Are we here yet?

Although we’ve landed here five days ago, it seems that I have yet to arrive. It’s curious. I’ve reconnected to my Hebrew, my family says I use my body to expressively communicate in ways that I don’t do in English. I’ve visited my beloved, complicated, decrepit, old, crumbly house and bomb shelter and my now-fenced-in elementary school. I’ve lived vicariously through my kids as they’ve had Shoko, the cold milk chocolate I had drunk as a kid from a plastic bag, and have devoured the mounds of the candy of my youth. I’ve seen and engaged with old friends and neighbors, whom I have not seen in 17 years, but I feel, well, not so much. I just thought that it would be more intense, that I would feel a plethora, a swelling, of emotions. After all, this is Israel, right? The land of intense and tense people, where food, words, politics, religion and driving are over the top, isn’t it?

Contrary to my popular belief, people are actually pretty mellow. Not many people are leaning on their car’s horn as if they’ve just had a heart attack. It’s pretty quiet everywhere, even in the middle of Tel Aviv. Really. People have been friendly, helpful and, dare I say, relaxed. Is it I who has changed? Have I been trying to uphold the illusion that Northern California is relaxed? I know, I’m on vacation, but still, to see that one of the most garrulous places on Planet Earth is chillaxed, as my kids would say, gives one pause, no?

One of my kids, who is decidedly un-relaxed at home, the one who didn’t even want to come here, and who anticipated the beginning of WWIII being in a car with his parents for two weeks, has been gobbling mounds of hummus with zaatar, pinenuts and tahini with fluffy, hot pita and has informed me that he is not going back. He loves it here. He wants to stay amongst the Bedouin of a tiny village called Lakiya in the Negev and hang. He is cognizant that it would be challenging to live there without basic services, living in an unrecognized, i.e. unsupported, part of Israel, but something has shifted in him. He wants to do a Gap year there! He says that it would give quite the perspective of living without the services we take for granted in the US. This is from the guy who consistently makes fun of me for my gratitude practice. He misses his friends, but now is wondering how to gather all of them and go on an extended trip together. That’s my boy, gathering communities to experience the world relationally. Whoa! It’s so funny. People here who know that he is not biologically my son, are dumbfounded at how alike we are in looks, temperament, expressions. The Universe sure does work in mysterious ways and I am rather mystified today.