My favorite color is dusk

Chocolate croissants on Saturday afternoon when the only priority is sleeping in with you.

The sadness and grief come and go. Sometimes there’s fear too. They build a vivid story of all the potential scenarios that may never happen.

Hold space for sadness and grief.

Whereas fear is a shadow. A familiar alarm alerting my body. A natural response. A stressful one too.

I just want all the good in the world for my brothers.

I just want the dolphins to be safe and for mango season to arrive.

As an immigrant, I am always home. I am always home.

I take home with me.

I could never be alone.

My hope for the world is to feel what I am feeling.

I know my heart is not a house but I call it home.

I call you 

Home

It’s the process they say

It’s the getting there they say

It’s the loving and the fighting, and the breaking down old ways, and healing towards new ones.

It’s the sweetness in thick molasses

Where dresses become fingerprint recording devices

veins throbbing

Sweaty and ready because

We want to get better at sleeping together.

After hazy days and sleepless nights your body is still the only one I want to be undressed under.

Working towards something is the something

It means we still have time to do the healthiest thing for our

Heart

A friend once told me that time is a wobbly circle

teaching with stern brows and kind eyes.

I have had so many mental breakdowns at the thought of loosing my parents

I think it’s my middle eastern blood that takes family seriously

That

Processing of aging

and how its something everyone has to think about but no one is prepared to deal with it when their parents get really old and cant take care of themselves anymore

My mom taught me how to love and be loved

My dad shows me love is through action so

Drizzle some olive oil

Add some zaatar

And remember to bring lightness

Remember you are a conduit of the wind

A rhythm organically developed...I miss my inviting California home and the beings living inside. I miss waking up to a house full of my family. The smiles, the morning dew on the start of long hikes, and how the hilltops golden from the summer sun. The hikes along the coastline, where we swim in the nearest body of water, lay out in the sun until we dry. Repeat. Or the corners where “cool” kids hung out, and houses that old friends or family lived in. The warm asphalt I spent years stomping around with friends who are now sisters. I suppose these are the sort of details that only the passage of time can reveal. Where a global pandemic brings on a handful of fear and uncertainty. But a whole lot of presence and gratitude. So here’s to sharing our little worlds with each other. Here’s to the power of details, health, and family.

2020

I have told you many of these things.

I have cried into a zoom call, and you told me no need. 

You ask me why but don’t pry if I can’t speak.

I don’t want to scare you

but I think your roots run deep enough to withstand my winds.

I watch your spine wiggle while you lie on your surf board

Our sandy afternoons

Our sun kissed skin awaiting a summer of swimming 

You surf, I laugh, you skim, we swim, 

A drop of trust fills our bucket with each beach session

We make love under the sunbeams of palmachim beach

Shells listening

Moonlight streams through the sun

Strum my hair strands

Play my skin like a gentle drum 

You hold me like I might fly away

But not too tight that I can’t.

You have repeated stories, 
And sometimes I point it out with a giggle

Other times I don’t 

And let the same words wash over me like a soothing lullaby

The meaning fades and I hear warm sounds, 

A gentle sea, a grounded whisper 

I tell you how much I appreciate you

When pick up the phone because my netstick isn’t working

When you don’t understand but you try to,

You always look up at the stars with me 

Imagine sweet getaways and get excited about tortilla mornings

I tell you things every day, from mundane to secrets

What I haven’t told you yet

I want to tell you that I love the way you question me, 

with brown wooden eyes that cradle me like safta’s favorite chair.

My gentleness casts spells

And people don’t ask me to explain my logic.

My smile is convincing, my vigor an arrow spinning straight through honey

But you do

You ask why

Forcing me to surrender my knees to mossy forest floors 

You challenge me without disbelief

Like you actually want to hear the motion of my mind, currents churning, 

You hold binoculars to the sea to admire a sea’s granite sparkle. 

I want to tell you that your jokes are my favorite, and I try to bottle them up for a rainy day.

They are dark and twisted, and have no shame.

I want to tell you that I feel safe

Not just because you don’t fear horror movies and jackals like that

night in the forest as

I grabbed your hand instinctively, first fingers match like puzzles.

No,

I feel safe because you listen and share equally

You tell stories and unearth mine, patiently wiping dust from the latches of old mahogany chests

You kiss me but not too hard,

Grasp me with open palms.

I trust you to hold the gems of my tears when they fall. 

Gummy bears and stickers

Eggys and black coffee

December 1, 2019

“I see the sea!”

The story of me and you is about the timing of our lives.

We meet in the midst of a summer dream awakened to a summer romance.

Kisses in the moonlight and

rogalach in the waning of Saturday.

Mornings who showed up giggling softly behind their hands.

Milk in cereal. Joints before making love. During making love. And after making love.

I wasn’t sure.

But I am sure now that you brought me stability in the middle of homelessness.

Simplicity to return back to the basics

Vibrating in colors.

When I am around you I feel grounded.

Orange and yellows and blues.

And then you start to sneak away

you wave virtually goodbye as the train rides away into the distance of the horizon.

The story of me and you is about lovers in this sweet sweet fleeting moment.

That time continues. It keeps going.

That things and people and places aren’t linear.

5 - 24 - 2019

A 1-Year Aliyah Manifesto:

*Yes, I sneeze in English.

*Yes, I changed for the better.

*Yes, Ashdod is Morocco.

*Yes, the hippies live in the desert.

*Yes, each time I’m able to put a dent in the blocks that have stopped me from making what I want to see most in the world is a triumph to remember when I’ve lost sight of my ability to outsmart the most devious of my internal self-critiquing monsters.

*Yes, air drying clothes equals crunchy towels. Yes, I still haven’t gotten used to it.

*Yes, a home cooked meal is the fastest way to feel someone’s warmth.

*Yes, there is no deadline for understanding.

*Yes, actions need listening too.

*Yes, Arabs make better hummus.

*Yes, Purim is the best holiday.

*Yes, there is yoga.

*Yes, teaching yoga on the beach reminds me that home is the nicest word there is.

*Yes, Israelis are the most attractive species.

*Yes, I miss Mount Tamalpais.

*Yes, home-sickness won’t make me move back.

*Yes, Friday’s at dusk hold a space of stillness.

*Yes, I share a genetically pre exposed need for adventure.

*Yes, I am enough.

*Yes, wilted sunflowers still share light.

April 30, 2019

This year I learned:

- I sneeze in English.

- Home cooked meals are the fastest way to feel someone’s warmth.

- There is no deadline to understanding.

- Actions need listening too.

Never forget

to speak up

to stand up

From Jerusalem to Tel Aviv we have carpool conversations about whether boys and girls can be friends, global order, and being an immigrant.

There were months that asked questions and days engulfed in

mantras of

I am enough

Thank you

And the universe provides.

In the motherland there are

Crunchy towels with a side of black coffee

There are jam packed sidewalks on Friday afternoons

And internal monologues rooting in a genetically pre exposed need for

Adventure

This year I learned

Id rather make an impact on your heart than on your eyes

2 - 20 - 2019

Israel is part II

Dates in the morning with my oatmeal

An afternoon cup of coffee

I holler down a yellow cab for a cute old lady wearing over sized glasses.

The cab driver asks where im going and drives me to the bus station

after he drops her off.

I find out the cute old lady is a Holocaust survivor and the cab driver didn’t have a bar Mitzvah because it was scheduled during the middle of the six day war.

It’s religious orthodox women who fight for feminism and millenial boys who still practice chauvinism.

It’s young adults wanting partnership and having twins

Its hecklers and hustlers

And long lost lovers trying to fly.

It’s challah French toast on Shabbat