Well December was eaten up by the country of Israel. A place so incredible and always so dear to my heart. I belong there, if I belong any where, if belonging has anything to do with looks and genes and the rage of jewish mothers.
I miss it again already. Like a brother, Israel is my brother - it is the most fraternity I feel for any particular nation of people.
My wandering heart, as usual, is torn by the people I have loved and love all over the globe. My heart has a map inside it, a spinning wheel of places that matter and sting with emotion, like a jeopardy wheel - who will I feel and think of next? Spin it. Not just places but faces that in themselves are placeless except that we all belong together, my virtual community of dear ones.
Moonlit nights in Jerusalem on the back of a motorcycle...I'm holding tight. I'm holding tight in my head.
I'm back in Chicago (a little over a week now,) where I have my own beautiful apartment and completely autonomous life. I feel a split inside myself...I'm opening the house of my soul up and letting a crying little girl walk out. The little girl has been fighting with her mother since she could speak. The little girl has been crying since she could make tears and screams and casualties inside her mind. It's time to love her. It's time to calm her down and let her play and enjoy being a cute little girl. I love kids and my inner kid, I definitely love my inner kid. Time to forgive my mom for thinking that little girl was less than awesome...it's that tiny, pained, dazed little fighter inside of me who still gives me much of my strength and insight.
There was a point when we were walking through several thousand year old ruins in the North of Israel that it became clear that I simply can't take it any more. Maybe this was the problem: I was used to heart break since childhood. My mom was always my heartbreaker. That's just how I saw and felt it for many years. I could never be good enough, I could never line up inside those blurry dotted lines, wherever they were. Mirror mirror on the wall, love me. Implicitly, heart break was normal. Not just heart break but the breaking of myself into little insufferable pieces. Painful little shards that just yearned to form a whole. Whole
some
of us are luckier than others. But in the end the power is in the hands of those who take it.
