Is this my country?

After the bumpiest flight to the other side of the world, where I rapidly became an ultra-orthodox Jew praying mightily to just get to the Holy Land in one piece, we arrived to a beautifully warm, lazy Saturday morning in Tel Aviv. I didn't get teary-eyed. I didn't burst into the national anthem. I didn't kiss the ground. I felt a little foreign. A stranger in a strange land. Where was the excitement, the nerves, the heart palpitations for a country I had left with so many unresolved memories? Not quite yet present, apparently. Where were the bronze, rugged soldiers with their dangling Uzis? Where were the long lines of weary travelers being questioned by stern-faced security interceptors? Apparently, those weren't here either. The Israel I knew must have dissolved into the sands or receded along with the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, the enormous date palms batted their heavy-lidded branches coyly. The signature 90-degree cranes stood, towering over half built, erections, at attention.

We dropped our luggage at the hotel and headed to the beach in an attempt to keep our teens awake and battle the time change. I saw Plumbago, the same flower that had gazed upon me with azure eyes when I was a third-grader and getting paid with fudgesicles for favors I did for sixteen year old Arab boys. We saw feral cats, who didn't look so scrawny now, begging for some love.

As we reached the beach, a familiar, visceral, awaking occurred in my nostrils, the indelible scent of fried sea - salty air mixed with falafel and chips (a.k.a french fries). I was mesmerized and seduced as other delicacies joined in a rambunctious, cacophonous tugging that had coupled with my early longings, reminding me how I had those, temporarily requited by an insatiable wolfing. My brain went into what it thought was a rational monologue about how there are many ways to sustain weight loss and surely some people could have just a plate of hummus, and garbanzo beans sure are healthy, and if I measured the portion, couldn't I just have some? As if this was about weight loss...As if hummus was a contender as my favorite food...As if the possibility of losing my community, my sponsor, my life was just a tiny, inconsequential decision.

Yikes!

I picked up the phone and dialed a fellow, Israeli woman who does what I was doing with my food. Good to know this mantra was drilled into me, even menopause couldn't obfuscate it - Going it alone is never an option. She assured me that this wasn't the first time I had felt this way. It had probably happened in places like New York, the other Jewish city. It had. I had survived that. She reminded me that it will take a few days, but that I will get through it and it will dissipate. It was good to know that I had a lifeline, a preserver to hang onto anywhere in the world. OK, I could now move towards the Shuk, with my family, my innards intact.

There, amidst barrels of shiny olives, freshly-baked oval, sesame breads, pomegranates the size of inflated softballs spilling rubies, I moved into my role as a food-pusher, wanting to stuff my family with all my once-favorite things. I noticed how insistent I had become at having them savor what I could not.

I ingested the vibrant palette of bashful, engine-red tomatoes, the heady fragrance of variegated melon and soft-yellow guavas, the piles of fat, pink radishes, the snowiness of lamb-y goat-y cheeses, the erotic, spread-eagle, purple figs by clicking my shutter, gulp after gulp.

Thank goodness there are many ways to experience abundance.

My son, who never wants to leave home and who had complained about being in a foreign country where no one speaks English (wtf?) told me he was in love with this city and can he please move here? He loved the incessant movement, the crumbling, ancient-ruins-meets-Bauhaus architecture, the people out in cafes at night. I was truly shocked and pleased. This is my country. My son loves my country. There was something that resonated for him. Something that has pulled me back. Something that still, on day two, seems surreal and untethered is touching, reeling us both in ways I have yet to comprehend. I can't wait to see what happens when we actually get to my birth city, Haifa.