I Want to Dance
Dec 7, 2001
I want to move, move on and on and forward out and on the road on the journey going somewhere who knows the place but I want to wander feel the road the path beneath my feet wheels and wings flying singing and running the whole way I want to lose my breath and then pause panting gasping for air and joyfully free and alive, spontaneous in a time of order, chaos in a time of management. Random joy, baby, ain’t no order as can conquer it.
In Israel… oh, in Israel. Give me one taste of the live lived further and I yearn for a hundred more. In Israel we sat in our “History and Geography” class and learned about the Golan Heights, their geologic and tectonic composition, their historical significance.
The next week we went hiking there, took to our feet our boots and our walking sticks and carried ourselves through orchards and vineyards and streams and valleys, over hills and past tiny, ancient Druze villages older than – to our fresh young minds – time itself. We ended at the top of a gaping valley and a friend of ours climbed down and played pipes with the wind and the echoes. And I swear no music is sweeter in all the earth.
The next morning I woke early, smoked a cigarette, helped get together a nice fire and made real coffee, Maxwell house be damned. We went biking that day, biking down the hills we’d climbed up. On a warm October day, there is no greater joy than to be young and alive and free in a semitropical climate – and flying down the Golan Heights at 50 kilometers an hour. Sun shining, wind whipping you in the face, trails of dust behind and you just sing life.
We lived about 5k from a range of hills called the Gilboa. It was prominent merely because everything was flat or at the least gently sloping, and then out of the gentle farmland rises up these huge hilltops. We saw the Gilboa every morning as we woke up. Whenever we looked to the horizon there it was. Not hard to get oriented when there’s a huge hillside always to the south of you.
One day we decided to climb it. We’d done it before, mind you, with our group and our leader. But we wanted to just walk over, four of us by ourselves, climb up, and then climb back down. Figured about an hour of walking each way, three hours up and three down. We bought food for breakfast and lunch, wanted to do it early and avoid the afternoon sun. Filled our water bottles. Were all set to wake up at 4 AM and go.
All set doesn’t quite work at 4 AM, though, when you’re suddenly groggy and confused and you remember the top of the hill is also, as it happens, the border of the West Bank. Reconsider, reconsider. Abort retry fail? We decide on a walk through the extensive kibbutz fields the next day instead.
8 AM and things are a bit clearer. It’s a picnic we’re after, a picnic with views that can’t be beat and the simple satisfaction of going somewhere. We head off to the fields, walk along the crest of a small ridge, get to a small grove. The shade and the cool breakfast and the satisfaction are unparalleled, to my mind. A meal of pure delight. Not to mention the whole valley shining before our eyes.
We walk on, walk on. Sun rises in the sky and beats down but we’re ok, came prepared, brought plenty of water and I’ve got a surprise in my bag that the others don’t know about. Walk for an hour, two hours. Enjoy the view, enjoy the company, enjoy the physical sensations – rhythm of my feet hitting the ground, plop, plop, plop, and the warmth against my hopefully tanning cheeks, and the smells of fields and of life.
We come eventually to a tiny fish pond, and by it a few trees make a nice little shelter. The kibbutz makes some money from these fish but a pond keeping is a low maintenance job, so if you’re looking for privacy few places beat it. The shadows of the bushes are wonderful. A good vigorous walk makes you appreciate things like that, don’t it. On the other side of the crest, looking northward, we can see Nazareth. Nazareth! Home of our fellow Jew Jesus. And, when you think about it, our neighbor. It’s still a town, buildings, and people - and it’s in view from the kibbutz we have made our home.
We’ve got a full Israeli feast as well. Pita and humus and tehina, cheese and tomatoes and cucumbers and all the ingredients for a meal that satisfies. Even coffee, made fresh that morning before our departure, and kept warm in a thermos. Simple pleasure but the best kind.
And my surprise. I had figured, when we top the Gilboa, what better than some champagne? But here, I realize is good too, perhaps even nicer. We get a little tipsy, frolic in the fields and by the ponds and in the sunlight that pours down and showers over us. And then we pack up, leave no traces, and head on down the hill full and happy, and an hour later slowly tramp back into our dorms smiling. Content.
This year, though. This year I am happy, I have my friends, I have my old life, I am surrounded by the sights and sounds of Philadelphia. Right? Right? Akiba, the wonderful community. My people. My place.
And yet there is that deadening. Often I was bored in Israel, and here I am always busy, always doing something. But where is the spontaneity? Where is the wellspring of creative dissent, nonconformism, thoughts less common? Where is the simple honest pleasure of a meal earned and enjoyed, or a hike through the fields? Gone, it is gone. I have adventures now – but they are diluted, and suppressed. Adventures will not get me into college; adventures, clearly (saith the system within we all must work) are not that for which you should strive.
And yet what else is there in life? My imagination cries out. Help! it says. I want to dance!
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Conundrum
Oct 27, 2001
So there's this guy.
Yeah, everyone has 'this guy'. Whatever. There's this guy. He's too old for me. He's not really that cute. He's funny, but not that funny. He smokes too much. He's an a**hole. But a nice one. He's too old. He's not cute. He's not that funny. He smokes too much. He's too damn old. He's not cute...
Anyway there's this guy I find myself attracted to, that I shouldn't be, that my rational mind is not attracted too. He's not attractive. He's not attractive. And yet.
He's made it abundantly clear that he is available at the asking. And I want. Don't know why, don't know why, but I want.
And yet every time he's around, which is not too often - couple weekends this summer, once right before school started, once in mid-October - I suddenly lose interest for the duration of his presence. In the most recent of these, he was around all Friday night and left. I was cursing myself all day Saturday for a missed opportunity, when he suddenly shows up late that afternoon. And interest dropped off again until his departure, at which time it was back to great regret. Even more than I don't understand my attraction to him, I don't understand my incredible reluctance to act when the opportunity presents itself.
The interplay of repulsion and attraction, of desire and hesitancy. I suppose it's all part of the interplay of opposites, surge and sudden dropoff, in both adolescent emotional state and blood hormone content. And yet all this duality leaves me darn confused.
I may see him again soon, this time not in a group setting. What's gonna happen this time? I guess only time, and my strange uncontrollable gut feelings, will tell.
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Hey, they're gonna get you too.
Oct 8, 2001
I'm very much actively considering just giving up on the whole bit, as the moderately lived life seems to - well - suck.
*sings to herself "and another one gone and another gone, another ones bites the dust..."*
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- Latest reply: Oct 12, 2001
I WANT TO GO BACK TO ISRAEL!!!!
Oct 3, 2001
Looking through my Bet Hashita pictures has made me insanely homesick all over again. God. It's fairly simple. I spend an unhealthily large chunk of my waking hours missing Israel, missing the afula boys, the incredible kibbutz scenery, the freedom I had, the unlimited access to alcohol even. School makes me lust for cigarettes, man. That's got to be a bad sign.
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Oh my god.
Sep 12, 2001
I'd record my feelings but I don't know, don't comprehend, don't - can't - understand. I try to wrap my head around it, those buildings - really gone - those people - good lord... When I was scared for my father who works in lower Manhattan, I was shaking, I couldn't think straight at all... now I listen to the news, over and over, the plans hitting, the buildings falling, and remind myself that it's not Independence Day, it's realy life and ten thousand poeple in New York, maybe many thousand more, are dead and gone and....
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- Latest reply: Sep 18, 2001
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