#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage & Family
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What do you mean Steve and Bucky didn't get a happy ending?
They had a big gay Irish-Jewish wedding on Rockaway Beach at Coney Island, they honeymooned in space, a place Bucky has always longed to visit, and they moved into the home they built together! Steve got his dream art studio, and Bucky got his dream shabbat-friendly kosher kitchen.
They were even gifted Vibranium bedframe as a housewarming gift (which has saved them a ridiculous amount of money on beds that aren't strong enough to keep up with them)!
#marvel#mcu#bucky#bucky barnes#james bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#jewish bucky#jewish bucky barnes#jewish!bucky#jewish!bucky barnes#steve rogers#steven grant rogers#stucky#stevebucky#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home#for the implication of the bed
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Gay Musicals
Recently I have fallen down a research rabbit hole of gay musical history, mostly due to this website. It's both heartening and disheartening to listen to songs from the 1970s and 1980s and see how far we've come and yet how far we have to go. But it's also made me desperately want to watch quite a few of them!
Most of the summaries come directly from the aforementioned website.
My favorites, in somewhat chronological order:
Boy Meets Boy: A New Musical Comedy of the 1930s (1978)
By Bill Solly and David Ward
The year is 1936, the place is prim-and-proper London, yet in the society wedding of the year - breathlessly covered by all the newspapers - the happy couple consists of two men. The fact that no one finds this in any way unusual leaves the musical free to deal, not with angst and depression, but with fast-moving intrigue, high spirits and the universal problems that might beset any two people who fall in love.
When handsome foreign correspondent Casey O'Brien misses out on the story of the decade - the Abdication - he focuses instead on the nuptials of Boston millionaire Clarence Cutler, whose intended is a British aristocrat, the Honourable Guy Rose. Casey's rival newsmen fool him into thinking the mousy Guy is a famous beauty. Then when the latter fails to turn up at the church, Casey turns the jilting into a sensational headline, and has to come up with a photograph to back up his story.
Ten Percent Revue (1987)
By Tom Wilson Weinberg
A revue of songs by Weinberg for his church, with songs about gay society, political struggle, and love. Amazon has a few of the songs available to listen to, and I really loved:
"Marriage Song," about while they might not be allowed to get legally married, they're still married in their hearts
"And the Supremes," a song about Bowers v. Hardwick, a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults, in this case with respect to homosexual sodomy
"Walk to Washington," a song about protesting in DC for LGBTQA rights. We're gonna paint the White House lavender, make the Oval Office quake, we're gonna walk to Washington.
"Flaunting It," a protest song about being told not to flaunt it and make it obvious that you're gay through your personality, political activism, clothing, etc.
Elegies For Angels, Punks and Raging Queens (1989)
By Janet Hood and Bill Russell
A song cycle about AIDS. The monologues are from the perspective of people who died from AIDS, the songs from the perspective of grieving family members and friends. If you've heard any song from this one, it's probably "My Brother Lived in San Francisco."
Ballad of Mikey (1994)
By Mark Savage
A musical about an activist lawyer and his struggles to feel useful and like he's actually accomplishing anything in his years as a gay rights activist, who's worried about burnout and the long struggle, and also just not feeling like he fits in with gay culture in a lot of ways.
The Harvey Milk Show (1996)
By Dan Pruitt and Patrick Hutchison
A musical about the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the history of California, who was assassinated at the age of forty-eight. It just sounds very interesting!
The Wild Party (2000)
By Alix Korey
Set during the Roaring Twenties, the entire musical happens in one wild evening in a Manhattan apartment. Please, please, give "An Old-Fashioned Love Story," a raunchy lesbian song, a listen. It's amazing.
I need a good-natured, old-fashioned / Lesbian love story / The kind of tale my mama used to tell. / Where the girls were so sweet / And the music would swell / And in the end the queen would send the men off to hell.
War Bonds (2002)
By Barbara Kahn and Jay Kerr
This musical was inspired by the long-neglected stories of women in the military during World War II, especially women pilots and army recruits, and the problems faced by lesbians among them. It is a love story that shows how two women, scarred by their wartime experiences, find a new life with each other after the war.
Pyrates (2003)
By Barbara Kahn and Jay Kerr
The true story of the pirates of the Caribbean, in the tradition of Three-Penny Opera and Oliver! set in 1720 Jamaica. Featuring real-life lesbian pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read, pirate captain Calico Jack Rackham and gay hairdresser Pierre Devlin. Joining the pirates on their last voyage are an escaped slave, a Sephardic Jewish refugee from the Inquisition in Europe, and assorted brigands and rogues.
Ain't We Got Fun (2005)
By Mike McFadden
This offbeat original musical extravaganza takes place in a Chicago Prohibition Era Speakeasy, and focus on the timeless theme of two boys in love. They dance, sing and kiss - while fighting all the obstacles that keep them apart and that includes a stock market crash, a gaggle of gangsters, bootleg alcohol and the closet.
Upstairs (2013)
By Wayne Self
A musical tragedy about the 1973 arson fire at the Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans, Louisiana that killed 32 people, nearly all of them gay men. I recently read a book on the tragedy and how it's been mostly forgotten though it was the most deadly crime against LGBTQ people until the Pulse shooting in 2016.
Fun Home (2015)
By Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron
Okay, I will admit that I've seen this twice on Broadway and once when it came to my city, but it's one of my favorite musicals of all time and I want to see it again. Adapted by a graphic novel memoir by Alison Bechdel about her childhood and growing up gay in a dysfunctional household, it has some beautiful songs.
Prom (2018)
By Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin
The musical follows four long-ago famous Broadway actors as they travel to the fictional conservative town of Edgewater, Indiana, after reading about a lesbian student who was not allowed to bring her girlfriend to high school prom. They want to help, but mostly they want to soak up the good press and be relevant again.
A Strange Loop (2019)
By Michael L. Jackson
Usher is a black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical: a piece about a black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical.
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Assorted Self Ships: Yakovlev x Rebeca (Me)
🍬Assorted Selfship Asks 🍭
@amalthea9
🎨 How would you describe your ship aesthetic? (Include a moodboard if you like!)
🎁 Have you and your FO(s) given each other any meaningful gifts, material or otherwise? What are they and why are they special?
The first present my Yakovlev gave to me was a blue ribbon. When we got married, his aunt Masha told me about the “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” charm that gives luck in marriages, and i used it as both my something new and blue. I still wear that ribbon in every special ocasion. Later, i made the only gift i could make for him: a pair of new boots. Also, my always husband gives me sunflowers when he can. And he says that our son, Liev, is the greatest presen i gave to him.
📖 Is there a quote/lyric that fits you and your FO(s)?
An old hebrew love song called Et Dodim Kala, wich means A Time of Lovers:
Et dodim kallah,
bo'i el gani;
Et dodim kallah,
bo'i el gani:
Parchah hagefen,
heinetzu rimonim.
( A time for lovers, my bride:
Come to my garden;
A time for lovers, my bride:
Come to my garden:
The vine has blossomed,
The pomegranates have budded).
Et dodim kallah,
bo'i el gani;
Et dodim kallah,
bo'i el gani.
Parchah hagefen.
heinetzu rimonim,
Parchah hagefen,
heinetzu rimonim.
( A time for lovers, my bride:
Come to my garden;
A time for lovers, my bride:
Come to my garden;
The vine has blossomed,
The pomegranates have budded.
The vine has blossomed,
The pomegranates have budded).
Chalaf hageshem
hastav avar;
Chalaf hageshem,
hastav avar.
Kumi ra'ayati
hacheshek gavar,
Kumi ra'ayati
hacheshek gavar.
( The rain is gone,
Winter is over;
The rain is gone,
Winter is over.
Arise, my loving companion,
For desire grows strong.
Arise, my loving companion,
For desire grows strong).
Yaradnu chevrah
lir'ot beganim;
Yaradnu chevrah
lir'ot beganim.
Sham babayit dodi,
einayich yonim,
Sham babayit dodi,
einayich yonim.
( A group of us went down
To graze in the gardens;
A group of us went down
To graze in the gardens;
There, in the house, is my love,
Your eyes are like doves;
There, in the house, is my love,
Your eyes are like doves);
Yafit vena'amt,
kesheleg shinech;
Yafit vena'amt,
kesheleg shinech.
D'vash vechalav tachat leshonech,
D'vash vechalav tachat leshonech.
( Beautiful and pleasant,
Your teeth are like snow;
Beautiful and pleasant,
Your teeth are like snow.
Honey and milk under your tongue,
Honey and milk under your tongue).
Et dodim kallah,
bo'i el gani;
Et dodim kallah,
bo'i el gani.
Parchah hagefen;
heinetzu rimonim;
Parchah hagefen,
heinetzu rimonim.
(A time for lovers, my bride:
Come to my garden;
A time for lovers, my bride:
Come to my garden;
The vine has blossomed,
The pomegranates have budded.
The vine has blossomed,
The pomegranates have budded).
🐚 What do you do to feel close to each other when you have to be apart?
When i was still living in Ekaterinbourg, we wrote letters to each other. Later when got to live together in Moscow and married, Yakovlev presented me to the telephone.
🤗 How do you and your FO(s) express affection for each other? Do you tend to engage in PDA?
When we are alone, Yakovlev caresses my hair and kisses my botton lip. In public, we show our affection running to hug each other, and he starts to cover me in kisses.
🧗♂️ Are you and/or your FO(s) the adventurous types? What kind of adventures do you undergo together?
Yakovlev surely is an adventure. Me? I value tranquility and stability inside my house.
😚 What was your first kiss with your FO(s) like? How did you and your FO(s) react?
We exchanged our first kiss when Yakovlev made a second visit to my family’s house on Ekaterinbourg after months, to personally ask for my hand in marriage. He enjoyed trough and trough, while i was at the same time excited to be kissing him and nervous due to fear be doing it wrong. He insists that our kiss was perfect.
🧸 Do you have any items irl that remind you of your FO(s)?
We still guard the letters that we exchanged. My blue ribbon is still smong the letters i received from him. And soon after we married, Yakovlev asked our friend Benjamin, who is a photojournalist, to take a picture of me that he could put on a locket that was from his father and that he always wears on his neck.
💋 What are the kisses you share typically like? What kind of kisses do you prefer? (eg. ‘good morning’ kiss, ‘i missed you’ kiss, kisses in the rain, etc.)
When Yakovlev comes back home from his work with the Party, we run to hug each other and he gives me passionate kisses on the face, eyes, and mouth.
When he moans kissing my mouth, i can’t avoid blushing.
📚 How do you spend your free time together? Do you usually go out or do you prefer to stay in?
Usually we stay in, talking, reading or playing games like chest. But sometimes Yakovlev’s companions make some dance parties, and he takes me along to dance with them.
🍯 Do you and your FO (s) use pet names for each other?
I call him “Yakov”. And he calls me “Solnechnyy svet” (Sun Ray).
💕 Would a stranger meeting you and your FO(s) for the first time be able to tell that you’re together? If so, how would they be able to tell?
At first a stranger wouldn’t believe we are married, because i am jewish. But then that stranger would have to shut up after seeing the wedding rings we use.
🌱 How have you and your FO(s) changed each others’ lives?
I spend most years of my life with fear. My Yakov gives me hope, optimism, confort and courage.
And my Yakov says that i changed his life because i bring him the feeling of peace that he was looking for, after having being forced to fight in the Great War.
🥰 What was the first thing that attracted you to your FO(s)? What was the first thing that attracted them to you? Who fell first?
At first i was afrayed when i saw his soldier uniform and his horse. But Yakovlev surprised me by speaking with kindness and respect to me and my sisters. The more we talked with each other, the more i was impressed by his stories of sailling the ocean, and fighting in distant battles, and deciding to rebel against the Tzar. I tought: “He is so brave. What a man. What a hero”.
While Yakovlev says he liked what he described as my simple and honest beauty. We fell for each other at the same, but he was the first to admit it.
⚔ Are you and/or your FO(s) protective? How do they react if you get hurt and vice-versa?
Yakovlev is very protective of me, specially after i miscarried our first child and had to rest during all of my second pregnancy. It got to a point of him skeeping meals so i would eat more during the gestation. When i discovered it, I had to beg him to stop before he got anemic. And when le leaves to his work in the party, i always pray for him that he never get caught in a armed conflict. If anyone of us get hurt or ill, we get at each others side, holding hands and calling: “Don’t die. Stay with me”.
👀 Any spicy headcanons about your FO(s)/your relationship?
I’m a discret woman. And for me, spicy is a therm you use to talk about food. Or about discussions between rabis that are disagreeing about the Talmud.
🕯 How would you and your FO(s) pass the time if the power went out?
Talking, telling tales. And them we go to sleep.
💘 How did you and your FO(s) meet? What was your first interaction like? Was it love at first sight or did you take some time to warm up to each other?
We met when he stranded with his companions in Ekaterinbourg, having to wait for six days to the train that would take him to Moscow finnish maintenance. He brought the boots of his companions for me and my sister Noemi to fix. When i saw him on his hourse, i runned to hide, thinking it was the start of a pogrom. But Noemi calmed me down and called me, sayinng that he had dismounted and tied the horse. He told me about his situtation of being stranded during six days, and when we talked about the boots i promissed him to fix them in four days, because the other two would correspond to the Shabbat. Yakovlev asked the price of the work, and we sayed one scent for all. And he answered: “Oh please, i know that such hard work of fixing boots pair by pair with your hands costs way more them that. Come on, tell me the real price”. It was the first time a gentile wanted to pay us rightfully. After we fixed the boots, i invited Yakovlev for supper with my family during the Shabbat. He accepted it, and was so respectfull and curious about our ritual during the night. We armed with each as friends during those days, and them even more when we started to write letters for each other.
🤩 What do you most admire about your FO(s)? What do they admire most about you?
I admire how my Yakovlev is brave to fight for his beliefs on justice and equality. And he says he admires how i am hard working and resilient in the face of adversity.
#nicholas and alexandra 1971#period drama au#self shipping#assorted self shipps#my ocs#miriam margolyes#sir ian holm#ian holm
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In the introduction to his new manual on how to live a meaningful life, Jordan Peterson sets the tone by recounting the hellish sequence of health crises that afflicted his family during 2019 and 2020. They included his wife’s diagnosis with a rare and usually lethal form of kidney cancer, and his own downward spiral from severe anxiety and dangerously low blood pressure into benzodiazepine dependency and an acute withdrawal response, near total insomnia, pneumonia in both lungs, and “overwhelming thoughts of self-destruction”, culminating in his waking from a medically induced coma in a Russian intensive care unit with no memory of the foregoing weeks.
Conventional wisdom might envisage little appetite for a self-help book so relentlessly focused on what Peterson calls “the catastrophe of life” and “the horror of existence”. But then conventional wisdom wouldn’t have predicted many takers for his 2018 book, 12 Rules for Life, with its demanding message that readers stop blaming others and assume responsibility for their problems instead. Yet it made the Canadian psychologist world famous, and established him as a substitute father for many rudderless young men.
The culture wars over identity politics, social justice and free speech that helped fuel his rise have only grown more entrenched since then. The result is that the Peterson vilified by his critics, and celebrated by his more reprehensible supporters, bears ever less resemblance to the one encountered in his books. He comes across in writing, for instance, as a recognisable kind of self-help sexist, with a tendency to over-interpret the data regarding personality differences between women and men; but there seems little reason to condemn him as a virulent misogynist. Likewise, his outlook leans conservative – but if the distressed employee of his Canadian publisher who recently accused him of “causing [a] surge of alt-right groups” has any evidence for that claim, I haven’t been able to locate it.
Amid all this discord, it’s jarring to open Beyond Order to be reminded that Peterson isn’t best understood as a debater of politics or culture, but as a sui generis kind of personal trainer for the soul. He is stern, sincere, intolerant of fools, sometimes hectoring, fond of communicating harsh truths by means of Bible stories, ancient mythology, the works of JK Rowling and JRR Tolkien, and lengthy flights of Jungian-tinged abstraction about the Dragon of Chaos, the Benevolent Queen, the Wise King, and assorted other archetypes. Hari Kunzru’s description of reading Peterson’s last book – “like being shouted at by a rugby coach in a sarong” – has yet to be surpassed.
Beyond Order is presented as a counterweight to 12 Rules for Life, offering a dozen new rules organised (loosely) around the idea that as well as fighting the chaos that constantly threatens to engulf our lives, we must find ways to live with it, too; the book, Peterson writes, is an attempt to explain “how the dangers of too much security and control might be profitably avoided”. In fact the prescription turns out to be similar to last time: assume responsibility for your situation, dig deep to discover your capacity for self-discipline, and face life’s inevitable awfulness as unflinchingly as you can.
The main difference is a less individualistic approach, with more focus on friendship, marriage and parenting, as if Peterson’s trials had underscored for him the degree to which we can only make it through life together. Human beings “outsource the problem of sanity”, he writes: a meaningful life is impossible in isolation, so we must take responsibility for reaching out to others, and getting along with them. (Rule 10: “Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship.”) We need courage in order to face the terrors of mortal existence, but we need love too. And love takes work.
The confused public conversation about Peterson arises, if you ask me, from the fact that there are two main kinds of suffering. There is the kind that results from power disparities between groups: racism, sexism, economic inequality. Then there is the universal kind that comes with being a finite human, faced with a limited lifespan, the inevitability of death, the unavoidability of grief and regret, the inability to control the present or predict the future and the impossibility of ever fully knowing even those to whom we’re closest. Modern progressives rightly focus much energy on the first kind of suffering. But we increasingly talk as if the second kind barely counts, or doesn’t even exist – as if everything that truly matters were ultimately political. Peterson, by contrast, takes the second sort of suffering very seriously indeed.
If the result sometimes borders on the banal – Peterson advises readers to make lasting romantic commitments; to allow themselves to be vulnerable with their partners; to keep beautiful objects in their homes; and to deal with distressing memories by writing them down – that’s partly because the best ways to cope with the darkness of life have been evolving since the beginning of civilisation. By this point, some of them are bound to sound familiar.
The widespread reluctance among progressives to see life as anything but a matter of power struggles helps explain, among many other examples, why a writer for Vox might perceive Peterson to be telling his followers that “the world can and should revolve around them and their problems”. He isn’t; but he does write as if each reader had a moral responsibility to treat their own situation, and the development of their own character, as a matter of life and death for them, because it is. His worst fans (whom Peterson could certainly do more to disown) make a similar mistake. The resentful whiners of the men’s rights movement imagine he’s taking their side in an identity-based fight, when in fact he reminds them – incessantly, on page after page after page – that resentment and the nursing of grievances are a direct road to psychological hell. (Rule 11: “Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant.”)
Peterson’s biggest failing as a writer is one he shares with many of his loudest critics: the absence of a sense of humour. He takes the agonising human predicament seriously – but boy does he also take it seriously. This is understandable, in light of what he’s endured; but the effect is to deny his readers another essential tool for coping with life. We need courage and love, but it also helps to find a way to laugh at the cosmic joke. It’s often been observed that Peterson has a religious attitude toward life. But he is, you might say, overly Protestant and insufficiently Jewish about the whole business; he has none of the wry forbearance in the face of pain of the man in the Henny Youngman joke, helped on to a stretcher after a car crash. Paramedic: “Are you comfortable?” The injured man, shrugging: “I make a living.”
Peterson’s biggest failing as a writer is one he shares with many of his loudest critics: the absence of a sense of humour. He takes the agonising human predicament seriously – but boy does he also take it seriously. This is understandable, in light of what he’s endured; but the effect is to deny his readers another essential tool for coping with life. We need courage and love, but it also helps to find a way to laugh at the cosmic joke. It’s often been observed that Peterson has a religious attitude toward life. But he is, you might say, overly Protestant and insufficiently Jewish about the whole business; he has none of the wry forbearance in the face of pain of the man in the Henny Youngman joke, helped on to a stretcher after a car crash. Paramedic: “Are you comfortable?” The injured man, shrugging: “I make a living.”
Still, in the end, it’s a good thing that there’s space on the self-help shelves for a book as bracingly pessimistic as this one. Ours is a culture dedicated to a belief in the perfectibility of social institutions, in our limitless capacity to know the world, and to bring it under our control, and in the infallible rightness of present day moral judgments. Peterson offers an invaluable reminder that we’re finite and inherently imperfect; that we can’t control everything, or even very much – and that every generation of humans since the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia has thought itself morally unimprovable. Above all, we can’t escape suffering, or, as Peterson puts it with characteristic extravagance, “anxiety, doubt, shame, pain, and illness, the agony of conscience, the soul-shattering pit of grief, dashed dreams and disappointment, the reality of betrayal, subjection to the tyranny of social being, and the ignominy of aging unto death”. And our only hope of making it bearable lies in facing it, alongside others, as fully as we can.
Peterson’s final rule is to “be grateful in spite of your suffering”. This carries the implication that you ought to accept your lot in life – which is an offensive thing to say, of course, to someone fighting the impact of poverty, sexism or racism. But it’s very wise advice for anyone facing the universal catastrophe of having been born. Even if we managed to achieve the utopia of justice and equity, we’d still be stuck with the pain of being human. And courage and love – plus the laughter you won’t find in the pages of this book – really are the only ways to cope with that.
Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It will be published by Bodley Head in August. Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson is published by Allen Lane (£25). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
#jordan peterson#health#mind and body books#society books#books#Oliver Burkeman#Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life
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The Afterlife in the Sky
I watch stun grenades, bricks and Molotov cocktails fly across the screen, people scream and flee from the corrupt Ukrainian police and I'm only able to understand and comprehend what is happening through the English subtitles on the screen. Protesters toss tires into fires, causing thick, black smoke to billow up to the milky way and suffocate the cosmos, as well as the corrupt Berkut police ruthlessly killing peaceful citizens.
Winter on Fire is as cinematic as it is heartbreaking, and I have to remind myself the bloody bodies on screen are real people, and this isn't an action-packed dystopian Hollywood movie; the brains spilled across the asphalt, the blood running down their faces, the gunshots, the screams, they're all real— there aren't props or sets made by professionals, but barricades, recycled and makeshift and finely crafted by those defending themselves against the Berkut. They wave their blue and yellow flags atop their shelters and wear pots and pans on their heads, and I have to tell myself again, "There is nothing artificial about this. This is real."
I think about these people before the Ukrainian Revolution. I wonder if they feared for their lives before Maidan became a symbol of dissent, if now, they look over their shoulders skeptically or stiffen during police encounters; and then I wonder— what about those lost in Maidan? What about the 125 lives taken in Maidan? Or the 6,000 and counting lives lost in the war following Winter on Fire. Millions of people send smoke to the sky along with their compatriots' souls lost in battle; Muslim, Catholic, and Christian alike pray to the God of their understandings.
Ukraine is in mourning every morning and evening and some are still searching for those lost in Maidan, those never found or uncovered from kidnappings, and I wonder where they went. Why can't they be found? I see them hoisted onto stretchers and zipped into body bags, I see them stowed in the back of ambulances and whisked away at unusual speed, but I don't know where they go.
☄
The Incas believe the milky way or Mayu is a river connecting heaven and earth, it is said the river flows from the Vilcanota in Peru. They say it is the road our loved ones walk in the afterlife to cross into the celestial realm in the sky. It is believed one visits the Hanan Pacha (the upper world) in their dreams.
The Incas celebrated a ceremony called Inti Raymi which translates to "sun festival." Inti Raymi is celebrated in June winter solstice and centers around the sun god Inti; the festival is believed to be the day when the Vilcanota aligns with the Mayu causing heaven and earth to come together and the sun to rise and set in the milky way.
Inti Raymi, the celebration of the sun god, is the largest festival in Inca religion. Today the festival takes place on June 24th, the last day of the Incas winter solstice, which technically begins on the 21st. The celebration of Inti Raymi is full of song and dance and fire rituals, the Incas painted their faces yellow and adorned their heads with deer antlers and doubled them as instruments.
☄
I remember how fervently my grandma, who I called Manna, believed in heaven. She believed she was invited and papa and my sister and my mom and me, she didn't think my dad would ever make it, but prayed for him anyhow. She always said she knew she would go to heaven when she died, and I remember unable to comprehend a life without her, which led to vivid fever dreams about her dying from various causes. I remember calling her several times in the middle of the night for reassurance she'd live forever.
I remember she'd always tell me everyone has to die, because that's the funny part about life, to which I would cry until she calmed me down, hushed me and instructed me to look out the window at the moon, and I remember pressing my face up against the chilled glass and spotting the full, white moon just outside my bedroom window.
"Are you looking at the moon?" she said.
"Yes," I replied.
"Okay, good," she said. "Now listen to me sweetheart, we are looking at the same moon."
"Really?" It hadn't occurred to me.
"Yes, really. And we'll always be looking at the same moon. No matter where I am."
I remember her telling me not to worry about her dying because eventually I'd meet her in heaven and I remember asking, "can we meet on the moon?"
☄
President Yanukovych resigned at the dissenting demand of Maidan, and the celebration that ensued paid tribute to those lost in Maidan. The people applauded at the announcement on that Yanukovych resigned and re-elections would take place in May, and they cried and sang for their freedom, proudly waving their blue and yellow flags, with tears of joy tearing through their matching facepaint.
The beauty in the film is restored, after mass bloodshed and war, I can see the beauty of Maidan. I can Maidan as a place of togetherness, not a war torn city. In Ukraine, the passion for freedom outweighs the fear of oppression.
They fill the memorials with assorted rose bouquets and prayer candles and family photos and Ukraine flags and priceless mementos, mourning and thanking their loved ones for risking their lives for the freedom and future of Ukraine. Muslim, Catholic, Buddhist, Jewish and atheist pray together as one, honoring their Ukrainian brothers and sisters.
Ukraine celebrates through the night, with soulful music and festival lights shining into the heavens in lieu of billowing smoke from the winter on fire. I wonder, when the smoke dissipates and the lights go up in Maidan, do the souls of those lost go with them?
☄
While the Incas celebrate the sun I wonder where Mama Quilla is. Mama Quilla is the goddess of the moon, marriage, the menstrual cycle, Inti's wife and sister, and protector of women.
Mama Quilla is the epitome of feminism in Inca religion and is praised today, particularly by women. The Incas believe Mama Quilla's lunar eclipses were shadows of animals pouncing on her and attacking her; they responded by yielding their weapons of the lunar phases and threw rocks to help fend the animals off; and they collected silver from the ground and believed she shed silver tears on them.
On Inti Raymi, I wonder if she is full of life and gleaming white over Peru, or if she is a silver waning crescent hidden by the Mayu, ample with stardust and spirit animal constellations, as it flows from Vilcanota to the upper world. I wonder if she sees the souls of those who have passed float through the Mayu to the Hanan Pachu, and I wonder if she floats too.
☄
I remember sitting beside Manna's chair in the dead of night, it was my turn to watch her even though my family urged me to sleep and rest and not 'take it upon myself to take care of her'. I remember when I began to drift off to sleep, my forehead pressed against the arm of her chair, I woke up as soon as she did. Her eyes opened and looked straight ahead at the small night light blinking in the bathroom. She let a small sigh escape her dry lips and she croaked for me, I asked her if she needed water, she didn't say yes or no, all she said was, "It's time."
I frantically pulled the crumpled note from my pocket and held my phone up to the constellation of words scattered across the page and read through a rushing river of tears. I told her everything I'd planned to tell her before she went.
I remember promising to never let a man treat me poorly, and if Josh, my boyfriend at the time, did anything to hurt me I would stomp him out with my combat boots, like she always promised to do for me. I remember promising to graduate from college, no matter how badly I want to drop out and runaway. I remember promising to write about her always, and to pick up where she left off with her memoir and to pursue my dreams in lieu of financial stability. Her eyes glazed over and opened again, she perked up at the invisible presence that watched over us both and I tried not to let my tears inhibit my words.
I told her I loved her, I think I told her 20 times. I promised to be kind to my father and my sister though our relationships were fleeting. I promised to always look at the moon when I missed her and to name a star after her.
And I remember when the time came, to name a star, it was 15 minutes after I'd heard she passed and I had finally emptied myself of my tears for the day; I looked up at the night sky and for the first time, I was unsatisfied. I couldn't name a star after her because I couldn't find one good enough.
I remember staying outside on my balcony for hours, lying on my back and criticizing the stars as they shot across the sky like a constellatory light show; with each star that fell from the sky, to wherever, I wondered where she went.
I remember the third time I tried acid. I was alone and outside, watching the sky during a meteor shower. I remember seeing patches of the milky way, aural blue watercolor splotches glittered with stardust. "Is that real?" I asked allowed to no one in particular, but was answered with a chill wind creeping up my spine and a star shooting through the galaxy.
I didn't decide the milky way was real and not just a hallucination, but the universe decided for me, and I named her Sandi.
☄
I wonder if Manna has seen the milky way, or the souls from Maidan. I wonder if she's in heaven, and I wonder if I reject or accept the idea of heaven or spirits crossing into it through the Mayu. I wonder if I'll ever know where Manna went or if I'll meet her on Mama Quilla when my time inevitably comes. I wonder why we go where we go when we die, and if she's with Ukrainians or the Incas, or both, because it seems the only requirement for access to heaven is to fervently believe in something, which every fiber of your being, so much it makes you cry or risk your life.
#writing#creative writing#creative nonfiction#braided essay#nonfiction#cnf#winter on fire#ukraine#incas#mythology#inca mythology#milkyway#death#afterlife#meditation on the afterlife#the afterlife in the sky#galaxy#mama quilla#mayu#hanan pacha#ukrainian revolution
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Alpine acts as Steve and Bucky's flower girl at their wedding and stands (or more accurately naps) under the chuppah with her dads and their rabbi during the ceremony.
#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home#marvel#mcu#jewish!bucky#jewish!bucky barnes#jewish bucky#jewish bucky barnes#stucky#stevebucky#alpine the cat
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Steve and Bucky have a little goat farm on a large plot of land just outside of New York with their 3 cats. It's a short drive from their Reform Synagogue which is incredibly welcoming to queer and interfaith Jewish families.
In the middle of their land, by the pond, stands the home they built together, perfectly designed for them. On the front door is a mezuzah, the case lovingly painted by Steve for Bucky, who kisses it and whispers the blessing every time he passes through the door.
The home is always filled with the smells of Bucky's cooking, and the walls are decorated with Steve's art.
Their home has room for them to have a bunch of kids. Kids that they lovingly raise as proud observant Jews, deeply connected to all parts of their cultural identities, and as dedicated to justice as their father and Aba.
Every Friday night they host Shabbat dinners after Kabbalat Shabbat service, and every Jewish holiday their home is filled with members of the extended Barnes clan.
Steve works in human rights, giving up the physical fight, but not the moral fight and lending his voice as he former Captain America to help the marginalized and the oppressed, and Bucky works with his goats and writes Sci-Fi books.
It's a peace they could never have dreamed of during the war, and their marriage is a joy they never let themselves hope for when they realized they were queer and had fallen for their best friend. But it's real, and they are grateful every day for the second chance they got.
#marvel#mcu#bucky#bucky barnes#james bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#jewish bucky#jewish bucky barnes#jewish!bucky#jewish!bucky barnes#steve rogers#steven grant rogers#stucky#stevebucky#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home
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I think Bucky's parents immigrated to America from a small shtetl in rural Romania. Winnie and George (which are English names they adopted in an effort to more easily fit into American society) had recently married and wanted to escape rising antisemitic violence in eastern Europe, especially in the form of pogroms, and they hoped for a better life for any potential future children they might be blessed with.
Bucky and his sisters grew up enthralled by stories their parents told them about the lives they lived in their small, but incredibly tightknit, Jewish community. The children also picked up bits and pieces of the little Romanian their parents spoke in front of them, it's just enough to understand the language, but not enough to speak it proficiently.
Bucky winds up in Bucharest after escaping Hydra, it's not an intentional choice, it's a magnetic pull to the place that has been etched into his family's DNA for generations.
His Romanian is spotty, but he's quickly embraced by a group of kind old bubbies who keep him fed by hiring him to do manual labour since he shies away from direct hospitality. When they take him to one of the last remaining synagogues in the country for service, he breaks down in tears as the stories his parents told come flooding back in vivid colour, overtaken by equal measures of grief and wonder.
#marvel#mcu#bucky#bucky barnes#james bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#jewish bucky#jewish bucky barnes#jewish!bucky#jewish!bucky barnes#winnifred barnes#george barnes#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home
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When Steve and Bucky move into the home they built together—located on large plot of land outside of New York City, only a short drive away from their Reform synagogue, a community which is incredibly welcoming to interfaith families—Bucky's family gifts them two cookbooks to guide them in the learning stages of running a household, as is tradition for the Barnes clan.
The first cookbook was Bucky's Ma's. An old, well-loved copy of the 1915 edition of The Settlement Cookbook. The book contains many familiar recipes from his childhood, and it is filled with a lifetime of annotations from his Ma, his Pa himself, and his sisters.
The second cookbook is the 1991, completely revised and updated edition of that cookbook, The New Settlement Cookbook, containing a much larger number of Jewish recipes as more and more were added throughout the years. It's a like-new copy, so Bucky and Steve can fill it with their own notes and recipe modifications, just like Winnie, and then pass the cookbook down to their children as an heirloom when they're older.
Learn more about The Settlement Cookbook and its (still-relevant) impact on Jewish-American immigrant culture
#marvel#mcu#bucky#bucky barnes#james bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#jewish bucky#jewish bucky barnes#jewish!bucky#jewish!bucky barnes#winnifred barnes#steve rogers#steven grant rogers#stucky#stevebucky#george barnes#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home
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Honouring both Bucky's Jewishness and Steve's Irish heritage is something that is incredibly important to me, so naturally I wanted that reflected in their wedding bands.
In Jewish tradition, rings are a simple, unbroken circle, preferably gold, without any gemstones or other embellishments that affect monetary value.
Now, the traditional claddagh is neither simple nor unbroken, so I sought a middle ground, and I found it in this ring.
A simple, unbroken, gold band with a claddagh and Celtic knot embossed around the circumference of the ring.
I feel that this beautifully represents the hope for a beautiful, honest, and unbroken union symbolized by a Jewish wedding band, as well as the friendship, loyalty and love symbolized by the claddagh.
#jewish bucky barnes#jewish bucky#jewish!bucky barnes#jewish!bucky#marvel#mcu#bucky#bucky barnes#james bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#stevebucky#stucky#steve rogers#steven grant rogers#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home
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Every Friday, after Bucky has cooked dinner and put it in the warmer, he fixes his tichel, removes his prosthetic and 'Knish the Cook' apron, and he and Steve walk hand-in-hand to their synagogue down the road to attend weekly Kabbalat Shabbat service.
There they will worship and sing alongside the community who welcomed the two of them as their own, right from the very first moment they walked through the doors. Never reducing them to the legends they've become, nor making either feel alienated for their interfaith relationship, but instead embracing them as another celebrated part of their congregational family.
#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home#marvel#mcu#jewish!bucky#jewish!bucky barnes#jewish bucky#jewish bucky barnes#bucky#bucky barnes#james bucky barnes#stucky#stevebucky#james buchanan barnes
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Bucky, standing at the island counter in the kitchen, his long hair is wrapped neatly in a tichel and an apron is tied around his waist.
The late afternoon sun is streaming in through the large window and painting everything a soft gold, the Magen David necklace hanging around his neck–the one Steve gave him–sparkling brilliantly when the light hits it.
He is kneading and portioning out dough to make fresh loaves of challah, swaying unconsciously to the familiar music coming from the antique record player. His eyebrows are furrowed in concentration as his hands work expertly and a small, easy smile is gracing his flour-smudged face.
Alpine is underfoot, as always, purring happily as she winds her fluffy, white body around his colourfully socked feet.
Steve is sitting across from him, watching with a look of reverence and adoration. Occasionally glancing down at the sketchbook in front of him, trying to perfectly capture his husband in this moment: beautiful, untouched by the pain that was once his constant companion, totally in his element and so wonderfully alive.
Steve thinking in this moment, as he often does, that Bucky might be right when he says that miracles, like G-d, can be found within the seemingly mundane.
#marvel#mcu#bucky#bucky barnes#james bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#jewish bucky#jewish bucky barnes#jewish!bucky#jewish!bucky barnes#stevebucky#stucky#stucky ficlet#ficlet#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home
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Excerpt from the Stucky ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) I'm writing:
Just like a line, our love shall be without an end, stretching backwards through our intertwined past, all the way to the beginning of time, and forming the path leading us into our shared future.
#marvel#mcu#bucky#bucky barnes#james bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#jewish bucky#jewish bucky barnes#jewish!bucky#jewish!bucky barnes#steve rogers#steven grant rogers#stucky#stevebucky#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home
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I have a soft spot for Bucky re-embracing Judaism, becoming more observant than he was before, with Steve wholeheartedly supporting him through his journey, not just engaging with observance at home, but also coming with him to Shul for Shabbat and holidays and Steve seeing how important faith is for Bucky's healing and identity being a driving reason why he reconnects with Irish Catholicism; which he totally abandoned after losing Bucky the first time.
He's still not tied to the faith to the degree he was before he lost his Ma, he doesn't think he ever will be, but attending mass on the major holidays is still important to him in feeling connected to his roots. Bucky supports him just as wholeheartedly (and he tries to find ways to honour that while raising their kids as Jews), though from the comfortable distance he's always kept due to halachic requirement, instead encouraging him to branch out and him finding kinship in his faith struggles with Matt Murdock.
#marvel#mcu#bucky#bucky barnes#james bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#jewish bucky#jewish bucky barnes#jewish!bucky#jewish!bucky barnes#stevebucky#stucky#catholic steve rogers#matt murdock#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home
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Consider: Steve helping his and Bucky's very small kids cover their eyes while Bucky lights the Shabbat candles and says the blessing
#thought about this in service and im inconsolable#marvel#mcu#bucky#bucky barnes#james bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#jewish bucky#jewish bucky barnes#jewish!bucky#jewish!bucky barnes#stevebucky#stucky#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home
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Bucky finding out that numerous members of his surviving family have been named in his honor. Bucky worrying they will feel ashamed of their names because of what he's done in his past, but them all feeling a sense of honor, that they were named after a family hero. Bucky being asked by a relative who is about to have a baby if he would give his blessing to name the baby after him. Bucky having a special relationship with all of his namesakes.
Ashkenazi naming traditions always make me so emotional, this just takes it to a whole other level. (x)
His namesakes being such an important part of his healing, them adamantly trying to convince him that being named for him is an honour. He survived unimaginable horrors for decades and never fully broke. To them he is counted amongst Holocaust survivors, and he is their strongest representation of mir veln zey iberlebn, "We will outlive them".
Especially with Bucky giving his blessing????? Him coming to that level of peace with himself and his past where he feels like his name and the memory/history that comes with it is worthy of being carried on into the next generation?????
#marvel#mcu#bucky#bucky barnes#james bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#jewish bucky#jewish bucky barnes#jewish!bucky#jewish!bucky barnes#tw shoah mention#Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home
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