stel

Stel didn’t know what was down there, and she didn’t know if she ever would. She just knew it was magical.

Every night when it would get dark, these shining lights would come out. Small, shining lights that glimmered, that twinkled especially when you stared at them for long enough. Clusters, small and large; some so small they could be a speck on her glasses, some so huge that she was sure there was life down there. There must have been life down there. Or was it just a sprinkling of light?

The others would believe her, probably, if she had told them. But if she told them about the lights she’d have to tell them about sneaking out down to sit on the clouds. Well, not sitting, per se. Whenever she tried to sit on them she slipped and part of the cloud fell through. She had taken to floating on the clouds to avoid that, but sometimes she forgot.

Sometimes she imagined voices in the lights. Sometimes she heard music, rhythms and sounds so smooth she couldn’t help but close her eyes and hum along. At times, she could swear the lights moved, but for the most part they stayed the same… and Stel couldn’t tell what shape they formed. She decided it kind of looked like a cloud. At least it looked like the clouds she had seen.

She probably shouldn’t have encountered that many clouds either. The others didn’t need to know.

She dreamed, sometimes, of going down there. Of dancing with the lights, of meeting their master. Maybe one time she would slip through the cloud and let herself fall.

meeting etgar

(It feels like a disservice to be writing this in English, but that’s where I am at this point, so it’ll have to do)

I met Etgar Keret in June 2014, when I was in Israel for my brother’s wedding and then to work for the summer. It was one of those happy-go-lucky days in Jerusalem—the sun was shining, the shuk vendors were shouting at full volume, and there was no war going on (yet). Things felt right as I walked into the small bookstore at the end of Emek Refaim St.

It was time for me to read a book in Hebrew.

A full twelve months had passed since my gap year at Nishmat (an Israeli seminary in Jerusalem), and my Hebrew was getting (how you say?) rusty. I am a Hebrew-speaking Jew at my core, but also at my core is my identity as a writer. My ability to express myself in English helps me clarify what I think and who I am, both to others and to myself. Meanwhile, my Hebrew skills were borderline decent, considering thirteen years of Hebrew education. By my gap year, I was able to get by in a cab or order food. But Nishmat was a time to discuss, to discover through exchanges of language and delving into texts. I had plenty to say and plenty to delve into.

I opened my mouth, racked my brain, and hoped something came out in Hebrew that made sense.

It didn’t.

Or at the very least, I hoped, I’d understand what was going on.

I didn’t.

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sitting still

You’re
Struggling against the silk threads, still
Struggling though you wish you’d let it
Be your cocoon, for a little while, just
Let it tie you up and fly you up with dragon kites
And clarify

The strings that you attach to him
They’ve tied you up, it seems, still
Have spun your mind completely, still
You won’t find the answers, child, in these tangles, that
Or the child you were and don’t remember when
You’ll struggle ’til
At once you’re sitting still

And maybe soon you’ll butterfly…
Stay still and let it tie you up.

ADD TITLE LATER (an ode to midterms)

Fffalling tripping drooping letmejust
finish one last sentence that’lljust
make sense cuz I tucked rightintobed
Wednesday right orwasthat Monday night
maybe it was morning but there’sstill
no time like the present soI’llclose
my eyes, I’m fine, one quicksecondand

What Shakespeare meant by his first line I do
Not know if culture’s independent of
My grades which are not slipping as fast as
My hands right off my keyboard staring at
A bright blank Word screen make it less than one
Full page the timer beeps it’s time for break
ing up my lines deadlines long passed I think
It must not matter if the rhythm sleeps

Threee days more ‘till bed
Twoo more hours of sitting
One more question will the haze stop because
Fffalling makesense drooping letmejust
More bed it’s more ssssitting

**be sure to edit before submitting**

a toast

pardon me, honored
wedding guests and the like
if you would take a moment from
your distilled brews
your crafted brows
your beeswax candles
your stage-managed tans
your shining shoes
your sparkling dresses
your neon drinks
and the cold air blasting through our hearts meanwhile
I’d like to break a glass–

here here! to the exile!

writer’s block, take 2

My writer’s block is a block
Wooden and small enough to focus on.
Six sides meant to teach someone somewhere something
Somehow.
So, inspiration?
Frustration.
Damn.
Okay.
Okay. On one side, the red letter A for
An anthem? Answers? A guide? To?
A blue Q on the other side, for
Questions?
“Ask questions and—”
And?
Stare intensely and intensity might spark out
Right? Center on the bold colors on the
Pure and light and simple wood and
Hold it in your hand and
Are you ready?
No?

Of course you’re not.

Come out at 2 a.m., slightly buzzed
On a left-over loose-leaf notebook
Saturday night, bizarre
With one roommate dozing and
One light on

Turn the sharp corner
But it’s—
No
Forget it

Stop thinking. Just
Scribble, jot, don’t stop to dot or cross
Look away from the block

You’re not ready
So go

as the cold of snow

I’m supposed to leave here tomorrow night but I can’t go, I think as I look out on the warm, gold glow from the new old streets. I may not be able to leave. I have a ticket, though. For a flight that is supposed to take off, but it might not. There’s snow coming in and the country is reacting like it’s under attack again. Come to think of it, this seems to be worse. I may not be able to leave.

“If there’s a place in this world that can make you cry, isn’t that where you ought to be?” Daniel Gordis asked. If a place can make you cry, you may not be able to leave. The only way is to freeze your heart, freeze it colder than the snow about to coat the streets, colder than the floor on your toes as you walk out to get one last look at the nof at night. If a place can make you cry, you need to freeze your heart. Freeze the tear as you zip up your bag and tell yourself you’ll be able to take off. And as you board that plane and think of the warm, gold glow, your tear will melt and swell in your eye.

I may not be able to leave… but if I do, I hope to God I’ll be able to come back.

should have, would have, could have

I’ve always wanted to be able to tell people that I work in an aquarium.

Not because I like fish or anything. To be honest, I haven’t been to the aquarium since a class trip in fifth grade, and that started with a series of unfortunate hair-pullings between Amy Fildner and me and ended with gum in Amy Fildner’s hair. I did what I needed to clinch my rightful victory. Mr. Hasser disagreed.

I didn’t get to see much of the aquarium.

No, I don’t work in an aquarium. But I’d tell them about being flooded by light, light reflected through water, and serenity, and things I can control. I would tell them I wave to a whale when I get to work, and then maybe wave to a shark. I wouldn’t tell them I feed the shark, because I like to stay alive in my fantasies.

I would tell them I’m an astronaut if they’d believe me. I’d tell them I was the first woman on the moon, and I’d accuse them of being sexists when they don’t look that impressed. I would tell them that the night before my last trip, my husband intertwined his fingers in mine and said he would miss me.

“I’ll be back soon,” I would tell them I’d said. I would tell them I kissed him softly and whispered, “See that up there? If you just can’t make it, you know where to find me.” There would be a wink in there. I would tell them there was a handsome astronaut in the International Space Station that tried to woo me by giving me a flower, or a packet of space mashed potatoes, or something. But I stayed faithful because I love my author/dancer/doctor husband.

I would tell them all of that, but no one would believe it. I pant when I walk down the stairs, and, more often than not, I trip on my way down too. I also don’t have a wedding ring, or a tan line where a ring would have been.

Sometimes I want to tell them I’m the CEO—or CPO, or maybe even CPEFQO—of a business. It’s a hedge fund in New York, I’d say, one of the biggest hedge funds in the world. I would blush when I’d tell them that my cookbook, Balancing Success and Diets, just made it to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, to show how humbled I am. I would tell them that my assistant spilled coffee on my dry cleaning yesterday, but I forgave him because the mistakes I made built me up to be the person I am now.

I’d base the details of the spill on a stint last October when I accidentally poured a cup of coffee on a customer. The customer was a real asshole, and she wasn’t so happy about it. I would have responded better, especially if it was my assistant who spilled coffee on me, and if I was a CPEFQO.

“One day,” I’d tell them I told my assistant, “You’ll understand what I mean.”

wearing on the edges

The dust is gathering on the shelf around me, and I really wish someone would open a window. No one’s opened me in months. I worry I’ll forget what it’s like to be looked at. I’m not in the shape I used to be.

It wasn’t always like this. Usually, at least three or four times a week, her hands would pull me by my leather binding. Right when I got off the shelf, she would use her other hand to support my pages. She would blow the dust from off my cover each time, even if she had taken me out earlier in the day. She would hug me to her chest, cross her arms over me, and carry me to the orange velvet couch.

My first memory is with her. It was dark right before I met her, too. She ripped the paper from my face and smoothed out my leather. Her hands were soft and warm. “This will be perfect,” she smiled.

Soon afterward she filled my first page and started opening me daily. “This is his first time eating solids,” she started saying. She would touch her hand to my pages, careful enough not to leave a strong print. She would giggle. “Isn’t he wonderful?” Then, “He’s a great big cousin. Look at that!” Then, “His English teacher said he never would, but I knew better!”

True, during that other stretch of time when she didn’t open me, I learned to get used to the silence. Or so I tried. Luckily, one day, she took me out and smoothed her hand over my leather again. She opened me, and this time there was a young girl there who had never been in my pages. “This is his first time eating solids,” she smiled, pointing once again. She laughed. “He asked me not to show you the ones of him in the bath!”

The young girl pressed her finger to my page. “That’s you?” the young girl giggled at him. He nodded, his cheeks flushing red. They flushed the same color on their first date. “He was so nervous,” she would say when she showed that one. “Aren’t they just adorable?”

She started to fill me with images of the girl and the boy. Soon, the girl wasn’t a stranger anymore.

And then, “This was their first dance! He swept her right off her feet.”

And then, “He looks just like his father! Look at the way he curls his toes!”

Her hands started to feel colder on my pages. Still, every time, she would blow the dust off of me and smooth out my leather.

The last day she took me out, it was more slowly than usual. Her grasp was weaker, and her hands were shaking. “This was his first time eating solids,” she sighed. Her voice was shaking too. “Wasn’t he wonderful?” The girl, older by now, leaned over me and a drop of water fell on my page. Then she closed me and pushed me back on the shelf. I’ve been there since.

Except I feel something on my spine now—is that a hand? Yes, it’s her hand! She pulls me out with two hands, takes a deep breath, blows the dust from my cover, crosses her arms over me, and carries me once again to the orange velvet couch.

extended service

I wrote this two years ago, during the Aseret Yemei Teshuva while I was in seminary. Not much has changed… besides for my phone, which is why I’m publishing this now. Mom, the phone survived for two more years.

It fell in slow motion. One of those moments where I knew it would happen, but just kind of assumed it wouldn’t. My phone bounced off the rim, glided through the air, and fell in the toilet.

A gasp slid down my throat to the pit of my stomach.

It bobbed there for a second before I jabbed my hand in and grabbed it out. Automatically, I cleansed the phone, patted it down, and cushioned it in a bed of therapeutic rice. Once I took a breath and acknowledged my phone was on its way to recovery, I sat down at my kitchen table and played back what had just happened.

I grabbed that phone in a split second.

Don’t think I would’ve reacted that quickly for human life. Hehe.

But wait. Epiphany #1. Would I?

I chuckle, hope the water will seep out, and pray my nervousness won’t seep through.

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