I took a nap on the way to Los Angeles and again on the way back to Dallas. It was harder to sleep on the way there than the way back even though the seats were more comfortable.
That is because I was wired and though I knew it before I left I hadn’t realized how much until the plane left the ground.
Wasn’t because I worried about people fighting about masks or because I cared about wearing one for a few hours. Neither bothered me much.
Nah, it was because I had a sense of some of what was coming and the recognition that some of the ghosts I hadn’t had the opportunity to face was finally here made me a little more insane.
If some of you had asked the question I would have told you. Would have told you all about the kids and a dozen other things but only if I was asked and so I held my silence.
It is a space I know intimately.
Somewhere between the airport and the cemetery that my great-grandparents and David are buried in I remembered the summer of ’98.
Thought about the trip to England and Israel and how David called right after I got back and asked to get dinner. I was so jet lagged I asked to wait a couple of days.
He said sure and then he had that major seizure and was never the same.
Don’t know that he would have told me what was really going on with him that night but I have wondered. And from time to time have asked myself the question about if I would tell you if I was dying. Not sure that I would want to be treated any differently.
Weekends Go So Quickly
Went to sleep just before 2 AM and managed to sleep until 10 AM Sunday morning. Felt like a victory because I haven’t done that in a while though I have tried.
Unlike a bunch of the boys I still sleep through the night and can still drink after 8 PM though I can’t take the same quantities as I once did.
Kind of funny to say it like that knowing I am referring to non-alcoholic drinks though I will have the occasional beer or Scotch.
Things work mostly as they should though not quite as well as they did at 25.
We all laugh about that now because the conversations are relatively different than they were a few years back. You hear the tales about what investments we are in or considering, different ways to fund college, conversations about downsizing, grandkids and surgeries.
This one wants to compare notes about colonoscopies, hernias and or what the construction market looks like. And let’s not forget the smattering of what dating looks like now as opposed to the once before.
Didn’t have time for much of that this particular weekend because I was playing catch-up on the time I missed while I was in L.A.
Was barely gone but the list of crap that has to get done never ends and the weekends go so quickly.
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Heard about a couple more antisemitic events in Texas and a few other places and thought about a conversation from that summer of ’98.
Thought about discussing a time when I would be back in Jerusalem because it would be home. The question wasn’t if but when and whether I would have two homes, one there and one in the states.
That took me on a search through some older emails and when I found what I was looking for it made me think of a couple of other things.
1) You’re still right there, even if you say otherwise you know damn well you are.
2) Some years back a friend of mine was hospitalized. During our visit he kept slipping between English and Hebrew while speaking with me. When I said something about it he told me to remember to
לעשות חיים and not end up in סוף העולם שמאלה.
You can translate those as to “do life” and “at the end of the world turn left.” Think of the first as to just live and the second to not end up in the middle nowhere.
It sounded a bit like gibberish when he said it, but there was truth in his mania.
I’ll let Kris take you out ‘cuz there are other posts to write and things to do before the weekend runs out.
See him wasted on the sidewalk in his jacket and his jeans,
Wearin’ yesterday’s misfortunes like a smile
