Author: Nada Gordon

I don’t want to forget how it was to be there.

Oh! PANG of nostalgia.

That little neighborhood was very like fairyland. A tiny verdant footpath followed parallel to the curving shopping street. Of course it was gardened with great care to be lovely during all seasons. In the late summer, huge, surreal puffy hydrangeas. In the autumn, changing maples. Also in the summer — abutilons, columbines. Spring — crocuses. Starting very early in spring, the camellias would come out all waxy and ruffled.

In my old neighborhood in Japan, Gotokuji, when I wanted fresh tofu all I had to do was go out of my little apartment building, and then down a shady little lane to the curving shopping street. Right at the corner was a miniature tofu factory where a diminutive and very inquisitive old lady would first ask me if I wanted firm or soft, then she’d fetch for me the freshest, loveliest tofu you can imagine. I used to eat it plain.

I was reminded viscerally the other night of how much I cannot bear piety. A student of mine was giving a presentation on gay parenting, in which she quoted the American Pediatric Association as saying that children raised by same-sex parents were more likely to act on their homoerotic impulses (so?) and also that “homosexuals were more violent” (say what?). Then she quoted the bible saying that homosexual union was against nature. Another student said to her, you don’t really believe everything the bible says, do you? With an indescribably smug smile, the presenting student replied,”yes. I believe.”

How to describe the rage and annoyance I had to suppress at that moment?

I don’t want to. I want to sit here and post and publish post and publish post and publish these trivial nuggets. Nemo curls up on a magenta pillow. Tiny buds on the larch tree outside. Tiny.

Impulses to run away somewhere, stop everything, change my name again.

I MUST clean the house.

DoI have any enemies?

Starting to read, for delight. Charlotte and her many babies, her poignant demise. The long-lashed piglet Wilbur. The Poky Little Puppy. I could almost have stopped there, with the Poky Little Puppy. Image: large -headed baby dog. Green grass. Dishes of dog food.

People read emotionally. They pick up and load certain phrases as if they were outlined in flourescent green, no matter what the context. This is the textual origin of the soundbyte.

Lovers and enemies (in general, I mean, not mine) (I don’t think I have any true enemies, except the ones that are making the planet uninhabitable for all of us) know what I’m talking about.