Molly (my roommate) says I'm compartmentalizing. Every morning she comes into my room, she already showered, me not yet having so much as washed my face, and tells me that she "doesn't want it to end." I rub my eyes and tell her "its still to early." We're standing at the traffic light, waiting for the short, but wide man to turn green and she asks me if I'm "even a little bit sad?" I tell her I'll be sad when finals are over...I'm not dealing with it right now.
Funny things happening when chapters come to an end. The people who usually don't hold their tongue, bite there lip and seem a bit more tolerant of others. People are more casually generous and the willingness to express a compliment, just for the sake of it, seems a bit more present than in the days leading up to now. I don't mean to draw a picutre of an impersonal and unfriendly community here, but my point is that as the days of this year in Jerusalem draw near to an end, people seem to have a dose of tolerance and patience that was a bit harder to come by at times prior to now. People who counted the days until this year ends are all of a sudden falling in love and not wanting to leave.
We're half way to school and I break the silence: "Molly, its not that I'm not sad about leaving, but I'm also really excited to go home. Besides, if I spend all my time thinking about how sad I am to leave, I'm not going to enjoy the finals\ days and I am never going to finish studying for liturgy, hebrew and rabbinics, not to mention the history paper that I am still treading heels on." I notice her disapointment in my not wanting ot indulge her moment of sadness, but I can see by her facial expression she understands.
There's a weird pendulum swinging of my emotions right now. I go places and realize that each stop is likely my last for this trip...last trip to the shuk, last falafel, last dinner with friends, kissing my baby Ella goodbye knowing that even though I was here for her birth she won't remember me the next time we see eachother. These moments are sad and the ones still to come leave me well aware that by the time I get on the plane in 10 days I will be emotionally exhausted. The place where I get stuck, or perhaps feel happily countered is that surge of emotion I am expecting to feel upon my return...seeing baby Elena able to walk, being able to be home for multiple weddings, time with family and friends, music and being able to share the many stories that I could only tell via blogging this year abroad.
There's a lot of discussion about endings and new beginnings; moving forwad and yet still feeling very much on a circular path; a new class is coming in to begin where we started last year while we are packing our bags to return home and start to face the scary task of blending this jumpstart year into the realm of real, North American life and all the challenges of growing into the positions we have chosen to take on. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't excited to come home, to get settled, to enjoy time of famliarity with people I love before moving yet again to a new city and starting more new adventures. But, Molly's right, in many ways, I don't want it to end.
They say you can't really feel like you live somewhere until after a full year has passed. Only after a year do you start to look back at where you were a year earlier and put into perspective how you arrived in this year, this season in the places you find yourself. I'm approaching a year and even though my physical location right now is different from where I was this time last year, just as my physical location at this time next year wil also be different, I can't help but look inside and see the journey that is being travelled and how it seems like equal mileage to that of the physical journey I've been trekking. This nomadic period in which I have travelled with only partial belongings in hand, leaving the remainder of my stuff scattered between partent's homes and friends holding onto sentimental objects seems to be moving in a diretion in which all of my stuff will finally end up in one location and both my stuff and I will remain in that location for the longest period of time since my leaving my house on Melville Lane to go to university.
Thoughts of 'settling' somewhere for a few years that is far away from the place I would have chosen to be if school did not demand I pick one of three locations is somewhat scary. But, perhaps one reason that my sadness for leaving Israel is not able to wash out my excitement for coming home is that the opportunity to be in close proximity to friends and family for over two months this summer is a treasure that I am not quite sure will exist again anytime soon. For a while I was nervous that diving fully back into a world that I will just have to leave would be difficult, now I just can't wait to enjoy every minute.
One thing is for sure. After a year in Israel, California doesn't seem that far, even if it is still a plane ride. So maybe I get home twice a semester instead of once a year. A 3 hour time difference definitely trumps 7 and not having to show my passport to get from my house to my mom's does something for the psyche. I guess the question that is resonating in my head is what can I pack with me from this year and bring home, as well as to my continued adventures and school and what stays behind? I'm focused more on what I can take with me right now. I've always been a pack rat and any person close to me can tell you, whether you call it a tab keeper or a photographic memory, forgetting moments and profound influences are not easily forgotten in my mind. I like to take things with me.
I know I can't bring Israel home, nor the people who stay here and continue to live their lives. I'm not talking about the other HUC students who will either be in my daily life or continuing their journey on another campus next year. I'm talking about Josh, who will begin his Israeli Army service in August; Yakov who will continue his efforts to throw a gigantic dance party for peace; Ami who's living the musicians dream here in Jerusalem and not on the tour scene at home and Ella who will continue to grow, learn to walk, talk, grow teeth and have to be reminded that it was me who was the first person other than mom, dad and grandma to hold her when she was born last August.
I also know I can't bring home this place and show it to anyone who is not here the way I have experienced it. I can't explain the mood in the air when the airraid sirens ring out on the national rememberence days, I can't explain the 'getting used to' M-16s and helicopters in the air and the news that speaks of at least one potentially dangerous security situation each day and yet still feel safer than I ever have before. I can't present the beauty of this place in contrast to the media's tension and I can't put into words how necessary it is that Jews engage with this land even if they are still struggling to find out what their Judaism means to them and what Israel means as a real state in this 21st century.
So, I think about what I can bring home. I think about how to bring home the growth I feel inside from this year and yet still connect it to the person that the people who care about me recognize. Minus the extra pounds due to hummos and too much dairy, what are the things about me that will look different and how do I root them into something that is familiar, so that at the moment of each reunion, something feels exactly the same but still that subtle change is noticable and present? I can bring home my honesty. This year has not been a cakewalk, but it has been amazing. I can bring home an honest tale that talk of last summer's war no longer exists in the realm of were we or were we not scared, but how do the decisions of the government continue to unfold in society here and how does the decision making of the leadership lead the general public to feel about upcoming issues that are likely to arrice.
I can bring home my struggle with the things that are priorities in life here and how the framework for which they unfold are situated in an almost completely different realm from the one in which our issues unravel at home in the States. Issues of Judaism, issues of relationships, issues of security and issues of what's important. I can bring with me the places in which I now understand the need to be engaged with Israel and to figure out how to move from a honeymoon period relationship of climbing Massada, putting on mud and swimming in the Dead Sea and shopping on Ben Yehuda to the long term commitment in which we must also talk about the relationship between the Israelis and Palestinians, environmental crisis, national security and issues concerning pluralism and how far they still need to move forward in order to mirror a stable society to move into a more mature state. I can bring home the dialogue I am having with myself, with my Israeli counterparts and with my fellow students and I can hopefully challenge others to start to engage as well, fully disclosing that I"m more confused now than I was before, but like a long term relationship, I'm committed for better or worse and hope that communication, action and sincerity will help lead to a stronger connection over time.
My baggage has a weight limit and I must leave some things behind. I'm sad to leave my friends who will remain here. I'm sad to leave my permanent seat and free drinks at Tuvya Bar. I'm sad to leave a place in which I am allowed to break into Hebrew at any moment and be met with responses that challenge me to continue to grow in my language. I'm sad to leave my view of the separation fence....though I hate it, it calls me to use my brain and focus my thoughts every morning when I look out my window and see it until the sun sets and I am reminded that when its dark outside imagination allows you to paint whatever landscape outside your window you choose. I'm notworried though...I'm coming back soon...maybe to staff a trip, maybe to study...but this place fits into a category of home for me and I have no doubt I'll see it again soon.
I turn to Molly and apologize for not being able to apologize that as sad as I am for this to end, I'm ecstatic for what the next chapter brings...time on the couch with my sister, catching up with my mom after long days of work, Bridge shows every Wednesday night, an opportunity to work in the Jewish community that I one day hope to be a part of long term, friends getting married and time to sit and reflect on things that I know won't take shape until I'm home and have time and separation between everything that has happened here.
Jerusalem is a magical place...and a complicated one. I have more questions than I do answers and have surrendered myself to the reality that I believe the questions will multiple exponentially and the glimpses of resolution I may come accross will be much more sporadic and often not void of contradiction. But, as I sit with that, I realize that is the beauty and the essence of Judaism...to struggle, to be engaged, to go through a process in which the dialogue that takes place and the points brought up are much more important than the ultimate conclusion. This place will come with me in many ways, and yet I know in 10 short days I will leave much of it behind. I just believe that what I leave behind I get to fill up with the people and places that are holy to me and my journey, knowing that this holy city will continue to travel with me, as I have been here this year as a vessel, trying to collect all that I can and bring it with me wherever I will go next.
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