On Many Things, An all Around Update

Salutations!

I am in a decidedly better mood since last time I posted. As usual life trudges on, and days pass by in a windy blur, like the feeling you get when you look out an open window in a speeding car. It's cold on the mountain where I live, but it's sunny nearly every single day. The sun in the midst of winter really sheds a warm glow on the days, and makes it hard to stay depressed or sad. 

I have realized that despite how hard I study Hebrew, and how diligently I learn words, often when a real person actually speaks to me in Hebrew I freeze. It's like all those verbs I learned to conjugate and all those nouns I recognize flee my brain like a cat flees from a bath. I often experience this sort of surreal time-frozen moment where it actually feels like the words and concepts egress from my skull and I am like an empty bow that just moments ago was filled with popcorn. That's actually a great comparison--popcorn. :)

Anyway...I realized this was becoming a problem. If a person was addressing my sister and I was nearby I would understand everything, but the moment they turned to me and asked a simple question I knew zero Hebrew. So I decided this needed to change. And basically my sister and I decided what I needed to do was to pretend people were not talking to me and just answer as if they were talking with the person next to me. So far this has been working rather delightfully. While in the center of the country this past week I definitely informed a fellow customer at an alcohol shop that I was buying vodka not wine, and that it was delicious. I also told a woman seeking directions that I didn't know where the place she was looking for was located. I would say that is progress! Even if I am still scared to take out the recycling... 

The recycling, what an ordeal. I know one day I will laugh at how I had an irrational and hilarious fear of deposing of the despicable mass of used plastics and cardboards. I will double over in hysterics as I recall nostalgically my insistence that I never take it out alone, and my bone-deep worry that if I should happen to meet another human being whilst doing my humanitarian service--*gasp*-- I may actually have to utter a word or two and answer a question. However, it is still a rather odious ordeal for me at present. It's such a normal task, and yet I have this indecent and embarrassing anxiety of meeting people by the bins and having to share conversation. I am laughing and smiling as I write this because even now I can enjoy the ridiculousness of it all! 

I also wanted to let the readers know that in the past couple of weeks I had the pleasure of meeting a very nice member of my Shevet, who I must say was one of the first people I have met on the beloved mountain who spoke to me in such a normal and kind manner, I actually felt like a human being again. I found myself slightly in shock at the normalcy of the meeting. At first I kept gushing to myself at how I had met one of the nicest people ever...until I realized actually they were just treating me like a normal person would. That really caused me to think quite a bit, and really contemplate the way I have come to the point where I am now. I mean for me to feel that just because an individual took the time to ask me some basic questions, and possessed the patience to let me answer slowly, that they are somehow this above and beyond individual is a bit absurd. Just the barest thread of real compassion, and even just the fleeting look of understanding I saw in their eyes--wow, how my expectations have changed. 

I want to clarify that I like many of the individuals in my Shevet and know that as my Hebrew gets better my friendship and feelings of camaraderie will only progress. But for now, often I feel kind of cast aside by peers, sort of like a wallflower. I don't take it personally at all, I understand that language is a barrier and a very real one. But I just wanted to share the moment of..I guess "wonder" is a good word. The moment of wonder I experienced when I felt real understanding and compassion from a person so unlike myself, from such a different background, and yet who could really relate to me.

The last thing (I daresay I have droned on an awful lot) I want to say is that I came up with another clear way to express some of my feelings on the matter of speaking specifically in Hebrew and the accompanying challenges: It is hard to feel fully expressed when I have the thoughts of a twenty year old, but the vocabulary and word structure and usage of a 5 year old. It just doesn't work out. The ideas I have are too complex or multifaceted for the level of language I possess currently. And it actually is making me feel better to have that worked out in words, because then I know that soon that will change. :)

Well, goodnight, or good morning as it may be. I hope you enjoyed this post. A very talented, hilarious, kind, generous, brilliant, loving, hardworking, and all around amazing individual has suggested that I close my blog posts with a bit of Hebrew, so my readers can sort of learn along with me, and a get a more hands-on feeling for my learning. So here goes:

היום היה נחמד אבל מחר יהיה יותר טוב! 

Yours etc,

Shira