Leaving on a Jet Plane

I left my apartment in Berkeley at 6:30 in the morning on Nov. 30th. We were running late. My husband's older brother, Ryan, and his girlfriend, Brittani, had come to stay with us for Thanksgiving, and had only left the day before, so I had been up very late packing and trying to finish schoolwork before I left. We overslept, and as we left the house, I had no idea if I would make the flight or not. If I didn't, I could be in real trouble, as I had a very close connection in New York, and if I missed that connection, then I would not make it to Tel Aviv until too late to make it Jerusalem, and so on. I also am very afraid of flying.

It was in this state of mental turbulence that I managed to pry myself out of the car and begin the process of boarding the plane. The trip had officially begun.

In spite of the fact that I had specifically packed a bag small enough to carry on, I was late enough that they made me check it because of worries that there would be not enough space for carry-on luggage. Apparently the new charges for checking bags have made more people decide to carry on luggage, which results in, you guessed it! not enough space for carry-on luggage in the bins and under seats. Oh well, if my suitcase didn't make the transfer, so be it. I was too tired to care. I got into my seat, fastened my seat belt, and took my little blue and white happy pill.

We made it to New York without incident (JFK, for those of you who know the New York airports). Once there, I had to exit through security and change terminals, in order to re-pass through security and board my plane, all in just under two hours. Having succeeded in locating the correct terminal and check-in desk, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a large and exceedingly grumpy-looking Israeli security officer. The conversation was something like this:
"Where are you going?"
"Israel. "
"Why are you going to Israel?"
"To take a course"
"In what?"
"ummm...history? religion?"
"What is your job?"
"I'm a student"
"What do you study?"
"Biblical languages"
"So you speak Hebrew"
"No, not really, I can read ancient Hebrew..."
"But you know Hebrew"
"well, some..."
"So, if you already know, why are you going to Israel?"
"to study?"
"But you have already studied"
"...?"
and so on.
Finally a much nicer security woman came and took me away. She sent me away to buy food while she checked over my carryon, which was nice, since American flights don't feed you, and it was now past 6pm. Fortunately I had remembered to bring granola bars, but a sandwich was a nice diversion. When she had finished (very thoroughly) checking my bags, she escorted me all the way down to the plane and literally walked me onto the plane and to my seat. I'm not entirely sure why she did this- I suspect it was just because the security lines were so long that I would never have gotten through to catch my plane, but whatever the reason, it was very nice.

I overheard later that our flight was delayed about an hour in New York because of rain, but I never knew it. I was asleep as soon as I was settled. (love those anti-anxiety pills!) I woke up the next morning (or later that night? time gets iffy here) just as we began to fly into the sunrise over France. The whole sky below us was a sea of clouds, and as the dawn began to break across the plane, all the orthodox Jews around me began to step into the aisles to do their morning devotions. It was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen.

In order to understand how I felt about this, you have to know that I grew up in the rural midwest. I'd probably seen maybe 5 people I knew were Jewish in the whole first 23 years of my life. After moving to Berkeley, I'd probably met another 5, and I had been to synagogue twice, and all of that was my full exposure to Judaism. I'd seen orthodox Jews in Europe, but I was probably the only non-orthodox Jew on that plane within ten rows on either side. This was something I had seen only once before in my life (in an airport, interestingly enough), these orthodox men with their hats and their prayer shawls and their phylacteries.

And it was beautiful. The range of expression, the range of fervor. From the men who would interrupt their prayers to joke with one another or talk to the stewardesses, to the men who performed the whole ritual in absolute focus, from the different trim on their shawls, to the little boys with their curled side-locks watching as their fathers stepped into the aisle to proclaim their faith in G-D, it was amazing. I watched absolutely awe-struck for the full hour or so that it took all of them to finish, as dawn finished breaking and we made our way to the Mediterranean.

The interesting thing was, though, that it made me less afraid. Theologically, this makes no sense to me. First of all, I don't believe in a God who would strike down a plane, and even if I did, I wouldn't believe in one who would be any more or less likely to strike down a plane filled with religious people than he would one filled with atheists. But somehow, my irrational self was comforted by the faith of the men around me. Maybe we were in a small metal box high above the earth, but they didn't care. It was morning, and they needed to pray. The end. There's something very admirable in that, at least to me. A certain dogmatism against circumstance, I guess, that says regardless of your situation, there are things you must do, and prayer is one of them.

Anyway, we flew across Corsica, and Italy, and bits of Greece, and then the next thing I knew, we were in sight of the coast of Israel, and landing at Tel Aviv.

Who knew Tel Aviv was so big? I didn't. I had a fun time watching the burly guys in their pretty little yarmulkes unloading our baggage, and then made it through baggage claim and passport control with no incident. I successfully got my money changed, purchased a phone card and a soda, and armed with the St. George's instructions on getting a taxi, I ventured out into the street.

The taxis were there, as promised, but they were not labeled for Jerusalem as the paper said they would be, and since I am both a stickler for detail and a pretty suspicious traveler, I was leery of getting into anything that did not exactly meet the description on my paper. The taxi drivers, however, were having none of it. I'm not sure if it was because I was a woman, or because I was a foreigner, or because I clearly didn't know what I was doing, or all of the above, but the two drivers took about two and a half minutes to dispense with my arguing and squish myself and my suitcase into the back of an over full taxi.

I found myself in a backseat with three other people, in a taxi the size of a regular US minivan but seating eleven instead of seven. The luggage filled the back to the roof, but the driver clearly did not really need rear vision. He had driven this road a million times, which must go a ways to explaining why he felt able to take it as fast as he did. (Interesting note- though I must have seen a thousand different soldiers and police in Israel, I never once saw anyone pulled over for speeding. and believe me, there should have been!)

My seatmates in the backseat were perhaps the most stereotypical New York Jews I have ever seen in my life, and I mean that in no derogatory way. Next to the window was Esther, the stunning 17 yr old daughter living in Israel and going to school, and who looked like a younger (and cleaner) Monica Belluci in the Passion of the Christ. She and her mother took turns calling home to Esther's younger sisters Golly and Yael, who were staying with Bubbi, and trying to arrange for a pair of shoes ("the tan ones that we got at the mall last summer- Yael knows which ones I mean!") and a camera charger to come over with Yael in a couple of days, so that when they went to see Hadassah and her new baby (" a girl!! can you believe it? a girl! we were all so sure it was a boy, but a girl!!") mom could have her shoes. Of course, there was the inevitable discussion of how much better the cawfee in New York is. They were really very sweet people, and I talked to them a little bit. Mostly I listened in awe though.

At this point we had been rattling around the Jerusalem suburbs for about an hour, and I have to say that it was the only part of the trip on which I was really glad that Kyle was not with me. I have a stomach of iron when it comes to motion sickness, but even I was beginning to feel the effects of being in the back of a small stuffy van which was taking hairpin turns at 45mph. Kyle would have been distinctly greener. Our driver spoke virtually no English, and in fact (as I discovered when he came back as the van was emptying to ask where I was going), had almost no teeth. This, combined with his continual habits of smoking cigarettes and eating sunflower seeds, resulted in a particularly vile substance which he sprayed upon his audience when asking for addresses.

Forunately, I know Hebrew numbers, and I was able to tell him the address I needed (thank you Prof. Endres), but I was the last to be dropped off. Apparently it is not that common for people to take a taxi to Eastern Jerusalem. At this point my more suspicious side kicked in, and I got out my map to attempt to make sure that we were at least heading in the right direction. I was able to match some street names to the map, and just as I figured out where we were, I was there. I paid the driver, dodged his last words, and trundled my little suitcase over to the very large and very closed gate.

The gate remained very closed, so I trundled on down the sidewalk, hoping for another door. within a short distance it became apparent that A) there was not another labeled door close by, and B) I looked like a total eejit wandering around with a suitcase, so I returned to the gate. This time the gate opened like magic, and the very lovely and very friendly warden , one Kathi McDonald came walking toward me saying "you must be Nancy!"

It is a measure of my jet lag at that point that I didn't once question how she knew who I was, but bobbed obediently in her wake as she popped me into the elevator, swooshed me down the hall, and ushered me into my new room, The Good Samaritan Room, and introduced me to my new roommate, one Jenn Strawbridge.

My impressions of Jenn that first night are fuzzy, for obvious reasons. I remember being pleasantly surprised that she was my age, and thinking that she seemed very nice, and worrying that I was probably giving completely incoherent answers to the questions she was asking. I got in a shower, and got unpacked, and then it was time for pre-dinner mingling.

There are few things I like less than mingling with people I don't know, but I was fuzzy enough that I figured jet-lag would be a good excuse for any incoherent conversational response or social faux pas, and I did manage to talk to and meet several nice people. I also managed to completely shove my foot in my mouth by telling a visiting conservative british/irish priest my disappointment on the passage of Prop. 8 here in california, but fortunately I succeeded in pissing off the one person there that evening who was not, in fact, going to be on our trip, so well done me!

I remember that dinner was delicious, and I also remember that it was shortly after I had finished my plate full of excellent food that I began to realize that I was quite literally falling asleep at the table (sorry, Susan G- I think it was your story in which I began to head-bob, and I assure you, it was nothing personal!) and excused myself.

I made it upstairs, laid down on the proper bed, and didn't wake up until six in the morning. At some point Jenn must have come back and gone to bed, but I was completely unaware of this. She also mustve turned out my light. (thanks, jenn!)

I had arrived.

our god, heaven cannot hold him

I begin this blog on Sunday morning before dawn, day 3 of my being back in my "real" life. I don't know yet if I'll share it with anyone or not yet- at the moment, I just need to talk to someone about what this has all been like.

I feel as though I'm in mourning. Not the sort of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth mourning, but the kind that comes later, the divorce from the things and people around you, the inability to explain thoughts or feelings, and the longing for someone to hear pushed up against the knowledge that no one will understand.

Nothing in my "real" life seems real right now. I fell asleep in my chair last night, and when i woke up, I was completely disoriented for a good little while. I had to sit there and try to recognize the things on the wall, to figure out where I was and what I was doing there. That moment was more extreme, but every day is a little like that.

Where am I, and what am I doing here? What is this tiny apartment with crammed with stuff and infested with ants from the rain? Who are these cats who yowl for food? What are these application deadlines, and why am I supposed to care about them?

Jenn, my roommate and buddy, where are you? Stephen, come tell me what we're doing next. Jill, are we all here? Peter, are you hiding? Shouldn't you be telling a story? Phil, there's a great photo right over there, you'd better come take it. Brother David, will you lead us in a song?

Where has everyone gone? and why am I all alone?