Purim Party Fun

This weekend I spent in Kfar Saba again with two friends of mine who weren't in the exchange program, but who I met in a Starbucks in Columbus once for an hour, and the wonderful world of Social Networking allowed that I grew close with Shaked and Inbal.  When I came to Israel for the exchange program, I stayed with them for a night, and this time I've spent a weekend with them.  Inbal and Shaked are two very beautiful very nice girls also in their senior year of high school.  I spent Friday with Inbal, as Shaked was working.  Inbal's mother absolutely stuffed me with food - I was still full from lunch when dinner rolled around.  She said, "Don't you want rice?" I said, "I have rice on my plate right now."  She said, "No you don't.  Not enough."  Yeah, she basically redefined the whole Jewish mother thing.

Inbal and Shaked took me out on Friday night.  It was Purim, and so everyone was dressed up in costumes.  I had so much fun.  On Saturday night, I went with Shaked and her family to a family brunch thing, and in the evening we went to Shaked's friend's music recital.  In Israel, every senior has a national test for whatever high school focus (basically like a college major) they've chosen.  Shaked's friend is a music major, and so she was doing her practical exam that night (they're called Bagruyot).  She and another girl (who is actually the best friend of one of my very close friends from the program - yeah, Kfar Saba isn't that big) sang six jazz songs.  It was really interesting to get to see Shaked and Inbal's high school.  Because Israel is such a small country, school works so differently for students here - the thought of every student taking the same test all across the United States seems so strange to me because in each state, the curriculum can be different, even within cities (i.e. GRAHAM).  Of course, since from the top to the bottom of Israel it takes about seven hours driving distance, everything is much smaller.

On Friday night when Shaked and I finally rolled into bed at about five in the morning, I could hear the birds outside waking up and begin to sing.  It was the most beautiful peace.  And on Sunday morning when I awoke after seeing the Bagruyot performance and hanging out with Shaked all night, bonding with her over boys and life and our interests, I realized something.  Remember that metaphor of the square hole in my chest which was supposed to somehow fit Israel and Columbus together, but never managed to do so?  I figured out that I was completely limiting myself that way.

The point should not be to struggle to fit Israel into that hole but to widen that hole, stretch it out, chisel it so that I can fit everywhere that I feel at home within this giant mess of a shape that can't really be classified as a circle or a square or a rhombus or whatever other shapes exist (I hate geometry).  I don't want to fit everything about Israel inside that hole (nor do I want to fit everything about Columbus in there as well), as there are parts of Israel that I definitely do not connect with.  In that same sense, there are places and people and things where I feel at home from all over the world - not just Columbus or Israel.

I guess this should have been obvious to me from the start, but it wasn't.  I'm glad that even if, in theory, this stretching and pulling and chiseling is difficult for me to accomplish, at least I know that I don't have to feel pressured to feel completely at home in one place or another, or both.  I can feel at home where I feel at home, and the rest is like an enormous journey, or whatever.  I wonder if that's the immigrant's syndrom, because, as weird as it is to classify myself as this, I am techincally an immigrant.  I moved from Israel when I was five to another country.  My parents are even more confusing - they're immigrants to both countries - first to Israel when they were young and then back to America when they were old-er.

I think the syndrom is that you leave the place you call home for another place, and even though you long for your home, you begin to create a home where you are.  Then, when you should return to your original home, you realize not how much it has changed, but how much you have changed, how much you have been effected by living somewhere else, by creating another home.  Isn't it like that quote by Nelson Mandella?  "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."  That's a pretty sucinct way of putting it.

I can't believe I've been here for nearly a month.  I was talking to Myca the other day and said something about my being here for three weeks.  "Three weeks?!" she cried.  "You mean like three years?  Three DECADES?"  It's true that I feel like I've been here for an eternity and at the same time, I feel like I just stepped off the plane.  I find that any time I think about the six more weeks I have left here, coming home, knowing what college I'm going to, prom (I spent a loooot of money on an Israeli prom dress, guys), Walkabout Presentations, Symposium, gra...graaa...graaadduuuu...graduaaattttiiiooo- no I can't even say it.  I start to get panicked again.  I also found out today that my mom isn't going to be able to take me to college since she has to start working really early.  The idea that these thoughts are already in my head makes me want to simultaneously get on a plane right now and figure out the rest of my life and also curl up with my computer and watch That 70's Show for hours on end.  Life?  What life?  What reality?  I don't play that game, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.