18 Days: The Old Optimist Emerges

And I hope she’s here to stay.

Cross a good therapy session, a two-week bout of “white collar” homelessness, and a sappy made-for-tv movie, and what do you get? The twelve year-old in me, the girl who dreamt big and believed it all possible, emerges. And why not? The bigger question here is, where has she been? And why doesn’t she stick around for very long?

Answer one: I’ve been living in jaded-ville off and on for ten years.

Answer two: I’ve been trying to stay in the neutral category, just edging out of negative, that the unthinkable (the positive) was just that.

What the hell am I talking about?  See, it’s as if I’ve created a triptych out of my perception of the world:

• A) world as it should be
• B) world as it is
• C) world as it could be

What’s the subtle difference here?

Option A: the world as it should be

There is a template to this world, and we’ve got it all wrong.  We get sadness, pessimism, cynicism, and hopelessness here.  We have failed in some moral, ethical way.  When we think of the world as a series of mishaps, of what was meant to be, and didn’t happen, it’s a major bummer.  We’ve polluted the air, the water, killed off half the animals and plant species, people are still dying of hunger, horrible diseases are ravaging the world, and on, and on.  The world should not have been this way!  How can we ever get out of it?!  How can we get back on track to how the world should be? It should have been cleaner, we should have been smarter, nicer, more generous…bla, bla, bla.  “Should be” in the very best possible sense focuses only on fixing problems, keeping in mind some illusory “perfect world of should be” as a goal.  It’s a constant reminder of a failure.   And something we owe it to ourselves, or more so, owe it to the world, to work toward.  It’s a struggle here.

Option B: the world as it is

There is no blueprint for how we as a species or the earth as a planet are meant to evolve.  On my best days, these days, this is where I live.  No shoulda coulda woulda.  No right and wrong.  No fault.  No blame.  No emotional entanglement.  Sure, lots of things have been killed off.  Sure, we’re choking ourselves to a slow hot death.  So what.  The universe will not weep for us.  We conquered the planet as a species, so if we did what it what we have done, consequences will ensue.  So what.  Is it wrong?  Is it fair?  What’s fair?  We were stupid, we killed off elements fundamental to our own survival…so we deserve to die.  Right?  Right.  No, not “deserve.”  There is no blame here.  We were stupid.  We will die.  Or maybe we won’t.  If we’re smart and we fix stuff and save our skins.  When I’m in this mode of being, which I often am these days, I marvel at human history.  Industrialization, politics and power, economics and wealth distribution, rights and responsibilities.  All, all, all superficial constructs.  Why does anyone have a right to live?  It’s laughable!  One is born if one is born, without consent or permission.  If a baby died in childbirth, it died in childbirth.  If one person is born to a rich family, and one to a poor family, so what?  Are they equal?  Of course not.  What on earth do rights have to do with it?  This is a world of that which is, simply is.  It’s a world of power, of laissez faire, of sit back and watch what happens.  It’s all so amusing to watch people up in arms over issues when nothing actually matters!

Option C: The world as it could be

We’re making up the blueprint as we go along, always adapting, learning, changing.  I wish I could live here.  It takes effort these days.  Perhaps it just makes me sad to think of the girl I once was, so excited about the future, so excited to be alive and have the chance to participate in something so beautiful and important.  The world as it could be, the world as it could be.  It’s an optimist’s haven.  It’s the world of sci-fi, of Star Trek, of admitting, “sure, it’s really bad…but there’s a bright side, and we’re working hard to get there.”  The world as it could be throws out the idea that there was a definite way the world should be working.  It takes the best of the honesty from Option B (OK, this is where we are), admits to a little bit of option A (OMG!  it’s bad, it’s really bad, and we did it), but gets on with it, takes a deep breath, thinks big and way outside the box, and then makes a realistic plan of attack.  This is the world of Disney, Ford, NASA, the biosphere, Apollo missions, the pyramids of Egypt, hovering bullet trains, Asimov, Gregor Mendel, the Pantheon, Da Vinci and Galileo and Matisse and Picasso and Kandinsky and Rothko.  It’s the best.  It’s hope meeting action.  It’s admitting we can’t have a solid picture of where we “should be headed,” but it doesn’t mean that we, “see the world for what it is and stand still.”  It’s keeping your chin up.  And working hard.  With a goal in mind.

My goals have gotten small lately.  I’m so used to being disappointed with myself, I don’t expect to succeed.  And I forget that I used to be so successful, it was embarrassing.  Like a success junkie.  Maybe that’s what makes this adult reality so much the more difficult.  My self esteem is in the gutter quite often.  But no excuses.  Not anymore.

I care about so many things.  So many.  Sure, it’s a little late to become a NASA scientist or a Greenpeace sailor or a Cousteau researcher.  But I’m only 29 years, 11 months, and 12 days old.  That’s kind of young enough to take on a project.  Or take adopt a new purpose to your life.  Enough with getting by.  I need to reach goals.  Big ones.  Because it is possible.  Helping Israel develop its recycling system (which is embarrassingly behind the rest of the world) is attainable.  Getting a complete amount of organic produce here could be done.  Ending childhood poverty in a country as small as this, can be done.  It can be.  Writing about issues that I find important, and get paid to do it, is possible.  It is.

I just need to figure out how to stay here.  Because I still need a day job for the moment.  I still struggle with depression, big time.  Perhaps Lifetime TV and the Hallmark Channel just became my new best friends…

20 Days: Sudden melancholy

Coming off of my meds (most recently Cymbalta) and being completely clean of any antidepressants or mood stabilizers or panic meds for the first time in a year was easy. I was on such a low dosage (25 mg every other day), that even the side effects and the “coming down” was almost unnoticeable. The first symptoms came a few days after, when I felt I didn’t have control over my emotional reactions. Then again, this was in regard to my mother who is the source of much of this and who bothers me and will probably always bother me immensely even while practically sedated.

And then there was today.

A decent day. Hot as hell. Hot as balls. So hot I couldn’t mop the sweat off me fast enough and there would already be another layer. I went to the cinema. Saw Bruno. Was entertained enough, but more glad of the AC and the darkness and the company, anonymous though it may be, for a while.

My little cousin is going to be drafted in two weeks, and 18 year-old’s rite of passage here in Israel. It’s traditional here to have a congratulatory party, a kind of graduation party crossed with a goodbye party. Family and friends. Salads and quiches and hummus. A very delectable semifreddo my aunt made. A cheap bottle of wine that wasn’t finished despite eight people drinking. A few speeches, actually. Exactly what I expected.

And it could have been the sweet sentimental proud words coming from grandmothers and parents. It could have been the company that almost never comes together in such form anymore (my aunt and uncle have separated, so we’re rarely in the old house, and we almost never see the other side of the family). It could have been that both those things triggered something very raw and sensitive for me. The fact that I don’t come from a speech-giving family. That it’s been a long time since I’ve felt accomplished or appreciated or loved openly. That my parents weren’t there, missing amongst the “adults.” That if we were back home in the US, we don’t have such a tight-knit family for such occasions. And I could go on and on.

But I don’t think it was as conscious as all that. A sudden melancholy just blanketed me. Right in the middle of a teary-eyed speech. It’s familiar to me. Quite familiar. But I haven’t felt it in months, and I don’t have a chemical weapon to fall back upon. Of course, this is by choice, but still. It’s like sadness but emptier. And it’s that empty void that is almost comforting. Because things become very sharply focused. Sad that I’m not a part of things, but understanding why. Understanding that it’s actually much easier than I think. This thing called life. But that I’ll perhaps never make it. Focused detachment. A sea of nothingness. And I was surrounded by people, my little cousin being praised and embraced, glasses clinking. I wanted to go away. Maybe read a book. Be alone in another room. It felt silly to be there. It had little meaning or interest anymore.

The one important thing. It did occur to me that this sudden melancholy happened all of a sudden because I wasn’t on any medication anymore. It made it slightly humorous, actually. I liked the “meta-ness” of it. Because all of a sudden I was aware of this fact, that because I wasn’t drugged, this state of being that used to be so normal had just set in again, I felt like I actually might have a modicum of control. And that’s a damned fine thing to believe, I’m telling you. Because I do thrive on melancholy. But it also destroys me. And I cannot afford to “allow myself” to fall into a pit. I have to be strong like I know I can be.

36 Days: The Paradoxicality of Us

Now what is that header supposed to mean?  Who knows?  Who cares?  It’s hot as balls (a new expression of my sister’s…e.g. “I’m sweating balls”) here in Tel Aviv, and although there are breezes coming through the huge open windows, I’m still sticky and uncomfortable…and risking flying cockroaches because of said open windows.

And I’ve got decisions to make. Again.  As always.  Why isn’t life simple?  Well, I suppose if you believe it’s complex, well, it will be.  If I believed in a simple solution, I think I could find it.  Simply.  Where am I going?

I was offered a job.  To sell art.  Fine art.  Aboard a cruise ship.  And I was excited as hell for the opportunity.  Until I did the research.  And found out many past employees have felt swindled, betrayed, lied to, taken advantage of, underpaid, and much worse.  Past customers have discovered their works were grossly overpriced upon returning home, and sometimes even finding that some of the paintings are suspected forgeries.  There are class action law suits.  There are whole websites devoted to how bad this is.  And this is where I want to work?

Back to why it sounds good on paper: 6-12% commission.  Free travel.  Free room and board.  Fine art.  Picasso.  Chagall.  Miro.  Dali.  Yup.  There you have it.  The “love boat,” the finest art the world has ever known, and the chance to make six figures.

But those tales of woe are scary.  And I’ve just come back from two months of roaming in a year when I spent more than 3 months out of 7 outside of the country.  The thought of just being able to amass a huge chunk of change.  Being able to make a down payment on a mortgage.  Being able to write and not worry for another year or more.  And getting this wad of cash doing something interesting and sexy like traveling on a luxurious cruise liner.  Wow.

I’ll tell you a secret: almost anyone reading this blog can qualify for this job.  Honest.  Just go to Monster.  It’s there.  Always.

And I’ve come off my meds.  Experiment.  I was so inspired by my Chinese medicine doc.  So inspired by having felt good for a few days.  Let’s get off of everything.  Let’s take herbs. Let’s have talk therapy.  Let’s work a decent honest job.  Pay rent.  Just live for a while.  Just live.  And it will all be OK.

That was yesterday.

And the existential dilemma crept back in again.  My old friend.  Meaninglessness.  Ambiguity.  Hopelessness.  The fact that life really really really really sucks.  It’s dreadful.  People are hungry.  Starving.  We are killing all the plants.  We are suffocating ourselves.  We are stupid, and we don’t care.  And yet.  And yet.  Life is so beautiful it’s nearly impossible to contain the joy I sometimes feel at being able to smell a strong-scented flower while walking down the street or at seeing children playing in a garden or thinking about a favorite book or poem or television series.  We are stupid, stupid geniuses.  That’s what.  And it’s both.  It’s the paradoxicality of us.  Yes, I think I just made up a word.  Spell checker hates it.  And here I go again:

will I ever be able to love, does it matter, of course it does, no it doesn’t, it’s only important that i can recognize the importance of love, experiencing it directly is a privilege that may not ever be afforded to me, but that’s ok, right?  right.  wrong.  or maybe if I feel love for my sister or for a book, or for life itself, or for my fellow human beings, that’s enough, that’s love.  no.  what the hell is love anyway?  fondness?  no.  too easy.  will I ever have kids?  do I even want them anymore?  they say it’s real true love.  you know it then.  shall I selfishly have kids so that I can know love?  is that how it works?  is having children ALWAYS innately a selfish act?  reproducing one’s face?  one’s abilities?  one’s talents?  one’s blue eyes?  it reminds me of the speech from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, yes, of course, when Viola (disguised as Cesario) is sent to woo Olivia on behalf of Orsino, and she says, “you will leave no copy”…that one could be so beautiful, it would be a sin not to leave a genetic copy on earth to live on after you are gone…is it narcisim?  does it matter….no, no, no, no…nothing matters.  because nothing matters.  we live.  we die.  we are always dying just as we are always living.  nothing alive is alive forever, just as everything dead must have had the privilege of life.  it’s the same thing, right?  right.  no.  no.  no.  I need to sleep.  yes, i need to sleep.  i am forcing insomnia upon myself.  i am doing it to myself.  stop.

Have a mentioned that I’ve a new addiction?  For “The Office”.  The genius television series.  That’s right.  I’m in it for Jim and Pam.  I have to see them.  How they get together.  Because those actors got it.  They are astounding.  It’s so real.  And I can feel the love between them so palpably.  Did I mention I’ve started from the beginning?  From series one?  Yes.  I have.  I know they’re together and engaged and the season 5 finale was awesome for them.  But I have to know, I just have to know how they got there.  Which is why I haven’t been sleeping.  It’s been suggested I should read Angels and Demons or some other good book.  But I think I’ll finish the series.

Thanks for reading.  If you have.  And if you’re reading this.  You have.  So, thanks.

79 Days: Year to date

I was restless trying to sleep last night.  My birthday is really soon.  Under three months.  And maybe it’s just my depressive tendencies.  Maybe it’s low self-esteem.  But I really, really, for a major flash, saw this as a completely wasted year.  In the next flash of a moment, I frantically started listing things that I’ve already done this year.  It went something like this:

1. Quit job that was bad for my soul
2. Went to India, a questionable time was had, but I went
3. I went to Ireland, and it was amazing, and it gave me career ideas and made a good friend
4. I went to Italy and Croatia and Greece and Turkey with the whole family, and even though I “just went,” it was an experience
5. I did complete a real first draft of the novel
6. The first draft of the novel was completely critiqued.  Even though I’ve been petrified to do real work using this severe criticism, I got it critiqued and theory can get it finished and sent out soon…
7. I have been dating.  Kind of.  Without great effort.  But it’s kind of something.
8. Therapy has been good.
9. Blogging has been fun and seems productive, even though I don’t get paid for it.
10. Found a cool part part part time job leading wine tastings
11. Cooked a lot of scrummy family meals for my uncle and cousins
12. Got two great cats
13. Have made huge strides in being a clean, responsible adult who does laundry and makes her bed more than once in a blue moon
14. Have really made a big effort to see friends, and it’s paying off, even though I’ve backpedaled and slumped in spurts.
15. I learned I could draw, really well.
16. Professionally catered one giant birthday party
17. I wrote a small handful of culinary articles for a Jewish magazine (maybe I should reprint them here…I’m not sure, though, any takers?)

I can probably add a bit here and there.  I guess what’s missing here is the “career” category.  Nothing that I can slap a label on that says success.  But it’s been interesting.  And it’s not over.  I have made huge strides in completing many, many, many of my “things to do before 30” list.

So, in order to salvage my silly self and ego and be orderly, here are a few more concrete things I want DONE by July 31:

1. Finish a second draft of the novel
2. Send out samples and intro letters to agents and publishers
3. Find paid work I don’t hate (even if it’s very part time waitressing, I need some self-respecting income to start paying rent because…)
4. I need to move out of my current depressing digs and into a home.  I am supposedly in the works to do so and move in with my sister into an apartment my mother purchased last year, in a chi chi awesome part of town, close to the beach, designer shops, cafes, an organic grocery store, you name it.  Thing is – ties to Mom, and having to live with a sometimes emotionally-unstable sister.  Other thing is, I will be paying rent, so I will technically be a tenant.  With rights.  It’s a much bigger place with a very hip layout and a decked out roof garden with direct access from our living room, which means the the cats will be happy, and there may just be enough physical space to spread out in case my sister goes ballistic.  Then, there are the days when I want to run screaming from the hills, move out of town, or to a crappy far away neighborhood I can afford in order to truly be independent.  But I don’t think this isn’t independent.  I mean, if I pay rent, I pay rent.  And I’m not going to be underpaying, here.  It’s just a gorgeous lot of apartment.  And I don’t have to look for it.  It’s there, because it was bought by my selfish self-centered witch of a mother who intends to use it as her very own every time she’s in town (which means, where the hell do I go…tenants’ rights?).  I’m going to stop here.  No I’m not.  Because I sound like a real bitch talking about my mother this way.  I do love her, and I do a lot for her, believe me.  She doesn’t just come for a visit, you see, when I could fix up a guest bed and cook a celebratory brunch.  She comes for a month or two, takes over everything, and uses the place like it’s hers.  No asking to use things.  Inviting her friends over at all hours.  Leaves her things everywhere.  Doesn’t clean.  Treats us like children.  She’s the roommate from hell.  Read The Drama of the Gifted Child.  That’s my mom.  Narcisist. With a capital ‘N.’  She’s the reason for a majority of my neuroses and major character flaws and huge therapy bills. Period.  We don’t get along, and it’s for nothing obvious that you can put a finger on because the whole world thinks she’s a loveable eccentric.  She just makes my skin crawl.  Now I’m done.
5. Make a longer-term plan for income and creativity balance.  Because I have novel #2 in the works.  Very loose outline.  But I’m excited.  Even if nobody ever reads what I write, I’m a writer, right?  Why do I have to convince myself…

These things seem reasonable.  Yes, they do.  If I work hard.  2+ months?  Piece of cake.  You are all witnesses!  I have to move on this people.  Go ahead and ask me how the editing is going — go ahead — and don’t let me evade the questions…

Have a great day…I am, with friends in Jerusalem.  I love the productivity that time-crunches push you into!

127 Days: Better than yesterday

I am sipping a “long” espresso in one of my favorite cafes in the heart of the fashion district of Tel Aviv. It’s a better day than yesterday, that’s for sure.

Yesterday, I did not leave my house. In fact, I barely left the sofa. Yesterday, I ate nothing but nuts — almonds, walnuts, and a few raisins thrown in there — everything that happened to be readily edible in the house.  Yesterday, I looked for anything to distract me from the terror.  Yesterday, I watched several hours of television, including every episode of the new show, “Lie to Me,” online.  Yesterday, I was down.  Yesterday I was really really down, down beyond “the meaning of life” down.  Yesterday, I nearly called my parents for help.  I still might.  And that’s a scary place to be in.

Then something happened.  I don’t know what.  Evening came.  I felt more calm.  I got up.  I straightened things up.  I made a list.  I cooked spaghetti.  I answered a phone call.  I was ever so slightly productive.  I read a manuscript I needed to work on.  Finally, I took a long needed shower at midnight (I still had makeup caked on my face from the day before – !!! – and talk about the fuzzy teeth issue).  I slept well.  And I got up in a more peaceful mood.

I’m perplexed at my state these days.  I don’t know if I’m strong, and I have serious mental health issues, and that it’s all coming out now because of my lack of structure, and my finally breaking away from family, and because of being alone or a combination of these things.  Or if I’m actually allowing myself to be quite weak, that I can be strong, that I have been strong, and that now, I’m allowing myself to be lazy and weak, indulging in depression, like some sort of mental vacation.  It sounds stupid, but I can’t decide.  I don’t know whether I’m strong and I’ve reached my limit, or whether I’m strong and I’m allowing myself to slip.  Does it matter?  To my ego, only, probably.

In either case, I don’t think I’m getting the help I need.  Problem is, I don’t know what that help is.  I know I want to (need to ?) be more closely taken care of.  But without a spouse, very close siblings and/or parents, I’m not going to get any care.  And what do I mean by care?  Not sure.  Certainly not chicken soup in bed and calls four times a day to remind me to do things.  I’m not an invalid.  But one call a day would be nice.  One or two visits per week would be nice.  Help with some basics would be nice.  Maybe I just need to find the money to hire a cleaner once per week.  Maybe I just need to go to therapy more than once per week.  And maybe if I scheduled regular coffee dates with friends, I’d be OK.

But yesterday, lying on that sofa, paralyzed, so filled with sadness, feeling so worthless, all meaning sapped out of me, almost all hope drained out of me, I just wanted someone to come, not ask any questions, and hug me, feed me, even bathe me.  I’m starting to understand what it is to have reached the bottom.  The end of the rope.  Maybe I’m not there yet.  I don’t want to slip any further.  And today is better.  Much better than yesterday.  There are good days.  But the bad days.  The bad days are getting worse.  And I don’t know why.  And I don’t know what to do.  And it sucks.  I hate that I know both sides.  As shitty as life is, I know how spectacular it is.  Being alive is magic.  But it is also a curse.  It cannot be one without the other.  It’s both, simultaneously.  It’s part of the paradox of human existence.

130 Days: Shelter from the storm

The song that’s with me for the night.  Relish the master poet:

I’m in Haifa.  It’s a stormy night.  I’m with my lovely artist friend D, and we shared a dinner, tired as we both were, and then went to a nude modeling session to draw.  I feel safe here in her studio apartment, late as it is, with our makeshift mosquito netting hung quickly as an attempt to ward off these horrific offenders.

I am dying to blog about my first wine gig last Friday, but I can’t seem to concentrate.  Too tired.  Too wired.  Too much chemical craziness inside.  I’ve been having meds issues.  Yup.  The Lexapro (or Cipralex, as we call it here in Israel) hasn’t felt like it’s been doing much for the past couple months.  It was a pretty rotten February.  That or I really do suffer from seasonal depression, as last February was the pits as well.  But Israel’s not cold, really.  Or grey at all.  Anyway, my psychiatrist suggested we double my dose from 10 to 20 (I think it’s mg) per day.  Basically, I was taking one pill per day, and we were going up to two.  Sure, great, fine.  No, not fine.  Day one involved my sleeping for the whole day, and dragging myself off the couch only because I had an appointment I couldn’t not cancel, and I spent the entire meeting high off my ass like I had smoked a couple of joints on my own.  Ya, that’s progress.  I decided, no way, I’m going down by half a pill.  Better, but I’ve been sleepy all week.  Two to three hour naps at weird hours every day.  And I feel groggy all the time.  All the time.  Like in a kind of emotion-less, slow, silent, creepy kind of high-numbness.

And now, all I want is to get off the drugs completely.  Easier said than done.  If I do it, I’m going to endure some pretty bad withdrawal.  Worse than I’ve ever experienced before.  Worse than cigarettes, I imagine.  I had a sneak preview today because I was out of pills and had to run to the pharmacy to refill.  Not something anyone should do with Lexapro.  I’m supposed to take it around the same time every day.  Well, a four-hour delay gave me a physical preview of the jonez-ing I will endure soon, or when, I go off this stuff.  Even a few hours afterward, the balance must not have been struck, as I would have killed for a shot of whisky or a xanax or a cigarette or all three at once.  Yup.  Why?  So, great, I’ve got a slight bipolar problem.  I’ve got depression issues.  One little pill can help immediately.  But temporarily.  And at the end of the day, a drug is a drug is a drug.  Perhaps if I go all-natural, get acupuncture, take homeopathic remedies, eat all organic, spend lots of time doing talk therapy, draw pictures, be positive, positive, positive, and enjoy a glass of wine or scotch every once in a while to dilute life’s shit every once in a while, it would be a decent replacement for psychiatric drugs.  Because I hate to think what this is doing to my liver, to boot.  I might as well enjoy my liquor, as right now, it’s not safe for me to indulge very much at all.  Imagine that I went to a whiskey tasting, had eight lovely glasses before me, and took a miniscule sip of each one, leaving them virtually untouched.  Like, a hundred bucks work of booze down the drain instead of down my hatch.  Pisses me off.

Drugs are not the answer.  I’m not psychotic, and my bipolar diagnosis isn’t all that bad.  It’s a blip.  A minor thing.  I hope.  So, what’s the answer?  Who the hell knows.  Drugs are a temporary shelter.  The roof wears thin pretty damned fast these days.  And it’s astormin’.  Maybe I should just learn to enjoy the rain.

137 Days: How To Cope With Depression

Having been to what I am starting to believe more and more is my pill-pushing quack of a psychiatrist, as well as my cool barely-older-than-me psychologist in the same day, and having read a Judy Blume book cover to cover in between, here’s a fun video to brighten all our days:

140 Days: Xanax Solace

I’m a bit woozy, as I took a xanax an hour ago or so.  Not the best day.  Well, an eye opener.  My writing workshop consensus was that my book, although ridiculously promising at the beginning, needs a lot of work in the middle and end.  I mean, when they gave me the critique a while ago on the first third, it was through the roof.  The kind of stuff that a publisher would have a wet dream over.  And now I realize what a grandiose mountain it is I am really standing before.

I felt really alone today.  Really wanted to cry and be comforted by a mother.  My mother isn’t the type.  So not the type, it’s laughable.  All my life I never realized that I approached her with so much hope that she’d finally just embrace me without opening her mouth.  With pure acceptance.  Without curious, suggestive, self-centered, egotistical, judgemental jabs.  And I spoke with my father today for the first time in what must be over a month or maybe even more.  I think it’s like more like two.  And the weird thing is, I don’t have the strain with him as much as with my mom.  He just doesn’t call and is so busy and in so many countries, I never know when to call and where I might find him.  It was nice to hear his voice.  But it made me so sad.  I wanted to cry, to tell him that it is quite possible I’m terribly depressed and that I’m not sure my meds are working and that I feel that my life is insignificant sometimes and that I don’t know what the solutions are.  But I couldn’t say anything.  We just talked about my travel plans for the spring, and he helped me with his industry-insider knowledge in booking some flights.  And part of me was so angry.  So angry at him that I couldn’t say these things.  So low.  And all we did was “talk business” as usual.  I’m pretty sure I sounded strained.  You know, when someone asks how you are, you always say you’re fine.  Even though you might be the farthest thing from it.  Why open Pandora’s box?  Why tell a parent who can’t do anything to help you and usually gives you advice you don’t care to hear because it’s conservative and insensitive, that you’re lost and scared and miserable?  It would only hurt them.  But then who do I turn to?

I took a xanax, not something I do often, maybe 2-3 times a year…but it’s gotten closer to 4-5…not a dangerous amount.  Because I was sensing myself start to spin.  I called a friend on the phone and she didn’t answer.  I would have called one or two others, but it’s the Sabbath here, and they’re religious and won’t have their phones on or won’t answer.

My date went well.  He was exceptionally smart.  We have a lot in common.  But I sensed I wasn’t quite all there.  We are going to meet again.  But I need to have a heart to heart with myself, if such a thing exists.  My gynecological issues these past couple months have been scary and uncomfortable.  I can’t pretend that the idea of sex isn’t still off-putting.  It is.  I want to get to know people.  Just people.  Sometimes I think I’d give almost anything up to have unbelievable sex just once in my life.  Maybe even pleasant good sex.  Other times, I know in my gut that I’d be more than OK if I’d never have sex again in my entire life.  Funny.  It’s a take it or leave it.  Sometimes I feel (or rather I know) that I’m really missing out.  Other times, I really know it’s not worth it.  Sex has brought me nothing but worry and discomfort and jeopardized my health.  I don’t know what it feels like to burn with desire.  Maybe I’m not capable of it.  But I know I need a partner.  I need to keep dating.  I want to built positive relationships, have strong friendships, weave a varied and colorful and supportive basket of people around me.  But the intimacy thing.  Sometimes I wonder about hypnosis.  I’d really like to dig to the root of my problems.  I was never physically abused as far as I know.  But after all my years of dating, of sexual dabbling, and therapy on top of it, to still be so uncomfortable, so panic striken, seems fishy to me.  Regular yeast and urine infections, along with the worry of STD’s and pregnancy, for crappy sex that feels a bit uncomfortable at best just isn’t worth it.  Keep the dirty knobs away.  For the moment, anyway.

159 Days: Purpose. Survival. Pleasure. Joy.

I warn you now. This will be something resembling a rant. Or philosophy. Or just depressive mumbo-jumbo. But it will only be as long as my crappy laptop battery will allow as I couldn’t get one of the only two tables at this cafe that are situated by a wall socket.

62% – here I go

It’s raining. It’s a good thing for Tel Aviv. It feels something like Christmas when it rains. It’s far more lively. People rushing about. Cars not used to splashing through puddles get pedestrians wet by accident. It’s kind of joyful. I holed up for a while in The Third Ear music and movie place, and then ran as fast as I could across the boulevard to a cafe because it was really coming down.  I’m in a “glassed in” section that cafes tend to build out for the winter here.  I’m kind of outside.  I’m kind of in.  It’s pleasant.  And there are space heaters above us.  And the rain is audibly pounding.  It’s kind of a respite for me.  But I’m still not feeling good.

58%

I lack structure.  I’m not good when I lack structure.  But I knew that this was coming.  When I gave up the structure of a miserable job, I knew there was a big chance I’d flounder.  I knew there was a big chance I would leap for another job, for another course, for something to make me get up in the morning.  But once I establish a structure, I get very tired of it, very quickly.  How does one live with structure and live without structure?  How can one be comfortable in either situation?  I love and hate both.  I need and reject both.

56%

I dream of having ultimate purpose.  I dream of deciding, this is it, I love the environment (or abused women, or tax reform, or crochet knitting, or model rocket building) so much that I will devote myself to making a change in this one particular field.  Nothing will stop me!  I will not yield!  I am an environment saving (or women saving, tax reforming, crochet knitting rocketry) machine!  I will form a company, a union, something!  Or I will get a job with an existing agency and do it!  I will get up every day, knowing that even though I may only be filing today, or only sweeping the floor today, or sitting in boring meetings today, I am ultimately doing something for what I love!  I have purpose!  I am doing my small part in one specific field, and over the course of a lifetime, I will have done something meaningful, I will have helped progress, I will have been able to sleep through the night, have friendships, have a love, clean my house, plant a garden, with the peace of knowing that 9-5, 5-6 days per week, I have purpose.  That I function.  That I do.  That I count.

53%

That was idealistic wasn’t it?  Life didn’t used to be like this.  One existed to keep existing.  Your dad was a silversmith?  You apprenticed, you worked hard, you learned, you took over for him, you made enough money, got to marry, got to procreate and sustain that family because you had a profession.  Or you have land.  It’s your one asset.  You grow food on it.  It sustains you.  You have a surplus.  You sell it, you trade it, you have more under your belt.  You marry.  You have kids.  You survive.  You exist.

50%

So, why do we keep doing it?  Over time, we have gotten to have more and more leisure time.  In other words, we have more time to enjoy ourselves.  And we have more time to think.  So.  What does this mean?  We become more introspective, sure.  And we can become gluttonous libertines, too.   We start to think about meaning.  Why are we here?  Why is life such a struggle?  Why continue?  Because it’s also pleasant.  Because food tastes good, sex feels good, talking warms us in a way a fire can’t, sleep is nourishing and pleasant.  So…do we work hard so we can come home and enjoy the pleasures in our lives?  Love our husbands and wives and lovers and children and sing songs and eat cake and drink wine?  Is that enough?  Has that always been it?  Is that it now?

45%

I’m losing my train of thought.  I don’t know if it wouldn’t just be prudent for me to find any old PhD program who would take me and just fall into the world of this, of books, of depressive philosophy.  But that would be a pleasure in itself.  Painful though it may be.

I’m just struck by the nothingness now.  I feel sometimes that I’m nothing.  That everything that I have accomplished is passed.  That even though I have been productive in the past.  Even if I’ve created great art.  Even if I’ve once worked hard, if I’m not doing it now, I am nothing.  And my goals seem so trivial.  Work as a “traveling chef” while I edit my novel so I can send it out to get published.  Maybe.  Cooking seems so…nothing.  It’s not like saving the whales.  Or saving the economy.  Or even reading philosophy books at a university.  It feels on the one hand quite blue color and hard physical labor and crazily demeaning; and on the other hand it feels really decadent and over the top with the menus I plan and the heights I aspire to and the “world peace” I sometimes feel I can achieve if only I can educate people on how fantastic the history and processes of food really are.  And yet, beyond the one catering gig I had, I have no leads.  Sure, I’ve not done much of any marketing, or asking around, or making of flyers or anything.  But I have distributed some 100 business cards and people were practically offering me work all over the place.  Ah, c’est la vie.  Nobody is true to their word, most of the time.  Or am I just being cynical because I’m having a bad day/week/month?

40%

Joy.   There are beautiful things about being here.  About our existence.  Whether we are base animals, working hard just to feed and sustain the next generation, so they can do the same thing.  Or whether we are these huge thinkers, these pompous philosophs (or should I say sophists), who are so wrapped up in themselves, they cannot see the forest for the trees.  If it’s a matter of work (dare I say, “work will set you free?”) and simple pleasures of home, hearth, and God, or something much larger…I don’t know.

38%

I live in a world of chocolate.  I live in a world where I can sit sheltered from the rain in a glass box, sipping a latte.  I have a laptop.  I have internet.  I express my opinion to millions (or maybe a dozen or so) strangers, freely.  I go to a shrink, weekly.  I take prescription drugs.  I drink whisky.  I live in a world where I wonder about it.  I live a life I cannot understand.  I am continuously in awe of things I discover.  I am continuously puzzled by things I can’t wrap my head around.  Are these not all wonderful things?  Are these not things that in their own way bring me joy?  Maybe even give me purpose?  No, not purpose.  That’s going too far.

34%

I have always, always, always believed that things, all things, only have the meaning we bestow upon them.  A religious person believes in God, in God’s power, love, grace, etc.  An athiest does not.  Yet they live in the same world.  And they are both correct.  Meaning is our attempt to give significance to the things around us, and hence to our lives.

32%

But, if I believe that meaning is an artificial construct, then what am I doing here?  If I don’t believe that anything means anything, can I still care?  Well, sure, right?  Sure, we’re all going to die.  But some people suffer more than I do, some people even starve and die painful deaths.  There is no sense in some of us people being wealthy and some being poor.  That’s the way it is now.  I’m not saying it “shouldn’t” be this way.  But this is the reality.  I can still do something about it.  From giving a small donation in a tin on the street corner, to devoting my life to alieviate poverty in, say, Africa.  I can do something, even if I accept that things are the way they are, just because they are.

30%

50 ways to leave your lover is playing.  I love this song.  I really do love Paul Simon’s work.

So, we are an accident.  Something that happened.  Big Bang — massive expansion — stars, planets, volcanoes, atomospheres, amino acids, cells, and finally us.  Nobody before.  Nobody after.  Nobody watching.  And even if someone were?

29%

Here I sit at a cafe.  Really sad, and no reason to be so.  My tears have no meaning.  If I applied myself, I could be great.  I have that background.  I have that education.  I have that elloquence.  I even hhave the connections.  And I don’t know what to do.  Maybe this is indeed depression.  Massive depression.  Maybe if I took more drugs, I would feel like I was over the moon, clean the house, get a job, finish the book in lightening speed, sell a million copies, move to Paris like I want, eat croissants, go shopping, have a lover who really loves me, have babies, have a vegetable garden in Provence, drink wine, grow vineyards, make wine, write funny stories, sing pretty songs, and die a peaceful death, full of fat French cheese, lush Belgian chocolate, and smiling faces all around.  One more pill a day?  Just one more pill?  Wasn’t this what I thought one pill ago?  Is this more of an existential dillema than a psychological one?  Do I need more therapy?  Or a weekly chat with a philosopher?  Would winning a million dollars change anything?  Would it?

26%

I think I’ll stop soon.  Nobody will have read this far.  I’m not nearly as intelligent as people think I am.  I still can’t get over the feeling that unless I am productive, unless I have a title, unless I am earning, unless I am creating something, I am nothing.  How different would the world have been without me?  Not much.  Or would it?

I am spinning in circles, and I don’t know the way out.  I feel so sad.  I hate not having purpose.  Because in all actuality, I have too much purpose.  I cannot decide.  I can’t.  Why can’t I just go work for Greenpeace?  Go join the Peace Corps?  Get a job at a bank?  Earn a paycheck and drown my sorrows with….simple joys?  I don’t know.  I just don’t know.  I’ve never known.

22% – it’s not safe to go to zero, is it?

Still, I have to remember that I have good days.  So good, it’s scary.  Days when every flower is a gift.  When every new thing I learn is reason enough to have been born.  Why am I like this?

271 Days: One Thing at a Time

I am back in trouble-land again.  Indeed I am.

Last week was a good week.  Ish.  And now.  And now.

I woke up this morning with a headache so bad that I could hardly move.  It was major dehydration.  It seems for the past four or five days or so, I just stopped drinking much.  Mix a bit of alcohol (OK, a lot on the horrid date night), and a couple shots of Bailey’s last night, just for kicks.  I am a zombie.  Might as well change my name.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone off the Lamictal.  I am always tired.  Always.

The Pitiful Shameful List of my life this week?

• No Friends seen in a long while, don’t even feel like calling anyone.
• No dates in longer, even though I’m back on Jdate (hurrah!-not).
• No writing – even though I went to a great workshop, was really revved, wrote a decent article for a magazine last week, and all.  And all.  And I am a zombie.
• No gym – never crossed my mind to go, not even any guilt – which is shameful.
• No resumes sent – even though I’m miserable at work, and the light at the end of my tunnel (other than publishing the book one day soon or getting picked up by the food network) is that I can always get another boring desk job that will be more tolerable than this one.  Yet!  I haven’t sent them out.

So.  What to do?  Another doctor appointment to get yet another second opinion.  Force myself to the gym.  Contact any old loser on Jdate and just go out.  Get out of the house.  Call my supposed friends.  Force myself to go out.  Plan something for the near/medium future.  Like a big Thanksgiving dinner (I went to a hotel last year…ugh, what a sin!).  And write.  Even though it’s scary.  And it’s easier to watch Youtube and keep up with the election and watch House and Start Trek Voyager and Coupling.  Even reading a book, in my situation, does not help me get out of the rut.  Books are just as bad if not worse than television and the internet.  Why?  Books are my ultimate in living vicariously.  Shit.  I love books.

So.  Knock on wood a million times over for tomorrow.  Please be well Mr Obama.  Get some sleep, yourself.  Drink some water.  Try not to freak out.  Take care of yourself.  You can do this.  You can be an adult.  You can clean the kitchen and sweep the floor and mop the floor and scrub the bathroom and do the laundry.  You can find a place to watch the elections tomorrow night.  You can do this.  You are not hopeless.  You are not alone.  Even though it seems that way.  Even though you spend almost all your time alone.  It will be OK.  It is OK.

And just so you don’t all think I’m going off the deep end, here is a link to a fantastically great poem that a friend back in Chicago introduced me to.  Here is William Carlos Williams and Danse Russe.  Who’s to say I can’t be the happy genius of my household, too?

282 Days: You Can’t Always Get What You Want

I’m sitting in one of my favorite cafes listening to “It Ain’t Me Babe,” Dylan straining his sandpaper voice as I stare into nothingness.  I really need that slap in the face.  Which slap in the face?  A slap by the Stones.

I know it’s silly, girlish superstition.  Superstition of my own, mind you, but superstition nonetheless.  The first time it happened to me it was like a lightening bolt.  I was feeling very scared and very sorry for myself.  I was in smelly dirty little train station in rural Poland waiting for a midnight train that would take me to Prague.  After several hours of calling every hostel and budget hotel and mid-price hotel in Prague, I couldn’t find a bed for myself for the next night.  I should mention I was 20 years old at the time, traveling on my own, backpacking through Europe, a friend having bailed on me at the last minute.  I had started in Dublin where I’d been studying that year, and the goal was to make it to Israel only by land and sea within about a month’s time in order to get to the opening of my grandfather’s art exhibition, which would prove to be the last in his life.  So, here I was, in Poland, very disgusted by my surroundings, very disturbed by not knowing where I’d be sleeping the next night, and alone, all alone.  I had decided to call my mother in Chicago on a payphone, and she listened as I cried and cried.  Nothing she could do, at all, but I thought it might help to talk to someone.  It didn’t.  It served to pass my misery on to someone else.  Inflict worry onto someone.  Should I disappear, at least my mother would know my last known location.  There were homeless people there who smelled worse than anything I had ever smelled in my life.  I sat in the tiny cafe, or, not even a cafe, a minute kiosk of a thing.  I probably was writing in my diary, dribbling on and on about not knowing what to do, when before I had so been looking forward to visiting Prague.  And then – and then – and then.  Something I will remember forever.  A familiar tune crackled from the tiny transistor radio in the kiosk.  You know it.  The Stones.  And they were singing to me.  Well, not to me.  But to me as much as anyone else. A recording artist must be hoping to touch lives far and wide.  And I laughed, and I smiled.  You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.  Everything seemed trivial after that.  It was a slap in the face.  Here’s a girl from an upper-middle class family, a couple credit cards on her, and fair share of international street smarts under her belt.  What on god’s green earth could happen to her?  She would not sleep on a gutter.  And even if she should, it would not kill her.  And of course, everything worked out. From that day forth, I have noticed every time that song has played.  Often it has been when I’ve been freaking out.  And it helped to think of that disgusting Polish railway station and the first time the song helped me.  So…come on now.  Mick?  Keith?  Help me out.  I need a sign.

Because I make tempests in teapots.  Mountains out of molehills.  I need contingency plans.  Because for some reason it has always been important for me to grasp what the worst case scenario would actually be.  And 9 times out of 10, if death or career suicide aren’t in the cards, I should be able to calm down.  But it doesn’t usually work out that way.  Now, detoxing.  Now, depressed.  Now, alone.  Now, lost.  It’s hard to be realistic.  To put things in perspective.

I am alarmist.  Do I need to analyze myself to find out what it is before I can take measures to try to stop?

Can’t I just go out there, out on that limb, and buy that ticket to India?  Can’t I start my food publishing empire?  Can’t I get my PhD?  Can’t I get a move on already?

And now it’s the Fab Four heading back to the USSR…not the Brits I need right now.

At least tomorrow I’ll be heading up to Binyamina for a counseling session.  A fantastic woman, friend of a friend that I met at the Ashram last weekend.  It’s upsetting to her that I’m very unhappy with my career right now, and as she’s some sort of coach for people, she offered to give me a free session, or some conversation time.  I’m excited to be getting out of the city again.  I’m excited to be seeing her again, as she was a really gentle, lovely, comforting woman…one of those “mom” figures I seem to be drawn to.  A nice afternoon in the country, some cups of tea, good company, and a potential for real help.  Wish me luck…

Don’tcha just wish sometimes that world could be like Star Trek?  No money, no disease, equality, opportunity, liberalism winning out over conservatism, science over religion, multiculturalism over capitalist beige-ness.  A genuine spirit of discovery and cooperation.  If I ever become wealthy, after I make sure I feed and teach several African nations how to take care of themselves, save the ozone layer, find a sustainable form of energy, bring at least a dozen species out of extinction, and other of the most worthwhile causes, I would pay for a ride up to space.  I really would.  I pine to know what’s out there.  I suppose I should take comfort.  All of us are on a spaceship.  A giant spaceship.  Spaceship Earth.  The “Terra”.  Hurtling through space, all of us tethered together.

286 Days: Taking risks, ashram madness, a downer of a homecoming

Ashram was fantastic.  I prefer it quiet, not like it was over the weekend, busting at the seams with people, a crazy mad amount of new-age workshops and meditation sessions, and tents as far as the eye can see.  I can’t stand the Patchouli crowd for too long.  Visiting is nice.  Dread locks are kind of funky for a while.  But it ain’t reality.  Some highlights:

• AUM Meditation – a student of Osho’s created this method.  It takes 2.5 hours, done with a group, and it goes through twelve stages of human emotion, from anger, to love, to laughter, tears, and much more.  It was a roller coaster, and I felt such release.  Imagine getting to be crazy, getting to scream as much as you need, be hugged by 50 other people, etc.
• Spiritual Leadership – an interesting conversation with a kabbalisticly oriented therapist and leader.  I connected intensely to what she was describing.  Leaders may in fact be born.  I suppose many of us may be born into our purpose.  And if we’re not accomplishing it, we feel immense suffering.  Every one of us is a pipe, a funnel, a conduit.  We receive information, we learn, and we are meant to pass on.  If we don’t, we are stopped up.  Like I need a spiritual plumber…. (ha, ha, ha).
• Laughing Yoga – kind of fun, kind of bizarre.  It’s a “fake it until you make it” kind of process.  All sorts of group exercizes where we are made to laugh.  And we had to laugh whether it was real or not.  Eventually, it became real.  And it didn’t always (I mean, I was there for almost 2 hours).  But the theory is, the body doesn’t know the difference between real laughter and fake laughter.  By laughing, you are tricking the brain into releaseing endorphins.  Laughing can heal dramatically.  Hence, clowns in hospitals, etc.  Don’t know if I would cut out the medical profession altogether, but, hey, I might just force myself to laugh for a couple minutes every day.
• Psychodrama – a type of therapy whereby the person acts, along with the therapist, on a stage, in situations that trigger the person’s issues.  Very interesting indeed.  I was just an audience member for much of this, but it seemed quite powerful and effective.
• Eye contact – every session I went to that involved interactivity stressed eye contact.  Duh.  I come from the theatre world.  I have been in therapy.  Eye contact is very very important.  But I came to realize how difficult it was for many people.  We were instructive to look carefully into each others’ eyes, and still there were people averting their gaze, people looking down, and all sorts of “pretend looking,” taking a quick glance, kind of, and moving away.  Eye contact is powerful.  People cried during exercises where I kept a steady connection.  It helped them to know I was with them and listening.  That I cared.

Anyway, I met some cool people, hung out a bit with some friends I had met at the writing workshop the last time I had been at the ashram, and had a decent, if rushed, weird time.  Excellent chai tea, though.  Decent vegetarian grub.  But they make a killing, they do.  Not cheap to buy the food there, and there is little other choice.  No fires allowed anywhere on the ashram or campsite, so no cooking.  We brought some snacks which helped us skip meals.

But on returning to Tel Aviv, I did not have an easy time.  I slept OK, the cats survived without me.  And there was a new episode of Star Trek Voyager uploaded.  But on waking up this morning, I was in a different world entirely.  Like the weekend hadn’t happened.  Or rather, maybe my reality of being back made it that much worse.  Juxtaposition.  Such a cool word.  Such mixed results in reality.  I had the hardest time getting out of bed.  It took over an hour to convince myself to take a shower.  I hoped that I would be envigorated when I got out, but no.  No.  I was moving through sludge.  I called my assistant to tell her I probably wouldn’t be in but that I’d work from home.  Hardly.  I tried so hard, answered some email, but I fell apart.  I was so tired.  I slept for several hours in the middle of the day.  Then tried to work again.  Then gave up, cleaned out the cat box, and went to a cafe.  Sat and did nothing as I drank a fruit smoothie.  Then feeling guilty, got up, went to a bookstore, and bought my boss a birthday present (it was last week).  Then I went to therapy.

So…it seems I grew up in an environment where I was taught NOT to take risks.  An environment where even if I took a risk, I felt confident that I did not have a safety net, that Mom and Dad were not close behind to catch me or back me up.  Which sums it up pretty well.  Thank you to my therapist for packaging this explanation up so well.

I know I have to leave this job.  It is toxic.  I feel trapped.  Often.  And especially now.  But as I learned in therapy, I somehow believe that I am not capable of earning a living doing something I enjoy.  That staying with the status quo, with the safe, is the best option.  I have completely internalized this.  But being the open-minded smart, ambitious person that I am, have always conflicted with it.  And it’s won out most of the time.  The fear-monger in me.  The anti-risk-taker.  Not any more.

My task this week is to brainstorm and take small steps at coming up with a real option.  A career I can both love and thrive at financially.  Why not?  I am a very capable person.  So what if I am deathly afraid of failure.  Of being without money.  Without an income.  Without a plan.  Of having to crawl back to the family as a shameful failure?

I risk not living a life at all if I don’t just jump…and I still have India.  I will go this year.  I will.  It’s rather cheap from Amman.  Maybe…600-700 USD.  Roundtrip.  Half that of going to the States.  Awesome.

I will be a great chef or personal chef or food media mogul or food writer or novelist or cheesemonger or restaurant critic or documentary filmmaker or…or…or…

Osho

299: Drugs, psychiatric drugs, that is

Escitalopram

I thought I’d share some pretty pictures of the drugs I’m on.  The Cipralex (Lexapro) is new.  Funky side effects the last couple weeks that I’m hoping will end soon.  Nausa, weird swirly head feeling, anxiety actually much higher than usual.  And I’m weaning myself off of Lamictal.  Not sure it’s the best thing, but the new psychiatrist thinks it’s probably OK.  Can’t remember things well, especially words I’ve always known (which for a writer is bad news).  So, increasing the Cipralex while decreasing Lamictal slowly.  And a roller coaster inside while all this is happening.  Jolly fun, this.

Lamotrigine

300: Time’s a tickin’

I haven’t written in quite a while.  Quite obvious.  Highlights of the last few weeks:

• Good old friend visiting from Ireland for 2 weeks has thrown me for a loop – tour guiding while trying to work full time and enduring the High Holy Days.  But I think I have now seen every major Christian holy site in Israel.  Glory Joy and Hosannah!
• High Holy Days – cooking galore, traveling galore, teaching about Judaism to said friend, and basically on the verge of a constant panic attack.
• New meds – yup, throwing me for a loop.  Nausea, headaches, roller coaster.  Upping dosage on a day I had to be super friendly and tour-guide-y was really hard.  I wanted to scream and cry and stay home.
• Potentially losing close friend – the guy – yes, the kind of ex who has become the constant friend.  Because I’m preoccupied with said Irish visitor, new meds, traveling the country, and the holy days…I haven’t been able to call 10 times a day, as we had been doing.  Well, not quite.  After we hadn’t spoken in about…hm…2 days, he informs me that he has been hurt, cannot understand my behavior, and is re-evaluating our friendship.  He continues bizarre behavior throughout next couple weeks.  I wanted to include him in Irish friend’s visit, invited him to meals, to the country with us, etc.  He avoided.  Is this all my fault?  Lord knows… Which leads me to a major issue…
• Am I socially stunted/inept/deficient?  Well, the fact that I’m asking is evidence enough, I think.  I know I have issues making and keeping friends.  I am always nervous about offending people.  I don’t think I am ever 100% comfortable around anyone.  And when there is a distance between me and a friend, usually a physical distance (but doesn’t preclude things like time and psychological distance), I forget about them.  It’s cruel.  And it has hurt some people.  But I just forget about them.  If they aren’t present day to day, they just aren’t there.  It goes back to my not investing.  Not trusting enough.  Not staking enough in these relationships.  And so…even though this friend of mine does seem overly sensitive and not being responsive (or helpful) to my overly-stressful week…has fallen into the category of someone I haven’t seen or spoken to in several days/weeks, etc, and hence, I feel nothing.  I feel no guily about treating him as I have.  Part of this is logical, he is overreacting.  And if I lose the friendship over this, it wasn’t worth having.  He didn’t help me at all during the Irish visit, didn’t participate in the fun of it either, and any one of my American friends in his place would have understood me not calling for several days.  But still, I am finding it difficult to feel for him.  I have no compassion.  It seems cruel and wrong.  I feel nothing.  And I don’t know what to do about it.
• Lastly, some excellent news…I am a published magazine author!  My first article came out, and it was a glossy two-page color spread.  And the feedback is in – it’s one of the best articles ever published in the magazine.  People loved it.  It was culinary in nature, personal to the extreme, and alluding to religion (as this is a Jewish publication).  The two recipes I shared were a hit.  I’m very proud, and I may get to write for them again.  I get to send these magazines home to mommy and daddy so they can think that I’m not wasting away here, which is often closer to the case.

So…Shana Tova…Happy New Year to you all!  May you all be enscribed in the book of life.  And please…send me good vibes…I am going to need them…two more days of Irish visit, a family wedding tonight (second cousins I barely know) to which I’m bringing said Irish friend (hence crashing in some respect), lots of work (which I hate and am drowning through), and basically….what do we call it…?  Getting by?  Surviving?  Good news is that I’m forgetting to eat, it’s that stressful.  Maybe I’ll lose some weight over this, which would be a blessing.

Love to all.

330: Ashram

I’ve been 29 for just over a month, and I’ve meant to write on so many occasions.  It just didn’t happen.  So typical of blogs.  My day job is very related to the “blogosphere” and there’s been rumour that the blogging bubble has burst.  More blogs have been created than last, obviously.  I mean, who don’t you know that didn’t start a blog at one point?  The point is longevity, no matter what the goals are in blogging.  Endurance.

It’s not been an easy month.  But there has been some light, some fun, and some growth.  I’m proud of myself for getting through it.  There were some horribly depressive streaks.  I watched the entirety of House, the television program, episode by episode, season by season.  Beginning to end.  He is a compelling character.  A superb actor.  And yet another sign of OCD, depression, and goodness knows what else, on my part.

The good stuff, you ask?  I went to the Dead Sea on a whim, the day after my birthday.  I went kayaking in the north of Israel, about a kilometer south of Lebanon, on the very top of the Jordan river.  It was tremendous fun.  But limited.  It took me at least an hour to relax.  I kept getting angry about people splashing me for no reason.  I was frustrated at getting caught in the weeds on the banks of the river.  I was pissed at my kayaking partner who I believed had no idea how to steer or create a rudder with his paddle.  And it was lucky I did relax.  Can you imagine me fuming, fuming (!), in the gorgeous sunlight, in an inflatable kayak, with happy people all around me.  I couldn’t let go.  I didn’t have control of much, my environment, the behavior of others.  The only thing I had any influence over was my mood, my reaction.  And thank god I let go.  Don’t know how, but I did.

Let’s see – other good stuff – joined a gym.  Only went twice, but I did go to the pool twice, too.  Olympic gorgeousness, sunshine, and one of the best things to do in Tel Aviv.  I walked a lot, all over the city, from my house to the beach a few times.  Ate lots of organic food.  Saw a couple of great movies at the cinema (In Bruges and Wall – E).  And I went to a hummus festival, a huge event with the best vendors in the country, Arab, Israeli, Druze, everyone, showing up to show off and sell their wares.  Learned a bit about Chinese medicine, acupuncture.

Can you tell I’m having fun with links?  I like to educate.

And…I went to an Ashram.  An Ashram in the Desert.  The “Ashram Ba’Midbar.” On a whim, too.  And it was the very best thing I could have done for myself.  A friend sent me a link to the place, and it seemed they were hosting a writing seminar led by one of Israel’s most prominent writers, Gabi Nitzan.  His work hasn’t been translated (or rather, the translations haven’t been published yet), but I expect they will soon.  He’s a very talented and interesting person.  So, I got a lift, what in Hebrew we call a “tremp” down to the Ashram with a perfect stranger who turned out to be a successful business and management consultant old enough to be my father, and together we (along with a nice young guy we picked up on the way just back from a year in South America) headed into the middle of nowhere.  Honestly.  In the Negev desert you’d think you were in outer Mongolia or something.  Nothing as far as the eye can see.  In reality it’s about an hour north of Eilat and an hour south of Mitzpe Ramon (by the Makhtesh Ramon – mistakenly known by the world as a crater – it’s not – it’s a unique geological phenomenon – a huge depression in the earth, like a vast canyon or something, which is the remnant of an enormous prehistoric ocean.  What’s left is the Dead Sea, and explains why it’s so salty).

So – the Ashram – in brief, is an oasis.  The most oasis-like oasis you can imagine.  Like out of a film.  A mirage in the desert.  So green, so heavenly, yet tiny, tiny, tiny.  A small clump of buildings and tents centered around a dining hall.  There’s a small swimming pool.  A large domed tent for, who knows, gatherings, meditations.  And a meditation/worship hall.  See, these people have a guru.  Someone called Osho.  A real Ashram it seems.  The one in India is in Puna.  I wasn’t too impressed by the teachings, but you don’t have to be to go and enjoy the place.  The meditations were fun and quite helpful to me, health and emotion-wise.  The Chakra-Breathing meditation allowed me to breath better than I have in months and months.  I have been having a lot of trouble breathing.  A lot of trouble.  I keep changing my mind about whether it’s asthma, allergies, dust, the summer heat-humidity-pollution, or simply great stress.  It’s probably a combination of a few of those.  But whatever it is.  It’s been dramatic.  I feel the difficulty nearly constantly.  Deep breathing helps little, and it’s only temporary.  So, at the Ashram, I slept, I walked in the desert, I met friendly lovely people, I meditated, ate simple and delicious vegetarian food, I let myself be, just as I was, without thinking, analyzing, worrying…and I wrote.

The workshop – very straightforward – a guided three day journey of prompted writing exercises.  We met three times a day.  Each time, we all read what we had written from the prompt of the previous session.  There was little feedback.  But great vibes.  Gabi read his own work to us as introduction to the various themed section.  We started off with birth.  Our perceptions of our own birth.  Or anything that inspired us by the words, “My birth.”  We moved on to childhood, trying to enter the minds and bodies of our child-selves.  Then into animals.  Primal beings.  Then into moments of discovery.  It was moving.  As much by the amount I was able to produce, the quality of what I produced, and the amazing people in the seminar who were so brave to share.  It wasn’t a professional thing.  But it was so helpful, made me focus.  And now I’m forcing myself to write every day.  Discipline for me is hard.

So, I ask you, potential readers I may have out there – would you like an occasional short story?  Some titles to choose from, produced in the last week – “The Carrot Who Would Fulfill His Destiny,” “Star Crossed,” “The Meaning of Meaning” and “Addendum to Meaning,” “On Reality,” “Retreat,” “The Stranger Within,” “Self Pity,” “Cadbury Bunny,” “The Swing,” “Elogy to Peter Pan, or On Seeking a Statue in Hyde Park,” “Nirvana Lost or In Judgement of Reclining Buddha (or Me Igra Rama Le Bira Amikta).”

Or should I just start a writing blog, and let it out separately?

This turned out to be long.  Thank you for reading, if you’ve gotten this far.  My best wishes to you.

358: Curiosity in a complacent world

I’m having a difficult evening. It comes on so sudden sometimes. A wave of depression. Although that’s not what it is. It’s more physical. My feet feel like they are tied down with weights. I move slowly. I feel down but not necessarily sad. Gloomy. Slow. Like I’m in water. My whole body feels like this now. And I don’t know why. Sometimes I wonder if the medicine I’m on is doing anything. If my diagnosis is correct. If any diagnosis can be 100% correct, and even if it is…, even if it is, we are human, who is to say we have invented medicine for everything.

I went to the mall to the super-pharm to refill my prescription, I only had one day of meds left, and I put off trying to find the actual prescription, as I knew for a fact I had lost it somewhere in all the papers of my life. After about an hour of searching I found it. And I was happy, and went off to get the meds. As I walked through the mall afterwards, I stopped at a few clothing stores, to very casually peruse, get some ideas. I’m going to a couple of weddings this month. It can never hurt. And it struck me how odd it must seem to people (if anyone were to pay attention to me at all…which I suspect they don’t – there are very few genuine people watchers anymore, very few aware people, I think) that I was dressed the way I was dressed, arranged my hair the way it was, walked around the way I was. Plain is an understatement for how I go about sometimes. I either dress up a little, or I don’t do anything. Today was pretty bad. Hair in a bun. No makeup. Blue trousers, light blue shirt, black sandals, canvas shoulder bag. No jewelry. And a morose expression. And this from someone in her prime, who wants to date, who wants to have friends, who has a good job, has vast interests and talents. And they tell me I’m not depressed. Just imbalanced. Mood imbalance. Sometimes that makes sense. The other times are just weird. Like spontaneously feeling like my legs were made of lead and realizing I was walking through the mall, no not walking, shuffling through the mall, at a snail’s pace.

It doesn’t scare me too much. It interests me more than anything. If we only live once, and I have no evidence to the contrary, I might as well be interested in myself, in my experiences. Life in many ways is harder for me. It’s hard to do normal things. It’s hard for me to make good friends, to know how to act in public, even though most people don’t suspect it of me. It’s hard for me to clean. To pay bills. Even though I like my house to be clean, and I have plenty of money to pay bills. I need to make lists to be the least bit productive. I have to force myself to do a lot of things. And when I’m sad, I’m sad. And when I’m scared, I’m really scared. And I’m scared a lot. But I’m also fascinated a lot. This world, everything in it, intrigues me. It makes me so happy to learn new things. I love it when I smell beautiful fragrant flowers just walking down the street. I get chills when I finally see and touch ancient historical monuments. I want to cry when I see a clear, perfect, dark night sky littered with stars. I wish I could identify more constellations. It was a goal at one point to learn. I wish I knew more plant species.  Speak another few more languages.  Know how to make the fluffiest croissants.  I wish I could read every book in the library.

My biggest frustration is that I have so few to share this passion with. And I don’t even know what to call it. A love of learning? A love of life? A fanatical awareness of our existence? Plain old insatiable curiosity? Curiosity. Someone recently called me the most curious person he had ever met. It doesn’t surprise me. I haven’t met many who are.  Mostly I identify with children.  It’s so fulfilling to get to share some fascinating tidbit of information with a child, and it excites them, too.  When I reveal a glimpse of how curious I really am to a new friend, or a new date, I either frighten them or fascinate them or both. When I was younger I took it as intimidation. Such an experienced person who knows so very much and who wants to know infinitely more…

There must be people out there like me. I think we all start out like this, but learn to become numb and complacent as adults. Maybe that’s my problem: I never grew up. Or, never believed I had to give up wonder and curiosity and naive hope and dreams. I just wish I could meet a man who had some concept of what it’s like, to want to devour encyclopedias, build model rockets, bake many-layered cakes, learn to fly airplanes, build airplanes, go hiking all over Europe looking for old Roman roads, sing opera, learn a new language, learn to play a new instrument, collect stamps, learn about economics, master calculus, write essays, poetry, novels, perform chemistry experiments on household products, plant trees, have an organic vegetable farm, fix the ozone hole, protect endangered animals, find a way to feed the world, find or invent new sources of energy, colonize the moon, and simply travel all over the planet, the solar system, the galaxy.

Sure, I know it’s not all possible. But I don’t believe that one day it all could be. And I could do an awful lot of that. That’s Socratic irony for you.  The more you know, the more you want to know.  But the more you know, the more you understand that you know nothing.  There is just so much to know.  One person cannot know everything.  Even a whole race cannot know everything.  Because everything is infinite.  So what do we do?  Throw our hands up and turn on the TV and eat potato chips?   I can’t give up.  Because learning is addictive.  It’s one of the things that makes us human.  Curiosity.  Life would not be life without it.  Not for us.

I just want someone at least a fraction as enthusiastic on board for the ride. Because I need the support. And some extra energy. It’s hard on your own. When your legs feel like lead. And you look like such a plain Jane.