The Song of Sisyphus

...feeling, now, that the trauma of immigration may have erased the memories i developed prior to the age of six. there are none before canada. i've never said this aloud. there are four or five images.. snapshots.. locations frozen in stiff black and white. and i'm not sure, still, whether the details are real or whether i've dreamt them--filled them in with other people's memories.

...

my mother's cousins passed through recently and told her a family story--a ghetto, an escape in the night, this cousin's father a witness to the deaths. one canadian memory confirmed, now, as real, with a mixture of relief and deep regret. my grandfather told me about this, although it had blurred over time and joined other half-memories. even my father knew--but my mother didn't; or did, once, and willingly forgot..

identity crisis

i've only recently begun to consider how crippled i am by the need/desire to be helpful.

i love being this; i love doing it; i get anxiety if i don't, because thinking about other people's anxiety makes me shaky and depressed.

if i were to stop it, though, to just feel like a friend or an intelligent, interesting person--not a helper--well.. there's a very real fear of having nothing else to offer.....

powerful address to the UN Security Council by Hagai El-Ad, director of B'Tselem:

The UN Security Council has more than just power: you have a moral responsibility – and a real opportunity – to act with a sense of urgency, before we reach the symbolic date of June 2017 and the second half of that first century begins, to send to the world, to Israelis and to Palestinians, a clear message, backed by international action: Israel cannot have it both ways. You cannot occupy a people for fifty years and call yourself a democracy. You cannot violate the rights of millions and claim international perks justified by hollow words about commitment to shared human rights values.

Israel is a sovereign country established through international legitimacy granted through a historic decision by this very institution in 1947. I am a citizen of that country. It is my homeland. For most of my country’s existence, the world has allowed it to occupy another people. I have lived my entire life, every single day of it, with that reality. Millions of Israelis and Palestinians know no other reality. We need your help. Fifty years of “temporary” occupation are too long for even a single person on this planet to accept such a contradiction in terms. The rights of Palestinians must be realized; the occupation must end; the UN Security Council must act; and the time is now.

last night was the first time i spoke both russian and persian in my dreams; the first time i felt the dizziness of being drunk after a shot of, possibly, tequila; the very first time i dreamt that something terrible happened to my mother--that she was kidnapped, possibly by terrorists... the first time i spent what felt like hours in total hysteria worrying about how frightened she must feel

i remembered, as i got out of the water, all of the beautiful wrist watches given to me by my grandmother that ended up water-filled and broken because in my excitement to swim i always forgot to take them off

it's with regret that this came to me, and heaviness.. a darkened spot on an otherwise perfect moment

i did not intend to post any personal anything on facebook; i intended to leave all that for my blog. but look what's happened.. for an over-sharer like me, the more outlets there are the more they'll be used, the more you'll all know, the sooner everyone can get sick of me, the sooner i'll lose all my friends and relations... 

i both hate myself and continue to be fascinated by what can only be described as exhibitionism

جانم

for our eight years, i was waiting for a photo in prague. what happened, instead, was a lovely photo in london

thank you for being here
with all my love

the smell of the wet pavement, the wet trees, the wet grass

the wet air of a past rain; your wet breath in the thick darkness

before i left, i dreamt non-stop of swimming, of being in the water
the last few days i've been crashing cars, hitting "undo" in my sleep

the fact that every passerby has a story, a history, troubles, loves, pleasures, stresses, interests, all of it, is terribly overwhelming.

i remember my mother saying, long ago, that she wanted me to have a sibling so that i "wouldn't be alone." it's only just hit me, after a friend remembered her own mother saying the same. one can feel perfectly alone in a house full of siblings, of course, and one can be perfectly content without any. but on the whole it makes a difference: to have someone other than your parents in your parents' home; to have a person with whom you share your earliest memories, a history, a lifetime of inside jokes. it makes a difference when someone knows first-hand how you were raised, in what circumstances, and with which supports.

perhaps the years of separation from her own brother made this more pronounced--the fact that she didn't want me to be alone in life.

instagram has inadvertently become a highly personal space--a fairly apolitical one (as opposed to all of my other social media presence) reserved almost exclusively for photos of or by me

i'm surprised by the level of introspection i've experienced as a result... and even more surprised by my fanatical desire to keep it this way

عشق من

my loveliest of all lovelies

may you always warm us with your smile
may you always be fresh! and fruity! and happy! and new!

happiest birthday, from my leftest heart
تولدت مبارک

... in quite a Russian mood today, after an old recording of "by the long road" (some of you may know it as "those were the days") unexpectedly caught in my throat and brought me to tears. leave it to the Americans to put sweet, nostalgic lyrics to this rather heartbreaking folk song.

my treasured piece was ill-gotten during the ancient days of Napster, doesn't appear to exist online, and is performed live, with the appropriate gravitas, by the uniquely voiced Grebenshchikov:

Дорогой длинною, да ночью лунною,
Да с песней той, что вдаль летит звеня,
И с той старинною с той семиструнною,
Что по ночам так мучала меня...

Along a long road and on a moonlit night
And with that song that flies into the distance, ringing
And with that ancient, seven-stringed guitar
That, on past nights, tortured me so much...

19 total strangers liked one of my poems yesterday (the wonder of--of all things--Instagram) and i was on the moon...

there's nothing like three hours of painting with nothing to show for it but some idiotic work-in-progress to bring you crashing back down to earth..

the feeling of being under water--touching the sand, resisting the waves--is like nothing else on earth 

f's phrase of the week: Yes, Clinton is a liar--but Trump is the lie itself.

the smallest kindnesses--bringing someone their tea; sending a line of poetry; saying "i care"; saying "good job"; a surprise hug; a joke; a smile; a treat--are so large in my mind, that the scale of everything calls for redefinition

davood's phrase of the week: It would be so much better if life was like when you were watching Friends.