{"id":166212,"date":"2026-01-04T07:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T15:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=166212"},"modified":"2026-01-04T15:51:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T23:51:41","slug":"the-last-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=166212","title":{"rendered":"My Venezuela Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was September 1994, and I was the walking wounded. After making a partial recovery from six years of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (caused by my vegetarian diet, I found out in 2021 when I started swallowing six beef organ capsules a day and losing all of my chronic health problems), I arrived in Los Angeles March 30, 1994, and stayed for a few months with UCLA pre-law, pre-med academic advisor Jules Zentner<\/a> until he asked to blow me one night in June and I said no.<\/p>\n

Soon after, I had to move out to my 1979 Datsun station wagon, which contained all of my earthly possession.<\/p>\n

Luckily I had stored up treasure in Heaven!<\/p>\n

Jules didn’t turn his back on me. He allowed me to stop by most mornings and take a shower. <\/p>\n

I wasn’t willing to get a job yet to afford an apartment. I was set on becoming a Hollywood star.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, that didn’t work out.<\/p>\n

Neither did my desperate strategy of living off women. <\/p>\n

I didn’t intend to be a selfish man. I was just desperate. I felt like my situation allowed me few options (when I began therapy four years later, I realized I always had more options than I first thought) and the world deserved to experience my genius. I just needed a brief subsidy to skate past bumpy reality up into the rarefied elite status I deserved. <\/p>\n

Right before Rosh Hashana, the New York heiress dumped me for using her and the LA nurse dumped me for using her. A year previous, the San Jose Jewess had exposed me as a user to my parents, and that broke their hearts and they wrote me out of the will. She also exposed me to my hero Dennis Prager, who distanced himself. <\/p>\n

I was seeking sanctuary. Every Shabbos, I went to Stephen S. Wise Temple, not necessarily looking for God, but definitely looking for help.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where I met her.<\/p>\n

She was Venezuelan, Jewish, and on holiday. Her smile cut right through the fog of my heartbreak. There was just one logistical problem: she didn’t speak a word of English, and my Spanish was confined to the few phrases I remembered from my three years of Spanish class (in high school and junior college). <\/p>\n

It didn’t matter. We dated for six weeks, a brief but intense interlude where we communicated almost entirely in the international language of love. We bypassed the awkward small talk and the misunderstandings of early relationships simply because we couldn\u2019t have them even if we wanted.<\/p>\n

Our routine was devout. We met on a Friday night at the temple. After that, I became her designated chauffeur for the Sabbath. Every Friday evening and Saturday morning, I’d pick her up from her aunt’s place off Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood, and then drive us through the Sepulveda Pass to temple. The car rides were filled with comfortable silence, hand holding, and smiles. Inside the sanctuary, the language barrier dissolved; the Hebrew prayers were the only tongue we shared. <\/p>\n

She was a good woman. No slut. I kept saying “es muy necesario” but she always said no. <\/p>\n

Looking back now, from the vantage point of 2026, that six-week romance feels like a snapshot of a world that has ceased to exist.<\/p>\n

In 1994, I was living out of my car beside a psychic cliff while Venezuela was still, to the outside eye, a wealthy democracy. Hugo Ch\u00e1vez was just a name from a failed coup two years prior, recently pardoned and released from prison, his shadow not yet long enough to cover the sun. The country she knew, the place she would tell me about with animated hand gestures and rapid-fire Spanish I couldn’t catch, was about to vanish.<\/p>\n

The years went by. I never heard from her. I found my safe space in 12-step recovery and Orthodox Judaism. <\/p>\n

When I read the news today\u2014the stories of the hollowed-out economy, the millions who have fled on foot, the contested elections and the silencing of dissent\u2014I think of her. I think of the Venezuela she carried in her accente.<\/p>\n

I wonder where she is now. The Jewish community in Venezuela, which numbered in the tens of thousands back then, has declined, shrinking to a fraction of its former self as families fled to Miami, Israel, or Panama. It is likely she is part of that diaspora, her life cleaved into “before” and “after” in a way neither of us could have predicted during those quiet times at Stephen S. Wise.<\/p>\n

For six weeks, we existed in a bubble. I was recovering from the personal loss of my life 1988-1994 due to chronic fatigue, while she was, unknowingly, on the verge of a national disaster. We had nothing in common but the spark between us and the prayers we mumbled. But sometimes, when I see footage of Caracas on the screen\u2014the empty streets or the angry crowds\u2014I remember the specific warmth of her hand in mine, a ghost from a country that, like our short relationship, is now a memory I can\u2019t quite return to.<\/p>\n

I wonder what it is like to sustain a relationship?<\/p>\n

I believe I do more good these days than harm. I must build my moral bank account. I can’t stand to think of myself as a bad man. During the 1990s, I tried to pile on the religiosity to clear my moral overdraft. Then I found the 12-steps in 2011 and it put me on a more honest path. <\/p>\n

Reality is now my favorite word for God. You can’t cheat Reality. <\/p>\n

I want to feel clean. When I am honest, I feel clean. <\/p>\n

I want to feel clean all the time.<\/p>\n

To lie is to die. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was September 1994, and I was the walking wounded. After making a partial recovery from six years of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (caused by my vegetarian diet, I found out in 2021 when I started swallowing six beef organ capsules … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t