I cannot remember a time before this war.

What I do remember appears as if behind glass--some distorted, naive, alternate reality I once miraculously inhabited.

***

Our calls these days are more about поддержка than they are about English practice. We make each other laugh, we triumph in successes, but I can see it always in their eyes, why is this happening, why has this happened, and there is no escaping this terrible question and this grief. There is no escaping the everyday nightmare of not knowing: who is next, where is next. Today it was a shopping centre in Kremenchuk. Last week it was Mikolayiv--Ilya's "Myko", on his parents' doorstep, where they all were just hours earlier. The week before, a shopping centre in Zaporozhye, where Victoria's family luckily, luckily wasn't..

***

Behind all, the painful awareness that there were millions who came before, who fled by boat, whose children... whose children... I can't even say it.. who spent months, years in detention centres, in the cold, dark forests of Europe... millions who were not welcomed..

Behind all, the knowledge that those involved in refugee work inhabit an unimaginable world--a world I'm navigating blindly but for the support of my loved ones, but for the warmth, the strength of my new friends.. but for whatever modicum of grace I can extract from this universe of ужас..

I am told, sometimes, to look away... to give myself respite from seeing, from knowing--if at all briefly.

There is... there is no respite from bearing witness.

As a human, yes; but perhaps now, more than at any other time, as a Russian, as a Jew, it's especially important for me--and for others like me--not to turn away. Not to blink. Not to close our eyes. 

Not for a moment. Not for a breath. Not for anything.

I have read... Oh my god god help us god help all of us I cannot... release this thing I have nowhere to... just... place it and cover it up forever        forever I have nowhere with this

What makes an atheist pray--earnestly, the wrong prayer, even, but just to do something, say something in the language, which, in my mind, God hears..

Why am I searching all these weeks for the right words, unaware of the desperate need to recite the Mourner's Kaddish over every lost life

Oseh shalom bimromav

Hu yaaseh shalom aleinu

v'al kol Yisrael. V'imru: Amen.

May the one who creates harmony on high, bring peace to us and to all Israel

To which we say Amen.

I have never in my life felt as removed from myself--from everything--as I do now. 

Not a moment goes by where I feel "normal". Not a moment that isn't punctuated by horror, grief.. 

As we gathered today to celebrate Nowruz... 

As we gathered to celebrate warmth, revival, and rebirth during this moment of great calamity, this continued--and seemingly endless--cycle of global tragedy.... I found myself unwilling.

I asked how; perhaps more importantly, I asked why.

The answer appeared suddenly, unexpectedly, in verse:

To love in a war-time is
(in spite of everything) to wear earrings,
so that holes
don't disappear

--Kateryna Kalytko

Why? To ensure, I suppose, that we don't forget how.

On this first day of spring--on this "new day"--and on every day thereafter, I wish nothing but peace. I wish only peace. All else will follow.

نوروزتون مبارک،‌ عزیزان من

On the 19th day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I do not believe. I do not, I cannot believe. In the reality of all this. Just.. in anything. In anything. And yet I find myself, as I often do during moments of great distress, returning to Hebrew school worship--Iessons in faith, in humility before God, long since abandoned but ever simmering at the edge of crisis. Perhaps it was the comfort of repetition; perhaps the strength of what, in childhood, felt like a great wisdom--a precipice beyond which all was clear, all was visible.

Every night I cover my eyes. Pray for peace.

shema yisrael

adonai eloheynu

adonai echad

Hear me, oh Israel. Our Lord is one. 

For a while now, I don't understand the world I fall asleep in... the world I'm waking up to

It was a casual moment in the kitchen, during "Dance Me to the End of Love", when my throat closed up and I felt deeply, deeply--for the first time since Cohen's passing--a profound wave of grief. 

I wept, briefly, unexpectedly, a towel in my hands, a flurry of activity around me..

The time the lights went out

I think it's clear now that northeastern Ontario / Quebec simply has it in for us. Everyone remember the story of Quebec?

Well.

We rented a beautiful cottage in Frontenac. On the lake, we said. In the sunshine, we said. Early December. 

What can happen.

Well...

We had a lovely drive, despite leaving late, despite taking the longer / scenic route (against my wishes), despite getting on the highway (on my request--"let's not get there in the dark"), despite promptly getting off the highway after being met with absolutely torrential rain (again on my request--"Jesus Christ, let's just get there alive"), and finally, despite getting there in the dark (see above). 

We opened the doors to a gorgeous, roomy, and--most importantly--impeccably clean cottage. We turned on all the lights. We unpacked all the food. We turned on the oven. 

Some of us used the bathroom.

Forty minutes later, all the lights went out.

In a moment of panic, the city girl that I am wondered whether we had caused a power surge by "turning everything on" until the electrical panel proved otherwise and until the cottage owner suggested (via text) that strong winds had likely caused a power outage in the area.

Hmm.. ok, well, we can do this. Right?

We continued cooking on the--thankfully--gas stove. We lit all the candles we could find. Aha, I brought the "good" flashlight exactly for this reason.

Then, whatever water pressure we had accumulated in our 40 minutes of power gave out.

Then my flashlight gave out.

Then it got... pretty cold.

Then it got... really cold.

The final insult came when we lost cell reception at exactly the moment we were supposed to receive the code to unlock the wood-burning stove--incidentally, also at the moment we discovered that those of us who were supposed to arrive tomorrow did not have the address (how?? why?? how??).

Thereafter followed some couch huddling in the pitch black of a rural 6:30pm and a frantic couple of hours where, during every little blip of reception, a gazillion messages were sent:

- This is the address!

- Don't leave home until we call you!

- We don't have running water! 

- Just don't leave home! We'll explain later!

However: We did have a pleasant, candlelit dinner. We told stories. We laughed. One of us had an excellent construction flashlight that did not give out. The rest of us managed to use the bathroom by filling the remaining tanks with our drinking water. Most importantly, with the help of our winter coats and many, many warm blankets, we survived a frigid night and morning. 

We woke, as we did during our last escapade, to a stunning, pristine view. 

And, again, we had a beautiful drive back home. 

I've learned, over the past few weeks, that I am not the person I think I am. In great distress, I simply disintegrate. I disintegrate so quickly, so thoroughly, that what's left is a shadow of the person who came before--a delusional shadow fading into an already dark wood, listening for ghosts.

The shadow thinks up all sorts of nonsense.

"This happened because we relaxed. Because we stopped thinking, worrying, fretting. Because we were calmer. Because we had a nice moment. Because we laughed."

Then: "This is because the mirror broke."

Then: "This is because I said that thing out loud."

I don't know anything anymore. I pray in a language I've forgotten. I pray in whatever fractions I can recall--three words here, five words there. I wait. I pray again. 

I believe.

f's phrases of the dozen years

Upon noting my curls, peeking out from under the blanket wrapped Russian-style around my head: You're a sheep in a babushka scarf.

...

Upon noting my excessive attention: I should be able to move without alerting you.

...

Recently, upon passing an odd (religious) statue: Oh look, some old man kidnapped a baby Jesus.

...

Upon being simply cute: My sus-pigeons are heightened.

...

Upon passing the Toronto Fire and EMS Training Centre, from which one, and then two bag-pipers suddenly emerged, bags a-piping: Oh, ok, at least he [the first] is not a lunatic.

...

And, best of all, several weeks later: Did I think it was more or less idiotic that a second bag-piper had emerged?

...

With all my love, to our many more years of "f's phrases" and jollity <3

Two nights ago, I dreamt that I was living in what appeared to be Stalin-era Russia, judging by the level of fear in the air. I was an "unwanted entity" from New York, and it wasn't my poor Russian that would give me away--it was my black plastic fork (anachronism? parachronism?), which had caught the attention of a passerby.

There was someone who could help me. I didn't know his name, and I didn't know why; he appeared out of nowhere. He was dressed in army fatigues and sat in a small office negotiating my travel with a low-level official. At some relevant moment, I was supposed to present a stack of falsified papers, and I stood shaking in the doorway, waiting for that moment.

The next scene is a blur. A large man ran by in the hallway behind me; there was shouting, and I understood, in the chaos, that he had found a way out. I had the chance to latch on to him, and... I did. I dropped the papers, bewildered by my own decision. My eyes watered, prayed, begged forgiveness for what I was about to do. The man's mouth was immobile, but his eyes widened in shock as I turned to grab hold of what felt more like a passing vehicle than a human.

Later, I wept when I learned that this man died of fever during his own escape.

I wept for what felt like the remainder of my life.

-----------

I should explain the context for this insanity, but I don't have the energy to write. The world is embroiled in a pandemic, and our dreams have unleashed a plague upon our lives.

There is a scene in The House of Sand and Fog where, in the ER waiting room, Ben Kingsley falls to his knees in prayer for the first time in years. It comes to me often, this fleeting image of the unimaginable--what would cause me to remember every prayer of my childhood, to kneel, to plead...

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל, יְהֹוָה אֱלהֵינוּ, יְהֹוָה אֶחָד

During that longest night, our friends and loved ones--awake, frantic, terrified of retaliation--passed through one dreadful tunnel and emerged in the eternal sea of grief.

בָּרוּךְ, שֵׁם כְּבוד מַלְכוּתו, לְעולָם וָעֶד

How do we speak of the unspeakable.

וְאָהַבְתָּ אֵת יְהֹוָה אֱלהֶיךָ
 בְּכָל לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל נַפְשְׁךָ וּבְכָל מְאדֶךָ

We do not speak. 

We cover our eyes. We pray in silence. We find each other. 

We offer our hands in the darkness. 

یادتون گرامی

May your memories be an everlasting blessing upon us.

I saw a photo that I can't

un-see

f's phrase of the year:

You English-speaking people and your.... context

since when the freaking hell does it snow like this in november

3-hour deadline to submit to a poetry contest.... 1.5 hours spent writing a 5-line cover letter/bio
.
.
.
yeah

well, that's it. the phrase that entered my head today was یه‌ کمی поправилась.

sometimes writing is staring at your feet.