Crawling. The tunnel is so narrow and dark. I can’t remember exactly how I got here. Mud. Dust. I’m scratched and bruised. Some of the wounds have healed. Most are healing. Yes, even fresh blood has been spilled here. It’s congested in here. And the air is barely getting to my brain. It hurts. An ear-splitting, eye-blinding pain. 90% of me is in pain. 10% pushes on. 10% of me sees something. Someone. At the end of the tunnel. 10% isn’t enough to make out details, but it gives me the strength to go on. Hope.
Mirror. Mirror, mirror on the wall, whose tired eyes are these, looking back at me? No. That isn’t me. I have another expression. Someone took it. How did that happen? Where was I? Standing on a box in Hyde Park in my neighborhood. Starting out gently. Explaining. Searching the audience. Does anyone have an answer? Yelling. Does anyone have an answer?!? Most ignore me. Making their own speech. Some answer me with shouts. It’s so raucous and unpleasant. I close the blinds a little. A little bit each day. I yell louder…and complete another level. At the end, I understand nobody hears. I am silent within. Looking for Hyde Park in another neighborhood.
Take 2. This time I will plan the speech. I have experience and I’ve studied. This park is bigger. People look better-mannered. They’re speaking more quietly. They look attentive. I sit down on a box and write polite letters. I receive polite replies, but no one gives a straight answer. “Hey,” I whisper, “can anyone hear me? Is anyone listening? Anyone?”
War. You can’t say I didn’t try my best. I remember that I argue mostly for others, and always explain that in war there are no victors… I remember that I like compromises when it’s difficult to swallow or throw up. Those are usually the right ones to make. But this is a war for my home, a just war. And I will fight it. Have I sealed my fate? I guess. My right hand grasps justice, and my left embraces kindness. And I am there. No, I haven’t found myself yet…but I have a vague memory. And longing. For me.
Battlefield. I practiced dry fire drills for years. In the neighborhood where I grew up, we fight a lot. The battlefield is very familiar to me. Full of kindness wrapped in clouds of justice. I am there in body. I don’t see or hear what is happening. I’m in total pain. No intuition gets in. And the pain becomes insufferable. This was my home for so many years. But I feel so foreign. Alienated. If this isn’t home, do I have a home? Pain. I build a Chinese wall wrapping me from neck to thigh. Chastity belt. Effect. Here but not here. A separation fence. Scatter landmines so nobody approaches. Silence. And the quiet is comforting at first. I rest.
Thorns. And I am deep inside. That’s how I got here. The walls needed reinforcement, and I lost more and more inside. Quietly, I understand. Somewhat hesitantly…I connected with the pain and went in too deep with it. To the point of identification with it. Here is the end of a rope. This pain is certainly not me. No, I do not know what is. And yet, this is the end of the rope. It is thin and delicate, but I take hold of it and it pulls me out mumbling something about kindness, and I begin to see a bit of light. A vague memory. I am kindness and kindness is me.
Journey. With a little hope and a lot of pain. Looking for home. Home is also looking for me…moving towards me. But my eyes have adjusted to the darkness and the light that penetrated at first has only sharpened the pain. Slivers of mirror. Looks. Reflections. I am here and here and here. I am not and not and already not. And maybe. Always accompanied by yearning, which scatters the earth around me. Widens the tunnel. Enables light to enter and eyes to open. To hear. Here are heartbeats. My heart. Greetings, my heart.
Encounter. Almost by chance. No, not a long story. He spoke in a language that was familiar to me. Made a crack in the wall, and left…I asked the guards to clean the minefield. To lower the wall a little. My heart asked for a little freedom. A little space to move. I cautiously distance the guards a little. The skies are blue above me. I remember how they looked that blue once. A twin brother, who had been there with me when the laughter was in my eyes, spreading love everywhere. I am warmed by his look. Roll up my sleeves…open the hatch. A window. Go out onto the verandah.
Love. Like in the army, everything with me divides up into three. I had kindness and justice…I found the third component – love. Love found me. When I was crawling through in 90% pain, with only 10% of hope. Love has resettled in my eyes. And I recognize myself in the mirror. Reflected back to me in so many ways. From the eyes of multitudes. Seeing and sometimes showing. Sometimes speaking. Sometimes shouting, sometimes whispering…sometimes silent. It depends on the intensity of the pain. Of the yearning. On who is listening.
It isn’t a geographical thing, I tell my big brother, after I broke down again, because I wanted to make sure he cared. He simply doesn’t remember to tell me in my language. The pain speaks through the yearning, creating more pain, more yearning. That’s the way it is in our family. As in everyone’s. Yearning, pain, love. And again. For better or for worse. He is there and I am here. Each one speaks in their own language. When yearning takes over, I go to him, to see me reflected in his eyes in the foreground of his love. Show it to him through my love.
Niti 11.4.16
Tel Aviv
