that girl in Haifa

יש עוד מישהו שאוהב את הסידרה נויורק? לא הייתי אומרת שזה הסיגנון שלי, אבל אני עדיין רואה, יש משהו בסידרה ישראלית שקורה בארה”ב שמצחיק אותי, 

מחשבות? 

When I was a kid, my mom would set up to paint and let us try to paint along side her. I recall often getting very absorbed in the picture I was creating, pushing myself to produce  a very specific image that existed in my mind, which I could rarely explain to anyone else. Sometimes I would succeed in producing this image on a canvas in real life… And occasionally I would become frustrated to the point of wanting to destroy the canvas when what I had imagined did not come out as I planned. At this point, my mom would tell me “Just leave it. Walk away and come back to it tomorrow, or in a week, and then you’ll see what it is you need to fix.”

Such is the case with Israel and I. After several years of intense exposure to this country and a rather specific idea of what I would do there, I’ve reached a conclusion: I need to walk away. I cannot figure out how I could be a part of it, how to “make it work”, but I’m too stubborn to trash it entirely. Thus, I must go.

Of course the hardest part of gaining control over you creativity is letting it go, putting the brush down and walking into the adjacent room where you cannot see the picture anymore. Additionally in life, the hardest step in gaining what you want is letting it go. Being open to the possibility that what you most deeply desire could not happen at all. and perhaps it won’t. I have to be open to the possibility that Life will not call me back to the Middle East again. But on the other hand, no matter how deeply you love something, if you hold on it it too hard, it doesn’t feel good, it is not enjoyable, and you find yourself watching something you love dying before your very eyes. So maybe now isn’t the time. Perhaps even, I will never come back

But I don’t think so. 

At any rate, now is not the time to decide that. After you pass the “letting go” stage, you find your mind is much clearer, and this requires waiting. For myself, that amount of time hasn’t passed yet. I’m not sure what I’ll do when I go home, but I will remain (for a while) timid about becoming to absorbed with relationships, events and opportunities here. Then I will re-approach it with a clear head.

As far as this blog goes, I’ll still be around, but only as I process things I saw here. And some of them are too deep to go into. I’m not ready to say goodbye, but I need to step back and think clearly about Israel.

If you need me, I’ll be in the room next door :)

it just got real

A hostel horror story, courtesy of the Citadel Youth Hostel

picture: young twenty something woman, traveling alone, decides to spend a night in a local Jerusalem youth hostel. books a spot on the roof in the Old City of Jerusalem overlooking all the magnificence. rolls out sleeping bag, enjoys the chatter of all the other travelers sitting on the roof talking, gently falls asleep.

a few hours later, somewhere in the middle of a very pleasent and relaxing REM cycle, I recall asking the person in my dream “Is someone screaming?” followed by that magical floating feeling of rising up to the surface of conciousness. Breaking through, into the air I realized that someone really was screaming.

but not just screaming. In the middle of a quiet night in quaint Old Jerusalem, a man’s voice is gurgling and cackling and mumbling followed by sparatic outbursts of yelling, remenicint of some past horror film I came across where a demon is trying to escape a human’s body. No one dares make a sound, for fear that the man in his insanity will single them out, get up and potentially ax murder them. then everything went quiet.

I had practically convinced myself I had dreamt it and had once more relaxed when the mumbling started. and then the laughing and shrieking. adrenaline pumped through my body, erasing any remnant of sleepiness. I wanted to look up and see which of the travelers on the roof it was, or at least reach for my phone, but also not wanting to be a headline the next day, instead chose to curl up inside my mummy sleeping bag and play dead.

Not at all convinced that any of us could possibly sleep through what was happening, but also not being brave enough to grab my bag and make a run for it, I chose to not move, while also worrying how my parents would react if they found out i died here. We all seemed to have the same idea, and so the night wore on with total denial on the part of any of the other guest, Meanwhile the words of a good friend ran through my head ” In life, just try and avoid making a crazy person angry”…

twice more the demon posessed man broke all of the peace of Jerusalem, until the very early hours when the church bells and call to prayer filled the air, letting us know that daylight was on its way. By now too much adrenaline was going through us to possibly allow any sort of real sleep, so i stared at my phone instead (which I had gotten up the courage to sneak from my bag), counting the minutes, and praying to God that I would make it back to Haifa alive.

As the sunlight filled the air, all of the other travelers seemed to wake up with it, look around until most eyes came to rest on the one man who lay sleeping in the middle of the group. The man next to me, sitting next to his wife, passed me a wide eyed look. I got up, stuffed my things into my bag, which instantaneously encouraged everyone else to do the same. The whole thing seemed fairly harmless now, the man didn’t appear to own an ax, and rested with a very peaceful look on his face. 

a few minutes later I was well down Jaffa street, trying to find a coffee shop open at 6 in the morning. I was barely able to believe what had just occurred, but was also trying to focus on anything else, even if it meant wandering around, bleary eyed until a found a cafe. it is with a great thankfulness that I am able to write this to you today.

SO the moral of the story is: Never assume you know what you’re getting into when in a foreign place, and if necessary, be the one with the ax as well…