A Safe Place in a Moving Castle

 

In a quest to find out what is wrong with my heart, I now I have a Holter thingy attached to my body. A tiny machine that records my heart’s activity for 24 hours. It is uncomfortable, with wires and stuff and I have to idea how I am going to sleep, but I have to be calm today. No problems, no annoying people, no news, no social media.

I will probably burrow into my books, watch some episodes of The Big Bang Theory and think happy thoughts. Easier said than done, I suppose.

So, if I want to escape reality and the idea of a machine glued to my skin, I have to go somewhere else. In my mind. To a place where I feel safe, to a place I visit almost every night when I listen to audiobooks.

And given that one of my favorite books of all time is Howl’s Moving Castle, I think a trip and visit would be in order. It would do me good.

I’ll start in Market Chipping, along the same road I have walked with Sophie Hatter many, many times in the past. The trail is not easy, the ascent is steep and the wind strong, but when I see the castle puffing smoke through its turrets, I know I am close.

And then there are Sophie and Michael and of course, Calcifer, the fire demon. Howl is away in one of her missions as the Royal Wizard. We all know the story.

Michael will fuss over us, preparing the tea. Calcifer will bend his head to let us put the kettle on and then we’ll drink our and have some cake that Martha has sent from Cesari’s, where she is now a full-time baker.

After that we’ll just sit in the old, battered, cozy chairs near the hearth, listening to Calcifer consuming the logs. Michael will get up, feed Calcifer another log and then ask me about my life. Sophie will tell us about theirs and I’ll see the happiness in her eyes. And my heart will rejoice for her.

Howl will return at some point and we’ll all have dinner, bread and cheese. Howl would regale us with stories about the King and Princess Valeria, his daughter.

It is late evening now. I can see the stars in all the castle’s windows, no matter whether they look out upon Wales or Kingsbury. A deep pace descends upon me and the world is right again.

Later, I will go to sleep in Sophie’s garden at the edge of the Waste. In the morning I’ll return home and rip the blasted machine off my body.

Diary of a Still Beating Heart

 

It is Saturday and I am glad it’s the week-end. I am so very tired. A long and difficult week has passed, but my trials and tribulations are not over yet.

I have to face Sunday and Monday and then maybe, hopefully, I will be able to rest, to breathe easily. At least for a while.

This week was filled with doctors, tests (mine and my husband’s) treatments and hospitals.

I hate hospitals. I feel I cannot spend another moment on their never-ending, labyrinthine corridors. That I will fall apart. And still, I must.

My husband’s treatments, the visits to different doctors are far from over. Now I have my own too, unfortunately. So I have to brace myself if I don’t want to break into a million pieces of pain and hope and worry.

Unfortunately, nothing helps. Not totally, anyway. No matter how much time I spend doing autogenic training, breathing in and out for so many seconds, I am still a wreck whenever I see I white coat or smell antiseptic.

The technician who performed my echocardiogram said, “Oh, look, somebody is very emotional!” And then, “You know, on the outside you are aloof and composed, but inside you are fire”.

Yes, that’s me. The Ice Queen and the Fire Demon. Ice and fire. I guess sooner or later I’ll end as a puddle on the floor.

I cannot help it.

I tried.

I write and burn.

I write and publish.

I cry.

I breathe.

I walk.

I run.

I listen to audiobooks.

I feed stray cats.

I do autogenic training.

I read.

I meditate.

I take supplements.

I eat healthy food.

I don’t drink or smoke.

And still.

My heart betrays me whenever it takes a fancy to it. At three o’clock in the morning, during an echocardiogram, or when I cower in a ditch and the sky shakes above me. When I miss my son and worry about my daughter. When I try to save a cat that is hopelessly entangled in brambles. And when I accompany my husband to uncountable MRIs, CT scans and PET scans.

I am scared

.

I am petrified.

And yet I have to gather my strength and try to put one foot in front of the other.

The other day I saw an old man at the hospital. He was crooked, like a question mark, shuffling his feet, hurrying to some appointment with a bunch of papers in his trembling hands, mumbling to himself.

And I asked myself: Why?

Why fight so hard just to live for another day, month, year, your body betraying you and your mind, at best, lost in the fog of old age?

I still haven’t understood this desire of ours.

But I am tired now and my thoughts are a jumble, so maybe I’ll ask myself this question another time.

And see if I can come up with an acceptable answer.

“ Pe Vremea Mea…” - “Back in My Day…”

 

Usually, when uttering these words, my grandma – Buni, had that faraway look in her eyes, and her voice would tremble a bit. On the few occasions she had time to sit and take a breather from her never-ending chores, she used to tell us stories about her life. Sometimes, she used the same words to scold us when we misbehaved. “Back in my day, we ate everything our mother put in front of us” or “Back in my day, kids weren’t such cheeky troublemakers. We used to respect our elders”.

But, of course, we liked her stories best. They were usually about her childhood or her years as a young wife and about the days before the Second World War. She talked about the happy times, although we all knew about the bad ones, too. The times when the communists took everything from them, throwing Buni in jail and sending my grandfather to work on the Canal for being capitalists, the “enemies of the socialist state”.

(My grandfather was the kindest, most caring person. He had never hurt anybody in his life.)

The regime wanted to take their children – my mother and her brother –  away from them and put them in an orphanage. My great-aunt, Buni’s sister, took them in and provided for them by reading cards, working as a sort of fortune teller.

But Buni didn’t like to talk about those times. I am sure she remembered them, but I think it was too painful for her to revisit. Going from a happy life to having almost nothing left is not a pleasant thing to contemplate. She didn’t want to talk about my grandfather’s illness either, after he was finally allowed to return home from the Canal to die there, I suppose. She loved him very much and never remarried.

Is it true that we generally remember only the good times in our lives? That we tend to paint a sheen of nostalgia over our past experiences?

Personally, I don’t think so. I remember everything. Good and bad alike.

You won’t hear me saying, for example, that communism was better than other regimes.

I remember the dark period that marked my life, from childhood to young adulthood, so well. I remember the long queues for milk at 5 o’clock in the morning, standing in the freezing cold, the power outages, the lack of heating in our homes, the two hours of propaganda programs on the TV.

Of course, being young during that period meant I had some nice memories, too. Especially the times spent with my friends.

I was a stubborn, obstinate adolescent and I was determined not to let a dictatorial regime strip my life of happiness. So I grabbed it whenever I could.

Because of all this and because Buni’s words still echo in my head, I’ve decided to write about that period, about that dark age in Romania’s history. I don’t want to forget and I want others, those that were born after 1989 or those who were too young to remember, to get a glimpse into what communism did to us.

If you have stories of your own that you would like to tell , feel free to share them with me. We’ll remember together.

(The photo of this post was taken in 1942, during Christmas. In the center of it is my grandmother, surrounded by family - my grandfather, her sister and grandfather's brother. Good times, hapy times, as you can see from my grandmother's smile)

7 October

Today is a day of remembrance.

Today I remember.

The date, 7^th of October, will be forever inscribed in my memory.

A day I will never forget.

It was a sunny Friday morning. Simchat Torah, a Jewish holiday. We had recently returned from our holiday. Little did we know what would be awaiting us at home.

6.30 in the morning. We were still sleeping when the Red Code alarms began, their up- and-down, high-and- low pitch shattering our dreams. One after another after another. Endless. No respite. We had never had so many alarms in a row.

We had gone through a lot of wars and confrontation with Hamas over the years. Living in the south of Israel, we could say we were used to the alarms, the run to shelters, being woken up in the middle of the night, being scared by them while driving or shopping. Alarms were part of our “routine”.

But that October morning was different. The alarms wouldn’t stop, neither would the explosions – the Iron Dome intercepting missiles from Gaza.

I know now that this was a cover for the massacre taking place near the border, in the kibbutzim, on the roads, at bus stations, at the Nova music festival.

We didn’t know.

And then we turned on the TV, checked the news apps.

And the horror began to unfold, minute after minute, hour after hour.

I don’t want to recall the magnitude of the pain and suffering and helplessness and desperation of that day. It still makers me sick just thinking about it.

I will just bow my head, honoring the lives that were lost that day and in the days that followed.

Let us all remember 7^th of October.

The day that changed this country forever.

The day the darkness won. 

Autumn Is Not Here

 

The calendar says Autumn has arrived.

My window says otherwise.

So I wrote this poem about an Autumn that, for the moment, exists somewhere other that Here.

And I left it here:

https://wherethewordsdwell.blogspot.com/2026/10/autumn-in-not-here-autumn-is-not-here.html

Rain and the Courage to Jump into Puddles

The summer is over. Well, at least in the calendar, because here it is still hot as Hell.

I need a holiday, a break, a breather, to step away from this madness that has been 2026 so far. To take a breath.

But I cannot. My husband is still not cured and needs my help and moral support, my daughter starts university at the end of the month and the cats have to be fed.

Not to mention the medical tests that await me to see if there is something wrong with my heart.

I wish I could just stop. To be able to distance myself from the day-to-day routine, to find something to motivate me to carry on.

Well, yesterday was one of those days. A breath of fresh air. Literally.

A short rain caught us, my daughter and me, and we had to, you know, walk in the rain.

It was heavenly.

The cooler air, the smell of wet earth, the freshness of each and every blade of grass.

It took me back to my childhood, when after every summer rain I used to run and jump into puddles. We lived on a side street near the Old Center, where there were almost no passing cars.

Up until this day, I remember the elation, the happiness I felt back then.

What kind of magic is hidden in such a simple activity? Why do I still carry its echoes in my souls?

Why do we have to be kids to be able to jump into puddles and feel free?

Maybe this is all I need.

Rain and the courage to jump into puddles. The courage to do something that brings me pure, unadulterated pleasure, even if it is a childish act.

If we expect good things to come to us, I think we’ll have a long, long wait in front of us.

Today the sky is the bluest of blues, but the memory of yesterday’s rain still lingers on my skin. I will try to hold on to it for as long as I can, put is somewhere safe inside my heart and access it whenever life get too rough.

The memory of a translucent, shiny puddle and the girl who had the guts to jump into it.

                                                                        

Jerusalem, Again

Jerusalem again, Hadassah Hospital.

Again I get sucked into this universe of pain and healing, of hope and despair, of tears and smiles. I feel its gravitational force, making me a tiny planet orbiting around it, over and over again.

I sit in the garden in the hospital’s inner courtyard and watch people coming and going, a colorful tapestry of faces and bodies and expressions against the blue of the Jerusalemite sky. A mosaic of personalities, young and old, Jews, Muslims, Christians, speaking every language in this Tower of Babel of almost magical cures and recovery.

In the face of pain and sickness we are all equal. We are all the same -frightened, hopeful, searching for empathy, for a kind word, for a sliver of trust.

The same sun warms us. The same wind dries our tears.

We are the same and yet, we feel so different. 

We build walls for us. We look for things that divide us. We crawl over each other backs to reach for something – we are not even sure what… maybe just to be the ones who can say,  I am better than you.

And then we congratulate each other about how righteous and brave we are.

Maybe some day we will understand this.

That we are the same. In birth and in death, in happiness and sadness, in elation and desperation, even in love and hate.

The boundaries, the fences, are of our own making. The differences, our inventions. To keep us separated, to weaken us. To lead us like sheep.

At Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital I don’t see different people, separated by religion, place of birth or social status. I don’t see Muslims or Jews or Christians, Buddhists or Zoroastrians.

I see humanity, in all its colors and shapes.

And beliefs.

And the crows agree with me.

Clever birds.

Way clever than us, puny humans.                                                                                                                                                                                                  

 

I Am Doomed

 

I am doomed.

I can feel it in my bones.

Especially in my knees, after I go up six flights of stairs because the elevator is broken.

Some mornings, after I wake up and look in the mirror, I lose all enthusiasm for the day ahead. Because, yes, I am standing face to face with the truth: I am getting old.

Oh dear God. I am old.

My face is telling me this, my ears are telling me this, so it is a fact that is difficult to ignore.

To be fair, it’s not the idea of old age that bothers me. What annoys me the most is that I don’t feel old in my soul. Just in my aching, creaky joints.

Actually, everything went downhill when I reached menopause. You know, the crone era, when you are supposed to be calm and collected and impart wisdom to the younger generation, even if you feel and look like a dried-up raisin.

In the beginning, I was glad for menopause

 -gentlemen readers, please avert your eyes.

Gross stuff coming through –

I had heavy periods. The cramps were killing me. There were days when I couldn’t get out of bed because of the pain and the blood.

-you can come back now -

Nevertheless, I wasn’t prepared for what came with it.

It began with my eyes: dry, high intraocular pressure, the lot. Now, a pair of glasses costs me the national monthly wage.

Then, the skin. Dry and itchy. Not to mention the wrinkles.

Brain fog. Forgetfulness.

My joints. My bones. The anxiety that shot through the roof. My heart that decided it was time to try and kill me. When it doesn’t want to explode thorough my chest.

The disappearing hormones. The melting muscles.

Should I continue?

Sometimes I think I will just shroud myself in a white sheet and walk slowly towards the cemetery.

And please, no bullshitting about you have plenty of good years in you and other similar slogans.

The harsh reality is that we, women, are not needed anymore once we reached the end of our

 childbearing years. We are just supposed to disappear, quietly and without too much fuss.

For now, my daily routine consists of moisturizing, drinking water, eye drops, measuring my blood pressure, going to doctors, having tests done and trying to read as many books as I can before going blind.

I try to meditate to ease my mind and lower my anxiety levels, but my thoughts - crazy monkeys – are jumping from tree to tree, hanging on branches, screeching and making monkey noises.

At least they don’t have joint problems, the bandits.

If nothing else, my thoughts are still young.

So what are they doing in this old, crumbling building?

It is hard to let it go.

It is hard to get used to the idea that your body betrays you day after day after day until you disappear completely.

The thought horrifies me.

 Am not the sage I am supposed to be after living for sixty years. And no, sixty is not the new forty. They lied to you.

I am not ready.

I don’t want to be ready.

I want to be young and beautiful and healthy and carefree and especially pain- and worry- free.

But that is not possible.

Not in this time line. Not in this reality.

I am convinced that if we were to live our own lives over and over again, we would make the same mistakes every time. But, by gosh, I would have liked to be told about what awaits me. What awaits us.

The question is, though: would I have listened?

I don’t think so.

When we’re young, we’re stupid. We think we are immortal and we know everything.

 Wisdom comes later when we don’t need it anymore.

What we need, maybe, is acceptance.

And strangely enough, I don’t have it in me.

Not yet.

If ever.

 

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.