Anecdotes from the misery index

There is no better or more eloquent way to say it. The situation is ugly from every
angle you look at it and each time you think it can’t get worse, it goes and does.

People have asked me if I’m ok. For now things are relatively safe and quiet in Tel Aviv, and I am suddenly grateful for Tel Aviv apathy. It keeps me sane I think to feel some sense of people going about their normal business. Is that crazy? I suppose that in times of madness it can be reassuring that human beings carry on and sometimes even coldly so.

But the stories coming in from Gaza are harrowing and we are no longer joking at work about needing therapy for secondary trauma. Each day someone loses it – either with sadness or with anger or a troubling combination of both. The moments that keep us together happen when people in Gaza can still make jokes, or when sudden surprises happen.

Today one of our clients at work made contact with me for the first time since the war started. I was so happy. It only lasted a few minutes but still.

Today a man called to ask if we could help evacuate his family from Gaza to the West Bank, where he was lucky enough to be. He told us his wife and children were in Gaza, and made a special request that we include his cat, Bisu. He said that until November when mail stopped coming in to Gaza, he would send cat food for Bisu via Aramex. He told us she was a part of the family and he didn’t want her to stay behind in Gaza.

In Hebrew, there is a word for hell that sounds like “Gaza”. My mom explained to me that around the time she was a kid, people started substituting “Gaza” for this word hell, when they wanted to tell someone off. It has always been a forgotten place.

Yesterday we were talking to this guy at the electricity company in Gaza. He told us that the IDF had taken over Hamas TV and were trying to send out propaganda. He joked that if they wanted their propaganda to be effective, then they should make sure people have electricity! He laughed, and we laughed.

We told him that we were at this protest the other day and a pro-war demonstrator held up a sign that said "Traitors: Go to Gaza", so my co-worker yelled back at them -I can't go to Gaza, the borders are sealed! The electricity guy laughed and told us we are welcome to come visit anytime they open up.

New Year's Day

It was hard to imagine celebrating New Year's last night. In the days leading up to it, I kept flashing to what the night would be like – walking by bars with people gathering outside to laugh and share cigarettes, standing in the middle of the party surrounded by people chatting and clinking glasses, bits of conversations flying by, at midnight strangers cheering and kissing – it sounded impossible. Last night came quietly and cold. There was suddenly no question whether to go to the party or to stay at home. By eleven-thirty I was already reading a magazine in bed. At midnight church bells started clanging outside. I woke up my love and kissed him, before turning back to my magazine, waiting for sleep. The only image that haunted me once the evening came, was of a family, sleeping together on the living room floor, the windows wide open to prevent them from shattering when the missiles fall, cold and darkness coming in from every direction. If I had any faith left in religion, I imagine this is when I would start praying, but because I don't, I just keep hoping and hoping everything will be ok.

My last memory

Riding on the sherut this morning to Jerusalem, Ali and I began to make up dreams again. It is amazing how easy it is to forget that we’ve had the same dreams and shaken ourselves awake before as well. We are leaning our heads back against the seat. Looking into his greenish gold eyes and again, I forget that I don’t believe in the kind of love that knocks you over, that makes you ridiculous, that makes you think holding hands on a sherut ride is suddenly the most romantic thing you’ve ever done. I’d forgotten to be cynical, I’d left cynicism at home and there I was, loaded down with sappy, syrupy happiness, lost in our ridiculous dreams, dreams that could not be more humdrum if they tried. We’ll get a place together, he says, and make children, and they will have your looks and my craziness. They will be rowdy in the backseat of our car. No they’ll be calm and pensive and full of laughter. We will take a trip, he says, to the mountains, to that hill over there, at least two days. We will make love standing up even, he says, let’s make love here now. I teach him the word for vineyard. I say I’ve always wanted one. He says I’ve always wanted to be a pilot and I say I’ve always wanted to be a journalist, but without the pressure of deadlines. I’ll write my book and we will be millionaires, he says. The day I come back home I will call you and we will take our trip, he says. He promises even. And I forget myself. I forget to not believe him. I am happy. I see it all in front of me. There is nothing more real. When he goes, he has to go, I tell him, keep in touch with me and he smiles. Blows me a kiss. I am ok all day. I come back home. I water the plants and hang the laundry and drink tea on the beach with a friend. I walk and walk and walk and everything is ok. It is only hours later I remember. Hours later I feel myself falling to the floor. He says to me, a dream isn’t something that we have when we’re sleeping, it’s what prevents us from falling asleep in the first place.

Tamara says it’s been too long

If the days blend into one another, it can means two things – either that you’ve settled into a painful routine, or you’ve settled in nicely to a life you never imagined you’d have. The days are sunny and easy, and you find yourself walking and wandering from place to place with songs playing in your head. Waiting for the light to change you start to hum to yourself, out of tune because you can’t quite hit the highest notes.

At these times, life is punctuated by momentous events. Births and deaths and holidays break the patterns you’ve grown comfortable with, just when you begin to notice your own comfort.

Right before the start of Ramadan, my not so new love’s aunt passed away, followed, a day later, by an uncle. The family - spread across cities, territories, countries - came to mourn. A day plus another three days without music, watching them piling in the car in the evenings to sit together in Lod and in Haifa. One aunt came from Jordan, which gave someone the idea to ask me if I could help bring another aunt from Gaza that no one had seen in eight years. At my work, we spent the three days of mourning faxing documents and faxing them again, making emphatic and then angry phone calls to the army, coordinating with men in uniform sitting in air conditioned rooms on either side of the crossing.

Finally when the mourning period was over, the army gave her permission to pass, with her daughter, and stay for three days. Four days of mourning gave way to three days of joy.

The family praised my name and all those at my organization who worked to get her in. For two days I kept my distance, nervous. My love told me how everyone came to see her, so happy after thinking that they would never get a chance to see her again and how she sat and told stories about life before the war, the family being together, being whisked away to Gaza by a new husband at just sixteen years old.

On the third day, she wanted to meet me – her nephew’s Jewish girlfriend. We came to her sister’s house, another aunt, and the family was sitting together, inside and outside, with bowls of fruit and cakes on tabletops everywhere. The aunt from Gaza sat on a chair, her hair covered by a translucent headscarf, her small hands twisted with arthritis placed in her lap. She had the same wide lips as my love and his mother. She took my hands in her hers and pulled me close, kissing the air near my cheeks over and over, saying in Arabic shukran shukran, and something about peace and other things I couldn’t understand.

Months of learning the alphabet could never have prepared me for this moment, where there was so much I wanted to say. She touched the side of her head and said something. I looked around and I couldn’t catch anyone’s attention who could help translate. It was just her and I and the distance between our two nonetheless related languages. I smiled and she smiled, and then we let go of each other’s hands.

As we walked out, another aunt called to me, everyone was quiet. She said, thank you for what you did, thank you for bringing our sister to us.

I answered back awkwardly, if only she could come every time she wanted.

On the ride home I was quiet, but once inside the house, I sobbed into my love’s arms like my life were being pulled from under me. I felt broken into a million pieces.

On my birthday, my love woke at seven and filled the house with balloons.

Today we remember easy days. Come sit with me, he says, and help me plan the garden.

making up for lost time - tel aviv, jaffa, sinai

In my many months of not posting, so much has happened and yet it all happened so quickly that entire entries never seemed to materialize quickly enough to keep up. Sometimes I felt just like posting a photo and maybe one line. This was Purim, who knew it was such a party in the streets? I wanted to make some eloquent commentary about a Reuters photograph that was in the paper here of a little boy in Sderot dressed as a Palestinian militant, complete with a fake Qassam rocket, the same kind that real militants launch at this little boy’s southern Israeli town near Gaza. But nothing eloquent seemed to come, the picture already spoke for itself. A trip to Los Angeles and New York offered perspective and the welcome company of old friends, frutas in Echo Parque, a world of glittery palm trees and then snow and cold and favorite restaurants. Coming back meant more work, and with it the kind of stories that have gradually worn away at the easy optimism I packed with me a year ago. It got warm enough to drink iced coffee again and now it’s hot enough that there is no going back.

But most of all, what’s kept me away from the internet in the evenings and prevented me from even snapshot, half-baked musings is that I met a new love. Class is over but he is still trying to teach me Arabic. When people call from Gaza I can never remember how to say -Call again tomorrow, or -Call back in ten minutes. But I will never forget how to say -The humidity ruins my hair, and at least one useful thing –Mai isn’t here now. With the new love in my life, I am no longer thinking of green lines and red lines, but about how to negotiate the space between us. I am amazed at how I can argue so efficiently in Hebrew even when it displeases me so much that we are fighting. He bought me plastic, magnetic Hebrew letters that he put up on the back of his front door so he could teach me to spell. One day his craziest friend came over and used every single letter to write a long soliloquy I could barely read. Yesterday I came over to the door, looked at all the letters and picked out three to spell “sun” – which, like in English, is composed of just three little letters.

In Sinai I thought about peace. The consensus in the Israeli subconscious seems split in just two when it comes to Sinai (the furthest Israeli citizens can get in Egypt without a visa, and within spitting distance of Israel’s southernmost tip, the Red Sea city of Eilat). Sinai is now thought of either as a hotbed of potential attacks (at any minute, we are always being warned, Israeli packed pool sides and beach front promenades may be targeted) or it is thought of or rather described by a near ecstatic sigh followed by an “ooohhh Sinai” – almost painful-like, it’s that good. I was happy to finally extricate myself from the first category and find myself settled in quite nicely into the second category, filling myself up with sunshine and watermelon and feta cheese. I could have spent many more days contemplating my feet padding around in the Red Sea and doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted because that’s apparently what Sinai is “all about.” Peace is good, was the simple thought that kept coming to mind, especially when you are the one coming out on top of it.

compassion/fatigue

tamara wants me to say what i think of the situation, as we say in hebrew, the "matsav". everyone knows what you're talking about when you say that... they wouldn't mistake it for the situation you found yourself in when your last boyfriend broke your heart or the situation you had on your hands when he found out you'd been cheating.

it is one thing and one thing only -- the conflict. i am not sure why i don't post more often... if it's fatigue, or running out of things to say, or being too self-conscious about who might stumble across my amateur musings. future bosses? old lovers? smart friends? or maybe because i always want to write about my interactions with people and i feel it's not right to expose them.

the matsav, as they say, is not good. but has it ever been good? i found myself giving a presentation last week in front of a group of visiting parliamentarians from a european country. i began, the situation in gaza has not been good for some time but new and startling precedents are constantly being set. they looked at me as i spoke... and i wondered what good it was doing. here we were before them, a panel of concerned citizens, dreadful stories under our arms, personal calamities, and they, calmly drinking water and juice, eager to catch the next flight home. afterwards we snapped photos together and wished each other well.

and i went out into the afternoon air, frazzled, still gaining hold of myself after being so nervous to present before them, and before my peers. i berated myself for not telling more stories, for not hitting my points home, for not making sure these six pleasant men from europe would lay sleepless that night on their flight home for thinking about our matsav, about gaza and the people there dragged down further than ever on purpose by weary leaders with too much to prove. they would sleep well, those men, because i'd let the people of gaza down. i took one step after the other and finally shook myself out from under that ridiculous burden. i reasoned with myself, they'd been hearing it for all of the days of their visit and nothing would unseat them. as we are all so fatigued and we've heard it all before.

later that evening, i left my house to meet my great aunt at a play put on by a mixed arab and jewish troupe. i walked past an appliance store and all the tvs were set to the same newscast, showing last week's shooting incident in jerusalem. religious men and boys gathered in a street, their bewildered faces streaked by red siren lights. it took a second for me to read the caption below and afraid to be overcome with panic, as i am prone, i kept walking and tried to put it out of my mind. a few blocks later i called my uncle in jerusalem and was happy to hear he was safe at home with his family. i thought of jesse and i walking in paris and seeing the second airplane hitting the second tower on the television screens of an appliance store. as i kept walking, all the corner stores and cafes had their tvs set to the news, radio newscasts blared from stores without tvs. people had already begun to gather around, making exasperated commentary -you see what happens? and -peace, they muttered to each other. the tvs said who to care for, they said these are ours and those were theirs. they said our calamity exceeds theirs, our fight is moral and just. it is as simple as black and white.

i thought of all the eyes on all our dead here, the endless commentary and the endless taking "sides" as if there really are just two simple sides and two simples perspectives. i thought of how the calamity always seems to be getting bigger and how the only ones who act are those who rise up to create another.

l.a./new york

i suppose it's a little bit misleading to post an entry about los angeles and new york when i call this thing "tania in the holy land" but i think it's fitting nonetheless, and especially since i am writing this from my bedroom in tel aviv with all the glory of holy-land-tinged hindsight.

for the first time in over eight months, i made the dizzyingly long trip back to the states, via two planes, and after nearly 24 hours, landing in los angeles.

upon returning from paris, los angeles seemed spacious and empty, from buenos aires, safe and new, from tel aviv, l.a. is orderly. people wait their turn in line, horns rarely honk, cars stay in their lanes. i managed to discover new places - like a pirate themed bar in koreatown and my dad's straight-up hike which takes you to a breath-taking (and catching) 360 degree of the city - and also to visit my favorite spots and with my favorite people. nothing beats frutas with salt, chile, and lime on the shores of the lake in echo park or the margaritas at el carmen.

new york was cold and hectic. i visited with friends and criss-crossed bridges over from new jersey, to manhattan, to brooklyn and back again. i told the same stories about my work and life in tel aviv substituting new anecdotes and jokes where appropriate.

at various moments, i thought how nice it would be to come back to the states. i fell in love with my friends all over again and with sunshine in l.a. and snow in new york. i thought about how i could lose myself in the comforts of "home" and so much laughter. on the plane ride to new york from los angeles, i dreamt i was at another l.a. party, going from room to room where friends drank cocktails and exchanged easy conversation. but telling the story of my life in israel, over and over, and no matter how many times i could still get fired up about what i had to say, i realized it was no use giving up now.

perhaps eight months ago i thought i might have the answers to middle east peace. i thought with enough time here, they might be revealed and lift us all up out of the catch 22s and downward spirals we find ourselves in...now, i don't know much of anything anymore. i don't have answers, but i do still have a lot of questions and i'm not ready to go just yet.