Sleeping Out

Yesterday I decided I needed to sleep outside. I’ve had a tent set up in the woods by the pond for the last two weeks, since Cedar and I camped out one night. It’s survived a couple of wind and rain storms, and it seemed silly not to use it after it had been out through all that.

"Wake Up, Time to Die."

How will I know when I have lived enough? I have heard that some people say that they have lived enough and are ready to die. I cannot imagine ever being ready to die. Some nights before I fall asleep, I remember that it is going to happen sometime, and my body goes completely cold. Thank God for sleeping pills.

Commerce and Trade

One night in bed Bruce and I were talking about World War II and why the U. S. had entered (romantic, eh?) He said it had occurred to him that we really did it to preserve our trade routes and trading partnerships more than for any military reason. So I asked him the question that’s been on my mind so much lately – is trade and commerce all there is? Is this what life is about? It seems so in America, where everywhere you look is an advertisement. But even in Tanzania, everywhere I went, people were selling food – holding it up to the windows of buses slowed down in traffic –oranges, symmetrically peeled with knives, roasted field corn, sweets. And then there was the market where people sold baskets and dyed cloth and vegetables. There was a woodcarvers market where I bought carvings to bring back for people and I bought myself a lovely Zanzibar chest. But then I gave it away the following Christmas. Every now and then, like right now, I have a moment of mild longing for it – the beautifully carved top, the secret drawer inside – but then it is gone.

WWED (What Would Emily Do?)

Is there such a thing as enough of a life?

Growing up, it seemed that all we did was move from one place to another. First it was just my parents trying to find their place -- from Israel to various locales in the NY metro area. Then they split up and I hopped on the microbus with my father for the ride to Tennessee, Wisconsin, and back to Israel. Then my mother pulled me back on her bus, with stops in Manhattan, Scarsdale, and Spring Valley, NY. By the time I was 10, I had lived in 10 places in three states and two countries.

Some of these moves were prompted by circumstances, or messages from God, but the last few were distinctly upwardly mobile. I was more or less equally unhappy in each place, but each dwelling was bigger, with more yard and nicer things. After moving back with my mother, when I was eight, every home we lived in had a television. Always the sad sack new kid, I spent most afternoons in front of it, stuffing my face. Saturday nights I watched Love Boat and Fantasy Island, alone, imagining all the other kids at parties, movies, hanging out...