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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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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