I’ve been suffering the symptoms of drought since I moved to Israel
three years ago, but
I didn’t know it
until I swam again in a sea of books;
otherwise known as the English Department Library at Bar Ilan University where I am currently studying Creative Writing.
Where my heart is opening faster than my throat can bear. Wider than I thought it could possibly stretch
without ripping apart,
my heart, my throat.
But I digress.
I’m sure — in fact, I know — that Israel is not without books; not even without English books; not even without free English books. But I live far away from the intellectual center of the country, closer to cows than cafés, and although I live among (thank GOD) intellectuals, smarty pants, voracious readers with amazing personal collections of English books in their homes, there is something about deciding today, yes today, yes right now, NOW, to have an Americano and a piece of whole grain toast and then head over to the library and quietly, almost anonymously, browse through the aisles waiting to be struck by a sense of urgency or felicity or naughtiness because
THIS must be what you read next.
The cover said so. The title did. The jacket copy. The reviews.
And then walking out with your newest bed companion without having paid.
For FREE.
Oh, the guilt.
You feel it for half a second and then you do the happy dance.
This is the library.
And this is what I’ve missed without knowing how deeply until just yesterday when I swam again in her sea, when I laid eyes again on my beloved Chabon, when I stumbled upon an older Tartt I’d never known before, when I touched a battered faded green hard bound copy of Frost.
The weekend arrives and most of us crave comfort food.
Doesn’t matter if we’re so old we force ourselves to gulp down steel cut oats with flax seed meal and craisins. What we really want is challah french toast. Or bacon. Or grits.
We want our mom, our dad, our Bubbi over there in the corner, back of their head to us, shoulders hunched over, feet inside slippers, flipping something hot on the stove with our name on it.
In my imagination, this something with my name on it is called “Egyptian Eye.”
Some people call it Egg in a Nest. Others Frog in the Hole. But in my childhood home, an egg over easy inside a piece of toast paid homage to the Eye of Horus, which, if you knew my dad, made perfect sense.
Despite the fact that gluten makes me cranky, and eggs make me bloated, I fried myself up an Egyptian Eye this morning. I did this as an Ode to Joy.
I forced myself to remember how much joy I used to find in breakfast.
In being a grown up.
***
It all started with an irritation.
A cranky feeling stuck in my throat, which is where cranky lives in me.
Didn’t feel like washing the dishes left over from being too tired last night. Didn’t feel like making my kids anything healthy to eat, even though weekend mornings are when I usually make the effort to do so.
In general, I felt annoyed. With adulthood. With obligations. And in that moment in particular, with the burden of breakfast.
Then I stopped, chuckled.
For years, you yearned and burned for this, I told myself. Don’t you remember? Isn’t it funny now?
You wanted to be a grown up.
Don’t you remember how you screamed at your parents, “One day! You’ll see! I’ll get to decide! I’ll choose!” How you longed for your own money? For work that paid? To stay out late. To sleep where you wanted when you wanted. Eat sugar. Drink vodka. Tell people what you thought of them.
So?
What happened?
I think I completely forgot what was so great to be a grown up.
***
I remember once feeling joy and gratitude for finally being out there in the world on my own; responsible for my own well-being.
I remember my parents leaving me at my college dorm. I didn’t cry a single tear. I felt FREE.
I remember walking through the deep tunnels of the subway system of New York City when I first moved there after college and thinking, “Nobody knows where I am right now. I can go anywhere I want. And nobody is here to stop me.” I felt FREE.
I bought groceries — first at the local market and later at the health food shop — with such pride. I strolled the aisles with curiosity. I carefully chose interesting items and paid for them with money I had earned. I felt FREE.
I woke up on Sunday mornings, turned on some Stevie Wonder and danced around the kitchen while I made challah french toast, or pancakes, or Egyptian Eye. I felt FREE.
***
It’s easy for me to lay blame.
Blame the absence of joy on things being “different now.” Harder. Busier.
Blame it on the kids.
Blame it on the government.
Blame it on my work.
Blame it on my neighbors.
Blame it on modern living.
Blame it on my own choices. My husband’s. My generation’s.
I could get sucked into this blaming so very easily.
In fact, I often do.
I often get so sucked into blaming others or blaming myself that I forget what I once held to be true.
I am an adult now. I am free.
The responsibility for my well-being is on me.
I get to choose.
***
So I chose.
I made myself an Egyptian Eye. Truth is, I offered one to my kids too. They declined, choosing “sugary cereal” instead.
Secretly I was happy.
Happy to make something just for me.
I ate it alone. Burst open the gooey yellow center with the fork prongs, watched it seep over onto the toast. Lapped it up with joy.
I was thinking of Sarah this morning when I realized how many similarities there are between the online friendships I’ve cultivated and the pen pals I used to collect as a young girl.
Sarah and I are planning to meet in real life for the first time. Despite the fact that we both are former Americans living in Israel, and only live an hour’s drive from each other, we’ve never sat to drink coffee together; have never spoken on the phone. I don’t know what Sarah’s voice sounds like even, and this is what I was thinking about when I realized that Sarah exists for me like my much-loved pen pals from childhood. The deep way one knows someone through letters. Except the letters are blogs, and Facebook chats.
When I was a girl — mostly from the ages of 12 – 16 — I exchanged letters with a few other kids my age. I vividly remember two of them, for they were strangers.
Thanks Ali Martell for the pic
Unlike Robert, my camp friend from Texas, or Natali from Mexico, both of whom became active pen pals of mine after shared experiences in real life; Kim and Phillipa, I never met. We starting writing each other because we were subscribers of Bop! magazine. (The original Match.com for pedophiles, Bop actually published in each issue a list of names and addresses of pre-pubescent girls. Can you imagine???)
Unlike my school friends, Kim and Phillipa exist in my memory only as curvy, bubbled Ms and skinny, drooping Qs; as unevenly snipped wallet-sized portraits taken during Picture Day. I never knew their voices so I can’t hear them in my head even if I try. I never knew how tall they were. Whether or not they were skinny or fat. Pimply or clear-skinned. Popular or tortured. Smelled like Chloé or B.O.
We never got in fights over a boy. We never stopped speaking to each other in the halls. We never shared sleepovers or sundaes.
And yet, I loved them in a way. I was grateful for their showing up in my life. In my mailbox.
I knew Kim’s hobbies; Phillipa’s favorite American movie stars. I knew about their jealousies of their siblings and their crushes on the neighborhood skater boy. I imagine they told me secrets they never shared with their school friends. I know I shared with them a few of mine.
There’s something sacred and safe in living and loving only through letters.
Isn’t that what most of us with online-only friends would say about many of those friendships? There’s something sacred and safe about them?
No, we don’t ‘know’ each other in ‘real life’ … but then again, what is ‘real’ life?
My new friend Miriam is a long-time professional dancer and choreographer. I met her in a writing workshop at Bar Ilan University and have enjoyed hearing her tales of dance, particularly those she found herself in while living in far-flung areas of the world foreign to me.
But yesterday, Miriam surprised me even more when she led our group in a movement exercise designed to be used as a writing prompt.
Movement as a writing prompt?
While I’ve sometimes walked around outdoors as a way to move past writer’s block, I never would have guessed that following simple guided instructions on how to move in space would bring such a wealth of content to the surface …and so quickly.
The experience for me was remarkable. While in it, I was singularly focused on following Miriam’s instructions. But as it turned out, my body’s movement allowed my mind to relax … and open up to new ideas.
In the final of three exercises, Miriam instructed us through a series of varying movements during which we were to write our name in the air. For the final movement, however, we were to present ourselves to the group, then write our name in the air.
I noticed a grave difference between how I felt when I moved independent of the group and wrote my name in the air, and how I felt presenting my name inside and to the group. The difference was physical. An ease that accompanied my independent movements … a stiffness that showed up once I faced the group.
This physical discomfort stirred inside my creative space afterwards, when we sat down for ten minutes to write.
And it was this discomfort that became a poem that I dare to share with you…
The Group.
Take care with my bare heart …
With the me out there.
===
Me Alone Meets Me Out There
Will I always be two Mes?
The Me alone and the Me out there?
When I am Me alone, fast or slow, I am me.
Giggly, thoughtful, silly me.
When I am Me out there, within without, I am not me.
I am a stilted lilted version of me.
A me wrapped in bubble wrap.
A me on display.
I am cute, a hoot, but not a whole
Me.
I wish the two Mes would meet one day
On the street, on the stage,
in the office, on the page
And decide to become one.
The Me alone
and the Me out there.
Easy peasy pair.
==
(All content, including poetry, is original — unless otherwise noted — and copyright Jen Maidenberg.)
I asked myself, “why?” Sure, the post was opinionated and related to a trending topic. But I think the primary reason is because misery loves company and a lot of people are miserable.
We’re stuck in really bad relationships… With the Internet.
Admit it. You’re bored. Tired. Annoyed. If something better came along — like virtual reality or time travel– you’d totally consider walking away.
We know we’re tiring of the Internet. We’ve even admitted it! We’ve gone on breaks. We’ve dated other … media.
And yet, for various reasons — love, addiction, money — we can’t seem to walk away. Not yet.
Some of us really don’t want to walk away, even though we know we’d be better off if we did. Some of us want to get up, leave, and never look back, but keep making excuses as to why not.
I’m not sure which category I fall into (maybe both, depending on the day) but I do know one thing.
It’s time to detach.
This is my very trendy “one word” for 2014. It’s my teeny tiny bud of a resolution-to-be.
Detach.
Not detox.
Detach.
To become unattached.
Attachment, as those of us with even a minor education in mindfulness practice know, is at the root of fear, anger, sadness. When we allow ourselves to not be attached, or in my case, to detach when we become aware of just how attached we are, a whole world of peace and ease opens up to us.
Bye bye fear and anger.
Hello, possibilities.
I am seriously attached. I am way over attached. Ask anyone who knows me in real life and half the people who know me only through my blog.
I got me a serious case of the ‘tach.
So, I’m trying this out. Detaching.
What will my detachment from the Internet look like in real time?
I have absolutely no idea.
I’m open. (See what I just did there? I detached.)
What’s your relationship with the Internet looking like these days? And what’s your teeny tiny bud of a resolution-to-be?
On my drive home from work, I play a game sometimes.
I choose a song to listen to on YouTube. When it finishes and when I get to a stop sign, I look through the suggested songs at the bottom and choose one. That’s the game.
I typically get through three or four songs this way. (I have a 25 minute drive but not so many stops along the winding mountain roads.)
I play this game, as opposed to creating a playlist or listening to a CD, because I am lazy and because Pandora doesn’t work in Israel and because I have this notion that there is a certain magic to the way songs appear in the recommended song section, as opposed to this thing called an “algorithm” I hear so much about but have no idea what it really, truly means. And anyway, I’d rather believe in magic, in an elf DJ who lives inside my smartphone.
I was first introduced to this song in 1988 by my friend Suzanne. I remember because anything folksy or hippiesh I pretty much learned from Suzanne, whose parents were once, apparently, hippie-like, or at least more hippie-like than any of my other friend’s parents in that they owned a guitar and watched Woody Allen movies and collected Bob Dylan records and other stuff I am not at liberty to reveal because you can only embarrass your own parents on your blog, not somebody else’s.
I say this only to let you know that I’ve been listening to Both Sides Now for a long time. I know all the words. I know Joni’s voice and pitch in the song by heart. It made many a mixed tape because I loved it so.
So when I heard Joni from 2000 sing Both Sides Now on my smartphone today, I almost didn’t recognize her. Her voice had changed so. It’s deeper, raspier, more…broken. In a way middle aged women are broken. In a way moons and Junes and Ferris wheels one day become broken after years of working hard on automatic.
I, like I’m sure many who’ve heard this later version of Joni sing this poignant song, thought, “how very perfect.” She is singing this from the other side, and the change in her voice — now alto and smoky with maturity — matches perfectly the impression of being there, then, in the days when clouds only block the sun. One listens to this version and really feels as if Joni has been through it all. One listens to this version and can sense beneath the vocals an oh so subtle laughter, as if…
She sounds resigned, Joni, and yet, satisfied. Good with the turns her life took. Or at least accepting of them, even those which were unexpected.
I listened to her and thought about the girl I once was; the girl who once listened to this song mournfully, as if I was already on the other side. As if…
I sang out loud and wondered, “what would you hear in my voice now?” You who knew me when I was young. You who knew me before the years… Before the years carried me over into the other side?
I grabbed the nearest book: Tolstoy Lied by Rachel Kadish. I’m about ten pages from the end, but I picked up the book and opened to a random page in order to complete today’s Daily Prompt.
Grab the nearest book. Open it and go to the tenth word. Do a Google Image Search of the word. Write about what the image brings to mind.
The tenth word on the random page i opened was “key.”
I was disappointed.
But also determined to complete the prompt. Google images produced a somewhat ordinary, but dirty old brass key at the top of the results page. I studied it.
Nothing.
I zoomed in. Stared at the grooves and tried to feel inspired.
Nothing.
I closed my eyes and meditated on the key.
Still nothing.
What did the key open? What was behind the locked door? Inside the sealed box?
Zzzzzzz…
Finally, I stopped trying to feel inspired — it’s the end of a long day after all,and my kids are begging me to read them bedtime stories already.
I decided to just follow the directions:
“Write about what the image brings to mind.”
So here goes:
A key. Another
mystery awakening
my humility.
What does it open?
Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
This time, just a key.
Like a Freudian free association exercise, I quickly reminded myself how happy I was only three weeks ago to be driving at all.
Feel it! I told myself. Feel the gratitude just to be driving with a real, certified driver’s license.
Nope. Didn’t feel it.
Next, taking a page out of my friend Andra’s “First Times” series of blog posts, I tried to turn my attention to more than two decades ago when I first got my American driver’s license and when I finally had a car of my own. Tried to imagine myself 17, alone, on the open road, without a grownup.
Surely memories of my youth would move something inside of me, I thought.
And, indeed, something started to stir.
The worry moved aside for a minute. But the “something” wasn’t quite strong enough to overpower the worry.
Then in an instant, in the mysterious way memory works, I remembered a “first time” that would move me from worry to joy.
I was 23.
I had just moved to New York City from Washington, D.C. where I had studied.
I was living, at the time, with a bunch of girls in a dorm room at NYU to take part in the university’s Summer Publishing Institute.
That day — the one my memory drifted to this morning– was a typical stifling hot summer day in NYC in 1997. Extra stifling in the subway system.
There’s a long underground hallway at Times Square/Port Authority that takes you from what was then the 1-2-3 line to the A-C-E. The walls were peppered with advertisements, of course. But hanging from the ceiling was a series of signs…an art installation geared towards the walking commuters. It apparently still hangs today.
The series starts with one word:
OVERSLEPT
And continues:
SO TIRED
IF LATE
GET FIRED.
One in a series of subway signs at Times Square. Photo by Daniel Goodman / Business Insider
I remember being 23 and noticing those signs and having an out of body experience a la Steve Martin in LA Story.
“Are those signs talking to me?” I wondered.
I paused and considered what the signs were saying. Who they were speaking to.
And in my head, to the imaginary voice or to myself, I answered.
Not me.
“I’m not tired at, all. In fact, I feel more alive than ever!” I thought.
Those signs were clearly speaking to some very sad and sorry grownups — not me! — who were already tired from life.
I laughed out loud.
Grownups.
It suddenly occurred to me that I was a grownup!
“I can’t believe I am a grown up,” I thought. “This is IT. I am officially a grownup.”
My self-talk continued:
“Here I am. In this subway station. Underground. Alone. On my own. Nobody here knows me. I can do or be anything I want. No one can tell me who to be or what to do anymore. I am an adult.”
I remember this as the exact moment I felt adult.
I remember a combination of terror and joy.
But mostly joy.
I wanted to dance around the room.
I was free!
Free to live my life!
Instead dancing, I just smiled.
I smiled at the strangers. The tired ones. The ones wondering, “Why bother?”
I felt sorry for their malaise, but I walked underground between 7th and 8th Avenues with a lighter step and a huge smile on my face.
“I am a grownup!” My smile said. “Just try and tell me what to do!”
The fragments of that smile remain today, sitting in the back of my throat, waiting for worry.
And I accessed that smile today and the emotions behind it.
Alone (!)
On my own (!)
I can do or be anything I want!!!
I laughed at myself, then
and at life.
At how funny life is.
At how funny humans are.
Fragments of a smile became a true smile of joy as I realized I was free.
and yadda yadda, an aliyah blog 