Chutzpah

Maid of Honor Speech

2008-12-26T13:59:00.000-08:00

Jess,

I don't know how to explain the essence of "us", how to put into words those innate traits which have brought us together and set us apart for the past twenty-three years, without referencing a space we both remember all too vividly: the barbie room. To some, merely a closet under the stairs-- to us, a place to build a home and, most importantly, a safe haven to unleash our most girlish tendencies where Josh couldn't find us.

In retrospect, I realize that the barbie room served as much more than a sisterly conspiracy, but rather a striking reflection of who we would each grow to be. Your barbie mansion, which was alotted the cramped half of the closet, was placed in such a way that your head just barely missed the lowest stair when you sat down. My barbie mansion, on the other hand, was located in a spacious, breezy venue, with plenty of head space and leg room. Yet, while your barbie and ken would be arriving home in their red convertible, just in time for dinner with polly pocket and my little pony, the table neatly set, the kitchen freshly swept, my Barbie was leaving the hair salon with a mohawk and ken was walking home from KFC topless, because who knows where I left the truck, or Ken's clothing. Don't get me wrong, both homes were filled with love, but who could deny that they were different, just like you and me.

As we began to catch up in age, we remained in the shadow of the barbie room. While you kept to a humble taste in clothing, I adorned myself in offensively loud colors. While you kept planners and made to-do lists, I missed appointments and tried not to have much to-do. While you folded your clothes and made your bed, I shoved my clothes under my bed. Needless to say, who could deny that we were different.

In fact, I got so used to being different, that it seemed natural to fight any tendency to the contrary.

When you went to Israel almost a year and a half ago, no one expected that you would come home with a life-size, danish speaking, head-over-heels in love with you souvenir. This was far beyond the general t-shirt purchase from benyehuda street, and I couldn't help but be skeptical about your latest investment.

Before I knew it, there he was in the flesh, eating an appetizer salad across the table from me at Sammy's Woodfire Pizza, like he was any regular joe shmoe instead of the guy who had traveled from the other side of the world to be with my sister.

Naturally, I was suspicious. I didn't know what to expect. Would he speak english? Would he be talkative? Would he chew with his mouth closed? I had seen it all, and, quite frankly, I hadn't been impressed.

But that's because I had never met anyone like Henrik. Not only was he talkative, he was eager to listen. Not only did he chew with his mouth closed, he ate pizza with a fork and knife. His laugh did more than just make you laugh, it made laughing feel even better. His questions were inspired by genuine interest rather than formality. He looked at my sister like the words she was uttering were the very fiber from which the universe was thread. Only weeks after meeting me he was saying i love you. Had it been any other person, I would have called you, Jess, to recommend therapy, but because it was Henrik, I knew that he meant it. You had finally found someone who matched you not only in magnitude of values, goals, and heart, but love for me, and what could better win me over?

Tonight, I see you and I see the dreams we had for ourselves as little girls coming to fruition. You are to Henrik what Barbie is to Ken.

As I get older and wiser, I see that I hope to be like you more than I ever wanted to admit.

Jess and Henrik, I look forward to the rest of our lives together, and to being neighbors one day in real life barbie mansions.

The Voyage

2007-11-11T21:55:00.000-08:00

I had grown used to the large garden we had in our backyard in Krosnobruck, but uncle Yankele had no garden; he had no backyard. I had grown used to planting flowers beneath the windowsill in the spring, but uncle Yankele had no windowsill like ours, waiting for the soil beneath it to be sprinkled with the promise of lilies and daisies, waiting for the sun to heave puffs of brilliant gold and plum and crimson from beneath the ground. No windowsill waiting for the bundled clusters to yawn their colors, to reveal to me, once again, the beginnings of summer, the beginnings of Mame’s recovery, which only came with the seasons that brought the sun.
Mame told me that in Mexico City, we would have a window with a windowsill, and beneath it a garden to look upon and care after. I imagined the view to be radiant. But the day we arrived in Mexico City, I looked through the window and all I saw was dark men with their heads buried in machinery, clouded by steam, their clothes streaked black with oil. I heard the sound of a whimpering engine, the dings and clangs of tools against metal as the men buried their heads deeper, digging through the hood of the car as if a treasure awaited them at the bottom; they were twisting things and screwing things that I could not make out, determined to find the defect, and all the while the ignition was screeching, hoping to die.
“You get used to it,” my uncle assured me.
I glared at Mame until she felt my eyes on her and looked down at me.
“I’m sure that if you ask him nicely, Uncle Yankele wouldn’t mind accompanying you to the market to pick out some lovely plants for your new room,” Mame suggested in the same voice she used to suggest that she was sure so-and-so would appreciate a ‘thank you’, or she was sure so-and-so might like to be offered a cup of tea. It was a voice quiet enough to stray from a command, but audible enough to be heard by so-and-so, so that to not do what she had suggested (and what everyone had heard her suggest) would simply be impolite.
I looked up at her desperately, tears welling in my eyes, anticipating my mother’s departure from the mere thought of being left alone with Uncle Yankele, and I don’t know if it was her guilt or her empathy that saved me, but she turned to uncle Yankele and said, “Better yet, tomorrow would be a wonderful day for an outing, once Elsa is fresh from the voyage.”
“Spectacular, then,” he replied before retiring to the living room, relieved.
My mother went to the kitchen and began cleaning the counters and disposing of the utensils. The shiksa, Josefina, stood by in bewilderment, mumbling questions in Spanish that neither Mame nor I could understand.
“Mame, perhaps she is trying to tell us that the kitchen is already kashered,” I proposed.
“Nonsense. They don’t even keep two sets of china.”
“So?” I asked.
She continued collecting the plates in her arms until a moment later my question finally passed her ears and entered her brain. She looked up at me, as if I had just told her that there was no such thing as absolute truth, or that one day man would walk on the moon.
“I want you to understand that this is exactly why you aren’t coming with us, Elsa. You need a Jewish education, Jewish friends, a synagogue. In Mazatlan there is none of that, there is nothing for you. Here, this is where you will prosper, with Yankele, and your cousins.”
Mame was going to Mazatlan to reunite with Tati. They were going to open a store near the sugar refineries, and earn back all of the wealth we left behind. I knew in my heart that the warm climate would cure Mame’s lungs just like the doctor in Warsaw had said, and that in the spring, Tati would take us home just in time to revive the garden with Zeide.
“Now come,” Mame urged me, “help me find a place for the milchiks.” She leaned over, placed her hands on my head, and kissed my forehead. Her hair hung over my head like rabbit ears, tickling my cheeks with its tips.
I closed my eyes for a moment while she did this, and when I opened them her lips were still on my forehead, but my cheeks were untouched. She was breathing heavily again, and each time she exhaled her nostrils sent two beams of white, cold air at my face. I looked up at her and saw that her hair was covered with a kerchief, the same as it had always been before we arrived in Mexico.
“What happened to your hair?” I asked her, tracing the mist that lingered after my words in the air.
“What do you mean?” her eyes moved closer together and lines appeared between them.
“Just seconds ago, I swear, your hair, in Uncle Yankele’s kitchen.”
“Uncle Yankele’s kitchen? No, sheine ponem,” she grabbed my face and smiled, “don’t be foolish. Your uncle Yankele lives in Mexico. Has your Zeide been telling you stories again?”
I stared blankly at her, as if she was a bare canvas or the unwritten page of a book.
“So, tell me,” she began, “how was your first day? Did you learn any brachas? Make any friends?”
“I don’t remember. Mame, why is your hair covered again?”
“Again? What do you mean again? I have been covering my hair since the day I married your Tati and, keninahora, I always will. See, this is why you must keep coming to school every day, so that you may learn the laws. They can teach you these things better than I.”
I was walking slowly, holding onto Mame’s hand in case I blinked again and came to life somewhere else. I wanted her to come with me. A young girl passed me wearing a dress of familiar peach fabric and silk ruffles.
“Mame, I have seen that dress before,” I told her.
“I know, but I’ve told you, you must take it as a compliment.”
“Take what as a compliment?” I asked.
“When the girls try to copy your dresses, it’s not because they want to upset you, it’s because they want to emulate you, because they respect you.”
“You mean I also have that dress?”
I looked down and spilling from beneath my winter coat I saw inches of peach fabric and ruffles, bouncing against my knees with each step.
“That’s right,” I remembered. “And I went to the seamstress, and I told her that if I saw anyone else wearing one of my dresses, I wouldn’t wear them anymore, and I’d find someone else to make them for me.”
“Precisely,” she said.
“Mame?” I squeezed her hand a bit tighter and pulled it toward me, “Do your lungs still hurt you?”
Without looking at me, she nodded and kept walking forward.
“Mame?” I inquired again. “What year is it?”
“It’s 1936, remember?”
“Then I have gone backwards,” I said. “We have gone backwards.”
“Bubale, come here,” she said, concerned, “let me check your forehead again.”
I closed my eyes obediently and she brought her lips to my forehead once again. I opened my eyes and the lips on my forehead were no longer those of my mother. I looked up to see Josefina, the shiksa who had stood by on that strange day we had arrived in Mexico so many years ago, if we ever did arrive, asking questions I could not decipher. But now there were many wrinkles on her once delicate face, and I could understand everything that she was saying. She told me that she did not know that uncle Yankele had urinated in the tub until she heard him bragging about it to his children moments ago. She said she was sorry that he made me bathe in his filthy water, that I should get out immediately and she would give me a secret bath in the early morning. I pushed her away. I knew that my eyes had been crying before I got here because I felt the crust of dried tears on my face. I pushed her so hard she landed on her bottom, but I only meant to tap her.
I was completely nude in a tub of brown, luke-warm water. I did not recognize my body. My legs were almost at the edge of the tub and I had a strange sensation that this was not my first time in it, and that my legs did not always reach so far. I had grown fat on my chest and I was so cold my nipples felt like they were being stabbed. I feared they might pop off if they kept growing in dimension like the nose of Pinocchio. I was horribly embarrassed, even though no one could see me. In the blink of an eye I had inhabited a new person, a new place. A part of me mourned that I had missed my own transformation, quivered with the desire to acquaint myself with the stranger whom I had become, while another part of me felt dirty, like I was in possession of something that wasn’t really mine. I felt like I had robbed and been robbed in the same instance, violated and in violation, and I quickly lifted myself from the tub and put on the clothes that had been left for me in the corner of the room.
I walked out of the bathroom to find myself in uncle Yankele’s house yet again, the table full of unfamiliar faces which all seem to recognize me. They began to laugh and pinch their nostrils.
“Can you smell that? Elsita peed herself again.”
It wasn’t just urine; I smelled something else, too. I heard a crackling from the kitchen like fireworks about to go off, but I looked over and saw that it was just the frying pan. They were eating thin strips of meat the color of bricks.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s your favorite,” replied the smallest of the faces, with the biggest mouth. “It’s kosher sirloin steak, fresh from the butcher.” He held out a piece for me, warm vapors still rising from it, and it was like nothing I had ever tasted before. I’d never had a meat so crunchy or oily or spoiled in my entire life, and I knew exactly what it was. I spit it up in a napkin and began to cry.
“Pork? You fed me pork? How could you?! Why would you?!”
I didn’t know what bracha to say, or for how long I had not been keeping kosher, or how old I was or why I was still here so many years later when a blink ago I was back in Poland.
They pounded on the table and let out howls of laughter. They were bouncing so violently that for a moment I thought the room might be shaking, but it was just them.
“Elsita, you don’t listen,” Yankele commenced. “I’ve said it a million times, and I’ll say it again. This is Mexico. Here, you can be a new person, you can live a new life. You ate a piece of pork and,” he pointed to the ceiling, “look at that, no lightning bolt struck you from the sky, you’re still here! It’s a miracle!
“Your grandparents, my parents, may they rest in peace, they wouldn’t be in the same room as this bacon, so pious were they, and that didn’t seem to stop Hitler from striking them. So, it’s your choice; you can be Jewish if you wish, chased by hate all your life, or you can be Mexican, you can be free.”
I crouched in the corner of the dining hall and held my sobbing face in my hands. I could only let out tears because I was void of anything else on the inside. If this was my life, I was not sorry that I had missed it.
I remained cradled in the corner, swaying forward and backward in the rhythm of a mother rocking her child to sleep. But rest did not come to me in those moments, as I tried to take myself somewhere else, my eyes opening and closing so rapidly that I couldn’t tell the difference between the palm of my hand and my eyelid; yet I could not escape.
The room had cleared. There were no more voices, no laughter remained. I felt Josefina’s shadow over me and I uncovered my face to see her. She held out a plate with a soft boiled egg and tuna, the unleveled wooden panels creaking as she positioned herself on the floor by my side .
“You mean, I still keep kosher?” I wondered.
She nodded.
“What year is it?” I asked her.
“1944,” she answered.
“And my grandparents, they are dead?”
She nodded. But somehow I had already known. Somehow, I felt a pain in my stomach, a pain like I had been reminded of what had happened to them every single day, like it was the reason I felt so empty.
“And my parents?”
“Cuernavaca,” she told me.
“Do they write me?” I asked.
She nodded. “Señor Yankele burns the letters before I can snatch them.”
“Have I finished school?”
“Soon,” she told me.
We were silent for minutes.
“Have I been kind to you?” I interrupted the quiet.
She turned to me and nodded. “An angel,” she said, and kissed my forehead. Finally, I felt at ease and closed my eyes. I bit the egg and savored the splash of yolk that cascaded down my tongue, into my throat. I opened my eyes to take another bite but there was no egg in my hand, no Josefina. The lips on my forehead were thin and familiar; they had been here many times before. I looked up at Moises, wrinkled and bald, and down at my hands, shriveled and pruned as if I had stayed in the tub all of this time, my fourth finger shining with a gold band. I hear the metal hit the marble floor as he drags his walker to the sink to get a drink of water, and I feel consumed by warmth.
“Bube, tell us the story again,” Katina insists.
“Pleeeeeeeeeease,” Josh begs.
“Okay, okay,” I answer. “One more time.”
My oldest daughter, Flora, shouts from the other room, “One more story and then I’m sure everyone will help Bube light the Shabbos candles, right?”
“Riiight,” mumble the dozens of children circled around me. They wait impatiently while I look out the window to admire the bed of dahlias that has just begun to sprout in the backyard, and I close my eyes and begin. “I had grown used to the large garden we had in our backyard in Krosnobruck,” I tell them, “but uncle Yankele had no garden; he had no backyard.”

Every Day

2007-03-19T00:26:00.000-07:00

You open your eyes and give them a moment to get used to what your life looks like. It’s a mess. Clothes everywhere. Puffy skirts, dresses, shirts, dresses that can be worn as shirts, shirts that shouldn’t be worn as dresses but are anyway, jeans with flare, jeans with boot legs, jeans that are ripped either because they’ve been worn so much or because you bought them that way. Wet towels, with stripes and polka dots of pinks and blues and yellows. You have a rainbow of fabric at your feet. This is your life. Colorful, huh?

You forget that you kicked your socks off in your sleep until your feet touch the cold wood floor. Now you wonder if it’s going to be a cold day.

Long sleeves or short sleeves? Boots or sandals? These are the decisions that concern you in the morning.

You check the weather. You plan accordingly. Boots to keep your fragile feet warm, a skirt in case your feet get too hot, spandex under the skirt in case the wind blows, and a tank top under a shirt under a sweater, each brightly colored and mismatched because you’re trying to make a statement that it doesn’t matter. These are the things you wear and the way you think about them. But if someone gives you a compliment, you’ll roll your eyes, make a “pshhhh” sound, and snap your wrist in the air like your outfit was a mere coincidence.

You think about breakfast, but you forego it.

On your way to school, you flip through the morning radio shows. Generic talk host taking calls about one night stands. Next. Generic talk host taking calls about pick up lines. Next. Generic talk host taking calls about ‘friends with benefits: good idea, or baaaaad idea?” Next. Generic talk host taking calls on Anna Nicole’s Daddy, a deep voiced female laughs in the background, and a previously recorded self-congratulatory, “I’m funny”-drum bangs, buh-dum-chhhh, before the commercial. These are the things that you listen to on the radio. These are the topics that start off your day. Promising, huh?

The light ahead of you turns yellow, and the car in front of you slows down. The light is now red, and you are now thinking about plowing into the car in front of you, because now, thanks to this car, you will hit every red light for the rest of the drive. In your head, you are accelerating, but in reality, you are at a complete stop. These are things you don’t do. You just don’t rear end people for obeying traffic signals. Instead, you stay angry at them, and even curse at them in your imagination because, after all of the red lights, you miss the shuttle, which makes you late to your 10 A.M. class, which makes you miss a quiz, which makes you regret having stayed up late studying for the quiz, which reminds you that the only reason you overslept was because you were up so late studying, and if you hadn’t studied, you wouldn’t have overslept and you would have been on time, but you wouldn’t have done well on the quiz, so you are basically being punished for having studied for the quiz, which makes absolutely no sense, which makes you very, very angry. Your morning has been ruined.

Congratulations, you are the first person in the world to get off to a bad start.

Class is over. You realize that there was no reason to stay since you missed the quiz, and the quizzes are the only reason anyone goes to class in the first place. You could have used that hour to be productive. And even though it has nothing to do with the car that was in front of you this morning, you curse at the driver a little bit more in your head, anyway.

You think about lunch, but you forego it.

You go to the library to write your sociology paper, due tomorrow. You hate social science. You hate the part about dependent variables, which really just comes down to the science part, and you hate the part about society, which really just comes down to the social part. You hate the science of society, but you have to take it.

You dissect life for five hours. Perceptions, conceptions, constructions. Instructions: These are how you write your papers, the guidelines. These are prompts and curfews and speed limits and eating disorders. You get them from your professors and your parents and your peers and yourself. They make you like everybody else, yet they are the only things that keep you in control of yourself.

Five hours later you have concluded, for arguments sake, that life is…

Oh.

My.

Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood.

You realize, it’s not due for another week.

You file, save, and get out, fast. All that time you spent sitting there when you didn’t even have to.

It’s cold outside. You are glad you wore your boots. And it’s windy outside. You are glad you wore your tights.

You think about dinner, but you forego it.

You take the shuttle from campus to the parking lot, you thank the driver, you walk to your car, you start the ignition, and you tell yourself that if you hit a red light, you’ll keep accelerating.

The Saddest Lines

2007-03-12T00:07:00.000-07:00

“Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too…

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long…”

-Pablo Neruda

Tonight, I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, I have killed, this is all…

I have been with you since the beginning. I am the beginning. And you were born thousands of years ago, when space first melted and dripped and consolidated itself into time, me. Before I was given numbers. And I have stayed with you since. I have watched you, in all of your beginnings, come to all of your ends, and each has been my charge. You try to make new things from the same old shit; and I kill it, time after time.

Tonight,

I can write the saddest lines,

For example, I killed origin.

You were born from an explosion of invisibility so precise that the sky erupted into mountains and oceans and sand and skin. Surfaces rose, and roofs were built, and layers upon layers covered the world.

You were covered up by softness and cells and fat. You were hidden. You were given shape, and you grew into it until the layers dematerialized into the surfaces of silhouettes, and you took on new shapes, and you hid deeper inside of your skin, and the longer I stayed by your side, the more invisible your invisibility became.

And we tried to dance.

We melted into each other like millenniums, and space passed between us and gave shape to more space, and so on and so on.

We danced, and I have been with you since the beginning.

Remember?

Or, has it been so long that you have forgotten?

Elizabeth, darling, I’m talking to you.

I’m sorry we danced.

Write, for example, I killed magic…

It wasn’t fairy dust.

* * *

* *

It was just sand, in a tiny little plastic tube, grains following grains to the bottom. But you thought it was magic.

Remember?

You would sleep with it under your pillow. Your magic wand, you called it.

Of course, when you set it upright on the kitchen table, you never left it standing long enough to see how it ended. You would snatch it back up moments after you had put it down, and you would wave it around, making wishes on the infinite fairy dust that you thought would never stop pouring.

But one day you left it there, you were nine, you got curious, and you didn’t pick it up. You just watched the magic sink, and when it all crashed down to the bottom, you cried.

You created this world of enchanted dust out of earth, and I watched you do it.

But I knew that it was just sand, and I knew that one day I would have to tell you.

I’m sorry you cried (And for everything else),

Elizabeth…

Tonight I can write, for example, I killed love…

He wasn’t fairy dust.

You stopped believing in that kind of magic, the kind children keep under their pillows. But you still made wishes.

Oh, yes you did.

When he grazed your cheek ever so gently with the back of his hand, his fingertips tracing their way to your neck, how you wished upon his kisses.

You savored the taste of beginnings while you made wishes for forever.

Remember?

You were eighteen.

The flowers and the picnics and the dew and the weightlessness, and the tingle through your body from his whisper in your ear, and the sunrise and the dancing, and the ice cream out of the carton, and his button down shirts that fell to your knees, so many buttons, and all the impatience and the, I have to have you, and the stitching and the ripping and the popping noise it made as the buttons bounced off the threads, the piles of broken shirts and loose buttons, the wishes you kept under your pillow.

You no longer love him, that’s certain, but you did.

How you loved him.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

I’m sorry that I made it this way

For example, I killed hope...

It wasn’t fairy dust,

It was the particles of your mothers’ last breaths.

The broken hearts, the deaths inside her (youth, love, memory, magic), it was me.

The lines I painted upon her face, the way I stretched her skin, the way I took her memories, the way she was nostalgic for remembering, the way you looked at her when she was right in front of you and you could reach out and touch her if you wanted but all you felt was the loss of her and someone singing in the distance.

You were twenty seven.

And you weren’t sure how you could miss something that was still right in front of you, but you did.

Remember?

Or has it been so long that you’ve forgotten?

You get sentimental for her death sometimes. Not because you want it to happen again, but because you want to believe that it won’t, one more time. You want to believe in magic and love and eternity, but it rarely works out that way.

You wish you could go back so that you could miss her the way you can only miss something you still have.

I’m sorry you had to see how it ended. I didn’t want to tell you.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. For example, I killed curiosity.

When you were little, you would walk up to strangers and ask them how old they were. You collected ladybugs in the palm of your hand. You pet stray dogs and you ate chocolate off the floor if no one was looking. One time, for a whole day, you asked “why?” after everything your mother said, just because you wanted to know.

But you don’t want to know things anymore.

You don’t talk to strangers, or eat coated chocolate (because of the red dye, you saw it on the news). You wear antibacterial armor and you don’t ask anyone else “why?” except for me.

“Why does time fly?” you ask.

Elizabeth, darling, how else am I to keep up with you?

When you were little you used to hold the thermometer up to the light and hope you got away with it. And when you weren’t faking it, the doctor gave you lollipops and your mother gave you kisses and soup.

Remember?

Now, they don’t give out lollipops, just mammograms and diagnosis and death sentences.

You are thirty six.

I killed your curiosity the moment I showed you how it ended.

How it always ends.

I killed forever…

It wasn’t fairy dust.

It was me.

You figured out how it ended when you were a little girl, that sand doesn’t fall forever, that even infinity has its endpoint. So you started to count me and right before I ran out of sand, you would flip me back over until I ran out again.

You wanted me to keep going.

Remember?

While you were cooking supper, or reading books, or taking baths, while you were thinking of sunsets, and the men you loved, and how fast I had passed you by, you would keep flipping me over, you thought you could stop me that way.

You thought, maybe this time it will be different, but it never is.

I’m sorry that every end is the same.

But I wanted you to know that forever has feelings, too.

I have missed you all of your life.

I have been losing you from the beginning.

I made you old, but I did not kill you.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Forgetting is so long, Elizabeth.

Body Found

2007-03-12T00:06:00.001-07:00

While May Zhou ran her errands, Fidel Castro was dying in Cuba, Manuel Antonio Noriega went back to Panama, Augusto Pinochet had been dead for weeks, Hugo Chavez passed the “mother law,” and unfilled tunnels were discovered in Tijuana.

Brandy Norwood killed a mother, Nicole Kidman was in an accident, world’s oldest person died at 114, a stowaway body was found in an airplane wheel, Miss Brazil disappeared, and Argentina thought about revealing Dirty War Secrets.

There was the first suicide bomb in Israel in nine months, the Ecuador minister was killed, Iraqi civilians died, global warming continued, and people gathered in Paris to discuss it.

While May Zhou ran her errands, Angola flooded, cholera cases rose, the Taliban regrouped, and the family of a missing student offered a cash reward.

While May Zhou ran her errands there were people being bombed and countries starting wars. There were kidnappings and suicides, murders and heart attacks.

While May Zhou was missing there were socialist revolutions and fascism lived on. There were search parties and tow trucks, and a silver Toyota; While May Zhou was gone the body of a missing student was found in the trunk.

San Diego

2007-03-12T00:00:00.001-07:00

Maya is listening to Regina Spektor as she approaches the pier of Ocean Beach, looking for people in black shirts with orange picker uppy thingies, because that’s what she was told to look for.

Shirtless boys with greek letters painted on their chests and stereos on their shoulders pass, she feels tiny ripples on her skin like the aftermath of pebbles skipping through purple ponds. She closes her eyes and smells bud and hopes that the smell might go inside of her and lift her up a little bit, but the wind blows her hair in her eyes and pushes the hit up the beach. She opens her eyes and feels sand sprinkling her face, sticking to her sunscreen.

Hey Baby say the men lying on the sidewalk like washed up beach whales. Hey Baby nice stick, wanna see mine? They throw shriveled receipts that they find at their sides and go catch, they say, c’mon, make me pretty, too.

Summer in the city, I'm so lonely lonely lonely,
So I went to a protest just to rub up against strangers,
And I did feel like coming but I also felt like crying,
It doesn't seem so worth it right now,

She was told to look for thirty or so people. She counts eight. She smiles and no one smiles back so she pretends to cough a little, and looks down and puts her music louder, and pretends someone is watching her and dances, a little. They are told to split up, to cover as much area as possible, fill up their bags, and they’re free to go. Thank you for coming, yadda yadda.

You here for the beach cleanup? He asks.

She pulls out an ear bud. Huh?

The beach cleanup. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing.

Right. I’d say cleaning the beach should cover it.

Can I join you?

Why?

Because your trash bag is almost full.

There’s plenty of crap here for the both of us.

And because I think you’re cute, and I figure the sooner we fill that bag the sooner we can get out of here and I can buy you a beer.

I figure you’re full of shit.

You’re probably right.

Here, you hold the bag.

I’m Tamir.

Yeah, whatever, congratulations.

And the castrated ones stand in the corner smoking,
They want to feel the bulges in their pants start to rise,
At the site of a beautiful woman they feel nothing but
Anger, her skin makes them sick in the night nauseaous, nauseaous, nauseaous.

The things you find in the sand: cigarette butts, bottle caps, cigarette butts, sandals, cigarette butts, dirty diapers, cigarette butts, gum wrappers, cigarette butts, quarters, cigarette butts, soda cans, cigarette butts, shells, cigarette butts, seaweed, cigarette butts, rubber bands, cigarette butts, fake pearls, cigarette butts, empty lipstick containers, cigarette butts, canned pineapples, cigarette butts, cigarette butts, cigarette butts, sticking out of the sand like darts, blossoming around the trashcans. And people think no one smokes in California. Tell them to clean up a beach.

Bearded people walk around with big ear phones, from decades past, mumbling to themselves with alcohol on their breath. Teenagers with swollen bellies, teenagers with flat ones, and older women with fat ones. Summer in the city is sticky and itchy, smells like beer, makes your fingers fat, your feet sweat, your eyes sting. It makes people talk to each other a little bit, drunk with heat, looking for something refreshing.

Maya is listening to Regina Spektor but it is too slow for the day. Slow songs on summer days are like hot chocolate when you really need lemonade, with crushed ice. She is by herself and quite sick of being by herself because San Diego has made her life this way. Here, people talk to themselves, or they talk to each other on myspace before they do in person, or they don’t talk at all, so that when someone actually does talk to a person in San Diego, it’s a weird, surprising, scary thing that elicits confusion, even though it would be normal anywhere else. San Diego is a bunch of islands, isolated among themselves.

I wouldn’t have taken you for a cheap date.

I’m not.

C’mon, one beer?

It’s fuckin’ hot, what do you want from me?

No, it’s a good thing. I like that you’re this little feisty thing who can get drunk off a beer.

I’m not a thing. And I’m not drunk. The sun just makes me want, stuff.

I like the sun.

I can’t find my bra.

Chill for a sec, I’ll help you look.

Forget it, I have to go.

Summer in the city, I'm so lonely lonely lonely
I've been hallucinating you, babe, at the backs of other women,
And I tap on their shoulder and they turn around smiling,
But there's no recognition in their eyes.

San Diego is big, and lonely. It’s fragmented and drunk and closed off. It’s inaccessible because it is a bunch of people listening to their favorite songs, looking for something, anything cool and refreshing, but not looking for anything new. People who talk to strangers because they think they might know them, kind of like San Diego, a place that seems familiar until you tap its shoulder and it reveals itself and you realize no, it’s not the place I thought it was. No, mind if I join you?

When you smoke, I feel upset

2006-09-20T01:19:00.000-07:00

I am scared of things.

Like my neighbors.

I am scared of my neighbors. Outside all the time, chain smoking, pissed off.

Sometimes I walk by and the one who is balding (there are many of them [with vary
ing hair types]) will start to laugh.

I am scared that he is laughing at me. I am scared that maybe I have given him cause to.

Sometimes I walk by and there are a few of them, silent, dressed in black, looking solemn, smoking.

I am scared that they stopped talking so that I wouldn’t hear. I am scared that they don’t laugh.

And high pony tails. Those are really scary. One of the neighbors always has the highest ponytails, like something is nesting upon her head. I have my theories, of course, like that one day while taking my laundry downstairs she’ll yell “NOW!” and a crow will fly out through her hairspray and squawk a bit in circles around me until I drop my basket and it bites my nose off. Things like that.

I am scared that they don’t like me, though I don’t particularly like them.

That I am a spectacle to them, accompaniment to their incessant cigarette routines.

That my passings compose the score to their afternoons.

That I both amuse them to the point of hair-pulling laughter and depress them to the point of surrender, leaving them unable to bear the pain of conversation or color.

That they don’t smile because people like me make them sad.

That maybe there are other people like me and people refer to me, to us, as “people like them.”

That I am like them.

That I should stare back.

I am scared of staring back.

I am scared of cigarettes, silence, neighbors, these kinds of things

A Part of my Essence

2006-06-14T05:06:00.000-07:00

I used to hate techno.

Techno gave me anxiety.

I never knew this before living in South America because I had never been put in a situation where I would find out. Frat parties tend to draw in more of a top 40 crowd, and I wasn’t about to go to a rave since I figured the following:

Rave=Techno+Flashing lights

=freakishly fast hand tricks+uncomfortably happy people

=pacifiers+edible bracelets

=groping+smiley face pills

(this is where I get nervous)

Rave+me =no thanks

So I successfully lived the remainder of my underage North American life techno free, until I found myself out for the first time in Chile, at a popular night club, standing stone still among a group of stoned dancers, techno beats looming all around me.

I got nervous. Really nervous. The Chileans nudged me. “Baila, baila!” they said. I couldn’t. What was this music? This incohesive, distorted stew of sound? Like I said, I hated it.

Never again, I told myself.

Of course, it happened again. And again and again and again. It was an inevitable aspect of nightlife, and even if it came on between Shakira and Daddy Yankee at a discoteca, it was guaranteed to make a nightly appearance.

My techno anxiety diminished with increased exposure, and once I realized that everyone else looked as stupid as I did when they danced to it, I sought out techno on my own. It was strange and delightful. There was something comforting about the mass chaos, about a style of dancing that came from what felt right and not from what looked right.

So I danced…

And that, I think, is how I met Nicole Neder. Flashes of our introduction at a techno party come to me, but they never include the who-started-talking-to-whom part, or why, but I do remember telling her how cold Chilean girls can be and how badly I wanted to meet someone who proved me wrong.

She was nice.

She repeated her email address to me throughout the night so that we could hang out, and I was so excited at the prospect of a new Chilean friend that I actually remembered the address the next day. But all of my emails to her were returned to my inbox and I decided, if fate would have it that she was the chosen one to show me Chilean girls are nice, it would happen. I eventually moved into an apartment with another Chilean girl, also by the name of Nicole, who was not only nice to me, but became a best friend, so months later, when Nicole Neder came rushing to me at another techno party, I didn’t entirely remember who she was. I was no longer trying to make friends, because I had them, and it had been months since the one time I had ever hung out with her. But she was so enthusiastic that I smiled back and gave myself a migraine trying to remember how I knew her, returning my friends curious gazes with a “just-go-with-it” stare. Before Nicole left she reprimanded me for not ever emailing her, and I remembered.

You gave me a fake email address! I accused her.

She wrote it down on a napkin and insisted it was the same address she had repeated to me that night. I checked the emails I had sent her and saw that I had misspelled her name before. Apparantly fate didn’t have spell-check.

Since my time abroad was nearly over I never did have a chance to get together with her, but we do keep in touch through MSN messenger and email.

And now that she is the one studying abroad, in Spain, exposing herself to a new culture, a new her, her emails remind me what it was like becoming someone else, and they make me wonder if I’ve stayed that person. Was going abroad like shedding a layer of myself and figuring out who I really am underneath everything, or was I adding to myself another layer of identity, building on who I always have been…

These questions surfaced recently after receiving a very personal, private message that she sent to me and, quite literally, to everyone she knew.

Amigos,

Comienza mi quinto mes en el viejo continente...ciudad escogida para este viaje...Madrid.

Mas que una experiencia es un sueño, todo lo vivido, todo lo viajado, todo lo que han visto mis grandes ojos, todo lo que mi sonrisa ha logrado...es una cosa de actitud, eso esta mas que probado por mi.
Nunca habia sentido verdaderamente el querer que los minutos no pasen, para vivir cada momento como lo he estado haciendo...a mi ritmo, a mi estilo, a mi forma, y he comprobado que funciona fenomenalmente en mi vida.
Lo unico que he sentido algunas veces es miedo....Miedo a no volver a acostumbrarme a mi vida anterior...Miedo a sentirme encerrada dentro de la masa, un salon repleto de gente y ningun sonido....Soledad...
Plantas vida y florece como la has construido, es lo que me hace seguir feliz y viendole el lado positivo al pasado, presente y futuro..
Aqui comienza un proceso en el que por primera vez sale un poco de mis pensamientos siempre escondidos en mi cuaderno encerrado en una caja fuerte.
No se cuanto dure, ni quien lo vera, pero es una parte de mi esencia....

Translated, she said

Friends,

My fifth month in the old continent begins…the city chosen for this trip…Madrid.

More than an experience it's a dream, all that’s been lived, all that’s been traveled, all that my big eyes have seen, all that my smile has enjoyed...it's a matter of attitude, which I have more than tested.

Never have I actually wanted the minutes not to pass, to live every moment the way I have been...to my rhythm, to my style, to my form, and I’ve learned that this functions phenomenally in my life.

The only feeling I’ve sometimes had is fear...fear of not getting used to my old life...fear of feeling trapped inside the mass, a salon full of people and not a single sound...loneliness...You plant your life and it grows the way you build it, that is what keeps me happy and seeing the positive side to the past, present and future.

Here begins a process through which, for the first time, some of my thoughts usually hidden in my journal, locked in a strong box, come out. I don’t know how long it will last, or who will see it, but this is a part of my essence.

I met her twice. And both times our conversation was marginal compared to our dancing. So how is it that, knowing nothing about me or my experience, she so perfectly articulated from Europe everything I had felt on the other side of the world?

And then I realized, the fear that comes with going abroad, and the passion, and the exhilarating process of self-discovery, is a familiar journey for anyone who has ever tried it. Where we go, what we do there, and who we become, that is not as important as how we feel. Nicole, a practical stranger, inspired in me a sense of nostalgia for my own experience. A desire, one year after having left for my home abroad, to rediscover my own locked up journal, my own fears, my anxieties manifested in words.

My Italian leather-bound journal was inaugurated July 29^th, 2004, after a summer vacation beginning in Israel, and ending in Europe. On the plane ride back to the U.S., I reflect upon my travels, being trained by my sister on our very last night to sip beer, instead of “pound it” (this was, after all, following my freshman year of college), and of course, the unique European fashion sense.

10 years from now I’ll wake up unsure of everything I remember. But it was real, in a surreal type of way. And maybe one day I’ll actually enjoy beer enough to accredit the lovely bar in Sorrento, my sister, and the man in the rhinestone “TOUCH ME” shirt…

***

8/4/04

I used to think the world was too small for me. Now, I know I’m too small for the world. In two days I’ll go back to everything I left for two months. The people, the food chains, the pettiness, and the structure that accompanies it. But I’ve seen too much, thought too much and felt too much to go back to so little. I’m always looking for my place, and always told that one day I will magically fall into it: “Middle school is awkward for everyone, high school will be where you shine.” “No one fits in in high school, college will be the best four years of your life.”

What comes next? “No one enjoys their youth, but you’ll surely find your niche in retirement?”

Maybe I’m just not meant to have a place. Maybe I’m destined for mobility, for no single place. All I know is that I don’t belong in a singular noun. I need to be everywhere, see everything. I want to be free from structure, to do what I’m doing because I want to and not because I have to, like I did this summer. I want to WANT. Everything I saw, every person, every place, inspired thought. Thoughts about writing. The only times I know myself are these. The written conversations I have with myself that delay my minds tendency to rationalize and justify and dissect why I can’t seem to get life right, are the only way I know to know myself. And that scares me. What scares me even more is the inevitable adjustment that I’ll face when I go back. Slight problem: I don’t want to adjust. Bigger problem: I probably will. I feel like there’s so much more out there for me than what I’m going back to. Like I’m not finding my place because I’m being forced to stay still. But I’ve realized I need to be in motion, to keep looking. I’ve always been told I overthink, and clearly, it’s true. But my response is, at least I’m thinking.

I had forgotten ever harboring these thoughts. I was so affected by Nicoles words, yet in so many ways, they were my own. They are everyone’s words.

So I kept reading.

8/9/04

…I’m just scared of the trap. I’m a mess. I found myself, which should feel so great. But knowing that I’m about to lose myself all over again is breaking my heart…

***

8/29/04

I haven’t changed the walls of my room since 8^th grade. I wake up to posters of Justin Timberlake and pictures of middle school graduation. And as much as I want to take down the artifacts of my childhood that adorn this room I can’t. If I did, it wouldn’t be my “old” room anymore, but it would just be my old room. It would have current pictures of college friends and posters from my dorm. It would be familiar, and something truly old can’t be familiar. If it were, how could we measure our change?

This room isn’t me in middle school, or in high school, or in college. This room is me in-between. Maybe this room is the only thing that represents me, because it represents transitions. The place I will always come to in-between the stages of my life.

I’m not ready for this stage to end, but at the same time I’m beginning to embrace the potential of the coming year.

The coming year, however, was not enough to talk me out of going abroad. Without much documentation, I decided to see what else the world had in store for me and in July of 2005, I left for Santiago, Chile. Mid August, I begin to write about my travels.

***

8/14/05

We took a seven hour busride to La Serena (where we were served the best chicken any of us have had so far in this country-scary). We got there late and went out for a drink to plan the weekend because the consierge, Patricio, was a little busy with his pants off and his porn on when we got there, so we figured we’d give him some time. The next day we took a bus to Vicuna and wandered until we had our fill of vendors and closed museums, and took another bus to Valle del Elqui. The minute I got off the bus I couldn’t stop smiling or giggling, the air made me happy. I really do believe that there’s a special energy there, I truly felt it. Damian, our handsome hippie waiter at “Los Jugos,” told us the energy comes from the quartz in the mountains. We sat in that juice place for so long, just staring. And smiling. And knowing that our lives were about to change but not knowing when or how or why. We were in complete peace with ourselves and our surroundings, truly happy.

We walked around the small town and saw a sign for “The Secret Garden.” Inside, a man told us that if we came back later we could meditate with him. So I went back to Los Jugos with Morgan, drank an amazing cup of coffee, sat by the warm fire pit, and went back to the secret garden for an hour of complete relaxation and reflection. When we got there, it was day, but when we walked out, it was completely dark, the only light coming from the sky, completely speckled with stars. We ran across the futbol field, our heads up, our eyes reflecting the glimmering lights, and all at once I wanted to cry and to laugh and to scream and to whisper. I never wanted to leave, I want those stars in my life forever. I called my mom the next day and told her I had the best day of my life.

***

9/2/05

I’m feeling much more settled in this overwhelming city. I’m constantly meeting people, practicing my Spanish, making guacamole, etc. Whether it be going to dance to raggaeton at 7 PM on a Tuesday night, spending hours talking about Chilean politics and economy with businessmen at a café, putting hotdog in spaghetti sauce, or getting a lecture from the Mayor of Providencia who participated in the military regime, I am living a new life, and learning from new people. People who cry when they hear the word injusticia...but who somehow make me feel the happiest I have ever been.

***

9/20/05

I’m at a pool in the middle of the desert surrounded by volcanoes and snow-capped mountains, and it’s beginning to feel normal.

***

9/28/06 (Bolivia, Jeep tour with Elias, driver)

When we finally arrived to where the buses would pick us up to cross the border back to Chile, we had a few hours to spare. We entertained ourselves with Juanes, hangman, granola bars, complaining, car dancing, and MASH. We made Elias play with us, and in every category he didn’t want to pick anything other than what he had. He wanted to be a chofer, and to drive a jeep. I wonder if it’s because it’s all that he knows, or if it’s because he thinks it’s all that he can have. His honeymoon spots were his neighboring countries, Jamaica, Chile, Argentina, Brazil…And here I am, 20 years old, traveling to the places he can only hope to honeymoon in, in a game of MASH. I don’t know if I should feel lucky or guilty, or if I should even be here. If Elias is content with everything he has, why am I constantly looking for more?

***

10/3/05

Everything’s happening too fast to process it. I only have three months left here. But in June, I never would have seen myself sitting in an apartment that I found for myself, in the middle of Santiago, listening to Argentinian Raggae, after writing a poem in Spanish. WOOOOO ESTOY EN CHILE!

***

10/5/05

The Backstreet Boys are playing on my radio in Chile…some evils you just can’t escape

***

11/14/05

My 21^st birthday. As they say in Chile, I died early. I had a Chilean asado, my favorite North Americans, my favorite Chileans, we drank, we smoked, and before I knew it I was on my ass next to some plant that supposedly brings good luck, talking about how the Africans need meat. I’m sure at the time I was really passionate about this pressing issue of meat. I can’t believe it’s over, and that I only have three weekends here left, and that everything is ending so quickly when it was so slow to start.

***

11/17/05

I’m ready, but I’m not. Sometimes, at the end of a day, I feel hungover as I revise my actions…like I must have been intoxicated all day. You know how you wake up thinking “man, that was the best.” And then you look in your phone log and remember the drunk dials you made, the silly things you said, the excessive hugs you gave…

That’s how I feel. I remember not being able to extend my flight to stay here longer. I remember eating two flavors at Bravissimo and walking home from Tobalaba in flip flops. I remember talking to my brother about going to Israel in two weeks. I remember feeding the homeless. I remember one of them who was so excited to actually talk to someone that he asked me over and over again to repeat to him “Hola Leonardo, como has estado?” and I remember the looks in all of their eyes from us paying them the slightest bit of attention. I remember thinking that if I were one of the people who had to hose down the streets, I would fake a seizure every so often and soak the expressionless pedestrians just to get a reaction. I remember moments that seemed so slow but went so quickly.

And the worst part is…

I’ll forget.

***

11/18/05

I’m writing in front of an open window overlooking bright colors and city folk, with wet hair and a hooded sweatshirt while moments ago Nico was fanning herself in a bikini top and Claudio was lying on the floor telling her to leave for Pedrito and he’d find a Pedrita. How can I leave them?

Nicole just started making out with Claudio and I feel aaaaaawkward.

***

11/24/05

Xime stopped by on her way to a party last night and ended up inviting me to go along. It was small, but fun. A nice house party to end one of my last weekends here. There was a chubby guy in possession of PCP who thought I looked like Sandra Bullock and that Pinochet was a communist, his awkward looking friend obsessed with saying “rrrrrrraja,” the gringo who insisted on talking to everyone there in English and told me about how he went to Chile for a two week vacation after three months of sobriety, which he did for his pregnant girlfriend who ended up losing the baby after five months because of drugs and alcohol, and he never left. He also had the back of his neck pierced…yeah, we don’t really know about him. But even among this group of weirdos I didn’t feel out of place. I didn’t feel like I was anything like them, but I felt like I was still supposed to be there. Like experiencing their strangeness was part of the process of grounding myself. Like I would reflect on this night in a few months and take something away from it that I don’t know now.

***

11/27/05

Today I said goodbye to Parque Arauco, the mall that has been a backdrop for many encounters here. Our spontaneous urges to do something “American,” like watch an English movie, or go to MAC, or go to a happy hour at Fridays. It in no way feels like or represents Chile, but it’s more of a starting point. At the beginning we came here for the things that reminded us of home, the franchises and such, and now we come here to watch live music outside, eating completos and boycotting Starbucks. It’s a cycle, I suppose…ending the way we began, but not.

Chao, Parque Arauco. Que te vaya bien!

12/16/05

Here I am on flight 8921 to Rio, stopped in Sao Paolo. I remember asking my dad in June if there was any way he would allow me to take a trip to Brazil. It seemed so out there. And what started as a fantasy became a possibility, and now it’s a reality. After this, it will be a memory, like Chile is now a memory, and Argentina, and Bolivia. A past-A never-again-but-once-was.

12/21/06

My journey has led me to so many distinct and mind opening regions of the world. I feel so genuinely blessed to have lived what I’ve lived, but at the same time I feel like this blessing is the source of so much of my confusion and discontent. My travels have challenged my mind and body to an extent that drains me physically and emotionally. By the time I open my journal and crawl into bed my exhaustion drags my pen just far enough to apologize to myself for not writing as much as I should and falsely promising I’ll eventually catch up.

1/3/06

2006. Don’t get me started. My disgusting scab from my hiking boots, which I wore for the first time in a 32 mile hike, is in its final stage of healing. It’s right at the point where it’s so tempting to pick off the scab because it looks like the last of it. But I know that if I do, it will slow down the natural healing process. It can’t be forced or it will continue to worsen. So I wait. I wait until the edges soften, and shrink, and it finally loosens and peels on its own, and I try to be patient and fight my urge to intervene.

I know this is a metaphor for something in my life right now, I’m just not quite sure what.

I think about the plane ride home, about going back, and my heart gets heavy. It is carrying so much.

Faith is when an idea moves from your head to your heart. That is what has happened to me in the past seven months. What started in my head traveled through my body, became a part of me, of my essence.

I have faith in that journey. I want it to stay with me. I’m scared…

Nicole, in many less words, says everything I had to say.

The amazement, the immediacy, the anticipation, the fear.

But what she says that I somehow never manage to say, is that we construct our own lives, and we grow the way we allow ourselves to grow. I knew this, but I never said it.

And this is my return to techno.

I could have brushed Nicole Neder off. I could have thought, I don’t need to meet you, Nicole Neder, because I already have friends and because I’m leaving soon and won’t ever have time to hang out with you. But I didn’t. I still accepted her invitation to open a dialogue, and through this dialogue I have been blessed to have this moment of introspection and self-realization.

I was meant to meet Nicole Neder twice, to be reminded now of everything I was so scared of forgetting.

I was meant to meet the illicit drug users and degenerates to realize, months later, that living in Chile, or any one place, isn’t going to change me unless I’m open for the change, that regardless of geography, I choose how I live, and it’s up to me whether or not I make poor choices

I was meant to meet Elias, to question my own values, my own ideas of happiness, and my own opportunities.

I was meant to dance to techno.

Techno is really a way of life. A way to move in the world around me, doing what feels right for me, and not what I’m supposed to do. To find my rhythm, my style, my form, and to carry it with me in all aspects of my life, no matter where I am. I had to go to Chile to learn that, but I was wrong in my journal, assuming I’d forget, and adjust. Granted that is exactly what happened initially. I found a routine, I tried to repress the techno in me.

But I have not forgotten.

I think about Chile every single day. I have the map of the metro hanging from a magnet on my white board, I have an orange comforter to keep my room bright and positive, like my roommate kept our apartment, I have friends around the world, I have pictures, I have my journal…I have Chile all around me.

1/4/06

It feels like so long ago already…

When I came back, I looked at my experiences as a completed past. I thought it was a beautiful period of my life that I had to move on from. Now I know it’s a part of me as long as I remember to make it one, even if it took me until now just to realize this.

Taking my journal out of its tightly shut box, reading it, transcribing it, reliving it, surprisingly doesn’t make me feel like all of this was so long ago. It feels like just yesterday. And tomorrow. And forever. I don’t know how long it will last, or who will see it, but it is a part of my essence.

An Insult to my Truest Self

2006-05-17T01:03:00.000-07:00

Re: Re: Re: HELP STACEY CHO

I appreciate the responses I have received from many of you, wanting to help with the unfortunate situation of our dear friend and fellow Sequoia Hall Resident, Stacey Cho. Many of you requested more “evidence” to prove that she is, in fact, in a very compromising situation from which we must SAVE her immediately. As time is a pressing issue, I hope that this will be the final correspondence necessary before action is taken and you all feel as strongly as I do about her cult activity.

I would first like to clarify that even though she won’t admit it, it is a cult. Not the shave-your-head-and-wear-a-cone kind. Those are thoroughly illegal as far as my knowledge is concerned. The one Stacey is involved in requires that its members have perfect hair, and the only cones they wear are on their chests.

I did some research on www.dictionary.com and found the following: “Cult n. (klt): An exclusive group of persons sharing an esoteric, usually artistic or intellectual interest.” So then I had to look up esoteric: “es·o·ter·ic adj. (s-trk): Intended for or understood by only a particular group: an esoteric cult.”

It might as well have just said it right there in the definition. Cult: An exclusive group of roommate-stealing, brain washing, half-dressed bimbos with an esoteric, usually sexual or alcoholic interest: Kappa Epsilon Theta. I, of course, submitted this suggestion to the esteemed writers of the dictionary via the “feedback and suggestion” link on the website, and am patiently awaiting a reply.

As residents of Sequoia Hall, and former friends of Stacey’s (before she started paying for them), I would like everyone to be reminded of what an amazing asset she was to our building and our lives before we lost her.

She showed up to every single student activity offered by the Sequoia Council, even after losing for Freshman Senator, and even if she was the only one who showed, which happened a lot, she would stay until it was scheduled to end, just in case someone else came in the last minute.

Even if she was often the root of our problem, and we yelled at her to stop eating crunchy food while the T.V. was on, or to at least wait until we left the room before she started vacuuming my side, she would listen to us calmly and constantly strive for approval and acceptance. She was always willing to leave the library on Friday or Saturday nights whenever any of us needed a sober driver, and she would even sleep in the lounge if we had “guests” spending the night.

So you can imagine when I came home from a party a few Tuesday nights ago, and Stacey was not home, my dismay. And this is when I first appealed to all of you to help get her back. Spread all over her bed was propaganda. “Join the eternal bond” and “Friendships that last a lifetime.” I don’t see how a) Stacey could believe any of this or b) why she would want any of that when she has us.

Stacey was an ideal resident and friend to all of us. And it is because of this that we must save her from such an academically and morally blinding organization, which will inevitably lead her to pregnancy or drug addiction.

Since her pledge period began three weeks ago, Stacey spends significantly less time in the library and has been seen fraternizing with muscular boys in the dining hall. She is easily distracted from our conversations by frequent phone calls, and has begun to emphasize any syllable that begins with an s: “I can’t eat an apple silently. Vacuum your half of the room yourself.” It’s like they gave her a class on how to talk like them.

The ritual ceremony in which she will retire her soul to the will of KET, or as all of her clothing will read after the branding, Κ Ε Γ, is scheduled to take place next week. This is dangerous for multiple reasons. First of all, I understand that Stacey is a Catholic, and therefore she will go to hell if she lets them tattoo her body with these symbols. And I am sure that after the ceremony Stacey will engage in underage drinking, which is illegal.

I would hate for my father, the Resident Dean of Sequoia Hall, to have to put Stacey on academic probation, or worse, to have to put her in prison. Sweet girls like Stacey Cho do not belong in jail, but neither do they belong in sororities.

My father has also recently inquired about the change in behavior of Stacey Cho since she allegedly filed a request to change living arrangements. I obviously informed him that she has been under a spell of bad judgment and he said he would not take action just yet as long as we resolve the issue. I initially wondered if this was my father’s way of getting me to move back upstairs into my old room since he knew “all that garbage” that happens downstairs, but I don’t think so. He’s the one who selected Stacey Cho as my roommate because of her excellent grades and extracurricular involvement. He thought she would be a positive influence, but little does he know that Stacey is well on her way to ruining all of this.

As many of you know, my father is a very powerful man and if you don’t do something, he will have to. One time, when I was accidentally rejected from the University, my father just made one phone call and they immediately realized their mistake. He is very good at things of this nature, but I’m sure Stacey would prefer to get help from us since he can sometimes be a little harsh, and she is a sensitive girl.

I don’t recommend further pursuing Stacey’s opinions about any of this, because I’m sure she failed to tell you that when KET gave her a bid, it was accompanied by a script, and she has memorized the section that provides all of the appropriate answers to any questions that have ever existed about her cult. Only three weeks after receiving the script, she already answers questions like a machine:

“Why did you join a cult, Stacey?”

“It’s not a cult, it’s a sisterhood and a lifelong bond.”

“Are there rules that you must always keep nice hygiene and wear pretty clothes?

“My sorority isn’t like that. We’re different.”

I know that her performance is convincing, but trust me when I say that this new lifestyle does not satisfy Stacey.

If she truly thought that being in a sorority were the right thing for a person to do, she would not have been so happy that I did not get a bid to pledge KET. Clearly, she was happy that I would not have to suffer the evils of a sorority, so it is beyond my comprehension as to why she herself would accept a bid, especially when the only reason she even rushed was because of the fliers they gave me, that she had sprawled out all over her bed. As her roommate, I did not appreciate that she would steal these materials from the floor on my side of the room. Vacuuming it does not entitle her to read the things I leave on it. I know that if she would have just minded her own business, and left the pamphlets where I had put them, I would not be writing this right now.

But even though Stacey Cho brought this upon herself, she still deserves our help. I realize now that she, too, helped me, when she met with some of the “sisters” and explained to them why I was not right for the sorority. I found out about this when I received a phone call informing me that I should no longer attend the rush activities as my rushing status had been terminated. I am very grateful that Stacey did this for me, because otherwise I may have never realized what an evil organization it is, and we must do the same for Stacey Cho. She is so selfless that while she was helping me, she didn’t even think of herself, and her own disaffiliation. And that is her truest self, putting the needs of everyone else first, and trying to always do what is right.

But the point is, Stacey obviously knows that cults are stupid, because she intervened and saved me from making a horrible mistake. If only you could have seen the smile on her face when I told her I wouldn’t be pledging after all (the “sisters” asked me to please not tell her that I knew that she had talked to them about me. This is because Stacey is so modest and did not want me to know that she had saved my life), you would know that this is not what the real Stacey Cho would want for herself, before her mind was abducted.

It is our duty to bring her back. It is our duty to do for her what she did for me, to remind her of her truest self, and to help her retrieve it.

This final installment of my plea has, I hope, provided you with uncontestable evidence that action must be taken immediately, and I look forward to working with you all.

Thank you in advance for your help,

Megan Fitzpatrick

Ode to the Avocado

2006-05-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

Poetry is selfish.

It’s supposed to be this personal form of expression. Right?

A creative outlet?

A means of communication?

Assuming anyone even gives a shit about attempting to understand what it is the poet is trying to say

Or what a painting is trying to show

Or what a marketer is trying to sell

Or who a person is

It’s a bold statement

Because it doesn’t ask “Am I boring you? Am I talking too much about myself?”

That’s why I like it

But I’m not denying I’m selfish

It bothers me, too, that I feel like I’m not good at it.

One check. Two checks. Three checks. So that we don’t think about grades.

But that’s what happens to homework. It gets graded.

I wonder what Shakespeare would have gotten in a poetry class.

I hope that doesn’t sound pretentious.

I’m not comparing myself to Shakespeare…I’m just wondering.

I’d like to have him as a professor. I probably wouldn’t understand a single thing he said, but it would still be pretty cool.

Not that I understand any particular professor.

I have a short attention span.

And I’m always convinced I have mono because I can fall asleep at any time of the day. I only wake up because my neighbors play techno at high decibels. If not for the techno I don’t guarantee I’d ever wake up. It’s almost a problem.

I think it’s funny that when girls are photographed in bikinis they always cover their stomachs.

The daytime, non-drowsy, stuffy head, sore throat, coughing, aching, fever relief to help get back your energy cold medicine.

Bullshit. Knocked me out for 23 hours.

Where’s the techno when you really need it?

In high school I wore pajamas to school every day. While everyone else was going to the mall to dress like it was prom for AP English I was in target buying charmin print pajama bottoms and hooded sweatshirts.

My mom thought it was because I had a negative body image.

I do.

But that’s not why I wore pajamas.

One day in western civilization a girl drew a caricature of me in my penguin bottoms and “UHS” sweatshirt and on top she labeled it

“Alanna Jammin in her Jammies”

That night I got inspired

And decided it was the perfect moment to create an instant messenger account.

Jamminjammies with an s was taken

Hence

Jamminjammiez with a zzzzzzzzz.

Other people started catching on and showing up to first period in flannels. That was when I found out I was a size 8.

Before then I only knew I was a medium.

Even though I switched from elastic wastes to zippers I kept the screenname.

That’s the story that got me into college. Who would have thought?

I made a friend freshman year. We didn’t exchange numbers but we did somehow manage to get oneanothers screenname.

Ode to generation AOL.

I was away when I got a message from shoeshinejosh.

He said: Hey, Jamminjammiez. I just wanted to say “what’s up.”

He typed in NERD. Quotation marks, commas, periods.

It was wild.

One week. Two weeks. He was still calling me jamminjammiez.

I would run into him on campus

“JAMMINJAMMIEZ! How’ve ya been?”

I was always surprised that with his radio announcing voice and formal typing skills he surrendered to the colloquial slurring of syllables, instead of:

“How have you been, Jamming Jammiez?”

I couldn’t help it one day…

“Did you forget my name?”

He blushed. I KNEW IT!

“Actually, I didn’t wanna embarrass myself by misspelling your name online.”

Before I knew it everyone called me Jammin.

Now, I hardly respond to anything else.

I had weird nicknames in high school too.

My sister always called me Lanushk,

My brother called me Big Dawg,

And my friends always called me Bobanna or Lanz.

A couple months ago a friend started calling me Thumper. New nicknames are refreshing. It’s like someone is finally making an effort to get to know you outside of what everyone else knows you as.

I like the feeling of being known.

That’s what is so lonely about college. There are the people you drink with. The people you smoke with. The people you hook up with. The people you laugh with. But it’s so hard, nearly impossible, to find people to cry with.

I am lucky to have even one friend. Too many people go through life lonely all the time.

Everyone is alone. But loneliness is circumstantial.

I am luckier to have more than one friend. I have five. Yes, I counted.

I have infinitely more acquaintances. But five genuine, thick and thin, guaranteed to receive wedding invitations assuming one day a guy actually proposes instead of running away screaming scared to death of commitment, true friends.

Four of them are graduating.

Burn.

I hate the process of getting to know people. The honeymoon period where everyone is cordial and flawless until they reach a point where they feel comfortable and can tell you anything and turn out to be complete freaks who call you to tell you they dreamed their sister died and turn into scary stalkers who don’t understand that when you don’t pick up your phone or go online or sit next to them in class for a week its not because you’re in a weird place it’s because you’re avoiding them and have gotten to know them just about as much you’d like thank you very much.

And then you try to get to know someone else.

As much as we hate the process it’s the social paradigm from which we thrive.

Because even though we know we’re alone no one likes feeling lonely.

When I was graduating high school I thought I would never find anyone who understood me better than the people who knew me from the beginning. Now those friendships thrive on living in the past and being reminded of each other by things we used to do and the people we used to be…

I wonder if that’s something I should get used to. I hope not.

When I was little I used to apologize when I bumped into chairs. My dad told me it’s a sign of insecurity. Now I only apologize when I bump into humans. I think it’s rude when people just keep walking.

I also think it’s rude when people do not acknowledge you in public when you have clearly met before. They just continue their conversation as they pass you, and then later when they come over to make out with your roommate you get a hello.

People tell me I’m too sensitive sometimes.

That really gets to me.

Remember how I said poetry is selfish?

So is religion.

Besides poetry, I can’t think of anything more selfish than religion.

People so disgusted by reality that instead of making a difference they remove themselves from it and focus on their personal journey to find Jesus or Allah or Satan or whoever it is they pray to for salvation.

Praying won’t feed the starving or shelter the homeless or cure cancer.

But it’ll make people feel a whole lot better about it.

I struggle with this every single day.

Especially because I believe in G-d.

I write it with a dash in the middle because if I were to put the “o” in and throw this paper away, I’d be disrespecting His name.

Hardcore people use “Hashem” instead. It’s Hebrew for “the name.” That way, they only say G-d in prayers and don’t take His name lightly.

And no, I’m not sexist because I use “he.” I don’t think gender can even be attributed to the Creator of the Universe. MAYBE if everyone just started referring to “him” as “it” we could avoid all of this sexist rhetoric.

YES I am a woman and NO I don’t believe in abortion and YES I’m still pro-choice.

I don’t think myself entitled to make that choice for someone else.

I hate blatant hypocrisy. I prefer subtlety.

On Friday night I asked a female Rabbi to take a picture of me and a friend. She refused.

“I don’t take pictures on Shabbat.”

This was right before she got in her car and drove home.

That’s not even like a vegetarian who eats chicken. It’s like a vegetarian who eats pig, cow, lamb, and any other four-legged creature, “except for chicken, because I’m a vegetarian, and we don’t eat chicken.”

They say you’re lucky to know someone who is so hard to say goodbye to

I disagree

Goodbyes are the worst

And people who say it’s not goodbye it’s I’ll see ya later are just in denial.

When I say goodbye I mean it.

In three weeks I’m getting on a plane and going to Chile for six months and you’re going to stay in this bubble you’ve inflated for yourselves and fill it with your egos until it pops and I hope, I mean really hope, that when I’m back you’ve moved onto something noble and meaningful, that your expectations for yourselves will exceed mine and that you’ll stop loving yourselves so much it makes you hate yourselves and start to be ok with changing yourselves.

Goodbye gluttony.

I’m addicted to Zach Braff. Best blog ever.

To Sarah: Seltzer should get that out.

To Amelia: Oh no he didn't!

To Gary: Try ointment.

To Bruce: Be careful, sometimes they nibble and it tickles, but I've seen them bite.

To Karen: They like partial sun and lots of water

To Cecilia: As far as I know, there's no noogett in Skittles.

To Lester: Uncuff him and call the police.

To Tammy: If you wanna know where he's been grazing, just smell his hooves.

To Jermaine: Jermaine, just be the bigger man and apologize to Tito.

Wasn’t Tito one of the Jacksons?

And I wonder if Cecilia has an allergy to noogett

My roommate is deathly allergic to peanuts. Her mom thought she was making it up and made her eat one. She hurled. Why would someone make up an allergy in the first place?

Actually

My sister made one up.

She’s always been a neat freak since she was a kid. My parents signed her up for a cooking class at some recreation center and one day they had to make something using peanut butter and bare hands. She didn’t like getting her hands dirty so she said she was allergic. And she calls me a princess?

At some point she must have forgotten it was a lie because she still won’t touch the stuff.

More peanut butter ritz cracker sandwiches for me!

I don’t eat peanut butter nearly as much as I used to. I think it’s because of my roommate, actually.

She always says shit like

“You do realize you’re eating my death right in front of me, don’t you?”

I couldn’t handle the guilt. So I stopped.

If I were deathly allergic to something I’d hope my friends would have some consideration.

I used to be so troubled by her allergy though. I didn’t get it.

“How can you avoid nut traces? Don’t they have fake peanut butter or something? So that you can enjoy the deliciousness without dying?

“When you associate something with DEATH, you don’t want any version of it. Even if it’s fake.”

I can’t imagine that.

It could be worse…she could have had an avocado allergy.

I think I would have to move out. I could never part with avocado.

Ode to the avocado.

It’s especially good with any form of melted cheese.

It’s not selfish.

It doesn’t spend time getting to know people and then getting left behind.

Oh, to be an avocado…

Open Letter to Zach Braff

2006-05-02T19:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Zach Braff,

I am not typically the type to take interest in the affairs of people I don’t even know. In fact, when my mother starts flipping through the tabloids at the supermarket and asking “Did you know Oprah gained 300 pounds?” I am the one to pull the trash out of her hands and tell her it’s no ones business. I think those “magazines” should be treated like an eclipse. Avoid eye contact. Usually I can make it to the register successfully, without heeding to the headlines or embarrassing photographs, but this has become increasingly difficult for me since your involvement with Mandy Moore.

I can’t read anymore ZACH AND MANDY IN LOVE, or BRAFF AND MOORE ENGAGED without interjecting my opposition. You can do so much better, Zach. She is a mediocre singer and a mediocre actress, so I can’t imagine that she’d be anything more than a mediocre girlfriend, or if the rumors are true, wife. And as if that were not enough, she’s not even Jewish.

I understand that every guy wants to have a little fun at some point in their lives before they settle down, but I beg you to rethink your choices. I’m sure Mandy is a sweet person but I doubt that she can understand your depth or your purpose. Be honest with yourself. She is, after all, practically a teenager, and you haven’t had a “1” in your age for quite some time now.

Garden State catapulted you into the teen scope of the world, so much so that it made you the new intellectual heartthrob. But ask yourself, if you hadn’t made a successful movie, and if the world had not seen you kiss Natalie Portman in the rain and wished they were in her shoes, would Mandy ever stop to notice you? Just a thought.

I will admit that I was a fan of A Walk to Remember, so I understand how you can be deceived by her, but after a succession of bad albums and even worse movies, I have to wonder how you two ended up together. You don’t belong with the Mandy’s in this world.

I also wanted to ask you, since you two seem to be so close, if she has a lisp. It’s just something I thought I picked up from her movie but wasn’t quite certain.

If you do choose to take my advice, which I strongly urge you to do, I am sure it will not be easy. I am always available via the telephone or personal visitations to talk about anything (particularly books, movies, music, traveling, politics).

I know this must be difficult to read, especially from a stranger, but I cannot walk past the headlines at the grocery store with a clear conscience until you know how I feel.

Thank you for your time,
Alanna

Becoming Bilingual

2006-04-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

Ryan Phillips was the first one to ask me if my dad mowed lawns for a living. And then Mike Hicks could have sworn he saw him picking strawberries on the way to school. Hey Alanna, does your dad drive a special car, extra low with no doors, so that he can reach the fields while he drives? These questions, in third grade, seemed ludicrous to me.

At the age of nine, when my father told me that he was an investment banker, I didn’t get it. I asked him to explain it better, and in so many words, he told me he was the middle man in business deals. If someone wanted to sell a supermarket, for example, they would go to him to make it happen, and he would find a buyer. So, of course, when confronted by the comments of my less than informed classmates, I was sure to correct them and inform them of his high standing. “My daddy stands outside of supermarkets with signs so that people buy them.” At the time, I felt that I was doing my father a service in defending him.

My teachers, on the other hand, felt differently. They were less than pleased with the image of my father pathetically displaying “FOR SALE” signs outside of Ralph’s. At the age of eight I had to write an essay describing my parents’ work, so there is unfortunate written evidence of my skewed understanding of their responsibilities. According to this essay my mother had a very big office and gave me money to buy Hershey’s chocolate downstairs when I was good. I also got to play Nintendo in the waiting room when I finished my homework. And my dad, as you already know, was a walking advertisement for grocery store real estate.

In reality, my mom owned Sylvan Learning Center and was an incredibly successful bilingual female, and my father was self employed and created N.O.E. Enterprises, where he teamed up international companies with his bilingual skills. What I had overlooked in my facts was that even though I felt the need to defend my Mexican parents from playground teasing, their background really did play an integral role in their careers and lives.

The teasing began for the most part when I returned to Bonita Canyon Elementary School for third grade, after having left to complete half of second grade at El Yiddishe in Mexico City. I was eight years old, and my Father wanted to see if the place where he grew up might, in fact, be the right place for his children to grow up, and the right place for him to work. It was a trial run. My brother, sister and I had known all year that we would be going, and for months before I would whisper about it to my neighbors during silent reading; I was so excited…until I got there.

My new gated school was galaxies away from what I knew. I had to wear a uniform, lock up my things in a locker inside the classroom, and take test after test after test to place me in the right grade. They ultimately decided to keep me in 2^nd grade. I was mortified. Everyone had known each other since they were five, and that meant I had missed out on three significant years. I thought everyone would make fun of me and that I’d accidentally slip into English or something.

When I walked into my new classroom and saw all of the other students laughing and talking, I just wanted to turn around and run home, but before I could, I was spotted: “Bienvenida!! Alanna, no? Tu nuevo asiento sera….este!” she said, pointing to a seat in the middle of the second row. The teacher took my bag and asked the student next to me to show me my locker. The girl introduced herself to me as Cindy, and she helped me feel settled throughout the day.

During spelling we were given worksheets with little pictures and blank spaces. There was a picture of a watermelon and I tapped my pencil, unable to remember the Spanish word. Cindy whispered the correct word, “sandia,” but of course when I tried to spell it I wrote “sandiya.” The entire exercise, I took simple Spanish words and applied complicated English spelling rules. Eventually I was discouraged because I wasn’t doing well.

After spelling came reading. The text books were distributed and everyone opened to the same page. The first student was called on, and he read a paragraph, sounding out difficult words and rereading entire sentences that were unclear to the class. At the end of the paragraph he sighed with relief and the teacher called on me. I looked up with surprise, and over at Cindy with despair. “Pero ella es Americana,” Cindy said in my defense. The teacher then asked Cindy to read instead, but I didn’t want her to have to read on my account, so I raised my hand and said I’d like to try. I had never read in Spanish before. I read my paragraph smoothly and quickly, making few errors and never stuttering. At the end of the paragraph, I looked up and saw my teacher staring at me in disbelief. Cindy patted my back with a huge smile, and the reading continued. I remember thinking to myself how much easier it was to read in Spanish than in English and at the time, I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. During lunch everyone came up to me and congratulated me for doing such a good job. I didn’t really know what I did, but I was happy to have made a few friends in my new school.

But months later we were back in Irvine. After all of my not so gracious bragging about going to Mexico, and my sudden return, I had practically invited myself to be openly ridiculed, but not Papi.

After the flawed essay about my parents, they both sat me down to explain their jobs to me a little more clearly, but that was beyond the point to me. The point was that I did not want to be Mexican. I was not Mexican. Ryan Phillips and Mike Hicks couldn’t make fun of me or my dad if I wasn’t.

But my dad had not received the “we’re not Mexican” memo. He continued to speak to every waiter in Spanish, insisting on asking for “agua” instead of “water,” even if it was clear that our waiter didn’t know a word of Spanish. To my father, everyone was Mexican. My sister and I made a rule that year: no Spanish in public places. “OK, OK,” he said.

But Papi made his own rule. If we couldn’t speak Spanish in public, we had to speak Spanish at home. And only Spanish. I hated that rule. In the car I would reach to change the radio station and he would would respond identically each time:

“Hija, you deedn’t ask.”

“Papi, can I change the radio station?” I would ask.

“Solo si me preguntas en espanol,” he would answer as he switched it back to classical music.

I would cross my arms in silent protest and not say a word. I decided one day that if my father wouldn’t speak to me in English, we wouldn’t speak at all.

My parents begged me to change my mind. They said I would regret it for the rest of my life, but it was nonnegotiable for me. They would always say things like “vas a arrepentir” (you’re going to regret it) or “You can’t blame us when you’re older.” So, basically, I won. No more Spanish. No more Mexican.

My parents continued to speak to me in Spanish and still do to this day, but until recently I always answered in English. Perfect comprehension, but worsening oral ability. I wasn’t really aware that my level of fluency was declining, but even if I had been I’m sure I would have been OK with it. It was an issue of the past, or so I had thought.

When I was in fourth grade my Mom gave me my first journal, not a diary, but a journal, and I was going to take it seriously. That was the year of the butterfly obsession for me. Everything adorned with butterflies, my pencils, my notebook, my jewelry. I could see them everywhere, but when I sat down to write my first poem I couldn’t spell it. I tried to spell it with one “t” and it didn’t look right, but I didn’t know what to change. In Spanish, everything is spelled just how it sounds. So I titled my first poem “Mariposa.” My parents were elated that I had chosen to title my poem in Spanish. So I inwardly vowed never to do it again.

My Spanish was of course far better than my parents would ever admit when I began to take it in school in eighth grade. Granted I hadn’t spoken for years, but I still had a decent accent and a fairly strong familiarity with the language since they had continued to speak it around me. I took Spanish 1 through AP Spanish, going through five very stupid teachers with very heavy English accents, who would sometimes decide they were from Argentina, “sho no se,” and sometimes decide they were not, “yo no se.” My favorite was Sra. O’Neil sophomore year who would talk to us about Mexican reality and tell us they had no refrigerators and no roofs on their houses. I would raise my hand and tell her she was wrong. I got a C in Spanish that year.

I was sixteen when I actually had a written Spanish project assigned that I enjoyed. It was junior year and all the language classes had to make a puppet show in their foreign language to tell a legend. My group wrote a legend about our neighborhood, Turtle Rock. We invented an elaborate tale over many hours in my kitchen, with my father coming in for a snack occasionally and contributing funny ideas. We decided that there was a tribe of indigenous turtles before the humans arrived in the town, and they were very traditional. But one of the turtles loved to dance, so he built a discoteca. All of the turtles started going there at night to dance “el robot” (this was actually my fathers idea), and one night the turtle gods were informed of this rebellious occurrence and turned the turtle to stone. But he had created such an uprising (all the other turtles wanted to keep dancing) so the disco stayed open until the humans conquered the turtle tribe. When they found the turtle shaped stone, they named the neighborhood Turtle Rock.

It was pure genius. My group told me what they wanted to say in English, and I put it into Spanish. I felt so validated to be trusted with the translation and when I showed it to my dad before turning it in, he couldn’t believe how good my Spanish was despite all the years I had refused to practice it. We all got A’s and I actually liked writing in Spanish.

When college applications came up senior year, I actually found myself applying to some schools under “Spanish Literature.” This came as a surprise not only to me, but also to my parents. The little girl who had fought so hard against this language? That same little girl applying to study it in University? That is not what they had intended. They wanted a bilingual daughter but they didn’t want to spend $40,000 for one. “You could have gotten this for free if you would have listened to us” they insisted. They didn’t understand that it wasn’t about learning the language or becoming bilingual, I already was. It was about an acceptance of the language, giving it a metaphorical hug and truly embracing it. That didn’t sit well with them, and to be honest, I had no idea what I wanted to major in. I just wanted to get into college.

I started having to write 5 page essays in Spanish, expressing profound intellectual ideas in another language and struggling to think in Spanish before I translated directly from English. This was a really hard thing to get accustomed to and I finally understood why my parents had warned me at age ten not to blame them for my loss of fluency when I grew up. “Ten years from now when you want us to send you to Spain so you can learn Spanish, and you blame us for not making you speak it, you just remember that it was your own decision.” If not for this memory, my mother absolutely would have received some angry phone calls from my end. But instead my parents were, and have continued to be, nothing but patient with me in my process of becoming bilingual. If I called them for help they wouldn’t translate anything I said in English into Spanish. They would first make me figure out a way to get it across to them in Spanish, and when they saw that I could at least express myself, they would help me make it sound pretty,

I reached a point spring quarter freshman year, around paper number six in Spanish, where I didn’t have to send it to my parents first to make sure my grammar was perfect. I was confident enough in my own bilingualism to turn it in as is, which sometimes hurt my grade, but helped me in the long run. I had to fix my own mistakes.

Last semester, studying abroad in Chile, Chileans would constantly tell me I spoke like a Mexican. It was meant to be an insult, or at least not a compliment, but I was excited about it. They would make fun of my mexicanisms and say “andale” and “cabron,” and I would make fun of their chilenismos and say “weon” and “po” after every word. I learned that Spanish was not generic and it was not just the accent that changed, but the actual meaning and use of specific words. Gringa, a very insulting word in Mexico to refer to “stupid Americans,” is just a shorter way to say North American in Chile. There’s no stigma attached to it.

I interned for a non-profit organization where I wrote a blog as the launch of an internal communication campaign. I wrote it in Spanish and sent it to the volunteer list serve of Chileans for their enjoyment. My dad would read the blog and tell me that I was starting to sound like a Chilean and, coming from my father, this was as much a compliment to me, an acknowledgment that my Spanish had a culture and that my Spanish was legitimate, as it was to be told I was Mexican upon my arrival to South America.

All of my reading was in Spanish, and all of my writing in Spanish, not to mention all of my speaking and my listening. Sure, I could have listened to my parents when I was younger and I could have practiced my Spanish as a child, but not having done so didn’t make me feel any less bilingual as an adult in Chile. I was getting across everything I needed and wanted to say, I was being understood and I was understanding. I began to think in Spanish, and I began to lose my English.

To me it didn’t matter what region my Spanish was coming from, what mattered was that it was coming. I didn’t change my accent, my accent changed. It gradually became more Chilean and now that I am back it may become more Mexican. I am not like the 9^th grade Spanish teacher who pretends to be from a different Spanish speaking country every day. I don’t make an effort to sound Chilean or Mexican or North American. I don’t claim to be from anywhere except for the United States of America, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel Mexican. Before I could speak the language I had to accept it as a part of my family and as a part of myself. And it was through this realization that I truly became bilingual.

The Passover Massacre

2006-04-20T19:07:00.000-07:00

I walked to the edge of the bubbling line that separated the sand and the ocean. The line crept backwards to where it had come from and, while I contemplated following it, it followed me, returning, and swallowing me up to my ankles.

From the other side of the line I stared at my steps, which I saw written in the sand, and thought of the story I read as a child that was printed over a picture just like this. All I could remember about the story, besides that it disappointed me, was that it was about a boy who dreamt he was walking side by side with god, but at the end of his journey, there was only one set of footprints.

I stayed out later than usual that night. I must have fallen asleep watching the stars, because I dreamt that I was walking with Daniel.

He kept whispering my name. Hadas, Hadas, Hadas, but the mud was hard as stone when he put his finger to it, and the letters he had traced so many times before were buried like gods footsteps.

He was standing right next to me but I couldn’t touch him. I asked him what happened to forever, and he said that forever only exists on his side. I stood bewildered, watching him as he drifted further and further away and I awoke to orange streaks in the sky. I turned myself over, away from the unfamiliar sensation of light, forcing myself to stand.

The grains took to my moist feet like glitter to glue as I used my toes to etch goodnight into the sand.

תוב לילה

and then I swept it away with my shoe and left.

I squinted the whole way home until I got so sad that I was squinting that I started to cry.

March seemed like one, long night most of the time, even when the sun was out. Ima didn’t know that when she would kiss me before bed and ascend the creaking stairs, I would wait until I could hear her, from downstairs, breathing like a frog, and I would sneak to the sand where I would trace myself into existence.

In three months I would begin my two years in the army, a desk job. But until then, all I could do inside my house was dream, and being outside was like finally waking up, engraving the earth and then turning it over. No one really sees the initials carved on the inside of a bracelet, so why should I be any different?

That night, or morning, of March 27^th, 2002, I wrote this.

There have been weekly bombs this month, and each time I hear of another it is as if Daniel dies all over again. Ima tells me it’s ok to be sad, she knows, but for my people, not my boyfriend, that I’m too young to know what love is. You’ll love one day, Hadas, she says. She says this because she doesn’t want me to end up alone, like her, not because she believes in love. And she doesn’t want to be like Daniel’s mother, either, so she watches me always. But I don’t want to be like Ima, scared, and alive only because I have a pulse. At least Daniel knew life, lived while he could. So I come here, and wonder what it is like on his side.

But no one else really comes anymore. I used to find things in the sand like cigarette butts, and beer bottles. If anything good can be said about the bombs, they have cleaned our beaches. But what good is it if the sand is clean, when the windows of our stores, and our buses, and our homes, are shattering into bits of glass, glass that travels with the force of the bombs that send it, that blinds people, that kills people, like Daniel. After all, glass is just burnt sand. So what if it’s clean?

And then, with a shoe, I swept it away. That was before my dream, before the orange pierced my eyes.

On my way home I thought about what I had left under the sand and about Ima, hoping she would still be asleep when I arrived, or else I’d surely never have the chance to leave again. She would set her bed in front of the door if she knew.

I hope I haven’t scared you all, or given you the wrong impression. The discos are still open in Netanya, and the grocery stores, and the theatres. It is not always so empty like I’ve described, except for the hours I go outside, when it is truly empty. But during the hours I leave, the beaches of any city are empty. People here still do normal things during the day, only we have to think about what we do a little differently.

You probably don’t have to wonder if you will be killed on the bus going to the grocery store.

I do.

This week there have been three in a row. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa. Ima tells me it is in the news all over the world. Have you heard, by chance, the story of Daniel? His name was only in the papers here a couple of times.

Following his name, alongside the names of four other victims, was a passage from a Hamas leader: “Israelis have to expect those attacks from everywhere, from every Palestinian group."

But we shouldn’t always fear what we know is coming. Like exams, or the army, or even death.

Yet I was scared, walking home in the light, that Ima would know; more scared of her than of exams, or the army, or death.

I passed the Park Hotel on my left, and for a few more blocks I tried to remember the rest of that story about the footprints.

I took the key from my pocket, and as I opened the door, I watched the sliver of light seeping through the crack expand over the carpet, until the entire room was lit by the rising sun and I could see her.

“Who is he?” asked Ima, smoke coming from her lips.

I closed the door. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Don’t test me, Hadas. Do you think I am not woken by you every night when you leave to see him?” She waved her cigarette like a wand.

“I am sorry, Ima. I won’t see him again.” I grasped the wood railing and started up the stairs.

“Stop,” she commanded me. I trembled. “I want to meet him,” she paused. “I will not have my daughter parading around, keeping secrets from me. Invite him to Seder tonight.”

“Of course, Ima.” I followed the usual steps to my room and, in my bed, exhaled with bewildered relief.

I dreamt about the sand again. But I wasn’t there, neither was Daniel. There were no footsteps, only my name, drowned and washed away to the sea.

הדס

I chose the name Yoav for my Seder guest, and went downstairs to ask Ima if I could go to his house and extend to him a personal invitation.

“You will call him,” she said. “And you will stay right here.”

I punched a few numbers into the phone and pressed the receiver when she wasn’t looking, addressing the dial tone.

“Ima wants to meet you, tonight, for Seder-

What do you mean you can’t?

But-

I thought you said-

Fine, fine. (I pretended to be very angry) Chag Sameach to you, too!”

“Hadas, are you okay?” Ima called after me as I stormed out, slapping the hard floor with my shoes.

“No! Nothing is okay!” I yelled. But I wasn’t acting anymore. “Yoav can’t come here because his mother won’t let him. And I can’t go anywhere for the same reason.” He didn’t even exist but my anger was so real. “And the only thing I’m scared of when I leave this house, is that you’ll find out about it, and you’ll be sad. I stay sad so that you won’t be, and now-” I reached for the door-

“Hadas if you so much as touch that door-”

I touched it and she stopped speaking, stopped yelling, and watched me walk out toward the sunset, past the houses on my street where families were having Seder inside, reading the hagadah and telling the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt. We were supposed to be celebrating our land, our freedom. Yet I doubted, while everyone thanked G-d for the 15 gifts he gave his people when he took them out of Egypt and sang the words of Dayenu, that would have been enough, that anyone that night would open the door for the stranger, Eliyahu, the biblical prophet for whom an extra glass of wine was poured, like tradition commanded.

As I approached the street corner I could smell burnt sand, and the incoming night was not dark, but clouded. At the corner, from a distance, I saw the Park Hotel underneath the flames. I’m sure you’ve read about this one. It’s been called many things, the Netanya suicide attack, the Netanya bombing, The Passover Massacre.

I stood at the corner watching the ambulances load the bagged bodies, and the stretchers of the wounded. After the fire was extinguished there seemed to be even more haze than before. Like when you turn the stove on too high, and then everything that was red with fire turns to grey smoke when you turn it off.

I imagined Ima, alone at the table, reciting the plagues and dipping her finger into the wine for each one, and I knew that these bodies in the cars were doing the same thing when it happened. And I began to see that it was like the initials on the other side of the bracelet, and maybe they were just being swept away, to the other side of the sand, where they could see everything and it would all make sense.

I walked away from the Park Hotel, to the sand, and I wrote this:

שלום

It means hello, goodbye, and peace.

And then I left it there, and I raced home to join Ima for seder.