Last night, I said goodbye to everyone at Neot Semadar separately and then spent some time outside after everyone was asleep. I ran into Asaf, a cool guy who was only at the kibbutz the first few days and last few days I was there. He's writing a children's album about a machine that makes you fly when it hears good music and he likes Spinal Tap. Needless to say, our conversations are good.
We went to the dining room because he wanted a midnight snack. In the dining room, we discovered the electronic keyboard that they use to accompany the songs on Fridays. I turned on the organ sound and played "Organ Woman." He liked it. He gave me a pencil wrapped in paper tape that said "Keep on rocking, Asaf, Israel, 2008."
We weren't high, and, in fact, Asaf doesn't like drugs at all.
Hanging out with him was a good transition between the comfortable, insulated world of Neot Semadar and the rest of the world, I think. In Neot Semadar, I hang out with people for days and don't say much to them, and I play the upright piano alone in the practice room/library on the kibbutz. In the rest of the world, I talk for hours about Spinal Tap with people I've just met all the time, and play them organ songs as well.
I didn't get the sense that I was going back to the real me, or the world where I belong, or anything so dramatic as that- no, it was just a good transition.
I got on a bus to Eilat this morning, and it was full of Israeli kids going to school. They were watching a computer-generated kids show with a fat ogre, a slick-haired vampire/'50s bad-ass, and a red-haired princess with a light blue dress. It was my first contact with the world outside of Neot Semadar- the world where you pay people to take you far away and mass culture is a regular thing to encounter. It was sufficiently far out. I soon stopped thinking about how sad it was to leave the place. I also was happy not to have a camera with me. I noticed times when I would have attempted to get the perfect picture, and felt relieved that I didn't have to.
In Eilat, I've still enjoyed not having that extra burden of pulling a camera out of my pocket, but I've seen several camera stores and been tempted to buy a new one.
The thing that tempted me the most was this: a McDavid's and a Chief Sandwich next to each other. Two hilariously pseudo-American Israeli fast food establishments. And they were right next to each other. I thought of buying a disposable camera just for the occasion but I resisted. If I'm not going to have a camera, I'm going to try to go all the way.
Well, I will be asking people to take pictures of me. But it's the burden of carrying it around that I'm going to avoid if it's possible. I'm either in serious hobby photographer mode, or I'm in camera-less traveller mode, and the serious hobby photographer in me doesn't want to take pics with a disposable.
Flash forward: in two hours, I'll be in Jordan.
Showing posts with label israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label israel. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
The Mata
This morning, my first working since I returned from Jerusalem, I spent in the Mata- the date tree plantation.
I'll write Mata in Hebrew:
I'll write Mata in Hebrew:
מטע
I chose to do that because seeing it in Hebrew does justice to how mighty and biblical this plantation is.
The Mata is a good amount of kilometers from the kibbutz itself. To get there, you must drive over a medium-sized desert mountain (not Wadi Rum-size by any means, but big nonetheless) from which you can see the neat rows of 10-meter high date palms below, and, further in the distance, the no man's land mountains on the Jordanian border.
After driving over this Israeli mountain, the car drives over a large flat desert valley that, from a distance, appears to contain nothing other than a billboard which says (roughly translated), "60 KM an hour. Don't kill your vacation," and an occasional ibex hopping across the light tan rocks.
This route is usually driven before 7 AM, with the sun not quite in full force, in a van full of volunteers, kibbutzniks, and Thai migrant workers.
At the Mata itself, the giant trees are no less impressive. The first time I entered the plantation and saw the picking-trucks driving towards the towering trees as the sun rose over desert hills, I felt as if I were entering into some sort of epic Zionist film.
It was too aesthetic a scene for me to compare it to anything other than a movie. Viewed from a distance, it had the awesome power of the oil-fire scene in There Will Be Blood, the barn-raising scene in Witness, or the locust scene in Days of Heaven; it was a spectacular and cinematic display of the awesome forces at work in basic interactions between humans, technology, and nature.
The actual work a person does at the Mata is a different story.
Some people love it, but working there releases just about every neurosy I have.
Currently, the work being done is the pruning of the date buds. You stand on top of two shaky branches while trimming stems. First, you count the amount of stems and trim them down to a certain amount- on some heads, it's 40, and on some, it's 80. Then, you cut those stems until the stems have only 10 buds each on them.
Since the stems are so densely packed together, it's hard to hold them in a bunch as you count them. I'm not great at counting in the first place, but I'm particularly bad at counting thin stems while straddling the branches of a tall palm tree and holding a deadly pair of pruning clippers. I usually miss some stems or end up counting them twice because, while I'm holding one bunch in one hand and counting some others, some of the tightly held stems will pop out, and, since I'm trying to count the others, I won't notice. And so I'll count them later. Sometimes, they all pop out of my hand and I give up.
In addition to that, I have to do it while balancing myself on top of branches that break if you don't balance correctly on them. Usually, once I've balanced myself, the head of stems is directly in front of my face, which means I have to hold the pair of clippers in front of my face as well.
Sometimes, the branches start to break and I have to step down on to the truck.
When I told kibbutzniks that I didn't want to work in the Mata again, they all said, more or less, "Yeah, we understand, you're afraid of heights."
They have the right idea, but it's not the falling to the ground that scares me, I explained to some of them. It's all of the things that will hit me on the way down. The branches, which will likely hit my crotch. The metal platform from the truck, which will probably hit my butt as well as other body parts. And the clippers, which can cut through two inches of wood, and will probably hit my eye, or my throat, or my lung.
And, in addition to the danger, the cutting of the stems is boring, and I suck at it.
So I'm leaving the magnificent biblical scene behind. I'm a little sad that I won't be going there again. Riding towards the Mata to work, van full of Israelis, Germans, Americans and Thais, at the break of dawn, was thrilling and awesome in a casual and unchoreographed yet cinematic way that the jeep tour through the Sahara at Siwa never was and my planned jeep tour through Wadi Rum never will be.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
A bit of summary
It occurred to me that this blog hasn't quite succeeded as a travel blog up to this point. Nobody can quite keep track of where I am and where I've been based on reading it. I feel that, if I am to succeed from now on at updating it, it will become more of a memory blog. An impressionist blog.
It's always been hard for me to summarize. Actually, no- it's hard for me to get myself to summarize. Because it's just plain not my instinct to summarize. It's my instinct to dwell and expand upon little things. That, like many instinct, is both helpful and harmful.
Anyway, I'm going to try to summarize my trip.
With Birthright, I was in a group of about 40 people. I hope to keep in touch with them. I'm often uncomfortable in groups of that size. I can handle bigger groups and smaller ones, but a group of that size just takes me a long time to adjust to. Plus, when I travel in groups, it's harder for me to focus on where I am. Being constantly dropped and picked up sometimes makes me focus more on things like what time we're going to eat than the places we're at... but at the same time, when you're with a group, you're rarely alone and you rarely get lost and you're rarely anywhere long enough for it to get boring.
And we weren't anywhere long enough for it to get boring. We started off at a desert kibbutz called Masabai Sadeh. It had cute, tiny stucco-roof houses, bicycles, animals, gardens, and art made out of junk. I didn't get to meet any of the inhabitants, but they didn't seem too friendly.
In the Negev desert, we also saw the grave and house of David Ben-Gurion and went on a night time hike. The guide, Ran, told us to think about how Abraham walked through this same desert. I thought about that, and it was pretty awesome. I understood why people rave about the desert at night. Being totally in the dark is always cool, but being in the dark in the desert, where there are no trees for the moon to hide behind and no plants to rustle, is a different experience from anything I've known. There was also a unique dark blue in the sky. The dry wind is also pretty unique.
I thought about how people like Abrahah, Jacob, and Lawrence of Arabia may have found themselves in this very spot, and I felt more like them, while at the same time realizing just how different a life a person would lead living in the desert.
I had a conversation with Justin, a guy on the trip. He confessed that, since he lives in New Mexico, the Negev isn't much of a new thing to him. I told him I understood. I quoted Omar Sharif in Lawrence: "No Arab loves the desert. We like water and green trees." If that's true, then I'm a bit of an Arab myself. The desert has its thrills, but the potential for desolation, desperation, and poverty has always been very palpable to me.
We then moved on to Masada and Ein Gedi at the Dead Sea. It rained. Masada was cloudy, which gave the "sunrise" a dufferent quality to it. The cloudy view was nonetheless impressive. At the Dead Sea, more rain came. Some people floated in the cold muddy water but I chickened out. Mudfalls filled the mountains at Ein Gedi. Apparently some people died that day. I hope to go back to the Dead Sea on a better day.
After that, we spent a night in Tel Aviv. It was a Monday and it was cold. I went to an Irish pub- the first of several I would find in Israel. Irish pubs there are very much like Irish pubs in America- asymmetrical, wooden, and with lots of Guinness. Israeli ones just play up the Irish-ness a bit more. Pictures of James Joyce and bouzoukis line the walls, and that sort of thing.
Then I went to Mike's Place. It's owned by Canadians with dual citizenship. Then a friend named Josh and I lead a search for drunken felafel. Coming from America, where drunken pizza walks are possible in any small city, we expected this endeavour to be a cinch in the so-called party capital of Israel. But the search proved to be in vain. Josh and I hoped to go on more successful drunk walks together later on the trip, but it unfortunately never happened.
When I returned to Tel Aviv later on my own, I realized that this first incident was just another example of the city's horrible urban planning. Tel Aviv has several main drags, but none of them are parallel to each other or to the ocean. Some cities have main drags with smaller streets between them. In Tel Aviv, everything criss-crosses everything, like a plate of spaghetti that's suddenly cut off by the ocean.
The next day in Tel Aviv, we met some friendly soldiers in Rabin Square. I got my picture taken in front of the S'licha ("sorry") wall. It was one of the most moving memorials I've seen anywhere. Ran had us sing "Imagine." Later on, when Ran asked for feedback on his activities, several people said they felt weird singing the song because "Imagine there's no countries" runs contrary to the idea of Israel. I figured Ran just chose it because it's about peace, and that's the idea behind Rabin Square. I realized that I agree with John Lennon. Singing the song was indeed awkward, not because of its meaning, but because of the Israelis who walked by. I figured they must be used to this sort of thing, though.
I will continue later (hopeuflly not too much later) because right now I have to catch an overnight train from Luxor to Cairo. I'm not looking forward to it.
It's always been hard for me to summarize. Actually, no- it's hard for me to get myself to summarize. Because it's just plain not my instinct to summarize. It's my instinct to dwell and expand upon little things. That, like many instinct, is both helpful and harmful.
Anyway, I'm going to try to summarize my trip.
With Birthright, I was in a group of about 40 people. I hope to keep in touch with them. I'm often uncomfortable in groups of that size. I can handle bigger groups and smaller ones, but a group of that size just takes me a long time to adjust to. Plus, when I travel in groups, it's harder for me to focus on where I am. Being constantly dropped and picked up sometimes makes me focus more on things like what time we're going to eat than the places we're at... but at the same time, when you're with a group, you're rarely alone and you rarely get lost and you're rarely anywhere long enough for it to get boring.
And we weren't anywhere long enough for it to get boring. We started off at a desert kibbutz called Masabai Sadeh. It had cute, tiny stucco-roof houses, bicycles, animals, gardens, and art made out of junk. I didn't get to meet any of the inhabitants, but they didn't seem too friendly.
In the Negev desert, we also saw the grave and house of David Ben-Gurion and went on a night time hike. The guide, Ran, told us to think about how Abraham walked through this same desert. I thought about that, and it was pretty awesome. I understood why people rave about the desert at night. Being totally in the dark is always cool, but being in the dark in the desert, where there are no trees for the moon to hide behind and no plants to rustle, is a different experience from anything I've known. There was also a unique dark blue in the sky. The dry wind is also pretty unique.
I thought about how people like Abrahah, Jacob, and Lawrence of Arabia may have found themselves in this very spot, and I felt more like them, while at the same time realizing just how different a life a person would lead living in the desert.
I had a conversation with Justin, a guy on the trip. He confessed that, since he lives in New Mexico, the Negev isn't much of a new thing to him. I told him I understood. I quoted Omar Sharif in Lawrence: "No Arab loves the desert. We like water and green trees." If that's true, then I'm a bit of an Arab myself. The desert has its thrills, but the potential for desolation, desperation, and poverty has always been very palpable to me.
We then moved on to Masada and Ein Gedi at the Dead Sea. It rained. Masada was cloudy, which gave the "sunrise" a dufferent quality to it. The cloudy view was nonetheless impressive. At the Dead Sea, more rain came. Some people floated in the cold muddy water but I chickened out. Mudfalls filled the mountains at Ein Gedi. Apparently some people died that day. I hope to go back to the Dead Sea on a better day.
After that, we spent a night in Tel Aviv. It was a Monday and it was cold. I went to an Irish pub- the first of several I would find in Israel. Irish pubs there are very much like Irish pubs in America- asymmetrical, wooden, and with lots of Guinness. Israeli ones just play up the Irish-ness a bit more. Pictures of James Joyce and bouzoukis line the walls, and that sort of thing.
Then I went to Mike's Place. It's owned by Canadians with dual citizenship. Then a friend named Josh and I lead a search for drunken felafel. Coming from America, where drunken pizza walks are possible in any small city, we expected this endeavour to be a cinch in the so-called party capital of Israel. But the search proved to be in vain. Josh and I hoped to go on more successful drunk walks together later on the trip, but it unfortunately never happened.
When I returned to Tel Aviv later on my own, I realized that this first incident was just another example of the city's horrible urban planning. Tel Aviv has several main drags, but none of them are parallel to each other or to the ocean. Some cities have main drags with smaller streets between them. In Tel Aviv, everything criss-crosses everything, like a plate of spaghetti that's suddenly cut off by the ocean.
The next day in Tel Aviv, we met some friendly soldiers in Rabin Square. I got my picture taken in front of the S'licha ("sorry") wall. It was one of the most moving memorials I've seen anywhere. Ran had us sing "Imagine." Later on, when Ran asked for feedback on his activities, several people said they felt weird singing the song because "Imagine there's no countries" runs contrary to the idea of Israel. I figured Ran just chose it because it's about peace, and that's the idea behind Rabin Square. I realized that I agree with John Lennon. Singing the song was indeed awkward, not because of its meaning, but because of the Israelis who walked by. I figured they must be used to this sort of thing, though.
I will continue later (hopeuflly not too much later) because right now I have to catch an overnight train from Luxor to Cairo. I'm not looking forward to it.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Shots
Tonight, I'm staying with my friend Ido. He's a soldier who joined the Birthright group for several days of the tour. He's going for a run and I'm using his computer. My ancestors were Jewish shoemakers in the Ukraine and his ancestors were Jewish shoemakers in Morroco.
A few minutes before I started writing, I heard a sound that resembled a gun shot outside. Where I come from, that means somebody's playing with firecrackers or that there's a gang fight. In the Middle East, it can mean those things, but it can also be a bit more threatening. Yesterday, several students got shot in Jerusalem. Every day, somebody tells me there is going to be a war with Gaza and Hezbollah soon. The place doesn't feel any more dangerous than it did when I first arrived, and it didn't feel dangerous then.
My time ran out at the internet cafe in Haifa yesterday. I do like the abrupt way the last post ended, but I would like to continue what I was writing about. I was going to say that when I touched the Western Wall, I got why there was a war over Jerusalem, and how traumatic it was for Jews to be denied access to this site. I didn't understand it: "understand" is a much too definitive word. I didn't understand it- I just got it.
In the last post, I mentioned that I didn't feel any more at home here than in any other country in the world. The only reason that was worth mentioning is because I've been comparing myself to people I've met who get an overwhelming, enthusiastic sense that something is right when they get here. As a place, Israel is quite allright. If I were to look at it without the sense that I'm in someone else's living dream, I wouldn't even find it necessary to mention my lack of overwhelming attachment to it. I could see myself living here just as I could see myself living in many other places.
I stayed in Akko (Acre) three days ago with a British Jewish guy named Joe and a German girl named Maja. Joe, like me, is half Irish and half Ashkenazic Jew. Akko is a city that looks like it hasn't changed much since the Ottoman empire, except that now the people wear American sports Jerseys instead of robes and drive cars blaring Arabic pop music down the alleys instead of riding horses and camels. I felt like Lawrence of Arabia in Aqaba, except, unlike Lawrence/Peter O'Toole, I didn't have Omar Sharif with me, and I didn't have a sadomasochistic, homoerotic encounter with Turkish soldiers.
I did, however, find myself in a very cinematic moment that night as we entered the busy section of the old city. As the call to prayer blared from the mosque, a man stepped out of his shop to welcome us. "Welcome," he said. "Can I help you find anything?" "No, but thank you," I said. "Welcome to Phalestina," he said in a mellow tone of voice as we walked by.
Maja and I played foosball against some Arabs who spoke no English. One of them saw my Brazil soccer Jersey (bought for me buy my slightly lecherous "host mom") and smiled and said "Braziiiil!" I smiled back and said, "Yeah, football!" He kept smiling. I was glad that I packed the shirt- the same shirt that had helped make me a mugging target in Brazil.
The Arabs won the foosball game by many points. We, the Irish Jew and the German, shook their hands and said, "good game."
A few minutes before I started writing, I heard a sound that resembled a gun shot outside. Where I come from, that means somebody's playing with firecrackers or that there's a gang fight. In the Middle East, it can mean those things, but it can also be a bit more threatening. Yesterday, several students got shot in Jerusalem. Every day, somebody tells me there is going to be a war with Gaza and Hezbollah soon. The place doesn't feel any more dangerous than it did when I first arrived, and it didn't feel dangerous then.
My time ran out at the internet cafe in Haifa yesterday. I do like the abrupt way the last post ended, but I would like to continue what I was writing about. I was going to say that when I touched the Western Wall, I got why there was a war over Jerusalem, and how traumatic it was for Jews to be denied access to this site. I didn't understand it: "understand" is a much too definitive word. I didn't understand it- I just got it.
In the last post, I mentioned that I didn't feel any more at home here than in any other country in the world. The only reason that was worth mentioning is because I've been comparing myself to people I've met who get an overwhelming, enthusiastic sense that something is right when they get here. As a place, Israel is quite allright. If I were to look at it without the sense that I'm in someone else's living dream, I wouldn't even find it necessary to mention my lack of overwhelming attachment to it. I could see myself living here just as I could see myself living in many other places.
I stayed in Akko (Acre) three days ago with a British Jewish guy named Joe and a German girl named Maja. Joe, like me, is half Irish and half Ashkenazic Jew. Akko is a city that looks like it hasn't changed much since the Ottoman empire, except that now the people wear American sports Jerseys instead of robes and drive cars blaring Arabic pop music down the alleys instead of riding horses and camels. I felt like Lawrence of Arabia in Aqaba, except, unlike Lawrence/Peter O'Toole, I didn't have Omar Sharif with me, and I didn't have a sadomasochistic, homoerotic encounter with Turkish soldiers.
I did, however, find myself in a very cinematic moment that night as we entered the busy section of the old city. As the call to prayer blared from the mosque, a man stepped out of his shop to welcome us. "Welcome," he said. "Can I help you find anything?" "No, but thank you," I said. "Welcome to Phalestina," he said in a mellow tone of voice as we walked by.
Maja and I played foosball against some Arabs who spoke no English. One of them saw my Brazil soccer Jersey (bought for me buy my slightly lecherous "host mom") and smiled and said "Braziiiil!" I smiled back and said, "Yeah, football!" He kept smiling. I was glad that I packed the shirt- the same shirt that had helped make me a mugging target in Brazil.
The Arabs won the foosball game by many points. We, the Irish Jew and the German, shook their hands and said, "good game."
Monday, February 18, 2008
Midnight Thoughts Before Departure
On February 21st, I will ride El Al Israel Airlines from New York to Tel Aviv.
Actually, the airport is not in Tel Aviv. It's in Lod. I know that because I used to work for a travel agency. I also know that because I have a habit of knowing that sort of thing.
I want blog because I want people to know about what I've seen. Or, to be more accurate, I want the comfort of knowing that anyone in the world can read what I'm writing about, should they make the choice.
I was going to watch Lawrence of Arabia tonight to put myself in a different state of mind. It's been a while since I've seen Peter O'Toole trek across the desert. In fact, I haven't seen a single David Lean epic since high school. But I feel like David Lean epics have played a significant role in forming my personality. Bridge on the River Kwai, Dr. Zhivago, and Lawrence were some of my favorite things in the world when I was in high school. The rest of the world felt so accessible then; it didn't yet feel like something I needed to worry about missing out on.
I have a dentist appointment at 11:30 tomorrow. I still have a minor but palpable urge to watch that fantastic epic. When I finish typing this entry, I may in fact do that.
I, like many people, love writing. I also am afraid to do it sometimes. I always feel like some people have an ability to become focused as soon as they start writing. I always need limits before I start.
It's usually easier for me to write when I'm tired. When I'm not tired, my fingers are capable of typing about 80 words per minute. That should theoretically be able to get me a high-paying, boring job, although it's only succeeded at getting me a job with one of those qualities.
In any case, I often type as fast, if not faster, than I think. My sentences get incredibly long and I finish them before I have decided how I want them to end.
I want to be a good writer, but I don't think my style of writing has ever developed past an imitation of Kurt Vonnegut. I first read The Sirens of Titan when I was 14 and I first felt that the writer and I were kindred spirits in the English language when I was 16. I might have been even younger. I'm 23 now. In college, I majored in English. I feel like other writers should have turned me on and altered my brain in the last five years, but, ultimately, nobody's style has had quite the same effect on the way I see words and the way I write them.
When I was in elementary school at the Hebrew Academy of the Capital District, I was pretty sure I was going to be one of the smartest, hardest-working people I knew when I grew up. I also couldn't conceive of growing up. In the middle of fifth grade, I looked at the end of my "Spelling" textbook and wondered about the person I'd be when I reached the end of the book. I thought he'd probably be unrecognizable and would be into girls, or something else shameful like that.
I also thought that Israel was where I belonged. That was because I liked palm trees and old rocks and because I went to a school called the Hebrew Academy. The places I'm about to see are things that everyone has seen on postcards. Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Masada, and Eilat are also places whose images were taped to the walls of every classroom I entered before high school.
It wasn't until recently that I even figured out what the Occupation was. And a brief period of time after I figured that out, I thought I hated Israel as much as much of the world does. But then I realized that I only hate Israel as much as I hate the United States of America, which is to say, there's not a whole lot of hatred there. In a similar manner, I also hate money, and I strongly dislike the way my feet feel when they sweat and there's no Dr. Scholl's pad in my shoes.
Since the Israelis in Ben-Gurion Airport will stamp my passport with a 90-day tourist visa and I don't currently have a job or any courses that are worth staying with, I'll be in the country until one of the following things runs out:
1) Money
2) Things to do with the money I have
3) My visa
I decided today that I will not be packing my computer. That will take some literal and figurative weight off my shoulders. Less weight. Less things to be robbed of. And less time to write. All of these things I look forward to, for different reasons.
If I watch Lawrence of Arabia now, I will get five hours of sleep before getting novocained up at the dentist. It's a tough call.
Actually, the airport is not in Tel Aviv. It's in Lod. I know that because I used to work for a travel agency. I also know that because I have a habit of knowing that sort of thing.
I want blog because I want people to know about what I've seen. Or, to be more accurate, I want the comfort of knowing that anyone in the world can read what I'm writing about, should they make the choice.
I was going to watch Lawrence of Arabia tonight to put myself in a different state of mind. It's been a while since I've seen Peter O'Toole trek across the desert. In fact, I haven't seen a single David Lean epic since high school. But I feel like David Lean epics have played a significant role in forming my personality. Bridge on the River Kwai, Dr. Zhivago, and Lawrence were some of my favorite things in the world when I was in high school. The rest of the world felt so accessible then; it didn't yet feel like something I needed to worry about missing out on.
I have a dentist appointment at 11:30 tomorrow. I still have a minor but palpable urge to watch that fantastic epic. When I finish typing this entry, I may in fact do that.
I, like many people, love writing. I also am afraid to do it sometimes. I always feel like some people have an ability to become focused as soon as they start writing. I always need limits before I start.
It's usually easier for me to write when I'm tired. When I'm not tired, my fingers are capable of typing about 80 words per minute. That should theoretically be able to get me a high-paying, boring job, although it's only succeeded at getting me a job with one of those qualities.
In any case, I often type as fast, if not faster, than I think. My sentences get incredibly long and I finish them before I have decided how I want them to end.
I want to be a good writer, but I don't think my style of writing has ever developed past an imitation of Kurt Vonnegut. I first read The Sirens of Titan when I was 14 and I first felt that the writer and I were kindred spirits in the English language when I was 16. I might have been even younger. I'm 23 now. In college, I majored in English. I feel like other writers should have turned me on and altered my brain in the last five years, but, ultimately, nobody's style has had quite the same effect on the way I see words and the way I write them.
When I was in elementary school at the Hebrew Academy of the Capital District, I was pretty sure I was going to be one of the smartest, hardest-working people I knew when I grew up. I also couldn't conceive of growing up. In the middle of fifth grade, I looked at the end of my "Spelling" textbook and wondered about the person I'd be when I reached the end of the book. I thought he'd probably be unrecognizable and would be into girls, or something else shameful like that.
I also thought that Israel was where I belonged. That was because I liked palm trees and old rocks and because I went to a school called the Hebrew Academy. The places I'm about to see are things that everyone has seen on postcards. Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Masada, and Eilat are also places whose images were taped to the walls of every classroom I entered before high school.
It wasn't until recently that I even figured out what the Occupation was. And a brief period of time after I figured that out, I thought I hated Israel as much as much of the world does. But then I realized that I only hate Israel as much as I hate the United States of America, which is to say, there's not a whole lot of hatred there. In a similar manner, I also hate money, and I strongly dislike the way my feet feel when they sweat and there's no Dr. Scholl's pad in my shoes.
Since the Israelis in Ben-Gurion Airport will stamp my passport with a 90-day tourist visa and I don't currently have a job or any courses that are worth staying with, I'll be in the country until one of the following things runs out:
1) Money
2) Things to do with the money I have
3) My visa
I decided today that I will not be packing my computer. That will take some literal and figurative weight off my shoulders. Less weight. Less things to be robbed of. And less time to write. All of these things I look forward to, for different reasons.
If I watch Lawrence of Arabia now, I will get five hours of sleep before getting novocained up at the dentist. It's a tough call.
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