the view from Tel Aviv

Yonatan came to Brussels today. The usual round of meetings, but we managed to find some time to see each other (what, was it two years since last time?). Georgie, my daughter, must have been 10 months or so at the time. We still have a couple of pictures of the two of them posing in the kitchen; Yonatan has that wide smile of his. The funny thing is that Georgie found the photos just last week while browsing iPhoto in the computer and asked me about "him". And then, a few days later we got a phone call from Yonatan, still in Tel Aviv, saying that he would be in Brussels this Wednesday.

My, was he surprised with how much Georgie had grown since then, and how much she is able to talk! Georgie couldn't stop kissing his leg, which was cute to watch. Yonatan must have made a big impression. In fact, anybody with a connection to her "baby days" makes a big impression on Georgie, I have noticed.

We asked him about what it was like to be in Tel Aviv when the madness in Gaza was going on. He told us about the fear of the rockets fired by Hamas, even though they never hit Tel Aviv. "Everybody knows someone in the south, and although the chances of the rockets hitting someone are minimal, you worry for the people you know". His partner went down south for a few days and Yonatan was worried for him. He also told us how people in Israel seem to have hardened their views on armed conflict with the Palestinians and how there seems to be an impenetrable consensus on the need to be tough, and that "they deserve it".

War is chilling. It made me think how hard it is to reconcile humanity with the ugliness of war, when you are in the middle of it, when you can't really distance yourself from it, when it isn't some faraway conflict that you read about in the news. How hard it must be to keep your sense of nuance and balance when you are part of it. Yonatan sounded disillusioned.

I admire him for keeping on trying to find that nuance, for questioning the "truths" from all sides, for being able to talk about it without shrugging it off. I don't feel very optimistic myself about peace in the region. Stubborn as we humans are, it will take a few more generations of suffering for people to realise that they have more in common than what sets them apart. Look at us in Europe and all the wars it took us to come to this simple conclusion; and all the effort it still takes to make sure we don't go back to our old ways.

When Yonatan left, he asked us when we are planning to visit. We told him that Israel was definitely in our travel plans; maybe when Georgie is a bit older. I wonder if he believed us, but we meant it. One day we will be coming around to see Tel Aviv, the bauhaus city, "the bubble". What happens there is so much more real because we know Yonatan; geography is really made of people and emotions, no matter what.

Butterfly

This morning my daughter, who is three and a half, told me that when she grows up she wants to be a butterfly. Why? I asked. So that I can fly, was her answer. It all sounds beautiful to me.

Gypsie like me

Tonight I watched one of Todd Stephens' early films, "Gypsy 83". I was already a fan of his more famous Edge of Seventeen. What I liked about Gypsy was the predictable "road-movie" story-line, the missing mother, the gothic makeup, the make-belief so simple, yet so true, in those big American trashy side-of-the-road places where it is both beautiful and incongruous to watch a couple of kids dancing to The Cure in velvety outfits.

I was a Gypsy myself, growing up in Rinchoa, near Lisbon, Portugal, which could be another god-forsaken place somewhere in Ohio, just like in the film. I too stood in front of the mirror dabbing colours onto my face, tracing my lips with red and working my eyes into storms of purple and blue. I too danced away in the middle of the night and hoped to be rescued. I too was a runway. Still am in so many ways. Still running away from Rinchoa, its working-class smugness, its middle-class pretentions, its end-of-the-day boredom. But it is all part of me, and I cherish it too, in a twisted kind of way. Without my memories of Rinchoa there is nothing to run away from and that is what keeps me going.

Gypsy awoke the teenage in me. I could feel him stirring. I will go in front of the mirror tonight and put some makeup on and jive. So good to know this is all still here. Ah, I almost forgot how nice it was to hear Stevie Nicks singing again "Talk to Me". I had forgotten all about it, those afternoons listening to the radio at home after school in the 1980's. "Talk to me, When you are down now, Talk to me".

one cinema and two films a day

This evening Julia came for dinner all the way from Pristina in Kosovo. She told us that there is one cinema in town, that it shows two films per day. She saw a good Albanian film the other day. I wondered if she was learning the language. Not really, she said, the film had subtitles, in English. I use my free time, Julia continued, to go to the gym, to keep fit, physically and mentally.

I told her I had been to the English Cinema in Vienna when I was there in January. I didn't tell her the film I watched. She didn't ask. It was "Seven Pounds" with Will Smith. I sort of liked it. I sort of felt it was too corny to be good. I couldn't stop crying when it ended. I felt so sad, alone in Vienna, going to my hotel in the cold, with my new leather gloves and my new leather boots from a top-fashion store.

I wonder if Julia feels lonely in Pristina? She says there are no parks for walking. How do you live in a town without parks? I guess she has more friends now. The internationals, it figures. I'm happy for her. It is hard to be an expatriate. I know it myself after 12 odd years of Brussels. I don't have a lot of time to go to the cinema here, mais bon, there is always so much to do at home anyway. I go to the cinema when I'm on mission.

my house with a porch

Today I dreamed again of my house with a porch, in Chicago. It has to be the right porch, all around the house, with creaking woods and a lovely shade. I should be able to see Lake Michigan while sitting on a rocking chair sipping a cup of green tea. I should be able to hear the laughter mixed with the waves, smell the water, and even feel a couple of sand grains beneath my teeth. I dream of a house with a porch in Chicago, that place I miss so much and which my daughter reminds me of every day.

I have never had a house with a porch, though I know I must have, because the memory is so intense. I suppose that is true saudade. One day I will grow old and I will have a house with a porch, by the lake, in Chicago. I will sail flags from its corners, and hail neighbours from the door, my daughter will play on the steps and I will watch her go to school. I don't feel sorry because I don't have a house with a porch in Chicago. The dream keeps me company. A dream can be fancied like clouds moving in the sky with the wind. It comes and goes with the tide. My house full of dreams, surrounded by a porch, by the lake, around the corner, in Chicago. The town where my daughter was born.

Finally!

My first post. Nothing special you will say, pourtant, it has been a long time in the making and it's here, finally!