The Myth of Good Posture
(Text Only)
by Yael Grunseit
‘My soul breaks [garesa] for the longing that it has for Your ordinances at all times’ (Psalms 119:20). It is written: ‘Breaks,’ and it is not written: Grinds, demonstrating that the soul is satisfied with breaking apart material, on a basic level, even if it does not have the opportunity to grind and analyze it in greater depth.
Avodah Zarah 19a:10, Babylonian Talmud.
The Babylonian Talmud is a compilation of rabbinic commentaries, the Mishnah and the Babylonian Gemara. It is the foundation of Jewish law and tradition. Each page contains many interpretations.
* * *
The carnivorous dog who devours people had been following me. One morning he drank my fresh coffee and ate my scrambled eggs, my dining room table, and three vintage orange chairs. He chewed up the four lightbulbs above my head, the collages made from Frankie magazines I’d Blu-Tacked to the fridge, and demolished my apartment walls. He visits in moments of loneliness and eats away at the present. He left me a chair to slouch on and my memory of us at fifteen sitting around a campfire with our sides pressed together. I was freezing, holding in my shivers so that you wouldn't move away. While the carnivorous dog sniffed around my feet I could smell the comforting smoke and feel your hand cup my knee. Your body was a desert cliff face I caught my breath resting against. Jagged, cold, crumbling. Cliff faces don't breathe. The carnivorous dog bit off my left foot and gulped it down after three exaggerated chomps. He attacked my shin, used my bone as a chew toy. I slid onto the floor and curled into a fetal position. It was two in the morning, we were seventeen and your warm torso a blanket for my bony spine. I lied to my parents so I could sleep at your house. They thought I was sleeping at Lily Perlman’s. Your sister pretended to be her when my mum called at midnight. I knew that throwing a clod of earth at the carnivorous dog would make him disappear. Everyone who’s read Avodah Zarah knows that. If I could drag myself to the garden, it wouldn’t be too difficult, but I didn’t want him to leave me alone again. Willingly blindfolded by longing, reality was concealed. I could believe that seventeen-year-old you was kissing my seventeen-year-old neck. As my kneecap was sucked out and gnawed on like a musk Life Saver I hugged the space in front of me that was ten-year-old you outside the primary basketball court. The carnivorous dog and I knew I didn’t want the you of now, because that you didn’t want me. He jabbed his tongue up my gaping thigh and opposite me was the you of now lying naked. In my masochistic delirium I stuffed your body with the shreds of affection I felt from you at ten, fifteen and seventeen. I kissed that scarecrow’s wet, cold lips and made that kiss a memory.
* * *
I decided to be my own God but it didn’t work out. Last summer I read a self-help book and realised I deserved love and admiration. I decided I was capable, worthy, that everything happens for a reason and will benefit me in the long run. With this newfound sense of self, my Jewish private school education and inability to believe in God despite actually trying, I decided: I would be my own God. It was empowering for a few weeks. I could argue eloquently against my intimidating uncle at Shabbat dinner, and I swam in this white bikini that I’d bought last year but never worn. I told my friends that they should try being their own Gods too. On my third Friday as God, I drove my Corolla past a family walking to synagogue. The women wore long dresses and sneakers, the men were reaching up to dig their kippah clips further into their skulls. Wind whipped their foreheads with stray strands of hair. I didn't look away. I didn't feel guilty. The Monday after, during my philosophy lecture, there was a quiz. Question three was, ‘What is Divine Command Theory?’ My pinky toenail was jabbing the toe next to it and I didn’t know the answer, which prompted a revelation: I could not be God, I am not all-knowing. It took me a month and a half to figure that out.
* * *
From about five to eight years old, I would go to an arcade with my dad most Sundays.
My favourite game was Wacky Gator. The gators would crawl out of their individual caves and I’d smash them with a padded mallet. If I didn’t smash one quick enough it would bite down, kind of close to my vagina. We went back last weekend. The high score on the board was thirty-eight. I was determined to get at least forty. I started whacking, one-for-one, two-for-two. With thirty seconds left two gators popped out at once. I smashed the closest first and went to smash the second, but he looked like Jesus. The gator’s eyes were downturned, a woven crown of thorns appeared on his head. Another gator jumped out, this one looking like my grandmother. Then one wearing a black cloak like death, and another resembling RBG. My dad yelled, ‘Hit them!’" but I couldn’t. I wasn’t—am not—Abraham. The idols crawled back into their caves. I had scored thirty-four.
* * *
She couldn’t look at my face. She slouched on a plastic chair with her legs spread apart. She wore a headscarf like the one I wore in my high school’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. A few of her grey hairs escaped—they crawled towards her dry, thin lips. The corridor to her toilet looked like a bomb shelter. In Akko I was sleeping in a bomb shelter. It was against the law but there wasn’t enough space for beds elsewhere. My friends and I decided it was fine, we could still all fit in the bomb shelter, and at least we’d be comfortable. She pointed her left palm towards my face. I dropped my coin, my złoty in the centre. Clink. In one swift movement she slid the złoty into her apron pocket, then flicked her fingers towards the concrete ceiling, signalling that I could enter her toilet. The mirror above the two metal sinks was a slab of that reflective steel. The only recognisable feature reflected back at me was brown hair. I had lots of it. I was a brown stain, like a skid mark in a steel toilet bowl. I sat on the toilet seat made out of the same metal as the mirror and sink. The same metal as the cubicle doors, the lock, the ceiling and walls. I shivered while I pissed and thought fuck this lady for making me pay to use her toilet. Every toilet in Poland should have a sign that says, ‘Jews piss and shit for free’. My dad would still pay. I washed my hands with grey, icy water that burned. It burnt more than when I held an ice cube for thirty seconds to see how much giving birth would hurt. I regretted washing my hands. The stinging, prickling discomfort was not worth killing whatever germs I might have picked up in her toilet. I wiped my hands on my jeans which were blue but looked grey. I handed her three more złoty on my way out. Clink-nk-k. Her placidity was louder than a scream. She was stuck in this grey purgatory. I imagined her sleeping on that plastic chair. The liminal space between Majdanek and our hostel. But I could leave. I left. In the white sunlight I walked across the gravel footpath and bought some Polish lollies from the petrol station. I sat on the gravel and shared them with Jake. They were really good lollies, like Nerds but chewier. The man driving our tour bus finished his cigarette, all forty of us loaded on. The Pianist played on a small foldout screen that hung from the ceiling at the front of the bus. The tour guide made sure there was always a Holocaust movie playing while we drove. Jake asked what I was writing in my diary. I said poetry. He said, ‘That's barbaric,’ and we laughed.
* * *
Cold hands juice lungs, shoulders
back, posture better when
you squish. I remember
willing my breath, soft
pinches on my neck, soused
eyes in salted brine, gaze
harsh, vision weak. I shiver
you out and step in-
side.
* * *
1. To have an instinct amongst the discomfort.
2. To hold the lit match blindfolded and know where to hover it.
3. Know when to blow it out for honour’s sake. I know to try honour myself, I don’t mind/I’m not sure/I don’t care/don’t feel like/don’t really believe anything else.
4. I know not to embarrass myself because
5. that would be embarrassing.
6. To touch every link in the necklace I inherited—
7. kept upstairs in a safe I don't know the combination to,
8. its value hidden in an envelope I’m not allowed to open—
9. though understanding will not settle my unsteady hand,
10. or stop time burning my fingerprints away.
* * *
I asked what position you wanted to do. You didn’t care. I asked again. You scoffed and said you really didn’t mind. The apathy that blows out of a scoffer’s nostrils pushes hope away. We continued in missionary. Your sharp hair brushed against my shoulder, left a paper cut. Once you were gone I slid my violin out from under my bed and played my part of Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins. My shoulder stung, I moved freely between first, second and third position.
Yael Grunseit (21) is interested in the tensions between Judaism, nostalgia, autonomy and anomie. She is based on unceded Eora land, studying philosophy and english at the University of Sydney.