For Lila

This is Lila, my kibbutznik friend. [Hi, hamudah.] [And that is kibbutznik fashion, though poor one, her t-shirt isn't even inside out and is not torn at all.]

She is playing her flute in front of the pine tree in honour of Aristides Sousa Mendes, in the Righteous Avenue in the Yad Vashem Museum (check sidebar for post abt him). Old songs, pioneer songs, soldier songs. Lila and I have this tradition of mixing the beautiful and the grotesque to the extent that the beautiful is a tad tainted but still overcomes the very ugly. Nowadays it is a bit hard to make this work though. Sitting there she taught me abt Brenner Despair. We know it well now. And Brenner suffered enough in his time [don't say "suffered"], in case you were wondering. He had a whole new brand of despair named after him, could it be any bleaker. The Holocaust Museum was a fit place to meet him.

Lila grew up w Uzi even though they only became friends later. She misses him as much as I do. She may want to kick his ass for dying and leaving us less bcs she is sweeter than me, but she misses him terribly. Lila is the one person I know who was grinning like there's no tomorrow [er...] in her soldier picture. For the Israeli army. GRINNING. Like only she can. If there's is a Brenner Despair, there is a Lila Radiance. I've never met anyone quite like her and don't expect I will again. Lilas are created every other millenium, I should think. She thinks of Uzi every time she listens to this song. She did even before she knew him well*. The story of how is for some other time [don't say "time"], I may yet ask her to write it for this blog. Since it's sort of OUR blog now.

I just wanted you to know there's a Lila, and that there being a Lila is one of life's small miracles. [Oops.]

[*And in YOUR honour, Lila, and Zohar's: don't say "well", people have been known to drown there... as WELL.][HA.]