Lizrael Update: babbling about the expat life since 2004
-
The children weep openly
Look around. The families are different. Your family is different. My family is different. Some sons walk around with ghosts in their eyes now. Some daughters know more than their generous spirits can handle. The children weep openly at this Memorial Day ceremony. (Memorializing what? Yesterday’s names?) My family is different. Yours is too. Look…
-
Kaddish everywhere.
“It’s different this year. Every year it’s sad, but this year, it feels different, like, I get it now, you know?” From the mouths of Israeli teens. I’m 41. I’ve been never-forgetting my entire life. I saw these images and watched these videos and heard these testimonies from Holocaust survivors standing in front of me…
-
Koala update: fifteen years
It’s an understatement to say this was a year that, half-way through, has been impacted by the biggest national crisis of your 15 years; this is a developing story so we will watch the developments roll… for years to come… In the meantime, though, it’s safe to say… One thing I never ever want to…
-
Zooey update: eight years
I don’t know what to say, Bean. It’s a lot to pack in to so few years. Since you were four years old, the world has been upside down for the rest of us; for you and your cohort – it is what it is. I assume. We’ll find out someday. In the meantime… Keep…
-
Well I just had a fucked up weekend abroad
I don’t want to talk about it right now though. What I will say is… the returning home is always something. Every time, it’s a weird breath of relief. As uncomfortable (on a technical level) as I may feel here in Israel as an immigrant, it’s a discomfort I’m naturally comfortable with because it locks…
-
Bebe update: thirteen years
It’s official. Day 1 of surviving teenage daughter. 275938753948 days and daughters to go. An exchange during one of my more melancholy moments early on: “I should be playing D&D tonight.” “So why aren’t you?” “My friends are all in the army.” “So *they* are playing D&D… just without the dice.” Ice knife. But yeah.…
-
Nettles update: ten years
Double digit Nettles. Something you claim makes you an adult already, somehow. Or at least deserving of the privileges of your teenage sister. WHATever girl. Hold your horses. Slow down. (That’s a good joke…) It’s growth, I suppose. Like the aches you complain about – the growing pains as you steadily race to soar taller…
-
Mirrored.
If you keep watchful enough you’ll see it. The people… have become posters. Glazed, 2d, the way a memory alters the view; an extra height to that building, a wider hall than it was. An embrace that was just a hug. The realness slips away… like what death does… it distorts. Grief is the journey…
-
Sons
What Israeli mother at some point doesn’t silent cry while watching her sleeping teenage son breathe in and out, the way she did when he was just under 3 kilo and ignorant of everything but wanting to live? Who doesn’t softly weep after pulling herself into bed next to her boy, now taller, now stronger,…
-
Horse pills
“Together we’ll win” (יחד ננצח) is lovely wartime morale propaganda but we’re so far from together and the fact is getting more true and more painful and I have my own 2-part prescription for the country after we volunteered on a horse farm today for a woman whose been managing on her own since Oct…
-
Strawberries
Every week you miss the strawberries; the strawberry guy’s truck is still there by the time you haphazardly show up after two, but there’s only apples, small melons, maybe some citrus left. Oh well next time, you smile at your teen who you’ve once again asked/requested/implored to jump out the car to inquire about longshot…
-
100 days into hell
It’s an ugly time. A time of nightmares coming true, a time of mourning and imagining and planning for the worst, constantly. A time when things you couldn’t bring yourself to say out loud a few months ago are now regular topics. I’ve learned a lot about us. I’ve learned that the ugliest things are…
Questions? Comments? Advice?