an entry from my travel-log:
Lost in the sea of rosemary as it sedated my senses and sut my legs into bloody lines (i still got the scars ). Lines and piles of rocks laid to level out the hillside for planting, rise from the shadowy wet bramble and served as momentary resting islands. Ana and I stood on these rocks looking at the road below, from which we turned and began to climb up this hill about an hour before. The growth was much thicker than it looked from the road. The road below, to the left and right of us the same endless ocean of rosemary, pines and thorns with white piles and spines of white stones, above was the top of the hill. With each attempt through the bramble the top moved further and further up, causing us to curse, at first under our breath, and soon in short loud words, directed not an each other or the hill, but the stinging sensitivity on our shins, thighs and arms, and at the growing possibility of spending hours like this without water or shelter before we reached a field, path or a road. The beach on the other side of the mountains was the reason we chose a shortcut over the hill, instead of following the curvy road. Traversing sideways we crawled over to the sunny side of the slope where the growth was shorter and a well-preserved stone spine lead up a major portion of the hill.With each move falling into the wet fragrant and evermore thorned abysses of the hill. Untouched by humans the branches and grasses resisted us by slashing and whipping, but we moved through with the sheer intention of survival. No helicopter was coming, and there was no choice but to take turns in stomping the path and moving on. Reaching three or four step tops, two or three hours in, we saw a valley of fields on the other side. A brief hallelujah, but the way down might be hours away. Lines of rocks formed right angles suggesting the history of houses: a shepherd's hut, a town or a fortress, who knows. Allowing ourselves to stop and rest for a few minutes, we took a few sips of the precious water. I checked up on the ukulele, which was sticking out of my backpack, wrapped in Ana's shirt. It was miraculously unbroken and intune. Among the rosemary, salt, pine, fermented grapes and our sweat, I discovered a centimeter-long black thorn in my leg and tried to push it out. Ana went at it with her longer fingernails, a key, and a pen-end, but it was too deep and our efforts only created a small bowl of bloody meat soup in my flesh. The climbing, the oxygen and heaven's landscape numbed the pain and we stopped only to descend and hope for a road below. The road appeared in a few minutes and we rejoiced in being able to step straight, swinging our arms, no thorns grazing each movement. I blessed the creation of roads and we ate a bitter-sweet pomegranate picked at the roadside on the edge of town. A few hours later we reached the holy Milna and its beach and swam in the warm dusked Adriatic waters. On the way back we passed vineyards and olive groves. It was wine making season in Croatia and the full clusters of grapes were sweet and satiating. Two hand-fulls each, we made it our dinner. We got back to our camp by sundown to wash off the blood, grape-juice and dust and watch the moon rise.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
some tips and proverbs
the road to nowhere is paved with dead cats (especially in eastern europe and the mediterranean)
golden teeth don't always speak golden words, but sometimes they do (i knew i was close to home when i saw my first full gold teeth smile of an old man in bosnia . old diamond braces got nothing on this guy)
a good song it worth a thousand miles (singing to your hitchhiking ride entertains both of you and eliminated the time you have to try to talk without speaking a common language. learn some songs if you want to travel)
the cardboard core of the toilet paper roll turns out to be quite soft and absorbent (take any chance to stock up on napkins)
golden teeth don't always speak golden words, but sometimes they do (i knew i was close to home when i saw my first full gold teeth smile of an old man in bosnia . old diamond braces got nothing on this guy)
a good song it worth a thousand miles (singing to your hitchhiking ride entertains both of you and eliminated the time you have to try to talk without speaking a common language. learn some songs if you want to travel)
the cardboard core of the toilet paper roll turns out to be quite soft and absorbent (take any chance to stock up on napkins)
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
petah tikva roadkill blues
(Stationed in the suburbs of Petah Tikva in the house of my mother and her husband until I can hit the road again, I spend many hours walking. The road shows me many things, and one of them is inescapably roadkill.)
The dead cat hung on the fence like a lost glove. At first I thought it was a stuffed toy when I caught a glimpse of its head and front paws, soft grey and white, like a real kitten. I wanted to take it with me, but of course such a nice toy would be missed and someone will surely come and find it and a small child will delighted. I realized it was a dead cat when I walked into the stench and then closer to see the flies making their way into the feast through the eye-sockets, mouth and the soft skin around the loosely hanging claws. Head and front paws flipped over toward the street, on the other side a bloated gut and stiff tale with a snapped tip sticking out of the limp spine like an old radio antenna.... or like a dead cat's tale. The fur was still intact, but under the skin organs and bones sagged and moved distorting the firm kitten body into a baggy corpse. After standing on the narrow sidewalk by the highway alone with the cat, trying to understand everything, I kept walking towards the park, to sit on a bench and think about things and I can and cannot take part of mending, and about the cat I left hanging on that fence.
The dead cat hung on the fence like a lost glove. At first I thought it was a stuffed toy when I caught a glimpse of its head and front paws, soft grey and white, like a real kitten. I wanted to take it with me, but of course such a nice toy would be missed and someone will surely come and find it and a small child will delighted. I realized it was a dead cat when I walked into the stench and then closer to see the flies making their way into the feast through the eye-sockets, mouth and the soft skin around the loosely hanging claws. Head and front paws flipped over toward the street, on the other side a bloated gut and stiff tale with a snapped tip sticking out of the limp spine like an old radio antenna.... or like a dead cat's tale. The fur was still intact, but under the skin organs and bones sagged and moved distorting the firm kitten body into a baggy corpse. After standing on the narrow sidewalk by the highway alone with the cat, trying to understand everything, I kept walking towards the park, to sit on a bench and think about things and I can and cannot take part of mending, and about the cat I left hanging on that fence.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
a postcard
Ode to dumps
My voice still as shaky as you remember, yet full of enthusiastic nostalgia and melancholy, I hum along to "The Ballad of Mary and Rosemary" as it plays in my head. Tonight I watch the dusk, and with it the end of Shabbat, over the glowing hills and holes of the dirt lot dump behind my mother's house. An elegantly trashy palm tree is silhouetted against the dusty peach sunset. I feel strangely safe at dumps and this particular one is mostly rubble from unfinished or demolished houses - cinder blocks, rusty rods, tiles. Closer to the houses, piles burnt plastic, pieces of outdated household appliances and naked Barbies with selectively remaining limbs line the hems of the field. A landscape striking me as another planet, or a movie set, especially when entering in from the paved and fenced suburbia. But this must be the secret subconscious of our world and it's abandoned charred grace stands as almost more natural than a forest of a lake. It's a history book, a memoir, a museum, a backseat, an arena. It's the scarred surface on the moon, innocent of its disfigurement, ominous, beautiful. I'll be in Israel for a few months learning how to walk (and then may be take some dance classes).love,
anya
Saturday, December 11, 2010
south wind, memories of corfu
two days ago the first rain in weeks fell in israel. deep warm thunder and lightning last afternoon, as I had my first stick shift driving lesson. last night rain came but the wind that carried the clouds brought with it desert sands from the south and has grown stronger as the sun rose higher, bending small pomegranate trees towards the ground and ripping the ripened pecans off the tree and throwing them with a thump against the plastic tables and chairs in the yard. the air is full of gold, sky like gold threaded silks of a tent, diffusing the sun evenly, leaving little shadow. everything is glowing, shining like silver and copper. the metallic leaves of the lemon tree flicked in the wind as my eyes fill with dust each time i go outside to take in the magnificent scene. i love storms, rain, thunder, lightning, but a sand storm, an ancient inhabitant of the desert, is a very special event. a biblical event, timeless and almost supernatural, especially to my fair-skinned western sensibility. well, eastern european really, but fair-skinned nonetheless. each storm is like a trip - it takes you into a tunnel where you remember every trip you've had and can feel the ones to come.
this storm reminds me of the storms on corfu in greece when ana and i sat on the roofed veranda overhanging the Aegean sea. i watched each sunset like a play, rushing to get home, take a shower, get dressed, make dinner and sit down, facing the sea and the sky and watch, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence, for a couple of hours. after a hot day of bending down over piles of olive branches, picking of each one, taking out the leaves, sorting, looking down at the ground all the while, to look at the sky and the water was the crown of the day, the payment for all the labour and stress of working for a tooth-and-claw greek family. i saw two great storms, one of them was on our last night, when we had to sleep on the beach, due to a disagreement with the farmer husband pigman, who vomited up his economic frustration (there is a serious depression in greece at the moment) at us in the form of harsh words. we left that day and camped on the beach along the row of hotel fronts and beach bars, vacant in mid-november. we spread out the sleeping bags and hung our clothes in a roofed wooden dance floor. our clothes were soaking, because we left before we could take them out of the washing machine. a rough end for a magical stay on an island, but so it goes. it was time to leave. as we spread out our things, and ate the little food we managed to grab as we left, we rolled up the present that nikos, one of the step-children in the pigman's family who was in the underground with us sneaking and hiding around the house to avoid the totalitarian regime. with his generous blessings we entered dusk and the mystic dimension of night.
The horizon was clear and we watched the sun's disk disappear into the the sea until the curlved top dipped into the water. standing on our heads all the while. one really must try to stand on one's head at least once a day, especially at sunset. the wind was gentle and a few dogs came running up and down the beach, playing with each other and tumbling across our humble abode once in a while. they were castaways and happy about it, just like us, and soon we accepted their company, or they accepted theirs, since it was their beach after all. later that night the smaller of the dogs, a black and white spotted mutt, slept curled beside us, guarding us from the corfu ghosts, which voiced themselves in the waves and falling branches of the night storm. As the sun set, clouds rolled in from the south, from the middle east and across the Mediterranean. clouds full of hot air and salty water. having traveled a long way they were ripe with rain and the changing atmosphere of the greek mainland would burst their full bellies letting out a generous flood, much awaited by trees and farmers, but disabling the drivers of the whole island for a few days - when rain falls, it covers the already slippery layer of olive oil from the fallen fruits on the roads and the steep hills seem to be made of ice beneath tires and the bottoms of shoes.
The sun's light dimmed and a full bright moon rose in the east. suddenly a large spot light was turned on behind our roofed shelter and sharp shadows were thrown onto the beach in front of us. for a few minutes we sat discussing what could that be, and ana said that she was scared to go look, because if it really was a spotlight, then we were not safe somehow and we were not alone in our peace. i thought it must have been the moon, but together our paranoia fed both of our fears and we sat huddled staring at the grotesquely industrial shadows on the cold sand. eventually i got up to look at this mysterious spot light. was it coming from a hotel, a helecopter, a UFO may be? we had to find out, because the night's magic was not accessible to us with such a fear. i peeked backwards over the roof, and there she was - the moon. clear and bright and white as a shell. suddenly the sand became warm again, and the shadows no longer grotesque, but lulling and deep blue and magnificent. knowledge brings light, but knowledge takes courage. the clouds kept approaching from the south-west, changing shapes, turning the water to the most magnificent and other-worldly shades of indigo, when suddenly we noticed an abnormally sharp shape in the clouds. a needly, like a wasp's stinger protruded from a low dark cloud on the horizon and grew longer and longer until it touched a boulder rising above the reef. we closed our eyes and opened them again to see if the darkness and our mystified state of mind were distorting our vision, but there is was, long and thin, and now moving in and out of the cloud, undulating, breathing, reaching for the rock and receding back into the cloud. a water tornado. this was the synoptic side of my brain speaking. but we are in greece, nothing is just a storm, just a cloud or just a wave. it's always zeus' wrath, a reclining nude athena or a siren washed up on the beach. so this was no old water tornado, although the idea of a rapidly spinning pillar of water and debris coming towards us, us who were scattered at the edge of the water exposed to the elements and the whim of spirits and protected only by a thin roof. that thought was enough to put the fear of god or gods into us. but, no, this was no ordinary water tornado, this was, as we calculated from further observation and discussion, this was a tail of an ancient sea creature taking up the opportunity and riding a cloud in order to cross the mainland of greece to the other side of the mediterranean without having to swim all the way south and around the peninsula. of course! and somehow, when the water tornado turned into a tail, things began to make more sense and we loosened the iron grip we both had around each other and sat there discussing the travel patterns of mythological creatures, especially those dwelling in the sea. it rained madly all night, but as we situated our sleeping bags in the middle along the back wall of our shelter, the whipping water was just short of reaching us and we were safe, dry and warm. when i woke up in the middle of the night a few times when the rain got so loud, the small spotted dog sleeping near us would look up at me and ensure that everything is alright and i can go back to sleep. i slept soundly till dawn.
the morning was quiet and clean, and it was a time-to-get-a-move-on kind of morning. the clothes were nearly dry and a much lighter load. we packed up, finished the oranges and the little bit of water we saved, packed and left poseidon's beach. he sure treated us well in those few weeks. the pigman has a lot to learn from him in hospitality matters. many sunsets seen and many lessons learned, we left the island a few hours later, catching a couple back-to-back rides and just making the ferry. later that night we found ourselves in athens.
this storm reminds me of the storms on corfu in greece when ana and i sat on the roofed veranda overhanging the Aegean sea. i watched each sunset like a play, rushing to get home, take a shower, get dressed, make dinner and sit down, facing the sea and the sky and watch, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence, for a couple of hours. after a hot day of bending down over piles of olive branches, picking of each one, taking out the leaves, sorting, looking down at the ground all the while, to look at the sky and the water was the crown of the day, the payment for all the labour and stress of working for a tooth-and-claw greek family. i saw two great storms, one of them was on our last night, when we had to sleep on the beach, due to a disagreement with the farmer husband pigman, who vomited up his economic frustration (there is a serious depression in greece at the moment) at us in the form of harsh words. we left that day and camped on the beach along the row of hotel fronts and beach bars, vacant in mid-november. we spread out the sleeping bags and hung our clothes in a roofed wooden dance floor. our clothes were soaking, because we left before we could take them out of the washing machine. a rough end for a magical stay on an island, but so it goes. it was time to leave. as we spread out our things, and ate the little food we managed to grab as we left, we rolled up the present that nikos, one of the step-children in the pigman's family who was in the underground with us sneaking and hiding around the house to avoid the totalitarian regime. with his generous blessings we entered dusk and the mystic dimension of night.
The horizon was clear and we watched the sun's disk disappear into the the sea until the curlved top dipped into the water. standing on our heads all the while. one really must try to stand on one's head at least once a day, especially at sunset. the wind was gentle and a few dogs came running up and down the beach, playing with each other and tumbling across our humble abode once in a while. they were castaways and happy about it, just like us, and soon we accepted their company, or they accepted theirs, since it was their beach after all. later that night the smaller of the dogs, a black and white spotted mutt, slept curled beside us, guarding us from the corfu ghosts, which voiced themselves in the waves and falling branches of the night storm. As the sun set, clouds rolled in from the south, from the middle east and across the Mediterranean. clouds full of hot air and salty water. having traveled a long way they were ripe with rain and the changing atmosphere of the greek mainland would burst their full bellies letting out a generous flood, much awaited by trees and farmers, but disabling the drivers of the whole island for a few days - when rain falls, it covers the already slippery layer of olive oil from the fallen fruits on the roads and the steep hills seem to be made of ice beneath tires and the bottoms of shoes.
The sun's light dimmed and a full bright moon rose in the east. suddenly a large spot light was turned on behind our roofed shelter and sharp shadows were thrown onto the beach in front of us. for a few minutes we sat discussing what could that be, and ana said that she was scared to go look, because if it really was a spotlight, then we were not safe somehow and we were not alone in our peace. i thought it must have been the moon, but together our paranoia fed both of our fears and we sat huddled staring at the grotesquely industrial shadows on the cold sand. eventually i got up to look at this mysterious spot light. was it coming from a hotel, a helecopter, a UFO may be? we had to find out, because the night's magic was not accessible to us with such a fear. i peeked backwards over the roof, and there she was - the moon. clear and bright and white as a shell. suddenly the sand became warm again, and the shadows no longer grotesque, but lulling and deep blue and magnificent. knowledge brings light, but knowledge takes courage. the clouds kept approaching from the south-west, changing shapes, turning the water to the most magnificent and other-worldly shades of indigo, when suddenly we noticed an abnormally sharp shape in the clouds. a needly, like a wasp's stinger protruded from a low dark cloud on the horizon and grew longer and longer until it touched a boulder rising above the reef. we closed our eyes and opened them again to see if the darkness and our mystified state of mind were distorting our vision, but there is was, long and thin, and now moving in and out of the cloud, undulating, breathing, reaching for the rock and receding back into the cloud. a water tornado. this was the synoptic side of my brain speaking. but we are in greece, nothing is just a storm, just a cloud or just a wave. it's always zeus' wrath, a reclining nude athena or a siren washed up on the beach. so this was no old water tornado, although the idea of a rapidly spinning pillar of water and debris coming towards us, us who were scattered at the edge of the water exposed to the elements and the whim of spirits and protected only by a thin roof. that thought was enough to put the fear of god or gods into us. but, no, this was no ordinary water tornado, this was, as we calculated from further observation and discussion, this was a tail of an ancient sea creature taking up the opportunity and riding a cloud in order to cross the mainland of greece to the other side of the mediterranean without having to swim all the way south and around the peninsula. of course! and somehow, when the water tornado turned into a tail, things began to make more sense and we loosened the iron grip we both had around each other and sat there discussing the travel patterns of mythological creatures, especially those dwelling in the sea. it rained madly all night, but as we situated our sleeping bags in the middle along the back wall of our shelter, the whipping water was just short of reaching us and we were safe, dry and warm. when i woke up in the middle of the night a few times when the rain got so loud, the small spotted dog sleeping near us would look up at me and ensure that everything is alright and i can go back to sleep. i slept soundly till dawn.
the morning was quiet and clean, and it was a time-to-get-a-move-on kind of morning. the clothes were nearly dry and a much lighter load. we packed up, finished the oranges and the little bit of water we saved, packed and left poseidon's beach. he sure treated us well in those few weeks. the pigman has a lot to learn from him in hospitality matters. many sunsets seen and many lessons learned, we left the island a few hours later, catching a couple back-to-back rides and just making the ferry. later that night we found ourselves in athens.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
for alex and jean-marc: 'this has nothing to do with me'
the elephant house sighs...:
'why aren't you writing down that which keeps you from breathing? may be it would help, you know, to write it down, get it out, so to speak?'
it wanders slowly towards the water and picks at broken seashells scattered along the gray sand:
'the tragedy with you is that you don't know how to just sit back and watch it all go by without feeling like you're missing out, and then you jump up and start chasing around the bits and pieces. and you want the bigger picture but how do you expect to get it when you're always out of breath...'
cats are like gypsies - appearing and disappearing at their own mysterious disposition, sending their young to shamelessly beg, they're charming and although subject to all sorts of flagellations, sacred, existing somewhere in between species, in between time zones and times of day.
a moment of clarity, a faint memory of the exorcism that took place only a few days ago. i knew my mind would fog and all the settled dust will get stirred up and flung into my eyes and lungs, but how unromantic, how sticky this feeling of helplessness is. those, like jack kerouac, who managed to turn it into a life source, a way of life, a direction - are gods. the ruthless words of rootlessness.
in the middle of some dusty village of concrete and cars, in the middle of the holy land. hiding in the garden, banging pecans off the tree with a stick. something to do. half a chameleon, some leather left around the head and the spine and ribs sticking out. i was plastered to the bed this morning, missed the sunrise. i think it's impolite to miss the sunrise.
the elephant house sighs again...
'that space in your head, the one full of nothing but light and air, clean, fresh, ringing, endless air, that's the only part of you which is alive. that's bad news for the rest of you and bad news for everyone around you who doesn't know about that space. all they see is a walking corpse, imagine that? what a funny nightmare you're in.'
dogs are like lovers from a past life.
expectations and words punctured my lungs but i am full of light and another dusk is coming over the land and i will sit in the garden and watch it change the colors of the leaves of the dry trees. i wonder how much i need to sensor myself and who cares and what does everyone else feel about facebook and email and everything. what does everyone else feel about everything? i think my greatest joy right now is to breathe. when i hit the nut tree with the stick, bunches of silver flies floated down, disturbed from their humming and sleeping in the nutshells. i can feel one crawling across my forehead.
there is an accordion player in every big city, and everywhere is full of music. you must seek the prophets and the poets. they must all be so tired and confused they don't even know who they are anymore, let alone professional pursuits. everyone rolls the end of the world around on their tongues, like a pill, relishing the milky plastic taste before swallowing. keeps you just crazy enough if taken daily to not care that much. side-effect of time warps, and taking it in overdoze is like rolling dice: may be you will end up famous as soon as you come out of the coma, or may be you'll feel exactly the same as you did before, or the coma might not lift. the above information is beta. sidewalks might be missing from sections of the route.
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