Week 9: fiction and fact: speculative piece

Parallel universes

It is my birthday this week, quiet negligible date in the bigger scheme of things yet of grave importance to me. Another line imprinted  in the sand to mark the passage of time, another reminder of dreams that were abandoned and decisions that were not acted upon. At this point of my life when the equilibrium between the past and the future is starting to slant heavily and the past is acquiring force, the road ahead seems unclear and hazy. I can’t see beyond the next curve in the road or perhaps I am just too tired to play mind games and try to guess it out. Tired of all the what’s ifs, maybes, if only, how about…

Instead I am imagining a world that takes into account parallel universes, a world in which the concept of series of planes of existence where the laws of nature differ from one another is prevalent. In a world like that I should be able to choose my path and perhaps an alternative path and so on and so on until the end of time. I will be able to walk down the road in each one of them and see how they play out, while holding on to the same cards I was given at birth.

Returning back from each of these fictional journeys I will be brimming with new knowledge and able to make wiser decisions.  Unless, of course if this is not how it works and the wisdom gained in one journey won’t be transferrable into my bank of knowledge ready to be used on the next one. Than I can only hope that as I am floating through one universe I can track myself in the parallel one, wave franticly to get my own attention and scream at the top of my lungs “Hey, wrong way, stop! Turn around”. Only knowing my usual tendency towards distractedness, I can foresee how my parallel self will just smile, wave and keep on going towards its unavoidable destruction.

As far as I know going back in time will not do the trick either. Even in a world with no rules this one always holds true, even if you can transport yourself back to the precise point in time, you can never change the past to affect the future.

The situation then seems rather hopeless and as I go over it bit by bit I still cannot find a true loophole. There seems to be no way to change the past or control the future even with the knowledge of where it is heading and a keen sense of premonition.

And so I give up and once again roll the old film in my head. Like an over watched screenplay observed many times before, I know it all too well and still I am hoping to discover a new angle. Life has definitely been rich in surprises and unexpected turns and so as a last resort I try what I tried many times before to pin down the exact points in time, where I veered away from one path unto another. Maybe if I succeed it would assist me in knowing how the next step is going to evolve?

In the parallel universes scenario I will make a list of all the things I did not do and still wish to carry out and then head on to try each one of them. This vision, like a shiny birthday gift, makes me feel lighter and somewhat freed from the weight of the years.

Week 8:authorial presence: problem/situation/question/explanation piece

Mother tongue

 When I mention that writing in English, which is not my mother tongue, is a special challenge for me, people keep refuting it. When I insist even though it makes me sound like a whining baby trying to gain extra attention, they still don’t get it.

“Oh, what are you talking about your English is just fine” Is the normal reaction. The other one will be “Why, the way you make a use of the words and phrases is so unique and interesting”. It makes me feel like some strange bird admired for its colorful feathers. These same people will get all excited over my accent too. “Oh, and where are you from, I love your accent” I smile politely as I shrink inside.

So yes, sure, my command of the language is just fine but when it comes to writing this by far is not enough and the challenge is huge. Nuances and expressions, slang and idioms, sayings that are rooted deep in the culture, subtle shades of meaning, those are all part of the writers’ language; part of the huge pool from which he can draw just the right word or phrase.

All the while I am hobbling, limping and stumbling along the road. Every sentence typed needs to be reviewed, reread and corrected. Every word needs to be spell checked and verified for its right spelling and meaning. I often look exasperated at the words that come to my mind, words I am not even sure are real words and other times I have remarkable ideas but for the life of me cannot find the right vocabulary to articulate them. I constantly move back and force between the thesaurus, the spell checker, the internet, and the varied dictionaries and still never completely sure that what I write makes sense to anyone but me.

The only explanation I can offer for this torment I put myself through day after day is that I love writing. Writing to me is nothing short of magic, almost like pulling a white rabbit out of my sleeve it’s about creating something out of nothing. I can’t stop marveling at how just few simple words put together in the right way can posses so much beauty and power. While the same words in someone else’s’ hands are nothing but words.

When I read I am forever looking for the secret spell that the writer used to achieve this beauty, this power, this lure. I try to keep at it while paying close attention but always at the end I get drown into the story, only to pick my head up pages and pages into the book and realize that I've missed it again. Sometimes in an extreme effort to find it I will leaf back running my eyes along the pages to no avail. Like true magic you cannot bring it to its knees by tearing it apart and examining the pieces.

I don't know what makes me believe that once I’ll find it, the secret, I can do it too. I am aware of the possible ineptness of my efforts not only to produce good writing but to do it by using a language that is not truly my own. And still I keep at it.

Sometimes I wonder if hiding behind the unfamiliarity of another language makes it easier to say things that are otherwise hard to deal with. Perhaps writing in a foreign language besides being a stimulating challenge is also sort of a refuge, a place of safety.  I found an echo to my thoughts in these lines I took from a poem written by someone who like me feels the duality of writing in a foreign language.

“I write in the Hebrew language which is not my mother tongue,
  to lose myself in the world. He, who does not get lost, will never find the whole.” Salman Masalha

And so I continue to write in the English language which is not my mother tongue stumbling and falling and picking myself up. Perhaps if I will get lost enough I will find the whole.

Week 7: Structure; Profile; Lecture /2

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker

“Walking (also known as ambulation) is one of the main gaits of locomotion among legged animals, and is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined by an 'inverted pendulum' gait in which the body vaults over the stiff limb or limbs with each step. This applies regardless of the number of limbs - even arthropods with six, eight or more limbs.”Wikipedia

***

“So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank side in autumn.” Henry David Thoreau

***

People walk. It’s the natural way to reach from one point to another. We have legs, we move them and so we create a movement. This is very different though from walking with a goal in mind, walking with determination, walking for long distances. This kind of walking is nestled in a much deeper place. It has to do with the mind more than it has to do with the body. Some people walk for health reasons, or so they’ll tell us. Others for the challenge and the ability to say “look, see what I did, look where I was”. But I am talking about walking as a spiritual act when the body serves the soul.

***

I don’t know her very well or for any length of time. And I will not use her name, not only because I never got her permission for that, but mainly because I believe it is not really important. What is important here and I find fascinating is the process in which a person changes over a lifetime and can be so many different things to himself and others.  What is significant here is how with the years we learn to listen to our inner self and focus on things we did not value earlier.  How we move so fast when we are young but learn how to extract meaning from the slower pace of walking, maybe even limping, when we get older.

***

She is a long distance walker, she started being one only three years ago when she turned fifty seven and her marriage and professional life crumbled.  Then she tackled her first long distance walk, the Appalachian Trail, one third of the Triple Crown of long distance hiking in the United States. Walking gave her her piece of mind back, she told me, and since then she is a dedicated walker. Always walking by herself she is carrying the necessary gear on her back, covering the miles until she reaches her planned destination.

***

Is it lonely, I was wondering, spending days on the road with only oneself as a company, only the sound of your footsteps tapping the ground and the rhythm of your breath in and out. No external distractions to surround you and help you bar the flow of thoughts in your head and protect you from your own fears.

She just smiled at me and invited me to join her on her next walk.

***

When she was getting ready for her last three walking expeditions I was there to observe. Amazed how while all of them were long distance walks they differ so much from each other. One was following a well known pilgrimage trail, the other tracking an almost unknown urban trail and the last one climbing up a mountain in a foreign country. I was watching how she zealously practiced every day, studied the maps and purchased the necessary gear, being so particular about the quality of every item  and  even more so  of the weight. Amazed at how the practical bit of getting ready while interesting, did not even came close to the mental aspect.

Each walk presented a whole array of mental challenges ranging from the spiritual ones to the physical ones. While some of them required her to confront the limitations of age others demanded standing up to the primal fears of walking through the inner city streets being completely exposed.

***

I did not join her by walking but I followed her on her walks through her online blog that I helped posting. I was there when she returned from each one of her walks, sharing the experience comparing the before and after. Telling me about new friendships that sprouted on the trails and new insights revealed while facing the varied challenges of the road.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker is but a myth she told in one of these occasions. There is nothing more lonesome then being unhappy in the midst of the crowed, comparing yourself to others, forever competing in the race that cannot be won. I listened to her and thought about the similarities to writing. While not physical in nature it can be just as demanding and complex. The loneliness of the long distance writer, I should adopt it as my new motto. 

Week 7: Structure; Profile; Lecture

Carved in stone/ a pioneer profile

The small cemetery on top of the hill is where all the members of this agriculture community are buried. Standing there the whole valley can be seen, green and dotted with small settlements. In the background the Gliboa mountain range, cursed by King David for being the dying grounds of King Saul and his sons. A curse removed with sweat and blood by the people who settle the valley against all odds.

***

 The grave is a simple plaque of white marble with a short inscription. Leah Brakin, born 1920 died 2002, place of birth, Vienna Austria, place of death Kfar Yehezkeal, Israel. The ample space at the bottom should have included two more words to do her justice, a pioneer…

***

In the small outdated living room less than a mile away, he pulls out some of his picture albums. He leafs through them and looks at the many pictures of her shaking hands with prime ministers, social activists and other dignitaries. “Funny” he says “since I was always too busy to travel with her, she brought the world to me”. And then as an afterthought he adds “From the first moment I saw her; with her strange European clothes, I knew she will change my life forever, I knew I chose a special women to live by her side for the rest of my life”.

***

In the black and white pictures the road leading to the *moshav entrance looks long and steep. It must have shrunk or the new houses built along it over the years, to accommodate the new generation, make it look different.  But then when she came home at the end of the week she had to wait at the bottom for someone to give her a ride. In a horse drawn wagon and later on in a tractor, with her suitcase, she would descent in front of the house every Friday, walk straight into the kitchen and immediately resumes her older role.

 In those years she could be seen almost every weekend walking with at least one guest but often a whole group presenting the unique agriculture endeavor with great detail and knowledge.  Explaining the inner make up of a cooperative agriculture community constitute of individual farms with an emphasis on community labor, the pride in her voice pronounced and obvious. The tour always ended with her walking her guests around the family farm telling them her own personal story.

***

At age sixteen she decided to leave her family, in Vienna and go by herself to Israel. The year was 1938 and the winds of war were already blowing over Europe. She joined a group called “youth immigration” that brought young adults to Israel and arranged for them to stay with families in agriculture settlements. That is how she made it to the moshav and met her future husband. He, being a third generation, Israeli born, *Sabra, belonged to the new aristocracy; someone who grew up on the land, not a new immigrant like her.  And so the pure blood Sabra and the new girl from Vienna fell in love and got married. By then Europe was at war and she lost all contact with the family she left behind.

***

Was it really a love at first sight like in a fairy tale?  Or maybe the truth lies in the slightly different version where she married him so she can get “a certificate” a document the British officials who had the mandate over, then Palestine, agreed to give family members in Europe to allow them to reunite.

This forever will remain a mystery.

***

What is apparent to everyone who ever met her is that she was a pioneer all her life. Always few steps ahead she curved her own path. When she thought her role as a mother and a farm hand was fulfilled, she turned to public service and for the next forty years spent every week in her office in Tel-Aviv, promoting public relations and communication, mainly between Germany and the growing agriculture community in Israel.  With that she went against the stream on so many levels. She left her husband at the farm with two kids returning home only on the weekends from her rented apartment in Tel –Aviv. Equally remarkable was her choice to promote relationships with the country that in those days was viewed as just one short step away from the devil itself. Years later many German youth came to Israel to work and in a way make amends but when she started she was definitely ahead of her time.

***

Every Sunday morning she took the bus going to her office in Tel-Aviv, on the second floor of the headquarters of the “Moshav movement” and on the same bus she returned on Friday. She did not have a car, or a driver. She did it for almost forty years even when she was diagnosed with cancer and had to go through long and painful treatments. Her apartment in Tel-Aviv was a tiny, ground floor, two bedrooms in a quiet side street. She belonged to a dying breed of pioneers, those who led the way by doing what they thought was needed and in their personal life remained modest.

***

She was my aunt,

***

*Moshav, A type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms with an emphasis on community labor.

* Sabra, a Jewish person born in Israeli territory; the term is also usually inclusive of Jews born during the period of the establishment of the state of Israel. "tzabar", related to the Arabic word sabr which means "aloe" or "cactus" or "patience". The allusion is to a tenacious, thorny desert plant with a thick hide that conceals a sweet, softer interior, suggesting that even though the Israeli Sabra are rough and masculine on the outside, they are delicate and sensitive on the inside.

Week 6, autobiographical 'slice' & imagination/2

Home school diary.

Sep 1^st 2001

One of the most difficult things is to watch what seems as “non doing” and refrain from intervention. I try it every day with different levels of success. I try to do it in small dosages. I try for one day then a week. What helps is seeing how happy and relaxed she is. She does not seem bored (in spite of all the non-doing)

My home school diary – our first year.

March 3^rd 2002

Yesterday we decided to leave school, again. Even two hours a day seems too much. Every day we have the same discussion whether to go or not. Its’ not that it is a bad school it is just, a school, same as the one we left originally. Amazing how all schools essentially are the same. The school here appears nicer and more organized. Everyone is very polite and helpful but the fundamental nature is the same. The kids jab each other trying to be subtle about it, the teachers offer the same learning menu to everyone. There is no real growth. Somehow the contact with the system had for awhile a relaxing effect, there will be someone to look after us, it was just an illusion.

My home school diary –the first year, Idaho.

March 22^nd 2002

Waited 2 weeks to see if anyone from the school will call to ask where we are, no one did. So, I thought, freedom can work both ways. We have the freedom to be a part of and the freedom to leave. And why would anyone interfere. I took the responsibility and told them (the school) that we are taking “a break”

They said “Great! Come back when you feel like it”

So we are back home .Keren says she likes it better and I am trying to fight panic attacks concerning “we have done nothing today”

My home school diary – the first year, Idaho.

March 4^th 2002

What will happen if we will not study history?

Maybe nothing…

My home school diary – the first year, Idaho.

April 23^rd 2002

It is almost springtime and we are starting a garden. Planning a garden turned out to be a complex project concerning choosing the right spot, getting the area ready, picking the plants and the right time to plant. I believe all these activities constitute learning…

In our prior life time was a very substantial part and dictated what we did, a tyrant of sorts. Now that I have time to think about time I can see the different rhythm each one has. I tend to get up early in the morning to do my things. Keren on the other hand likes to stay up very late and read. She usually gets up around noon.  Watching her I wonder, how anyone can assume that a group of kids can be interested in the same thing, at the same time.

My home school diary – the first year, Idaho.

July 2^nd 2002

Summer Idaho style, not too hot and rainy, School vacation does not mean much to us, we continue with our daily routine. We adopted an abandoned duck, Raisin, who refuses to go back to nature and looks satisfied living in the garage. We take him to the lake everyday so he can meet other ducks but he is afraid of the water and follows Kerens’ feet very closely.   We were disappointed to find out that what we thought was gold is some worthless material. So the gold rush will not start again …Our lake went back to its regular size and left behind dried patches of earth with dead fish. We tried to save them with no success. Keren is playing baseball with a local group, riding horses and reading.

Every time I worry about her education she will say something that will prove to me, again, that she is absorbing knowledge all the time.

My home school diary –the first year, Idaho.

Jan 28^th 2003

We are moving in a month to the East coast, Maine. We are experienced in moving by now and know how to find, quickly, who is who. Still each move is a challenge. As homeschoolers we need to learn all the rules, find the people who can supply the information and create a social network. The first year had taught us a lot and we are not as lost as we were when we got here. When I remember how worried I was that we will not be able to fill our day, I look at the list Keren compiled lately, of all her occupations and laugh. I realize how much confusion and how many questions I had and see what a long way we did. Yet not being sure and constantly asking questions is an essential part of home schooling.

My home school diary – the second year, Idaho.

March 3^rd 2003

We are in Maine. Having to start all over even though we are more experienced, is not easy. We need to learn the rules and form new contacts. I think the hardest thing with homeschooling and maybe the biggest challenge is to create your own support net. People warned us, when we moved to Maine, that it will be hard to shake the “being from away” feeling and it will take a lot of work to find the way in.

They never told us about the other famous Maine saying.  “You can’t get there from here” it is hard to get from one place to another because there is always a mountain or a lake in the way and there are no easy shortcuts. This seems to be true for human connections too.

My home school diary – the second year, Maine.

May 17^th 2003

We found a virtual school. You enroll the same way as in a regular school. Get all the information regarding subject matter, books etc’. From that point on you are free to build your own plan of studies. You’re assigned a contact teacher and report twice a year. By the end of the 4 years or when she is done with all the requirements, Keren will receive a high school diploma.

I was captured by the idea of freedom within a frame work, being part of the system yet out.

My home school diary – Maine, end of the second year.

 March 3^rd 2004

Keren was featured in the local newspaper. It documented her daily life as a homeschooler and especially her volunteer work at the local cat shelter. We did it!!! I can see the cracks in the ice. We worked hard, invested many hours in volunteer work and reaching out to the community.

When I read the article my first thought was “what a full and interesting life this kid has”.

I am not always sure what we are doing but from a distance, looking at the whole picture, I can see that what we are doing is good. More than that, we feel good with what we are doing and that is the main thing.

My home school diary – the third year, Maine.

2004 – Third year

As Keren grows up a strange development is taking place. She is more independent and spends more time outside the house in volunteer activities or girl scouts. I am home alone. I consider that a success. She is spending time with other kids but what about me. I can’t commit to anything since I need to drive her and bring her back and I am still responsible for her school work. Am I in the stage where I will have to home-school myself?

My home school diary – the third year, Maine.

2005 - Fourth year.

Now that we are in our fourth year things seem to have their own flow. Keren is taking classes in adult Ed. She adjusted to the change easily. I watch her studying in a formal classroom setting and succeed. I give myself an A; we did a good job.

This is my answer to the skeptics who kept telling me of the difficulties she will have fitting into society. I see no difficulties at all. I watch her with her friends acting like any other teenager.

Now that we are in a formal setting there are also grades. Hers are excellent. I smile to myself. Beforehand, when I graded her, everyone said that I am biased being her mom.

My home school diary – the fourth year, Maine.

2005 – Fourth year.

 “Is it difficult?” is a question I am often asked.  It is difficult, sure, but also not at all. Not more difficult then living with the knowledge that other people determine day after day what’s important for your child. And yes it is difficult because of the need to determine time and time again what’s important.

But with time a new clarity is growing inside me and with it strength and confidence. My actions are going through this new filter. Not everything is simple or clear but it is impossible to ignore this “something” that have no name and was not there before.

My home school diary – the fourth year, Maine.

2006 – Fifth year.

Our time together is becoming lesser and lesser. Keren is taking classes in the community college. She is working part time, driving and in the midst of completing a big project for the girl scouts. We meet once a week to plan the week ahead and the rest is her responsibility.

My home school diary – the fifth year, Maine.

2007- Sixth and final year.

High school is over Keren is enrolled in the university for the coming fall...this is so exciting.

I am watching with anticipation to see how she is going to take to the world.

We started when she was 12 and she is eighteen now.

We tried to open the world for her and show her that all is possible; it is for her now to make it happen.

My school years are finally over.

My home school diary – the sixth year, Maine.

Week 6, autobiographical 'slice' & imagination

Once a teacher…

Both my parents were teachers so it is not a big surprise that I became one too. What is surprising is that for the twenty five years I did it, there was not a day I did not wish to leave and do something different. And still in the same almost predictable way we fall into our different rolls in life I kept going. Holding on to something I was definitely good at but convinced was never meant to be my true calling.

Year after year I diligently performed what was asked of me. I invested my best in my students and the other responsibilities bestowed on me, as the years went by and I was perceived as someone who is dedicated, serious and highly qualified. The obvious irony of the situation seemed clear only to me. In those very long twenty five years I tried my hands in almost every facet of the educational  system following, what I thought was a great advice, given to me by a career counselor  I consulted  five years into my teaching career.

When I explained my ambivalence towards teaching, my love hate relationship with the school system this counselor suggested that I will search the endless possibilities available in the educational field and find my niche. I did exactly that. Every two or three years I made a mini career change. Teaching different subject matter, teaching wide variety of ages, teaching regular students and special needs ones and when that was not enough I proceeded to counseling and from there to supervising. Almost breathless I arrived to the twenty fifth year mark and with my trophy, my early retirement, I immediately secured another teaching position this time in a small college in a nearby town.

It took something stronger, more potent, to shake the “school teacher” out of me.

The final push came quite surprisingly from my twelve years old daughter, our youngest, when my husband and I realized she was becoming increasingly unhappy and withdrawn. A short probe reviled that she, an A student and actively involved in school functions, perceived it as a threatening place managed by fickle adults. Those adults scared her due to their inability to control the chaos and aggression of their students. When she refused to go back to her school we backed her, knowing it was against the law but preferring her peace of mind and happiness. While she was sitting home awaiting a solution we were forced to search different alternatives to public education. It was the first time I came across the concept of homeschooling and found other families, who were homeschooling their kids in spite of the fact that homeschooling in Israel was not legal. 

Legal or not it took over a month of her sitting home for the town educational board to go through the needed motions. Truancy investigation, psychological evaluation, some plain and not very subtle manipulations and when all failed and we managed to employ public opinion they caved in. She was allowed to go to another, new, experimental school and with that the homeschooling option was temporarily dropped.

It is a known fact that once you can see beyond a visual illusion you will never be able to return to your previous way of looking at things.  Our experience of standing up to the “accepted “way of doing things and putting our interests and beliefs onward ,altered our whole outlook for good. With that many other supposedly established “truths” lost their power too. What started as a mutiny against one system quickly affected our entire vision.

It took few more months for us to fully grasp the extent of the change in us and be able to act on it. To this day I believe that when we pulled our daughter from her school the process of separating from our home town was completed. Soon afterward we left and began our journey that landed us six years later in Ellsworth. Home schooling while we were moving from one place to another became the obvious choice and most of this time I was the teacher.

So here I was completing a full circle and yet light years away from where I started. I became a one student teacher to my daughter but unlike my prior experience this one was rewarding and very satisfying. I will never stop marveling at our first year of home schooling. We clearly had no idea what we were supposed to be doing and so we did pretty much what we felt like. Surprisingly enough we were busy all the time. We rediscovered freedom. Not the kind where you think you are free just because you have no obligations , the one where you free to explore your world and invest as much time as you feel  in anything  that truly interests you. You can do it for an hour, two hours a day maybe even a week. The bell will not ring every 50 minutes; a new teacher will not appear commanding you to put down what you are doing because it is not the right time. As if there is a right or wrong time for math, biology or whatever. We explored our new environment, we planted a garden, we raised a duck, we looked for gold in our back yard, we performed scientific experiments while cooking, rode horses, ice skated, read books, did a lot of drawing and  even some writing. We had no set schedule and no books, or tests and yet we worked at learning just as hard. In the years to come there were some changes and we incorporated a more structured way of studying, still, in essence things did not change much.

 I was my daughter teacher till she went to college and then and only then I truly retired.

Week 5: Audience & Adult Memoir/2

Wishes.

“I wish things could be easier” I said one day to my friend Naomi. We were sitting next to a small round table in the university coffee shop, sipping coffee and digging into huge slices of apple pie.

“Who does not” she replied shrugging her shoulders, concentrating on especially big piece on her plate.

I like Naomi’s matter of fact attitude towards things. She always seems unnerved by the challenges life throws at her. Always calm and collected, she is using reason as her first line of defense, not emotions like I tend to do.

“Don’t you ever get upset or frustrated” I tried again. “Look around you, there is so much injustice and chaos, so many bad things and sad things and a sea of stupidity”.

Naomi just smiled at me with a mouth full of pie and waved with her hand towards the big glass windows.

“What?” I turned at that direction but all I could see were the trees outside and far away the skyline of Jerusalem. “What are you looking at?” I turned back at her. “I don’t see anything”.

The small cafeteria is on the first floor of the library building in the Mt, Scopus campus in Jerusalem has been one of my favorite places for a long time. Every time I go to Jerusalem I try to find some reason to visit the book store on the second floor and treat myself to a leisurely cup of coffee preferably with a good friend. Naomi has been my friend since fifth grade. Looking at her sitting across from me reminded me of so many things. School, girl scouts, my years in the army, old friends and long lost friendships. It is almost a miracle, I thought, that we remained friends after so many years.

 I looked at her and tried again. “Remember the days we used to walk home together after school and talk about life?” she nodded her head and her eyes looked straight through me. “Life, the future and making decisions” she chuckled. “We were so young and so sure we can make a difference, little did we know” she smiled at me going back in her mind to that time in the past.

“Remember what we used to wish for?” I kept probing.

“That we can have a cup of coffee on Mt. Scopus looking through the windows at the outline of Jerusalem?” she said jokingly but her eyes were serious.

I looked at the window again. The sun was low on the horizon and its rays caught the dome of the rock's golden dome and made it look like pure gold. Behind it I could make out parts of the wall surrounding the city and further away already getting hazy in the dusk, the tall modern buildings of the new city.

“Remember how we used to stand on the balcony of the old Notre Dame Monastery looking at the walls surrounding the old town wondering if we will ever get to see the inside and the Wailing Wall?”

“I remember the first time I made it to Mt. Scopus and saw the town from the other side that was different” Naomi laughed but there was a hint of sadness in her voice. 

“So, just like the stories, we got what we wished for…but” I was not sure where I was going with this thought.

“We were always told that seeing things from a different angel is good for a more balanced perspective” Naomi continued as if she did not hear me and was talking to herself. “It did not work in this case; it did not create better understanding”.

I thought of the many years of living in a divided town. A town with a wall running in its midst separating us from almost all the sacred places. I thought about the other years when the wall was not there anymore. Walls create a physical divide but people do the rest.

I touched my cup, it was cold. The remains of the pie on my plate looked colorless and bland. Somehow the day had lost its color as if a big cloud covered the sun and made everything look bleak.

“Lets’ go” I said to Naomi who was still gazing at the windows and seemed deep in thought.

“Do you ever think” she said as if continuing my sentence “how things could have turned out if this wish would not have been granted?”