latest by jen
Learning by metaphor
You know you are meant to learn a lesson when it’s offered to you in metaphor three times in one week. Last week, I wrote an ode to Yom Kippur. One of my friends commented by referencing a Dvar Torah given by a friend and neighbor during the holiday: She used driving a car as symbolic of seeing into the future (forward) and the past (rear view mirror) at the same time. She said it …
I see beauty
When I first moved to Israel, as when I first fell in love with my husband, everything was beautiful: The early morning mountains which framed a glorious sky peppered with misshapen clouds. The herds of cows that grazed by the side of the road in fields glistening with morning dew. The herb garden I grew from seedlings and the lemon tree i tended in my front yard. All instilled me daily with wonder. But as …
The Key to the Treasure
I grabbed the nearest book: Tolstoy Lied by Rachel Kadish. I’m about ten pages from the end, but I picked up the book and opened to a random page in order to complete today’s Daily Prompt. Grab the nearest book. Open it and go to the tenth word. Do a Google Image Search of the word. Write about what the image brings to mind. The tenth word on the random page i opened was “key.” …
The trouble with sorry
The hardest thing for me to tolerate on Yom Kippur is not absence of food; It’s the absence of tomorrow. On Yom Kippur, we are present. We are asked to let go of yesterday’s mistakes, to forgive others, and ourselves. We are solemn in our awareness of the gift of a clean slate. Of a clean tomorrow. But this is difficult for me. My busy mind. Everyone else’s mind is busy with thoughts of food …
Today is 9/11/13
On this day, when many of us remember a September 11th that felt out-of-order (to say the least), we may find some comfort in… order. 9 11 13 is a sequence of consecutive odd numbers. You may remember this from first grade, or from watching Cyberchase with your preschooler. Or, it may have come to you quite accidentally while you were eating a chunk light tuna and cucumber unsandwich (aka tuna and cucumber on a plate.) There …
All Signs Point to Yes
What does the future hold for you? The Daily Prompt wants an answer in six words only. I love a good Ernest Hemingway inspired challenge so here goes it with a few predictions, some dark, some light. I’ll keep making mistakes, catching breaks. or Say hello to Sarin from Syria or I will learn, finally, to breathe.
How to recognize a poet
If you write poetry and no one reads it, is it still a poem? What if no one likes it? Gets it? Shares it? What if it’s never published? Never praised? Is it still a poem? How — really — does one recognize a poet? Is the title earned? Learned? I admit — I am a reluctant poet. Reluctant, not because I don’t enjoy weaving short thoughtful phrases together and calling it poetry, and not …
Traumatized by a long dead bug
Every time something beyond my sight touches my skin — whether it is a strand of hair, a computer wire, or a strong gust of wind — I assume a bug is crawling on me. I shutter. I swat. I slap. Often times, a bug is indeed crawling on me. After all, I live in Israel, a country that is still in many ways upper third world — at best, lower first world. But many …
Sex and gas masks and the absurdity of it all
You know you live in Israel when your in-laws offer to take 2 of your 3 children for a sleepover, you return home with your husband and sleeping 3rd child, you strip off your clothes, get into bed and your first thought is not “How much hot sex with my husband can I have right now?” but “Oh shit, <said in-laws> have two gas masks (if any at all) and room for approximately 2 1/2 …
Crazy Jen and her digital detox
In a discussion with my mother last week, I explained to her with confidence that a group of people were surely talking about me when I left the room. “How exactly do you know that?” she asked me. “I just do,” I replied. “How?” she pressed. I explained to her that in the same way she is brilliant when it comes to data analysis or number crunching, I know people and their behavior. It’s not …
What’s worse? Jet lag or war?
As if jet lag, back-to-school prep, protecting my kids from a polio outbreak and returning to work after a 2 1/2 week long digital detox wasn’t stressful enough, now I have to worry about a Syrian attack before Thursday. Wait. TOMORROW is Thursday? Holy crap. HOLY CRAP. I should have bought more Tums while I was in the States. Or I should have taken a longer vacation. Either way, I am in deep doo doo …
“Cheerful Birthday to Me:” a ballad sung solo
My birthday is this month. In two weeks, to be exact. August 19. Just about 39 times, I’ve grown older on August 19 and it still feels off. Why? I’m a numbers girl and 19 has never quite fit me. Not now, not when I was 19, not ever. First of all, in general, I prefer even numbers to odd. And second of all, nine sounds harsh, and nineteen harsher. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F0rPFASUXY&w=420&h=315] The 20th seems like a …
Torn between life and art
I am about to go on a vacation. I need this vacation. No, I mean, I really need this vacation. Now, mind you, this vacation will be in New Jersey, and it will be inhabited by my children, which some people by default would call “travel with children,” not a vacation. But let’s not get too technical or too obnoxious. I am going on vacation. And by choice, I will be disconnecting. Yup — disconnecting. …
The characters must fit the story
I almost forgot to punch out my 15-minute Friday piece until I checked my WordPress Reader and saw that the Daily Prompt today pushes us to “Go Serial.” I started going serial accidentally last week when I found myself compelled to write yet another poem about Kfar Manda, the Arab Village down the street from Hannaton, the kibbutz village in which I live. I was in Kfar Manda because I heard from my friend on …
If your smartphone jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you?
We know our smartphones make us stupider. We know they distract us. Confuse us. Make us crash our cars into each other. And keep us from having meaningful conversations with other human beings, in particular our kids, our spouses, and our friends. People, presumably, we like and want to have meaningful conversations with. And yet, we keep using them. We keep buying faster ones, stronger ones, more multi-purpose ones. We download apps faster than you …
Beyond the yellow gate
Beyond the yellow gate there is a woman. Her airy black head scarf almost shields her effervescent eyes. But when she looks up, sky blue bounces off her peasant shirt and into her pupils so they ignite. She touches my wrist gently as she feels for my pulse. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. . Beyond the yellow gate there is a man. His navy blue striped rugby shirt and acid washed jeans foretell a deep, defiant voice. …
What’s a little closure between friends?
I sat alone in a movie theater in Haifa last night. There were other people around me — strangers. An American guy and a Russian girl out on a date. Two elderly couples. A grandmother, a mom, and her teenage daughter. There were people in the theater, but I might as well have been alone. It was that kind of movie experience. The expression on my face moved in rhythm with the fictional couple’s tension …
Stuck in Your Throat
Your silence is a cover-up. It’s a conspiracy between you and the way you think people see you. Your silence is a ruse. It’s a simple means of getting from here to there. Avoiding an accident. Your silence is a hushed conversation between you and yourself. It’s a promise. It’s a plan in the making. It’s a vendetta. Your silence is silent until it’s loud. And then BOOM. Destruction. Why are you silent in the face …
- Family |
- Love |
- Memory |
- Writing |
Blogger challenge: My ideal hours would be …
- Writing |
Lay flat to dry
- Dreams |
- Letting Go |
- Mindfulness |
- Writing |
Art of attraction
- Writing |
This poem comes in pencil only
- Community |
- Letting Go |
- Love |
- Memory |
- Writing |
Tell me a secret I don’t already know
- Friendship |
- Kibbutz |
- Memory |
- Mindfulness |
- Relationships |
Return to sender
- Letting Go |
- Love |
- Writing |
Pretty lies
- Writing |
What’s Off-Limits When I Die
- Community |
- Letting Go |
- Memory |
The Things We Keep
- Family |
- Letting Go |
- Memory |
- Mindfulness |