rec: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

Stand in the place where you are

2009-10-25T21:12:00.009+02:00

Every time I visit Chicago I engage in a small, personal ritual- the last day of my trip, sometimes just a few hours before I get on a plane I drive out to the lake and stand for 10 minutes, or 5, or however long I have, saying goodbye. The lake is always itself- shaded blue and green and brown under a wide American sky. On my left, to the north, the water stretches and flattens the horizon, reaching out to unseen places. And to the right, looking southward, the city is a grey silhouette, standing watch. I do not know how to describe the meaning of this ritual. It is inextractalbe from myself and without words. I leave you with pictures.

I'll meet you somewhere down the road

2009-09-30T08:02:00.003+02:00

Last night I emailed a pretty much finished draft (sans edited footnotes and bibliography) to my adviser. Thesis watch: 72 pages including Appendix A. I am: relieved, happy, sad and considering having an identity crisis. What does one do when they've handed off two years of their life? Wait for feedback, I guess.
Now I am off to Chicago to see family and friends and to sit by the lake and watch the leaves turn.

Cubbie Watch: The eternal cry-Next Year! (can we have Kerry back please?)

Book Rec: The Miss Hempel Chronicles, Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum

walk through the fire

2009-09-06T21:12:00.006+03:00

This is not the post I had intended to write. I had been planning to write about "Into the Wild" a movie that I thought was wonderful, but also scared me half to death. Instead real life came along and scared me half to death.
I can honestly say that up until this point I have never, in all my 28 years, found a reason to be scared walking alone. This past Thursday I especially had no reason to fear. It was bright bright Jerusalem morning. I was walking through a wooded area I know well, in a neighborhood that I spent many a childhood vacation exploring. Above me was a row of apartment buildings and the bustle of human life, below me-the main road and beyond it the parkland of the Valley of the Cross. I turned a sharp bend in the path to see a young man walking toward me. My first thought was that he didn't belong there- there was something in his manner and dress that was out of place. This was a path for joggers and dog walkers. He was dressed casually in a white t-shirt and aviator glasses, but he was too meticulous, too sterile for this little piece of nature. He stopped as I passed him and turned to ask me something. I couldn't hear him- the radio was blasting in my ears. I took out my earphones. He said, in Hebrew- how old are you? I must have smirked I was so taken aback. I put my earphones back in and continued walking. I walked a few steps and then glanced back, he too had walked a few steps away from me but then turned around and was hurrying towards me. I walked faster. I could hear the cars a few feet below me and see the the tops the edges of the apartment buildings through the trees above me, but at this point it was just me and him on the path and a long winding stretch of space until the street. He grabbed my arm when he reached me- not hard, but strong enough to make me recoil. Hey, he said, still in Hebrew, I asked you a question. I said, in English, I'm sorry I don't speak any Hebrew. I moved my feet. I kept on going forward. I asked you a question, his English was angry. I'm very busy, I replied. I'm on my way to work. He looked at me sharply then. He paused. He turned around and went the other way. I stumbled my way down to the street, glancing behind me all the while. There are numerous paths down through trees. Who knows if he would be waiting for me at the bottom? I almost asked the man I saw walking his dog, making his way up the path I had just come down to walk with me a few steps. I didn't. I kept to the main road. I called a friend. I made it to work.
Understand this- I am very small. Walking as I was, with a backpack on my back, I could easily be mistaken for a child. Understand this also-there is a school 1/8 of a mile down that path. And understand this-nothing happened. I was asked my age. My arm was grabbed-was touched. But in the space of a second I was a victim. I was ten feet in either direction from a road. I was a half a block from my adopted grandmother's apartment. I was isolated and I was completely vulnerable. There is so much unfairness in this-that with one question and one gesture I can become undone. I don't know what this guy was looking for, but I do know that he made me feel intensely unsafe. I was angry, at first, that someone could do that to me- that someone could take a childhood place and make it dangerous-that all my safety was just an illusion. By the time I got home later that day, I was scared. I jumped at every noise. I refused to be alone. I was told that leaving the house again was essential- like getting back on a horse after a fall. I've gotten back on quite a few horses in my lifetime. So on Friday I took a deep breath and got back on the horse.
I was considering going to the police- not for myself, but on the chance that he thought I was a girl, on the chance that its the schools he's interested in. But I'm honestly not sure of the reality of the situation. Maybe he was just slightly imbalanced. Maybe he was just really annoyed that I didn't answer his question. Who knows? All I know is that I was scared and I have never been before and that in and of itself is terrifying.

Thesis watch: 1.2 a chapter, footnotes and bibliography

Music Rec: Once more, with feeling- Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Cubbie Watch: I can't look.

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee

2009-08-24T21:29:00.002+03:00

August 22 was the one year anniversary of this blog. I seem to have completely let it pass me by, which is a testament to how preoccupied I am with other things (read: the rapidly approaching deadline for handing in my thesis). I do have a longer post planned, but that will have to wait. In the meantime happy anniversary, Innisfree.

Thesis Watch:Um, we're not talking about that right now, ok.

Book Rec: The Latke Hamentash-Debate

Cubbie Watch: And here comes the freefall, whee.

On Unsolicited Advice

2009-08-03T23:35:00.002+03:00

This new movement is so strange
to me. I
have nothing to grasp in the water.
It unbalances me; threatens to unseat me, like that first
canter too exhilarating and fast.

"Skim the surface of the water as if it were a wall-
one need not dig deep in swimming."
If I had discovered this on my own,
if it were, like my opened hand, my upraised arm,
a triumph of my own corporeality,
perhaps it would not seem so foreign,no matter how imperfect. But now with unsolicited
advice this stroke
becomes only one more failure of my flailing limbs.

"As if you were mailing a letter."
What an odd metaphor.
There is nothing in swimming like mailing a letter.
If anything it is a deepening dig,
an excavation of measured breaths,
a steady journey to a recovered self.

Interlude

2009-07-29T11:21:00.004+03:00

I am moving, hence the radio silence. The movers are coming at 7:30 on Friday morning, which is possibly the worst time in the world. (Friday is like Sunday around here. Also, Friday ends early because of the Sabbath, which means no work after sundown. Also, this Friday comes directly after this Thursday, which is one of the two 25 hour-fast days of the Jewish calendar. Fun.) As of now I am frantically packing and learning new ways to try and kill myself in my obstacle course of an apartment. So no time for writing, cooking or thinking. See you on the flip side.

Thesis watch: Ha!

Book Rec: Books are packed, sorry.

Cubbie Watch: We took first place. How did that happen?

Her mama says, one day she's gonna live in America

2009-07-08T17:36:00.016+03:00

Feed your head

2009-06-30T12:31:00.009+03:00

It has been hot as hell around here lately, making the thought of eating hot food slightly unbearable. So this weekend faced with the prospect of feeding 12 people, I decided that the meal should resemble a picnic and feature lots of different salads and absolutely nothing that requires oven mitts. On the menu was Mark Bittman's Tomato-Melon Gazpacho (which is fast becoming the go-to recipe for cold summer soup in this household), as well as his Bean Salad (Italian Style), Lemon-Tarragon Chicken Salad which I yanked from Bon Appetit via Epicurious.com and Santa Rosa Plum Crumble (another summer favorite), among other tasty salad and not so salad-like items. (Yes, this is a lot of food. It's in my genes- I can't help it. It was my sister and me in the kitchen. "We don't have enough food" neuroses abound.) I'm sharing the chicken salad recipe. It was super easy and really good. Lemon and tarragon are the sandals and short skirts of summer fare-light and elegant. We ate it for three days straight-over lettuce and in sandwich form. Highly recommended.

Lemon-Tarragon Chicken Salad
Adapted from Bon Apettit, August 2001, via Epicurious

1 1/4 pounds skinless boneless chicken breast halves (about 3)
3/4 cup finely chopped celery
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon, plus a handful for the poaching liquid
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel

Bring large saucepan of salted water (or chicken broth, if you so desire) to boil. Add a handful of tarragon sprigs and chicken breasts; reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until chicken is just cooked through, about 12 minutes. Transfer chicken to plate; cool.

Mix celery, 1/2 cup mayonnaise, onion, tarragon, lemon juice, and lemon peel in large bowl to blend. Cut chicken into 1/2-inch cubes; stir into mayonnaise mixture. Season with salt and pepper. (Can be made 4 hours ahead. Cover; chill.)

Serves 6.

In other unrelated news, I am moving at the end of this month, I need to finish my thesis by the middle of September and last night I went out on a blind date that was so bad it could have been a scene out of a rom-com (you know, part of that ubiquitous montage of bad dates that the heroine has to endure before she meets the one. I'm not so fond of rom-coms, but maybe that's because I have been on one too many bad dates) It was so awful it was funny. But these are tales for another post.

Thesis Watch: See above

Music Rec: Kings of the Rodeo, Kings of Leon

Cubbie Watch: How is it that we suck and yet are only 3.5 games out? It's like a cosmic tease or something.

Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door

2009-06-15T21:09:00.007+03:00

About three years ago the son of close family friends was severely injured while serving in the Israeli army. He was, in a way typical to this family, highly motivated, overachieving soldier, commanding troops during the second Lebanon war. His experience was particularly harrowing. A few days before he was injured he took part in a mission to extricate the bodies of his fallen comrades from behind enemy lines. One of those fallen soldiers was his best friend. A few days later he was back in the field. He stood up at the top of his tank to gain a better look at the landscape and that moment his tank was hit. For the first few days it was unclear whether he would live. For the first few weeks it was certain that he would lose a leg. He didn't. In a miraculous turn of events, he lived and kept both his legs. He'll use crutches for the rest of his life-but he walks. And despite all the trauma he has maintained a surprising level of normalcy in his life. Last year he started medical school. A few weeks ago he got married. A miracle indeed.
To me, his injury three years should have been just one more step in the process of my naturalization as a member of Israeli society. After all, in my 6 some years here I have lived through two wars, been witness to a terrorist attack and in this, begun to experience the awful diminishing in degrees of separation between myself and loss. But three years ago, when it happened, I didn't feel that way. The American in me, or maybe the me in me, could only feel this widening gap between myself and these family friends whom I had been so close to. With this tragedy they had taken their place in the Israeli national religious ethos. It seemed to me that the belief, which perhaps they had always held, that there is meaning in suffering for one's country, that the scars we bare are honorable, and that we must heal clean and fast, lest we show weakness, now became paramount. And all I could think was, what a waste. What a bloody damn waste is war.
A few months after their son's injury I spent a weekend at their home, as I often did. The house was filled with noise and laughter. Their son, still in his wheelchair at that point, was always surrounded by a protective bubble of rambunctious friends and family. He went out and raced through the streets of their small town, with sheer determination and no sign of consternation on his face at all. Their daughter's boyfriend was visiting, there were mouths to feed and things to discuss. Life continued and I could barely breathe. And then, in the middle of it all the youngest daughter, who was then just barely an adolescent, threw a tantrum in the way only a pre-adolescent can. There was screaming and tears and slamming of doors and dramatic pronouncements. If I recall correctly the tantrum was centered on an article of clothing and its lack of availability. It was the most hopeful thing I had witnessed all weekend. It meant more than the laughter and the motherly advice in the kitchen; more than the sight of an injured boy getting up on his own two feet and shuffling his way from wheelchair to chair- here was proof of life.
I don't mean to sound derisive or condescending. I believe in their belief. I believe that it has power and meaning. I'm aware of the strength and courage that faith like that demands. I admire it. I admire the tenacity of spirit and self-assured belief in the value of the sacrifices made. I admire the determination it takes to allow life to go on. But I also find it terribly claustrophobic. It doesn't leave room for doubt, or anger or grief. It doesn't acknowledge weakness or loss. It doesn't allow for anything other than a love of country and people above all. But why can't there be room for sorrow? Why can't we mourn the loss of a boy who will never run again? Why can't we acknowledge the sheer horror of his experiences? Why can't we throw a tantrum? Does the belief that most war is just one terrible waste inherently negate the meaning of loss? Can one still believe in the nobility of sacrifice without believing in its inherent value?
All of these questions visited me again a few weeks ago at this young man's wedding. It was a huge, highly emotional affair. But I found myself strangely unmoved. I didn't cry as he walked on his own two feet toward his bride to cover her face. I didn't cry when the father of his dead friend stood up as a witness under the wedding canopy. Even the smashing of the glass,with all its potent symbolism, left my cheeks dry. Only later, at the site of his whole family (new wife included) dancing together was I moved to tears. They stood in a haphazard circle with their arms wrapped around each, broken yet whole in the way of all families- with their own private dynamics and emotions; their own ebb and flow. It was the sheer intimacy of the moment that got to me. It was the private joy; the private love. Here was healing. The music played but they swayed with their own rhythm, and in that moment I almost believed.

Thesis Watch: 16 pages into the second draft.

Book Rec: Until the End of the Land, David Grossman

Cubbie Watch: Ugh.

Forays into food

2009-06-05T11:36:00.020+03:00

A few weeks ago I decided that I desperately, desperately needed to make delkalach for the summer holiday of Shavuot (Pentacost). Delkalach are a barely sweet, yeasty Hungarian cheese pastry that, courtesy of my grandmother, would always grace our tables for the holiday. I'd never made delkalach before, but I figured it was worth a try. Since I have not yet mastered the art of food writing, I'm just going to post some pictures (with comments) detailing my adventure in Hungarian pastry making.

The Cheese:

My grandmother uses farmer's cheese*, which doesn't exist here in Israel, so I decided to use a mix of equal parts ricotta and tuv tam (a soft, crumbly cheese with a bit of a tang, like farmer's), which needed to be drained overnight to get it dry enough to resemble the farmer's cheese my grandmother uses. I lined a strainer with some coffee filters, placed it over a bowl and left it to drain overnight in the fridge.

Mise en Place

I just really like using that term.

The Dough, pre-rise

What a nice, soft yeasty dough it was.

Strawberries, duh

While the dough was rising, I cleaned the oven (ugh) and quickly put these lovely strawberries (which my sister so nicely washed and hulled for me) up to stew with some sugar, a slice of ginger, a chili pepper and a few cinnamon sticks. Strawberry soup in the making. By then the dough had risen and was ready to be rolled out. By then I had also realized that I had lent out my rolling pin to a neighbor months ago. So I left the strawberries simmering and ran to retrieve my rolling pin, hoping that the dough would not over-rise and deflate, or anything else my overactive imagination could come up with as the consequences of not following my grandmother's very vague instructions to a tee. Upon my return I discovered that the strawberries had boiled over and my once clean range was now covered in sticky bright red ooze. Yum. The dough, however was just fine.

See

Filling

Cheese, a very little bit of sugar and an egg to bind it.

And here we go

Delkelach are a bother and a half to make. The dough has to be rolled out into a thin (but not too thin) rectangle and then cut into 3 inch squares. The squares are then filled- (I actually did not fill mine enough. My grandmother said to use a teaspoon full of filling and I ended up using about a half a teaspoon-full. The cheese was barely discernible in the end product, which is what happens when you don't follow your grandmother's instructions to a tee. In my defense though, this was the first time I was making them and I was having visions of exploded cheese pastry all over my clean oven.)- and folded into a cute little packet. It's fun the first 20 times you do it, but when you get to cute little packet number 35, you're slamming the little buggers into untidy square shaped things, all the while cursing yourself for every thinking that this was a good idea.

It was worth it in the end

Aren't they pretty, the little darlings?

So what did you think of this foray into food-writing. Good? Bad? Should I post more of the same (after all I have a running commentary going in my head every time I make dinner. All I need to do is take pictures). Should I start working on my photography skills?

Thesis watch: I gave a lecture. There were blank faces. My advisor liked it though

Book Rec: The Art of Simple Food, Alice Waters

Cubbie Watch: 2 games over .500. 3.5 games back. Our bullpen sucks. I miss Kerry. Can we have our Kerry back now please?

*Ah, yes, the cheese. Evidently, farmer's cheese is actually a substitute for the traditional Hungarian soft cheese called tourosh (or something like that), which is found nowhere in the world except Hungary. Or at least that's what my uncle says, and my uncle knows all. So I don't feel all that bad about my lack of farmer's cheese.

**Also, I have been trying and trying to figure out how to create an expandable post, so that these ultra long posts don't take up so much space. If anyone can give me a tutorial on how to change my template please speak up. Thanks.

All the vampires walking through the valley

2009-05-10T21:58:00.001+03:00

I have recently just finished re-reading "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley, for about the millionth time. McKinley, for those of you who haven't read anything by her, is a prolific writer of young adult fiction, and is mostly known for her retelling of fairy tales (she's done Beauty and the Beast twice) and her fictional world of Damar. "Sunshine" is neither for young adults, nor is it a retelling of a fairy-tale (sort of, it does have a Beauty and the Beast bent to it. McKinley, just can't seem to stay away from that one.) It is an adult novel involving vampires. It is not McKinley's best book (that would probably be the Hero and the Crown, or maybe the Door in the Hedge), and to be honest, it can be quite squicky, (what with all the blood and gore and demons and vampires having their hearts pulled out), and slow at times. It is also one of my favorite comfort books. In part because it reminds me of my family.
The main character of this story (which is set in a world much like our own, except, you know with magic and vampires and whatnot), is a young woman aptly called Sunshine who is the baker in step-father's cafe. The cafe and her bakery are her life. Her boyfriend is the cook. Her mother is the manager. It is an all encompassing place, where vagabonds are taken in and fed and the staff become members of the family. I know that place. That place where everyone is taken in and made to feel like family, where the feed-people gene is dominant to the point of running rampant is my parent's house. There is a sense of home that pervades McKinleys very evocative descriptions of the coffeehouse that I very much identify with. I feel Sunshine's comfort and ease in the liveliness and structure depicted even if I myself have never woken up at 4 am to make Cinnamon Rolls as Big a Your Head as she does. In the book the coffeehouse is Sunshine's center and grounding place, just as my parent's house is to me. But this is not the only, or even the main reason why I am so fond of this book. Ulitimately, Sunshine is about coming into your own power.
I have always thought that the real world should have sign posted at the enterence that reads: Here there be vampires. Or at the very least, dragons. Magical worlds, after all, are just a metaphor for our own. As with most books set in fantastical worlds, in this book the young protagonist learns that she has magical powers. In this case, it is an affinity for vampires. But unlike most books of this genre (say, Harry Potter, or any other, "hey, the kid's got magic" book) it is not about the responsibility that comes with power, rather it is a metaphor for the things people give us and how we make them our own. Sunshine receives many things from many people over the course of the book- her ability to do magic from her absent father and grandmother, healing and night vision from a vampire, a sense of her own strength from a kindly neighbor, love and privacy from her boyfriend and aid from a friend-and she takes all these things and learns to kick evil's ass. But kicking evil's ass is not the point of the book. Sunshine spends most of the book thinking she's about to die- not because she has some fairly scary vampires on her tail (or rather not only because of the vampires)- but because she is terrified that her powers can do only harm; that in accepting magic and vampire into her life means a life is fractured beyond repair. The book's resolution in not in the destruction of the big scary evil, but in a coming to terms of an identity.
For me, going home to Chicago is a sort of remembering of myself. There I am faced with all the people and things that I am made of. My family, my friends, the city, the lake. It is a good place. I firmly believe that everyone should have a place like that in their soul- where everything is easy and familiar and etched into your being. But I always have some difficulty taking home back with me and making it my own. I am never quite sure that my life is not fractured beyond repair. There is here and there is there andnever the twain shall meet. But somehow, something must come together. Somehow, I must become a cohesive person. So I read Sunshine. I take comfort in the metaphor. I cannot even really verbalize the pieces of myself, let alone make them coherent, which is why there is so much about a book and so little about myself in this post and for that I apologize. For now the fable will have to do.

"This was now my life: Cinnamon rolls, Sunshine's Eschatology, seeing in the dark, charms that burned into my flesh where I could not lose them. A special relationship with the Special Other Forces, where not everybody was on the same side. A landlady who's a wardskeeper. Untidy closets. Vampires.
Get used to it, Sunshine
I came out of the closet wearing black jeans and a charcoal gray T-shirt I had always hated. And red sneakers. Hey, red turns gray in the dark faster than any other color.
He held out his hand. 'Come then,' he said.
I went out with him into the night."

Book Rec: The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley

Thesis Watch: Lecture, June 2.

Cubbie Watch: Too early to tell.

In my head there's a railroad station

2009-04-28T17:34:00.003+03:00

I have been meaning to write a post about my trip back to Chicago for a while now, but somehow have not gotten myself together to be able to express myself in any coherent sense. Returning to my family and childhood friends is always both exhilarating and taxing. It takes me a while to categorize and identify the emotional weight of my experience. It will come, eventually.

But, apropos of the day (memorial day, here in Israel) I give you this:

The dove, too, flies down from its perch
to stand at attention.
Wings hunched, a listening twist
of its head:
These humans they are so noisy in their death.

Book rec: Home, Marilynne Robinson

Cubbie Watch: Thinking about it.

Thesis watch: I can has a structure please?

And the soles of our shoes

2009-03-31T22:05:00.002+03:00

I, like the structure of a
song,
am mostly found beneath
the melody.
These words mean nothing.
They are only a vessel for movement-
first to fifth;
A to C.
In minor.

I have traded goldenrod
for wild mustard,
and a verdant summer
for a brief, bright spring.
But always, I
am barefoot on a dirt road-
a perfect still sun and
the cicada's song thrumming through
my fingers.

Don't ask me to explain this poem because I don't understand it myself. This is often the case.

Updates:
Non-coffee drinking guy and I amicably parted ways.
Our apartment has been sold. We will be able to live out the rest of our contract (the end of July), but then it's moving time. I have decided not to think about it until I get back from America. Which leads me too...
My upcoming trip to Chicago for Passover, which will include (but not be limited to) four generations of strong willed women stuck in a house together for three days. It's gonna be a fun one, let me tell you.

Thesis watch: still in fuck mode.

Book rec: Kafka on the Shore by H. Marukami,

It ain't over...

2009-03-12T16:42:00.002+02:00

I am going out with non-coffee drinking guy again tonight. Just 'cuz.

On the thesis front, I met with my adviser this past Sunday and while he likes my work and would like for me to give a lecture in a seminar he's teaching, he also would like me to re-structure the whole entire thing. Yes, that's right, my 70 pages must be completely re-done. So yeah, all that crap in my last post about my thesis-ending existential crisis, is now no longer relevant.

Slightly very overwhelmed and frustrated.

Also, the pre-seeing my family freakout has officially begun.

Thesis Watch: fuckity fuck.

Music Rec: Johnny Cash "One"

I tried dancing on a Saturday night just to see what the fuss was about

2009-02-26T20:41:00.001+02:00

Let me get this straight from the outset. I like dating. I like the possibility of a held hand; the anticipation of intimacy. And to be honest this blind date was not bad on the scale of blind dates. However, I was slightly at a loss to discover that this youngish man does not drink coffee or alchohol, or enjoy movies or food. It is always a bad sign when you're drinking coffee and he's drinking white hot chocolate on a first date. This man eats to stave hunger and he sleeps so as not to be tired. He seems utterly uninterested in exploring the world as it is. His saving grace is his British sense of humor and his obvious enthusiasm for English literature, which he studies. If a man has no vices, he should at least have a passion, or three. There should be a hint of something under his skin. We sat there for a few hours, chatting and I found myself wondering, despite our pleasant conversation, if this is really where I want to be at 7:30 on a Thursday night. Can my life be reduced to a life of the mind augmented by hot chocolate? Is this who I am?
This is obviously about more than just this one date. It is a question I have been asking myself as I am approaching the end of my thesis. I will soon have to make a decision as to whether I want to continue on to a PhD and stay within the confines of the academy. As odd as this is to say aloud, my thesis has been my friend for the past two years and academia my home since I started my schooling. I'm good at it. I always have been. After all, I went to a university where the cultivation of life of the mind is the prime objective; where the t-shirts read "that's all good and fine in practice, but how does it work in theory?" and I thrived there. And yet, I have been feeling lately that I want to do something else; something more visceral and palpable. I want to cook in restaurant kitchen, to open doors to other worlds with food; to watch the eyes of a child light up as they find Middle Earth; I want to feel the slick velvet oil of a horse's hide through my fingers; to come home dirty and grimy and aching with sun and a hurt that reminds me of my body's existence. I want to earn my money by the sweat of my brow and not the grace of a university donor.
And yes, I know, joining the academic world does not negate the possibilities of any of these endeavors. And yes, I know it to be a truth about myself, that like the young man I went out with, I am happiest where I am comfortable; where I know the language, the code of behavior and I don't often venture outside the realm of the already known. But there is another part of me as well. It is the part of me that revels in new places; in taking an experience into myself and walking the world with it;. It is the part of me that wants to be in Paris in early morning light and mist; to learn to dance Flamenco like I saw in Madrid and to ride a rodeo in the shadow of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. It is the part of me in sitting in a bar, waiting for the "hey, baby, can I buy you a drink?"
So whoever you are, I want you to come, walk this world with me.

Thesis Watch: Still at page 68

Book Rec: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

Sounds of silence

2009-02-19T20:00:00.000+02:00

Last June I decided to move out of the apartment I had been living in for the past four years. I was determined to live alone. I was coming off of a horrific roommate experience-one that kept me shaking with fury most days- and I wanted nothing more than my own space, my own sunlight across a tiled floor, my own silence. Instead, come August, I found myself in a new apartment living with my sister.
My younger sister and I shared a room for most of our lives, so sharing an apartment just seemed like a continuation of the way things had always been. Of course, we both threw minor fits in the weeks before we moved in, culminating in my sister reconsidering her decision about a week before the moving trucks arrived. We created elaborate rules, hoping to maintain a sense of independence and a life separate from one another. Within a week the rules and the fear induced hissy fits disappeared. After a string of roommates whose lifestyles needed to be accommodated and learned, there is nothing quite like living with a sister. We settled into a comfortable pattern of domesticity- I cook, she washes. She mops, I sweep. I stumble into her room at 6:30 (if I'm lucky) a.m. to feed the cat and then stumble back into bed, she wakes an hour later and makes coffee while I sleep. Some nights we sit and talk. Some nights, when we both come home late and grumpy, we retreat with our computers to our respective rooms and shout inconsequential greetings at each other from across the hallway.
There are drawbacks to this sort of living situation, the foremost one being that when my sister is gone I miss her. She went to the states last week for a friend's wedding and left me with the apartment to myself for a week and a half. When I was living with said horrific roommate I used to treasure my solitude and independence. Cooking for myself was one of the most satisfactory things I could do. I like to think that those are things that I still treasure. My sister left last Wednesday night. By Thursday the silence felt oppressive and the prospect of cooking dinner almost brought me to tears. The joy in sharing a good meal, in feeding someone, is exponential to that of eating alone. And yet, somehow, on Saturday night when my plans to go out with a friend fell through I was glad. I didn't miss my sister any less, but I liked the silence more. I felt that I needed it to brace me for the week ahead. (and what a doozy of a week it has been). I still would rather share my food, but I also have forced myself to rediscover the joy of cooking for oneself. I was glad on Tuesday, when my good friend who is visiting from the states arrived to stay for a few days. I am also glad for these few minutes when she is off seeing relatives and I have this small calm in which to write. It's a balance, I guess, finding those things you wish to share and those you wish to keep to yourself. I'll find it. Maybe the key is having someone who will make you coffee in the morning but understand when you need to drink it alone.

Two random things I will never understand:
1) Why the old Russian ladies wear makeup in the pool.
2) Why the food at haredi weddings must inherently be cold and crappy.

Also, I miss my sister.

Book Rec: Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

Thesis Watch: Page 68.

Devil in the White City

2009-01-12T20:21:00.018+02:00

I find that there is a certain intimacy in shared favorite books that is unlike any other sort of closeness. It is a sort of delight and thrill in knowing that there is a part of yourself that you need not explain to the person beside you. Some of my dearest friendships have begun with the discovery these new acquaintances of mine spent their youth devouring "The Chronicles of Prydian", or "Johnny Tremain" just as I did. Now, we have graduated to trading P.D. James, Marilynne Robinson, and Richard Russo with one another, but it is still the same concept. No matter how our lives differ the knowledge that we share an inner world; that our emotional pitch resonates at the same frequency always bonds us.
I arrived home last Thursday night and stood for a few minutes in my front hallway,feeling the need to reacquaint myself with my own apartment. I was returning from Tel Aviv where I had had a decidedly odd experience.When I started out earlier that afternoon I had expected to wander about Bogroshof street for a while, perusing the shops, stopping by the sea and eventually meeting up with my cousin Jason and his friend Josh. What I found instead was Josh, Jason and 20 year old one night stand. Honestly, I had no idea what to do. How does one relate? Is there an accepted etiquette for this sort of situation? If there is, I have no clue what it is. Now I don't begrudge Jason his fun on his vacation and I did end up having a good time, but this situation certainly upped the ante for the "most awkward evening ever" award, especially considering the fact that at some point in the evening I found myself at said one night stand's apartment, sitting on the couch, watching Miss Congeniality.
However, at some point during our wanderings in some strange social dimension I found myself deep in conversation with Josh. We began talking about books, and, as we sat in a bar in Florentine, of languages and a love of knowledge. It occurred to me that it had been a while since I felt this engaged. The bar was crowded, noisy and hot. We were talking Syriac and the early gospels, with the firm knowledge that both of us like Empire Falls and Michael Chabon. What could be better? I left the white city feeling just a little bummed that Josh a) doesn't live in Israel, b) isn't religious and most crucially c) has a girlfriend; and more importantly, feeling more corporeal than I had when I arrived in the city- as if a part of me had found itself once again and taken form.
For the past while I have been feeling slightly dissatisfied with my life as a single woman in the Jerusalem religious community. I have long stopped going to synagogue on Shabbat partially because I need the quiet and partially because I always get the feeling standing amidst the throngs of people that to them I ought to be something that I'm not. I am entirely unsure of what I'm meant to be, but whatever it is, I'm not it. I am perpetually on the periphery- that girl at the who somehow ends up in the corner juggling her drink and plate and is always wearing the wrong thing. In some sense I take refuge in being that person- it's a safe person to be- but there is also a sense in which I feel that I am not engaged; that despite the very palpable common ground that I have with many of the people I interact with in a social religious context, there are not very many of them with whom to discuss books and knowledge.
This is not to say that I have lost my faith- not at all. It is simply that my religiosity is private. A while ago I was at a Friday night dinner where the conversation somehow turned to prayer and how one should react when their prayers are not answered. There was a sharpness to my realization that despite the fact that I, like all the guests at the meal was a young educated religious woman, I didn't feel like I belonged at that table at all; that there was not one person there who I felt I could really talk to. I pray every day, but I do not ask for anything. In fact, I don't think. The liturgy is in my blood, why would I need to think? But even if I did ask for things in my prayers, I would never talk about it. My dialog with with God is sacred and mine alone. As the girls around me talked I felt so completely apart and so completely out of my element- much like I did last Thursday night sitting on the couch in a strange apartment watching Miss Congeniality.
And yet, I don't belong in a bar in Florentine either. As comfortable as I felt talking with Josh, there was still so much I couldn't- and didn't -want to explain to him- my religious life being just one of them. And as cozy and welcoming as that neighborhood bar was, I know it's not my place. I'm not sure where my place is. Sometimes I feel that my life is increasingly being marked by all the things I cannot explain and all the places I don't precisely belong.
It's not so bad, I suppose. There's always the sea, the sky and the prayer of man.

Book Rec: Straight Man, Richard Russo

Thesis Watch: 50 pages and Islamic sources.

A Poem

2008-12-31T00:07:00.003+02:00

Should be a knife
performing an autopsy on
a still beating heart

Words should have an angle;
a purpose of placement-
the footfall of a cat,
sidling off to die;

A woman seen through a window
on a night bright with snow.

My cat has been ill on and off for the past month. First, it was pneumonia and ten days of antibiotic and now the vet says she has asthmatic allergies. I'm not so sure about that one. He gave her a cortisone shot yesterday, but today she seems worse and generally miserable. I don't know if I can stand taking her to the vet again. It feels like the trauma does more harm than help.

Also, there's a war.

Book Rec: The Private Patient, P.D. James

Thesis Watch: 45 pages

It's my party

2008-12-18T20:49:00.002+02:00

Today is my birthday. It has been, for the most part, a wonderful birthday. I got many well wishes from many friends and relatives (thank you, facebook) and some unexpected thoughtful gifts. (Hey, look Ma, I can tell time.) I also got my haircut. These are all good things. But I can't shake this feeling of ennui.
I always go slightly haywire around my birthday. I believe this is in part because it just feels premature. I simply cannot be 28. I haven't done enough, experienced enough, loved enough. A person at my age should be more than I am. The world's pace is not my own. My birthday is in December, but I was meant to be born in April. I am still in my incubator, waiting to be able to breathe on my own.
Which brings me to the other aspect of my birthday that is difficult. My birth was a miracle by all accounts and I'm often regaled with tales of my shear stubborn will to live. I evidently learned to crawl with my head on the floor since I wasn't strong enough to hold my head up-but I damn well had places to be, so I went. But my birth was also a trauma for myself and my mother who almost died giving birth to me. We talk about that less. And if it is true that I learned to crawl with my head on the floor, it is also true that I pulled my respirator tube out numerous times. Maybe it was not my will to live that was so strong but rather my will to not be helpless. And perhaps my birthday reminds me that I am helpless- that I came into this world too early, too small and without any weapons to fend off the blitz on my senses that life must have seemed. So if I freak out around this time of year- if I pull out my respirator tube so to speak- isn't that to be expected?
In truth, it was a lovely birthday. I am surrounded by people who love me with an exceeding love and for this I feel extremely and inordinately blessed. It's gonna be a good year. Come hell or high water, it'll be good.

Thesis Watch: pg. 41

Book Rec: Tiki Tiki Tembo- a birthday tradition

take our stand down in jungleland

2008-12-06T21:03:00.005+02:00

My landlords have decided to sell our apartment.
I've been trying to come to terms with this latest development, but it's hard. We just moved in 4 months ago and while we most likely will be able to live out our contract, I find that you live differently knowing you're leaving. Why plant those herbs? Why hang those paintings? Why make this place home?
My sense of home is a very important part of my sense of self. The geography of my inner-life often mirrors the geography of the places I have lived. I have strong need for solitude and quiet- a need to allow those places to seep into my bones. If I have any serenity in me it comes from those quiet shabbat afternoons when I am left alone in my apartment with only myself and the cat and some reading material. I do not know where this need comes from, but it is something innate in me. I do not do well without it.
So needless to say I was slightly peeved when last Friday a gaggle of prospective buyers invaded my apartment and gave themselves a small tour. They emerged from the bathroom victorious, crying "we found a wall we can knock down!". I'd like to knock down some their walls. I tell myself that I am not going to let this touch me. I tell myself that I am going to write more, cook more, work more and swim harder; that I'm going to live more. But all I really want to do is stick a frozen tivol in the microwave and curl up in bed with my computer to watch a Paul Rudd retrospective on the Daily Show. (After all, Paul Rudd is a) hot and b) hysterical. What more could one ask for, really?). Being angry often times just makes me want to give up and lay down my arms.
My great-grandmother used to say, אז מען געבט נעמט מען, אז מען שלאגט לויפט מען, which in Yiddish means, "as they give, take. As they hit, run". I suppose this is good advice if you want to survive as a Jew in Eastern Europe, or in the world in general. Take what you've got and don't fight a battle you can't win. But sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes you want to be Bruce Springsteen. Sometimes you want to be Odetta Holmes. Sometimes you just want to take a stand.

Music Rec: Jungleland, Bruce Springsteen

Thesis watch. 33 pages.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T21:32:00.000+02:00

This Thanksgiving-
My sister had either the stomach flu or food poisoning. Either way it wasn't pretty.
I ran out of stove gas in the middle of cooking.
I roasted an 11 pound turkey named Gillian.
We ate.
We drank.
We were thankful.
There was turkey and stuffing and pumpkin bread and sweet potato casserole and sweet potato rolls and green beans and salad and cranberry sauce and pecan pie. But alas, we couldn't find any football on the internet.
All in all, not bad. Well, I could have done without the vomit.

Book rec: The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuinn

Thesis watch: 27 pages, and writer's block

In the fall of a sparrow

2008-11-14T11:30:00.002+02:00

Two versions- can't decide which one is better.

1. We bury our little loves
wrapped in paper
tissue shrouds
in a wet winter ground
and wait for
a more benevolent spring.

or,

2. Wrapped in paper tissue
shrouds we
bury our little loves
in a wet winter ground
and wait for a more benevolent
spring.

Another Dissapointment

2008-11-14T00:20:00.002+02:00

Zoom Zoom the gerbil has passed on.
It looks like the Cubs are letting Kerry Wood go to free agency.
I had the stomach flu this week.

All in all, not the best week ever.

Thesis Watch: today Word decided to only write in CAPITAL LETTERS no matter what I did to the Caps Lock key. Not a good writing day.

Book Rec: Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Comfort book.

Cubbie Watch: Now that was just stupid.

Keep on Rocking in the Free World

2008-11-05T19:24:00.008+02:00

I don't know what to do with this abundance of hope.
Barack Obama is a man I know. He lives in the city where I grew up. He taught at the university I attended and think of as my intellectual home. He voted in a public school that my mother consults to. I have been in the hospital his wife administered. His chief of staff is the son of a pediatrician who stuck swabs down my throat. I know this man and yet I cannot fathom this. How is it that he has inspired so many? How is it that he mobilized thousands of people to take part in the democratic process that they had been so estranged from? I don't understand this, but I hope.
I do not belong to the cult of Obama. I don't believe he is the messiah or the harbinger of a Utopian world. He is a man and a politician. His administration will be riddled with compromises and disappointments. He will fail as often as he succeeds. I also know that part of his success in this election is a matter of timing. The looming economic crisis and the sense of disillusionment with the Bush administration had a lot to do with his victory. But I can't shake the hope. I can't shake the feeling that this man has vision-and vision, to be clear, is not an ideology. It does not claim to know how the world ought to be, it is an idea of how the world might be. That is an important distinction. I believe Obama knows this. Of course, I'm taking that on faith. But when it comes down to it, most things are.
I've been traveling back and forth between the United States and Israel for five years now. Over the past few years I've noticed a marked difference in the atmosphere at the airport as I went through passport control. During the first years I traveled I would be greeted with a smile and "welcome home", which I always returned in kind because Chicago is home, no matter where I live. But over time the smiles faded and I heard phrases like the "Patriot Act" and "security" more often. I saw more guns than I was used to in an American airport. There was a feeling of nervous intensity; of fear. This spring when I went through Passport Control I was stopped because my passport picture no longer resembles me. It was taken 10 years ago, after all. But no matter how many pieces of identification I pulled out I could not convince the woman in the booth that I was who I claimed I was. Now, I suppose that's a legitimate reason for stopping someone, but to be honest, I don't much look like a terrorist and all my forms of ID were utterly consistent. I realized that fear had trumped common sense. This was not the America I had left behind. In this America there was distrust and "us versus them" and a low simmering panic. In this America, Homeland Security agents could burst into the home of my Israeli cousin, whose visa had run out in a bureaucratic glitch and arrest him in front of his wife and kids. He too, is not a terrorist. I do not know if people living in the states felt these changes as sharply as I did, but in coming and going, I felt them and didn't recognize them.
Growing up, I lived on a fairly multi-cultural block. There were a few Orthodox Jewish families, and a few non-affiliated ones as well. There was a Phillipino family and two Muslim Indian families and the Weisses who are Catholic, and have lived there longer than anyone else. The adults were neighborly and we kids all played together. We rode our bikes and fought block wars with the kids who lived around the corner. We traded words in Hebrew in Arabic, "baba", and "abba" and the shared cultural experience of not putting up a Christmas tree in December; of being a minority in America. During high school I attended a city-sponsored program for the arts. I learned how to write with teen-agers from all over the city, from every socio-economic background. On the first day in the program I found myself sitting next to a Palestinian boy. I wrote about the Holocaust. He wrote about the Palestine of his parents. We weren't close friends, but I don't believe we bore each other any ill will. I know that if anything, I felt a vague affection for him. I hope he felt the same for me.
I do not mean to imply that my experience of America was all rainbows and ideals and the American dream. I was aware of racism. I was aware of hate and poverty. I experienced those things, and I believe that they still exist. But we did not fear-not each other and not the world around us. With Obama's election comes the feeling that America is finally rousing itself from the specter of fear; that it is coming to understand that fear is a hollow and transient thing. It cannot sustain itself. It must be bred. It seems that America is learning to value the power of shared experience. That it too, is a potent weapon.
And maybe that is the draw and charm of Barack Obama. He comes from everywhere and nowhere and so we all see a bit of ourselves in him. For me, beyond the feeling of an intellectual kinship, it is the way in which he speaks to a reality I knew; an America I knew. I am sure that for other people it is different and for many other people, perhaps, his figure does not resonate at all. I do not know that he will be a great president. I hope he will be a good one. I hope he will live up to his promise. I hope that America will live up to the promise of this moment. It will make it easier to come home to.

In other, completely unrelated and insignificant news, last Saturday night my sister, my friend and I went to go hear the great Geva Alon play in honor of my friend's birthday. (Happy birthday, M.) I had heard him play about a year ago with his backup band and was duly impressed. This time however, it was just him and his beat-up guitar (and a harmonica. We mustn't forget the harmonica). I never knew that just a man and one stringed instrument could make so much music. He makes his acoustic guitar sound like an electric one. Seriously, there are no words for how awesome he is. The man is nowhere near as famous as he ought to be.
An added bonus was the kid who opened for Geva, dear, little Or Zubalsky (also known as Juviley). Listen to Geva and he'll blow your mind. Then listen to Or and he'll gently put it back together for you. Or's music is like a day on the shores of some secluded lake with nothing but a pile of books and a bottle of beer for company. Even at his angriest, when he's singing about another disappointment, or asking for patience, his music never loses any of that sweet, whimsical serenity. Go listen to them both-NOW.

Thesis Watch: Hey, I found the Book of the Himyarites

Music Rec 1: Geva Alon, Wall of Sound

Music Rec 2: Juviley, How to Miss the Ground

Prayer for a black cat

2008-10-30T16:54:00.003+02:00

If you are gone, may it have been an easy death.
If you are lost, may you find your way.
Come on home, black cat

Thesis Watch: Christian Syriac and Greek sources.

Book Rec: The Incredible Journey

A Wedding Gift

2008-10-23T20:11:00.003+02:00

In the months before your wedding i meet
your grandfather in the
place where my grandmother lost herself
and died.
He will not live to see the birth of
your first child.
Once,
we jumped off his boat into
murky lake waters-
i, a bird's nest of bones
and you,
your tangled hair behind you like a
beaver's dam.
We are much the same,
after all these years,
you and i.

You are my phantom sister
this unseen part of me;
the care and wit in me;
the light and dark of me.

This place is so much in my
blood-
it is the cattle chute;
the blue, unchanging house waiting
for my return-
that i do not recognize the loss
until i come back to a
winter rain that is not
mine-
the ache, dull and constant,
like a phantom limb.

In other news, my parents have come and gone. Still processing that.

Thesis watch: Outline pretty much done.

Book rec: Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

The boys of summer are gone

2008-10-05T07:54:00.013+02:00

The Cubs, once again, went 0-3 in the playoffs after winning their division. I sort of knew in my bones this was going to happen, but I didn't want to believe it. I've always thought that being a Cubs' fan is like being a Jew- you're always waiting for a redemption that refuses to come. And yet you still believe, because Maimonides told you to; because it's in your blood.
This year felt tenuously right and I don't just mean in the over-hyped 100 years way. It somehow felt redemptive. I was at Wrigley in early April at a freezing night game. There was a lightness in the air, that I hadn't felt before; an exuberance that comes with confidence, though it was a close game, and still very early in the season. Kerry Wood took the mound in the 9th and the crowd rose, chanting his name with every pitch. I have followed Kerry Wood's career since he first started with the Cubs in 1998. When he was young, he reminded me of the hero of J.R. Tunis's great baseball book, "The Kid from Tomkinsville", if only because both of them were young and could throw a deadly fastball. And when he was older, well, everyone knows the story of his freakish stints on the DL. But I had faith in him. In Tunis's book the Kid, the star pitcher and the hope of the Brooklyn Dodgers, injures his elbow coming out of the shower. His pitching career comes to an end in a way that does indeed bring the accident prone career of Kerry Wood to mind. But the Kid comes back, not as a pitcher, rather as an outfielder and helps his team to a championship. So even though last year, after nine frustrating seasons it looked like Kerry's career was done, I hoped that he would come back ala the Kid. And he did, not as an outfielder, but as an All-Star closer. When I saw him take the mound in April, it felt right. It felt like this year was the year. It wasn't just the new faces- the great Geovanny Soto, or the stellar starting pitching. It was the sense of redemption; of a team coming together to put to redeem all the failures of past years. And when the Cubs clinched the division a few weeks ago, it was Wood on the mound, thronged by his teammates. Tunis couldn't write it any better. Too bad life's not a book.
Didn't he deserve it? Didn't we deserve it?
For the past two days I've thought that maybe this time the scar runs too deep. Maybe this team is irredeemable. Nobody, not Lou Pinnela, or Carlos Zambrano, or Lee, Soriano, and Fukodome nor Aramis Ramirez and a Dempster-Wood switch, could save these Cubs. There is no messiah. Maybe there is too much betrayal and bitterness in this failure. It could be that it's time to fold up and turn my back on the Cubs. But I know that come March the rains will taper here in Jerusalem and the ground back in Chicago will still be hard and tinged with frost, but there will be something in the air, and I'll start to think about Passover and Chicago and of Wrigley. I'll cock my ear to the general murmurings of the baseball world.
Who knows what next year will bring? The team will certainly look different, with a new owner and probably some beloved faces gone. It may very well be that Wrigley will be silent and somber and wary of disillusionment; that this team will lose itself under the weight of these past two years and fall back into petty mediocrity. Or, alternatively, we, both fans and players, will get caught up in the days and the rhythms of baseball; in the standings and the pitch count; in the satisfying smack of a ball hitting a glove; in the beauty of a well turned double play; in the wind blowing off the lake and thin thread of hope will rise. Maybe we will become so used to being good, that we will be great. Who knows?
I started this blog well into the season with a Cubbie Watch. Looking back on the little comments I made, I realize how wary I was; how every little slide gave me reason to panic. I guess I knew that these Cubbies would manage to break my heart. They always do. Next year I will probably be even more wary. After all, baseball isn't so important. It isn't going to fix the economy, or save Darfur. But going back to my opening paragraph, there is a sort of spirituality in baseball; a sense of hallowed ground and unity of spirit; a belief in a world that can change for the better. Those things are important. My Cubbie watch is done. Until next year.

Book Rec: J. R. Tunis, "The Kid from Tomkinsville"

Thesis Watch: 16 pages, and a meeting with my adviser. He wants to publish. Scary yay.

It's gonna be a long walk home (Hey, pretty darling, don't wait up for me)

2008-09-23T20:59:00.001+03:00

They built a bridge in Jerusalem, which is slightly imprudent considering the fact that Jerusalem is a city situated in the middle of the desert. But they built it anyway. It is white and monumental, and it dwarfs its squat surroundings. Most people, when asked about it, will say that they hate it, or in the very least are actively indifferent to it. I love it. Yes, it is incongruent, and yes, the light rail system it is ostensibly part of won't be completed until 2011 and has done nothing but make navigating the city by any means of transportation near impossible, but this bridge, tall and elegant, with a central mast and clean lines, gives the perception of fluidity and paradoxically, of a fixed skyline. It draws your eyes upward. Cities should do that.
I grew up in Chicago, a city that historically has been a mecca for architects. A skyline rife with skyscrapers pulls your eyes up and out- towards the sky and the lake. It gives a sense of liberation; a thrill of power; an unfettered joy. Anybody who has driven north down Lake Shore Drive with the windows open and Led Zeppelin on the radio will know what I mean. Come around that bend at 35th street and let the city greet you, ever changing and constant.
Jerusalem is jagged-edged and labyrinth like. It sinks down into itself-it grows downward rather than up. It is rife, not with skyscrapers, but with ghosts and tension. Sometimes it feels like a city that is slowly choking itself on an excess of religious sentiment. But there are moments of grace here too, usually at dawn or dusk, in soft light. There are old Arab houses shielded by a deep green- fruit trees and climbing bougainvillea, rumors of the orchards they once were. There are courtyards and children, and quiet places that you can find if you know where to look. And at night, in my old apartment, I was sometimes woken by the sound of muezzin calling the faithful to prayer and then again by bells of the Byzantine monastery in the Valley of the Cross and then yet again by the voices of a couple or just some kids chattering in Hebrew among the young, growing things in the garden below. I didn't sleep that well, but that's ok.
A few weeks ago my sister and I celebrated 5 years of being Israeli citizens. Since then I have been trying to worry out how I feel about this anniversary. I miss Chicago often. And usually at this time of year I would be there visiting my family and friends. By now I would have done my typical Chicago things- I would have dropped my suitcases (had they arrived with me, which they usually don't) at my parents' house and ran out to the public library with my oldest friend to stock up on all the books I had wanted to read over the course of the year. They don't do public libraries around here. I would have driven down to the University of Chicago to use their stellar academic library; to breathe in old books as I walked through the stacks; to see the ivy turning red like I did when I was an undergrad. I would have given my nieces a bath. I would have watched the first Bears game of the season with my brother. I would have taken the Red Line down town and stood among a mass of humanity on Randolph and State near Gallery 37, where I learned how to write.; seen a play; heard some music and bad open-mic. I would stood in a late summer rain. I would have slept in my childhood bed with my grumpy old man of a cat at my feet. But I'm not there and it doesn't rain here- not until October.
So why am I in Jerusalem? Sometimes I ask myself the same question. This is what I have here: I have those moments of grace. I have a new apartment which I share with my little sister, with wooden floorboards in my bedroom and a pantry in the kitchen. I have a mural that I painted with a rediscovered friend. I have a job, which I sometimes like. I have a thesis that is more than a small part of myself. I have a new foundling cat, who I am trying to learn to love as much as I do my grumpy old man. I have little cousins who run to the door when I arrive at their house (when they're not too busy watching tv) and an uncle and aunt who appreciate me for the adult I am becoming. I have friends- many friends with whom I have laughed and learned and sat in restaurants too expensive for us, eating churros and drinking beer on new years day. I have a cohesive sense of religious self and a dynamic sense of inner self. Some days I ache for the lakeshore. Some days I think that I ought to move to Haifa. But until that time I have these things and a bridge reminding me to look up.

Cubbie Watch: Can you say, we clinched the division? Why, yes. Yes, I can.

Music Rec: Magic by Bruce Springsteen

Thesis Watch: 13 pages

Dubious

2008-09-07T16:27:00.004+03:00

About the Bears this season.

*Holds on to Devin Hester*

I amend this statement. Bears 29, Colts 13. A happy surprise.

*Holds on to Matt Forte*

Thesis watch: Evidently my desk is too cluttered for me to be writing a thesis. Or at least that's what Joseph has to say.

Book rec: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Cubbie watch: Still holding my breath. Getting hard to breath

C is for cookie

2008-09-04T22:27:00.002+03:00

Today, Y informed me that I look prettier without my glasses. Duly noted. Thanks for the beauty tip, babe.
Apropos of beauty, I had the funniest "conversation" with M, Y's mother, in an attempt to help her with the instructions with her hair dye kit. What started in broken Arabic soon devolved into mime and then further into laughter. That's my favorite part-the laughter.

Also, I baked cookies today. Oh oven, you make me so happy.

Thesis watch: Enough with the pressure already!

Book rec: I'm re-reading Daphne DuMaurier's Jamaica Inn and so should you.

Cubbie Watch: Oh, God. Oh, God.

מלאכי ציפורים מעליך מלווים את צעדיך

2008-09-03T18:42:00.004+03:00

Hey, look. We painted a mural.

Here's to heroic action.

Come back and visit soon.

Music Rec: Ehud Banai, השביל הזה

Book Rec: The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander (For old-times' sake)

Cubbie Watch: Ugh.

Some of my favorite stories begin...

2008-08-31T15:13:00.003+03:00

My sister moved in to our new apartment today. I've been living alone (well, with the cat and gerbil, so I'll amend "alone" to "without human company") for the past month. Now I have a dining room table and chairs, a washing machine, a wonderfully stupendous oven in which I will bake delicious treats like biscotti without them being burnt by a crap heating element, and a sister who is also my roommate.
Some of my favorite stories begin, "One time my sister and I...". Like that time when she got stuck in the doors of the train in Madrid. Now, that's a good story.

Thesis watch: Working on it

Book Rec: Are you my boyfriend? (But the big thing just said 'snort')

Cubbie Watch: 5.5 games up

In Which I become a Fangirl (Or, an Open Letter to Ian Crocker)

2008-08-28T23:55:00.009+03:00

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know much about the sport of swimming. Oh, I know how to swim, and I do swim often- but only for recreational purposes. My appreciation of competitive swimming could pretty much be summed up as- "Oh, hey. Look at all the pretty going fast." But this August, like much of the rest of the world, I got caught up in Phelpsmania (את חטאתי אני מזכירה היום) and in doing so I found Ian Crocker's blog.
Ian Crocker, my friends, is fast . He holds the world record in the 100 meter butterfly at 50.40 seconds, which is faster than I can put on my shoes in the morning (also I have never learned the butterfly). He can also write. In fact, he writes very, very well. Reading his blog, I was torn between intense jealousy (He can swim! He can write! He plays the guitar!) and immense admiration (He can swim! He can write! He can play the guitar! He loves his car! Made entirely of win). Sometimes his posts are just very good. He writes with wit and sincerity about music, his car and truck, his cats and food. He's fun to read. But sometimes his essays absolutely resonate.
One of his more moving posts is about scars. He writes about small scars- the time he sliced his hand open while tinkering with his beloved car and having to call his newly ex-girlfriend to come help him out. It's a sweet story and you can't help identifying with his open, slightly self-depreciating tone. I've certainly got scars like that-the ones on my hands, because though I'm a good cook, I'm an absolute klutz with a knife; that guy who won't call (jerk). You know, little scars. And then, suddenly, his essay becomes something else entirely. It becomes about a moment- a single, irrevocable moment in time; the type of moment that's personality forming. (And yeah, I got me some scars like that as well.) But the tone of the piece never falters. It remains open, self-reflective and humble. He doesn't wallow in self-pity, or anger. He never closes down on his reader. That takes a lot of guts.
After I read that post I felt like I needed a good cry, or in the very least, a good hug. But nobody was around so I settled for some quality bonding time with the cat. (Mr. Crocker, Annie thanks you.) I enjoy reading blogs. It's a feeling akin to catching glimpses of people's houses through the windows of a fast moving train- it's amusing, enlightening and sometimes perplexing (Why, in the name of all that is holy would anybody furnish their apartment like that? Really. Really.) But it is rare that a blogger makes me feel like I would like to stop and admire their living space, so to speak.
So, dear readers ,(I have readers?) go and check out Ian Crocker's blog at swimroom.com. Send him some love. He hasn't updated in months, but it's worth reading his older posts. And to Mr. Crocker -at the risk of sounding presumptuous, condescending and generally fangirlish (none of which is intended)- I say this: Swim. Swim for as long as it serves a purpose in your life and for as long as it keeps you happy. Break a few more world records, if you so desire. I'll watch. But please, please, write. I don't much care about what- you have talent and sincerity and an interest in the small details of life- all of which contribute to the makings of a good writer. I sincerely hope to walk into a bookstore at some point in the future and find a book with your name on it and be highly happy.

Thesis Watch: 10 pages

Book rec: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Cubbie Watch: a tenuous 4 games up

At Beth Shearim

2008-08-27T16:45:00.004+03:00

The sea is not the lake.

It does not have

the same element of surprise.

It is not reminded,

Every winter,

Of its own birth-

The slow moving glacier

Trawling down the frozen earth,

Sinking on haunches

to leave

A striated city in its wake.

The sea has always been there.

There are no ghosts at

Beth Shearim.

Only live laughter and

Two dogs, silent spirits,

Loping over a wide swathe of grass.

In these caverns of the dead,

there are no remains

Only faded words

Indecipherable and unspeaking, away and

Away

From God’s own sky.

Here is my beginning and

your end.

What brings you, lord of Himyar,

So far from your scorching sun

And pitiless gods to

this mound of grass?

And Dhu Nwas,

Upon seeing all was lost,

turned towards the shore

and rode his horse into the sea.

I like this poem, but there are certain elements I'm not sure about.

1) Is it too obscure? The references are familiar to me, but I'm aware that they are not familiar to the reader. Does this make the poem too incomprehensible to have any emotional weight?

2) The first paragraph- I'm concerned that there is too much motion for an image that is supposed to be very staid and slow.

3) The second paragraph- the phrase "the halls of the dead" seems too cliche.

4) The third paragraph- Again we're back to obscurity.

What do y'all think?

Thesis Watch: 9 pages

Book rec: al-Tabari's History

Cubbie Watch: Settle down there, Zambrano

In Which I am Dead Serious

2008-08-24T23:26:00.005+03:00

I made a promise I intend to keep.
B is a refugee from Southern Sudan. He and his family arrived in Israel in late July of 2007 along with thousands of other African refugees who slipped through the Egyptian border with the help of Bedouin trackers. Unlike many of the other refugees, B was not jailed. He was boarded onto a bus, along with about 6 other refugee families and dumped on the grounds of the Rose Garden adjacent to the Knesset- the home of Israel's parliament- in Jerusalem. It is there that I met him.
To be fair, I will say that I met B's daughter, Y, before I met him. When I arrived at the Rose Garden, laden with clothing and food, (none of which was actually needed), the refugees were huddled in distinct groups, talking in Arabic and looking slightly bewildered by the mass of disorganized volunteers that had come to help. Y was standing amidst a group of men, dressed in a bright pink faux leather winter coat, clutching her father's arm. I waved at her, figuring that if nobody would direct me as to how I could be helpful, I might as well play with the children. She smiled and buried her face in her father's body. I was entranced by her smile and by her incongruent coat which she wore so proudly in the summer heat. I would follow her anywhere and I did.
B's family, through the kindness of various Jewish Believers (Jews who believe in Jesus), found a home first in one suburb of Jerusalem and then in another. They've been living in relative peace now for almost a year. B and his wife, M, both work menial jobs in the community where they reside and Y has started Israeli kindergarten. Her Hebrew is almost fluent. The other two kids, J and A stay at home. At the beginning, I would visit them at least once a week, now a days I'm lucky if I get there once a month. I miss them. The visits I pay them are sometimes for my own benefit as well as theirs. Sometimes I just need to get out of the city; out of my life and play with some kids for a while.
I told B that I would write down his story if he told it to me. This is more complicated than it seems. His English is manageable, but not entirely coherent, and my spoken Arabic is almost non-existent. This is what I know: B was born in Southern Sudan to father who was wealthy and involved in the separatist government during the Civil War. He was a pagan and had two wives. B is one his youngest children. During the war, all his property was destroyed and he and four of his sons escaped into Ethiopia. Of those four sons, one made it to the United States, two may have made it back to Sudan and one was killed. B's father himself returned to Sudan, but was killed along with B's mother soon afterwards. As for B, at some point he left his village for Khartoum, where he was educated. I don't know the extent of his education. At some point he told me that he worked during the day and learned at night, which seemed to imply that he has some sort of higher education. However, he has also told me that he was unable to attend university because he was avoiding a mandatory draft, which would have meant sure death.
It was the draft that compelled B and his new wife, M to Egypt. B had converted to Christianity along with his brothers, and the combination of being both a Christian and from Southern Sudan, meant that he would almost certainly be killed. Most of his classmates were killed in exactly those circumstances. At first, the army sent him letters, then it threatened him with jail, and then with death. With the help of the English missionaries who ran the school he worked in, B changed his name and fled to Egypt. He reached Egypt via boat, which he was able to board only by the kindness of a fellow Southern Sudanese policeman who didn't challenge his assumed name.
B stayed in Egypt for five years. At first it went well for him and his family. He had two more children (Y was born in Sudan) and he and M had opened up a restaurant. But soon the mood changed and the Sudanese in Egypt were being attacked and told they should leave. Then there were the notorious shootings in front of the Sudanese embassy. B knew he couldn't stay in Egypt. He payed some Bedouin friends of his to smuggle him and his family over the boarder into Israel. I don't know how he knew that Israel would give him save haven. Maybe he just knew to go north. In any case, he has told me numerous times that he had always dreamed to see his holy land and now he has. He also dreams of going back to a peaceful Sudan to fix his broken country. I am not sure that dream will come to pass.
************************************************************************************
Y is prone to asking the oddest theological questions. One day she asks me whether Jesus has a body or not. I want to tell her that wars have been fought over that very question, but I don't even know how to explain to her that I am a Jew and that Jesus is not exactly my area of expertise let alone discuss complicated spiritual matters. I assure her that God loves her (no matter His form) and tell her to ask her father.
One Thursday before Passover we are swinging in the little playground next to her house and she says: "Adam and Eve ate from the tree and then the Egyptians were evil, right?" I pause for a second, but then answer in assent. After all, that's as good an explanation for presence of evil in the world as any I've got. Later, we sit in the trailer and sing the Passover songs that she learned in kindergarten, while her mother looks on, amused, but not understanding a word. I do not realize how moved I am until I am waiting for the bus back to Jerusalem on a lonely stretch of road. Here I am, in Israel, singing songs that generations of Jews have sung, with a little Christian girl who indeed came up from Egypt. Maybe she has just as much right to the song as I do. Sometimes the world is a good place to be.
The next time I see B, I am going to urge him to try and get a visa to the United States. His brother now has U.S. citizenship. This might make things easier. and he might be safer there. I want to say that B and his family will be able to stay in Israel and live in security. I can't say that. There is a distinct possibility that the state will deport the thousands of African refugees that have illegally entered its boarders. It will claim that it is doing so for the safety and security of its citizens and not many people will gainsay the state's right to do so. The politics of these sort of things are always complicated. Except, sometimes they're not. Sometimes, there's a right thing to do and there's a wrong thing to do. Now is one of those times.

Thesis Watch: No Comment

Book Rec: What is the What, by Dave Eggers

Cubbie Watch: 4.5 games up.

Farewell to Hudson

2008-08-22T12:00:00.000+03:00

I sold Hudson last night. Hudson is my sleek teal monster of an iMac, who has traveled with me half-way across the world and resided with me in 4 apartments. He is also ancient. I bought him used in 2003- a lifetime ago for a computer. He still works fine and I am still very fond of him, but for the past two years I have been forced, due to my work and the fact that Israelis seem to have no idea what to do with a Mac ("What's a Mac?" is a common refrain), I have been using Ba'ab, who is a laptop and not a Mac and therefore inherently inferior. So Hudson sat there on my desk, sadly neglected, and I decided that the time had come to pass him on to someone who would love him and use him.
I started him up one last time, reveling in his familiar chime and hum. I opened all the documents I had left on the hard drive. I found forgotten papers, bad poetry, general drivel and a cache of letters I had written over the course of a year to one of my oldest, dearest friends who was in the army at that time. Re-reading the letters, I was struck by my intense fear of losing him and my desperate attempts to connect with him. I suppose I loved him. He never wrote back, though he called often, leaving messages on my answering machine at odd hours of the night. I was also struck by how nice it is to have some reminder of my own life outside of the academic exercise that was college. I wrote to him about the concerts I attended, my roommates, the kids I taught; about life. It's important to remember those things as well.
I saved the papers, and the poetry (which is actually growing on me) and the drivel. I erased the letters. Said friend is married now and has moved to his wife's hometown. He is once again across the ocean and not prone to writing back. I miss him, though I am no longer so afraid, nor so desperate. I don't miss that part of me.
I sold Hudson and I started a blog. I'd like to have some record of myself and the odd commentary on my life that floats through my head as I stumble about. I'll probably post all manner of things-drivel, poetry and general going-ons. I don't know how often I will post, or how long this experiment will last, but it will do for now.
Farewell, Hudson. I hope the nice grandmother who bought you really will love you and treat you well and use you to communicate with her grandchildren who are far away and far more technologically savvy than her. I'll miss your Macness, your teal sleekness, and calming electrical hum. The time has come, the walrus said...

Thesis watch: 8 pages

Book rec: The collected works of W.B. Yeats

Cubbie watch: 5.5 games up.