Seattle 78, or Tomatillos

Ilana brings in the haul of tomatillos from the garden - two mixing bowls, filled over the top with tiny green balls in papery skins. She leaves them on the table with an invisible note. I imagine the note says something like this, "I grew these things from six seeds sprouting on the windowsill at our old house, and now they've taken over the garden and y'all had better do something with them."

I knock on her door. "Has someone claimed the tomatillos yet?"
She answers, "Sergey was planning to make salsa tonight."

I head out to the store, buy bunches of cilantro, a bag of limes. Garlic, we have. Sergey has a jar of habanero peppers. That's pretty much all you need.

Sergey and I start by ourselves in the kitchen, peeling, washing, chopping. We listen to music from all over the world, talk about life, kibbutz politics. Faced with far more tomatillos than I can imagine, I throw a panful in the oven to roast. I make the first batch - a rich, verdant green, thick with cilantro, and spicy.

Ilana comes in. She and Sergey light each other up - they get silly, comical, talking in thick Slavic accents and making jokes. I love hanging around them. The next batch goes in, similar to the first, but spicier. Ilana takes the roasted batch out of the oven, spears one juicy, pale green fruit with a fork and chews thoughtfully. They taste almost like apples, very sour, soft apples.

Deb comes home to find us all in the kitchen, and is delighted. She breaks out a bottle of cider, and we toast twice, three times, our togetherness, our jars of salsa lining up on the counter. She's got chips, too, so we pour some salsa in a bowl and dig in. For the next hour, we sing along with the blender, pure nonsense, laugh nonstop, and eat. At the end of the night, we have six jars - about seven pints, all around - lined up on the counter, in different shades of green. Some cooked, some raw, some with cilantro, some without. We've laughed enough to fill barrels.

(This isn't the best piece I've ever written here, but I just wanted to get this night down - when things are going to change dramatically in just two months, and then again, in another six - I want to have this in my back pocket.)

Seattle 77, or Parents' Weekend

Parents' Weekend

Before your arrival,
I stood on fault-legged kitchen chairs
and wobble-wiped the cobwebs
from the highest ceiling corners.

As I kneaded the dough,
I imagined crescent marks
in the crust:
a smile,
a bite.

I sat you at my simple table,
offered you tea, rosemary bread,
a tour of my life.

Like parents
faced with their child's offering,
you beamed at everything I showed you;
the California architecture,
the pebbled beaches
and small bursts of sun,
the stream of loudmouthed warmth
that came steady through
the open Shabbat doors.

Those smiles
were copies
of my earliest memories,
when I had nothing more to show you
than a tuft of hair,
a fist balled around your thumb.

Seattle 76, or Glee

Seattle 75, or Just an Ordinary Life

8am. The mist on 23rd Avenue is so thick I can only see the trees one at a time. Though it's not raining, I'm in my rubber boots. I carry a wicker basket under my left arm, which holds potatoes, eggs, my homemade salsa verde, my sharpest knife.

I'm heading up to make breakfast for Tamar and me. We've been trying to make study dates for weeks, but our schedules are wildly incompatible. This is the first one we've been able to come up with. The deal: I make breakfast, while she studies/teaches me whatever she's learning in nursing school. As I dice potatoes for hash browns, she tells me about the aftercare of tonsillectomies, and how strep throat can cause heart problems, if undiagnosed.

Joel comes in, sniffing hungrily. There's enough for three; we sit down together with bowls of eggs and potatoes. Tamar holds her bible-sized textbook in her lap and continues between bites. Joel opens his laptop and intersperses our conversation with news about the local elections, and what various kibbutzniks think of the latest programming idea. I chime in with medical anecdotes from my childhood, and plans for the week.

The kitchen smells like garlic and potatoes and olive oil. The big window is steamed up, and by the time Shaul thumps into the kitchen for yogurt, it feels like we've been sitting there a long time.

Seattle 74, or Fall Hits

The rains have come, as promised. They haven't stopped for two days. I wake and sleep to the sound of a torrential, endless drizzle. It's almost become background noise - almost. I am used to winter - snow, and ice and cold. I like the feeling of toughing it out, of feeling as though I've really *earned* spring, when it arrives. I like wrapping myself in layers, and fires and cider and cocoa. This seems too gentle, and yet too persistent.

I don't have a rain coat. The sixth-grader I tutor twice a week loaned me an umbrella to walk home with. I wear two wool sweaters. I carry sneakers to work, and walk in my rain boots. This makes me feel like a real Seattlelite. Only tourists wear raincoats, the natives say. Get used to being wet. It makes you clean. It makes you grateful.

Sergey and I drive to the farmer's market. The haul: kale, chard, cilantro, garlic, lemons, fresh eggs, a bag of carrots. I am dreaming of greens. The rain makes everything shine, look that much more tempting inside the fluttering tarp walls of the market. In my wool, I smell like a sheep. I love that smell. I buy a small bottle of spiced apple cider and drink it as I walk - it's like bottled apple pie, nutmeg, cinnamon, the apple flavor coming through like a trumpet.

Shabbat at house Aleph: lots of soup, salads, a collection of boots and dripping outerwear by the front door. Asya, the Yiddish culture professor with a sharp sense of humor, sings everything pronounced in Ashkenazi, and I can see the newcomers peeking down the table: who's this young woman singing like my grandfather? Joel reminds us to thank G-d and the unions for the weekend. He does that every week, before Kiddush. We go around the table and thank each other for being good housemates, for being each other's support. Shaul got a high score on his LSAT exam. There mazel tovs and kol hakavods across the table. It's not been the easiest few weeks for the kibbutz. There's hard, hard work coming. We take triumph where we can get it.

I've invited a friend over for a rich dinner of greens and potatoes, and I'm making salsa verde in the meantime. The tomatillos in the back yard are finally ripe. I've been waiting for them for a long time. In the Big Room, pop/dance music blasts as Steven and Zara get ready for the Moishe House Prom. They say they'll be happy if 10 people show up. People tend to stay in after such a big change in the weather.

Seattle 73, or Iwps Top 10

In no particular order, a top ten list of my favorite bits and snatches from the Individual World Poetry Slam last week...

10) Location - Berkeley works really well for slam in general (support for the arts, leftist-leaning audiences, borders Oakland, which has strong urban arts culture), and the organizational team worked all the advantages to their fullest. The venues were not only all on one street, they were less than thirty feet apart from one another - fantastic! The Finals night venue was on UC Berkeley campus, which was another excellent use of location - the university auditorium brought in university students, who might not have otherwise known what was going on.

9) The Organizing Team - the Berkeley folks were not only warm, welcoming and well-organized, but were absolutely committed to hospitality. I had interactions with organizers that ranged from "would you like some coffee? I'm making a Starbucks run," to "what do you think we could be doing better right now? Is there anything you need?" Even the head organizer, Charles Ekabhumi Ellik, took a few minutes to say hi and ask me how I was. I never had to ask for anything - they even had free food for us!

8) Food - yeah, it's important to feed the poets, and it happens so rarely that when someone announces free pizza, or plunks a giant box of delicious baked goods in front of a crowd of poets, we sometimes forget our manners. Thank you for feeding us, Berkeley!

7) Karen Finneyfrock's piece "What Lot's Wife Would Have Said if She Wasn't a Pillar of Salt"

6) Jen Rinaldi's piece about her student with whom she developed a haphazard, agonizing, tight rapport, only to lose him to the justice system.

5) The Jewish open mic, as usual. It's really a mini family reunion within a family reunion.

4) The "Poetry and Activism" panel. Well done.

3) Karaoke night - after these long days of workshops and bouting against one another, the late-night events were an oasis of drink and revelry. Highlights of karoke included Mike McGee's "I've Got Friends in Low Places" (got everyone singing), Sean Conlon's version of Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" (got everyone dancing), and a whole bunch of folks who got up and sang Beyonce's "Single Ladies"

2) My roomate, Arrian Wissel, of Phoenix, AZ, who proved to be everything one wishes in a hotel roomate - reasonably neat, good at sizing up potential outfits for bouts, sweet as pie, game for 4am sushi adventures, and not big on snoring. I'd room again with her any time.

1) During the first half of finals, I sat with my friend Colin, while we watched our friends (and his girlfriend) battle it out for the championship. We took turns cluching one another during poems with special significance for us. It was kind of adorable.

Berkeley 1, or Hi from IWPS!

There will be much more to say, much later. For now, just this:


That's Tucson's Mickey Randleman behind me. Cutie pie.

Okay, and this:



Both pictures courtesy of poet Mike McGee. The second one was at the post-Finals dance party. He caught me just as I turned around, hence the funny smile. But the hair looks pretty good.

Here's another one Mike took, at one of the bouts:




More about iwps later.