Ahab

 I made it to my sister over the weekend (the weekend here, for those who don't know, is Friday night and Saturday.)  Friday morning she called and said 'come - over life and death.' I was truly petrified, but packed my overnight bag with extra things, in case, and ordered a Gett.  (That is the taxi service.) 

I have found them to be a reliable service, this time, no sooner had I ordered it than Ahmad, the driver arrived. He happened to be in the vicinity and really needs work.  I told him I am scared and he said not to worry, not many cars are on the roads and if there is a sirenWaze will guide us to a shelter.

We arrive quickly, without trouble.  That afternoon we lay in our respective rooms to rest. Aat 3.30 I was disturbed from my nap by a loud banging on my door - my sister came in. "Didn't your alarm go off? We have to get ready for the shelter." My alarm hadn't gone off.  As the shelter is in their house there was nothing to get ready, we just went downstairs with our phones.  Then all our sirens went off simultaneously. I have to say - it was a nice change, being with them, lying on a mattress.  A small cosy comfort. That night at 2.30 am my alarm did go off - back downstairs we went.   

It was there, in the shelter, that I said to my sister that I feel that Bibi Netanyahu has been obsessed with Iran, like Ahab with Moby Dick.   By this statement I was NOT whitewashing Iran who have been responsible for the bombing of the synagogue in Argentina, many other things, and of course the 7th October - but why now?  Bibi is up for trial,  he is going down in the polls, what a brilliant way to divert the world's attention. He has a madman in America to back him.  And now we have yet another front to contend with. Gaza should be OVER and the 50 hostages, dead or alive, returned.  Finished. Done with.

I feel that the world is desperately in need of a sane and wise leader, and we have none. Just power hungry, money crazed narcissists who don't care if they sacrifice their people or the world. 

It is NOT a comforting feeling, and we sit under bombardments, day and night.

 PRAYERS FOR SANITY.

OCD

I cannot remember how often we had to go to the shelter last night, actually yesterday we had to go in at 8.30 a.m. The next round was, I think 5.00 p..m. At 9.30 I texted my sister to ask (not for her permission, just to check in) whether 9.30 is way too early to go to sleep.  When life is 'normal', I go to sleep about 12.00 p.m.  But life is no longer even approaching the what wasn't normal anyway, existence of our previous life.  I did not wait for her reply,, but simply fell, exhausted onto my bed, only to be jarred into a state of adrenaline filled alertness by the 'warning' siren about half an hour later.  

We constantly receive updated alert systems from the Home Front Command app.  5 days ago we would receive a rattlesnake-like sound which meant that missiles have been triggered and we should get ready to go to a shelter. It may take 30 minutes until we get the next siren which means we have 90 seconds to get to the shelter.  Now we have 10 minutes instead of 30. And we are told that lives are saved by going to a shelter. We see pictures of destroyed buildings in which families have survived because they were in the shelter.  Of course even the best shelter cannot survive a direct hit.  We are shown pictures of those too, along with the names of the dead. 

What do we do in the shelter? We sit in a sort of a circle on not very comfortable chairs. One or two people are wheeled in by their caregivers. We all look at each other sleepily and mumble something like "here we go again," or something similar. I bring a book, but I can't really concentrate. We used to leave after 10 minutes when it was just the Houthis firing at us - they still continue their fire, but of course most of the missiles now come from Iran.  We cannot leave until we get a message from the Home Front Command saying we can leave.  Sometimes we sit for an hour or more - sometimes less, each time is different.

 One of the 'residents' is 96 years old, and quite demented. Her caregiver is an angel from Kerala. The woman, Tamar, stands up after sitting a few minutes and asks where her dog, Toffee, is. Toffee is scared of people so he stays at home, unlike Chungi a pekingese mix who loves greeting everyone and comes up to each resident to have her belly rubbed. 

"Where's Toffee?" asks Tamar.  

"At home" says her caregiver.

"Does she know I will be back?"

"Yes, she is sleeping anyway.

Then Tamar becomes increasingly anxious - "Why are all these people sitting around with long faces. The All clear has sounded."  (It hasn't) and anyway there is not an all clear. She pushes herself up, takes hold of her walker and walks toward the door. Her caregiver gently steers her back to her chair. This becomes a sort of non stop dance until we do get permission to leave or Tamar howls saying she. has to go to the toilet.

When eventually we do get the OK to leave we all say to each other "hope not to see you soon."

This is our new life. I still go to the gym - thank goodness it is open, and I try to paint and knit and do my daily meditation I go to Feldenkrais, and Arabic. There is no ceramics or hothouse work as the instructors cannot get here safely.  

Today, as I hung the laundry, cleaned the perfectly clean cutlery drawer, dusted the perfectly clean contents of my room, straigtened straight pictures and objects, I realised I am doing what I did after I was told my husband was killed, and during the First Gulf War when I was in Israel and Iraq was sending the scud missiles.  I am desperately trying to maintain a semblance of order in this chaotic existence.

I clean and organize what I can in my external surrounding.

 Isn't this what people with OCD do?

The Unblog-able.

Strange title - of course I made the word up. It is based on some inner feeling or working of my sub conscious. All is UN - unbelievable, unblog-able, unforgivable. This is how I feel - no clarity, nothing to hold on to. The mundane continues, of course, and life is lived.  Books are read, art is seen  and looked at, and something is felt in response. Music is listened to. Gardens are grown.  Holidays are observed (celebrated is NOT a word I can use at this time).  The spelling bee is played by me, faithfully, every day for the last few year now.

I had an eye infection, and it was attended to, and is now better. I went to Budapest for a few days, and enjoyed walking around the lovely and interesting city and took pleasure in a refreshing break from the constant stress of life here. Of course I instantly fell back into it. The taxi driver who took me back from the airport saw to that as he lectured me on the absolute necessity of this political war and how we should crush our enemies.  I informed him that I do not feel the same way and tried to maintain silence, but he had a dreadful habit of asking me questions and waiting for my answers.  Hmms and sighs were NOT going to suffice.

The Houthis are in the habit of a missile a night, it seems.  Also we now have an updated app from the Home Front Command.  When it has been detected that a missile has been sent we receive an alert that in the next 5 minutes the sirens will probably sound and we must go to the nearest shelter.  This is to give us time to prepare and get to a shelter safely, but sometimes the missile is intercepted and the alarms don't sound.  I don't know what is more adrenaline producing for me - the warning, or the alarm without a warning.

We are traumatised, we are grieving, we await the remaining 58 hostages, we shout our protests,  We watch what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank in horror.  We watch the Haredim refuse to fight while our young men are dying and being wounded and go crazy.  

This is the unblog-able.