close and far away

I just discovered Google Translator, because I’m that behind in technology, and imputed the following phrases, to be translated to Hebrew.

1. I’m a writer.

2. I like to take pictures.

3. Do you have any coffee?

4. My Hebrew is terrible.

To be clear: I have had years of Hebrew language education. When I was in day school (one year) and Sunday school (until fifth grade, when I quit) , I was actually quite good at it. In college, I took it for eight semesters. So I know how to read, and I can get along effectively in a prayer-book and/or class, but if anyone with any significant Hebrew skill (i.e, a native Israeli) approaches me and attempts to engage in a meaningful (or sketchy) way, I might panic and throw up. I’m not proud, but there it is.

So in Israel, I’m just going to speak English, and that makes me feel awful. I aspire to feel a part of the place where I am, and to not be an annoying, fanny pack carrying (although they do provide a certain service), map toting, slow walking tourist, especially when the country is, like it or not, a place that’s integral to my identity.

It’s more of the idea that every Jew who sets foot in Israel will take to the interrupting and line cutting and eighteen year olds with guns as if it wasn’t anathema to our American selves, saturated as we are with Christian culture. Not to underestimate the value of communication here, but language aside, there are many reasons why being in Israel would be hard (hint: at the moment, one of them rhymes with “shmeligious”).

If my Jewish identity and practice can change and be challenged as much as it has this last year in the States, I’m skeptical that becoming better at Hebrew and living in a city where I can’t get on a bus from sundown on Friday until the next evening is really going to improve my outlook or practice of observant Judaism.

And yet, I still hold on. It’s hard to do that when it feels like everything is just getting more narrow, more suffocating, but maybe I’m just feeling that more in light of recent personal events. I’ve been thinking a lot about my selves: the writer, the artist, the traveler, the radical, the feminist, the Jew, the leader, the person who just wants to be left alone to sit in a coffee shop in Jerusalem while I attempt to anchor myself to something. In that moment, when my brain is quiet and yet busy, I’ll be trying to create something that has nothing to do with what’s around me. Maybe then, Israel will just be another place in the world where I’ve experienced joy and adrenaline, but somehow, I doubt it.

“sleep is for people who sleep more than i do.”

My friend I has this link as his gchat status: http://queershidduch.wordpress.com/. Deliciously fodder-filled.

entitlement

It’s two a.m and I have nothing to do. That’s not exactly true-I could be one of those people who does laundry in the middle of the night. I firmly believe that those people are normal, by the way. They just like to use their waking hours well. Also, “Bethenny Getting Married?” is on Bravo. (Dear Bravo, we know Bethenny gets married. The jig is up. Lose the question mark. Love, Viewers.)

Tonight (fine, last night), I spoke with some people about Israel. Specifically, about how they feel like they aren’t entitled to speak about the conflict for various reasons, which included their affiliation with Judaism (“not Jewish enough”) and lack of knowledge about the conflict/region/history. At first, hearing this made me think of the dozens of brilliant women I know who think they’re bad feminists because they wear make up, sleep with men, shave their legs, haven’t read
The Second Sex or The Feminine Mystique. It’s nauseating to think about how we can make each other feel inferior. My feminist choices do not have to be your feminist choices, and we can all still be feminists, with some exceptions.

As American Jews, (and other Jews, surely, but I’m speaking from my context) the way we talk, or don’t talk, about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is intensely gendered. We must always argue to win, we must have facts, and they must be particular facts. If you don’t have those facts, no one wants to hear from you, and that’s true sadly on the right and the left. The idea that you’d talk to someone without trying to “fix” them is almost totally unheard of, which is why in some communities, dialogue remains taboo. We must form a united, impenetrable (pun intended) front. The message: I am entitled to be part of this conversation because I approach it in the way that leaves the least room for dissent or questions.

In case you haven’t figured out what I’m getting at: the way arguments around the conflict are structured and conducted is traditionally masculine-based on winning, strength, specificities, aggression, etc. The American Jewish community has bought this package, and tied it up tightly with a lovely, cloying little bow. You need nerves of steel, to have memorized the contents of Myths and Facts, and absolute conviction that you are right, have always been right, and will always be right.

I cannot think of a worse way to approach a situation as rife with pain, dynamics, confusion, passion and risk as the one involving Israel and Palestine. One thing is certain, though-if the goal of a particular portion of the American Jewish community is to make people who don’t agree with them in principle or strategy stay as far away from the conversation as possible, they’ve figured out a way to do it- convince them that they have nothing to bring to the table, make them afraid of the sound of their own voices. Fortunately, there are those who know that helping people to talk to each other, rather than at each other, is about more than just winning- it’s about our spiritual survival.

announcement

I’m now blogging at Jewschool. You can find my first post here.

pathology

Two things you probably know about me: 1. My parents are divorced. 2. My mother and grandmother raised me. One thing you might not know: I didn’t think growing up in a house without men was weird, until people told me it was. My family just was what it was, and that was fine. Parents got divorced. Sometimes grandmothers moved in, and sometimes parents got remarried. People died. These were facts. Everybody had different ones.

Based on my facts, and how uncomfortable or confused they make other people, there’s an impulse to try to figure me out, especially when it comes to my politics. Two classics are: “The reason you don’t want to get married is because your parents’ marriage broke up,” and “You don’t want to have kids because your mother died and you’re afraid you’ll get sick and die too.”

Of course, the impulse to understand someone who’s not like you is natural-one could argue that as a fiction writer, I do it everyday. Part of me thinks these attempts to shrink me are hilarious, but most of me is outraged. Our experiences, the textures of our lives, contribute to making us who we are. I could have reacted differently to what’s happened in my life. Instead of opting out of marriage and children, I could be grasping for them-desperate to create the traditional structure that I didn’t have.

Here’s the thing about me, though-the way I’ve responded to my experiences is to be honest about what I want. The reason I want those things, or don’t want them, may in fact be influenced by my upbringing, but that’s why the phrase “the personal is political” is so important and relevant. Being a feminist, or radical character of any sort, means actively rejecting and/or analyzing what crosses my path everyday, things I’m expected to accept and conform to as a woman. Since I make different choices, since I challenge structures and threaten what people consider normal, this leaves me vulnerable for the attack, or the analysis of others.

The overarching theme in my decision-making is that I believe in being truthful with myself about what I think and feel will make the best life for me, where I can build a space in which I can access my potential to work for justice and create. As a person who benefits from heterosexual, white skinned, educated privilege, I can make these decisions in relative safety and security.

The bottom line is this: We pathologize people who make choices that place them outside of normative structures. We might believe our efforts are benign – after all, we’re just trying to understand each other. We read other’s experiences through our individual lenses, but then we use the most nefarious of systems-sexism, racism, heteronormativity, etc- to process them, because we’ve learned to associate normalcy with morality and truth. That’s the most insipid part of all of this-the fact that we really believe that we’re the safest when everyone else is just like us.

some observations



1. It’s hard for me to really focus on anything right now, because Israel is so close, so I’ve degenerated into making lists, which just get longer and make me more anxious, not less.
2. Piles are forming around me: to pack in carry on, to pack in my checked luggage, things that I’ll need for the ten days of the trip, things I’ll need when the trip is over and I’m on my own.
3. Viagra and Cialis commercials are on TV during the day, with serious regularity, but commercials for Zestra, a brand of oils meant to help women “feel more” desire and arousal seem to only be on late at night (I’ve seen them between 11.30 and 3 am). This isn’t a scientific conclusion, but I do watch quite a bit of TV.
4. I’ve been thinking about the word “spinster” lately. It’s occurred to me that because of my choices and politics, the word actually applies to me, although I’m loathe to use it outside of the context of sarcasm. It seems ugly and outdated. The lovely and talented JN gave me this definition by Mary Daly (italics by me): “a woman whose occupation is to Spin, to participate in the whirling movement of creation; one who has chosen her Self, who defines her Self by choice neither in relation to children nor to men; one who is Self-identified; a whirling dervish…” How long will it take before that’s really what people associate with the word? c. How long will it take before we stop being afraid of being who we are, in spite of our deep personal and political convictions? Probably longer.
5. I’m packing my copy of Backlash, the feminist classic by Susan Faludi, for the trip.

some light reading

An excerpt:

Spinster: An Evolving Stereoptype Revealed Through Film
Deborah J. Mustard On-line publication date: January 20, 2000, Journal of Media Psychology

(italicizations are mine)

“In The Woman Alone, O’Brien (1973) addresses society’s fear that spinsters might just find their unmarried role satisfying, and that they might be able to feel complete without marriage and motherhood: “Underlying all the criticisms and attacks on women along through history has been the uneasy fear that women who seek alternatives to marriage and motherhood might very well find them satisfying. The images of themselves that women have been presented with (and helped perpetuate) are intended to discourage or intimidate. And even though as a nation we are committing ourselves to cutting back the birth rate, women who do not marry pose questions about the structure of society. Those questions are difficult to articulate, because they are so deeply rooted in our anxieties about what we are. If women are allowed to flee on their broomsticks, couldn’t they possibly destroy all that has been so carefully put together by men?” (p. 74).”

You can read the rest at: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/spinster.html

smile like you mean it

I’ve returned to wearing tank tops in public. Today is the fifth day in a row, I think. It’s not as traumatizing as I thought it would be, except it means that I’ve snipped the last remaining thread of the tznius rules I made for myself concerning clothing. It’s just a recognition of that, though, I don’t necessarily feel badly about it. I’m not sure it was me anymore, or that it has been me for a while. It does give me pause, though, a week away from Israel, which is a place I have only experienced in several layers of clothing, even in the summer. I have no idea what this trip is going to be like, and so, true to form, I’m thinking about how much more comforting it would be to sit in my apartment and make art or wander these well trod Manhattan streets, as opposed to the well trod Jerusalem ones, which take a significant toll on my psyche.

In the meantime, I’m working on a small piece of fiction. At the moment, it feels like I’m just stacking images on top of images until I can create the thread that goes between them: someone on a bus, a road trip, an injury, a perpetually unsatisfied person. The same neuroses apply as always : is this going to be any good, will anyone read it? Does that even matter if I didn’t accomplish what I was trying to? (What was that again?) The worst thing about writing is when everyone else thinks a piece is good, but it’s nothing like you intended. The point of creating anything for me is to give people something to have a particular experience with. Occasionally, it doesn’t matter what that experience is, just that there is one, but too often for me, it matters, because what’s in my head feels too sharp, too real, too specific to be capricious about letting it go until it’s time. Henry Miller said, “The best way to get over a woman is to make her into literature.” I like to work backwards-will someone into being first, and then make sure you never have to get over them.

orange dress

disquietude



I am terrible at sleeping. I probably haven’t slept through the night since I was about eleven, which means I’ve been sleep deprived (and melodramatic) for twenty years. I remember waking up beginning in seventh grade with a huge headache, stressed out about the homework due soon, or the test I could study more for. In high school, we had competitions about how little we slept (one night: half an hour), and in college, I loved me a tasty, caffeine ridden all nighter. I enjoy being up in the middle of the night, it’s often when I do my best work, but it completely obliterates the life long dream I’ve held of being a morning person. Admittedly, I’ve never tried very hard to be one, rather I’ve just hoped that one day, I will wake up loving 6 a.m.

I’m a vivid dreamer, and often a lucid one, which explains why I’ve never died in one of the many dreams I’ve had about serial killers. Sometimes my dreams are normal, though- I’m pregnant, my teeth are falling out, I’m flying, my mother is alive. The best dreams are the ones where you wake up still wrapped in it, like a blanket, reluctant to leave.

Last night, I dreamed I was screaming. The person I know I was screaming at didn’t look at all like she does in real life, and I don’t remember getting an answer to the question I was screaming . I don’t remember anything else in particular about it right now, except that I was causing a ruckus. I’ve been thinking about it all day, my ability, our ability to carry anger around inside us, like candy wrappers or pennies in the deep pockets of a coat.

I’m being purposely vague here, but suffice it to say, this all has to do with figuring out how to trust people again, especially people who base their lives around building community. It’s exhausting, carrying all this resentment around and not being able to say anything real about it, so it’s finding its way into my dreams, where I holler until my throat is raw.