Parallel Worlds

26 below in Calgary. 26 above in Netanya. I guess it evens out.
Rona in Calgary is teaching first person fiction writing. I'll try first person plural writing. There is Nomi1 who stays in Israel to doula Benino to its opening day, and Nomi2 who flies to Calgary to be with Tala on her special day. Surely both exist. I shall write the full and fictional story in first person bifurcated.
I'll spare the details of how they cloned me, a cell of the heart, or a fractal of the neshama, carefully duplicated, one of me dressed in a tank top and sandals, the other in winter boots, same eyes, same smile.
Nomi2 touches down in Toronto, walks with Mommy to bring tongue sandwiches to Uncle Izzy, compares mythologies with Daddy, and then flies to Calgary, where Tala sings and the angels smile. (Nomi1 sends a loving blessing by video, and receives a movie of the whole event). Nomi2 is so proud of how Jayda has mothered and nurtured and her beautiful Tala, and of how Tala mothers Jayda when Jayda needs a mother. And she is bursting with pride as she sees the wisdom and glitter of Tala, teaching us, delighting us, comforting us in the awareness that Jewish tradition will continue through her generation and on to the next. And then, while Nomi1 is busy in Tel Aviv, Nomi2 is singing with Janie, artsand crafting with Sunny and learning with Shlomo and Justin in Winnipeg.
Dear dear friends and family in Canada, I hope you will understand. It is probable now, that I will be postponing my Canada trip, in the real world. But the delicious planning we've done together, and gorgeous generosity of your welcomes to me, are as real as real.
Nor Skype nor phone nor email nor blog can come near the sheer and ancient power of loving imagination, to bring me right into your arms and into your warm and welcoming homes. I love you, and will see each of you in a not too distant time.

Writing First Person Fiction

Think about the concept. Fiction, written in the first person. "I" is a fictitious character of my own invention. '"I" is?' I must be forgetting my English! Help! I'm semilingual. Due for a trip to Canada. Or not. "I" is due for a trip to Canada. I am a strange loop. I am loopy. "I" is going nuts tonight. "I" is out of my mind.

My friend Rona Altrows is giving a course on writing first person fiction. We are currently booked to "go writing" together in Calgary on January 29.

I booked my Air Canada flight way back in the summer. What prompted me was Tala's teacher's comment, "When Tala sings Torah, the angels weep". Jan 21 to Feb 10 was far enough in the future to be abstract, fictitious. And then Benino was conceived, with a projected opening date of December 15. Could I leave Beno and Benino alone a month after opening? I would decide, closer to flight date. And then the opening was postponed to who knows when. The place looked upside down, all sawdust and dream. This restaurant will never open, it felt to me. I'll fly to Canada and fly home to Israel. ( Did "I" say "home to Israel"? Has it happened? Oh, home is where "I" is. I am able to say, "I'll fly home to Canada for three weeks and then come home to Israel".
Now, suddenly, the restaurant is set to open on January 21. Maybe.
"Does that mean you're not coming? " Oh my. I'll sleep on it tonight. Air Canada tickets are changeable, with a small fee.
So here's where the first person fiction idea comes in: in the event that I cancel my trip home to Canada because I have to be home for the opening of Benino, I shall write the trip as a work of luscious fiction, that sweet loving feeling I have when Mommy pops in to 2406 in the early morning, to see if I'm up yet, and to tell me to come over for branflakes and coffee and Globe and Mail and CBC. I love those mornings with Mommy and Daddy at the round table, glassed in high above the snowy world, looking down over the planetarium. I'll write the story of my first hug with dancy acrobat Sunny, my tour of Shlomo's coin collections, my walk in snowy streets with Janie. I can Skype duets with Janie, read the Globe and Mail on my computer screen, hear CBC by internet radio loud and clear. I can imagine my trip to ice and snow, picture myself in all the scenes, see Picasa slideshows of Bitsy's new house, send my love, as I always do, to Larry and to Izzie. I can write the fictional story of my trip to Canada, if I don't make it. It will be a beautiful story. But sad.

Dreams Have Lost Some Grandeur Coming True

The road not taken, the choice we didn't choose, always seems perfect. Adam

points out to me that it's perfect because it didn't have a chance to be played out, to touch air, to be tarnished. A table never eaten at has no winespills, no creases in the tablecloth, no crumbs. Yoni points out to me that that unborn, unrealized untarnished event exists perfectly in the conceptual world, the world of ideas.
At conception, Benino was all grandeur, delight, a clean,and perfect dream. The menu was limitless, an infinite and sumptuous feast. Where is Benino now? The dream waits somewhere, hiding from the bang of nails into wood, the daily hagglings over this permit and that one, the dilemmas and the delays. Reality, when its birthing time arrives, will be more tasty, more filling, than all the perfect dreams in the world.
I love the world of ideas, that uncreased place where everything is possible.
But the physical world is where we live.
Dreams will lose some grandeur coming true, and the physical will never ever be exactly the way the dreamplan blueprint promised.
But reality is tastier.
And quenches the thirst.

Abchu and Avraham

For the little great-grandchildren of Abchu and Leah, who laughed and played tag on the happy procession to the flowered gravestones, Abchu is ancient history, as old as Avraham Avinu, our collective patriarch who dared to break idols and listen to a mystical directive, "Lech L'cha" "Go to yourself, go to the land that I will show you, and I will make you fruitful in the land, and you will be a blessing". What did Abchu's father YRachmiel say when Abchu announced in 1933 that he was on his way to the land that was promised to the more ancient Abraham? And how can we keep vibrant that story of Abchu and Leah for these delightful little ones, born in Israel, taking Israel as a given? By laughing and skipping our way to the gravestones in a happy parade of generations each year. By celebrating their energy and their sweetness, on the day they became part of the earth.

Deliciousness

The Beethovenische Freilach. Simon and Daniel are in Victoria now, practicing a number for Randy's office party. And before this they were with Yoni in Montreal, playing klezmerized Beethoven. And Jessica wrote in an application to join a handpicked group of Rhodes Scholars and doctoral students from around the world on a mind-opening learning trip to Israel, that she wanted to reconnect with family here. Imagine how connected she felt when she herself recognized her Wolbromski characteristics, through meeting the relatives here. We had wonderful strolls through the boisterous fragrances of Shuk HaCarmel, and quiet late night talks, gazing at each other through the Chanuka candles' flicker. And visits with Bars and Wolbromskis and Kastons, connecting, connecting, connecting.

Molly Ann and Henry

Chanuka celebrates the miracle of our spiritual existence. I like our physical existence too, the knowing that we are here in this touchingtastingfeelinghugging right here world. When Molly Ann and Henry are here in Israel, I seem to know more certainly that my Canada world and my Israel world are both physically real. Molly Ann and Henry saw Mary Blum last Shabbat. And Mary Blum was with Mommy and Daddy the other day. The crystallization chain, from real to real to real, brings me a solid sense that yes! We are all here on this physical, earthy plane.
And gazing at the Chanuka candles tonight, knowing that Yoni and Mommy and Daddy and dear family all around are singing to similar flames, I somehow know that we are all seeing the same light, celebrating one simultaneous festival, singing one song. Happy Chanuka, everywhere!

How We Make Decisions

Jung says few, if any, of our decisions are made by the conscious mind. The psyche, that other 99 per cent, is steering us just as much now in our evidence-based rational world, as it ever was. What strong magnet pulls us home? A young boy leaves the rocks where he caught fish with his hands, looked out at Mediterranean waves, conferred with Jonah and the whale. He makes a home far across the sea. What pulls him back, to open, at age 58, a bistro mere steps away from the seaside rocks where he once caught fish with his hands, and sat for hours and hours on the rocks by the sea, until his mom called out, "Benino! Benino! It's time to come home!"
We plan. And our own psyche laughs and laughs and laughs.
Tomorrow night, our chefs will cook for a gathering of relatives, overseen and inspired by Benino, who has come home.