Page 34 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. V #7

Black silhouette of the woman at my window. There whether my eyes are open or closed. Her emotional imprint, the hunched shoulder shape of her longing. She stares out toward the kibbutz’s cows. Waiting for someone or some- thing. You know when you’re not alone. I don’t know how I know, but I know.
The Woman at the Window
Same way I know I’m still American, though I’ve lived in Israel for shonah vah hetzi, a year and a half, writing my newest novel. It’s not just that I can’t help but smile at everyone, even when I’m afraid he or she might be a terrorist. It’s not just that I can’t stop jones-ing for Whole Foods’s or- ganic vegetable aisle. You know what you fucking know. Bedrock.
The ghost continues to stare. She does not move. Same as forever. She’s like Shakespeare’s defini- tion of love, An ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken. I’m not thrilled about sharing my one room with a ghost, but she doesn’t interact much and the rent is great.
Before this, I lived in a Northern California rental with someone I loved. Those moments still have a Disney sparkle. I wrote novels back then too. I baked pies. I thought he and I were making love. He said being with me made him happier than he’d ever been before in his life. Until he told me being with the Other Woman made him happier than he’d ever been before in his life.
I transform another half-page from first draft to second, from arid desert to seedlings poking up through black loam. I allow myself a short break. It’s the cocktail hour and I’ve been wanting my friend, drunken oblivion. I fill a wine glass with Emerald Riesling, a sweet girly-girl wine my ex would totally hate. I pass the ghost on my way to the front stoop. She’s still waiting for her man or her dream or perhaps the messiah.
I considered moving to another Northern Califor- nia rental, but the only places I could afford alone were a leaky boat or an ex-meth lab. I researched moving to the East Coast, but in Manhattan and Brooklyn I could only afford a hallway or closet. In Georgia I found a rental that turned out to be
I go into my garden, a square of sand-dirt baked hard as concrete, where I’ve placed hopeful little pots of herbs: sultry-dark Spanish mint and
the slender yellow-green Moroccan mint that’s called spearmint. There’s also oregano, thyme, parsley, and zatar, a.k.a. the biblical hyssop that’s very popular here. In a larger pot some nerdy kale is being devoured by cabbage worms, every day the poor thing has fewer leaves. I’ve also planted tomatoes, onion, and garlic. Along the railing of my concrete steps are red, white, and black beans and some black-eyed pea vines. The kibbutzniks have warned me that the tempera- ture here will soon reach 120 degrees Fahren- heit. They describe going outdoors into a huff of superheated air that’s like when you open the door of an oven. Sunlight so intense it scorches leaves. Nothing unprotected will be able to grow.
a Chevron employee’s personal toxic dump from the mold remediation chemicals he’d used, and he’d be moving back in himself when the place was safe.
So I chose the wild card, Israel. I went even fur- ther into the ideological wilderness by renting on a kibbutz, where people share. And further into my own wilderness because some of my matrilin- eal DNA is Druze—the Druze are an ancient indig- enous tribe scattered in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel, basically the region I’m in now. I’m not
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a kibbutz member, but I’m here. Kind of like say- ing I’m a novelist although my novels aren’t yet published. Like feeling you’re in love even though you’re not getting love back. Like running when you’re all out of breath.
And, after all, it was only one ghost. ~
sari FriedMan