Israel: Part Two

"You have to give them attitude, if you want their respect," my mom tells me.  So, when I'm in Israel, I'm insulting Israelis left and right.  First you have to break them, then smile sweetly, and then break them again.  And I don't make that many friends, but I command respect and get a black eye.

In Jerusalem, I reunite with long-lost cousins, Shalva and Simon and Michael and Jeremy and Batya (who likes Twilight, and loves Edward and Abercrombie and Fitch).  It's all a mind-twirl.  And late nights in Jerusalem, with soccer being projected onto white screens, and purple swirls of hookah smoke.  In Israel, you can drink in the streets, so you purchase the big bottles of Goldstar and sit on a high cement ledge, and let your legs dangle like a schoolgirl.  And there's the skateboarder who I keep seeing, who's always red-eyed and dazed, and he keeps falling off his board and scuffing his knees.

And after Jerusalem, there's Motti, who shows me around Tel Aviv, the nooks and crannies of this urban sprawl, with lots of Ping Pong on the beach and speedos and techno.  Motti shows me the ins and outs, the ropes.  This small kitchenette, misplaced between fruit vendors and a guy who sells Levi's knock-offs, is packed.  Minced meats with cilantro and garlic sizzling on the fry, as pasta's tossed.  This is the street food in Tel Aviv, hummus whipped like butter and doused in syrupy olive oil.  It's this thick smell of sweat and fry... and yes, malt beverages.  The next day, Motti takes me to Jaffa, where I pause for the next few days. 

When we first get to Jaffa, it's hot, but the Mediterranean Sea is turquoise and cool.  "I'm going to take you for the best food," Motti says and he parks on a steep hill.  Outside is dingy and inside is dingier with white walls and long picnic tables and, mostly, Arabic men speaking loud and soaking warmed pita into bowls of garbanzo and strange bean and oil, ornamented with chili flakes.  Is it Egyptian?  I think that's what he tells me.  And it's thick and sour and warm and, for the rest of the day, I'm stuffed.

Jaffa is brown ruins and blue sea and one tall clock tower.  And every so often, throughout the day, one mosque starts to sing through the megaphone speakers and another mosque, two blocks away, competes... and then a third... and a fourth.  And it's rivaling mosques with booming speakers and the city rattles.  And where do these mosques get their sound equipment?  Best Buy? 

I stay in a Moorish-type youth hostel, in my private room with private bath (how decadent).  It's yellow and green, looking down through a cathedral-type window, onto the broken down street.  It's beautiful; black-cobble stone charm, rough and tough, with flea market hustlers and strings of dirty rainbow-colored light-bulbs, twisting around the lamp-posts.  There's a skyline of the Tel Aviv metropolis.  It comforts me in some sick way.  There are the ruins of this ancient sea-port town, peeling pink buildings, Israelis arguing, and hostelers bonding (random, jigsaw people with no coordination and jagged edges), and the skyline.  On the roof of this hostel, it's very Moroccan and red and yellow and blue; there are mattresses to lie and chairs to sit... and a communal kitchen and constant music.  Sitting on the roof-top, on the edge, looking down at the twinkling lights of late-night dives.  The mosques are singing, cars are honking, a radio is humming, a plane is roaring, and a bell is chiming.  The end.

Israel: Part One

A Jerusalem Sketch

Israel's hot.  It's brown and messy with unpolished silver, hot tea sipped in glass cups... that kind of thing.

Israel's a big flirt.  Paris flirts too, but Paris is sluttier.

Israel's mystical and grungy.  It's four cardboard walls stapled together and somehow it stands straight up.

Israeli soldiers, in their muddy green outfits, red berets, pants tucked into their shoe-shined boots, and a rifle criss-crosses their chest.  And through all my traveling, never have I met people more devoted to their country.

It's mismatched, biblical ruins on the street-sides and shawarma.  It's quartered and sectioned-off and there's no real explanation to this controversial parcel of land, the approximate size of New Jersey.

It's Israel... and it is said that my father's father stood on a corner, in his Eastern European shtetl of Antepol, Poland, and, way before 1947 and the Six Day War, he spoke passionately about returning to the homeland.  And in these shtetles, Hebrew was the language you studied, but Yiddish was the language you spoke, but he defied that, on a soapbox, in the middle of the square, speaking in Hebrew, telling the people to go to Israel.  And that's what Hilda says.  Hilda said, "he had a million dollar brain with a ten cent screw."  He spoke in Hebrew, a little before Hertzl, and he never went.

I come from seven or eight generations of Rabbis, this lineage of clergymen... it's the family business.  And then my father, with five daughters and no sons... no Rabbis to continue the familial tradition.  I go to Israel with Birthright, at first, one week and a half, and then travel this country for about a month after wards, maybe a little less.

And there's Jerusalem.  It's the biblical city with white buildings that look like chalk, dotting brown mountainsides, and old patchwork stones.  Clotheslines zig-zag in the distance.  And Old Jerusalem, the tour-guides with their red flags and the tourists with fanny packs and orthotic sandals, is over-crowded. Sight-seers and religious zealots jam-packed into this small city.  It's extremism to the max with black burkas and white tzit tzit.  Of course, it's overwhelming and it gives you a panic attack to stand in the center; your clothes cling to you, drenched in sweat, as swarms of people swish past.

The Kotel, this Western Wall, King Solomon's temple, the ideal Masonic form, with pigeons cooped inside gaps in the wall, looking down and cooing.  Folded paper crammed between the slabs, and green moss spilling over.  It's still chaos because there's singing and praying and people walking backwards.  Squat women with long black skirts touch it, their head turned down, bawling.  It's the people, rocking back and forth.  It's the plastic white lawn chairs and it's the pigeons.  First, you wait in line and people cut in front of you, but you wisen up and elbow your way up to the front.  You face the slabs of weathered stone and you're so close you can kiss it.  You look up at this wall and marvel, "This was in the Bible."  (I never read the Bible; I studied it, but that's it.)  And when I'm at this wall, which I studied for countless years in grade school (with pop quizzes and finals), all the sounds hush and I squeeze my folded paper into a crease between two stones.  There's this buzz, like a television set to mute, and this static.  This is my moment with the wall, white pigeons staring down.  When I'm done, I walk backwards because that's what they tell me to do.  "Never," they say, "have your back turned to the wall."

And there's the shuk, the public market, with dates and fruit and nuts, haggling, no plastic bags, and no standard health practices.  The orthodox and the secular, scrambling for last-minute deals, before the Shabbos.

And there's the Dead Sea, it burns your scabs as you float.  Sulphur baths that smell like rotten eggs.  You pay for entry and then you take a shuttle, but I walk because the shuttle just left... and there are signs, water-marks where the sea used to be, and I walk past "1999" and "2000" and then, as it gets closer to the stinging water, "2009" and "2010."  It's too much salt for life to exist...the lowest elevation on this planet.  It's a good 15 minute walk.  And soon, this narrow strip of water will dry up.  You finally reach the water, and people float by you.  And just across the way, not so far-off, there's Jordan.

So, it starts with birthright, traveling alongside forty-or-so Jewish young adults, still gangly and still baby-faced.  It's ten days, going from one place to the next, sitting in an air-conditioned bus, as this massive vehicle snakes around narrow cliffs.  It's hyper-accelerated and it's like speed-dating.  There's no time to sleep or really connect or process.  This is the Wailing Wall and this is the Dead Sea and this is King David's toilet.  And it's a ten day blur of name games and icebreakers.  There's the girl who, every two days, is with a different fellow, and she leaves a messy trail of boys in her wake.  And there are two religious kids and there are cliques.

With no time to waste, ten days later, after beckoning my fellow birthrighters farewell at the airport, I'm hopping trains to Haifa with Tzlil, the armed guard.  It's Goldstars at the pub and the next morning, just before she drops me off at the bus station (where, for the first time in ten days, I'm all alone and my bus is late), I meet her grandma.  She's a holocaust survivor from Hungary and she can't speak English and I can't speak Hebrew, but I like her.  She feeds me fiber cereal.

Why I Hate Betsy Ross

Last minute, Birthright has an open space.  Somehow, I have to get to Philadelphia in four days.  I buy my ticket and Philadelphia is the scariest pace I've ever been.  After my 5AM plane arrival, I shuttle to downtown.  The air's thick and curdled.  There's no wind- nothing; it's still and flat and hot as hell.  I manage to be there for, maybe, half a day, and, in that time, I sleep on a bench, get the stink eye from Betsy Ross (that "patriotic" cow), and become a charity case for a Chasidic family, living in the outskirts of this terrible city.  Shlomo picks me up in his silver minivan and he drives me to his air-conditioned home.  They offer me cold pasta and orange juice and water and bed and shower and I'm ever so grateful.  And thank you.  Thank you.  And their five children and mother and father and in-law and so on and so on.  It's bazaar, but this is Philadelphia.  They drop me off at the train-stop, and I shuttle to the station.  And on that train, I sit next to this Jordanian Jew with frazzled ringlets springing down his back, who happens to be on Birthright also (and for the next ten days, we end up being seat-partners on the bus).

So, that's all I have to say about Philadelphia.  It's a hell-hole, but I appreciate Shlomo and his family.  And yes, I understand the historical relevance of this god-forsaken city.  Yeah, Betsy Ross, I'm including you.  You did a beautiful job with the American flag.  You're stellar.  Good for you.  And although you gave me the coldest, dead-on glare, I'll give you credit for being able to operate a sewing machine.  Or was it hand-stitched?  Regardless, there's needle and thread.  Good going Betsy. 

Anyways, it's from Philadelphia, that I embark to Israel.  It's ten days with forty coming-of-age strangers (and two Rabbis)... and after that, it's three months of something else.  But, it's the beginning that explains everything.  From the beginning, comes the middle, and then the end.  So, this is my beginning.  This is my account of what happened after I encountered that hand-stitching Betsy and Benjamin too, who happens to be a pretty nice guy.  It's my three months abroad, with my squeaking New Balance nine-nine-threes (and why do they always squeak, like I was just walking through the rain...it must be the inserts) and my buckled gray backpack. 

And it begins in Philadelphia.  But, in Israel, it gets a little better.

ATTN: MALAYSIANS

I didn't know it when I did it, but now it's bothering me to high heaven.  It's Durbervilles, not Dubervilles.  There's an 'R' missing.  And I'm trying to play it off like it doesn't matter, like it was all planned.  It's too late to change it.

And wait a second, does anybody else get lots of traffic from Malaysia?  Because, almost every day, I get Malaysians accessing my blog.  And it's usually from sites like badloancredit.com or jenniferanistonpencuro.nicepro.net, where Malaysians get re-directed to my blog.  If you're Malaysian and reading this, please help me understand this weird phenomena.  How did my blog tap into your country's radar?  I'm not complaining in the least.  And, in fact, this whole experience has compelled me to one day travel to your great country.  But, why?  Why Dubervilles, which is a complete failure of a Thomas Hardy reference.  And I'm going to keep it Dubervilles because it's too late and maybe it means something.  But, why Malaysia?

Sounds like a one-night stand

Jean Marc is so darn beautiful.  It's his molasses lashes that curl up into his pale lids.  And his pink lips pout, "I watched my father die for six months."  God, he's grim.  And he blinks twice.  I keep calling him Jean Paul.
He sits next to me on the wood bench, splinters stapling into our thighs, and he tells me that he watched his father die for six months.  Nice to meet you too.  We get along swell and we walk around the grounds of a monastery and a gust of hot halitosis wind (it smells like bathroom here) blows off my straw hat, down into the running stream.  And he dives in after it.  No he doesn't, I'm lying.  He just watches it float away and he blinks.  He's so beautiful.  Isn't it weird that he loses his hat too?  But that happens later.
When does it happen?  I think it's when he's complimenting my teeth.  His face is too close to mine, I can feel his exhale on the ridge of my nose and I can smell his flesh.  He's looking down at my teeth, my gleaming kernels, my pearly whites, telling me that I have the most beautiful teeth he's ever seen, east of the Andes.  It's that moment, him looking down, admiring my teeth, when I kiss him.  After wards, he realizes he lost his hat.  "Isn't that weird?" he asks. 
We know each other for six hours.  I know all about his father and mother and his estranged brothers.  About India and Nepal and those heroin smugglers in Pakistan, who were the most hospitable people you ever met.  At the end of the sixth hour, we're sitting in the open courtyard, just off of the main Khao San Road, drinking a soda and a Singha, and we've already fought twice (I can't remember about what).  And we kiss goodbye because his bus is leaving and I'm going home.  "I'll miss you," he tells me.  And how can you miss someone you just met?  And there's a black-out on the road, while I'm sitting at the last open restaurant, slurping red curry.

And now, while writing this, thinking about Jean Marc, Chelsea comes in, asking me what I'm doing.  "She's a ball of nerves," she keeps saying, and then she adds, "I see that now."  And I keep thinking about that girl, that ball of nerves, with the red rash on her freckled neck and her collar bone; it looks like a hand print.  When we were at the church with the Gothic chandeliers, Chelsea and I partook in the holy communion.  Grape juice and wafer, kindergarten snacks.  But, it's that girl's rash, which Chelsea calls, "a severe case of eczema."

And were you ever speaking to someone and forgot what you looked like?  I remember being in Tel Aviv (or was it Edinburgh?) and speaking to her on my rented cell phone (that I eventually lost) and she was crying and I was crying.  One sloppy sob fest.  The two of us crying like big old babies.  And she's reassuring me, "I'm okay!  Really, I am."  And she's crying in hiccups.  And I'm crying too because it's so damn sad and I don't remember what I look like.  I can give vague generalizations: brown hair, brown eyes, mouth, nose. etcetera.  But, nothing beyond that. 

Before Winter

Outside is missionary-white stucco and a Virgin Mary statue.  But, inside are vaulted ceilings and widow's peak archways.  It's stone and stunning as mosaic light streams through stained glass windows.  The pastor stands at his podium, and speaks in his West Virginian drawl.  And when he speaks, his voice sounds raspy, like a scratched record.  He's talking about Jesus Christ and the apostles, about missed opportunities and the river's ebb.  And he says that Paul, speaking to a jailer, asks "Where is Timothy?"  And the jailer responds, "You did not hear?"  And Paul did not.  "Timothy has been dead for three months."

And the white-haired pastor, keeps chanting the phrase, "Come before winter," and it's harsh the way he says it.  "Come before winter," he says.

I call him, when I'm in London.  "I'm coming," I tell him on his answering machine.  The next day she calls back.  Faye, in her hoarse whisper, asks, "You did not hear?"  "No," I tell her, "I did not."  For three months, my uncle has been dead.  And my bowling-ball gut drops down two stories, rupturing the polished wood floor.

"Come before winter," and the pastor's words spring back and forth, from one stone-cold wall to the other.  And I'm out of place and I don't belong here.

There's the Christian twins with their white turtlenecks and curly bouffants, gold-chain necklaces and cross pendants, who carry clipboards and smile, and you can't tell one from the other.  Four church members stand, two men and two women.  They carry gold-plated trays, Jesus' flesh and blood.  The holy communion.  And wafer sticks to the roof of my mouth and sweet grape juice slips down the back of my throat.

The Stench of Cologne

Lightning Strikes at the Dom Cathedral

You have your key out and you're so close to making it, but no such luck.  At first, you try to stop it, but as water pours down, out of your jeans and into the carpet, you just give in.  "Okay," you think, "I'll pee."  Nobody's around anyway and you're by yourself, except for the blinking security camera, but it just doesn't matter anymore.  The next morning, you're paranoid and you think the people at the front desk are talking about you.  And for the next two days, you walk around with a plastic bag tied in a double knot, carrying your mildewed jeans, still wet with pee.

I hate Cologne.  The first night, I lose my wallet and I pee my pants; it's one bad thing after another.  There's something about this city that just doesn't mesh well with me.   It's bad chemistry.  There's the Gothic back-drop of the Dom Cathedral and it's dark and disconcerting.  Before beginning my trip, I prep for this.  "On my travels, there will be one day, " I tell myself, "when everything will go wrong and I'll be pushed and tested and defeated."  That day is Cologne.

Outside this broken-down hostel, left, and then straight, there's the Dom Cathedral.  It's too tall and when you look up, with your back bent and your neck cranked, you can't see where it ends.  It's frightening, sticking out like a sore thumb, with Gothic ridges and flying buttresses and tinted windows.  And somebody tells me (or did I read it somewhere?) that it took seven centuries to build this cathedral.  And it's just a number, but if you really think about it, that's 700 years of stone-laying.  There's constant rain and thunder and when you look up at the tower, lightning strikes, and I swear you can hear the off-key chords of an out-of-tune organ.

There's always an accordion playing, the asthmatic aerophone, wheezing in and out.  It's usually my favorite instrument, but in Cologne, it's plain old creepy.  Strange men follow you.  And the street performers watch you, and when you sit on a bench, trying to figure out where you are or what you're doing, they play to you.  "Tip please," and they look at their empty jar with puppy-dog eyes.  "But," you try to explain, "I have no money and I'm all alone."

In the city center, stages are built and tents are pitched for a summer concert series.  The three days that I'm there, it's constant sound and disarray.  There's too many people and too much noise and it's just a hot-bed mess of over-activity.  People, red-eyed and jittery, stand around, slurping free cans of Coca-Cola while music blasts from megawatt speakers.  It's too much.  The streets bend and I get lost down narrow corridors.

Down one street, it's pitch quiet.  A car is flipped over.  Shards of broken glass speck the pavement like glitter.  Police officers and pedestrians stand on the sidewalk, quiet as hell- no sirens, nothing- staring at this upside-down vehicle, this mess of twisted metal, wheels turned up, like a dead dog.  "Something is wrong," they ponder, "but what is it?"  And they scratch their chins.

Night-time Finances

Kitschy french curtains and my reflection

Gross.  We're all sitting, all five or six of us; the number changes throughout the night.  First, it's two.  Then, four.  And then five, and the number keeps climbing up.  And we sit in this Japanese-turned-hipster-sort-of-atmosphere, with liquid tofu that coagulates into a solid after three minutes, and bacon-wrapped mushrooms and controversial photographers and aspiring fashion moguls and painted black walls.  It's just a whole mish-mosh mess of people.  And the thick-ankled waitress who, it seems, can't get one thing right.  Poor thing, her energy's off-kilter.  Bad feng shui.  Her bed's probably facing a mirror.

So, we drink too much sake and we drink too much Asahi.  There's too many toasts and one toast, in particular, by the sixth participant, is directed to the Chinese year of the Rabbit.  And that's exactly what she says as she holds up her porcelain shot-glass, maintaining eye contact with the rest of the six-personed party.  "To the year of the Bunny!"  Cheers.  "And what does the rat signify," I ask her.  Rat?  They're confused.  No, bunny.  Oh.  "And what does the bunny signify?"  It's old re-kindled friendships and a whole bunch of nostalgic junk.  Interesting.  And number four, who sits across from me, with his high-tech digital, is snapping somewhat-posed candids, tilting his camera every which way.  And a glass cup falls to the floor into eight or nine shambles, liquid everywhere.  And he shoots that too.  A lightning bulb flashes and everything in this dimly-lit room lights up for a quick moment, then goes back to normal.

Hah!  Then, something happens.  For a second, everyone's very quiet.  Their faces are rectangled-out by iphones, and they're thumbs are too animated, and they dial in twitter-updates.  Something about "Don't sweat the petty things, but don't pet the sweaty things," another toast said by number three, with a lipstick-red turban wrapped around her skull.  And everyone's a bit tipsy.  The bill comes, which is a smaller amount than what's originally anticipated, and I throw a crinkled 20 dollar bill into the crease of the table.  The gentlemen, with their statement-eye-wear, frames slightly too big for their faces, stare ahead.  But, they look beautiful.  And the ladies, dressed to the nines, but lacking any sort of effort of course- like they were born in these clothes, and what's a girl to do?  Change her outfit?  After all these years?

Four of these people continue their evening onwards and the two of us cut it short.  And the night ends up in his kitchen, kitschy French-drapes partly open.  And outside his window is black.

Asparagus and Hollandaise: Finding the Eiffel

Oui, Je suis en Paris (and I didn't earn most-improved French student, three years in a row, for nothing), drifting on the river something or other.  Seine.  Insane on the Seine.  Drinking cheap merlot and eating bing cherries, getting lost, finding the Eiffel Tower.  Maybe I'm sleep-deprived, but when I see that iron lattice, melded at its stiff joints, standing upright, there's this gust of emotion.  I want to cry and laugh and just point at the silly old thing. 

I've been avoiding Paris.  I've dreaded it, especially the Parisians- and prissy little pomps, can you blame them?  With back-drops like this?  Living up to this?  With their handbags and matching shoes, their couture waistbands and oh-so-posh stance, pouting their lips like ducks.  Can you blame them?  Of course not, what a stupid question.  And although I'd rather opt to go to Brussels than Paris, my godmother calls me crazy and compares peas to asparagus drizzled in hollandaise sauce.  And I like peas just fine, but I understand the "it's a whole different ball park, kiddo"  pith.  I get the opportunity to sleep on the River Seine, a friend of a friend, floating right beside the Musee D'Orsay, and how can a girl say no?  Well, she can't.

There's always music, always something, and old stone slabs with ornate carvings.  And here I am, drinking cheap merlot, amidst it all, hormones all awry.  I don't know where I'll be tomorrow, but at this very second, it just doesn't matter because I'm in Paris and tomorrow I won't be.  I'm all alone on this boat, waiting for Olivier and Sonja to return, so we can pop open that champagne I bought for myself, but now am sharing due to mis-communication (in good company, all for the best), and now I'm stuck with this fruity cheap shit in the meantime that's not so bad to be honest (and for some reason I can't get drunk in Paris... but maybe I am, but doubt it).  Your lips get stained and you smile in a dopey way.  Why do Europeans love spliffs? 

I don't know why, but I couldn't find the Eiffel tower.  I was searching for it the whole day, carrying a baguette and fromage around in a plastic baggy, looking for the tower.  It shouldn't be this difficult.  I'm told the Eiffel is merely blocks away, but I spend the whole afternoon (and then some) making three left turns and finding myself back where I started.  I get lost on a high-end street with stilettos puncturing the sidewalk and couples canoodling and toy poodles.  Finally, with some dumb luck (or maybe I just decided to look up), I see it in the skyline, topping over classical buildings of limestone and Parisian balconies.  I twist and turn down allies, searching for the base of this structure and finally, up the parkway and up the path, I reach my destination.

Its iron frame is bigger than you might expect and it's a bit overwhelming because after a whole day of searching, it's this revelation of, "I'm in Paris."  This black iron is Paris, with light shows at night and admission fees.  My tired legs curl under me and, sitting Indian style on the green lawn, I have my picnic.  Dark clouds hover around the very tip of the Eiffel.  At first, it's a drizzle, but soon, it's thunderous and pouring.  Shit.  I'm stuck in this storm, with my soggy baguette, soaking and cold, running for cover.  And fuck Paris, I think.  Fuck it.  It's absolutely gorgeous, but fuck it.  I buy a cheap umbrella and swim back to the boat, and my shoes are soaking wet, and my toes squeeze down into the cushions of my shoe, and cold water wrings out.  When I finally arrive at my floating safe-house, the clouds miraculously clear and, like a Renoir, light spears through silver clouds.

The boat's rocking back and forth and everything's sort of slanted.  It's too damn beautiful for words and yeah, Paris is prissy (with a huge Eiffel stick up its ass), but it's absolutely breathtaking.  And, frankly, the people aren't half-bad.

I'm not drunk, I'm just tired because I'm in Paris and I bought a second-hand book today, Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray."  And I'm numb as a dog.  God, I hate Paris, but it's so romantic.  It really is.  God, I love Paris.  We have a love-hate relationship, but the sex is great.  Oh god!  The sex!  Paris et moi.  Je t'aime.  There's the creaking of the ship, one boat down, it's the painted black "Le Quai" and it sounds like moaning.  Paris is orgasmic.  The long stick of bread, the phallic Eiffel, and Le Quai moaning.

I Heart Berlin

Berlin isn't romantic like Paris or charming like an English sea-side town.  It's grungy and underground, but clean-shaven too, and, because of everything I've learned in history books, a bit taboo.  I fall in love with the city one evening, drinking mugs of German pilsner in Prater Biergarten, Berlin's oldest outdoor pub.  Rows of picnic tables are lined symmetrically, one after the other, and strings of light bulbs criss-cross above your head.  I'm sitting with two substitute teachers from Maryland.  Later that night, we play ping pong in an empty white room, then we get our hands stamped and go dancing.  But at this moment,  with two strangers from Maryland, slap-happy and on-the-verge of sloppy inebriation, I sort of stumble on my words when I pronounce, barely, "I love this city."  I mean it too, every single syllable.  It's the artwork that's tagged on the side of concrete buildings and it's the relevancy, how recent everything is.  In 1989, the wall crumbled down and the east ran west, bottles of champagne spilled in celebration, and, as history goes, David Hasselhoff was somehow responsible.  Berlin is zany in that way.

Right after leaving Berlin, all I want to do is return.  It's my favorite city, hands down, and the people are ultra cool and I drink lots of Berliner.  I travel to the east-side gallery of the deconstructed wall and I get lost in a fenced-in-lot with Carribean music and imported sand.  The streets are studded with curry wurst stands and vintage shops; I like the people and I love this weird city.

Berlin has been divided and broken-down and bombed, but, miraculously, it's transformed itself into this phoenix, rising from its ashes (and in Berlin, there's a whole lot of ashes), an emblem for re-construction and reinvention.  And, although the city is spanking new with lots of cement and mohawks and worn-in combat boots, you can't really escape its past.  On a free walking tour, the very short guide leads the group into a parking lot.  "This," he projects for the whole group to hear, "was the location of Hitler's bunker."  Cars are parked and the ground is un-paved.  And that's basically it.  There's the past, which is very much present, even if it's a parking lot.

And I'm Jewish and my dad's a Rabbi.  Growing up Jewish, you eat bagels and lox, and kugel, and kishke.  When you meet a fellow Jew, there's this mutual understanding, this nod.  We, you both think, share the same ancestry, the same history, and together we were persecuted, and together we were saved.  It's this knowledge that we, somehow, share something and maybe it's Yiddishkeit or maybe it's the holy land, or it might just be that we both eat matzah ball soup, but it's something.  It's the common 'we.' And there's the Holocaust, where families were dismembered and humans were slaughtered.  Survivors come into your first grade classroom and speak to you and they say, "I survived, but there's this number," and they show you their inked wrist, numbered like a bar-code.  And this amazing city of Berlin was the epicenter, the blinking control room, for Nazi Germany.

When I'm there, I don't think about it much.  There's too much happening in the present.  I'm above ground, where Hitler's bunker is land-marked, standing next to a sea-foam green hatchback.  "Alright," it doesn't process, and then I'm off, walking to the next historical site, following the absurdly short tour guide.  After being home for several months, looking back, the city's very strange and very far.  It's similar to when you're so close to someone and then, all of a sudden, you're not.  A falling out perhaps.  Something happens and that person becomes the furthest and strangest human being to you and you think, "Who are they?"  That's the way I feel about Berlin right now.  I'm conflicted and confused.  I still love the city, but it's different now.

My last day in Berlin, I take the train to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.  There's a huge concrete tower before you enter the premises and there's a memorial garden with butterflies.  Weeds disguised as yellow flowers grow rampant.  There's a gift shop with souvenirs and, for a pound, you can purchase a map of the grounds.  When I first get there, sludging through the mud, tourists pose for pictures, smiling in front of the tower.  This place, which symbolizes death and human cruelty, has a gift shop and smiling tourists with flashing cameras.  After you enter the iron gates, it's quiet and isolated and spread out, so that most of the time, you're completely by yourself.

When I first arrive in Berlin, I don't know what to expect.  It's overcast and a dark fog creeps low. You can't see much, except for the tall pin-needle of a building, several kilometers away.  The city's history precedes itself and is eerily present- it's in the skyline and in the fog- and you think: 1940's Berlin, this must have been hell. 

Cawabunga

Two 50's girls in the 90's

All Allisons have dirty blonde hair, stick-straight and shoulder-length.  They make lanyards and friendship bracelets and chain-read "The Babysitters Club."  This is a fact.  And all Staceys, Chelsea says, are a little bit older, have braces and boyfriends, and wear scrunchies. 

I say "peanuts" a lot because it sounds like "penis," and it's so funny and everyone laughs.  When Chelsea says it, she gets in trouble.

Chelsea and I collect stickers and our favorites are the oily ones.  And Pogs too, except we don't play pogs, we just collect the slammers.  Chelsea notes that for two weeks during the Summer of '94, jacks make a comeback.

Playground bullies named Kimberly with pigtails and spandex shorts befriend me.  I'm not sure why, but playground bullies always like me.  And why are all playground bullies named Kimberly, and bigger than everybody else?  But, I'm small and puny and don't speak much in the classroom.  I chase boys around the school yard and I watch too much Power Rangers for my own good and, like every other girl on the playground, I'm the Pink Ranger.  I like all the boy Rangers, especially Tommy because he has a ponytail.  My first kiss is caught on our VHS video camera, during my 4th birthday party.  His name is Alex and he always wears a pirate hat.  I'm eating pizza when he kisses me.

HeartThrob is our favorite game, although I'm pretty sure we never play it correctly because we never actually use the board.  We just look at the cardboard photos of, as the game alludes, 90's heartthrobs: there's Chad (I like him because he plays frisbee with his dog) and there's Chip (Chelsea likes him because he plays football and has a nice smile).  Our babysitter likes the muscle guy, who Chelsea says looks like a Brad, but he's not our type.

Chelsea has the hots for Macauley Culkin in Home Alone 2, "a big fan" she says, and JTT is a dreamboat and so is that boy from the Sandlot. 

Hopscotch and cat's cradle... what else?  Handball, the best game in the universe and your fists are red and smell like burnt rubber after.  And I'm the queen of sliceys.

Chelsea and I put our All4One cd into our boombox and blast "I swear" while playing the Nintendo game where you shoot ducks (hindsight, what a violent concept) and Sega Genesis, Sonic the Hedgehog of course.  And what about Fruit Roll-Ups and Gushers and Corn Nuts?  We get the variety pack of Corn Nuts and the ranch flavor is the best and the original is the worst, and for some reason, eating a package of Corn Nuts makes your mouth really warm.

For countless recess marriages, I am granted the privilege of being maid of honor.  There's one marriage in particular where Fawcett, the girl who's named after a household appliance, marries a chocolate bar.  The service is very emotional and the reception is out of this world. 

We raise villages of sea monkeys and, one day, my best friend spills one of our thriving communities all over herself.  As she stands outside in the sun, dead colonies of sea monkeys drying into her floral frock, she sobs uncontrollably.  (Chelsea and I still have yet to forgive the stupid bitch.)

And tamagotchis, where I realize that I'm cruel and press the punishment button a lot.  And furbies too, after years of abandonment in the garage, the batteries still work and the little creature opens its eyes and talks to you when you walk by.  Chia pets also.

And Sanrio, those flexible pencils and flavored erasers.  Sleep-overs where girls chant "Bloody Mary" in the bathroom, lights turned off, and then try to defy gravity with "light as a feather, stiff as a board."

And the funniest interactive joke in the world: Spell PIG backwards and then say funny.

Summer camp with counselors who have white sun-blocked noses.  Roller blades and hair wraps and turtlenecks with french braids.  Legends of the Hidden Temple and Salute Your Shorts and Strawberry Shortcake and Ninja Turtles.  In the hot sun, you suck Otter pops out of a narrow plastic tube and it makes you cough. 

Thailand

It's complete filth, complete infestation and grime, crawling with all sorts of microscopic creatures.  And you wallow in it because you don't really have a choice.  And the streets are lined with shit and pee and curry-paste and the pitter patter of tourists and locals alike.  And yes, I'm filth.  I rot into the background with all the others, somewhere in between pavement and ocean.  And it's raining again- and all that filth accumulates, grows, sucks in the moisture and it speaks to you.  And at first, it sounds like grumbling, a machine, a vacuum two houses down?  But, if you stop and it's quiet right after the rain, the heavy downfall, and then the silence that follows, you can hear it as it speaks to you, opening it's hot mouth, "Drink, sit."  And the shop-keeper glares at you, opens her wrinkled mouth and echoes, "Drink, sit."  And you do.

Kanchanaburi Tales: Peeing in the River Kwai

I'm sleeping on a boat that's floating on the River Kwai.  I'm a little star-struck because in Ms. Conner's high-school film class, I watched 2/3rds of David Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai."  It was segmented into three class sessions, but I played hooky one day.

The floorboards are damp and creaking and the toilet is a hole in the boat.  When I'm peeing, I think about Ms. Conner's film class and about how six years ago, I'd never guess that my urin would be spilling into this muddy river.  Life is funny that way.  It's weird to think that I'm now part of the Kwai, that somehow I raised that water level a milli-milli-milli- centimeter, if that, and part of that H20  is me. 

The boat is long and narrow with Christmas lights strung around the ledges, curling around columns like ivy.  Every day at around noon, food is served on deck.  It's chicken curry and white rice and steamed vegetables.   And for some reason, Michael Jackson always seems to be playing on the speakers.

One evening, after a very long day of getting lost and bus-taking, I meet the chef, a rusty old Thai sailor.  He chain-smokes and doesn't speak much.  Coughing, he wipes his mouth, and pushes a bowl of meat chunks towards me.  "Very good," he nods, then coughs again.  "Okay," I say and smile.  The cut of meat is slightly cold, but flavorful to the max.  I chew it for a couple minutes, then swallow.  "Very good" I reiterate, but he already knows this and he's too busy coughing.

There's the front desk clerk, a 30-something year old guy who's shaped like a box.  He sits in a wooden cubicle that's located in an isolated corner, transfixed on his glowing computer (apparently there's decent internet connection on the River Kwai).  He shows me pictures of himself dressed in uniform.  Border patrol between Thailand and Burma, he announces proudly.

Earlier in the day, before I get lost in the tourist-trap of Kanchanaburi and take three buses back to the boat, I'm standing on the bridge over the River Kwai.  Too many people stand on it at the same time and the iron-skeleton sways every which way.  It's too hot to bear and motor boats flurry past, but this is the same bridge that's in that movie I saw two-thirds of in my high school film class.

Chocolate, Beer, and Estrogen

I get there five minutes late.  He's pale-faced and and has a small pointy nose, and he walks to the left and drags his right because of a coma he had ten years back.  This isn't how I remember him being (actually, I don't remember him at all) and I feel sick when he approaches me, smiling, and says, "I didn't think you'd come."  And then a little bit later he asks, "Remember what I told you about our kids?"  No, I lie. 

There's something very womanly about his frame and demeanor (and it might be the female hormones that he injests once-a-day because his throat doesn't produce them).  Mostly, it's his feminine arms and stomach.

He shows me around his neighborhood and we eat doner kebabs and there's a slab of Berlin Wall preserved and displayed in the street.  I take a picture of it.  Later that night, I'm drinking Orval and he's drinking Diet Coke.  He talks a lot about himself, how he likes to sing and how he wants to move to Toronto in five years.  He stops talking and I ask him if he's had a drink since the accident and he says that the taste of alcohol makes him sad and I'm on my third beer.

Brussels is confusing.  It's metropolitanized and French and Flemish and German.  It's a conglomeration of cultures and with the E.U., it's difficult to decipher what Belgium actually is. 

It's good beer harvested by monks and great chocolate and too much of the two makes your cheeks tickle. 

I meet Andreas on the train from Brussels to Berlin.  It's very "Before Sunrise" and he's my Germanic Ethan Hawke, or so it seemed.  He schedules me into his digital planner while out-of-focus scenes of the green German country-side swish past his head.  In three weeks, at 2:05 PM, we'll meet at Place de Luxembourg.  He grabs his empty suitcase from the over-head, and beckons goodbye.  Before hopping off the train, he runs back to my seat, on a last-second whim, and, fucking everything up, whispers, "We're going to have three kids."  Just like that, and he disappears.  I wish he didn't come back and, although I'm willing to pretend that it never happened, it unnerves me. 

When you're all alone traveling, people you meet on the road become romanticized into warped perceptions, false realities.  It's not until later, after the initial rush of human interaction, that you sober up and realize that maybe you're just a little bit lonely.

The Majorcan and the Garden Shed

A portrait painted by the Majorcan

London's cool to the bone.  It's the trendy and the hip with posh accents and Top-Shop nonsense.

It's fun and cultured and somewhat pretentious with pub-crawl ambiance and bad British teeth and tea time (which probably contributes to bad British teeth) and distinction and colonization and Manifest Destiny and just a whole bunch of scrawl.

I take the Metro from Picadilly to Wimbledon, get off, Oyster card in hand.  There's a lot of young white people and there's the flower guy outside the station.  There's the expensive grocery store that I'm boycotting and the line of narrow houses, a kid on a scooter and a public bus.

It's the narrow house with the metal planters that Robert calls the "silver caskets."  Inside the house are a bunch of rocks in drawers and cats on prowl.  The Majorcan artist is in the garden (*side note: the Majorcan artist is always in the garden).  Albert has a twitch, smiles too wide, and smells like primer.  His work is strictly portrait and he's in the garden, painting.  I walk to the back of the yard, past the chicken coop to Albert's studio, a converted garden-shed.  I knock on the door just to say, "I'm here."  He shows me his masterwork in progress, naked clawing bodies desperately stretching across three large canvases.  The bodies have dark under eyes and ugly mouths and they look at you.

"Fantastic," I tell him and go inside the main house, open a cider and sit at the kitchen table, thinking about the ghosts in the house and what's for dinner.
Later that night, Albert and I make crepes, drunk on cider and white wine. 

An Allegory

On a black stage with black walls and a black floor:

Two people are sitting on wooden prop chairs.  They're facing the audience, sitting at an awkward distance from one another, so that it makes the audience uncomfortable.  (Without say, two separate lime-lights on the two separate chairs.)

"It's just peculiar," one audience member notes to another, "that two chairs should be so removed and distant from one another.  And on such a small stage for goodness sake!"  And she coughs and takes a breath mint.

So, back to these two chairs and the two people sitting on them, one boy and one girl.  And the dialogue begins with the boy.

I tried calling you.

You did? 

Yeah.

I didn't get a missed call. 

It went straight to voice-mail.

Why didn't you leave a message?


(Nothing.  A shrug at the very most.)


(Pause) I heard about what happened.  It's awful.

I know.

 Are you okay?


No.

(Pause)



You should have left a message.


I never know what to say.

Well, you should have left a message because then we would be speaking and I wouldn't have to stage a fake conversation we never had.

Next time, I promise.

Okay, good.

Calicatt

When she cusses, people cringe.  "It's just not right," they mutter.  And they're right, in a way.  It's because there's something so darn innocent about her, but if you really stare deep into her dark round eyes, there's something sad and wise and orange and a stripe of green, tiger-eyed, a silky luster, like a playing marble.

And poor girl (except she's not a girl, she's full-fledged and devastatingly breathtaking).  And you wouldn't guess it, but maybe you would, that she's been in the back of a vehicle with sirens screaming, all sorts of contraptions plugged into her, lying down, torso up a little, gasping.

And she's been on the brink of the very worst, and she's faced the very darkest, and, at times, she's prepared to accept the very empty.

But, there's this glimmer when she looks off into the distance in her romantic way, the wing-tips of her mouth rise up a little- and it's not smiling, and it's not smirking, but it's the beginning of something.