a co-volunteer at a literary event this summer asked if i'm a writer.

no. well.. i write a bit of poetry, but no, not a writer.

she probed:

so...when do you move from "someone who writes poetry" to "poet"?

when indeed?

even while i think nothing of my work, my life is nothing without it; if i'm not writing, i'm not a person; i'm not worthwhile.

but to say "poet" is, for me, impossible.

what am i good at? quickly putting people at ease--making them feel like they can talk to me with little introduction or acquaintance. what's that called?

i was happier without social media.

i was aware in general but not in detail... i was upset and outraged and heartbroken, but i wasn't heavy as rocks, hurt as the hills... trampled, really, by the knowledge of every shooting, every detention, every settlement, demolition, smear campaign...

i wasn't faced with my insignificance every moment of every day.

the devil really is in the details, boys and girls. ignorance really is bliss.

i need... i need to write. something. anything. this constant refrain today, pushing, pressing, pulsing against my teeth. but the words are just out of reach... floating somewhere in my throat, caught beneath my tongue. they can't come out. they won't come out. they're not here. i'm not here.

a look through four years of journal entries has shown me how little i've changed.. how i keep falling into the same holes; keep clawing myself out, breaking the same nails; how my opinion of myself hasn't changed a molecule; how surprised i am, still, by the cruelty of the world

thoroughly inspired by last night's Open Floor event to write a spoken word piece
...
getting over my performance terror will be quite another matter

on the strength of olfactory memory

a hazelnut-flavoured coffee threw me back to classes at Sidney Smith with ferocious nostalgia; with the heartache of a lost love; with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life

i'm often told, now, that i "don't seem myself." which self do they mean? the self who socializes? the self whose face doesn't betray every painful/unhappy thought? the cheerful self who spreads cheer?

sometimes that self can't do it.

זיכרונו לברכה

may your memory be blessed. i'm writing these words for the second time in less than a week... a refuge in what feels like a truer expression of grief, of condolence. may your memory be a blessing.

for years, i thought of this day.. how we would take the loss--how we would feel his passing. i never imagined that it would be in such a world; that he would leave us in such a world.

there are no better words.. none more beautiful, none more elegant, none sharper, none finer, none more acute, more suspended in time and memory and life and love than your own

let's not talk of love or chains 
and things we can't untie
your eyes are soft with sorrow 
hey, that's no way to say goodbye...

we will miss you more than you could ever have known.

rest in peace, L. Cohen.

someone once told me, long ago, that deseeding a pomegranate is an expression of love.

yesterday

when i was supposed to be the strong one

when sonata told me that she thinks.. she thinks she was prepared; and i thought it was a good idea to sit down for this phone call

when i prayed that she didn't hear my voice shake

when i realized that it was the first lunch hour i need not call

when my manager was shocked at how quickly the burial took place... when i thought it's better this way--isn't waiting somehow heartless; somehow cruel

....

when my mom told me how the death of her father didn't truly hit her until much, much later. when i wished that i had not been so young; that i could remember more than his smile

when i wished, under and around my guilt, that i had been there for my father's parents

זיכרונה לברכה

Эмма наша дорогая
may your memory be blessed.. may your memory always be blessed with the warmth and kindness of your life

lay your head where my heart used to be ... you'll never be free of me

the conscious process of letting go--of a thought, an idea, a hope, a person, your understanding of things, your idea of yourself--while sad and uncomfortable and searingly painful, at first, should be empowering.

can i accept the fact that i may never be published? maybe.
will this stop me from writing? no.
if i don't have the talent to edit professionally, will i be ok with doing something else? i have to be.
if i'm not effective in any way--about anything--will i keep trying? probably; i'm a terrible idealist.

will i ever learn to be a calmer, more detached, more graceful person? probably not.
does any of this really matter? probably not.

just live. find a way to live.

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