Tamarika

Was that a real election?

Quote of the day:             

Let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Martin Luther King, excerpt from his "I Have A Dream" speech

Yesterday we took Dick and Nelle to see The Liberty Bell and Independence Mall. It was a cold day and the streets were lined with piles of snow. Not many people ventured out with us to view the history of Freedom and Democracy yesterday. I had not seen the Liberty Bell yet and felt quite excited. Our visit coincided with election day in Iraq, and I overheard some of the visitors mumbling about Iraqi people voting as we wandered around the Mall.

As we entered the Liberty Bell building we were instructed to remove our coats and bags and place them on the security table. Many security guards, police men and women were there - all over the place. I had no problem with the high levels of security. After all, I have lived in Israel for 20 years. I understand the need for protection. But within me I sighed a deep sigh for so much security in order that we might view the symbol of liberty. Ah, the complexities, paradoxes of life. I remember my first two years in America when I arrived sixteen and a half years ago from Israel. In those days, I would jump up with alarm when the siren of neighborhood fire trucks would sound, searching for the nearest bomb shelter. I remember noticing any stray parcel or bag that was lying anywhere and observing them with a slight feeling of trepidation. As the years passed I learned to let down my guard and relax. I even gave up my green card for citizenship. Gilad and I marveled at the fact that I could wander around the whole United States without any identification card except for a driver's license! In Israel everyone has an identification card - a pass that can be asked for at any time.

I thought about Iraq as we wandered through the Halls of Independence and Birthplace of the United States. I marveled at the room where the declaration of Independence was born and constitution was developed. I listened with awe as the guide described the group of men who had sat in that room for four months determined to come out with a document to announce the freedom of the United States way back in 1776.

Did you know that not everyone was allowed to vote during the first election in the United States ? Women could not. African slaves could not.

Was that a real election?

And yet it was the first election.

I watched the visitors to the Liberty Bell. Each one stood in front of it, some bent over examining the bell from every angle. I walked all the way around it. A group of Asian tourists were taking photographs, proudly standing in front of that old symbol of freedom. So many people visit this Bell each year. Yesterday some people looked to me as if they were absorbing the hope that that static piece of iron - that silenced bell - seemed to emanate.

Or was that just me feeling that?

I remember the day

Nelson Mandela was released. Jan and I called each other from England to Buffalo. Our joy was too huge to express. I woke up very early in the morning to watch his inauguration on television. I watched the long lines of black Africans voting in their very first election in South Africa, and I wept a thousand tears of joy and relief. I would never have dreamed of such a day.

The Iraqi people are not out of the woods. There is still so much speculation about whether they are free or democratic. Indeed, how can you be free when foreign forces occupy your land and every day you live in danger?

Voting is a human right.

I am a woman. I never take my vote or right to choose for granted. When I see lines of people at polling booths my heart fills with hope. I can't help it!

(picture from here)

Two things

Quote of the Day

The longtime sun shine upon you. All love surround you. And the clear light within you, Guide you safely home.

The Incredible String Band

Am sharing two different bits of information that caught my attention today:

• A new blogger joins "blogger world."

• A different point of view that I find interesting and courageous. Am not sure if I agree but am open to think about it.

How does it nurture you?

Quote of the day:

First of all, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I never explain anything. Mary Poppins

Just as I was beginning to feel that I was giving too much of myself away - out into the vacuum of cyberspace, I received a long e-mail from a dear friend. The letter was honest and exceptionally caring about my emotional well-being but my friend was also looking "as a sociologist who can’t help but see most things in life in their wider social/cultural implications." I appreciate my friend taking so much time and careful thought in relating to me personally. What an act of love!

As I read your blog I feel like I get a very in-depth appreciation not only for what you are going through in this move and career change, but I also learn many things about your background and experience that I never knew. This is a good thing for me. I get daily contact with a friend, I do it on my own terms. Days that I am busy, I leave it and catch up the next day. IF I feel like responding I might, but mostly I read and learn and react. But I can’t help but point out how one sided this is. You obviously put much time, thought, and soul searching into this on a regular schedule. You call it a commitment and it certainly is.

What do you get out of this commitment, how does it nurture you?

I wonder what the long term impact of this change will be for you and your old friends. Will people like me write to you less because paradoxically we are learning more about you but in a less personal format? So, whether we are reluctant to use the very public forum of cyber space, or feel less inclined to respond to less personalized correspondence, the result will be the same for you.

You will be spending a lot of time revealing important aspects of yourself to people without getting the same from those who read and learn about you.

I return to the question of why I blog. After all I am not a mega-blogger like so many people I am reading these days. I hardly receive any feedback for some of what I consider my deepest insights.

Of course there is some satisfaction in knowing that out there, somewhere, someone is reading what I have to say. That's the same for the book I wrote. Except that from my book came invitations to speeches and boosts to my resume which has been useful for career moves, and, in some cases, accolades!

So how does the blog nurture me? When I share my personal stories with "anyone" who is no one, or as David Gottlieb says, "... dancing on our keypads, singing silently to strangers" - do I give myself away? One of my problems that I have been working on just about all my life is exactly that: I give out so much more than I receive back and then am left feeling abandoned and lonely.

Back to the drawing board of reflection and wonder. Why on earth do I blog? What on earth is in it for me? Or for anyone else for that matter?

Siblings for Gilad

The news is out for some bloggers: Hilary has brought up the subject of abortion. I think she is courageous for doing this. Those who hate her will hate her no matter what she says. I liked what Robert Redford said to Terry Gross yesterday when she mentioned that some call him a Liberal. He expressed distaste about having labels attached to him.  It's interesting to me how labels fly about. I mean - are all democrats the same? Are all conservatives? Sometimes I'm asked, "As an Israeli, what do you think of this and such?" Well, what kind of an Israeli? An Arab-Muslim Israeli, a Christian Israeli, a Yemenite Israeli, a French Israeli, an Ethiopian or Russian Israeli? Which one? Not to mention a religious Israeli - and which kind of religion is that? Do I represent all Israelis? I remember, too, someone saying to me almost accusingly: "All you feminists ..." Which kind of feminist and what does "feminism" mean to so many different people? Is labeling a democratic thing? or do conservatives do it? How's about liberals? 

Redford said he looks at the issues and supports people who help make the world a better, safer place whether they are liberals, democrats or republicans.

Now, of course there are those who believe that everything is black and white. There is only one right or wrong and anyone who sees the gray area in between is making excuses for evil/doers.  I call this a "purist approach." I've been a "purist" but that was when I was afraid of complexity and confusion.  In fact, whether we like it or not,  fear it or not, life is complicated and diverse. Beware of "purists," I say. Those who are holier than thou. I would like to see anyone who walks the talk. I really would. I have my very few heroes like Marian Wright Edelman or Bill Ayers. But do they walk the talk in every thing, really? I agree that we should be vigilant and ask important questions. Just be wary of purism. I've lived it! It's an illusion. Simply because of the human factor. Is that why we dream of Heaven I wonder? Would we like to be God. Pure and immortal! But is God a purist?

Abortion has been a personal experience for me. An act of terror. Fear of losing someone I loved. At the time I had no choice, or so I believed.

I have never really overcome the emotional pain of it, nor the guilt.

I often feel like Jeff Bridges in The Fisher King when he says, "I wish I could just pay a fine and go home."  And so I care for other people's children and mourn the loss of siblings for Gilad.

We render people powerless when we take away their choices. Pro-Choice. But of course the issue of abortion is complex. It is moral and cultural and very emotional. And who are we to judge? On the other hand those who say they are Pro-Life (as if Pro-Choicers are Anti-Life) are often people who support war and glorify killing in other circumstances. And what about capital punishment? Is all killing wrong or is some more noble than others? Aha! I can't help it - I return to that inhuman "purist" approach.

Fear, the final frontier. It closes us to "the other" and turns us into judges of humanity. Why can't we just hold still, and stay open to all the questions?

Gilad once said, "You do what you can and the rest is magic."

Your friend found in boxes

Quotes of the Day

From Auschwitz:

We didn't see God when we expected him, so we have no choice but to do what he was supposed to do: we will protect the weak, we will love, we will comfort. From now on, the responsibility is all ours. Aharon Appelfeld

One remaining freedom we all have. We have a choice about our attitude when all else fails. Victor Frankel

This morning I woke up thinking about my friends.

It seems to me that for years I have been moving away from friends I love.  One of the things that is important about friendship is that I develop a sense of self. I become less anonymous and take on some meaning about who I am and what I believe in my relationship with friends.

Moving to a new city and I become anonymous again.

My neighbors are friendly and welcoming. They have opened their doors, lives, and families to me in an immediate and authentic way. It is heart-warming. And yet, I remain anonymous. I don't mind. I've done this many times before. It takes commitment, effort and love to make myself open and available to new friends. I am comfortable with this and enjoy it.

But this morning I miss my friends, the feeling of sliding my feet into comfortable old slippers. Not having to explain about who I am. Just being together.

This past year I have been connecting up with friends from my youth. It has been a coincidence of connections mostly. Someone finding me on the web and consequently my searching others of that same time period. Almost like a reunion of sorts through cyberspace. I even journeyed to Hawaii to see a friend I hadn't seen for 36 years, just because he found me and invited me. He was sixteen and I nineteen when we last met. It was miraculous - haunting, looking into the eyes of an old friend so many years later and finding the same spirit, the identical core of someone I knew long ago.

I awoke thinking of Susan who, in September 2003, compared me to Eric Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar.  She described me, like the caterpillar, as being a small creature that is hungry for life in a relentless journey pursuing and savoring every delicacy available. Then, following a brief respite, the amazing metamorphosis occurs and she emerges a beautiful butterfly. Susan made a speech at a party she had organized with Tom celebrating the publication of my book. She made everyone weep, including Gilad. What a gift of love! She gave me the image of myself emerging into life as a butterfly.

I think of Charlie today. He had wanted to visit Auschwitz the year he was dying. He was planning the visit with his friend David and I was going to join them. Charlie was my dearest friend. He always told me the truth, and when he was dying he knew he could count on me to tell him the truth. At his memorial service I said:

Since his death in July, I have realized that Charlie’s friendship gave me hope, a sense of family and a feeling that I was worthwhile. In addition I realize that I feel worthwhile because he was a man of integrity and yet he loved, respected and cared about me so much. His friendship has given me the courage to find my voice. About a year ago Charlie and I sat together on his porch and talked about his funeral. He told me he wanted me to speak in Hebrew. I said, you don’t understand Hebrew and he replied: “I won’t be there!” This morning I realized: how kind of him, even as he was facing his own death, to validate me once again – and recognize that, after all, I am an Israeli too. And so I say to Charlie, in Hebrew: “Goodbye my friend, go in peace, I will never forget you.” SHALOM LECHA CHAVER – LE’OLAM LO ESHKACH OTCHA

The wooded hiking trails of Fairmount Park are covered in snow. I would love to share them with my friends who walked with me in Delaware Park only a couple of months ago. Cheryl, Marion, Judy. Each one giving me the gift of their listening ear, sharing their stories and laughter.

Jan has been with me since I was seventeen. Even as she lived in England and now in Italy. She has always been with and inside me. For thirty years we call each other on our birthdays. It doesn't matter where we are: Australia, England, Israel, America or Italy. We make that call and declare our love for each other once again.

My high school friend, Jan, wrote to me after attending the NGO Forum conference parallel to the United Nation World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa in 2001:

We white westerners are not racists because we wish ill towards people different from us but because we have benefited from a racist system which has advantaged us on the plunder and profits made by the West over the last centuries, that we continue to make and regard as rightfully ours. Growing up in Zimbabwe, I as a white child had sums spent on my education 14 times greater than the sum spent on a black child. That is one way to quantify my debt, and now I can work out how to use my wealth, education and privilege to promote basic human rights for everyone, especially the right to self-determination. Every act of solidarity with the oppressed is a step forward.

Nian and Leanne came over the night we had just become overwhelmed with the arrival of our furniture and boxes. As they spontaneously unpacked all our dishes and nick-knacks with youthful energy and glorious laughter, our fatigue melted away and new home was filled with warmth.

This morning I received an email from Nian. She called herself "your friend found in boxes."

Am I being nosey?

Earlier today I was asked:

Two questions, just out of curiosity: why do you call Tom your life partner and not your husband? Do you just prefer that term? You two are legally married, right? (Listen to me, I am SO damn nosey!) Also, I wonder if people who don't know you will think that "Bob" is an old boyfriend ...?

My reply:

I just prefer that term especially in today's anti-gay world. Plus it helps me lately now that I am at home "cooking and cleaning" while he is out making the money to put food on the table! I am so scared of being pulled back into that old frame of mind I once had. Sometimes I need concrete terminologies to help me keep my head and heart straight - no pun intended.

I haven't mentioned "Bob" as my therapist. Good point. He is definitely not an old boyfriend.

Now, honestly, how can my friend who is also my editor be considered nosy? I love it how he helps me clarify my thoughts! (spoken in a whisper)

Home is where my blog is

Quotes of the Day:

... dancing on our keypads, singing silently to strangers. David Gottlieb

We challenge one another to be funnier and smarter...it's the way friends make love to one another.  Annie Gottlieb

In a way I was forced into this sabbatical. Timing of events, life companion's new job. I was spirited away to another city, a different state. I wander around our new home with Molly and Ada. We look like prisoners and although we are comfortable and curious about the new smells, corners of the rooms and mice that hide in our closets, we all just want to go home.

"Where is home, Mom?" Gilad asked yesterday as he called to tell me about his interview. "What is home?"

Remember Gilad? Some of you might remember the posting where I worried about him having a fever even while I ate stroopwafelen that I had purchased from the Chestnut Hill Cheese Shop. I worried so much, because I was well while he was ill, that I made a donation to Save the Children for the Tsunami victims. (One of my therapists many years ago named that type of worry, the big "G." )Remember that? That was one of the postings I lost before the technical hitch.

Ah, stroopwafelen. I met them in the little town of Raalte in Holland. Back in 1982. That was home for six weeks once. I had plans. I was going to teach yoga and change my life.  Then it turned into a big drama and back to Israel I flew, where I waited six years to really break the ties and change my life. This time in America. Was that home? Ramat Hasharon? Buffalo? And what about Africa? Was that home? Gilad was born in Manchester in our little apartment above the laundrette for a year in 1973. That was home for awhile.

Good question, Gilad. 

How long will I feel that this sabbatical is forced? I left "Bob" back in Buffalo. He suggested I use this time to find out what I really want to do with my life. So many of my decisions in the past have been based on what I thought others would like me to do or even, what was the "right thing." I wanted to sing, act, or become a political journalist. Instead I became a teacher.  There are many other examples, which I am uncomfortable to share at this point.

So here is the opportunity. Here and now. I cloud the process with "feeling like a prisoner," "wanting to go home," and feeling powerless. Forced sabbatical. At times I think the blog helps to distract me from finding out what I want to do with my life.

And yet, today, this blog has helped me figure something out.

I choose this sabbatical. I choose this commitment to my blog. It is helping me formulate what it is I want to do with my life. Here and now. And with you, gentle reader, out there, I am able to think, reflect, describe and share the process.

Today, here and now, home is where my blog is!

Danny and the Oscars!

Please, everyone who reads my blog,

read Danny about the Oscar nominations.

A little closer to feeling fine

I've seen and heard so much about the Oscar nominations today here and here.  Am thinking of other things. Like where I am in my life right now. I'll write more about that later. But let me just share this.

Cynthia sent me a quote she read in the New York Times this weekend. She wrote, "It was from an article about a woman who went through a divorce and had to brace herself to get back into the dating scene.  She talks about being afraid, then says": Accept that you’re scared to death and do it anyway.  On the other side of doing it, you become courageous.

It fits the description of my blog and connects me to what I am working on lately within myself:

Fear the final frontier

A long, lost friend of mine once said that to me. It's sad when a friend becomes lost to me.

Today I was working out on the treadmill and

listening to my new, tiny MP3 player that is attached to my arm. Literally, it is that small that I am able to attach it to my upper arm with an arm band. The mind boggles!

Sheryl Crow comes on with Every Day is a Winding Road and the words penetrate my soul. Don't you love it when that happens? When words penetrate the soul?

I hitched a ride with a vending machine repair man
He says he's been down this road more than twice
He was high on intellectualism
I've never been there but the brochure looks nice
Jump in, let's go
Lay back, enjoy the show
Everybody gets high, everybody gets low,
These are the days when anything goes

Everyday is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Everyday is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer to feeling fine

He's got a daughter he calls Easter
She was born on a Tuesday night
I'm just wondering why I feel so all alone
Why I'm a stranger in my own life
Jump in, let's go
Lay back, enjoy the show
Everybody gets high, everybody gets low
These are the days when anything goes

Everyday is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Everyday is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer

Everyday is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Everyday is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer to feeling fine

I've been swimming in a sea of anarchy
I've been living on coffee and nicotine
I've been wondering if all the things I've seen
Were ever real, were ever really happening

Everyday is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Everyday is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer

Everyday is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Everyday is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer to feeling fine

Everyday is a winding road

Why blog?

Well, this sounds interesting.

And so does this - especially the conclusion:

What about us bloggers?  ...  Or are we -- at least in the meantime -- creating a charmed third space where we do what we do for the sheer intrinsic pleasure of it, and for the eyes of a non-mass audience of our peers?

Will I forever be wondering why I have started "blogging"?