Travel Log #2

Two days in one:

May 26, 2009

On MARTA heading back to Marietta now. I went into the city of Atlanta for one of my background interviews with OTZMA, the Israel program I most want to attend. My last interview is tomorrow. Psycho-social. It went very well today and my interviewers told me that Tali was "very enthusiastic" about my candidacy. Let's hope the psychologist is, too. As long as no one else dies in the next year, one after the other, I should theoretically remain sane.

The sky was pretty ominous when I showed up at the Jewish Federation. I signed in, coughed my brains out, noticed I was forty-five minutes early, and the power died. Everywhere. Sachs Effect in action. As usual. Another twenty minutes go by. I settle in on a bench and resume reading *The Graveyard Book*. I make small-talk with the security guard, Brenda. Reminds me slightly of Teresa from the Clark Bookstore. The power comes back. People walk back-and-forth and ignore me. Then, Ebony comes out to get me. We have the interview. I do my thing. I tell the truth.

When it's over. I get directions back to MARTA. I didn't use them. I remembered my own way back. I walk under a black sky and watch a potential funnel descending over the city. Instinct tells me to run for it like everybody else on the street. I remind myself that running will be the
death of me with the 40% lung capacity. Plus, I'm out of shape at the moment. I need to hit a dance floor soon. And an Olympic-sized pool.

LATER 8:57pm
I got to my stop. Went to the rabbis to get my letter "proving" that I'm Jewish because they've known me for ages and ages. One of the keys to getting my visa. Of course, I commented on the fact that people have tricked many an agency over this kind of thing. This Russian family at the Jewish Day School, for instance. Elementary School in Savannah, GA. Gleb. I don't remember the other kids' names. But woe be the day I forget his.

He was one of the ones who made my life a living hell. I snapped at the age of nine on the ledge of a pool. Kicked him in. Out-of-body experience. If I had been any older, things would not have been good for this kid. Afterwards, he avoided me for three months. I watched myself from a distance before coming back. The point is, we later discovered that his entire family had lied, forged documentation, etc., and used the American Jewish Federation by claiming they were Jewish to get out of Russia in the post-USSR days--mid-nineties. They jumped ship, of course, when all of that was discovered and hit it off to Ohio or somewhere and were never heard from
again.

I guess it's just as well. According to genetics, going back an infinite number of generations, I'm Jewish, and now I have a letter "proving" it. I think the whole thing is ridiculous. But that's just me.

My eyes feel like they're about to explode. Sinus pressure. I ignore it. I registered my international Student ID card and found the international phone I might get.

I think I'm being called for dinner. It's 9:10 pm and the sun has finally disappeared. Down the street at the pool we ran into traffic earlier today. Two firetrucks and a moron in the middle of the road with a policeman who did nothing. And a woman who fell down the steps at the swimming tournament and broke her leg--bone through skin. Considering the weather, they would have postponed anyway.

May 27, 2009
It smells like summer, which means a good mix of blossoms and decay. The flowers I got for graduation sit on the dining room table, in their last throes of life. Beautiful, but beauty is ephemeral, like most good things. Perhaps this is why we must work harder to attain joy--desperation grows, an unyielding weed that takes root and flourishes, chokes the beautiful, the pleasant, the joyful, like the invasive kudzu vines that suffocate the region's natural vegetation. If we concentrate on achieving joy, eventually, we attain it. So, the memory lasts forever although the reality does not. We gain satisfaction because we know we spawned a creation, no matter how fleeting.

My voice is coming back, and my lung capacity. I went to my final interview for OTZMA today. Tomorrow, I call them to see if they can expedite their decision--yes or no--on whether I get in or not.

I suppose today was hard. I had to talk about last year. Psycho-social interview. The questions began with Eve, and almost ended with her, too: "How are you holding up?" But what do I say to a thing like that? I survive by not dwelling on it. But I see her anyway when the question is asked and the siren-screaming begins anew and says: "No reason! Only madness. There is no greater order to the world." I tell the psychologist I am dealing as well as possible. I don't obsess. Either way, I lose, I think. If I forget, it's condemnable; if I don't, I resign myself to madness.

So I dance. And I sing. And I look towards better things. But March 5, 2008 is branded onto my inner eye and behind the mask of the world, it's all I see.

Someone told me last week that the next time I got to college, I should remember to get a degree in smiling because it's something I never learned how to do. I smile all the time, but I guess my eyes aren't in it and people can tell. I concentrate on the absurd because it makes me laugh. But, like blossoms, laughter is beautiful, and everything beautiful fades.

I resign myself to a perpetual race, weighing laughter against sorrow, even though I know quite well that Time always wins. Life has no meaning, no reason, except for what we make of it for our own individual selves.

Yesterday, I finally took out Martin. I played Fouad's song. Couldn't sing except in my head: I get this feeling I am captured/ at the end of the line./ Got caught up in nostalgic rapture/ by the rage of innocence. It feels good to play. My calluses are whittling down to nothing because I'm
still getting over being sick. But I am young and resilient.

When I walked into my interview today, there was a woman in the waiting room rambling on in her deep Southern drawl. But she says she hates Georgia. First things she says to me is: "You're a youngun' aintcha?"

I looked at her through the corner of my eyes and filled out a form at the receptionist's window.
"Yes. I'm young," I said.
"Mmm," she said and leaned on her walker. She must have been in her sixties, but obviously not well.
"By the time you're my age," she said, "I'm gonna be day-yed."
"Hopefully not," I answered.
"Hell! I'll be way there up in mah nine-ties. And I've got the dia-bee-tees, so I'm gonna be day-yed bah then."
I went and sat down after handing the form to the receptionist and took out The Graveyard Book, hoping she'd get the hint.
"Do you bee-*leeve* there's a woman what one-hundred-and-six years old!"
She obviously didn't get the hint.
"Uh-huh," I said.
"You heard of Obama?"
"Yes."
"You heard of this woman whatsa one-hundred-and-six years old and she done vo-ted for Obama! Can you bee-leeve that! Do you believe anyone could get that old? I knew this man what whas one-hundred-and-seventeen and he shined my shoes for me. Can you be-leeve someone could get that old? Could you?"
"Yes. I believe it," I said and thought she should get death off her mind and concentrate on living.
"I don't wanna live that long, would you?" she said.
I shrugged. "Depends on how things are going."
"Mmm," she said and stayed quiet for a bit. I went back to my book, with relief. But--
"You know how to work them flipper phone?"
I looked up from my book and over at her. A woman walked in with a child, gave the woman a once-over and gave me a look of pity. I checked the time.
"Yes," I said. "Cell phone?" and waved mine at her.
"You know, them don' work if you overcharge 'em. I've got me one just for 9-1-1 emergencies and it don't work nothing if it get overcharged."
"That's weird. I've never heard of that. What does it look like?"
"It's brown. Hell, I should've brought so I coulda showed you."
"Sorry," I said.
"You got Alzheimer's?" she asked me. "No, you're too young. Well, my doctor she gave me pills for Alzheimer's but I don't think I got it, I just gets confused sometimes. You ever get confused? Like I think it's nighttime when it's daytime? I'm going to die soon. You just watch."

I didn't answer and I got called in for my interview.

On the way home, I took a wrong turn and got lost, called home for help and made it back. Take that last bit however you like. In the end, either way, I was back where I needed to be.