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."

Comments

[Nian]

Dear dear forgetful and creative Tamar,

"A friend found in boxes" is from you!!!! I loved it when I first saw it, but I seached all the emails from you, and couldn't find it. Suddenly I realized that it's in the comments to the very first blog. I tried to find it to show you, but failed. Could you please check it?

Also, I don't think we ever took pictures together before.

Tamar, we two are amazingly world-class forgetful!

Love!

[Tamar]

Ah, Nian - the first blog entry was lost when I had some technical hitches a week or so ago. That's funny. I don't remember using that expression until I saw it in your e-mail to me! I think you might have had a camera when we met for lunch a few weeks ago but perhaps we did not take any pictures, eh? Oh well!