curl up into a ball

Just when my small-monster-sized fever blister seemed to have healed, just when I thought the skin near my lip was renewing itself and returning to its normal tone, the corner of my mouth at the edge of where lip and non-lip meet, an itch began and overnight developed into a new fever blister.

My acupuncturist looked at my tongue, and he put his hand on my shoulder in sympathy, shaking his head slowly (as if to say- oh, man- imagine a Korean accent). What? Stress, he said, pursing his lips, your tongue is a dark red color, the blood is stagnating.

Maybe it's the season, the cold, maybe it's the blood stagnating, but what I would really like to do is to drive out to the ocean, watch the waves from my room, curl up in bed, pick up a good novel (maybe another Alice McDermott?), and retreat from the world for a while.

It's all I want right now- for a few days, not one overnight, long enough that the end of the retreat is out of sight. Peace. The off-season beach- empty and soothing still.

replay

When someone dies, my mother passes away all over again.

escapes

Shutting down...

With the death of this friend, wondering if my family in Gaza is surviving...

My escape these last few days has been Charming Billy. A simple book about a small group of everyday people, unimportant in any real sense, one even aware of her insignificance. Beautifully written- although I've had a hard time focusing and read pages over and over to give them time to seep in (even rereading the first 25 or so pages after realizing I had not processed any of it).

It reminds me why I'm addicted to fiction- the escape it provides. Problems, true, but removed from you so you can just observe from a distance rather than participate.

I asked my 7-year-old if the movie she saw recently was better than the book- the book was WAYyy better- they didn't even include all the most important points! and then she began to list all the details. A book-er just like her aunt.

in threes

Good-bye to a dear friend whom we lost last night. He was away from home on business and so was not near his wife, was not near his children who live overseas and who must have received the call in the middle of the night that we all fear. Nothing good comes out of this- even those silver-lining people can't argue this- it is simply what it is- a loss.

A block from work the street was taped off, policemen (all male) were drawing lines on the ground and measuring the distance of the car from the sidewalk, making calculations perhaps of how fast the car was moving when, based on the bags strewn in the middle of the street with what looked like groceries or lunch or something scattered all over, it had apparently hit someone. The front left side of the pickup was dented pretty seriously- it must have been turning at a not-so-slow speed.

This afternoon a plane crashed into the Hudson- a US Air commuter plane with 150 people or so on it. We were getting out of a meeting when it fell but could see the tail and the ferries rescuing people and the line of sirened and ready vehicles on West Side Highway waiting to take the injured to hospitals.

It's an eerie feeling- losing someone and being what feels like a ghost (a living ghost) trapped in the land of the living. A period of mourning allows us to stand at the edge and acknowledge the fine line that separates us from the dead. When we return to our lives we are able to focus on living. Today was surreal- the living and dead playing their roles in the same space with too faint a delineation.

generations imprisoned

When I think of my cousins who were born into the prison that is Gaza, it pains me to think of the state of their dreams and aspirations- their spirit. Poverty is a potent depressor. But being locked up with no way out and no hope for a normal life (how can it be normal if your prison guards control the food that reaches you, the days your schools are open, etc) makes you either give up, get angry- especially those young men, or settle for the goals that are achievable there- to live out your days forever in this little patch of land, barely venturing into the Mediterranean for fear of getting shot at, hoping to get a position teaching at a UN school, hoping that your family survives- survival requiring all your efforts.

They tell people we have pulled out of Gaza and now the Palestinians govern themselves when the reality is the prison guards have just moved back behind the walls of the prison and let the people decide a leader for this internal life they cannot escape. Lord of the Flies. Limited resources, all the pressures of living encaged, and anyone could expect that the winners were not going to be the kindly grandmothers and grandfathers. We've all seen prison shows on tv- gangs form and power goes to the strongest.

How can humanity allow that children be born into a state of imprisonment- not only because they are innocent but also because their parents are innocent. Their parents are being vilified when they are merely refugees who had been living in the houses of their parents and many working the land passed down to them. How ironic that Hamas is sending rockets into Ashkelon- my father was born there, his family were among the refugees who fled to camps near Gaza, and when my great-grandfather once visited his house in Ashkelon the Jews who were allowed to occupy it (someone else's house- even the curtains in the windows had not been changed- he recognized them) would not let him see his house- he fainted on his doorstep.

How convenient it is that many do not understand fully where the Palestinians came from. Those details are blurred well by the aggressors.
And in order to deal with the people they have turned the refugees into prisoners and tried to convince the world they are guilty- responsible for their situation.