Peace and Quiet, While it Lasts

 

 

When I woke up this morning, I had a strange sensation that something was not quite right…

But what?

Oh, it was the SILENCE.

No cars zooming under my window, no buses, no garbage trucks banging, no shouting.

Blessed, pure, wonderful SILENCE.

And then I remembered. It’s Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement. The day when the Jewish people fast for 25 hours in order to ask God for forgiveness for their sins.

I love the silence of Yom Kippur. Well, at least until all the kids get outside with their bikes, rollerblades, skateboards, anything with wheels, really. But until they come out onto the streets in droves, talking loudly and shouting, I have a couple of hours of clean, unadulterated silence.

I get to drink my coffee without the background chorus of a big, busy city.

But even though I love the peace and quiet of this holy day, I have some not-so-nice memories of it from over the years.

Back when we didn’t have a hospital in our city, Maya had a strange proclivity for getting sick during religious holidays, especially Yom Kippur.

You can read about it in my post from that day.

https://aloneinholyland.blogspot.com/2011/10/rather-adventurous-yom-kippur-atonement.html

Thankfully, she was OK in the end. Just a bad case of rotavirus combined with whooping cough.

Yes, seriously.

We now have a brand-new hospital here in Ashdod.

Although, if I think about it logically, how exactly are we supposed to get there on Yom Kippur, when there is no public transportation and no cars are allowed on the streets?

This is Israel. Full of contradictions.

 

 

The Place Where My Heart Grows Quiet

If you know me, personally or through social media, you know that I am a Christian living in Israel.

 

I cannot say I am a religious person. I believe in God but I have my own views on religion and dogma.

 

Nevertheless, sometimes I feel the need to gather my thoughts, to reflect on life, to feel closer to the Divine. And while Israel has plenty of Christian places of worship – perhaps some of the most important ones in Christianity, I longed for something quieter, less touristy.

 

And so, I found Emmaus-Nicopolis.

 

I think it was more or less 18 years ago, on an Easter night, when some friends took me to the small church near Canada Forest. I remember the service was in French. The church was full and I sang “He Has Risen” with people I didn’t know but felt a spirit of camaraderie with.

 

Since then, I have returned to Emmaus many, many times. Whenever I found myself in turmoil, or when times were hard and my soul needed to be soothed, I always found my way to the small church on the top of the hill.

 

There, where in summer the cicadas go crazy and the heat undulates in the distance and where in winter the grass is so green, I felt a closeness to God I had never felt in all the big and famous churches I had visited over the years.

 

I always return from Emmaus with a heart that’s quieter, more settled, more understanding.

I am thankful that such a place exists. I am thankful that that the nuns and monks that live there accepted me and received me with open arms. Even the dog, Bianca, and she is not the friendliest of pets.

 

I don’t think you have to be Christian to enjoy the peace and quiet of Emmaus. Anyone can sit on the bench in the shade, near the pond, and say a few words to the Universal Consciousness that unites us all.

 

 

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger ( Or Does It?)

Lately, because of my heart problems I see myself forced to wander the labyrinth of the health care system.

While health care for everybody has many advantages, it has its holes, too. Deep, dark ones you can easily fall into if you don’t pay attention.

And I am writing this not only because it does me good, you know, spill it out, but also because I think there is a lesson to be learned somewhere.

Following the episode with my heart going berserk, I managed to get hold of my family doctor. I asked a clerk from my HMO to help me because I couldn’t get an appointment with my doctor until the end of the month. The clerk, a young woman, was very helpful. In the end the doctor contacted me and gave me referrals to tests.

I also asked for medication because I was scared the episode could repeat itself.

She gave me a prescription.

But, after I acquired the medication and read the leaflet that came with it, I discovered I couldn’t take it. I have a history of asthma, and under no circumstances am I supposed to take this medicine. Unless, of course, I wanted it to trigger an asthma attack.

Great. Just great!

I swore so badly and so creatively that I was ashamed of myself.

How? Why? How was I supposed to know?

I don’t understand. It is there. In my medical records. I bet she didn’t check, because it was the end of her shift and after seeing a million patients, she was tired.

Still. I try to understand.

But what keeps coming into my mind is: what would have happened if I had taken the pill?

It has happened before, you know. A doctor wanted to give me medication I was allergic to. Again, it was in my records.

Same shit happened to my husband. He received a treatment he wasn’t supposed to have because of another underlying medical condition. It affected him badly. We had to go to the emergency room.

Go figure.

It is not enough that I cannot have any tests done until the middle or end of October because everybody is on vacation. Now I have to wait until my family doctor returns from her holiday at the end of the month to change my medication.

In case I don’t die before then.

I can also try to begin the saga of phone calls and questions and see if somebody else can do it.

I don’t have anything against doctors. I think they are great guys and gals. Heck, my daughter is going to become one. I know they are overworked and underpaid.

But how is this my fault?

Isn’t there some magical computer program that could cross-check your ailments, allergies, medications, stuff like that? And if you were prescribed something you shouldn’t take, some alarm would go off, with loud shrieks and ambulance lights going over their heads?

If not, maybe somebody should invent it.

I am just tired.

I just want to know what is wrong with my heart, not play pill detective. I don’t want to take part in this stupid game of hide-and-seek that makes me more anxious, more stressed while I am already trying to figure out what the hell is happening inside my own body.

 

 

  

“Cu o moarte sintem datori” (“We All Owe One Death to God”)

 

 

The words of a friend of mine were ringing in my ears while I was waiting for a taxi to take me to the ER. It was 3 o’clock in the morning and I’d just woken up with my heart hammering in my chest a crazy rhythm and my pulse at an alarming rate.

It was, no doubt, one of the scariest moments of my life. Together with the time when Iranian missiles were flying over my head while lying in a ditch and Maya’s fainting because of rotavirus, it made the first of the three. Hurray!

Of course, being scared witless didn’t help. I tried breathing exercises, praying…and even now, when I am writing about it, it sends my anxiety levels through the roof.

At the ER they did blood tests, an X-ray and EKG and they said everything looked normal. My heart rate went down and I was shivering. They sent me home with “recommendations”. You know, go to your family doctor and ask for referrals to tests and a cardiologist. My doctor didn’t have free appointments until the end of the month because, well, holidays. Almost nobody works during this month, all the Jewish holidays come one after the other this month. So, everything gets pushed to next month. In September…well, I just have to survive September somehow.

What if it happens again, I asked. They shrugged.

They said maybe it is stress related.

Yes, I know, stress. The “silent Killer”. Or was it high blood pressure?

Don’t tell me about stress. I have been living with it for as long as I understood what it is. The last two years were especially hellish. Wars, Maya’s army, my husband’s cancer that made a spectacular come-back… And a million other problems I am not going to tell you about.

I know myself.

I am the one that cries over sick stray cats, worries about everything and everybody, whether next winter will be rainy and the water will infiltrate in the apartment. Why our neighbor parks his car on two parking spaces when there aren’t enough for all the cars in the building. Stupid stuff like that.

I cannot escape this toxic cloud of worry and anxiety that follows me everywhere, no matter how hard I try.

Because this is who I am.

I tried meditation and autogenic training and natural remedies and I read myself in a coma and I write and I try to cope with life the best I can.

But in the end, I know.

I know my heart is going to kill me one day, the soppy bastard.

 

“It’s Sweltering, Old Boy” (But Not in the Way You Think)

 

 

Today I had to go outside for a chore and I instantly regretted my decision. It was so hot outside I thought I would melt and become a greasy stain on the sidewalk. The air was so syrupy and dense that it was difficult to draw in a breath without singeing my lungs.

The words of the Romanian writer I.L. Caragiale popped into my boiling, bubbling brain:

 “Caldura mare, monser”.

 “It’s sweltering, old boy”.

Little did he know what sweltering truly meant…

The streets are almost empty. Almost nobody is crazy enough to venture outside, stepping right into the mouth of Hell. A few shops are open, mainly selling cold drinks and ice-cream. I enter one of them to cool down a bit.

Thank God for air conditioning.

I go outside again and because the neighborhood is deserted, I have the opportunity to really look at it, while I walk. It is one of the older neighborhoods in the city.

But disappointment has a sour taste…

Everything is so dirty.

From the old buildings to the alleys between them. Plastic bags and paper cups roll along the pavement, courtesy the wind. You can smell the trash cans from a distance, even if you haven’t seen the clouds of flies hovering over them. The earth is dry and peppered with litter. Every shrub, every plant, every bush seems to have collected its share.

I walk through the sleepy streets and reminisce.

This city wasn’t in such a sorry state before, when I arrived here, was it?

I don’t remember clearly.

I remember the streets looking much cleaner, the buildings less dusty.  I don’t think there was this much trash everywhere.

Or maybe then I chose not to see it?

Because I was young and enthusiastic about starting a new life here, perhaps?

Perspiration runs down my back. I congratulate myself for bringing a hat with me, at least I won’t get a sunstroke.

Heat stroke, maybe.

Surrounded by big, grey buildings I feel them emanating heat. With almost no trees and no shade whatsoever, the landscape is depressing and almost alien.

Times are changing.

People are changing.

And here, under the hot, unforgiving sun I came to a conclusion.

 I don’t like it.

I don’t like it at all.

I don’t like where we are headed, as humanity.

In don’t like that even when we talk about progress, we are still the same cave people that bashed each other’s heads in for a chunk of meat.

I don’t like that we have grown complacent and ignorant and plain stupid in a world where stupidity sits on the golden throne.

I know I cannot do much.

Even if “be the change” is a nice mantra, I don’t think it is true.

Una hirundo non facit ver, said the romans.

A swallow does not make a spring.

I cannot be the change even if I willed it with all my heart.

And I have many examples to give, but I will stop here.

I won’t tell you about me cleaning the area around the garbage can because it was full of shards of glass after somebody shattered some windows nearby. And I did that because I didn’t want the street cats to get hurt.

Nobody ever followed my example. On contrary, they continued dumping trash everywhere, just not in the bin.

I won’t argue with my neighbor that smokes in the building, filling the halls with acrid smoke that permeates everything.

I won’t ask people not to crowd into the elevator because it might get stuck.

I will just stand aside and watch them destroy every last bit of hope I had for my fellow humans.

Because, one way or another, we are doomed.

And I won’t be that change anymore.

I won’t be that swallow anymore.

Because it doesn’t mean anything.

Not anymore.