Everything is Relative

 The following event happened on my recent trip to Israel.

I had taken the train to Tel Aviv to see a friend.  I left in good time to catch the last bus from Netanya to the Moshav my sister lives in.  I went via "Get Taxi" (Israeli equivalent of Uber) to the Hagana Rail Station.  From there I boarded the train for Netanya at 6.00 p.m.  All the passengers wore masks - under their noses, except for a young man sitting opposite me who wore his mask correctly.  It was beyond me to tell everyone to put their masks over their noses - they seemed to don them as a strange form of decoration that hovers above their chins.

The station names light up as the train nears each station.  After Binyamina I saw the next station was bound for Haifa, Hof HaCarmel.  It dawned upon me that I was not going to Netanya.  Who to ask?  I was not going to ask a chin-mask wearer, after all - Omicron and B-2 or whatever the latest mutation is, is raging.   Luckily the young man opposite still had on his mask.  He affirmed that I was not bound for Netanya and helpfully looked at his phone and told me exactly what to do.  To get off at Haifa, then go to Platform 2 for the train to Binyamina, and from there platform 3 for the train to Netanya.  I would get to Netanya ---- too late for the last bus so I would have to take a taxi.  I was somewhat put out. On the platform in Haifa I saw a very slavic looking man address the female Ethiopian inspector. Speaking english, he asked if the next train was to Ben Gurion (the airport.) She assured him it was. He then asked me if I was going to Ben Gurion - I told him I was not, but I was getting on the same train.  He asked whether I would sit with him. Then he said he is from Kyiv, and his wife had fled and was in Poland - Warsaw, he said. He was flying to Poland.  I sat with him until I had to get off and sent him blessings and good wishes and kind thoughts, and prayers, and on and on.  I thought I was put out by not getting my bus on time -  nothing at all.  

I got off the train and waved to him.   Then I took a taxi home.

In the Thick Of It

 Here I am, in Israel. I have been here for two weeks.  15 hours in a mask in a crowded plane is definitely not pleasant, but there were no incidences of air rage or even typical Israeli behavior.  The PCR test on arrival went without a hitch, and later that night I learned that I am negative and don't have to quarantine.  

Israel has experienced the coldest March in 70 years - cold, thunder, lightning, rainstorms, sunshine, wind, hail. The countryside is lush and green, carpeted in yellow daisies, poppies, lupine, the trees are in their full spring shades of pink, purple, and white glory. Birdsong fills the air, and toward dusk the jackals howl.

 Sometime into the end of the first, and the beginning of the second year of covid, and fires, and all the attendant upheavals, I made, for me, a momentous decision.  The time has come for me to return to Israel for good.  I have spent the requisite 40 years living in the diaspora.  It is time to come back. 

And so my sister and I have spent my time here looking at retirement homes and villages - what a way to spend a holiday!  In fact we have only looked at two places.  

There is one thing I have learned from my time on this earthly plane - when a decision is made from a place of clarity, the universe opens the necessary portals.

This entry is simply to keep you somewhat up-to-date  and much more will be forthcoming.