holding intrinsic limitations
for both initiator and receiver
reveal themselves between
shadows hovering over reality
whatever that may be.
Circumstance and coincidence
tend to interfere and predominate
natural inhabitants and living spaces
in this “noman’s” landscape.
Perpetrator and victim
and then there are
the witnesses.
Such is the way of war
territorial or individual.
Color race gender or religion
should play no role here.
Breaking news: They do.
There was a time when a cough was a good sign.
To cough up the smoke induced congestion.
To cough up a chicken bone that got stuck.
To cough up a glass of lemonade that went down the wrong pipe.
To cough when someone tickled you too much.
There was a time when a cough could betray you.
To cough while hiding in a closet
or crouching under the floor in Mokum
or smothering under a haystack in Friessland.
These most innocent coughs could indeed
reveal your presence to a foreign enemy,
the neighbourhood bystander or the outstander
who never really wanted to get involved
anyway.
Where did that cough come from?
Where did that noise come from?
Who has ever really given thought to a cough?
People might say:
One little cough is not anything outstanding, revealing
or of any consequence.
It is they who do not forget.
Mice do not cough.
Roosters do not cough.
Rats do not cough.
Bats do not cough.
People cough.
People cough up the truth.
In times of betrayal and revelation,
in times of suspense and isolation.
In times when other people
are frightened and have forgotten
the reasons
why
I walked through the city park.
The wide open fields of green grass
spotted with yellow and orange daffodils
cooled down my summer swollen ankles.
I approached the concrete edged wooden bench
where I always rested on my weekly walks
through this place.
It is August 4 2020 5:15 in the early evening,
perhaps my last walk near to the Rose Garden
before the second corona wave descends upon
Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Speechless
my curiosity
searches for cause
and effect which count
for something remembering
nights when bodies crawled
under barbed wires, crossing borders
into ghettos. Crying
out for help
in a city rustled into motion
on waves of seamen floating
out of breath between Ijmuiden’s
fishy memories heading
toward safer shores
reminding me I can’t breath
here in Mokum.
Heaviness hung
over this place
shading its skyline
with smells of crushed moth balls
and tear drenched red woolen coats.
Trams passed by wasted horses
pulling wooden caskets.
Quickly put together for this
taken for granted almost occasion.
Another death in the time when
no lives matter
75 years already gone.
Quiet leaks out
everywhere.
The city has succumbed to secrets.
Neighbours gossip, dangling
bags of trash over pointed
fingers. Wasted
words as weapons.
All lives matter
some more than others.
The city smells of death
in times when social distancing
should reign.
Fear tempers
masks cover
simple souls calling
I Can Not Breath.
No one reaches
the washed out horizon
in time. Elders reassure
us: this is not a Holocaust.
I am not so certain.
The door of the egged bus slowly opened,somehow getting stuck in the slotted steps filled with grainy red sand. She entered the bus, the anticipation of relief from the hamsin 40 C degree winds blowing her petrol coloured pleated skirt up high above her skinny brown legs. The cool breeze of the air-conditioning welcomed this migrant traveler, together with the Shalom, Yaalah ( Hurry up!) and the swoosh of her travel card along the slit of money machine.
She sat down in front of me. A vintage apparition of Afro cool blues on this hot Sunday afternoon. Her flat ironed afro hairdo began to curl back with the sweat of the day Her droopy eyelids coloured with silver glitters framing her round dark brown eyes. Her long blackened eyelashes opened the curtain to her life as she smiled briefly towards me. Slender fingers slid into her school bag, pulling out her iPhone. Her shortly clipped fingertips glided quickly over the phone screen, playing games in cyberspace in the company of nameless others.
Settling into the roosh roosh of the airco and the ping ping of the iPhone, I observed this beauty of the desert. Her pleated skirt almost reached her dried and dusty ankles. The pasty turquoise and rhinestone button clips on her long sleeved off-white tunic top caught the sunlight , casting little rainbow like rays across the empty seat next to her. Shifting her legs back and forth under this skirt created a breeze for her and for me. Our brown eyes often caught each other in laughter on our bus travels on this very sunny Sunday afternoon.
I closed my eyes behind my sunglasses, hoping to envision her life. Of Sudanese descent, a tinge of Egypt creeping in between her broad flat nose and fuller chapped lips.I imagined her foreparents travelling the parched desert Sahara sands, led by smugglers on camels laden with promises of liberation and freedom. Moses gathered his people in Egypt, offering manna breads on the Sabbath and water whipped out of desert stones all on the promise of God. The masses , first exhilarant in initial taste of freedom, later desperate for the comforts of slavery and a bowl of daily lentil porridge. What were your tradeoffs for freedom here in the Holy City?
What language do you count in?
What are your comfort foods?
Do you lament for your lost city?
Have you found solace in your iPhone?
The bus stopped with a sudden stop . The jolt sent her phone to the ground. We both bent to pick it up. This desert beauty was quicker. She swept the screen off on her dusty skirt. I took off my sunglasses to say goodbye to her, to my imagination, to this tiny one-sided encounter with fate.
It was such a nice day. The squarely cut stones shone brightly after the short spring storm, a welcomed surprise. The narrow grey and black pebbled roads unfolded before me as a heat mirage rising in the desert, running any which way . Yellowed achirotem hachoresh trees hung in full bloom over the steep stone walls of Jerusalem. Jerusalem in the spring time. My favourite city on the planet to get lost in.
Afraid of slipping on the road, I let my purple gel nails use the walls as my guide. Spreading my right hand out as the lovely fan my first born daughter Anja brought me from Kyoto, my finger tops glided effortlessly along the irregular surfaces of this Jerusalem wall. These walls must have been chiselled by hand years ago, perhaps by a Yossi, Achmed, Tova, Yaakov or a Boaz as the nails got caught in little niches along my way down the road. My right index finger got stuck in one of the dusty holes.I was startled when my finger bent backwards and the nail torn. I sucked on the dust and the blood, wondering which was older.
I made it safely to the worn wooden bench,where I have frequently stopped to have a break. I am a creature of habit as my daughters Anja and Jenna have come to know. Always have been. Finding the wooden bench after so many war and weathered years, is reassuring. Time and my memory have not failed me. I remember sitting here thirty four years ago in 1972 when I was studying at Hebrew University, a slim youngster dressed in patched bell bottoms and a shirt concocted of old ties. My hair was worn in a simple braid, lying loosely on my back. My back covered in sweaty spots. A time when I could sweat and not feel ashamed. A time of when I made my own rug sack out of colourful Beduin saddle bags, with red tassels and blue glass Hebron beads that were strung on strands of camel hairs I gathered in the souk. A time when I walked on my well worn and time trusted Nimrod sandals, heels dry and cracking under the weight of my body.A time when Janis Joplin’s words: Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose echoed in my pre-walkman brain as I climbed up and down the dusty streets of Jerusalem.
Groping in my newly bought rug sack, bought in a hipster Amsterdam boutique in the “Negen Straatjes “, located in the center of Amsterdam,two months earlier on a sunny Sunday afternoon . “Japanese cherry blossoms” fluttered as spring doves beween the stacked wooden crates piled up haphazardly near the Herengracht. Wood, old and new has always fascinated me. Bookshelves were made of wooden crates in the sixties. Now they are sold for a fortune in designer shops. I feel my age when I stroll through the so called vintage shops with my daughters in the little shops of Amsterdam. Just to let you know walking through the aisles of Ikea evokes the same in me!
Settling on this wooden bench, a self-y moment seemed appropriate. A moment in herstory, a middle aged woman sitting on a bench near a children’s playground.In Jerusalem of all places. A place where kids played on roundabouts and kicked their chubby legs high into the sky while being pushed by their mothers wearing head scarfs and fathers with kippot slipping onto the ground. A place where rumpled trashed bags of Bisli , an Israeli delicacy snack lay in piles underneath the garbage bin beside the sparsely grassed and dried park grounds. A place where freedom took on other dimensions. A place where I sat with my iPhone and searched for wifi instead .
The sound of a helicopter flying close by startled me.I looked up into the clear blue skies and saw three helicopters circling in close proximity.The mothers, the fathers and their kids were rushing to leave the playground. The rustling of jackets, grabbing of picnic baskets and skateboards together with the echoes of feet pounding the earth jumped up before me. A dark skinned girl of about 7 years ran to me screaming RUN Quickly. Now! I was frozen on this wooden bench, afraid I would not be quick enough. And of course: where would I run to?
I decided to stay put and wait for the thumping of my heartbeat to settle down. My rug sack had fallen on the ground. I bent over to pick it up. iPhone check, wallet check.passport check. Keys, where are my keys? I looked around and saw that they were still in one of those deep hipster rug sack pockets. check. The helicopters had disappeared from the blue skies. There was only a trail of smoke traces above me. An unsettling stillness filled the playground. No more parents, no more kids, no more empty bags of peanut snacks being thrown on the ground. No more George-Pierre Seurat still life paintings in this Jerusalem park.
And there I was still sitting on a wooden bench in Jerusalem on a nice Sunday afternoon. A middle aged woman filing her chipped gel nail before she decided to get up and continue with her walk again.
Do you know that:
We are Amsterdam consists of 180 nationalities clustered in ghettos, hoods, yup, white neighborhoods and any and all combinations of the above. Expensive prices and housing shortages effect all peoples, especially those who are socio-economically challenged.
Mokum and the mazzal are Yiddish words. Imsha’allah, Ya’ani, Na’am and Ya’allah are Arabic words. How many other words have filtered into Amsterdam in the past few years?
Head scarves are worn by traditionally inclined Jewish, Moslem, Rasta and African women and come in handy when having a bad hair day as well
Jews and Moslims bonded together to strive for kosher and halal ritual slaughter of animals. When I spoke about the Dutch Party for Protection of Animal Rights while teaching in Palestine last summer, the students and teachers literally rolled on the floor with laughter, tears streaming down their faces in absolute amazement. It was incomprehensible that Jews and Moslems would even speak with each other, none the less talk about meat.
Talking about meeting, while playing the-breaking news game with Palestinian youngsters (whispering messages in each other’s ears and waiting to hear what comes out at the end of the circle-) in Jerusalem three years ago, I heard that the Israelis were responsible for 9/11, Yasser Arafat’s murder and the smuggling of Africans by Beduins across the Sinai.
Amsterdam’s Jewish and Moslim singles are still look for the most perfect partners, import cyber or in real time. I think that enhancing the quality of life for our youngsters’ without the shackles of our physical emotional and mental baggage would be a good step in the right direction. Storytelling and healthy foods shared clears a lot of space for questions and even some insights into our his/herstories which repeat themselves all too often.
Loneliness and being alone is an entirely different subject. I met a neighbor who is now in retirement. She has never greeted me in the 7 plus years that I am living in Amsterdam-Oost.
I said hello and she responded with: Is your house repairs finally finished? She lives right across from me and observed all the painting activities and bags of garbage being shlepped to the container on the street corner. I shared my excitement and pride in this amazing makeover. She then told me that she worked for 30 years at the local supermarket and went into retirement a few months ago. “I don’t know what to do with my self anymore. Lucky I will become a grandmother in May.” I wished her mazal tov and offered for her to stop by for a cup of coffee and cake whenever she cared to.”O no, I couldn’t do that. That is not the way we do it here. Anyway I am too shy!”
This is not entirely true. Many Amsterdammers drop by for coffee and cake ( usually by appointment :-)), but that is probable because many amsterdammers are either busy with work, applying for work, going to school, taking care of their everyday business. Which is good, most of the time. The social norms and non-verbal miscommunications, flooding of information with television and social media developments give the illusion that we are too busy for our lives at time. And one form of gathering together is through the re-collection of our misery, our victimization. No individual or group holds a monopoly on being a victim. All blood shed is heart rendering. All blood is red. It hurts to watch other’s pain. It hurts to hurt. It hurts to be hurt. Ouch.
We can not kiss the wound and make it better. We can cry and shout and laugh and share stories and listen from the heart of whole-ness. Shalom. Salaam.
And some coffee tea and home baked goodies makes it all a bit easier to swallow and keep on breathing in between.
Be with you zoen.
Enjoy yourselves. I am.
Sauci
Ouch this hurts too much.
Ouch I am bleeding, again.
Ouch, I don’t believe it.
Ouch, how can I stop it.
Ouch, where are the band aids.
Ouch why does it happen to me all the time.
Ouch, when will it stop.
Ouch, I should have known.
Ouch, kiss it and make it better.
Ouch even Big Bird band aids don’t stick.
Ouch I’m late I’m late for a very important date.
Ouch got to go now.
Ya’alla, Bye Bye
Shalom Salaam
Aleikum Amen.
Ouch.
1-Listen as consciously as possible to my early morning dream state messages, in whatever form they manifest.
2- No more self-medication with refined sugars and aspartame.
3-Whenever I feel shame, guilt or belly-fear, remember that these are starting points for resolution and personal growth.
4.Acknowledge the accomplishments of living alone together on this planet.
5- Don’t wallow in the memories of abandonment and isolation.
6-Share my insights and observations with no attachment to fear of rejection.
7-Take daily initiatives in making new friendships and experiences. Have faith that I will probably not lose myself as completely as I have done in the past.
8-Live and move forward from the heart, inspired by acquired wisdom and understanding.
9-Appreciate the accomplishments and achievements of myself and others.
10-Know that moving into the space which is mine to discover is my birthright.
Woke up at 6 30.
Morning showers dripping down the open window.
The kittens holding up the home front at the foot of the bed.
Morning guys. Did you sleep alright.
I turn over once more, enjoying the warmth of my turquoise duvet
and the quiet of the house.
Tik tok tik tok tik tok tik tok.
My legs move softly onto the carpeted floor.
I stand. I stretch. I walk. I pish. I wash my hands and face.
Pookie rushes into the bathroom and jumps into the sink,
His tongue moves through this morning’s waterfall.
I laugh. He runs away.
We are both creatures of habit.
Tik tok tik tok tik tok tik tok.
I drink nescafe while plucking strawberries for my breakfast.
These hanging plants are laden with ripened fruits.
Smells of jasmine, sage and mint surround me.
Patches of blue skies poke through the grey clouds.
Time for a second round and a bit of breakfast.
I turn on the television.
9/11.
The alarm goes off.
So do I.
The day has officially begun.
Tok tik tok tik tok tik tok tik tok tik tok
Tik tok tik tok tik tok tok tok tok tok….
Planting tulip bulbs on my balcony gardens. The kittens are having a field day with the bags of soil and turf …the kitchen floor is covered with soil and their cute white paws are now black….Remembering Max Waleson ( May his memory be a blessing), in his baggy shorts, torn blue t shirt, sweat rolling down his back, pipe in his mouth, hosing down the garden early mornings and evenings. I was never in America when he planted his imported tulips from the Netherlands. Summer vacations in America, lifetimes ago, were filled with inspection of the gloriously colored garden,, filled with blooming tulips of all colors of the rainbow. His pride and joy was to cut a fresh home grown bouquet for the kitchen table and those of his friends who came to enjoy the swimming pool and jacuzzi on sultry Sunday afternoons.
I also am remembering Suzanne Waleson-Pronk, (May her memory be a blessing) his daughter in law, Jonathan’s wife, mother of four beautiful
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Sauci Bosner 
Written
on June 19, 2016