Memory clip: Namibia

I have a most memorable shower. Besides recollections of accompanied showers, I wonder how many other people have a "most memorable" bath.

It was in norht-central Namibia, on the Cheetah Conservation Fund grounds near Otjiwarongo. It was Thanksgiving Day and our camp was bustling with people on their designated cooking jobs. Some were at the table shaving potatoes, a pie was baking over the open fire, and Crispen (our trusty chef) was seasoning the chicken... no turkeys to be found in the Southern African desert. November is the end of the dry season so the days were stifling, with a hot, oven-like breeze blowing in our faces. I was sticky and lethargic.

The shower was outside, privatized by high mud walls, with a bench off to the side. When I stepped inside the stall, I felt I was in my own ceilingless spa room. I'll never forget standing standing naked under the open sky with cool water washing away the grime from my body. All I used was a bar of soap, and it's simplicity gave me a feeling of freshness and purity. It must have also been the act of bathing in the open amidst a harsh, dry environment. The sparseness and dust of the Namib bush was anything but cool and refreshing.

When I turned off the faucet I left my towel aside and had sun's rays dry me. Each time droplets evaporated from my skin, the water held in my hair would drizzle more droplets down my back. This drew tiny lines of chill down my body each time the breeze came. The buzzing hum of the surrounding bush created a beautiful silence and I laid down on my back on the hot tile floor of the stall. I felt like a reptile - completely still, sponging UV heat.

After about a half an hour I heard a knocking on the mud wall... it was somebody else's turn.

Capturing Beauty

I.

Music is a way of life. With my focus centered on hearing, my mind jumps into the air and clings onto currents of sound. I have an atuned emotional sphere within me so my heart also never fails to catch the wave. The range of sounds and tones existent in the universe is comparable to the range of emotions we humans are able to bring forth. As much as it’s pained me at many points in my life, and as much as I’ve resisted its call, I am always seeking to capture this entire orchestra of feeling. Perhaps I could store it somewhere safe in my body. Yet, to ride these varying waves of song is neither an option that many are capable of, nor a choice everyone chooses to make. I cannot stand for music ambiance. Each song that begins to play grabs my complete attention and sends me deep into memory and dream. And rarely am I able to completely enjoy a song. Not without an incredible need to own it in some fashion or another; in a CD, video performance or stash it away on my computer. I’ve always felt this desire to be somewhat ironic in light of the purity of beautify music gives to me.

II.

Dance washes away the muck in my life. It’s not so much of an escape as it is a dismantling of the negative power that sometimes shadows over my spirit. When my arm reaches across my body and then slowly floats to my side as I begin to rise to the balls of my feet, I am breathing. I am feeling. Each muscle that twitches, each joint that extends become central in my consciousness and I am able to let go of the things that take me far away from here. Dance is the physical expression of my mind rolling along music waves. When I dance, I don’t deny my emotions. I don’t let them consume me. Instead, I let them guide me.

Watching dance has always given me a similar reaction to listening to music. In a small, experimental dance performance that I attended at Hampshire College, an epic duet took place. A youthful two, “him” and “her”, ran, leapt, fell, and floated in and out of eachother’s touch. Each limb of their body, out to the last joint of their pinky fingers, was moving in coordinated motions. The theatrical effect of their duet carried tears to my eyes when the lights dimmed. I was taken, and went home listing the areas where I needed to practice in order to dance as they did.

III.

Renaissance art is my favorite style and that always seems to surprise people. Somehow they expect me to like the “abstract”. They want me to be interested dark colors; in the beckoning and bold. They also expect me to have have something to say about it. Something profound (I’ve been told I’m a profound person). But all I can say is that I love renaissance art, and there is really nothing special, breathtaking, inspiring, moving or any other such adjective I have left to reflect on it. I just like looking at people’s faces. The setting and props of the painting are most often uninteresting to me. It is the emotions that are drawn, painted or sculpted on their faces. I just like looking at them.

And if there is a medium that I feel most inspired by it is photography. It is the only form of art in which I feel confident enough to have a go at myself. I also enjoy editing pictures, which now due to twenty-first century pizzaz, is all done on my computer. It is usually late at night when I sit with my Apple and review my pictures. The computer warms my lap and I sink into the glowing screen. Contrast, saturation, exposure, temperature, tint, sharpness, noise – this is how I make a memory mine.

IV.

We were truly walking in fields of gold that late afternoon. We kissed beneath the jealous sky and let the breeze blow us away. I asked you if you wanted to take a picture. ‘Look at the sky’, I said, ‘look at how the orange radiates off the sun and highlights the flamingo pink clouds.’ You didn’t know what the word “radiate” meant, but I stopped you before you could answer. ‘Why do I want to take a picture so badly? Why do we feel the need to capture beauty?’ I complained. You didn’t say much. I can’t remember if you contributed any thoughts. You just listened for a while. Then you said to me, ‘Why do you have to describe everything you see? Don’t you know that I can see it too?’

You stopped me there and put me in my place. I felt like a punished dog. Why is it, I thought, that when I am privileged to these special moments in life, I want to take a picture? I want to write a poem! I want to call the ones I love to tell them all about it. I returned to my original thought and then asked you one last time, ‘Art is an ownership, no?’
You thought for a moment perplexed, and nodded your head in unsure agreement. I want to own beauty.




“Fields of Gold” by Sting, from the album Fields of Gold.

Can't You See My Light?!

I may not give myself enough credit.
I spend too much time scolding myself on my
petty,
impractical,
pompously pious,
yet purely poetic
personal, insignificance.
Do you want to slap me on the hand
or maybe the face?
By whatever means, help me wake up!

Is it more polite to start with passivity and move to strength?
I feel like I was always taught that way.

Some say it may be better than thinking this glowing circle of lights around your head
is all the light that the world can see
I know that so many minds in this universe are illuminated.
It's the thought that my lights don't count.
My lights don't shine enough
My lights aren't pretty enough.

I want someone to swoop me up and say:
Any light is a blessing, especially yours.
Someone told me that's what Jesus is for.
Someone also told me what Jesus' eyes look like.
With a snap of the keyboard they shocked me mid-type!
"all the things in the world you love, not the tempting ones
just the ones of goodness
so I've heard."

So I've heard that you had a broken heart once
Please tell me how it healed.
Please don't tell me you fell in love again.
That you fell down that sometimes hole of out-of-love
and came back to the surface on your own.
Please don't tell me that.
That would mean I'd have to let go.

It's so much harder to light your light when you think you fight
without the might, below the height.
When you don't believe it's shiny enough for him in slight.
Shimmering enough to warm his heart all through the night
Vivid enough to inspire his soul... outright.
It's so much harder to work through the broken glass of
he-may-not-want-your-light-anymore.
Someone told me that's supposed to be just ok.

Israel

When I was young my mother dragged me three times a week to the synagogue. Each Hebrew class would begin the same; we’d stand at our desks and with our hands on our hearts and sing the Sh’ma and the HaTikva. The first, a prayer to God, and the second a devotion to the State of Israel, neither of which I had any relationship with until I was much older. I went through a phase before my Bat Mitzvah where I would talk to God during the silent prayer of the service. I’d gaze at the buzzing, electrical orange light that hung above the Torah ark as the eternal flame and I would sing my heart out to God’s ears. This phase was short and particular to only my pre-teens. After just a few years of maturity, I realized I was simply talking to myself in those silent moments. I discovered that there were no resolutions. I could find nothing to convince me that God, as I was taught to think of “him”, existed.

When I was sixteen, my father took me to Seattle to see the hugging Hindu saint, Amma. We sat on our knees for over an hour beside thousands of others with our offerings of marigolds in our hands. When we finally reached the front of the line, Amma hugged us each separately, transferring the power of her infinite source of love into our hearts. We drove home late that night in silence, smiles on our faces. It was on car rides like these that my father would teach me about Buddhist philosophy. On one of these drives, he gave me my first analogy of enlightenment.

“You know how when you’re on a large water slide, and all that exists is the thrill of the slide?”

I definitely knew that feeling.

“That’s what enlightenment is.” I decided then that God must be the feeling you have when nothing else exists but the present.

Throughout this time, I continued singing the HaTikva once a week beneath the Israeli flag. I don’t remember being given a translation, or told what we were supporting politically. We were just trained to love Israel. Sabbath after Sabbath we sang Hebrew prayers that blessed our homeland in Israel, the land of milk and honey, the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jakob. In my last years of high school, when I no longer attended Sunday School, I began to learn about a side of Israel that I had never heard of in Synagogue before; a side of Israel that dealt with Palestinians. I remember my Hebrew School teachers telling us about the intifadas only vaguely; I had conjured images in my head of buses exploding. I was taught that Israel was under attack and that it was not a safe place to go. In secular school, there was a different story to be told; a story where the attacked was portrayed instead, as the attacker. There was a Gazan boy that I tutored for two years. He was kind and goofy and spoke with a smooth, young voice. I watched his Arabic words quickly turn into English, and I listened to his laments of his Muslim brothers being pinned behind the M15’s of Israeli soldiers. The more I learned and investigated, the more disgust and shame I had towards Israel.

A few years later, I entered college. My relationship with Israel and God (or now, spirituality) became more complicated. The further into Buddhist practice I ventured, the more committed to Judaism I became. This growing sense of spirituality illuminated my sense of tradition and culture. It was also, of course, aided by the fact that for the first time in my life, a strong and supportive Jewish community surrounded me.

Before the end of my first semester I registered for the Taglit Birthright program. My views towards Israeli policy had not changed, and I knew the program to be a full-fledged brainwashing/dating-service system, meant to turn neutral American Jews like myself into Israel loving, tradition redeemers. At least… I presumed this to be so, and thus got on the plane with my analytical ear intact. However, as soon as land came into view from above the Mediterranean, and Tel Aviv glimmered below us, my heart pushed to my lips and I began to sing HaTikva. I couldn’t help it, maybe it was my nefesh yehudi overcoming my doubts, but I sang the HaTikva as the plane roared across the runway. As soon as I walked into the Ben Gurion Airport with my Birthright Group, a large man shook my hand with an explosive smile and said, “Shalom Emily, welcome home!”

During my first few days on Israeli soil, I tried as hard as I could to maintain my intellectual barrier of reason, but no matter what resistance I put up, “welcome home” hummed in the back of my mind. The food was fresh and tasted healthy and wholesome. Fresh grape tomatoes, cucumbers and milk coming straight from the kibbutzim was on every breakfast table and the blend of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking styles made every meal savory. I found Israeli people to embody the definition of community and we were all welcomed enthusiastically as brothers and sisters. I loved the earthiness of the white stone architecture that faintly resembled biblical times. Ancient olive orchards scattered the landscape accompanied by wheat and corn fields. I loved the fusion of ancient and modern and the cultural richness it fostered. After five days of traveling throughout the country with my group, I found myself watching the sun rise from the top of the last Jewish stronghold, Massada. In the morning glory, the desert and Dead Sea slowly illuminated around me. I had forgotten about the Gazan War that repulsed the world, raging just a few miles west, and by the end of that morning I had fallen in love. He was tall, dark, and handsome and mesmerized me with an air of complexity and an aura of familiarity. The land of Israel now had a shining face with large brown eyes that reciprocated my love.

I mulled over a lot of thoughts and feelings at that time and one of them was distinguishing between the man I loved and the country I had discovered. To this day the lines are still not clearly defined. When I returned several months later to live with him, many of my experiences of exploring love were entwined with my blossoming intimacy with Israel. I was sleeping with both. The hours spent tracing the architecture of his face were matched by the hours I spent staring at the foreign block-like letters written across road signs and billboards and the afternoons I spent dragging my feet along the parched summer dirt. For all of the times we laughed and danced in each other’s arms, I also made close friends and observed how Israelis lived their lives. Alone on sweltering July afternoons, I’d walk alone through the fields with the sun beating heavy on my shoulders. I’d scan across the farmlands towards the slopes of Mount Carmel and feel a deep-seated excitement within me. This beautiful view was the home of my people, and the prospects of a future life in this land gave me a sense of happiness and belonging.

However, the sense of belonging was superficial. On the night his mother discovered my mother’s gentile identity, I was instantly branded as no longer one of the tribe. Simply put, I was the American visiting her Israeli boyfriend. Despite the whole of my cultural upbringing I could not seem to find an Israeli who could see me fully as a Jew. The columns supporting my entire identity cracked and I was hurt immensely. There was a brief period where I considered abandoning my image as a Jew. I had my guidance in the Dharma, and I never truly related to the spiritual practice of Judaism. But my roots were deep and being Jewish was all I knew how to be. However, my relationship with both Israel and the man I love, had taken on a new personality. One of struggle in definition and clarity. The sparkling welcome of the Israeli flag fell under the shadow of perspective and I was left to figure out if I had been dreaming all along. I know now that I was never asleep. I realized instead that I had been seeing my Israeli world through the narrow lens of new love. With my eyes wide open I was able to see that the things we love also carry dark shadows. My heart is still trying to understand this.

Night Drive

Often when I drive,
I wear a blindfold.
I can never remember when I put it on
and there is certainly no intentional reason why.

It's just a habit I have
flying high
and full of charge
my hands on the wheel
the responsibility is all mine
Blind.
Blind
as a bat to the scenic mountains
or the open ocean,
or to the many stations I should have stopped for.
I don't even enjoy my dreams
in the dark
in the quiet
beneath the blindfold.

13I Ways to Stop Time

I.
I was smiling at a photograph
accessing the past
when I noticed the ladybugs
that were crawling all over
the corners of my consciousness.

II.
On the wings of an eagle we soared
drifting around the sleeping world below.
We sailed past ocean beasts
and escaped the cannibals
and then, in the still of the night,

III.
I was rehearsing the character I wished to be
practicing tones and eyebrow movements
when I looked at the stairs in front of me
and realized I had just come from this place.

IV.
I did not let go of your hand.

V.
Sucked out, cold as ice, my blood stopped it's flow.
Some spirits ignore life's limits.

VI.
The stories are true, I tell you!
Scientists can create anything these days.

VII.
I waited and watched the late afternoon sun out my window.

VIII.
I have a personal relationship with God
He answers my prayers
when I need a redo.

IX.
I buried the kookoo-clock six feet under the earth.

X.
Someone once told me of a circle,
where all things
come back to point A.
So there is no reason to look back,
it will come just beyond the midnight moon.

XI.
I was dreaming.

XII.
The world washed away when I saw you, Maria.
You, in your white dress,
underneath the thousand disco sparkles.
I couldn't breathe
from that moment forward.

XIII.
Within the confines of my mind, counting
is for recording my gains and losses.

May You Rest in Peace

I nearly fell asleep at the foot of a tomb stone.
The peace amongst the dead tempted my aching heart.

In the sun, with the company of singing autumn leaves,
I listened with a smile, to the lull of their stillest song.

What magic it is to feel time halt in the presence of the dead?
How peaceful it must be to let breath fly away and be free.

And yet, autumn leaves sing different songs in the company of the road.
Their colors flush with a warmth that shines on passersby.

The brushing lullaby persists through life’s traffic,
and calls often for some to rest under the shadow of the leaves.