12 Days: Not noticed

Funny how I no longer have to think about how many days until my birthday. It’s incredibly close.

A free pass…
My therapist recommended I give myself a free pass these coming two weeks. This blog has in many ways helped quell my anxiety over turning 30 (which is really about the larger issues confronting the fear I encounter daily, confronting the expectations I have for myself compared to what I have actually accomplished, etc). I fully expect to feel either a complete “let down” at this build up, or on the other hand, feel exhilarated and liberated over turning 30. I don’t expect to feel sad or especially depressed on the day of my birthday or the day after. I know I will be fine. On the other hand, I have artificially built up this day. Counting down to something highlights it in a way that it would not have been before. And a 30th birthday highlight enough in anyone’s life. So…I’m to give myself a break…I may feel worthless, depressed, anxious, scared, and who knows…maybe even some overinflated good things…in the 12 days I have left. And that’s OK. Wow, 12 days “I have left.” Dead man walking, indeed.

Community – the clincher
Whether it be Ross, Rachel, Chandler, and Monica at the Central Perk, the office mates by the coffee machine, your college sorority, your band camp buddies, or (gasp) even your tiny dysfunctional nuclear family – community is everything. Everything. And I know I’ve lacked it in a substantial way since moving to Israel. However, what I didn’t know is how strong an effect this has had on the fabric of my life. When we don’t have a routine (work = the same people depending on you doing a task every day; family = washing dishes and laundry and helping each other with essential basics; friends: comfort and support from ordinary things like a weekly cup a joe) it’s very difficult, and for me nearly impossible, to get anything done. I am terrible at self discipline, as you would know if you’ve read any of my past posts here. This is a sort of catch 22 situation, as this is almost impossible to achieve without help…but I can’t get the everyday help of a support system without working at it… All in all, the longer you are alone, the harder it is to find and “fit into” a group. And the longer you are alone, the more difficult everything is in life.

Being seen
What is that crucial element of being in an integral group? It doesn’t matter if it’s work or friends or family or a social niche of some sort. What all of these things have in common is that each member is required to notice the others and be noticed in exchange. It lends itself to caring for others, and in turn being cared for. It’s why the word network is so appropriate. A web, with one strand connected to many others, supporting many others, while being supported by many others. The fewer strands, the weaker the web. The more strands, the stronger everyone is.

Being alone means that on a regular basis there are many fewer people noticing me, caring about me, depending on me, than ever before. When I had an interesting and fairly important job, I was needed on many levels and many people needed me. The more friends I had, the more natural it became to see them regularly, to depend on them regularly, and for them to depend on me.

And the fact that I am now aware that I am not being thought about, that I am not being seen, kind of really hurts. It’s another perspective to the shape of my life. It makes me want to create community, and create one in a hurry. Applying to a doctoral program sounds pretty darned great. Not necessarily for the career or interest motivations. But for there being a lot of the kind of people I tend to gravitate towards, around me a lot. I don’t know if this is a good answer. But seeing my situation in this light…feels funny. I know I have friends all over the world. Some of them great friends. Really great friends. But the fact that we have no common routine, no common rituals, means that we do not spend much of any time thinking about each other with any regularity. And that sucks.

It means I need to make a huge effort, perhaps a very difficult and un-fruitful effort at first, to surround myself, and to find a way to regularly include friends. Calling people every other week, getting together once or twice a month, is not going to cut it. Because I’m drowning here. I’m having trouble finding work, finishing my editing, even identifying who it is that I am anymore, with my being alone so much of the time. And I don’t want my 31st birthday to be spent wondering if anyone is going to show up at my party. I want to know it’s going to be great, whatever happens. I want to be such a good and dependable friend to others that I will have that support in turn.

Now if only I didn’t “like and enjoy” being alone so damned much…

41 Days: A precarious Israeli return

My cat may or may not have plummeted four storeys last night and cannot be found, my father is very ill in hospital with a freak infection, I was eaten alive by mosquitos last night, I’m quite nauseated and sore in the mouth from having my teeth cleaned and flourided an hour ago, and it’s already something like 35 degrees (100 F) at 9:30 am.

How is it I am surprisingly calm?  Have I somehow acheived a Zen-like state of being able to open and close and compartmentalize emotions like a pro?  Not a chance.  Exhaustion?  Perhaps.  I’ve either not entirely gotten over jet-lag or I require so little sleep I’ll soon become a superhero or I’m just a nocturnal semi-insomniac.  I suspect it’s a combination of the three.  And in addition, I’m taking Cymbalta.  I’m afraid this may be the real culprit.  Some genuine panic wouldn’t hurt around now.  But somehow, all I want is a nap before starting the day’s tasks…seeing as I got 3 hours sleep or less having had to wake early for an 8:00 am dental cleaning.

The day’s tasks you ask?  Appling for jobs.  Editing my novel.  Preparing for an interview I have tomorrow (on Skype, that’s a first).  Seeing my therapist (praying I’ll be able to keep seeing/paying her).  And going out for drinks with an acquaintance that I hope will become a good friend.  A good day’s work, no?  I think so.  If I’m able to perform even some of it, it will be a miracle.  My mother is still in Israel, the cat(s) are living downtown at “her” new place into which I’ll be moving into and paying dearly for next month, there’s my father about whom I may be on the phone all day (they think he’s got e. coli from a simple biopsy procedure, antibiotics are not working, and they’re calling the CDC…and all of his immediate family are hundreds if not thousands of miles away), I may need to place “lost cat” posters around the neighborhood, and who knows…I have no problem finding any number of stupid things to worry about.

So ya wanna hear about the jobs I’m going to apply for…do ya, do ya, do ha?  I know you do!  Here’s a quick rundown: several content writing jobs (in plain English – getting paid well above average salaries for writing stuff on websites in excellent English grammar…as well as “blogging” and forum hosting and other silly easy stuff like that); a very part time job (like every other weekend) at an art gallery; some freelance writing (fake journalism at its very worst); potentially some secretarial, etc.  Dull as dogsh*t.  Luckily I am still leading wine tastings with my lovely precious wonderful winery a few times a week.  I’m hoping I can piece-meal this all together.  I need another very regular decently paying part-time job or a a full-time job that doesn’t bore me or bother me too much ethically.  Or a couple of part-time gigs that together make life interesting enough and allow me to eat.  It will be OK.  It will be.  I hope.

So, since I’ve been back, I’ve not been too productive.  I have located some jobs but haven’t applied yet.  I really need to start editing the book for several hours a day, starting now, but have been too busy (aka I haven’t made the time because lord knows, I have found the time to watch The Office until 4 am on a couple occasions).  And my dear, dear mother is driving me up the wall.  And I need to make nice.  She leaves Thursday.  I need to find a way to make some peace.  Even if I don’t entirely mean it.  Because I love her.  I just really dislike her a lot of the time.  And I hate that I do.  But I cannot change the fact that I cringe around her.  That I often find myself wanting to scream or in fact screaming at her in her presence.  That looking at her makes my blood boil.  Only sometimes.  Only sometimes.  Like last night when we were on the phone to the hospital and she showed no emotion, not much concern, chatted to her friends (who were at my father’s bedside instead of her) about the party she just had, how changing her travel plans will be difficult and that she wanted to wait to see what the verdict was.  And I’m sitting there about to cry.  If it were my husband, I’d be on the next plane.  Bitch.

OK.  I’ll stop.  Because I’ve just been informed that I need to make “lost cat” posters.  Damn.  I wish I had an emotional response to this.  Perhaps this is my mother’s normal state.  But he is just a cat.  Oh dear.  Poor kitty.  He was such a character.  Was?  Goodness I’m morbid.  Poor kitty.  Now I’m feeling it.  How could my sister leave the windows open on a fourth storey apartment with cats in it all night long?

Wish me luck.  Poor kitty.

My kitties when they were babies...the missing one is the male, the one on the right

114 Days: Plain ole exhaustion

I am plain tuckered out.  Was, maybe 8 hours ago, too.  I haven’t worked this hard in a long while.  Sucks that I’m barely making any money, and that in this holiday season, I’m spending more than I’m making, easily.  But it’s nice to have a full schedule.  There’s something refreshing about feeling my body totally exhausted.  From the soles of my feel to the scalp on my head.

Today, I got up at 7:30 am (after less than 5 hours of sleep) in order to get to my psychiatrist at 9:30 am.  For the first time in a long while, he was super attentive, focused, and really seemed to listen to me.  He agreed with me that we’d better switch up my meds, and we considered a few options.  For the second time, by a second psychiatrist, I was offered Lithium.  And for the second time, I refused.  There is such stigma attached to it.  And I don’t want to gain hundreds of pounds.  Lithium screams “bipolar and proud of it” to me, and I just don’t want to go there.  When it was first suggested, nearly a year ago, I did a lot of research…including all the art inspired by Lithium…the Sting song…the Nirvana song…plenty of other stuff.  I wonder if someone as talented and respectable as Sting is, is still on Lithium.  And whether it was the right choice.  Because Lithium seems like I’d have to admit to myself that I’ve somehow lost it.  So, I’m going to start on something called Cymbalta (sp?), and I won’t have time to research tonight, as I’m literally falling asleep as I type.  Good Lord…know what this means?  Time for major, and I mean major withdrawal this week.  Thank you Lexapro, thank you terror, thank you disillusionment…you see where I’m going?  I don’t.  I’m drunk with fatigue.  And starting to jones.

So, after the doc, went to my sisters to help her frantically pack for Italy (I’m meeting her there is just under two weeks), then had a strained lunch with my grandmother where I found myself having to apologize for everything and anything including my mere existence.  And then.  And then.  Wine!

It was so chaotic in the store I was placed in today that the manager asked that I not do any tastings (until perhaps the end), and just represent the winery in the aisles and help people with their choices.  My first thought was bloody hell…I got into this business for the tasting itself…wanting to teach…to converse about an actual product…not be a salesperson in the most direct and annoying fashion.  But you know what?  I did better business today than I did on any other day in the last two weeks.  Why?  When you’re leading a tasting, you’re kind of stuck to your station.  You can walk around, but then the wines aren’t being watched over.  And if you’re helping some people with a tasting, you miss customers walking in behind them and around the store.  Sure, people would have preferred a tasting, I think.  But you know what?  I learned that it’s me, the “expert,” the winery rep, the salesperson, who decides what to sell the customer.  If I sound assured, and I consciously choose what to present them, they will buy it.  More times than not.  Amazing.  Just the power of mere suggestion.  Nothing pushy.  Even helping with other products, other wines, beers, spirits…and they trust you.  It’s scary what an art sales really is.  And kind of disgusting.  Because when you think about it, we’re all prey.  If we’re not selling, we’re being sold to.  All the time.  But hey, today, I was really proud of myself.  I got people to change their minds after they went to the register with bottles they had been convinced to buy.  And I wasn’t the least bit pushy or rude.  How could I be?  I’m me.  Miss American Manners.  In Hellish Tel Aviv.

And then, and then, we’re talking 9 pm, I walked half a mile, got a bus home, went to the pharmacy to get my new meds, and the went to my uncle’s with a chicken and four premium bottles of wine, and I proceeded to cook…for the last three or more hours.  Chicken soup (with carrots, onions, garlic, celery, celeriac, parsley root, and leek…and of course the obligatory bay leaves and allspice) is done…as is the ridiculously complicated quinoa salad that I have become famous for this year.  It takes a ton of chopping and peeling and minute work.  It’s not difficult.  Just time consuming.  Tomorrow the matzah balls, tsimmes, and roast beef will have to find themselves being made somehow or other.  I hope.  Because at 9 am I need to be out the door to my last holiday tasting, all the freaking way on the other side of the city…until 3 pm, when I rush to my uncle’s to finish cooking.  Good Lord!

And now, I’m going to hop in the shower.  Oh how I’ve needed to shower.  For like three days.  Please don’t think me gross.  I’ve had other priorities, for the first time in months.  A “feels good to be dirty” kind of high?  Not really.  But it should be at least somewhat satisfying.  And Thursday!  Thursday!  I’m off to the Ashram in the Desert for 5 full days!

Happy Passover to All!  And Happy Easter (whenever it falls this year…sorry, it’s the first time I have no idea)!

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?

208 Days: Therapy Revelation

Just when you think you don’t need therapy, that you might be able to get on without it, that maybe it’s too expensive to be worth it…breakthrough.  Real breakthrough.  One of my biggest issues.  Opened up, or significantly cracked enough to get a decent view at something real.  Oh boy.

I’m feeling fragile, but also really good.  This is natural, I suppose because putting your finger smack dab on a problem and its causes and dots are connected and lines drawn and lightbulbs go off…it’s good.  It’s real light at the end of a tunnel.  It’s useful because you think you’ll be able to get over some of your real hindering day to day problems.  It seems a way off.  But tangible.  Like if I can start to figure this puppy out, I’ll really have a chance at being really OK as an adult, as a caring responsible sister, daughter, friend, and lover.

I don’t want to bore people with huge details.  But I also want to get some of it off.  Still, it’s way personal.  In short, I am an expert at cutting people off, ignoring people, learning to live without people.  Not that I’m a bitch.  But when I’m far from people I am close with, if contact with people I love is sketchy, if I don’t have regular contact, regular meetings with people…it’s really easy, if not completely in my nature to forget about them.  Not in a mean spirited way.  But it happens.  Long distance – longish term relationships don’t work because of this.  I have even gone so far as not speaking to one or both of my sisters or parents for months if not close to a year because of this issue.  And it doesn’t phase me.  As they really don’t exist to me.  It doesn’t enter my mind.  At all.  Like I have a vault in a section of my brain that absorbs people that “don’t exist” for me at this point in my life, and makes it easy as pie for me to never think about them at all.

Sometimes it’s OK and logical.  Friends from college or high school sometimes drift.  If I come back into town, it’s like time never passed.  All is well because there was no expectation that we would be each others’ support system over the years and the distance.  But sometimes it’s not OK.  Like when I illogically cut off in anger loved ones, good friends, whom I need.

It has to do with needing people and them not being there for me.  Incredible.  And that’s all I’ll say for now.  I feel like I can make it out.  Scary.

213 Days: Homecoming, War, and a New Year

I’m back in Tel Aviv.  I can’t believe my Indian adventure was over.  It was as rought getting out as coming in, I tell you.  Stuck in Mumbai rish hour traffic for 2.5 hours (!!!!) on the way to the airport (what was a 45 minute drive ordinarily), thought I was going to be refused check-in, and when I did get there, they charged me for overweight baggage, something that has never happened to me, for 6 lousy kilos!  I fought them tooth and nail, repacked 5 times, shifted weight…but the bitchy attendant said, after all my repacking ordeal, that it made no difference, because if I took it as hand luggage, the weight was still there, all the same.  I really lost it, told her to give back my bags, that I was going to make some phone calls.  After several attempts to reach my dad Stateside, he said there wasn’t much I could do, could I repack an extra bag, to which I responded, already did that, the lady is just a bitch.  Finally, I calmed down, still fuming as I was, and gave up, apologizing briefly to the lady, and I paid the nearly $100 extra for the 6 fucking kilos.  I would have understood it had the flight been overbooked, that they were looking for a way to cut down on eight, etc, but the flight was empty, so much so that I had my own row to stretch out in.  Bitch.  Couldn’t have cut me a break.

I am proud of myself, though.  I stayed calm in the cab.  I never let my heart race.  I never cried.  And when I knew I was fighting a losing battle, I threw my hands up, and paid up.  I never yelled, I never cried, I never panicked.  I took care of myself and stayed pretty damned rational.  I kept asking myself what the point would be in losing it, I went over in my head what things I did have control over, and what things I didn’t.  It’s amazing.  Therapy actually works, and works well, after a while.

I can’t believe I’m back.  It feels surreal.  The trip felt like 6 months, not 1 month.  And my apartment feels alien.  Smaller.  Dirtier.  But it’s OK.  It’s starting to grow on me again.  I just have to use my amazing therapy skills to hold on for the next few days, especially, and the coming weeks.  I’ve got a big job ahead of me, prepping my manuscript and starting a business.  And the smaller stuff.  Staying calm.  Staying adult.  Managing my finances.  Not falling into depression.  Keeping up with friends in a constructive way.

Today’s goals: unpack (really unpack), and pick up the cats from my sisters.  Both much larger tasks than meet the eye.  I’ll need a car for the cats, and I’ll have to beg a family member or friend for an hour of their time to do this.  My sister’s moody roommate asked me to remove the cat-box tray as well, which will require more time if it’s full and needs to be cleaned.  Ugh.  I don’t quite see the point.  But I am looking forward to the kitties being back.  After the house is ready for them.  And I don’t want to open the luggage quite yet.  Give me an hour or two.  A nice long bath.  Another nap.  I’m exhausted.

And then there’s the war.  I have no idea what’s going on except it’s all over the news.  War is such nonsense.  I hope it stops soon.

And the new year.  We don’t really celebrate here, which is a relief in a way.  Jewish new year takes precidence in the autumn.  But it would still be nice to be out and about, or at least with a friend or two.  I’m looking forward to seeing the guy.  The guy.  I’m wondering about the effectiveness or stupidity of maintaining the anonymity of this website.  The majority of the people reading know who I am.  But for those who don’t, I really don’t want my name, even my first name, splashed all over the place.  And I certainly don’t want the people I write about identified.  But I’m sure some of them, if they haven’t discovered it already, might actually, and know I’ve mentioned them.  It takes away from my own anonymity, if the people I write about know that I am.  It’s not a diary anymore.  And I have to be more and more careful.  And I think it’s time to assess what my goals are here.  Should I be using this blog as an emotional release?  It feels good to do it.  But I don’t want to hurt or expose anyone.  Ugh.  I just want the man to call me.  That’s what.  And I should just pick up the phone and call him.  I’m such a loser.  I’m such a loser.  Dating, mind games, bla, bla, bla.  It’s as if I still am not convinced that anybody would ever want me.  Which is ridiculous.  But, there you go.  When you’ve never had it, it’s hard to accept.  I’m going to stop.  This is all exhaustion speaking.  And my friends may be reading…

Enjoy this mad video.  I had a revelation at a book stall in Mumbai on the street in my last few hours doing some shopping.  All of our collected human knowledge, all of the beautiful books, our scientific discovery, the great works of art, our agriculture, our cities, our cuisine, our traditions, technology, all of the collected accomplishments of the last 12,000 years or so of our modern species mean absolutely nothing, should we perish.  When we seek fame, we seek admiration from our fellow humans.  When we seek fortune, we seek profit from human markets, by selling to humans.  When we seek to entertain, we entertain humans.  When we love, we love humans and receive love from humans.  We are social in every way.  Even antisocial people are antisocial in antithesis to a society, without which this person still could not exist.  When a baby is born, the process of educating her, by parents, friends, teachers, schools, television, radio, movies, and more, is actually the process of transferring our species history to her.  Because each person starts out a blank slate.  There is nobody alive today who existing during the French Revoltion, the 100 Years War, the destruction of the first or second temples, the building of the pyramids, the assisination of Caesar.  How do we ensure that we remember these things?  Because it makes up who we are.  And if we were to cease existing, it would matter to nobody.  Our own survival is paramount only to ourselves.  Funny that it’s we who are killing ourselves.  Anyway, just saw this video that’s been burning up the web.  Enjoy:

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

295 Days: One Year in Israel

Jerusalem Light

Today is my one-year anniversary.  I have been living in Israel for one year.  It’s hard to believe.  I still feel like a hermit.  I still feel green, new, clueless.  And I don’t feel like I have any more courage, ingenuity, spirit, pride, or anything more than when I got here.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I’ve had therapy.  Lots of therapy.  And drugs.  And I’ve published something.  Something small, yes.  But something that has gotten amazing feedback.  And I graduated from culinary school.  So, besides the job issues that never cease, and never will cease, as making a living has to be done, anywhere in the world, something was accomplished this year.  Another certificate.  More experience.  Some emotional progress.  Yet, a great deal of treading water, treading on known, old, not-so-healthy paths.  But there is light.  There is light.  It’s an interesting feeling knowing that we never really grow out of childhood.  I will always be stuck at 16.  In many ways.  We are all adolescents.  Faking it.

I thought I would have a party.  Instead I’m alone at home.  Not altogether bad.  Trying to plot the next few turns, make the next plans, straighten myself out.  Alas, major exhaustion from Yom Kippur yesterday, and continued recovery from the 2-week Irish visitation, has gotten me plonked down in front of youtube and the like, watching Star Trek Voyager.  I am thinking of going out and getting some expensive beer.  Then again, I really really need to stop spending money.  I have less in my account than I thought.  And that’s not good.  But it is an important day.  Will two Belgian beers and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s really set me back all that much in comparison to the enjoyment it will all bring?  Yes, it’s worth it.  But in the end, it really is more of an issue of getting up and out of the chair (at least it’s a chair and not a sofa or bed).  As it’s Shabbat, I will have to trek 20 minutes to the local AM:PM, the only shop that’s open around here.  Gotta love Israel.  It is nice, though, to have a real palpable feeling of “otherness” for the weekend.  It’s much more quiet, relaxed, even though it’s inconvenient not having buses or shops or stores or restaurants open locally.

The cats are back.  They were at my sister’s for the duration of the Irish visit.  Not sure I’m glad, as they are a royal pain.  The company is OK some of the time.

Another year.  Appropriate it came right after Yom Kippur.  After the gates of heaven slammed shut for another year.  Another chance.  I didn’t really pray.  Even though I was in synagogue a good deal yesterday.  Even though I fasted.  I am not sure I believe in prayer.  I didn’t feel too spiritual.  I felt good, actually.  Felt calm.  Sleepy.  Adult.  Slightly nostalgic, but not in a negative, wish-I-were-back-there, kind of way.  I awoke on the morning of Yom Kippur having had a very goo night’s sleep.  I was in Jerusalem staying with a very good friend of mine, a woman I feel more at home with than almost anyone in my family.  She had laid a matress for me on her living room floor and given me perhaps the most comfortable comforter to sleep with.  I remember waking several times during the night wondering why it wasn’t yet morning and time to go to services.  And when I finally woke for the real morning, the memory of my family’s last vacation to Hawaii was on my mind.  It was one of the best trips we’d ever taken.  All of us adult.  All of us more or less getting along.  We were on Kauai where my parents have a time share, a place we’d been several times before.  And the vacation was spent on calm beaches, fun small restaurants, cooking meals together in the kitchen, and playing Scrabble.  Lots of Scrabble.  And mostly me winning, as is the case in my family.  It was a good time.  And even though the fast was not easy for me this year, I took a nap after we broke the fast on my friends sofa, with that wonderful comforter, and I felt safe.  A safety I feel with very few people.  A safety I rarely if ever feel with my immediate family.  A safety I feel when I’m with people I know will take care of me and always welcome me with open arms, no questions asked, no guilt piled on, no judgment doled out.  It was only for 20 minutes or so, but I will remember it for a long time.

I am thankful to her from the core of my being for creating safe, warm, loving spaces in this often cold and confusing world. It’s rare for me to feel comfortable on anyone else’s sofas.  There are perhaps three I can think of.  So, thank you to the Queen with the most comfortable Jerusalem sofa and comforter.

And will there be another year?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  Time will tell, all too well.

Star Trek Voyager