No mirrors

I grew up in a house with no mirrors, I never imagined people would be fascinated about this fact, but it's true. For as far as I remember myself we never had a single mirror at home. It's been a long time since I stopped mentioning that we didn't have any TV either, cause I realized that people found the fact that I grew up in a house with no mirrors something lot more astonishing. As a kid I thought the opposite but now I understand I was wrong.

I never realized that there is something unique about not having mirrors. I remember my dad, the kind of person he was, man of principles and ideals. He always been proud to stand out and be better in everything he laid his hands on, and for most of the time I didn't question his decisions, I never had a reason. My mom admired him, I always felt the sparkles of pride she had in her eyes while looking at him doing something, she felt pride being by his side, and in public you could see her walking with her head up, like trying to acknowledge to her surroundings that she's well worthy of having this kind of man. Many people admired my dad.

Growing up as a single son in a family of holocaust survivors, my father felt it is upon himself to make the world a better place. my grandmother told me once, "It is like all the good of the world is depending on how much he can carry upon his shoulder" or "Your father wants to change the world". With no cousins nor uncles or even grandparents which were perished in the war, the sense of individualism was rooted in him from a very young age. He was like a young boy who knew he is here for a very special reason and the burden of that notion was carried with him all through his life.

From a young age I remember having the feeling that the presence of my father was always around me. I felt inspired, even though he never did anything special to make me feel this way. This was his virtue, and this is why people admired him. He had this gift. One day when I was about 8 years old, I found myself involved in a fight with a group of kids little bit older than me, adding the fact I was younger and outnumbered I couldn't find any better thing to do than running home, simply to escape. When I reached home I was already beaten, and the kids who ran after me found me there by my house calling to my father for help. I was hoping that as soon as he would show up or even just stick his head out of the window, the kids would run away. Instead, I saw my father watching me through a small crack in the window, not saying a word while the other kids were still beating me up pretty badly. When I finally got home crying, I think more from frustration than the blows, my father told me "Whatever kind of troubles you're getting yourself into, deal with it yourself." I was only 8 years old. I felt betrayed, betrayed by the man I adored so much. I couldn't understand why he didn't care, why he didn't want to help me when it was so obvious it was a fight I didn't have a chance to win. I knew that complaining about it to my mother was useless, she always took his side in every decision he made, almost blindly. I remember one time, my mother told him she's going to a friend to try on one of the dresses he bought her on his last trip abroad. And my father knowing the real reason of this friend's visit, told her "You know that I'm the true mirror you'll ever need. My eyes, they never lie." I remember seeing my mother smile, she approached him, and they kissed.

My father had many ideas that to other people sounded strange. people sometimes looked at him like they were watching a Martian. He never cared what other people thought of him, or about their opinions. I think he even enjoyed it. He only cared what my mother said, and even if it didn't seem so, my mother always had something to say.

Just before my 13 birthday, I was supposed to start preparing myself to the Bar Mitzvah sermon. I asked my dad if he did a sermon for his Bar Mitzvah and if it was important to him that I would do it myself. He told me "You are the measure of all things, of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not." I thought I understood what he meant but I wasn't quiet sure, so I just shrugged and decided to go on with the Bar Mitzvah thing. Today I think I was too young to fully understand what he was talking about. He always seemed to talk in different language than the rest of the grown ups. He had this ability to make one feel important and smart. I think that's what people refer when they talk about charisma.

Speaking for myself, I don't have the qualities of my father even thought many people say we look a like. I never had these kind of ideals to live by. I never cared if I had mirrors at home or not. I never paid too much attention to that kind of stuff. I learned to accept things as they are, and that there is more then one way to look at things, though things for themselves never change. Today I still don't like to look at mirrors. I think it's something I do unconsciously, for example, when I try on cloths, I ask my wife if she likes it, her approval means to me more than any mirror reflection. Sometimes when I find myself staring at a mirror, doing funny faces, or in a day dreaming state of mind, I think to myself, "Who is this guy there looking at me? Do I know him?"

I never completely understood why my father chose to live in a house without mirrors. Today, I think, I'm getting closer to the answer. It is because of the "why". I think that the "why" questions matter only as a self observing questions. Questions you ask yourself in everything that you do, and only if you can find the answer to it, than perhaps you are ready to live in a house without mirrors.

The perfect drug

I'm addicted to the white powder, I finally had the courage to admit, they say it's part of the healing process, I say, "whatever.." I decided to confront my biggest vice and finally talk about it. White powder, I think about it all the time, some moments I think I can't live without it. this feeling of high that I experience when I ride it is so incomparable, that I'm willing to make many sacrifices to get it. Last time I did it was two years ago, long time, and if you think that two years is enough to forget, you're wrong. It's exactly the opposite, the later, the worse it gets, I become restless, unfriendly, a total maniac. I know I will do it again, no matter what, just like it was when I decided to stop smoking, I just stopped...and then started again, I know I'm not exactly a role model when it comes to controlling my vices. Soon It's going to happen and nothing can stop me, it's already planned, this winter I'm going to ski. If you think that living in Iceland get you all the ski that you want, you're wrong. In Iceland the mountains are just too small, the wind is just too strong and the snow is just too icy. Getting high here is like drinking a Coke when what you really need is to get coke down your nostril, and just so you would know, I'm totally against drugs, I even stopped smoking.