notes from the nice side of the fence

what. the fuck. 

what the fuck. am I doing here. 

this is not for me. why now? everything was going so well. I’m missing out on life back home. parties. holidays. friends. family. fun. 

why this? why a week-long meditation course in some godforsaken kibbutz? 

am I that desperate? 

am I that clueless? 

so distrusting of myself I would tear away from everything I love just for another empty promise of salvation? 

this is not for me. I already know this stuff. I could be doing this on my own. I could be doing this better. quicker. without having to sit on a pillow for a whole fucking week doing nothing. this is a waste of time. 

I wanna switch on my mobile. I wanna sing. I wanna go back home. 

and then what?

then?… then I would carry on with my life. I’d be playing my music. take responsibility. I’d ask that guy out, like, on a real old-fashioned date. movie and dinner. he’s cute. we’d laugh. 

and then what? 

we’d rapidly get closer. after a couple of weeks sleeping alone would be unimaginable. I’d feel empowered and safe. I’d grow out of my annoying, needy, clingy, childish little habits. it would be like that actress in that interview I read years ago, who talked about how before meeting her partner she was like a kite and now she’s like a jet engine. I’d be a jet engine. 

and then what? 

life would be clear. I would be relaxed. I would stop biting my nails. 

I’d write more. I’d start performing again. raving reviews. my friends would love me more. I’d be more giving, more present when I’m with them. 

and then what? 

I’d do all those things I’d always been afraid of doing. I’d go backpacking with my boyfriend all over the world. big business meetings. family confrontations. fearless. I’d never postpone another phonecall, ever. I would live in the moment, utterly and completely. I’d find wisdom, and flow, and peace. 

and then what? 

then?… 

I guess then - I guess at some point something Bad would happen. 

my boyfriend would leave me. or someone would die. I’d get sick. or just addicted to something. I might lose all my money. 

and then what? 

I’d hurt. I’d be lost. I would be disillusioned with everything I’d been doing and just stop. I would see how foolish I’d been, to trust such transient things. maybe move in with my parents again. start watching TV. 

and then what?

my self-esteem would suffer greatly. I’d be snappy and cruel. I wouldn’t know how to explain it - everything was going so well. I’d be furious with myself for giving up so easily, but it would be useless - I’d already had it all and I’d ruined it. I’d try to cut off from my past. lose touch with old friends. go offline. sell my piano. 

and then what? 

once I find the energy, I would start looking for answers. a way to come back to something that resembles life. even a different life. anything. but every step I take in whatever direction would be painful. I’d be so distrusting, so clueless. I would attack people trying to help. I would write off every therapy offered, every opportune vacation. I’d seen life. I’d seen the pain. I know myself. that stuff is for desperate people. for people who don’t know.  

and then what?

at one point or another something would slip my guards. someone would grab be by the hand, and I’d be like, “whatever”. I’d arrive in a place with no distractions, no drugs, no alcohol. nowhere to run to. I’d be too exhausted to criticize others there. I’d be crying my eyes out one night, realizing what I’d forgotten - that I can only have a home in me. I can only find security inside. and that it’s always there. I would join the others, trying to rebuild my mind. forgive myself. make it a place I can live in, regardless of what happens on the outside. it would be, maybe, like a retreat. a vipassana.  

you mean, kinda like what you’re doing right now? 

um. yeah. 

well guess what. 

in dedication to Simi, Yonatan and Stephen, the wonderful teachers at Tovana. 

the weather in Tel Aviv has been perfect. I am glad I’m not in Europe.

I put on my sandals and walk to Kaplan Road, outisde the Ministry of Interior. a morning demonstration is taking place, by and for Eritrean refugees. many of them are wearing white masks, so as not to be identified by government officials in their home country. their families may be put at risk. they have escaped one of the worst totalitarian regimes in the world; one that has recently closed down the only university in the country. citizens of age are conscripted into the army for an unlimited period as slaves to the system. 

on arrival in Israel, Eritrean refugees are denied refugee status and rights due to muddled or nonexistent policy. many of them are sent back to Egypt, where they are often maltreated or shot. a legal procedure for asylum seekers is unavailable. they are largely prevented from settling in city centres, at the same time as not having access to social and medical services whatsoever. along with Palestinians under the occupation, they are probably the most compromised demography in the areas Israel controls. 

the demo

back at home, my husband-in-law picks up the flyer I brought back. 

“why don’t they just flee somewhere else?”

this gets me going. 

“because! Israel is probably geographically the closest signatory of the 1951 Geneva Convention, which is supposed to make it a safe haven for political refugees. the whole idea is that if a dictatorship in your country is hunting you down, you have somewhere to go.”

“well, you don’t really think a few people demonstrating outside the Ministry of Interior is gonna make a difference, do you?” 

this would have actually been a rationally acceptable argument to me a few years back. outcomes were important to me. people do things to achieve something, right? why demonstrate if you’re not going to make a difference? or, for that matter, why make art if you’re not getting paid? why have sex if you don’t get commitment? why exercise if you’re not losing weight? but then my mind changed. I realized that goals cannot really guide me in life, because the truth is I never really know what’s going to happen. I don’t know how this demonstration will affect the rights of refugees in Israel just like I don’t know something as simple as whether someone’s gonna think my T-shirt is gorgeous or ugly. in either cases, sometimes I find out, and sometimes I don’t. I would need to be infinitely arrogant to believe that I can know or exactly measure how the actions of a group of people will affect the whole. I can only work with what I got. I could strategize and calculate the number of TV channels that covered the event, the number of people attending, the likelihood of considerable pressure to form around this issue in the government and in the public. and then, if I can get myself to label the imagined results as “good” according to my set of beliefs, then I might be bothered to leave the house and shout some slogans. I’d be standing there, entirely invested in future outcome, and still not know what was going to happen. I could wait and see how the government reacts, and then either congratulate or criticize. I could either become depressed or ecstatic, my engines either revved or silenced. it would be, quite simply, an unending struggle, and one where my only option for peace and contentment is to freeze reality in the frame that I consider ideal. 

but why should I? why pass a judgment? why on earth would I let the government or the public decide by way of their reactions whether it was a good demonstration or not? that would be ludicrous! the reality is that people came together, danced, expressed themselves, exchanged information, voiced their stories, and took a stand. that is that. I can’t think of a better reason to leave the house. if that demonstration has consequences that I would judge as “good” or as “bad”, well, so be it. can I know? and if they change the law and help these people out, and the TV coverage inspires one little madman to become a Zionist dictator - would it still have been a “good” demonstration? all I need to know is that I got a message, it touched my heart, and I showed up. I had fun, too. I danced.

looking back on history, enormous changes do not happen because people strategize and organize. they don’t happen because people play little gods who draw statistics and dictate what needs and doesn’t need to happen. it’s because individuals make personal decisions that are free from expectation and convention - organization happens naturally as consequence, and only when other individuals find in it themselves to follow the same path. not by education or dictation, but by inspiration. we don’t need to know the path in advance. we just need to know what step to take next. this is freightening for many people, because it involves letting go of a seeimgly clear vision of what they think the world (and people, and themselves) can and should look like. and, who knows. we might get there, we might not. whatever the case, it seems the only certainty is that things will always continue to change. 

dreams carry violence. swords and guns and reluctant face-offs. “let’s play a game”. and I get to take the surviving hero to the movies with me, once the carnage is over. it’s exciting. it’s romantic. it’s what I want, barely even secretly. 

in the morning there is spring onion, tomatoes, peppers, french toast with maple syrup and cinnamon. there are faces, eyes that don’t ever meet mine. just like in the city, this is a place where people come and go - making contact might not be worth it. this is something that I understand.

Mr. A may have used cliches, but he was often right about me. how could it be otherwise? until I peel away the layers, I am just that - a product of my conditioning. the sum of “I can’t believe you said that” and “please please please don’t go”. when that is good enough, there is nothing else. it remains a game, a competition. a tradeoff at best. 

so here I am justifying my free lunch and lodgings. likening weeding the ground to the cleansing of mind. insects punishing me for keeping still. your image punishing me at night, for the opposite sin. it’s true, it’s true, I ran away. I took away your friend.

Friday. I take the 7:44am train to Jerusalem. I’m tired. I snooze on my sleeping bag. In the wakeful interims I register an uphill motion at a speed little faster than running. 

I get there at 9:35. at the station, I wait. 

I take a picture of the drain. there’s a coat-hanger resting on top of it. 

the drain

it’s cold in the shade and warm in the sun. cold-warm weather. December. I never know what to wear. 

I continue to wait. 

I take a picture of the phone booth. 

the public phone

it looks kinda sad, just standing there. sad, but primed. like the soldiers outside Buckingham Palace. or maybe they’re not technically soldiers. 

there was an advertising campaign in London at one point, these posters on phone booths that said something like “forgot it at home? [picture of a mobile phone] step inside!”. 

second-place-taking taken to a whole new level. this one however would not have suffered such insolence - it will stand in pride whether used or not, catching the eye of passerbys in a flash of hot orange. “give thyselves brain cancer, see if I care!”

the car arrives. 

we drive for about 5 minutes. the path to Abed’s farm is just past the army checkpoint at the foot of the Biblical Zoo. what can be so Biblical about a zoo, you might ask. it isn’t something I wish to elaborate on (nor, judging from the volume of the megaphones their guides use, ever visit).

Abed is a Palestinian refugee living in a small camp nearby and in his cave on the land. his land, 30 dunams on a small hill called Wallaje at the foot of the Jewish Malcha neighburhood, was left to him by his father. in recent years, Israeli real estate sharks in league with the IDF have attempted to either buy or scare Abed out of there in numerous ways, some violent. he began holding All Nation Cafe events in his home, and a network of Israeli, Palestinian and international volunteers was established with the goal of transforming Abed’s land into a fruitful and sustainable ecological farm. 

banter in different languages fills the air. Arabic, Hebrew, English, German, Spanish, Dutch. I don’t know what any of the tools are called, in any language. but I glove my hands and give it my best shot. our main job over the weekend is digging channels and cisterns for storing rainwater, as at the moment all drinking water comes from a fountain 2 kilometers away. I volunteer to help bring water over in a car. the trickle is very slow. my Israeli friend who drives the car uses the time to get some goat milk from a group of young herdsmen, for a baby donkey on the farm whose mother died after giving it birth. she speaks fluent Arabic, which is not common for Jewish people in Israel to do, even in the radical/feminist/humanist/academic/activist circles I am familiar with in Tel Aviv. 

the trickle

back at the farm, we commence working on a ditch. 

last time I did this much iron-pumping was wrestling with a guy in a nightclub. “ah! so you work out,” he said, surprised I managed to pin him to the wall. he was buff, I was not. “well, only on my laptop,” I said, which was the honest truth. but that’s a whole different blog isn’t it. 

nearing lunch (and nearing exhaustion) on the second day, I find myself hauling small rocks into a wheelbarrow, to be used for fortifying swells. mom calls me on the mobile. 

“darling! how are you getting on?”

“um, yeah - I’m just, you know, throwing rocks right now.”

“throwing rocks? oh dear. are you starting another intifada over there?”

“yeah, maybe. but you know, this time it’s gonna be a Green intifada.”

abedland

to learn more about Abed and the All Nations Cafe, visit the link in my blogroll. 

volunteers are always welcome.

it’s already dark by the time we arrive. the Dead Sea. or, “Yam Hamelach”, the Sea of Salt, in Hebrew. as me and two friends unload the car I wonder which of these names is more descriptive. 

it’s quiet. 

very quiet. 

thoughts in my mind are like marathon runners. only this race is on a loop - someone tore out the finish line and painted the trails back to the start. no one knows. thoughts run the endless race until they face complete exhaustion, when they humbly cross the sideline into the cheering crowds who always accept them without question. there is never a sneer. everyone knows that each of them is always doing its best in trying to interpret the world, even when that interpretation is cruel or unkind. their nylon tops bear the names of their emotive sponsors: “Compassion”, “Ambition”, “Anger”, “Resentment”, “Self-Flagulation”, “Melancholy”, “Ecstacy” etc. they run with blind ambition, in complete oblivion. 

some thoughts run with abandon and bliss, endorphines flowing through their bodies. others face excrutiating pains at every footfall. new thoughts hardly ever join the race, only ones that are giving it another shot.

if this sounds tiring, well. it is. 

it takes a while for things to quiet down. given the right environment, everything slows down to a more managable pace. things become clear, movements less blurry. the crowds stop handing out water bottles from the sidelines - that endless barrage of rejuvinating stimuli that keeps the race going. suddenly each participant becomes aware of itself, aware of the moment - and suddenly a memory hits: I have been here before. I have run this course. it doesn’t ever end. how strange. 

and when this finally happens, I call it peace. 

in a place like the Dead Sea, peace is a bit of an inevitablity. 

as we spread out our picnic blankets, sleeping bags and a strangely random collection of foodstuff, I register shock in my consciousness. it isn’t used to so much quiet. I opt out of the fire-making arrangements and just sit there, wondering what my mind will come up with next to keep itself busy - to keep itself from experiencing the moment in all its glorified simplicity. I try to watch the race. after a few minutes, I figure it’s just more of the same old: money worries, romantic musings, people I don’t talk to anymore, countries I could be travelling to. situations I hadn’t handled all that well. notes for the future. comments on the past. lists. 

the next day I find a small pool of warm fountain water concealed by tall bamboos. a few people occassionally enter in the nude to wash off the mineral mud off their skin. through a manmade tunnel out of tires and wood, the water streams down and out into the sea, only several meters away. 

by the stream, two self-proclaimed Rainbow People are washing their crockery. one of them is from Bolivia, the other from Israel. 

after some small-talk (I learn that flying to Ethiopia is cheap and that a huge Rainbow Gathering is scheduled to happen there in March), we watch the water flow in silence. I see a small school of tiny silvery fish swimming vigorously upstream.

“wow! check them out.”

the Bolivian woman smiles. “yes, the water’s fresh. that’s their whole life, these little ones - swimming upstream. if they stop, they wash out to the sea and die, because of the salt.”

“that’s incredible. so much effort, just to survive. I wonder if they ever get tired of it.”

most of the time my mind thinks it knows what’s going on.

“I am having lunch with my mom.”

“I am getting my eyes tested.”

“I am refusing to give change to a beggar on the street.”

and so on.

this was no exception. I am walking down Even Gvirol street in Tel Aviv. I am going to pay in a cheque at the bank. I seem to have a special talent to always be unconscious during bank opening hours, which admittedly isn’t difficult to do in Israel. so I make full use of online services and branch postal boxes.

my mind registers a guy in jeans and a tight white t-shirt swaying on the pavement a few meters ahead of me. his eyes find mine, and that window of opportunity opens: that half-second that offers a choice between looking away, getting on with whatever it is you think you are doing, and letting reality present something new - an interaction with mostly predictable yet ultimately unknown results. wallets are unlikely to be opened, nor telephone numbers exchanged, nor lives be saved or lost. but then again, you never do know. I go for the second option. my eyes rest on his for another twinkling, authorizing his approach.

“man, have you seen a grey Honda?”

I go in. I always strive to give truthful answers unless I have a good reason not to. he gestures at the cars parked along the pavement.

I see grey cars.

now, I’m a person who, when being asked by a parking attendant what kind of car it is that I can’t find in a lot, says “it’s grey.” I don’t own a car and so I always drive others’ - I don’t care where they bought them from as long as I’m not taking them to the garage, despite the obvious usefulness of knowing outside of that particular eventuality.

I see grey cars. I don’t know which is a Honda. but before I get to dwell on the matter, this guy’s body movement and the half-empty Smirnoff bottle in his hand (no brand-recognition trouble there then) suggest more urgent questions to be answered.

“are you alright?”

“what can I do man. what can I do? she left me.”

he tells me this not so much apologetically but in anticipation of sympathy, as if being dumped justifies any kind of behaviour.

“oh. um. well, maybe you should have a drink of water instead of that vodka if you’re going to drive?…”

“but. but I don’t have water.”

“then… buy some,” I say, capitalistically enough.

the guy’s completely drunk. not a common sight for central Tel Aviv at 4pm. his eyes widen, obviously struggling to maintain focus on anything. his mouth opens and closes randomly, and his legs lose their balance every time someone walks past.

“hey man, you think it’s this one? man, you gotta help me. where did I park it? d’you know?”

“no, I… - look. you shouldn’t be driving right now.”

“but I need to get to work.”

he’s obviously not thinking straight. I put my hand on his shoulder in a performance of affection and care. the truth is I don’t know if I want to be in this situation. I want to go to the bank. this guy has been drinking, and I don’t want to help him. especially not to find his fucking car, with which he could only harm himself and others in the state he’s in.

“that bitch. there she is, up there,” he looks up at the two-storey building, “three years. three fucking years, you know - just like that.”

“listen, I have to go to the bank. sorry.”

“look, man,” he takes out a car key from his pocket and puts it to the lock of the nearest car, “I think maybe it’s this one, but that shit at the back, I don’t think. I don’t think it’s mine. just - the key won’t fit. can you - just help me unlock the door man and then go.”

“I don’t wanna help you do that, sorry.”

I turn away and go. my mind begins to evaluate the situation, reviewing my taken steps and possible outcomes. if nobody stops him, he’ll probably find his car, and if he doesn’t pass out inside, he’ll probably attempt to drive it. this is likely to end in some kind of crash. traffic may come to a halt. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. people might be outraged. I don’t know.

he could also try and go back to the woman. maybe violence would ensue. maybe one of them would get hurt, or both. I don’t know.

or maybe he runs into someone with a little more sense of responsibility for others who will sit him down and bring him some water, or a coffee. I don’t know.

suddenly I find myself deeply saddened by the whole affair. under different circumstances, and granted a little more resourcefulness, I would have loved to hear his story, I tell myself. for a couple of seconds I indulge in seeing us both sitting on a step, maybe even sharing the rest of that vodka, spilling our hearts out. it’s not like I don’t know heartbreak. it’s not like I don’t know self-numbing. sure, he’s being stupid, but how many times have I nursed a bottle in hopes of avoiding my pain? I can see where he’s coming from. my reaction was heartless and passive. I could have insisted a bit more, I could have listened. or maybe that would have just postponed a terrible end. maybe what he needed is to be left to his own devices. I don’t know.

after slipping my cheque in the hole in the wall, I turn back where I came from. I decide to buy a big bottle of water, just in case. the man at the counter offers plastic cups, and I take one, thinking the drunk guy might struggle holding a 2 liter bottle upright. should I take two? no, I’ll just drink from the bottle. what if he’s one of those hygienics though? nah, he wouldn’t mind, especially being so drunk. drinking from the same bottle would create solidarity. he’ll see I thought about him, and that I’m open to spending time with him as long as he’s willing to sober up. it’ll be good. would he still be there though? I don’t know.

as I approach the spot again, I see a police car parked there behind “his” car with some people gathered around it. god. too late. he tried opening that car, someone called the police. damn it. I should have been quicker, I should have asked him to wait, or come with me. would the cops let me bring him water? I guess they could give him some at the station. maybe this is for the best, maybe they’ll keep him from doing serious damage. I still don’t know.

I spot the white T. he’s steadily leaning against the car, in conversation with the people around him, surely there to keep him from running away. I come up to him and give him the bottle in a bag.

“wow, you came back. guys, check it out, he came back to bring me water.”

he says this with a wholly sober accent.

“it looks like you don’t need it anymore. the police sobered you up?”

“yeah,” he laughs.

a girl with a clipboard comes up to me. the other three people there are all excited smiles.

“that is so sweet of you. Eyal is actually an actor, and we’re shooting this new TV series. don’t worry, we didn’t film you.”

I smile and drop my head, feeling foolish but relieved. duped out of my big moment of charity. “and I see the cops are cooperating?”

“yeah. but it’s so sweet of you!”

Eyal gives me a firm handshake and hands me back the bottle. good actor.

“well,” I say, “I guess I thought this is what would have helped me if I’d been in the same situation.”