Sometimes I can’t believe that they let us get away with flying. (By ‘they’ I mean of course: God and his buddies.) I mean, when we tried building the Babel tower and reach them, they made a big fuss about it. And then we went and built giant birds of steel that fly to the heavens – clearly their territory – and they just look the other way.
I always thought there’s something freakish about flying. Not just because I can’t really grasp how it works. I’m stupid that way. There are lots of technical things that are beyond my comprehension. I’ve studied media in college, and took a detailed course in video technology that explained the concept of television in clear wording, but none of it made sense to me. I ended up memorizing it for the exam – word to word – and got an A+. My teacher was convinced that I was a tech genius. But in fact, I don’t get any of it. How do these little people get into the screen? What keeps those giant heavy birds up in the sky? Why can’t I touch the internet?
Planes are weird for many reasons. There’s the dry recycled air that chaps your skin till it hurts, the little neat meals that seem like they were prepared by aliens, those round windows you can’t open, and the forced intimacy with strangers who share your armrest for 10 hours.
But mostly planes are weird because of the huge distance they cover in such short periods. Right now I’m sitting in an Amsterdam café after spending four and a half hours in an airplane, and it just doesn’t seem right. It shouldn’t take 4 and half hours to get from Tel Aviv to Amsterdam. It can’t be that close. It snows here (although right now it’s gorgeous,) people speak Dutch and live on canals and are polite and really tall. You should take a boat for a couple weeks before you can make the shift from my sweltering hot crazy and rude Middle Eastern country - to this.
Somehow boats, cars and trains make more sense. They provide a reasonable amount of adjusting time, so you can process the changes as they take place. You can watch the landscape transform gradually, and adjust to the climate. I suspect you’re more ready to face a new world after a longer in-between stage. Maybe after a week on a boat your longings to what you’ve left behind subside and the excitement of what awaits builds up, so they don't just get mixed up and make you feel crazy, wandering Harlemmerstraat exhausted and emotionally fragile, dressed all wrong for the weather, carrying three types of currency, not sure what’s the time, what day it is, which language to speak, and if any of this is real.
But then again, I can’t help but wonder – who decides what's reasonable? Maybe the reasonable amount of time is the time it takes to walk somewhere – or ride a camel. In my research I’ve learned the distance between Yemeni cities by foot, or on a donkey. Back then, that was their only option. They probably thought cars moved too fast.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not badmouthing aviation. As someone who lives half a world away from her family – I’d be screwed without planes. Just the other day my family complained that I live too far. 16 hour flight is just too long, they said, and I had to agree. “I’m gonna develop a new device - a blinker,” my younger brother said. “You blink and concentrate and get transformed to another place.” For a few minutes we all got carried away in that sweet fantasy and imagined how I'd make it to our family Friday night dinner every week. I know the blinker would allow for no adjusting time at all, cause a sweeping culture shock epidemic, and who knows what it might do to my skin, but I don’t care. I guess nothing is too fast or too freakish when it comes to seeing your loved ones.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
April 22nd
Today, 25 years ago, my father died. It no longer feels like yesterday. Not even like last week. It still doesn’t feel like 25 years though.
It’s the second year in a row that I’ve started something on March 22nd, so when April 22nd came, it was the anniversary of my achievement, rather than the day my dad died. I guess I was trying (unconsciously, of course) to turn April 22nd into a good day, and it was easy to fool myself since there were always good reasons to choose March 22nd as a day to start things. Last year I chose to quit smoking on that day, because it was the first day of spring. This year I decided to start exercising, walking daily, and eating healthy (ok, let’s call it by its name: I’m on a freakin' diet.) March 22nd was the day Sean left, so I figured it would be a good day to start.
Over the years I’ve been quite creative in my attempts to make April 22nd into something else. Five years ago I changed my ticket from Thailand on the very last minute so April 22nd became the day I left Thailand and the last day I spent with ‘E’ – a guy who at the time I thought I was madly in love with (and who ended up becoming born again Jew – see February 26th post about me running into him in Tel Aviv.) I guess I wanted something new for April 22nd. A different kind of heartache to replace the one I’ve been carrying around for twenty years. Change it up a little.
One of my best friends lost her dad a few years ago on May 13th. “Sean and I met on May 13th,” I mentioned to her last week, and she sighed heavily, annoyed. “Are you mad that Sean and I met on May 13th?” I asked. “Did we steal your May 13th?” She laughed and nodded.
I really tried to make today the day I celebrated a month of my diet, but I couldn’t. Instead, I spent it eating ice cream and chocolate, slacking on my walks (unless you call wandering aimlessly in an air conditioned mall while wearing my sun glasses and eating ice cream - a walk), fighting with my brother and crying. I ended up feeling sick to my stomach. (The ice cream? The mall?)
It doesn’t work. It never worked. April 22nd would always be the day my father died. I can give it a new outfit, slap some makeup on it, and call it September, but it will always be that day.
And that’s all I have to say about it
It’s the second year in a row that I’ve started something on March 22nd, so when April 22nd came, it was the anniversary of my achievement, rather than the day my dad died. I guess I was trying (unconsciously, of course) to turn April 22nd into a good day, and it was easy to fool myself since there were always good reasons to choose March 22nd as a day to start things. Last year I chose to quit smoking on that day, because it was the first day of spring. This year I decided to start exercising, walking daily, and eating healthy (ok, let’s call it by its name: I’m on a freakin' diet.) March 22nd was the day Sean left, so I figured it would be a good day to start.
Over the years I’ve been quite creative in my attempts to make April 22nd into something else. Five years ago I changed my ticket from Thailand on the very last minute so April 22nd became the day I left Thailand and the last day I spent with ‘E’ – a guy who at the time I thought I was madly in love with (and who ended up becoming born again Jew – see February 26th post about me running into him in Tel Aviv.) I guess I wanted something new for April 22nd. A different kind of heartache to replace the one I’ve been carrying around for twenty years. Change it up a little.
One of my best friends lost her dad a few years ago on May 13th. “Sean and I met on May 13th,” I mentioned to her last week, and she sighed heavily, annoyed. “Are you mad that Sean and I met on May 13th?” I asked. “Did we steal your May 13th?” She laughed and nodded.
I really tried to make today the day I celebrated a month of my diet, but I couldn’t. Instead, I spent it eating ice cream and chocolate, slacking on my walks (unless you call wandering aimlessly in an air conditioned mall while wearing my sun glasses and eating ice cream - a walk), fighting with my brother and crying. I ended up feeling sick to my stomach. (The ice cream? The mall?)
It doesn’t work. It never worked. April 22nd would always be the day my father died. I can give it a new outfit, slap some makeup on it, and call it September, but it will always be that day.
And that’s all I have to say about it
Saturday, April 12, 2008
A Love Song to The City that Never Sleeps
I love Tel Aviv. Foolishly and blindly, like a school girl with a crush on the high school stud. I drive its streets at night, roll my windows down and smile stupidly to myself. I breathe its smoggy air as if it was spring blossom. In an age when most of my friends have graduated to quieter suburbs or moved to the country – I still look at it with admiring eyes and fantasize about living here. For a few weeks. Maybe a year. I could live in one of those old white apartment buildings by the sea that were eaten by salt and sea breeze; in a spacious apartment, maybe the kind that has painted tile floors and high ceilings, or maybe in a Bauhaus style building with rounded balconies and view to the water.
I’m pretty sure Tel Aviv one of coolest cities in the world. I’m yet to visit other allegedly cool cities to determine – cities such as Barcelona or Mexico City for example, but I have been around some pretty cool cities and Tel Aviv rules my list, which includes Montreal, New York, London and Amsterdam. I can’t include Vancouver in this list, even though in my opinion it’s cool in its own tame and sedated way, and it has Commercial Drive (definitely up there in the list of cool neighbourhoods!) which is why I live there, but it’s just belongs to a different bracket altogether. I also love Bombay, Bangkok, Phnom Penn and Jerusalem – all very cool cities – but they exist in a different sphere and in my opinion are incomparable.
When I was 22 I moved to Manhattan, seeking coolness that I didn’t think exist in my tiny, confused and holy land. I remember driving the Brooklyn Bridge, watching the famous skyline and thinking: I have made it! I’ve made it to the coolest city in the world, where everybody speaks as if they’re characters in a sitcom and every street corner seems familiar from a movie or a Seinfeld episode. Where Sigourney Weaver passes by with bags of grocery and cops break dance in the middle of a busy intersection while they direct traffic. Where you open your MTV and find that if you left the house now, you’d make it to a Metallica concert in the park, just a few blocks away. I dreamt about New York since I was a teenager. Since I first read Madonna’s story about arriving in New York, how she asked the taxi driver to drop her at the centre of everything and ended up in Times Square with $15 and went on to take over the world. When things got rough at home I could close my eyes and imagine I lived there, in one of those high rises with a cute American boy named Michael or Steve. I’m pretty sure everyone has a place like that in their teens. A better place. A place that symbolizes everything their hometown isn’t. A place where nobody knows them, where they can start new. New York was mine. I loved it so much that I drew its skyline, in shades of gray, on my bedroom wall.
I got there on a flight from New Delhi after traveling through India’s north, and rented a tiny bachelor suite with my best friend on Lexington and 36th , up four flights of stairs. It was mid summer, New York was hot and humid and our air conditioner broke down on the first week. It was ridiculously expensive and I made no friends. I got a little job writing articles for a Hebrew paper intended for the Israeli immigrant community but it didn’t pay much (In fact, I think they still owe me money!) I missed India terribly, followed smells of turmeric and cilantro down the streets and women in saris on the subway. Sometimes, after wandering the streets for hours, I’d even get lonely and bored. Bored! In New York!!! It was nothing like they said it would be. It wasn’t open all night long like they promised. It wasn’t easy to find good 24 hour restaurants, and there wasn’t a 24 hour convenience store at every street corner. It had some great clubs, but nothing I haven't seen at home. One night, after having drinks at a bar with a friend, I was gonna walk home from the bar, when my New Yorker friend told me I was crazy. I was stunned. “But it’s only 4 blocks, and Giuliani cleaned New York!” I said. But apparently it wasn’t safe to walk in New York in the middle of the night, not even a few blocks. “And never take the subway after midnight!” My friend added. What kind of night life is that?
Imagine my shock, realizing that when it comes to night life, my little Middle Eastern Tel Aviv puts the big apple to shame.
I love, love, love Tel Aviv. Sometimes, when it treats me like shit, I briefly hate it. But then, like the sucker I am, I forgive her. (Note: In Hebrew city is female and I find it hard to not think of it in that way…) I forgive her for the traffic, the crazy drivers, the dirt. I forgive her for the impossible parking situation and my pile of unpaid parking tickets (I mean, if there’s no parking anywhere and I mean - ANYWHERE, where do you expect people to park if not on the sidewalk?). I forgive her for the crowded beaches. I even forgive her Friday afternoons, when it’s overrun by visitors from other cities and you can’t even walk Shenkin Street or get a seat in a café because it’s so damn busy.
I started to skip school and spend my days to Tel Aviv in junior high. Sometimes I’d head to school and half way there see the bus to Tel Aviv approaching and change plans. Tel Aviv was everything my suburb wasn’t. It exuded life, while my suburb was all death. Tel Aviv was vibrant and exciting and never at rest, unlike my hometown, which closed shop every day between two and four (for siesta) and where there was only one store open on Saturdays. People were out, celebrating life in fashionable clothing and great hair, sun tanning on beaches in midday, laughing with friends on patios, flagging taxi cabs as they balanced their funky-boutiques shopping bags, sipping cappuccinos at trendy coffee shops. Tourists looked at maps on street corners, and couples kissed on park benches. I walked on the white sand beaches, browsed in record stores. I would sit at cafés and pretend I was a part of it all, trying to breathe in the city, letting its energy rub onto me.
In high school I started working at a teen magazine. I started taking the bus to the magazine’s office, an offshoot of a large daily newspaper, which was located in Tel Aviv. The minute I walked in I knew that this was where I wanted to spend my days. It was so much more exciting than being in school! Clearly I belonged here, at the pulsating heart of a busy magazine, where the phones rang non-stop and the thrill of meeting deadlines and chasing stories was better than any sugar rush or alcohol induced high I had ever experienced. I began conducting interviews in cafes around town, travel around it to cover events and began feeling at home in the city. Around the same time I got accepted to the national theatre’s exclusive youth group in the centre of Tel Aviv. ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ was hitting the charts, playing on the radio every ten minutes, and ‘Dirty dancing’ was showing at theatres. I started spending more time in Tel Aviv than I did at home.
In the army I was posted to an army base in Tel Aviv, which meant that on my lunch breaks, instead of eating free meals at the army base, I’d sit on a restaurant patio and spend too much money, getting myself into debt so I can feel cool. Sometimes, my friend and I would drive to the beach for our lunch break, roll up our uniform sleeves and take off our army shoes and sit in the sand for a half hour before we had to go back to our dull army office.
Then came the Banana Beach days (see February 14h post – On Beaches and Homes). After that I moved into an apartment on Dizzengof Street, right in the heart of Tel Aviv. Even four years ago, already living in Vancouver, I found myself in Tel Aviv with no money after travelling in Thailand, and ended up staying for 6 months, trying to gather money for a flight to Vancouver. Once again I worked at cafe on the beach. I moved into a friend’s apartment in Florentine – Tel Aviv’s lower east side, where Tel Aviv’s young hip residents co-exist with small industry shops, garages, trendy bars and little boutiques. I started thinking I should move back. Why stay in Vancouver? So far away from my family? From Tel Aviv? I planned on going back to Vancouver for a little bit, sort out my life and come back. For good. But when I got back to Vancouver I moved into the Big Yellow House, met Sean, and made many new and wonderful friends. Life had a different plan - a better plan - for me. I stayed in Vancouver. I'm so happy I stayed.
I love Tel Aviv because I can walk by myself late at night and feel safe, because there would always be people on the street. I love it because you can get great coffee (cappuccinos or turkish) anywhere, at any time, and not just at selected coffee shops. I love it for its falafel stands and yummy hummus. I love it because the weather is beautiful, because the beaches are always a great place to hang out for half an hour or an entire day. I love it for its old buildings. I love it because you can drink beer anywhere at any time. I love it because you can get a haircut at midnight, shop at 2 am, eat a fine meal at 4 am, and dance until morning. I love being able to go for a morning swim after partying… then have great coffee and an Israeli breakfast at Banana Beach with my feet buried in the sand…I love it for its crazy markets, for its great fashion, the eclectic selection of restaurants, the love parade, the seawall. I love it for its narrow streets and green gardens, for the beautiful boulevards. I love it for the amazing sunsets on the beach, and how the city’s white buildings blush at this hour, and everything looks a little less blinding, a little more beautiful. I love the mix of east and west. I love that just like me, Tel Aviv is trapped in an eternal identity crisis, trapped between the Middle East and Europe. And most of all, I love it because it allows me to be whoever I want, do whatever I please, at whatever hour I want. It allows me to be me.
I’m pretty sure Tel Aviv one of coolest cities in the world. I’m yet to visit other allegedly cool cities to determine – cities such as Barcelona or Mexico City for example, but I have been around some pretty cool cities and Tel Aviv rules my list, which includes Montreal, New York, London and Amsterdam. I can’t include Vancouver in this list, even though in my opinion it’s cool in its own tame and sedated way, and it has Commercial Drive (definitely up there in the list of cool neighbourhoods!) which is why I live there, but it’s just belongs to a different bracket altogether. I also love Bombay, Bangkok, Phnom Penn and Jerusalem – all very cool cities – but they exist in a different sphere and in my opinion are incomparable.
When I was 22 I moved to Manhattan, seeking coolness that I didn’t think exist in my tiny, confused and holy land. I remember driving the Brooklyn Bridge, watching the famous skyline and thinking: I have made it! I’ve made it to the coolest city in the world, where everybody speaks as if they’re characters in a sitcom and every street corner seems familiar from a movie or a Seinfeld episode. Where Sigourney Weaver passes by with bags of grocery and cops break dance in the middle of a busy intersection while they direct traffic. Where you open your MTV and find that if you left the house now, you’d make it to a Metallica concert in the park, just a few blocks away. I dreamt about New York since I was a teenager. Since I first read Madonna’s story about arriving in New York, how she asked the taxi driver to drop her at the centre of everything and ended up in Times Square with $15 and went on to take over the world. When things got rough at home I could close my eyes and imagine I lived there, in one of those high rises with a cute American boy named Michael or Steve. I’m pretty sure everyone has a place like that in their teens. A better place. A place that symbolizes everything their hometown isn’t. A place where nobody knows them, where they can start new. New York was mine. I loved it so much that I drew its skyline, in shades of gray, on my bedroom wall.
I got there on a flight from New Delhi after traveling through India’s north, and rented a tiny bachelor suite with my best friend on Lexington and 36th , up four flights of stairs. It was mid summer, New York was hot and humid and our air conditioner broke down on the first week. It was ridiculously expensive and I made no friends. I got a little job writing articles for a Hebrew paper intended for the Israeli immigrant community but it didn’t pay much (In fact, I think they still owe me money!) I missed India terribly, followed smells of turmeric and cilantro down the streets and women in saris on the subway. Sometimes, after wandering the streets for hours, I’d even get lonely and bored. Bored! In New York!!! It was nothing like they said it would be. It wasn’t open all night long like they promised. It wasn’t easy to find good 24 hour restaurants, and there wasn’t a 24 hour convenience store at every street corner. It had some great clubs, but nothing I haven't seen at home. One night, after having drinks at a bar with a friend, I was gonna walk home from the bar, when my New Yorker friend told me I was crazy. I was stunned. “But it’s only 4 blocks, and Giuliani cleaned New York!” I said. But apparently it wasn’t safe to walk in New York in the middle of the night, not even a few blocks. “And never take the subway after midnight!” My friend added. What kind of night life is that?
Imagine my shock, realizing that when it comes to night life, my little Middle Eastern Tel Aviv puts the big apple to shame.
I love, love, love Tel Aviv. Sometimes, when it treats me like shit, I briefly hate it. But then, like the sucker I am, I forgive her. (Note: In Hebrew city is female and I find it hard to not think of it in that way…) I forgive her for the traffic, the crazy drivers, the dirt. I forgive her for the impossible parking situation and my pile of unpaid parking tickets (I mean, if there’s no parking anywhere and I mean - ANYWHERE, where do you expect people to park if not on the sidewalk?). I forgive her for the crowded beaches. I even forgive her Friday afternoons, when it’s overrun by visitors from other cities and you can’t even walk Shenkin Street or get a seat in a café because it’s so damn busy.
I started to skip school and spend my days to Tel Aviv in junior high. Sometimes I’d head to school and half way there see the bus to Tel Aviv approaching and change plans. Tel Aviv was everything my suburb wasn’t. It exuded life, while my suburb was all death. Tel Aviv was vibrant and exciting and never at rest, unlike my hometown, which closed shop every day between two and four (for siesta) and where there was only one store open on Saturdays. People were out, celebrating life in fashionable clothing and great hair, sun tanning on beaches in midday, laughing with friends on patios, flagging taxi cabs as they balanced their funky-boutiques shopping bags, sipping cappuccinos at trendy coffee shops. Tourists looked at maps on street corners, and couples kissed on park benches. I walked on the white sand beaches, browsed in record stores. I would sit at cafés and pretend I was a part of it all, trying to breathe in the city, letting its energy rub onto me.
In high school I started working at a teen magazine. I started taking the bus to the magazine’s office, an offshoot of a large daily newspaper, which was located in Tel Aviv. The minute I walked in I knew that this was where I wanted to spend my days. It was so much more exciting than being in school! Clearly I belonged here, at the pulsating heart of a busy magazine, where the phones rang non-stop and the thrill of meeting deadlines and chasing stories was better than any sugar rush or alcohol induced high I had ever experienced. I began conducting interviews in cafes around town, travel around it to cover events and began feeling at home in the city. Around the same time I got accepted to the national theatre’s exclusive youth group in the centre of Tel Aviv. ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ was hitting the charts, playing on the radio every ten minutes, and ‘Dirty dancing’ was showing at theatres. I started spending more time in Tel Aviv than I did at home.
In the army I was posted to an army base in Tel Aviv, which meant that on my lunch breaks, instead of eating free meals at the army base, I’d sit on a restaurant patio and spend too much money, getting myself into debt so I can feel cool. Sometimes, my friend and I would drive to the beach for our lunch break, roll up our uniform sleeves and take off our army shoes and sit in the sand for a half hour before we had to go back to our dull army office.
Then came the Banana Beach days (see February 14h post – On Beaches and Homes). After that I moved into an apartment on Dizzengof Street, right in the heart of Tel Aviv. Even four years ago, already living in Vancouver, I found myself in Tel Aviv with no money after travelling in Thailand, and ended up staying for 6 months, trying to gather money for a flight to Vancouver. Once again I worked at cafe on the beach. I moved into a friend’s apartment in Florentine – Tel Aviv’s lower east side, where Tel Aviv’s young hip residents co-exist with small industry shops, garages, trendy bars and little boutiques. I started thinking I should move back. Why stay in Vancouver? So far away from my family? From Tel Aviv? I planned on going back to Vancouver for a little bit, sort out my life and come back. For good. But when I got back to Vancouver I moved into the Big Yellow House, met Sean, and made many new and wonderful friends. Life had a different plan - a better plan - for me. I stayed in Vancouver. I'm so happy I stayed.
I love Tel Aviv because I can walk by myself late at night and feel safe, because there would always be people on the street. I love it because you can get great coffee (cappuccinos or turkish) anywhere, at any time, and not just at selected coffee shops. I love it for its falafel stands and yummy hummus. I love it because the weather is beautiful, because the beaches are always a great place to hang out for half an hour or an entire day. I love it for its old buildings. I love it because you can drink beer anywhere at any time. I love it because you can get a haircut at midnight, shop at 2 am, eat a fine meal at 4 am, and dance until morning. I love being able to go for a morning swim after partying… then have great coffee and an Israeli breakfast at Banana Beach with my feet buried in the sand…I love it for its crazy markets, for its great fashion, the eclectic selection of restaurants, the love parade, the seawall. I love it for its narrow streets and green gardens, for the beautiful boulevards. I love it for the amazing sunsets on the beach, and how the city’s white buildings blush at this hour, and everything looks a little less blinding, a little more beautiful. I love the mix of east and west. I love that just like me, Tel Aviv is trapped in an eternal identity crisis, trapped between the Middle East and Europe. And most of all, I love it because it allows me to be whoever I want, do whatever I please, at whatever hour I want. It allows me to be me.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
A Visit to Shama's Grave
I used to hate cemeteries.
I mean, what is there to like? It's a place of tears and sorrow, a place that symbolizes loss. More specifically, my father’s loss. I especially hated the cemetery in my town, where my father is buried. I visited this cemetery one time too many, for funerals and memorials, during my teen years. I hated everything about it. Just driving toward it made me uneasy, formed a tight knot in my stomach and a dull headache above my eyebrows. I hated the funeral home at the entrance, a massive ominous stone building; despised the religious men that lured by it, hoping make a buck by praying for your dead. The air was always dusty and dry, and there was hardly any shade, just rows upon rows of marble boxes, bright and shiny like teeth. A desert of stone.
This time, when I enter, I don’t feel any of it. At some point during my visit I actually find a single palm tree next to a lucky grave and stand in its shade for a minute, seeking relief from the blazing sun. I can’t hear the city from here, and there are no birds, which could seem creepy, but today I find it oddly soothing. I enjoy the peace and quiet. Maybe it’s because I’m not here for a funeral ,and the grave I’m looking for is so old that it’s somehow seems easier.
I’m here with Zehava – my second cousin, who’s been helping me with my research – and we’re looking for Shama’s grave, our great grandmother, who died at around 1914 and who’s been the basis for my novel. Zehava has been there once, over 10 years ago with her daughter. They found a mount of old dirt, with a wooden sign stuck in it that read: Shama Madhala. It’s unusual to have graves left without headstones. “Back then the family didn’t think it was important,” Zehava says, “they believed that if they’re already dead, then their souls are gone elsewhere, and why bother spend money on a stone? Don’t forget how poor they were back then!” And so Shama’s grave was left without a headstone for many decades.
Shama’s grave is in the oldest part of the cemetery, on a little hill, and when we stand there we can see the stone desert spread as far as the city’s newest high rises that border the cemetery. These new buildings are plain and stone coloured, and look like an extension of the rows of gravestones they overlook.
They renovated the cemetery since Zehava was last here, put a wall around the lot and stairs to climb the hill, but Zehava remembers the position of the grave from the washrooms and finds the spot easily. Execept… there are no more mounts of dirt. Since the last time Zehava was there the cemetery (maybe with the help of a donor? Or the city?) put up headstones for all the unattended mounts.
The headstones put up by the cemetery are simple and basic, a casting of rectangle concrete with a little square stone, placed like a pillow at the head of the grave. There are many nameless little graves, sad little baby graves, from the days when children died from curable diseases. Others are engraved: “Yemeni woman,” or “Persian child.” Some graves only have first names engraved, like “Esther,” or “Hava” and no other details. One grave reads: “Drowned in the Yarkon River.” Other: “The Young Daughter of Sharabi Family.” I’m fascinated by these graves and the stories behind them. But we can’t find Shama anywhere.
In recent years they built a computerized system to help people find their way in this maze of gravestones. When we type Shama’s name we get: “There are no results for this deceased.” Her grave has disappeared. “But I saw it in my own eyes!” Zehava cries. “How is that possible?” We try Shama’s sisters, even her mother, and their names all appear. We go visit Shama’s mother Simcha’s grave – a simple rectangle of concrete engraved with her name, her father’s name and the year of her death. She died in 1931, outlived her daughter by 17 years. We find pebble stones and place them carefully on her grave. It’s traditional. It’s a way of saying: We were here. We visited you. We remember.
We browse through the rows again and again. Could we have missed it? But if we did, then we should have at least found it on the computer!
Eventually, we realize – to our dismay – that her sign must have flown off before the renovation. I imagine a stormy night, rain washes over graves, shines the marble like mirrors, the wind blows the sign away, and a stream of rainwater carries it down the hill, where it gets covered in mud and dirt. When we walk back to the row of graves, Zehava positions herself back where she thinks the grave is, and finds herself standing by a nameless grave, next to two nameless baby graves. Maybe one of them is her baby daughter, who died at birth, shortly before Shama’s death?
“It’s here,” Zehava whispers with sorrow, “I can feel it. It’s here.”
I'm disappointed. I was hoping to find her time of death, maybe her father's name. I wanted to see her name written. But I'm not surprised. It’s almost expected that Shama’s grave would be nameless. A nameless grave to a woman who lived and died and left no mark, no picture, no document. A woman with no birth certificate and no grave. A woman deleted from history.
We kneel by the grave and touch the stone. The stone feels cool to our hot skin. It’s always so hot and bright in the cemetery. Maybe the sun reflects off the marble, and creates a hot air pocket. Why don’t they have more trees in here?
“I’m sorry, Savta,” Zehava says. Her voice is shaking. “Please forgive us.”
Suddenly I feel a hint of rage. It’s as if a genetic chip inside of me is mad on behalf of my grandmother who can no longer speak her mind. My grandmother who never forgave her mother for abandoning her, who never bothered to look up her grave. I know that if she was here she’d say: “That’s her punishment! For leaving us behind in Yemen, for choosing a man over me and my sister. We should be the ones forgiving her for what she’s done! We shouldn’t be begging her for forgiveness!”
This voice takes me by sueprise. Instead I say quietly: “First she should forgive herself,” and suddenly I know she never did. She died without forgiving herself. I almost feel as if she punished herself, as if she felt she didn’t deserve a proper headstone. And then I think about my character, the one from the novel, and my heart goes out to her. Surely she hoped for more from life. I wish her peace. I wish her to forgive herself and let herself rest.
“How could she have left so little?” I say, and Zehava say: “What do you mean? She left us! She left a dynasty.”
I look for a big pebble stone and place it on her grave.
They have water taps near the exit from the cemetery, and not only so visitors can wash the dust from their hands. According to Jewish tradition, you must wash your hands after visiting a cemetery; wash away the touch of death as if it is dirty, impure. When I was little I treated that rule with the utmost respect and never questioned it. I already felt as if death was a contagious disease I carried with me. I knew so many people who died. I had friends who lost their dads after I’d lost mine. I walked with it like it was my shadow, an invisible stalker. When I was ten I wrote a poem titled: I tasted the taste of cemetery.
This time I don’t bother washing my hands. I feel rebellious. In fact, at some point, as we walk away from the grave, I dare and put my fingers to my mouth. I lick them a little bit, to moisten them, and they taste salty and dusty. I taste the taste of the cemetery.
Then I panic and spit.
I mean, what is there to like? It's a place of tears and sorrow, a place that symbolizes loss. More specifically, my father’s loss. I especially hated the cemetery in my town, where my father is buried. I visited this cemetery one time too many, for funerals and memorials, during my teen years. I hated everything about it. Just driving toward it made me uneasy, formed a tight knot in my stomach and a dull headache above my eyebrows. I hated the funeral home at the entrance, a massive ominous stone building; despised the religious men that lured by it, hoping make a buck by praying for your dead. The air was always dusty and dry, and there was hardly any shade, just rows upon rows of marble boxes, bright and shiny like teeth. A desert of stone.
This time, when I enter, I don’t feel any of it. At some point during my visit I actually find a single palm tree next to a lucky grave and stand in its shade for a minute, seeking relief from the blazing sun. I can’t hear the city from here, and there are no birds, which could seem creepy, but today I find it oddly soothing. I enjoy the peace and quiet. Maybe it’s because I’m not here for a funeral ,and the grave I’m looking for is so old that it’s somehow seems easier.
I’m here with Zehava – my second cousin, who’s been helping me with my research – and we’re looking for Shama’s grave, our great grandmother, who died at around 1914 and who’s been the basis for my novel. Zehava has been there once, over 10 years ago with her daughter. They found a mount of old dirt, with a wooden sign stuck in it that read: Shama Madhala. It’s unusual to have graves left without headstones. “Back then the family didn’t think it was important,” Zehava says, “they believed that if they’re already dead, then their souls are gone elsewhere, and why bother spend money on a stone? Don’t forget how poor they were back then!” And so Shama’s grave was left without a headstone for many decades.
Shama’s grave is in the oldest part of the cemetery, on a little hill, and when we stand there we can see the stone desert spread as far as the city’s newest high rises that border the cemetery. These new buildings are plain and stone coloured, and look like an extension of the rows of gravestones they overlook.
They renovated the cemetery since Zehava was last here, put a wall around the lot and stairs to climb the hill, but Zehava remembers the position of the grave from the washrooms and finds the spot easily. Execept… there are no more mounts of dirt. Since the last time Zehava was there the cemetery (maybe with the help of a donor? Or the city?) put up headstones for all the unattended mounts.
The headstones put up by the cemetery are simple and basic, a casting of rectangle concrete with a little square stone, placed like a pillow at the head of the grave. There are many nameless little graves, sad little baby graves, from the days when children died from curable diseases. Others are engraved: “Yemeni woman,” or “Persian child.” Some graves only have first names engraved, like “Esther,” or “Hava” and no other details. One grave reads: “Drowned in the Yarkon River.” Other: “The Young Daughter of Sharabi Family.” I’m fascinated by these graves and the stories behind them. But we can’t find Shama anywhere.
In recent years they built a computerized system to help people find their way in this maze of gravestones. When we type Shama’s name we get: “There are no results for this deceased.” Her grave has disappeared. “But I saw it in my own eyes!” Zehava cries. “How is that possible?” We try Shama’s sisters, even her mother, and their names all appear. We go visit Shama’s mother Simcha’s grave – a simple rectangle of concrete engraved with her name, her father’s name and the year of her death. She died in 1931, outlived her daughter by 17 years. We find pebble stones and place them carefully on her grave. It’s traditional. It’s a way of saying: We were here. We visited you. We remember.
We browse through the rows again and again. Could we have missed it? But if we did, then we should have at least found it on the computer!
Eventually, we realize – to our dismay – that her sign must have flown off before the renovation. I imagine a stormy night, rain washes over graves, shines the marble like mirrors, the wind blows the sign away, and a stream of rainwater carries it down the hill, where it gets covered in mud and dirt. When we walk back to the row of graves, Zehava positions herself back where she thinks the grave is, and finds herself standing by a nameless grave, next to two nameless baby graves. Maybe one of them is her baby daughter, who died at birth, shortly before Shama’s death?
“It’s here,” Zehava whispers with sorrow, “I can feel it. It’s here.”
I'm disappointed. I was hoping to find her time of death, maybe her father's name. I wanted to see her name written. But I'm not surprised. It’s almost expected that Shama’s grave would be nameless. A nameless grave to a woman who lived and died and left no mark, no picture, no document. A woman with no birth certificate and no grave. A woman deleted from history.
We kneel by the grave and touch the stone. The stone feels cool to our hot skin. It’s always so hot and bright in the cemetery. Maybe the sun reflects off the marble, and creates a hot air pocket. Why don’t they have more trees in here?
“I’m sorry, Savta,” Zehava says. Her voice is shaking. “Please forgive us.”
Suddenly I feel a hint of rage. It’s as if a genetic chip inside of me is mad on behalf of my grandmother who can no longer speak her mind. My grandmother who never forgave her mother for abandoning her, who never bothered to look up her grave. I know that if she was here she’d say: “That’s her punishment! For leaving us behind in Yemen, for choosing a man over me and my sister. We should be the ones forgiving her for what she’s done! We shouldn’t be begging her for forgiveness!”
This voice takes me by sueprise. Instead I say quietly: “First she should forgive herself,” and suddenly I know she never did. She died without forgiving herself. I almost feel as if she punished herself, as if she felt she didn’t deserve a proper headstone. And then I think about my character, the one from the novel, and my heart goes out to her. Surely she hoped for more from life. I wish her peace. I wish her to forgive herself and let herself rest.
“How could she have left so little?” I say, and Zehava say: “What do you mean? She left us! She left a dynasty.”
I look for a big pebble stone and place it on her grave.
They have water taps near the exit from the cemetery, and not only so visitors can wash the dust from their hands. According to Jewish tradition, you must wash your hands after visiting a cemetery; wash away the touch of death as if it is dirty, impure. When I was little I treated that rule with the utmost respect and never questioned it. I already felt as if death was a contagious disease I carried with me. I knew so many people who died. I had friends who lost their dads after I’d lost mine. I walked with it like it was my shadow, an invisible stalker. When I was ten I wrote a poem titled: I tasted the taste of cemetery.
This time I don’t bother washing my hands. I feel rebellious. In fact, at some point, as we walk away from the grave, I dare and put my fingers to my mouth. I lick them a little bit, to moisten them, and they taste salty and dusty. I taste the taste of the cemetery.
Then I panic and spit.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Looking for Shama
I love doing research. It was one of my favourite things about being a journalist. I use to spend hours in archives and libraries (the pre-internet days.) I loved it. It made me feel a little bit like a private investigator.
Recently I’ve been feeling that thrill again. I’ve been spending my days digging into my family’s unwritten past, interviewing old family members and sitting in archives (how I love that old paper smell,) and since most of what I’m looking for is really old – the internet is not much use for me.
Apart from general information about Yemeni Jews, I’ve been looking for some specific details as well: I’d love to find a photo of my great grandmother Shama. Shama is the protagonist of my (fictional) novel. She abandoned my grandmother and her twin sister in Yemen when they were at 2 and moved to Israel with a new man – her third husband. I’ve been told by many how beautiful she was, even though nobody who’s still alive has actually seen her. She died young, a long time ago. I’m thinking around 1914.
I’ve been trying to pinpoint a few dates in my family’s history. For example, I want to know, for once and for all, when my grandmother was born.
M grandmother doesn’t have a birth certificate. She was born in a village in North Yemen, by the village midwife, in a time and a place where birth dates had little importance to people. My grandmother has been eighty for about a decade until a few years ago someone had thought to update her estimated age... Now, her children approximate that she’s about 94-95. Everybody seemed happy with that guess, until I came along to question and stir everything up.
That age didn’t seem right according to my calculations. If she’s 95, then she was born in 1913. But that’s impossible, since I discovered that her younger brother Aharon, who was born in Israel to Shama and her new husband Yair, was born in 1913.
“Who told you that?” My uncles and aunts ask suspiciously when I gently bring up the subject.
“His daughter!” I say, pretty sure of myself.
“Have you seen a birth certificate?”
“Well… no.”
“Then she’s just estimating. She must be wrong.” They conclude.
Pretty much everything that side of the family says is regarded with suspicion, because… well, they’re the OTHER family, the one that was born to Shama in Israel. In that story – they’re the bad guys, even though they have done nothing wrong, except for being descended from the wrong husband. They’re the ones who defend Shama. They seem to think that what she did was excusable, while my family simply sees her as an evil person, a terrible mom and even a bit of a slut. They don’t say it in so many words but I know that some of them are a bit annoyed with me for spending so much time with that side of the family. They don’t really get why I chose to focus on HER story. If it was up to them, they’d rather see me tell my grandmother story, from her point of view. It’s a good thing my grandmother doesn’t know what’s going on, because she would have flipped! Just the other day, I came to the weekly family gathering at my aunt’s house and one of my aunts welcomed me with a glare. “I heard you have a new best friend!!!” She said, referring, of course, to Aharon’s daughter, who’s been helping me with my research (who – just to set things straights - is as stubborn and convinced of her version as my family is of theirs. There’s no convincing of either side.)
Anyways, I go back to see her, hoping for a birth certificate, and sure enough she doesn’t have one. Because even though Aharon was born in Israel, he was born at home and if his parents neglected to register him, like many Yemenis back then did, then his real birth date is nothing more than a guess. His daughter does show me a book published by the Ministry of Security that lists soldiers who died in the independence war, in 1948. The book clearly states that he was born in 1913.
I come back to my family, armed with that new information, but my family isn’t convinced. “Of course the book said that!” They dismiss with a sneer. “The book say whatever the family had told them!”
So I decide go to the only living son of Yair, Shama’s husband. (Are you still following?) Yair, whom Shama went to Israel with, remarried after her death and had many more children. I meet with the youngest of them, the only one who is still alive (at 70+,) and ask him, “When did your father immigrate to Israel?”
“1912,” He says. No hesitation.
“Do you have his immigration papers?”
“Of course not!” He laughs at my stupidity. “They didn’t issue any back then!” He refers me to a history book his father is mentioned in, and the date of his immigration is there as 1912. His date of settling in the Yemeni neighbourhood is 1913. He was one of the founders of our neighborhood.
Well, I figured that’s enough proof. According to the story (and it’s the one detail everyone agrees on) Shama left my grandmother and her sister when they were 2 and immigrated to Israel. This means my grandmother was born in 1910! Which makes her 98. Ninety eight!!!
“He was always a bit weird, that guy,” my family remains suspicious. “I wouldn’t trust what he says.”
To make things easier for me (and my future readers), I’ve decided to make a family tree, a task that proved incredibly difficult, even in a technical sense, because there were so many marriages between cousins and polygamy was widespread. How exactly does one draw a tree like this, where lines cross over from one family to the other, and the same name appear in two different places? My tree looks possessed, like it came from a haunted forest.
The research is more challenging than I expected. I’ve seen Shama’s third husband – Yair, mentioned in books and documents several times, but never with her. The one time his wife was mentioned it was the one he married after Shama’s death. I’ve even seen his photos, but never with her. It’s sad. It’s like she’s been deleted from history. It’s like she really is just a character in my book, a figment of my imagination. How can I not find anything about her? How come I can’t find anybody who knew her? How can a person leave so little behind?
I travel south to a village inhabited by old Yemenis to visit one of my grandmother’s cousins, a vibrant beautiful 90 year old woman who remembers my grandmother from Yemen. “Did you know Shama?” I say, hopeful. “Of course!” She says, “She was my sister!”
Ha?
Apparently, Shama was a common name. It was Jenny of early twentieth century Yemen.
When I ask Yair’s son about her, he claims his father was married to seven women. Which one exactly am I asking about?
I had lots of hope from a meeting with another one of my grandmother’s cousins. He’s Shama’s nephew, the son of Shama’s sister! I’ve been told he was a knowledgeable man, a professor in University. For sure, he’d be able to help. But the man is now in his eighties and in recent years he has suffered significant memory loss. Since Shama died before he was born, he’s having a hard time even remembering her name. “Yes, there was another sister,” he says, unsure. Eventually he gives me something he had written about the family, and in it, to my relief – Shama is mentioned. She was real! She did exist! Unfortunately, some of the information in it contradicts the one I’ve gathered, mainly – the name of Shama’s father (she was his mom’s sister – but only from their mother’s side... )
“Why don’t we ask grandma?” My mom suggests. My grandmother still communicates sometimes, although only when she feels like it (and when you come to think about it, it’s not much different than how she’s always been…)
A few weeks ago, for example, I mentioned to my mom and her siblings that Shama’s mother was named Simcha.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“That was her name. Shama brought her with her to Israel when she immigrated.”
“No, no, no,” they said. “You’re confused. Who told you that?”
When I tell them who, (it’s the other family again!) they narrow their eyes and insist they never heard about it.
Being stubborn is clearly a family trait.
But I guess I made them curious, because the next time they visited my grandmother they asked her: “Mom, what was your mother’s name?”
“Shama.” My grandmother said (now that she’s old, she doesn’t bother going through the list of curses that she had always attached to her mother’s name.)
“And what was her mother’s name?”
To their surprise, my grandmother said: Simcha.
What do you know? I was right! They were wrong!
I was looking forward to talking to my grandmother. I just need her to tell me her grandfather’s name, for the family tree. I’ve narrowed it down to two options, it’s either Salem or Aharon. But my grandmother is having a bad day. She’s not communicating at all, no matter how much we plead and try. “You should have come yesterday!” the nurses say. “She was so clear yesterday!”
It may seem like I’m not making much progress but that’s not the case. I’m quite happy with how things are developing. I’ve found historic documents that included Shama’s third husband; things like the price he paid for his 1913 house for example. I found my grandmother’s immigration papers with a cool picture where she stands next to my grandfather and his second wife… I’m close to decoding our family tree (which a year ago – seemed near impossible!) and I’ve found information about Simcha (Shama’s mom) that I haven’t known before, like the fact that both her husbands divorced her (and not died, as I thought before) because she didn’t bear any boys (and when she did, they died at a young age.)
I found out my grandmother’s age once and for all (and now even her children are starting to believe me!) I heard many great stories about my grandmother and her siblings, and general stories about Yemen and the neighbourhood. I found old photos of Shama’s sisters, and even an ancient photo of Simcha’s second husband!!! I even heard a story about my grandmother birth, that Shama’s sister told her son. They didn’t know that Shama was carrying twins, and after my grandmother came out they all thought they were done. Then, when they realized there was one more, someone ran to notify the husband: “Wait! There’s another one!” After Saida came out, the husband asked: “Anything else? Are we done?”
Next Sunday I’m heading to the National archives in Jerusalem. I’m really excited. I’ve spoke to an advisor there. At first, she didn’t sound so hopeful. The archive only had documents from 1919 and up. She looked into another archive, from the Turks days (Ottoman Empire) that had documents dated until 1907. “Unfortunately, the years between those two dates are not very documented,” she said. Then she remembered a private collection (The Yavnieli Archives) and in it she found a list of Yemeni immigrants from 1912! If I’m lucky, I might even find her photo! But at this point even seeing her name in print would be nice. Anything to make her a little more real.
Recently I’ve been feeling that thrill again. I’ve been spending my days digging into my family’s unwritten past, interviewing old family members and sitting in archives (how I love that old paper smell,) and since most of what I’m looking for is really old – the internet is not much use for me.
Apart from general information about Yemeni Jews, I’ve been looking for some specific details as well: I’d love to find a photo of my great grandmother Shama. Shama is the protagonist of my (fictional) novel. She abandoned my grandmother and her twin sister in Yemen when they were at 2 and moved to Israel with a new man – her third husband. I’ve been told by many how beautiful she was, even though nobody who’s still alive has actually seen her. She died young, a long time ago. I’m thinking around 1914.
I’ve been trying to pinpoint a few dates in my family’s history. For example, I want to know, for once and for all, when my grandmother was born.
M grandmother doesn’t have a birth certificate. She was born in a village in North Yemen, by the village midwife, in a time and a place where birth dates had little importance to people. My grandmother has been eighty for about a decade until a few years ago someone had thought to update her estimated age... Now, her children approximate that she’s about 94-95. Everybody seemed happy with that guess, until I came along to question and stir everything up.
That age didn’t seem right according to my calculations. If she’s 95, then she was born in 1913. But that’s impossible, since I discovered that her younger brother Aharon, who was born in Israel to Shama and her new husband Yair, was born in 1913.
“Who told you that?” My uncles and aunts ask suspiciously when I gently bring up the subject.
“His daughter!” I say, pretty sure of myself.
“Have you seen a birth certificate?”
“Well… no.”
“Then she’s just estimating. She must be wrong.” They conclude.
Pretty much everything that side of the family says is regarded with suspicion, because… well, they’re the OTHER family, the one that was born to Shama in Israel. In that story – they’re the bad guys, even though they have done nothing wrong, except for being descended from the wrong husband. They’re the ones who defend Shama. They seem to think that what she did was excusable, while my family simply sees her as an evil person, a terrible mom and even a bit of a slut. They don’t say it in so many words but I know that some of them are a bit annoyed with me for spending so much time with that side of the family. They don’t really get why I chose to focus on HER story. If it was up to them, they’d rather see me tell my grandmother story, from her point of view. It’s a good thing my grandmother doesn’t know what’s going on, because she would have flipped! Just the other day, I came to the weekly family gathering at my aunt’s house and one of my aunts welcomed me with a glare. “I heard you have a new best friend!!!” She said, referring, of course, to Aharon’s daughter, who’s been helping me with my research (who – just to set things straights - is as stubborn and convinced of her version as my family is of theirs. There’s no convincing of either side.)
Anyways, I go back to see her, hoping for a birth certificate, and sure enough she doesn’t have one. Because even though Aharon was born in Israel, he was born at home and if his parents neglected to register him, like many Yemenis back then did, then his real birth date is nothing more than a guess. His daughter does show me a book published by the Ministry of Security that lists soldiers who died in the independence war, in 1948. The book clearly states that he was born in 1913.
I come back to my family, armed with that new information, but my family isn’t convinced. “Of course the book said that!” They dismiss with a sneer. “The book say whatever the family had told them!”
So I decide go to the only living son of Yair, Shama’s husband. (Are you still following?) Yair, whom Shama went to Israel with, remarried after her death and had many more children. I meet with the youngest of them, the only one who is still alive (at 70+,) and ask him, “When did your father immigrate to Israel?”
“1912,” He says. No hesitation.
“Do you have his immigration papers?”
“Of course not!” He laughs at my stupidity. “They didn’t issue any back then!” He refers me to a history book his father is mentioned in, and the date of his immigration is there as 1912. His date of settling in the Yemeni neighbourhood is 1913. He was one of the founders of our neighborhood.
Well, I figured that’s enough proof. According to the story (and it’s the one detail everyone agrees on) Shama left my grandmother and her sister when they were 2 and immigrated to Israel. This means my grandmother was born in 1910! Which makes her 98. Ninety eight!!!
“He was always a bit weird, that guy,” my family remains suspicious. “I wouldn’t trust what he says.”
To make things easier for me (and my future readers), I’ve decided to make a family tree, a task that proved incredibly difficult, even in a technical sense, because there were so many marriages between cousins and polygamy was widespread. How exactly does one draw a tree like this, where lines cross over from one family to the other, and the same name appear in two different places? My tree looks possessed, like it came from a haunted forest.
The research is more challenging than I expected. I’ve seen Shama’s third husband – Yair, mentioned in books and documents several times, but never with her. The one time his wife was mentioned it was the one he married after Shama’s death. I’ve even seen his photos, but never with her. It’s sad. It’s like she’s been deleted from history. It’s like she really is just a character in my book, a figment of my imagination. How can I not find anything about her? How come I can’t find anybody who knew her? How can a person leave so little behind?
I travel south to a village inhabited by old Yemenis to visit one of my grandmother’s cousins, a vibrant beautiful 90 year old woman who remembers my grandmother from Yemen. “Did you know Shama?” I say, hopeful. “Of course!” She says, “She was my sister!”
Ha?
Apparently, Shama was a common name. It was Jenny of early twentieth century Yemen.
When I ask Yair’s son about her, he claims his father was married to seven women. Which one exactly am I asking about?
I had lots of hope from a meeting with another one of my grandmother’s cousins. He’s Shama’s nephew, the son of Shama’s sister! I’ve been told he was a knowledgeable man, a professor in University. For sure, he’d be able to help. But the man is now in his eighties and in recent years he has suffered significant memory loss. Since Shama died before he was born, he’s having a hard time even remembering her name. “Yes, there was another sister,” he says, unsure. Eventually he gives me something he had written about the family, and in it, to my relief – Shama is mentioned. She was real! She did exist! Unfortunately, some of the information in it contradicts the one I’ve gathered, mainly – the name of Shama’s father (she was his mom’s sister – but only from their mother’s side... )
“Why don’t we ask grandma?” My mom suggests. My grandmother still communicates sometimes, although only when she feels like it (and when you come to think about it, it’s not much different than how she’s always been…)
A few weeks ago, for example, I mentioned to my mom and her siblings that Shama’s mother was named Simcha.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“That was her name. Shama brought her with her to Israel when she immigrated.”
“No, no, no,” they said. “You’re confused. Who told you that?”
When I tell them who, (it’s the other family again!) they narrow their eyes and insist they never heard about it.
Being stubborn is clearly a family trait.
But I guess I made them curious, because the next time they visited my grandmother they asked her: “Mom, what was your mother’s name?”
“Shama.” My grandmother said (now that she’s old, she doesn’t bother going through the list of curses that she had always attached to her mother’s name.)
“And what was her mother’s name?”
To their surprise, my grandmother said: Simcha.
What do you know? I was right! They were wrong!
I was looking forward to talking to my grandmother. I just need her to tell me her grandfather’s name, for the family tree. I’ve narrowed it down to two options, it’s either Salem or Aharon. But my grandmother is having a bad day. She’s not communicating at all, no matter how much we plead and try. “You should have come yesterday!” the nurses say. “She was so clear yesterday!”
It may seem like I’m not making much progress but that’s not the case. I’m quite happy with how things are developing. I’ve found historic documents that included Shama’s third husband; things like the price he paid for his 1913 house for example. I found my grandmother’s immigration papers with a cool picture where she stands next to my grandfather and his second wife… I’m close to decoding our family tree (which a year ago – seemed near impossible!) and I’ve found information about Simcha (Shama’s mom) that I haven’t known before, like the fact that both her husbands divorced her (and not died, as I thought before) because she didn’t bear any boys (and when she did, they died at a young age.)
I found out my grandmother’s age once and for all (and now even her children are starting to believe me!) I heard many great stories about my grandmother and her siblings, and general stories about Yemen and the neighbourhood. I found old photos of Shama’s sisters, and even an ancient photo of Simcha’s second husband!!! I even heard a story about my grandmother birth, that Shama’s sister told her son. They didn’t know that Shama was carrying twins, and after my grandmother came out they all thought they were done. Then, when they realized there was one more, someone ran to notify the husband: “Wait! There’s another one!” After Saida came out, the husband asked: “Anything else? Are we done?”
Next Sunday I’m heading to the National archives in Jerusalem. I’m really excited. I’ve spoke to an advisor there. At first, she didn’t sound so hopeful. The archive only had documents from 1919 and up. She looked into another archive, from the Turks days (Ottoman Empire) that had documents dated until 1907. “Unfortunately, the years between those two dates are not very documented,” she said. Then she remembered a private collection (The Yavnieli Archives) and in it she found a list of Yemeni immigrants from 1912! If I’m lucky, I might even find her photo! But at this point even seeing her name in print would be nice. Anything to make her a little more real.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Lost and Found
I lost my wallet today.
It was a retro green leather wallet I bought at the bargain bin at Virgin Mary’s for $3, fresh from its previous owner who worked behind the counter. It came with a lucky dime, left in the one zipper that was still working. Now – four years later – neither of the zippers is working, which requires me to walk around with an additional change purse and keep my coins separate from the bills. It’s annoying and awkward, and in the past three years (since the second zipper broke) I made failed attempts to replace my wallet, but somehow I could never find a wallet quite as classy and beautiful as this one. It had to be leather, preferably vintage, and it had to be a cool colour. Last Christmas Sean bought me a red leather wallet that was almost right but then I discovered the card slots were defected and returned it. I just can’t seem to let go of my green wallet.
I discovered the tragic loss a couple hours ago. I drove Sean to the airport, already sad about saying goodbye, already fighting a stubborn sense of loss (yes, yes, I know it’s only seven weeks, but this is me, the queen of fear of abandonment,) and when the custom agent who questioned Sean asked for my ID, I realized I can’t find my wallet. I waved goodbye to Sean at the gate and shed a tear. A penniless, driving-licenseless woman with no identity. Loss was like poison released through the air conditioning system at the airport. A melancholic background music playing through the announcement speakers.
Ahem. Excuse the melodrama and the peculiar similes. It’s only been a couple hours and I’m still grieving. The thing is – I’ve been losing lots of things since I came to Israel. Actually, I’d lost my first item a couple days before flying to Israel. My cell phone disappeared at Mona’s rocking staff party. Once I realized it was really gone, I started thinking maybe it was a good thing. Maybe I should let it go, cancel my number, go cell free. There is something liberating about not owning a cell phone. Then I had a scary thought. Maybe if I didn’t have my cell phone number – the one I’ve had for the past four years, the one many people know as my only number – then I wouldn’t be so easy to find. And maybe if I couldn’t be found, I would cease to exist. (Yeah, yeah, there’s facebook and e-mail and I’m at Continental drinking coffee almost every day, but we’ve established my tendency for melodrama in the previous paragraph.) The thought was disturbing and exciting at the same time.
Next I lost my thin red frame eye glasses. I’ve had my glasses for the past 8 years. My prescription had changed, the lenses were scratched and the frame faded but I’ve been too lazy to replace them. Now I’m confined to my contacts, which isn’t very convenient, especially when you wake up in the middle of the night to go pee and have to find your way in the blur. When you’re as blind as I am, living without eye glasses can be very intimidating. You feel exposed and vulnerable.
Next were my sun glasses. My precious Ralph Lauren that Sean had bought for me last time we were in Israel. They were my first expensive pair. I was always so careful with them.
Then I lost my favourite black tank top. I had just bought it before my trip, but it was love at a first sight. It was the perfect black tank, with a lacy neckline that showed just the right amount of cleavage and long enough to be perfect for layering. It was a staple item, and I had needed one just like that for ages.
Next was my green thin sparkly scarf. I bought it at Salt Spring Island last year for $5. It was nothing I can’t live without but still – it sucked to lose it.
I reacted quite well to all these losses. Really. I haven’t been whining as much as I could or was entitled to. But losing my wallet (on the same day I escorted my boyfriend to the airport!) was the last straw. This one wins, and not only because it is frustrating to no end – canceling cards, calling Canada to stop monthly visa payments, paying for a new Israeli driver’s license. It pisses me off because my wallet was full of sentimental items – my father’s photo for example. In addition, losing a wallet adds to the feeling of loss of self. If I have no cell phone and no ID, no visa card, bank card, driving license, library card…. Do I still exist?
But more than anything, this streak of losses freaks me out. Somehow I feel that it’s not so much that I lost these things as they have gone missing. I know it sounds like a way out, a lame excuse to avoid taking responsibility for my carelessness. But I’m really not that careless. I don’t usually lose things, and all of these things disappeared in a mysterious manner. I threw my tank top at the laundry and it never returned. One day my glasses just weren’t there anymore. I don’t know when or how. Can’t trace my steps.
I've always prided myself on not being too materialistic. “It’s like a gift,” I used to babble to innocent victims at parties, “I’ve just never been easily attached to stuff. That’s why I own so little.” Of course, it’s probably the other way around. Maybe I’ve never been too materialistic because I owned so few things I could get attached to. Besides, I may not get attached to material stuff, but I’m awfully sentimental and can attach sentimental value to the most trivial things. Like my visa card. I was upset to lose an essential item, but I was also just sad to see it go. I mean, it was a gold card!!! And it was so pretty. And it was my first card since my early twenties (the financially-responsible-successful-journalist phase, before India happened.) For years they wouldn’t even give me a card! It meant so much to me to finally get approved for one. At 34, I was finally an adult. I was no longer marginal. I could casually pull out my card and pay for things, and pretend I was somebody with money.
Is it all a test? A way to remind me to not get too attached? Does it mirror the sense of loss that I feel here? Something about being of two nationalities, about being home but feeling like a tourist, about watching my family as I know it change, watch friends age. Watch me age.
Maybe it means I need to let go of something. Maybe I shouldn’t be defining myself through ID cards or cell phones, through stuff. Maybe I need a fresh start. Maybe I’ve been too careless, too cocky. Maybe I don’t appreciate what I have.
“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything,” my sister says. “Maybe it’s just an annoying coincidence.”
Maybe.
p.s. Good News! Since I wrote this, a couple days ago, they found my wallet with everything in it. Yay!!! I still miss that shirt, though.
It was a retro green leather wallet I bought at the bargain bin at Virgin Mary’s for $3, fresh from its previous owner who worked behind the counter. It came with a lucky dime, left in the one zipper that was still working. Now – four years later – neither of the zippers is working, which requires me to walk around with an additional change purse and keep my coins separate from the bills. It’s annoying and awkward, and in the past three years (since the second zipper broke) I made failed attempts to replace my wallet, but somehow I could never find a wallet quite as classy and beautiful as this one. It had to be leather, preferably vintage, and it had to be a cool colour. Last Christmas Sean bought me a red leather wallet that was almost right but then I discovered the card slots were defected and returned it. I just can’t seem to let go of my green wallet.
I discovered the tragic loss a couple hours ago. I drove Sean to the airport, already sad about saying goodbye, already fighting a stubborn sense of loss (yes, yes, I know it’s only seven weeks, but this is me, the queen of fear of abandonment,) and when the custom agent who questioned Sean asked for my ID, I realized I can’t find my wallet. I waved goodbye to Sean at the gate and shed a tear. A penniless, driving-licenseless woman with no identity. Loss was like poison released through the air conditioning system at the airport. A melancholic background music playing through the announcement speakers.
Ahem. Excuse the melodrama and the peculiar similes. It’s only been a couple hours and I’m still grieving. The thing is – I’ve been losing lots of things since I came to Israel. Actually, I’d lost my first item a couple days before flying to Israel. My cell phone disappeared at Mona’s rocking staff party. Once I realized it was really gone, I started thinking maybe it was a good thing. Maybe I should let it go, cancel my number, go cell free. There is something liberating about not owning a cell phone. Then I had a scary thought. Maybe if I didn’t have my cell phone number – the one I’ve had for the past four years, the one many people know as my only number – then I wouldn’t be so easy to find. And maybe if I couldn’t be found, I would cease to exist. (Yeah, yeah, there’s facebook and e-mail and I’m at Continental drinking coffee almost every day, but we’ve established my tendency for melodrama in the previous paragraph.) The thought was disturbing and exciting at the same time.
Next I lost my thin red frame eye glasses. I’ve had my glasses for the past 8 years. My prescription had changed, the lenses were scratched and the frame faded but I’ve been too lazy to replace them. Now I’m confined to my contacts, which isn’t very convenient, especially when you wake up in the middle of the night to go pee and have to find your way in the blur. When you’re as blind as I am, living without eye glasses can be very intimidating. You feel exposed and vulnerable.
Next were my sun glasses. My precious Ralph Lauren that Sean had bought for me last time we were in Israel. They were my first expensive pair. I was always so careful with them.
Then I lost my favourite black tank top. I had just bought it before my trip, but it was love at a first sight. It was the perfect black tank, with a lacy neckline that showed just the right amount of cleavage and long enough to be perfect for layering. It was a staple item, and I had needed one just like that for ages.
Next was my green thin sparkly scarf. I bought it at Salt Spring Island last year for $5. It was nothing I can’t live without but still – it sucked to lose it.
I reacted quite well to all these losses. Really. I haven’t been whining as much as I could or was entitled to. But losing my wallet (on the same day I escorted my boyfriend to the airport!) was the last straw. This one wins, and not only because it is frustrating to no end – canceling cards, calling Canada to stop monthly visa payments, paying for a new Israeli driver’s license. It pisses me off because my wallet was full of sentimental items – my father’s photo for example. In addition, losing a wallet adds to the feeling of loss of self. If I have no cell phone and no ID, no visa card, bank card, driving license, library card…. Do I still exist?
But more than anything, this streak of losses freaks me out. Somehow I feel that it’s not so much that I lost these things as they have gone missing. I know it sounds like a way out, a lame excuse to avoid taking responsibility for my carelessness. But I’m really not that careless. I don’t usually lose things, and all of these things disappeared in a mysterious manner. I threw my tank top at the laundry and it never returned. One day my glasses just weren’t there anymore. I don’t know when or how. Can’t trace my steps.
I've always prided myself on not being too materialistic. “It’s like a gift,” I used to babble to innocent victims at parties, “I’ve just never been easily attached to stuff. That’s why I own so little.” Of course, it’s probably the other way around. Maybe I’ve never been too materialistic because I owned so few things I could get attached to. Besides, I may not get attached to material stuff, but I’m awfully sentimental and can attach sentimental value to the most trivial things. Like my visa card. I was upset to lose an essential item, but I was also just sad to see it go. I mean, it was a gold card!!! And it was so pretty. And it was my first card since my early twenties (the financially-responsible-successful-journalist phase, before India happened.) For years they wouldn’t even give me a card! It meant so much to me to finally get approved for one. At 34, I was finally an adult. I was no longer marginal. I could casually pull out my card and pay for things, and pretend I was somebody with money.
Is it all a test? A way to remind me to not get too attached? Does it mirror the sense of loss that I feel here? Something about being of two nationalities, about being home but feeling like a tourist, about watching my family as I know it change, watch friends age. Watch me age.
Maybe it means I need to let go of something. Maybe I shouldn’t be defining myself through ID cards or cell phones, through stuff. Maybe I need a fresh start. Maybe I’ve been too careless, too cocky. Maybe I don’t appreciate what I have.
“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything,” my sister says. “Maybe it’s just an annoying coincidence.”
Maybe.
p.s. Good News! Since I wrote this, a couple days ago, they found my wallet with everything in it. Yay!!! I still miss that shirt, though.
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