you are the refugee in this army of lies.

July 8, 2016

I am back from Israel now and, just as Avivoush promised, if having done the trip right, i am left with more questions and more, and more confused and the only thing I understand is that it’s complicated.

One day back in New York and I’m reminded why I’m ashamed to be an American. I see the lazy dragging un-blistered feet, stuffing another McDonalds "meal", dragging new things. Last night (when I got out of the shower,) right before family dinner, my brother threw the TV remote and he and my dad screamed at each other and then my brother marched into his room and slammed the door. We started dinner without him, he’s always the last to the table anyway. Of course families fight all over the world, in every room of every home; and I know the fights must be the same: you took too long in the bathroom, dinner was shit, you were late to the movies, you forgot the kids, you’re embarrassing, you don’t love me anymore. But somehow, for the first time after coming home to NYC after being out of the country, do I really truly see the bogus small-eties of everyone’s complaints. I knew it before, I knew it was dull, and it made me panic with rage at the stupidity of those around me because I feared i was that stupid too. I learned to laugh at them, appreciate the small moments: a little old lady pushing a grocery cart taller than she, storming though crowds and blocks, a curtain blowing out of a window and shadows swirling beyond it, a pizza man stretching dough, looking out at the same changing block for the past 40 years, an old couple, a first love kinda young couple, a street band, people moving, and the trash of memories/life left behind. Here, our things are so important, to let go of our things is this huge monumental moment that wins Pulitzer prizes and proud Facebook statuses. “Yay! I got rid of half my closet! I feel so good!” and the status gets the most likes on any post you ever post, etc. etc. In Israel, sharing is most important. The history, the culture, the age old fusion language, the Torah and the great writers since.

I'm high on the couch, writing, and I keep forgetting that my brother is taking a lsat practice test in my kitchen. His movements twitch in the corner of my eye and I jolt when I see him there working, prepping for his future.

Today I’m sitting on a street in Havana.  A pretty girl in a long yellow sundress walked by, her dress bottom spinning in the wind. Her browned ankles dancing over the cobblestones. A live band is playing a couple doors down, but you can hear it from blocks over. There are musicians on nearly every corner. But that’s anywhere you’re not from., you just have to remember to hear and find the music. There are humans everywhere, we are everywhere. This is our land.

Tomorrow I fly to Berlin in a friend’s jet fighter. Talk about a direct flight and no security lines. This is the life. He’s routed the route and says he’s done it a million times before. I’ll be his co-captain, but since he’s done the route alone before, a million times, as he says, I’m not really nervous. He said if I really wanted, I could even take a Klonopin or a tab to sit back and really enjoy the flight. We’ll see how I feel after breakfast tomorrow. Imagine that though, watching sunset after sunset, tripping out, as if the stuff doesn’t make you think about space and time already. We stocked up on chocolates for ourselves, friends and family.

I lost my pinky ring in the sand on the Coney island beach. It was sterling silver with a flat green stone across it. The band was very thick and I liked how tough it made me look. It completed the 5 silver rings on my left hand and I thought it made my hand glow a bit – I mean all of them together. Especially now that I’m tanned from the middle east sun.

Traveling and vacation is like a time warp.  Everything is perfect and well managed and packed in and you get a new kind of writing done and see all kinds of people and doors and skies and rocks and trees. You eat food you become accustomed to, so much so, that when you get back home you forget how to eat what’s there. The terrain is different; the air smells different. The voices and dialects are not as beautiful (when you come back home), everyone sounds nasally and boring and like their complaining. And I’m high and mighty because I understand something about the world, another thing about the world, that most don’t; and then I hate them all. All the ignorant-trash-talking-cellphone-screaming-on-bimbos. And really they’re all probably perfectly nice and charming. But I don’t care, because they’re from here and I want to be with people that aren’t from here in their land, so that I’m the one not from there.

This is at our last Kibbutz in Israel. When Sydney turned our google maps on, it said "Welcome to Jordan." We didn't hear any bombs going off that night, just our wild screams of love and intoxication. We ran naked through the sprinklers and drank too much wine and smoked hash and I taught one boy what bokonon practices were and we put our feet together and then crossed them again and I told him I wanted to kiss him and he said "sure, why not, we're in Israel after all."  I laughed and rolled back because it felt like such an awkward reply, but then we kissed two minutes later anyway.

I’m up early and am watching particles dancing through the stream of sunlight that’s cracking through my curtains. It looks like a wall of magic connecting me, in my bed, to the outside world, via my bedroom window. They move slowly, and with purpose, like ants in a farm. Every single one is shining and multi coloured and jut drifting through the air flow. I wonder, they must be everywhere all the time, just right now they reveal themselves to me for some ungodly or, rather, quite godly, reason.

Nati is telling us his story on the Gaza Strip in Hebrew while Aviv translates. Below us, far in the distance, bulldozers push around sand and ash. Everything seems quiet, relaxed like a beachy day, and then I’m reminded of the horror and fortune we as individuals experience. On the way back down the hill after soaking in the torn up land and 15 seconds of escape time these folks are permitted, granted, calculated to expect, I see a discarded broken baby’s crib, burnt single pages from newspapers and Torahs. I see sneakers and random belongings. I can’t help but think the land I’m standing on used to be homes. It used to be somewhere someone would come home from work to, and make dinner or expect it and kiss their wife and children and relax on the couch to watch TV after a long day of work and just as they all settle on a show, the alarms sound and they run for safety, luckily they all make it, but when it’s safe to come out again, they see their house torn to shreds and their stuff, all their stuff, strewn out in the street like an American cop raided the place.

With even some insight and a lot more disgust towards worldly conflicts and the “conflicts” here at home. Wow, we have such first world problems. Debating who can get married, who can fall in love, then not imposing IQ tests for folks who wanna own a firearm, machine guns included, or run for president. The problems we have here in America resemble that of a novice, 4th world county, not a first world one, yet we complain and spend like the 1st world country that we pretend to be. Here, our anger and danger comes from an individual sense of greed, of pathetic racism, and this craving to fit into the American dream, which has changed and evolved into something people still can’t understand or achieve. In Israel, at least, the war is beyond the border. It is fueled by hate and vengeance, by ignorance and confusion. There is passion running though the country, the faith brings them together, for better or for worse. You could have 10 Israelis offering up their swimming trunks, even though you only asked one, and very quietly. And 10 Americans shaking their heads, faking an apology, disgusted by the thought of having their junk and yours swaddled in the same place. Because in America, we have the luxury of time to be disgusted and repulsed and judgmental and hateful without logic or facts. Of course, everywhere does this, even in the holy land. But in Israel, you wouldn’t lose a friend because you discussed politics.  America, Americans are callous people. Callous, callous, angry, hurried people. I am American. I’m fortunate to be American, but I am not proud. Even NYC seems trite, by the vast transplants who roam and stomp around entirely unaware. Unaware of where they are, of who has stomped these grounds and made marks before them. Unaware of the challenges of this city and of this damn forsaken world. Unaware that not everyone’s mommys and daddys pay their rent, their Time Warner, and Grub Hub bills, etc. etc. Unaware that you have to work and hit rock fucking bottom and be scathed and burned and permanently scarred before you can even dream of surfacing. That drowning is a good thing and just because you shaved your head and dyed your hair doesn’t mean you’re an outcast and misunderstood and for that reason alone, you’re now an artist. Why (do you think the word) artist has become such a totally mocked, flamboyant word or profession – especially pre-40s and unsuccessful. Because everyone is at it, without fruitfulness, without intention, without message or cause or rhyme or reason. Everyone’s caught the fame bug, and the spotlight is the only place they can be loved – or so they think. In Israel, what would be my peers, are forced, but happy to join the army to protect like they were protected before. That’s their glory. Our glory is a talk show, or a sitcom or Jerry Springer or Hollywood billboards, or even a fucking soap line. We don’t give a shit in what form our glory comes in, so long as we can post about it on Facebook and rack up the likes and comments and lovers and haters. We forget who we are. We forget what our childhood selves wanted to be when we grow up and mock their little voice by telling ourselves they were just kids and didn’t know anything about the world or how it worked. The truth is, we still don’t (we’re just expected to, so we all go along, blindfolded and pretending. How’s that working out?)

And still, these particles are dancing for me in my streak of bedroom light.

What people don’t tell you is that it’s okay to be sad.  People don’t tell you this and they want you to laugh and smile when they console you, because your misery reminds them of their own, and of their failures and shortcomings and fears. And, because people don’t really know how to face those nightmares, and they don’t want to face them at all, so they resent you and desperately try to cheer you up until they give up and disappear and you're left to wallow and grow all on your own.