Sometimes in the past my liaisons with men resembled the classic romantic philosophical schema, present in Christianity and Marxism and other systems as well: better past, bad present, fulfillment in the future. I would pine for some beautiful time gone by while firmly hoping for even higher recreation in the future, altogether bemoaning or alternatively ignoring the present. Complete opposite of a mindful modality and undoubtedly a recipe for letting life with all of its wonder to pass me by. I am very hopeful though. Psychologists point to an important character trait as a pathway to success, namely how we cope with failure. Latin “succedere” is “to come after”--success does come after failure.
I was alone as a graduate student at Berkeley, in and out of depressive episodes. I studied the unimaginable horrors of twentieth century history and by no means was I able to maintain scholarly distance. I vividly remember my darkened room in San Francisco, dozens of books lining the walls, halfway opened to black and white photographs. I studied the Theatre of Death of a Polish visionary Kantor, and exile poetry of Milosz--always asking myself as an emigrant how is it possible that I come from a land of so much carnage, never forgetting walking through Auschwitz with a heavy conscience. I left the doctoral program, with very few answers and more questions than I could physically handle, and considered my Master’s a failure.
I first came to Hawaii to get married on a beach a carefree 20 year old. I returned 10 years later, after a complete breakdown of consciousness and the body, fleeing grad school and the injunction to understand myself as an Eastern European scholar of the war. Not knowing how to develop objective methodological distance in the academy, I thought Hawaii would allow me to hear my own voice again. It’s taken a few years to get to that, party due to my depression, partly because I would reach out to others via the expense of pain, bonding over what was wrong in their present instead of what could be and is great.
Maybe then I am a latecomer in the game of optimism, of love and life...it took me a long time to decide to leave the past and its traumas behind and try something new. I feel I got stuck in romantic quicksands. Perhaps what I am looking for is already within me. I sincerely hope so and I do hope that the little extra serotonin will open that door. I want to get the body and the brain I left behind in anxiety and depression, to fill all of my tissues with joy, to finally arrive in Hawaii as opposed to escaping to Hawaii.
Personal salvation, with me doing the saving part, in on the agenda. I am going to study nature as a historical landscape. I am going to continue asking myself who I am vis-a-vis the island and negotiate my self-understanding through European and American prisms. Even as I say it, it is not clear to me what it is that I am asking or what precisely I am after. But what I know for certain is that I have to focus on the present moment of sensation and reflection. To see the beauty and possibility within every day, to examine my relationship to myself through my responsibility to those around me.
I believe that we all have a responsibility to not just hope but to act to bring about a better world in our most authentic selves. What does that mean to me? Today my answer is I want to be love. I want to remain steadfast and unwavering even when the intensity of interpersonal relationships threatens to overwhelm me. I cannot run away. I want to build love based on trust and togetherness without codependence or illusions. I might have to rethink some self-limiting beliefs in that regard, and ask myself how do I frame my accent, my birthplace, my travels, my friends, lovers and ex-husbands on the journey. I will converse with island borders that are constantly unfolding, dissolving and turning in different lights of perspective.
They shift just as our feelings, just like the planes we come on and those within us. In waters and airs, what does it mean to live among those always coming and going? I have always been fascinated with the idea of peeling off layers of consciousness. When meeting someone I am most interested in their internal landscapes. I want to talk about their years of life travel, their different memory doors. Peeling off the veils so we relate to each other in authenticity and oneness of existence. Tonight is Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year 5777 and this year I will be present to what is actually happening, not to what was or what I hope to be, I will be in the actual rhythm of my relationship to myself and others. The intention is to be with movement of the heart, being present and awake to what is happening at any given moment in love. Shana tova.