When Winter Wind Wears Desert Boots

It's exciting putting out a new book. It's hard to describe. It all begins with an idea, a small seed, which slowly grows and creates constant turmoil in my mind. The seed becomes a story - and then the story begins to write itself. It is then that I know that a book is inside of me. And I rush to get it out, get it out before the rivers dry up and I lose my way.

But I do lose my way, many times, during the process. At times, I wonder who this is on the other side of the page. Whose story is this? Or can it belong to anyone?

A good friend read the finished draft manuscript and told me not to publish the book.
"You are risking too much by publishing it," he said.
"But it is fiction!" I exclaimed. "Why would this be putting myself at risk?"
"Because only you know what parts of it are fiction and what parts of it are not. And some people may see it all as real - an autobiography, perhaps - or maybe even a confession."
"If this is in any way a confession, then it is Daniel's confession," I said. "Although I think, if he still had a voice, he would claim it to be more of a legacy, than a confession."
"And he would want to believe that," my friend said. "As would you. Aren't you and Daniel the same person?"
"No. I am the author. Nothing more. He is my creation."

In my first book: "As I Died Laughing", there appeared to be no clear borders between the real and the unreal, between fact and fiction. In a continually fragmented plot, the author found it much easier to hide in the background. But there is nothing for the author to hide behind in: "When Winter Wind Wears Desert Boots". I stand there naked. There is truth in what I have to say, but I choose its maner of creation. The characters are real to the book. They begin and end there. Some of you will believe that you see yourselves in the book, but you are who you bring to the reading. And if you take away much more, then I have succeeded as a writer.

I have written two novels, and this second novel - "When Winter Wind Wears Desert Boots" - is the one that I believe will define me as a writer. Why do I put such emphasis on this second book? Because it is something that has been waiting to be written for a very long time. You may understand this much better when you read the book.

So, what is left? There was a time in my life when the act of writing, by itself, was enough. Just by putting words down on a page, I was in communion with self. But that is not enough, now. Not nearly enough. My words seek to be heard. They have lived in solitude, inside of me, for so long. And now, they no longer belong totally to me. They wander, seeking a new home, many new homes, as they live on and become real in the consciousness of others.

Another good friend asked me:
"What's it like knowing that there are people out there reading your most innermost thoughts at this very moment?"
I hesitated, but only for a fraction of a moment.
"As much as this may sound surprising," I answered, "it is a relief."
And I left it at that.

When the clock strikes midnight

"We are surrounded!" I wrote, fearing communication would be cut soon.
"Get out of there, fast!" my wife SMSed back.
I had visions of striking workers approaching with chains and burning tires.
"Close the windows, lock the doors from the inside and turn off the lights," I shouted to the other workers holed up in the building. "If there is smoke, lie down with your nose to the ground."
Soon the sounds of voices and singing were heard outside of the building, accompanied by pounding pots and pans. I sniffed the air, but there was no smell of smoke. I peeked through the blinds. The striking workers seemed to be having a merry old time. What unnerved me most was the laughter and dancing - especially the belly dancing.

Up until that point, I had envisaged a situation somewhat similar to when the Canadian consulate offered sanctuary to American Embassy workers in Tehran when the embassy was overrun by Iranian protesters. Two key field school personnel had fled the field school moments earlier when striking workers had closed it down, and asked if we could offer them sanctuary in the Interdisciplinary Centre and a place to work. But however compelling the similarity seemed to be at first, it lost its edge in the merry song and dancing. I imagine that Ben Affleck would have continued unperturbed and have made the most of the situation, turning it into a movie opportunity - the Canadian becoming a burned out American CIA agent trying to save his marriage to an Israeli, while helping America regain its stature in the Middle East. As for the pots and pans and merry singing - that would turn into semi-automatic gun fire and the threatening screams of a wild mob seeking blood. You've got to love Hollywood.

"I think it will be okay," I wrote my wife.
"Are you sure?" she wrote back.
"Yes, I am the last one they'd shoot. They know that they need me."

Striker 1: "You shot David?"
Striker 2: "Yes. He was working and you told me to shoot anyone who is working."
Striker 1: "Yes, but not David. You can't shoot David. We need him."
Striker 2: "Yes, but..."
Striker 3: "What happened?"
Striker 2: "He shot David."
Striker 3: "David! You can't shoot David! He's Canadian!"
Striker 2: "I thought he was Israeli."
Striker 3: "Yes, but he is also Canadian."
Striker 2: "When did he come from Canada?"
Striker 3: "I don't know. Sometime... but that's not the point. You can't shoot a Canadian. When was the last time you heard about somebody shooting a Canadian. No one even shoots UN Canadian peace keepers.
Striker 2: "They might if they mistake them for American."
Striker 4: "What happened?"
Striker 3: "They shot the Canadian."
Striker 1: "And our computer guy."
Striker 4: "They shot two people!"
Striker 2: "They... he was working!  And he said... "
Striker 1: "We have to do something. Maybe if we apologize."
Striker 3: "I don't know. He looked to be in pretty bad shape."

I guess I owe you a little background.

I work in a government trust - Midreshet Sde Boker - situated in a small desert community. The Trust was established at the request of Israel's first prime minister and visionary: David Ben Gurion. He wanted to create a seat of learning in the middle of the Negev desert which would inspire people to come from far and wide and settle in the Negev. The Trust consists of a unique High School for Environmental studies (a boarding school with students from all over Israel), a Field School, Interdisciplinary Centre and other relevant offices. It shares space in the community (Midreshet Ben Gurion) with institutions affiliated with Ben Gurion University: The Desert Research Institute, the Ben Gurion Archives and the Solar Energy Institute. In its golden years, it could have been considered as a "light unto nations". But in the last ten years, things have changed somewhat.

It all began with severe budget cuts by the government. And now, instead of investing most of its time in creating new exciting and valuable initiatives in the field of education - primarily environmental education - the Trust spends almost all of its time in surviving financially. At the same time, the workers are worried about continuing to receive a decent wage in light of the increased cost of living. In 2007 their collective workers' agreement with Midreshet Sde Boker ended, and since then - despite intensive negotiations at times - no new collective agreement has been signed. And for the last four years, the local workers union has threatened to strike if an agreement is not reached.

And last week, it finally happened. The workers went out on strike and have been out on strike since. And now, the Trust is in danger of shutting down altogether. The high school students have been sent home, and the field school cannot accept new groups (for lodging, instruction, etc.) Parents of the high school students are up in arms and are threatening to stop tuition payments and the field school, which is one of the Trust's main sources of income, will soon have no income coming in, at all.

Since I am on personal contract and am in charge of keeping the whole computer infrastructure working, I (and other managers) are still working. With mixed feelings. On the one hand, the workers deserve to have a fair collective agreement. On the other hand, if the Trust will be permanently shut down because of this strike, no one will have any work at all. Am I optimistic? Not really. Apparently the Minister of Education tried to intervene - approaching the head of the national workers union (Histadrut), to no avail. You'd think that if the Democrats and Republicans could finally reach an agreement to avert a continued, crippling government shutdown, then an agreement could be reached between some 80 workers and a government trust. You'd think.

I have been entertaining the idea of opening a pub for some time. Whitehorse, in the Canadian north, has been a major contender - or anywhere else in the Yukon region. Or I could even settle for Uxbridge or Bracebridge, beautiful spots in Ontario. And if opening a pub appears in the end to be too aspiring, then working in a pub is also an option - spending most of my free time writing. Until now, this has remained a lazy fantasy. It appears that if they don't hit me over the head and send me packing, I will stay a desert rat. But the way things are going, this might happen quite soon.

This reminds me of the last episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, where Mary turns off the light and closes the door for the last time. Is this where we are heading now?

And now the book: Why I May Still Be Canadian

A few months ago, I was approached by a publisher to turn my blog - Why I May Still Be Canadian - into a book (paperback).
"Turn a blog into a book?" I asked myself. "Isn't that going in the opposite direction?"
For blogs seem to be almost an antithesis to the printed word. One rests in cyberspace, expanding in elastic time and space - while the other is encased in a limited number of physical pages between two covers.
I may not have seriously considered this request at all, hadn't it been for a remark made by a good friend a short time earlier:
"Your blog would make a good book," he said.
"A book... yes. But what's the point?" I asked myself.

The point, according to the publisher - bloggingbooks, is quite clear:

Blogs deserve being published!
Millions of people share their point of view with the world in real time – This is how blogs have
become part of our everyday lives. Blogs focus on the present and thereby provide continuous
commentary on daily happenings. Events and content, that are presented in a chronological
order on the internet, get a new dimension through books. Books create systematic snapshots
through collecting, compiling, categorizing and commenting.

Are you convinced?

I still wasn't, although they had definitely captured my interest. I think that what may have convinced me in the end was the revelation that a blog is like sand sifting through our fingers. We see it as it passes through, but then it is swallowed up in the collecting mound of sand below. Although one may jump back in time and sporadically read earlier postings, a blog is more like a newspaper than a book. It is archived like many newspapers are, but only a small percentage of people work their way back.

I know that I am subjective, but in transforming the blog structure into book form (a huge task in itself), I really enjoyed reading the postings from old to new. A blog can make a good book, strangely enough.

So Why I May Still Be Canadian  is my second book - the one most people can understand. And this blog posting may be seen as a watershed separating the blog, which is the book, from the blog which still bravely carries onward into the virtual darkness.

If you do purchase my book, drop me a line and share your thoughts. Always good to know that you are not alone.

Taking the “new” out of New Years

We are already into the third week of the new year and I am waiting for something wondrous to happen.

You see, I have this fascination for new years. Somewhat of a childlike expectation. As if something different is supposed to happen simply because of the way we artificially separate time. I can’t help myself. It begins with officially toasting in the New Year with warm anticipation (although at times it is more like a heavy sigh of relief at having made it through yet another year). Actually, it begins even earlier than that - during the last week of December when making New Years resolutions in front of a roaring fire in the company of my closest of friends. Maybe it is the seductive lure of the fire, but we really do seem to believe that we will stick to these resolutions each new year.

Looking back, I don’t have a very good track record when it comes to New Years resolutions. The only time that I can remember carrying one out, in recent history, was the year of  2011 when I pledged that I would - no matter what - get my book published. And actually succeeded in doing so.

Maybe the shock of my actually carrying through with a new years resolution is what spurred my two close friends to not only declare significant resolutions for 2012, but also set out with a fierce determination to carry them out. Meanwhile, for the first time, I am left with no resolution at all for the new year and time is running out.

I suppose that we cannot make a resolution until we decide what it is that we want. And I keep coming up with a blank. Sure, I want to continue with my writing after taking this first big step. And I am also working on a screenplay.  But what is it I want out of all of this. Another book? Endless adulation? A smug sense of worth?

We think that if we could go back thirty years, knowing what we know now, we’d be much more in tune with our needs and desires than we are now. As if hindsight would create a better world. But it doesn’t work that way, does it. If we don’t make the same mistakes again, we will make other mistakes. Perhaps just as big, perhaps even bigger. There comes a time when you have to accept where you are in life. Accept it and work on making it better.

Does this mean I should give up on the idea of opening up a pub in Yellowknife? Would such a decision negate all that I have gone through and have become, or would it be a natural continuation to all that came before it. From hot desert to cold desert. From a small dysfunctional community to a slightly larger one. Okay, Yellowknife is much larger than my small desert community. But I’m sure that I could find a community just as small and isolated, not too far from Yellowknife. A community probably only accessible by dog sled or small plane. But how much beer would get sold? There must be a tangible level of possibility for any New Years resolution in order to turn it into  a feasible goal. Otherwise, what is the point? I learned this from a redhead. 

“You really should try living somewhere normal for a change.”
Normal. Here she was staring at me from across the room, knowing all that she knew about me, and yet talking about normal.
“Normal? Scarborough was normal. About as normal as you can get.”
“Don’t confuse normal with a comfortable middle class community of WASPs and  Father knows best,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Have you been to Scarborough lately?”
Point taken.
“What’s a normal location in your eyes?” I asked.
“A nice small, comfortable apartment in Tel Aviv. A short walk to take in some culture or eat at a good restaurant. A stone’s throw away from an evening stroll along the promenade by the sea.”
“Have you been talking to Adva?”
“No, I have been eavesdropping.”
She would always have the upper hand, living in this invisible world of hers. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get both feet in.
“There is only one problem with that vision,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“The people.”

Maybe that is the key. Both the Negev desert and the Canadian Arctic offer places where most people wouldn’t want to even visit, let alone live there. I probably missed my calling in not becoming a hermit, but then they didn’t have Internet back then.

But I am no closer now to a New Years resolution than I was when beginning to write this piece. Am I doomed to now wander through 2012 without any direction at all? When does a nomad simply become someone who has lost his way?

I am open to suggestions. Can anyone suggest a New Years resolution for me?

Walking among the ibex

“Where have all the flowers gone?” my wife asked.

“Flowers?” I suddenly remembered the image of an ibex walking past me the day before on my way back home from work, white petals sticking out of the side of his mouth.

“Yes the flowers in the garden. All of them. Suddenly gone.”

What had struck me most was his sardonic grin. Ibex are not known for expression of any type.

I shifted uneasily in my chair. “I don’t know.”

“It must be your friends,” she said, shooting me an accusing stare.

“Friends?” I replied innocently.

“Yes, the ibex.”

The thing is, you can’t really call the ibex your friends. Sure, I have a soft spot for them, and they humour my existence. I can walk among them and they accept me there. I have always seemed to have had a special connection with animals. As if they view me differently from my fellow humans. This may explain my lack of communication with people on a whole. For, when it comes to connecting to the human race, I am basically autistic.

My connection to the ibex has increased greatly over the years, especially as the dry winters forced them up from the wadi below to search for edibles on the outskirts of our community. I meet them each morning, as they breakfast on the greenery outside my office building on the edge of the wadi. And again, on my way home for lunch, while they are perched up on their hind legs trying to trim yet another circle from the bottom of the trees. But as summer wore on this year, their search for food has taken them further and further into our community.

And then, one day, it happened. I was standing out on the balcony, hanging up the laundry, when I saw them. There must have been about thirty of them, munching their way through two neighboring houses. One stood, with his mighty antlers, on the other side of the walkway, staring up at me. The ibex are great starers. They don’t even blink.

I shook my head and pointed back towards the wadi. “Don’t even think of it,” I warned.

I felt a little guilty saying these words. Here were these poor hungry ibex, who had been here far before this human community. Actually, not the exact same ibex, but you get my point. And all they wanted was to eat to survive.

Finishing with the laundry, I went in to check my mail. Soon I heard this weird crunching noise. Going back onto the balcony, I saw that about ten ibex had encroached onto our territory. A few were trying to create a diversion by seemingly munching on the grass, while others made their way to the much more promising garden at the back.

“No you don’t,” I instinctively called out, the thousands of years of genetically developed territorial imperative pulsing through my veins. I rushed down the stairs and shooed them away. They cantered back to the other houses and regrouped there.

They waited until I had gone into the house before making their way over again. Once again I shooed them away. But when it happened the third time - this time all thirty had made the move - I decided to give up. “Forces of nature,” I thought to myself. Who was I to deny them their means of survival. What was the garden, actually, other than another futile attempt to bottle up nature and make it our own trophy?

“Don’t you prefer it that way?” my wife would ask, pointing to the existence of the garden as we sat outside, reading.

“Yes,” I’d answer.

“Then stop complaining.”

And then, just as I had accepted their right to nibble our offerings, the whole herd of ibex suddenly stampeded their way past me back to the wadi. This was the first I had ever seen a stampede of ibex. They must have stumbled upon a neighbour’s dog. The ibex are a protected animal, but it appeared that they had overstepped their area of protection.

“So, that’s that,” I thought to myself. “In the end, all’s well that ends well.”

But now, a few days later, the flowers were gone.

“I’ll go down and take a look,” I said to my wife.

Despite the many green delicacies on offer, it appeared that they had only eaten the petals off of the flowers. Each and every petal, with only the stems remaining. I wondered whether the petals had added flavour, or whether the ibex were as frivolous for beauty as we were.

In the days that followed, I kept an eye on their progress. At the end of each day the stems on the plants were munched down even more. No matter their penchant for petals, the ibex didn’t seem to have much patience to wait for them to grow back. Life is just too short.

You might think that all this has significantly changed my relationship with the ibex. Well, either they have a short memory or they have forgiven me for my moment of betrayal in trying to shoo them away. For in the desert, a host honours his guests, no matter how they find their way to his abode. Live and let live. For the ibex, each new day is one of discovery, and for me, it is another opportunity to walk among them.

Kibbutz by the Sea

Last week, standing on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean, I watched as the sun began its slow descent into the sea. The air was quiet, the colours of the kibbutz slowly changing into an evening hue. Fourteen years. Fourteen years mixed in the salty air, the sound of seagulls, the faint sound of a tractor in the distance. Fourteen years, as I looked over to the row of white houses built into the steep hill running down to the beach below, our house second to the right.

I have visited many beautiful places in my life, and have also been fortunate to live in two of them. One of them is where I am living now - Midreshet Ben Gurion, perched high above Wadi Zin (Zin Valley) in the Negev Desert, reaching towards the red mountains of Jordan.  And the other is Kibbutz Palmachim, resting on the Mediterranean Sea, squeezed in between Tel Aviv and Ashdod, with Rishon Le Zion sneaking in from the rear.

“How could you have left a house on the sea?” people ask me. Yet no one asks anymore, “How could you have left the kibbutz?”

I never expected to leave the kibbutz, but then, I never expected to be there in the first place. And if it hadn’t been for my reading of “Walden Two”, I probably never would have.

For a long time, I identified with Thoreau’s “Walden”: isolating myself from society, both mentally and emotionally,  in order to obtain a more objective understanding of it; my way of achieving self-reliance. But Skinner’s “Walden Two” suggested an alternative: a utopia of communal interaction where self-reliance is attained at the community level. In such a community, one must become  a participant, as well as an observer.

Like most things, this would have never gone beyond philosophical masturbation had it not been for a friend of my sister who told me about the ulpan program on the kibbutz.  Not only was there suddenly a place offering itself as a testing ground for such theory, but it was a place I could easily go to for six months.

I don’t know what I expected to happen once I was on the kibbutz. I certainly never expected to spend the next fourteen years of my life there. But I felt that I had found my place. Milking cows, learning to drive a tractor, moving irrigation lines, going to university, starting a teaching career, teaching myself computers in order to computerize the kibbutz school, marriage, three children, and filling most of the key administrative positions on the kibbutz - fourteen years may not be a lot for some, but it was a key period of my life.

It wasn’t an easy decision to leave the kibbutz. My wife, who was born and raised on the kibbutz, had already wanted to leave for a number of years in order to try something new. But it wasn’t until I filled the delicate position as the head of the members’ committee that I was faced with such discrepancies between what the kibbutz was and what it professed to be, that I decided it was time to leave also.

It was while being on the kibbutz that I discovered that I could be both a social hermit and an active participant in the running of the community. So, it was only natural, upon discovering the Internet in the early nineties, that I use this tool to create virtual communities through which the members would provide mutual assistance, while I remained in the background, helping to run things quietly. In my English Teachers Network, which contains over 1,700 members, I have personally met only a few members face to face, although I answer scores of messages every day. I am sure that there are those who believe that I am simply a virtual creation who is online 24/7. And you know what?  I am quite content with that assumption.

Standing on the cliff, looking out over the sea, the last half of the sun slowly sinks into the sea. I do not feel sad that we left. Some of the memories I relive, some are totally forgotten. But there are things that are not lost... a Canadian, a kibbutznik... things that I still take with me.

Where Ketchup will travel

This morning I found myself putting ketchup on my omelette. Something apparently to be frowned upon, here in the Negev desert, or anywhere else in Israel, for that matter. The last time people looked at me like that was when I put my salt on my watermelon. "Enhances the taste!" I said, to their shocked and disapproving stares. It doesn't take much to reaffirm that you haven't yet quite landed, despite spending the last 35 years of your life in this adopted country (who actually was doing the adoption?)

At times like this I always blame my Canadian side, or use it as an excuse, at least. Unlike our American cousins to the south (or across the seas, in my case), our under belly hasn't been exposed in countless sitcoms detailing all of the trivial and gruesome details of American life. (I do ask all South and Central American residents to excuse me for borrowing a part of your identity to identify the United States of America population, but it is just easier this way - call me lazy.) A few Canadian sitcoms do make it all the way here, and some are well received on Israeli soil, but at the most they are considered "quaint". Actually, Canadians on the whole are considered "quaint" here. So I can basically blame almost anything on my Canadian heritage and get away with it.

Perhaps the biggest advantage, or disadvantage (depends on the day of the week, snow storms and whether the Leafs will make the playoffs) of being a mishmash of Israeli experience and Canadian roots, is that nobody will take responsibility for you. "You're not really Israeli, are you?" "How can you still call yourself Canadian?" Actually, this sits quite well with me, unless I am taking it standing up. Being naturally a social misfit (apparently this goes back to my young elementary school days, possibly even kindergarten, but there were no podcasts back then to document any of this) I will use anything offered to explain the unexplainable.

And don't even get me going as to whether a Canadian pronounces it ketchup or catsup. The last time I was in Canada there was a discussion about this (I'd use argument, but Canadians are not often wont to argue, unlike Israelis, who just wait for an excuse to argue). Even Canadians couldn't agree on one pronunciation. It possibly is connected to different generations. Do I still get a generation being away this long?

And corn on the cob. When I first saw corn on the cob in Israel, it wasn't even fit for Mavis the cow. They claim it has gotten better over the years, but Israelis still don't realize that you should only eat corn on the cob when it is hand-picked the same day on a farm and sold at a roadside booth, somewhere like Finch and McCowan. Although the last time I was at Finch and McCowan all I saw was building development. Is nothing sacred?

So, for all of you Canadians still out there in the mother country, and you Israelis who are still wondering how all of these immigrants made it in here, I offer you a slightly different look at identity mislaid, sometimes lost, and occasionally gained - here, and in further entries to come. How about it, eh?