had the great honor and pleasure to be on zoom with the Arab Culturalist on Business Etiquette in the UAE . A cool, funny man who told us all the do’s and don’ts for doing business in Bahrain. It was clear and quirky and made it clear to me that our cultures are completely antithetical. It will be quite an experience to work with people in Dubai.
november 22, 2020 – Bahrain and the culture of commerce Read Post »
since i don’t have a bunch of poet friends who dare be honest nowadays and give constructive advice in fear of hurting my delicate feelings, i am putting this draft here. i fear i haven’t worked out the comments thing yet, but i’m getting there. so write me if you have something to say about this:
Paralysis
A draft for Alicia
There’s so much I don’t want to remember,
so much I don’t want to see,
but imprisoned at home it comes to me
how paralyzed we all have been made
and how much we need to free ourselves
not just from the lockdown of our home,
but also the passivity imposed on us
not only by terror of the plague
not only by the empty shops,
the faceless people on the street,
the lies piled so high they have spilled
into every part of our lives.
When my father had his first stroke,
he had to teach half his body
how to move. I saw how much work
went into a single finger, then a hand,
until one day he was walking again.
The second time it didn’t work.
Getting a single word out
was too hard a task.
But I am his child
and my mother’s too.
And she moved for him,
refusing to let him relent.
I want to invoke her now
her stubborn blind will
that ignored the chill of reality
and forced movement forward.
november 21, 2020 – Paralysis, a draft Read Post »
It is one of the things I should have been doing all along, but couldn’t bring myself to do – cleaning out my sock drawer. What does it entail? Not just getting rid of those with irreparable holes or those that shrunk in the laundry, but also getting rid of socks that suit clothes that will never be worn again. Which means, figuring out what clothes will be worn in the future. Which means predicting what life will be like after the vaccine. Will the vaccine work? Will it keep us alive? Will we live without the terror of plague? Will we want to go back to our old life or will we re-invent our old lives? Think about the possibility of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and maybe it’s the end of the tunnel, maybe it’s the flashlight of someone else looking for a way out, or maybe it’s an oncoming train….
me, i decided to keep all the socks, no matter how old and tattered.
i even darned a few.
november 20, 2020 – what if… Read Post »
my cleaner, who for so long has kept a distance whenever she comes over, has not had a conversation with me since february, brought us 2 kilograms of kumquats and lots of lemons. Now lemons I can handle, but what can i do with kumquats? i know, i know – i can make jam, marmelade, cake, chicken… But I’m not going anywhere and no one is coming over this weekend, and we have very limited freezer space… According to my cleaner I should cook it as jam for 3 days. By then we may have a vaccine…
november 19, 2020 – kumquats Read Post »
When I was teaching, I took great pains to wear jewellery. Indian jewellery I bought in the Judean hills near Jericho, Yemenite jewellery inherited from my mother, Palestinian jewellery that were gifts from my students, even a bit of gold jewellery left over from my divorce of 40 odd years ago. The jewellery helped keep the students eyes on me, even though their ears often went elsewhere. But since the outbreak of Corona I’ve even stopped wearing earrings. But an old friend, Heather Ferguson, woke me up to the question. Don’t I wear jewellery for myself? Why don’t I even wear necklaces on zoom meeting? She has the most interesting necklaces with amazing personalities of their own. You can look her up here.
The big question is a sense of self. When I go on zoom I always spray perfume (even though it is not something I think about in my usual existence (Even my husband lost his sense of smell from chemo 13 years ago). It centers me – reminds me that I am me and I am home, no matter how far away the others are…
So now I will add necklaces to my zooms. The next zoom I’m on is poetry and I’ll wear the piece I bought in a spa in Hevis in Hungary. It is very flashy and tasteless and has a life of it’s own, but it gives a different proportion to the Mishnah lesson my brother teaches – especially since this week I think we’re discussing something about modesty…
NOVEMBER 19, 2020 jEWELLERY Read Post »
There must have been great fun times here in Roman days, what with all the orgies they must have had in the communal baths and all. But right now all the sites – the hippodrome, the amphitheater, the baths, the museum – are silent, with few visitors. After all, the only real place to relax is the ice cream kiosk. And a few minutes before our tour was over, I skipped out with a couple girls for some chocolate mint. Because Ezi went on to the Crusader ruins, and I knew he’d be back to the bus within minutes, I ordered the chocolate mint on top and diet vanilla on the bottom, so he wouldn’t have to break his diet. But it got dark before our group leader finished his lecture and I got to the bottom layer that was melting before he returned to the bus. This may be the most important warning I can give for a day in Caesarea – DONT order the diet Vanilla.
Everything else was perfect – even without the wonderful restaurants I love so much.
november 18, 2020 – caesarea under siege by the plague Read Post »
iSince the beginning of March, when we returned from Egypt overwhelmed with the experience, I’ve been even more attuned to the archeological work all around the area. we see so many discoveries and so many digs on our hikes on the Israel trail, but it only occurred to me when I heard the accouncement of the discoveries of 100 mummies in Sakara that we had heard something about it when we were there. And we saw the dig, and we heard there were big discoveries there. So much has happened in the past 50 thousand years or so. but why are they discovering so much just now, while we’re all wondering about what will happen tomorrow?
november 15, 2020 – what are all these archeological discoveries? Read Post »
I was waiting for the obituaries on Zach – it took people a week to get it together and then everybody started talking. Two main points that were repeated with the greatest frequency: 1. he was a very nasty man 2. He absolutely changed the face of Hebrew poetry and even the way language is used. I want to add another – his magic is impossible to translate. I know he’s been translated, but I can’t find his magic in translation. How do I know? I’ve failed again and again. His ability to fill simple words of every day speech with meaning and feeling was unparalleled. here is one example.
In the evening
when my girl said
get going
I went down the street to go
And I would go
and get confounded
go and get confounded
i opened the book of “Shirim Shomin” – Different poems, or Strange Poems – in 1974 – and this was the first poem, my first experience with poetry that could be called ‘modern’ in Hebrew. No rhyme, no meter. Only an incredibly beautiful sound that leads to incredibly beautiful sadness.
November 14, 2020 – Natan Zach Read Post »
