notes from the nice side of the fence

I turn on the tap and check the water, then pour in some Dr. Bronner soap, Eucalyptus. if it came to that, I’d give up coffeeshopping to be able to afford my Magic Soap. luckily it doesn’t quite come to that. though who knows what I’m indirectly missing out on on account of my coffeeshopping (and soap). I check my bank account - if there’s money there I use it, if not I don’t.

I put my foot in and it tells me that the water’s too hot. I find myself thinking about the water and where it comes from. am I being wasteful? would taking a shower use up less water than a shallow wash in the bath? is it more important that I save up water in my home, or that the government explores alternatives like recycling and desalination, many of which are avoided for political reasons? I don’t know. I turn the tap off as soon as I have enough.

I soak in, and my mind drifts to the future day’s activities. I’ll write that email, submit that application form, work on that song, translate that book. all of which will involve sitting at my laptop, while something I tend to think of as “real life” will be going on outside; on the streets, in offices, in bars and cafes, in checkpoints and refugee camps. I am struck by how little I actually live. so many hours of my days are consumed by sitting across from a computer screen, and the ones that are not mostly involve maintenance and upkeep to that end, like cooking and making tea so that I can keep going. sometimes even meeting a friend for lunch is just a respite from this routine, a charge-up. I converse with people online, I do my learning online, I do much of my paid work online, I make my art online - I even do most of my political protest online. it’s all by proxy.

I live my life not in reality, but in representations of reality. is this significant? is this wrong, or unhealthy? did I choose to live like this? when was the last time something actually happened, I ask myself. as response, my mind gives me images from the events of the weekend - housewarming, clubbing, weekend papers, sex (with other people, for a change). surely, leaving the house and meeting someone is more sensual than talking to them on skype, and therefore more real, more meaningful. surely, ranting on the Occupation at a house party is more effective and powerful than doing so on facebook. it moves things. it makes things happen - faster, better.

but hang on a minute, I tell myself as I rub my scalp. what is this duality about? I mean, what is this “real life” I’ve so readily idealized? does it even exist? when I meet a friend and listen to them speak and watch their body movements, am I experiencing what’s “real”, or just a representation of something I can never have any access to in the first place? I hear the sounds coming out of their mouths and I attach them to words I’m familiar with. I then attach those words to meanings, and I go on to attach those meanings to stories from my experience that match them. I call this “understanding”. but what did I understand? I just constructed a story about what is happening in the moment of the conversation (“where did she get that scar?”, “why is he being so nervous?”, “how long have we been sitting here?”, “is it hot in here?”), and about the narratives that I’m hearing (“she’s taking too long to grieve”, “he shouldn’t have done that”, “she’s being too pushy about this”, “he’s so adorable”). not only that, but even when I’m relatively free from my own interpretations, I still rely entirely on my subjective imagination to relate to another person. someone tells me they’re upset about getting dumped, and I imagine what heartbreak must feel like. I conjure images from my past or theirs (which I can only imagine). I hear songs about breakups and see tear-jerking movie scenes. I look at their reddening eyes and connect them to all those things, and I say “oh you poor thing”. so what I react to is not reality. I react to my interpretation, based on an experience that can only ever be mine. much like I would to a blog entry or a status message. even when a hand touches my skin, when fresh air enters my nostrils, when my muscles ache from running - it’s all I ever do, all I ever can do. all my life I’ve been trapped behind these eyes. the internet, like everything else, is just another little reminder of this. it’s here to wake us up to what we already know - there is no world outside of thought. there is no pain or pleasure outside of thought. we live inside our own representations.

I get out the bath and look outside the window. I make tea and sit down to write. it’s a life.

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.

so, I spent a week in Lotan last week where I successfully separated red worms from a very decaying heap of compost.

not before inquiring with my reluctant partner in crime, a friendly Jewish graduate who had immigrated to Israel recently and is now an Eco-Volunteer at this remote corner of the desert, or Eco-Freako in the local lingo.

“are these worms… precious?”

I was new on the scene and likely to stay a while so I was thinking when-in-rome but at the same time desperately hoped my point would not go unnoticed. people are generally intelligent but you never know, this one could have just passed them. I mean, surely this isn’t cost-effective. we could be building in mud or something sensual like that, and just dump the compost across the organic garden, worms and all. unless we go at the sifting exercise as a kind of a non-attachment meditation. as in not attaching to the most horrible stench I had ever experienced.

“they’re about a shekel a pop, apparently. in the US you can buy them by the kilo.”

so ok. the kibbutz is obviously not doing fantastically well in the financial front. which pairs great with going Green. and I could learn something from this, I told myself. and I dug in. our team leader was kind enough to equip us with little gardening tools so as not to use our bare hands, which he himself didn’t seem to mind.

the word ewww will never be quite the same after this.

in other news, me and a few friends are shooting a video this week for a song I wrote called “in my blood”. I say that, but in reality it’s an exercise a Very Talented Friend is doing for his degree in moviemaking. he wanted me for the lead, so I said “but also a video” and e-pouted slightly. he liked the song and said ok. the video is about a vampire, and hopefully will be up here soon.

love

S.

the desert