Good students

I’ve been a bad, bad girl.

A bad writer, I mean. Deserted the poor place completely. Not that anyone visits it anymore. The memoirs of my Israel trip are but ghosts in the glaring Now. (Happy ghosts but). I’ve made this blog a forlorn land by my absence.

I had intended it a travel blog, mind you. I hadn’t employed much thought to the predictions of its further gloomy future. Suspended in space, waiting for Miss Smilla’s next travels to inflame her keyboard.

The travels that are bound to come. They are in fact inevitable. They pollinate my dreams and hatch in my brain and speak to me in the quiet hours of my days, biding their time.

Not yet but. Not yet.

My last months have been busy and studious. I started and almost finished my diploma. The studies rocked. I’ve been collecting praises for my laboured academic writing all around (and I sweated blood and tears with every word. Never again). Now I’m foreseeing a bright future as a community services worker. Do I really? Well, I’m trying.

And I have settled in Sydney. Having moved five times, I have now found a happy home. Anxiety visits only occasionally. Friends visit more often. I’ve been training my body to become strong, resilient. I have been learning to say No to things that don’t nourish me. I have been learning to say Yes to some things brave and dangerous.

I have taken fancy to being in the air. Crazy Miss Smilla, go figure.

I have acquired a kind of a love life. And, but of course, it’s complicated!

These have been amazingly good months. But that’s Too Much Information already.

Right now: sitting in front of the open fire in a little bush cabin in the Blue Mountains. Outside the rain is stopping, the birds are doing their thing. It might turn out to be a fine day. If I were to stay huddled on the couch, whining for the Negev desert and the middle-eastern sun, I’d be an utter fool.

Yalla.

Belated anniversary

This time last year I was in Ladakh. Its barren beauty and limitless space-ness didn't intimidate me; it enchanted me. Its moonscape deserts have become my secret inner sanctuaries, places I visit in times of hardship and stress.

Then the tragedy happened.

Here's in memory of the many victims of the flash floods in Leh and surroundings, on the 6th August 2010.

Suffering and serenity.

A story of the flash flood and its aftermath in Ladakh

 The incredible Ladakh

6 August 2010.

It was well into the night, when the tragedy struck.

It happened during my second week in the northern state of India called Ladakh, famous for its high planes, looming Himalayas and friendly self-sustainable people.

Something woke me up from my heavy sleep; I heard distant, but alarmed voices coming from the hotel corridor. Then I realized that torrents of rain were tearing through my open windows into the room. I struggled up to close the windows and looked outside. It looked like the Armageddon had come. The sky would come aglow with the lightning every few seconds, promptly followed by the grim rumble of the storm. The rain and wind were a howling tumult outside, assaulting the windows and doors. The trees on every visible slope were in anarchic motion: swaying, rustling, tossing. There was scurrying of panicked human movement outside, someone trying to close the doors, usher valuable possessions inside. Other inhabitants of the hotel seemed awake and unrestful too.

My initial excitement soon turned to anxiety as I blindly fumbled around the room, trying to drag my sodden possessions away from the window, looking for matches (electricity was out by then). Still, as the rain and hail gradually lost its intensity, I managed to reconcile with the land of Morpheus, in my comfy enough bed, in sturdy enough hotel, quite oblivious to the rest of the town.

As soon as I got up the next morning and took my first stroll down the main road to meet my friends and arrange some exciting adventures for the day (river rafting or mountain-biking, it was to be decided), I realized that something was amiss. Muddy waters filled the main market area. Big clusters of silent people stood gathered all around town. The shops were closed.

Soon I was to find out that when I peacefully slept in my bed, many Leh citizens were already bemoaning the biggest natural calamity to have ever happened (or at least not to be remembered even by the oldest citizens). The cloudburst up in the mountains had propelled flash floods and mudslides. Indu River’s banks swelled up with water, until the river broke out and spilled all over lower Leh and several surrounding villages, causing unprecedented damage: literally wiping out Choglamsar and several other villages, washing away bridges and hence severing the communication with these places. Some onlookers remarked on helplessly observing brown masses of lave-like mud descending upon them with great speed. What could these people do against such unstoppable force, but grab their children and run for the nearest mountain top? Many didn’t even manage that. At the time of writing this article at

least 137 people died, buried under their mud houses that collapsed in the storm; over 400 were injured, 500 were still missing and hundreds lost their homes and other possessions. A tourist mini-bus travelling to Manali overnight got swept off the edge down the mountain ravine – all its passengers as well as the driver were killed, another 100 tourists were stranded on treks or tourist routes. Leh, situated in an arid mountain desert at an altitude of 3,505 metres, normally receives virtually no rainfall all year and has no planned drainage system.

In spite of having heard about what happened, I didn’t really register it fully for the first part of the day; it didn’t sink in just yet. You didn’t so much as glimpse rubble or collapsed buildings or dead bodies around upper Leh. Then my friend and I walked down to the bus station and there we sighted tell tale signs of the night’s before ravage that we won’t soon forget. The bus station was completely flattened, with broken buses and cars floating around in big pools of mud. The whole place wore desolate look with smashed houses, debris and flesh piling up in huge mountains. The district hospital also got flooded, yet it was lined up with bodies – both injured and dead. The victims lay under a small rooftop – contorted and bloodied corpses, fear frozen on their faces and hands still reaching for help. There was buzz of flies and wailing of the bereaved coming from all directions. My friend attempted to take some photos, but started crying so much that we had to leave; we were shaken to the bone.

Hardly any shop or business was to be open that day. Tourists (including myself) were roaming the streets searching for food and water. And of course there was neither biking or rafting to be done.

As soon as I left my place again in the early evening, I realized that something was again brewing in the air, something big. As I looked up over the rooftops, scanning the mountain peaks, I saw the muscular grey-black clouds heaping up, layer upon layer. They were apocalyptic in their size and menace. They were already pressing hard on the peaks, squeezing down buckets of rain; very soon they’d be pressing down on us. The hills visibly darkened as I watched.

The lubricated wind, moist and relentless, was beginning to buffet me, filling out my clothes. There was the heavy imminence of rain chasing my every step, and so it seemed, everyone’s step. The air was moist. It smelled of wet ground, just like I remembered from back home, spending summers in the cottage house in the country, when the farmers used to turn the soil. It was the river, having swollen threefold since I last crossed the bridge, carrying tons and tons of brown muddy water. The angry waters had already started to wash away the banks. A crowd was gathered around the bridge, people carefully inching their way towards the shore, but not too close – peering down the darkening tumble with horrid fascination; people smoking and talking in high pitched voices. The rumour had it that water was gushing down from Khardung La (highest pass) and it was just a matter of time before it got here, causing more damage and mayhem.

I walked away from the bridge, chased by the deafening roar of the river. My chest felt constricted and my breath was coming out in short gasps. I realized I was making whimpering sounds. I was simply scared, with that cold sticky fright that often has something to do with fearing for one’s life or others’.

I nearly ran down Changspa road, normally busy and bustling with tourists and local businesses. It was mostly dark and silent. The lights had blown with the first powerful gust of wind. A bee line of about 30 anxious travellers slithered and writhed their way up to the only working phone booth. Many of these people had meant to leave Leh on buses, taxis or planes last morning or were hoping to do it the following day. No such luck though. We were all stuck in this town, waiting for the catastrophe to hit.

Having decided that I’d seen enough, I turned around to go back to my hotel. By then hordes of people were pushing up the road, anxiously making their way up towards

higher grounds like the Shanti Stupa[1] – the Buddhist refuge situated on top of the mountain. I blindly darted alongside these people, a single sheep in the herd, propelled by the notion of the group, unsure of my own goals. I hurried up through the bridge again, struggling to keep my balance in the wind and darkness.

“Away from the bridge!” a sudden sharp voice materialized near my ear and I felt an equally sudden and sharp stab of pain in my hand as a wooden stick connected with my knuckles. It was one of the soldiers of the army supervising Leh, trying to pull us away from the danger of the crazed river. I know he was just doing his job, but at that precise moment the brutality of the act hit the soft spot of my loneliness and confusion, and as if on command tears welled up in my eyes, self-pity ripened in my heart and I cried.

I was still wiping tears with the back of my hand, when I arrived at Jeevan Café, the yummy next door neighbour to my guesthouse. Harpreet Singh, a powerfully built and handsome owner of the place, Sikh in a purple turban, didn’t miss a beat. “What’s going on?” he asked upon seeing my crumpled face. I explained what had just befallen me. “What do you think it’s going to happen now?” I wanted to know. I was desperately seeking clues, advice, temporarily unable to access my own judgement or inner wisdom. “I don’t know, but in any case there’s no need to panic. If we’re meant to die here, we will. No need to worry about it” answered Mr Singh with such calm equanimity, that could be easily perceived as nonchalance, and that made me swallow hard. I know things aren’t rosy, but die???

Dying notwithstanding, Mr Singh kindly invited me upstairs to the rooftop restaurant to have a tea and take a few deep breaths. I promptly climbed up to the rooftop of Jeevan Café for a well-deserved ginger tea and veg biryani.

There was no shortage of groups of Ladakhi people – mainly what looked like families – huddled on the roadsides, or marching up with street with determined strides and big bags on their backs. They had fled their river-based houses. Some were shivering as the temperature kept dropping, clutching their water bottles. Many of them would be out on the streets all night, fearing their rooftops collapsing onto them; others would find the refuge on the top of the holy mountains, in quickly pitched tents, under Lord Buddha’s statue’s watchful gaze.

Unsure what to do next, I spontaneously decided to join a group of British tourists on their way to Shanti Stupa. Strange excitement danced in my body together with fear as we plodded through the darkened street leading up to the stone steps. The rocky mountain on top of which Shanti stupa sits had by then become the Mecca for the scared and the lost, foreigners and local folk alike. There were dozens of tents stretched everywhere. Lighters and headlights were flickering. Pop music was blasting from someone’s portable speakers; somehow inappropriate, belittling all that Waiting in the air. 

To look down the valley from here was to see a landscape of terrible beauty and terror. An ominous greyness had descended, as the amassing black clouds killed the day long before it was due to give way to the night. Lightning bolts were striking one by one in the distance.

I didn’t make it very far up the hill at all. While mounting the first hundred of steps, we met a Ladakhi man, who asked us where we were going. “Up to Shanti Stupa, and yourself?” “I’m going home.” He answered. His eyed gleamed in the raising dark, his moustache making him look like the proverbial ginnie from the bottle. ”I like my home. Whatever happens to you, you can’t change it. It’s all natural”, he explained in broken English. It was the second time in this night that I heard such an acceptance of the natural order of things expressed and it again sounded genuine. I found that unknown man’s trust somehow infectious. I carefully stepped down and followed him, passed by Ladakhi women, carrying their possessions on their backs. Having given sufficient warning, the rain struck with fury of a boxer in the first round. Fist-sized silent drops landed like a flurry of blows and stinging where they hit me. By the time I reached the guesthouse, I was soaked to my underwear.

The father in the family owning my guesthouse welcomed with the candle, as I came under the roof. I straight away wanted to know what their plans were. “We’re staying here. We’re hoping it’ll be all right. Don’t worry, we are all here”, he reassured me.

I stayed then. I accepted the family’s invitation to join them in their sitting room. At least three generations squatted in this warm cubicle, lit only by flickering butter lamps. Prayer beads moved and prayer wheels whirled as Tibetan Buddhist mantras were being ceaselessly repeated in a low murmur. If you think that the atmosphere there was one of doom and gloom, well – you’re wrong. Children continued running around everywhere and the grandmother would every now and then stop praying to pour some butter tea or share some laughs with the others. Just another night in a Ladakhi home. Almost.

Luckily that night, the downpour, albeit heavy, ceased after a couple of hours. The river managed to stay within its constraints. No more damage was done and no more human victims were added to already devastating toll.

I left the family after an hour or so. I sat on my bed by candlelight for a long time. I thought of my semi-random choice to leave Choglamsar, where I had intended to stay before, and find a hotel in the upper, safer part of Leh. I was thus spared having to spend two nights on top of the mountain, if not the actual departure from this world. My thoughts ran out to all the other people in this town: the pilgrims at Shanti Stupa, the ones who stayed at their homes, to my friends, temporarily lost to me in different parts of town. Then I thought of all the trekkers whom the rains caught on distant trails. And I prayed for the safety of all of them.

I was one of the lucky ones. I survived, I wasn’t harmed, I didn’t lose anything. But walking through the sad remnants of what I remembered as bustling lower town left me devastated and changed me forever. Within the next few days Indian soldiers, police and paramilitary troops initiated the relief operation, sifting through destroyed homes and providing basic medical care to those injured. Several local committees were assembled who started enlisting volunteers to do some “cleaning up” work and to help the flood victims. For a few days I carried the mud out from what used to be a hospital. It was Sizyphus’s work, as the destruction was immense and the tools scarce. We did it factory-chain style, passing heavy mud-filled bowls from one to another, then emptying them on a pile outside, to be taken away by a truck. In the end the hospital was returned to some usability, but it was clear that the damage was so wide and vast, it would take many years to rebuild it.

Upon reflection I found it almost ironic, that the same people who I earlier worried I couldn’t help, ended up feeding me, giving me shelter, listening to me with compassion and sharing their ancient wisdom with me. No doubt they suffered greatly from their losses. They may have lacked material resources to protect themselves from the elements, or to deal with their effect. Yet as we worked arm in arm, they still laughed and sang songs together. They didn’t sit there mourning; they did what needed to be done. They took their time. They did it their way, with inner strength and grace. With acceptance of their fate, kindness and strong sense of community that I’d never experienced before.

Julley, julley![2]

Miss Smilla's Feeling for Deserts

---

[1] Shanti Stupa The Shanti Stupa is an impressive white-domed structure in Changspa that is beautifully illuminated at night. It was built by a Japanese Buddhist organization to commemorate 2500 years of Buddhism and to promote World Peace. In Tibetan Buddhism a stupa represents enlightened mind.

[2] Greeting in Ladakhi language. Depending on circumstances it can mean „hallo”, „good-bye” or „thank you”.

Here comes the black sun, so much fun

“Did you walk up to Volunteer Park to watch the (total solar) eclipse?” was the first thing Ricki said to Priscilla when she came by her apartment Monday noon.

“Nope. Didn’t make it outdoors,” said Priscilla, yawning.

“You watched it on TV then?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You didn’t see it at all?”

“I listened to it,” said Priscilla. “I listened to it on the radio. It sounded like bacon frying.” Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume.

What can I say. My personal universe has granted me a private, for VIPs only total eclipse of the sun this year (and part of last one too). It lasted several months: four, five, six? Even now, there are days when the light switch goes out; when I wander what on earth happened to my sun.

Back then, whether I chose to bunk up indoors, curtain drawn, or forced myself to venture outside, I could hear its sound very well. No kidding. Sometimes it was like a fire alarm siren going off right in my ear; sometimes the steady drone of a shamanic drum, hypnotizing me into moronic stupor. Sometimes my solar eclipse would play out the funeral march (clichéd much?), and I’d align my steps with it. Or it’d sound like the good old bacon frying – yuck!

Here’s acknowledging that this year has been BIG for me, in the particularly challenging kind of way. It’s worn the stigma of TRANSITION (scary word, if overused).

Transition from being in a close and loving relationship for some years, to being by myself ain’t no easy one in general, baby.

Cause it’s often more than just that.

For me it’s been about transitioning into being WITH myself.

It’s been about losing the baby fat of some residual childish innocence. It’s been about learning to sit with the many fears, insecurities, practical challenges, moral dilemmas, weight-laden choices and the like - gems of everyday life – ones that I’d gladly have transferred onto my partner’s broad back before without even so much as a glimpse of a thought. It’s been about learning to deal with these fears; to make these decisions; to apply my own wisdom (sic!) in the face of dilemmas. It’s also been about teaching myself how to fix a leaking tap. My oh my. It’s been about growing up!

Whilst being is Israel was healing in numerous and wonderful kinds of ways, when I wrote this post, I was a little…overenthusiastic. Mildly arrogant, if only through means of naivety. Or simply thinking wishfully?

Cause, you know, it’s not like I was instantly cured by one hand wave of a desert Sufi master with a flaming magic wand (ha, ha). Neither was I trying to say that then.

The electrical and empowering moment that I described then, was just the beginning of a journey. A journey that on some days darkly resembles the one that Sisyphus used to make.

Being in transition means for me, well, many things.

One of them is, living under the day-to-day hegemony of the multiple-tentacled beast that resides within my solar plexus. I can rarely second-guess its whims, when it’s going to decide to wake up and stretch, and extend its extremities into my different internal spaces, stealing my breath. Shrinks and the think-alikes of this world call the beast “generalized anxiety” and I can sure count on it to show up anytime and say “Hallo” with a ghastly smile.

(And I do wander whether living with anxiety really is a symptom of transition. Maybe it is a symptom of being me.)

And, contrary to the impression you might have gotten from reading this, things are getting better. They are, they are. I mean, really. I’m getting stronger, more grounded, more myself. I think. At least I know how to fix that leaking faucet at least. I’m still stalking the damned pigeon, and sometimes I sort of get to touch its smooth tail for a second.

“One would have thought a solar eclipse would have made a noise like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,” said Priscilla, “but it really did sound like bacon frying.”

“You slept through it, you asshole.” T. Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

At least I’ve stayed awake through mine.

Well, for most part.

Failng

I'm on the train, having left Sydney before dawn, fast-tracking towards the Blue Mountains. The irregularly scattered stops barely break the monotony of my trip. With my head bouncing against the cold window, with my innards shaking with nerves and anticipation of my first day at college, I can't quite go to sleep either.


Then...
"Where did you find it?" an ancient male voice, generously laced in glorious Ocker Aussie accent, raises up from the seat behind me.
There are three second of silence, and then the voice starts again, louder. "Where did you find it? Your hearing device." He seems to soften and stretch the vowels to infinity, as if hoping that making his words longer would help them reach his companion's ears.
"What?" an equally ancient, female voice responds.
"Where did you find your hearing device??" the male voice booms, albeit not impatiently. Just slightly exasperated.
"What?" answers the lady.
They repeat the exchange a few more times, each time turning up the volume just a notch. Sounding a bit more desperate.
"Where did you find it? Your hearing device."
"In your bedroom!" says the female voice at last, a note of triumph ringing in it.
The companion says nothing, but I'm sensing perplexed and intense exchange of face expressions going on behind my back. The lady's answer must have been not an appropriate one.
"What did you ask again?" she pleads.
"Don't worry about it" says the male voice. There's a soothing quality to it. And a barely recognizable hint of resignation. But more soothing.
Then there's no more.


The train pulls over at my destination, and when I rise from my seat, I see them. They're getting off as well. They are both tiny and wrinkled like prunes. She is wearing a pale blue knitted hat. A walking cane supports his fragile steps. They look as old as the trees in my grandfather's yard, firmly intertwined by their twisted roots.
I follow the pair gingerly towards the way out. I watch them help each other cross the gap between the train and the station grounds.
I know nothing about them, except that they'd just failed at an attempt to communicate with one another. Failed to be heard, to be understood, to convey their message, to connect.


Which is a near-impossible task between people even sans hearing problems.
Seeing this, the reflection that followed, make me kind of sad. So much for the funny post again.

Returns

"Don't wait any longer.
Dive in the ocean,
leave
and let the sea be you.
Silent, absent,
walking an empty road,
all praise." Rumi






At first, albeit a mightily jetlagged glance, Sydney hasn't changed much.
Which sort of surprises me.
That the Westfield shopping mall is still exactly where I left it, and so are "The Greeks" selling their overpriced produce at the grocery across the road from where I live.
That Jenn is still cheeky, Soojin still loves sake and Jutta remains the same amazing work-driven hero I remember her as.
That my friends have not forgotten me. Have missed me. Have looked forward to my return. The last one astounds me most of all.
Yes, I am funny like that.

I probably haven't changed that much either. To the first, perfunctory glance. A couple new wrinkles, hair a few shades redder, but that's all.
Yet, I know I've changed deeper. Duh. Obviously. I have jumped the ship and left. I have dived into this scary ocean with no security rope. With no swimsuit even.

I've changed and so has Sydney. So have my friends.
And the next months will probably bring the mutual exploration of 'how'.

Meanwhile, the normalcy of being back here is baffling. Unnerving. Frightening. While at this point there are still people to catch up with and travel stories to be told, soon... It'll be like I'd never been anywhere. Like it was nothing but a dream, a vivid one, but quickly fading. The unrelenting speed and intensity of everyday life will close up above me and swallow me up.

It's good that I have this blog after all. It'll remind me.

Where am I?

I awaken from an afternoon nap. My eyes take in the room: the heavy chestnut cupboard with a massive stone buddha head placed upon it; the abstract painting, a japanese couple hugging across the milky way-like smudge of white paint; a couple of weathered bar stools; a thin stripe of sky outside the window, so blue it makes the eyes pop. All achingly familiar, all known and touched a hundred.

Then why the vague sense of unease? Why the feeling that I am still dreaming, yet to awaken to a place and life that is truly real?

Deja vu?

No.

Sydney.

I have come back.

***

In the labyrinths of airport - incessantly waiting, tasting my own well-practiced patience - I was brushing past time. I had reached the cliched point of no return and decided to take it as a blessing. I had feared it. I had fantasized about deliberately missing the plane. Now it's here. Happening.

The impression that I'd set out on this journey some immeasurable pieces of existence ago helped me, paradoxically. It held me when my fingers expressed the sudden and desperate clawing for the past. When the great moan for what I'd left behind uncoiled in my gut. Had it only been a day since I walked the grassy greens of my parents' backyard, since I sat on the porch wrapped in a blanket, watching the sky go to sleep? Time. It twisted and danced around me like an Indian sari, first entrancing me with its seemingly weary stillness; then again jumping up and ahead like an agile horse, leaving behind chipped remains of hours.

Another seat on another plane, I closed my eyes, letting myself drift back towards Poland, amidst the pine forests and barley fields of gold - caressing the moments I'd spent there, living them again in fast-forward. When I opened them back, I found out that time had galloped forward again, swallowing several precious hours of being, and bringing me closer - geographically, mentally - to where I was headed.

The timelessness of traveling on planes, I have fondness for it. In the fume of filtered, microbe-laden air-plane air, between the neatly packed rows of seats, hosting simultaneously bored and anxious hordes of co-passengers, liberation occurs. Somewhere between what's already the past and what is to be future. A bland but poignant now. You are given space to farewell what's left behind, then - to open to what's coming. It's a rite of passage.

And then I was there. The fed-up mouth of the Boeing spewed me out, mercifully, right into the fresh and wintry Australian ground. And into my friend Jenn's comforting arms.

I still have to wake up though.

Too many loves

My heart lives now in three places. Yes, as if two weren’t complicated enough.

The red land

Towards the end of my first year in Australia I discovered Pacific Ocean. I remember blissful hours spent making love with the splendid waves, a new Venus on the block. Ever since, in my mind Australia and the turquoise element have become inseparable. The so-called “temporary” tattoo in the shape of Maori symbol Koru was the result of my longing and my promise to return to the Land of Plenty. The tattoo never disappeared.

Poland is the land that has seen me born and has witnessed my growing. My feet have forged and memorised countless paths here, which in my body are never forgotten. When I think of my childhood, I see the barley ‘fields of gold’ and me running through, ahead of my little gang, in search of a hidden treasure. I miss the endless summer evenings when I’m not here. Yet I have fled – haven’t I – and I have serious doubts whether I could grow satisfied roots here. I wouldn’t know how.

The homeland

Poland always brings the feeling of family. My friendships here are old like ancient oaks. Whilst their branches may be reaching for different skies, they’re still intertwined at the roots. My blood family…through separations and conflicts, through lost tracks and confusion, through endless searching, and trust and trying, through love that is truly unconditional, through joy and comfort of knowing someone and being known by someone for your whole life…I’ve come to a place of peace. We’ve grown closer. We let each other be.

The holy land

There is another country I’ve come to love. Go read my older posts, you’ll know what kind of love I mean. The fresh like young olives leaves and simmering with yet unspoken hopes, juvenile hopes perhaps – kind.

Three deep, significant relationships. Three loves. I’m a polyamorous citizen. Hell, aren’t I lucky?

As I’m the sort of person that develops attachment faster than a homeless dog catches flies, the pain of separation with my loves tends to be brutal. It is a familiar feeling, you’d think I’d be immune to by now. The inner tremble when you pack your bag. The conversations that get stuck, because you always fail at behaving as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, and pathos – you don’t like pathos either. The last walks around the hood your eyes tattooing every single detail into your memory cortex. The catching in your breath, the painful savouring of each moment, the resistance to leave, the holding on to the stair rail, the fantasy that you’ll miss the plane and will have to remain where you are.

The deep breath you take while safely tucked in your airplane seat, with a magazine and inflated cushion. The worst is over. On to another world.

Ah, it’s so very hard to leave one amazing home and switch it for amazing another. Poor, poor old me.

Seriously though? I’m perched on the brink of yet another journey, waiting for someone to mercifully push me off that nest. Then again I know that pushing won’t be needed. Scared, hopeful and grateful I’ll make the jump myself. Scared but pretending to be fearless. Hopeful just because one naturally is. Grateful for the three amazing homes that stretch my heart to bursting, that show me that its capacity is after all, limitless.

Lomir ale in eynem

The beautiful Tempel Synagogue

Khaira Arby "The Queen of the Desert"

Roger Davidson Ensemble

My small suitcase was packed. My stomach was churning with excitement. As if I hadn't done enough of it recently, I was to travel once again. My parents were taking me to the train station.

"Should you meet Shevah Weiss" said my Dad, while lifting my suitcase into the car boot "give him my respect and admiration. Here's my business card, invite him to visit us."

My Dad's sense of humour is the dead-pan kind. If you don't know him very well, and superficially judge people by the number of smiles they shoot into the atmosphere, you might think him a very solemn and stern man; which is nothing but untrue.

We both knew that the chances of delighting Mr Weiss (Polish-born Israeli political scientist and former politician; a great friend of the Polish people) with our home made cholent were as scarce as snow in Tel-Aviv. But one can dream, can't they? And since I was going to Krakow, to participate in the XXI Jewish Festival, dreams like that were even appropriate.

Sadly, I didn't end up harassing Mr Weiss. Neither did I stalk him from afar. I simply didn't see him. Could it be because I missed the Friday's Shabbat dinner, to be populated by many VIPs and some 200 hangers-on? Too long I procrastinated with buying the pricey ticket, worrying about my red shoes - my only shoes - would they be inappropriate? Having finally gotten over this trifle internal conflict, I was told that the tickets had been sold out long time ago anyway.

No, I wasn't heart-broken. I'd been already gorging on too many concerts, talks, workshops, meetings etc. offered by the festival - my head and heart full to the brim - that I barely noticed. What a sensual, emotional and intellectual feast it was, what a smorgasbord of top-notch events. I could pee myself trying and still I could not describe it.

"These are the real heretics of klezmer music" bellowed Janusz Makuch, the creative director of the festival, when introducing a band called Sway Machinery " and I love heretics. There wouldn't be growth or progress without heresy."

I couldn't agree more. I did listen to many amazing heretics these last few days, to bold propagators of unpopular thoughts or seemingly jarring sounds. I sat speechless, open-mouthed, sometimes I sang or danced, then wandered the quaint streets of Old Kazimierz in a kind of stupor, as if a huge elephant had jumped of a building and landed on my head, except it hadn't.

During an open meeting called "The Wisdom of the heart. Message from the spiritual elders" conducted by transpersonal psychotherapist Tanna Jakubowicz-Mount - around 30 people shared stories about their sense of identity. Is there a question more difficult to answer and yet less familiar than "Who am I?". The bravery and wisdom of these randomly gathered individuals was mind-blowing.

Jan said he was a Holocaust survivor. David said that although Judaism was him spiritual home, he was just learning to live from his heart. Iwona said she was a leaf on the wind. Ewa was a silver wolverine. Magda, Tomasz and Jeff had been found by Jesus when they needed it. Danusia and Andrzej were recovering alcoholics. Mariusz just was. Smilla was confused; she'd suddenly found herself longing for a God so much that it choked her. And so on. Here we were, a bunch of seekers of something that may never be found. Seeking nevertheless. 

It was a tremendous relief - I repeat, tremendous - to find such alikeness, it this one, but powerful aspect. To be with the Poles of no known Jewish origins, but feeling very strongly about this culture, drawn by affiliation that cannot be rationally explained. It's like Shevah Weiss wrote, perhaps the Poles do miss the Jews after all. Perhaps our genes feel and mourn the loss of the nation that was part of our history, a common element of everyday lives, for many centuries. Through the wild and cruel currents of history, there are hardly any Jews in Poland these days. And some of us long for them.

At the hostel, during the short breathless breaks, I talked to Joanna. She was my age, she matched me with the intensity of emotions that colour her days; she too was mourning love lost. Twice we attempted to go wild and entered the crowded club Alchemia for some midnight klezmer dancing; twice we left after less than an hour, defeated by sticky and pushy crowds, by room where breathing space was quickly shrinking, sucked in by deep, beer-infused throats. "At least we tried" said Joanna as we retreated. Then sleep claimed us fast and brought no dreams.

Yesterday the train spewed me out - crinkled and cranky from the 8-hour trip - in Poznan. The weather was disgusting. Grey unrelenting piss of rain that did more than soiling my thin jacket through and through - it also washed out my juvenile euphoria. Yesterday I danced in the circle and ecstatically to the Yiddish music; I considered giving the belief in angels a go. Today...what goes up, must come down, they say.

I'll sit with it. And since these new metaphorical suitcases are big, heavy and have many pockets, it might be a long sit.

Rude or what, or not.

It was long before I came to Israel for the first time that I heard some epic tales about the legendary Israeli impoliteness. Thankfully the Lord didn’t make me wait very long at all to have them backed up by my very own little taster. While I was considerably shaken by the experience at a time, my perception’s shifted already. A passionate fight in a public place, sucking in bystanders, who each feel obliged to take sides and express their personal opinions? I’d say, nothing out of the ordinary.

Impoliteness - it's omnipresent - it saturates the entire country through and through. The moment you step foot on the Holy Land, your circle of personal space shrinks rapidly. Here tact is nonessential, conversations are direct and queues have a culture of their own. Strangers make comments to you about things that, in Australia, you'd only hear from the mouths of close kin.

Israelis are raised to feel they are kings and queens and consequently shyness is a rare quality. People will talk to you in the street if they feel like it without the slightest hesitation and will tell you what to do without a second thought. There’s a joke that explains this:

Why does no one make love on the street in Tel Aviv?

Because if they did, someone would come along and say:
‘No, no, no! Squeeze her ass before you kiss her! Where did you learn to do this? Alright, move aside and let me show you…’

Now, Western foreigners do get hit hard. The atmosphere in Israel is something new. The country seems developed, modern and civilized. They see the Americanization at work and wonder how the heck Israelis still aren't behaving American! They seem so direct and, well, unrefined.

What follows, is the common assumption: Israelis are rude, barbaric and inconsiderate.

While I’ve certainly has some less than pleasant interpersonal encounters whilst in Israel, I’m refraining from straight off the bat judging and criticizing the whole nation. Perhaps I’m simply sentimental and let people get away with lots of crap for my unexplained affinity with their ways. I’m also trying to be observant here, and understanding.

Israelis simply love to argue. The saying ‘You have four Jews in a room and five opinions’ couldn’t be more correct. They shout at one another but no one’s really angry. It’s just their way of saying that they care.

The grandparents of Israelis came from all corners of the world and so the country is essentially a melting pot of European, American and Middle Eastern cultures, all mixed up with a dash of Zionism and a healthy paranoia that everyone always has been and always will be, out to get them.

But Israelis love to assimilate and the one million Russians who arrived in the 90’s are already thoroughly Israeli – which doesn’t mean that the national jokes about them all being criminals or whores have completely died out. The Sephardic Jews are still sometimes seen as being one step away from being Arabic and everyone knows that when the Polish Israelis are in a good mood they sit in the dark until it passes. The Iranian Jews never want to spend a shekel, the Moroccans all carry knives and the Americans aren’t real Israelis but Jews living off their rich relatives in New York.

Although they can appear the rudest people in the world, at heart they’re immensely kind and hospitable. Israel is a tribal society so if you’re on the outside they seem quite hostile. But once you’ve cracked their shell, they’ll spoil you rotten with their hospitability: they’ll invite you to their homes, offer to kill your enemies or their daughter’s hand, that kind of thing. The Israelis are very much community oriented and often exist as tight networks of friends and family. They are fiercely loyal to and protective of the ones they love. Prickly-skinned fruits with big bleeding hearts inside.

These people make the polite Americans and Australian appear ingenuine and constrained by comparison. And my little Slavic soul has no choice but to long to jump right into the middle of that row and bellow: "Ma ani, ez?"*

* "What am I, a goat?"- an expression used as a protest against unequal treatment

Quiet

Where to from now?

It's suddenly gone all quiet around here. Can you hear it? The words sort of dried up. Then, I don't even know if anyone comes here anymore, or maybe I'm writing to a void, bottomless, toothy and writhing like a giant caterpillar.

I'm still sort of sad, having left the Holy Land. I wake up with my head full of palm trees, and desert winds, and lively conversations half in Hebrew. I wake up to the reality of being here, in this cozy haven, familiar as the womb itself, where the coolish weather has been a respite for my sun-drenched skin. The reality reminds me to get off cloud nine for fuck's sake, and face it, man.

Why does my heart ache so? Why do Jaffa's mosques nest underneath my eyelids like rolled up carpets, to be stretched into vivid and richly patterned images as soon as I close my eyes? It's a laden step to decide to grow up. It hurts. No wonder not many travel this road.

Where to now?

Miss Smilla wants to run. She wants new virgin planes to set her not so little foot on. She screams for deserts, roads, books, stairs, stars. Is she stupid? Is she dreamin'? Is she marrying a demon? (just cos it rhymes)

Should Miss Smilla stay where she is? Just goddammit stay for once??

No, don't answer.

Perfect

Photo: Courtesy of Zvika Rotbart

It’s clearly a non-enlightened being speaking, but some days are better than others. Some days suck. While other days just seem to flow, like nature intended them to do, without grinding halts, or pitfalls, or otherwise annoying obstacles.

On one of these days, you may go out for dinner with a dear friend. You may sit in a waterfront restaurant and watch the sun lazily make its way down towards the water, your skin aglow with the evening light. You may wiggle at the sight of the amazing array of middle-eastern salads being brought, all for you to taste and fill you with carnal delight. There might be some bubbly white wine involved, gentle in taste but exploding in your head with fireworks and stories that arrive from god knows where. You’d look up from these fragrant goodies, into your friend’s laughing eyes. You’d be mildly surprised, ever so slightly baffled, for all the knowing him, you’ve suddenly seen him again, anew. You’ve both been able to temporarily strip off, from your individual histories, and from the one you share together. You’ve even forgotten the neglect and grief you might have caused one another. As you laugh, eat, tell funny stories, feed your posh fish dish to the cat – you feel excited; you want to start getting to know your friend all over again.

And then…

Then Shai and I repeated our infamous walk through the empty and trashy Carmiel Market again. It was just as stinky and sticky as on my first night here, only this time Shai (sans the halva), God bless his soul, carried me on his back.

And then we said good-bye. And I was wistful, but joyful, that a friendship I thought of as lost, showed hope to be salvaged after all. That forgiveness and compassion can triumph over resentment and hurt feelings. That you can know someone long and well, and continue to see the goodness in them.

As my Israel trip inevitably draws to an end, I am sad. I don’t want to leave yet. So much still to see, to learn. So many people to meet and have a little banter with. So many pitas with falafel to eat.

It hasn’t been an entirely easy month. Some of my expectations crashed with a huge thud when confronted with ruthless concrete of reality. Some timid hopes had to be buried under the not so clean sands of Tel Aviv’s beaches. Other timid hopes have had to remain timid hopes, for now. And there were times when my longing for loving touch preceded all thought.

But amidst all this balagan, unexpected love for this breathtakingly beautiful land was born. I began to find stories in the mundane and catch them on the fishing rod of my words again. Passion and creativity were restored to me. The sorry leftovers of my prozac pills finally landed in the bin. We all know that life ain’t an endless firework show. Still, for here and now, dear readers, let Miss Smilla proclaim herself – recovered.

"Say anything is possible,

It's not too late

The sun has already risen

It's time for love

Together, heart to heart,

we'll open and we'll see

The light in the sky

Together, heart to heart

we'll open with hope

- to love" Yachad, by Gaya

(translation from Hebrew)

(and she better not be mistaken).