Im Into Some Fucked Up Shit. Raindrops On Roses And Whiskers On Kittens. Bright Copper Kettles And Warm

Witchy woodland animals on a vintage Halloween card

Sweetness! Just wanted this christen this blog with a lil bit of love. You’re wonderful and kind and I’m sending you a big hug tonight xo 🩵

乁[ ° ᴥ ° ]ㄏ

hi honey!!! thank you so much for your kindness, that is the very best blessing to start this blog with. you are lovely and a delight, and i'm really happy to have you here with me. hugging you and sending love back 😘💗💗💗🧸

so many of you going through sorrows and i wish i could help or take them away and i wish none of you ever had to be hurt or sad and i wish things in the world were gentler and easier and different

*does everything possible other than deleting herself from existence to feel safer and better*

*it doesn’t work because she is caught in a seemingly unending fight or flight response*

my mom’s suffering so much from her arm and there’s nothing i can do to make it better, and she started having a reaction to the antibiotics, so she had to cut back to only taking one each day, and i am very worried that she’s been taking them for a week and is still in this much pain. we have to take the car back in tomorrow and leave it there, so we’ll have to figure out how’s safest to get home. meanwhile i just can’t sleep and am getting really close to the edge of not being able to handle it

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.

i am so sorry you all have to deal with angsty posts here as i situate myself, but as an extremely sensitive people pleaser, i was mentally sort of always trying to do my best to reach out to others and even cater certain things for them, especially once my blog grew in size, which led to my more widespread interactions, influxes of messages, anons, etc - and so now, because of having to retreat from and even to a degree fear (or at best feel wary/uncomfortable) continuing some of those interactions, i feel a horrendous sense of…guilt? sorrow, yes, but i also feel awful. i cut off those anons who came to me with whatever, which isn’t their fault but was a protective choice to guard from potential outside harm, but i also left behind people i love and adore and considered precious in my life, not because that ended up not being true, but because the trust got shattered. and i know that some of them would be so hurt if they found out i moved spaces, and it weighs on me, because the last thing in the world i ever want is to do that, is to hurt friends that i love. it’s a horrible feeling. and my mom told me it’s not my fault and i have to have boundaries (i am very bad at boundaries) and trust my instincts and protect my peace however i can…but i still feel so bad and anxious at the potential of hurting someone, even though i myself was hurt. fun times in jessie’s brain 🙃

Harry for Rolling Stone by Amanda Fordyce

Seeing that many people on the either side of the political spectrum seem to be showing their true colors, which makes me wonder, how can Jewish people navigate politics on this day and age in the sense of, can you ever feel welcome at any of the sides? (Just curious, is okay if you prefer not to answer)

im going to start by saying I’m one single jew and I don’t claim to speak for any other jews with my opinions on this because you’re going to get a different one depending on who you ask.

to me, there’s no way to feel safe anywhere on the american political spectrum. my views can align with one and I can participate in elections just fine, but I’ll never feel safe in a room with just conservatives OR just leftists/liberals/dems. either way, you’re faced with a different antisemitic monster, and people who identity as leftists/liberals/dems/etc are now committing hate crimes as well. people who identify as progressive are hatecriming jews all over the world. my mom is incredibly conservative and everything that comes with that, including internalized antisemitism, and even SHE sat me and my little sister down yesterday and warned us against wearing our magen davids so we don’t ‘identify ourselves’ as jews in public. we’re not safe politically or spiritually no matter how we align or how we identify ourselves socially. it’s been hostile for a very long time - this is nothing new in concept - but now even the left side of the political spectrum is physically unsafe. I’m not sure what the solution is, but it’s getting absolutely terrifying.

Remembering Fanny Brice born on October 29, 1891 #botd

also unfortunately you're guaranteed this blog is going to be the exact same nonsense interests as the old one because i'm probably just going to bring everything over lol i'm sorry 😭❤

edit: this is so cute?