Sometimes…(in Israel)… May 16, 2014

Sometimes a three-legged dog follows you home.  You check by taking a few steps, stopping, then walking again…He matches you exactly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you wake up in a jetlagged stupor in a park in Jerusalem, gaze through your heavy eyelids, and see this…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes Many times, you eat a bowl of hummus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you act like a drunken fool when you see balls on the wall, even when you’re not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you remember how much you love your friend…even though you haven’t seen him in 1.5 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes when you enter a party someone stamps a word on you, and you have no idea what it means, but feel fairly confident it’s not degrading because everyone else has it on too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you run into a woman in the desert you went to college with at UC Berkeley 9 years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you are climbing thousands of years old Nabataean ruins at sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you’re biking along and come up to a protest…and have no idea what it is for or about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you find yourself sitting in on a Batsheva rehearsal and they do a full costumed run of a piece you’ve never seen live before!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you’re reminded how beautiful and selfless the world and her inhabitants can be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you find yourself at a party called “It’s Britney, Bitch” and it’s exactly what you thought it would be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you’re reminded how lucky you are and how great your life is! Hours before my flight doing pull-ups at the Mediterranean Sea.

This picture needs its own entry!

Desert

I spent my last three days in Israel in the Desert by the Dead Sea.  There was a Gaga retreat that happened to align with my last days.  Two Israeli Gaga teachers would lead a 60 person retreat/workshop, and three other teachers and good friends of mine were also attending.  I would go to the desert, do a bunch of Gaga, come back to TLV, grab my stuff, and head to the airport.  It felt solid!  A great way to finish up my trip…the cherry on top.

Luckily, I bought my ticket ahead of time, the bus was completely sold, and one of my friends, Natalia, was turned away.  The rest of us (a group of 9 other Gaga teachers, and Gaga takers) embarked on our journey…a simple three hour bus ride from Tel Aviv to Tsofar.  The beginning of the trip was easy, along the coast, farmland, normal highways.  Then we got closer to the desert, more sparse vegetation, small roads, light evidence of the storm that had recently passed through.  It went through Tel Aviv the night before…my friend and I were lounging in my house and were convinced that there were paparazzi outside snapping photos of us…Lightning and storms are that rare that we just couldn’t wrap our brains around actual lightning.  But as we moved forward deeper into the desert the storm took its toll.  We pulled over a small hill and saw a line of 40-50 cars waiting.  A cop was standing in front of the line, arms crossed, disgruntled face, information was not flowing from him, he just stopped us, all of us.  There was a turn where he was, a sort of choice presented….wait here until God knows when, turn left and go to God knows where with who knows what awaiting you, or as our bus driver chose, pull up to the front of the line, make that left turn, then turn around.  He fooled us.  We backtracked and went to/through Mitzpe Ramon, a small town on the edge of a “crater,” a tiny version of the Grand Canyon.  We pulled into a gas station and waited 30-40 minutes, no one knew why.

When we finally got back on the road, we kept going through Mitzpe Ramon and down the canyon into the “real” desert; after the switchback roaded descent, the earth was flat and rolling, colored rock layers clearly visible. It was stormy, windy, wet….rocks that looked as if they hadn’t been wet in decades were glistening like black glass.  Millions of tiny crumbles of dark glass littering the landscape for miles around.  It was stunning.

We went through low lying roads with water on them, not a big deal for a big bus.  But eventually we came up to a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere.  No one knew what was going on…no one on the bus, no one walking by the bus on the road…even if I spoke Hebrew fluently, I don’t think it would have helped.  A gorgeous colonel in the army busted from the back of the bus, and without speaking a word (I was watching his every move) ordered the bus driver to open the door.  He walked to the side of the road and peed.  It seemed the thing to do.  Others joined.  Some smoked, inquired, or stretched their legs.  This is when I witnessed the most beautiful thing I have ever seen….pictured here.  In front of God and everybody!

We waited here for about an hour, assuming that there was an impassable flood.  It would have been easier to navigate through the traffic if so many people hadn’t taken it upon themselves to make a two lane road four cars wide and pull up wherever there was a “free” spot on the road.  Slow and squeaky inch by inch cars and trucks decided which way to go….wait in line, or try to turn around and go back.  As the space somewhat cleared we eventually got a break, and went up to the flood, I assume people let us by because it was obvious that our big bus could get through more easily that a 2-cylinder car could.  After waiting 10 minutes for the other side of the flood to have the right of way, we began to push through.  It was exhilarating.  I never felt unsafe…like the water would tip us or even that our luggage below would get wet, but the powers of nature were so in our faces, the life of it all was impossible to ignore.  We hardly minded that we were off course, knew nothing of our eventual destination (could we get there?), were hours behind schedule, or that we didn’t have bathroom in the bus.  After we got through this big flood, we still had a long ways to go.  Our bus driver unapologetically and with absolute zero remorse told us (after asking) that we could not go to Tsofar, where we had wanted and paid to go.  Instead, we’d be dropped at some stop on the road to Eilat.  We acquiesced.

Upon arrival, we got out of the bus, into the inch of mud slathered all over the road, got our luggage out and waited in a location that not even a GPS could identify, waiting for strangers to come pick us up from the desert eco-village that was hosting the Gaga retreat.  Two cars came within minutes, a rare synchronization that Israel is not known for.

This car ride was powerful.  I had all Israelis in my car…which was my opportunity to go inward and have my own experience, instead of being drawn into conservation.  I wiped the condensation from the windows and took in with all of my being the double rainbows, the slick wet rocks, the sweet clean smells, and the stark contrast between the sun breaking through the clouds lighting up the brown rocks into a sort of golden hue and the darkness of post-storm clouds gloomily moving about seemingly unable to decide which cardinal direction they will choose. Even though it was flooding over the road every mile or two the storm had passed and I could see a land recovering from this once in every 50-years flood.  Chasms were carved, and in the destruction there was a feeling of cleanliness.

We made it to the location (Moa Oasis) 15 minutes before the sun went down, pools of water were everywhere in the camp, mud on everyone’s luggage and shoes.  A trip that was quoted as 3 hours took us almost 8.  I was eager to sleep and was excited to see the desert landscape fresh in the morning.

Holidays…Celebrate… May 14, 2014

Without planning, I happened to be in Israel for Pesach/ Passover, Easter, Holocaust Memorial Day, Veterans Memorial Day, and Independence Day.  I have gotten used to there being many (sometimes obscure, even to Israelis) holidays in Israel.  It’s happened more than once that I have gone to a store and found it inexplicably closed because of a holiday without even knowing it was a holiday.

One of the things that is incredibly powerful about two of these holidays is a country-wide siren going off to indicate a minute or two of silence and introspection.  During the Holocaust Memorial a siren went off at 10am…I was in the studios of Suzanne Dellal preparing for the day’s Gaga class.  A few of the dancers were already standing at the windows looking out of the city when the siren went off.  I felt no qualms about joining this ritual.  Everyone has some relationship to the Holocaust…Maybe none as intensely as the citizens of Israel.  I thought of many things during this minute…my grandparents involved in WWII, those who escaped the Nazis, those who didn’t, the gay men murdered in the camps, the children today who have not yet been taught or are unable to grasp the horrors of the history of the Holocaust…my thoughts and emotions wandered, I let them.

During the Veterans Memorial Day there are two sirens…one at night (8pm?) and one in the morning (11am).  I was at home when the evening one went off.  I quickly went to the window, seeing randomly placed denizens at their balconies, windows, and on the street cars parked. A calm silence permeated the city…where normally horns, barking dogs, and loud conversations and arguments can be heard blocks away.  There is a unifying bonding feeling as we all stand silently, eyes focused forward, not on each other.  The next morning Ohad ended class early saying, “there will be a siren in a few minutes, take the time you need, guys.”  We were all silent.  Some stretched, did small dancer movements, wiped off sweat, while others went to the windows early…patiently waiting.  Reflecting.  In such a small country, many people have a relative who died in a war…and for being 66 years old (Israel), the wars are not so distant, they are more fresh I imagine.

In America, I don’t feel a personal connection to Veterans Memorial Day.  I had many grandcestors in America’s wars, but today I (and the majority of our population) know very few people who have served in the armed forces.  I miss this ritualized ceremony in the States.  I wish we had something that unified us as a country like a moment of silence.  We tried after 9/11, but I remember these as awkward unsure and mainly as one-time happenings.

One of the crazy things is that Veterans Memorial Day is back to back with Independence day.

To try and get the order of events, I somewhat seriously asked my friend, “So, tonight we are sad and tomorrow we are happy?!”

She laughed, and said, “I hadn’t thought of it like that, but yes, tonight we are sad, and tomorrow we party!”

Mamootot

It was one of my first nights in Israel and one of the only chances I got to see Batsheva Dance Company while in town.  I had never seen Mamootot (Mammoths), and quite honestly get confused about many of the works in Batsheva’s repertory…the ones I have never seen, but hear the titles of, or have learned snippets of choreography from. It was a beautiful work, laid out in the round, audience on four sides, each performer had their section to shine in.

Starting with a solo from Zena, a Russian goddess with quiet and subtle power in her movements. She is walking away from me in one moment, her hips decidedly like the shoulder blades of a lioness, and without a beat she is bending and hinging her back to within a centimeter of the floor.  She doesn’t arch down gingerly, showing her control, she explodes downwards mocking what I believe to be normal knee behaviour….quietly subtlely coming back up and turning to meet her next audience facing and her next choreographic experience.

Each performer is unique, yet each has something undeniably shared.  They are powdered with white on their skin and made to look like a ragtag group of orphans, and through out the piece seek connection…in oddly non-human ways.  Blank expressions, body switching stories constantly, sitting down in the front row sandwiched between two strangers never acknowledging them, but knowing their breath and heat and sweat are being exuded and shared.

There was another solo (duet actually) that struck me.  Towards the end of the dance, Or comes out to join Wei-Wei already in a fitful gesturing solo.  He enters her space, I’m not sure if he’s consoling her or being aggressive.  But he backs up, unzips his costume, and steps out of the garment.  He is naked in an instant.  One cannot help but feel the inherent revealing nature of being in the center of a room with a square of people surrounding you.  He goes into choreography from earlier in the piece.  Repeating and changing facings.  I am struck by how powerful he is (especially for being so young), meaning he does not seem to care….often I see people do nude work and I feel that it has an attitude of blase, is confrontational, insecure, or a mix of things.  This felt exactly what it was…a naked man dancing.  It was non-sexual, which is to be commended, but I could easily see the beauty of his body.  I was in awe of a moment when Or was moving, piercing the space with his toes, deeply lunging while twisting his torso and spine, then suddenly he came to standing and faced me directly.  His arms were extended up, shoulders not shrugged, but relaxed.  I saw him.  I saw his whole body. I saw the entireity of this man.  His armpit hair was full, his pelvis wide, and his height exaggerated.

I love seeing work up close. I love feeling the movement in my body, not merely patterns on the floor and relationships to space, but feeling as though I am in this room with these people and am somehow a part of what they are doing.

It’s always something…

One night coming home in Israel.

The North April 29, 2014

In Israel, whenever there is a mention of the North, it is proverbial.  It’s a great place of wonder (from Tel Avivian’s perspectives) where there are trees of green, pools of fresh drinkable water, and snow in the Winter.

“The North is beautiful this time of year!” can be hear throughout much of the year.

“Ahh, yes, but go to the north and it is green and there is water.”

“In the North it is so different.”

And they are right.  The North is very different from Tel Aviv, from Jerusalem, and from the Negev desert in the middle/South of Israel. This weekend I went to the North with my friend Ilan.

 

I had mentioned that I wanted to go on a camping/hiking trip, and since he is on (what I would call) Spring Break, he and I packed up his car with gear and headed to the North, to the Sea of Galilee.  We drove from Jerusalem (where he lives) and quickly felt the change in environment and altitude.  Very quickly we found ourselves in a land with rolling hills and a chalk-like ground.  It looked like you’d either step onto the Earth and it would crumble under your feet, or it would be hard unchanging rock.  The plant life faded away into mere hints of weeds at the sides of the road.  We saw date farms with symmetrical row after row of palm trees, banana plantations (“plantain-tions?”), and other exotic agriculture…pomegranates, olives, unrecognizable plants…growing where nothing should be growing.  Down near the Dead Sea, down below sea level, down where the rain pours randomly and rushes down the hills, unable to grasp onto any root system or soak into verdant soils. We drove on a two-lane highway all the way to the Kinneret/ Sea of Galilee.

 

Ilan researched a place to the North of the Sea (which should really be called a “lake”) where we could camp and then take a trailhead early in the morning. We arrived at sunset, after a beautiful drive around the Sea, over the semi-hilly terrain, and found a campsite that was less than my hope of what our camping experience would be.  Imagine a spot of land next to a park entrance, cleared of vegetation, fenced in, littered with barrels sawed in half to accommodate “safe” fire pits, a scattering of seemingly unowned dogs, two children under three years old, one couple that seemed simultaneously post-coitus and pre-coitus, and a few humanmade stone walls to either make the grounds more aesthetically pleasing, block the wind, or feign a sense of privacy.  We were less than impressed.  We walked back to the main information house to regroup and think of our course of action. I had a fantasy of going with Ilan up into the wilderness of the North.  To find a wooded, wet, green, and flowered area…if there were colorful butterflies and a clear view of the stars, it wouldn’t hurt either.  It would be warm, but not too warm, a gentle breeze, perhaps a stream we could drink from or bathe in, a trickling to lull us to sleep.  Not a parking lot, open the gate, walking 30 paces, and plop yourself down for the night.

 

After pausing for a few minutes and talking to the main “ranger” (a guy smoking a cigarette in a pair of shorts, who was shutting doors and locking locks), we decided at sunset this was the best option, and it was at the base of our hike for the next day.  We headed back to the campsite and unloaded our supplies.  After dark set in, it wasn’t so bad. We couldn’t see the other people as much, felt a bit more private, saw the stars, heard the coyotes, and started cooking our beans.  We tucked ourselves between the perimeter fence and a little stone wall, a token of privacy. As we were cooking and resting and enjoying the relative calm after a few hour drive (and I think both of us were enjoying simply being outside of an urban center…San Francisco, Jerusalem, or Tel Aviv), a group of boys came close to our site, claiming their lot.  It started with one guy, 22-25 years old, and gained two more, than a three more.  A woman who was on the other side of them, one part of the post-coitus pair, poked her head out of her tent and said in Hebrew, “We really like our sleep!” in a clearly suggestive tone to the young man staking out the spot. We then heard the loudest, deepest voiced, broadly carried shoulder guy come our way.  Ilan said, “Here comes their leader!”  I was laying on my back, eyes to the stars, Ilan was sitting up near my head.  He whispered a mantra to the Universe repeatedly, “Please go away, please find another spot, Go away, Go away, Go away.”  I was smiling, laughing, trying to send energy to these young men, also in hopes of telling them that this was not their spot. Not for drinking, not for starting to build their camp once everyone else was either already finishing dinner or already asleep.  Ilan translated for me saying that they were deciding on a new spot, Should they stay or should they go?  Their leader, the silverback gorilla, was wanting to stay put, but the others were trying to softly suggest they find their own open spot.  After what felt like 20 minutes, but was probably 3, they traipsed off towards the front of the campgrounds.  We felt a small victory.  Ilan was thrilled.    Later we heard them with a microphone…Karaoke?! Karaoke Kamping?!  They had three tents and were fast asleep the next morning when Ilan and I had awoken, made and eaten breakfast, packed all our stuff into the car, brushed our teeth, and headed to the trail.

 

We began hiking around 8am, through a rocky, grassy, area that reminded me of California….Oak trees scattered in the hills, with brown grasses filling in the blank.  It was a beautiful hiking, Macro views of the Sea of Galilee, the sky, hills, and gorges, Micro views of strange bugs…grasshoppers that were fat and looked like toads…and flower blooms that had shapes and colors specific to the region and season. We hiked flat for a while, then went down into a canyon….a stream that carved into the rocky layers above the Sea of Galilee, gathered in pools, and eventually drained into the Sea.  We stopped to observe and take in the experience, talked, gathered information, and then to swim.  We hiked for about four hours, and saw no one…I kept expecting to see people, Israel is a fairly densely populated place, but we were early enough.  We hiked alone, sat alone, and swam alone….together.

 

 

After this hike, we drove around to another accessible pool called the Hexagons Pool, named for the rock formations around the pool.  If we were alone earlier, we made up for it here. Families, couples, dogs, rangers (smoking cigarettes and dropping their walkie-talkies into the water), and scattered signs of humanities dotted the area around the pool.  But both Ilan and I agreed that we were happy we came down to this pool too.  It was beautiful and felt luxurious in a way.   And spending a day with my buddy Ilan was super special.  It’s not every day that I get to hike around the North of Israel, swim in fresh water, and hang with Ilan!

First Class, Second Class, Who knew?! April 28, 2014

On my train ride from Brussels to the Airport I was the only person on my car.  I was propped up, with my luggage tucked under my arm, staring out the window as the urban landscape gave way to semi-suburban (for European standards), when the ticket collector came by.

 

“Oh sure, here you go.”

 

“This is the wrong sections.  You are in first class.  You need to pay more to sit here.”

 

I dumbfoundedly and jetlagginly responded, “I..what….where did you say, What do you mean?” I truly did not understand.  I was thinking he surely must be kidding, as I scanned the train car trying to decipher what was going on.

 

He said, “These seats.  Higher.  You pay more for here.” And pointed to a “1” on the glass.

 

I didn’t argue, collected my things, and gave a subservient gesture to him as i acquiesced his demand that I move “lower.”  Again, I was the only person on the entire car.  And he was dead serious.

Brussels April 22, 2014

Before this trip, I hadn’t been to Brussels in 13 years.  In 2001, I went for only one day, not even a full 24 hours, from my friend’s house in Ghent, Belgium.  In that short time we (with my Ghentian friend) traversed much of the city, but my friend was in charge and I didn’t invest in knowing what we were doing, where we were going in the city, or planning anything specific…and most of our time there it was dark out.

On Thursday I landed in Brussels at 7AM, my flight left Brussels that night for Tel Aviv at 6:45PM.  Plenty of time to explore!  My weary jetlagged butt got through customs almost with barely a nod…the passport checker looked at me, asked me zero questions, and said, “Enjoy your trip!”  Maybe I was lucky, or it was just 7AM and he didn’t care much.  I took a train into town, and popped myself into some chilly Belgian air, ready for an all-day epic zombie jetlag walk through a foreign, yet vaguely familiar city.  I knew my body would crash if I sat down for too long or got comfy in the manicured grass lawns of the parks.  So, I walked.  I walked to and through all the touristy parts, then got a bit bored and headed out of the map.  I literally went to the edge of the map I received at the info booth, then followed my desire.

It was a bit of the red light/green light game…go for a walk in any gridded city and simply follow the green lights when you get to an intersection.  Without deciding anything, you’ll have an adventure, most likely see things you haven’t before, and end up somewhere you would never have planned.  I followed the spirit of this.  My red light/ green light was more of a interesting architecture/ boring architecture game.  I chose the small side streets based on what perked up my interests.  What “called” to me.

In general, I like to see how the people of any given city live, rather than only go to the main attractions, city centres, or tourist “musts.”  Those are great too.  I would be woe to have not seen the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben, but once I’ve seen them, I’m good. I look for the markets, the parks, the suburbs…How people take care of their children, how they interact in cafés, what they do in public space, etc.  I LOVED reconnecting to Brussels, and this time I didn’t get robbed by a mob of Morrocan teenagers!  True story.

What happens in Belgium, Stays in Belgium

Frittes