Post Purge No. 2

Soooooo annoying, my last post was meant to be three completely different 6-word sentences, each on a new line. That is how I entered them, but that is not how they were published - a continuous run-on format! I tried to edit but the powers that be would have none of it. The best I could come up was to add a full stop at the end of each sentence. I am in a writing group and we meet once a month. A few months ago one of the members instructed us in Haiku, and we tried them. I loved the distillation - right down to the essence. On Sunday she introduced us to the 6-word memoir, and again, I love the form. The distillation, and that is what I wrote post purge. Of course my purge itself is a distillation, getting down to the absolute essentials of the 'stuff' that surrounds us. A number of people were horrified that I had thrown away both photographs and my journals. I listened to them and understood their sentiments, but I have harbored no regrets. The purge is continued - and I will report again!

Post purge no. 1

"A lifetime's memories in the trash." "Here and there, garbage is everywhere." "Memories have dispersed, floating in ether."

Purge!

I am not sitting with my head over a toilet bowl, nor am I drinking the latest cleansing liquid diet. The last few weeks have been a time of enormous serenditipous changes in my post retirement life. I did get my certificate in life coaching, yay. Cannot believe I embarked on, and completed this course, but I did, and I have a certificate to prove it! It is well known that the Bay Area, in which I have resided for an undisclosed number of years, is now probably the most expensive area to live on the planet. I am not exaggerating either. I have lived in my present apartment, which I love, for 21 years! Longer than I have lived anywhere in my life. The rent is raised every year, and pretty soon, retired me will not be able to continue to live here. Well, as a remarkable stroke of kismet would have it, I will be moving into an affordable rental just 2 miles from where I presently live. I am extremely grateful for the way this all worked out. I still have two months beore I move, but I have begun purging. Lodged tightly between the legs of a table I had bought at the Ashby Flea Market many years ago which is in my basement, under shelves containing obscene numbers of suitcases, is a trunk full of memories. Today i decided to begin my purge. I moved empty boxes which friends have brought me in anticipation of my move. I moved suitcases, I moved shoeboxes and cans of paint. I moved a rolled up piece of foam I had used as insulation under the garage door. I moved and pushed and hauled, and eventually I was able to pull the trunk toward me. Seated on an ancient little wooden bench which I brought from my cottage in Rockridge. I opened the trunk and began to go through, and throw out, all the years of my life. After six hours I threw away about 5lbs of slides (remember those things). I don't think they can be recycled, so into the trash they went. Thirty pounds, at least of photographs - South Africa, Greece, London, Europe, Recent, ancient, Montenegro, Mexico India, Israel, Israel, Israel. Family, friends, friends' children, friends' grandchildren, wedding photographs, photographs of tombstones, photos from work, my 'babies' - all gone into an enormous black plastic trash bag. Then came mementoes, I had made collages from the ash fragments of the fire in Oakland, I wrote about the Loma Prieta Quake, so many events - the change in South Africa. The Gulf War in Israel -- photographs, articles, all commemorating these historic events, all gone into the recycling bin and the trash. Clothes to go to Richmond Rescue Mission, soap molds to go to schools, crayons, paints, meditation benches, yoga bolsters, all gone. Do we need to hang on to all our stuff, our history, our memories? Hopefully the lessons we have learned, those we loved, are with us, in our hearts, our bodies, our minds and souls, until we too, move on. The great eternal mystery. All gone1

June

How did it get to be June?

How did Donald Trump come to be the presumptive republican nominee? I will not go there. All I know is that he will NOT be the next President of the United States of America.
Much of the last few months of this year were, for me, taken up by my eye! My left eye.
I suffer from glaucoma and for some unknown reason the pressure in my left eye, after having been stable for more than a year, skyrocketed. I underwent a medieval torture treatment known as needling, in which a needle was stuck into my eye and the doctor, whom I love and adore did something to the 'bleb' he had constructed in surgery a few years ago. If you don't know what I am talking about, that is fine, you are lucky, and you don't need to know. The long and the short of it all is that for at least six weeks my eye hurt and my vision was blurry. I only drove very short, well known distances, and spent minimal time with anything that has a screen. And while this was going on, Trump trumpeted, bullied, whined, lied, manipulated ........
My eye feels much better and my vision has cleared, and I pray the pressure stays down.
Other things happened. I completed a certificate in life coaching and now have to make an appropriate website for my new services!
I also became a groupie. Currently I am in an art class, a writing group, a spanish speaking group, and an enneagram group!  Me, who abhors any kind of group activity.
I had a cousin stay with me and then I went to Chicago for a few days. And now a nephew is staying with me and we are cooking, listening to music, watching movies, and discussing all matters pertaining to the arts, to life, and to death.
I feel this is a time of changes, the level of intensity seems to be revving up even more than it has been. I feel buoyed by a swift moving current and am doing my best to stay afloat ...

Dissonance

Anyone who has read at least some of my posts knows that for quite a long while I have been grappling with concepts of time, space, memory. Part of these constructs must include for me the dissonance of having three distinctly separate, yet nevertheless merging, identities. The South African me,  the Israeli me,  and the American me.

This morning I received an e-mail from a Yom Kipur war widow. She addressed it to Israeli war widows stating that she is writing a book on the sadly ongoing effects of the Israel Wars from a women's  perspective. She is interested in knowing how we were told of what had happened, and how it impacted our lives. She also is interested to hear how we were affected by our new status of being 'war widows' and how this aspect impacted society's response to us.

I have written about this in some form or another, whether it is in journals, or essays, or books, over the many years since.

Now I realise  that at first I was too young and too shocked to fully absorb the affects of the war. Mercifully, I feel, a shock absorbing buffer surrounds us. With the wisdom of hindsight I can now see how the war itself, and the shock of being widowed,  has affected my  every decision, whether consciously or subconsciously, since.

Even receiving the e-mail this morning has thrown me out of my routine, such as it is. It sent me whirling into the realms of memory and remembrances; of the places I have since lived in my life, of the work I have done, of decisions I have made or not made, such as buying a home. The very idea of that kind of permanence scares me. Since coming to America 36 years ago !!!!!!! I have lived with the ongoing ambivalence of not knowing whether I will live in America, or go back to Israel. An indecision that is with me even to this day, this moment, in fact. How can I put down roots anywhere? What does that even mean for me? to put down roots?

We lived on a kibbutz. The first few years after the war I was really supported by the community.  In fact, I still am. They are the only ones who truly can  comprehend those dreadful times  After a few years,  I began to feel that there is a stigma attached to being a war widow. Society wants the woman to remain faithful to her hero husband who died defending the state. It is frowned upon if she begins a new relationship - for a few years at least. Then after a few years it is suggested that she must form a new relationship. These rules of appropriate conduct are only implied of course, not stated or written, but they begin to impact one's life.

After a few years I felt that I had to get out of the kibbutz.  And I did, I left Israel. As soon as I left I felt free, I could just be me, Nesta, not "Nesta the war widow" or "Nesta of Rafi, who was killed." . I could have a life of my own, noone knew, or would even understand what had happened to me. At first this felt liberating, but later it began to be alienating. It is comforting for me to return to Israel and to be with those who know and understand, even if we do not speak about it.

This year in October it will be 43 years since the war, and its effects still reverberate in my life, and in the lives of everyone in Israel, even for those for whom now it is yet another war  in the  history book of wars.

What is Wrong?

As Trump continues on his roll I wonder what this says about 'the American people.'

I have always been opposed to the use of those words 'the American people' or 'let the people decide' etc. as if the inhabitants of the USA are one homogenised bunch. Really.

As for Trump, I know the talking heads and pundits all say the american people are angry with the current status quo in Washington, blah blah blah. These are the voices and the votes of fearful ignorant people. People who are petrified of anyone different from them - people of color, people of different faiths, poor people, rich people (except for one who keeps trumpeting about how rich he is.)

This weekend a crazy white man shot and killed 6 people with whom he had no connection, in Kalamazoo. No one made a fuss. It was barely mentioned in the press. I am sorry, but that shooting is an act  of terror of which apparently the american populace are so scared of.  But the shooter is not a Muslim, and he wasn't shouting for jihad,. That does not make him any less scary. He is a homegrown terrorist and no one worries. I just don't get it.

This week Frontline aired a 2-hour piece on the heroin epidemic. Now that so many addicts are white, well off, and educated addiction is now understood as a sickness. The addicts are no longer imprisoned. However, the prisons are still full of non violent offenders from previous epidemics.

Does noone remember the crack epidemic?

Something is indeed very very wrong with this society. In the wealthiest country in the world there is a sickness of spirit that pervades all its people and is becoming worse and worse. It is this sickness of spirit and fear of everything that paves the way for the lunatics.

However, I HAVE to bear in mind that it is not everybody, and hopefully some sanity still prevails.

Iowa Caucuses

Cruz, Trump, Rubio ----- to wake up to the announcements of such a triumvirate

Remember GW's triumvirate of evil? Here they are, alive and doing well in these United States of America.

United States? what a misnomer


!!!
Misogyny, misanthropy, misinformed

Come on, give me all the mis's you can think of