the israel journal
excerpts.

August 29 1998 Wednesday

So, I�m here. In room 401B. With the Jerusalem chilly night breeze blowing in on my sadly bare shelves. It was quite a day (or really, two days): with Wes to Chicago; arriving within minutes of my Minnesotan Anne; rushing to terminal five to catch the guys at SwissAir; plane after plane after plane; checking Anne�s baggage at Zurich only to arrive in Jerusalem without half of mine. It�s so good to be with Annie again, in our rooftop room with the Hebrew pop lyrics wafting in with the chilly breeze. And the ugly bedding and the clicking door. With drooping eyes and aching shoulders. With a hopefulness and an anticipation that is only enlivened by this city.

What waits for me, O Jerusalem?

September 1 1998 (Andrew's birthday) Tuesday

Yesterday we started classes and so that is the way it goes.

Today slipped through my fingers at an alarming rate. I went to orientation, fell asleep on Annie�s bed when I took an afternoon shower, and when I woke: she and the boys were gone. So Wes and I went down to the Hinnom (�hell�) valley, and I ate a wild pomegranate and then studied all afternoon, to evening to night. I just looked up to see a star shoot across the Jerusalem sky.

My eyes sting and shooting stars have fallen.

September 2 1998 Wednesday

Anne and I got the key to the school�s cemetery this afternoon and took pictures. Tonight, when we returned from the new city, we ganked James and Wes and explored it at night, under the Middle Eastern moon and with flashlight in hand. We sat on the cemetery wall overlooking the Hinnom valley and talking for awhile. It was nice. It�s like what we do: sit on age-old walls amongst the tombstones and remark about buildings flicking lights in the night.

James hasn�t washed his hair in four weeks.

September 5 1998 (Heidi's birthday) Saturday

Today was good (Saturdays are relaxing on campus), but quick. (Last night, I stayed up talking till four.) So I got to sleep in and Anne and I went to the garden and I wrote a letter to sis and then took a shower and had spaghetti for dinner. (And threw in some laundry that I�m sure is wrinkling as I write.) So, I got to put on my red dress tonight to stand on the roof and listen to Tracy Champan, dreaming of the hypothetical �Gilbert� before the reception at the DeWalls. Then came the good part: grabbing Avril and going to Israeli folk dance in the city square. Two hours of twirling and laughing and stepping. We had such a blast and the music was good and I danced in couples with a mid-life Jewish man with broken English. Then we stopped by Dunkin� Donuts and Timima and Avril and I goofed around (I, with hazlenut frozen moccacino in hand) until Avril fell down the stairs and they retired. I remember being enchanted by the nearly-full moon light and running around to pick a flower and find grapes in the night and walk the garden and then sit up with Phil until 2:15, waiting to call Heidi. But we had to go to bed so we can tour early tomorrow and I can call Heidi first thing.

Shalom.

Bella bella bella.

Moonlight does some crazy things.

September 7 1998 Monday

While goats and goatherds pass our bus in the dusty road yesterday, tonight I sit in the garden, a full moon in the clear sky, a soprano lilting opera on the still air. This is a moment that I love. Friends tucked under the grape vines, just out of sight. The moon and the milky stars never let me get my work done. But this is a moment that I love.

September 10 1998 Thursday

For the benefot of anyone whom I am referring to this notebook for notes on a girl in Jerusalem story to tell�it is hot. Hot and dry, and the sun is absolutely whitely intense. And that helps describe today. But the night has brought relief and cool (hasn�t for about a week) and I was glad to wear my rugged, happy jeans into the new city. I have to admit my reason for going into town: McDonald�s french fries. Mmm. And they were so good (although costly), and it was a slow day, ending with a prelude to a three-day weekend.

I went to Bruegger�s Bagels and exchanged shekels, with Wes, Joel, Mike and Annie. and I remember that I never mentioned that Annie and I were floowed, and that Phil and Josh (Zion Patrol) were held up with M-16s a little while ago. Pete was hurried inside the building by police. And Jayse witnessed the bomb squad in action. Annie keeps tripping up the stairs. And Avril lost her skirt while standing in line to get Shabbat dinner.

September 12 1998 Saturday

It is another field trip day and the day of the Wadi Qilt. The beautiful Wadi Qilt, with the sun pouring on the crosses the dot the limestone ridges. (I sat with Jayse on the bus trip there and forgot my canteen and bought an Arabic 7up.) So we stepped foot over crunching foot in single file for four miles from Saint George�s of Kosiba to Herod�s (and Antony�s and Cleopatra�s) winter retreat with the baths and the diamond-shaped wall stones. I was teetering about this wadi (dry riverbed), slipping along, draped with camera, backpack, sunglasses and hat, in the hot early morning. Dr. Wright would stop us to tell us a legend, or point out the Herodian aquaduct on the far wadi wall and I would fumble with my telephoto lens to catch sight of some speedy critter before he ducked into the shade. I was very glad to have some healthy physical strain and the marvel of the wadi. I was sad to come out on the sands of Jerico, the �city of palms� below us, where (I would soon find out), nothing much is left of Biblical victory, and the Dead Sea isn�t quite visible. Here, amidst disintegrated mud bricks was the Temptation Restaurant with yummy pita filled with chicken salad and water and cookies and a camel you can kiss and Arabs in turbans who will pose for you. I jumped from tel to tel and over crusader castle pits; spotting the Eiffel Tower in mock-French for Jayse�s vidoe, and had �Hello, you fool, I love you,� sung to me by a pair of Israeli soldiers. I talked to Jayse about childhood and remembered that the Way of the Wilderness runs east to west and �tie-bee� is spelled T-a-i-y-b-e and tucked that away with my fond memories of watching Avrils� canteen swing to the beat of our hiking boots off the Wadi Qilt wall.

September 17 1998 Thursday

Just one of those days wen the sun couldn�t so anything but shine. Anne and I got together a group of girls after lunch and we walked downhill to the Gihon spring/Hezekiah�s tunnel. We got out student rates and some of the girls got candles and we stepped down into the water and the darkness: me, glad for the adventure of being first in line. And this we waded and explored for half an hour, Anne and I wandering often in front of the group, once hiding behind a turn in the tunnel to scare Kirsten. Sometimes we all extenguished our lights and bumped our elbows on the rock. Once, Anne and I heard such loud booms that I ran back and grabbed Anne�s hand in question. And once I heard a whistle thought to be Phil�s, and peered cautiously up into a shaft to find Phil (indeed!) and James waiting to scare us. Anne and I have decided we should do it all again.

September 19 1998 Saturday

Last night I went to the Second Cup to study, and finally got a mulled cranberry drink and it was very good, I liked the way the steam played, so I spent my time drawing a picture, and being glad to have JUC people stopping by our caf�-side table.

Yesterday afternoon I swam in the warm, salty, swelling, blue Mediterranean and I took snapshots with Annie and the new underwater camera. My eyes stung but I couldn�t resist to run into the water one last time to see who would trip on a wave first and go splashing into the sea.

Yesterday was another trip around Judah and the shephelah. We gallivanted in and out of wadis and valleys and into an �underground city� where they used to keep pigeons and ground olives into oil. And we ate tuna salad and pita under a lattice ceiling that cast sunny leopard spots onto everyone as we sat near painted tombs and sucked on papaya and strawberry and banana juices.

September 21 1998 Monday

I had to wake up early to take the Physical Settings test and then somehow I ended up under the grape arbour eating sugared pita with Corey and Annie. And it was a pleasant day. When we walked into town to get McDonalds when school lunch was exceptionally bad, and the crowds starting rolling over the city. Happy new year!

And we walked into the new city on Rosh Hashana to eat McDonald�s, but found with it a quiet city with few cars and three rabbis seeking to bless us with a shofar and people walking in nice clothes with their heads bent over their torahs. It was all very interesting, and I think that I haven�t even seen the tip of the iceberg. So Anne and I and Phil and Josh try to pass as Jewish as we dunked chicken nuggets in sauce and watched nothing happen over the balcony and below.

Shana tova!

So we returned to the school, after some wandering, and the day disintigrated into night and there were things going on here or there; but mostly there. So I took my walkman with �Crazy� playing (I had been on the computer for about two hours) and walked the garden: deciding to be a shadowgirl when I felt outshined; and played on the parallel bars, pretending that I was a tighrope walker.

Somewhere in the night I joined some people to go down to the Wailing Wall. We were walking through the dark alleys to the Wall, and the walls were rising white in the very distant light n either side of us, and we rounded a corner, and a beautiful building rose above the alley before us in the still dark. And the black sky was above, dotted with stars and Caseopeia on her throne and I just thrilled to the moment.

I think this and smell the day ending.

Shana tova.

September 23 1998 Wednesday

I thought it was extremely noteworthy that I woke up at 4:25 AM to wake James and go to the dig. Yup.

And we got out of the bus at six AM and didn�t know where we were and if we were right. But sooner than later, a bus of (mostly aged) excavators arrived and put me in a group with Meghan and James and began to teach me all about Arabic goofas [container made out of a tire used for transporting dirt] and pakiches [digging spades] and sling stones. So I sat and dug and started smelling like cocoanut and ended smelling like dust. It was a good and fun and healthy experience to have once in my lifetime, but I don�t want to go into archaeology.

September 26 1998 Saturday

Today Anne and I went into town to check the prices of tongue piercing, but it was closed, as was everything. (I think it will cost too much.) So we wandered and looking into the windows of shops, realizing very keenly hat it was our first time into town just ourselves (no guys). We were asked the time twice, the way to the market, and if we�d marry this guy (�..You love me, I love you. It�s good, no?�) We saw one man (same one) and a girl urinate in the street and when we were almost back, we passed a guy and he started to say something in Hebrew and Annie just goes �Oh, geese!� and we both started laughing and he didn�t say anymore. Then I took a nap and vitamin C and hot tea because I have a cold, and woke up at sunset in time for dinner. Noodle, turkey and cabbage?

So we chilled and I was teaching myself some Hebrew from Annie�s book and we went down to gank Corey and Anne was taking me into town for my �honourary birthday� and it was a surprise. And Peter came with Corey so they could go to a caf� and read. And soon I found myself at Henrie�s Creperie, where we split a cream cheese �natural� crepe and a strawberry jam crepe and she had a caf� late and I had a something tea with naana and we sat dowb abd enjoyed doing just what we had wanted, and being Devon and Anne.

As I showed her the poem I had scribbles, and she presented me with the beautiful one (on the pages of this journal), and the cray-pas �Sister.� We talked and talked and talked. About Jerusalem and Taylor University and sisters and cars and men and how great it is to be free. We spoke wisdom beyond our years and created laughter to crown each other�s aging. We loved, and without words promised each other to love on the morrow.

September 29 1998 Tuesday

The sun is fading over the tan, Jerusalem horizon and I know that the moon is through the garden, in the still-blue sky. And it is an interesting moment for me, as Yom Kippur dawns. From here, to the orange horizon, is the forked branches of an olive tree, a pinkish-red rose bush and a row of bushes with purple flowers. Then the ground breaks off and falls to Gihenna, meeting the sky again for the city skyline; hidden in the darkling bushes. And Yom Kippur rises with the setting sun.

And I watch the sky darken as I change into a skirt to cross the floor of Sion Gate and observe Yom Kippur Erev life at the Wall. Wes is wearing a tie and yarmulke as he walks with Anne and I, past singing synogogues and people who may things we�re Jewish, from our nonchalant expressions and I with my Bible-looking-Torah in my olive-colored palms. We walked in silence up to the Wall around the wall. And we observed the men�s side, mostly. The coverings on their heads and the bobbing to keep the rhythm of the Torah and the chanting and the spratic yelling, and the celebratory singing. It seemed odd to me: the children that were running and playing tag in the courtyard (and the father who smiled at his son as he did so), and the girl who played with them. She seemed quite sufficiently old enough to be kept out of the men�s side of the Wall, and was the only girl there. And somehow it took one big step for me to understand the people of the Bible. Can�t explain it, it just did. Then we stepped back and sat on the ground and Annie and I read Jonah silently, like they do on Yom Kippur, and then I read Leviticus 23:26-32, not finding much of a springboard for the holiday. We�re going to a synogogue tonight and to the market tomorrow morning. And somewhere in History of Egypt and writing Lindsay, I am reading Agnon�s Day or Awe�I occasionally hear distant voices through A Little Princess and I recognize all the different voices that sojourn up to the school roof tonight and I think they must be searching like me.

I stayed up late playing cards with Phil, Eric, and Kirsten. Then, no one woke up for the synogogue. The clock ticked and ticked�.

October 1 1998 Thursday

I have to go back to last night before I forget what I want to wrote. Well, we went to Solomon�s. It was an incredible and interesting and fun night. He lives in Ramallah, and we just hung out in his shop for awhile while he closed down. And drove is to his house. We stopped at a couple Arabic shops so he could get groceries. Then we stopped to pick up some RC�s and some falafel. (It was really good.) Then we took it back to his house: it was like an apartment complex where his brother, father, etc. live with their family. Carla and I were sent to the left of his house with his 21 year old wife and occasionally two of the three kids (Hudah and Haya). We sat in the kitchen all night, talking and laughing: her sister arriving with two of her three children. Then boys were in the family room with the TV. Here are some words to explain the night. Beday. Pink and peach. Colourful stuff: mis-matched. The Bold and the Beautiful. Lemon juice cake. Turkish tea. Arab coffee. Nirinda. English accented �No.� �Men are like babies.� Wedding photos. Five coloured dresses. And more and more. The most striking thing of the night was perhaps when they would ask �Do you want to know why?� and then would explain things from head coverings to being a housewife to �If I didn�t pray five times a day, I wouldn�t be a Muslim.� It was fascinating, mostly because they love it.

And this entry barely does the night justice.

But a large red half-moon went down on Nabi Samwill and we went back to JUC excited and full of tales.

October 2 1998 Friday

Well, we woke up and planned on leaving at seven AM, �[but James was feeling sick. We]� snagged breakfast before leaving at 7:30. We walked to Damascus Gate and picked up a limo-taxi for ten shekel a piece to Wadi Fawwar, where we started our hike at 8:30, thorugh the Wadi Qilt to Saint George�s and then on to Jericho. It was Anne and I, Phil, James and Eric, and it was a beautiful hike. It went through water, over boulders, throught vegetation, through desert. And it was physically exhausting and hot (well over 100 degrees F) and a big sense of accomplishment whern we collapsed on the road at the end, in the shade of palms at 2:00.

October 3 1998 Saturday

Over on the far west coast of this country, the reggae music sings about America as I sit in an Israeli restaurant. Today, on the blueblue Mediterranean, I have played with minnows between my toes, looked for seashells with Annie, walked to some ruins with Corey, and laid on the beach with James, reading Amos Oz. And now, I am under the lattice-patterned sun, with the music, and the sand on my tan legs, and the salt in my dark hair, and the red on my cheeks.

I have explained some things already, as I sipped peach nectar at a table�. But what was left unexplained was what was yet to come. And mostly, that was swimming in the salty sea with Phil (getting my dupah grabbed by some old pervert) and then drying off and changing into dry clothes in tome for the sunrest. It was incredible. Or �georgous.� As the red sun sank over the waves, tiny, coloured mackerel clouds dotted the west, and the east remained clear and blue, with a rising, near-full and perfect, white moon. It was a time to remember always, with joy. It is an effortless memory. It is for always. Then there came the slow darkness, and a campfire with s�mores on the beach. I talked with Nick (away from the fire and the crowd) about the Ocean and how small are we, and how beautiful (and big) is God. And I wandered � to the shore, and played chicken with the waves, sitting on the edge of a tide-coming-in, finding the Big Dipper and Caseopiea,.. with bare feet and rolled jeans.

It was as dream-like as it sounds.

It was more wonderful than it sounds.

October 4 1998 Sunday

And then there was when Anne went down to the quiet lounge to study Greek, and I made her come up to the room at 8:10 for a �surprise, kind of.� And when she showed up: O had put our blankets in the newly-arranged loft, and had water, wafers, p.b. and chocolate toast sandwich (for Anne) and lit candle waiting for her, up there. Then, when she was seated, I turned out the lights: and the three major constellations glowed in the dark, and she laughed.

October 6 1998 Tuesday

But I�m not sure that this is the importance of today. At 1:15 we set off for the orphanage. But Sukkot and terrorists made life absolutely crazy, and it took us nearly two hours to get through the dead-locked streets and walk a couple km over the border. Then, we denied the super-expensive taxis, grabbed a drink from a preoccupied Palestinian shop, and continyues walking to the Cresche: one hour late. We played with the children inside today. I saw Amir � and I got my sunglasses stolen in a game of chase. Until I appeases a crying, sick child.

October 10 1998 Saturday

Tonight was the night of the Scavenger Hunt (followed by Cash with Joel and Jim; Jim the student visiting from Westmont. Fun). But I started off a bit nervous; I wanted the night to be a good time for everyone. We collected the three NIS, we explained the rules, and sent the five teams on their ways. For the next three hours (almost impeccably timed), we answered the phone, relayed clues and laughed at ourselves and the participants. Anne swore at Jan DeWaal, James sang to Avril on the phone and I remember ending the night in a flurry of �Thankyou�s, �Congratulations,� and ice cream scoopers and falling hard onto �[the]� pillow with ice cream stuck to my shirt and a heavy day thrown on the bed beside me. Zzz.

October 11 1998 Sunday

We went to Shiloh and Shechem and Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim. There were some beautiful views today. On top of Mount Gerazim the sun was setting a comfortable, warm, hazy gold and our youthful bodies were bathed (on top of the world), and our eyes were brightly reflecting. We were tired and remembering the hard green olives hitting us in the back of the noggin� and the laughter and the scrape of the white ruins on our clambering knees. I stood at a point of some rubble and watched my classmates play like puppies and sparkle on the face of the earth and noticed the joy, the carelessness, and the youthfulness. In simplicity, it was pure, and this was a gift given. A crown for them in sorrowful times. I reflected in the bus, as the sun spilled into the sliding-by valleys, about an email Anne had gotten from Luke. He had stated that Henry David Thoreau had reminded him to suck the marrow out of life. �Bottoms up!� and I watched a day on Mount Gerazim blur away with the red sun on the bus ride home.

PS. You can live again, and you can live more. But you cannot re-live.

October 13 1998 Tuesday

Today was a sherut ride with Anne and Kirsten and Phillip (who I talked to about death because I keep thinking about Jaybird lately) to once again have beautiful Dribbles in my arms (smiling wonderfully, but with a fever). Imagine this: Anne and I are sitting on the green grass of a French orphanage (among the roses) playground. Anne snaps a picture of a dark-haired, dark-eyed four-year-old who plays with my hair, and then after the kids have all taken their tutrns looking through the lens with �Anna!� [�Me!�], I am attacked and wrestled to the ground with a flurry of laughter (as I try to squeeze the Minolta into my satchel). It is a beautiful moment.

October 16 1998 Friday

This morning was up at six to shower and swallow as much breakfast as I could before loading up the packs with our [Anne�s, my, Eric�s, Mark�s, Kirsten�s] rations and setting out for the new city, where we caught bus six to Central Bus Station, where we bought our 39 shekel tickets for a bus to Tiberias. Once we arrived in Tiberias; after a ten-minute pit stop, we walked a few streets over and bought ourselves some schwarma on a sub bun and some cold Cokes to split. Then we found a sherut (that pretty much swindled us, oi!) and took that to Yehudiyya, aka. Golan Heights. We kept all the packs on and just kept walking onto the trail. We looked out over the waterfall that is on the video and then walked the way along the canyon that we thought would take us down to it. Instead, it just followed the top of the canyon for some long turns, and then (after being pricked by thorns and spotting boars), we descended into the valley (on the 436 stairs that we later had to climb, oi!). The hike continued along a small stream until it fell into a deep, cold pool and went on again. We left our packs and stripped down to our swimsuits and swam and climbed through a couple of pools. Soon, sunset was rapidly approaching, and we turned around and hiked it all backwards (going up those steps) and doing the last leg of it in the dark. We didn�t cross any more wild boars, but walked peacefully back, Tiberias looking, in the distance, like thousands of glimmering topazes spilled on the ground. It was absolutely beautiful: form the reed to the shrubs to the imposing rock cliffs to the cold water to the ruins to the laughter.

October 17 1998 Saturday

It was a sweet day of magic. It felt almost like childhood, but nicer. And when I was with Annie in the circular pool trying to get behind the waterfall and being so joyful that all there was to do was laugh. I thought it was a glimpse of heaven. (With the cold splasing and the rainbow fragments and the sun and the beauty.) And when I was standing near the silvery cobwebs, dripping wet and smiling at the waterfalls and the cumulus clouds, I thought it was a timeless moment (with the solitude, yet the company and the satisfied tummy and youthful body and shining eyes). There�s no way to do ao day like today justice. Just read a fairy tale and close your eyes.

October 18 1998 Sunday

Last night was lemonades at a bar with Mark and Anne on the G-sea [Sea of Galilee] (at Deck�s). And today is waking Mark with �Happy Birthday� and getting up to a swift pillow-hit to the head, and Kirsten laughing at me. On a journey that was ending, we caught a sherut and ate the last of our peanut butter as hours swept by the tires and heads bobbed, and we refused to be gypped by the Hebrew-speaking sherut driver, because we were weary Americans. Showering is good. Eating food is good.

October 24 1998 Saturday

I want to recap the day. Like I can write what it�s really like to stand on the bow of a boat that�s resting up and down on the slight and tender waves of the sea of Galilee (on board the vessel Mary) on the way to Capernaum. And like I can write what it�s really like to watch a rock bounce down a cliff of Mount Arbel again and again and wonder what it would be like to jump off the height and sail down on the wind. And like I can write what it�s really like to stand below a (fearful and) nervous Kevin as he wonders how to get down a Byzantine column while a whole �adolescent� class watches and video-tapes. It was definitely a day of fun and again: laughter and youth. Dr. Wright is a very patient man and fish aren�t caught quite so easily on the sea. I�m exhausted after our hiking and climbing and descending with all the sun and the dust and the dehydration. And I don�t have much energy left to play Ritz poker with the boys in the Timmie bungalow, or joke around with the girls and Joel and Wes in my bungalow, (or even read much Jerusalem poetry to Tim Stone and Annie on a playground on the sea with bats overhead). But I can flip upside down on the playground slide, and walk Annie to her �hotel� room with our luggage, and hug her goodnight and make sure AlisonMarie has a piece of chocolate and Wes; a cup of orange drink, before I yawn and adjust my bloodshot eyes on a scribbley page in Phil�s and Jer�s little, empty bungalow. I guess I figured I wouldn�t have any bothering here by myself. I can�t really fall asleep either. I need to reflect before it slips away. But it seems to be slipping through my words, anyway. I remember sitting on a shore today, and looking at the water move like water does, and thinking about contemplation. Should I just be sitting there, observing? Was it observation, in turn? Is it ever observation in turn? Must be. And I wonder here about the most minuscule moment of my life. and about Taoism and about being Calvinist (categorically) and about sucking the marrow out of life and about living.

October 31 1998 Saturday

Halloween. And logically, you wouldn�t� know it. But illogically, you can feel it in your bones. Today�s a day for chilly air and rich smells on light wind. Leaves seemed to be twisting, buckling, and crumpling, even in Israel. And I had time to sit and taste what could be called autumn, in the garden, while AlisonMarie trimmed my hair and I listened to children shriek in the grape arbour as they knocked at Kevin�s and Jakes�s door for treats. (Jake had wrapped himself in sheets and Kevin had set up the door so it boomed, and had a �Beware� sign.) Life feels golden and blue. Contrastingly gold and blue, Hauntingly gold and blue. Enchantingly gold and blue. And very very bittersweet.

November 6 1998 Friday

For morning being so morning-like, they sure can be interesting sometimes. This morning, about 10:30 am, we heard a knock that we hadn�t yet answered with Joseph Schooner popped in the door and demanded our last names. I was trying to recover some ground in my igthuseism, and Anne was so miffed at his sudden intrusion, that she snapped, �They�re on the door behind you!� Needless to say, a lot of things were misunderstood and he was checking us because there was a bomb in the East Jerusalem market. We had to meet in the student lounge for attendance and a briefing. It was so Israeli for me to be so ho-hum about it. But I was.

November 8 1998 Sunday

I have no clue where to start writing. I think that I�ll go on to the Petra-zebra fable later. And for now it�s tonight, and all the thoughts and things that go along with that. Anne and I needed to talk. So after a fish and jello, etc. dinner at the Edomit Inn (where Mr. Rev. Stone incidentally attempted to spoon-feed Anne jello and then pudding), we took to the Eilat night-life to find a spot on the beach to talk. After some walking and browsing, we found the Red Sea shore and some sand unaffected by the tide, for our dupas to occupy�. �.We stood up, bare-footed ourselves and began to run along the beach; collecting, investigating, and throwing rocks, making footprints and tip-toe doggie prints in the sand, Anne writing �I love Devon� with her toe and me laughing at [the say she pronounced] �phe-no-me-non,� getting a piggy-back out to the dock and standing on the edge hoping for shooting stars. After putting on our shoes, we found an ice cream place with strawberry ice cream that tasted like one of those popsicles with real, frozen strawberries in it. We sauntered back to the hotel where James was already asleep and night crept in and closed our eyes.

November 14 1998 Saturday

It was good to sleep. But it was even better to wake for lunch, ready for a journey into the old city to get Corey�s hair cut. We arrived at Solomon�s around 1:20, and then to the Muslim barber�s, who said to come back at three. Se we walked around the shops, and wandered up to the roofs on top of the marketplace. On the white, sloping, stone roofs we sat and watched the striped blankets dry in the sun and talk with Anne and I and Cor. Then we can 7up at Shabban�s and meandered back to the barber�s, on time. Corey was adorably nervous and kept insisting (while we waited), that the barber had a lazy eye. In fact, the barber was very pleasant and friendly. Anne and I talked all the while to a man puffing on a cigar [who] had been to the States and had thought that I looked Arab. Between the two of them, Corey�s instance that we come up close to his chair and continuously give input, and he huge Leo[nardo Decaprio] poster on the wall: it was a fun and animated time. I suppose I have enough pictures to remember.

November 15 1998 Sunday

A Sunday nap is such a nice thing, But just as nice: sitting in a sunny room, on my bed that I no longer can step on my desk to get to, thinking about love and war and Iraq. Who knows what�s really going on between there and the US and who knows what will happen? Jerusalem is a �safe zone,� but Israel isn�t. And our parents get worried as they suggest renewing gas masks, but we�re just not worried. We�re peaceful here, right now.

November 19 1998 Thursday

It was an adventure, from beginning to end.
Anne and I and Amber and the Israeli museum. We were walking. And we were walking. And the fork that Kevin told us to take wasn�t quite as obvious as we thought it would be. We ended up unsure of ourselves, and asking instructions at a small store. Anne tried to speak French to the guy, it didn�t work too well and we ended up running into some older man who offered us a ride that we uncautious and adventurously took. He was very nice (and informative) and took us practically to the door of the museum. Of course, we saw the Dead Sea Scrolls, that were almost unimpressive, except when Anne and I were entering the main room, with an odd sense of crossing the threshold of some hugely imposing historical thing. We saw a hossload of archaeological things, which was pretty cool, because I recognized things from Physical Settings trips. We saw old glass, an Italian chapel, etc. And we saw art! Woohoo! Impressionism was a blast. (Besides that freaky multi-media thing with the blue Asian with the crystal ball.) The two Picassos were very cool. Man, that guy had a sense of colour! And I just fell in love with a random painting of Alfred Sisley�s. It�s just a landscape, but the colours are great and emotional. I feel like someone took my insides and threw them out on a canvas. (So I bought a poster of it.) And, oh, yes, there was the VanGogh. I had heard it was there, and I so was looking forward to it. Although one that I don�t remember ever seeing (�Cornfields and Poppies�), I knew it immediately: my fingertips tingled, I was on the verge of tears. The talent of the hand that was once where I stood. The understanding of colour of the eyes that scoped this very same thing I was scoping now. I stood close, I stood across the room, remembering the tricks of observance that my Aunt Shelly had taught me. What a painting! (Note: Vangogh, despite what book-copies look like, layers his paint on very thick.)

Adventure. Right. Asked two people how to get back. One said bus nine. One said 19. We listened to the wrong one. We wanted to conserve time for Amber�s paper, but ended up seeing much more of our un-seen Jerusalem, and the bus-driver made us get off at Hebrew University. A nice student directed us back on another bus, and we found ourselves safely somewhere near Jaffa Street. We had a good time on the bus. I fell into Amber�s lap at one abrupt stop�. We�re inspired to purposely ride a �wrong� bus, sometime, through town.
We returned just in time to slide into the back of our Egypt class, a little late.

December 1 1998 Tuesday

It�s December! I�m wearing sandals and a short-sleeved t-shirt. Wow. I wrote a paper on Muhammed tonight. Sat down at 8:30 with my colour-coded index cards to do two hours or so, and endid up finishing the final paragraph with a sigh, around one AM. Feels good to be done. Just one more paper and one more test to go.

What really happened today was that I went to the orphanage for the last time. It was weird to know I wouldn�t return, and I glanced at my watch and tried to hang on to that last half hour. My trying was futile and it most certainly passed and disappeared and I called out �Massalami� and waved and kissed and hugged and patted heads and squeezed hands as I departed for a final walk through Bethlehem, and yet another crazy sherut ride over the border (where we flashed our passports, over Kirsten, and got her through, with a prayer and a thankful sigh. She�s so American, I think she�d be okay anyways). But, about the orphanage, I spent most of it on the playground, thankful to be pushing Lourd and Deyanna on the tire swing. I love those two. Yet, they�re so mysterious to me. I would like to know their stories. Two incidents: a girl puked all over the merry-g-round when she got a little dizzy, and Muhammed and Ali tried spitting on all of us volunteers.

December 2 1998 Wednesday

I love the old city! And I love Nepherphilly too! And may it be known across the land that I love Annie! So what a happy day. The first half of it consisted of these things. We decided to spend awhile looking for and bartering for souvenirs/Christmas gifts. Philly went along, good boy. We ended up spending some tiem at Solomon�s. some at Moshe�s, and some at the bank, for Solomon. I fell for an Arab tea set and bought it for marmee. I can�t wait to give out all the stuff at Christmastime. I hope everyone is happy. (Sidenote: I hope everyone is as glad as I am to see them. To see me, I mean.) Being in the old city was fun.

Quite on a different note (there goes the predisposition), the second half of the day was running back into a t-shirt shop in the old city with just Anne and I, forking over 15 sheqel for a nice little t-shirt for my secret sister, Krista, because our Christmas party was approaching in only hours.

December 5 1998 Friday

It�s true, it�s three AM on Saturday, so I�m not sure what I�ll end up writing in here. Not anymore. Zzz.

Today started �the lasts.�

Our last Shabbat meal, and Wes nearly caught his soulpatch on fire lighting a match between his teeth.

This time next week we�ll be packing like crazy, and we�re trying to live so that we�re not wishing away our time. It�ll go fast enough without that. And we perused the books in the book stores, and bothered the employees in trinket shops. We felt so free and independent in the city. We went to a familiar bakery and snagged two loaves of sweet Challah, and brought it back to our happy little room to eat. Our batteries were finally charged and we listened to our favourite songs and snapped pictures. Us liberated young ladies. Us content and happy and peaceful duo; growing old together and learning oh so many things. When you�re a little squirt; you just never think you�ll be old enough to walk the streets of a city alone, and walk in and out of whatever store you want to. And all of a sudden you are. You think: where did the time go? And you wonder how it is you just lived nearly four months in Jerusalem and you�re leaving soon. Where did the time go?!?

December 8 1998 Tuesday
Shopping!

Today was a (day) break from study to shop in the old city. It�s so great. All of the connotations of the word �shopping� in the US falls away and you are left with winding streets filled with Jews or Arabs and cats and bad smells and people yelling out and calling you in.

�I will give it to you ten shekels because you have pretty eyes, beautiful eyes!�

�This is hand-made! I sewed it with my hand!�

A shopkeeper would lower a price from 45 shekel to15, but couldn�t go down to 14. Oi!

What a city.

Corey came with us, and Anne and I mostly went between the Jewish and Christian quarters. We spent quite a bit of time in Solomon�s; returning at least three times. He finally has my name right (I�m not Timi or Alice), and he let me drop bags off so I wouldn�t have to carry all of them all day. I bartered my head off all day, and came away satisfied with some very good deals. In fact, bartering in itself is just a hossload of fun. Woohoo!

�I know a good price for that, and it�s fifteen dollars.�

�Do I have beautiful eyes?�

�No you didn�t!�

Then we came back to study and I did my rabbinic paper in an hour. My mind still whirs form a day of fun and excitement. I just love the old city and I feel like such a part of it now.

December 10 1998 (Daddyo's birthday) Thursday

Second, Around two in the morning, I wandered into the boys dorm room for a moment and pay phone rang. I always let someone else get it, but this time I went for it. Meanwhile, my mom is at home in Brighton, MI, hainging around in the family room and she thinks, �Huh. I want to call Devon,� so she finds a number to a pay-phone I had given her, she dials, and then listens to the ringing for a minute. "Hello?� I say. �Devon!� she exclaims. Wuddyaknow. Well, I talked to Daddyo to wish him a happy birthday. (I give him an IDF stocking cap when I return.)

Tonight [Anne and I] joined a small party of Alex, Peter and Cor ro go to the Second Cup for Rob�s farewell. We joked around, snapped photos, touched lightly on philosophy and shared Ciders, this awesome chocolate pie, and coffee-drinks of all kinds. On returning (down Ben Yehuddah for maybe the final time I see the one-legged man with his tin coffee cup and the man sleeping on cardboard outside the small shop and the youth hanging out with guns and black clothes in Zion-trendybutt-Square. Then [Peter and I] snuck into a lounge and watched a small part of It�s a Wonderful Life and decided to skip out (since I hadn�t seen the beginning). Go Christmas!

December 11 1998 Friday

I sit up here, at my now empty and clean desk, unsure of how to handle it all. We leave in a matter of hours. I told Annie today that I feel like I�m coming to the end of a good dream. And it seems like its gone by that quickly. It seems totally unreal that tomorrow I�ll be in the states again, never to return. Last night I couldn�t sleep, and I just lay there and thought of a million things�. But it�s hard, today. I just don�t understand time.

I know Nick�s downstairs wringing his hands. It�s his time to leave, and I can tell in his eyes that he�s sad. I squeezed his had twenty minutes ago and promised to be at the gate in a hal hour. That leaves ten minutes to go. I hope I know what to say to sich a friend while we go our separate ways�.

I�m leaving home tonight.

And I�m going home.

And with that, we move from one part of Ben Gurion to the next. It�s maybe 5:30 AM; no one�s slept anything from eleven the previous day, and we all have many hours to go. I�m not sure where �today� is, so I take the liberty of being abstract. Friday and Saturday really have run completely together.

We went to the bus station ealier today, but by then it was five past four, and the sun was beginning to set and herald in Shabbat. No busses came for awhile, so we opted for flagging down a taxi. After almost resolving just to walk forever back, a taxi-driver finally said he�d take us for twenty shekelim, and Anne and I emptied our pockets into Peter�s hands. Then there was the drive through the city, with the sun setting for the last time for us. We were dropped off across the hinnom, and we raced up the hill to the roof to catch the last brilliant colours in the clouds.

Peter and I stayed and talked awhile.

Anne and I stole a poster from the cinematique.

We had mock-Shabbat dinner and Patsy yelled. Corey took Anne and I out to The 3 for French onion soup with nummy croutons and cheese, and Anne and I split one. Mmm.

December 12 1998 Sunday

On our flight from Tel Aviv to Munich, I sat in the �front row� right between Cor and Kev. It was so nice to have that bit of time with them. We talked, but we all slept a little too, We said our goodbys at terminal B in Germany (and to Jer, too), Anna and I left the airport to get our passports stamped and to pick up the snow in our hands. Oh, Germany!

Back on a plane; the last one for awhile. I�m sitting next to an asthmatic Greecian woman, who is nice, but I wish Anne could sit there. The TR boys and Kirsten are nearby.

I watch nothing but blue skies and powdery mountains of clouds below and hear a sweet German �Silent Night� and I sign off faithfully,

�Sleep in heavenly peace.�

The sun is extra-gold here. And I don�t say that because I am partial to gold, because silver is just as nice.
I find myself smiling absently to myself while we sing about Bethlehem.
Everyone asks about guns and wars.
Everyone asks about guns and wars, and I want to tell them about splashing in the water and hiding behind rainbows and walking along the edge of a building and swimming in the sea at night and thinking long and big and discussing theology over cider with Kat Steven�s playing.

It was a silver warmth.

copyright 1997 by devon