Artist Date 40: Dublin, A Fillling Station

September 27, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I am not as healed as I thought I was. I hate that.

It is September 16. One year to the day since my divorce was finalized in the state of Washington

I arrive in Dublin for Tim and Martin’s wedding. Everything is new. Everything is the potential Artist Date.

Full-fat yogurt in glass jars with rhubarb layered on top. Breakfast at the airport Spar.

A bus ride to Trinity College followed by a taxi to Tim’s house. The driver’s brogue so thick I make out only about a third of what he says. Among it, “Is your liver ready for your visit?”

A shower. Tim shows me how to turn it on. It is not intuitive to my jet-lagged American mind. He shows me how the heat booster works.

So much shiny newness. Other-ness. And yet…my mind and my mouth reverts to my divorce like a rubber band. Anger toward my ex-husband I didn’t know was there. Anger that the dissolution of my marriage is so much a part of my story, my identity – still. In journalistic terms, it is “what I lead with.”

By design the Artist Date is an individual endeavor, although I’ve played fast and loose with that dictate. But it is in my alone moments here, in Dublin, where I find my grounding, my feet under me, and I am able to open myself to everything outside of me. I discover this on my third day here, when I peel off for a few hours on my own – Artist Date 40.

The Thai storefront where I eat noodles out of a cardboard container with chopsticks, sitting on a bench on the sidewalk with locals.

St. Stephen’s Green. I stumble on to it. I feel like I have wandered into Central Park from the Upper East Side. Or am perhaps along the Seine, as here too artists line up their wares.

It is sunny and mild. Long legs stretched out on the grass. Suits eating sandwiches on wooden benches. I snap photographs of the geese wandering outside of the pond before they change their mind and retreat to the water.

Break dancers on Grafton Street. A large circle forms around a gaggle of boys dressed in yellow. Each takes a turn in the center. I want to jump in with them. Spin on my head. Be a part of the dance. Or at the very least, clap. But I am filming them – a step removed from full presence.

I meet Steven in front of the bank at the corner of Grafton and Nassau Streets, eager to share my finds. I take him for Pad Thai and to St. Stephen’s Green, stopping first in front of a band set up on the street. There is a cajon, a xylophone, an accordion. A saxophone that sounds like a snake charmer. I grab Steven’s hand and we break into spontaneous dance in the street – swing style.

I haven’t danced with Steven since my wedding in 2001. My shirt is rising up at the waist, exposing my belly. The cajon player is looking at me. Is he looking at my belly? Or my ear-to-ear grin? Someone is filming us. Another couple joins in. I feel deliriously in love with the world. With myself. That I am the kind of woman who breaks into spontaneous dance on the streets of Dublin.

Next day we visit Kilmainham Gaol, Ireland’s most “famous” jail, and the National Museum of Ireland – History and Decorative Arts. We hop on and hop off a red double-decker bus. We are quintessential tourists – sans fanny pack and white sneakers.

Inside Kilmainham we receive explicit directions not to wander off from our guide and group, lest we get lost.

We peer into cells, stand in others. We learn about its political prisoners. Its leaders. Women in the fight for independence. And how, during the potato famine, some vied for a spot in this overcrowded, infected, squalid place – five to a cell with one bowl of watery soup a day – because it was better than life on the streets.

We wander into a furniture exhibit at the History and Decorative Arts Museum. It is cool and retro. 1950s. I remember Steven’s desire to make furniture. I tell him about my ex-boyfriend J – how his first foray into woodworking resulted in a Mission-style bed and side table. He is a creative genius.

I visit the collection of Adolph Mahr – an Irish Jew who immigrated to San Francisco in his teens and became a pillar in the fine arts community. I witness the unfolding of Eileen Gray’s career – home furnishings artisan come environmental designer.

Eileen Gray, at the beginning of her career. — Eileen Gray.

That evening, I sit next to Helen, Martin’s cousin from Sheffield, at a cocktail crawl – sans cocktail. I tell her about the gaol. The Jewish collector and the designer.

It reminds me of a conversation I had a few months ago. Thick in the newness of my Artist Dates, telling a man I just met about the biography I was reading. The small theatre production I had just seen. The couture exhibit at the History Museum.

I felt smart. Interesting. Artistic. That I was the woman I had always hoped to be. Or am at least becoming.

I feel that way again tonight.

I have something else to discuss, following so many days of talk about relationships.

I am more than my marriage. My divorce. My flirtations.

I already know this. I remember it in the stillness of being alone – where I can bring the outside in. A filling station.

Artist Date 38: Creating Community…It’s Not About the Shoes

September 6, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I don’t know if I filled my creative coffers this week. By my spiritual and social ones are brimming over. And that will have to do this week for Artist Date 38.

Overlooking Lake Michigan, at Dawes Park.

Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year. 5774. I’m at Dawes Park in Evanston for the ritual of tashlich – where we empty bread from our pockets into a body of moving water. Some think of it as casting away one’s sins. I prefer a gentler interpretation. That I am simply cleaning out the residue of the last year. Whatever is stale. Has been sitting around in the corners of my consciousness slowly growing a somewhat furry mold.

I’ve stuffed a package of naan bread in my bag. It’s been in my freezer since November. A friend brought it to a party I had, to go with the curried lentil soup I was making. I’m not much of a bread eater, so I tucked it away for just such an occasion.

Another woman has matzo. I could have brought that two. I buy too much every year.

It is my third High Holiday season with the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, so I know where we meet. But this year is different. I not only know the place, but I know many of the people here too.

My friend Phil is here with his family. He introduced me to this congregation – specifically the Rabbi — a number of years ago, when I was feeling particularly wayward and spiritually lost.

Since that time I have developed a close relationship with Rabbi Brant and Cantor Howard. They are tuning up for this short, mostly musical, service that precedes the tossing of the bread. Jeff is tuning up as well. We met a couple of years ago at a Shabbat morning service I attended just once.

He seemed to sense I was new and somewhat hesitant, and warmly welcomed me in. I have had several encounters with him since them. Perhaps my favorite being when he sidled up to me during last year’s High Holiday services.

He said he read my blog postings from Rwanda and that he liked my writing. I thanked him and told him I used to write professionally. “It shows,” he said. And was gone.

Moments before I had silently cried out to G-d, asking what the plan is, what it is I was meant to do. I recall looking up toward the heavens, smiling and saying, “got it.”

Mary Jo is here. Brant introduced us several years ago when I completed my conversion to Judaism. She joined him and Howard as my witnesses, and was there in that same role when I received my get, my Jewish divorce.

I am now on her permanent invite list for Passover, and the breaking of the fast on Yom Kippur.

I feel a tap on my shoulder. It is Rachel. She is a Weight Watchers member I know.

Monica is here with her family. We met at Shabbat services at the lakefront a couple of years ago. Michael is here too. He blows the shofar every year at High Holiday services. He introduces me to his daughters who are following in the family tradition.

I see Hannah. She used to wear her head shaved like mine but now she has a mass of ringlets. She tells me that she’s bought a condo and that she broke up with her boyfriend. She introduces me to her friend Kelly and we agree we must get together.

A woman I have never met before approaches me. Her name is Sheila. She likes my shoes and takes a photograph of them.

Yes, they are “the shoes.” The shoes that have seemingly come to identify me. My orange Fly London peep-toe wedges.

The first summer I owned them, people literally chased me down Michigan Avenue to find out what they were and where I got them. It was fun, talking with all sorts of people I wouldn’t otherwise meet. And today is no exception.

Walking to the water, a tall woman with a mess of dark curls puts her foot next to mine. “Nice shoes,” she says. She is wearing the same ones in pewter.

She tells me she is tossing out the year of rehabbing her broken wrist. It is healed. I do not tell her what I am tossing. Instead, I tell her I like our shoes so much that I have two pairs. That the second I bought before my divorce was final, when my then-husband kindly said, “Do what you need to before we separate our monies.”

I bought a new lightweight massage table, a Torah commentary, and the peep-toe wedges in mustard. We laugh at my choices.

I wish her a sweet New Year and peel off to throw my bread, my karmic residue. There are so many things I could get rid of. The litany that I repeat every year – self-doubt, unkindness, judgment of myself and others. I recall that last year I tossed away my identity as a wife.

It was a Monday. I knew divorce papers were signed on Mondays in the county where we filed. I had a sinking feeling at that moment that I was officially divorced. A call to my mediator later in the day confirmed it.

Today I am casting away what my friend Lisa likes to call “an old idea.” I am embarrassed to admit that I have continued to hold on to it. Actually, I’m not sure I was consciously aware that I had it, but a series of recent events has cast a glaring light upon it and I can no longer turn away.

I point myself east, tear off a piece of naan and whisper to myself, “I let go of the idea that I am only desirable for sex.”

It is windy and the naan flies back at me. I turn west off of the dock where the waters are still. I repeat the words.

I’ve got a lot of naan so I say it a couple of more times, ripping and tossing. Ripping and tossing.

When I am done, I am approached by a woman. She asks me about the shoes. She is radiant and I tell her so. She tells me about her job search. Her cancer.

I suddenly remember that people used to tell me things about themselves all of the time. Friends and family, and random, almost strangers too. Cab drivers especially. I realize people are talking to me in this way again.

It’s not the shoes. Because I wore the same ones last year…I am different. My heart has healed just enough to let some of my light shine out. I am open and there is room for others. They sense it and come in.

Artist Date 34: In It’s Proper Place

August 12, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I hired a professional organizer.

I have admitted that so many areas of my life had become unmanageable, and then asked for help. So why not here? I’m tired of the stacks and stacks of paper that have no home.

I am, as Maggie – the professional organizer – said, “the tidiest, unorganized person” she has ever met.

We met last week for a consultation. My assignment prior to our first paid meeting, this coming Tuesday, was to go to The Container Store and “just browse.” My only guidance was to think of “boxes” – four of them. In. Out. To Be Dealt With. Want to Keep – Just Because.

We agreed I would take photographs of items that interested me, but that I would buy nothing. It seemed like an easy Artist Date – Number 34.

I was mistaken.

I rode my bike over to The Container Store this afternoon. Tossed my basket in a cart and began my work. Up and down every aisle.

Almost immediately, I was overcome with sadness. All around me, groups of people. Couples shopping together. Roommates shopping together. Moms and dads and bound-for-college kids shopping together. Together.

I remembered shopping here with my ex – when we moved to Chicago for his residency. I felt wistful stumbling over the collapsible mesh cubes – the kind we bought to store our record albums. He didn’t think they would work well, but I knew better. Three of them sat under the Parson’s table, holding our music collection – his and mine. I left them in Seattle.

Albums I bought in high school at Sam’s Jams in Ferndale. The Specials, debut album of the same name. Elvis Costello, “Punch the Clock.” Howard Jones, “Human’s Lib.” My mother’s copy of the original Broadway production of “Hair.” My brother’s copy of Queen, “A Night at the Opera.” There is a piece of masking tape on the front cover with his name and our telephone number written in magic marker. I’m not sure how I ended up with it.

I knew every word to every song, having spent hours on my blue-shag carpeting, in my bedroom, singing along with the words printed on the album sleeves.

I don’t have a record player, so I left them. Plus, they were too cumbersome to pack. Funny thing is, it’s not the lost records that choked me up. It was the damn mesh cubes.

And the laundry aisle. I remember spending hours trying to find just the right laundry bin to collect my massage sheets and take them back and forth from my office to home, to be washed and folded. First I bought a cart with the idea that I would take the train to and from my office. With sheets. In the winter. I quickly gave up this environmentally-conscious fantasy and started driving to work.

I found a lot where they cut me a deal because I was a local business owner – $14 a day. A steal, considering I was right off of Michigan Avenue.

Tony, the Palestinian kid who hooked me up, got fired right before I moved away. I always felt badly about it – even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. I used a red, collapsible “laundry” backpack to haul my sheets the six blocks from the lot to my office.

I missed having someone to discuss options with today. I suppose that is why I took photographs, to discuss them with Maggie.

I looked at fabric bins. Metal bins. Cardboard bins – some made of bright, solid colors, others printed with flowers and graphic designs. Bins made of recycled paper. I snapped photographs of each product and its accompanying card, describing the item and listing its price.

I got distracted by travel supplies. Luggage tags. Hanging dop kits. (I need a new one. Mine is torn.) And Ziploc bags for creating more packing space – like the space bags I used when moving cross-country. I stacked my dresses and trousers inside, while Michael used a vacuum cleaner to suck the air out. We were giddy when the first was complete. Shrink wrapped clothes.

I remembered that I needed hooks for hand-towels in my bathroom. Milk crates for my prayer and meditation nook – to lift my deities and ritual items off of the floor, and to be covered with a piece of fabric I bought in the market in Kigali.

I also remembered that Maggie and I discussed finding a solution that didn’t involve putting anything else on the dining table – which is also my writing desk, my art table, and where I spend about 80 percent of my time when I am home.

I looked at hanging solutions. There weren’t many. A few different kinds of folders that hang from the wall. Some painted metal. Some plastic.

Then I wandered into the Elfa department – custom solutions for the closet. So complex there are employees specific to just this department. I know people go wild for the yearly Elfa sale, as it is pricey.

And yet, open, wire drawers on casters seemed to make sense. With a top to hold my printer. I looked at other shelving units as well. I remembered our conversation about rethinking how I consider my dining area. That is it really more multi-purpose. Think function rather than fois gras or fondue. I serve neither. But I do throw a hell of a dinner party. And it needs to work for those occasions too – especially as Rosh Hashanah is right around the corner and for the past 19 years I have, more often than not, hosted a holiday meal for stray Jews and others.

I thought about my friend Tom who is going to string two lines of wire across the wall opposite the windows so I can hang photographs, cards and collages with metal clips – slightly reminiscent of the drying lines in the darkroom I once inhabited.

I picked up several catalogs, tucked them into my bike basket, and did a final sweep of the store.

I felt myself welling up the entire ride home. I wanted to be excited but I wasn’t. I was sad. Acutely aware that this was yet another step in creating my home, my life, without my ex. Acutely aware that we don’t talk much lately – my choice, to save both my heart and my sanity. All of this necessary, but still painful – nearly a year after our divorce was final. Time takes time.

I thought about something Maggie said. That there is always something more under the disorganization – something else going on. She believed the stacks of paper, the lack of “home” for my things, was me being afraid I couldn’t put my hands on something when I needed it. A need to keep all of my things near.

My friend Kevin refers to this as my issue with object impermanence. The notion that until a certain age, children do not believe in that which they cannot see. Put a towel over your hand, et voila, you have no hand. At least in their minds.

It’s like that with me and people sometimes. If I can’t put my hands on them – see them, feel them, hear them – it is as if they were never there. It’s better than it used to be. At least to me. I’m not sure what Kevin would say.

So this organizing business – finding a home for my things, learning to be ok with them in their proper place – maybe it will spill over into the other areas of my life. That the people I can’t put my hands on anymore – for a variety of reasons –perhaps they too will find new homes. Tucked away in my heart. Never gone. But in their proper place.

Artist Date 32: In Between Dates. Some Things You Just “Know.”

July 30, 2013July 30, 2013 LesleyPearlLeave a comment

I’m standing on the corner of 4^th and Main in Royal Oak, Michigan.

I had breakfast with my old boss, Bill, a couple of hours ago. We met at the restaurant he owns, where I used to work. I was employee number seven. Or maybe it was six? Nine? We’re not exactly sure. We decide seven sounds about right.

I haven’t seen him since my divorce. Since he met DD. We wax nostalgic about the early days. Toast that came out 20 minutes after the eggs. The decision to hire a cleaning service because I didn’t want to scrub the toilets. The handsome photographer upstairs.

I spent years in this city. As a teenager – thrifting and hanging out at Patti Smith – not the musician, the other one. At her clothing store – talking, listening to music, wanting to be a grown up.

After college, I moved here and lived in an upstairs flat with my friend Mona and her two cats. I worked at a weekly newspaper, waited tables on the weekends, and drank my tip money.

I haven’t been here in a number of years. And alone, probably never. It seems the perfect destination for Artist Date 32. That’s what I had in my head when I planned my trip “home” a few weeks ago. Except I didn’t make much time for alone. I never do.

I just left coffee with my 17-year-old niece. I found her waiting for me on a concrete planter outside of Caribou – which wasn’t Caribou when I was 17. I remember “punk rock” kids getting dropped off here and walking down the street to meet their friends – as if their parents had not just dropped them off.

I tell my niece I used to hang out here 26 years ago. She’s floored. As she is when I tell her what 17 was like in my house. That it wasn’t so different. That I too felt grown up in so many ways, but still a kid in others. How I just wanted to go – to New York..but Royal Oak would do. And how sometimes I wanted to stay – in my bedroom with the blue shag carpet…forever.

Mostly, we agree that 17 is hard.

I’m due to meet Danny in a half hour. We met at a Jewish retreat the summer before we entered high school. He was funky and quirky and a good dancer – like me. Perhaps he too felt like a black, drag queen trapped in a small Jewish body.

A half hour isn’t really long enough for an Artist Date, but I decide it’s kind of like exercise – a little bit is better than none. I let go of all the “why didn’t you plan for your Artist Date” chatter and spend the next 30 minutes absorbing this place I used to call mine. The clock is now ticking.

There used to be a bank here, just south of this corner. I made out with Joe A. in my maroon Chevy Corsica, parked right in front of it. He moved to Tucson not long after.

I see a guy sitting on the patio at Tom’s Oyster Bar. He has the shiniest black hair I’ve ever seen. Beautiful, with waves. He looks like Joe’s musical partner – who I also made out with. But later. A couple of years later. Just before I moved to San Francisco. I cannot remember his name. He looks up at me. We smile at one another and he returns to his book. I do not know if it is him.

So much has changed. And yet, a lot is still the same. The independent stores that serve as anchors –Haberman Fabrics. Incognito. Noir Leather. I once bought an erotica book here and popped it in my lover’s bag before he headed out of town, with a dirty letter I penned tucked inside.

Bright Ideas – a modern, cool, functional interiors store. It’s been here as long as I can remember.

I walk in and my head quiets. I am sucked in by what is in front of me rather than what is in me, in my head –Joe A., his partner, my niece.

Detroit drink coasters. Symbols of my childhood. Drink Faygo Orange. Better Made Potato Chips. The iconic scrawl of Sanders – hot fudge and ice cream shops, and Vernors – better and spicier than any ginger ale you can imagine. It used to be used medicinally. Quintessentially Detroit. All of it. I am smiling.

There are tiny bud vases in a variety of colors, thrown on a potter’s wheel. They began as a fundraising activity and blossomed into a business. I think about my own somewhat disappointing foray into throwing. Disappointing because I had expectations. I thought I’d be good. Immediately. Because I worked with clay when I was 17. Because I have no patience.

The vases are made in Seattle. I am wistful.

There are low-slung couches with chrome and clean lines. My nearly 5 foot 3-inch body sits comfortably in these. At home my feet dangle off of the pricey futon. I bought it because I had a notion that I would sleep on it and my bedroom would be my massage studio. That’s not what happened.

I wonder if I can fit one in my hatch.

There are pillows with birds painted neon pink and green and blue. An orange flower is growing out of another. Several are felted, with messages “seemingly” just for me: “Let’s Make Out.” “Happily Ever After.” “Think Big.” “Breathe.”

Yes. Yes. Yes and Yes.

There are yellow, leather “Star Trek” chairs. Body hugging, with matching ottomans. On the wall are grey circles with the letters S,M,L. Like the three bears in Goldilocks. I wonder which one will be just right for me. In chairs. In all things.

I look at my watch. It’s time to meet Danny. I feel surprisingly and strangely refreshed having taken these 20 minutes alone. A little lighter. A little clearer. Time apart.

I find Danny down the street and throw my arms around him. He is wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt and shoots me a big smile – a cross between a 5-year-old’s pure joy and “I am up to no good.”

I tell him I’m hungry and he takes me to Astoria Bakery – formerly Cinderella’s Attic, one of my early thrifting haunts. He orders a walnut roll. I get a cookie laced with honey and a flirtation of anise. His is better.

We catch up on our lives post-divorce. He is a year ahead of me in the process. He tells me about his kids. About dating. I tell him about not dating. About my inability to compartmentalize. My wish that I could.

I do not tell him about my Artist Dates. I am not sure why. I figure he already knows. In the same way that I already know. It’s just like that sometimes. With some people. In some places. Like here, right now, with him.

Artist Date 31: He Played Debussy on my Naked Body. Believing in the God of Synchronicity

July 22, 2013 LesleyPearl1 Comment

Last week Stephanie W. invited me on an Artist Date. This week Stephanie G. did.

However, unlike Stephanie W., who offered a suggestion – one that allowed me the prescribed solo experience of an Artist Date – Stephanie G invited me to join her and our mutual friend, Hallie, at the theatre. Not solo. Technically, not an Artist Date.

Yes, I spend this sort of time splitting these sorts of hairs. As if the Artist Date police might show up at my door. So I was relieved to read the following in Julia Cameron’s Walking in the World – her follow-up to The Artist’s Way, where I first became acquainted with the Artist Date.

In the section titled “Basic Tools,” Cameron writes:

“…the Artist’s Date…is assigned play…

“Synchronicity – that uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time – picks up markedly as we practice Artist’s Dates.”

Stephanie’s invitation to The Royal George Theatre for The Pianist of Willesden Lane – Artist Date 31 –felt like that, like play, like synchronicity.

I’ve been thinking about music a lot lately. My coffers crying out for sound.

I considered Harry Connick, Jr. at the Chicago Symphony. Tickets were pricey unless I wanted to sit in the rafters. Which I didn’t. I wanted to see him. Easy on the eyes, as my friend Teresa used to say. Sitting in the gallery section would only frustrate me.

I considered a free concert at Millenium Park. I considered a trip to the record store.

Yet I found myself in a woefully off-center, red-velvet theatre seat, flanked by Hallie on my right, and a mercifully empty seat on my left. A Steinway Grand (Baby Grand? Concert Grand?) and a handful of oversized frame mirrors on stage in front of me.

The Pianist of Willesden Lane is the story of Lisa Jura. How her commitment and passion for the piano, along with the “kindness of strangers” and some sort of higher power – call it synchronicity – saved her life during World War II. Written and performed solo by Jura’s daughter, Mona Golabek, The Pianist of Willesden Lane is told both in words and music.

Bach. Beethoven. Rachmaninoff.

Debussy.

I feel fingertips on my body.

I am lying in bed with the former symphony conductor. He is playing the notes on my naked body – silky strains that sound like watercolor. Ridiculously sexy. He is teaching me about music. Telling me about his life. Interlochen. Tanglewood. Studying with Leonard Bernstein.

I have been assigned to write the obituary for his father – a kind-hearted, heavy-hitter in the community. We speak over the phone. He is funny, wry. Smart and sweet. I find a photograph of him in the files. He has dark hair and a beard, bright eyes and a kind smile. He is wearing a tuxedo. I am smitten.

We meet through a series of synchronicities, and spend the next couple of weeks in bed – with Debussy, and frequently a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Mint Oreo Cookie. I fancy myself “Mrs. Former Conductor.” And then it is over.

I haven’t thought about him for a long time. But my body remembers.

Like the Holocaust survivor I interviewed. She lost her sense of smell during the war. She regained it more than 40 years later when she returned to Germany. She smelled manure. Her body remembered.

I’ve been thinking of her ever since I saw Brighton Beach Memoirs a few weeks ago with my friend Michelle. I told her how I had the great, good fortune to interview and tell the stories of so many Holocaust survivors when I worked for the Jewish Bulletin.

I don’t hear their stories much anymore. Most of them are gone. Until now.

Lisa Jura arrives in London from Vienna – one of thousands of children on the Kindertransport. She is 14.

A few years later she is a student at the Royal London School of Music. In the evening she plays piano in a hotel bar, where she meets many admirers. Among them a Royal Air Force commander.

He is shy. His English is poor. His comrades approach her with a rose and act as his translator.

He says she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. That she must tell him when she makes her debut. And then he is gone. Not just from the bar, but from London. To war.

Lisa Jura and the Royal Air Force Commander.

And then it is over. The war. Just like that.

Miraculously, the commander is at her debut. So are her two sisters. They too have survived.

The lights go up. Golabek steps out of Jura, and back into herself. Post Script. Lisa Jura immigrated to the United States. The commander followed her, married her. He is Golabek’s father.

I get teary. Really teary.

I want to believe in ridiculously romantic love. The kind I shared with the conductor. The kind I had a glimpse of when a certain southern gentleman, upon learning I could not possibly see him again, pulled me close to him and said, “I’ll come find you.”

I want to believe in a God that allows three Jewish sisters to survive the Holocaust and then somehow find one another in post-war London. Who then places two of them across the street from one another in Los Angeles.

I want to believe in Go(o)dness. The go(o)dness of people who care for children that are not their own. Who feed them. Clothe them. Shelter them. Love them. Foster their talent and dreams while a war wages outside their window.

I want to believe in the God of Synchronicity. And I do.

A Wandering Jewess

My Journey Back To Self

Tag: Jewish