I have been writing this piece I in my head for months. Trying to figure out my feelings and emotions. What do I want to say but really how do I get the words to say what I feel?
I began to feel my words again by a simple and beautiful conversation with someone I love who reached out to hold a pain (one that is not a part of this piece, but a background to my every day) and share words of wisdom. She offered that the pain I was feeling is about the pause. The waiting and the unknown and how while you wait for what you want it is hard to see and be within the moment. I felt this acutely last week when I was able for a moment be within myself. Eitan and I went to a Goose concert. There is something within the music of a Jam band and the community that attends that forces presence. Within that moment I could feel the love between me and my partner, I could feel the presence and joy within the stadium, notice and appreciate the beauty of the moon and forget the things I am waiting for and to happen. And I realized how long I have been in pause. Two years I have been holding my breath.
It was within the aforementioned conversation about my personal pause, my personal longing and my personal pain that I reflected on how apt this insight is and how well it explores the individual and collective devastation of the events of October 7th. I am personally experiencing something hard but it has felt harder than I believe it would have had I not already been in this intensity. Everything is harder right now. We, the Jewish people - zionist, Israelis,
Palestinians, people with empathy have been in a collective pause. A part of our heart was stolen and we are holding our breath waiting to know if they will ever be home. We live, we take our children to school, we sit at our desk doing our jobs. We plan our futures but we also wonder -- do we belong here still? Is this a safe home for us? When so many people celebrated October 7, 2023, justified the attack on kibbutzim, the beheading of babies and the theft of grandmothers, before Gaza was invaded even, before the war began -- I just wonder does it make sense to plan a future and imagine our next steps within this world? Are we safe to exhale?
And now we hold our breath again…
The breath we have held and released over the last two years. Hoping this awful war would end and bring peace to the people in Gaza and bring our loved ones home.
We collectively held our breaths, waiting and fighting along with Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin for their only son to be returned only for hersch to be murdered moments before a possible rescue, we were devastated along with them. We begged and held our breath for the little red headed boys to be returned and they were brought home with broken necks and their mother initially withheld just to torture the people waiting.
And now we wait again with bated breath for the 20 remaining living hostages and the bodies of the 28 others hoping for our hearts to return, for the war and devastation to end -- but we also wait and wonder are we safe either way? Will the hatred for the Jewish people lesson with the end of the war? Will it be safe to pray in Manchester now? Can you stand outside a Jewish museum in DC? Can you be a Jewish person walking home?
Can we exhale? Can we plan?
