who we are

There are too many masks we can wear
a different face for different situation
meek, bold, organized, silly
infinite more
chameleon, no
they are not masks at all.
identities
all of one person
hoping to stumble across
someone
who wants to understand the whole.

Suppression

Suppression has never been my strong suit.
Check that.
In fact, I think I'm bloody brilliant at it.
Take all those intangibles--
ideas, emotions, visions, wishes
--those things that take no form
that are no matter
it is easy to suppress nothingness.

I used to be masterful at dodging the waves
the skill of an expert surfer
riding along on the surface, diving through, avoiding the crash.
Only now it seems that those waves
their pull is stronger
their force is hardly nothingness
and it is affecting... matters.

Luke, Hans, and Leia in a trash compactor
Indiana Jones pushed to the edge of a cliff
a force to be reckoned with.

And amongst this all, I can't help wondering,
why, at these seeming edges, brinks of no solutions
(other than knowing that the wave will crash, and recede, they always do, won't this one too?)
why,
is my only option for articulation
really cheesy metaphor?

With lack of alternatives, all I want to do is run.

Social Awkwardness

What is social awkwardness? Is it simply a term to describe people who don't quite fit into normal social situations, and make said situations awkward for both themselves and the people around them? If that's the case, I clearly carry the label. Try as I might, I will forever be square peg scraping to fit the round hole.

Or is social awkwardness a feeling? Is it that sensation of apprehension that happens when we enter a new social setting? Like a child in kindergarten, learning to navigate the rules of our culture--at what age is it no longer appropriate to hold someone's hand? At what age is it appropriate to reach for someone's hand?--is this feeling something everyone experiences as we bumble through life, trying the best we can to form identities, form relationships, and avoid, if possible, making complete and total arses of ourselves?

Perhaps it is something we all claim, we all feel, in this unscripted existence. Or maybe it is just something experienced by those of us registered as dorks and nerds when we picked up our tickets to high school proms, and still carrying the cross of the shy, the fearful, or the untrained in social rules. I suppose everyone carries their own anxieties, whether they are visible to the rest of us or not. Part of being human. Part of being social creatures.

It would be easier, I think, if we were able to be honest, trusting enough, to share and know these things about one another.

I wish...

I have many wishes, believe it or not, but for now, here's one.

I wish governments were required to have the foresight to think seven generations ahead of their actions. Yes, it's impossible to account for everything, but c'mon guys, when did shoot-first-ask-questions-later become good policy?

Later you'll call me a hypocrite when I tell you about my wish for more spontaneity, but when it comes to killing people, places, and things, I assure that wish is not for those types of moments; those types of decisions.

Goodnight.

Synchronicity

Sometimes there is magic
An energy, a quickening, a force explainable by little more than cosmic connections.
Trying to put it into words is difficult, almost feels dangerous,
For if something so powerful can be articulated with cheap, mortal words,
does the thing itself become less meaningful?

So hard to learn

Why is it so hard for me to learn to indulge in sitting still? It seems like only fear reminds me to do these things on my own accord. Unwinding with people is easy, not something I have to do consciously. I simply smile more when I'm around good people.

But apparently the fear of a pain, regret, loss of control, only that can manage to get me to sit down, shut up, and do something for my mental health. And miraculously it worked. Mental health translates to physical health--trip to the CT scanner avoided.

Maybe I am starting to learn.

Hanukkah Night Seven and Eight: Wondering

Night seven involved pizza, and wondering. It's sort of like the wonderings of "if a tree fall in the forest and no one is around to hear it", or "is an experience by yourself as worthwhile as one shared"; if a holiday is observed individually, is it observed at all? I did light candles, but the latkes were traded for Mr. Pizza's walk-in special. Is it really observance if it's one woman, a menorah, and Scrubs?

Night eight involved Hill Auditorium and a premiere... of death. An entire performance inspired by burial grounds. I love music. I miss music. And even though it wasn't the most cheerful of concerts (although still soliciting emotional reactions), it was still vibrant. What is it about our culture that hides death? I wonder what it is like, to consider this aspect of existence through the eyes of another part of the world.

Hanukkah Night Six: Granted

Well it's night six, and I've neglected to light the candles more times than I'd care to admit.

Granted, I've been in and out most nights, not leaving enough time for the candles to burn.
Granted, it's not quite the same to observe holidays by myself.
Granted, I did do one good night of latke frying and dreidel spinning with friends, and that was fun.
Granted, I did go out and celebrate life in different ways--going to plays and the like.
Granted, there are those who have far worse things to worry about right now besides the guilt of not lighting candles.

Granted, it seems like, just when things seem to be getting lazily comfortable, there are those jolting reminders that tell us to stop taking so many things for granted.

Hanukkah Night Five: Cabaret of Light

Here's a new Hanukkah tradition--instead of lighting candles, eating latkes and saying prayers,
attend a cabaret.
A spectacle of polished and starting-to-blossom talents, in the performance space of a converted house. This small stage, still glitzing and glamorous with red curtains and twinkling lights, audience in alternating black and white chairs, and standing-room-only in the back, with tasteful linens, candles and flowers. I couldn't help wondering, how many of these tiny sparkles of performance and fun are tucked in corners, down basement stairs and through the side doors of this country, this world? How much of the art and non-art world is made up of these spaces, masked from view only by the door through which we simply must know to enter?

Hanukkah Night Four: Shopping Madness

I do enjoy the midnight madness, walking around the downtown of our small city, perusing the shops, listening to the carolers, and seeing everyone out enjoying the season. Something's changed about the whole shopping aspect, however. Maybe it's because I wish I could hand-make all my gifts, or maybe it's because shopping for adults is different than shopping for kids (saving up and picking out toys for friends was so much more fun than figuring out which co-worker would prefer which scent of candle). Maybe it's because I'm fortunate to know many people who have much of what they need (or, what they need is not something that can be found in a store and gift-wrapped at a reasonable price). It just seems that there's so much to buy that's unnecessary--so many nicknacks that add a lived in, cared-for clutter feeling to a house, but feel strange to buy one by one. It's so much more fun to consume stuff that has a story beyond mass production. A photograph from a friend, pottery made by a local artist. Recipes. Adventures.

Now I just need to find the time to give and do these things for other.

Hanukkah Night Three: A Jew and a Muslim Walk into a...Sociology Class?

Rumor has it someone wants me to talk about being Jewish and working on a film about Islam with a Muslim. I can talk about working on a film that incorporated Islamic traditions, but I'm not so sure I can talk about being Jewish. The culture I can do. The history I can study (although I really, really need to brush up). But the religion? Spirit doesn't fit into one peoples' discussion. Even in a faith built on questioning and arguing about everything (that's one part of the religion I DO understand), the people at their table are still speaking one language. If you want to have a discussion, no, a conversation? An EXPERIENCE of faith in something greater than our minds can comprehend, it needs to have infinite expressions. It cannot be limited to one person's articulation. It cannot even be limited to words. There must be color, tastes, smells, movements, music, the intangible feeling of connection that is felt but cannot be described by the senses, but is without a doubt, there.

Is Judaism my culture to claim?

Hanukkah Night Two: Festival of Light

Or in this case, bright, shining faces.

The tradition of oil and latkes
Dreidels and hanukkah gelt
Lighted candles with whispered words
Questions of new, and stories of old.

But for a celebration dedicated to the miracle of light
It is not just the flickering flame that inspires me.
It's the light in the eyes of people who laugh easily
The glow of friends simply being, talking, having fun.

The light of life, burning bright.

Thank you for bringing life.

Hanukkah Night One: The Finding

This black velvet box
that I only open once a year
gave me a bit of a start tonight.

As I opened the soft lid to lift the menorah from its nest
it was not the silver form of the tree that caught my eye.

Instead it was a bit of tattered, torn yarn
nothing more than thread really
red, white, blue and gold
woven into a small braid
in a time of fear, and hope
and worn for months on end
through my own service and beyond.
It finally broke during Hanukkah two years ago
and being silly I saved it,
(being even more silly, my worry somehow lessened)
casually tossing it in with the menorah at the holiday's end
closing the lid and moving on.

Now I wear another braid of thread
also tattered, about to be torn
of blue, and gold, and black
tied on months ago when hope could do no good,
and I can't help wondering,
when this one tears
should I be silly again,
and see it as a push to move on?

Magic

When I was little, and I would go up north with my parents and family friends, I would share a room with J., a child who was both family and friend since the day I was born. As my parents would tuck me in to one of the twin beds in the red room, they would say, "and when you wake up, J. will be here." And sure enough, when I woke up in the morning, there she would be, curled up under the covers, her short dark hair barely visible.

Alone one moment. Befriended the next.

Magic.