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Israel Journal - Part I
by Simon
This is the first of a set of emails I sent out documenting my trip to Israel. I hope you enjoy it.
5/28/2007
Dear distinguished humans-
Forgive my writing style. I'm reading vonnegut right now, and just as
I tend to adopt the speaking patterns of those with whom I'm engaged
in conversation, this correspondence may have more short, simple
sentences than it would if I were, like normal, reading AP news wire
stories.
After being flagged as a "no-fly" guy for reasons still unknown to me,
EL AL and the TSA, and a grueling hour and a half of, well, waiting,
the FBI decided that I was not actually a risk and let me get a
boarding pass for an EL AL flight, which took me to Israel, from where
I now write. I will not mention this curious story again in this
transmission. You have all of the important details of my brush with
homeland security.
I arrived on friday evening and was not particularly jet-lagged,
despite the seven hour difference. They control the cabin lights on
the plane to make sure you sleep at the right time and not too much.
Genius.
Israel is no longer the country i remembered. When I was last active
in visiting, between ages 15 and 18, there was already some quick
americanization, evident in the american stores that I had not even
seen yet in the states- Ace hardware, best buy; the very quick
development of dirt land into enormous, cheezy shopping malls; and the
ubiquity of cell phones and cell phone rings, before that even
happened in the states. But movies, music, and maybe even cars still
were at least several months behind their US releases.
Now, movies are released at the same time here as they are in the
states, the cell phone market and users have matured, and my anecdotal
study of geography through a few road trips indicates a thirst for
shopping malls that far outpaces current supply.
One funny thing I saw while roaming these retail landscapes was a
collection of Skechers shoes at a discount outlet, all well over $100.
I've always thought of the brand as one with great style but only
mediocre quality, making them appropriately priced at between $45 and
$80. High luxury here.
I stayed at a hotel in Tel Aviv my first two nights, the Dan Panorama.
Beautiful place. Terrace with a view of the beach, the whole nine.
Spent the first day shaking off my bit of jetlag, then going at night
to a restaurant with my mother and sister, as well as my mother's
cousin and her husband. My mother's cousin's husband told us about
some musical to avoid, which was about a guy who buried children
alive. Of course, before internalizing the statement "buried children
alive," I sang some extemporaneous line about burying the healthy
children, although my sister really took off on it. I think my mom's
cousin and her husband were a bit horrified, but they hid it well. I
felt bad almost immediately after singing my line, because I then
fully processed the words "buried children alive," and boy did that
bring visuals I never wanted to mind!
Part of the second day was spent roaming the very historied town of
Jaffa, which, among other things, contains an artists' village with
galleries and outdoor installations all around. There was one shop in
particular that was great, with metal sculptures, some of them very
dirty. I plan on sending you all pictures of these dirty things, but
for the time being these pictures are trapped on my camera. They are
pictures that will make you giggle, and I hope I make you giggle soon. (Pictures added since original posting.)
That same day, we went to have a little memorial with family at the
cemetery where my father, brother, grandmother and now favorite Aunt
Margalit are buried. It has been ten years(may 31) since my father
and brother died. We did a little traditional reading that is chosen
based on the letters of their names, and then had people give little
remembrances of them. It was an interesting experience. I didn't
speak. I guess I'm not at the point where I'm focusing on memories.
My subconscious is still confounded by their deaths. My dreams imply
that everything from covert business or CIA work to divorce to alien
abductions are more plausible scenarios explaining the absence of
these two. Maybe deep inside I know there are some things that I'm
supposed to have learned from them directly, something they were
supposed to verbally impart, and I think my dreams will continue until
I hear what it is I should hear. I'll know it when I hear it, or I'm
wrong.
One way or another, my thoughts concerning my father and brother are
not centered around sentimentality. In fact, it's all confusion.
To be honest, harder than seeing them was seeing my aunt Margalit's
grave. She was awesome. She was a free spirit, a tour guide who
spoke 5 or 6 languages, always looked 10 years her junior and did yoga
way before it was fashionable. At age 60 or 61, she went rowing in my
crew boat with me, having never done it before. She died 5 years ago
this summer, while mountain climbing in South America at age 62, from
altitude sickness. Had she access to Israeli medical care, she'd
probably still be alive. I cried considerably more over her grave
than theirs. Couldn't help it. My father and brother were good but
difficult people, and I was actually having not premonitions but
logical predictions of my father's death shortly before the accident,
due to his long work hours, propensity toward bottling anger and an
enormous business risk he was currently burdened with. On the other
hand, Margalit was, and in a way still is, my intuitive definition of
vibrance.
My grandmother, who when last I visited(9 or ten years ago) was still
alive, was buried around the corner from her children and grandson,
next to her husband. I didn't visit her grave. I love her, I miss
her, but she would have had a hard act to follow.
After the cemetery we went to my nutty aunt Lilly's house, which also
was the house where my grandmother lived and where my grandfather
lived and where my father grew up, and which I now like to call a very
nice new bathroom with a bad foyer, since she turned one of the
bedrooms into a very nice bathroom while the rest of the house smells
like stray cats and the old bathroom. She's a very good and simple
person, who just wants to be loved, but "not so much" on social cues
and the art of compromise. It saddens me
that she's a good person but difficult to be around. On the upside,
she makes iraqi food almost as well as my grandmother, and has a
pommelo tree in her backyard that bares the most delicious pommelos.
Pommelos are very redemptive fruit. If I were pope, the blood of
christ would be pommelo pulp, and catholics would feel a slight shot
of endorphins every time they shouted out "sweet jesus!"
Here is an immature pommelo, on a tree in my aunt's backyard:
An immature pommelo looks nothing like a pommelo ready for picking. This picture is kind of pointless but pretty.
We're staying by a friend of my uncle's. Tonight she showed me a video on youtube of her
son being interviewed on television, when he was a captain in the
Israeli army charged with overseeing a group that was part of the
effort to evacuate the Gaza settlement of Gush Katif. Now that was
some moving video. (I only noticed the pun when re-reading this
letter before sending it off.)
Today, after running some errands concerning inheritances that my aunt
Lilly had already generously fronted to us before even receiving the
funds, I bought myself a pair of Naot in the same shop where I saw the
skechers priced for royalty.
My sister has a tough time with Lilly,
and is sometimes very impatient with her. I think that's the
greater foul, since Lily is a cat lady in her early 50's who is unlikely to
change. So I decided not to join my mother and sister this evening on
their trip to visit my sister's friend and her kids. I had had it with
my family's estrogen.
They were gone for a few hours and I relaxed. Then we got pizza.
Then we went to a pub. My sister totally sucks at pool. I saw my mom
drink a smirnoff ice quickly. We talked to a guy who works for the
pentagon shooting videos. He used to work at fox news. The pentagon
plans to set up some sort of network. Cut out the middleman.
Jerusalem tomorrow.
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