Halfway between here and there

Sitting in the garden with my feet up on the chair and my favorite drink in hand (half lemonade, half beer), I watch the sunset, gazing at the trees and the swarming masses of gnats illuminated by the beams of sunlight. It looks as if the bugs are trapped within these narrow streams of light, but I know that it is only my perception, or rather lack thereof, that gives the appearance of isolated swarms. In reality they are all around.

The 11 year old version of myself is nudged awake by this image. I can see myself running through the grass, trying to catch fireflies in the long evenings of Missouri summers. My Grandmother is stretched out on her lawn chair doing a word cross puzzle and my Grandfather is marching about the garden with his precise step; his pant legs tucked neatly into his socks and a floppy canvas hat looking decidedly out of place on the head of an otherwise meticulously dressed Englishman.

My Grandmother has been dead for nearly 10 years. My Grandfather nearly 4. But my daily life is still wrapped up in the memories of our lives together.

I am going back to the Middle East in a matter of weeks. Though it's only for the summer, it's filled me up to the brim with emotions for which I cannot quite find the words.

So I sit on this wrought-iron chair watching the stray cats romp through the tall grass of an unruly garden. I breathe everything in deeply. The trees and their delicate star-shaped leaves. The honeysuckle plant that British guy just planted over the weekend; its vines have been pushed against the trellis. I sip my beer and try to wrap my head around the mixture of yearning, excitement and fear rushing through my veins causing an impossible churning in my heart. That conflicted mass of emotion that comes from a desire to go, but a reluctance to leave.

France has become my home. I feel mixed up in it, my whole life tangled up in its complexities, idiosyncrasies and simple beauty. Like being tangled in the sheets and wrapped up in the arms of a lover, not ready for sleep, but still reluctant to get up and disturb the cozy equilibrium of two people wrapped up in each other.

But the Middle East is where I came to terms with myself. Somewhere between Arabic and Hebrew; the checkpoints and the confusion; the simplicity of a starry night on a warm rooftop and the complexity of an enduring conflict...I uncovered elements of myself I never knew existed.

And they were good.

California Dreaming, Ramallah Reminiscing

A year ago today, I wrote the following while sitting in the Stars & Bucks (yes, you read that correctly) café in Ramallah. I had been in the West Bank for four months at that point and decided to write a little blurb about how I was feeling. In third person. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Somewhere in the Middle East, a young American woman sits at a cafe (a blatant and hilarious rip-off of a well-known American chain) contemplating the day's events over an iced latte. 


She looks out over the scuttle of taxi cabs and pedestrians. The soldiers lean apathetically against the beige stones; flicking cigarettes to pass the time. Trash swirls in tumbleweed fashion amid the vendor stalls where fat tomatoes sit in stacks with dirt still clinging to their taut flesh. 


It is noon. 


The call to prayer bounces off the hills and hangs in the air for a moment before falling on the ears of the dutiful and the not-so-dutiful. This young woman falls into the latter category and pulls her sweater self-consciously around her shoulders. But even with this gesture of insecurity, she thinks with satisfaction that she feels comfortable in this place. 


Jostling through crowds and swinging from buses and taxis like an over-confident kid on the monkey bars has now become a familiar routine and adds a confident swagger to the spectacle of her blonde hair in a crowd of brunettes, shiny raven locks and brightly colored hijab. She is an outsider, but she is an outsider who is learning how to belong. 


She can march past the gawking teenage boys in their tight jeans; their crude phrases falling a foot short  as she glares with a ferocity that silences even the most rambunctious of them. She knows to examine the wares of the vendors while shaking her head with disinterest and murmuring "ghralli, ghralli. expensive. expensive." Her palate has learned to crave warm pita bread drenched in spiced olive oil, washing it down-oddly enough--with buttermilk. 


But today is special. 


Today her heart has nestled into the foothills of this place. 


Today she knows she will never escape its hold and her heart will always beat a little faster when she sees the flag bearing the red triangle with the three stripes. 


Today she sips her latte and knows that whatever chaos this place might hold, she belongs to it. 

Painting on a building in Bethlehem

Painting in Tel Aviv

(Sorry for the quick post of old material, but...getting ready to head to Italy for a few weeks, then to the UK, and then home to California for the holidays. Possibly Spain in-between. Chaos. The best kind of chaos, but nonetheless chaos.) 


www.ExpatWomen.com

Reminiscing: My time in the Middle East- Part 2

Continuing with some older e-mail excerpts and photos from my time in the Middle East....This one is dated July, 2009.

Beit Sahour, 2009 

When you’re as white and as blonde as I am, standing out in the Middle East isn’t hard to do. Neither is making a spectacle of yourself. I continue to do both on a daily basis. Today I got stuck in a gate at the checkpoint between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. I am probably the only person in the history of this conflict to get stuck in that checkpoint without the help of an Israeli soldier. (The dialogue went something like…Don’t worries, guys. I got it. You look busy. I’ll just detain myself…). They have a series of revolving gates that are just big enough for one person to walk through. They only go forward. If you try to push them back, they lock. Well I went through with two suitcases and my laptop bag and my bag got caught in the gate and I tried to push the gate back and my bag got stuck, essentially imprisoning me. The man behind me was laughing too hard to help, but it was nice to have an appreciative audience. After what seemed like an eternity of intense swearing and pushing I managed to get through, much to the dismay of the very bored Israeli soldier in the booth watching me. I think he was sad that the entertainment didn’t last longer. So that was fun.

Bethlehem Checkpoint, 2009

The other thing I don’t recommend doing is wearing cheap plastic flip flops on slabs of stone. You’ll probably slip and fall in the market in front of the entire town of Beit Sahour. I did. It’s my way of making friends in foreign countries. Normally I use my outstandingly clever wit to entertain people (ha), but since I’m about 3 million light years away from mastering Arabic I have to resort to getting stuck in checkpoint gates and falling down steps. So far, so good. I made three new friends today because of my complete lack of physical grace.


The reason I was in the checkpoint in the first place is that Lufthansa lost my luggage in Germany (what gives Lufthansa? Favorite airline ever messes up for the first time!). Luckily they were able to track it down and then deliver it to Jerusalem. Since Israelis technically aren't allowed into the West Bank (it's complicated), I had to walk through the checkpoint, pick up my luggage, and walk back through. Other than that the trip over here was…well…the plane didn't crash and the wine was plentiful so how bad could it have been?


My place is really nice if not a little too spacious for just me. A lovely furnished apartment, complete with a poster of 2-Pac. The flat is on my friend's family’s property, and as soon as I put my bags down on Tuesday night my friend ushered me upstairs to the family home and introduced me to everyone. Her mother sat me down at the kitchen table and immediately started setting plates of food in front of me. I think I might have eaten my weight in stuffed grape leaves…which is good because I'm scared to use the stove in my apartment (I have to light it with a match, and for some reason this frightens me. I really think I might blow something up...and by "something" I mean me) and since that night I've been eating cucumbers and tomatoes almost exclusively. 


Overall things are going well. I'm adapting and making friends easily enough. It's a small town so I feel like everyone already knows me or at least of me. I get a lot of stares walking down the street which makes me feel self-conscious and vulnerable, but I'm slowly getting used to it. The children's stares are my favorite. Although they do look terrified. I sometimes have that effect on people. I love just wandering down the narrow streets and feeling the weight and significance of the history on all sides of me. Sometimes I wander into the church of the Nativity and just watch people come and go. Today is Friday so mostly everything is closed, and the plaza in front of the main mosque is full of people and parked cars. 


As I conclude this e-mail, I am looking out over the desert as the full moon illuminates the landscape. I can make out the crescent moon identifying the mosque and the lights from the Israeli settlement across the way flicker with a hesitancy of being that their owners never show. The church of the Nativity rises up behind me. The shadow of the cross falls across the square. The landscape struggles to exude a peace that its inhabitants have very rarely known. 

Bethlehem, 2009

Reminiscing: My time in the Middle East

While walking through an eco-festival in Grenoble yesterday morning, I noticed a booth selling Palestinian crafts. Hand-carved wood figurines of camels and shepherds, beautiful handmade shawls, and bottles of olive oil. It made me miss the region so I thought I'd take a few posts to highlight some of the adventures I had while staying there. I first encountered Israel and Palestine in January 2009. I stayed in the region for a month participating in a project for my graduate school. I loved it. And as soon as I returned to the States I made plans to go back. And I did. For nearly 7 months I lived in Bethlehem working for a joint Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian environmental NGO. It was an amazing experience and the region and the people (both Israelis and Palestinians) made an indelible mark on my heart and world view. 

Tel Aviv, 2009

Here is an excerpt from an e-mail dated July, 2009

I'm getting ready to set off for Palestine so I thought I'd just start the "i'm still alive" e-mail updates now.  I've crammed just about everything I might need (and plenty of stuff that I probably won't) for the next 7 months in two bags, and I'm sitting here staring at my passport and rehearsing the story I've got to tell the Israeli guards at the airport, but somehow I can't wipe the bemused look off my face when saying that I am a devout Christian who is there to see the Holy Sites...again. I think of the Greek Orthodox marching down the streets of Jerusalem. Their somber faces and billowing black gowns are how I picture the devout, and it is not a category I wish to fall under. My devotion has less of the severity that comes from kneeling uncomfortably on hard surfaces for too long and more of the passion that comes from laughing hysterically while dancing under the stars of a glorious desert sky. I am excited, albeit a little nervous, to be going back. There are things I have missed and moments I look forward to experiencing again, but not enough time has passed for me to forget the difficulty of life there and the powder keg frustration of a people under occupation. I know that if things go wrong, it will happen too quickly for me to react. There is no escaping that vulnerability. When the Israeli jets fly low and fast, my heart stops with the knowledge that my innocence is irrelevant. My location is not. But since I'm sitting here with my ticket, my passport, and every intention of going...I try not to think about it too much. 

Bethlehem, 2009