Parallax 2nd version

Parallax

(An apparent change in the position of an object when the person looking at the object changes position)

I thought I knew S. well. Every morning for five years she came to work as a chamber maid, in our motel, always punctual and cheerful.  Not having a driving license she was driven to, and from work, by her husband who took care of everything else in her life.  So when he suddenly passed away, by the end of the summer, no one (including me) believed she was capable of taking care of herself.

This overall view of S. as being very nice but, Oh, there is no nice way of saying it, not very smart and definitely not independent, was as firm as any other assumption people make about other people and is so often one sided and false, as I found within minutes after seeing her in her own home surroundings.

My husband and I walked into her house, to pay our respects, one late rainy afternoon. It was the first time I visited S. in her home and I was, in no way, ready for what I saw.  The house was overflowing with people who came to deliver their condolences. There were flowers and food everywhere, but most of all warmth and hospitality.

 S. spotted us immediately and took me by the hand. Completely unaware of my obvious discomfort, she pulled me to a small stand in the middle of the living room and pointed at the two urns, sitting one next to the other. With a glaze of dark blue patina they appeared as if they were made out of porcelain. Delicate gold edging, in the shape of intricate graceful leaves, adorned their base and gave them a very luxuriant look. They were completely identical, except that the left one was holding Ss’ late husbands’ ashes and the right one was empty.

“So what do you think?” She beamed at me.

When I did not say anything, being in somewhat of a shock, she kept on going.

“R. and I picked them together in one of our last visits to the dollar store, for $5 each. I liked them right away, and this way we can always be together.”

When I still did not respond, she pointed at the kitchen, where trays of food were laid for friends and family.

“I asked everyone to come here this afternoon, instead of the funeral home, because the weather was so gloomy and here it is warm, and with all this good food, so much nicer.”

 With that she passed her hand lightly on her husbands’ urn and continued to explain the memorabilia she staged around it from their life together, including his favorite mug and plate.

Seeing S. in her home, encircled by her family, and so completely in her element, was a revealing moment, the kind that comes along so rarely, and kicks you on the inside while changing your whole point of view. While some may think that identical, dollar store urns, placed in the middle of the living room are a bit tacky; I saw in it a sign of strength and independence, I never saw in her before.

When I returned my eyes to the display I was slightly horrified noticing there was food on the plate,

“He always loved peanut butter and jelly,” S. smiled as if reading my mind, I smiled back and nodded my head, of course, this made perfect sense.

Lesson 3/9 conversation between me and myself

Lesson 3/9 conversation between me and myself

 

“"There Is A Voice Inside Of You
That Whispers All Day Long..”  Shel Silverstein

“I don’t think you should continue writing,” Ed (my inner editor) said one early morning as I was ticking along on the keyboard, as I do every morning.

“What? You need to raise your voice? I can’t hear you through the clicking of the keys.”

“I don’t think you should write, you are not a very good writer,”

“Excuse me, who are you to tell me? “

“I am your inner critic and the voice of your future readers, trust me, I know what I am talking about.”

“But you always tell me how good my English is, almost as good is as if it was my mother tongue,” by now I am not writing anymore, just gazing at the screen.

“Your English is fine, but not for creative writing,”

“Fine for what then?” I hate that quiver in my voice suggesting that he actually got to me.

“Oh, let me see,” what a smug SOB, I wish he wouldn’t sound so satisfied with himself.

“If you put a lot of effort into it you can, at some point, master the ability to write proper English.”

He stops for a minute as if collecting his thoughts,

“You keep breaking the grammar rules and your punctuation skills are at best, poor.”

“Hey, that’s not fair, you know this is not my mother tongue, you know how hard I work.”

“Hard, does not make up for amateurish writing, just face the truth.”

“I know of many writers who while writing take the liberty of breaking the accepted rules. I can name few if you want.”

“So what, now you’re comparing yourself to well known writers? They can break the rules because they know them.”  Again that conceit tone that makes me cringe inside and raise my voice.

“Creative writing is about having something to say,” I try to divert the argument to a safer ground.

“And saying it in a fresh and interesting way.” I continue,

“And not about grammar rules,” I conclude my argument and feel victorious.

“Have it your way,” I hate these words,

“It’s not my way, it’s the way.” That quiver again.

“Whatever, I was just trying to help.”

******************************************************

Over the summer, as you suggested, I finally read Lolita (in Hebrew) and just loved it, tried some of it in English too. The first two sentences translated a little differently in Hebrew, here they are

לולטה,הילת ימי,להט לילותי. חטאיי,חיי, לו-לי-טה. 

The translator gave a whole scholarly explanation to the freedom she took which resulted, in my mind, in a sentence just as magnificent. Anyways, there is a whole long discussion of Nabokov use or misuse of the English language which I found very interesting.

* The” word” editor –also had some issues with the first paragraph. “The marked words are an incomplete thought; consider developing this thought into a complete sentence by adding a subject or a verb or combining this text with another sentence.”

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. *My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.” Vladimir Nabokov

**Nabokov's detractors fault him for being an aesthete and for his over-attention to language and detail rather than character development. In his essay "Nabokov, or Nostalgia", Nabokov's is "a magnificent, complex, and sterile art". Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko said in a Playboy interview that he could hear the clatter of surgical tools in Nabokov's prose…

Lesson 3/10 – conversations

Lesson 3/10 – conversations

It is called the Riverside cafe even though it is not really a cafe and it is not next to the river. It is in the center of town, in an old brick building, very spacious, with big windows looking over the street. I love the table next to the corner window where I sit right now. It is not too big so there is only one chair on each side. I am sitting on one, and my purse is on the next one, covered by my gray wool sweater. It seemed chilly when I left the house, an hour ago, but it is warm and toasty inside the cafe.

I have a big mug of steaming coffee in front of me and I am looking outside watching the people walking up and down the street, while my ears are open to catch the conversations around me, trying to piece them together from the bits and pieces I hear.

Behind me around a big square table four elderly women are having a late lunch. I can't see the one just behind me but I can hear her very clearly. I am guessing from listening to her that she is in her late sixties. Helen, for that is how the others refer to her, is busy describing a movie she saw the other day. I can't stand it when people insist of telling the content of a movie, almost word by word. It will ruin the movie, if I’ll ever decide to go see it, and if not, why do I need to suffer and listen to every detail.

I think the other women feel like me because all through the long tedious relay, delivered by Helen, I hear them whispering and giggling softly. I am trying to picture each one of them without actually looking. I know the “Helen type”; she is slightly overweight with grayish curls and rosy cheeks. She is probably wearing pants held by a rubber band and a printed shirt with big flowers. I try to concentrate on Rose who has a young voice and a pleasant laugh. She does not say much and seems so willing to agree with everyone. “Rose, rose,” I am sending her a quiet message, “Say something original, you go girl.”

Suddenly as if she heard me, Rose interferes in the one sided conversation “Helen,” she says:

“Did you finish the book I gave you over a month ago?”

There is a short pause; I can picture the slight confusion on Helen's face. Being interrupted makes her stop in the middle of a sentence.

“A book, you gave me a book?”

I can sense the growing tension and fight an impulse to turn and look at the women.

Like Rose I hate when people borrow my books and forget to give them back. I like my books but find it hard to say no, when a friend asks to borrow one.

“Come now, Helen,” It is Rose again. I knew it, she is strong, she will not give up.

“I gave you the book last time we all met here.”

The other women nod in agreement. I can feel the air move without turning my head.

The waitress is chooses this awkward moment to approach the table and ask the four ladies if they are ready to order. While the conversation revolves around the daily specials I turn my head slightly and catch a glimpse of Helen, bingo. From the back she looks exactly like I imagined her. I feel a sudden wave of contempt going through me. No way will she ever get to borrow any of my books.

I settle back in my chair and take a sip from my coffee. The café is almost full now, and I cannot continue to listen to their conversation through the hum of all the other conversations. From somewhere, way back I hear a baby crying and his mother trying to calm him down. Someone is laughing in a very loud voice. I hear a glass falling and the noises of knives striking plates. I close my eyes for a minute and all the different noises mingle together and create music of their own. Café music, I think to myself and smile. 

Lesson 3/12 - Set the scene

Lesson 3/12 - Set the scene

Luggage

 

My seat, 44a (the last one in the row, and highly recommended) on the transatlantic flight to Israel, has several huge advantages. I get to board right after all the pregnant women and families with young children but even more important; when I get to my seat all the luggage racks are still open.

 The one right above me is taken, as always, by the crew, for reasons unknown to me. So I put my carry- on in the one next to it, and thus have the honor to set in motion an amusing game, similar to the missing chair game.* (details below)

 It’s like a life- size, intricate puzzle, when one frustrated passenger after another tries to fit oversized suitcases, and assorted handbags, in the narrow spaces of the overhead compartments.  Knowing well in advance that it will not work, it cannot work, since we are short one space in each row.

 With a deep sigh of relief (three hours of car ride, connecting flight, two hours of layover, strenuous security check) I sink into my seat and watch the drama unfolding in front of me. It is one of the few things that never fail to amuse me on transatlantic flights. The way the passengers are dealing with their carry-on bags in face of the obviously, not sufficient, over head luggage space. A relatively small issue, I realize, in comparison to the overall unpleasant saga flights had become lately, but never-the-less crucial.

I can see the expression, of utter frustration, on the man in front of me (43a) as he realizes that his rightful space was taken (by me). For few minutes he tries to maneuver his luggage in by turning it in all possible angles. He tries to put it in straight, and then in an angle, with no success. He even turns to me and asks:

 “Would you care if I’ll move your bag a bit?”

“Not at all”, I am a picture of consideration and empathy.

 His forehead is knotted and what he mutters under his breath I can only guess. After few unsuccessful tries he looks at me again with a question on his face and I just smile sweetly and shrug my shoulders. Now the stewardess interferes, she makes a quick assessment and offer to take the luggage in question and find it a place in another section of the plane. At this moment I can completely empathize with the sad and forlorn expression on my neighbors’ face, recalling how precious is every item in my carry- on, lying peacefully above my head.

The next passenger to take part in the game is not so compliant. When he realizes how futile are his attempts to fit his humongous valise  the correct way, he just leaves it laying there, half in and half out, and walks away nonchalantly as if to say:

“I did all that I could, from now on it is not my problem.”

On the next isle over I notice buds of organization, when few passengers in what seems to be a group effort, or maybe just an act of desperation, empty out few consecutive  compartments and try to refit everything in. They repeat the process two or three times and each time end up with the same results, one extra piece of luggage.

Luggage up, luggage down, an assortment of items falling on people heads and being pushed back, at some point my eyes start to feel very heavy and I must have dozed off. When I open them again we are suspended at thirty thousand feet high, the lights are deemed and no suitcases are within sight.

• The missing chair game – also called musical chairs.
• http://www.ehow.com/video_4468204_musical-chairs_-preschool-games.html

Week 3 Theme: scene-setting and dialogue

Parallax

(An apparent change in the position of an object when the person looking at the object changes position)

When my husband and I walked into her house, one late rainy afternoon last November, it was overflowing with people who came to deliver their condolences. S. spotted us immediately and took me by the hand. Completely unaware of my obvious discomfort, she pulled me to a small stand in the middle of the living room and pointed at the two urns, sitting one next to the other. With a dark blue patina they appeared as if they were made out of porcelain. Delicate gold edging in the shape of intricate graceful leaves, adorned their base. They looked completely identical, except that the left one was holding Ss’ late husbands’ ashes (he passed away few days earlier) and the right one was empty.

“So what do you think?” She beamed at me.

When I did not say anything, being in somewhat of a shock, she kept on going.

“R. and I picked them together in one of our last visits to the dollar store, for $5 each. I liked them right away, and this way we can always be together.”

When I still did not respond, she pointed at the kitchen, where trays of food where laid for friends and family.

“I asked everyone to come here this afternoon, instead of the funeral home, because the weather was so gloomy and here it is warm and with all this good food so much nicer.”

 With that she passed her hand lightly on her husbands’ urn and continued to explain the memorabilia she staged around it from their life together, including his favorite mug and plate.

Slightly horrified I noticed there was food on the plate,

“He always loved peanut butter and jelly,” S. said as if reading my mind.

I thought I knew S. well, every morning for the past five years she came to work as a chamber maid, in our motel. She was driven to, and from work, by her husband who took care of everything in her life. She was punctual and always cheery, yet no one believed she was capable of taking care of herself.

 While some may think identical, dollar store urns, placed in the middle of the living room are a bit tacky; I saw in it a sign of strength and independence, I never saw in her before. At that moment, watching S. surrounded by her family, and so completely in her element, I knew she was going to be OK.

Week 2 Prompts

Those who forget history are forced to relive it, first as tragedy, then as farce.

“Israel has created a new image of the Jew in the world - the image of a working and an intellectual people, of a people that can fight with heroism.”
David Ben-Gurion

I only learned about my fathers' part in world war-II late into my forties. I heard for the first time about my mothers' family only a year before she passed away. I never spoke, or could understand, my fathers' mother tongue (Hungarian) and my mother's tongue was never my mother tongue.

I am a first generation, Israeli born, a Sabra. So I, together with my friends, are the live representatives of this social experiment called: creating a new image...We Sabras, like the fruit of the big cactus plants, growing wild everywhere in Israel, were supposed to be at the same time, tough and prickly on the outside, soft and sweet on the inside. Strong, unemotional, take control kind of people who were taught to believe that power comes from the barrel of the gun.

We were not supposed to be like “them”, them, being six million, faceless, wimpy, Jews, who did not know how to fend for themselves. “This will never happen again”, was the mantra we grew up on, reciting it on the top of Masada, where another group of Jews, decades before, took their own life so they will not become slaves to the Romans. 

But being a second generation to a Holocaust surviving family, this part of my history was kept away from me.  We walked around it like a well kept family secret that no one wants to talk about, but is never-the-less still there. It was in the old black and white pictures in the falling apart albums, it was in the refusal of my parents to speak the languages brought from the “old country”, it was in the stories that should have, but were not told.

Looking back at my childhood and watching my children and their friends coming into adulthood I wonder about the results of this. I am not sure if what we are witnessing now is the tragedy, or the farce but I have a feeling that something went wrong.

 I think about my parents’ generation. Did they lose their faith and failed to give us, in place of it, another? Did we, by having to prove that we are different become confused and disoriented? Did we stray off course? Did we lose our core? Did we lack a strong sense of who we are and a sense of continuity? The fact is that the new generation, who is now coming into its own, is so much different then what we expected them to be. Somewhere, somehow, all the beliefs and hopes and teachings created very disturbing results.

 I don’t know how inner strength turns into aggressiveness. How lack of continuity and respect to the past develops into detachment and indifference, how not having faith translates into deficiency in strong ethical base. The only theory I have is that when utilizing force as the only fall back alternative, the price tag is rather high and the payment, subtle at the beginning, becomes more and more obvious with time.

The stuff I've collected over the years in my little box/bureau drawer/keepsake chest marks every step of my way.

Few weeks ago, on a spur of the moment, I bought a fire safe box. Nothing fancy, the kind every one can buy in Walmart. I never had one, nor had the need to own one. It must have been growing older, and wiser, that made me realize all the possible dangers of holding irreplaceable documents, and pictures, in a card box.

Until that moment I lived in an utter bliss, completely blind to the possible dangers. Over the years I managed to collect a nice amount of documents:  school certificates dating back to my elementary school years, my daughters’ birth certificates and every school document I ever received, professional licenses, and even a will. In the last few years, as a result of my genealogy research, some very precious evidences of my family past existence were also added.

So now that I had a safe box in my possession I dug out all my treasures and after few unsuccessful tries to fit them all inside, had to face the harsh reality. This pile of papers, pictures and assorted memorabilia will have to be sorted out. I will not be able to fit everything in.

 Sorting and deciding which of these items will be deemed “not so important”, and which will be granted a safe, fire protected, environment, proved to be harder than I anticipated.  How to weight my school fourth grade certificate against my grandmothers' original birth certificate, dating all the way back to 1879. The picture of the soon-to-be-my-husband, and me, on the Tel-Aviv marina, just hours before we'll discover that we had missed our flight to our planned wedding, in the US. This second temple, supposedly, original coin from my days as an aspiring archeologist. And how about Puffs', my dead German Sheppard, tag? Or this shell I brought, years ago, from my first visit, while still in the army, from Sharem-el-sheik. It is one of this shells that when you put next to your ear you can hear the sea humming softly inside.

With every item priceless and if lost irreplaceable, there was only one reasonable act I could think about. I repacked the safe box and returned it to the store. “Was anything wrong with the product?” the sale person asked me. “No, it was fine “, I answered. “There was something wrong with me...” and with this sentence still hanging in the air I turned and left the store, back to a life of looming danger.

It was the first, but not the best--or was it?

My first big love was the desert.

The year was 1967. The six day war had just ended and I went to the Sinai to check on the soldiers from the reserve unit I was in charge of. It might have been the fact that I flew there and it was my first plane ride ever. It might have been the sense of adventure, landing on the half destroyed air strip. But it probably was the open space, so open, so empty.  “Sharem el Sheik, we are here again, you were always in our hearts”, I found myself humming the lyrics of a very popular song as I stepped off the plane and looked around.  The jagged mountains seemed as if they were penetrating the sky and the sea had a color of blue that I could not believe really existed. It felt like a sharp blow to my stomach. It took my breath away, I have never fully recovered.

And then there was Eric. He came, no, not on a white horse, but on the next best thing, an open roof, dust covered jeep.  He materialized, so it seemed, out of nowhere but there he was; light colored curls, blue eyes and a big smile.  I surrendered without even pretending to fight. For three days he showed up every evening with his loyal jeep and we went riding into the desert. He knew of places that no one but the locals knew. We stopped by hidden coves where the water was warm and quiet. I put my hands in the salty water and felt the fish so sleek, as they went through my open fingers and the corals rough and spiky.  He accelerated on open stretches of sand, and I had to hold on to the side rail and could feel the wind caress my face.  He took me up the hills and high up I got a once in a life time look at this primal land.

 On my last night we sat on a big flat rock at the water edge. Small ripples of water were shining in the pale light of the stars.  There were stars everywhere in the sky and in the water. He put his hand around my shoulders and I leaned against him. It was so peaceful.

That was the last time we met.  Later that evening it turned out that while I was happy with watching the water, and the stars, he had another plan in mind. My knight, with the dusty jeep, that had all the right moves and words, transformed in front of my eyes and became just another ordinary guy. The ride back was very quiet and then he was gone.

And as for the desert, this is a whole different story. The desert was, and still is, a big love.

 

Week 2 Theme: Perspective

 

“You promised a dove with a branch of olive…” -The winter of seventy three.

Sometimes a sentence, or even just a line from a familiar song can bring back a whole period of life. That is how I felt on that night on 2005 sitting in the back seat of my daughters’ car when the song came up on the radio. The car had just emerged from around the last curve on the road from Rosh Pina to Tiberias and I could see the first lights of the town mirrored in the surface of the lake, The Lake of Galilee. On the other side of the lake I could barely make out the outline of the mountains, the Golan Heights.

“We are the children of the winter

Of the year seventy three…”

The song, usually performed on Memorial Day, brought back a flood of memories. The winter of seventy three was the winter of the Yom Kippur war. Hearing the song I remembered myself at twenty three, in the midst of the war, sitting in a small café in Tibeirias, looking at the same dark water. We got together, that night, few soldiers, and managed to find a jeep and drive down from Kuneitra, where we were stationed, searching for a hot shower and a cup of coffee.

Dado,one of the reserve officers, and I were sitting on the open deck, talking. I was telling him how I would like to go back to school but thought I was too old to take on a new commitment. He, at least twenty years older than me, was giggling softly in the dark “it is never too late to do something you really like”, these were his exact words. That night when we got back inside the café I couldn’t locate my army jacket. The one I spend much time and efforts getting from our unit headquarters, in Rosh Pina. In its pockets were my reading glasses and my address book. Later that night, on the way back, we managed to get the jeep stuck in the mud, few yards away from the entrance to the base.

“You were tired men

Thanking their good luck

You were worried young women

And all you wanted was love”

The song on the radio kept playing …

When the Yom-Kippur war started I was on my second year of teaching. I was home working on my lesson plan for the next day when the sirens went on. The utter quiet of the day was shattered by the radio calling for the different army units, including mine, to report in. My base, it turned out, was moved while I was in school and with the move I gained a new title and responsibilities. I was to be in charge of the welfare of the soldiers in my army unit. No one, including me, had any idea what that meant. The soldiers were somewhere in the field and I was miles away.

For a whole week I stayed behind in the home base wondering what was I suppose to be doing. It was about being the contact person between the reserve soldiers and their families back home, I was told.But with the soldiers being at war, the families were more concerned with their safe return than anything I could possibly tell them. The days dragged and were full of rumors, and stories, filtering in through people who came to the base for few hours and left.

Finally I was allowed to go to Kuneitra, a major Syrian town before the war and my unit head quarters at the time. Miri, who was to be my help, came with me. When we got there everything was covered with snow which did very little to hide the destruction. We got the” deluxe” accommodation. A big room with a fire place. That was it. No beds and no bathroom, only a front row view of the destroyed main street. In the weeks to come I managed to arrange few trips, closer to the front, to meet with the soldiers themselves. In between constant moves forward into small, even more destroyed villages, and back to our mother base in Rosh Pina, I built with Miri a support system for the families.

“When we were born

The country was wounded and sad”

The song kept going on.

“You looked at us, you hugged us

You tried to find solace through us

When we were born the old men blessed

With tearing eyes

They said “we wish these kids

Will not go to war”

The war of seventy three brought a screeching end to an era of innocence. To the elation and sense of invincibility produced by the prior one, the six days war. “Sharm-el-sheik, we returned to you once again”, “Jerusalem of gold”, these songs reflected the jovial mood. My narrow country widened. We could visit the other side of the walls that divided Jerusalem, the Wailing Wall was once again accessible, I fell in love with the unending, wild beauty, of the Sinai desert. All of this changed as a result of the Yom Kippur unexpected attack and the political aftermath. We, as a nation stopped loving ourselves, not to mention being loved by others.

While all this gear shifting was going on I was busy trying to remain accessible to the soldiers in my unit, and their families. And as the army in its infinite wisdom was moving us back, and forth, from one destroyed village to another I was  trying to get us, the few women soldiers, an appropriate winter gear and locate a warm shower in the evenings.

“You promised a dove

With a branch of olive

You promised peace at home

You promised spring and lots of flowers

You promised to fulfill promises.”

My army service started with the war of 1967 and ended with the “Yom Kippur” war. In the spring the war was officially over. I did not return to my teaching job. Instead, I left by the end of the summer to study in the U.S for my master degree in counseling education.” It is never too late to pursue something you really like.”The sentence is going with me ever since. It takes me back to that night on the deck over the quiet black water, my lost army jacket and the promise of peace still waiting to be fulfilled.

The winter of seventy three by :Shmu'el Hasfari -1995

“We are the children of the winter

Of the year seventy three

You first dreamt us

In the morning after the battle ended

You were tired men

Thanking their good luck

You were worried young women

And all you wanted was love

And when you got pregnant with us

In the winter of seventy three

You wanted to fill with your body

What the war took away

When we were born

The country was wounded and sad

You looked at us, you hugged us

You tried to find solace through us

When we were born the old men blessed

With tearing eyes

They said “we wish these kids

Will not go to war”

Your faces in an old photo prove

That you were speaking from your heart

When you promised to do everything for us

And turn enemies to friends

You promised a dove

With a branch of olive

You promised peace at home

You promised spring and lots of flowers

You promised to fulfill promises

We are the children of the winter

Of the year seventy three

We grew up we are in the army now

With the gun and helmet on our head

We too know how to make love

To laugh and cry

We are men and women too

Like you we know how to dream babies

And that is why we will not press or demand

And we will not threaten

When we were little you said

Promises needed to be fulfilled

If you need strength we will give you

We will not hold back, we just wanted to whisper

We are the children of that winter

The winter of seventy three.