one thing you learn after you’ve been raped is that to tell about it diminishes you. Perhaps you won’t be believed, or you were asking for it, or it happened because you deservedit. better not to say anything. and what happens if you tell, and someone else likes the idea and thinks to try it on some french girl who was passing as normal. shedeserves the same treatment, right?
responses to rape -6.25 Read Post »
So is Syria. Of course you know that. And you also know that’s an advantage in physical conflict. They drop stuff on us and we have to shoot up. They look down and with a little help they can see a family sneaking into their house in the middle of the night – maybe to pick up their passports left behind nine months ago. And they can bomb the daylights out of them. Thats what happened the night before. Two guys from the civilian patrol came with the parents to cover them and they got shot, and the house is shot as well.
I was talking to some friends on zoom last night and they didn’t know this kind of stuff at all. All they know is that we’re starving kids in Gaza, and it makes them feel bad. They don’t even know that the amount of food we’ve sent in is enough to cover all the hunger in Gaza.
We, on the other hand, who are paying for this food that only gets to the guys who are trying to kill us, are paying much more for our own food. And nobody is complaining.
Well, we are complaining, but we always complain. Now we tend to complain a little less, and are satisfied with a little less.
The people complaining who aren’t getting much attention are the Lebanese. They are the ones who are getting bombed by us because we’re going after the Hizballah. Rats. I’ve known Lebanese who have so much in common with us and I’d love to drive up to Beirut for a luxurious weekend. I remember my in-laws scooted up to Damascus for a little getaway. Honeymoon in Cairo.
We were about to start rehearsals when she got called up. A really sweet girl, I couldn’t imagine she’d be in a fighting unit. I hadn’t imagined she’s a sniper.
My grandsons will be going into the army in a very few years.
The fact that our young people are fighting for us, when it should be we old people are protecting them, is unthinkable. We were supposed to make a better world for them. I watched my grandson’s birth and imagined him a teenager….but not a soldier. I think of my slender granddaughtera – singer, dancer, gymnast….
This isn’t right!
woman at war – 6.23.24 Read Post »
David Grossman said it tonight – if we don’t rise from the ashes now, we’ll never rise up. This is such a crucial moment in our history.
In a zoom workshop tonight I couldn’t concentrate – I kept wanting to be at the demonstration, at the 20th birthday party of Naama Levy, a hostage in Gaza. I didn’t go because I’m feeling very vulnerable physically, and I’m afraid of the violence. But there is nothing else we can do to change this situation.
I am even beginning to believe the rumors that Bibi is acting so unpredictably because he’s made a deal with Trump to make Biden look bad.
A dear friend told me today about a man she had seen many times in the neighborhood and had secretly longed for. He was killed in the war – she told me – and only later she discovered his age, the story of his life, his hobbies, his ex-partner, his loneliness.
And she started to cry.
Every time they start to talk on tv about a man killed in the war I change the channel. I cannot bear the loss. Each one makes me think of their lives, their loves, their children, and I break up.
When I see pictures of victims in Gaza it is more blurry. It doesn’t always come automatically – sometimes I have to conjure up their individuality.
And that too breaks my heart.
Lost Men – 6.20.24 Read Post »
Waiting for the rockets to fall, I thought about how Anne Sexton viewed her life over the years
<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/hyljEQil-fk?si=K840fYKWPGPBe3rN” title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen></iframe>
I’ve written a few articles about her, about her use of pop culture, and about her use of her name, and of how she puts a poem together. Amazing person.
It’s an old story. A few months after you move into a new house, the toilet blocks up and after you’ve gone through the plumber to new pipes and a new toilet you discover you’ve had rice poured into the plumbing from the beginning. Or your wall is all wet and it turns out that sealing material wasn’t used in the building of the wall. I hear about this all the time from broken-hearted home owners who are forced into rebuilding again and again. There are also stories that workers engrave their names into the blocks so when the building is in ruins they may claim it as theirs.
I’m telling you this because my kids won’t remodel or build if they know this goes on. So I don’t want to tell them – just make sure you get workers you can really trust.
Because one of the actresses in my little troupe is on reserve duty, we’re waiting to have more rehearsals, so I thought I’d use this opportunity to mention this point. Israel doesn’t have an army. We have a draft of 32 months for men, 24 months for women and then annual reserve duty until the age of 40 or45. That means we’re totally integrated in the military whether we want to be or not.
The extreme religious community is exempt and even though there is a war going on they will not be drafted.
So my beautiful acting student is serving in the war. There just aren’t enough men.
soldiers – 6.15.24 Read Post »
