its one of the things that i have come to appreciate much more as i have gotten older (no laughing). that life is full of moments. good moments, bad moments, portentous moments, just moments.
tonight was another one of those. just a lovely dinner with a friend and her partner, a fish restaurant in gaza. sitting out over the beach, a raucous wedding celebration below, tables of shabab on the beach smoking arguila, and some crazy fishermen welding something together all in the middle of it.
our discussions were all over the board. advise on future job postings, discussions of where have the best social scenes, good holiday spots, diving, where to visit in israel. it was nice. just a moment of calm in the storm. a surreal moment in the middle of it all.
it was also so nice to see how a couple, a happy couple, can make this kind of life work for them. they met in chad, they worked through anne's posting to (provencial) china, and they worked out something here together. it gives you hope that you don't ultimately have to choose between work you like and a partner. its encouraging.
and thats it. just a simple musing. its nice to have something so mundane as a lovely dinner with friends be the spot light of the day. that sounded wrong. dinner with friends is never mundane. but that thought of something so 'simple' in my 'oh-so-exciting' life being the highlight of the day. well, honestly, its a bit comforting.
that at some base level, life is always about the simple things. remembering that is the key finding happiness. and maintaining it.
i'm back in gaza. its kind of surreal. its one of those things where you don't feel like you've been gone at all. then there are moments when you feel that you have missed a lifetime. but truth be told, it feels like i have coming home. coming back to these people, this place. its oddly comfortable.
and thats what scares me the most, i think.
this is not a place to be comfortable, to count amongst your homes. yet, coming back today, knowing everyone i passed, having them smile at me, truly smile, and say welcome back, we missed you! the hugs the kisses. this place is, for want of better or worse, home.
making my peace with it is something else. but, for the next 5 months its home.
okay, back to sitting in coffee shops and working. i must admit that there are certain aspects of my job that i like, and that do make it fun and glamorous. being able to get away with 'working' as long as i have access to the internet and my phone is nice.
it does mean that when i have access to either of those things i don't have a free minute, but it also means that i can do things like leave gaza a day early and sit in a coffee shop and work.
passover has begun, so there is no levened bread, which is sad because i love aroma's bread. but they have all sorts of fun new pastry's, which is kind of nice.
i am psyching myself up to take the train to the airport. i think i am more nervous about that than the grilling that i am going to get once i actually get to the airport. thats really a bit alarming... silly me, i know.
and so for now i will entertain myself by people watching - the kids are cute (this is really a family holiday), and the soldiers that keep coming over to borrow the extra chair at my table (always speaking to me in hebrew), the nicely attentive waitress (they know us here since we're in once a week at least), the crazy man who thinks sticking his hand gun in his trousers is a good idea (they invented holsters for a reason dude).
ah yes, this place grows on you in the oddest of ways - even if at times it can be simultaneously hilarious, terrifying, mystifying and hugely frustrating...
oh, and i have to remember to finally write the post about the crazy gun-totting motorcycle riding terror patrol in jerusalem... i remember the first time i saw them i was totally agahst and wanted to rush home and write about them. but sadly, over the year of spending weekends in jerusalem its just become an accepted sight. awful, i know.
there are some things that until you see them yourself, well, its not that you don't believe it, its just that it doesn't quite sink in. the comprehension is not quite there.
so, today we were sitting at the french cultural centre for the opening of the unicef photo exhibit celebrating (which once you saw the pictures was not quite right) Palestinian childhood - since its the day of the Palestinian child. and, as per usual, the F16s were doing their standard fly-bys.
okay, it was worse than usual. they were lower than usual, closer in to the city, usually its not quite over the middle of gaza city. anyway, they were loud. and watching the kids in the audience i began to really understand, to actually see what this conflict, what the war, has done to children here. what it has turned childhood into here.
as soon as the fly-bys started that was it. the kids were all looking up into the sky trying to find the planes. shifting in their seats. reaching for their mothers hands. moving onto their parents laps. they just couldn't pay attention to anything else going on. and i'm not just talking 4-5 year olds. i am talking 10-12 year olds.
and thats when it hit me. how do you live like this? how do you survive like this as a child and hope to come out even possibly close to what the rest of the world recognises as normal? how can you live when hearing a plane in the sky is immediately associated with a bombing run. with losing your home, or a sibling, or a parent, or your school?
thats not life. thats not even surviving.
in other news: i found a butcher in jerusalem who sells pork sausages. i experimented and managed to throw together toad-in-the-hole, with sweet potato mash, glazed carrots and sweet corn in an hour. we had a lovely dinner, with a bottle of red wine, and all caught up. its odd to think how much these people here have come to mean to me.
i am ready to move on. but god, i am going to miss them. they may drive me up the wall sometimes. but i've shared 2 years of my life with them. all these experiences. they are some of the few people who get it. who understand. who i can give a look and thats it. i don't have to explain. i don't have to apologise. we just synch. there is something powerful about that shared-ness.
there's something about being up at 3am thats nice. i dunno what it is. i guess i am a bit of a nightowl. somehow the night seems freer and open to so much more. you can do what you want and its okay. the next morning is hell, but sometimes its living for the now thats most important.
its been a few days. i seem to be becoming awfully bad at this. to be honest, i am just so damned tired most of the time. it makes finding the motivation to write awfully difficult. which is bad, i know. and is not really an excuse.
this weekend has been kind of... blah. i took a day off. and lo-and-behold, my boss called at 0715hrs from new york because he needed me to change his plan ticket... and this is why i don't take days off, because they get ruined unless i leave the country. so that kind of scuppered the whole free spirit thing and set the mood for the rest of the weekend.
i know i should be the bigger person and shrug it off and start over and enjoy my weekend. but i am just tired. i am tired of being the bigger person. i'm tired of being the one who always smiles and makes thing better. sometimes it just sucks. and it sucks even more when no one can find 2 minutes in their busy day to help you in return.
some said i was far too cynical for my age the other day (they were from another agency in gaza visiting), i didn't even have to respond. my colleagues who were at dinner with us just laughed and looked and them, shook their heads and said do her job for one day and see how cynical you become.
people realise and appreciate what i do. it just doesn't get internalised sometimes. there is also a distinct schism. its the people at the top who get the most exactly what i do and what it takes to do. thats always nice. but its the people in the middle, the ones who i tend to have the most contact with, who just don't get it and treat me as if i am their own personal pa (and yes, i realise that that is redundant).
i guess what annoys me the most is when people, colleagues, ask things of me that even john doesn't ask of me. its just annoying. i guess it doesn't help that i am the youngest one there. its like they just assume that because i am the youngest it should automatically fall to me. i guess thats something i will advise my boss of for the future person who takes this position. they should be a bit older. or maybe male. maybe if they were male people wouldn't expect such things of them.
although certainly everyone should do this job. it makes you appreciate everything that goes into supporting a successful office, and a successful director. and it also ingrains in you to never treat others the way that you get treated. when it leaves you feeling like a squished bug thats a lesson you learn pretty quickly.
there are people who are asking me why i am leaving. when i say i've been doing this for 2 years there are some people who get it. and there are some who don't. i guess thats why i am leaving. i don't want to end up like those people who don't get it. i gon't want to be the job.
it makes you both a better person for doing this. and a worse. you are eriched with everything you do and see and take out of it. but it also leaves you a little broken. moving on means that you are the square peg trying to fit into the round hole...
but its not all doom and gloom. i am not quite sure how to turn this post around from doom and gloom. but i promise it is not all just doom and gloom. i am just tired. i need a couple of weeks out of country. i worked out that for the first 90 days of this year, i spent a grand total of 15 days out of the country. i dunno thats thats a high enough proportion.... not when i've been working weekends etc.
the good news is, that the next few months are going to be a blur of plane rides and foreign countries. the people at ben gurion are going to get to know me on a first name basis. which i am not sure is such a good thing. i'll be buzzing in and out of london, hitting stockholm, the states, rome, a nickelback concert, a performance of as you like it, vienna, milan, a snow patrol and u2 concert. life could be worse...
but as we've already covered, thats not enough to make it good. and really, damnit, i want good now.
