Birthday Blues

About 15 or 16 years ago, at this time of the year – around Rosh HaShana – we went on a family trip to France. We spent a few days in some pastoral setting near Lac d'Annecy, and then probably a week in Paris, I'm not sure about the details. I do remember sending a postcard home to my middle school best friend, amazed at how, though it was still scorchingly summery back in Israel, there was already (still? always? it is in the Alps after all) snow on the tip on the nearest mountain. Well, two nights ago, mid-September, I broke out my heavy blanket, for it is cold in our new apartment. Cold, and it still smells of paint, so I try to keep the windows open as much as possible, allowing the cold to come in. Yes, we moved. We actually bought this place. And renovated about a third of it. That happened. And we spent sleepless nights googling about oil- vs water-based wooden floor coating, and dining table designs, and sconces (we learned the word sconces. THAT happened) – yet we are still mostly in the dark after the sun sets because we haven't yet got enough lamps and light fixtures to accommodate these ceiling-outlet-bereft rooms – and hand-held shower heads, and toilet heights (indeed!), and what to do if your freshly-coated walls are alligatoring (we learned the word etc.) and your painting company is a bunch of incompetent liars. And we chose a granite top for the bathroom sink (possibly the sole and single contribution to the state of affairs of our new home that is truly my very own and did not involve DH web-researching for hours, you see, most of the obsessive googling and the subsequent loss of sanity as well as negotiating with the contractors, was DH's part) – luckily, I made a good, raspberry-colored bespeckled, choice). And spent hours upon hours upon hours with AT&T internet customer service – I shit you not, one morning I was on the phone with them (on the phone meaning mostly on hold) for close to three hours - and since the particular details of my plight with the unfortunate incompetents taking calls is not that interesting, really, I advise you to read a fellow Israeli's amusing account (go to USA2). And before all that, while vacationing in Greece (oh yes, THAT, too, HAPPENED), we were on the constant search for a wifi spot, in order to make sure we are getting our windows installed to the appropriate satisfaction of the condominium board – and yes, that was as vacation-appropriate as you imagine. On one of these internet escapades, we were informed by DH's sister that she is getting married, and right away, six weeks after we leave back to Chicago from Israel, a visit which we planned to directly follow the Greek adventure, obviously. And a few days ago, we were back from another, 3.5-day long, trip to Israel, a fun and exciting visit which I'm glad we never even considered not taking because I truly love my sister in law and it was so great being with her and her awesome husband on this special family-occasion.

This event marked the official end of summer: now we are back to our cold, new, where-did-I-put-that-thingamajig-I'm-sure-I-packed-it, apartment. Despite the feeling that everything is still out of place – including, and especially, all our 100% wool sweaters, which are lining chairs and shelves and window sills, most importantly not piled in dark closets ever since I found moth-bites in four of them, and the damn moths have good taste, nibbling only on my Club Monaco pieces!, BUT! after repeatedly deciding to buy moth repellents and then being disgusted by the instructions on the box, I discovered the joy of being a home-owner, where the monthly assessments cover exterminator services, yes please, let someone else take care of this for me! – despite that, we are getting used to the kitchen, undoubtedly the room where we have spent most of our time (and the best lit room as well). So, the other night we produced the ultimate comfort food, to make us feel at home, and carry us through this chilly fall with extra portions of chicken stock stacked neatly in the freezer.

Obviously, it is the season to be thinking, How is it possible that summer is over? and, What the hell have I been up to? and also, the inevitable No! This is not possible, I have hardly done even a quarter of the research I intended and now school will start and crush me under the workload!!! In other words, season of obsessively guilty reconsideration. Come to think of it, that's pretty much my existential default, and the main content of this here blog. Whenever I come back from a visit in Israel, I feel like I need to spend even more time communicating with the friends I just saw (if I was lucky), partly apologizing for not having spent as much time as I wanted with them, partly trying in vain to pick up the inevitably incomplete conversation where it was left off, partly scurrying to greet them a happy new year...

I always return from Israel with an unmistakeable frustration, with a particular heartache over all the relationships that are meaningful to me, taken up and cut short again. And because that scurried communication with recently-bid-farewell loved ones almost always fails to materialize, updating this blog becomes a commitment, an assignment looming for weeks on end on my mental to-do list.

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15 or 16 years ago today, September 18th, we all woke up in a charming wooden cabin in the French Alps, and it was N's birthday. For her breakfast, I picked bits of dried strawberry out from the granola and used them to trace a heart shape on the white mound of yogurt. I have a vague recollection that those fuchsia-colored treats were in fact the slightly higher-in-calories component that she was trying to avoid eating.

It was always so hard to please you, N.

To be honest, your birthday has been for me the most definitive "deadline" for writing something here. I don't try to deny it anymore, not to myself, and not to whoever is still reading this: this blog is about my living with the grief of your death.

All this quasi-meaningful sequence of quasi-sentences that I've been piling up here up to now, all this verbal content blog-filling, which is a way of adding some kind of quasi-creative or at least almost-productive content to my life, even if it consists mostly of a nihilistic bemoaning of the nothingness that life, and mine in particular, is (*) – I just had to get all that out of the way, so I could deal with one of the few things that makes sense to me in this life through its utter senselessness.

(*) Including that day when I felt so shitty I wrote a self-deprecatory apology to a friend, wherein I explained that I have "abysmal self-esteem". It had to do with how I can not make any decisions anymore without DH (except, perhaps, choose granite counter tops), and how we have become pathologically dependent on each other, to the point of second guessing everything the other does and ourselves (especially myself) as well. Also on the plate was what my first grade teacher told me at some point: "You have ten questions for the day – use them properly!", a saying which I remember less per se than for how it was reiterated like a piece of folkloric wisdom by my mother, when what she essentially meant was, Little girl, you are getting on my nerves. Anyway, I can guarantee that no matter how bad you are feeling, describe yourself using the word abysmal and you will feel worse. Upon meeting recipient of said apology, a conversation ensued about whether I suffer from a bad case of low self-esteem or just an abysmal case of severe self-consciousness (and are they not, to some extent at least, coincidental). You are welcome to weigh in on this debate. (*)

A couple of months ago, shortly after we returned to Chicago for the first time this summer, I dreamt of N. In most dreams of N up till that one, N and I are fighting horribly, basically just screaming indecipherable things at each other. In this dream, though, I am almost completely aware of the fact that I'm dreaming (something that to my recollection has never happened to me before, and it still seems doubtful to me that it is possible). N knocks on my door, I open, and when I see her I literally jump for joy, smiling as wide as is physically possible, hugging her and crying out: I'm so HAPPY you came to visit me! And the dreaming-awareness part is, that that is what I truly mean: I'm so glad and grateful that you came to pay me a visit. It will be sweet and brief and I will miss you horribly when it's over and see you next time you appear in my dream.

I woke up feeling sad but not devastated, serene even, believing that I've reached some kind of new phase in life, at least in life with(out) N. This belief has slightly faded since, and there have been more "bad days" than good. Probably, I think, because I've bought a house, and not only will N never see it, it is also such a huge "adult" step that she will never take.

I wear your silver-flower ring on my right fourth finger. On good days, I consider myself healthy enough to realize that I can know you're there with me all the time and feel comfort in it.

I recently started watching with DH all the episodes of Mad Men. We're almost through the third season, which I'm pretty sure you never reached. I mentioned this to my mother, and I hear the silence on the other end of the line, thinking, does she know this is also my way of being close to you? Does she think I'm "over" you, that I am able to watch Mad Men without being crushed by the memory of you? Is it possible both things are true at once?

N, you should have been 34 years old today. I think of you every day. I tell you about things that no one else could understand. I miss you.