So. When Malkah was a girl she identified heavily with Snow White. Little abused girl, sent off to scrub the floors and dishes, dust and mow. Whatever needed doing, there'd be a note for her day's tasks attached to a magnet on the fridge. Her mother, the witch, aka Mrs Tzaddik, spent her days looking in the mirror wearing nothing but a silken slip. She also answered the door that way. Think Mrs Robinson. Very scary.
But Malkah grew up and had a daughter of her own. And vowed she'd be the opposite of her bipolar narcissistic infantile maternal unit. Such was her hatred, fear, and yes, loathing. And Malkah's daughter, Anat, was beautiful. Oh so beautiful. And the more beautiful her daughter grew, the more Malkah decided that she herself must fade and let her daughter shine.
On New Year's Day, the yahrzeit of Mrs Tzaddik, Malkah at long last looked in the mirror. And what she saw was downright hideous. Frightening. And unhealthy. After years of making sure she was no competition for anybody, she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.
The story of Snow White, it turned out, was not just about the curse of narcissism, but also a lot about the post-menopausal freak-out that follows beauty's inevitable fall. At least as seen in one's own mirror.
But a strange thing happened in this tale of ours. Malkah's beautiful daughter was not another feudal princess locked in a tower or hounded through the inhospitable forest. No. She was astute and thoughtful, and sought after health rather than beauty. And immersed in the health-paradigm as she was, and being a little Scorpio (direct and to the point), she confronted Malkah, her mother.
"Time to see a nutritionist, mum," she said. And she had a lot more to say as well.
Malkah looked in the mirror, New Year's Day. Yahrzeit of her mother the witch. And what she saw was frightening, unhealthy and downright the fuck scary.
And it was not okay.
In a reversal of the original tale, it was as if Snow White turned around, went home, and helped the wicked queen deal with her own post-menopausal decline. What Malkah's daughter needed was not a mother who made sure she was no competition. What she needed was a healthy mother who could live long enough to enjoy even another generation to come.
Malkah looked in the mirror. It was time to make some changes. After all, that's what New Years are for.
Mum, you picked a wonderful day for a yahrzeit. Don't act too surprised, but I miss you madly.
Showing posts with label Malkah stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malkah stories. Show all posts
Thursday, January 1, 2015
Thursday, November 6, 2014
malkah ascends the chariot
Someone called Malkah a mystic the other day. But I don't think so. Just because she romps around with letters of the Hebrew aleph-bet... Just because she's more comfortable in the cosmic... Just because she can't hold a pshat conversation, even about a movie like say Little Shop of Horrors (or a TV series like BSG)... Just because she sees people acting out letters of the Tetragrammaton and taking them on as archetypes... All that and more does not a mystic make.
Malkah once asked her mother, Mrs Tzaddik, what she had wanted for her when she grew up. It was a question Malkah had just never thought to ask before, but now was curious as hell. Ask it now or never. Mrs Tzaddik was not going to be long for this world.
"How could I have wanted anything for you?" Mrs Tzaddik told her, voice raised in operatic frenzy. "You took drugs in the '60s!"
Ah. And there it was. No achievement was ever going to be good enough for Mrs Tzaddik, was it? Malkah took drugs in the '60s. And actually, thereafter as well.
Malkah was calm about Mrs Tzaddik's outburst. As she was calm about just about everything. Equanimity was her primary practice.
She said, "Ma, everyone took drugs in the '60s." It was just a fact.
But Mrs Tzaddik was too steamed up in the tragedy of her own disappointment to hear it. And she didn't like facts.
I want to say "what happened in the '60s stays in the '60s" but you and I both know that's just not true. Berkeley in the '60s, and San Francisco in those days engaged a generation to see beyond the veil. And this was not just about pretty colors on the wall, or politics, or what the music really means. Malkah and her generation weren't just lying around reading Carlos Castaneda all day. They were also reading folks like Thomas Kuhn. The '60s were paradigm-shattering.
Now Malkah had been raised on storybook tales of how the Hebrew letters searched desperately for the Queen of Heaven, aka the Sabbath Bride, aka the Shekhinah, who had disappeared from the world. The letters were alive in those books when she was a child. And that didn't change. It was pure animism. She was raised with a living alphabet. Hebrew at her school was in the morning—vibrant, exciting, and alive. English was in the afternoons—dead as a door nail, just making words and nothing more. The English letters didn't run off trying to bring the Shekhinah back to Earth so that the world could be healed. They told baseball scores.
Something much later led her back to the tales of her childhood. The tales her father had told her. She needed to rethink them. Malkah discovered that these were no mere children's stories made up by imaginative children's authors. Instead, they were rooted in baudy ancient stories and serious medieval texts about the birth of God and the emergence of pre-biblical Creations. In other words, they were 'raw data,' and 'primary sources.'
And what those tales did was make Durkheim extremely dull. Durkheim, yes. But not Weber. Weber was all about charismatic figures rather than statistics.
Don't get me wrong. LSD did not make Malkah religious or anything. God forbid. No. It just made her a better academic. It made her take those mystical texts seriously—as treatises on the miracles of grammar, ancient languages, and the formation of words.
Malkah became a better academic. She had fun with the material. And then she got out there and made something of herself. And Mrs Tzaddik was confused. Proud (sometimes), but grudgingly so. You can't possibly do well if you took drugs in the '60s. Right?
So. On this election day, my vote's for Malkah's-no-mystic. She's just a product of her times. She seeks the whole above the particular. She privileges ancient tales over current events. And she loves the letters of the aleph-bet because they're still opening doors to the mysteries of Creation.
Along with Scientific American.
Malkah once asked her mother, Mrs Tzaddik, what she had wanted for her when she grew up. It was a question Malkah had just never thought to ask before, but now was curious as hell. Ask it now or never. Mrs Tzaddik was not going to be long for this world.
"How could I have wanted anything for you?" Mrs Tzaddik told her, voice raised in operatic frenzy. "You took drugs in the '60s!"
Ah. And there it was. No achievement was ever going to be good enough for Mrs Tzaddik, was it? Malkah took drugs in the '60s. And actually, thereafter as well.
Malkah was calm about Mrs Tzaddik's outburst. As she was calm about just about everything. Equanimity was her primary practice.
She said, "Ma, everyone took drugs in the '60s." It was just a fact.
But Mrs Tzaddik was too steamed up in the tragedy of her own disappointment to hear it. And she didn't like facts.
I want to say "what happened in the '60s stays in the '60s" but you and I both know that's just not true. Berkeley in the '60s, and San Francisco in those days engaged a generation to see beyond the veil. And this was not just about pretty colors on the wall, or politics, or what the music really means. Malkah and her generation weren't just lying around reading Carlos Castaneda all day. They were also reading folks like Thomas Kuhn. The '60s were paradigm-shattering.
Now Malkah had been raised on storybook tales of how the Hebrew letters searched desperately for the Queen of Heaven, aka the Sabbath Bride, aka the Shekhinah, who had disappeared from the world. The letters were alive in those books when she was a child. And that didn't change. It was pure animism. She was raised with a living alphabet. Hebrew at her school was in the morning—vibrant, exciting, and alive. English was in the afternoons—dead as a door nail, just making words and nothing more. The English letters didn't run off trying to bring the Shekhinah back to Earth so that the world could be healed. They told baseball scores.
Something much later led her back to the tales of her childhood. The tales her father had told her. She needed to rethink them. Malkah discovered that these were no mere children's stories made up by imaginative children's authors. Instead, they were rooted in baudy ancient stories and serious medieval texts about the birth of God and the emergence of pre-biblical Creations. In other words, they were 'raw data,' and 'primary sources.'
And what those tales did was make Durkheim extremely dull. Durkheim, yes. But not Weber. Weber was all about charismatic figures rather than statistics.
Don't get me wrong. LSD did not make Malkah religious or anything. God forbid. No. It just made her a better academic. It made her take those mystical texts seriously—as treatises on the miracles of grammar, ancient languages, and the formation of words.
Malkah became a better academic. She had fun with the material. And then she got out there and made something of herself. And Mrs Tzaddik was confused. Proud (sometimes), but grudgingly so. You can't possibly do well if you took drugs in the '60s. Right?
So. On this election day, my vote's for Malkah's-no-mystic. She's just a product of her times. She seeks the whole above the particular. She privileges ancient tales over current events. And she loves the letters of the aleph-bet because they're still opening doors to the mysteries of Creation.
Along with Scientific American.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
call me daddy — day one in the foster home
Malkah was two. Or maybe three. Or somewhere inbetween. I don't remember. I only remember one thing about that moment. And that would be the door.
The door was huge. And the adults who answered the door seemed huge as well. Malkah had been taught, I guess, her politesse. She was dressed as well as she could be. She was soft spoken and polite.
The door opened. And so she said,
"Hello Mr and Mrs S—" and the two of them loomed over her from inside.
The door opened wide enough for her to step inside. I think she had a little bag of stuff with her. A change of clothes, probably.
The house smelled funny. Not bad, just funny. Unfamiliar. Later Malkah would identify that smell as cooking smells. But I don't remember what. So. Smells, the first impression. That's more the point.
The door closed with a decisive click.
And he smacked her one. Loud and hard, right across the face.
"That's for not calling me 'daddy,'" he said.
He glared down at her. His jowls had turned bright red.
Here's what I wonder.
I wonder if anyone had bothered to tell her what was about to happen.
I wonder if she had any idea of how long she would be staying.
I wonder if she had visitors.
And most of all—
I wonder what that first day must have felt like.
All I know, is that after dinner the whole extended 'family' went into the living room to watch TV. Papa bear sat in his big overstuffed arm chair. That was the only thing that Malkah noticed. The only thing that mattered.
She found in her hand a giant pair of scissors.
Quietly, she slipped behind Mr. S's chair and sat on the floor behind him. She grabbed a handful of her long dark hair.
And started cutting.
A memory.
The sound of cutting. Soothing and safe.
Until the yelling started all over again. And the smacking. And the burning.
The door was huge. And the adults who answered the door seemed huge as well. Malkah had been taught, I guess, her politesse. She was dressed as well as she could be. She was soft spoken and polite.
The door opened. And so she said,
"Hello Mr and Mrs S—" and the two of them loomed over her from inside.
The door opened wide enough for her to step inside. I think she had a little bag of stuff with her. A change of clothes, probably.
The house smelled funny. Not bad, just funny. Unfamiliar. Later Malkah would identify that smell as cooking smells. But I don't remember what. So. Smells, the first impression. That's more the point.
The door closed with a decisive click.
And he smacked her one. Loud and hard, right across the face.
"That's for not calling me 'daddy,'" he said.
He glared down at her. His jowls had turned bright red.
Here's what I wonder.
I wonder if anyone had bothered to tell her what was about to happen.
I wonder if she had any idea of how long she would be staying.
I wonder if she had visitors.
And most of all—
I wonder what that first day must have felt like.
All I know, is that after dinner the whole extended 'family' went into the living room to watch TV. Papa bear sat in his big overstuffed arm chair. That was the only thing that Malkah noticed. The only thing that mattered.
She found in her hand a giant pair of scissors.
Quietly, she slipped behind Mr. S's chair and sat on the floor behind him. She grabbed a handful of her long dark hair.
And started cutting.
A memory.
The sound of cutting. Soothing and safe.
Until the yelling started all over again. And the smacking. And the burning.
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