Short Story for February - Halfway There
Being Jewish isn't easy. Okay. Being anything can be hard; but speaking from experience. [14]
Being of my faith and ethnicity can be difficult. Sure, it can be hard to be anyone. I understand that. I know we are not the only ones to be singled out and have to pass through the worst of the worst. Christians can have it rough; assuredly my Muslim brothers and sisters can go through hard times. It has been hard on many of them constantly, to be fair. People of any faith, any background, any walk, can have it tough. Ask those who are born with impediments, physical and mental. Or ask some Chinese or others who have died of famines over the centuries. In our day and age awful droughts and starvations in Africa, alone. [119+14=133]
And again, the disabled or less gifted. [133+7=140]
They have room to complain! People with missing body parts, organs and parts that do not work, like for seeing and hearing, and just thinking. I cannot complain when it comes to faculties. Those I believe I have. [38+140=178]
I am okay at thinking. Sometimes I excel at it! However, there lies the rub: about what we are thinking about. We, me, you, them. All the pronouns. What are we thinking? Oy ve. [34+178= 212]
If you are born and raised Jewish, there are the existential and the spiritual questions. I grew up as a hiss and a byword. And yeah, a lot of people have had it super hard. Not to take any of the nastiness out of the African-American experience, or the native Americans, or a dozen other folks around the world who have been caged, starved, abused, left for dead or tossed about. Lots of Gentile Europeans have faced such things. Yet, then we have us Jews. [85+212= 297]
Get used it. No, I complain too much... I am pushing my agenda into it. But if not from me, who else to do it? God made me so. I have to say these things, at least think these things. And I can safely say, I did not create all this mess. And no, not all of it is messy. Some things are superbly sublime. I am not a complete negative Nancy. But hear me out, o worldly people. Those with ears to hear. [85+297= 382]
Israel is a tough pickle. We stand up for ourselves, we get some support, but most people hate the state of Israel. And us, the Jewish people. They really loathe us. Some of us detest ourselves, too. And that can include me. On bad days. On good days, I am with the Defense Forces tooth and nail, heart and soul. I am torn. [63+382=445]
So it is, to be me. A Jew. A non-Israeli, but we are all part of it. There is us, there are many parts. Now, and over time. And, the subsequent questions: do I believe? And if I have the courage and will to believe, do I practice? And if I practice, how much do I practice? What is work, after all? What are all those dietary laws, after all? God for me or me for God? Should I even utter the word Yahweh? That is a thing for some. I will let others debate it. Or maybe get me on a saucy night, when I get filled with righteous vim and vigor. No alcohol, I am not into that. No Hemingway episodes here. Sorry if that is your flavor. [128+445= 573]
No, I am cursed to think things out sober. Drugs? Out of the question. God or not, chemicals were not meant to push my brain. Give me the good old-fashioned brains that I have. We all have them. Most of us, anyway. I am blessed. The alcohol is the curse, sobriety is the way to go. Like most of the people in this Gulf land. I have sober, reasonable brains. [70+573=643]
I am not trying to brag. Just explaining things. [9+643=651]
So, there I was, walking the streets of Kuwait City. Things were not right at all in many spots of the world. Things were okay here. Funny what a lot of oil backed by the strongest nation and military on the planet can do. [44+695]
Nighttime here is pretty nice. We all have paid for it over the years, right? How many times have you gassed up a vehicle? The Kuwaitis and their laborers and their currency thank you very much. [36+695=731]
But, back to being me. Well, it's bigger than me, I know this. We all know this. My thoughts, dreams, opinions. Apart from being who I am, there is what I am. Or are they the same? All of it comes back to all of us. [45+776]
Who and what, those are about the same, at end of the day. At the end of our lives. [19+776=795]
What is to become of me? What of Israel? What of the Jews? Or anyone else? [16+811]
I have to ask these questions. It is tough. There are tough puzzles to crack. Some of us are meant to ask these questions, and some of us can figure the mysteries out. Right? [34+845]
That is not because of my religion, per se. That is because of my nationality. I am American. We think things out, sometimes, and we figure things out. Do we not? Since the beginnings, well, after the primary genocides or land grabs, the forefathers set up some good systems that are still working today. Keeping Kuwait and the rest of these Gulf nations afloat. Jewish, Christian, secular, deist, or atheist: we from the United States have continued to solve many issues. Us people-- lump in the Westerners, figure things out. Give the Japanese and a lot of the eastern peoples their due, too. Sure. They are problem solvers as well. [111+956]
All right, where was I? Oh, yeah: being Jewish and having stands on Israel. Who to blame? Or maybe, who to credit? [22+978]
I guess it has been God all along, if He is there. [12+978=1,000]
If. [1+1,000=1,001]
Is anyone else hearing what I am saying? I think so. God must be out there. Too many coincidences, despite all the tragedies and travails. We are the Chosen, I guess. We are still the light of the world. We are pummeled, left and right for millennia, but we do some pummeling too. In the world of today's social media we Jewish are a hiss and a byword and a marvelous work and a wonder. [75+1,076]
Then again, there is the powerful adversary, and that might be the story. Good and evil are very real.[19+1,095]
You would think, right? The evil signifies the ultimate good, which is God. Then there are the rest of tiny ones, the humans traipsing around. Case in point, yours truly. [30+1,125]
Walking this market area around Kuwait City, on a peaceful, pleasant night. Who needs alcohol to have a good time? Who needs friends? Who needs a reason? [27+1,125=1,252]
Not me. I am blessed; whatever religion defines me. Right?[11+1,252=1,263]
And, I think, I feel, I am halfway there. I am in my forties. Half of the time through life, maybe. Likely. I am okay. I should feel all right. [30+1,263=1,293]
Walking down this Kuwaiti boulevard on a cool winter night. [10+1,303]
I passed a Filipino section, with their restaurants and boutiques. The chocolate store is always a treat. No pun intended. Or maybe. There are more South Asian sections across the city. More Indians and Pakistanis, with the Bangladeshis sprinkled in. I can go to a dozen different eateries among them and get a different angle on the massive sub-continent. Almost as if I had almost been there. Not yet, in reality. Perhaps one day. Some of the movies draw us there. Certainly, the cultures, the peoples, the cuisine, the traditions and beliefs. If you cannot be drawn, I do not know what to tell you. [105+1,303=1,408]
I observe them here in Kuwait, a short ocean away. [10+1,408=1,418]
The third-country nationals that move about the Arab land. These neighborhoods are more real, less ostentatious than the Arab mansions and apartments. Huge stone structures, some larger than mansions. Some Arabs, the ones that pitch their tents in the winter months in the desert, get falcons and motorcycles and off-road vehicles, dwelling in the romantic dream of tents and camels. Horses and sheep, a bucolic notion of balance with the big city, urbanity and rural sweetness. A balance of the best of all living. No question Saddam and the Iraqis wanted it for themselves. Jewel on the Gulf. [98+1,516]
Lucky to be here, making my living. Economically, professionally, I believe I am part of the chosen. I derive my personal wealth from the excess of the parts. [28+1,516=1,544]
Oil and wealth move along through these parts, feeding the greater commerce of the whole earth. Just me, poking through the streets on my feet, letting the airs and smells of a half dozen cultures waft into my nostrils and nerves. I feel them settle into my pores and blood, my deepest enigmatic organs. Bengali spices, Gujarati teas, Punjabi steak kabobs, Sindhi peppers, deeper Indian village districts in Kerala or Tamil Nadu. There are Bangladeshi places, too. And even some Nepalese. All of the world is our stage and pallet in these wide and narrow avenues, thousands of miles and oceans away from their first origins. [106+1,544= 1,600]
Us Jews went to India, so said the museum that I visited in Jerusalem in a younger life of college and education. We have been most places; we will keep moving and growing. God has not given up on us, so we do not give up on Him. The Master of the Universe. All of us in His creation among the millions of stars that we count, and the billions of uncounted ones. There is, they say, and I tend to believe them, a Lord over All. Over everything. [89+1,600= 1689]
And we, the Chosen. [4+1,689= 1,693]
But what of the rest of humanity? Chaim Potok's realish, or realistic characters were blown away, unhinged, perplexed, or pushed to the edge of confusion by the pagan Japanese. His Jewish chaplains stationed in South Korea. Visiting the next door defeated but proud Land of the Rising Sun. What of these heathen Japanese? No sign of Abraham among them. A rich people, a huge, vast civilization. Potok understood much of us, and them, in the time of war among the Koreans, repelling the Chinese... Trying to figure out the Jewish people's status among all of God's creations. Including its opponents, endless in the annals of history who combat the people of Israel. [112+1.693= 1,705]
Now 70 years later or so. The rest of us making our ways through the ever-globalizing streets and byways... We are all of us children acting out our curiosities and manifestations of our powers and wills. Our talents and proclivities. Wandering, or settling into, the circles and fires of where we may or may not belong, where we feel safe or where we feel the most alive. [68+1,705= 1,773]
Like the little ones roaming among the diwaniyas of this city and other cities, other climes, other spaces across all the continents and oceans and seaways. Little ones with lights in their eyes, gleams of distant planets and galaxies, all orbiting the same constants of gravity and power. [48+1,773= 1,821]
God is in it somewhere. Or, perhaps everywhere. In every fiber and cell. In all the atoms and elements in all the radios and batteries and currents of energy that push across the air and media, communicating their messages that we pick up in word and song and at times screeches and sonic booms. [54+1,821= 1,875]
All of it. [3+1,875= 1,878]
Lucky, blessed to be here. Breathing, thinking, moving. Planning. Despite my aloneness this night and this season, there are people who track me, near and far. People that I care for. No complaints in the social milieu. There is even a sweet person that I fancy that I feel will work out. Just not this winter. Probably by summer. Good enough. [61+1,878= 1,839]
So, what is the plan? Double up the population of the Golan Heights? Let Gaza be existent as a refugee camp? Or move the Palestinians out, to places like here on the Gulf? Rich petro-nations, even Oman offering a better life than a crammed in desert strip with no ports or air strips. No sovereignty, really. But at least a land amenable to Muslims and basic economic foundations. A chance. That is all most people need. [76+1,839= 1,915]
While we settle the rest of the West Bank. We, the Jews. We the persecuted, the attacked, the aggressive colonizers of the lands of the others. Coexist with the non-Jews? That is the plan. That is what it has to be. [41+1,915=1,946]
Live and let live. Prosper and thrive. Or fail. [9+1,946= 1,955]
God's Chosen must prevail. That is what Israel means. God prevails. We prevail. We survive. [15+1,955 = 1,970]
At this point you may be wondering, where did I grow up? From where do my influences hail? Minnesota would make sense. Not as likely Georgia, but still. A major city, or some exurb of it? Not likely a farm or rural holler or mountain canyon. No, I am a suburbanite, from a college town. [55+1,970 = 2,025]
I come from a place where crime was not mean, drunkenness was prevalent, but not all the abuse that some can think of it being associated with--privilege was expected; cars and toys were plentiful. A land of luxury and opportunity. [41+2,025= 2,066]
Each corner of the planet is figuring out its own way, yet we are all circling together into one great plain. Like me, like you. That is why you listen to my words, and why I will alight upon a dozen museums and libraries, cultural centers and historical monuments to bring them and me together. [55+2,066= 2,111]
It is why I circle back to the Torah and the prayers and songs of my faith, sometimes wavering but other times standing strong and stalwart, feeling confident, or at lest comforted, in my way and my people. [37+2,111= 2, 148]
My God. [2+2,148 = 2,150]
Who hears these thoughts? Who else is listening? [8+2,150=2,158]
What magazine article or radio expose or book or essay captures all these things? What film or series encapsulates all these wonders and discretions? [24+2,158= 2,182]
California, Vermont, New York, Texas, Illinois, Missouri. They all become the same at one point. Not sure about all the other nations. Things get different in other languages and cultures, for sure. [32++2,214]
Our prayers go out on Friday nights, the Sabbath, at other times and in other holidays, in science reports and studies and all other great art works and monumental movements that bring us closer to the Ultimate One Himself, or Herself, or Itself, or Themselves. [45++2,259]
That is where we are. Millions and billions of us sentient creatures making our way there now, as we speak. As we sleep. As we dream, both unconsciously and awake. [30++2,289]
I am half-way there, that is what I think. [9++2,298]
But then again, if we are traveling across the deep voids of space, might we think that we are always halfway there? Like, do we ever arrive at our destination? [30++2,328]
I remember talk of halfway houses. People who served there, or lived in them for a time. What were they? Places for the down and out? The poor? [27++2,355]
I guess we are all living in our halfway houses, no matter how rich or poor. [16++2,371]
We are all halfway there. [5++2,376]
How much longer do I have to work in Kuwait? Halfway there. [12++2,388]
No matter how wealthy we are, we are all living in some kind of halfway house, we are all halfway to our destinations. How close is Israel to being its own state where no one can hurt it again? [39++2,427]
We are never there. Life is this ruckus with times of peace and then cycles of mayhem or despair, and we have to make our way through those times of crisis to rise to the other side. Islands that are tranquil and calm go through their hurricanes and poundings of surf. Or even stormed by soldiers, marines, and fiery ordnance from battleships and planes in the skies. [68++2,495]
The modern state of Israel is like that island, whether Japan, or Britain, or Fiji, or whichever. It must fight its way out of the maelstroms and blasts from within and without, somehow weather the torments and sail on to its final destination. [43++2,438]
Me, thinking about my issues: where do I fit? Do I belong with them? To the most extreme enemy I most certainly do. [23++2,461]
Where to hang my head? Where to lay my allegiances. Where to sleep the last half of my life... [19++2,480]
I'll walk back to my place and give it another whirl on my pillow. [14++2,494]
