Israel: The Musical!

Hello, Effers! I feel so badly lately, as if I have abandoned you! No, no, just traveling like crazy the past few weeks. I’m just back from Ecuador, in fact, as of yesterday evening. My son is living there, teaching English, so my daughter and I went to visit. And wonderfully enough, a JFEME reader by the name of Juan, upon noticing my mention of Ecuador in a blog post, managed to hook me up with the wonderful Arturo Yepez, a Quito-based screenwriting and film teacher. So last week I had the great honor of teaching a two-hour class in Quito, at the University of San Francisco. What FUN it was! Most of the kids in the class spoke English but Arturo translated for the few who didn’t, and though neither of us had ever done that before, I think we did a pretty good job. The class was about idea testing and outlining. The campus is just beautiful (as is Quito in general) and I tell you, Effers, I was totally inspired. I think I found my calling. I enjoy teaching workshops to just about anybody who will listen because I love talking about film and story and character and all of that fun stuff – but teaching a class to students who do not normally have as much access to some of the ideas of mainstream Hollywood was really fun. Here are all these emerging voices – particularly in Latin America, which has a very rich tradition of storytelling – but these aspiring writers do not always have the same resources and exposure to the ideas, theories and tenets of Hollywood and are therefore commercially marginalized. Even if a student in South America does not wish to write, direct or produce films in America, I think it self evident that to understand mainstream Hollywood thinking is to their advantage. I was more lit up teaching that class than I have been in a very long time.

So good lord, Ecuador, Egypt, Jordan and Israel, all within the space of five weeks. Phew! Someone said to me, before I went to Israel, that going there would change me and you know – it did. I can’t explain it, the connection I felt to that place. I love the desert and obviously (or not, if you haven’t been) Israel has a lot of desert topography. I think particularly in Jerusalem, the centuries of history – my god – and the layer upon layer of diversity there – it’s very powerful. People go to Jerusalem from all over the world, for so many reasons. Ideology, religion, tradition – it all combines into such a strange brew there. If you have ever been, you know exactly what I am talking about.  And, as I delve further and further into understanding who I am, and as that path leads me to a greater appreciation of story and character, I will also note something very strange and that is that it is oddly exhilarating being someplace where danger is very real.

Having grown up, as most of us did, here in the US, with a swingset and a backyard with the sprinkler hissing and mom making dinner inside and the church bells clanging on Sunday and the Girl Scouts selling cookies once a year, all that normalcy, all of that very hygienic, dependable, routinized, reasonable SAFETY really soaks into our bones. And as wonderful as it is, when you are someplace with razor wire, automatic weapons and checkpoints, you feel an odd, electric, urgent rush of adrenline. This is for real. This is happening. These people are not playing. And let me tell you, Effers – Israeli soldiers do not play.

Here in the US, once in a great while, IF you live somewhere very urban, you’ll see some sort of police action or whatever and think holy shit, something really awful could happen here. Then there’s that fear that random awfulness might erupt (like the terrible events in Tacoma today) that we Americans have because yes, once in awhile, in our very low-security state, terrible stuff happens. But most of the time, we Americans (thankfully) take our safety for granted. Palestinians with M16s are something we see on the news and from the safety of our armchairs, we think oh dear, tut, tut, will Israel ever work out its problems? But when a Palestinian with an M16 is leaning into your car window and asking for your passport while across the street an Israeli soldier speaks into his radio – that, my friends, is a different matter altogether. (Now: what was one DOING in the West Bank near Hebron when a travel advisory had been issued? Well, one pleads the judgment of one’s otherwise quite wonderful not to mention handsome Bedouin driver. Thank you, habibi, for the good times.)

I have talked to so many Israelis and Arabs who unanimously say of living in Israel that the danger is exaggerated and that it’s really quite safe there and they feel fine about it. I think on the one hand that they have been somewhat numbed because CHECKPOINTS WITH ARMED SOLDIERS IS NOT NORMAL but on the other hand, with that much security around, one really does feel strangely safe. Nobody is going to swipe your purse in Israel. No, there only a cafe will go up in an explosion. It’s all or nothing. And how can one live one’s life fearing the cafe or bus or market will suffer a bomb? You can’t think about it. So you don’t. That’s all I can figure as to why Israelis say they feel perfectly safe. Safe my behind, habibi.

Then, what seems like a non sequitur:

I have been waiting seven years, since my divorce, to be able to talk about it. And suddenly, a propos of my visit to Israel, I think it is time. Does that make sense? Probably not. It doesn’t entirely make sense to me either. All I know is that something about that journey seemed to trigger something in me. I knew that I had a good and funny, and painful and entertaining, story to tell about my marriage, divorce and personal evolution and oft is the time I have dreamt of writing my own personal version of HEARTBURN. But I have been waiting for the universe to tell me when it was time to tell the story. I just knew, intuitively, that when it was time to do so, like waiting for fine wine to age, it would be a GREAT story. But I had to wait.

Why I went to Israel, I have no idea. Well – partly I do. Blake Snyder’s death was a big impetus. I have a friend who is living and working in Israel and she invited me to come over and see her. W-h-a-t? In Israel? That hot, rocky, dangerous place? No thanks. Then Blake died. And the day he died, I kept thinking of how tall he was and how the last time I’d seen him, he’d said such kind and encouraging things to me but that that very morning Blake simply didn’t wake up. And it affected me profoundly. So I bought a ticket and I went to the Middle East and I returned a changed person in ways that I can’t even articulate to myself. As wonderful, smiling Sal, who I met in Jordan said to me – life is a one lap race. And sometimes it takes the death of someone to really make that clear to you. And sometimes you have to obey the pull of the universe’s call and go somewhere you’d never have gone before and meet people you’d never have met before to find the courage to write about something that happened right in your own, prosaic American life. How wonderful and mysterious life is. How blessed we are to be writers so that we can talk about life and find meaning in it for ourselves and for others.

So I started my book after seven years of waiting for the right moment. And the words have been flowing out of me and I am loving it. And the title is Israel: The Musical. Don’t ask. But it feels good to let those words flow out of me and onto the page; it is cathartic and funny and terrifying.  But oh so good.

And I’m wanting to teach overseas much more. In Barcelona, Johannesburg and Abu Dhabi. And definitely more in South America. I wonder what 2010 will hold for me. I have entertained the idea of going back to Israel and using it as a home base for a few months so I can explore more layers and spend a lot more time on the Dead Sea. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. Isn’t it wonderful that I get to choose and that I can write and teach from anywhere?