So much time has gone by since Israel. With all that's going on right now, I've been reflecting on my time (in a personal, not political way).
I've done so much since I came back home. I'm back at Wellesley College, taking classes like Archaeology and a seminar on Apocalypses and Armageddons. Junior year of college creeps up on you. Your future starts hanging over you. But I love what I'm doing, and that's all you can ask for. Our Shakespeare Society put on Henry IV Part 1 in which I had (have I should say--at the time of writing this, we have 3 more nights to perform) the role of Hotspur as well as the producer for the show. It's been a lot of work but one of the best challenges I have undertaken. Outside of class, that ends up consuming your life, and outside of work for the show, I haven't had a lot of time for much else. Without speaking every day, my Hebrew's fallen behind a bit, but my Hebrew copy of The Prisoner of Azkaban keeps me in shape. I've also taken up archery. I signed up for the PE class, and I've actually gotten pretty good. I tied for first in an on-campus tournament a couple weeks ago, and my coach is encouraging me to keep going after this semester.
If you'd asked me three months ago, I would have said, "Yes. I will definitely be going back to Israel." Now I'm not so sure. Current political/dangerous climate or no, I don't know that I'm as much a one for travel as I thought, and I'm honestly enjoying being home a lot more than I thought. It's a large part of why I never made a final entry. I made it home and I wanted to let it all slip behind me. I had memories and stories and photos, but I wanted to let myself be here and not have to dredge up all the sensations of being there again.
After I returned, I kept describing my feeling as not "culture shock" but "cultural exhaustion." Granted I was only there about 2 months, but after a while, especially when you don't speak the language, there's something grating about every time you want to read a sign--you have to work. If you want to buy food--you have to work. Everything takes focus and effort. Nothing is entirely familiar, so there's this constant sense of displacement. And on top of it all, Jerusalem is filled with a tragic air of tension that is tiring. It's a beautiful city full of such wonders, and it's constantly undercut with religious and political tension. I described the palpability of the city's holiness, but the tension is no less tangible, and the two strain to mix together. And it's exhausting to be in that mix. So as much as I loved Jerusalem and Israel and everything it has to offer, I am in no rush to return. I know I'll get restless again and eventually want to travel somewhere, but maybe not somewhere so tense (and of course, if Wellesley wants to give me another grant, who am I to say no?). Until then, I'm content here.
But I'm looking back because Israel finds me here. In memories and in the news.
When I was there, I commented on the daily interplay the Israeli-Palestinian conflict created. I see it again now in America. Facebook posts from friends from Jerusalem 'calling out' Hamas propaganda are followed immediately by Muslim friends shaming the President's response to the situation. Overseas, lives are being lost, and here, friends are being lost in petty argument sover right and wrong. I say petty not because I feel the conflict is so but that reducing it to name-calling arguments about religious rights, propaganda, and who's in the wrong is both petty and insulting to those who are suffering. So long as these arguments are our responses to these events, they will continue. Both acts of war and our responses to them propagate a culture of hate in any direction.
This is an issue of life. Human life. No less.
So for now, my blog is concluded. My time in Israel is done. I've finally closed out my thoughts. And I'm moving along. I may use this space for other related thoughts in the future, but for now I'm done.
Thank you, readers, for enjoying this blog and checking so frequently as you did. It was lovely to know while I was there you were all out there staying updated.
But for now, on to the next adventure.
