Hello Jews, Goodbye Spain

I, after 2 months of a life that did not feel like my own, am home. This transition feels like one of my G_d's not so subtle sometimes periods. My Last day in Spain was a long one and the first time I'd seen a Jew since Yom Kippur. Here's what that was like:

Hello Jews Goodbye Spain

Firstly, let me share my rabbinical blessing with my Mishkan T'Filah for travelers without which I would not have navigated that service at all.

Today I arrive to Madrid, tired and scared. I clawed my sorry ass to the synagogue, ironically placed near the “Iglesia” (“church”) stop on the Metro where the man was kind of mean and wouldn't let me enter because I had bags with me. So much for unwavering hospitality. Abraham had just cut his junk and he managed to be hospitable. I understand security though. So I sat outside the synagogue, it was a mildly deserted corner of the city so I sat there and prayed and read and wondered if the people passing me were Jews. The ones that went in, I assume were the Jews. They didn't have suitcases.

I saw a potentially Jewish looking fellow with some books and asked him if he knew of a hostel nearby that costs less than 20€. He looked at me sadly and said no, it's hard in Madrid. His books were not prayer books, there is a library nearby which when he passed by a few minutes later, I assumed had been closed. One man walked by and he looked frum. Black hat. I gave him a good old “Boker Tov”. He then tried to speak to me in Hebrew...then he switched to Spanish but Hebrew accent plus Spanish is bad. Then Mr. Library came back. He had looked up a hostel, nearby that was under 20€--he even had a print out for me. They guy from the desk had been warned about the potential Jew creepin' about still and came out to confront my Righteous Gentile.

I'm mildly offended that a stranger and a gentile had to help me navigate as a Jewish “stranger a foreign land” when a giant box of a building filled with my people was there. However, between his kindness, the frumle and some quality bonding with G-d via the words of the Reb Nachman, I conjured the strength of spirit and body to schlep to the hostel. I really like having a place to stay when I'm in big cities. It's way better than the streets. There's food and internet and books and I can set my bags in a locker. Best 19,08€ that I've spent while here.

So after recuperating, I went back. The e-mail I had said to come during either the morning or the evening services. I showed up 15 minutes early, in case they needed to show me anything special give me some sort of sephardi orientation. What ended up happening was probably the result of many miscommunications in the e-mail process but they mostly just ignored me. So I sat alone in the woman's section trying to follow along and stand when I should but not when I shouldn't. The buzzing of their rapid, ladino and their chatting all through services still felt like family was near though.

So my first orthodox service was alone (there weren't even women in the building) and in Spain. And I don't care what the nice little trying-to-convert-boy says, the Sephardi Kaddish DOES have two extra lines towards the end. And I have also never heard Kaddish that many times in my life. It's on pg. 23 in my book and 36 in his book.

The rabbi said some nice things in TERRIBLY accented Spanish about T'filah being a call without a phone and then we said Kaddish a few more times and then we went up to the roof to bless the evening and say Kaddish, with an extra two verses, again. The ger and I were sectioned off into a corner because we don't count.

Afterward the rabbi scolded me because women don't have to pray. And by scolded I mean he guilted, he didn't actually say I'd done anything wrong, he just implied it. He asked me a few things. I tried to talk to folks, because as I'd said in my e-mail, I'd wanted to chat and learn about Spanish-jewery. He just told me that he wasn't Spanish and then blessed me. It was very nice, pretty Chassidic and all in all, we'll call it a win.

And then I flew into JFK in New York City. So many Jews. Some frum with hats and their tzit tzit showing, some just bearded men in “ambiguously frum” hats. Home. Jews. And I didn't have to worry about getting stranded in NYC or Chicago because I have Jewish Family in both places...JEWS JEWS JEWS. The end.

Culture Shock

When I think of culture shock, I think of the pounding headache I get when I've been straining to speak in a second (or third language) for too long. I think of creepy, European cheek kisses and carbonated juice. I don't think of loneliness and neglect or lies. Nor do I think of my complete, existentially challenging lack of cognitive dissonance—that my brain cannot reconcile itself to the body’s location, nor does it wish to. I like to think of cartoons that don't make sense even if I understand the words, of new dances and foods and twisting streets. I still do not know where my homesick/life path/culture shock border defines me and this journey.

All I know is that in my two-month stay I've seen a lot of excellently dubbed American television, well translated American novels...even the Twilight series is here. And most of their music countdown is our music countdown and that while my students constantly thought I was from the UK, they carried around Batman and Dora bags.

Part of me is inspired by the fact that so far away from home, I'm drowning in Americana. They're watching the cartoon that we watch to learn Spanish for the sweet love of G-d. And while few experiences in my life will feel more absurd than hearing the full seven minutes of “Thriller” on the radio in the filthy, cold bus station of Vigo, where people get it on in the bathroom...to “Thriller”? I am kind of proud of my country. Yes, we were aided by history forcing English as a language upon most of the world and the moderately modern politics of the USA's world power status but I do not believe that this is at least entirely, the result of force-feeding our culture; I honestly think they just like it.

So I can sit there and listen to a very didactic and condescending lecture on French or Galician culture and how they think this way or act that way. I really was just trying to get the word for “riot” without leaving Spanish...oy ve. And as I listen, your kid is trying to sneak “Bob esponja” on the tele.

It does make me a little sad because I worry about the loss of various European cultures as my own infiltrates but as no one really asked me a single question about home, I know I am not the culprit and probably do not have the power to stop it.

And please don't speak to me as if I, as a poor, deprived American, am uncultured. I come from a place with almost too much culture. Not only do I have the culture that has resulted from my crazy-ass, stubborn, often-douchy country, I have all the cultures that inspired and shaped it. I can speak whatever breed of Spanish I want, with native speakers, without using my passport. I can walk through the forest and not run into a house after 20 minutes. I have 2/5 oceans at my disposal. And while, I am guessing due to the less than five hours of chaotic classroom instruction, your students can't name the capital of France, having visited it, even my hick friends who barely speak English can.

The only culture shock I think I've really experienced is how much I might like my own nation, despite my ironic and frequent lack of rights, the hypocrisy, and the fact that we're mostly stubborn assholes. You know what? Your healthcare wasn't that good anyway because in the end, we all know that while USA trumps Europe....everyone is Canada's bitch.

Best Wishes

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.” After weeks of cursing the ocean in every language I have access to, I now approach it warily. There is some sadness in my heart. I was finally hugged, by several people that almost reached my shoulders in height. The hug of a child, while warming and lovely, does not fill the lonely hole in my core. It certainly does not feed me nor teach me how to teach them. I will cherish their goodbye cards forever but I'm still peacin' out.

People here just don't hug. Not adults; it must be something they cast off like a caterpillar casts off it's chrysalis to become the butterfly. Part of me is wondering if folks are just starting to warm up to me, if I waited too long. Part of me thinks that I have undergone metamorphosis. What butterfly am I? I am a leaving person. I have changed in status. I have become someone you can tell things, things you need to share but want an ocean between them and you after they are spake. A leaving person is someone you can forget consequences with (though sadly not sexual orientation...or at least not for me).

With a full belly from my going away party I wonder if I am mistaken. I've maintained that they are nice people this whole time, maybe it is just not in their nature to be really helpful unless they absolutely have to. Our governments are our parents, they teach us how to behave. My stomach wouldn't have been full if I had stayed. My tutor, these teachers wouldn't have cared more as the days passed and loneliness killed me at night when even the exhaustion of my illegal and solitary leadership in the classroom couldn't make me sleep.

So as I hug the little ones and even contemplate feeling feelings at our separation, I keep looking at them and wishing they were Jews, or that these people I'm drinking with were people from back home. Where is the line between culture shock, homesickness, and a mistake? Life is gray, very gray.

Am I mistaken again? I don't think so. Even as the manic fear faded to routine this path grated on me and the pull home remained strong. The fact that without training, or food, or sleep and wading through lies (my own and others), I have made such a strong impression-and a good one, I hope means that I represented my country well. My doubts now are built on fear as much as those that turned my path around were. There's a light at the end of the tunnel this way though. A dark, winter, snowy, unemployed light.

I'll never know if I left too early (I suspect sometimes that coming here at all was too early), if I didn't give it enough time. If their kindness was born of actual affection or of my change in status; I suspect a combination of both. So I will try not to let these smiles and frowns and well wishes and finally eating taint my return but maybe part of Spain is trying to apologize. Maybe Spain as a whole would like to part on better terms. Fine then España and your Galicia, I agree to accept your half-assed apology and will do my best to try and portray you as ambiguously as possible: to cite a kindness every time I curse a fault. Let us never meet this way again. I wish you the best and hopefully we can both improve and in the horrible circumstance that we cross paths again, our civility will be more amicable. Adiós.

Mitzvah Challenge

One of many reasons I like, nay, love being Reform is my game I play called Mitzvah Challenge. In my head it's like Yugioh or Pokemon or Magic the Gathering but with Mitzvot. It goes like this: you have two conflicting Mitzvot and because you're Reform, you get to choose which one is more important or halakhlikly correct....to you.

For example it's Shabbat and after Torah Studies with the congregation, folks want to go out for lunch. Do you spend money on Shabbat? Make a transaction/contract and SIGN your name? Well if the prohibition against handling money means less to you than sharing a meal and spending time with other Jews, then go right on ahead and break that one to fulfill the other two (you're supposed to have three festive meals, yo.)

My latest Mitvah match-off was terrible. I'd been thinking in recent weeks how hard it is to be a nice person. No one will let you. I ask random people if they need help unloading things from their car and they think I'm a creep or a robber, or they're just too embarrassed or whatever to accept. I'm the same way, stubbornly independent. Then I read what I think was a 10 Minutes of Torah post about how it's harder and more important to accept, in this case hospitality.

Now Galicia, Spain has not been very hospitable to the lonely Lesbijew. The only real kindness I've experienced is from my landlady, Isabel who knows that I don't have money for food and keeps feeding me and has agreed to house me even if her stupid government never pays me (i.e. I can never pay her). So the other day, she more-or-less kidnaps me and makes me eat food. I accept, mostly because of the futility of not accepting, but also because sometimes accepting help is the menschlike thing to do. The plate [not bowl] of soup was based on chicken broth but chickens don't lactate as Carey Gottlieb likes to say and also as a vegetarian, I can still digest them (red meat makes drinking sulfuric acid sound like grape juice to my poor digestive system). Then she pulls out some fancy ham leg from Salamanca. Patas Negras, black footed pig is very popular and very expensive. It's also cured which is why people just have pig legs sitting out (“what do you mean you don't put it in the fridge?”). Now, I know I explained repeatedly, in different ways that I DON'T eat meat, not carne, not jamon, no cow, no pig, no pollo, nada. Soy vegetariana.

She knows that I don't eat ham. She knows I'm a Jewish vegetarian, why is she offering me ham? And logically, why offer me nice ham? I don't know the difference. Isabel is very insistent and I know it's nice of her to offer me her fancy ham. I'm not sure if she's trying to offend me or not. Sometimes....often Catholics are offended that I'm Jewish (one time I made the mistake of telling a nun that I technically converted, left, Catholicism to be a Jew—nuns are scary). Isabel either doesn't think Jewish law means anything to me, WAS trying to be offensive, or thinks she can convert me via good ham. I think it was the first and the last. She really is a nice lady.

So I tried a bite of the ham. I thanked her and explained that aside from my religion (Which she doesn't give a shit about) eating this could make me very sick. I don't eat meat and I CANNOT physically eat meat. I know that being a vegetarian here is strange but it's not unheard of: there are at least two vegetarian restaurants in Vigo.

So I ate ham. This is the second time I have consciously eaten ham since beginning my exploration of Judaism at 14 years of age. This is only the third time total and it's the first time since officially converting. Did it make me not a Jew? Did it make me less of a Jew? Nah. But this has been one of the hardest rounds of Mitvah Challenge I've ever played. Not because of the hospitality vs. ham issue as much as: should I have stood my religious ground? As a Jew in Spain, I really want to make a good impression as I am the only Jew for hundreds of miles. I will probably be the only Jew many of these people ever meet. That's some hefty responsibility.

Do I push my dietary restrictions and possibly offend someone...the one person who has demonstrated hospitality and kindness to me? Do I let it slide to be nice? Did I eat past the mark where my stomach is going to rip itself to pieces trying to rip the meat to pieces? I do not know.

What I do know is that it scares me a little to be a Jew here. Even more than being a Jew in Mayville. They do not hate Jews, this is not antisemitism. It's worse. It's complete, blissful ignorance that they do not wish to cure. Even my French/Spanish friend, pretentiously obsessed with “culture” does not really engage...vegetarian is fine because it's almost chic, but Jewish? That's just another archaic religion, not a vibrant thriving culture.

Basically, I ate ham because it helped her fulfill a mitvah even if she didn't know it, I let her be a mamash mensch. I also hope that she realizes on some level that I cut a corner, to try to repay her kindness. And I think that by the time I leave she'll understand that when I told her “soy judía” that my Spanish wasn't wrong...I'm really not catholic: I don't want to go see the Pope, I'm a Jew. Just because I talk to you about Santiago, and el Papa (la papa is a potato) means I'm not ignorant, but still a Jew.

End Round of Mitzvah Challenge. Mitzvot  1.

Negative Space

Negative Space

I had been entertaining vague notions of 'researching' Judaism while I was in Europe and now that I am here, in Galicia, for a shortened mere month more, I have dove headfirst into as much Judaism as I can find. I currently have stake in all of the library books about Jews in Spain, which is to say two. I am excited to find out things. I have also been reading more bible than normal, which is to say more than the parsha. Now I am reading it just for fun. Trying to get my kicks in. I might be addicted to Judaism.

It strikes me as odd, that this summer (graduating plus moving to a warmer clime means that summer has not ended), I have crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice. One trip was to a hardworking Jew-filled place and the other, well, they take a nap in the middle of the day and I am the first Jew they have ever met. EVER MET.

So the librarian knows what things I am into because she sees what I read—the power of the library and the books it holds. Tonight she was explaining to me that the library closes early because of the book club. Then her eyes light up. They are about to discuss Adress Unknown; it has an American Jew in it. I was invited to stay and practice my Spanish. She is a sweetheart, really.

They get to discussing, already the older man looks like he dislikes me because I do not speak the regional dialect, gallego/Galician, and the group feels compelled to include me by speaking Spanish. I also have read the book and their accents are thick. For a while it sounded like he was defending Hitler because Germany was poor and the Jews had all the money. He was not justifying genocide but simply explaining the rational connection of Hitler's success and it is true that the poverty of post WWI Germany was a huge contributing factor to the rise of Hitler's Third Reich. Then the woman next to me nodded in agreement about how the Jews always have money. [I would have some money, to eat and pay rent if this stupid government would pay me like they promised...]

They continued to discuss gender roles and WWII and Hitler and neo-Nazism and some of the guilt and vengeance roles in the book which I now have a copy of. The mother, so defined because she brought her daughter with her, talked about how horrific and unbelievable it was that young Spanish men walk around with swastika armbands and how could people not have learned. Horrific both at hate and at the fact that those misinformed young White Supremacists, were not in fact, Aryan in any way.

Then they each went around and said if they liked the book. Then we had a rousing session of “Ask the Jew”. My verbal skills are way below my reading and writing skills in Spanish and that was with my Native English Speaking (NES) teachers. The first question: “How do Jews justify the treatment of Palestinians in Israel?” Really? What does this have to do with your book, sir. And you can guess which sir it is too. The old guy, who seemed pained to have to ask me this in Spanish. I explained that some Jews justify it based on a need to have someplace after every other place in the world has beaten us to pulp...including Spain, several times. I may taken a little tangent to explain the Napoleonic-era change in citizenship status because it was central to the desire for a Jewish nation but he did not understand that and thought I was evading his question.

Eventually I clarified that some Jews think we should kill all the Palestinians and some Jews think we should give up Israel entirely and that Palestinians of the era that really began all this territorial madness included the Jews. When the biblical forefathers kill all the Canaanites off, that's genocide for conquest (which I think he justified in the name of the Spanish South American colonies), when the British abandon the desert and just drop the keys and the guns where they lie...that's Israel. Yes, some conquest happened and yes, sometimes it seems like the IDF are overzealous to a parallelism of early Third Reich....or of Spain from the year 100 common era until 1492 with the exception of about three hundred years of Muslim rule in the middle.

After the new book was passed around and we were leaving, the old guy explained to me that he was not attacking me or my people but that apparently the Spanish press is VERY biased and in the opposite manner of the US media. All he ever sees is Israelis taking land and killing innocent Palestinians. I explained that I have to put Israel in the context of me and how I justify it because I am a Jew. If you ask me what Jews think about Israel, you ask me what I think about Israel.

So as I search out Judaism, partly to try and compensate for the lack of it in my life and partly because I am an addict, I find myself like the painter, more intrigued with the negative space than the positive space. Spain has produced a few of the finest Jewish poets and philosophers and preserved Judaism when the Ashkenazim were bumbling idiots trapped in antiquated Middle Age Europe. Much like the Jews have been different throughout history so has Spain. Not quite part of Europe but not part of Africa. Spain was too fascist for WWII. Franco would have had to give up siesta to join the Third Reich and Spain did not have Jews anyway.

I watched 12 Galician (would I dare to call them Spaniards?) adults argue over Americans and Jews and Nazism. And the only one of those they have any contact with on any frequency is America and that remains the thing they discussed the least! To me, their discussion sounded so distant and theoretical especially when for me, these things are so close and so real. It also strikes me that most of this conversation would have happened anyway, regardless of my presence. This distance is why that mother has seen the jovenes with the Nazi regalia. She asked me why I would ever consider being a rabbi (after we got over the whole Reform, yes I am a woman, yes there are girl rabbis debacle). I told her I was enamored with the way that Jews argue, which looks exactly like the discussion I saw tonight: concomitant voices, tables being pounded, pages being quoted, general disagreement.

This place and its old, stone walls are covered in graffiti. I have seen swastikas, many of which had half-hearted NO circles through them, to complement a couple of stars of David with much more stark NO circles through them. I asked the principle of my school the first day and she assured me that they have no antisemitism nor neo-Nazism here. Some of the graffiti in question is on the school.

I would not say that what is happening here is antisemitism; the old guy seemed very concerned with our treatment of our Semitic, Palestinian brothers. I think what is happening here is worse and that is the distance and ignorance which leads to much worse things than a few misinformed young men who will realize someday that they are not white enough to dress that way and do not really like Germany and are completely indifferent to Jews.

I am extremely glad I decided to stay there and let them gauntlet me. Now they HAVE met a Jew. My Spanish was not great nor local but I was polite and moderately informative. This is what Judaism needs. To be out in the world (Derekh ha-eretz), because the Holocaust did not happen because of the Jews or whether or not they had money but because no one knew the Jews as people sharing human life with them.

Inclusive Language

I continue on my series of lonely Shabbatot and as I pray, I wonder whether or not I should switch the language from “we” to “I”. While my Hebrew skillz are not quite up to this challenge yet, I am fortunate to be a Reform Jew and my English skills for such prayers as I wish are up to task. As I try this from time to time, I often hit the stumbling block of 'Israel'. Where I do wish these things for “all your people Israel"
"My promise, my vow even, to sing every song I knew and read all the extra readings that I can, has been broken, much like my soul broke a little when I tried to sing Hinei Ma Tov. It IS good when brothers and sisters gather...I also avoid any extra readings with community basis or familial, Jewish joy.

It is not as if I live in a shtetl. I certainly don't go to shul every week, nor even every week that it is offered. Sometimes I have other things to do. But even if I spend the day with my gentile friends watching zombie movies or something, it feels more Jewish. As the result of my epic derekh ha-eretz, most of my friends express themselves almost as righteous gentiles in my life. They have their own Judaism. For many of them this is limited to an increase in use of the word “schlep” and the vague sensation that they had an awesome time at Purim, but that remains a connection between my life, my heart, and Judaism. Here, when I say “rabina” they think I don't speak Spanish. I never thought I would crave the cultural diversity of Marquette, or even Mayville. Aside from the two black kids (I'm pretty sure they're brothers) and the one second grader who might be Asian, everyone here is pretty much the same. I've never been somewhere so homogenous. And as I try to bury my various forms of loneliness in study and research, I loose the world I'm supposed to engage in. What good is study if it only stews within my mind?

I'm going to continue to skip the passages centered around how good moments of togetherness are and quickly move on after skipping Hinei Ma Tov in order to avoid tainting Shabbos with sadness. However, the royal 'we' shall return to my prayers because Israel is a we, even if I can only feel the lonely me. That's the beauty of Judaism.

Although I was sad when I realized that Jerusalem is not the magnet I though it was. It is really exciting to turn in a different direction to pray; I now turn South-East. And I remember how magical it felt to be in Jerusalem and know that everyone who was praying was facing toward where I was. Fuckin' time zones ruined everything. It's still a magical shared point, but I now realized that even if I get my daven on two hours earlier AT sunset like a good Jew, I'm only sharing that moment with like half of observant Jewry instead of all of it. Sure, maybe someone is doing their morning prayers while I'm Kabbalat Shabbating, but it's like when Santa Clause became a metaphor for people sucking less mid-winter. Magical, yeah, but still not a guy flying around the world with real magic, spreading joy. Although, I once theorized as a wee-lass that time zones would help him make the trip in one night.

I guess the point of this religious ramble was that the we language is central to Judaism, not to remind me that I'm in the least-Jewish, non-Arab nation in the world, but to remind me that because I am a Jew, no matter how alone I am, I am never alone. It does not really make me feel better, but maybe I'll stop trying to fuck with the liturgy for a bit.

Stamps

I'm going to write something a little happier while I'm not manically homesick—which means that I need to hurry before it comes back!

Friday, at the Comisaría de Policía, while they were calling my repatriation place, I had brief moments when I was alone in the office. I had become intrigued with the magical stamp—because she had stamped my paper...did that mean she'd accepted it, despite my misforms and my lack of fotocopias and my general sketchiness? All of this for a stamp! So, when no one was looking I stamped some of my random scrap papers for fun. Take that system.

Then today, after a gloom and some agoraphobic gloom, I eventually left. I decided to walk around like I do. I can't express the hills with my shitty pictures and junk but I seriously climbed up some streets today. These folks trust their brakes (frenos....is actually a word I just have in my Spanish vocab). I managed to get high enough to find the place where there are trees and no houses. Some of the roads, twisty and narrow, are actually driveways. I never know if I'm trespassing. So I walked out da woods and asked a girl I bumped into what this was—was it a park? “es un monte”. Well, yes, dear, I did realize that I had climbed quite a ways (so high my ears popped a little). But yes, it's land that I'm allowed to walk in. On the way home I found an unopened pack of peanuts...but they felt squishy so I left 'em. And what I thought was an old pipe..but wait!

It's a stamp. Once I clean the bitch up and have ink...I can put the letter “E” on all kinds of stuff.

Later, I was having hot cocoa at a cafetería and some man started talking to me. I'm not sure if he was speaking Gallego...I don't think he was. He tried to talk to me in French a lot. I spoke to him in Spanish. He spoke to me in what I believe was a combination of French and Portugués and Spanish, which just sounded like Gallego but wasn't. He was very nice, I tried to neither reject nor encourage him. I rejected his offers of coffee and pastry but continued to talk to him. He's a caretaker who's lived in Canada. And something about the rain.

And the cable here is not good. Because of the wind, the reception is shittier than the sound quality on my videos. But I realized I can watch my favorite Spanish show online. It's called 21 días. It's like 30 days, but with a pretty girl who speaks Spanish. It's pretty much the only show I've really watched. I watched a bunch of American shows, EXCELLENTLY dubbed in Spanish. And then just flat our our shit online. Thanks to a forum, I've found a website that doesn't block be for being in a foreign region. I even tried explaining to Todou that I'm closer to China. Cockblocked.

Stamps, creeps and TV. That's about it.

Just an Update

Just an Update

Firstly, I've been manically homesick. I could come home at any moment. I miss everyone and everything, not just Marquette and it's beauty and it's liberal island-ocity of the UP. I also just miss the United States in general. Some of this is just culture shock, but some of it is just me growing. I used to love a theoretical USA in my head, then it didn't live up to my expectations, but now is synthesis and acceptance; I just wish it hadn't happened right before I decided to move away. And I keep having dreams where I come home.

Today was okay though, I guess. Despite my potential to leave at any moment, I've been continuing with my paperwork and junk here as if I were staying. And yesterday, as many of you have heard, was a DISASTER. I went to submit my paperwork for my foreigner social security type number. I had even more forms with me than Xunta (regional government) had told us to bring. But they'd given us the wrong application and some shitty paperwork. The woman yelled at me and RIPPED UP my application. Aside from the fact that I was applying for the wrong thing, our “repatración” insurance did not have our names on it. This says that someone will send our bodies back if we die here. My principal called Xunta for me after the morning of fail. I received an e-mail saying that today, today things would be different. I was promised that the paperwork would be accepted without my name on it and that someone would be there who spoke English. Just to help us in the program. WHAT LIES!

There was no English this morning. After waiting for like 2.5 hours, it was my turn to go into the office. I hadn't had time to make all the copies, because I didn't think I was going back today. Xunta had called, but our paperwork still wasn't good. I explained that they'd bought a group policy and that I was told all of these lies. It was a different woman today and a man. He spent like 30 minutes on the phone with the Sending My Corpse Back company....I'm pretty sure they still shouldn't have accepted my paperwork. It was sketch, but I won't give my number back. So now I have a number. On the Thursday coming, I go to a bank, I give them 26 euro. The bank will pay the police for me and my paperwork. Then I e-mail all of this shit to Xunta and hopefully they pay me.

Despite all of this..and partially because a teacher picked me up off the street in Vigo...I got back in time to teach my last hour of class. It was...I believe, 5^th graders. I did a small group. We described ourselves and each other. Tall, short, old, young, long straight hair, etc. It was fun. Hopefully the little bastards learned something. Well something in addition to the fact that we lied to them about my Spanish. I don't think they buy the fact that I learned Spanish since Monday.

Also, the principle has started looking for apartments for me in Chapela. Staying or going, it would be cheaper to get an apartment. Then I can afford to fly home someday.

Your People Would Be My People En El Subjuntivo

Your People Would Be My People En El Subjuntivo

Aside from the history of Spain emotionally destroying any trust Am Yisroel could have for a country, it's just not a good place to be a Jew. Judaism is a communal religion and I am fairly certain that I'm the only Jew for maybe three or four-hundred miles (which will remain an unspecified amount of kilometers). There's a (1) guy in A Coruña who is jewing up there. There are also Jews in Madrid and a few other cities. There's a whole network of orthodox Jews in Spain. Anyway, today was the first day I ate real foodz at a non-vegetarian restaurant. I've been cafeteria-ing and buying my own food, but today I couldn't find a market, open or closed. After explaining that I both don't eat ''carne'' and that I am a vegetarian. I still had to tell the server twice that I really wouldn't like ham. The tuna felt like the devil after reading my National Geographic (which is slightly different than the Spanish version: but theirs came with extra booklets about the universe...), but she wouldn't let me away without protein and she shouldn't've because all the hiking and carrying I did today burned up muscles I don't have, let alone feed appropriately.

Yesterday was my first Shabbat in what will be a series of lonely Shabbatot. I did every song and prayer and reading I've ever done to combat the [irrational] fear that I'm going to forget how to daven while I'm here. The V'ahavta struck some cords.

You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, and with all your might.

Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day.

Impress them upon your children.

Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away,

when you lie down and when you get up.

Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead;

inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Thus you shall remember to observe all My commandments

and to be holy to your God.

I am Adonai, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God:

I am Adonai your God. Mishkan T'filah for Travelers, A Reform Siddur. CCAR. NYC, NY. 2009

One of my love affairs with Mishkan T'filah is the fluffy interpretations on the left side. This one is closer than some, based on the words in addition to the ideas. Some of the spins are : “Love your God...with every conscious act....Teach them [the words I commanded] to your children, talk about them at work: whether you are tired or you are rested...Keep them at the forefront of your vision. Do not leave them at the doorway of your house,...”.

I don't remember which phrase exactly triggered me, but I was feeling like I was moving backwards. I did not bring my mezuzah when I moved to a country that my people swore never to return to. For a potential, future, rabbinical student candidate---well, it felt counterproductive.

HOW DARE I DISRESPECT JUDAISM SO?

I've been maintaining the flexibility and durability and pluralism of Judaism for years. I converted in a shack for G-d's sake! Did I leave Judaism in Michigan? Sitting there, tearing and waving me goodbye? NO. (My conception of) Orthodoxy keeps making a mistake. Yes, I think that sometimes doing the actions will bring the intentions and that we should continue the tradition of crazy, possibly pointless, Jewish crap. However, let us not forget which way the goal is. I have no mezuzot, no tefillin, nor idea about what I'm looking for when I 'check/inspect' my tzit-tzit on my tallis. The knots continue to be there...

I love G-d with all my soul, heart and mind. And I am capable, maybe even more so, of awareness of G-d and Judaism and Mitzvot: even without a box falling off my head. It might just be me, but leather is usually more of a distraction, but I do love G-d. So, I'm Jewish and Judaism is Jewish l'olam vaed: when I'm at TBS or alone, when I'm in Israel or even in Spain. When I have a mezuzah and when I don't even have a doorway. I did bring my proof of conversion, a piece of paper in my bag, as a symbol of a commitment that not even an ocean can brake.

Free and Alone

Why did I think I could just MOVE to a foriegn country? I am so naive. Panic attack...panic attack. I've cried; I've raged; I've changed my mind about 7,000 times. I'm going to miss my friends. Worry about them and my family. Miss my family. Possibly prove myself to be linguistically and generally incompetent. Or the school I'm supposed to teach at and/or the country does not exist. It's a dream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ena-88qCWFE&feature=related

Except I'm going alone. As alone as I feel when I'm feeling skewed even though my friends are around. Actually alone. And I'm feeling those feelings I thought I'd already given up. Urges returning and looking at pictures only makes me want it more. I don't because I'm still playing the game (isn't everything just a game?) and I can hear year three's call echoing in my cortex. A more primal summons begs me from the base of my brain stem. I ignore it and blanket myself in my tension.

I breathe in fragile air like an aid ship passing cautiously into the war zone. The war that I'm fighting appears to be life and I'm feeling inadequate again.

The currents of destiny pull me toward them . I just hope that ignoring my sentimental hesitations doesn't leave me either brand of alone.

I think one of the big fears, yet unnamed. Is that my friends keep encouraging me to go. So often when I'm Down, I think that if I just disappeared from their lives, they wouldn't care. And even though I know they do care, their encouragement feels like I was right all along.

Also on my long list of irrational fears:

All the animals...and my friends won't remember me when I get back.

I won't be able to change my money to euro.

Something will happen and I'll never get back to the hemisphere that I should be on.

I'll forget how to be Jewish/part of a minyan.

I won't be able to navigate a city.

They don't have trees (even though I've seen them) in spain...see fear about country not existing.

They don't have cocoa or donuts.

People of the Book

People of The Book

As I try to prepare for my move abroad to teach so that I can make money and get experience and resumes and student loans to repair. I AM TERRIFIED. I'm scared because the school hasn't contacted me. I'm scared because I hate little kids. Because I'm kind of poor. AND I AM PISSED at a system that makes me think about shit like this. I should just be able to set out with a bag and travel the world. While I would, but “The Man” will no longer tolerate my sleeping in forests, or the idea of hospitality where I work on a farm for a day, having just showed up there, and they let me crash for the night. I'm going to miss my friends, my family, my city, my security. Anyway...

The title is an usually obvious and singular allusion to Jews but I'd like to expand it to the culture that has developed today. I've been reading a lot lately; it almost fills the void and makes me feel like I'm doing something with my time.

I believe that books and writing have become the most wide-spread religion of the world.

They're sacred to so many people. We can't burn them; we digitize their ways trying to extend their immortality. I'm guilty of the same even as I type right now.

Please do not mistake me: I am well read and value my literacy and the knowledge it's afforded me. And anyone who actively disdains reading will receive the sentiment tenfold from me. Yet.....I can't but wonder when I'm reading why I'm not building something or cultivating something or why I am not a ninja bad-ass warrior.

There are farmers in India cultivating and maintaining grain diversity who are not only generally intelligent but have a huge set of knowledge—they're illiterate.

If some apocalyptic change happens, be it the dread “Climate Change”, a war or even a zombie virus. Will these hours behind the paper help me survive? Will I be able to fix our car or walk without water or fight or farm? I'm just sick of the perpetuating, intellectual masturbation and think that we should all be more well-rounded.

I'm a Kitty: Heterosexual Influence

Forget everything you know about biology and let me tell you a tale.

Imagine growing up and thinking, knowing, that you're a dog. Everyone around you is a dog. You do dog things and imagine your doggy future. Then you start to notice that there's something else but continue to maintain your dog identity.

Eventually it strikes you: “I'm a cat.” Maybe I was half cat and half dog, but nope, “I'm a kitty.” Then the realization comes that you are a cat among dogs. Do the other dogs know? After a while the hidden cat emerges to tell the dog friends. Some of them leave, some of them tell the cat it's a dog or SHOULD be a dog. Really mean, closed minded dogs will chase you, barking, up a tree. Some of them say that they have other cat friends and it's cool. Then you continue your life under your newfound feline identity.

However, you must come to grips with your former dog lifestyle. All of the feelings you had for dogs. You might question your ability to love. If you were wrong then you might be wrong now. Because you were raised a dog you did dog things-you may even have barked at a few cats. You used to do dog things, now you do cat things and view the world from a kitty perspective.

Now sometimes you still look at other dogs and wonder. What your life would have been like, what your life still could be like if you could go back. Still think occasionally of those doggy dreams. The sadest thing is that there are more dogs than cats. Being a cat is lonely. And it's a dog eat dog world out there so there is not always much love for the pointy eared and soft pawed.

Muhammad and Moshe both start with M

I get a lot of mails and stuff about Judaism. Many of them have a decidedly anti-arab feel to them. And there's that whole mess with Israel. When my Rabbi asked me about Israel I told him I wasn't sure. For me it represents a lot of hate and violence. It's all nice and dandy to talk about our homeland, our people returning Eretz Yisrael, but bombs fly into Sderot almost everyday. Yes, efforts are being made on both sides to come together, but the hate and violence are overwhelming.

Here's the thing though, until recently (in terms of the past 6,000 years) the Jews and the Muslims were pretty much best friends. In Spain for example, under Arab rulership, the Jews, Muslims and whatever Christians were cool enough, prospered and had a golden age of cultural blending and bunny feelings. And afterward, when the Christians kicked all of the cool people out of Spain, Jews and Muslims lived in other lands together and supported each other.

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED????? If both sides (yeah, us too) could just pull our heads out of our asses suck it up and tell the radical nutjobs (who are such a small fraction of all the good people on both sides) to fuck off, the world would be so close to a utopia I'd have to go on a killing spree every other month just to keep people from being sensitized to misery.

So I will praise Allah and know that he is my Adonai. And I will support my Muslim brothers and sisters (not just because I find arab women attractive) just as I'd support any Jew (or queer kid, or african american, or disenfranchised individual). Because I know beyond any shred of doubt that Muhammad and Moshe are kicked back, enjoying a drink together in olam haba, the world to come.

Fitting In

This one is a long one:

As we struggle to be more normative, we often fall victim to the sin of leaving folks behind. As a moderately asexual lesbian who loves micro-agression as if it were softball, I'd like to address polyamory and maybe its influences and interactions with my aforementioned asexuality.

Back in the day, impoverished black people struggled to emulate white behavior, proving they could "fit in." Today many queer (which I use as an umbrella term denoting community active, conscientious peoples usually occupying the GLBTQAAI etc. sphere) try to "fit in" by getting married, having babies and constructing middle class picket prison fences. If this is the passion, chase it down and own it as your own, but is it the passion or is it the norm? So today we bridge the gap by having "committed, monogamous, one-on-one relationships."

I am NOT the polyamory master--I'm not really an amory master of any kind. I can say that, although it ended poorly (so often we neglect the "sane" part of "Safe, Sane and Consentual"), I think the time I dated a straight identified couple was one of the best relationships of my life.

Long before the touting of homosexual penguins, we used to hear about how this or that animal "mated for life." SWEET MOSES, why was that espoused as the epitome of relationship? And why are we always so proud if animals conform to our standards and norms? As member to a species that is actively destroying this glorious kingdom o' G-d, I'm not sure that human is the model we should be following. What about all of the whore species that have multiple, not lasting, partners?

Maybe just because I don't feel the specific click with males, does not have to signify that I don't want strong manly arms to hug me if I'm scared. And what if my best female friend is "into the cock" but still wants to be logistically and emotionally committed to me? And what if living together makes the rape of renting a livable expense?!! Is my sin so great?

As a late bloomer who for a long time question celibacy as a life choice, I was most pressured into sex by my friends. Teased sometimes, but most often in conversation I became a meaningless, non-participant because I did not belong to--what became to me, the secret club.

And even as I fought to "fit in" I knew that if I'd had sex finally, I would still be regulated away because it was with a girl instead of a guy.

My next relationship would be one-on-one which was difficult because I'm in the habit of being emotionally despondent and this time there was not an extra party to pick up my slack. And as long as we timed our freak outs to not correspond, there use to be two people with different life experiences to take care of you and help any problem that came up. Even with a girlfriend, I feel lonely.

"Did you have sex with them?"

FOR THE SAKE of polyamorous and asexual education, the answer is no. However, I consistently felt myself to be participatory in the broader scale of sex-life. Post-coital cuddle puddles are inclusive domain.

My brain has some sort of episode when I'm asked that question. My very core screams "THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" Much like as a modern, liberal, reform Jew, I feel that proving every minute, fantastical point in the biblical narratives is counterproductive to the point of their tellings.

Why does sex have to be the be-all, end-all of relationship definition? Why do we need relationship definition? If I, as a lesbian am happy with my boyfriend and girlfriend in tow--does it really matter?

They first attracted me by being two of the too few people who didn't degrade me for my v-card status but still encouraged potential, healthy sexual development. Am I asexual? If we can actually grip sexuality as a continuum, then sometimes, yes, that term is an appropriate descriptor of how I feel. I'm also a lesbian who is open to logistical relationships with boys and please try to picture the shit I took for that within our 'community'. I might have well sold my soul to Fred Phelps the shit I took.

Do I want to get married and have a picket fence? Quite a lot sometimes (see I'm a Kitty). Occasionally, I even picture some sort of baby monster in it. But in the end what I need is to not feel pressured about how I use ore don't use this body-temple and to not feel pressured about whom I love as long as I am happy and safe.

Foodstuffs

So I just read In Defense of Food. It was decent. Some of it was stuff I already knew, as demonstrated by the fact that one of my research papers (let me know if you want to read about food packaging and the environment) shared some citations with him.

The biggest idea I took from the paper is that a lot of our problems come from "overthinking" food and trying to out-science nature. I think I'm going to continue maintaining that sentience is like the worst thing to happen to human beings. To get biblical on it: that's what I think the apple was. Sentience, then we started being more aware of misery and counting things and desiring things that we can't have. I think it makes us both less happy and more happy.

Healthy soil=healthy food=healthier eaters of food. That is, if you're eating foods from soils. Don't get me wrong, it's a struggle even for my gastronomically self-righteous ass. I grew up on processed sugar filling processed sugar. I crave it sometimes. Then earth guilt in the voice of Gaia from Captain Planet yells at me and then I think about my health....lame. I WANT HOSTESS. Fruits cool too. It's an adjustment. Most of the time the not-food-food looks disgusting when I think about what's in it.

I apologize to the world for the three days I detassled seed corn. Here's the thing. Not only does it lead to the corn rape that is using corn for everything, monocropping the nutrients out of the soil. It also paid shit. It's like child slavery.

I'm glad I am a reform Jew. There's a very fine line between ingenuity and corruption. Both involve thinking outside of the box. For example, if I use raped soy (this is how I define using foodstuffs in not their food ways) to eat a cheeseburger. Technically, I'm not mixing meat and dairy but it just looks sketch and to me, feels like cheating. However, I can transfer to the concept of "ethical Kashrut" and eat maybe not Orthodox Union Certified foods but foods that aren't pork that are environmentally and worker-friendlier foods. Junk like that.

So those are some thoughts on a book. It was decent by the way. Well researched, pleasant to read. Also, the cover was tactilely friendly. Some kind of faux-vellum.

Culture of Destruction

I still can't get things to copy and paste. It's probably my own ineptitude.

Today I did almost all of what would comprise my city driving. In addition, with the exception of moving a couple of parked vehicles, my first driving out of state. Aside from my queasy stomach I really love it. Growing up in the Midwest I've been raised to thrill at long stretches of road surrounded by fields. We drive hours for high school sporting events, because the nearest schools are just that far away.

On the Road, The Electric-koolaide Acid Test have both cultivated and expanded the love of road trips. My favorite is the drive to and through Michigan's Upper Peninsula. However the weight is hard for me because I know that just by driving, I'm destroying this distance and any beauty it holds.

costtodrive.com will calculate your monetary and ecological cost and even allow you to buy carbon offsets. Near as I can figure is when businesses overshoot their pollution they can buy extra pollution allowance from businesses that don't. It encourages businesses to pollute less. Because we live in a capitalistic society and planetary and health destruction is not enough motivation to save ourselves.

Anyway. I don't drive a lot but I love road trips so I'm going to bike when I get home and pick up some recyclables. Most "Adopt a Highway" programs only actually clean up once a year and they throw everything away instead of sorting out recyclables and pop can deposits (which double container recycling numbers) can buy some carbon off sets. So this is a healthy way for me to try to fix a little of my culturally-motivated destruction.

Before the Swamp

Excellent. I finally cracked and got a b-log that is not Myspace. The 'space is waning. So this mini clip is my test run before I start painstakingly copying and pasting all of my Myspace materials.

Mmm. Fonts. We'll see. G-d I miss paper.