Part One - 5 "Home Warmth Bound"

Home Warmth Bound

Tel Aviv, Israel

August, 1994

We are going to Israel today! I know I want to wear my favorite shirt with the flowers on it, but I always wait until the last day to pick the animals that I’m going to take with me. I set them in line by the door of the bedroom and I have to explain to them that I can’t take all of them with me because I can only take a small bag. Bobby, the happy-faced bear I’ve had since I was born, is sitting next to me. He always comes with me. He gets scared if I leave him alone. I get them all dressed in their best clothes. My dog that I had to give surgery to because his fluff was coming out is sitting next to my blue bear with the colorful patches. Next to them, there’s the rabbit that my Abuela Susana gave me, so I know that he has to come with me. Finally, there’s the big bear that is very soft, but kind of smells like dust.

“Yali, come on! We have to leave!”

I pick up the rabbit, the monkey, and the dog and I stuff them into my bag. I kind of have to fold them in a little bit because my book and my paper and crayons are already taking up some room. I like to draw pictures for my grandmothers on the plane. The always love it when I bring them the pictures.

Oohhh, our little number one!

That’s what my Safta Lea and Sabba Asher call me, and I know that it’s not only because I was born first, it’s also because I’m special. They tell me that they love me all the way to the sky.

On the way to the airport, I’m trying to get Danielle excited about going because she’s just sucking her thumb on her big white comfort pillow that she calls, la cama. Everyone thinks that it’s funny because cama means bed in Spanish.

“Danielle! We’re going to see Maya and Hila and we’re going to play with them! It’s going to be so much fun.”

She pulls her finger out of her mouth and it makes a slurping sound. She rubs my head from her high chair, and I don’t even care that it’s with the wet finger because we’re going to Israel.

“Can I sit next to la fenêtre?”

Usually I like to sit next to the window on the plane, but I’ve been flying to Israel all by myself already since I was five and half, so it’s okay if Danielle sits there this time.

“Yeah, but you have to let me see also.”

She smiles and her tiny round face fills with the light of excitement. Sometimes, when she’s not crying all the time, I really love this little ball of a cute baby.

While Mami yells at the people to give us seats together and Papi puts our suitcases on the carpet that takes them away, I wander over into one of the stores in the airport. These stores always have funny things to play with in baskets by the front, and in this one I find many Tours’ D’Eiffel with big silly grins on them. I go into the back of the store. I run my fingers along the shelves and there, I see a wooden pencil box with hearts on it, and I really want to bring it to Maya. I turn it over, and I see that the price is more than the three coins I have in my pocket, and more than I can ask Mami to give me. I still remember when we went to the supermarket and she told me that I couldn’t buy a toy because we can’t afford to pay for it. My heart felt sad. I walk around the store with it for a little bit, looking at the books and the magazines. Then, when I think that no one is looking, I stuff it into my backpack. I keep looking around at the magazines, and give the lady behind the register a cute little wave when I leave the store.

“Au Revoir!”

I walk back to where Mami and Papi are still doing what they were doing before.  I keep feeling my bag for the pencil box just t make sure that it’s still there. After what feels like we’ve waited forever, we’re sitting on the pane and I’m showing Danielle how to put her seatbelt on. When I get on the plane, I always read the information packet about what to do if the plane catches on fire, or we have to land in the water. It’s really important to know, and I show both Danielle and Bobby that they shouldn’t be scared. When the plane takes off, Mami holds my hand hard and reaches across the aisle to hold Papi’s hand. I hold Danielle’s hand, and she holds on to la cama. It takes until they turn off the seatbelt sign when we’re flying for Mami to let go of my hand, and so for me to let go of Danielle’s hand.

During the flight, we get to color and watch movies, and the flight attendants bring us toys with the El Al signal on them; these are things that only kids get on the flights. We also get to eat our food before everyone else. I always love the tiny containers of water, kind of like we’re on a special mission and on that mission we get special water. France is not very far away from Israel, only four hours and fifty five minutes, so soon I can feel that we are going down through the sky. I lean over Danielle and she moves over to let me see, I can see the beach in Tel Aviv coming closer and closer.

“There’s Susana’s house, and there’s Lea’s house, and there’s Maya’s house!”

Danielle is straining her neck to see where I’m pointing. I don’t really know where their houses are, but they must be there somewhere. When we land, I can’t wait to get out; I can just imagine everyone waiting for us at the airport and all the wet, lip-sticky kisses that my grandma is going to give me. I pull back the latch to release my seatbelt and jitter on my seat.

“Come onnn…Come onnn…let’s goooo!”

Mami is still sitting down while Papi pulls our bags from the space above the seats; but they’re not moving yet. I think they want to let the whole airplane of first.

“Yali, we have to wait for the suitcases there anyway, no hay appuro!”

I’m in a hurry! I want to see my family! The excitement is bouncing inside my body, and I’m swinging Bobby back and forth in my arms. Mami looks down towards the end of the plane and decides that it’s empty enough for us to go out. We file out, with Papi leading the way and me right behind him and climb into the bus that is going to take us from the plane to the airport.

I sit next to Mami and she pulls Danielle up on her lap. Papi is standing up, holding on to the hook above him as the bus rolls along the runway. The window feels cool as I lean my nose against it; it’s really hot outside, but the bus has a lot of air conditioning. When I can see the airport approaching, I pull my backpack onto my back and stand next to Papi. The line at the passports is not very long because we waited so long. Mami, Danielle and I go into the  Israeli Passport Line and Papi goes into the other one, because he was born in Argentina.

“Ya-he-li?”

The woman behind the glass has curly red hair with blond streaks going through it like bolts of lightning. Her face is very thin, and she has a long nose. I’m jumping up and down next to Mami so she can see me.

“Yali, my name is Yali!”

She nods at us, stamps our passports, and shoves us along to get our luggage. Standing next to the security checkpoint is my uncle Zohar, Mami’s younger brother. I forgot that he works in the airport now, and he scoops me up in a big hug when I run up to him. He came with Lea and Asher and he is going to stay with us all the way until we go outside.

“Who’s here, Zohar?”

He smiles at me and skin that looks like caramel stretches because the smile takes up his whole face, and even his eyes,

“Here? No one’s here. Why would anyone come to see you?”

My heart drops for a minute, but then I know that he’s joking so I laugh and the laughter further ignites my excitement.

When we get our luggage, Danielle and I climb atop of it as Papi pushes the cart out to the arrivals hall. When we come out, I see rounded water fountains, and lots of faces looking at us. My eyes are darting from face to face as I’m searching the crowd for someone I know. When I see Lea’s smiling face bouncing up and down in front of me. I jump off the cart, accidentally sending it a little bit backwards into Papi’s heels and jump head first into my grandmother’s outstretched arms.

“Yalili, our little number one! Oh I’m so happy!”

Lea has tears in her eyes, and so does my other grandma Susana, who is standing behind her. I peel away from Lea and go to Susana, whose leathery skin feels soothing against my cheek. Both of my grandfathers are there too, and I’m laughing when Asher’s beard tickles my face, and when Roberto taps my head and says,

“You’re so tall! From here to the ground!”

Everyone is hugging everyone, and Danielle is resting her head on Papi’s shoulder as he’s holding her up away from the ground.

We all pack into different cars, but we’re going to Lea and Asher’s house, where everyone is going to meet for dinner to welcome us to Israel.

When we get there,  no one is there yet, but I know that Maya is going to come soon. I turn on the TV to the kids channel, because I know that she likes to watch it. I run to the kitchen to help Asher.

“What can I do, Asher, what can I do?”

He hands me a couple of plates and I take them to the table in the living room. That’s where we’re all going to sit. I run back and forth, helping to set the table that rests atop of the carpet that looks like a volcano fire in my grandparents’ living room. Danielle is sitting in Lea’s rocking chair, falling asleep while staring at the TV. The chirping sound of the doorbell stops me in my tracks,

It’s Maya! I know it is!

Zohar goes over to the door, and a woman comes in, and kisses him. It’s his girlfriend, Dorit. She has lots of wild, curly brown hair, and she can do really cool gymnastics tricks. I think that they’re going to get married, and I tell Maya every year that she’s going to be our aunt. She scoops me up in a big hug and her strong perfume is comforting, and delicious. I run around the room and show her the drawings that I did for Lea and Asher on the plane. She smiles and laughs and it rolls out of her like a big, fluffy snowflakes.

The next time the doorbell rings, it’s Susana and Roberto, also coming from the airport, and even though I’m happy to see them, I want to see Maya! There’s nothing I can do now because I’ve already helped set the table, so I go and sit by the window. I peek out of the blinds to see if I can see their dark green car pull up into the lot under my grandparents’ building. Lea yells from the kitchen that she wants the shutters closed so the air conditioner doesn’t get out.

“Be careful, Yali! Don’t open them too much!”

She comes over to me and gives me a big kiss on the head after she says this, and ruffles my blond curls. Everyone is sitting around the table drinking soda or water, and I’m still waiting for Maya to come.

Finally, the doorbell ring. It’s my cousin Maya, and her two front teeth are missing in her wild, grinning face. She’s at the door alone because she went up the stairs. Her parents and her little sister, Hila, are coming in the elevator. I pull Maya into a tight, long hug, and her long black hair tickles my throat. She barely has a chance to step out of her shoes, before I drag her into the room where I’ll be sleeping to show her the presents I got her.

I pull out a wooden box with hearts on it and I hand it to her. Her eyes go wide with excitement and she pulls me into another big hug. Heat rushes through my body, because she likes the gift I got for her.

“It’s a surprise, just for you, so don’t make Hila jealous by showing it to her.”

She shoves it into her tiny purse, and sets it by the front door with her shoes. Lea and Asher are serving the food now.  I’m starving,;there’s nothing more I want than a very big helping of Lea’s kadurei bassar. Home-made meatballs.

[Talking To Myself]: PART ONE -2 - "The Roller Coaster"

The Roller Coaster

Wynnewood, USA

November 26, 2008

I open one groggy eye at the sounds of Chiqui’s pleas for attention. Her yelps rise an octave with every minute that I don’t respond. I’ve been sleeping since I came here, leaving New York a few hours after my therapy session. Still partially hidden below my covers, I can see her golden haired body shifting on her back legs and her tail thwacking the carpeted floor of my high school bedroom with anxious waves. She either wants to pee or get on the bed. I am not about to take her out; the dim light peeking in through the single window informs me that it is not yet time to be awake. I tentatively extend my arm out towards her, because by this point she has sensed that I’m responding to her whining.


As per our ritual, she greets my attempt at affection with a torrent of forceful licks extending from my fingertips to my elbow. When she determines that I have received the appropriate amount of affection, she raises a paw and nudges my still-extended arm to demand her share. I reach towards her head, bent forward in anticipation, and systematically massage the velvety fur behind her ears. When she’s had enough, she rises and circles the foot of the bed. She stops only to bite an itch at the base of her tail. By now, I know that the next step in her ritual consists of sitting at the foot of the bed, fidgeting from one side to the other while the threat of a bark vibrates from her vocal chords. My role in this situation is to groggily pat the bed, giving her permission to climb and curl up at my side. Even though we perform this dance every time I come home, she still hesitates and needs a few more convincing pats of the bed. Once she’s curled up, I indulge in the added warmth of her body on the bed.


I wake up to Chiqui’s demands to be taken out and walk down the twisted carpeted stairs into the main portion of the house and edge towards the room where my mom and sister are sleeping. Our furniture hasn’t arrived yet, so we are making due with air mattresses and miscellaneous temporary plastic seating. My mom and sister are lying on opposite sides of the bed, Danielle with her mouth slightly open and her eyes flickering back and forth beneath her slumbering eyelids. One look at them tells me that it will take less time and effort for me to actually walk Chiqui than to try and wake her up. I leave the room, and head down the stairs, where I see that Chiqui is already pacing by the front door. I shove my still sleeping and pajama-ed feet into one of the pairs of heavy brown boots haphazardly strewn by the door. Danielle and I wear the same shoes, but different sizes, so it takes a few tries to get the right boots on.


After the frigid walk outside, Chiqui gingerly trots over to her food bowl and I pour her a generous portion. She refuses to eat it until I add the obligatory two dollops of cottage cheese. Mami is sitting in the kitchen now, pondering her breakfast, and as per protocol, inquires what Chiqui did outside.


I look around the kitchen; today is a day 2, which within the “one day at a time concept,” means that I’ve managed more than 24 hours without acting on symptoms from my eating disorder. Anxiety twitches down my arms and settles in my palms; there are too many options. The voices of the cereal and the bread are fighting for space in mind.

You know you want me, you can’t resist me…
I step out of the kitchen and look at myself in the mirror of the adjacent bathroom. My skin looks sallow in contrast to the pale green wallpaper behind me. what do you want? What could nurture you now? I have to ask myself these questions in order to actually get through a meal. It’s exhausting. Physically singling out the positive voice from the voice of the disorder drains any energy that I’ve woken up with. I fantasize about the days where a meal will be a non-event, where I’ll just eat something, and move on with my life. I run some cold water through my hair, partly to smooth out the sleep from it, but also because a could of steam has settled around my brain, and is rising through my scalp.

Danielle ambles down the stairs in her flannels and a t-shirt from one of her many high school dance shows and yawns her morning greetings to us in the kitchen.

“What’s for breakfast?”

She has it so easy. She shakes out generous amount of cereal into her bowl and lathers it with a blanket of milk. She sets her bowl on the wooden island separating the kitchen and the currently empty dining room. She has to lean forward while standing to eat because we don’t have enough high bar chairs yet. Mami is cleaning the dishes, but I can feel her watching me as I stare into the food cupboard, the items inside throwing out bids at me as if I were a hot item at auction. The granola strikes the highest bid; it offers me itself with yogurt. I know that they are safe choices. I know that I’ll be able to get through breakfast with them, and move on with the day. We’re going shopping today, so I let my mind focus on that as granola, vitamins, juice, pass into my system, presumably to stay.

We are going to the dentist this morning; which sends shivers through my gums and causes my whole head to throb. I hate the dentist, but not because of the same reasons that most people give. I hate the dentist because every time I go, I dread the thought that they will tell me I am losing my enamel, that my gums are receding, or that I might as well get a mold fitted for dentures now. I cringe when they stick their little mirror inside my mouth; I imagine them pulling it out, just to see that it has dissolved from the amount of stomach acid in my teeth.

The minutes in the waiting room thickly settle around my wrists, and they stick to the fishing and hunting magazine that I am absentmindedly browsing through. I’m actually trying to inhale without bursting my the icy grip of fear around my ribcage.

“Yay-lee?”

I feel as if my life has just become a string of doctors’ visits, and I grit my teeth as I force my lips back into what I hope looks like a smile.

“Um…actually, it’s Yali.”

The dental hygienist checks her chart, and looks up at me, still smiling. Her teeth are sort of yellow; and I wonder whether she should have them whitened to work her.  Her wispy graying brown hair is pulled back into a cleverly braided chignon. I wonder how much time it took her to get it like that.

I sit down on the patient’s chair, with all sorts of torture instruments around me and I immediately take in my surroundings. Picks, needles, scrapers are standing at attention around my head, ready to advance into battle in my mouth, ready to hit my teeth with their rapid fire, making my gums bleed, and making my head screech inwardly with the pain.

Directly in front of me is the same Gingivitis poster that every dentist has; the one with the blackened teeth barely hanging on to shriveled gums by their slightly severed nerves.

I bet that’s what my teeth look like.
When the hygienist tells me to open my mouth, I wonder what would happen if I bit her finger and ran away. She picks at my teeth, poking and prodding at my sensitive gums and I can taste the coppery blood flowing into the back of my throat. I want to gag and spit it at her, but instead I sit silently and stare into the bright light overhead. I imagine that it is the sun, and that I can blind myself with it. She pokes around some more, and tells me to rinse.

The water is a cherry color, too bright for my taste; I would rather my blood be a sinister shade of mauve. I have to rinse four times before the water runs clear, and when I am satisfied she tells me to sit back because she is going to clean and polish my teeth. She picks up something that looks like an ancient eye-removal instrument and begins to attack the spaces between my teeth, and the ones near my gums.

I wonder if it’s okay to ask for Novocain during a cleaning…

“So, you’re in New York, now huh? Are you working?”

It takes a lot of effort for me not to roll my eyes; how am I supposed to answer her exactly if her hands are digging around in my mouth. I manage to respond with something that sounds like

“Ahhggghhaa”

This seems to satisfy her curiosity, because she’s already moved on to the next topic,

“Where did you go to school?”

This time, I wait for her to take her hands out of my mouth before answering,

“New York University, but I finished a almost two years ago.”

She approves, apparently, nodding as she applies some type of substance onto some type of instrument that whirrs when she turns it on.

“I’m going to numb your gums a bit, they seem to be very sensitive.”

What gave it away? The Jacuzzi full of blood in my mouth or my wincing every time you even hover above my teeth?
“Okay. Great.”

The gel she rubs on my gums does not act immediately, but she doesn’t really wait, she continues to pick at the areas below my gums.

“So what have you done since school?”

It must be part of the training: ask patients questions they cannot answer with a simple Yes or No while you are hacking away at their teeth.

I shrug my shoulders at her and she stops drilling for red oil in my teeth long enough so I can spit, rinse, and answer.

“I um…I had to, well I moved to Singapore, to be with my parents, and worked in a few places. Now I’m uh…working in translation.”

I answer her next question before she even has the chance to ask it,

“In Hebrew, Spanish, French, and sometimes Italian and Portuguese”

She lets out some sort of sound that might indicate that she’s impressed, or that she approves, or that she just wants me to sit back with my mouth open so she can finish her job. I close my eyes and I can imagine my teeth hugging each other in fear as the metal spear lunges at them, picking away at their weakened armor, showering them in waves of hot blood.

“Okay, well your teeth look really good, let’s just wait for the dentist to see them.”

When she leaves the office, I let the tears I’d been holding back fall onto my cheeks. This was the most painful cleaning I’ve ever had. I close my eyes and my body immediately relaxes into the chair, seeking relief from my exhaustion.

I’m now walking along Orchard Road in Singapore, excited about something, but I can’t really grasp what. It is nighttime. I think I am going to meet someone. The feeling this person elicits from my memory in this hazy dream is one of warmth; my body feels as if it is being hugged by a strong set of arms. I smell green tea…

I snap my eyes open when I hear the dentist’s shuffled footsteps. He saddles up next to me, and asks me the same redundant questions that the hygienist has already asked me. He pulls out his little mirror, and I want to warn him that it might melt. Still, he takes a long look at all the nooks and crannies in my mouth, poking at some spots, and glances at his assistant's notes.

“Well, looks like your teeth are prefect, my dear. Good job.”

What.
A mixture of shock and relief rushes the blood away from my face, and I feel as if I have momentarily lost feeling in my face. I realize it might not be a great idea to be too surprised, so I hop off the chair, shake his hand, and say,

“Thank You!”

As I walk back to the waiting room to meet Mami and Danielle, the blood that fled my face earlier is now rising quickly back up to my face, dragging along with it anything it can take along the way. I am elated, excited, my teeth are perfect!

Yeah, you’ve fooled another doctor, good job…
For the moment, even this bitter thought cannot squelch my excitement. I swallow it, drown it somewhere inside of me and I feel as though there is a layer of air between my feet and the ground when I walk out of the office.

I drive away from the dentist, not noticing that my speed is edging past the speed limit until Mami stops herself from making a comment. I notice her subtle movement, and try to rein my thoughts back down to the ground. I slow down, and try to find a thought that is closer to Earth. We are going home to feed Chiqui now.

Most of our days when we are at home are ruled by Chiqui’s needs, and today is no different. As we get ready to go shopping, Chiqui announces in a series of unremitting barks that she has to go out again. This time, both Danielle and I are dressed so equipped with our boots and varying winter wear, we step outside. Chiqui, her tail practically lifting her off the ground in excitement lunges at a large stick lying on the ground, and a shared thought passes through mine and Danielle’s mind. We’ve been fooled; our mischievous hairy younger sibling just wants to play.

As we chase Chiqui around our front yard, adrenaline rushes through my body and I feel suddenly ecstatic, as if I have just been injected with sugar or caffeine. Danielle holds the stick above her head, and Chiqui lunges at it, stretching her lithe golden body to an intimidating height, making them both topple over into a pile of leaves. Chiqui runs excitedly with her tail wagging as Danielle dusts herself off from the leaves. Watching this, I feel an electrical surge erupt through my body, as I have just been plugged into to socket with too much voltage. High-pitched, maniacal laughter rolls out of me, vibrating in my stomach, through my lungs, and drumming on my vocal chords.


“She….just…she…jumped…she…HAHAOOOHAHAHAHAHOO”


I can barely breathe, the vibrations from my unstoppable laughter bite at my ribcage, pulling it inwards towards my lungs, and any attempts to talk are stifled through torrents of throaty laughs. I can feel my eyes pushing outwards, bulging with the release of energy out of my pores, out of my sinuses. I feel high; my brain is pushing off the walls of my skull to make itself spin in circles, dizzy from its own actions.


I’m clutching my sides, as the laughter spills over in uncontrollable waves. Chiqui approaches me tentatively, pokes me with the stick in her mouth to see what I will do. I reach out for it, and wrench it out of her grip, running across the road to our neighbor’s house, and then back towards our lawn. Chiqui chases after me, her energy fueled by my glee. Danielle stares at both of us with a look of utter confusion, but eventually pulls out her camera and all three of us ride on the waves of my apparently good spirits, laughing and running around.


My heart is thundering inside my body, and I have to strain to hear over it; I barely react when Mami comes out to tell us that it’s time to go. Danielle starts to take Chiqui inside, but I am still vibrating with the force of my energy. Danielle comes back out of the house, as Mami is warming the car, and I am still standing by the door, watching them, trying to step off the cloud that I was riding on.


“Come on, giggly face, let’s go!”’


Danielle has to physically take my hand to the car, and I clench the other one, tightly. I am desperately trying to swallow the adrenaline still buzzing in my head, trapped in my throat and between my lungs. I feel dizzy in the car, heading towards the shopping mall, my eyes sticking to people on the sides of the road, and pulling backwards as we pass them. I try to breathe through this energy, and the throbbing between my temples worsens. It warns me that a low is coming and I fight to keep my spirits up, and my smile genuine.


The twenty-five minute ride is excruciating; my brain feels as if it is struggling to right itself as it commands my body to perform, to interact with Mami and Danielle in the car. It is a welcome relief when we finally park the car and I know that I will, at the very least, be able to walk. The air is brisk, and it settles on my flushed cheeks as a blanket needles as we walk towards the shopping center.


“Let’s go here!”


I’m practically skipping through the first store we go into. I take clothes off the shelves in a frenzy, and urge Danielle to try on more than the snowflake-patterned fleece pants that she is holding.


“Come on! Don’t be shy! We’re Shop-p-p-ping! Get more! More! I COMMAND YOU!”


Danielle is straining to keep up with me, as my energy makes me bound across the shopping floor. She is looking at me as though I have grown a second head, but also as if she wants to embrace this supposed happiness of mine.


“Uh…I’m not…sure…I don’t really…want to…”


She tries to resist as I peel more items off their respective shelves and bunch them on top of her quickly filling arms.


“Now niňas, don’t exaggerate!”


Mami follows us as we pick up seemingly mismatched clothes from the sales racks. A hot surge bubbles up inside of me where the airy excitement had just been, why does she always have to tell us what to do! I pull Danielle by a semi-resisting arm into the dressing room and forcefully throw down the clothes bunched up in my arms.


“Woah, woah, no need to attack the clothes!”


Danielle and I are sharing a dressing room so that we can show each other our outfits without the unnecessary stares of the dressing room attendants. I peel the clothes apart from each other carefully. Then, I throw each of them on the floor and decide that I don’t really want to try any of them on. Danielle, meanwhile, concedes that she only really wants the snowflake pants, and not any of the other things I imposed onto her arms. No fair. I want them too! I take off my jeans without unbuttoning them and step into the pair of snowflake pants at the bottom of my pile.


I face the mirror, and turn around in circles, lifting my shirt so I can see the top of the pants on my body. They make me look like I have a butt. This thought sends heat pounding through my body in angry waves, I feel like I’m sweating in these snowflake pants. I pull at the skin around my mid section.


“Ugh. Gross. That’s what happens when you start to eat again…”


The pain from Danielle’s reproachful poke on my forearm pulses momentarily on the spot like a hazard light. I react as if she’s just shot me with a rubber bullet.


“HEY! OW!”


I try to poke her back, but she doges me, and pokes me again,


“If you are going to stand there with your bony butt and tell me that you’re fat, I’m going to challenge you to a sumo wrestling match right here!”


Her reprimand hisses out in a tense whisper and she points to her own exposed stomach. Through my eyes, she appears to be healthy and her naturally curvy figure is beautiful.


“IT’S OKAY to gain weight Yali, you’re EATING!”


She means well, but the damage is done. The affirmation that I am in fact gaining weight pops what remains from my bubble of positive energy from two days of sobriety. My mind is now wrapped in a syrupy gloom that weighs down my eyelids and attaches itself to my hipbones. It appears in bulging layers of fat, only visible to me. I feel suddenly depressed, and I can’t look at myself in the mirror anymore. I can see every imperfection on my face. I pull at my still dried out hair and I can only think of how disgusting of a person I have become. I strip off the pants, and pull my clothes back on, zipping my heavy down vest all the way up as we exit the store. I don’t want to try on anything else; I am quite ready to go home.


I’m supposedly looking for something to wear to my high school reunion in two days’ time, but now I don’t even want to go anymore. The gloom emanating from my pores surrounds me as the three of us continue to walk around the shopping center.


I just know I’m going to run into someone I don’t want to run into…

At this point, that could be anyone. There are too many people I went to high school with around now, and I don’t want to see any of them. I feel ashamed to even be here, and this feeling grates at every nerve in my body. I pull my vest tighter around me, wishing it had sleeves. After a few more rounds of unsuccessful store visits, we decide to stop for lunch. I head immediately towards the salad bar; I know it is the only food I’ll be able to keep down. Danielle goes to the Chinese food stand and comes back with some rice, an egg roll, and some tofu thing in a red sauce.


“Do you want to try some, Yali?”


Yes, Yes! Yes I do!
“No…I’m okay. Thanks”

We sit in relative silence throughout the meal; Mami and I munching on our salads, while Danielle talks to us about what she’d like to buy for her friends as holiday gifts. I push the broccoli around on my plate, trying to get some flavor onto it from the dressing. In my mind, I can see the food landing in lumpy piles inside of me, and I feel sick.

“Hey, you, what’s the matter?”

Mami nudges my foot under the table, and I look up, stretching my eyebrows and the corners of my mouth upwards so that I appear to be smiling.

“What are you thinking about?”

How I don’t want to be here anymore. How I don’t deserve to be eating this. 
I take a bite out of the leafy part of the broccoli, taking care to chew it carefully so that I can think of a reply.

“Oh, nothing, just thinking”

Mami is still looking at me, and I can feel the tension rise inside my body by a couple of notches. I’m finding it difficult to breathe, so I shift around in my chair.

“So…yeah, maybe we can go to The Bookstore tomorrow so I can buy stuff…”

Danielle has effectively cut the awkwardness out of the situation, and I wash down my anxiety with two big gulps of water. When we finish our lunch, the food sits heavily on my hips, and just to be able to move I pick up all of our trays and throw them out.

Maybe I should go running later…
When I come back to the table, I have what I think is a successful forced smile on my face and the air around us has thinned considerably. We walk back to the car, considering the possibility of seeing a movie later.

“Oh, we have to buy the ingredients for our Thanksgiving mini meal tomorrow!”

Why?
The familiar tightness at having to face more food settles around my heart, and I am quiet during the ride, letting the radio and Danielle fill the recycled heat in the car.

In the supermarket, I’m supposed to find the ingredients for the goat cheese stuffed mini pumpkin recipe that I invented. I’m not sure why I really want to make this again, as the memory of the last time I made it is still too fresh for me to even process. I amble around the produce section, and when I come upon the gourd section, I notice that there are only two lumpy specimens left.

Of course…
I pick them up, and trap them in a plastic produce bag. I carry them under my arm as I search for the sun-dried tomatoes that also go into the recipe. The supermarket near our house has cleverly placed delicious looking nut-mixes along with the produce, supposing that the health conscious would grab them. I’m hungry again, even though we’ve just eaten. I know it’s not a physical hunger as my stomach still feels full. I’m hungry somewhere near my heart, and the nuts are dancing in front of my eyes to a beat that I can’t shut out. I walk so quickly past this section that I am almost running. I need to get the cheese, and the spices. Then we can go home.

Where is the cheese? Where is the cheese? Where is the cheese?
I repeat this in my mind as if it were a mantra, and the hunger around my heart intensifies as it spots the chips, cookies, and all sorts of bakery items. The thought of the last time I made this meal is scaling the fortress I’m trying to build around myself and throwing spears at any progress I’ve made.

NO!! STOP!! RETREAT!!!
Tears are now pushing against the back of my eyes, I don’t want to think about this, please stop…the pain from the illusion I’ve left behind, from the eggshells I’ve been walking on is agonizing. I want to cry and scream, and throw the produce on the floor. Instead, I just walk faster, scrunching my eyelids only to the point that I can still see where I’m going.

I reach the cheese section, and I can’t find the goat cheese. I can’t find it! Where is it!!? Why can’t I find it?? The panic is now rising as bile in my throat, and when it finds no exit, it rises into my sinuses and pushes along with the tears behind my eyes. It hurts, and I let some fall onto my cheeks, scalding me on the way down. I swipe at them angrily, and continue to walk around the cheese section in aimless circles, swerving around ghostly figures that seem to be coming towards me.

Mami and Danielle finally join me with the cart and I throw the produce in my arm at it’s belly without much finesse.

“So, are we done?”

“I can’t find the cheese. It’s not here.”

Mami looks at me with the expression that clearly states I haven’t done a good enough job in looking.

“It has to be here, it cannot be that it’s not here.”

I take a stilted breath in before answering; I’m now shaking inside in order to keep calm on the outside.

“Well, I can’t find it.”

Then, within a rare moment of clarity within the past few hours, I remember that it could be in the deli section. When I find it there, a small rush of relief pushes the bile back to where it belongs, and I can breathe again. The strange specters that I had been dodging in my attempt to find the cheese have reformed into customers, unknowingly going about their business.

When we are finally home again, I detach my frazzled mind as we put the groceries away, with Chiqui wagging her tail and running around us excitedly, hoping for a treat or a game. I pat her head a couple of times, not really noticing what I’m doing, and from somewhere I hear Mami tell us to take her out.

“You take her out, Danielle, I’m tired.”

She looks at me and her eyes are full of disappointment. I know that she was hoping for another moment of sisterly bonding while walking Chiqui. I can’t take it now, though. My mind is thoroughly exhausted from the battles it has fought all day. I just want to lie down.

I climb the stairs to my attic bedroom, and settle with the latest very long book that I’m plowing through. As I’m lying upstairs, I remember that there’s a bag of peanut M&Ms in my bag, from another time that I was not able to overcome the voice of my disease.

Oh, you know you want them…
***

November 27, 2008

Wynnewood, PA


3:00 am. 

My sinuses are full of vomit.

For lack of a more beautiful way to think about it, this is how I am right now. It is around two o’clock in the morning, and Mami and Danielle are asleep upstairs. Chiqui barely stirred as I climbed down from my bed and snuck down to the kitchen to rummage in the cupboard, talking what I thought would not be noticed as missing.

I cringe now when I think about everything that is mixed inside of me and that I am now forcing out of my body:

The pack of  Israeli soup almonds in the back of the cupboard. 
A few slices of bread. 
Some candy from the giant stack we bought at the warehouse store. 
A few cookies.
Granola.
The dried berries I supposedly bought to take back to New York with me. 
Oatmeal that only Papi eats, and he’s not here.
The peanut M&M’s, 
And of course, whatever is left from the late lunch we had earlier.

Pretending to have fallen asleep over my book, I silently and contentedly binged, waiting for Mami and Danielle to fall asleep and quiet to settle over the house. I was left alone in my room, with my anxieties from the day rushing upwards and choking me at my throat, igniting the abused shame and guilt synapses stretching from my brain, downwards through my spine, and dissipating into my body.

The only way to fight something back down is to stuff it, and what a better way than with delicious food, oh…

I can’t seem to hold on to the strength, the draining effort it takes to stay sober, and alert. I feel awful. My eyes are inches away from the murky toilet water, and I just wonder what it would be like to stick my head all the way in and drown in my own puke.


Cause of Death: Complications due to Bulimia

That would be my legacy, how wonderful. I can just see the faces and hear the thoughts of people who have given up on me along the way, well, I knew she was gonna die anyway. Yeah, no big surprise, what a worthless person, too weak to even stay alive.


Why won’t I ever learn??

Bitter tears are streaming down my cheeks, and mixing with the dregs of food, bile, and blood that I’m heaving into the toilet. The index and ring fingers on my right hand are covered in it, and are chafing from when I bite down on them; my body’s last attempt to let them into my throat.


The silence is too overwhelming!! I can’t take it

I push my fingers further inside my throat because I know that it will make my stomach spasm, and it will force whatever is left inside of it to surge out. I am punishing myself for the sadness I feel, I am punishing myself for how angry I am, and this is the only pain that can justify it all. After purging, I know that I will feel too drained, too exhausted to do anything other than crash for the rest of the night.


Usually, a purge does not last more than twenty minutes. I have gotten to the point where my body has adapted to this coping mechanism so well, that throwing up comes as easily as peeing.


Why?? Why do I always end up as someone’s ‘responsibility’ and not a person? Why?? Why do I have be such a burden all the time!?!?!

I can hear myself wishing to die; I can see all of the ways I could do it, right here, tonight. I’m coughing from the scratches that my nails are leaving in the back of my throat, and it is sending the surge from my stomach into the sinuses behind my nose, under my eyes, into my ears. My head is made of cheesecloth, and vomit is flowing from its pores.


I am a person! I am a sick person, but I am still a person!!! I have feelings!

…and right now they are shattered…


I am coughing harder now, and panic grips my battered throat.


What if they can hear me??

When I came in here, I turned on the ventilator, and let the water flow. I am in the basement, and they are upstairs. There is no way that they can hear me. I feel my stomach folding inward, gripping its shriveling walls for support. I know that this purge is done. I feel hollow, emptied out from all food and feeling. I want to fill it again,


I can’t! they’ll notice!

Leaning on the rim of the toilet, I force myself up and take the bottle of Windex out from under the sink. I have to clean the walls from the spatter; I have to clean the toilet too. I have to make it smell normal, because Mami will know. 


Come on, clean faster, go upstairs, go to bed, come on!!! Can’t you even do this!!?

Scalding tears are pouring out of my eyes as I’m cleaning, I’ve broken my promise to myself, I’ve broken my promise to my loved ones. I should be ashamed. I am ashamed. I just want to go back to sleep. I have to just go back upstairs.


I pour a third of the bottle of mouthwash into the toilet, and swill it around with the toilet brush. An acerbic vanilla-like aroma wafts up from the bowl. I flush it once. Twice.


I wash my face in the sink, scrubbing hard with the soap to erase all traces from my skin. I’m desperately trying to prevent more of my face from eroding from splash-back acid.


When I’m done, I angrily wipe it dry with the towel, leaving searing red marks where my tears were. When I’m done, I shut off the lights, hitting the switches with my fists. I leave the ventilator on, I’m sure that by tomorrow all traces will be gone. I climb up the stairs silently and when I get to my bed, Chiqui greets me by a wave of her tail. I lie down next to her; she nudges herself close to me, and licks my eyes.


Tomorrow is another day…

PART ONE: TWO BEGINNINGS - "Hello, My Name is Compassion"

Hello, My Name is Compassion

New York, USA

November 25, 2008

I’m nervous. The bag of peanuts crunches in my coat pocket, and I stick my hand in it, just to feel the oily, salty texture of the snack. I want to eat one, but maybe I shouldn’t. I eat one anyway, and now I feel bad. I’m not supposed to be doing this anymore. I’m twisting uncomfortably in the straight-backed, standard waiting room chair.

The room is dimly lit; the warm beige colored carpet blends in smoothly with the softly lit smoky colored walls. There are relaxing water sculptures and a myriad of self-help and feel better about yourself magazines on the black cherry wood table in the center. It smells like health in here, but not the bleached sterile smell of a hospital, more of a warm grandma’s house, big hug kind of smell. I stare at the magazines on the table, and I contemplate picking one up, just to have something to do with my hands. They all have those articles about how to boost your self-esteem, how to be a better person, how to be strong, and healthy, and balanced and blah blah blah.

I don’t want to be here, but I am desperate. I need to be here, and I finally know it. Water is welling up inside my throat, but I’m not sure which tube it’s coming from. I think I’m choking. I pull my sweatshirt and my coat tighter around me. It’s really not that cold outside yet, but I’ve wrapped four layers around me. I pull my hood over my head too, maybe I can blend in with the chair and I won’t have to go to this appointment.

The muffled footsteps on the carpet announce that my newest, and up to date, fifth therapist within the past two years is approaching the bamboo screen that separates the waiting room from the rest of the clinic. My fists are clenched so tightly that my nails are digging wedges into the palm of my hand, but I can’t actually feel them. I’m holding my breath as she turns the corner and faces me, offering me a bright smile that lights up her face from below her chin right into the roots of her silver speckled hair. Her eyes are happy and welcoming, and they also seem to sparkle behind her dark, heavy rimmed glasses.  I stand up clumsily from the chair, dropping the scarf that was in my lap, and she extends a hand towards me from under her black and white knit poncho,

“Hi Yali, it’s nice to meet you, I’m Joy.”

I take her hand, and she wraps it with both of hers in a firm and momentarily reassuring grip. When I bring myself to really look at her, I feel as though I’m looking at what my sister would look like, if she were 20 years older. The thought of Danielle sends a wave of heat through my upper body, and I relax. I listen to Joy as she’s talking about how the colder weather has caught her by surprise.

I find that she’s surprisingly normal and easy to talk to. In fact she seems to me like she would be more at ease in a classroom full of kids eager to snatch up their paintbrushes and colorful modeling clay. I follow around the row of offices; this place boasts a comprehensive approach to healthcare. If the services were listed on a restaurant take out menu, they could satisfy all tastes:  western, eastern, homeopathic, psychiatric, psychological, nutritional and acupunctural. Most of the doors are closed, which I guess means that they are in session, but some of them are open and I can see the examination beds with the white tissue paper lying in wait for some vulnerable person to lay on them.

She leads me into her office nestled in a little alcove at the back of the clinic. It looks like almost every other therapist’s office that I’ve been in. There’s a couch, and it’s facing a chair where every therapist has sat and asked me to spill my life, whilst they take notes or nodded, or doodled, or possibly even slept with their eyes open. Except that this chair isn’t the same chair that the other doctors had; it’s a rocking chair, not too different, in fact, from the one that my grandma Lea sits in when she’s watching TV.

“Do you want to hang up your coat?”

I’m sitting on the couch with my coat wrapped awkwardly around my torso, hugging myself as if to complete the illusion of a cocoon.

“No. I’m fine.”

Joy leans back on her chair and looks kindly at me through her glasses. This is the first time I’m here to see her, and I’m silently begging that she is finally the one who will understand me. She interlocks her fingers across her lap and I think that the first session is just as hard for the doctor as it is for the patient.

“So, I know you filled out forms during the intake session last week, but I haven’t looked at them.”

My heart sinks. I thought I would be coming here and she would know why I was here. I don’t want to explain it again. Why couldn’t she just read the paper?

“So…you have no idea what you’re getting into?”

She laughs at what she thinks is an attempt at humor, but actually, I am quite serious. My life has become worse than unmanageable - it has shattered, and some of the pieces have turned to dust, impossible to piece back together. Her eyes are still smiling at me as she continues.

“Well, why don’t you tell me what brought you here today? What made you call me on Monday?”

A vice grip tightens around my heart, and I cannot hold the tears inside. I launch into the story that I have, within my life, entitled the final wake-up call. I ramble, skipping from subject to subject, condensing years into seconds as I tell her about my disorder, how so many people have tried to help, and I have lied to them. How I lied to doctors, my parents, friends; how it isn’t the first time that it has happened, and how alone and depressed I feel and how I’m at the end of my rope, and that I can’t take it anymore.

At some point, I manage to stop my tears, and when I do, the flow of my story falters. Suddenly, the last words in my head are dancing in front of my face and I’m angry; furious at myself and the peanuts in my pocket.

Joy barely flinches; she nods as if all of the garbled mess I’m throwing at her makes some sort of sense.

“And how do you feel now?”

I take the time to look around the office; there are framed collages everywhere, colorful prints depicting metamorphosis, and positive evolution. In here, I feel warm. I don’t want to leave the office. It feels too nice. Out there, it’s cold and I feel small enough to fall between the cracks in the sidewalk.

“I feel like a monster.”

She leans forward, a slight frown clouds her kind features.

“I don’t think you’re a monster, Yali.”

Now I do laugh, because this is truly funny.

“Well, you don’t even know me.”

She smiles, and the light is back in her face.

“Well, let me tell you what I see. I see someone who is sick, and who wants to get better. I see a young lady in a lot of pain, I don’t see a monster.”

Maybe you need to get new glasses. The thought jumps into my head before my brain has a chance to hold it back. I wince at the fact that even though I have brought myself here willingly, I am still pitching wild curve balls, aiming to disarm and defend myself. Anger surges within me and rises as a deep wave of bile in my throat. Anger at myself for rebuking Joy in my head, anger at Joy for making me feel like I’m not a monster, and anger at where I am, and how I got here.

I feel hot. The temperature of the room must have suddenly spiked, because I can feel the sweat gliding off my collarbone. The bag of nuts is pulsating in my pocket; it is begging me to not think. I force myself to ignore it; I can’t eat it right now anyway.

“No, the things I’ve done are unforgivable. I’m a monster. I am poison to other peoples’ lives.”

Joy is smiling at me and I wonder what in the world could be so funny.

“Did you wake up any morning during this time and think; today I am going to hurt the ones who love me?”

OF COURSE NOT!

I’m surprised by my outburst.

“I just…didn’t know. I was so…lost. God, it sounds so lame. I’m twenty-three, and I cling to my disease like a child. I wish I could just grow up.”

The clear empathy in Joy’s eyes stings me below my ears, and I twitch, impulsively. I’m uncomfortable in the silence and I push myself to continue,

“I mean…what…how am I supposed to look at myself? After all I’ve done? After everything?”

Joy looks at me in mild amusement, the answer is obvious in her posture, relaxed and attentive, and when she says it, it wraps me in a thick comforter on a frigid winter’s night.

“With Compassion.”

Oh.

A hazy puddle of blue light filters through my brain;

Compassion.

I say it out loud.

It looks like a blueberry, and it leaves a bittersweet aftertaste in my mouth.