Sarisleahsghost - She Herself Is A Haunted House

my mom reminded me today that i woke up on the 4th and came to her crying, and she asked me what was wrong, and i didn’t know, i couldn’t tell her anything except that i was unbearably sad and had this sickening feeling of dread that made me feel like the walls were closing in for no reason

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.

Will literally anybody at all see those murdered kids' faces and start speaking up. Everyone in my life tries to tell me the whole world doesn't hate us, that the "silent majority" is with us. But what fucking use is a silent majority? If literally nothing at all whatsoever can get them to stop being silent?

Babies were murdered and your peers excuse it and celebrate the organization that killed them and held a party as they handed over their corpses. And this "silent majority" won't even reblog a post about it, on the off chance that they get blocked by their violently antisemitic tumblr mutuals on a completely anonymous microblogging website. If that is the extent of the moral backbone of the "silent majority," what fucking use is it? People can bring up every excuse in the world for not taking this or that action or not talking about this or that particular thing, but the fact of the matter is that if you literally never push back against bigotry in any situation at all no matter how low the stakes are, you are completely indistinguishable from a bigot and what's "in your heart" is less than worthless.

What's inside only matters because of what it makes you do. Anything else is a fantasy we tell ourselves to hide from the reality of who we really are.

Remembering Fanny Brice born on October 29, 1891 #botd

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.

hey siri, how much more mask off can you get without tearing off your skin

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993), dir. Henry Selick

🎶✨ it's me, hi! ✨🎶

i haven't decided yet if i'm entirely switching blogs, but i needed a place to be safe, and that was no longer my old one. if i'm following you, i trust and love you. you don't have to follow me back.

ps: url swap! well, i do adore and originally planned on using maddenedbythestars, but then changed my mind? we'll see, it's always in reserve just in case!

pps: please read this if you're joining me here. thank you <3

boo

EEK! A SPOOK!!! and i shall call it ghostie and it shall be mine and it shall be my ghostie!!! 💚👻💚👻💚

(supreme irony in that i now feel alienated and a bit melancholy to lose my ghost girl url, so thank you for this my love, i can keep a part of her represented with a cute badge!)

A locket Humphrey Bogart gave Lauren Bacall has a new owner.

The gold locket, which is heart-shaped and inscribed with the words “Baby/heres my heart/Bogie,” is set with a simulated garnet and has openings for two pictures inside. A buyer paid $57,150 for the locket at a Julien’s Auctions sale of Hollywood memorabilia, nearly three times its highest pre-sale estimate of $20,000. There was a total of 23 bids for the piece. (sept.2023)