Andrew Kaplowitz: Home Sick on Saturday Night

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“May we all heal at the speed of land” -meital yaniv

The sound of the bath running blends with the pitter patter of my fingers on the keys. A cup of goldthread tea steeps next to a bowl of matzo ball soup. The glistening fat in the broth is all that remains of the rooster I raised and killed this summer. Earth comforts when my body aches.

Headaches are harder to heal. I think about my cousin Saar who’s been conscripted into the israeli Defense Force and my Aunt Nitsa who had a heart attack last fall after working in the ER for weeks. It’s hard to make heads or tails of that and writing it feels like a confession: I know some would prefer them all dead. How many Palestinian lives would that save? 

“I’m an anti-zionist Ashkenazi Jew, you said it like that” recounted my friend Shirley the last time I saw her “you said anti-zionist first.” I reflect on how I carry my shame. In the sweat lodge she asks me to sing in Yiddish or hebrew. It’s an invitation to choose the heart path. 

A detective questions me in a cinderblock room. He asks why I pulled the israeli flags out of the ground in front of the encampment. I think about the images of israeli flags flying on tanks in the midst of rubbled buildings, where an untold number of bodies rest. His folder lies open under a fluorescent light; my photo and biography are exposed daring me to lie. There are cameras hidden in the thermostat and the motion sensor. 

The bathtub is overflowing.

Water has always been a balm. A return to utero.

I submerge myself in the Detroit river after getting a copy of the warrant, a mikveh so I may be clean again. 

What does it mean to come from people who survived?

I can never feel homesick.

It’s 4 am in tel aviv and I don’t feel at home here. Waves crash and I calculate how much time I would hang in the air if I jump from the 16th story balcony – it wouldn’t be long enough. How many strangers lives does it cost to feel one belongs? Can I choose instead to be a guest, asking permission and forgiveness? There are many ways to balance an equation.

“You were conceived here” my mother replies. I just told her that the shore of Lake Michigan is where I feel most connected to in the world. We are looking at the Manitou Islands off the coast of Sleeping Bear Bay. Mother Bear carries her own story of displacement and loss.  

I do forgiveness rituals twice a year. In the spring I follow Anishinaabe teachings and in the fall I follow Jewish teachings. Both rituals involve throwing things I’ve carried with me into moving bodies of water. There are many heart paths. 

Monica teaches me not to take the first plant we pass. She teaches me to offer Tobacco, to ask the plant for consent, and to listen for a reply. She teaches me about Goldthread and Nettles and Tamarack. She gifts me transplants with the instructions to start digging holes in my yard.

What does it mean to save a seed?

It means my garden grew, bloomed, fruited, and grew more. It means the plant can beget another generation that’s better suited for that plot of soil. It means I have hope for next year. It means that my plants died. Death and rebirth. I still think in terms of seasons even though it hasn’t snowed yet. 

Monsanto makes sure the law recognizes their right to every genetically engineered seed, and they’ll sue any farmer who saves seed without paying them for their property. The Ashkenazi and Anishinaabe both used local varieties of nettles, raspberries, cedar and sage. Owning a plant is a truly absurd notion. 

“My life is the one thing that’s mine, if I own anything my life is it. … I brought it with me when I got here and I’m taking it with me when I go” said John Trudell. 

Our descendants who dig us up will marvel at how we worship plastic. They will see how we inserted it into our bodies, embalmed alive by botox and buttlifts. They will know we were afraid of death. 

May we all live many lives and die many deaths. Part of me died with the rooster I killed: drifting away with the downy feather, hot spurts of arterial blood on my face and into the soil. Part of me is reborn as I drink my soup. Healing is as much letting go as it is making whole. I save a seed in order to sow.