Scary Movie

There’s a Hebrew slang expression I’m very fond of. When a person spends too much time in his head, thinking over and over again about stuff that is likely to cause him worries and fuck him up– we say he’s in movies. If it’s a common problem, an everyday occurrence, we say: he lives in a movie. Sometimes we tell a friend: Motek (sweetie) get out of the movie. What we’re trying to say is: It’s not real. It’s in your head. This expression evolved and expanded over the years – the nature of language, I suppose – and now you can hear conversations such as: “What did you do today?” “Oh, not much. I spent all day in the movie theatre. I was the director, producer, the main actress and the extras.” My sister, who I once coined ‘the reviver of the Hebrew language’ developed this expression to genius levels. She’d ask for popcorn for her movie, tell me she’s trapped in a multiplex watching all the films, complain that the usher locked the theatre and wouldn’t let her leave in the middle.

It is one of those Hebrew expressions I can’t find an English equivalent for, so I just say it in English, and those who are close to me are used to hearing it by now.

I’m telling you this so you’d understand my predicament when I tell you I’ve been living in movies lately. The horror film I’ve been trapped in is called: I am getting old. I used to think I’m not scared of ageing. “Why would anybody be scared of ageing?” I used to say, pleased with my maturity level. “It’s like resisting life itself!” I even told people I look forward to becoming forty. I was all so zen about it. So at peace with my inner clock. It was admirable. Until my 35th birthday approached and suddenly I lost it. 35??? Thirty five? How the hell did that happen? I began to suspect something weird happened to time, and it’s been passing faster than it used to. My sister gladly supported my suspicion, she read somewhere that the globe has been spinning an increment of a second faster. Whatever it is, I’m freaked out. In those dark quiet hours I spend in my own private screening room – I make scary calculations that prove that life is short. I realized that it’s been 15 years since I was twenty, and in 15 more years I’ll be 50. And since 20 doesn’t seem that long ago – the obvious conclusion is that neither is 50. Aghhhhhh!!!!

I’ve been in this movie for a few months now. I’ve seen the sequels and everything. It’s getting boring. I think, except for the obvious reason (my upcoming birthday) that it could be attributed to a few other causes. My research into the past, for example, has revealed some shocking discoveries. After talking to all these old people – some of which I’ve known my whole life as old – reading their letters and looking at their photos, I have solid reason to believe that they were, in fact, once young. And since I was suddenly armed with the ability to see old people as young people - I started seeing young people as old people. It’s like some magic power I never asked for. I look at little children and I can see them age. It’s scary.

Another reason to my new film making aspirations is that I’ve been doing some digging into my own past. My mom has asked me to get rid of the stuff I’ve been storing at her place. It is a large seven room house that my father built for our budding family thirty years ago. Now, when Ima is in her late 60’s the house is nothing more than giant dust trap- a burden for a clean freak such as my mom. She’s tired of working so hard at keeping its seven rooms clean, dusting the ridiculous amount of books her six children store everywhere. She wants to grow old in a small apartment that won’t require five full days of cleaning. Not to mention, this house would be her pension plan, once we demolish it and build an apartment building instead. It would change her life.

I’ve decided to take on the project, organize my stuff, throw away as much as possible, and limit what’s left to two boxes. I thought I was being real mature and helpful about it until I saw my mom’s expression. She wasn’t asking me to throw some away, she was asking me to get rid of it all, throw away some and ship the rest to Canada. She has six children after all, and if each of us had two boxes, where is she going to put it? And what is she going to do with those piles of books? I pretended I wasn’t hurt, and went into my room to cry and hate her a little bit. I’m sure that she wasn’t quite as hard on her other children! Obviously she loves me less! When I got over being a six year old, I started thinking of a solution. What exactly am I going to do? Throw away childhood diaries? What kind of person does that? Big deal, you say, can’t you take your diaries with you to Canada? Well, you obviously underestimate the extent of my graphomania. I was a freak child. In sixth grade alone I wrote 15 diaries – most of which are full with detailed descriptions of petty fights between me and my girlfriends, butterfly stickers and lipstick kisses. One day it’s: “I hate Noga! I will never talk to her again! Ever!!!” And the next: “Noga and I are friends again. She’s my best friend in the whole wide world. We both hate Orit. She’s ugly.” Yup. Nothing really deep or profound. Turns out I wasn’t a genius child after all. Imagine my disappointment once I discovered my diaries are not full with philosophical arguments or spiritual epiphanies.

Diaries (all 50 of them) are just the half of the problem. As I mentioned before, I spent my childhood years writing endlessly, I have about the same amount of notebooks full of stories, novellas, poems, scripts, plays. Unlike my diaries, some of these are quite good and I enjoy reading them. Maybe I wasn’t all stupid after all. Maybe the diaries were like the stream of consciousness – the pre-writing they sometimes recommend in creative writing classes. They were the crap I had to write to free some space for the good stuff. Still, I can’t get rid of them. All together I have about 100 notebooks. This is some heavy shit. Shipping it would cost a fortune.


While I was sorting all these things I came across another problem: my collection of notes, letters and other memorabilia. Remember those days, when people actually sent each other letters? How come communication has become easier, and cheaper, yet we communicate less?

Most of the letters I kept are from my first years of traveling (a few years ago I got rid of most of my many pen pals’ letters). Back in my early 20’s internet wasn’t widespread so I kept giving my family and friends address along the way to send me letters to. One of my favourite spots in the whole world was the GPO (general post office) in New Delhi. In my trips around the subcontinent I was bound to reach New Delhi more often than other places. It was a big junction city, a place to catch trains, buses and planes, so people knew they could always send me letters there. I could hardly sleep the night before going to the GPO. It was like Christmas day, way before I even knew about Christmas. It was an old grey unimaginative building, and inside they had one long counter with a bored clerk, and alphabetized folders where letters were organized by last name. I always had a few letters from family, friends, and old lovers. Sometimes I even had packages from home, with some yummy snacks and magazines. I spent the last two days reading four years of travel worth of letters, and it was one crazy ride. Some of the people who wrote to me were traveling too – my ex boyfriend was writing me from South America, I sent him letters back to the Israeli embassies in different countries. Another ex was working in Germany selling jewelry on the street. My sister was writing me from California, where she was driving an ice cream truck in godforsaken towns. My best friend was writing me her naughty alcohol induced adventures from New York (which led to me flying over there and living with her for a summer.) Boys, sex, drugs and alcohol were a common topic. I read through detailed accounts of drunken night-outs and wild parties, heartaches and love affairs and one night stands. I also read about my own heartaches, through the eyes of my friends. I read their responses to my crazy travel stories and was reminded of it all. And of course I missed it. I missed those crazy years, that feeling of nothing to lose, and no hurry, of taking risks and living on the edge. Of going away with a one way ticket, without knowing when I’ll come back and where I’ll come back from. And I missed my friends, how they were before they got married and had children. That pinch. That bitter sweet ache of nostalgia.

And as I was reading those letters from my early twenties, I suddenly realized why 35 came as such a surprise. I realized I’ve been stuck in my early twenties for years now. I’ve always been a late bloomer, and it helped that I looked younger than my real age (of course, this past month I had two people guessing my real age (!!!) Imagine my horror. I’m still not over it.) I didn’t even notice turning 30 because I was in Thailand barefoot and broke, with a backpack for a home and a one way ticket, just like I did at 23. I was living with 4 roommates, partying excessively and dating boys in their early twenties when I turned 31. I was a waitress at 34. These are the kind of things you do at 23. I may have made progress in my own eyes (I now own furniture, I’m in a long lasting steady relationship. I’ve evolved and grown, became wiser and more mature) but compared to the average, this is not much. At 35 I still own less than most people my age. I’m not married, don’t have children, don’t really have an organized job. I don’t even have a saving account for god sake!!! I guess that’s why I didn’t see 35 coming, that’s why it snuck up on me so unexpectedly, like a well written, cleverly placed plot twist.