Getting The Point Across

I am writing to tell you that I am normal. Not ordinary, standard or typical…just normal, as in free from any mental disorder…generally. To prove my normality, I make no effort to hide anything. As an advocate of penning thoughts to paper, my mind is an open book - so to speak.  However, I do edit and try to tidy up the clatter in my head.

There is a part of me that would enjoy mystifying others with an elusive panache, but I am hopelessly fixed in a mode of straightforward candor. And, after all, the end game is getting my point across, is it not?

So, what is my point? Proper essay form would have me convey it up front, but I’m in a teasing mood at the moment and choose to risk breaking the rules. Sometimes it does a soul good. Am I sounding cryptic? Excellent. But, my nonconformity in this instance is short lived - ultimately, everything comes together in the end. Patience…you’ll see.

I am a mother of four, living in the Judean Hills of Israel and stubbornly clinging to the age of 40 something. My baby girl is fifteen, I have two sons in the army and a 24-year-old married daughter who beats to a different drum and is living in the States.

While I fancy myself a writer, I am also an intractable nationalist religious Zionist who moved to Israel in 2006 with 5/6’s of my family. (Remember, my oldest daughter is living in another country…pay attention now).

I do not attempt to speculate what it is that compels me to write.  It is just something I do - one of my trademarks, as much as my dangling earrings. Do I have an important message to convey? Darn right I do, and one day I’ll find out what that is. The Holy One gives me too much credit; I could surely use a clue. If you are looking for any answers, you may or may not discover them here. I have no doubt that the answers are all out there, I’m just not sure I want to find them.

Nevertheless, in the spirit of pondering, I retreat to my paper fortress and write.  Who knows? In the endeavor to find the precise word, I just might, inadvertently ignite a light bulb.  Unfortunately, it is usually the one in the fridge while I search for a late night snack. Although, when the right words do find its miraculous way to my paper it is a spiritual high. I am positive that a Divine outside influence is playing a role.  A thesaurus doesn’t hurt either.

In an attempt to evoke consciousness, writing can be a lonely venture.  But the passion to entertain, persuade or convey significance is compelling, and the process grips you like nothing else. If it doesn't, there's no reason to put yourself out. I don’t mind the solitude however, as I am one of those people who shuns crowds and the dreaded “small talk” it generates. That's the oddity of writing: I write alone but this pursuit joins me with people I don't even know.  And, I confess, the ability to affect, provoke and even agitate with words has an appeal impossible to quench. I always say, if you can’t be controversial, then…why bother?

But, not always knowing instantaneously whose mind you succeed in influencing, there is seldom a sense of immediate gratification. Thus, despite the chronology of the myriad of events that have colored my life, I remain quite baffled as I resort to the cliché, "where have all the years gone?” A few friends sense my insecurity and attempt to raise my spirits by pointing out all that I have accomplished. Alas, it only leaves me thinking, "big deal" as I stubbornly delineate in the privacy of my mind all that I have not mastered.

Now don't get me wrong. This is not some glimpse into my midlife crises. Nor am I unhappy or ungrateful with everything I have in my life. I am generally a happy person, as it takes very little to put a smile on my face - a friendly word, a small yet kind gesture, a smiling baby and yes, chocolate. You knew that was coming, right? 

Yet, I find myself thinking excessively on all that I have not done and will not do, whether it is out of fear, laziness or lack of confidence. Wow! I just read back that last sentence and it sounds pretty pathetic. There is nothing like staring at your thoughts in black and white for a cathartic revelation. I'm feeling happier already.


The risk-taker inside me obliges me to push forward. With all the soapbox bloggers out there, however, what are the chances that someone will choose to read my creations? I really am hanging out on a limb here. But, I don’t pretend to be wiser than the next. I don’t need to pretend. I’m quite thankful for my delusional self-glory. It keeps me going. What’s more, we are temporary as life is temporary. The written word is permanent, discounting of course the delete button - the contemporary bane of a writer’s existence.  
Be that as it may, the writer sees a blank piece of paper very much in the same way the primordial nature of man views a woman with generous hips – a venue to leave his eternalness.

I write through eyes that have seen much in my young 40 something years. I have escaped death twice, once from someone else’s hands, and the other, from my poor driving skills. I have lost one dear friend to suicide, another to mental health failure, and two friends to cancer. I have been beaten down, but never defeated.  I have loved, gone astray, been betrayed, have endured and moved on. And, in a plagiarized version of the famous words of President Bill Clinton, I might have even tried marijuana in my youth, but emphatically stress, I was careful not to inhale. In a nutshell, I’m sort of like the girl-next-door. The neighborhood, however, is open to discussion.

I have lived with the daily pain borne by my two Holocaust surviving parents and subsequently have struggled to etch optimism out of the “Everyone is rotten!” mantra with which I was raised.  I write, sing, compose, but can’t follow a simple dance step. I live on the edge by blasting an iPod in my head on my nightly run even though I am on the verge of total deafness. Although I suffer from stage fright, I joined a theatre group and never beg off from public speaking engagements. I take joy in my four wonderful kids, a fantastic son-in-law and my eldest son’s sweet-tempered and gentle girlfriend. And of course, I bless each day I wake up to the sunrise in the State of Israel.

Nowadays, I’ve been hearing that the nationalist camp in Israel needs more writers spreading the truth, wisdom, what-have-you in the struggle against anti-Israel propaganda flying around ad nauseam in cyberspace.  As a professional writer and in keeping within character, I’m only too happy to work my charms and share my insights.  My solution to the Middle East conundrum is quite simple really.  I just wanted to wait until you got to know me better before I threw the one-two punch. And so, I feel that now would be a most propitious moment.

My solution, though clear-cut, does however require Divine intervention. For instance, all those in and outside of our land who threaten Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel in its entirety, should be swallowed up by an earthquake.  See, very uncomplicated. How’s that for controversial? But wait. There’s more!

In the absence of any God-inspired natural disasters, however, I will steal myself away from my writer’s retreat to actively demonstrate and labor against acquiescence of any sort to the wolf and his pack − read: Obama and his accomplices, his enablers and his preferred chums - the Arab terrorist conglomerate. Oh, and let us not forget the European quartet.

Always cognizant of our Jewish destiny, I carry the burden of our nationalist struggles like a mental paperweight.  Prepared to serve my people via the written word, I sit armed and ready with my laptop.

 I wish to open an unsullied view of Israel − a part of this world that is excessively misunderstood and misjudged. My courage is augmented by taking cover behind a computer screen and thus, I would like to impress upon you how much you have to gain by entering my electronic paper fortress - my world of words. If little else, at least to know that a nationalist religious Zionist residing in Judea can be…“normal.” Get my point?