let there be light

After an already meaningful day exploring Prague's magic, I stumbled into a small English bookstore, tucked away in the windy cobblestone streets of the Mala Strana. It was dusk when I entered the store, with the shadow of the castle looming as the street lamps struggled to perform their duty. On a display table, in the middle of the cozy room, is where I first met Jonathan Safran Foer. I picked up Everything is Illuminated and was hooked, swept away to neighboring Ukraine, greeted by the often punctilious Alexander Perchov. I purchased the novel for 279 koruna and suspended my exploration for the evening, opting to curl up with my new book in my Prague apartment. As the weeks passed and the pages turned, the book traveled to Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Budapest and Krakow with me. I recall it being almost too much to bear reading as I left the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Too much of a parallel, too close to real, too much feeling. When we escape into literature we do so to feel something different, to imagine ourselves elsewhere...but with the images of my ancestors burning alive echoed by such a harrowing and so poignant a narration, my mind was overloaded with sadness, for once crushed by the weight and burden of those who had come before me. No experience to date--not even multiple trips to Israel's holiest sites--has ever made me feel more Jewish and more aware of the gift/burden/wonder of my heritage. Four years later and I still feel acutely indebted to Jonathan Safran Foer for traveling with me and giving words to the sites, horrors and majesties that I myself was not large enough to comprehend.

When I heard that my literary hero was coming to Chicago I knew that nothing, not even a hefty price tag (I mean really, $35 to sit in the nosebleeds of an auditorium??..Thanks Mom & Dad!), would get in my way of breathing the same air as him. Standing on that tiny stage below me, that tiny speck down there was just as I imagined he would be. Not quite larger than life, but someone profoundly gifted with a voice that did justice to the eloquence of his words. I scrambled to take notes, wishing at moments that he would pause and repeat things so I could write them down. He spoke a lot about change and the ways in which our lives constantly facilitate an ebb and flow of changing and not-changing. Not all change is good, he warned, if we change too much we lose something essential about ourselves. But if we fail to recognize the opportunities to change, we fail to know our hopes and to discover what moves us.

At the end of his talk, I rushed down stairs with the rest of the auditorium for the book signing. What was I going to say to him? How do you introduce yourself to someone who has had such a profound impact on your appreciation for art and yet...has no idea that you exist? I thought about a moment I'd had a few months prior, when my parents came to visit me in Chicago. One of my dad's favorite comedians, Robert Klein, was in town performing stand-up and I purchased tickets for the three of us to go. My dad was beaming the entire time, in a state of pure elation. After the show my parents gave me an incredibly earnest "thank you", stating that it was one of the most memorable nights they'd had in years. But it was about to get more memorable. All of a sudden, we turned around, and there was Robert Klein, shaking hands and chatting with fans. My dad quietly eased his way in as I got the camera ready. "What is he going to say to him!?" I wondered in my head. When him and Robert finally made eye contact, their hands embraced and my dad said "I love you."... None of us really caught Robert's response, maybe he said "I love you too" or "Thank you", but it didn't matter. My dad was now beyond beaming, on-the-verge-of-tears happy. He told Robert Klein exactly what he'd needed to express, in what would most likely be both their first and last meeting. In line I thought about what it would be like if I told Jonathan Safran Foer that I loved him. Quickly, I concluded that it would make me seem like a teeny-bopper, and him a cheap, sexy fad. Plus, I don't think I do love him as much as I just...admire and appreciate the shit out of him. Chatting with some nice Jewish ladies behind me postponed my internal quest for The Perfect Phrase, so I approached the signing table rather unprepared and caught off guard. Probably for the best.

"Hi" I said sheepishly as I pushed my precious copy of Everything Is illuminated toward him.
"Hello" he said, with perfect eye contact.
"Thank you so much for doing this today. It was really such a treat."
"You're welcome. It was nice to have met you."
"You too."

I may not have left visibly beaming, but I felt such a sense of joy and contentment when the light snow hit me outside of the auditorium. It almost feels like things are coming full circle.  When I first picked up Everything is Illuminated as a twenty year old, I was in the midst of an exhaustive wave of change--growing and learning and exploring daily. I find myself in a rather divergent wave of change now, one that is latent, and more difficult to detect. This subtle change is easier to gloss over than confront, easier to ignore than embrace. But meeting Jonathan Safran Foer and soaking in his wisdom and light made me feel at ease, and excited about the unknown, eager to create my own meaningful change, and narrate my own meaningful story.