Ex. 103: The Day After

This is an exercise from The 3 AM Epiphany that I found very interesting - basically the assignment was the following:

Imagine a moment just after some major historical event. Use ordinary people, not the Napoleons or Nancy Reagans. This will demand some research. Don't be afraid. It may be that these people have no idea what has just happened. 800 words

Clearly this is an interesting prompt for history nerds, and I'll probably use it again sometime to tackle a more contemporary topic. For now, I chose to write about the day after the death of Christ, because, though I don't particularly consider myself a Christian, it's undeniable that that day in history set a movement into motion that has changed the world several days over. At the same time though, I suspect most people at the time literally could not care less that yet another random dude with wild ideas had been executed by the Romans.

Please note that the exact date mentioned here is just a random suggested date I found on Wikipedia or something - I know that obviously the Roman (or Jewish) calendar would not have looked like this at the time, and I know that Christ may not even have died in 33 AD.

Saturday, April 4^th, 33 AD

“A drink of wine, centurion?”

Devorah smiled broadly as the soldier in full Roman uniform entered the tavern, even if she was well aware he was no centurion. Having grown up under Roman occupation, she was better acquainted with the different insignia and their significance than most of the raw recruits who drank the cheapest brew she served.

This one was, she guessed, in his early twenties – old enough to have seen a little combat, perhaps, but young enough to have enjoyed it. A Marcus, she thought. They were all called Marcus or Lucius, these foreigners. It made things easy.

Marcus looked at her a little surprised, then grinned.

“Sure, sweetheart. Fill my cup to the top.”

He was sweaty and red in the face – without the tanned, leathery skin some of them developed after a long stay. Fresh off the boat, probably.

Devorah smiled again. New Romans, lonely for familiar food, familiar faces and a familiar girl in their beds, were good custom.

The soldier hoisted himself onto a high stool and looked her up and down as she handed him a cup of watery, cheap wine.

“You’re the first Jewess in this whole damn place who’s been friendly to me. What’s wrong with you girls?”

As she gently pushed a small plate of salty olives – complimentary, and very much included in the bill – his way, Devorah leaned her crossed arms on the bar.

“Well, centurion, today’s Shabbat, so you won’t be seeing many girls out anyway. It’s forbidden for Jews to work on the seventh day. As for any other time, I couldn’t tell you, but some find the uniform off-putting…”

She grinned, popping an olive into her own mouth and enjoying its greasy taste on her tongue.

“Then what sorta Jewess are you?”

It was not a bad question at that, Devorah thought to herself. She shrugged.

“Not the only one of my kind.”

He looked to the side, as though verifying her answer, and Devorah began to wonder if he was drunk already. The wine, though diluted considerably, could affect one already touched by heat heavily, she knew.

His eyes, curiously light, rested briefly on Miriam, sitting in the corner with two old regulars.

“I guess you’re not.”

Devorah nodded. She knew, of course, what the Sanhedrin – what most of her compatriots – thought of girls like them, but she was nonetheless at heart a pragmatist.

When Victoriana had offered her a job, she had been grateful. Though the tavern keeper herself was Roman – the runaway daughter of a senator or the illicit offspring of a Transtiberina whore, depending on the time of day – she believed that the soldiers enjoyed a glimpse of the exotic on their days off, and Devorah was inclined to believe she was right.

She smiled and wound a hennaed curl around her index finger as she filled the soldier’s cup again. She’d pegged him as the talkative type as he’d walked in and was about to revise that judgment when suddenly, he burped, looking downcast.

“Crucified a couple guys yesterday. Depressing business.”

She made a sympathetic noise, chewing an olive.

“Awful death, sweetheart.”

Devorah was not squeamish – you couldn’t when working in a place like this – but she hadn’t ever gone to watch an execution. She was sure, as all barmaids were, that a couple of her customers had ended up nailed to the wood at some time or another, but corpses smelled, and Golgotha was a depressing place.

“My, I bet, centurion. Messy.”

That made him laugh – a loud, boisterous guffaw.

“Yeah. Messy.”

He took a deep, long swig of wine, his eyes dark.

“Three guys. Two Jews, one Ethiopian. One of ‘em was that nutter – Lucius told me he’d pissed off locals for years. What’s his name again? Boy from up North. Delusions of grandeur.”

Devorah chewed another olive and spat out the pit.

“Oh, that guy. Stole a good customer off me once - he went pious on me. Well…”

“The others were more interesting. Held out longer, too. One was a thug who robbed a couple brothels near the harbor. They were gonna stone this whore who was his accomplice, but she paid off her debt in other ways, I hear. Our centurion’s been whistling all day.”

The girl giggled and swatted his arm.

“Hush. I know the one you mean – she’s a talent!”

The man grinned, a dirty joke in his eyes.

“The other was an Ethopian, a gang leader. Big guy, black as the night – plundered a couple warehouses and also a merchant’s wife. Though I’ve heard it said she wasn’t unwilling!”

Devorah nodded.

“We’ll all know what happened when Boeotius’ wife pops out a yellow baby, I’m guessing. Can’t really blame her. If I was married to a guy without teeth and for all we know without balls, I’d know what I’d do!”

“Oh yeah?” asked the unnamed soldier who may have been called Marcus,

“What would you do, huh?”

She threw her hair back and laughed, then gestured with a snap of her head.

“Come out back, honey, and I’ll show you.”

He followed.

Epiphany

This is the book I bought using my gift card. It's called The 3 AM Epiphany, by Brian Kiteley, and it lists a total of 201 exercises for aspiring writers. I like it because the prompts are not of the 'write about a childhood memory' variety - most of them are much more detailed and much more interesting. Some are technical (dealing with different voices and points of view, or how to construct a paragraph), others are topical (such as the sections on biography/autobiography, or on history) but none of them are particularly easy. It's a good book that I think will help me a lot. I'm currently editing the first response I wrote.

Writing

I've been writing fiction for most of my life, really. I wrote fan fiction before I even knew what it was, since as a child, before I fell asleep, I used to tell myself stories using the characters from my favorite books. I only found out that it was a real thing that other people did too when I stumbled across the Draco Dormiens trilogy (Harry Potter fanfiction) when I was thirteen or so. It's been a slippery slope from there.

I evolved later to writing mostly original fiction, though even now, I occasionally write a one-shot to some book or tv series I enjoy. It's fun, particularly if one is the type of person who gets inordinately attached to fictional characters. I miss them when the book, the series, the movie is over, and so I enjoy keeping them alive in that way.

I did NaNoWriMo three times in high school. My first novel was a fantasy story about the sunken island of Atlantis, and though it was not the best thing since chocolate, it had certain elements that I still find interesting, such as the question whether gods and goddesses die when nobody is left to worship them. A friend of mine reminded me of that question yesterday, since it's being explored in a book series he is reading, and it made me think of my story. Which had, of course, a tragic ending.

I don't recall what order I wrote my other two NaNo novels in, but one was a historical novel set in 1960s England, starring two characters who had switched identities as teenage girls during the War. They were both French, and one was Jewish and fleeing to Canada (or someplace? I don't even recall) whereas the other was simply being evacuated to England, and they switched identities at a train station. I feel like this was based vaguely on a children's book I once read, but it also featured a murder and a bunch of really messed up secondary characters. I never finished that story, because I fear it was pretty juvenile and uninformed. My intentions were good, but I should have done more historical research. I'm still, however, fond of Sarah Schopenauer, and maybe one day I'll tell her story in another way.

The other book was actually pretty interesting. It mixed three story lines, one set in the 1500s, one set in the 1880s and one set in the 1920s, all three in England. The 16th century narrative dealt with the mysterious death of Lady Amy Dudley, who was the wife of the Earl of Leicester who may or may not have been the lover of Elizabeth I (and, at least at one time, probably was). The other narratives deal with the descendants of a distant relative who came to live with her during her final years. This story really had some potential and I had a good time writing it - it came pretty close to being finished, and I may pick it up again.

I haven't written an original story in a while, but one of my Christmas presents (once again using the Amazon gift card my friend gave me) was a book of fiction writing exercises. I hope to post some of the results on here, if I deem them un-bad enough.

My first thousand words?

I am mentally ten years old, and apparently prefer learning through children's books. A friend of mine was kind enough to give me an Amazon gift card for Christmas, and this was one of the four books I purchased:

It's really quite cool. I have a shaky history with vocabulary-list-style books (read: I buy them and then do nothing with them) but I'm hoping to get at least something out of this one. Even apart from my interest in Judaism, I really like Hebrew as a language and I would love to be fluent some day. It'd probably be good to learn words that are not 'mi chamocha ba'eilim, adonai' or 'eshet chayil' (though I found an Eshet Chayil song on Spotify that's awesome, but I don't think I am very much of an eshet chayil, so there you go).

We will see how it goes.

How Noah killed grandpa

The day before yesterday, sadly, I did not have my Hebrew class I usually have every Sunday. This is tragic, because I love that class and Hebrew in general - I'm a big language nerd, and luckily that entails that I pick up languages easily. I already knew some of the Hebrew alphabet, since I've been trying to learn (admitted half-assedly) for years, but this class is REALLY paying off during services, since the Siddur does not provide transliteration for a number of the prayers and songs. And I love singing along.

I did have my Intro to Judaism class, which is very interesting and this week covered Jewish and Biblical history. I always loved learning about that at school - it's fascinating how at a certain point myth and history collide and the Bible gradually gains a degree of historically verifiable fact. Maybe one of the reasons why I love the Old Testament is because it is essentially a mythology - a heap of stories in vaguely chronological order, which may or may not have happened, and which carry some sort of message.

The Rabbi said that some Jews have tried to read what we know about the origins of earth and people into the Bible - 'yom', or 'day', then, does not literally mean day, but can stand for an entire era, which would mean the world was created in six phases, not six days. I quite like that idea, maybe because I am a structuralist by nature and maybe because it is an intelligent alternative for creationism (which I have zero patience for - come on now, guys... the earth is only four thousand years old and people rode dinosaurs, amirite?), but in the end, it doesn't matter. The Bible does not accurate represent the actual origins of the earth because it was written thousands of years later, and I like a religion that can acknowledge that. It does not take away the morals and ethics we may find within this ancient text and apply to our current-day lives.

I also learned last Sunday that while Noah was all a-okay on his Ark, his grandpa was actually also still alive, but apparently not invited because according to my Rabbi's calculations, he died that same year, presumably in the flood. Poor grandpa.

It was an interesting class.

Gay marriage and the religious argument.

Gay marriage is a big issue for me, for a number of reasons, not all of which directly affect myself. It is legal in the country where I'm from, but not in the country where I currently reside, which is the US. And I will now proceed to rant about that.

First of all, let us get the following out of the way: there is no good secular argument against gay marriage. None. You can argue that 'gay people cannot have children', and then I can tell you that hey, they do. Gay people have children all over the place. There are millions of gay couples raising children right this instant, and raising them well. There is no good, secular reason why two adult and willing individuals who want to build a home together, take care of one another and potentially raise children, should not receive the government's blessing unless they are a man and a woman. Their genitals do not decide their ability to raise a child or their ability to love one another. Science has proven this - and even if it hadn't, common sense has.

Most arguments used against gay marriage therefore are religious - and religious arguments on this issue make zero sense. I am not going to add 'in my book', because this is the case in the 'book' of everyone who has a head on their shoulders.

Be a Christian, but please remember that Jesus was a brown-skinned Jew who would be ALL FOR socialized healthcare. Hey, Christian right-wing, let me tell you something: JESUS WOULD NOT BE ON YOUR SIDE. If Jesus were here today, he would be ashamed of the way half of this country votes for people who perpetuate hatred against people of different races, religions and sexual orientations. Jesus would be all for socialized healthcare, Jesus would be all for gay marriage, Jesus would be all for taxing the rich. Because that is what Jesus was all about! I'm not even a Christian and I know enough about the New Testament to see that.

Where do you get the idea that Jesus would hate the gays? What part of the New Testament tells you that? Is it the part where he takes up for a Samaritan lady? Is it the part where he makes friends with tax collectors, or where he saves an adulterous woman from stoning? All prime examples of intolerance right thar, guys! Good job!

I know there are many nice and sensible Christians, by the way: some of my best friends are. And I know there are bigots in every religion, even in Judaism. But this country is ruled by Christians, and they're not doing a grand old job at it, so sadly they are the main group of people I am talking about here. You know, the people who think two old ladies who have been together fifty years should not be able to visit each other in the hospital. The people who believe that if a fourteen-year old is raped by her father and gets pregnant, she should totally have the baby, even if her own life is in danger. The people who believe that if you can't pay your mammogram, you're just gonna die of breast cancer, as well you should. You know, the crowd that is pro-life. Pro-their own lives, anyway.

And you know - even if Jesus, or Mohammed, or Moses, or the fucking BUDDHA were a massive, crazed gay-hater who spent his entire life throwing pointy objects at anything pink and sparkly, even then the religious argument would make zero sense. BECAUSE PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE TO BE RELIGIOUS. This country was founded at least in part on religious pluralism - in short: if you do not believe your religion justifies gay marriage, then do not get gay married. You still have your 'get into heaven free' card. It's just the gays that don't. And you don't want to see those there, anyway.

Also - don't give me the 'hate the sin, love the sinner' crap. Homosexuality is not a sin. Gay people are not sinners. If you think so, you are wrong.

Judaism

The truth of the matter is, I have always, to some extent, wanted to be a Jew.

That idea in itself is odd to me, since I have never been one of those God-people. I seriously can only deal with so many capitalized pronouns - He, His, whatnot. I don't capitalize pronouns because I believe in grammar and because I believe that if there's a supreme being out there, he/she/it most likely has bigger and better things to care about than whether or not I capitalize pronouns when referring to him/her/it. It sounds obnoxious, maybe I am obnoxious, but it always sort of irked me. To each their own, etc etc - but that's a rule I follow pretty badly, as you can tell, since I am all: my judgement, let me tell you it.

My point is simply, though, that I am a little bit terrified of organized religion, which may be in part because I am a rational being and in part because I am a cynical bitch who likes to be contrary - and in all honestly, in part because I grew up in a country that is largely secular these days, but that used to be very strongly Catholic and still bears the scars. I don't think everyone who is Catholic is evil and all Opus Dei fifties-style brainwashey. I don't even think every Catholic priest is a crazed child molester. I do however think that when one religious organization becomes too powerful in a certain locale, it can do horrible things - and since religious organizations derive their power from something that is super-human (as in, above human understanding), they are extra dangerous in that regard, since they can easily terrify great numbers of people into obedience.

But anyway, so far for conspiracy-theory paranoia. I have always wanted to be a Jew, and that is odd for yet another reason: I didn't grow up around any Jews. At all. I am from a small, European country, and whereas the larger cities do have a number of Jews (many of them Chassidic, but there are Reform Jews around as well, and there's at least one temple), I'm from the countryside where there is little religious variety: everyone is technically a Catholic by birth, but people are largely secular and religion is not much of a blip on most people's radar. I went to Catholic schools and there, especially in high school, I was given some background on Judaism and its holidays (we had pretty in-depth classes on non-Christian religions, which I am grateful for), but it was all very theoretical, since there were no actual real-life Jews around to celebrate Sukkot, or Purim, or Rosh Hashana. I learned what these terms meant - I had to memorize them for an exam at some point in my highschool life, I'm sure - but I didn't know what they were like in practice.

And yet I've always been drawn to Judaism, even back when the only Jews I'd ever encountered were Anne Frank and some chassidim I saw, even if I didn't actually 'meet' them, on a train when I was little. I was fascinated by the holocaust, but not in a morbid sort of way - I wanted to know about these people's lives, not particularly about their deaths, because they were the only point of reference I had to Judaism, if that makes sense - I wanted to know about how they lived before the War, and afterward. When I was fifteen, I bought a book to learn Hebrew, and though I never quite got somewhere, I worked on the alphabet for a while. I have always been fascinated with the Bible, in an academic way, but it was always the Old Testament that fascinated me, rather than the New: a religion teacher I once had, a dear, dear religion teacher, once referred to it as a library of stories, and that's how I saw it and why I appreciated it.

I have a childhood, a youth, of being a little bit Jewish at heart in a variety of ways. I never thought actually converting was an option, maybe because I didn't realize people COULD convert to Judaism. But there you go, you live, you learn.

A Lady of Chance

I'm bad at blogging - I'm really bad at blogging. Or at least, I've become bad at blogging - my teenage self seems to have had no problem keeping up a regular schedule on LiveJournal. But LiveJournal makes my brain cry (on a purely aesthetic level) by this point, so Blogspot it is.

I'm unsure what I want to say here. Currently, there are two major things going on in my life: one is my PhD, which I am in my second year of, and one is my Reform Jewish conversion. One is something I always sorta kinda expected to be involved in at one point - and one comes as a complete surprise. I always knew I would at least attempt to get those two letters - Dr. - in front of my name: it happens when you have more than average intelligence and a love for learning from a very young age. I never knew that I would one day, willingly, try to join an organized, or, if that is a bad word, an established and traditional religion. But here I am, and both things are going on, and I want both very much - and I also want to survive both with my sanity intact.

So there you go.