Art fights

I recently thought of a really funny fight that my brother and I had when he was about seven years old and I was nine. He was chasing me, so I locked myself in the bathroom and was taunting him from the inside.

Then a piece of paper and pencil were slipped to me under the door. It was a drawing of me being chased by bees.
I flipped it over and, in response, drew him dropping an ice cream cone and crying.
He got another piece of paper and drew me stubbing my toe.
In turn, I drew him surrounded by stink lines.

We kept this going wordlessly for a few minutes, each drawing images of each other that were either unflattering or depicted the other in an unpleasant scenario. It culminated in him drawing a picture of Bart Simpson mooning me, and then we both burst out laughing and I unlocked the door.

This is how siblings fought back in the mid '90s, in a house where everyone drew and religiously watched The Simpsons. And I still have that last drawing.

Road maps

All my veins are road maps
Leading back to you.
You three: the vessels that once carried me
Now in vessels
Pulsating with paint and
never-dried ink.
All branch into heart and lungs
Coloring outside the lines of time
Filling in the space
between breaths.

From June

When my aunt Mary was in her early twenties, she wrote this description of her parents in a journal: “Kiki and Harold: A mass of confused frustration, or a kind of breakfast-out bargain kids who love to get up early! Their house is full of their kids, dogs, and their guests for wok or spaghetti dinners. Their house has so much flea market stuff, but they know that you can always add another addition to their mass of life.”

I’ve never heard a truer description of my grandparents. Kiki, Harold, and Mary were a trifecta of my young life, of my whole childhood. And now all three of them are dead.

I never met a person who disliked Kiki, but she was always my inner litmus test. If anybody didn’t like her, I knew I couldn’t like them.

When thinking of my grandma, I think of her love of African and Native American art. I think of the way she made jewelry and collected thousands of beads. I think of how she was the first woman in her family to go to college—and then went on to be a part of the school board, to become an art teacher, and to start her own business with her husband. I think of her Yiddish profanity, including an expression that literally translates to “Go shit in the ocean,” and an ancient curse of “May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits!” I think of how she built an enormous house out of wood and stone while pregnant. And I think of her as a violin virtuoso, and the day when, at 90 years old, she picked up a violin for the first time in decades and realized to her dismay that she could not play anymore.

Kiki’s dementia was especially difficult for her because she was used to being the family matriarch. She was used to always being in charge, and her whole life was defined by giving care to others. So when she was in the position of needing care, it distressed her. After Harold passed on in September, she started saying she wanted to go home. Even when she was at her house, she’d tug on the doorknob and start crying, begging her children to take her home. This was heartbreaking, and my husband had an astute insight about it. He thinks that even though her senility prevented her from processing Harold’s death, she understood something was missing. And so with her husband gone, it didn’t feel like home anymore.

Even in severe dementia, her will was astounding. In the hospice, she managed to live for over two weeks with no food or liquids. Most people can only live that way a few days.

Today, shortly before she passed away, her five surviving children gathered together at a beach by the hospice. They wrote her name in huge letters in the sand with a big heart and all danced around her name, shouting it into the sky and yelling, “You’re free!” When they returned to her room, she was still. She’d passed right as they were “releasing” her.

My aunts and uncles are going to donate her brain to the medical community in order to contribute to dementia research, and to learn more about the type she had. It makes perfect, harmonious sense that they would perform a spiritual ritual while also contributing to science. And I know that’s exactly what Kiki would want, because it means she can help people even in death.

Harold, Kiki, and Mary: you are my blood, my trio, my history. And for the rest of my life, you’ll show up in my Technicolor dreams.

From May: My grandma's diaspora

Blank spaces often scare us more than pain. This is why death is so daunting: because our void of knowledge about it is a blank space. The possibilities are infinite, and infinity stretches out past the horizon of our understanding, spinning with so many colors that they all blur into white. This is why many prefer suffering to nothingness; because at least there's still a self to suffer.

When I think of my grandma, who doesn't have much time left, I wonder how much of her memory is buried under snow and how much has been uprooted altogether. Maybe it's like a page where the writing has been erased and she's trying to piece it back together by the ghostly traces. Her page was the first edition, but she's read it to so many people that it's no longer the only copy. The words have scattered from her page onto those of everyone she has loved.

The words aren't lost. Her family still knows her Yiddish and her made-up expressions like "cuckoopots" (meaning anything outrageous). We still know her winking innuendos and her puns; how sitting on a menu is "ass-essing" it. We know her spirited rants against bigotry, anti-Semitism, and bad customer service. We know her stories about how much she loved her students. We know the time the stock market crashed, her elementary school burned down, she caught the measles, and her widowed father remarried all within the same year. How she lay in bed as a sick five-year-old that year, clutching a little toy fire truck, and said to the ceiling, "Mommy, please make me better." How on the day WWII ended, she went to a party in a yellow dress and re-met my grandpa (they'd gone to school together, reconnected at the party, and started dating). How her first boyfriend had been gay, and she grew to care about gay rights before a lot of people did. How she had six children because she wanted one for every millionth Jew killed in the Holocaust.

We remember these things because she told us. Because her life has been a love letter to the world. Or sometimes a complaint letter. Or a bawdy, hilarious manifesto.

One moment a few weeks ago, in a fragment amid a word salad, she said "I want to be everywhere." And she is everywhere, just not in herself.

She has begun her own one-woman diaspora. She has found homes in everyone else.

I'm intrigued by the common and immediate assumption that if a grown adult behaves badly, they must have had bad parents. I can understand why someone might believe that about a child--even though all children sometimes misbehave. But while our upbringings do affect us a great deal in adult life, we can consciously choose to be better or worse than how we were raised. The assumption that shitty behavior is always an outgrowth of shitty parents offers a sense of control. It placates us into believing that as long as we are good, we'll raise good people. That line of thinking is interesting if you follow it into a family timeline. According to its internal logic, a person is bad or good because of their parents--and their parents would have learned those habits from their own parents in turn. So nobody is fully accountable for their actions, but they are fully accountable for the actions of others.

Notes from across the divide

These are all quotes from the diaries my aunt Mary kept as a young person. For those new to my friends list, I have posted about her a lot. She’s my mom’s youngest sister, who died in a car accident in 2007 after a 17-year drug addiction. I found years’ worth of her poetry and journals after she passed away.

Anyway, these things were written in journals throughout the early to mid 1980s, when Mary was in her teens and early twenties. This is how she explained herself to whoever she imagined reading her words in the future:

“Dearest, kindest world with endless opportunities,
Be nice to me and give me a little freedom, and just a few things to enjoy.”
-Summer 1980 (she was fourteen years old)

“I wake up in the morning and shake dreams out of my hair.” -July 1980

“I would gladly give away my creativity to all my friends.” -1980

“Life can be good and life can be treacherous. That’s why they say it has its ups and downs. Then again, death is more than often caused by ups and downs, so to live is to die.” -July 1980

“I love loving. It’s the ultimate in a deciding factor. It’s the difference between reality and the supernatural.”

“Touch the stars, they’re breezing by.”

“When people smile, I smile too. When they cry I cry. When I don’t see them I wonder what they are feeling and if they think of me.”

“Next time you want to understand me, look between the empty pages behind the lines.” -1981

“Words stuck in my throat are released beneath my pen.” -1981

“We are the young ones crying out.” -1984

“Take me as I am: alone and dreaming, a poet without a plan.” -April 1984

“What is written shall remain.”

“Maybe I’m not star material, but I know how to feel and be real.”

“You speak of the coming days. I speak of today and laugh a lot. Your crazy smile keeps me going.”

“This is Captain Mary aboard the cosmic ship Bethany [her hometown]. I am quite alive and enjoying this evening. I am at the head of my bed, in full control, and the music is real cool.”
-February 14, 1985

“I am the living Dead: ahead of my time and behind.”

“I’m filling in words that shouldn’t be said between bound covers.” -1989

“If I die soon, I want everyone to know my life was good. If I live longer, then everyone will know they helped make it that way.” -January 1989

And this last one was written in 2004:
“I dedicate my words to everyone I’ve ever known, dead or alive, or will ever know, dead or alive.”

*****

Rest in peace and poetry, Mary. You’re a supernova that will never stop bursting into life.

Eulogy for a great creator

My grandparents in New Haven, CT in 1948, when Harold was a student at Yale Art School.

In one of my earliest memories of my grandpa Harold, we celebrated Hanukkah with a menorah shaped like a Christmas tree.

He wasn’t strictly religious, but he had a love for certain traditions. He didn’t follow them as prescribed, though. He had a way of making everything his own.

Passover meant sitting around my grandparents’ table with all my cousins while Harold told the story of Moses, passing candy around to demonstrate the ten plagues. The chocolate chips he gave us represented boils, and there were gummy frogs. The grand finale came when he’d bring out a big bowl of red Jell-O and “part” it by spraying a line of whipped cream down the center. Then he’d drop a handful of little plastic soldiers into the bowl, and we’d all dig in.

One year he told the Passover story by putting on a shadow play with my aunts and uncles. They set up a big screen and a light in the living room. Harold narrated while they acted it out with shadows of puppets. My grandma Kiki had made a witch puppet for the Angel of Death. She flew it across the screen on a cardboard broomstick, making it cackle with glee. Aunt Abbie’s hair was the burning bush. She crouched behind the sofa, revealing the silhouette of her wild curls as she shook her head around, mimicking fire.

Harold was an incredible storyteller. He didn’t write, but his inventive and articulate style met perfectly with his theatrical flair. He came up with thrilling sagas to tell his kids and then his grandchildren. He brought stories from the Torah to pulsating life. He invented epics about dragons and monsters. His sound effects were flawless. He knew when to whisper and when to shout. His eyes would pop wide as the momentum built. These adventures left us gripping our seats or shrieking with laughter. His everyday manner was as animated as his stories and art.

Harold did everything to maximum capacity, sucking the last bit of air from every experience yet leaving more for everyone else. He danced on tables. He rolled in the autumn leaves. He watched sad movies with tears streaming down his face. He smacked his lips in appreciation while he ate. I used to try to correct his table manners as a toddler. When I was two years old, I’d shake a finger at him and say, “Grandpa, you’re not supposed to chew with your mouth open. You’re supposed to chew like this!” I’d stuff my face and chew exaggeratedly, mouth closed, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. My whole family would laugh hysterically and I wouldn’t know why. Harold ate just as he was supposed to, though. He consumed, and he gave, with unrestrained joy.

It seems so appropriate that his middle name was Wolf. He always reminded me of a canine with his exuberant manner and love of people and food. With his exploratory nature and endless curiosity, he always seemed to gather a following that became his lifelong pack. Even his physical features were embracing and full. His round face, broad nose, and full lips conveyed generosity. I’ve never known someone so financially thrifty who gave so much.

The frugality had a lot to do with his upbringing. He grew up during the Great Depression in a family where he had to vie with his brothers for food. But this seemed to only feed his resourcefulness. When my mother and her siblings were little, he’d take them on family trips to the Bethany dump. They’d explore the junkyard to look for materials they could use in art projects. This became a time honored Rabinowitz tradition.

I can’t think of Harold without remembering that, or without thinking of Kiki. He and my grandma are forever linked in my mind. I’ve always said them as one word: “HaroldandKiki.” One of my favorite stories was the memory of how they got together. They knew each other from the time they were children. They went to junior high and high school together, but were only distant acquaintances back then. In their class photo, they’re seated next to each other. On the last day of high school, Harold signed Kiki’s yearbook with, “I’ll be seeing you! Ha ha ha.” Neither of them had any idea they’d see each other every day for seventy years.

They reconnected three years later on the day World War II ended. They found themselves at a mutual friend’s party to celebrate. They sensed an interest in each other they hadn’t felt before, and started dating. Kiki told me they went to a carnival for their first date. At one point during the night, they got stuck at the top of the ferris wheel. Harold smiled at her and asked, “Can I kiss you?” She laughed and said, “Well, I guess I can’t run away.”

            They were married a year later and rode their bicycles cross country for their honeymoon. And then, in the early ‘50s, they built their tall, gorgeously chaotic, ramshackle stone house. Kiki built it while she was pregnant. That’s how badass she is. They made friends wherever they went with their playful antics. After Kiki gave birth to their sixth child, they gifted the nurse with a watermelon wrapped in a baby blanket. Kiki told her, “We’re returning the baby. It leaks.”

Over the years, their house became a haven. It was a community in itself. They took in family friends. Many of their kids knew someone who, at least briefly, had lived at their home. They started their family business there, Rabinowitz Design Workshop (later renamed Witz End Workshop). Creative Arts Workshop also began at their house when they gave art lessons to kids from the area. They used to come over, and Kiki would make them all a big pot of spaghetti and hot dogs.

For two people who seemed like one entity, Kiki and Harold butted heads a lot. They had some pretty hilarious arguments. I’ll always remember them fighting over directions in the car. They’d be equally insistent about which way to turn. Finally Kiki would shout, “Goddammit, Harold, I’m not going to listen to you anymore!” and pointedly veer off in the opposite direction, even if it got them briefly lost. He’d do the same when he was the one driving. Despite this, I’ve never met two people more wildly in love.

They loved to dance together. Any time I visited, I’d see him grab Kiki and twirl her around in the kitchen while they laughed. If there was no music, they’d invent their own. They were constantly ad libbing silly songs and rhymes together. Harold was a master of words. He invented a game to play with his children, and later his grandkids, called Stinky Pinky. In the game, people took turns coming up with a pair of words that rhymed and then gave a short description. Everyone else had to guess what it was. For example, someone would say, “A wet puppy.” Others would guess what they had in mind until somebody said, “Soggy doggy.” If you guessed it, you won that round.

Harold could speak in iambic pentameter off the top of his head and improvise limericks and poetry. This made him really popular at parties. At one event he donned Kiki’s purple muumuu, held a pineapple in his outstretched hand, and began to recite Hamlet. At another he stood under the balcony in his living room and extended his wine glass, shouting “My cup runneth over!” At that exact moment, a guest tried to pour wine over the balcony into his glass, but it ended up spilling on his head.
               And, of course, there was the time his son had Show and Tell back in first grade and decided to stand up in front of the class and announce, “Last weekend my dad was at a party and had a lot to drink and fell into a big bucket of popcorn!” My uncle hadn’t been there to see it, but he’d heard the story. Harold wrote legends just by living.

This is why it was so sad when Harold had a stroke back in 2000 and lost a lot of his verbal abilities. He went from someone who could keep a whole room in stitches to having trouble articulating basic thoughts. I remember the look of anguish on his face as he once said, “I can’t say what I mean to say.” And, for a short time, he referred to everyone he spoke to as Kiki. It was because of the stroke, but it made sense. He loved Kiki so much that he saw a part of her in everyone.

Even so, he never stopped enjoying life. He still drew beautifully. He still saw friends and rejoiced in family. He laughed until the end and died surrounded by everyone who loved him; all the lives he had changed. In the end, I can only regret that he won’t be a part of the memorial celebration, because it would be just like him to surprise everyone by showing up in a jester hat or a purple dress, ad libbing satirical poetry. But he’ll be there regardless, because he is everywhere he’s painted and joked and sang.

          Harold is the world he created.

A letter for people I love

This is an open letter to anti-LGBT+ family members—because there’s more than one of you, and because, even if you might not believe it when we disagree, I do love you. Please bear with me.

Because we share genetics and grew up doing holidays together, I know where you come from. I know the particular brand of theology you’re expressing is what you’d been raised with from day one. I know your parents only ever wanted what was best for you, and they are good people. And I know you don’t want to be hateful. It hurts and offends you when others think you’re being cruel for opposing same-sex marriage, when you feel you’re just standing up for “what God says.” You also believe you’re being persecuted for this opinion, and are immersed in a religious culture which tells you that is true. I can’t personally relate to this, as I was not raised within evangelical Christianity. I do understand where you’re coming from, though. It can’t be an easy place to be.

But, in love and in sincerity, I’m asking you to please consider something: That it would be incredibly painful to be a gay or bi or transgender person living within that environment. Even if nobody from your church or your specific religious community is openly “out,” there very likely are LGBT people within your community who know this truth about who they are and hate themselves for it. And, without any assumptions or accusations on my part, please let me ask you some rhetorical questions.

Are you helping them to feel loved, regardless of your beliefs about their identity, or are you encouraging self-hate?

Are you telling them God loves them, but only if they change a huge aspect of who they are and have always been? If so, how can it be called a “free gift” if there are so many strings attached? It can’t be a demonstration of parental love if it’s so conditional. (Not that all parents love unconditionally, but the general Christian understanding is that God loves in the way that an ideal and perfect parent would.)

What are you trying to accomplish by posting anti-LGBT quotes and memes? Are you directing them at LGBT people, or at peers within your religious community who agree with you? Are they directed at people outside your group who disagree—and if so, are you using those posts to try to persuade them?

If you are addressing those things to other Christians, what’s your reason for doing so? Maybe you’re trying to prove your place within their circle, to show that you belong. If that’s the case, why is it necessary? Would true friends litmus test you?

If you’re trying to reach LGBT people, please understand that telling us we’re going to hell and deserve to be murdered is not love. I am, and have always been, a bisexual person. This doesn’t mean I’m in multiple relationships or want to be. I also never chose this. It’s something I’ve known since first grade, since before I knew it was even possible to like both men and women or had any word to name it. If you have questions about this, I’m willing to talk about it. But if you're only interested in telling me how wrong I am for being bi, then the conversation won't lead us anywhere helpful.

If you say gay people are damned or unloved by what you believe to be the ultimate and all-powerful source of love, that does affect me personally. It’s extremely hurtful. In a similar way, you feel personally affected and hurt when others say the same things about your specific branch of Christianity. But please understand that nobody is telling you that your relationships should be illegal, and nobody is forcing you to perform or enter into same-sex marriages. Many people within evangelical Christian culture do seem to want to force LGBT people into heterosexual relationships, though, or force them into the religion via law. It’s not all Christians. But there are a disconcerting amount who want everyone in the US to be legally forced to follow biblical mandates and for our government to be a theocracy. If that were the case, it would completely negate free will. It would also allow even more massive leeway for government corruption; for a leader to do anything they pleased and be unquestioned if they claimed that “God told them to do it.” Nobody is telling you that you cannot be Christian—and there are different ways of being Christian, not just conservative/evangelical. In turn, please don’t tell people they cannot be anything but heterosexual and cisgender (non-trans).

One thing I understand about conservative Christianity is that conscience and a sense of obedience often pull in opposite directions. You may not want to harm LGBT people, but feel that your religion is telling you to. You may be caught in deep and painful conflict for that reason. If this is the case, please understand that any deity worthy of being called “love” would never, ever demand that you choose between duty and compassion. If you have compassion, it’s there for a reason. Please don’t stifle its voice. Also, hate is more than a feeling. It’s an action. A person can have all the caring and empathetic feelings in the world for someone else, but if their actions do the other person harm, it’s not love. Love is what we do, not just what we feel. The same is true for hatred.

If you’ve gotten this far and are still reading, thank you. I’m grateful for your time and consideration. Yes, we’re still family and we’re still friends. But before you repost another quote or video or meme about something you may not fully understand, I ask that you please take a moment to reflect on these thoughts. You’re under no obligation to answer my questions, but please don’t be afraid to ask them to yourself.

Thank you for hearing this out.

"Family values"?

People do not genuinely care about "family values" if they only value one type of family. Media, politicians, and organizations that pride themselves on being "family friendly" are often blatantly unfriendly to those that are nonreligious, non-white, ethnically mixed, living in poverty, or consisting of same sex parents or a single parent (especially a single mom). Also, encouraging procreation is not the same as being pro family. You can support the decision to have children and care about the well being of families, but many people seem concerned with the former and not the latter.