Practice vs. performance — how do we know the difference?

The Portland State library has been cleared by Portland Police. Among the dozen or so protestors arrested and removed from the library, only four were actually students. The school has an awful mess to repair and clean up.

In other news, here’s a photo from the series Humans of New York, of someone at Columbia University.

Is he student? I don’t know. But he is clearly davening (praying) in a Jewish manner and garb — kipah, tefillin, eyes covered (perhaps he’s saying the Shema). No tallit, which is interesting. Behind him are protestors, presumably pro-Palestinian. This photo is uncaptioned, and so I have questions.

— where’s the tallit?

— why is he praying there?

— does he pray there, outside, on non-protest days?

I fear that this is performative. And if it is, how useful is it, really? Will other Jewish students see it and take heart? Will non-Jewish students see it and be offended? Is this for the media?

I have so many questions.

For fuck’s sake.

 

Heart, broken.

https://www.wweek.com/news/schools/2024/04/29/gaza-protesters-occupation-of-library-puts-portland-state-university-president-in-difficult-position

I hate not being able to work.

Sweetie had her first chat with someone in Marketing at her largest writing client today. She could not get a commitment as to whether or not she will be contracted for the 24-25 season, and although we are both choosing to be hopeful about how the discussion went, I admit that I am nervous for her and for us.

I went on Craigslist to look at part time job listings.

It’s pretty tough. They want delivery drivers, Pre-K teachers and  who can lift, carry and drive. I looked at a couple of office listings and they want someone who is waaaaay more computer-literate than I am AND who has a vehicle and clean driving record (both construction-oriented companies). I found a writing gig that I will check out, though they want a pretty steady content output (daily, minimum 500 words, on topics and in style of their designation) and I worry I cannot type that long each day.

In short, I am feeling pretty useless these days and between all the medical things and my highly outdated skills, I cannot figure out how on earth I would qualify to do even a half-time job.

Sweetie doesn’t know I went looking on CL — the last time she found I’d done that she scolded me and told me to stop because it would just make me (and her) crazy.

But DAMN. The things I used to be able to do, where they’d be glad to have my know-how, I cannot do with my body anymore.

I can’t even go downtown or to the airport and busk. 

It’s highly frustrating, and a little scary.

She was asked to send the client a copy of last year’s contract and a couple other things. She likely won’t hear back before mid-May. I am breathing fully and counting slowly to ten a lot so as not to stress her out further. We’re fine for now and the bills are paid, and SNAP and Medicaid take a load off, but things can change in an instant. 

It’s weird thinking I’d found things I could do nearly forever and suddenly not being able to do them.

Meanwhile, any decision on my disability claim is likely months off.

I am so messed up about identity these days.

I know that saying something like that out loud is risky in today’s climate.

But to be honest, I also don’t feel like I have as much at stake within the Jewish community as many of my friends and colleagues.

Living a life mostly on the Jewish margins has given me a different view of things. I understand, after getting to know other Jews, that many of my friends grew up in the comfortable center of Jewish life, with synagogue membership, religious school, Jewish summer camp and homes located on neighborhoods that were predominantly Jewish. Who wouldn’t feel clearer and more secure about their Jewish identity, and their place in the world, as a result of all that?

Growing up as I did in working class neighborhoods, in schools were I was often the only Jewish kid and, for a year in middle school, was bullied specifically for being Jewish, even as I felt removed from Jewish communal life and had little knowledge of Jewish history and no sense of Jewish connection. My parents did nothing to instill Jewish “pride” in me and my sister — indeed, the emotion of pride was reserved for one’s accomplishments, not for identity. There was some vague vibe connected to Zionism where my mother was concerned, but the only time I ever got a glimpse of it was when terrorists invaded the 1972 Munich Olympics and murdered Israeli athletes. Mom sat in front of our TV set and cried. She could not explain her tears to me, nor did she expect me to feel as she did. I was horrified that anyone would sully the Olympics that way, regardless of whom was a harmed or killed. I saw it universally. I would have been horrified no matter who had died. She took it personally, Jewishly, in a way I could not understand or claim for myself.

At age nine, I did not stop to ponder that she might feel lonely in her Jewish grief. We were, after all, uninvolved in Jewish community at the time.

It’s strange to find myself in a similar space, but on the opposite end of things.

I do not feel specifically Jewish grief. Growing up as I did, left to my own devices emotionally and philosophically by hands-off parents, how could I? I see this as a universal tragedy, as horrible as when the  Tutsis and Hutus were at war in Rwanda. My parents didn’t drill the Holocaust into me as some “special” kind of suffering or hardship; while it was specifically Jewish and horrible, it would have been worse for many more people, Jewish or not, if Hitler had won. 

I know that this sounds crazy to anyone who was raised Jewish, or who chose Judaism and embraced a love of Israel with the fervor of a convert. I get that. But I continue to feel a detachment from the whole thing, an overwhelming desire NOT to embrace this too personally. I was bullied for all sorts of reasons growing up and very often my Judaism had nothing to do with it. (Kids can smell weird a mile off, and they’ve always been able to.)

I feel weird, more than anything else.

Right now, I am equally repelled by the pro-Palestine crowd and the pro-Israel crowd. I feel I have no place among either. I feel repelled by the vehemence of the emotions at play, the violence of feeling, evident in the crowds on both sides. And I am not a violent human being. Having been bullied, I shy away from aggression.

So when I read, and reread, Frederick Foer’s cover article in the April issue of The Atlantic a couple of days ago about the decline of Jewish safety in America, I felt myself at something of a remove again. I understand the importance of Israel’s existence intellectually, but I do not feel strong emotions of connection and love for Israel on a personal level. 

I have held too many uncomfortable questions in my head about the origins of Israel statehood, and the displacement that was sadly necessary for it to come about. Was it really necessary? Did the world’s Jews have any other options, in a world where other nations did not want to take them in? 

At the same time, I can only shake my head at the repeated refusals of the Arab states that controlled the Palestinians to discuss sharing the land. Neither side has wanted to talk for a very long time, and far too many who are really invested in this endless conflict seem to want it to go on. 

All I know is that, when Jews in the United States stand together to sing “Hatikvah,” I am uncomfortable in my heart of hearts and almost always have been. Israel is someone’s, but it is not mine and has never been. If America is also not mine (for another set of reasons), it may well resonate with my discomfort at nationalism in general. It is hard enough to stand tall for a country that treats women like second-class citizens — still! — and came up with “don’t ask, don’t tell” as a workaround for queer equality. I can barely handle being tribal, let alone nationalist. The total stuff of who I am — my history, my brain, my orientation and my sex — have long pointed me towards another way. And while it has been a lonely way, at least it’s honest. I’m not sure how willing I am to trade that honesty for a community in which to belong, especially if the stakes for belonging are so fraught with assumptions on what makes a good this or that.

After reading this article, I feel like I’m lousy at being all sorts of individual, specific identities these days. I feel the separation that comes with clinging to an identity at the expense of being able to live in the whole world. I have loved living a Jewishly oriented life, but I also chafe at the constraints that it places on my ability to be fully in the rest of the world. I can pick and choose, like people often do. The result has been that I still don’t fully belong in — or fully relate with — any of them. 

Perhaps that’s normal for all human beings and I just feel it much more deeply. Perhaps my peripatetic youth laid the groundwork for a life where I would always question so much about the way we conduct ourselves in the world. In the end, it may not matter. I simply don’t know right now.

Vaguebook

It is hard to know how I’ll move forward without being able to work. It’s hard to know who I will be.

A good friend called me out of the blue to say hi and see how I’ve been doing. It was lovely talking with him. And it inspired me to take stock online of who my friends actually are.

I went to my Facebook account, and looked at all my “friends “ there. Now, I do understand that there are algorithms involved, and those control what I see from my Facebook friends. But I also know that if a FB friend wants to contact me, there’s nothing preventing them from doing so. 

So I took a long, hard look at my “friends” list. I noted the names of people on that list who were there for professional reasons, but whom had never interacted with me on the platform. And I deleted — “un-friended” — nearly all of those names. 

This removed over 150 names from my “friends “ list. People who may have been professional contacts, but who were never actually my friends. 

Deleting these names brought me no real sadness. Instead, I was surprised at the relief I felt. Just as I’ve been letting go of professional goals I will now not realize, I’m letting go of names that have been, largely, only that.

I’m still sad about not being able to play guitar, of course, and I probably will be for quite some time. 

But I understand that I cannot sustain the energy, the hustle or the professional persona needed to do this work anymore. So letting go of these names is a part of the bigger letting go, the time of making space for whatever is meant to come in next.

So I remain in the bardo for awhile longer. 

To be awkward is to be authentic.

Passover is a little crazy for me this year.

I’m struggling for meaning.

I’m struggling for relevance.

Everything feels up for question right now, for many personal and global reasons.

I’m grateful for my beloveds, who are holding me in ths moment when I lack clarity.

I’m grateful for the beautiful green world, the a sweet affection of our cats, and the calm blessing of living on a quiet street.

I’m blessed to be able to spin my legs on a bicycle, to bask in the sounds of music and to rest when I am tired.

And I am grateful for a message I’d scrawled in my notebook a few years ago when still in the deep dark of the pandemic, which has come back to remind me now that I can only be where I am:

To be awkward is to be authentic.

So I am sitting in my awkwardness ths Passover, missing pieces and skipping over that which I cannot find relevant and paying attention to my body and heart a lot more deeply. I am sitting with the cognitive dissonance that comes from being tribal, and clinging to the hope that comes from being human, and if this is all I can do, it will be enough.

Wishng all my friends who celebrate a zissen Pesach — a sweet Passover.

In the bardo

I read something today that suggests I’m in the bardo, a place between phases of life, a waiting place.

It’s scary. It’s full of unknown. 

And I don’t know how to live with the unknown.

I am losing so much right now — my most of my music making, my ability earn a living, my physical vitality, and really a strong sense of myself. I don’t know who the fuck I AM right now, and it’s terrifying.

I’m living in this void while the world around me continues to move along with the functions and rituals I used to look forward to with delight. Today, they feel empty and pointless. I am SO filled with sadness and loneliness and disorientation that all I want to do is sleep or cry, with moments of functionality (like cleaning house or doing laundry) in between.

I know that I’m not being a great partner to my Sweetie right now, and I’m sure it’s no fun for her while she is working so hard to support us both. 

I’ve tried going back to things that I used to enjoy greatly, like bicycle-oriented socializing, but they don’t fill me nearly as deeply now. I know that physical activity has s good for my moods, but I cannot do it consistently when my hands hurt so much and so often. I don’t understand what is going on and I don’t know how to deal with it.

I’m in the bardo, a place where, according to Wikipedia:

“ Metaphorically, bardo can be used to describe times when the usual way of life becomes suspended, as, for example, during a period of illness or during a meditation retreat. Such times can prove fruitful for spiritual progress because external constraints diminish. However, they can also present challenges because our less skillful impulses may come to the foreground, just as in the sidpa bardo.”

I feel like I went into the bardo during the Covid lockdown, fighting like hell on the way down, and have only recently sunk all the way into it. I can’t fight anymore, but I don’t know how to be still. I don’t know how to be still and receive whatever I’m meant to receive and all can do is flail.

How much of this is waiting for the new meds to take effect? How much of this is the unmasked ADHD? How much is depression which isn’t responding to whatever drugs I’m on? How much of this is autoimmune illnesses overlapping and compounding each other? I keep thinking that if I knew the sources of all this, the intersections and everything, I could pick one thing and start there. But all I keep coming up with is sadness, depression and occasionally wishing I could just die already. Because living like this, sick and slow and unable to physically work my shit out because everything hurts, unable to work it out through music because I can’t fucking play instruments without hurting, and honestly I don't know what my life is FOR right now. And I don’t know how much longer I can live this way.