Slogging

 I am trying to find the most appropriate word, or wording. for my present trials and tribulations.  Slogging through mud, treading water, sucked into quicksand, treading water.  I think by this time even Kafka-esq no longer works. 

Suffice to say I am doing my best to stay afloat and not sink into a morass of despair.

As I have written before - this ministry, that ministry. Attempting to sign in online, making phone calls, going to branches of banks that no longer exist. And  this in an all pervasive atmosphere of increasing violence and fear - fear of what the incoming government may do.  Fear that rights of LGBTQ people will be taken away, rights of women, rights of Palestinians, rights of ordinary people.  

In the midst of all this, I just want my furniture, I want to open a bank account, I want to find a way to access my accounts in the States .  Sounds so simple - it is not.

And yes, I chose this I have to see it all through. There has to be light at the end of the tunnel. Come to think of it, this has been going on for 9 months - but I do not feel warm and comforted like a foetus must feel. I am not being nourished in the womb. But I suppose that I have to cling to the hope that things will work out eventually, and the birth process will take place in a timely fashion.

Here's hoping!

De-nested

 I don't think De-nested is a legitimate word, but it should be.  I can say with certainty that I have been de-nested. Besides the fact that my name is Nesta, my astrological sign is Cancer (right on the cusp of Leo) - but let us say it is Cancer.t  Cancers love their nests.  This is what makes them feel secure in this world.  Since I made the decision to uproot and move in March of this year, I have been systematically de-nested.  I made the decision, no one forced me.  No one is 'to blame.'  I made this decision, I am OK with it, but still - I have to go through this process.  

For months now I have packed and. unpacked, shedded possessions, shredded, recycled, donated. In July a lift was sent to Israel, and since then I have lived with a minimum of things, as I have written about.  Since arriving in Israel I have lived out of two suitcases.  Unsettling - along with the endless bureaucratic hassles. I had to order furniture - and wait for it.  My bed arrived 12 days early.  I now had everything I needed for my move - a bed, a fridge, a soda stream.  So I moved two nights ago - borrowed sheets, a pillow, a towel and ....... slept in my new bed, in my new home!!!!!!!!  And, I. My lift arrived yesterday slept like a log in the bed it had taken me 15 minutes to buy!!!!!!!!  

My neighbour told that before I go to sleep I must concentrate on each corner of the room and make a wish.  I was so exhausted I forgot .... until, just before I dozed off I remembered, and did what she had told me to.   She came the next morning to check whether I had done it, thank goodness I could say yes.

Everyone here has been so very welcoming - and I have help with everything.  The thing that has stumped me is my brand new smart TV - way smarter than I ever was or will be.  I have had two nights of intensive training, tonight will be the test - have I absorbed the instructions, along with the arrival of people to install the wi fi, the housekeeping, the social worker, the nurse, the neighbours, the gardeners, the cooks. Yesterday a Russian/Ukrainian team of scary looking muscular men raced in and out of my little home carrying the boxes that had been shipped almost four months before. They gave me a piece of paper with the numbers of the boxes and scurried back and forth shouting the numbers in accented hebrew and I had to tick off each box.  They slit the boxes open and drove off leaving me and brother-in-law in a state of shock.

And so the process of renesting has begun.

Fate

 With the upsetting far tilting right results of the elections in Israel this week, I have come to terms with my fate.

From the very beginning of my life I have obviously been doomed to live in extreme, almost totalitarian countries.  Just today, this morning, right now in fact, I have come to the conclusion that this is my lot in life.  I can not flee this reality, I just have to accept it. Of course I don't have to agree with it, and I will continue to live my life by my 'rules' - I will try to treat my fellow humans as such - not lesser than, not more than, with respect dignity. I will attempt to respond to some of their extremist ways with dignity also.

Of course this is far easier said than done.  Just yesterday I experienced Israeli treatment at the Ministry of the Interior.  This is an appointment that was made six months ago.  Let us just say the treatment is not at all polite or gracious.  My sister and I were confronted by a female clerk - just a small example of her manner:  she shoved forms along the counter for me to sign.  I had to read them, of course, in Hebrew. I must have taken a little longer than she cared for - she pointed to a line and said 'sign, sign here,, what is your problem.'  I signed and she grabbed them back - maybe I signed my life away, who knows.  Before I took another breath she had given me a 'valid ID card, a new passport - changed my name officially from Nesta Rovina Lowenberg, to Nesta Rovina. Mission accomplished. As we stood to leave she gave a half smile and said 'you two killed me!"  Apparently we had kept her extremely busy!  I told her that at least it had made her morning more interesting - with a half smile she bade us shalom.