Anticipation

Because I was doing research at the University this summer instead of going to France with my family, my relatives teamed up to get me a plane ticket to go see them this winter.

It means that:

1. Grandmother The Cook will spoil me rotten and make me more food than I can eat. And I will eat all of it, because Mother will not be there to tell me that it's really not a good idea to eat three servings of apple beignets.

2. Tiny Grandmother will take me shopping in bookshops and teach me how to knit (again) and take me skiing (maybe) and make tarts with this autumn's preserves of rhubarb and coings.

3. Radio Grandfather will take me to his English Club's first meeting of the semester so he can brag about how well I speak English and take me to the celebration for his 60 years of amateur radio and show me how he can sort of use his computer now and ask for a lot of advice which he will promptly forget.

4. Grandfather Busy Bee will show me the latest extension he's built to the house and the new aviary I've been asking for since I was seven and play endless games of belote and shiftily try to cheat and pretend to look offended when we of course call him out.

5. Cousin Baby Bird won't be the baby bird I fed mushed peas to because she turned nine yesterday, but she will still take my hand and drag me to her secret fort and snuggle with me on the couch or play mommy.

6. Cousin Grand Loup will boast of his newest football victories and pick on his sister a little until mother makes him stop.

7. Aunt Raspberry will talk to me about science and research and my love life.

8. Godfather and I will have awkward conversations because our relationship has always been awkard.

9. Aunt and Uncle Ebay will make witty cracks and be slightly pushy and over-generous.

10. Gay Uncle will call me "ma puce" and "ma grande" and challenge me to checkers and petits chevaux and tell funny stories and about whichever Parisian wildlife he has recently adopted as a pet and then remember suddenly that I'm a lot older than he remembered and talk about how I could almost fit in his pocket when I was a baby.

10. Godmother will be the bustling, busy, wonderful woman she always is and take me shopping for purses and shoes and make cracks she thinks aren't that funny but really are side-splitting and maybe will get angry and yell a lot because she gets tired.

11. Bearded Uncle will be loud and ask me about my life and career and not really take me seriously and be a bit scary although he doesn't mean to be.

12. Eldest Cousin will be overbearing and a bit annoying and parading her new boyfriend.

13. Boy Cousin will be in Cold Country With Bears and Moose and Mounties.

14. Favorite Cousin and German Cousin might ignore me a bit because I don't wear makeup or watch TV shows or listen to top 40 music or party a lot.

15. Distant and Not-So-Distant Relatives Who Show Up To Family Gatherings will tell dirty jokes and drink a lot at the New Year's reveillon.

16. I will get to eat my first galette des Rois in six years, a real one, with frangipane and a fève and Grandmother The Cook will accidentally give me the slice with it because she knows it makes me happy.

17. There will be snow and fireplaces and a hot iron in my bed to warm up the sheets before bedtime.

18. Winter potatoes will be suitable for making pommes dauphine.

19. The hilltop tower in which Radio Grandfather and Tiny Grandmother live will be very windy and shake a bit windy.

20. Most of all, there will be family and lots, lots of love.

I'm leaving on the 27th, and I can't wait.

Part I: On the road

The road goes straight as far as the eye can see. Here in the Texas plains, the eye can see very far.

The miles of asphalt pass by, unwavering, as the sun travels to the horizon. The land is flat, with the occasional hill the unfazed engineers cut right through, leaving walls of brown and grey strata that would delight any passing geologist.

It has been at least an hour since we last passed a town, or a hamlet, or even a single house. Other vehicles are few and far between. Brush, small trees, yuccas and Joshua trees follow each other in a patchwork over an endless sea of dry grass and cacti. Only the barbed wire delineating some ranch property and the occasional wooden poles relaying wires attest to the passage of humans.

We've been traveling for three hours, and we are not even halfway there.

Suddenly, Man In Charge points out a radio antenna a few miles in the distance. "Civilization!" someone yells. Not quite, but it is the first--and last--semblance of a town between here and the end of our drive.

An hour later, replete with somewhat questionable Mexican food, we board the bus again. Night has fallen. The perfect half moon hangs in the sky, the reddish black remnants of the sunset outlines the hills in the distance.

***

The hotel is a quaint little spot, founded in 1884 and seemingly untouched ever since. Comfortable armchairs, lampshades, drapes, and lace curtains: you could expect Humphrey Bogart to be standing there, a whiskey in one hand and a swooning woman in the other, a world of steamer trunks and telegrams, intrigue and beauty.

I can see why the Observatory was built here: I don't remember ever seeing so many stars in my life. Absolutely no light emanates from the town aside from a scant few streetlamps. We stand on the balcony, both elated and awed, breathing in the cold night air after nearly nine hours confined in a bus. This is what the sky looked like to those astronomers of long ago, before lights and cities ruined the sky. In the City, you are lucky if you can find a dozen stars on any given night.

We are lucky, the hotel offers wireless internet. But, slowly, as error windows appear on everyone's screens, various people, familiar and unfamiliar, congregate in our room. We are the room at the end of the hallway, right where the stairs end. Our door is open and the room is big. For nearly an hour, computer geeks, mathematicians, physicists, chemists, biologists tap away at their keyboards and spout series of letters and numbers, attempting to catch the elusive signal. Alas, to no avail. A church bell tolls across the street to mark two in the morning.

We go to bed.

Pillow fight!

Tonight I did something I have been wanting to do for a very long time now: take part in a flash mob.

Now, there is a bridge in The City famous for its colony of Mexican free-tailed Bats. Every night during the summer, and for most of the year, people gather at sunset to watch the bats take off for the night. They sit on a little grassy hill, with pillows and blankets, with their families and sometimes a picnic.

We brought pillows to sit on and be comfortable. Apparently, many of the onlookers had decided to be as comfortable as possible, because there was an inordinate number of pillows.

The Sun continued on its journey downwards, and we settled down, slapping at the many bugs buzzing around, waiting for the bats to come out.

Except that, at 20:00 sharp, an altercation broke out. People started arguing, then hitting each other with their pillows. Soon, there was a massive pillow fight.

There were yells and screams and thuds everywhere. The dead and wounded lay everywhere on the ground.

Suddenly, at 20:04, we sat back down on our pillows, just in time to see the first of the bats come out. There were cheers and applause everywhere.

The bats poured out for ten minutes, twenty minutes.

We finally left. On the way to the car, we met several pillow carriers and shared a knowing smile and a wink with them.

And then went for ice cream.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

"I'll tell you a secret. When I want to take God at his word
exactly, I take a peep out the window at His Creation." [...]
"The flowers and birds and all, you mean to say that's your Gospel."

-Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

If I had to pick five pictures to describe the incredible beauty of the Place Where The Alligators Roam, it would be these.

Dr. Deadrock, I presume?

Tiny Russian Friend is finally back from Big Huge City and will be spending the rest of the summer in the City. To celebrate her return, we embarked upon an escapade that took us from campus all the way to the Teñido River. We walked high and low, in the sun and in the shade, and braved the terrible, terrible Texas heat in our quest for things unknown.

We first found a block of old houses built in the 1800s (a plaque told us so)




Then, a secret garden guarded by a stone peacock and a pigeon.



After losing ourselves in a pleasant maze of back alleys, creeks, wooden bridges, bamboo installations, and glass high-rise buildings, we found ourselves in a little street.

With this.


The City being the artistic crossroads it is, it is fairly common to see whimsically improved cars. Nevertheless, I always like to stop and look at them and notice all the details.


The swirls are made of golden plastic bead Mardi Gras necklaces along with tiny plastic seahorses, stars and sequins (I can only imagine the time it took to glue and paint everything!)


On the roof, there are arrangements of trophies for at least a dozen different sports.


The inside is also decorated!


And, of course, one of the City's thousands of bicyclists rode by with a boombox in tow, treating us to a few bars of samba.

Today, I spent the entire day (ten hours!) working in the greenhouse with other officers from Geeky Science Organization. We completely reorganized the plants by sunlight and watering preferences, as well as relocated the work station, set up a shade cloth (I never did like all those tension problems in Physics... But now I wish I remembered how to do them!), cleaned up and arranged the close to eight thousand pots we found under a counter, and hauled fifteen buckets of gravel from one bed to another. We found a secret colony of Chandelier Kalanchoes in the three centimeters of space between a bed and the wall, and had some fun grouping plants by name (thus, Mother-in-Law's Tongue is next to Dragonfruit, Wandering Jews next to Moses-in-a-Boat, and Ghost Plant next to Resurrecting Fern!).

I arrived before everyone else and had some time to take pictures before work began, but have not yet taken pictures of the finished work, as we were all too exhausted to do much more than go home!

Welcome to the greenhouse! Please, allow me to take you on a tour... As you can see, it is a bit messy in here. But don't worry! We are going to clean it up today.

This is our beloved Pencil Plant. It is older than any of us who work here. Sadly, it has been feeling somewhat blue (or rather yellow) recently, and is dropping branches all over the place.

Our work station is rather congested--there is no room to move and too many pots to fill!

As you can see, we have a fine collection of Agave, grown from cuttings collected on the big Agave on Main Street.

In the back are our mothering plants, plants that take a long time to grow, or simply plants that no one can identify.

Our succulents! Our pride and joy. We have native plants as well as many Kalanchoes from Madagascar, Cacti, Sedums, Ghost Plants, and many more.

We have a bit of trouble keeping the more rambunctious of our tenants in check--this Climbing Aloe has a mind to exploring.

Under the A/C unit, we keep plants on a raised shelf to avoid flooding problems. After all, this is a very old greenhouse.

Back here, it could almost be a forest. The Ferns and Mother-in-Law's-Tongues are growing tall and thick.

We are very proud of our Jade plants, but are having quite a bit of trouble propagating them. They grow so slowly and are so picky!

Lately, we've been experimenting with ornamental compositions to see if they sell better. People really like the tiny Texas Sedum!

In fact, they are so successful that I have begun to grow them in tiny little glass jars.

A single cutting dropped in there will grow up in only a couple of weeks.

This being, after all, a scientific organization, we receive most of our glassware and plant donations from research labs around the University. We make the most of everything!

Cacti are one of the most frequent demands we receive, yet they are quite hard to grow and propagate. Fortunately, we found a nest of little offshoots hiding in the gravel behind a pot of Sotre-Sotry Plants.

Ghost Plants, also known as Mother-of-Pearl Plants, are very popular because of their pretty color and elegant structure.

College students love Mother-of-Thousands: they barely require any care, are almost impossible to kill, and constantly make more of themselves. We love them for the same reason, but regularly have to weed out the greenhouse because they will grow everywhere--even on concrete and metal!

We have only two Bear Paws, but wish we had more. They look adorable, but grow so slowly!

The same plant had two different-colored flowers. But why?

And finally, here is our rogue Malabar Spinach--six feet long and still growing. We collect its seed pods as soon as they ripen in the hope that there will be no spinach surprises next season!

A moment for the world

Tonight I watched the newly released (as of June 5th) movie "Home" by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.

It puts into images what I feel for the planet, better than I could ever write it.

Coincidentally, I've just finished (re)reading "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver.

It puts into words what seems like the whole of humanity.


Both are, in my opinion, masterpieces. I strongly urge you to listen to what both have to say.

***

"Home" is visible online until June 14th.

Memory Lane

We went through The City, by car and on foot, Mother and Sis and Bro and I. For Sis and Bro, it was the first time since we moved away, when Bro was only six and Sis eight, that they went back to places they'd known.

The rush of memory--the discovery of places almost forgotten--the feeling was magical.

It was here that we found our first garden spider, all black and yellow and big as your hand--right here, by that stone bridge. Here, there was a dead 'possum, and it left a skeleton--do you remember? Here is the school, how small it seems! And here the Original House--the Blue House. It is not as blue as before, and the fence is gone, but it looks homey as ever--you can still see the mesquite tree in the backyard if you look hard enough. And here! The Yellow House--it hasn't changed a bit--we could have left yesterday. Look, here is the house of our first friends--we met them on the playground, remember? We barely spoke English, but it was so easy to make friends! Here is the magnolia tree, about to bloom. And here is that restaurant, the one you copied for your model in second grade and then gave to the owner. Do they still have it? We should ask.

Eggs Benedict and Florentine, just like the last time we were here. Do you remember? We could barely walk home after all that food!

Crossing the river by night--you never realized there were so many buildings, and that they were so tall! The lights reflect in the river, forming a blurred image. The car windows are open--the Texas smell flows in. Summer--sweet, sticky, potent. The bats chirp and flap as they fly under the bridge.

City, I had forgotten you.

Pale blue dot

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us."
-Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

Have you ever seen anything quite as beautiful as the Earth? Anything quite as complex, quite as alive?

Patterns of dazzling blue and green and brown and white, home to countless myriads of living beings each more intricate and exquisite than the last.

And yet, it is nothing compared to the vastness of the Universe. To us it is everything.

We must take good care of it, it is our only home.

Happy Earth Day!

Ramblings

My blogging inspiration is overwhelmed.

There are so many things I want to talk about, but the words keep on jumbling themselves up in my head and so rudely pushing each other out of the way that I can't stop and think for a second about what I want to write.

Ah! It's coming back to me. Somewhat.

First of all, the video posted by Scriptor Senex yesterday reminded me of a video I found on another blog some time ago. It may have been tangobaby's, but I can't seem to find it anywhere, either there or on YouTube. It was a beautiful video of people across the world singing the same song together. The first person sang, the second person played an instrument while listening to the recording of the first person, the third person added drums while listening to the recording of the first two, and so on until a fantastic symphony had been assembled across the planet. I may be pessimistic sometimes about the fate of humankind, but this was a beautiful moment of peace and togetherness. Music is a universal language.

Second in an ever-lengthening list is a mixed tape (or CD, rather) Crazy Redhead Mathematically-Inclined Friend made for me (and all of us in our little group) as a Valentine's gift. She has excellent taste (there are maybe two songs I don't really like). I now have a collection of love songs from a wide range of places, times, and styles. Among them, The Origin of Love from the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a surprisingly beautiful and moving song about, well, the origin of love, based on Plato's Symposium.
On a less serious note, but still on the same topic, you may be familiar with Rickrolling. The version my friend thoughtfully and lovingly provided is somewhat different--and to a certain degree with this particular politician, adorable (click through that slide show without being overcome by the cuteness of it all, I dare you).

More lovey-doveyness, I suppose (and it's not even tomorrow yet): I went to the post office this morning to mail a Valentine's gift and letter to The Boy (dating an engineer has perks, any type of building material [duct tape, ahem, or plywood, or sheet metal, except those don't mail as easily], is always a good idea). Anyway, point of the story is, the post office didn't open until 9 (my Friday classes start at ten), so I wandered around the Capitol for an hour, watching congressmen park their cars and walk to work and discuss various atrocities they intend to force upon public schools. I sat down on the grass next to an old (for here) Swedish-style church reconverted into a library. It was closed, to my great dismay, but the outside was still quite pretty and peaceful in the early morning coolness.

Last, and very sadly not least:
This afternoon, I traveled home with Bookish Friend and Friend With Many Pairs of Sunglasses.

When I arrived, Sis broke the news: one of my good friend's little brother passed away yesterday. City Back Home is a small town, where everyone knows everyone, or at least knows someone who knows someone else. There are a few tragic events in the community every year, but this is the first time someone I know well is affected in such a way.

I can't know, and I hope I won't ever know what his family is feeling right now.

Standard condolences and formulae of politeness cannot replace what is gone.

I have no words to offer but these: rest in peace, little brother I knew from afar. Your life wasn't easy, but I hope you are happier wherever you are now.

The house of the sun

Iruskia.

Flaking white letters in a long ago child's clumsy handwriting. The high wooden gate creaks a welcome as the tribe of small children runs through, dripping sand and salt and pine needles.

Inside the courtyard, the mimosa forest and thousands of hydrangeas wave invitingly in the warm wind. The sandy black soil is decorated with a mosaic of footprints.

After dropping their loads of buckets, nets, and parasols by the back door, the children hurry to the kitchen. A woman, both wife, sister, mother, grandmother, and great-aunt to many in the house, distributes slices of white bread on the red-and-white checkered oilcloth and take the powdered cocoa from the top shelf. The children scoop the chocolate on the bread, and begin eating. As always, someone begins to laugh and soon brown powder flies everywhere.

When they are done, the children move to the great hall, where old wooden thrones, worn from generations of children pretending to be Kings and Queens and Princesses and Viziers, have worn smooth the carved curlicues and faded the fabric roses. The oldest girl climbs on the tallest, most intricate chair, twice as high as the others and with a mirrored back, and becomes a Queen. Two younger girls arrange themselves on smaller chairs and transform into Princesses. The magnificent Irish Setter clambers on the sandy cushions of a large flowered and, like everything else in the house, sandy ottoman. He is sometimes a Dragon, sometimes a Royal Hunting Dog, and sometimes a Frog Prince that one of the Princesses kisses and marries. All four look regal.

The other children decide that they would much rather play real games and take a well-used deck of cards from a drawer in the centenary china cupboard. They sit down on the benches around the long table and begin a game of War. Soon, brave numbers begin falling under the swords of mighty Kings and Aces.

Outside, the sky slowly darkens and the songs of the cicadas subtly change. Noises can be heard from the kitchen. The children are called upon to take stacks of plates to the tables on the terrace. The rumble of a car is heard outside the walls of the garden, and the husband-father-grandfather-great uncle walks through the gate, followed by an aunt and two uncles. Today had been a good day for sailing, they traveled all the way to the edge of the open Ocean, where the waves began and the tall sand dunes and pine forests faded from view.

Dinner is freshly-caught salmon, steamed potatoes, and homemade mayonnaise. The sky becomes dark red, then purple, then black. The sea breeze waves between the tall white arches, fluffing hair and rumpling napkins.

The uncles and husband-father-grandfather-great uncle are sitting on the steps outside, talking about something the children cannot understand. A little girl, the brown, curly-haired one, approaches.

-Papa, I want to go fly a kite and go swimming.
-It's late, ma fille.
-But I've never been swimming in the dark!

The night is warm, and it is the summer holidays, so the father says yes. They gather swimsuits and towels and kite and walk down the hill and through the forest path to the beach. The sun is no longer shining and the water has cooled down. The little girl does not swim long. Soon, she shivers. Her father wraps her in a towel and begins to unwind the kite strings. The girl observes him. The wind picks up, and soon they are both running across the beach, pulling the stubborn kite into the air, stumbling, laughing. But the child's leg tire fast. They go home.

The child climbs up the creaky stairs and slides into bed next to her blonde and curly baby sister. The adults are still talking downstairs. Soon she is asleep.

The next morning, the children wake up one by one and cavalcade downstairs. The ancient clay tiles in the kitchen resonate with the sound of bare feet. An aunt is feeding her baby oustide on the steps of the kitchen door. One of the children has found a bottle of bubble-soap and is blowing bubbles everywhere. Some land in the baby's bowl and the aunt chases the children away.

They slink behind the clothesline, sweep the hallowed spot hopefully for four-leaved clovers and, having found none, continue into the mimosa forest. Two of the girls set up shop on the bent tree, the little boy pretends to imprison one of the older girls between the branches of the cage tree, while the two youngest girls try to climb on the back of the dog, who, in comparison to them, is a very tall horse. Eventually, the oldest child leads her troops into the secret passageway by the fence, where they unearth the remains of a plastic soldier army buried years ago by the earlier generation of children.

After lunch on the old, rickety table behind the kitchen, the women round up the children and walk down to the beach. It is too windy to swim and the orange flag is waving in the wind. The children make their way to the beached wreck of a fishing boat, the wreck that for many years has been claimed as a fort by every child to lay eyes on it.

Time passes. The group walks along the beach to the stone pier, where they take turns sitting on the old rusted cannon fiercely guarding a pot of petunias. The youngest look wistfully towards the brightly painted carousel nearby. As if by magic, a handful of cardboard tokens appear. There is one for each child and some left over. The house keeps a plentiful supply of the precious rectangles since the carousel was first installed, years ago.

The wooden horses spin and gallop to the music, tossing their golden manes and mirrored reins in the wind. The swans glide majestically, the carriages roll along, the donkeys look mischievous.

When the music stops, the children neatly climb down. They know what happens next.

«Passion-framboise, cornet maison, s'il vous plaît monsieur.»
«Griotte pour moi, s'il vous plaît.»
«Chocolat!»
«Moi aussi!»
«J'essaierais bien la crème de marrons et la nougatine...»

Nine children and four women sit down on the same green wooden bench as always, contentedly licking various flavors of ice cream and sorbet. As age decreases, the mess increases. The youngest children soon become hugely smiling chocolate monsters. The mothers sigh and decide it is time to go home.

In the shower room, everyone squirts water at her neighbor. Sandy toes leave tracks behind. When all are clean and freshly dressed in nightclothes, dinner is called and they head to the long table, picking up grains of sand between their toes as they walk in the hallway.

It is the end of yet another day in Iruskia.

The house of the sun.

***

The house belonged to my great-grandmother, although she didn't live there anymore. Three generations of children of our family have been through here, and all of them have left their mark.

When Mémé died, the family had to sell the house. A rich couple bought it and had it refurbished to their taste. The white stucco walls have been covered in tiles, the sandy soil paved and transformed into a driveway, trees cut down to make place for a pool, clothesline and clovers engulfed under a garage, and the wooden gate replaced with an automated metal grille.

Iruskia has no more sand and no more children. I have not been there since it has been sold, and never will go back. I will keep it alive in my memory as it once was, a house where time stood still and children played the same games, year after year, generation after generation.

My city

My city is beautiful.

It has a unique charm, a certain color that you can find everywhere you go. There are strings of lights wrapped in trees and around windows, plants growing everywhere, art displayed in yards and streets and plazas, cozy gardens and coffeehouses put together from rusty, mismatched furniture.


Wooden houses and porch swings and nature all around.

Every house has a color, a personality.

My city is not a thing, it is a person. It lives.

Paradise lost

On the way home, I ran across a rally on the Soapbox Plaza.

People were waving flags, shouting, chanting.

They were calling for an end to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Palestinian flags waved, banners denounced the murder of innocent children.

I agree with them. There is no reason I can see, ever, to take life away from a sentient human being.

But they were also calling for the death of the Israelis.

And that I cannot agree with.

I want peace. I wish there were a way to, somehow, make all nations of the world agree with each other, interact peacefully with each other. Ideally, there should be no nations at all.

Unfortunately, I know that it can't be so. Humans are social creatures, but they are also tribal. Even if only a single, unified state existed, factions would eventually form. Race, language, culture, location, people would find ways to identify with others, become "in" groups, shutting out the "out" groups. Soon, the groups would begin disagreeing with each other, claiming territories, establishing separate governments. And all would begin again. Cultures across the human race are too diverse, too different to be governed as one. Attempting to standardize them all would be a disaster and make everyone angry.

I want peace. But, let's face it, peace is impossible.

There is no way to end this conflict with the satisfaction of both sides. Israel had no right to take land away from Palestine and displace its inhabitants, but its citizens have no other country.

I disagree with the idea of Israel. Yes, Israel is the promised land. Jerusalem is the holy city. But Jerusalem belongs to no one. Three religions claim it. It belongs to all, it belongs to none.

We must consider the founding principles of the three religions to which it is sacred: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

All three are based on the love and understanding for one's neighbor, the need to treat even the meanest of beggars as an equal. Why, then, do religions which claim the cardinal rule of Do Unto Your Neighbor As You Would Have Done Unto Yourself kill and fight and slaughter and argue? Do these rules only apply to co-religionaries, or worse yet, only inside the temple? In the books?

To me, a religion is an ideal. A deeply held belief, a guiding principle to one's life. Religions exist because Man needs guidance, and looks to an omniscient and loving entity for this guidance. These principles should then be used to better oneself. Judaism proclaims peace, Christianity love, and Islam wisdom and tolerance.

But what do we see in the world? Israel claims land by force, killing people who have lived on it for centuries. Christian bigots proclaim their hatred of all things new and different. Islam refuses to peacefully work with others and spread science, wisdom, and equality to all.

To me, religion is private. Religion is what you believe, what you think will make the world a better place. As soon as some guy climbs up on a barrel to tell the populace to do this or that, read this Holy Word of God or another, it is not a religion anymore. It's a cult. A religion is private and intangible.

I don't know if there is a God, and, frankly, I couldn't care less. The Earth, and the puny beings we humans are, are so insignificant compared to the whole of the Universe that it is very unlikely that A Divine Entity would care about us at all.

But I believe in peace. In love. In trust. Everything works better if someone is beside you and willing to help you. And who better to help you solve human problems than another human? We all must work together. This is my religion. No rituals, no texts, no idols, no sacrifices.

Israel had no right to claim Palestine as its Promised Land. Perhaps Israel existed in the past, in the Bible, but not anymore. Neither does Prussia. Mesopotamia. The Roman Empire. We should leave the past alone, and work instead toward the future.

That doesn't mean that every man, woman, and child in Israel should die. Nor does it mean that every man, woman, and child in Palestine should die. Nor does it mean that they should continue living together.

We must distinguish between the spiritual and the physical. Yes, the people of Israel were told that they would, one day, find the Promised Land. But the people of Palestine had been living there. Unless God himself intervenes, as he used to in the Bible (haven't heard from him in a while, maybe he is tired, poor man, what with those plagues of locusts and splitting open the sea), there is no reason to take away the belongings of a fellow man.

Then again, I don't believe that the Earth belongs to us anyway, what with our measly thousands of years of existence compared to four and a half billion, so ownership of land is irrelevant in my opinion.

Point is, I think everyone is a hypocrite. The Jews, for deciding that, since they were entitled to the Promised Land, they might as well take it before God forgot about it or something, and displacing the people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time because the grass was greener on their side of the hill. The Muslims, for reacting so violently and intolerantly. And the Christians for not minding their own business.

Sometimes (if not all the time), I think the world would be much better off without humans. No wars, no pollution, no screwing around with living beings. Paradise.

This is for Amreen at Spin Me Around.

And Then There Were None

It used to be Us and an old house and Nature all around. Us six together, without a care in the world.

It seems like it lasted forever, but, really, it wasn't even an entire year.

I remember, and I know they remember, that August night we spent in the old house, sharing our secrets, talking until the sun rose again. That night, we were so close together. We knew each other. All of us.

Then October came, and Things went wrong. New experiences were had, disaster loomed, and was averted. But Six became Five.

In November, a Secret was kept, found, and brought to the light.

In December, two Secrets emerged, and a lifelong friendship strained. Eventually, Five became Three and that friendship was lost.

It was ironic, because the One and the other Two left to take care of their happiness. And the Three were happy to see them happy.

But not really.

In the old house, we were six, but not Six. Artsy Friend never spent the night anymore, she went off with Awkward Fiancé instead. Bookish Friend and Friend With Many Pairs of Sunglasses went to a separate room to sleep and Do Things That Are Done In Twos. Childish Booksmart Friend, Fiendishly Intelligent Friend and I were left to look awkwardly at each other and at a movie we didn't really want to watch that Friend With Many Pairs of Sunglasses had only put on so she wouldn't feel too bad leaving us by ourselves while she went off with Bookish Friend.

Ever since we parted at graduation in May, this Christmas Break was the first time we were together again, all six of us.

And, for once, it was a bit like before.

Akward Fiancé left after a couple of hours, letting Artsy Friend out of his sight for the first time in six months or possibly more. We all sat down on the old rug to gossip and tell secrets, as all girls are wont to do. And then we slept. For the first time in a long time, the Two stayed with us.

For one night, it was almost like before. The walls we'd built thinned, and we were almost together. But not quite.

By morning, it was gone. Awkward Fiancé picked up Artsy Friend early, too early to let her come with us to visit a favorite teacher at our old school. But it didn't matter, because she wouldn't have come anyway. Then, Friend With Many Pairs of Sunglasses, who stayed at Bookish Friend's for the break, said she was tired, so Bookish Friend drove the rest of us home by 9:30 so they could be together.

It felt good to be with them, but I realized that it was over. There wasn't an Us anymore. And there won't be.

Artsy Friend is marrying Awkward Fiancé this Fall. I think she's too young, I don't like the groom, and I think it's all a really big mistake, but she's my friend so I will smile at the wedding and hug her and congratulate her and wish her luck.

Bookish Friend and Friend With the Many Pairs of Sunglasses have been together for a year and a month now, and are quite happy and ...together.

Fiendishly Intelligent Friend goes to a college up North that may as well be at the North Pole, for all the communication we have. She's meeting new people and doing new things, and I think she's the one who got the best deal out of all of us.

Childish Booksmart Friend doesn't believe in love and feels slightly lost because Friend With the Many Pairs of Sunglasses had been her best friend since the first grade. It's hard to know that two friends you consider your best friends suddenly mean more to each other than you do to them, and you're left outside as an excuse and an alibi.

And me? I watch silently and decide my life will be different.

There is no more Us, but I'll remember that night. When it was Us and no secrets between.

Almost.

I know a Secret was kept that night. Not my Secret, someone else's. It's a Secret I guessed long ago.

I'm good at guessing Secrets.

I'm also good at keeping them.