Ig: Puffie_the_chow

I want you all to see this to understand even a sliver of why I'm not using this evil, godforsaken website, not that it's limited to tumblr because it is now the incessant, constant reality everywhere. I'm an "all of the above" statistic on this. you cannot possibly comprehend the despair and the depths of what this is like unless you are entrenched in it and seeing people futilely trying to combat it every day. too many people unaffected can't even recognize what they are seeing, or don't care, or are participating in it. my dash is COVERED in it daily, from mutuals. I got tired of blocking people and prayed maybe some of what I said would get through instead, but it didn't. people literally participating in this were liking my posts? it's almost laughable if it weren't so deeply wounding and concerning. this has been the daily reality for Jewish people trying to exist online (or anywhere) since that horrible day. there is no respite from it. we are battered and broken and angry and devastated. there is no space for our grief except from each other. there is no recognition of our collective humanity. I said this already over there, but I'll say it again - this killed something in my soul. every single person who has perpetuated this or was utterly silent about it (and continues to be. do you think we don't hear the silence too?) has destroyed something irreparably. idealism, trust, hope, safety. it is inescapable, it is violent, it is relentless. everyone else will eventually move on and we'll be trapped in the aftermath of knowing how prevalent this hatred is. that people we considered friends would stab us in the back and supposed allies would cheer harm done to us for the crime of being Jewish. because that's what this is about. none of this rhetoric is about anything but that anymore, not when conspiracy theories are being woven, lies are being perpetuated, victims and atrocities are being denied, and any Jew, no matter their beliefs or political spectrum, is being attacked for existing. we are not the same. we will never be the same. I will never forget or forgive the response from this, from "friends," from strangers, or from the whole world.

hi followers <3 curious after the reblogged discussions yesterday:

if you'd like to reblog this to elaborate what happened or in which fandom(s), you are more than welcome to.

🥺❤️

Elvis: That's the Way It Is [1970]

Louise Glück, from "Persephone the Wanderer", Averno

lovely 1916 halloween illustration

#i keep thinking about the essay i read by ilan benjamin. daniel pearl's cousin #who has lived so much more life and seen so much more and experienced so much more than i have (but who hasn't?) #(my isolation and frozen state at a much younger age is assuredly part of what has added to this shock and naivete for me) #anyway he listed the allyship he's worked for and believed in and the heartbreak he has willingly forgiven #and the humanity and rights for which he stands. and then he said #“when you killed my idealism i had no forgiveness left” #it's silly but it's lived like a splinter in my head and keeps (bizarrely) making me think of that scene from moulin rouge #when he says: thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love. #the thing that makes that tragic isn't his misplaced anger at her but rather the shattering of his idealism. he is in many ways an innocent #an artist who believes in truth and beauty and freedom and above all things love. who suddenly understands that's not how the world works#love can't save you. you can work so hard and try and be so compassionate and forgiving #eventually you have to see how the world is built and your idealism is not real and is not enough #that's what the past weeks taught me. because of the jubilation and justification and hatred and reveling in the pain everywhere #and disguising that as righteous. and pretending it's helping people who deserve help (it isn't. it won't) #and knifing people who have done absolutely nothing in the heart simply for being who and what they are#spreading screeds from another era as if we've been transported through time. and not caring what it does to friends or anyone suffering#and not caring that it's making things more dangerous and volatile because you don't really love the side you claim to support#as much as you hate the other. that's unforgivable. thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love#i don't know what to do. there's nothing i can do

the referenced essay:

https://www.thefp.com/

Once, I Was a Peace Advocate. Now, I Have No Idealism Left.

After terrorists killed my cousin Daniel Pearl, my family called for peace. But after the worldwide celebration of our people’s slaughter, m

via

“Makes no difference where I go or what I do.

You know that I'll always be loving you.”

a sleepy, tired boy 🥱💤 😴

Marilyn Monroe

what’s really bizarre, being from a mixed religious family background, is i recognize that i have the privilege of “passing,” for lack of a better word, of hiding and easily assimilating and blending. it’s not even that it’s a mask, because it’s something true. i grew up that way, it’s like code switching. sometimes it feels like impostor syndrome, but usually it's just all the facets of my person.

the man who drove us home today started talking about church. i could easily have engaged with that because, of course, we used to go to church with my grandparents on one side, and to the synagogue on the other. i’m versed in all the holidays, since throughout my childhood, we celebrated both. but as he was talking, perfectly nicely, this pit formed in my stomach - what if i voiced my identity? would that change the tenor of the conversation? (it would have, unavoidably, one way or the other.) would that put me, us, at risk? am i forced now to pretend to not be who i am? so i said nothing, and let my mom talk about my grandpa, and his devoted love of (and masters in) theology, and silently wondered if the man behind the wheel, talking about his faith, which i respect, would want to harm me if he knew who i was. this is not something i used to actively worry about, which perhaps was naïveté despite past experiences, blissful belief that it wasn’t “that bad.” it was safe enough. and now it’s a dark presence in my mind, a rustling anxiety. former “friends” on my dash would celebrate my murder if i had been born in the wrong (according to them) place, if they could get away with dehumanizing me with impunity as i have witnessed them doing to others undeserving of that treatment, with buzzwords and epithets. or maybe just for existing. and this isn’t paranoia or overreaction because i saw it with my own eyes. i saw it happen over and over, with people i used to regularly communicate with in frivolous little fandom conversations, which seem pointless to anything now. it is like living in a different world than the one that existed three weeks ago, one where the normal trajectory was abruptly thrown off course. and there’s nothing to be done about it, to fix it, to mitigate any of the hatred or any of the death, to offer succor to anyone affected or hurt or lost in all of this. there’s just the sorrow and the nagging buzz of fear. and it’s unknowable when that will abate. and how many more people will be harmed in the meantime. and if anyone will ever feel entirely safe amongst strangers again.

i always identified myself as a spiritual, but not religious person. both sides of my family were deeply faithful and i experienced and held reverence for that, cherished a lot of it, especially in ritual and holidays, but emerged on a less devout level, and that’s fine. ethnically i am jewish and always have said so. halves hardly matter, that is my heritage, it’s in my bones, it’s in the links of the chain to the past. i used to always observe shabbat (shabbos, how we say it) and lapsed, i lapsed in a lot of things when i became chronically ill and wasn’t directly involved with any sort of community anymore. it was just me being me, that was okay too. we put up our inter-holiday winter decorations, and it’s all traditions of memory and family and love, even as for many years those celebrations have only been my mom and me. it’s all there, inextricable from who i am.

i never learned hebrew properly but picked up all the prayers (which sadly i remember less now). i had an aliyah rather than a bat mitzvah (which we couldn’t afford anyway). i had to sing in front of the congregation and still remember the melody, my dad’s voice on tape teaching it to me. i still remember my grandma visiting and giving me the gold bracelet i loved directly off of her own arm for me to wear and to keep. i still remember the elderly man who came up to me after the service in tears and told me my voice was given from g-d and that he was so moved because i sang in the “soft” hebrew, words ending in “s” instead of “t,” and that was what his mother had always used from the old country, and he hadn’t heard it in so long (we always said the prayers this way, honestly i am not sure why, i guess it just carried over as ashkenazim, the way yiddish phrases did. it holds true with my hebrew name too, that version of sarah. my hebrew name, which is so familiar to me and part of me that i use it as email addresses and screen names and urls, that i would always tell people what it means because, growing up, i thought it was the greatest ever. princess leia as recognized in the book of life. that name probably being why i am attached to “s” urls here). i talked about this once, a long time ago (two blogs ago), but i've been told i look jewish, and told i don't look jewish, both in tones of derision and tones meant as compliment, you never quite know how that's going to be expressed. i treasured and held close to and was formatively influenced by and grew through countless pieces of jewish american art, jewish pop culture, characters, creators. the reverence in my heart for sondheim (or, like, name ANY 20th century broadway composer. i wish this was still online in full because it was beautiful), for the source of my url, for [insert name of artist here] is not idle, it is soul deep. i am not as engaged with the community or the religion as countless others, not nearly as directly tied or impacted, but the philosophy was always this - if they’d kill you for it, then you have the right to rejoice in and claim it too.

still. there’s a mezuzah on my bedroom door and a hamsa on my wall. they have flowers and birds and lavender and pink.

still. i say the shema in hebrew every day. just in case there’s a reason for it to be heard. just in case there’s a light there. it is the most sacred prayer, so it felt like something to keep close. (do you know how it starts? its opening line?)

i don’t think i consciously realized how deep that spiritual tie went until it was imbued with this much grief. it ceases to matter that maybe by percentages it’s only half of what i am. tell me where it’s written what it is i’m meant to be. perhaps i am no more than a blade of grass, but i am.