The Last Exile

Dammit Janet! is one of my regular stops in my reader. I don’t always agree with the women but I do believe they are often worth paying attention to which is more than I can say about quite a few other bloggers. deBeauxOs has a post which should resonate with every grown woman and as appalling as a Dior designer’s public meltdown into anti-semitism was a cause for censure; I would much rather have a public roasting held on account of his willing participation in glorying an ideal which never celebrates the many and varied forms of women – real women.

And so I am resurrected a very personal piece of writing which I was keeping on another blog – an anonymous one, that documented the reunion with the only man I ever fell in love with. Don’t misunderstand me, I have loved many men, but I have only fallen in love once.

I was painfully thin in the anorexic way only ballet dancers can achieve short of full-blown mental illness. It starts by an early understanding that food is always your enemy… at 21, I was petite, fine boned, with a long neck and blessed with legs longer than my torso. I didn’t have a bust line to actually speak of. In fact, I used to pray to G-d not to give me the large breasted-ness which the women on both sides of my family were notorious for possessing. My ballet figure was not without flaw – and a rather prominent one at that (at least in North America). This kept me from having what I call the ‘Balanchine-look’ and winning roles I dreamed of dancing. I took it as a sign that the Master of the Universe possessed a sense of humour as I was cursed with rather wide hips and an extremely prominent backside which my tiny waist only underscored in double-bold.

I remember being in high school and two boys discussing my backside and making derogatory remarks about it during one lunch hour. One even suggested if he was me; he’d kill himself. I was absolutely mortified – so much so- that it was years before I ever wore pants again. At the time, I did not realize the cattiness of gay males is, in itself; the jealousy of all things sexualized as feminine. I had one ballet mistress, an exiled Russian, who bluntly told me I moved like sex-on-pointe and I should never bother trying to play the ingénue as it was just so much waste of line. Really, she was doing me a favour but I didn’t understand it then.

Instead, I took what she said as a reproach and ate even less but worked harder. I wanted to be the Sugar Plum Fairy, the White Swan, the Dying Swan, the eternal ethereal virgin Princess with a capital P. I wanted to be Giselle – not Jezebel. She was right, and if only I was sensible enough to realize then; what I should have done was embrace my inner Jezebel and revelled in being the eternal temptress. The Carmen, which haunts the dreams of men – a Lilith-like figure – instead of archetypical Eve. My form kept me from being cast as the White Swan, and when I danced the Black Swan; it was my anger and the intensity of my longing to be something other than I was which brought the burning passion that shone as I danced Odile, the Black Swan. Always hungry to be the other…

It was Nelson and his love of me which allowed me to accept I would never be Odette and made me understand the worth of Odile. The turning point came on a Sunday afternoon in the first winter of our affair (circa 1983). Nelson was too poor to afford carpeting in his living room or much else in the way of furniture beyond an old monster sized bar he collected out of the trash somewhere. There was one wall lined with old mirror squares, cracked or worn through but still giving out a decent reflection. The old wood floors were without shine and kind of spongy which made it the most natural place for me to dance and practice in. He even rigged up a make-shift barre for me to use. For a change this room was extremely warm. He was lying on the floor as I was getting ready to start my barre on pointe.

As I warmed up all I could see in the mirrors were all my flaws reflected harshly in the bright cold light of day. I would steal a glance from time to time at his reflection in the mirrors. He interrupted me by asking if I would be his fairy princess and grant him one wish. Immediately, I stepped in role and answered, “But of course. Your wish is merely the purpose of my desire.”, I said while executing the bow of grande reverence – the ultimate expression of gratitude by a ballerina. His voice was low and raspy when he asked I take off everything but my pointe shoes so he could watch me stretch and move. So I did.

Eventually, he came to lie down in the space on the floor between my legs as I began the plié-relevé-développé combinations. I remember glancing down at him and seeing the naked hunger written in his eyes and I was undone. My legs started to shake and desire acted as a vice on my chest so I could barely breathe. It was one of the most erotic experiences of my life. This part of Shoshana Nelson knows well, but that Shoshana, only lives fully alive in our shared memory.

In reality, she has grown-up and developed breasts, bore three children and has a layer of silky softness covering those same legs and arms which use to reach up and out towards the sky. Her legs never extend straight up behind her head anymore. Now her legs just fit comfortably around a man and she only holds her legs as high as hip level. Arthritis has seen to that.

I’ve seen a recent picture of him. He has won the genetic lottery and still has the same figure as his 23 year old self. I think, how can I make him still see me as still desirable, far more interesting and provocative woman I have grown-up to be – when I stand in such stark contrast to myself of old? Nor does it help that as a society images of lovely full-figures curvaceous in beautiful women are routinely photoshopped out of existence in order to redefine the natural order of beauty for something artificially contrived and brittle? Baruch HaShem, for Jezebel magazine for taking a stand for the traditional built woman.

And in the end, despite all my high and mighty ranting, I wrote this eating chicken salad without the mayo or the pasta in an effort to lose 20 lbs before I agree to meet the man whose voice makes still makes my knees grow and my breathing shallow. The man who I suspect remains the great love of my life – even if he did rip out my heart from chest with his bare hands and, break it into tiny, little pieces which he stomped into the mud. The question becomes – will he do it again if I given him a chance? Can I even bare to let him try? I don’t know but I do know I am down 3 pound from 17. I want to lose. If nothing else, my knees will one day thank me for it – even if they can barely be lifted today. The wretched barre is now calling my name…

Late Sunday evening I became an immigrant in my country without having to get on plane to leave the country. I have been seeing an Israeli man for a bit and he called at just the right time on Saturday night to convince me to come out and attend a party with him…and a rather large group of ex-pat Israelis. Most of whom have literally just gotten off the plane in the last six months.

I ended up for various reasons unable to return home until late Sunday evening and while most Israelis can speak English after a fashion; the common tongue when large groups gather is still Hebrew. My Hebrew has improved significantly in the last six months and my Israeli friends keeps adding choice words and vulgar expressions to the rather more formal Hebrew I already know. I just never realized the effect it was having on my English until Sunday afternoon.

I left the shtetl (aka my nickname for a pre-dominantly Jewish area of Toronto) and walked into the Finch Subway station. I spied a coffee shop and dearly needed a coffee after endless cups of tea and the misadventures which seem to regularly make-up my sojourn among the Israelis. I went up to the counter and thought I ordered a large coffee, double cream – no sugar. The woman just looked at me blankly and I repeated my order. She kept saying ‘what?’ and I kept repeating myself thinking poorly of her English comprehension skills. I found myself growing impatient with her (a common personal failing of mine which I readily acknowledge) and am now pointing to the coffee cups and the board and trying to mime out what I want.

Suddenly, the man behind me, who is just as impatient as I, shouts out, “She wants a large coffee, double cream – no sugar!’, in English. It is then, that it hits me, I have been so busy concentrating on my Hebrew for the last 30 odd hours I had not realized that I wasn’t ordering in English. I am so embarrassed that all I can say is ‘Toda’ to the man who came to my rescue.

I was never a Black Sabbath fan and the only line from the only Black Sabbath song they ever did that I can ever remember goes like this – fairies wear boots and they do what they want to. Too true. Anyway, I did watch a few episodes of the reality show the Osbournes produced with the Tribe. It was probably the best ‘just say no to drugs’ television ever produced. Despite the dysfunction and excesses, there is just something downright likable about both Sharon and Ozzy. The Osbourne couple always made you ask; whatever will they come up next to do?

Ozzy has decided to map his personal genome for a sweet $75,000 and his DNA reveals a little of the neanderthal…no surprise there but apparently there is a scientific reason Ozzy never got addicted to heroin….it’s his very unscientific excuse for not liking it, and I quote, “I was never addicted to street heroin, ’cos it made me throw up — a terrible waste of booze.” which makes me feel a strange affinity for Ozzy as that was my excuse for coming through the seventies un-smacked.

I have on my highest heels, my blackest stockings, and my reddest dress. I am told the kosher wine has been bought, dinner is made and the table is set and I have nothing more to do than show up. I am getting ready to do something I haven’t done in 28 years which is simply welcoming in the Shabbat by dancing through the dawn with the one man who, after all these years, still makes my catch my breathe. Life is good.

Mazel Tov to Howard Jacobson who has won the British Booker prize for his book The Finkler Question but I cannot resist taking a few shots at the Toronto Star for pussy-footing around and not fully airing the premises which Jacobson’s book revolves around. But first, the Toronto Star’s two shillings.

But in the end, it was the underdog — Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question — who won.

When Jacobson, 60, took the podium to claim the £50,000 prize, he first said he was speechless. But the London-based author, who had been nominated for the prize in 2002 and 2006, joked that he did have a few in his pocket. “The language in these speeches grows less gracious. You start wanting to berate the judges for the awards they didn’t give you,” he said. “But the judges of the 2010 prize surpass all praise.” The Finkler Question, published by Bloomsbury, is Jacobson’s 11th novel — a poignantly comic story of love, loss, male friendship and what it means to be Jewish today.

All of which is true – as far as it goes – but there is a deeper, more tragic-comic side to Jacobson’s award winning book which probably made the editorial department of the Toronto Star instinctively winch and snot out coffee from their noses when the news was passed around that The Finkler Question had won the coveted English language prize for fiction. So let me quote Howard Jacobson writing about Anti-Zionism in the Jewish Chronicle Online.

Every other Wednesday, except for festivals and High Holy-days, an anti-Zionist group called ASHamed Jews meets in an upstairs room in the Groucho Club in Soho to dissociate itself from Israel, urge the boycotting of Israeli goods, and otherwise demonstrate a humanity in which they consider Jews who are not ASHamed to be deficient. ASHamed Jews came about as a consequence of the famous Jewish media philosopher Sam Finkler’s avowal of his own shame on Desert Island Discs.

“My Jewishness has always been a source of pride and solace to me,” he told Radio Four’s listeners, not quite candidly, “but in the matter of the dispossession of the Palestinians I am, as a Jew, profoundly ashamed.”
“Profoundly self-regarding,” you mean, was his wife’s response. But then she wasn’t Jewish and so couldn’t understand just how ashamed in his Jewishness an ashamed Jew could be. That I know of, there is no Jewish media philosopher named Sam Finkler nor any anti-Zionist group meeting regularly at the Groucho Club. They exist only in the pages of my new novel, The Finkler Question, and any relation between them and real people or organisations is of course coincidental.

Though the ASHamed Jews are a satiric invention, my novel is not primarily a satire. It is a bleak tale of love and loyalty and the loss of both. It tells of three men, old friends, two of whom have recently lost their wives, and a third who has no wife to lose.

The widowers are Jewish, the third man is not. But he would like to be. He envies his Jewish friends their warmth, their cleverness, the love they have inspired, and even their bereavement. It is a bitter irony that he protests his admiration for all things Jewish just as many Jews are protesting their desire not to be Jewish at all.

As the rats desert the sinking ship, he alone – it might appear – is left to clamber aboard.
The ostensible cause of these defections is, of course, Israel. Not the actual Israel. For the purposes of my narrative, Israel exists only poetically, in the imaginations of those who cannot adequately describe themselves without it.

I happen to think this is largely true outside my novel as well: that Israel performs a function greater than itself, enabling or disabling ideas about belonging and disengagement, fanning the flames of ancient allegiances and animosities. For many Jews and non-Jews in this country Israel has become a figure of speech, the occasion for wild and whirling words, a pretext for bottling up or setting loose emotions which originate somewhere else entirely.

I began writing the The Finkler Question in 2008 but it came to the boil for me in the early months of 2009 at the time of Operation Cast Lead, as a consequence of which, or as a consequence of the reporting of which – for it, too, like everything else to do with Israel outside Israel, was figmentary – England turned into an uncustomarily frightening place for Jews. I am not speaking only of the physical threats and even damage that some Jews endured, attacks on persons, synagogues, cemeteries, the Jew-hatred expressed by primary school children etc, but of that anti-Zionist rhetoric which, in its inflatedness and fervour – a rhapsodic hyperbole growing more and more detached from any conceivable reality – was so upsetting in itself. You do not have to be punched in the face to feel you’ve been assaulted: intellectual violence is its own affront.

I have to admit I haven’t read The Finkler Question but I do need some travel reading for Friday’s journey and will pick it up. And did I mention for a 68 year old man…he’s kind of hot?

An old friend’s daughter just did one of those Mediterranean cruises which also included a 2 day stop in Israel. Now I warned her if she was going to Jerusalem and wanted to tour Mea Shearim she needed to ensure she was covered up. In fact, I explained explicitly what covered up meant. Neckline up to your collar bone, almost a full sleeve, no sheer material or form fitting clothes, a skirt that was at least half-way down your calves and under no condition was she to walk around holding her boyfriend’s hand while in Mea Shearim.

I gave the same advice to a work acquaintance who visited Israel last fall for when her church group toured Jerusalem. My friend shared with the women the instructions I had given her concerning dress. A small group of women insisted on wearing their normal attire. What happened? A near riot and the women got run out of Mea Shearim. The women later complained vociferously about innate racism of the Charedim. My friend on the other hand had a perfectly lovely time. In fact, in one store, when a woman shopkeeper realized they were Jamaican Canadians visiting Israel, she invited them home to share Shabbos dinner as she wanted to know more about these ‘refined’ Jamaican Canadians who spoke a little Hebrew with a Jamaican accent.

So what happened to my friend’s daughter? First her and her boyfriend toured Tel Aviv before Jerusalem. She thought I was exaggerating since the overwhelming majority of Israel women didn’t cover up as per my instructions – so why listen to me when she went to tour Jerusalem? She figured if she wore a tight fitting t-shirt cut low in the neckline and with just tiny cap sleeves that barely covered just her shoulders and paired it with a tight jean skirt which came to her knees; she would be okay. She wore the same outfit to the Vatican and they had no problems with it – so why should the Jews? She practically caused a near riot. Strange men hollered, screamed and cursed at her and her boyfriend. Both of them got separated from their tour group and were literally shoved into a store to buy her a long wrap to cover up with.

Her overall impression of Israel and I quote – an entire country made up of nothing but Kates. Not exactly what I would consider a deterrent but I can see why it might not appeal to everyone. Why these little personal anecdotes? Last night I had my daughter fill out the guarantor section of my passport application. I am travelling mid-October to the US for the first time since I quit the country in 1988 with a shattered heart and my spirit tucked between my legs. My daughter grumbled it would be far better if I was getting my passport to travel somewhere like ‘cool’ like Israel rather than the US. All of which made me ask the one question – why am I not going?

The answer – I am going back to see the man who ripped out my heart from my chest, tore it in little pieces and stomped it in the mud 22 years ago and give him the opportunity to see if he can do it all over again. I figure I have the upper hand this time since I have so little heart left. Of course, he claims that is what I did to him and it took him 22 years to find me again to ask for the pieces of his heart back so it can be glued back together. Whether he does or not – the next stop is Israel – with or without him.

There is not much for me to say this morning as I spent most of my pre-work time fighting with the inevitability of greyness. So far, I am winning the battle. For how long, is anybody’s guess. My grandmother use to say only the lucky grow old. Mostly, I think this is true. I don’t have a problem with getting older – except for the greyness which has never been my colour, the ongoing battle with my teeth – I am due to visit my dentist (also known affectionately as the Butcher of Prague) or the arthritic knees – a legacy from my dancing days. I still have blessings to count when I daven and the list only grows longer the older I get. All in all, I am a fortunate woman.

That being said, there is something I need to do. I need to apologize to all those towards for all those I have offended in the last year whether deliberately or unintentionally through deed. For those who found my words or deeds offensive or hateful, for those I have caused to hurt or given offense, I offer my sincerest apology, and I will attempt not to do it again.

I came home last Friday to discover Revenue Canada wants me to clarify two things – my martial status and the custody arrangements for my two minor children. Set aside there has been no immediate change in my martial status for the last 9 years and I do not actually have any legal documents saying I have custody of my teenagers since one does not usually end up in family court suing for legal custody of children from a dead spouse. I suppose Revenue Canada is scrapping the bottom of the shakedown barrel or someone has far too much time and imagination to ever be allowed to work in any government department.

Of all the tens of thousands of legal papers floating around my home that I have acquired in a life time of living I have discovered that I cannot find the one paper I actually need – my husband’s death certificate. This requires I contact the Jamaican government and deal with the bureaucracy. If I said I would rather have extension dental surgery spread out quarterly over the next ten years rather than deal with the Jamaican bureaucracy would you believe I am actually understating the actual amount of dread and loathing I am feeling. Revenue Canada and the Jamaican bureaucracy – its a twofer or double whammy of misery. I must have really been evil in a past life.

One the plus side, the everything is now online but I simply cannot input my deceased husband’s name, dob, date and place of death. I need to obtain a death registry number before a copy of the death certificate can be purchased and sent. Of course, a copy of the death certificate still requires all the information above to ensure it matches the deceased. There are so many possibilities for error that my typing fingers are shrivelling just thinking about it. The forced expedition through my documents made me search in places I never willingly go – like the box holding all my husband’s papers, pictures and letters. This set off a trip to the attic of my mind and some of the lids of the boxes there aren’t very battered down all that well.

The Last Amazon in an effort to divert me asked me a question she found in her latest copy of Glamour magazine which forced me to open all the boxes in search of an answer because she really wanted to know. In fact, she feels I have a responsibility to answer her because she is my daughter. Simply put; what advice would I give her someone her age about love. I just didn’t know…I could give her dating advice, marriage advice, career advice, health advice but love…I was stumped. I am living in the attic, and directly front and center, are two huge opened boxes. One is marked Colleen and right beside is an older more tattered box called whose name written in the dust is Clay. It was among the first the boxes to go on my shelves of sorrows. It was a box of great joy and even bigger grief.

I was 21 and had never fallen in love till I meet Clay. By 21, I had loved, married and buried one husband but I never had fallen in love. I was raised by ruthlessly pragmatic people whose idea of ‘falling-in-love’ was as alien a suggestion as the idea that the Martians have landed and are in control of the White House.

I had met him strictly by accident when my beloved friend Colleen and I had to plan my escape from home as I had just broke off an engagement rather suddenly with a man my family wanted me to marry. I didn’t want to listen or be forced to participate in the drama. Instead, we drove off in her battered Ford Escort and headed towards the border so I wouldn’t have to chance being hunted down by relatives who might try to force their point of view on me. My grandmother’s last words to me as we drove off was ‘For fuck’s sake don’t pick-up or start anything with any man and remember you aren’t the fucking UN’. Colleen turned bright red in embarrassment for hearing an entirely respectable looking senior woman, dressed in fur and diamonds, swearing and suggesting in public – for the entire neighborhood to over hear – that we might be inclined to pick-up with strange men. Colleen’s obvious embarrassment only made me laugh all the harder and showed very clearly who might be the older sister but it didn’t mean she was the more experienced one. But then again, she didn’t have all of my obvious advantages having been raised by Gypsies. In my grandmother’s world, this was the equivalent of saying ‘good-bye, have a safe trip and I love you’ were in Colleen’s world as we hit the nevo drom – the high road.

We ended up in Buffalo, New York, where the booze was cheap, men were easy and the music went on till the early hours of the morning. This meant she could easily find someone to entertain her while I danced all night. We went to a half a dozen clubs that night but I couldn’t find my groove. Eventually, the man who joined my friend suggested we hit the East side and go to the Cotton Club. The guys at the door had no trouble letting me and Colleen in but her friend was too pale to pass the colour bar despite my best efforts. I cursed not opening the debate without my French accent. Although, one of the bouncer’s did suggested we try a club down the street called Etc.

This time I told the other two to walk behind and let me clear the door first. It worked too. Unknown to me, I was about to meet the man who would change my life forever. In fact, long after we were over I spent a good ten years searching for echoes of him in every man I ever met. Nothing had prepared me for meeting him. I never had school girl crushes on movie or rock stars or the boy next door. I was raised by people who believed ‘falling-in-love’ was only something the gagje movie stars did on the silver screen to fleece the gullible of their cash. Love was family, duty; the kampania.

I was married off and buried my first husband by the time I met Clay but I never fell in love. And who falls madly, careless, recklessly in love in the east side of Buffalo, New York? Apparently, I do, which all suggests one cannot ever know what lies just down the highway and over the bridge. It went on for years. In my naivete, I had only honesty and my famed bluntness to guide me. Tolerance, patience and forgiveness were foreign in my experience and I wouldn’t learn their value until I had children. The last time I saw him was in the late 80’s as I turned to back look at him just one last time as he lay sleeping in bed before I sneaked out the door like a thief in the night and out of his world forever – without explanation. It was last reconciliations of what feels like thousands of reunions. I remember laying in bed beside him and thought I just cannot live a life filed with anger – his, mine, and the world’s. I gathered up my clothes and slide on the door. It would take years before the sight of people like us wouldn’t enrage strangers in on the street and provoke anger.

So I was thinking about love and what advice I could give my daughter and I just couldn’t come up with a single piece of wisdom. I stared at the computer and the blank screen and suddenly I had the urge to look him up and see if he was on Facebook. He was there and very much as I remembered him. I spent a long time debating whether I would send him a message or not – my own personal Pandora’s box. In the end, the young woman who had to play with fire just because she had held the matches in her hand asserted her presence and I did.

I just spent hours talking to a man who I have spent the last 28 years separate and apart from. Its eerie how we so easily fell so easily into our Kate and Clay mould which was forged so long ago. It’s amazing how comforting it is to learn he is still alive and finding happiness. There was a time when we would break up and he’d call me in the middle of the time and say to me – ‘Kate please just talk to me…I just need to hear the sound of your voice.’ I knew things were ‘wrong’ and I wouldn’t fight him but do as he asked. There were times when I did the very same and he wouldn’t fight me. We just knew what each of us needed and we gave it despite all the bad blood that passed between us and our own inability to raise above our petty natures.

He sent me a message today which said he has been searching for me for years and he have never stopped thinking about you. I still have your earrings and I hope you have been happy. You have to call me.

So I did and spent hours lost in the surreal place where the past and the present converge.

Eventually, we talked about the first time we were intimate. I think it was so different for me from all the men I had been with before because it was the first time I let myself carried away and utterly lost in a moment. I approached it as entirely a one-off kind of thing which turned into an experience spread out of years. It was a moment that I wanted to feel forever in. I think the desire started the first time he took me in his arm to dance. Being a dancer I tended to relate to people first by the way their moved or carried their bodies. He just fit me. His body ‘got’ me and mine answered. The first time I danced with him brought out an entirely physical and emotional response in me.

We talked about that first time. He remembered as clearly as I as it left a profound mark on both of us. I think it was so different (at least for me) as it was the first time I let myself get absolutely carried away in the moment.  I thought of it as entirely a one-off kind of thing and nothing mattered more than that moment. A moment that I wanted to feel forever in. I made a promise to myself that if we ever got together then all the rules which govern relationships were off the table for just so I could fully experience and explore this strange attraction I felt for him. Well, all the rules but one – I would do anything as long as it felt good. All my famous walls and inhibitions were entirely down just for one night. I threw my entire focus into just enjoying him for the pleasure we’d give each other….just like I use to do when I would go on stage to dance – to live. I wanted to live forever in that moment and I, we, did.

There were other moments in that long first fall and winter. He had a living room wall lined by mirrors and he would lie down between my legs as I was dressed in nothing but my toe shoes as I practiced my ballet barre while he lay under the ground between my feet. I cannot begin to explain how incredibly the experience was…to be loved utterly loved and appreciated for merely being a woman. Heedy stuff.

I haven’t a clue as to what it all means. I am a fortunate woman, I have been loved many times – probably much more than I have deserved. Men have written stories for and about me – painted my portrait and I have more than my share of bad poetry and songs written for me.

In turn,  I have loved my share of men but I never loved anyone like I loved him. I am not even sure that I ever wanted to love anyone like I loved him.  It was both sacred and profane. The experience of knowing him marked me forever and I spent a good ten years of searching for the Clay in all the men I met and never finding him. Eventually, I learned not to look and found other things – sometimes wonderful things.

I have no love advice to give anyone except for this – if you are ever fortunate to experience love do not be afraid but approach love as a prayer, and pray you get to dance to the end of love.

There is far too much drama going on around me which has resulted in a number of unintended consequences. I have had little sleep or ‘alone’ time. This situation has resulted in my leaving my home inadequately caffeinated and unable to cope with the world at large in a civilized manner. Case in point – This morning I got off the bus and was patiently waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street. I would have been okay except the couple standing immediately to my left were making strange annoying noises in my ear. In my inadequately caffeinated state, the intrusive noise caused my tolerance level to sink to psycho and I hollered at them to STFU. I rarely swear, let alone swear at strangers on the street. So I now need to offer a general apology to the deaf couple who were signing on the corner of Bloor Street East & Sherbourne this morning for my boorish and uncivilized behaviour.