I danced with Jews this weekend. In London there’s an annual event called Buttmitzvah. It’s a big queer Jewish party. And when I say party I mean a huge venue with over 500 queer Jews and their friends—both straight and gay— dancing the hora under purple lights with glittered faces. We spun in circles to the ancestral tunes of Hava Nagila and Mizrahi music.
I’ve never been in a room with so many non middle eastern people dancing to my people’s music. It felt like my bat-mitzvah. When we party bussed a bunch of 13 year old kids from Redlands to a fancy venue in Los Angeles. They too, spun in circles. They too, dipped their heads and danced to Persian and Jewish music. I don’t believe in God but if I were to meet her, I think it would’ve felt something like this. Looking up at those purple lights…exaltation. The unspoken understanding. All the cultures from far and wide, from every corner of the world, and yet the songs and dances, we all knew. We didn’t so much as skip a beat. I didn’t realize how much I longed for this. For Jewish friends. For Jewish spaces. For spaces for us to celebrate. And our friends alongside us also celebrating. I know to some, it was just a party, but to me, it stirred me awake. A rude disruption of all that I’ve been disconnected from and how deeply I want to reunite with it. I think I’ll go buy a menorah tonight. Light the second candle. It’s Hanukkah and I’m alone in an apartment in Notting Hill. But God dammit, I’m celebrating. Stories of Notting Hill Monday November 29, 2021
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A lovely friend gifted me a perfume. It’s woodsy, smells like man, and I like wearing it. I spritzed two too many and now I smell like a boy’s gym and I want to throw up.
My friend Tomasso, the barista you all know and love, has tried to make loose plans to hang out outside the cafe. Emphasis on loose. He was eager at first but slowly it’s dwindled. He’s made them and cancelled them for the third time. Tonight being one of them. A man with empty promises is like a glass without water. Another pursuit, Samuel, texted me everyday long enough to make plans. In which on Sunday I responded Tuesday afternoon sounds great :) Well Tuesday came and left and he only now responded with “I flopped. When are you free next?” For you, dear Samuel, not again. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe it’s the energy I’m putting out. My friend Sinéa read my tarot cards and said that I’m attracting men into my life who are not for me. I know that. I’d never date these guys. I thought I wanted to be single and to enjoy in light-hearted fun. I just didn’t anticipate how frivolous men could be. I thought when they were in pursuit of you, it’d be different. I ended a relationship partially because a man was frivolous with me. I went through 10 months of dating a man who didn’t care for Friday night dates. Now I’ve entered the world of dating where the only thing a man can commit to is however far his words will reach. But not nearly far enough for his legs to walk. Except if prospects of his penis is involved. He’ll marathon sprint, with his penis as a third foot leading the way. (Sorry Mama if you’re reading this.) Disclaimer: I don’t think all men are trash. I get this burning feeling when we, women, talk about men like they’re animals (I know I know I’m a hypocrite). It’s reductive. It means we’ve already assumed the worst in them. I like to advocate for the best in them. Innocent until proven otherwise. My father treats my mother well. My brother treats his girlfriend well. The men in my life have been good to me and show me that there are men out there who are not only willing but wanting to put in the time. I know this. And I believe it to be true. I think I’m craving someone whose words reach far enough to move their legs. I think that’s why I like the masculine perfume. I think that’s why I spritzed it on myself two too many. I think I’m craving. Starving maybe (if we’re being melodramatic). Maybe Sinéa’s right. It’s empty at the end of this road. I think it’s time for a different approach. Stories of Notting Hill Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 I hate when people ask how old I am.
Especially after a night out dancing… What are you trying to determine? I’ve gotten the sense more than once that some equate enthusiasm and energy for naïveté and immaturity. It eats at my worst insecurities. Will they think I lack depth? Not to be taken seriously? Here’s a manifesto:
Miriam Margolyes once said, “you have to know with whom you have the pleasure of speaking to.” You would not behave at a 5 course meal with your parent’s friends in the same way you’d behave at a sticky floored bar with a group of twenty-something year olds. Sure you’re still you, but you modify. It’s called propriety. I recently danced and partied with a set of wonderful strangers. However, partying with new friends can be a dangerous thing. Their first impression of you is under the strobe lights at a discotheque. They haven’t had the pleasure to speak with you at a quiet cafe with a tea in hand and exchange childhood stories. I was sober. I’m always sober, I don’t like to drink or smoke. And yet, I was, and have often been called, the coke of the evening. How do you have so much energy? They say. We’re getting our energy off of you. That part doesn’t bother me. I usually wear it like a badge—or shall I say bag—of honor. Get it? Bag. Bag of coke. Okay, moving on. If only they knew that I was getting my energy off of them. New and kind and open hearted people. But sometimes I can start to feel insecure. When I get the sense that my enthusiasm is closing in on me. That it’s all they see. A salsa, a samba, and the coke of the evening. Stories of Notting Hill Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 There was a man on my flight back to London tonight. He was also on my flight to Catania on Saturday. Call it fate. If I noticed him then; I definitely noticed him now. I saw him in the boarding line at our gate taking off his pullover. It felt chemical.
We kept sneaking glances at each other on the shuttle to the plane. Sometimes I’d stare a little longer, daring myself to hold my gaze if he looked back at me. There was a rush in the secret game I was playing with myself. But somehow he could feel when I was looking, so he wouldn’t look back. I’d like to think I’m a pretty self assured person but a pair of eyelashes and the prospects of rejection can really make a girl go silly. Here I am. Watching his biceps and lashes whilst plotting how I’d approach him and how he’d respond. I think I played out three 1 act plays. Suddenly you don’t know how to operate the body you’ve lived in for 23 years. Why am I stretching my hands up to the rail on the bus. Why am I pretending to sleep on the plane. I moved to the back of the plane to “sleep” in the empty aisle. He was just conveniently right across from me. I’m so embarrassed even writing this, oh God. He went to the bathroom. Should I go to the bathroom too, oh my god stop Ava before you have a mile high fantasy. Or don’t. Hehe. Our flight landed. Stood next to each other in customs. Got on the same shuttle. Each checkpoint getting closer to our departure. Tapped our Oyster cards to the subway. Still right behind one another. Him behind me. Me behind him. Adult tag. But keep it subtle. And then he went to platform 1. I to 3. They were in opposite directions. But then I saw him whip around and—-- He went back to get his friend. Now I’m on the subway home. Stories of Notting Hill Tuesday, November 16 2021 I hate goodbyes. I always feel it in my hands.
My palms ache and feel weak. Giovanni just dropped me off at the bus station. We said bye through the window, then he walked off. The bus pulled out, made a turn and drove off shortly after. I searched for him in the street. Right side left side right side left side, and right as the bus made a bend to go in the opposite direction , I saw him, tiny like an ant, his back to me. Marie had to go to the English academy to teach a class, so we said our goodbyes in the bookshop. I just passed by the academy on the bus and I searched for her too. Why do we do that? Try to get a last fleeting glimpse. Marie, as you all know, is a photographer, and today her lecture was about the conception and need for photography. Before photographs were paintings. Before that, theater and oral tradition. Why all this? Photography, as she puts it, is man’s attempt to immortalize life and thus avoid the inevitable, death. We all want to remember and be remembered. Our legacy to live on. Capture a fleeting ever moving moment and gain some semblance of control. I think goodbyes are like that too. That’s why our senses get heightened. Our hands ache for a handful too much of muscle and body. Our ears listen for the timbre in their voice. Our noses smell all—shampoo, detergent, herb and salt. We share a meal like it’s the last supper. And when the weight of their muscles and the timbre in their voice escapes us, we helplessly search for our friends on the side streets and, like a photograph, immortalize the inevitable. Stories of Syracusa Tuesday, November 16 2021 A group of Mormon elders just passed by me on the island. I almost wanted to whisper possessively “What are you doing here?” as if I was the only American that had “claim” to this paradise. I don’t want other Americans to mess it up.
Sidebar: 2 things.
Bold choice to come to one of the most Roman Catholic parts of the world. Everyone’s had their fair share of conquering on this island. The Arabs, the Greeks, the Spanish, the Romans. And now, apparently, the Mormons. Bless their hearts for trying. A few American girls were with them too. One of the girls looked to me, eager eyed and so earnestly smiled and mouthed “ciao”. I don’t know why but I went along with it. I smiled and then sort of slouched back into my chair as a mark of both comfort and familiarity. I relished in the fact that she mistook me for a local. It made me chuckle. Seeing myself in her. I now understood how everyone else felt when I gawked and gaped at them. Though, the neighbors and cafe patrons stare at me too, to be fair. Oh, the innocence and ignorance of it all. How we seek for understanding and connection. And try our hardest with the little we know. Stories of Syracusa Monday, November 15, 2021 This morning after a stroll through a flea market at Piazza Santa Lucia, where I was greeted with the kindness of merchants who gave me free fruit, I stopped by a cafe for some Succa de Pesca. Succa means juice and pesca is a seasonal fruit that’s kind of a like a cross between a big apricot and a peach.
In the table in front of me were four burly men and this little girl, about three. Their cologne collectively smelled like my uncle. One of the uncles was stirring his espresso, when it spilled out and dripped down the cup. The girl got a little mischievous glint in her eyes and cheekily extended her finger out to run her finger along the drip. The uncle play scared her and she broke into the most infectious laughter. They had a few back and forth’s of this game of espresso finger tag. They played the way me and my uncles played. The way I play with my little cousins. A kid’s first instinct. How do we grow to lose it? Sidebar: What would a guy think if on a date I extended my finger out and dipped it into his beer. Would he think that was play? Anyways, I digress. I think you get to know a lot about a person by the way they play. I think dates should be over a game, not over a glass of beer. I know that sounds weird but really I think it’d be much more insightful than talking in a pub about the time you hitchhiked across the east coast. What about a scavenger hunt through the city? Or dancing in the park? Or getting on the tube and getting off at a random stop and seeing where it takes us? We do it with our friends. Why not with prospective lovers too? Anyhow, I’m done with my juice. Talk soon. Stories of Syracusa Sunday, November 14, 2021 Giovanni and Maria Vittoria are the bookshop owners of Libreria Zaratan in Syracusa, Sicily. We became friends 3 years ago when I threw an open mic night in their bookshop. Giovanni is a musician, a violinist. And Marie is a photographer.
Giovanni is like me. A lover of people with a childlike sensibility. Marie is more like my mom and brother. Calmer, a bit shy by nature, and notices everything. I love the way her eyes squint when she smiles. It’s a really pure smile and it makes me so happy. I hadn’t seen them in three years and had only known them for a few weeks before returning back home. Yet when I told them I was paying a visit, I was met with tight hugs and carbonara pasta. I was so hungry. For both. In the evening they played translator as we bumped into many of their friends along the street who were met with the uptempo energy of the “California Girl”, whose 10 capped lexicon managed to endear their hearts. “Mi Italiano molto piccolo y merda.” My Italian very small and shit. This place is my Garden of Eden: I’ve had two cappuccinos—that’s two more than I’ve had all year. And I’m sensitive to milk. But throw me in the sea and spear me with a sword fish before I ask for oat milk and be that tourist. “Oat milk cappuccino.” Ha. Suicide. I’ve eaten ham and beef with almost every aperitif. I’m dying of heart burn but I don’t care. I’m so happy. The tempo is different. There’s a saying here. Comu veni si cunta "When it's time, we'll talk about it" Don’t get me wrong. People work hard and friends my age have told me that there’s not much opportunity. But people eat well, indulge in the joys of good conversation, and live amongst nature’s gifts, with the fresh sea breeze in each breath. The presence of people is palpable. I remember now. I promised myself I’d take a bit of Comu veni si cunta with me when I went back home. I let it slip. I’m going to try again. In the meantime, America, you young eager country you, you could learn a bit or two from the Sicilians, walking on land thousands of years old, with the remnants of Apollo’s temple as living proof. Stories of Syracusa Saturday, November 13, 2021 I’m writing this from my balcony seat at the Royal Festival Hall. It’s intermission right now. Or as they say “interval”. I took myself on a date to see the London Philharmonic Orchestra. I’d like to say I enjoyed the music, but I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t hear any of it.
I, my friends, spent the entirety of Act 1 with knees akimbo to my chest in the handicap bathroom shitting my mother fucking brains out. The only symphony I heard was the sound of my—well you get the point. Was it the turkey salami I ate or the dose of antibiotics that always fucks my stomach lining or perhaps it was the sadness of the last few days all stored up in my belly and twisted in knots. I lost my appetite because I was filled off of the tears in my stomach. I received some troubling news a few days ago. Someone thinks I did something bad to them. I swear to you I didn’t. I’ve never been on the receiving end of someone’s hatred. She saw me whispering to someone with whom she doesn’t trust and assumed I was speaking behind her back. I wasn’t. I was talking about something entirely unrelated to her. But she took a snapshot in her mind and filled it with all her worst assumptions. Filled the frame with poison. Saw me as poison. Took all her mistrust and found a body to place it on. Mine. I’ve never been on the receiving end of someone’s hatred. I’m so careful and considerate of people’s feelings. And when I fall short, I apologize. And mean it. It literally makes me sick to my stomach. When I was in the 10th grade a girl in my choir class lost her brother and dad to a car accident. My brother was the same age as hers. We sang at their funeral. I had bouts of nausea and cramps for weeks. Same thing when I went through a break up 8 months ago. When you have a visceral reaction to an experience, it’s your bodies way of telling you what your brain hasn’t yet caught up to. The body never lies. The body takes pain and turns it into whatever it likes. Diarrhea. Vomit. Headache. Numbness. Nausea. It’s telling you that you’re an affected human. She’s not a malicious person. I don’t think she sought out my suffering. She just cared more about protecting herself from suffering. What I wish she knew though was that her suffering was self inflicted. I wish she knew that there was someone in her corner who hadn’t hurt her. It makes me so sad she assumes the worst in people. Assumed the worst in me. Painted me to be one of many villains in her book. How unkind the world must have been to her... Oh, okay Act 2 is starting. Now time to listen to the only drama I prefer—a classical concerto that I only paid £14 for woot. Stories of Notting Hill Wednesday, November 10, 2021 Last night I went to the Jazz Cafe in Camden Town. It’s my favorite place in London. Well I say it’s my favorite place but I think it’s really an idea of my favorite place. Every time I go, I feel a little awkward in the beginning. I’ll tell you why in a second.
It’s an establishment that feels like where punks would go in the late 70s-early 80s. What’s left of the “underground” scene. Except it’s not underground at all. Everyone knows about it. But it attracts the same scene. Or so I thought. I don’t know how punks were in the late 70s but I imagine punk in Britain was born out of rebellion. A “do it yourself” attitude with safety pins and slogans written across your shirt. A fuck the establishment, listen to good music, and dance with oblivion attitude. So back to Jazz Cafe. Introducing NIHILOXICA. Two worlds collide:
And God, when they started drumming, did I want to dance. My veins pulsed. There’s a saying in Farsi— too ragesh raft به رگهایش رفت. Meaning “it went in her veins”. Whenever I hear a dumbak drum I get this compulsive itch to shake my hips. Like when you see a baby and want to squeeze them and you feel the tension in your hands. So I’ll get up and dance in the living room. My grandma laughs and always tell me too raget raft “it went in your veins”. But I looked around. People weren’t dancing. They were gently bobbing their head. Perhaps a bit of a knee bend, like a baby who can’t yet walk but dances in place. Is this a British thing? Does the stiff upper lip also apply to the dance floor? Where were the punks? Where were the 80’s? I moved from the back of the crowd into a corner on the far right right at the lip of the stage. I set my nonalcoholic beer down, closed my eyes, dipped my head back, and like a Persian—like a punk-- too ragem indeed raft. نه رگهام رفت. Stories of Notting Hill Wednesday, November 10th, 2021 |
About this PageHello friends! Here's my page on all things writing. From my short stories to my poems on people, places, and life itself.
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