Living Tisha B'Av: I Feel Bleched

Next week I am moving. And so is the rest of the household. Two months into my sojourn here, we received notice that the owner wanted to sell the house. An "off-shore" owner had bought it, as many do, as an investment, and the market was hot. It never ceases to curdle my brain that a hot market in reality, deals, when all is said and done, not in brick, mortar, wood, stucco, reed, paper, cloth, stone or tree, but in bodies. Usually a body count.

This will be my 5th move in 8 months. Starting with the most wrenching- from LA and all felicity and possibility and my dearest friend, then here in the clouded dead of winter in a motel, then a hard narrow cold couch and a paranoid lunatic, then this house in the verdant hills with the soaring blue green trees and playful swallows and the holy silence and transparent air and ..... descending into the next incarnation of nomadic "homes"- a cramped, lightless, noisy townhouse complex in a suburb. I have sworn over and over again that if I ever landed in such a place I would slit my throat or jab hot needles into my eyes.

I ain't no starving artist- not writer nor journalist pursuing a distant dream- I am a divorced woman without family all alone in a place where she would rather not be, tolerating the curves life has thrown lately- or should I say, for the past 8 months. It does make one pause.

Today, when I returned to this place, I learned that several people had tramped through- the future owners, their kids, the contractors, measuring. I was not notified. And all I could think of is that this one space that I rent was not a space I owned, even with rental- I thought about my rushed exit, I thought about my "unmentionables" strewn around the room, and mostly I thought of how when you live a nomadic life, not much belongs to you. I comfort myself with the idea that though sometimes annoying, it is ultimately okay. What matters is not the stuff or how it is presented. Judaism has tempered my view.

I don't want to move I am not good at moving. Bring on the hot needles! I don't want to deal in the midst of this primal upheaval, with Tisha B'Av either. I don't want to fast, and I don't want to mourn. I have mourned enough in the past year. I don't see myself sitting on the floor, barefoot (will my storage regurgitate cloth shoes???) reading (in English) or listening to Lamentations, mourning the destruction of the Temple and all the incredibly tragic occurrences coinciding on the same anniversary. I am living Tisha B'av, my homes keep getting destroyed. And though the Sabbath is a "palace/sanctuary in time" (Heschel), let's face it, when you realise that there is a corner on the street reserved with your name on it, just in case, along with some bags and a shopping cart, (and everybody has nightmares about it), you dearly long for some prosaic drywall or plaster, to have the luxury of dreaming the rest. Lately, I have noticed that all paths have been leading farther and farther away from my Jewish home- just call me, "Jewess Flux".

Contrast Tisha B'Av with the miracle of the Six Day War- and I think that things cosmically balance themselves out a little. Though we may not have been returned to a physical Temple we scored an outer wall- the real deal. You lose a home, you win a home, more intensely spiritual, perhaps, because of the original losses and because of the effort. The Shechina follows us into exile and suffuses our historical remnants, when we return. Somewhere there is home and the promise of home. There is Abraham and his seed and the stars and the vast vault of sky......and G-d's promises, such daring and grand visions.....oh my. Fast forward to the last century: more moving than anything are photographs of liberation soldiers at the Kotel(Western or Wailing Wall), of liberation non-believers weeping at the Wall or touching it or placing prayers into its stalwart seams. I am okay with Jews who only see a cultural artifact. Just save it for us and preserve it. So we can continue to pray there......and I will settle for the remnant rather than nothing at all.

Nothing much remains of my life here, where I was still married, where I lost so much. Except that my ex is now working in a civic place that I visit. Feh! A remnant I can do without. The destruction of continuity, stability and future remain vivid to me emotionally- such memory is heavy, it is grave, it is baggage. My Vengeance Demon key to breaking the curse is simply that I hate it here, I will never adjust, I'm hauling too many steamer trunks, I left this town a long time ago.

Sukkot is my fave festival. It reminds us that we live in temporary, fragile shelters. But oh my, those shelters can be damned enticing, with their transient felicity, prosperity and abundance. I can't wait for Tisha B'Av to be over. I dread Yom Kippur even while Rosh Hashana tags along to kiss us and make it better. I am ambivalent about being barefoot so soon again. I have sinned bigtime, but I have also endured a wasteland. Where to find the balance? My sights are set on Sukkot (I've discharged a .22 in the past and I am a crack shot).

The festivals roll on as they have for millennia and whatever happens, whatever my choices, I know that whether I transgress or not, there is comfort and stability in the continuity and the knowing- in time. This is something that is not provided elsewhere in this evanescent world. Way past the well-oiled and claustrophobic descent into smaller rooms.

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My (non-Jewish) friend remarked the following on my new address:

I like the 66 too. Can't help but be amused by the closeness to the Christian 66 anti-Christ.

This was my response: just got back- got the belt (for the vacuum) got the challah, got some chocolate and a vanilla coloured raw silk pillow for 7 bucks- i am heavily into white- some blueberries and cheap smoked oysters (so not kosher- the mollusks)*- haha about the "belt problems" - unreal, huh? (she was having them , too)- the blech was because i am moving down in life going to this noisy cramped lightless townhouse- and YEAH!!!!!!! BIG HONKING awareness of the 66 designation and I was NOT AMUSED - the end of days for sure, soooooooooo close.....

oo a care package- i am touched and could use one......i love surprises!- tonight XXX and i go hunting for free boxes at the mall- blech blech and double blech- also unbeknownst to me, the people who bought the house came thru AGAIN!!!!!!!! with the contractor- to measure and i did not know and left all sorts of stuff including unmentionables strewn about the place- this time i am not amused

- still,.......it's a gorgeous day tho rather HUMID

XXX is taking me to storage on sunday so i can store my rug BECAUSE IT DOESN'T FIT THE CAGE I AM GOING INTO , and other sundries

am going to services sat morning- the rabbi is back- blech

i guess today i am really bleched



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If you happen this way before that time- Shabbat Shalom to all! And may you have an easy fast.


* I am working my way up the ladder of observance of Kashrut (so C!)- it's funny, you start with small things (though giving up pork was major for me- I did it to challenge my desire for answers, with emunah and bitachon, but a yen for Virginia ham with my eggs benny, or a stack of BBQ spare ribs smothered in sauce still haunts my days- it was all so yummy...) ......over time, somehow you find yourself wanting to do more- fueled not by will, I believe, but by G-d's desire- so, yeah, I still eat mucho treif but I eat far less of it. Sue me.