Skipping stone

Lately I feel like I am a skipping stone. I never truly land, never quite drown: I just skim the top of the water, grazing the water’s surface feeling what it could be like to be here, there and over there. With each little skip and jump over the ripples of time, I awake and wonder will I sink, float or finally ride this wave in to shore?

One month ago I was thinking of leaving this country, waiting for another job to come through and take me away. Two weeks ago, I returned to Spain realised I didn’t want that job at all and that I was home in Spain. A week ago, I decided it was a good idea to go back to grad school for art. By the end of last week, I became an environmental inspector and will be climbing smoke stacks to take samples of air contaminants. Today, I sit reading Royal Decrees in Spanish and wonder where next?

All I know is all this skipping is wearing me down and I don’t feel as if I have control over where I skip to. Something started the impulse and I just have to ride it out.

Surrealing

This morning as always I woke up late, showered, got dressed and made my way to the garage in the basement to get my bike, Millie. I put her in first gear, ascended the multiple ramps, pushed the button to open the door and as it opened I proceed once again up another ramp towards the light of day. I squinted as I come out of my dark cave and people stood and looked surprised that I was only a meer biker and not a car.

Some mornings I like to listen to music. This morning was one of them. So as I began biking I fuddled around and tried to get those darn buds in my ears. Listening to music while biking allows me to disconnect from reality and bike in a sort of fantasy world.

I laugh out loud to myself as I ride along thinking of, I suppose, surreal thoughts and scenarios.

I decided that perhaps I should let you into my sick mind. Afterall if I find it so funny maybe so will you...

My first thought is a frequent one I have. It is this strange fantasy where I slap or pinch the arse of an old man. They seem like they are everywhere in the bike lane and are really just asking for it. I would just love to see an old man's face after a young lady like myself performs a drive by arse slap. This morning I thought about the old man's possible reaction and that of his old man friend. In my fantasy he gasps as he is molested and his friend turns to me and gives me a hand gesture of tisk, tisk. I ride off cackling.

As I pass cool looking people I always think it would be super cool to do like a drive by high five. I would scream "High Five, man" and these cool dudes would give me some skin. That would just rock.

This morning a public bus pulled into a bus stop and about 20, 17 year old boys got out. I pictured them all coming over to me to give me a good morning kiss on the cheek (I am not perve come on) and then skip off to their school.

There are always a few men selling packages of tissues on the street to stopped cars. This morning one man was walking to his post. I was thinking of how great it would be if I could give him money for all his tissues. So I imagined handing him the money and then tissues raining down on me.

Of course sex comes to mind in all of this and as I ride I intermittenly think about..well you know..afterall I do have a sort of phallus symbol between my legs.

As I almost arrive to work, I must cross a black and white striped painted cross walk. I picture that it is the back of a zebra and he lifts his head and tells me to have a nice day.

When I do arrive I come down through the cloud I was on during my commute. I greet a mother that is holding her childs hand taking her to day care. Her child is floating like a balloon, she too, I suppose is in her own fantasy world.

When I "land" at work, I park and lock my bike, swipe my card and return to reality. Hola, buenos dias.

To the screamers....

This is dedicated to you, the one screaming "here I am". "Listen to me and tell me I am special". I just recently moved my blog from myspace to blogger and became aware of all of you out there. Last night when I shut my computer, brushed my teeth and then shut my eyes, I could still hear the murmurs coming from my laptop. They are the murmurs of people, like me, not satisfied with their status quo, not recognised by their bosses or spouses for their achievements... So today, I want to say to you, my friend, you are special, you are doing a great job, you are worth so much in this house or company and I want to challenge you to tell someone today the same. Maybe hokey but I think it deserves a pokey...

A love haiku

arise pheonix
from cinnamon ash, divine

crimson-gold embrace

Reflections On The Road Not Taken

I find that through out my life I have nearly always chosen the harder path, purposefully selecting studies, activities, etc. I fully knew were going to be a tough climb. It was my thought that to challenge myself was the best way to grow and test my limits. Some of these choices have been fleeting adventures (like climbing canyons, knowing I am afraid of heights) and others have become part of my current life. Some have made me stronger and have opened my eyes to reality (working for the US military and in the Baltimore ghetto) where others have, in retrospect, become more detrimental than positive.

Lately, I have been thinking about this way of proceding through life. Perhaps at times it has some merit but I also believe that in other instances it is just putting stumbling blocks in front of yourself. There is merit knowing where your fight lies within the path of least resistance. Maybe there was a reason I got lousy grades in chemistry and good grades in art.

At the time I believed, sadly to say, that my art was not as valuable as hard science and that there was more merit and future in science than there was in art. So I chose a science degree. I did enjoy science but perhaps not as much as I loved art. Art fed my mind and soul where science just my mind.

Before writing this blog I browsed the internet to read Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken. I now see that the road less travelled is often our own and the merit lies in knowing and admitting it and, even more so, having the guts to take it.

A surreal poppy

poppy in the wind
red headed beauty, laughing
ant climbs out its mouth

Faklempt and soon to feel gefilted

Every day there is a volunteer that ensures to remind me that I am a stranger in a strange land. At first it was endearing and I know that they mean it with the sweetest of intentions but day after day having to explain which state you are from (Haha New Jersey, Nueva Jerse Hahah) or that no Americans don't carry weapons or only eat hamburgers gets a bit tiring.

I am not only an American but I am a Jew in Seville. I admit to eating shrimp however, I try to avoid the forever present ham. Here, apparently it is considered a vegetable, the equivalent of parsley for Americans. I will tell you if you are a Jew in Spain, you will never win the battle against the pig. This snorting beast always wins. I know there is no logic in eating shrimp but not pork but I think it is perhaps out of pure spite over the inquisition that I try to prevail over this creature and those that nosh it.

The following days to come are the hardest for me but I have to admit have proved over the years to make for the best culinary escapades and best learning experiences. In one week from today it will be Passover. I will explain to my Spanish friends that it is the last supper of Jesus and they will look at me bewildered. Through out the week I will be "slaving" away in my kitchen making everything from scratch. For me it is in this culinary process where the true meaning of passover lies.

Many of my relatives back home think I am insane for trying all this from scratch. They are used to buying matzah and matzah meal that comes in a box but I make my own matzah and matzah meal, gefilted fish, matzah ball soup, haroset, etc... trying to blend sephardic recipes into the meal. This is where the true meaning of the holiday in my opinion begins. It is where I begin to feel and understand the past of my ancestors, not only those in from Egypt but those that lived in Poland, Russia and Spain.

Matzah is a flat unlevened bread that must be made with in the limits of 18 minutes. I don't know what rabbi came up with this freak time-frame but in order for it to be Kosher (in this case fit for eating at passover) you must race to kneed it, roll it, prick it and throw it in the oven. This makes for all the fun and where you truly understand how the Jews must have felt racing against the clock to make their breads and get the heck out of Egypt. I usually burn myself a half dozen times and end up cursing a whole lot, as I am sure Miriam did. I have learned that it takes a mega hot oven and a preheated baking stone (or even better, an upside down terracotta pot) to get the task right.

As the Jews of the (far and near) past had to make due with what they had when forced to move, I too have had to make due. After a long search for carp and pike I have come to the conclusion that mixed trouts are just as good for the gefilted fish, if not better. I especially love the orange color that some of the them can give to the dish (but could forego poking out their eyes). Homemade, hand ground matzah meal also gives the dish a much better taste. I have to admit that I think my gefilted fish rocks.

Haroset for me is now a persian, sephardic recipe that I love that mixes pistachios, dates, hazelnuts, fresh ginger, cinnamon, wine, walnuts, almonds, apple and pear.

This year's main dish: Morrocan roast chicken.

My family often wants me to come home for this holiday. It is true that it is when I feel the most lonely and the most different. However, I have to admit New Jersey and New York Jews have it easy: stocked selves with boxed matzah and jarred gefilted fish. There is something to be said about feeling Jewish together but being Jewish takes on a whole new meaning when you are the minority (as we often have been and usually are) the odds are against you and you must explain time and again who you are, what you stand for, yes, hava na gila is Jewish, that no you are not always in agreement with Isreali politics and that there in my tupperware is called gefileted fish. Wanna bite?

This blog is dedicated to my loving father.