Memories from NYC to Santa Barbara

Revisiting old friends and catching up with my old beloved high school friend Rachel and her sweet son Joshua, my old childhood friend Claire Bassett from Westbeth and seeing my aunt Judy's beautiful home in Santa Barbara is quite an emotional journey.Many miles we have traveled to get to this point. The experience of flying allows me to concretize these and many more experiences into words. I'm relying on them now to carry me/us through.

The pictures speak for themselves. I can hardly speak enough.

It's as if I never left the States at all, but yet in fact I did and returned a mom.

Home is Where the Heart Is

I'm slowly learning that home can be everywhere.

It's hard though to try and feel home in a place you grew up in for so long to find that corporate real etate and celebrity lifestyle is now big business especially in my hometown of Greenwich Village.

Haim, Ivry and I took the new promenade from what used to be Pier 40 alongside the Hudson River to the new World Financial Area. We talked to a few people including a babynurse from Trinidad, and we were amazed at what we found: It's true, downtown Manhattan is really only for the very rich.

It didn't stop us though from admiring the water lilies, the Rockerfeller park, which has a play safe station with lots of kids jungle gyms, fountains galore. Ivry found his niche next to an easle; he loved drawing and erasing. Whoever designed this park, thought of practically every single detail. I don't understand why parks for instance in Northern Israel can't be designed on this user friendly level.

On this gracious note, we have yet to find the heart of our home. We have chosen Pittsburgh for its serene park setting and affordable location. But we don't know much more than that. Our lives right now are in a state of flux and transition. There are many things yet for us to do: find an apartment, get Ivry settled in a gan, connect with the JCC, find a job for Haim, etc.

My mind wants to speedily get it over and done with, my heart wants to connect to a place. Luckily we can stay in Greenwich Village with my mom, but nothing has stayed the same, only the old familiarity of her apartment.

We turn a corner where a small weeping willow tree stands and in front of me is the Statue of Liberty and I remind myself of why we came: for freedom of opportunity. And that is our blessing.

It's a Dream Come True!

Back when I first started with the notion of writing a blog, I came up with Writertable for my writing blog remembering the wooden table with the four lion paws. My dream back in October was to write on a laptop in Greenwich Village on that table. Well, here I am with my brand new Toshiba laptop while my two male cuties (Hubby and Ivry) are somewhere walking along the Hudson River Park.

New York city at night. The sounds of construction of the new condo across the street in the day and the somewhat peace and quite watching the Hudson River from my bedroom window facing the New Jersey shore. Wow.

I'm so elated! This laptop is amazing and it has everything a writer at heart needs. I love the solid compatability and the easy accessiblity. This wireless Internet is just great. What was even hysterical was after purchasing the laptop, I felt I needed to go to the old library in Greenwich Village where I would do homework, research projects and read as a child, but this time I wanted to connect to the whole world from there!

I'm making history as the second one in my family to sit and do wireless Internet surfing. Since I grew up in a family of artists in a building known as Westbeth, this is the first connection to figuring out whether I belong in this niche of artists or not. Well, I have a whole year to decide that since I'm on sabbatical!

I hope you all are enjoying your summer wherever you are!

We Just Sold Our Car

Our terribly reliable ten year old car... that was a serious piece of history - starting out with me driving up the trecherous hills to Haifa University on and off for six years to finish my Masters, the transition from bauchelorette to married life, Haim riding alongside for some years to come, all the adventures in-between, bringing Ivry from the hospital for the first time, and yesterday we dusted Ivry's chair off from the bread crumbs in preparation to for the flight. And after all, he didn't want to get out.

We walked home Haim and I, in that bloody hot Israeli weather down the long Kiriyat Shmona road to the kibbutz. It took nearly an hour (we are so not used to that) Haim leading the way as he knows how to do, with my tired steps following knowing though we are together on this journey.

I'll miss the fact that fresh fruits and veggies are so readily available - so much so that we stopped in our tracks and picked from the long cultivated fields, ripe tomatoes and figs from the freshly watered trees. I'll miss that accessibility. There is nothing that comes close to it.

Goodbye Home Away from Home

In exactly one week, we'll be en route to New York City. It's hard to imagine that a trip that took nearly six months to get organized is finally coming to its fruition. Our personal belongings are on a ship somewhere, the goodbye party for our son is on Wednesday, the renter are moving into our home next week - all signs of a domestic tranquil life on a kibbutz coming to a close.

The life we have lived as a small brood and even before will be missed and I'm not just talking about conveniences (that goes without saying) but the feeling of a connection to the place. Haim doesn't see the move like me ; I grew up in New York City, experienced nature in all its glory when I attended Tranquility Camp and even then, was I ever so sad to enter a congested Grand Central Station. I enjoy sipping hot peppermint tea on my kibbutz style veranda waiting for the day to get cooler, so I can put dear Ivry to bed and wait to hear the croaks of the frogs. Haim will read "The Story of Grandpa Aharon" for a few more times and I continue to sip my tea with that obnoxious noise that only I can hear.

I love my dear home away from home. But it is time to move on; we need to continue to grow and develop. We have made our choice and we are at peace with it.

One year can bring many experiences and journeys. We don't know what will bring after that; all we know is that we are on a journey on a lifetime and we are glad to be able to do it NOW.

I never thought I would be able to experience life in such a beautiful setting and I am fortunate to have spent almost six years living like this - so unprecedented and tranquil.

Yesterday was my last Yemima session. Avital, my spiritual teacher said that home is the level to bring it to your rising consciousness and thought level. If I let myself become tricked into believing that I will need a house, a steady job, a beautiful kitchen, I will forgo the possibility of enjoying a sunset and the moment of enjoyment with my small brood.

So I continue to sip the tea with gusto right up to the day we fly out.

ps. sorry guys, no pics since I am working from a friend's computer. Will continue to update you all from the States. Have a great summer!

The Two Week Adventure

This post has been submitted to the Write-Away Contest at Michele Mitchell's blog. This month's theme is Adventures.



For somebody who was brought up to wear a sweater in fifty degree heat and was handed an article on lung cancer at the age of thirteen , I never thought that I would find myself in the middle of the Arava desert in Israel at the age of eighteen full clad in a soldier's uniform trying to shoot the bull's eye.

My mom would never know up until this day, that the Greenwich Village spoiled city girl was on the adventure of a lifetime while learning Hebrew, running around picking smelly tomatoes from an abandoned airfield, raising and carrying Russian girls who knew no English on a stretcher while running with two M-16's on her back on a nineteen kilometer race so as to qualify for an officer's course. Every picture I sent back home seemed to reverberate the last smile: "yes, I'm having a good time and yes, don't worry."

She thought I was on one of those, you know, experience tours for young teens who want to experience Israel in two weeks. Well at least, that's what I told her. In 1990.

Truthfully, I thought I would do like most Americans my age. I would do my little 'charity work' serving in the Israeli army and come back home. After all mom had said, an education is your future. Well, it would take me many hikes through the Golan heights and alongside the Dea Sea to find my Israeli identity. And yes, I'm still looking for it.

I have said "pay attention" in Hebrew to many soldiers more times than I choose to remember. I have been in Gaza Strip more times than I care to tell about it. I have witnessed quite a few deaths and injuries than I care to write. But my two year old redhead thinks it is fun to answer me in English when I say 'pay attention' as he throws pebbles in the Jordan River.

Many runs and hikes later, my hands have written a good many letters about that my experiences as a soldier both from both left (English) and right (Hebrew). The words of what became a 'two week adventure' bypass what language and side you are from from.

But of course, it depends on which way you choose to live your life.