if you think we can rest while the US is glued to their screens waiting to see who the next president will be, you’re wrong. i don’t know anyone who slept well last night. and i am already half in mourning.

yesterday an old friend from Britain called me about something else and at the end of the conversation asked me, “Did you vote?” I did. That’s when he began to remind me of how pale and uninteresting one of the candidates is and how i couldn’t have voted for him. Not only did I vote for him, but i’ve been waiting for four years to vote. Tired, yes. questionable – i don’t think so. but i’m used to mourning the lost morality of the world and the loss of hope. After all, this is the month Kennedy was killed. this is the month Rabin was murdered…

november 4, 2020 – elections Read Post »

poetryfirst rain, hayoreh

ONE STORM

The rain excites me

—drought of the passing months,

earth cracking like aging skin,

fires breaking out from within the earth

or the kindled hearts of arsonists,

trickles meandering through the vadis

that were once rivers, Sea of Galilee receding

as if it given up its dialogue with the shores—

One storm and my heart swells with hope

as if I’d been born

yesterday

november 4, 2020 – first rain – hayoreh Read Post »

blogbeach, believing in truth, elections

nah. i’ve been corssing my fingers to keep from biting my nails. but whatever happens there is no way we will go back to facts and truth. my entire education was spent in building knowledge on knowledge, working from solid ground, etc. and now i am not even sure of the ground on which i stand. nobody has slept tonight. not only because of who wins but what will emerge from the reaction of the people.

i’m going to the beach

november 4, 2020 – will we go back to believing in truth? Read Post »

poetrypapirossen

when things get really bad, think about worse things, i sometimes say. and the worst song i have ever heard is Papirossen (cigarettes). So to comfort myself i translated it today from the Yiddish. It was written by Herman Yablokoff about a child selling cigarettes on the street around the time of World War I. Here is the draft:

A foggy cold night
With windows everywhere.

A sad little boy stands
looking all around.
Only a wall protects him

From the pouring rain
He holds a tray in his hand
And his eyes strike every one dumb.

“I have no strength left
to walk around in the street.
Hungry and ragged,
wet from the rain

I drag myself around from dawn,
Nobody helps me earn a thing
Everyone laughs, they mock me.

Come buy, come buy cigarettes

Dry, not wet with rain.

Come buy, cheap, authentic.

Buy and have some mercy on me.
Save me from burning starvation.

Buy some ancient matches
With it you will restore an orphan.
My calls and my running are in vain

From me no one wants to buy

Like a dog I will have to die.

Once I had a sister
A child of nature.

She dragged alongside me
for an entire year.

It was much easier with her around

The hunger was more tolerable
When I would look at her.

Suddenly she became

Weak and very ill

She died in my arms

On a street bench.
And I lost her,
I have been through everything

Let death too come to me already.

Come buy, come buy cigarettes

Dry, not wet with rain.

Come buy, cheap, authentic.

Buy and have some mercy upon me.
Save me from burning starvation.

Buy some ancient matches
With it you will restore an orphan.

november 3, 2020 – the saddest song: Papirossen Read Post »

blognesting

Whatever we think will happen today, if you, like me, are terrified of the world outside, let’s cultivate our garden – inside and out. I think I’m going to stop dreaming about all the places I want to go and make my study an exotic country. And there I will create the Innisfree that Yeats always wanted to go back to but was most of the time somewhere else.

(I just mentioned this to my partner and he exploded – and left the room in the middle of my explanation. So much for nesting.

Up to now we were doing fine together.

All I wanted to do is a tiny bit of remodeling. Tell me – do i have to refrain from painting a tiny wall yellow in order to save my marriage?

p.s. Perhaps one should never write in haste. He just came back and offered to help.

november 3, 2020 – this is the time to nest Read Post »

blogU.S. Elections

all day yesterday and today i find myself on zoom – on all kinds of issues. but the subject keeps coming back to the US elections. Everyone is terrified. whatever happens, it’s not good.

but it’s never been good. Suddenly i remembered that the cousin who enabled our immigration to the US, the democratic senator from Connecticut, Abraham Ribikoff, was called a ‘f— jew’ by Mayor Daly of Chicago during the Democratic convention in the ’60’s. Suddenly I remember the terror in the ’50’s when the Rosenbergs were executed. Anything can happen.

election day blues Read Post »

blogcorona numbers

as soon as they opened the hairdressers I went. there are some pretty severe conditions to their opening that made me agree to go, my stylist is in the brodetsky strip mall and the others stores haven’t been allowed yet to open, so i was feeling pretty safe. But in the minutes after i got there I watched the gradual opening. one after another the shops turned on their lights, opened the doors – some only the back door. And there was the official, running from shop to shop and distributing the tickets of 5000 shekel each. For some of them it was probably worth it. They were mobbed. The shoemaker, though, was smart enough to work with a locked door and no lights – i can imagine how the shoes turned out.

what we know is that the corona numbers are up, and after today, they will be higher and higher. We’re just too hungry for a ‘normal’ life.

and by the way, i hate my new haircut.

november 2, 2020 – shopping and the numbers Read Post »

israeli politics

I’ve been on zooms all day – from all over the world, and everyone is scared. Not only is our health protection wobbly, but we can’t hang on to anything solid – not our leaders, not our government, not the old systems of justice.

so we’ve really got nothing to hang on to in a world where everything is fluid and probably hiding some kind of danger. it’s more than scary in itself.

i am short with friends, and insensitive with family. but strangely enough, i’m also the funniest i’ve ever been. i think it’s the absurdity of the whole situation.

elections and corona – another reason or two we’re nervous Read Post »