Saturday, September 26, 2009
Tonight I was in and out of sleep. I’m in the middle of a pretty profound section of the book Growing up Ethnic in America. I am not sure now which story I was listening to, but it was by a Jewish author. It was in the section about Crossings, trying to fit in. How do you define yourself when everything you are is defined by what you are not? I do not celebrate Christmas or Easter… I can’t even approximate the clever language. There was an earlier one too that left me quite impressed. It was also by a Jewish author, about a family who had left Germany during the war. The father died in Germany while the mother and child lived in England and then – when the mother remarried – they moved to the United States. The story is about Elsa, the daughter, who grows up in the U.S. It focuses on dealing with the humming of what turns out to be a 40,000 strong beehive that has formed in the wall of their house. In a rather – What’s the word? Comical? Ironic? – way, the writer juxtaposes personal memories, unsettling feelings about a past that shapes one’s life from a distance, world events, perspective…
Tonight I was in and out of sleep. I’m in the middle of a pretty profound section of the book Growing up Ethnic in America. I am not sure now which story I was listening to, but it was by a Jewish author. It was in the section about Crossings, trying to fit in. How do you define yourself when everything you are is defined by what you are not? I do not celebrate Christmas or Easter… I can’t even approximate the clever language. There was an earlier one too that left me quite impressed. It was also by a Jewish author, about a family who had left Germany during the war. The father died in Germany while the mother and child lived in England and then – when the mother remarried – they moved to the United States. The story is about Elsa, the daughter, who grows up in the U.S. It focuses on dealing with the humming of what turns out to be a 40,000 strong beehive that has formed in the wall of their house. In a rather – What’s the word? Comical? Ironic? – way, the writer juxtaposes personal memories, unsettling feelings about a past that shapes one’s life from a distance, world events, perspective…
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