full stop.

Ulpan in the morning
Rosh Hashana party with new year greetings from students in their native tongues- at least 12 different languages
Exam on future tense conjugation of binyan piel
honey cake
new Israeli haircut
holiday shopping at Mister Zol's
ten minute nap
cab to Kikar Zion
Ilan's birthday dinner at Timol Shilshom
Eating "The Plot Thickens" off of Yehuda Amichai
desserts on the corner of Jaffo and King George
Israeli mocha with real chocolate

Hasidic breakdancing on Ben Yehuda.

liberate us into life.

"Note that by studying in Israel you are subjecting yourself to risks from war and acts of terror including death, serious bodily injury, kidnapping, and damage to your property."

University of Pittsburgh
University Center for International Studies, Study Abroad Office
August 30, 2006

boker tov, yisrael.

There is a rooster
across the lot
and it crows every minute, every morning
beginning at five.

The water in the shower
burns my feet.

I wear a scarf in my hair and a black skirt.

Eternal

City of Stone and Wind.

This city and this wind never leave me. Blowing strongly in your face, surrounding you, compounding all your senses.

Everything -- the smell of the zatar, the heat of the freshly baked pita, haerdi men and young female soldiers -- that enveloped me at the shuk is all that surrounds me now, in the dusk, sitting on this stone, at the British military cemetery.

At the rear of the cemetery stands a memorial to "MEN WITH NO KNOWN GRAVES." Their names carved in white Jerusalem stone, sons of the British Empire, privates and officers alike.

The wind is wearing away their names.

Jerusalem: the city of the stone and the wind.


Did these sons of the British Empire die to have their names emblazoned on this eternal stone in this ancient city, forever left far from home?

The air we breathe flows around the world, from Philadelphia to Rio and on again to Yerushalayim. Science tells us that one breath will make its way around the world in seven years.

Whose am I breathing now?