End of Kipple #9

March 23, 2011
Phones are ringing off the hook today, calling, being called. Mine goes dead from all the traffic. But before it does, my friend calls me to make sure I'm all right.

Sculpture of Sampson on Mamilla

"Unfortunately, you get used to this," he says. "Life keeps going but it's sad because now, you'll feel the change. People will stop going out." And indeed, the streets are rather empty tonight, but I can pretend it's because of the cold.

"Welcome to Israel," another friend tells me. "Now you're really a part of it."

Yes. But fortunately, today, I took a detour before heading to Har Nof to return my borrowed cell phone and I was not on the 74 or at my bus stop waiting. I was not a part of shattered glass and the ended life or of the lives immediately interrupted by shrapnel.

"Unfortunately, you get used to this." In response I say, "In a way, I already am."

I know how life holds us all precariously, like unweighted feathers resting lightly on her palm in the wind. I know how death waits patiently with his fingers wrapped around our throats so that we get used to him. So that we hardly notice him anymore. So that that he almost always catches us by surprise.

We talk about life-as-usual. We go on our dates. We enjoy starlight above the Old City.

Let me come clean on this one: I am over the Green Line. Way over. But I couldn't tell you where I cross it. I let the bus route take me.

Outside the Old City

From up on my hill, the land sprawls out beautifully. There are no borders. Borders are made my man, built, imagined, razed. All I see from up on the hill is beauty--and it's impossible to imagine the workings of the human race that build and destroy so whimsically.

It feels different as an Israeli. This is my city, my bus stop, my bus, my friends, my family. And I wonder how we have sustained this madness for so long, how we can perpetuate it merely by being incapable of imagining another way.

March 30, 2011
A week later and we're back to normal. One bomb can't stop the party. Or maybe we're over it. The glitch was just a gentle reminder: be vigilant. Keep an eye out. Keep both eyes open. Don't ever sleep deeply.
There's no rush, just an urgency. We don't discuss it. Why discuss the obvious?

So? We could die in a minute? We always can.

God twitches a little. It's involuntary. What to do? And we're in the way. Insignificant little fleas.

We go ahead with vacation, as planned. Eilat. Maximum south.

In truth, we can walk to Jordan or Egypt. We've walked farther before. We can swim there, in the chilly water.

The Egypt-Israel Int'l Border

I swear, the Red Sea is the bluest water I've ever seen in my life. It's too vibrant to be real and in the water, the borders are really imaginary. The water is too clear for borders, but the proud flags flying remind us when we come up above the surface that we're human. We have to choose.

One of my roommates and another immigrant have the same birthday. They've spent months planning this weekend in Eilat. It begins with a טיול (tiyyul-trip, hike, outing). We're freezing in the pitch black, like the ninth plague. But we can move.

To escape the strongest wind, we decide to camp in a crater. Sleeping bags are laid out, food is prepared by flashlight. We huddle together, body-to-body, warmth begets warmth. We make tea, but only for our hands.

At 5:30, we pretend to wake up and by 7:00, we're off. We are hiking to Eilat from the mountains. It takes 12 hours, including a total of 2 hours of rest. Strenuous, raw, beautiful. Beautiful beyond description. Silent, divine.

Israel from the Eilat Mts, the Red Sea and Jordan

Divine.

Seven years ago, Uriel told me that it and its brethren were born here, in the desert. All of them left me alone this time, gave me space, let me connect with the earth in a Human way for once, instead of saturating me with holy commentary. Except when I needed them.

"Help me," I say, "to climb down the ladder." So they help me because I've never overcome my fear of heights.

They help me climb up and down but the help is minimal. They have learned to listen after all this time, or perhaps seeing all this for myself was the message this time around.

Either way, I made it.

Once in Eilat, we check into the hotel, take showers and quick naps before going to dinner and to sleep. At least I went to sleep. I have no idea what everyone else did.

Eilat Mountains

In the morning we fight with boat captains about enough space and the price of a cruise. After much ado and more ado, we get off our reserved boat and end up taking another. Great sun, air, food, and company. There is a large group of Estonian tourists with us. Apparently, Estonia has opened itself up to massive amounts of tourism to and from "the Holy Land". I wonder how we look to them.

When vacation is over and we return to Jerusalem, I return to the fact that my absorption is nearly complete, according to the Absorption Check-List. I'm employed, I have friends, and my Hebrew is steadily improving.

Now I'm looking for an apartment and prospective roommates. Furniture or a furnished room. I'm figuring out Pesach plans. Life is good. Life is so good.



Because I have a job, I don't have to worry about paying my National Insurance, and the door has opened up to going home for a visit and possibly even going to Turkey to meet the best person in the world for one day in July. So, I have to go back to the Misradim (offices) and get a travel document or passport. I can also afford to transfer my driver's license to Israel. Wish me luck. And come visit after June.

End of Kipple #8

March 7, 2011

I feel the need to clarify: these entries obviously convey frustration. Many readers seem to be interpreting frustration as "misery" which is absolutely not the case! 

Almond Flowers!

Maybe it would make you miserable. I can't say I wouldn't blame you. But: It is all in good humor and the average Israeli complains more than he smokes, which is really saying something, in case you didn't know. 

Ok, so it's lonely and irrational, chaotic, downright insane. But I love it and I've never been happier or more sure of any decision I've made in my life. Yes. I'm crazy. But aren't we all? So, I don't love Jerusalem? I have the Galilee, Tel Aviv, the Negev.

I hope that helps to calm some of your worries or doubts regarding my state of mind and how wonderful it is to live here. I encourage you to visit--once I'm settled in an apartment situation.

'Nough said.

March 2, 2011

Slowly but surely, things fall together. In many ways, Aliyah is like being born all over again. You get spat out, full of scum. This time, no one will wipe you off or unclog your nostrils. No one will hold you when you cry, so you have to clean yourself, hold yourself.

Tu Bishvat at Beit Canada 

Being cradled in the arms of air is all right. I can't fall anywhere because I'm already as far down as we can go without digging. But pens run out and Truth changes. This gift for this moment, then a loss--and another gift for that moment.

Jerusalem opens up for me. I meet a friend. Someone is waiting for me behind a counter, on the street. I get a tour of the Old City. It's quiet there, full of ghosts, history, many orders of angels. The present meets the past and together we make the future. I am in love with this place and I don't know why.

I am in love with the way fathers here can show affection. The children know they're loved.

I am in love with the streets, with the people on them--the way they don't know how free they are while I grew up free on paper.

Everything's a matter of perspective here and I am entitled to mine. Here I feel really free and not just rhetorically free. They can yell at me and I can yell right back.

Bunnies in Yokneam

In America we yell all the time. even with hundreds of millions, there is still so much empty space. I think that space got into me and never filled me up. I mourn for America now. There is nothing I can do to fix her other than speak softly for her, halfway around the world. The American Dream went East. If we will it, Eden is within us.

February 28, 2011

There are a million ways to hold your breath if you're waiting for something that won't ever come. I swear, I've tried almost all of them but I'm over it. There's a whole planet of air to breathe and, dammit, I'm gonna breathe it until we've burned it all out.

I'm a magnet for absurdity. No question. Keep it coming. I must have a sign in Invisible Neon flashing brightly on my forehead calling desperately for every weirdo to break into the territory. Unbeknownst to me, of course. I just mind my own business and they flock.

There be madness on the streets here, but we haven't imploded-exploded like everyone else around us. Count it as a blessing. Count it as a curse.

Me!

Paint me any which way you want--now I'm a part of it and I'm glad. Something about the dust rolling off the streets here makes people glow. I've been told I'm one of them. But if everyone glows, it's nothing special.

One week has brought its usual healthy supply of marriage proposals by old men that could be my grandfather. Let's put it this way: if I said yes, they'd be doing pretty well in life and I wouldn't, until they kicked the bucket and I inherited his "fortune". It would be a case of "Lyin' Eyes" and driving towards the other side of town. What are these idiots thinking? I will never be that desperate. But I suppose they will...they are. And have been for years, most likely.

End of Kipple #7

February 19, 2011
Let me begin with the way it is.

I am on a bus. A boy sits next to me. Yedidiah. He is fifteen years old. We exchange a few sentences and he helps me with my Hebrew homework. He does what all of us of the digital generation do: stuffs his ears with headphones and sinks into the music.

I know how it feels.

He smiles at me and then turn into himself. The world disappears and the bus keeps driving. It carries all of us forward, each in our own private universe with the volume turned up. He falls asleep on my shoulder.

This doesn't bother me like it would where I come from. We are already friends. Distant cousins. The bond is strong. Soul is thicker than water, not blood. We have had too much of that and know there will be more, so we thicken the substance of ourselves, layer upon layer. Breath mingles in the air and we are sure to keep ourselves aware of deeper connections than those of red rivers running through our veins.

Yedidiah wakes up and asks me for my contact information. We exchange. Now we check up on each other every once in a while. It is nice to know that strangers aren't strangers here, that no one ascends alone.

At home in Jerusalem, life is difficult. I feel like I am five years old again because I'm learning the basics. Hebrew is different from English in so many ways. The grammatical structure, the letters, the conjugation of verbs. I am frustrated because language is my specialty and Hebrew is never going to be a language that I own. It will always own me. I will never be able to mold it like clay with my eyes closed. It will always be ever-so-slightly just beyond my reach.

At home, in Jerusalem, life is lonely. In order to make friends, I listen to people talk. But in general, I don't talk about anything that is really important to me. In order to make friends, I sacrifice being known. I've got to get out more. This is my situation amongst the other Olim. We all have at least one thing in common: being insane enough to move here and become citizens. This is where the commonalities end. I am getting out more. I am making some Israeli friends. Developing older ones.

I wonder how it's possible to have more in common with people who grew up half a world away from me than my own compatriots. I wonder how's possible to be born so out of place.

At home, in Jerusalem, I tell my teacher that she has a horrible teaching style and what to do to change it. She listens for a little while and then she forgets. I decide to move down a level. I need the review and better teachers. It is not worth the frustration.

I deal with the medical system. I start early with scheduling appointments because I know it's going to take forever. How wrong I was. It doesn't take forever. It takes a million forevers. Eight days out of ten I'm in some office or other. It drives me insane. But if you live here, you have to learn to just go-with-the-flow. You have to learn to be assertive.

When the nurse refuses to do your blood test three days in a row for no apparent reason, you yell back. When she tells you to take home a cup for a urinalysis and cart your pee across a city twice when you're standing in the lab: you don't comply. You scream and throw the (empty) cup in her face until she gets the point. You don't try to conceive of logic. There is no logic to anything here. Chaos is the natural order of things.


So you don't ask why the window doesn't quite fit the window frame. And you don't ask why the lights in the bathroom vanity don't turn on. You don't ask why they're not even wired to an electrical outlet. But they sure do look pretty.

You also don't ask why the city has shut down a main traffic artery to motor vehicles for a train that never opens to the public for whom it was built. You don't ask why you can see this train running back and forth constantly filled with workers in yellow vests taking naps with their feet up on the plastic-covered seats. You don't ask why the bridge built for the train can't support the train's weight and why it thus serves no purpose whatsoever. You don't bring up the point that this causes the whole line to lead nowhere.

You just don't ask.

You come up with theories: they're running it back-and-forth to convince us that they're "working on it". No problem. There's no problem. We fix later.

Jerusalem crawls with the mundane commingled with the Holy. Holiness is a practicality here, like the rule to let everything slide. Holiness drips off people like rain and floods the streets.

Jerusalem is slippery when it rains because Jerusalem stone has no traction. Thankfully, it has rained a lot this year. May it rain, may it rain, may it rain.

Jerusalem is not my city--but for now, it'll have to do.