a letter to a friend.....so here I sit....

October 15, 2009

A letter to a friend,

 Ok, so, here I sit in a little cute apartment in Neve Tzedek with my dog trying to get treats out of her kong and mounds of boxes with a likeness to my life before.  I wonder what it is like to be person who is not so emotional? I feel so much.  It's strange and at the same time completely normal. Of course all things worked out for the best. I went to the beach sat for while with the sea and wrote down everything I wanted in an apt. The pickins have been very very slim. Not much to look at in my range in Neve Tzedek. So I set out to make something materialize. I had tried to call the guy who offered to make me an apt out of part of his house many times previously, but my phone for some reason lost his number and couldn't access it. So after the beach I walked to his house with this feeling always that he was going to be involved somehow and I tried one more time to get my phone to cooperate and with the hope that perhaps all things are possible I pushed the button for his name and his number appeared. Strange.  I called and asked for magic and he said he had an apt for me. I met him that night talked him down and the night before ulpan started I moved into the the compound of an old Yemenite family. It's right on the edge of Neve Tzedek right off the circle between the David Intercontinental and the shuk. It's amazing. It's quirky cute with lot's of windows and a merpesset. Ground floor big kitchen with lots of cabinets and a whole family looking after me. The old matriarch lives here with various family members in different apts all interconnected around a courtyard. I think I'm the first non family member in 80 years. 

Succot was amazing surrounded by succot hanging from balconies, on the corner of streets, parking lots, and sidewalks.  Simchat Torah was blinding with all the dancing and singing and succot all around. It was impossible to resist the happiness of torahs (torot?) dancing around all corners with singing people under them.  I was just here cleaning and waiting for my new toilet. The first night I slept here I couldn't use the toilet. 

So here I sit, with all my stuff, a bit blank. I think I'm afraid to unpack all the old pains and patterns. My furniture is unbubbled and the boxes are piled. To have my grandmothers chair and my great grandmothers cedar chest here in Israel is something even i don't have words for. I'm so glad to have brought my life with me...although at the moment I'm not sure how to integrate it all. It's a bit sad and lonely. I feel the weight of all the years of packing and unpacking and moving and schlepping and searching on my own. I almost can't feel the excitement now. Still here I am alone. But not at all. I live alone, but not for a moment after I walk outside. I'm in the pocket of old and new. I can feel all that has changed in me....and also the pull of the old pulling me back as old habits and hurts don't let go easily. I am so much my newer and truer self, with the stepping back and forth that happens as you gradually go from more time new and less time old. For some reason as it all sheds off, it's really as if I can feel the pain of all the years of my life passing out of me. I'm waiting for the moment I feel free. Perhaps when glasses and books have founds their places and the sandals are back in the sand again. I'm tired. 

I just waked over to the Carmel market and got hangers and toilet paper and somehow I'd forgotten how exciting it is there. Now I'm buying ear sticks not just cucumbers.