finally i meet all my cousins again, it's been 9 years. they drop by one after the other and soon the round kitchen table is filled with them, all girls come to check jakob out, he seems to impress them with his stories and conversation, and martin and i talk about australia, martin suddenly seems reasonable towards me now, engaging and respectful, it's really weird, i guess maybe i need to accept that he cannot know how it is for me, fuck how can he, perhaps i have been to hard on him, i don't know, he can't really perceive the deep scaring that has taken place when he has no idea what to look for or how to read the signs, i don't know, i don't know how i should feel, i don't want to hold on to any resentments or ill will not with him, i don't even want to hold on to any ill will with my mother but i don't want to forget that either, i never want to feel like it's right. ironically as she holds court and interrupts all my conversation and tells everyone how wonderful martin is and how i get jakobs name wrong sometimes (i call him martin) and how hurt that must make jake feel (yes this is what she tells people) she then goes on to judge some one in the family as having bad kids saying, 'the parents say their children were bad.'
a voice inside says, 'let the children judge if the parents are bad not the other way around.'
anyways eventually siona has the good sense to get her out of the house away from me. siona must be reading me like a book now, she is an excellent woman, a strong powerful and intelligent understander of human dynamics and behaviours.
so with just the cousins and martin, jakob and myself we start to talk about how we all love hash cakes and smoking weed. thank you jesus, i've found the mother load. it's fantastic. yes that's right all the cousins love the weed. now i know how moses felt wandering around the wilderness for forty years, finally reaching the holy land, excellent. i start to tell everyone about my hash cake experience, we all laugh, even martin is laughing and jake.
suddenly it feels like my family is working.
my cousins, how can i explain them, they are amazing, iris and ozzi are jakie and sionas daughter, iris's husband is a industrialist who i met once in australia, he travels the world selling helicopters, iris is a kind of punk rocker who loves motherhood and has a wicked sense of humour. ozzi is an acupuncturist who looks like a model, she is married to a submarine commander and is about to leave for a posting in germany for three years. she is the wildest most outrageous girl you can imagine, yet she is a great mum, very intelligent and pretty funky. she likes her weed, dancing and drinking.
michelle is my age, she's divorced and is currently a tantric sex goddess or something like that, she's pretty cosmic and switched on, she has a gay son who i spoke to one the phone and arranged a big night out with for jake, martin and myself. michelle always takes the big picture, she is a great counter balance to her sister sara who is also extremely wild spirited and told me last time she had a hash cookie she took all her clothes off at a party.
then there is daffna, the sweetest and smartest, a brilliant girl who is possibly the only sensible person at the table apart from jake who if he has not been led astray soon will be. her husband guy is there to, he tells me in all seriousness that he thinks there is no hope for israel, it will be destroyed. this is sad and i know he is right.
conversation ranges from lillith to the healing of glitches in our family, it appears we have two main people that need healing, one being my mother the other is a cousin called jenny who lives in tel aviv, she hates everyone. okay compared to my mum that sounds easy and i suggest that we owe it to her to help her.
later i suggest that we hire a massive bus and go on a road trip, smoking weed, travelling around, camping out, take the kids, no parents, some good music and positive vibrations, it's time for joy.