The Listen and the Action

Two of my three 50-pound suitcases +

my carryon suitcase + my backpack. 

What I've realized is that there are not enough pounds in the aliyah allotment for me to schlep the amount of clothes, coffee mugs with sentimental meaning, medical stuff (vitamins, supplements, allergy pills, and my oodles of creams), my down-alternative comforter (because I'm neurotic about the things I sleep with and on -- not being able to schlep a pillow is actually causing me unrest), and so forth. I don't know how it filled up so fast. But it did. I had to hardcore downsize, leaving lots of clothing and some precious home goods behind. I sent home THREE boxes of books to my parents -- seforim and lots of books from graduate school I cannot part with. I'm not taking a single cookbook with me. I'm so paranoid about finding clothes that both fit me and are well-built (being a plus size gal makes certain items difficult to find anyhow), so I stocked up here. My luggage is brimming with Lane Bryant and Old Navy and ... I'll be set for a while, anyhow. 

I'm rising in about 5 hours and 45 minutes to shower and get everything else packed up. I'm weighing my luggage every few minutes, it seems like, and I just know I'm going to get to the airport and they're either going to be too heavy or they're going to have five pounds of free room and I'm going to say "WHY ME?! WHY!?" After packing, I'm packing up the car, taking a last-minute trip to the donation center, the bank to withdrawal a ridiculous amount of cash, and off to the airport for my 11:15 a.m. flight to New York City. 

If anyone desires a meetup in the Five Towns for dinner Sunday night, let me know. My flight gets into LaGuardia at 5 p.m. and I figure I'll be at my hotel by 6:30 or 7 p.m. Then? Rest. Relaxation ... and ... I'll probably end up doing a lot of work actually. Monday I have to be at JFK by 3 p.m. for my 7 p.m. Nefesh b'Nefesh flight to Israel. 

This is aliyah folks. When you're a young, single person, you pack your life into three, 50-pound suitcases plus a carry on plus a personal item. The funny thing is that it doesn't feel weird to me. At work on Friday everyone said I seemed inordinately calm. For me, it's like I'm moving to a new city -- something I've done so very many times before. Packing up a bunch of suitcases and schlepping them across a country is what I do, so an ocean seems no different to me. The only difference is that I'm not the one driving the car doing the schlepping -- I'm on a plane, my luggage is packed tightly away, and I'm at the whim of the weather, some pilots, and time. 

It's adventure for me. Grabbing life by the reins and really owning it. It's taking the land -- Eretz Yisrael -- and possessing it. HaShem commanded me -- all of Israel -- to do this. So it doesn't feel strange, it just feels more right than all of the other attempts I've made at moving and possessing the space I inhabit. This time, it's real. This time? It's for keeps. This time, HaShem is fully with me. I finally listened, as we're commanded so many times in the Torah to do so. Shema, it says. Listen. 

Not once in the Torah does HaShem demand that we obey Him. HaShem asks us merely to listen. To absorb. To take in. To internalize. And only then do we act, because we want to be an active participant in this world, in this creation, in Am Yisrael. 

"Be silent, Israel, and listen! You have now become the people of the LORD your God. Listen to the LORD your God and follow His commands and decrees that I give you today" (Deut. 27:9-10).

It's taken me several years of listening to finally act. And now that I am? The listening, the choice, the action -- it's like feeling my skin for the first time. It's a part of me.

Aliyah Update: Vlog Style

Fourth of July: In and Out Like a Ghost

It's Tuesday July 6, and Independence Day just zipped on past me. In fact, yesterday zipped past me. I think it's the first Fourth of July in years that I really haven't thought much about the day or longed for July 4ths of years gone by.

This picture probably describes what I was doing on the Fourth better than I can.

Or maybe this one? 

We were on a bridge, driving back from Connecticut with a UHaul full of the rest of our "stuff." I didn't see a single burst of fireworks, and I only heard a smattering of poppage. It was depressing, mostly because where I come from, that is to so say where I grew up in Southern Missouri and Eastern Nebraska, the Fourth of July was a big deal.

I remember attending one year an installment of the dualing neighbors in their fireworks displays that rang in at $2,000+ at each house. Other years I went out to the lake with friends and watched the fireworks. One year I even hosted people at my parent's house; it was the July 4 after graduating, in 2006. We grilled out, had a water-balloon fight, and accidentally blew fireworks off in the garage (much to my father's dismay). Afterward, we went across town to watch the big display. That, folks, was a year to remember. A few years back I was in Oak Park with my then-boyfriend, drinking bears, playing bags (Chicago style), and ogling a friend's new baby. The year after that -- my last in Chicago -- I schlepped out to the local harbor, plopped down with hundreds of other people, and waited for the fireworks to begin. I watched people order Latino corn treats off carts, children edging near the water and parents pulling them back. It was a peaceful, calm, and, for me, perfect way to celebrate Independence Day.

And this year? Moving boxes, packing boxes, emptying boxes, staring at boxes, wondering when it will all be done. Painting, trying to find time to eat, nursing back pain, knee pain, leg pain, arm pain. One thing's for sure: I was never cut out to move heavy or light objects up and/or down stairs.

I was joking with Tuvia that I am a thinker, an intellectual. Worse came to worse, I wouldn't be able to snuff it physically with the rest of them. Thinking about the Holocaust, the camps, those who couldn't snuff it, it depresses me. Would I have been one of them? Such a morbid thought for Independence Day, but that's the way the cookie crumbles right now.

We hope to have everything painted and unpacked by Friday. Hopefully Shabbos will come in to a well-organized, settled, comfortable house that feels like a home. Come Monday, I'm back to being a student (for the time being anyhow, as I have to start and finish my grad exam in two weeks). It'll feel good to be back doing something that I'm good at: learning, writing, positing.

Back to the unpackin' and paintin' grind, folks. Be well!