Utah

For want of fireworks to stare at, I spend the 4th of July reminicing of my American years. There were nearly seven such years, split about half and half between two major cities of the East: Boston and DC.

In between I managed to slip nearly six months in a more exotic location: Salt Lake city, Utah. My ex-wife was a Salt-Laker and indeed a Mormon when I met her (she later left the church, a difficult and intense process). Her family all lived on the Wasatch front and we visited it often. I spent one entire winter there, one entire summer, plus many a Christmas and, well, 4ths of July.

Each 4th, a traditional picnic was held on Lin's grandparents' deck. We had burgers and green Jello pie (a local delicacy) on paper plates decorated with the star spangled banner. more stars and stripes were hanging from the trees. The house itself was full of pictures of WWII fighter planes, a hobby of Granpa's. On the floor was a furry rug about a meter deep. These were the most foreign surroundings in which a non-American can find himself. Blues dens in Mississippi slums are tuned into tourist haunts, a suburban SLC backyard never is.

The great majority of people on the deck were Republican and Mormon. Republicans were extra confident and talkative during the Bush years. Mormons, on the other hand, are secretive. Their religion cannot be discussed openly or in depth with an outsider since it features ineffable teachings, secret temple ceremonies et al.

This combination of the outspoken and unspoken complicated our visits to Lin's family. There were so many words I couldn't say: "Shit", "John Kerry", "The Celestial Room", "Abu Ghraib"... even "Oh my God!" is considered taboo in Utah-LDS culture. There was no alcohol in any of the starred and striped cups to help me face the challenge, nor even coffee.

I must admit, I loved it.

I loved Utah, I still adore it. It's the best place I lived in the States. Those mountains that grow directly out of the city, the broad streets, the drama of the west, and that of a split society: 50% devout, 50% irreverent. I loved the family too, it was warm and generous and made up of the most spectacular individuals. They accepted me so beautifully despite my being a gentile (this is the exact word Mormons use). A heathen married their offspring, depriving her of the right to the celstial kingdom, and yet they loved me and lavished green Jello on me.

Sometimes a place that seems the most wrong for us, is just right. The places in America I miss the most are not necessarily the progressive streets of Cambridge, MA. They are often places that challenged me as a liberal, a foreigner, an Urbanite. If I could make it across the room through that thick rug, I could make it across the nation and truly know its many realities.

Big News

This is the clock at which I was staring last night.

It showed the time in Washington DC, but not that the times are a-changing. It did not show where the American night was heading. We had to wait for morning to learn that.

It's morning at last.

A is

A is for art

A pile of cobblestones on the floor of a museum, each imprinted with the words: "weapon of the proletariat".

B is for birds

A huge flock of geese forms the contour of a clipper ship in the evening sky above Jerusalem's Mouristan square. The fountain is working once more, kids kick a football against an old stone wall.

C is for cancer

My friend G. stands by his macchinetta, making both of us ridiculously strong coffee that is to keep me awake for much of the night. "Mann tracht on gott lacht," he says in Yiddish. "man plans and god laughs."

He has a long scar along his throat from the removal of his thyroid gland. At first I don't know how to relate to his experience, then I remember that I have gone through a divorce. "Not really comparable, but I guess we're both going through the things that make up life."

"Yeah, grown up stuff," he says.

D is for Downtown Lover

Back in my life? maybe yes, maybe no. The other day she was in a taxi, about to get off. The driver saw a guy hailing a cab by the corner and asked if she would mind him picking that guy up. She didn't mind, nor look to see who it was.

E is for eventide

"The night, it has a thousend eyes / the day has only one," quoth the poet. The sexy time of day is not a time of day, and it is crawling into the streets outside my window as I write.

F is for freedom

Walking up Ben-Yehuda St. after two days of hard work, bumping into an aquiantance and pulling him into the Mersend for a cuppa. The afternoon is vast. Roni rolls in on roller blades, posting posters for a poetry event. Kamer pops in, wearing one of his grandpa swaters. I want to interview him on radio Tuesday night, when I'll be studio commentator on the U.S. elections (late late on Galatz Radio). Omer appears with a copy of Haaretz and an easy smile. Obama this, Obama that, Then we all fly away to other places.

G is for gusts of wind

More of those are soon to come.

H is for Mitch Hedberg

"I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too."

I is for the Indigo Girls

Dorky though it is, I've had "Mystery", "Ghost" and "Galileo" playing in my head for a month now.

J is for Jewification of Jaffa

A major issue I have with the current mayor's policies (at least with his crew's), and especially now before the municipal elections. In Israel the term Jewification is considered legitimate. The idea: populating areas that have Arab majorities with as many Jews as possible, in order to "claim" them.

When looking for apartments in Jaffa you will often hear the agent saying: "currently there are many Arabs here, but we're working hard to Jewify the neighborhood and there have already been positive developements aplenty."

K is for kites

The Kite vendor at Charles Clore Park is tying a few samples of his merchendise to a metal railing. There's something both gloomy and hip about watching an elderly, disheveld man flying numerous jolly dragons at once.

L is for love

M is for McCain

Not a bad chap, it seems, but not the sharpest POW in the pencilbox either.

N is for new book project

Still confidential.

O is for Obama

I was there when it started: Democratic national convention, Boston 2004. The Illinois delegation, right by my booth, was going crazy. Obama gave the famous "thin boy with a funny name" speech. Only clinton spoke better.

P is for Park Slope

Where my Friend Erika is sitting and chatting with me right now, making me miss the world once again.

Q is for queers

For a while I knew no one in Tel Aviv who was gay. This is changing, to my delight. There's a sense of humor and an approach to the world that only gay people have. Lose sight of the their society and you lose more then one color in the day to day existance.

R is for Lou Reed

Who is in the city tonight, performing before luckier people that I.

S is for scarves

Girls in autumn look so lovely.

T is for Togo

I'm showing a group of Togolese visitors around the country these days. Took them to the "Jerusalem Hotel" in Sheikh Jarah, had coffee and a cigarette, listened to their chat, realized the Togolese are the cutest people in the world.

U is for Unicum

This liquor I brought from Hungary has to be the nastiest tasting thing on earth, yet I'm finishing the bottle at high speed. Things that taste like medicine are highly marketable early in the flu season.

V is for Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I've been told it's fantastic. If anyone wants to join me for it, let me know.

W is for bad memories

Such bad memories.

X is for xi

I miss scrabble. This Downtown Lover thing had better work out.

Y is for Yad Vashem

Walking out of the long corridor of the Jerusalem Holocaust Museum, I have to wait by the railing of a balcony, overlooking a cluster of forested hills, for a member of our party still inside. Consequently, I spend ten minutes looking at the faces of the people coming out. Each one of them has learned something new and it shows in their eyes. I can't help but admire the corridor and those responsible for filling it with life and with death.

They even kept the whole "everything's fine now that we have our own country" bit in the end distinctly subdued and minimal. It's there, but not so badly. I hate when the Holocaust is presented as nothing more than a sad prologue to the heroic Zionist story. Yad Vashem remains dignified.

Z is for ZZZZZZ

Gotta take a nap now. There's so much life going on, it's tiring, and the Unicum doesn't help perk me up (turns out it's no medicine). See y'all in morning light.

It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got That Swing

When I was first visiting Finland in the 1990s, Marti Ahtisaari was the country's president. He lived, as do all Finnish presidents, in the shadow of the mighty U. K. Kekkonen - the country's mythical leader. The most you could say about the man then was that he was a fine president though by no means a Kekkonen.

Later Ahtisaari joined the U.N. and began to attract different attention, angry attention. I recall that every involvement in Israel - Palestine - Lebanon questions brought him a lot of bad press here. He was unyielding, critical, active, not exactly what you'd expect from a U.N. officer. We just wanted them to wear their blue caps and let us run our wars. Marti wasn't into that.

Ahtisaari was not very strongly involved in this region. Yesterday he was awarded the Novel peace prize, namely for achievements made in Kosovo, Namibia and Indonesia. I can only imagine how mean he had to be in those places, in order to reach achievements worthy of such honor. This is the way to make peace.

With your permission, I would like to take this opportunity and endorse a certain ticket in the coming U.S. elections. I'm doing so as an Israeli. In all the years the Republicans have been at the white house, nothing moved in Mid-East politics. The Bush administration "loved" Israel and "supported" Israel. Bullocks. The only way to support Israel is to be tough with it and force it to negotiate and make progress. Anyone who cuddles it will simply stall all potential developments in the region and perpetuate hostilities. The way to run foreign policy is to be tough with everyone equally. The current administration was highly imbalanced in this sense.

This isn't only true to the Neocons. Whenever there is a Democrat in the white house, be it Carter or Clinton, things move here. When the Republicans are in office, all comes to a halt. Sure everything may change, but in truth, I don't expect McCain to have wisely paraphrased Nietzsche's most controversial line: When goeth thee to make peace, do not forget thy whip.

Please, Americans, give us an Ahtisaari, a president who will be unyielding enough to change things for us and for you. Vote Obama/Biden.

Tamales

I haven´t had a tamal since leaving Boston, over three years ago. I certainly haven´t had a good tamal since my last visit to Utah. I love tamales to death. With all due respect to the Middle Eastern Kubbe, there´s something about having your polenta dumpling arrive wrapped in a tropical leaf that turns it from a dish into a party.

Last night I needed a party. I was moody in the afternoon, done with work and completely alone in a city that knows how to to seem elianating. My friend Bianca was staying the night in Wittenberg, my friend Anna is vacationing in Austria. My parents are actually in Berlin at the moment, but I wanted to give them a sense of honeymoon peace and let them be.

So I went to Prenzlauerberg and walked off the street to an art opening (unique and exquisite video works by Belorussian Alexander Komorov), Had some red wine and got talking to a young Colombian named Juan. He invited me to a farewell party, thrown for a friend of his who is traveling back to Latin America, where exactly - I forgot. We walked through streets alight with Saturday night crowds and jittery with the impact of passing el-trains, to buy a cake for the bash and drop Juan´s bike by his place, then headed to the shabbier streets of Neukölln, to an old apartment building topped with a flat full of Nicaraguans, of Colombians, of Uruguayans, of Brazilians and of Germans from all parts of the country. The music was pure south of the Panama Canal fare and there was so much beer in the fridge that people were taking photos of it. On the table were two tamales, their flavour - utter heaven. Life tasted good too at that moment. I was in love with Berlin, in Berlove, if you will, enamorado con la geist der stadt, y la geist der welt, and not at all hungry anymore.

When It Rains, It Pours.

New Orleans, I love you. Watching you go again and again under the surges is torture, like knowing that a loved one is at war.

New Orleans, in a couple of early spring nights, you taught me what music is, what food is, how darkness laughs. Your sorrowful trees were brilliant with left over mardi-gras beads and your cemetaries marked with mysterious red Xs, and your tinfoil slums, moist and deformed and pulsating like something from the set of a horror film, were waiting to be knocked down by the waves, by the governement, to be torn apart by the ghosts of St. Charles Ave. trollies.

Then, surrounded by Telleman's tafelmuzik at the Commender's Palace, you fed me turtle soup. Turtles are endangered, New Orleans! that's bad karma. You too are endangered, devoured again and again like baby turtles that have just hatched. How many of them make it safely to the sea? How many bewitched cities like yourself can survive the lashes of history? Perhaps none, we should let you go and learn to have do with Atlanta.

Bad News, Good News

The police is now about to drain the Yarkon river in order to find the body of Rose, a four year old girl who was disasterously murdered by her grandpa. This is the same police that didn't even notify the public about the disappearance of Amna Asala, a fifteen year old missing girl from Arab'e, in the Galillee.

Neither girl is Jewish, but Rose, of French origin, is blue eyed and fair haired, the media is showering her with all the attention she deserved to get and never got from her family before she died. Amna, a Palestinian Israeli, gets neither proper media attention nor proper police attention. She's been missing now for a month and a half.

When living in the States I wrote a piece for Haaretz called "Hayafim Vehakhatufim", describing how the media centers on fetching, white missing children, letting others rot in basements. When Salt Lake City girl Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped, the nation went hysterical over her. When the papers felt that the mystery won't be solved and a a happy end was not in sight, it began telling the stories of hispanic, black and less attractive white girls that went missing and were found. Those girls never got attention when they vanished. Our society, one that experienced dehumanization, predudice and violence towards children at their worse, is similar. This is really bad news.

The good news is Paul brady

Four Paragraphs About L.A.

L.A. reccurs in my dreams. Why so? I walk through its downtown at night (do not try this at home) bumping into lost loves and friends. I take its light rail from Long Beach through scary, mystifying Compton to the foothills and back, I fly into LAX and out of it. L.A. L.A. L.A.

O Santa Monica roller-blading tarts, O British expatriates at an English bar, O Australian tea tree growing horizontally on the promenade, O Lonely suburban wasteland in bright technicolor, O lonely office on Wiltshire with a Muhammad Ali cardboard cut-out. O glass offices, O Mormon temple, L.A. L.A. L.A.

L.A. is my favourive forest, slender palms - such a variety, spanish rooftiles, barbed-wire fences around one story self-storage facilities, Champagne flutes on the strip, overlooking the twilighted truth. Watts towers rising over all other trees, like a cluster of General Shermans.

And at night the old cars zoom east of Venice, lusting and lonely like overworked janitors. It's not a bad place, L.A. L.A., I'd like to go back there, but then, I'd like to go back everywhere.

Late

It's hardly late by Tel-Avivian terms, only 0:22 at night, yet I feel late.

I spent much of the evening in a radio studio with my friend Susanna, we spoke about Arto Paasilinna's "Year of the Rabbit". It is a book about giving up. A man runs over a rabbit in a Finnish forest, walks among the trees and finds it. Tends to its wound and then drifts with it. He forsakes his Helsinki existance in favor of a drifter's lifestyle, working at odd jobs in the forests of Savo, Kainuu and Lapland, hunting a bear in the snow and drinking its blood, sleeping by a campfire at night.

At no point does Paasilinna describe what this man's feet smell like.

This week I watched a film about escaping: "Into the Wild", by Sean Penn, after the book by john Krakauer. Again a man heads into forests. This time he is young. He is disillusioned not with a family he had built but with the family that brought him life, a truly disfunctional one. He heads north- to alaska, secludes himself in the wilderness, than (spoiler warning), after several weeks of lonely partial bliss, he dies, having accidentally eaten a poisenous plant. Alexander Supertramp escaped completely, too completely.

He is described as having worn no socks for two years.

My feet smell fine but I know I'm escaping too, that I have been since I was 18. Sometimes it's just so damn dark, this whole story. Sometimes it's bright skies by the road in switzerland, examining my sorry shoes, having just crossed Lichtenstein on foot. Sometimes it's late at the little prince, Playing me, playing friend, playing lover, playing father of sorts. buying Flashky a beer because he knew who built the Seagram building.

Whoever built the seagram building wasn't escaping, not when he did it. He did beforehand, you must do for a while, but you don't build the Seagram building from a dead bus in Denali National Park, nor from a dismal Lappish landscape: a slashed forest on the swamps' edge, a screaming crow on a dead tree. you don't build the Seagram building from the back of the Little Prince nor from a studio of Israel's Government radio. I'm going to learn how to do it.

Once

I'll be 32 this Sunday, and am currently looking through my more peculiar achievements: those experiences that were experienced only once.

So in 32 years I skydived once
went snowshoeing once
got married once and divorced once
got stranded on a small island once (for about 30 hours)
got my heart broken once
got my jaw broken once
tried hard drugs once
got arrested once (while protesting environmental issues)
published poetry once
earned my accomodation by reciting poetry once
visited Lichtenstein once (I crossed it on foot!)
Visited Lebanon once (long story)
biked from Holland to Prague once
spent a night at a parking lot once
spent a night inside a window display trailer once
spent a night with a married woman once
met with overt antisemitism once
got spat on once (same occasion)
frenched a tree once (a dare in a truth or dare game)
saved a man's life once
broadcast a radio show once
revealed to a man that his girlfriend was pregnant with another man's child once (don't try this at home)
saw a beaver in the wild once
saw a rattlesnake in the wild once
saw an elephant in the wild once
saw a humpback whale in the wild once
visited a rubber plantation once
touched a dead man once
spoke to a head of state once (Rabin)
saw the pope once
got massaged at a Turkish hamam once
sat in a "smoke sauna" once
sat at the waiting room of a brothel once (didn't use their services)
ate jellyfish salad once
ate blood pudding in blood sauce once
ate "thousend years old eggs" once
ate alligator once and turtle once
drank authentic moonshine once
explored the underground drainage system of a city with a flashlight once
got mugged once
painted a "trial of Paris" once
pretended to be American once
pretended to be French once
pretended to be South African once
pretended to be Macedonian once (traveling the Middle East isn't easy for Israelis)
wore a bindy once
wore fake eyelashes once
had a letter exchange with the governemnt of Saudi Arabia once
shook hands with a Serbian mafia head once
saw actors performing a play I wrote once
lectured at Harvard university once
got paid a live duck for my work once

The nice thing about this list is how difficult it was to assemble. most of the things that came to my mind I had done more than once and so they didn't get a mention. Many of the things that were mentioned, I would love to do again. It's being a great life so far, perfect for reruns.

Fête du Foot, Waffle Bash

Know the right gringo in this town (David, owner of the Dancing Camel brewery) and you'll end up spending Sunday night at a Superbowl party complete with a bluegrass band doing "Lord, I Was Born a Ramblin' Man".



Know the right commercial attaché (the terrific Gino Nale) and you'll end up the following night at the Belgian Ambassador's residence for a culinary feast, complete with fries in cones, lambic ale and waffles. This time the soundtrack was Jacques Brel and I was only equipped with my phone camera.



It boggles the mind to think of how many diverse events take place in this city each night. Of course these two were not opposites: They both somehow centered around beer. Cheers for universal values!

The Star Spangled Dinner

Hi Leora,

Last night was really nice. The food was terrific and the company
interesting and easy going.

I must tell you I found myself surprised by how "Israeli" I felt in this company. For years I lived in the States and was completely comfortable in 100% American company, last night I was very comfortable but also amply aware of cultural differences. Perhaps It was the fact that the evening took place in Israel that is to blame, or perhaps it is I who's changed. I may have grown more Israeli since my ex-wife left. Maybe the recent (Thursday) news of our divorce being final caused me to be more conscious of these issues. Who am I? How close am I to the language and attitudes that used to make up my world? I found myself thinking about these things on the way home.

What are these differences? They start with small stuff like saying "no". When we were lighting the candles, there was talk of how Israelis name Tupperware containers "Mozzarellas". I've never heard of such a thing and I assumed it was used in the kitchen lingo of the restaurant in which your friend works. As soon as I said: "That's not true" I realized that an American would never have said that. However, if in Israeli company I were to say: "I believe that may not be true", or some such thing, no one would take me seriously for the remainder of the
evening. Each time I said "no" last night I was aware of it, even a bit embarrassed, but don't worry. it did dot detract from my enjoyment, only added food for thought to the chili and guacamole.

Another time I felt different was during a conversation about your other friend's documentary on pork in Israel. I found myself defending my right to eat pork, despite this being the "Jewish State" and all. For the first time in my life I felt that this issue affects me. I was bothered by the idea that someone who doesn't live here should think a restriction should be imposed on me for ideological reasons. Your friends had flexible views of this matter, but they didn't necessarily consider it unthinkable that ideological restrictions would be condoned by someone who isn't subject to them. The Claustrophobia of the Israeli identity came out into the open during that conversation and there was no way for me to really explain it.

I left that conversation feeling that Zionism only works if you're "first generation", i.e.: if you come here in order to "do it". Once you're born into it, it's too damn problematic. This sentiment, carried over several conversations, created a wall of misunderstanding between me and the other people I conversed with. The one exception actually being your friend who works at the Shalem Center. I think he deals so often with such complex questions, and in such a bizarre environment, that he's beginning to develop an Israeli complex of his own. He's quite a unique chap.

But all of you guys are unique, and your company is a gift. BTW, I left my salad bowl there, so I'll call you next time I'm at the "Prince" to see if you're there and pick it up.

Have a wonderful evening, thanks a lot again and take care,

Yuval

Lunch Poem

Missing Paris, empty plate Paris, shoplifting Paris,
Ex-girlfriend Paris, on an empty plate,
Empty place ten sheqel afternoon.
Orr bites lower lip, Eli hands tip.

Light in, light out. In my head you said: insist.
Then we got lost in L.A., missing Paris
Till it turned day, and I ate
Paris, I ate grits in Jacksonville, and you.

What good is my head, what good
These Irish cliffs In a town without topography?
I ate you up, made full stop, ordered coffee,
Young again but without the tent.

Roaring in winter, smoking litter,
Sketching school, missing Paris. The shopkeeper said:
May Satan take you. I say: Thank you
Orr for serving me all this.

1918, 2004, 2007

It can happen twice in a decade or twice in a day for all I care. When the Red Sox win the world series - that's history.

Last time it happened was right after Israeli hip-hop suit Hadag Nahash performed in Boston's theater district. The only way I could convey to the band the magnitude of what just happened was to say: "The world has just come to an end." I invited them to go out with me and hug random strangers in what might be the most impersonal city in America.

In honor of that city, the one that taught me dedication and perseverance, that introduced me to the ninth inning stretch and to the true meaning of obsession, here's an on-point piece from "The Onion", published a couple of days before the current win.

Make it Canada!

Iranian president Mahmud Ahmedinijad suggested yesterday that Israel be relocated to Canada or Alaska, where it would benefit from the vast expanses and absence of sensative Jerusalem. Every Israeli to whom I spoke of this said it sounds like a wonderful idea. "I'm ready to pack" said my friend Ravid, and honestly, I'm a little sick of Jerusalem too. It really is too goddamned sensative. Ahmedinijad can have it, along with all the fanatical loonies who cling to it with hopes of witnessing a violent catharsis.

In all seriousness, though, Here are the facts. I was born in Jerusalem, a city which Ahmidinijad had never visited. I respect all three religions that admire this city, which I think justifies me as a good Jerusalemite. I am an Israeli born to parents who were both born in Israel. I have no other country to call home and no one is offering me any other passport.

Moreover, I don't want to immigrate. I just want a home. It took me a very long time to come to terms with this insane country. I made great efforts to replace it and failed. The same thing would happen to Ahmidinijad were he to move anywhere. It takes one comment on Homosexuality he made in New York to prove that.

OK, I admit we Jews are relatively used to being exiled. We are the latest to hit the neighborhood and haven't behaved so well, so maybe it is us who must take the burden. I just have one thing to ask of Ahmidinijad: make it Canada. No offense to Alaska, but I really have a thing for Canada. I miss Erika Richmond who lives there, and Megan too, and Greg Nickel of course, though he lives in Seattle. I love the accent of the Newfies and the rocks near Port aux Basques, The belugas in the Segaunay, the northern lights over Sheshatshiu in Labrador, magnifiscent Lake Louise, Sesquechuan silos, Vancouver's glass towers and BC wine, I like Glenn Gould and Leonard Cohen, Moxy Fruvous and Barenaked Ladies, Neil young and Joni Mitchell. I like David Rakoff's short stories, "Jesus of Montreal" is one of my top movies, and Maya Pasternak, who rears from Toronto, is my conceptual artist of choice. I love Maudite beer, Trois Pistoles and Fin du Monde, grade B maple syrup and Caribou game. I've been a habs fan ever since reading "the Hockey sweater", by Roch Carrier. you've got to love a nation that puts its favourite sport, as well as such a sweet text, on its money. You've got to love a country that has a falling leaf on its flag.

What if we removed the star of David from our flag and put an olive leaf instead? Would I then not have to leave? I'd do it, Mahmoud, and happily, too. Unlike you, I don't believe my country should be a theocracy. You do, you're opressing millions of Iranians. why shouldn't it be you who starts packing? Maybe it's the Iranian regime that should be sent to Canada for some serious schooling, along with members of the Israeli cabinet (Lieberman et al.) and Hammas officials.

It may have been a bad idea to place israel where it is. It may have been a bad idea to form it in the first place, but these "may have beens" have expired over a half a century ago. At the moment, I'm here, and despite all my love for Canada, I'm not Canadian. Israel needn't be moved. It needs to be changed, as does Iran. Let's send all the horrible Middle Eastern politicians and their extremist chummies off to freeze in forests of black spruce. The rest of us would stay here to make the region at least as good as the country described above.

Boston

I'm not sure what people are supposed to do on the Day of Atonement according to Halachaic law, Probably pray. I did my praying last night with my Bulgarian neighbor Lutzi. We went to a synagogue of Turkish Jews, a rare one in this predominantly Muslim neighborhood (I've begun dating an extraordinary woman who is Turkish, so this worked out as an educational field trip). Praying there was a very different experience from what I've known in Ashkenazi synagogues. for one: rather than touching the Torah scrolls lightly and kissing the fingers that touched them, people actually went ahead and kissed the Torah itself. I did so too, I frenched the Torah.

Now, however, I'm sitting here trying to clear space on my computer, and running into an old file with photos from Boston, where I had lived with Lin. I was beginning to forget Boston when we separated, I was letting Boston go with Lin. now I see I'll never forget it. Just as time is running out to sum up the year and see what lessons it taught, I'm learning something new, something about memory and renewal and the imperfection and power of both. I'm not sure what people are supposed to do on Yom Kippur. Thinking about Boston seems right.