Post 42: Eerie Era

I just finished seven years of writing. That's right (write?) Originally I wrote almost 41 posts before the era of blogs and when I decided to open a blog, I had material ready to post every few days. It took approximately six months to post these stories, and it was fun, albeit painful at times, to review each post in retrospect.

Now I will be creating new material. I don't know whether to pick up where I left off, or tell the story of what is happening to me now and then go back in time.

For the present, let me just thank my friends and family who have been following this blog and encourage them to share it with others. Just because I don't write under my real name, doesn't mean I don't want to be read.

Given the emotional state that I'm in right now, I can't guarantee the new material to be as witty or as fresh as past posts, but I can hope to offer my brand of cynicism with a little bit of cautious optimism thrown in for fun.....

This writer is shifting gears in this eerie era.

Post 41: Fishing for Space

originally created as Column Forty-one, April 2007

As I walked past the outdoor stands in the neighborhood shopping mall, just before Passover, I was attracted to the bright colors of several vodka bottles. Inside each bottle was a mini-aquarium containing water (not vodka) and a single fish. The salesperson was selling each bottle+fish+fishfood as a gift.

A few people walked by to inquire what she was selling. Most of them exclaimed "poor thing - he's all alone". The vendor explained that if the fish had a partner they would probably kill each other and that he can live for about four years in such a bottle. Furthermore, if you would put that fish in a huge aquarium, he would look for a quiet and intimate corner.

I didn't see anyone buying the fish, but many continued to protest at the fish's apparent bachelorhood. I found it amusing that despite the fact that the vendor explained that the fish was content being alone, people insisted that he was lonely. Even fish aren't allowed to be alone in Israel? Even being a single fish is socially unacceptable? I imagine that if people weren't so busy, they would quickly come up to the vendor with suggestions of eligible other fish to fix him up with, and if he would reject their candidacy, they would probably console their own fish and say "don't worry, there are plenty more in the sea".

But seriously, this is the continuous obsession with having to have a partner or live with someone to be part of society. In a recent popular tv show, a single woman and her fiance call off the marriage. The camera shows the ex-bride crying hysterically in her living room. Her friend tries to console her. She says she is crying because she wanted her identity card to read "divorced". A comedy, yes, but sadly true.

It seems to be more acceptable to be divorced than to be single. Even the series "Sex and the City", that tried to glorify, or at least justify single women being single, ended the series with EACH one of the four single girls being married or at least having a serious, committed boyfriend. As the series did not continue, we do not know what happened to the characters and whether their relationships did succeed in the long-term, or not. However, the writers seemed to have given in, despite the non-conventional and daring manner in which the series was portrayed to the socially conservative notion of women living "happily ever after" with the men of their dreams.

And so here it was...a beautiful fish in a beautiful home happily sporting its colors and decorative environment to the passersby. But that was not enough. This single fish was not accepted by it society, not even on the eve of Passover!

This writer does NOT live with a boyfriend or husband in Israel,, but she is not lonely!

Post 40: Ecology and Loneliness

Originally created as Column Forty, January, 2005

I’m starting to think that all my single friends whether they are never married, widowed, divorced with children or divorced without don’t REALLY want to meet someone new…not deep down in their subconscious. On the one hand, we want to feel excitement, butterflies in their stomach, something different, new, explore and conquer the unknown….

But on the other hand we want the familiarity of people who have known them from 1-30 years, friends, people who have been with them through rough and better times, the familiarity of a hug or a smile or a certain joke, the ability to tease and yet being able to forgive…in short, everything that comes with being a friend….

And forever reason the “comfort’ of the “chevreh” (group of friends) is like the hug of a mother to a child…no replacement for it. And although sex has sometimes come into place with some of the chevreh, being that the “chevreh” consists of certain people who may or may not have slept with each other at some point within the last 1-20 years, it is not the main factor.

So you get together, some hormones rage, some don’t. “Hey Odelia, are you going back to Holon? My friend Dana lives there and it would be great if you could give her a lift back – otherwise I have to drive out of my way”, I said at a gathering of friends and friends of friends on a cold and rainy Saturday night approximately 30 kilometers away from Tel Aviv…”I haven’t decided if I’m going home” replied Odelia. (Odelia obviously did not have a young child or babysitter waiting for her to come home to Tel Aviv).

Ah, I understand later as I see her lurking next to the car of my ex boyfriend…later I find out she did go back to Tel Aviv – my ex boyfriend wanted her to stay over in the city where he lives. So he was rejected….he’s hard to resist…surprised that she rejected him…he didn’t even look me in the eye, but that was ok….I’ve moved on…maybe not….and so I dropped Dana off in Tel Aviv and went home alone but then get a call to see if I got home ok and then invited the caller over…it was a cold and rainy night. The caller wasn’t my recent ex boyfriend but there were endless possibilities of who would end up with whom that evening.

This writer asks why accept a hug from a stranger when you can recycle?