One of the intriguing things about Twitter (there aren't many, it's quite basic)is the ability to 'meet' strangers and have them open a whole world of ideas up for you, even unwittingly. I've mostly been interested in this dude http://www.oyvagoy.com/ and his philosemitic ways. Because sometimes living in Israel is really, freaking hard. Sometimes the weight of knowing how misunderstood we are, how we're portrayed as this vicious, heavy-handed state (surrounded by - what? peace-loving nations?!).. it's really painful to swallow. Sometimes the sandy, dust-filled Tel Aviv breeze brings floats the scent of how much hatred there is in the world towards this home, a home I chose. Then you start reading about someone who, without connection to birth, religion, roots, simply loves us. Simply loves Israel and all things Jewish.

It's brightened my week, absolutely.

Ah the madness of planning a wedding. There is unlimited scope for how crazy one could potentially become, how caught up in the details, the prettiness, the colours... There's also just SO much to love about it. It's a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime process - the excitement, the planning, the details, the colours, flowers, favours, outfits, the music, the dancing... then you need to stop. You need to step back from the wedding blogs, cake toppers,ice cream machines, hair accessories (how do we feel about these? http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=41743742).
You need to breathe, and to look at your lovely man in the eyes and remember that before and beyond all the other craziness, you're actually planning for the day you officially commit yourselves to each other. The commitment happens over time, has been happening since we met for brekky one sunny Friday morning, but the ceremony happens only once. You're planning for the day when you'll stand under your chuppah and be joined under a traditional canopy, amongst blessings and wine and and in front of lots of people who love you - as wife and husband, guy and girl, chatan v'kallah.

Part of the build-up of that excitement does actually come from planning the details. Not obsessing, just planning. When I chose the colours for my flowers, I had to remember that I would be carrying them to my chuppah and that's why it rocked to be ordering pretty flowers. If I'm not focused on the meaning of our wedding day, none of the planning will be worth anything.
Saying that, however, I'm still a girly-girl who loves some crazy colour (the overwhelming pinkness of this new layout may have already given that away) and even though my wedding will be nothing like the super-planned, super-detailed and highly expensivo do's I see on the w-blogs of late, I'm still inspired and excited. This Friday, we'll be having a fun belated-engagement photo shoot with our photographer - preparation for the big day, but also just an excuse for a fun morning out! Mostly, the engagement shoots I've seen on some of my fave w-blogs are disappointingly over-planned, contrived and too prop-centric. Why must EVERYONE have balloons?!
This one gets a mention because her skirt is fantastic:
http://greenweddingshoes.blogspot.com/2010/01/travel-themed-engagement-session.html, and I really like how this is so English (nothing flashy here) and showcases sunny-yet-frosty London at its best! http://www.rocknrollbride.com/2010/02/quintessentially-english/

Inspired more by the fresh, outdoorsy prettiness of these kinds of shoots, http://greenweddingshoes.blogspot.com/2010/02/wet-fall-san-francisco-engagement.html, I think we're going to head somewhere naturey (nature-like? natural. oh, that's a real word) and just let Yonit do her thing. If they're any good, I'll post the results when we get 'em :)

'Til then, happy Tuesday, teapots xx

Is it possible I haven't blogged since December?!

As it's only a bunch of no-goods and the Katescrusader who read this codswallop, perhaps it's ok that I was living instead of blogging. On the other hand, if I'm not blogging then I'm not journalling and the last few months were ripe for documentation.
The world turns, suddenly you're engaged to be married, pondering the prospect of having your own children, wondering how it all happens so fast. But just as cholent should never be re-heated, we won't re-hash what has been. The big W-day approaches! Plans are a go-go.

I CAN'T WAIT!!

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.
~Song of Solomon 8:7

... and then just like that, we're ENGAGED! Alright, I'm the laziest blogger ever and it happened in October and now we're mid-way through wedding planning. Wedding planning!! October, I know. 2 months ago. Scribbling about it on the internet wasn't the first thing I had in mind to do!

"O! What's occuring? I won't lie to you, at the end of the day.... Tidy."

- 'Nessa

Somehow, my sephardi-semi-Kurdish-Israeli boy... person. beau? has fallen head-over-sneakers for 'Gavin & Stacey', the brilliantly funny series based on the whirlwind romance and marriage of an English lad from Essex to a Welsh chick from Barrie Island. Doesn't seem like it'd be that funny but oh, the brilliance (currently awaiting the 3rd season with anticipation). The D loves it. Actual laugh-out-loud enjoyment. If we were counting, or I was interested in points systems of any kind, he'd have gained at least 320 extra points for the loving of G&S.

Funny how only two posts ago (and I hereby own up to it : I am, in truth, a lazy bloggerette. Yes.) ONLY a short time ago, he was anonymous, just this 'brilliantly funny' man I was exchanging dating site messages with. Now he is my D, and the world is different.

There have been times I've thought that possibly this is too difficult, conducting a relationship with someone who sits on the opposite side of the river. You know, The River. That clever man John Gray called the two sides 'Mars' and 'Venus'... wherever they are, they're really far away from each other. In my mind, the D and I have canoes (mine is avocado green with lilac piping) in which we row across The River calmly, meeting in the middle. These are the lovely, smooth days. The days when he comes to pick me up after work and we drive to the beach, standing knee-deep in the sea at sunset, thinking 'This is it. This is him. Here is my husband'. Walking home with sandy feet and happily tired smiles, cooking dinner together, discussing The Future. Nothing seems overwhelming with him, he is good for me. Or as he likes to say when he pretends he doesn't know English "You is doing good to me, you. Yes. And I is doing good to you. Yes". He is even better and beyond and more than I expected, and somehow entirely different and nothing like I thought. Quirky in a different way to my own oddness, quite often silly and ridiculous, he doesn't put up with my awful stubbornness or tendency to wander off into my own head. He knows when to give me my space, and that sometimes I need to go sit in a cafe and disappear inside a book. I know that he appreciates small gestures, is the most zionist Israeli i've ever met, is a really good son, and needs to be appreciated in a way that girls don't quite get.
Sometimes we forget all about our sensible canoes and jump in thoughtlessly, splashing all over the place, getting knowhere. I focus on our differences, he focuses on the fact I can't get past them. The comforting piece of the puzzle is that we've been brought up very similarly - the same values, I think, just in completely different ways - different countries, different frameworks. This past shabbat his family took me in for the entire weekend. Yep, I did it - I met the potentially terrifying, all-judging trio of brothers! Having spent the day on a drip in the ER I was so relieved to no longer be tied to an IV, that my fear of meeting them dissipated. I think I was embraced as far as strangers can embrace a random English chick that Brother no.2 has brought home for the weekend. Shabbat afternoon was spent trawling through his baby photos, army photos, hearing stories and learning friends' names. It's funny to look at a person you're beginning to love and understand that you have known them for the span of... less than a moment in their lifetime. I am a happy jam fiend, in this moment.

Not to flip out but... am smiling really loudly. It's what blogs were made for. Smiling out loud. So, it turns out that this dude is kind of awesome. Not even kind of, he IS awesome. He is just a bit fantastic. Messages turned into phone calls turned into meeting turned into hot chocolate in the park last night turned into kissing turned into more talking. Interesting and warm and kind, a bit mad and genuine and honest and funny. And a great kisser. And a great complimenter. And open with his feelings and thoughts, to balance my general reticence and Englishyness. I don't know how it's possible that I feel so... open?to somebody that I've known for a week. But I do. I do, really, like him. He sends me a song-a-day on facebook, just to chill to at work. He wrote a song (how come all Israeli men play the guitar? Is it a required class in primary school?) I'm hoping he doesn't disappear while I'm away for the next 10 days. He reassures me the situation is not likely to change in 10 days, but understands that I'm mad and insecure. Also, you can just never tell what will possess people. If he's still in the picture when I return, this will be one very happy jam fiend.

Firstly, i got punk'd today into thinking The Guardian were actually moving over to Twitter after 188 years of printing newspapers! Imagine if they really DID. Hilarious. I can't believe I fell for it. April Fool, right here.

d) This new dude looks a little like Alistair McGowan, hence the bloggy decorationing. Also, not to jump the gun/speak too soon/all those other 'IT'S TOO SOON' thingles, except I just want to say that he *seems* quite great. He sent me a Song of the Day via facebook today. 'River of Dreams', for the record. He's confident and funny, has elegant English and appreciates, somehow, my bizarro sense of humour. Rare, i hear you whisper. Yes. Indeed. It's only been 24 messages and 2 phone calls, but we're doing the sensible thing and meeting In Person on Friday. eeks. Except not eeks. I'm not freaking out at ALL. Because if it's as good in person as it is in the virtual/telephone call world, I don't need to be worried. If it doesn't work out, that's just the way of the world...

This thing of communicating with someone you haven't met yet, trying to allow them their own time to come to understand you...not pushing too much information on them. It's challenging. You don't want to be too flirty (inserting too many wink-smileys, for instance. I e-dated someone who was a serial wink-smiler. It made me want to puke.) but you don't want them to become dis-interested. There's a desire to know more about him, but I'm trying to keep a lid on it... until we meet.

Just as an aside, why would ANYONE fake their engagement i.e. announce it on Fbook on April Fools Day? I may be a gullible, Guardian-Twitter, believer, but that's just plain silly and sillier.

Yom tov, lachem!

There seems to be endless scope for bizarre and fantastic human interaction. i wonder if that will always be the way, or if i'll appreciate things in the same way when i'm 57. My week so far goes a lil something like this:
Took a sherut from the Tel Aviv bus station back to my house. Before we pull out of the bus station, a young girl runs over and explains to the sherut driver that she has 10 minutes to find and catch her bus to another city, from central TA. She asks him, wide-eyed and hopeful, if he thinks she'll make it. He says he can't promise anything, but hop on. 12 minutes later we're on Allenby, central TA, pulling up next to bus no.24. "Are you heading her way?" our sherut driver shouts across to the bus. "No, but the one behind me, no.247, is going there! Signal him to wait!" Our driver thanks the bus driver like he's his cousin, reverses back down the road, finds the right bus, and as the rest of us smile at the lengths he is going to help this little girl, opens the door for her - somewhat aanxious but by now very amused - who proceeds to jump off with a "Good week to all of you!", leaving us with a hero of a driver who receives his smattering of applause modestly and continues his journey across another Tel Aviv evening.

On my way home from work yesterday, giant headache and winter coat in tow, i found myself seated next to a paratrooper with a giant bag. Soldiers, navy seals and the paratroopers in beige form part of the everyday scenery here, so i didnt take much notice. Alright, i noticed that he was super cute. Across from me, a fellow Herzlya-TA commuter had whipped out his laptop, now balanced precariously on his knees between me, the tzanchan, a very pretty girl (who i thought resembled MJ in his early years) and the giant bag. When it came time for the paratroopers to get off, they got up early. Too early. i stood in the aisle, waiting for them to make space but they didnt seem to want to move further down the bus. Head pounding, clutching my work bag, i tried my best not to fall over for about 2 minutes when suddenly Laptop boy came alive. "Bro, she's waiting for you to move", he called out, but was ignored. Looking up again, he says "hey, she's standing here, holding on, waiting for you guys to move!" Finally, i get to climb back in my seat, with a thank you to Laptop boy. i got a wink. i didnt really need to be rescued, but who said chivalry was dead?

i joined a new dating website(as a midyear pledge, have decided to increase the effort i put into "networking") and have started exchanging messages with a brilliantly funny man who seems to get my sense of humour/lack of people skills. in case it doesnt work out, i wont mention his name.. but it's a good one. We spoke tonight for the first time, which is usually awkward and strange but was fine, this time. keep your earlobes crossed.

Thinking a lot about yael stemmer (pearlman) these days, who is undergoing intense chemotherapy and stem cell treatment. Take a minute to think about her and pray/hope for her full & speedy recovery: yael chana hadassah, bat rivka.

night all xx

This '25 Things' malarky had been doing the rounds on Facebook for a while. Over the course of a few long bus rides to and from work, I came up with my list. I enjoyed the process of toying with memories, deciding which were actually about me and which were things that just happened to, or around, me. It seems kind of bloggy, so am posting. Enjoy.

25 Things

1. My initials spell DMB, something my friend MBD finds hilarious

2. I’m number 3 of 4 siblings, and have sandwich syndrome, i.e. - i think i’m Nutella.

3. I love Nutella

4. I used to waste my birthday-cake wishes on cute boyfriends and being skinny, now I wish for financial stability and a 2-state solution.

5. My Dad records my favourite TV shows from England and sends them out to Israel for me, and my Mum sends us each a Valentines Day card every year, without fail. I know parents are meant to love unconditionally, but the little stuff lets me know they mean it.

6. I actually believe in the god-like power of a strong cup of Tetleys

7. The first boy I ever loved was called Josh

8. The last boy I loved ... was quite a while ago, and ate too much falafel.

9. I lived in Japan for three years but didn’t try squid or fried locusts, despite their supermarket availability. I do know how to bow really nicely though.

10. If Sweet Valley was my life, I would be Elizabeth...always secretly hoping to morph into Jessica.

11. The bedroom mirror is my ally, the hallway mirror can suck it

12. In my dream grown-up house, I have a library with floor-to-ceiling books that requires a ladder on wheels to get to the ones at the top

13. I will happily watch The Wizard of Oz over and over, without shame or biscuit breaks

14. I love and adore my nephews and neice equally, they are all fantastic and beautiful.

15. My secret favourite is Jack. I would buy him if I could.

16. Strange, well-written books are my happy place; sometimes I disappear inside them and need a friend to pull me out.

17. Four different driving instructors, no license yet.

18. One Shabbat afternoon, I stuck purple tissue paper up my little brother’s nose and then panicked when it wouldn’t come out, and cried.

19. I am a Lorelai, not a Rory

20. Maths homework used to make me hyperventilate, until I discovered Counting Crows

21. I don’t like when diet coke fizzes up my nose, it makes me think of swimming lessons and learning to put my face in the water.

22. My hands are tiny and plump, like my Bobba... and her hands

23. I want to spend a year in Amsterdam, ringing my bicycle bell, eating cheese and learning to play piano in someone's loft.

24. I saw Dirty Dancing too young. I didn’t know Penny needed an abortion, I thought someone had ruined her dress and Robbie wouldn’t buy her a new one.

25. If life hands you lemons, you should indeed go make lemonade. But my parents taught me to add the metaphorical sugar; otherwise it just tastes disgusting.

This past weekend, I went to stay with my Grandma and her sister. This may not seem monumental news, but even as I went through the rituals of experiencing shabbat with my grandmother, I wanted to write about it. As a little bit of background, my Grandma Renee is 86 years old (may she live until 120), lives in London for most of the year but visits Israel for festivals. Until a couple of weeks ago, Grandma Renee lived with her younger brother Bernard in a corner-house on the Finchley Road - the home owned originally by their own parents. My great-uncle Bernard, and another brother Michael, had never married. So when my grandma divorced my grandfather, in an era when divorce was rare in the orthodox Jewish community, she moved back into her childhood home, now with three children in tow. My mother was the middle of these three children. (Yes, the psychological issues you're now imagining that my mother has, all of them probably exist.) Both great-uncles, Bernard and Michael, were still living at home, which is where they remained, for the next 50-odd years. Odd in all senses of the word. Then three weeks ago, my great-uncle Bernard passed away suddenly. As if death is ever un-sudden. Amongst the youngest and fittest of the remaining siblings - 4, out of 8. My grandma had been worried, that Tuesday morning, that he'd been in the bath an awfully long time. She called my mother to say she thought that maybe he'd fainted. My mum came round. The details are blurry, nobody wants to talk about it. They got the door open, and there he was. They told my younger cousins he'd passed away 'in his sleep'.

'Uncle Ben', wrapped only in a tallit, was buried here in Israel, in the burial grounds of the prestigious Ponevezh Yeshiva, in the tradition of all of my mothers' older relatives. At the funeral, under a hot sun bouncing off white, Jerusalem-stone tombs, my grandmother stood weeping by her younger brother's grave. "I didn't want you to leave me," she wept, "...I didn't think you would go first."

Fast forward three weeks, to this past shabbat. In almost 50 years, my grandmother had never had a shabbat without Uncle Ben. Although I was there on the first shabbat after he passed away, I had my mum, my aunt and my cousins there as back-up. We tried our best to make two devastated, bereaved sisters laugh, to tell stories about Uncle Ben, to explore their feelings - with us there as their safety-net. This shabbat, I would be going it alone.

Of course when I arrived, they wouldn't let me lift a finger to help prepare and so I stood on the balcony, gazing out over the Jerusalem forest, wondering how they had become so strong. The idea, just the briefest of notions I don't even dare to explore when I think about losing a sibling, G-d forbid, made me shudder through to my core - an expression I never understood until it tore through me on my grandmothers' balcony, under the gaze of a setting Jerusalem sun. I turned to watch my grandmother and her sister Sylvia, pottering in the kitchen. My grandma called across to me - "You should wear your hair down, darling, it doesn't suit you up like that." I had forgotten that shabbat alone with them also takes a metaphorical suit of body armour, to bounce off the ego-bashing that comes with their loving commentary. At 5.09pm, I watched my grandmother light 8 candles - for her parents and siblings no longer with us. I watched her 'bentsch licht', reciting their names, asking G-d to make their 'gan eden' - their paradise - an easy one, to keep them all together. I watched her, tears gathering in my eyes, praying for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren; beseeching G-d to keep us healthy, to prolong our lives. I wondered how many more opportunities I would have in my lifetime to watch my grandma bentsch licht. I pictured myself telling my future children how Grandma Renee used to recite a passage in yiddish after lighting her candles, how she focused on each person in our family, wishing only good things upon them.

Later on, after a hearty meal, I watched her during Grace After Meals. During the short section where, silently, you bless those at your table and in your family, I saw my grandmother wince as she said ' achi' - years of blessing her brother, sat to her left-hand side, the shock of losing him, all wrapped up in one word. She closed her eyes, as if in pain. She finished bentsching, and then she began to talk. To tell stories about my Uncle Bernard, how she felt without him around, how terrified she is to return to the house in London and realise that he is, really, gone. Without my siblings to hide behind, no cousins, no other grandchildren around, I bore witness to my grandmother's fears, feelings, memories, a moment of pain, and her laughter. Her laugh, that causes her whole wrinkly, pale face to fold inwards, her eyes screwed up tightly, holding in peals of laughter that cause her body to shake in amusement.

I don't know if the person I end up with will come along anytime soon, or if they'll get to meet my Grandma Renee, my last living grandparent. There's no doubt that my children will not be priviliged to know her, as they will not have met my lovely Bobba, or funny old Zeida. I wish I could have bottled the feeling of my shabbat alone with my Grandma Renee this week - to be able to take it out and breathe in deeply... in future years, when I can only miss her.

Stability

7 months. What a naughty, neglectful blogger I am. 7 months ago, I was different. The world was dfferent. The full and horrible meaning of "credit crunch" and "world financial crisis" had not quite hit wth its full force yet... the Lehman Brothers closure, we thought, was an unfortunate singular incident.
And, 7 months ago, I hadn't yet moved house, to move in with myself - quite the crazy experiment. I am now what the rest of the world considers "Quite-Grown-Up". The Quite-Grown-Up me owns things. There is a fridge, an oven, a bed, a washing machine and a cholent pot among other acquisitions. Somehow, I have found myself in gainful, full-time employment. A Single Quite-Grown-Up, making her way in the world/Tel Aviv, living in the heart of a vibrant city that never sleeps.. By the beach, I would add, just so you'll come visit me... it all sounds objectively good and normal.
Well then of course secretly - oh and, for example, not SO secretly because I will actually tell anyone who will listen - I Want to Break Free("eee").
I want to sell my things,my oven, my cholent pot - pack my bags and run off to a European location, to start all over again. Because beginnings are the best bit. When I first moved here, people kept patting me on the back, crooning "all beginnings are hard." Not for me, no sirree. Am just a bit bored by repetition, by sameness. Can a person actually be bored by stability? is it stability thats boring, or routine? why are they tied together, in my head? After a year, my job has become mind-numbing, I'm antsy and I keep looking for the neon green Exit signs. Then, for the first time in ages, a guy i was on a date with last week actually asked me about israel and "my intentions." Yes, i replied, i plan to make an honest woman out of her. As an israeli on a date with a new immigrant he, quite rightly, wanted to know if i saw myself staying here, raising children, building my life here. Evidently my talk of running away to Amsterdam, riding a bicycle around and learning to play piano for a year had not assured him of my own stability. Which, in turn, is not the impression i want to give off. Where does this leave me? Somewhere between bored, hopeful and frustrated. A complicated place to be, on a Sunday morning.

Wow. When you pray for perspective, it's somewhat startling to then receive it. And yet here I am, experiencing the slow, creaky, opening stage of a Turnaround. This, dear Reader, is a Turnaround of the heartfelt, deep-sitting, emotional kind, that relates to living in the Land of Israel.

I have lived in Israel for a year and a half, and have shamefully avoided visiting any of my cousins based in the Gush. It's hard to explain why, but here are my thoughts. I spent this weekend with family - my lovely, fun cousins from Anglo backgrounds, who, with the full backing and encouragement of the government, settled themselves in a newly founded neighbourhood called Alon Shvut - "Oak of Return", in 1970. Less than an hour outside of Jerusalem, Alon Shvut is an expanse of Jerusalem-stone built houses, perched in Judea - within the southern West Bank. It is situated in what our now-goverment has declared 'Area C'. It acts as the focal town for other still-expanding neighbourhoods, Efrat, Elazar and Neve Daniel. These neighbourhoods are commonly known as part of the shtachim - the settlements.

Yesterday afternoon, I found myself at a relaxed seudah shlishit in a neighbours' garden. The sun was setting, people were transitioning into that period of calm as shabbat ends...savouring the time with family and friends, before yet another hectic week begins. From the porch swing, I looked out at the expanse of these settlements, at the Caravilla homes, at the few brave houses built randomly, one hilltop over.

A lady next to me remarked that while it was risky of them to go and build outside of the designated shetach, "in this country, what would happen if we didn't take risks?" It wasn't her exactly (truthfully, she became kind of annoying a little later on) and it also wasn't a build-up of events. Up until that point, I was experiencing a really normal shabbat.

Yet as she spoke, something inside me just... gave way. Something released, and I gazed in wonder around me, as I indentified the prickly grass under my feet as the Land of Israel. Not just a neighbourhood, not a 'disputed territory', but Eretz Yisrael.
This may not seem like a revelation, but I have spent so long - so, so long - trying to grapple with how I feel about the idea of people settling this land within the boundaries set out in the Torah which I believe in, but not within the boundaries of the modern State of Israel.

Because the government chooses not to recognise a place doesn't make it any less true. Baby, if I cover my eyes I can't see you, but you're still there.

I woke up this morning at 8.30am on a weekend, to go to shul, in order to hear the Aseret HaDibrot - the 10 commandments. As the rabbi's son recited them slowly for us, I fondly remembered my own little brother on his Bar Mitzva shabbat, 7 years ago now, so nervous to recite this important portion for his community. His voice hadn't broken yet, I can clearly recall his lilting, choirboy voice wafting over the mechitza towards me. I was so proud. I watched the rabbi's son today begin his parsha as a little boy, never having leyned in front of his kehilla, and I saw him finish as a man - shaking the mens' hands as he stepped down from the bima, adjusting his new, first, tallit.

The religion I belong to is overwhelming, muddled and often frustrating for me, as a young, modern, woman. And then there are these moments, when tears come to my eyes, when I see through the vast windows of a shul in Alon Shvut, the real Land of Israel spread before me. I didn't think it would happen to me, this breakthrough. I have been bound, constrained by the methods and approaches of my secular education. It's a wonderful blessing that I was taught to reason, to use my mind and its facets to think critically. If every issue or decision were a sandwich, my critical thinking would be the bread. The filling, however, just has to be my heart. How do I feel about this? How does this sit with me? Do I feel right doing this, feeling this, acting this way? And so, for a heartbreakingly long amount of time, I have just refused to address the issue of the shtachim - how I feel about those who live there, how I long to be one of them and am terrified that these are my real, secret feelings. My critical thinking has taken me to a place where I am labelled 'left-wing tendencies'.

I am repulsed by ignorance, by bigotry and hatred. I will not raise my children to hate those that have shared this land with us for decades. But maybe I won't just give up "our land" because they are there. Maybe I need to start having more faith in all areas of my life, but maybe most importantly this one. This has been my mistake. A Turnaround has begun today. I feel as if I have begun to work my way out of a heavy coccoon.

It may be interesting that I have never felt so lonely, and so 'together' at the same time. Life is on track, things are falling into place, slowly. Thanks are due to the good Lord above, obviously, as none of it happens without His say-so. And as life begins to take on some kind of order, for the first time maybe.. ever, in my adult life, I also sense more than ever how lonely I am. I miss the belly-deep laughter only good friends/loves can bring. I don't remember my last belly-laugh.

I've been tackling a difficult issue recently, something I knew was simmering but has only recetly morphed from an issue into a small problem. I date. I date in order to find the Compatible Random Person for me. The people I date, however, are not falling into the category of Compatible Random People! I am dating men/boys who really don't have the same priorities as me. I meet people who are lovely and odd, but who don't keep Shabbat. I am set up by people who know me, with people who are not even remotely religious, nor really interested in ever being more religious. For a while I pondered over what it is about me that makes people think I am not as religious as I am. When I realised the deal-breaker, I realised I had a bigger problem on my hands than imagined.
While I was raised in the framework of religious zionism - in Israel termed 'dati-leumi' - an ardent Bnei Akiva-nik and modern/orthodox/realist Jew all my life, my framework since I made Aliyah has adjusted somewhat. While able to lounge in armchair criticism pre-Aliyah, I placed myself as right of center, but with occasional loud left-wing outbursts.
I moved here with good intentions, motivated partly by ideology and partly not at all, and it is here that I am asked to choose a 'wing'. I am asked to box my political worries and concerns, priorities and negotioables into a shape that other people can indentify and digest easily.

I'm an orthodox Jew, I observe halachot, I believe in the Torah, that it was divinely inspired and I believe in the tenets and principles of real, original-flavoured Judaism. I would never have moved here if I didn't believe in not just Eretz Yisrael - the land of Israel - but Medinat Yisrael, the state of Israel. An immigrant Jew who practises orthodoxy-with-a-twist in Israel's most metropolitan city, who can't find a place of her own. I can relate to the Torah-based ideals of those living on yishuvim and in the shtachim. I can understand, because I believe in the same Torah and in the same G-d. I have stayed in Chevron, I have momentarily felt the depth of their love for their land and fleetingly understood why are they clinging on with fingernails to an area entwined with Jewish history. I also live in a world of reality, where all our actions have larger complication and connotations. My thoughts are always unfinished on this.

Drifting thought-clouds.. one day, I want this to be some kind of thesis. Living in Israel, it's impossible for a person to avoid thinking about land. Land and People .. our connection to this physical land and space. Our claim on parts of this land is a spiritual claim, one based on Torah and a belief in Torah to begin with.
But when we get down to it, we're killing and hating because of actual earth and soil.. the rights to possess this space.
Possession. Ownership. Not the first concepts that jump to mind, when thinking of nature, of land or your environment.
How can anyone 'own' land, other than in a financial sense.. Whose rights prevail? Indigenous, or those who have civilised? Whose ownership is more powerful.. and why?

Yesterday, my heart flew to Paris.

I hope it's having a good time, while I do not know
what to do with myself.
He left, my beautiful boy
and I am lost.
In Hebrew, you might say the word 'chaver'
and people will think
that you mean 'boyfriend'.
Yesterday, i did not correct them. For a day,
it was real
and now my heart is gone.
He says he will be back, but will my heart come back to me also
and will it be in one piece?

I wonder if anybody heard it, beating its steady beat, packed between
his baseball cap
and tefillin.
I am still hugging him goodbye, I am still not wanting to leave the airport
long after the outline of his trolley
and pink tshirt
have disappeared.
My heart is at the Eiffel Tower, not thinking of Israel.
It is in his home, beating its steady beat,
keeping his cat company, learning some French.
Not thinking of Israel.

Yesterday, my heart flew to Paris.

NOISE. Noise is orange. We know about white noise. Most peoples' lives are full of white noise. My noise is orange. It surrounds me, I can't escape it. Silence eludes me, there is no quiet place. At night, live music doesn't just waft through my window, it charges through. A woman's voice, Hebrew lyrics, sometimes the beat of the reggae drums. I wake sometimes, surprised to see my windows and walls still intact. I expect to find myself beneath her microphone, curled beneath a steel drum. Next door, my neighbour loses himself in opera, night after night. Our connecting wall is thin, it hums me to sleep in Italian.
My street, rechov Bialik, is named for the poet Chaim Nachman Bialik. It was once a beautiful road, a stroll back in time from the dirty reality of Allenby, that used to be rounded off at its very end with a fountain. Work has begun to restore the old feeling of the road. Work that begins at 6.30am every day and will last until October.
He was a great poet, but I would really like the noise to stop.

To a Stranger
by Walt Whitman

Passing stranger! you do not know
How longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking,
Or she I was seeking (It comes to me as a dream)

I have somewhere surely
Lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other,
Fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me,
Were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become
not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes,
face, flesh as we pass,
You take of my beard, breast, hands,
in return,

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you
when I sit alone or wake at night, alone I am to wait,
I do not doubt I am to meet you again
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

Perspective! Sitting in a cosy cafe, good book, irish coffee, fresh croissant... Things are NOT that awful! Days are hard, but moments are better. Am going to start taking things moment by moment, appreciating the small, good things.
Part of my haiku from Asian lit. class...
Discarded red lollipop on the side of a fresh snow bank

There are moment when I don't know what kind of G-d I believe in. I'm trying so, so hard to do the "right" thing - the right thing according to my heart, to my belief system and to my
G-d - to live a lifestyle guided by Torah and mitzvot, to understand what the "right" thing even is according to Judaism. I can say, with my whole heart, that I am TRYING. I'm also crying. I'm crying as I write because I just don't know what He wants anymore. This can't ALL be a test. We are tested, we are challenged. One's entire life can't be one long test or one long challenge, even the greatest tzaddik would crumble. And I'm just me. Just me. I've struggled with shabbes, with kashrus, with understanding what's expected from me as a modern woman within a religion where women appear to be sidlined. I reached a place after a long journey where I could embrace all that had been passed down to me, sifting through the uncomfortable parts and understanding how I fit into this rich tradition. I was there. I AM there, still. I don't know now how long I will last, in this place where I am stagnant and yet expectant of more. I didn't imagine I'd be in this place alone, for very long. All I want is to continue on this journey with somebody, to pass the flame of Torah and modernity onto my children. I always suspected it may never happen and as I lose faith continually as the weeks, months pass and I don't meet anybody "special"... I begin to imagine a life alone. At 26, this is a sticky, hard thing to swallow. When I see how happy my friends are to have somebody to share the journey with, I wonder why I would even begin to try to do it alone. I can't imagine that Hashem would be fine with me giving it all up, chucking it all away, shacking up with a nice-but-doesnt-love-me-Israeli who appreciated art and my sense of humour, but won't keep Shabbat. I don't know a person like that and I don't want that life. I don't. But how will I survive a religious life, alone? The secular world embraces people like me, I'm still normal in that world. The religious life rejects me in my singleness. I can never progress, never move onto another stage of life as a religious singleton - there is simply nowhere to move to. As a secular person, I would be free. So what kind of G-d do I pray to, that presents me with this choice? That allows me to even contemplate it? Why hasnt He struck me down for toying with the idea of giving it all up, just so that I don't have to die inside at 10,000 more shabbat tables where I'm the eldest, saddest single person? And where has my faith gone? I used to believe in love, in destiny. Until about 5 hours ago I think I did. I contemplate leaving for good. That's a place I haven't visited since, oh .. 1996? I realise the selfishness latent in this idea. I won't do it. But I need Him to know, I thought about it.

Language. It's all about semantics. In politics, religion, love.
Recently, peoples' lives have begun revolving around the word 'yet'. I never noticed it before, but it's so prominent in these early-20's, this feeling of expectation. I don't feel like I've missed out on a lot of life. My blessings are numerous and wonderful. From an inside-out perspective, my little life is great and full. baruch Hashem!
There are beautiful things that haven't happened yet.., a butterfly has never come to rest on the palm of my hand for a second, the world caught on its wing. I haven't made a speech in public about how amazing my parents are, something I'm always planning in my head. They may know I love them, but I weirdly feel the need to praise them in a public forum. I've slept in a cornfield but I haven't danced in one at sunset, bare feet, light streaming through my hair a la Kirsten Dunst, Virgin Suicides. I haven't seen Vienna or the Jewish quarter in Prague, danced in a dark bar in Cuba or bought bunches of flowers from a florist in Manhattan, that sells them in metal buckets. I haven't attempted to make chocolate souffles yet, or finished learning Japanese.
There's so much more to come! "..the day is short and the task is great" - pirkei avot