Photos

Photos. Picture-perfect memories. I remember things with my camera. I cover my wall in moments. They snapshot the people and remind me of the smiles I love.

For me, the photos are the memories and the moments. When I have a picture with someone it means we have been together enough to care. Five years ago I had to steal a girl I barely away from our choir to stage a photo shoot for our school newspaper - my best friend now, we haven't stopped taking pictures of and with each other since.

One of my dear friends and I have spent three years never being in the same place at the same time with a remembered camera. Granted, we live on opposite coasts for most of that time, but although it's become a point of humor, it saddens me that I don't have pictures of her. My photo albums - the physical photo ones, not the internet-facebook albums - are pored over and shared. I grew up with my father proudly showing albums from my childhood; I loved seeing all of the moments, being told all the stories.

This is why I want pictures - to share the memories and tell the stories. I want to show my albums and share where I have been and what I have been doing the past three years of my life. I want to be able to point to friends, to places, and say, "Look, this is where I was at this time; this person changed me, and when this picture was taken we were doing this."

To tell the story - to know my friends.

Memories

Memories. Walking ghosts. Living in the moment and walking through the chill. Sitting down to eat and suddenly, suddenly being accosted by the old friend, long gone, now sitting beside you. The people you are with fade as faces grow stronger, your memory erases the moment you live in and you fall into the past as the laughter grows stronger in your ears. You blink and they live in space no longer, a loud noise and your friends have gone - Whispers are all that remain.

Spinning

Spinning and dashing and tumbling around,
Earth is heaven and heaven is ground.
Up now is down now is side to the side
Who knows what what is, you're along for the ride.

Standing at center to feel the earth spin
Looking up at the stars to begin
The ridden the rotten the rising the new
The many the pumpkins the okra the few.

Little all pieces are falling through time
Fall into place in this life that is mine
Cheetahs and okra and brown curly hair,
all will go walking to Scarborough Faire.

Acharei

I'm not prepared to write about this, let alone have coherent thoughts to myself.

There's a lot of good play material in here. Each verse of Leviticus 18 seems to be a conflict. Perhaps that is why it is a commandment. I mean, what good would it do to have a commandment that was, "Breathe in and out"? Not much, seeing as how it is an involuntary process.

But I can think of instances where some of these taboos have become acceptable. And near all of these are explicitly stated, no interpretation necessary.

So at what level do we read? And why to we keep returning to these passages?

I can't answer these questions for myself yet, so I truly don't think that I can answer them - or offer an opinion - for anyone else. I hope one day I will be able to.

Metzora

The first portion of Metzora is spent detailing the rituals for the diseased person at the time of cleansing, and the first part of this lists an extremely detailed procedure. Yet following these directives comes the line, "If, however, he is poor and his means are insufficient..."

Even biblically, not everyone can be judged equally nor held to the same standards. Allowances are made for each individual. This is something that I need to try to remember throughout life - to treat every person as their own self, without comparing them to others or trying to make them live up to each other.

And then again, I am trying to make my living in theatre. What is theatre, and what are auditions, but comparing people against each other? How can these two views be reconciled?

I resolve the dissonance thus: If two chefs were making me dinner, I could pick which I think tasted better. Thus are two actors giving me a product to judge (The fact that the product is their own self is subject matter for another day), and I am to give a professional opinion on that. I will judge their character, then, not in relation to each other, but against some standard that I have to create for myself. Unfair? Possibly. But do I judge myself on this same standard? I try to.


Everyone has different priorities and standards. This week, as I and friends bemoan the lack of people building on the lot, I need to remember that. I cannot expect everyone to suddenly pitch in effort for this one thing I see as important. Everyone is contributing in their own way, even if I can't see it just yet, and even if I think their priorities are trivial - it is theirs to decide. I can decide for me, and only me.

After all, if I am not for me... who will be?

Tazria

I have never had leprosy. What do the strictures of disease mean to me? If I find a physical affliction on my body, I am going to the doctor - not the priest. And yet that is who I am directed to go to.

Yet there is a link. Just recently I have avoided a project that I needed to accomplish, not urgently pressing at start, but then very much so. Worry about this project soon caused me to loose sleep, and lack of sleep increased stress and until, the day after I finished the project, I became violently ill. I spent the next 27 hours in a fever-dream, floating in and out of wakefulness, welcoming sleep as oblivion. When I finally awoke, I realized that by putting off my responsibility, I had caused myself to become sick. Perhaps, then, there is reason to talk. A medical doctor could have told me I needed more sleep, but what I truly needed was to examine myself to find out why I had avoided this responsibility in the beginning.

In the modern civilization of the twenty-first century, it is unlikely that one will break out with an infectious disease without others being aware and treatment occurring. Perhaps, then, it is time to take the lessons of Tazria less literally, and focus on the smaller physical aliments.

If I had isolated myself earlier, I like to think, I would have spent my time in isolation finishing my project instead of ill.

Maybe next time I'll pay more attention to that sudden acne - enough to cause an introspection for the cause, at least.

Seder Moments

Why is this night different from all other nights?

I am three years old and the table is set for four. My mother, father, and grandfather are gaping as I look at my haggadah and read. My little sister isn't born yet but my mother has been so busy she forgot to teach me the questions. I don't know that I'm not supposed to know how to read, so they stare at me in shock as I ask.

She-b'khol ha-layloht anu okhlin chameytz u-matzah...

I am five years old, sitting in a seat made for a larger person, kicking my heels in the air. To my right and left are classmates, bouncing along or bored as per their nature, as the blonde woman with the guitar tries to get us to echo back. I am bobbing to the rhythm of the chant, ticking my head back and forth to mimic her eagerness.

She-b'khol ha-layloht anu okhlin sh'ar y'rakot...

I am seven years old and my sister is proud as anything to take over the questioning. I am sad that I no longer get to sing my song, but I sit quietly and listen and help her through the tricky parts.

She-b'khol ha-layloht ayn anu mat'bilin...

I am fifteen years old. We have a new cousin and a new tradition and old, old haggadahs as I sift through the yellow covers to find the crayon-scratches that mark it as mine. My sister now is the one who helps with the tricky parts as I flip through my book, trying to remember coloring it in. I can't.

...afilu pa'am echat...

I am nineteen years old and at my first college seder. The rabbi's daughter climbs up on her chair and leads eighty undergrads in a rousing chorus of the Ma Nishtanah. Everyone sings along and applauds her as she finishes.

She-b'khol ha-layloht anu okhlin bayn yosh'bin u'vayn m'soobin...

I am twenty-one years old and am laughing as we turn the page. Mah nishtanah ha-lilah ha-zeh mi-kol halaylot? I know why this night is different from all other nights. Tonight as I sit reclining I am connected back through the years and back further than that. Tonight we are all reclining and remembering, and tonight is the tradition that reminds us: I am free.

Tonight I say once more, Baruch ata adonai elohenu melech ha olam, shehecheyanu, v'kiyimanu, v'higiyanu laz'man hazeh.

Keychain

I have a keychain hanging on my wall. The keys are almost the least important part of it, because for as long as I can remember, I have wanted a keychain filled with charms and keys. Keys open and allow, but the symbols hanging next to them describe and tell. Although to be perfectly fair, I have many keys on this hook as well... despite the fact that some of them are purely for ornamentation, as I no longer know what they open.

171. The shop.
34. The heavy heavy doors.
55. The cage.

I used to think people were so amazing for being able to tell apart the keys I thought were identical.


Then I realized they were numbered.

Decisions

Weighing weighing lead and butter, slippery slope it's sliding on. Never knowing which side of the rainbow you'll land on, or what if anything will shatter if you do. Tenuous.



Nuclear blaster bomb going off. Holocaust great white and everything anew. Blanket shock and nothing is evermore the same is red is black is bleak is bare. Nuclear blaster bomb going off, who knows who will show on the other side of the great white fence (oneword.com).


I wish I could draw the images in my mind.

Shifter

Put me in the old place,
Take me from the new.
Tis a brilling and a pithy lore
of old and new and yen.
Tis of the Maddning crowd, good sir,
With hats and cups and ken.
The cobbled river, bird o grace
is standing in the sky.
And who would ever think, my friend,
A lowly mirror flies.
The dappled street all right to left,
the ice in summer time,
the heartache, headache, toothache too -
All serve their own rhyme.
To see the cat, all stuffed and fat,
is standing on the sea -
A pit of endless, depthless shock -
The cheetah is now free.
Not a paragraph, not now
reflected in the shine.
Catch the mem'ry, save it now -
Look at me - tis thine.

Time

There's never enough time do to the things you want in life. Timestop what you do now - run jump skip climb mountains read books? What is stopping you now but the knowledge that you must do it.

What would you do if there were no repercussions? If you knew that you would be fed, healthy, and sheltered no matter what? Would you join the circus - I've thought about it. Would you climb a mountain or write the worlds next famous novel. Would you wander the cities or travel the globe.

And what is stopping you from doing it now?

A year goes by in the blink of an eye
The grains of sand slip faster.
One more thing to do or say
Skip the sonic blaster.

Being the war into the flow
And let it slip away.
Catching grains of endless gold,
Year by month by day.

Changing slipping going now,
Diamonds into dust.
What must you to fix it now
and rub away the rust?

Keypad

keypads punching number buttons
click clack click clack
hello mister george h jones and company
pluck pluck pick out letters
write what you know no don't no know
and right it write or a tyop typo click clack
keypads punching number buttons
0100101101

Classic

Have you ever gone canoeing? It’s kind of like that. Well, actually, it’s not like that at all, but if you try to think of it like canoeing it might be easier for you to understand. Okay? But not like the kind of canoeing you did at camp. Canoeing from the beginning – from making the canoe. First you have to chop down a tree. Yes, a full-grown tree, you’re not actually doing this, just go along with my metaphor. Then you have to hollow it out. So you start by chiseling out down the middle. And it’s hard going to begin with, you have trouble making headway and you don’t think you’re getting anywhere. Just when you think it’s hopeless and perhaps you should either chop a new tree or abandoning the idea of canoeing altogether, you get a phone call. Or something. So you turn away for a second to answer the phone. And when you look back, you realize, you actually have made a dent in that canoe. So you hang up the phone and put the chisel back to the wood, and have at it. And you burn some wood away, and chip more out, and sand it smooth. And after countless hours and more effort and investment that you can measure, you have the canoe. But you don’t know if it will float. There’s still that possibility that somewhere in there you messed up and broke something. Or you chiseled too much, or too little. And it might sink, it might float, it might roll upside down in the water. Or even worse? You might have used the wrong tree to begin with.


Pearls on a chain, on a strand around a neck. Cut glass for red wine at a dinner, shimmering of the chandelier hanging above. Old? Ancient? Humpback whale.

Bedtime

Working late into the morning, sleepy eyes being propped open with little cross-hatch sticks, blinkyface bluuring reality. Wide open lion face, arms rolling and popping at the joints as gravity lets go for a moment and they pull out, out, out. And soon, going to lay me down to sleep and the face is rained before a closing catharsis.

 

Red mahogany walls, high and gleaming around the shining parquet floor. Ballgowns sweeping, swish swish sweeping over the dance floor, a sea of colors in time with their partners' tap tap of the shoes. Pearls and wine, a dinner ball.

Spaces

Spaces filled with words and thought, spaces filled wth light and emotion. Dance is the form, watching the negative space fill. The negative space, the space we don't inhabit with out bodies. But if you could look carefully at that negative space you would find it positive - positvely filled with connections and links, hopes and dreams, wishes filled and dreams shattered. The negative, the negative positive space.

Red walls and an unadorned ceiling, smooth wood tables and framed posters hanging. A long counter, and three good friends all sharing a single plate as they settle in and settle down. Out of time, here is the place to catch a breath and do good work.


Perhaps to bleed out thoughts and lines. Lines on a paper, I can pull out one of any of the books surrounding me. Calligraphy, careful lettering. And I understand none of it. I am in the East Asian library, working surrounded by a language I do not understand, by knowledge unattainable by me. Is there anything I can do to combat this slide? Is there anyline I can grasp? I live moment to moment, from petal to sunrise, from crocus to rooftop, and I live, laugh, love.

Vow

I solemnly vow and promise. Vow is the most, the pinnacle of commitment. I vow - I will do this. Such a tight knit connection of ultimate destiny wound in a single word. Perhaps because I just read about ties binding people together, but potentially because I associate vow with wedding vow. Will I make that, one day?


I've thought, more than a few times, about what I would do if the world stopped and I was the only one left moving. If Father Time said, you may move unravaged and the world halts around you. And I've planned - I would travel the country, I would wander and explore. I would go to the library at school and I would read. I would read and read, because I there is nothing more wonderful than learning for the sake of simply knowing, with no ulterior motive or class schedule or test, just reading to understand and to learn in the hope that there might be clarity brought to the world. There is so much knowledge in the world; so much to know. If only I had the time, I wouldn't specialize. I would peruse the shelves and stacks and when something struck my inner harpsichord I would take out the hammer and read it, as much as I wanted, and when I put it back it would be able to sound in with the rest of the notes. And eventually I could play a symphony, fingers dancing over the learning.


Such a lofty name to live up to, Lux aurumque.



(A year to the almost day)