New Beginnings

It's been almost a year and a half since I wrote my last blog post. Well, that's not entirely true. I've written a couple of posts since then. I just haven't been ready to share them.

Still, it's been a while, and now I find myself wondering how to pick it back up. There have been plenty of things I wanted to write about. But all of those things were things that I didn't want to post online. Generally, I'm not the kind of person who posts sad things, or angry things, or things that are too real. I post things that will make me - and in theory, others - smile or laugh.

So, time to restart. A new beginning.* Which, I think, I will make the subject of this post.

Picture an old-fashioned wooden caravan. It's painted your favorite colors. Fill it with the things you love. Let them peek through barred windows and press against the door. Maybe go crazy and add some gold trim. Hey, we all have to live a little on the wild side sometimes.

Now push it over a hill. It starts slow, just tipped off balance, over the edge. As it descends, it picks up speed until it's flying, flying down with no sign of stopping.

You want to bring it back to the top, but before you can drag it back up the hill, you have to stop it. Stop it and turn it around. You won't have immediate success. The cart will resist you; by now it's gathered a ton of momentum. It may hurt a little. But you have to start somewhere and work at it. That's what a new beginning does for you. Stops the current trajectory. Gives you a chance to change things, to work towards something better.

A couple of weeks ago, I turned twenty-four. A lot of people I know hate birthdays. They find them depressing, or irrelevant. They prefer to ignore them all-together. I am not one of those people. For me, birthdays are the best, and I want to explain why.

For one thing, it's an entire day in which I get to celebrate me. That sounds self-centered, but let me frame it another way. We spend a lot of time celebrating things outside of ourselves: religious holidays, friends' successes, the enactment of a progressive new law. How many times a year do we really just stop and celebrate... ourselves?

Celebrating yourself is so, so important. It's easy to get bogged down in the negatives. Hell, that's what I've done more frequently than I would like. (I'm looking at you, fourteen-month blog silence.) And sometimes, that's okay. It's okay to feel a bit shit. We all have our own pain and are entitled to feel it, an idea that merits an entirely separate post, maybe even two.

Recognizing the positives can help drag you out of the trenches. Birthdays are a nice, annual reminder to do so. Happy birthday. We're so glad you exist. You are actually pretty great.

The other reason I love birthdays is the opportunity they present to set new goals for myself. New year. New goals. New beginning. There's something very therapeutic in setting goals. Goals give you purpose. They are, if you think about it, little pockets of hope. Spots of light that color your future. If you have a goal, you have something that you want to achieve. Something that will make you happier. A better future to look forward to.

That's why beginnings are so important. Though they can be overwhelming, they're also inspiring.

So, here's to feeling inspired. To pushing the caravan through the weeds, through the mud, up the hill, even if it gets a little messy at times. Come at me, 24. I've got big plans for you.

*Is "new beginning" a redundant phrase?

Being the Grandchild of Holocaust Survivors

Growing up, I was never particularly close with my paternal grandparents. Though our sparse interactions included the occasional trip to New York, where they lived, the majority consisted of checks sent to my brother and me on Hanukkah and birthdays and a phone call every few months. They had a history of being closed off, first with my father and then with his family. It wasn't until four or so years ago that I really began to grow closer to them. For much of that time, I was the only one that spoke with them. 

My grandfather died in 2013, just a few days after the start of the new year. My grandmother died just over three months ago, and with her went my last living grandparent.

A large part of my grandparents' lives were a mystery to me growing up, and my knowledge of them today is still patchwork at best. But there were always a few constants. My grandfather's German accent. My grandmother's Hungarian one. Their reserved natures. The knowledge that they had survived the Holocaust.

We learn about the Holocaust in school, in lectures and in books. But for me, it has always felt personal. It is personal. My grandparents were swept into the madness and came out the other end with nothing except the clothes on their backs and their lives. Even my grandmother's name was taken from her at Ellis Island, when Muntzi became Maria. 

What I know about my grandfather's experiences during the war comes from little bits of information that I have collected over the years and pieced together into a loose and potentially faulty account. His father left when he was a child, and his mother later remarried. But his birth father had been Jewish, as my grandfather was informed when he was called into the office one day at school. So he was taken to a work camp. While there, I think he might have had to act as a translator for non-German speakers, though I don't remember when I was told that.

My grandmother's experiences, I know a little more about. That is, I know the story that she told my father.

My grandmother was among the group of Hungarian Jews deported to Auschwitz during the last year/year and a half of World War II, along with her sister. 

The Jewish members of Hungary were herded into ghettos. Then they were taken in trains to the concentration camps. My grandmother and her sister spent twenty-four to forty-eight hours in one of these cattle cars. When they got off the train, they, along with everyone else, were marched in a line to a German officer who was separating the ones deemed strong enough to work and thus would be permitted to live, from the ones who would die. 

My grandmother was sorted into the "live" side, but her younger sister was put into the "die" side. Somehow, miraculously, her sister was able to make it over to the live side, and they stayed together. They labored together in a work camp in Birkenau, a compound adjoining Auschwitz, making some sort of war material. 

When the Germans began retreating from the British and American forces, they rounded up everyone in the concentration camps and marched them to Germany. But my grandmother escaped. She said that she and her sister were among a group of women who hid one day or one night in a barn in Germany. The farmer who owned the barn found them the next morning, but he didn’t betray them. They were discovered by the liberating armies. She was around nineteen years old.

My father has a hard time believing this story in its entirety. I choose to believe her. Even if parts of it didn't belong to her, they surely belonged to someone. 

In recent years I often wanted to ask my grandparents more. I would visit Holocaust museums and watch videos of survivors describing their experiences and think about the fact that I am descended from two. That I would probably learn more from the people in the videos than I would from my own grandparents. But I was afraid of the consequences, afraid that my newfound connection with them would be broken by dragging up what they had clearly wanted to keep in the past. Understandably. So I let them keep their secrets and accepted it.

My grandparents had their faults. Our family had its issues. There was not always a happy relationship between us. But I'm quite proud to have had them as my grandparents. I am proud that I come from a history of strength in the face of unbearable cruelty, and determination in the face of uncertainty.

The last time I saw my grandmother, she was in a medical center waiting to receive her next treatment. She suffered a lot in her last years of life, not only from various illnesses, but from the treatments intended to make her feel better. She must have endured immense amounts of pain. Not exactly fair for someone who had already been dealt more than a lifetime's worth of pain.

But she was so happy to see me. She told me my hair looked good short; I had always kept it long in the past. She made sure I stole enough graham crackers from the waiting area to keep me stocked for a long time. She wore a silky pink blouse, a scarf, and a very soft, delicate white sweater, the picture of elegance. She smelled of vanilla.

So on this day, the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I remember my grandparents. I am finally writing the post I have been wanting to write for the past three months. And when my next birthday rolls around, I'll be thinking of my grandmother then too. We had the same birthday.

Book Recommendations: Graceling, I Am Not A Serial Killer, Alias Hook

Well, it's that time again. Three more book recommendations from yours truly! I tried to choose a diverse selection for this round.

Graceling, by Kristen Cashore

This book was published a few years ago, but I want to bring it back because it's fabulous. Graceling tells the story of Katsa, a very dangerous girl who has spent the latter half of her life under the employ of the king. In this realm, certain people are "graced" with particular talents; someone could be graced as an amazing cook, a particularly fast runner, a person with superhuman strength, and so on. Katsa is graced with killing. For years she does the king's dirty work for him, doling out punishments that are often disproportionate to the severity of the crimes committed. Her role makes her increasingly uncomfortable, however, and she finally decides to work against the king, in secret, instead of for him.

I love this book, and have for years. Katsa is a fantastic protagonist. She's fierce, but not without flaws. She's one of those strong female characters that readers of late so desperately (and rightly so!) crave. Crazily enough, she actually exists outside of her relationship with the love interest! Cashore's world-building is well done, and the concept of graces is a clever one. I think this is a great book not just for fantasy lovers, but for people looking to ease into the fantasy genre. This [YA] book is fantasy, but it doesn't hit you over the head with it. No dragons or wizards to be found here.

It might take a little bit to get into, but once it has you in its grip it won't let go until long after you've reached the last page. Fans of the Katniss Everdeen type will devour it.

I Am Not A Serial Killer, by Dan Wells

Horror-lovers, take note: this is a truly terrifying book. The protagonist is John Wayne Cleaver, a fifteen year old obsessed with serial killers. He is an expert in their histories and methods, and as such, when a serial killer comes to town and starts picking people off one by one, John considers it his personal responsibility to identify the criminal and stop him. The thing is, the killer's actions don't horrify John. They fascinate him. They delight him. John's secret? He's on the cusp of becoming a serial killer himself.

Honestly, this book scares the crap out of me. Through his narration, John becomes a very believable character, and for me, that is where the horror truly lies. The fact that there are actually people out there that think like John does. The one thing I'm not wild about is the slight supernatural element that the author brings in; I feel like John is a strong enough character to hold the book without this. Nevertheless, it's definitely worth the read. (And you'll fly through it.)

A frighteningly-insightful foray into the mind of a psychopath.

Alias Hook, by Lisa Jensen

I am a sucker for all things Peter Pan, so when I noticed Lisa Jensen’s Alias Hook sitting boldly on a bookshelf, outshining competitors with that beyond-gorgeous cover, I leapt at the chance to return to Neverland. The legendary Captain Hook is narrator here, and he tells us candidly of his origins and his greatest desire: to escape from Neverland, even if he must die to do so. Jensen does a brilliant job of bringing this world to life; in Hook, she gives us the rich history and complexity of the man behind the villain, and she beautifully restores Pan to the devilish, cruel persona that is too often lost in adaptations. Such a tale deserves a grand telling, and Jensen certainly rises to the challenge. Indeed, every sentence is constructed in such a thoughtful, pretty, even poetic way, that readers are reminded that writing is not just a device for churning out potboilers--it is an art.

This is without doubt one of my new favorite books. An absolute treat from start to finish.

Country Roads, Take Me Home

Thanksgiving morning. I wake in the bed I’ve had since childhood, though the house has changed. On the other side of the room, there’s a huge wooden wardrobe that my dad designed for me a decade ago, my old collection of Breyer horses lining the top. The random assortment of knick-knacks that once occupied the cabinets and shelves filling the top half of the furniture have been replaced over time by dozens and dozens of books. They’re over-crowded, and organized in that way that makes perfect sense to the organizer but not to anyone else. When I get up, I can look on my desk and find newspaper articles that my mom clipped for me in the months I’ve been away. I can open my closet and slip on the firetruck-red Converse sneakers that I wore all over Rome. 

~~~~

Home. It's a place that manages to be universal and completely individual all at once. Though it means different things to different people, it is generally a place of comfort and familiarity, one we regard with great fondness. A place, a group of people, even just a feeling. Full of memories, memories that are your family's and yours, yours alone.

My brother and I both made it home for the holiday this year. He’s in his first year of grad school, and I’m in my first year of my first job out of college, but for four and a half days, the whole family was together again. My parents of course were delighted, but so was I. I had been away for five months; I left in the beginning of July in search of a job and hadn't been back since. It was great to go home again, even for just a short while.

At some point during this visit, though, between the cooking and the reading and the playing with the cat and the talking and the gift-giving (we had an early Hanukkah, since the four of us were all together), it hit me: how often will this happen in the coming months? In the coming years? 

In college, breaks are scheduled every three to four months. I would usually go home during these, but now that I’ve graduated, it’s not so simple. I have far fewer days off, and flights are expensive. Home time is no longer built into the schedule.

There are lots of things that people will tell you about your first year out of college, but what I never really heard about was the new relationship that forms with “home.” When does home stop meaning the place where your parents live, and instead mean the place you now live on your own? When do you stop spending your money and days off on a trip to your house (your parents' house?) and put them instead towards a vacation someplace new?

As I boarded the plane bound back to New York, I wondered: is there a set point at which you’re supposed to stop going home?

~~~~

The captain tells the flight attendants to prepare for takeoff. I switch on my music and look past my brother, out the window and to a graying sky. One thought rises above the rest.

Be back soon.

In Defense of Children's and YA Books

A few days ago, The New Yorker published an article by Christopher Beha entitled "Henry James and the Great Y.A. Debate." In the article, Beha dismissed children's and young adult books as both unsuitable and unworthy reading for adults. Allow me to pull the following three quotes:

“The critic Ruth Graham wrote, for Slate, that adults should 'feel embarrassed about reading literature written for children.’” 

“The problem with [Donna Tart's] “The Goldfinch,” its detractors said, was that it was essentially a Y.A. novel. Vanity Fair quoted Wood as saying that 'the rapture with which this novel has been received is further proof of the infantilization of our literary culture: a world in which adults go around reading Harry Potter.'"

“Putting down 'Harry Potter' for Henry James is not one of adulthood’s obligations, like flossing and mortgage payments; it’s one of its rewards, like autonomy and sex. It seems to me not embarrassing or shameful but just self-defeating and a little sad to forego such pleasures in favor of reading a book that might just as easily be enjoyed by a child.”

This article intrigued me. Then it shocked me. Then it enraged me.

Children's and young adult books are vitally important. They reach young persons at an age when they are developing. When they're learning about the world. When their imaginations are brimming with what-ifs. When they're growing.

Now read that last paragraph again. Read it and really think. Developing, learning, imagining, growing. Are these not essential to adulthood as well?

In our twenty-first century society, we like to place this sharp distinction between childhood and adulthood. In fact, we break life down into a series of stages defined by age-brackets: infants, toddlers, children, pre-teens, teens, young adults, adults, seniors. As if there is a clear point at which a person leaves one stage and enters another.

In fact, the entire concept of "childhood" is a modern notion. The idea that children are innocent and need to be protected, that they need to be properly educated, socialized, and given plenty of play time, that they are distinctly different than adults and therefore incapable of work, didn't even exist until a couple hundred years ago.

Obviously, people change as they get older. They learn to think in new ways. They learn how to live independently. They grow bigger. But life isn't a series of building blocks with clearly-defined edges and no ability to move between one phase and another. It is a continuous, fluid journey, and this fluidity moves in both directions. Our past helps to shape who we are. People age, but that doesn't mean they cut away their younger selves. Child-me is a part of present-me. 

News flash: young people are brilliant. They see limits and imagine ways around them. They have crazy ideas. They dream. Some of them even succeed in extraordinary ways; look at Mark Zuckerberg, Tavi Gevinson, Dakota Fanning, Tyler Oakley. Declaring that it is "self-defeating and a little sad to forego such pleasures in favor of reading a book that might just as easily be enjoyed by a child" is an outrageous insult to the younger generation. It suggests that young people's opinions are to be ignored, that their thoughts are not worthwhile. 

Saying that it is the mark of adulthood in decline when adults go around reading Harry Potter is preposterous. People don't go into the oven as kids and emerge fully-cooked as adults. We are constantly growing, thinking, learning, exploring, and imagining, just as we were when we were younger. Dismissing young adult books in particular as juvenile is just plain ignorant. These books explore a vast range of subjects and life experiences. Harry Potter, to take Beha's example, takes on an impressive spectrum of themes, from growing up to growing old, from acceptance and love to prejudice, hatred, and genocide. Indeed, for some reason, people seem to think it convenient to forget that a good half of the cast of characters in this series are adults. 

Besides, if some children's or young adult books do nothing more than make a person, young or old, excited about reading, is that not enough? 

When we reach the point when adults can no longer connect with their younger selves, when they stop valuing the importance of learning and imagining and growing, when they dismiss a "children's" story as beneath them, that is the point at which I will fear for the state of adulthood.

Growing Apart

I had a little bit of a moment the other day. In the midst of this ALS ice bucket challenge frenzy, someone posted a video of herself completing the challenge. I used to be best friends with this girl, and all I could think after watching the video was...

That's what her voice sounds like?

I haven't spoken to her in so long, I couldn't even remember the sound of her voice. And though I wouldn't say it upset me - it's been a very long time since we last saw each other - it did give me pause. 

I'm fortunate enough to have remained close with most of my friends over time. My best friends from high school are still some of my best friends today. We can speak for the first time in six months and instantly fall back into our usual rhythm. I made friends during my semester abroad two years ago that I only get to see on rare occasions, but that makes those times all the more precious. 

But I'm not immune to growing apart. There are people that once upon a time I couldn't imagine not being in my life, and over time they've just... fallen away. With one person, it was gradual. With another, all at once. One I still feel close to for a period and distant from the next. With one I could see separation inching its way ever closer, looming in the distance like a storm threatening to break, before I decided to stop it. With some, I feel it happening right now.

Sometimes it's a mutual thing, some unspoken agreement that the relationship (and I mean this in the broadest sense possible) is not worth saving. But sometimes it isn't your choice, or you didn't see it coming, and it hurts like hell. I guess it makes sense - in a way, friends are a part of all of us. Losing one can feel like plucking a strand of hair from your head - it barely touches you - while losing another can feel like losing a finger, or a hand, or an arm. Unbearable.

So how do you deal with growing apart from somebody? Sometimes it's in your control, and you can decide for yourself if you want to let it happen, or fight it. I was in a situation recently when I could have just let it happen. It was already beginning. I could feel everything we'd built just slipping... slipping... away. But I decided to fight. I looked the relationship square in the eye, thought - worth saving, or no? - and decided... worth saving.

But the bitter, inescapable truth is, at some point, someone in your life will look the relationship square in the eye, think - worth saving, or no? - and decide... no.

I've spent a lot of time throughout the past year trying to help people through this. I've spent my fair share of time trying to deal with it myself. I don't think there's a set way to deal with it, but I have realized a few things. 

You can't deny that it sucks. It totally, completely, 100% sucks. To paraphrase a line from Stephen Chbosky's [in my opinion] masterful book The Perks of Being a Wallflower, you have the right to feel pain. It may not be as severe as someone else's, and you may think that that other person has a better reason to feel pain, but this is yours and that is enough.

But you have to realize that life is big. So very, very big. There is so much out there in the world. Losing someone can feel like the end, but it's not. It's a beginning. The beginning of a new chapter in your life. 

So feel the loss. Feel your pain. And then, in time, move on. Life has its ups and downs. Life can be good, and life can be bad. Life can be fun, depressing, exhilarating, upsetting, out of control, messy, fast, slow, wonderful, tragic. But it is yours. 

So go live it.

Why Fiction Can Matter As Much As Truth

Recently I've been thinking about why the labels "based on a true story" and "inspired by true events" seem to add so much weight to a story. True stories are compelling and can be quite inspiring, of course, but the question I'd like to think about is why they often feel more important to us than fictional ones. 

For example. A couple of weeks ago, my dad and I watched a movie called The Way Back. Directed by Peter Weir, The Way Back tells the story of a small group of Polish prisoners that escape a Soviet labor camp in Siberia and walk all the way from the camp, across the Gobi desert, through Tibet, and over the Himalayas to India. The film is good, but what makes it more remarkable is the fact that it claims to reflect true events. The main character is Sławomir Rawicz (though he is given a different name in the movie), subject of the ghostwritten book The Long Walk. Published in 1956, The Long Walk tells of how Rawicz and six other prisoners escaped from Siberia and walked to India. 

Almost immediately after the movie ended, my dad (who has read the book) announced that some people question whether the events Rawicz described actually happened. After a little digging on the internet, I learned that there has indeed been a large controversy surrounding The Long Walk since its publication half a century ago. Though it is a very celebrated book, a lot of people have attacked the story as a lie since parts have been found to be untrue. Many even believe that Rawicz stole the story from a man named Witold Glinski, who told an almost identical tale of escape.

So maybe parts of The Long Walk never really happened. Maybe none of it did. Regardless, the anger it inspired in people makes me wonder: why do we as a society always feel so compelled to poke holes in things, and why do we place true stories on such a pedestal? Instead of being passionate about the story of the Long Walk, people were passionate about disproving it. As a student of history, I understand the importance of telling a true story when you're claiming to. However, people seem to actually enjoy the process of naming someone a liar. Why did my dad feel compelled to so quickly discredit some of the things we'd seen? Why can't we take just as much from a story that is part-truth and part-fiction as a story that is fully true?

To me, the overall fixation on true stories seems to suggest that they are somehow better than fictional stories. That fictional stories don't matter as much. And this is something I have a problem with. 

John Green articulates my feelings excellently in the author's note with which he opens his book The Fault in Our Stars:

"This is not so much an author's note as an author's reminder of what was printed in small type a few pages ago: This book is a work of fiction. I made it up. Neither novels or their readers benefit from attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species. I appreciate your cooperation in this matter.”

Granted, Green is talking about novels, and there is obviously a difference between novels and works of nonfiction. Nevertheless, I think he touches on an important point. Fiction can matter. Fiction does matter. The characters in works of fiction might be made up, and the events they experience might not have happened, but that doesn't mean we can't take something from these characters and their stories. That we can't learn from them, or be inspired by them, or do nothing more than simply enjoy them. The imagination is an important part of the human brain. Indeed it is one of the capacities that most distinguishes us from other animals. So while it is of course important for a work that calls itself nonfiction to actually be nonfiction, I do think we shouldn't always feel a story has to be 100% true for us to find meaning in it or value it. I think we should open ourselves to treating fictional stories as important. For truth often empowers a story, but imagination always empowers us.

For a nice overview of the Long Walk controversy, I recommend this page: http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2011/01/03/the-long-walk-did-it-ever-happen-2/