overdue.

it’s hard to face this after months of neglect. the excuses are weak: at first, everything was fresh and exciting and BUSY, and rather than write about every experience, i chose to live each moment for what it was, and it was enough. then the routine settled in a bit, the weather turned cold, and in my hibernating winter state i couldn’t muster up the motivation to pick up the threads of where i left off—my very first weekend here!—and try to reconstruct the whole picture. it seems too much has happened to recount, millions of details which i would love to share with the world but for now lie solely within my memory and in the people who lived them with me. the months have flown by with little regard for our poor attempts to pace ourselves—time is a whirlpool, and all the events that make up the days are swirling around, colliding and overlapping, to the point where i am left with a general feeling of what has happened but no concrete linear picture. time here is different; it is all about Now. for the sake of this recording exercise, however, i will try to recount, and account for, the last 4 months.

august: a whirlwind of parties, endless drinking and dancing, flirting, exploring all the new people thrown together in this medley of languages and cultural backgrounds—all under the encouraging eye of the hot summer sun, baking us golden brown as we frolicked by the beach and pool. it felt like we had stepped into paradise. i did not see a drop of rain the entire month, and could count on each day being sunny and glorious. the dynamics in the ulpan shifted quickly as alliances were made and broken at the speed of soap opera plot twists; i soon acknowledged my disinterest in the unfolding drama, and despite a few true friendships, i kept my distance. i preferred to fly solo, as usual, making my own plans, doing my own thing, and meeting up with whoever happened to be in the same place at the same time. my beach trips were never boring, as i found it easy to chat up a group of people while trying to practice my hebrew (i wrote it off as homework), and playing mat-kot (the israeli national sport—hitting a squash ball back and forth with wooden paddles. nobody wins or loses, and the thwok of the ball is a deliciously satisfying and addictive sound). i began to get a feel for the kibbutz, making friends from every corner. it was easy getting used to my work detail: working in a daycare with 3-4 year olds. they were adorable and mischievous, as expected, and taught me scores of new hebrew words daily. i found i had an easier time conversing with a three year old than an adult, if anything because they were far less judgmental and i felt little pressure to speak intelligibly. my hebrew classes were another story: they put me in the highest level, despite my protests and clarification that i had never before studied the language, simply taught myself to read and write. no matter, they said, you’ll catch on. the problem was that most of the people in the ulpan came with a very low level, so the three other classes became introductory levels, and my class was a hodgepodge of the rest of us—those who had lived in israel as kids and spoke fluently, or who grew up with hebrew-speaking parents; those who had taken other ulpan courses before and understood the basics; and (this is where i fell in), the few random extras needed to fill out the numbers of the class, who in the placement test displayed maturity and a keen desire to study. never mind that we had almost no vocabulary whatsoever. never mind that we could barely read without the vowel inscriptions (dropped in grade school), let alone keep up with the class. i won’t lie: it was a daily struggle. some days i would leave feeling utterly battered and crushed, retreating to my room to let the frustration flow out in bitter tears as i repeated the mantra “slowly, slowly”…other times my mind would be on fire with the new discoveries of grammatical structure that explained SO MUCH, they barely fell short of epiphanic. still, it was impossible to see the pieces falling into place, the whole “forest for the trees” line…so i carried on, cramming my free time with extra study sessions (which included chatting up cute israelis on the beach), and hoped that eventually it would click. speaking of cute israelis on the beach, one day i was sitting with a girl friend who always knew every guy i pointed out (she was a great source of information), and we happened to spot a very nice-looking guy playing frisbee, whom neither of us had ever seen before. amazed that her omniscience fell short for once, i declared that i would be the one to find out who this mystery man was. after a while, he ambled over, and i asked him (in hebrew), “who are you?”. he said, “adi!” and i said (still in hebrew) that i was learning in the ulpan..and that was about the extent of my conversational hebrew. he switched into a perfect american english, which totally threw me off because most of the kibbutz guys i had been meeting had thick accents and a command of very basic english: conversation would quickly hit an impenetrable wall. here was an opportunity to strike up a real conversation with an israeli, and i jumped at it—he seemed just as interested in reaching out and talking to someone, too. we sat and chatted for about 4 hours, until the sun went down and i was too chilled to keep sitting…when parting, we looked at each other in amazement that we had somehow stumbled onto this clear connection, that rare and wondrous thing when you recognize a kindred spirit and feel, without a doubt, that you have found a friend. 

september: the fun continued. adi became a staple in my day-to-day life, my most real friend, the only person i felt completely myself around and who just seemed to understand me (a rare gem when you are in a foreign land with language barriers stemming the flow of your personality…no coincidence that “adi” in hebrew means “jewel”). he took me surfing, coaxing out the motor-memory skill implanted 10 years ago, the last time i stood on a board. by the time i figured out how to do it again, i was exhausted (less than an hour, it took, to completely wind me. i decided i needed to get in better shape). so instead i watched adi carve the waves as if he’d been doing it since he was a kid (incidentally, he had been). he helped me find and repair an abandoned bicycle, my first (and only) step towards toning my muscles up. what a difference, though, to be able to get around by bike—soon my legs forgot the burn, and i was cruising all over the kibbutz on my rusty, cherished wheels. my cousin yoni announced his engagement and got married 3 and a half weeks later (yes, it can be done!), and the wedding was a great family affair. i pulled out my sewing supplies from storage and dabbled a bit, making a few trinkets and presents. i started spending time with adi’s family on weekends, enjoying not feeling completely out of place at a hebrew-speaking dinner table—his parents are from california, and raised the kids in english; his older siblings casually speak english and hebrew, not giving too much thought to either or, so i felt very comfortable alternating between my tentative hebrew, and my refuge of english. everyone in the ulpan kept telling me i needed to stop being stubborn and speak in hebrew, but it’s impossible to speak a language you don’t have the vocabulary for. i started to grasp the difference between active and passive language—i realized i could understand far more than i could utter, a classic step in the ladder of events leading to mastery of a language (i remembered this exact phase from my spanish studies, so i was bolstered and encouraged to be treading on familiar ground). the holidays were approaching, and life was impregnated with a sense of wonder and possibility. did i mention i danced my feet off? adi is an incredible dancer (he has studied contemporary, and some ballet, and currently dance theater which i think lets him express his “out-there” personality through movement), and we fast became each other’s favourite partner. not only did we cut up the floor at the kibbutz pub, he took me and some other friends to this random, beautiful club up in the carmel mountains (about a half an hour’s drive up, up, up a curvy, windy forest road)—the air was cool and fresh, the old hobbit-like building and courtyard made of cobbled stones, and the music unfaltering. we danced like fools under a canopy of stars, and for a moment i felt his solid gaze, and his familiar touch, like a new and daring question.

october: holidays and so, so much food. rosh hashanah, yom kippur, sukkot, simchat torah…one after the other, with days off school and so much time to laze around, tending to our fat bellies. adi and i are…confused. sort of. we spend all our free time together, and i have started staying over at his place (because, let’s face it, you can’t get much worse than my crowded, filthy ulpan room, and here at my disposal is a sanctuary with a big comfy bed and a place to cook my own food). i’m hesitant to start anything “serious” because i’m still coasting on this burst of freedom and selfishness, protecting myself from getting stuck in something i don’t feel ready for…and yet, we seem to be going ahead anyway. everyone starts asking if we are together, and our answer is always a shrug and a half-smile, like maybe we are, maybe we aren’t, but if we’re still in the dark well gosh darnit everyone else will be too. a few serious conversations later…our mutual respect and love for each other, as well as our bond of friendship, compel us to be brave and to brace ourselves to ride this wave without knowing how big or dangerous it might be. a lot of surfing metaphors arise. we agree to give it a shot. at his urging (and a major purging of the closet space), i pack up my things in the ulpan room and move in. 

november: it’s bloody cold! the climate-control wars begin. adi, like most men i know, runs at a higher temperature and prefers to sleep with the windows open. i, on the other hand, can’t feel my feet. since i’m the one to get home first after school/work, i try to eke out some heat from the broken heater, wrap myself up in blankets, and get ready for the moment he walks in, says it’s too stuffy, and flings open the windows. we compromise: we keep them half-open at night, and i sleep with socks and a sweater in my down sleeping bag covered by two duvets, while he tosses around next to me, half-naked and sweating. this is the story of my life, but i think it comes as a bit of a shock to him…so, this month is all about learning how to co-exist in this itty-bitty space. mostly it’s fun, we watch movies and curl up, making winter cozy. i’m finally catching up in hebrew class, actually feeling like i’ve been improving, able to string sentences together (and make sense). work is work, the kids are delicious and infuriating; sometimes i am moved to another daycare with smaller tots, where cleaning and diaper-changing (which, up to now, i have managed to avoid) are the predominant activities. the babies are cute too, but i much prefer my kids, who walk and talk and (mostly) use the toilet on their own. it hits me that i should probably start thinking about what i’ll do after the program ends in december, when everyone leaves and a new batch rolls in, but i am happy here in this little niche. i don’t want to go yet. a lot of ulpanists want to stay and work, but one of the kibbutz’ biggest problems is housing: there is no space. i am one of the privileged few who have this nugget of good luck, a kibbutznik boyfriend and a room to live in—i can stay, i can work, i can be here for as long as i want. so it’s an option; i would also very much like to keep studying hebrew, to get my level up to qualify for university. maybe i’ll do a masters here? in…something? i still have no more clarity on that front that i did before i came to israel, but, i’m exploring all the options. i went with a friend to eilat for a few days’ vacation, to relax and check out the town, see if i could see myself living there at some point..i made a good connection with her israeli friend (who we were visiting), who promised she could find me work if i chose to move down south. it might be interesting, to work as a diver in the red sea, reconnect with that part of myself (sometimes, if i am overwhelmed or stressed, i close my eyes and imagine being underwater, hearing the fishes’ clicking conversation and my steady darth-vader-esque breathing…it is my most potent form of meditation). but eilat…it is so remote, so far from my friends and family, and such a strange place. dodgy vibes in the center, washed out people whose existence is pandering to tourists, always looking to make a few bucks; and the young crowd of workers who all hold tourism-industry or retail jobs are only there to save up money, nobody actually wants to live there long-term. anyway, i’m lining up my back-up plans in case life on the kibbutz, or with adi, doesn’t work out sometime in that nebulous future that awaits us all.

december: december?!? unbelievable. the program is winding down, and we can all sense it. some people are sad, others are rejoicing, and most are slacking off the way we used to in high school when the end was in sight. we’ve all had our in-class oral presentations (i did an hour-long meander through the history of sewing, ending with a hands-on workshop teaching my class an art they didn’t even know they’d lost), and the ministry exams are looming. i should be spending more time brushing up on vocabulary lists and reviewing the trickier grammatical rules, but it’s far too tempting to get into bed with snacks and feast on mindless hogwash (my current pick is “the vampire diaries”…it’s ridiculous, but i needed something to fill the void of “true blood”, which, let’s be frank, is even more ridiculous). when it’s nice out, i still go to the beach—i fell asleep in a T-shirt the other day, the sun warming my insides and sending me off into that hot soupy sleep you can only get from outdoor naps. the entire ulpan is going on an overnight trip to the negev (the desert) to swim in the dead sea, hike up masada (and a few other choice spots), and sleep all together in a big bedouin camp. part of me is dreading being herded along like cattle, being treated like an irresponsible child (as the majority of the ulpanists have proven themselves to be), freezing in the desert night, and worst of all, hiking in a group. i can think of few things i loathe more. nobody seems to appreciate my caribbean-adopted walking pace (which i have spent years perfecting to a slow stroll), but even less so on an upward climb with a goal. i pray for some redeeming moments: gorgeous views, bedouin tea and food, and maybe even some of that group bonding which i have so diligently dodged since the start. 

well that about sums it up, and i can stop feeling guilty for depriving my faithful readers of snippets of my life, despite feeling somewhat narcissistic about the whole blog thing to begin with. i’m going to get back to my “living in the present moment” mode…l’hitraot!