Where it all boils down to Love and Israel despite the cat detour

I need a light post now, I need a light post. I can't think of anything.

Everything in my life is heavy now, heavy tremendously good and heavy tremendously bad. Angels and demons perusing the world from my shoulders. Angels are winning, as they are wont to. Luckily for me, angels always win.

I fell asleep astonishingly early (before midnight) and woke up at 6.30.Not enough sleep though. Went out to buy ciggies [já, já fumei] and as I walked into the flat J.I.P. flew down the stairs. I flew down after her, mewoing back and trying to make her come to me. It always scares me bcs she's very attracted to the window ledge and there's a big empty space in between it and the landing and if she misses the jump it will be a six-storey fall and we've been there, done that, had a few surgeries, lost a leg. I caught up w her on the 4th floor, she had suddenly decided she was scared of all this freedom and was trying to convince my neighbours to open the door. Shortly before 7 am I could only expect them to be happy to oblige. We rode the lift back up and I wondered what that noise was. When I reached my floor I realised I'd left the door open - so Tripod, of course, had run up the stairs and was trapped there (she thought) and was making the most heartbreaking sounds of abandonment. I ran up the stairs carrying a very annoyed and vocal JIP and scooped up a very relieved and vocal Hum-Hum and then realised that this time the dog had got lost somewhere in the building. So I marched down the stairs whistling (how dense can a dog be, sometimes I'm convinced she doesn't smell things at all), carrying two by this time very annoyed, vocal cats. Finally dog figured out I'd probably be where my voice was coming from (she gets confused that way) and flew up the stairs barking joyfully into the wee hours of morning. [Funny how I first mispelled this by adding an extra U. He'd laugh at it.] I should be shunned soon. Hum-hum is now sleeping in the sun w all [three] paws in the air. I want to eat her.

Lovely post abt Yom haHatzmaut here. I am actually homesick now to my great surprise. I miss Israel terribly right now. Nothing says LOVE like a bunch of kids in uniform. I talked to his mum yesterday, very painful conversation. More painful than usual bcs we actually talked for a good while. It was so bad, I didn't know what to do w myself during or after. She wants me to stay over next time I come. Next time I come. Sleeping where he used to sleep growing up. Seems impossible that I ever will, seems impossible not to. I know I will. I know I'll be fragmented and it will hurt impossibly. I will have to find a way to reconcile being in Israel where everything is Uzi w being in an Israel where Uzi no longer is the way I need him to be. Maybe Jerusalem and the North would feel different, we were never there together.

Israel is preying on my thoughts a lot these days and not just bcs of him. There are things I'd love to see through another pair of eyes, things I'd love to be able to show. Petach Tikvah and especially Kfar Sava are too close to home, literally, but maybe: this is where Rabin was shot. This is where I shopped for books in Tel Aviv, this is Basel, where we sometimes sat on Fridays. This is the Children's Memorial, please make it all better. This is my desert, isn't it awe-inspiring? This is our kibbutz, this will always be my kibbutz. This is the refet, where I worked - the cow that broke my wrist has been long gone but I always think of 602 when I come here. This is the Hadar-ochel, it used to come alive w conversations and loud kibbutznik slurping sounds. This was my room when I was a volunteer here. My South-African roommate used to drive me batty and we never had a moment's privacy. See the tree outside the window? That tree has the most gorgeous flowers and a kingfisher used to perch on that phone line. I wonder if he's still alive, I looked for him the day of the funeral. This is where we stood waiting for the ambulance to bring his coffin, this is where Z. told me "I come for you instead of him now because he would want to, he would come for you if he could." This is where Lila's parents live, her mother made all that. Isn't it pretty? This is where Uzi's parents live. This wooden box in the garden was mine, it's an old amunnition box from the army, I painted it blue and used it to store my tapes. I had to leave it behind when I came back to Portugal. We celebrated Yom haHatzmaut here and laughter resonated throughout the garden, Z. and Uzi cracking each other up and us in the process. That big flat rock is where Lila and I sat side by side the night I arrived for the funeral, talking and not talking. That rock is where I quietly sat alone late into the night every night talking to him, staring out into the dark fields. That rock is where I could cry, where I went to say hallo, goodnight. Because if Uzi is somewhere it's surely by his parents' house, trying to dull the pain.

This where I lived and I want you [tu] to know it, this should be my gift to you. This is my land, and this is part of why I cannot stay just yet.

Birds are chirping outside - and did you know that baby birds are born quite often these days? Well they are, miraculously often. No demons in that, none whatsoever. Only gratitude. Takes my breath away too.