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.

High Anxiety

 This morning, as is my wont - I turned on my radio - NPR.  Then I wonder why I turn it on - the ongoing horrors.  The ever worsening situation in Ukraine - China, Nato, Then I looked up covid requirements for my upcoming trip to Israel, and I remembered a film by Mel Brooks, High Anxiety, with an accompanying song.  Anyone else remember this?Please let me know, so that I can be assured that such a film was really made and viewed.

The travel requirements for Israel were a PCR test within 48 hours of departure.  Today it is 72 hours!!!!! Which is of course much better - but I do know I saw 48 hours a couple of days ago.

And my niece in Israel is not well - out of hospital today.  

Was it just 3 weeks ago that I was on a yoga retreat in Rancho La Puerta?  And did I blog about that retreat?  In my last entry I mentioned that I was going there.

I went and while there I realised that 4 nights and three days are certainly not enough time to decompress from these past couple of years - and it was in that time that the spectre of Putin's invasion of Ukraine loomed ahead. No one was quite sure it would happen, or rather, one hoped it would not happen, although it was quite obvious it would happen.

And I also discovered that I don't feel quite at ease with being around lots of people - certainly not at the airports, and not even around a horde of vaccinated, boosted people in a spa!!!!! At San Diego Airport I waited for the bus to Rancho La Puerta.  Because it was President's Day weekend there were throngs of people. Just a few steps ahead of me I saw a little girl of about 4, with a big backpack. Just behind was her mother, holding bags and parcels. I saw that a strap from one of the bags had wound itself around the little girl's neck, and it was tightening around her neck as she walked ahead of her mother. I told the mother what was happening and she immediately put out a hand to stop her daughter and remove the strap. The daughter began crying and the mother glared at me as if I had tried to strangle her daughter.  I am not sure whether she was exhausted, overwhelmed, scared of covid, or just a not nice person, but a smile or a 'thank you' would have been appreciated.

Not to say my time was not enjoyable - great yoga classes, in 3-D!!!! Good food, nice company.  Another reminder that life is to be spent in the moment.

Some Movement

 My state of suspended animation has passed - for no discernible reason.  It passed because all things pass; all states, all moods, all sorrows, all joys. Each and every moment.

And so it happened that one day I woke up, went for a walk, and shopped for food. Oh yes, and cooked.

Nothing new, nothing thank goodness, earth shattering. No fanfare, no trumpets.

And now I am planning to go away - the first time in two years. And the first time ever to a retreat center. Yoga, hikes in the moutntains, swimming!  Sounds quite lovely and very healing.

Today I finished a painting that I have been working on since last year.  A painting of one of my beloved landscapes - the Jezreel Valley.

Some movement.

And these are from yesterday's walk to Blake Gardens.  One of the exciting discoveries from my covid neighbourhood walks.  It is Magnolia time

Suspended Animation

I am in a state that is so difficult to describe. I am wracking my brain trying to find the right word, or combination of words.   I feel like I exist in a space of suspended animation, like  being in a glass of liquid without moving. I am neither sinking to the bottom nor rising to the top. I am not floating on my back, rather I am upright - just being in the liquid.  

Uninspired?  possibly.  Hence no blog, no art, no cooking even!  

What am I doing?  reading, walking, yoga, meditating, gardening, sketching

OK - quite a long list for someone who is uninspired.  Maybe that is enough for the time being, until a current comes and stirs me on.

A New Year

 My wish for the new year, and for those I care for, is_. 

May it not contain any surprises

May it be healthy

May it be peaceful

And most important

May we be able to comprehend the constant barrage of ever changing covid-19 rules.

Here is the first sunset of 2022

Some Joy

 In these waning days of 2021 (am I REALLY writing this already) when everyone I know, myself included, are just sort of 'mmeehh' - neither good nor bad, neither depressed nor joyful, neither cold nor warm, neither utterly despairing nor hopeful, all just teetering along, taking each day as it comes - nay, each moment as it comes, when something really heartwarming happened.

A couple of cold and - thankfully rainy - afternoons ago, I sat at my kitchen/art table, laboriously mixing paints alongside the specified munsell chips.  My phone rang - again.  It never rings until the moment when I can't really answer. Already that afternoon I had got up several times to peer at the names appearing on my phone.  Not easy to see the names, of course, but when I did discern them I didn't pick up the receiver. It rang yet again and I went into my darkening office/yoga studio/spare room and peered at the name.  To my surprise a name from the past appeared.  It was the grandmother of a little girl I had worked with at least 13 years ago.  

 Smiling I picked up the receiver.  

This was a family I loved.  The very first time I went to evaluate the little girl she sat in a high chair banging her spoon, drooling profusely.  She had large black eyes and a shock of braids with different colored barrettes.- She took one look at me as I walked in and sat at the table, and she began to laugh.  Apparently I was the funniest thing she had ever seen.  She laughed and drooled and chuckled. Her grandmother was mortified, but that little girl's laugh was so contagious that she had set me off as well.  And so began our love affair.

She and her twin brother were born at seven months on the streets of Fresno to a homeless, addicted mother.  They were placed in foster care. The mother died, and the twin brother died also.  Somehow the system tracked down her grandparents who lived in Richmond. They drove to Fresno and brought her home.  It was quite obvious she had cerebral palsy, and so I began to see her from when she was 10 months old until she turned three.  

This was during the great recession.  The grandparents lost their home. They both worked, then grandfather lost his job.  Grandmom's job was not nearly enough to support a family, but somehow, with faith,  they carried on.  The little girl never quite got over her mirth whenever I was there, but we managed to play and to work between bouts of laughter.   She tried so hard to sit, to stand, to chew, to modulate her facial movements, to coordinate her limbs.  It was for me another case of an environment in which the love was so thick and palpable it felt as if everyone was held, warm and upright.

The years passed, Granddad got his job back, they found a decent place to rent, they supported their granddaughter. She was going to school - she had botox injected to relax her muscles so she could stand and learn to walk, with the use of a walker.  Eventually she had surgery.  

After she turned three I no longer went there, but we kept in touch, and then I 'retired' (was retired) and that was 5 years ago. And now, on this gloomy day Grandmom called.  What joy - we caught up and then I spoke to the no longer little girl, a teenager.  She sounded incredible - she's in school and planning for college -  I told grandmom how her call made me feel so grateful, and warm, and joyous, and she said - "Nesta - you were there for us through everything. We love you."

What more could I want?