i woke up on my first morning in san diego--two and a half years after leaving it for a much colder place--and noticed the sky. window screen half-opened into a billowing gradient of blue: bright, unfiltered blue--what blue will look like in heaven, its shades streaming in and out of one another cool-like and hypnotic.
blue is an honest color--yet here it seems fake, like a red watermelon's crust, misleading in its simplicity, in its beauty.
the sun is just fading, and i'm outside and the cold feels surreal, my exposed fingers wrapped in cold with each and every letter key that they reach to press. the sun is just fading from behind silhouettes of black palm trees and tall bushes; the trunk of a date palm is reflected in the pool, draped in christmas lights.
chilly.
sometimes i think about san diego. i think about the fact that i despised it, that i felt alone and misunderstood and rejected much of the time--that every house and every storefront and every person was a facade, a false face, a blue sky above an ugly, dejected world: and i would think about san diego, and i'd ask myself if i really believed all of what i used to believe--maybe i had simply lied to myself about it, or maybe i actually misunderstood san diego instead of it misunderstanding me.
it is a tedious, sad little place--i can see that now, sleeping in a house that looks exactly like mine did, and only a few blocks away from that house. it was a cruel place. where unending, circuitous nothing happened; where the streets spread themselves even with a disgusting yearning for space--pavement, pavement, oh so much endless pavement, like spilled water that never stops expanding.
and now with my fingers bitten by cold and the sky burning in a purple, starless white-noise, i can safely say that san diego was what i've always suspected. i hated it then, and i hate it now; its flaws more than make up for its good attributes.
sometimes i'd sit there and think about moving. moving to san diego, from san diego--a place that defined my personality more than any other place i've ever called home. and i'd think about san diego, and what it did to me.
sometimes i'd sit there and brood. and i brood, and i brood--and i wonder where my friends have gone and where have they always been for me.
and when i come to a place like this, i realize that friendship is the most important thing in the world.
sometimes, i'd sit there, and ask myself if i've ever really experienced it.
i can miss by request. ask me to miss the apartment on maklis in kfar ganim, where i took my first steps and looked out the windows and saw a city (a view i don't, can't remember), i will; ask me to miss my first house in america, the dinosaur chicken nuggets, the bar stools, the wallpapers that glossed like wet skin from the wall, i will; ask me to miss new york, san diego, palo alto, san jose, neve oz, and i will.
missing places is my forte. madrid, athens, yerushalaim: i miss you all with the fervency of an abandoned ghost, yearning to reach back to its home but trapped haunting its own haunted house.
how i miss israel. we listened to this zionist noami shemer cd today in the car on the way back from a horrible day in the city and i felt so much deep, harkings nostalgia, so much longing and so much remembering.
i'm all alone in the house. dad and sharon are driving back from the airport; it's dark, silent. the radio is possibly on. they discuss the past--the distant, distant past of our infancy, and even before--and science and history, even though in a sense everything that has to do with science or with the past is history. the radio plays softly against the thundering of the wheels against the wet highway asphalt, which sounds like a tree breaking against a violent waterfall in the middle of an empty forest. the window’s rolled down. rain—the smell of it, the cold plummeting drops—blows in.
speaking of the devil: keys jingle downstairs, voices from outside seep in.
they just came in. the keys in the door. it turns. i say hello. shalom, dad says. sharon goes to play with ginger, and giggles, and ginger’s collar clinks.
i celebrated cousin’s departure. he's sweet, but extremely obnoxious and ignorant and acts like a 7-year-old, even though he’s 12. we love each other, but it's almost impossible to live with him. how he has to sleep with the lights and the a/c on; how he always had to have two+ eggs every day; how he always watched the most abhorrent channels, and played the most abhorrent games on the computer; how he feared ghosts and darkness and unclosed closets; how he had to have everything, play with every single electronic device our family owned, especially while we were using it; how he asked me to repeat the same song on itunes over and over again; how he was still a child, an undeveloped, exasperating child.
they all left, and i stayed home to walk ginger. after i hugged and kissed said cousin goodbye, i came back in and closed the door and looked through the small window in the foyer, and saw grandma's bulky, familiar form, her hands reaching for the seatbelt--she always asks for my help when it gets jammed—and then i turned away, and petted ginger.
i was sad.
now i'm listening to cat power. i'm thinking about, thrilled for the canada trip.
i'm... i don't know. i guess i miss learning french. i miss living in israel. i miss school, guide post, history. the english book we have to read is so infinitely dull and horribly stoic. "all the king's men"--brrrrrrrrrrr!....
~~~
i dined alone. in the horrid rain and wind, i stumbled and hopped across puddled pavements to a shawarma and hummus dish, and then i walked back in the darkness, thinking.
~~~
i'm excited to meet the broders again. i just went through a photo album from when i was 6, or 5. and i saw several pictures with them in it.
and i'm feelin' melancholy.
not horribly though. not really. i'm feeling... poetic, almost. no. i'm feeling... absent-minded. bare. jaded. and yet, in some strange way, refreshed almost. new.
it's been almost a year since we moved to great neck. july 30th.
...and yes, it was sunny in philadelphia (not san diego sunny)... if you can call immitating the dying screeches of roadkill in order to survive blustering, jagged winds the ideal counterreaction of sunny.
because that's how sunny it was in philadelphia.
sometimes i could not feel my hands, my nose, my face, my feet.
but more details coming.
so we stopped at this beautiful little town called princeton, new jersey.
yes--the home of princeton university--which was SO FUCKING amazing! princeton is so beautiful, more reminiscent of a quaint brownstone town on the hills of cornwall or a french nobleman's estate. it's enormous, and it's beautiful and the atmosphere is so small-townish but it's still buzzing with energy and you see all these students walking around and eating and wow. it's just astounding, princeton life.
9% acceptance rate.
oh shit!
on the drive there we plugged in a george brassens CD and i nearly spasmed. george brassens... is amazing. here's a video of la mauvaise reputacion .
driving up to philly and the sun comes out. it's beautiful, looks like the skycrapers are climbing up and trying to kiss the sky.
walked over to independence hall, about ten blocks over from our hotel. it was chilly but not too cold and the sun was out and all the people were out on the streets walking, lunching, working, looking about.
we went inside, to the place where our forefathers wrote and signed our constitution... and i can't even tell you how beautiful the feeling is, to know that the most important moment in the history of the world happened at the same place where you are standing, where the most ingenious of people gathered hundreds of years ago to bring about a set of principles and beliefs that would change your, everybody's life, and push human advancement and liberalization further than even before. the hall where they signed the actual thing is huge, the walls high and blue, the soft pale light pooling in from the windows across thirteen wooden tables. mmm.
walking through the liberty bell exhibition was also touching. the bell embodies the american standards and continuous struggle for freedom, for equality. just knowing that the exhibit and the independence hall (plus a guided tour) are free to the public was so enlightening, knowing that history is open and that even the poorest of the poor are allowed to learn--that america's utmost treasures, its princples and its lifelines, are transparent to the world.
we went to the constitution center, which was amazing, and then we cross over the independence mall to the old city. which was sorta empty but kind of lovely, too.
and then we had some chinese red bean cake.
and then we walked up and down philadelphia in search of dinner. we saw indian buffet(no, diarrhea), pizza (pizza in quaker-land? ha!), seafood (schmaltzy), french (expensive and as dull as duck), wandered through some gritty parts of town... until we settled on the first place we saw. yes, well, apparently dinner for us was the usual--middle eastern deliciousness: the place called "sahara". couscous, shwarma, shish kebabs.
sweet, sweet baklawa.
and then, with our stomachs as jam-packed as 5th avenue during a pride parade, we toured down across the street towards the naked chocolate cafe adjacent to our hotel.
the next morning, we turned around the corner and came to city hall. an ornate white "monstrosity" that, in my opinion, was quite fabulous-looking. like a wedding cake. marble and beautiful and subtle, flowing, lush. i liked it.
we climbed up groggily (elevator-rode) to the top of city hall and took some pictures.
and then... began... our journey.
an approximately mile-long track from city hall towards the philadelphia museum of art: yes, THE philadelphia museum of art, a severe walk that was routinely punctured with dying animal noises (as mentioned in the beginning of this post) and sickly, pneumoniac chuckles. we were giddy as hell, fighting against the wind, along the way humming the Rocky hymn--GOTTA FLY NOW! oh please, we almost soaredd from the fucking blazing wind--both my palms were clenched into blood-red fists that burned like ice and my face felt like someone fucking slapped it and i was about to die, DIE HEAR ME DIE!
but we made it... in the end.
oh, and also, there was this huge police funeral nearby. immense. the whole philadelphia police force probably showed up.
and no thanks to any well-toned oscar-winning fatso who actually made it to the top of the stairs of the art museum.
[FLYING HIGH NOW]
oh, and yes. we made it too.
and... enter pictures.
a few hours later...
took a bus to reading market terminal.
from there on, the pictures explain it all.
food. food. food.
we've been waiting for this one ever since we arrived on the shores of pennsylvania: the philly cheesteak.
mmmmmhmmm.
pastrami sandwich and a picke.
mmmmhmmm.
returned home via car straight afterward.
and that's where i am at the moment. it's 11:18 p.m. and i'm about to collapse. had a good week, wanted to watch film tonight though... eyes gruesomely pink now, however, so sleep it is.
i'm sorry if some of the photos got jumbled up. they were probly were. jesus, i'm tired. and thirsty. and kind of hungry after writing about all this food.
i don't want to seem like this random left-wing make-love-not-war liberation crusader, but there are so many things i want to say about the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza and i hope i'll be able to say them all.
these are human beings. so what if hamas is hiding inside a human shield of palestinians? it is still a human shield. the attacks on hamas are not an attack on hamas; they're an attack on all citizens of gaza. attack on the children of gaza, on the women of gaza, the men of gaza, the infants and the elderly, the working class and the unemployed. but worse of all, this operation was an attack on people--real living, breathing homo-sapien people, those who are capable of advance thinking, and jealousy and rage and misery and ecstasy, those who can sympathize.
again we come to the idea of people. people, people, people. people are so crucial to the world, and here we are, doing everything we can to obliterate them. hamas security officers are dropping off hundreds at a time, and sixteen-year-old girls bleed to death from a slice of glass of an israeli-destroyed building.
how can slaughtering civilians bring an end to the rockets in sderot?
it can't. there is nothing we can do now but wait and see. there's gonna be a third intifadah, sure. why not? more rockets: last i checked, two in the afternoon, thirty-seven had already hit. why not? more gaza death; actually, more deaths--period.
Israel can not impose Zionism on the people of gaza, nor can it defend itself by killing more innocent citizens. whatever Israel did or does or will do in gaza will only be met by more hate, more sorrow, more revenge-type of crap. instead of focusing on bombing the living shit out of gaza, we need to turn our attentions to the world around us--to europe, to the arab world, and of course to the incoming president obama. we need them to see our suffering, our pain, our sorrow, because via this horrid mass-murder and scare tactic we are only sending out a terrible message of hate.
if hamas is a terrorist organization because it sends rockets out to sderot, then israel is a terrorist state for dropping bombs on an innocent population.
---
you know what though?
i don't know.
i think i might be missing ny.
it's a nice place. i miss the snow. i miss ginger. i miss school. i miss iced coffee.
i don't know. i feel better today, but i feel like we should have stayed in israel longer. we should have seen more people, lived in more houses, went to more places. i feel like we should have stayed forever.
---
sometimes i want to live in two different worlds. i want there to be two different worlds like a ribbon, how the two sides link in the middle, so that i would not miss israel, would not miss america.
sometimes, i just wish the world would have been simpler. i was thinking yesterday about how horribly difficult it is for people to be born, and then to grow up, and then to grow old. we shouldn't have it this hard, really. and then, how some people stay in the same place their whole life--the same caste, the same little town, the same barred, metal room. why had god made us like this? there is no god.
THERE IS NO FUCKING GOD.
because why do some immoral individuals live in luxury while others, more compassionate, more beautiful people, have to scrap the shit off sidewalks to bring food home?
god does not have his ways. how can we suffer, if we do no wrong? how can we please god if we no nothing of what he wants from us?
THERE IS NO GOD.
not because life is bad. there is no god because there never was one.
and it's so hard for me to fight against this tide, of what i'm used to--i'm used to believing. someone--an orthodox friend--once told me that to believe in god you have to know that he exists even if evidence against his existence exists, too. like, if i read somewhere that the big bang did happen and that man evolved from apes and that, well, god is not there--then i can still believe in him.
first post in two months: let's make it a good one.
who's reading this? no one, probably.
so i had this huge headache today and i don't know why. i'm extremely superstitious when it comes to headaches so i was not sure why this headache slapped into me on this very day. maybe because i woke up on the wrong side of the face. maybe because i drank coca-cola for breakfast. maybe because i ate waaaaay too much today, and yesterday, and the day before, and even the day before. maybe it's because...
because i don't know about israel anymore.
it's boring. it's still home, but it bores me. i expected it to be different. but israel always stays the same. the same colors, the same people, the same food, everything so stationary, so lifeless, so usual, and now i don't really understand why i even anticipated anything different. maybe i had my hopes up. expectations. maybe israel isn't really my home.
is it my home?
fuck, who even knows. i don't believe in god anymore, though it pains me. is that the reason for my headache? maybe there is a god and he doesn't like me not believing in him so he lightning-struck me with this horrid mind-wrecker?
no, god doesn't know if israel is my home or not because he doesn't exist.
the truth is, i feel like during this whole trip i've been putting up this fake front. it's the biggest one i've ever pulled, and though there are some gaping holes in it, i feel like it has been somewhat successful, considering the difficulty. anyhow, this front is destroying everything i stand for and it disappoints me that life is so hard, so miserable that human beings can't even be themselves. why should someone be scared of walking around with a headscarf around, oh, i don't know, great neck ny? or why should someone be refused their right to marry their loved one? i hope all of this will change in the next century. i hope people will be seen solely as people and not as muslims, blacks, gays, sluts.
if i become a politician, a journalist, a whatever, then i will fight for this idea to the death.
but the truth is, i don't know if there is anyone who i can show myself to, or anyone who can show themselves to me. the latter is more severe than the former. i have too many acquaintances, too little friends. if i had to pick one person to live with for my entire life in a desert island, i wouldn't know who to pick. would i pick anyone? not my father, not my sister, not my mother. names swoop around like giant birds in my head. who? who? and i feel like this plays a large part in my innermost misery. who can i lean on? no one. who can i trust? no one. i can only trust myself. i can only grow my inner soul into a mature, sociable, normal character. nobody else can do anything for me. nobody else can shape me or touch me or befriend me. because i've lived too long without good friends. i've lived too long searching, too little finding, too little settling. maybe one of these days, i'll live in an exotic land--spain, france--where i would find friends, lovers. people. i could trust them.
i feel like, due to the situations that have been thrust upon me, i'm the most miserable person in... in the vast network of human beings that i know. i feel like my life has been marked by a black omen since my delivery in schneider hospital, or that my future has been marred by a negligent upbringing and overly compassionate consideration. who has to deal with all these issues? my life has been tossed and thrown around without any care to anything like i was a, a, a basketball, like god [again, god=spit, so, metaphorically, ? ...] decided to surf a rebound and shoot me and throw me around the world. i am a broken, outcasted soul, extricated from the burning center of society into the gray-blue outposts of life. i can send letters to the center, sure, maybe even take the bust there once in awhile. but i'll never live there.
for now, i need escapes--i yearn for them, reach for them. escapes: school, journalism, politics, manhattan. another headache pill could do the trick. but i'll also be searching--searching for my whole life--for more, more, more escapes--movies, Europe, nytime--more and more and more, until i would just explode. escapes will shower me by the gallon.
my head burns like a potfull of beans and beef, or chunt in other words. yum...
water? food? shelter?
i don't know what i'm doing here. what i'm doing here in the basement of my cousin's house. in my cousin's house. in hod hasharon. in israel. in this world. what the fuck am i doing here in this world?
------------------------------------------
Do you have time for a poem?
maybe
Maybe I'm looking out for you on the street. you're wearing a red-lace skirt and jade eyes as fragile as an ocean. Maybe I'm only looking out for someone who resembles you, someone tall and feverish— someone who, at early morning hours, stirs like the rooster and sobs across a lake of white satin. Maybe I've been looking too long and I'm done, and I'm tired, and a long, purple nail pinches me in the neck like a snake's angry fangs.
It's yours.
I'm done searching for you, for your face— for your long, slanting, ugly face— I'm done, you hear me? I'm done with red-lace skirts! I'm done with green eyes! I'm skeptical, and maybe even dead to the world--
