cutting great neck

so these past couple of weeks, i've been having a bunch of downcast days. reflective days. days in which i felt lonely and unknown and tired and trivial, days in which i attempted to grasp onto bigger, firmer objects (like politics, and food, and sleep.) i feel so useless, i feel like i'm living a desultory life with no meaning, and i fear that i will never step out of this vision of myself.

these emotions all jumpstarted a few weeks ago, influenced by several factors:

my cousins leaving. how much happiness in packed house had been eliminated since that day. i miss them so much. the first handful of days, i woke up in destitute expectation, only to realize that the house was empty. such utter disappointment, day after day, poured down on us with raindrops of complete misery. the babies--i miss their cries. i fear that i might never see them grow up. the most empty space in the house is my grandmother's room. she has lived with us in this house since august, and her disappearance was so upsetting and unappreciated. i felt like dying. she went on the plane with them, and i feel like she's hurt too, without us, but after fully existing with her support and affection since we moved into the house i felt exhausted and unfulfilled.

when they were here, the house was crammed with remants from israel, memories and whispers, reminders, about the county i left five years ago. about the house. about the persons, about the dark nights, about jerusalem and about the olive tree, and the garden, and rodika our old au pair. and their language--hebrew, such a beautiful, hard language.

the music. i've been slowly attaching myself to the israeli music. one particular song significantly touches me-- hakayitz haacharon--the last summer. i don't know why, but it completely transformed me and i have to listen to it seven times a day, and it's such a close and personal and soulful and soft and subtle song, yet so harrowing. they bring about bouts of nostalgia which i never thought possible.

also, our move to great neck has electrified me. i've never really thought about how i might be the most movable person in the world--9 schools in 10 years of studies--and it's so determining and selfish of me to think about it, and sometimes i look outside into our green, eastern, foreign backyard and i don't remember ever moving to here, and feeling like i stayed in san diego. and then i have a feeling like i never left israel. and this whole move had led me to challenge my views, and had caused me to consider my existence and my character ... like--there are so many persons, individuals i've connected to over the years, and after this move would i ever see them again? talk to them again? would they be my friends? are my links with these ghosts of the past still significant, or are they wasted? should i create new links? and what do i do now? where is my home?

where is my home?

is it in israel, where i was born, where i lived for the majority of my life, where my family is, where i feel most connected to?

is it in the u.s., where i've been so recently involved in, where i have discovered myself the most, where i've been tried the most, the language i attach myself most to? ( and if it is, then where in the u.s.?)

is it in europe, where i've aspired to live, where my hopes and dreams lie, where i yearn to visit and experience and refresh myself?

i don't know. i'll try to answer these questions in the following days, and months, and years, but i don't know if i'll be able to.

songs flip through itunes. they each hold such a deep, entrenching memory to me, something so completely horrifying--each song, and if i would be asked to pick one would i be able to? one of them reflects my nostalgia for israel--another, my deep enamoration with manhattan. another with the personal connections of my san diego friends.

i don't know. i don't think i'll want to live in san diego. and yet everyone i know is there, everything from the recent past ... which in a year i won't be able to remember. which, like memories from palo alto, like friends from palo alto, will fade from my mind like ashes.

i hope to god they won't ever disappear. i hope to god.

not in palo alto, for the reasons that my tie to sf and to pa had already been broken.

[my shoulder is tired. why?]

i'm listening to the carpenters - superstar. one of the saddest songs i've ever heard. it brings me such strong, vibrant memories from my earliest days in the u.s., in san jose and palo alto, about san francisco and the drive to sacramento and to skiing. i remember that first winter, and i feel so nostalgic and sad and the feelings an old man about to give up the old ghost might feel. and i don't know what i should do. i don't know because i feel so angry inside for everything that has happened to me and to everything, just every move and every friend and every person that i've met and neglected and left. and now they would never remember me. like i'm a nomad. a wandering jew.

i know i will miss america. i know i might regret this choice. maybe this is just a fling, maybe it's just normal to reminisce upon the long-gone past with complete and utter loneliness, but i know that i had made my decision to love and return to israel based on feelings that were so strong that i could not turn them down.


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i have no pictures for you today. nothing.

i have wanted to write my feelings down for such a long time now.

a song i'm listening--lambada--brings me sour and sweet memories from israel. fdjfkldj. i don't know why i said that. i forgot to put "to" after "listening". i don't know the words to the song. i remember it was very well-known in israel. i danced to it in gallie's 7th bday party. i was five. i still remember the magician. and the banana tree. and the house. such a beautiful house.

i don't know. if i move to israel, and i pass by the house, and i listen to this song. then i could go to heaven. then i could go to heaven. i would have fulfilled my destiny. life would become a cycle.

if, by the time i die [which i can't think about right now--i'm not as scared of death as i used to be], i would have gone to every single location i've ever been in, visited, approached... then i would be the happiest person on earth.

[i watched a good movie on friday. nights of cabiria. my comments make me thing of it.]

i don't remember what i was about to say. i don't know what is happening to me. i feel like israel is my home. but i don't know if i can say goodbye to my three years in san diego. which i already did. but i don't know. i just don't know what i can do now.

i've never let out my emotions so openly before as this.