Late Night Musings

What should be a polished essay, but isn't.

I just spent four hours trying to write this. And then I threw it away. Usually essays come spilling out of me. I don’t even have to think about it. I know what I want to write about and then I sit down and it all comes spilling out of my fingers. But this time, I was trying to be all lofty and inspiring. I was trying too hard. I was all over the place. I even used the present tense. (“He rolls back his chair…”)

I’ll tell you why the piece ended up not working: because I’m not thinking 100% clearly given how terrified I am. Earlier this morning, my husband told me, “Looks like Hamas has been sneaking operatives into the U.S. through the Mexican borders pretending to be parents of the kids they’re with.” All day, I panicked. In the afternoon, I asked him, “Hey, what source was that from? Where did you read that?” He showed me an Instagram post and I was like, “It says they might!! They may! Not that they already have!” I breathed a sigh of relief.

But it’s such a false sense of security.

All day, I try to wrap my head around the fact that we’re living right now on the line delineating before and after. For the first 47 years of my life, aside from 9/11, I wasn’t directly affected by terrorism. (Aside from 9/11. Funny. Aside from the terrorist attack that killed my college roommate that happened in my hometown... But anyway.) I felt safe. I felt protected. Not against the random accidents of fate or diseases or anything, but I just felt like I lived in a country that knew how to protect me.

I don’t feel like that right now. I feel that as a Jewish American, I don’t have enough advocates — and that there are many groups that would be annoyed reading that because they don’t even view Jewish people as having legitimate issues. Or because they just hate Jewish people. I feel like no one really knows what they’re doing, that politicians aren’t heroically leading us but are just trying to win the next election.

Who is out there selflessly helping us!? No one?

Who will put their neck on the line for our citizens? Our hostages? Who is actually protecting us? And worse, is the protection in Israel enough?! I just saw a video with Noa Tishby, who was on my podcast and who I did an event with two years ago — she saw all of this coming — and the woman from “Blossom,” Mayim Biyalik. They showed the 30 or 40 little boys and girls taken from their beds and currently held as hostages. How do I go to sleep after watching that? How do I help get back hostages?!

I was going to try to write something funny about weight loss and be clever. I can’t. I’m exhausted. I’m not feeling funny and light right now. I am holding my breath and can feel everyone else holding theirs. I’m literally looking around Manhattan imagining it like Paris during World War II. How it used to be such a commanding city. Before it was destroyed.

There seems to be nowhere safe. I don’t feel safe in New York City but if people in Maine out for a casual night of bowling aren’t safe, then is anywhere? I mean, I realize there are other places in between, but still.

I’m having trouble focusing in the afternoons and nights. Usually I could focus round-the-clock.

But now I am falling asleep. So I’ll set this to send in the morning. I’m sorry this isn’t as polished as usual. I did have a long article and even recorded the 7 minute audio accomopaniment and then, brushing my teeth, I was like: “I can’t send this.”

I pray for the goodness in the world and that we are all spared.