Something has happened. Something is always happening, isn’t it? But something has happened to make my heart hurt in a different way, and instead of trying to figure out how to tell this Israel story, I have to figure out where the story is located behind all this other stuff. At first I was afraid to write anything more because I didn’t want this to be tinged with other emotions. I wanted to keep the story of Israel separate from my life. Isolate it and tell it as purely as I could. But then I remembered that this is my story, and as such it is entirely impure, riddled with the myriad agonies and ecstasies that is my life. J said, ‘sometimes I think it is best not to shape a narrative out of such journeys, just to let all the contradictions stay contrary and not be forced into the limited order
Very often people (usually men) tell me I am intense. I’ve never really understood what they mean by it, other than, at best, it is some kind of backhanded compliment. Today, as I sit in my room listening to someone else’s classical music, the sound of my washing machine, and the wind in the ornamental cherry tree, all I can think to say is that this last week of my life has been intense. I don’t know what I mean by that other than I am tired and exhausted, yet wouldn’t change it for all the world. All I want now, passionately, is for the world to change. This last week has been the strangest, most profound learning experience of my life. That I never knew I would come back feeling this way surprises me and saddens me more than I could have imagined. There are large gaps in my capacity