Dear Readers,
It is mid-July and shamefully hot on this side of the planet. The days are long, the nights are cool, and the afternoons are nightmarish. Napping is an excellent use of one’s time, and all physical activities and chores are to be postponed until the nighttime. With all of that grumbling out of the way, it’s also sensationally beautiful every day, the sunshine is sanguine every day, the wildlife is diverse and scampering about in the open, and being on vacation is always so refreshing.
Being on vacation gives one a lot of time to think though, and this writer’s thoughts are all jumbled up. I used to think part of moving was reinventing myself, and it was very valuable to create the new and improved Shira. And while I understand moving presents one with the opportunity for growth and expansion, I also am beginning to comprehend that there is something to hoarding the old aspects of myself and to gaurding the pieces of Shira that just may be more essential than I thought.
There is something comforting about using the same dish I used when I lived in America. It is soothing to see the same pictures on the wall, and reassuring to be staring at the same computer monitor. When I first arrived in my new home I thought I wanted, or rather needed, everything to be new and fresh. but hindsight has taught me that perhaps it’s wise to
hang onto the old as well. I suppose in the beginning it was too painful to see all the mementos and too hurtful to act as I used to. But after nearly a year, it now feels good when I use the objects I used in my old house. It is pleasant when I do the same activities I did there.
Sometimes I get this dark feeling inside of me. It’s not really “homesickness” because I have it while sitting in my home here, but I’ll call it that because it is the closest feeling I can think of. It’s also a little bit similar to homelessness. I reminisce a lot about the places I used to go, the streets I knew like the back of my hand, the supermarkets I could navigate with ease and finesse. I recollect the friendships I nurtured and tended, the buildings I called my second home, and the people and experiences that shaped and moulded the person I am today. And frankly, I miss them.
Last post I wrote about being a hybrid, focusing on the positive aspects. All those lovely facets exist of course. but they are accompanied by feelings of loneliness, peculiarity, singularity, and the overwhelming feeling of not belonging. I grew up very unique, so I’m used to not fitting in. I was homeschooled and that’s considered strange in mainstream society. I am an orthodox Jew, and grew up being one of the few such individuals in a 100mi radius. The list is extensive of all the things that are uncommon about me and my upbringing. Now, however, I’ve begun to realize that language and culture can be added to the tally. I always had an accent, and I still have one here (if anything I finally sound more American here than I did in America! Go figure). I often used a vocabulary more suitable for books than conversation and I find myself doing that here as well.
One affair that I find particularly vexing is when English words have different usage and meaning here. Sometimes when I say one of the words listed below I get looked at like I’m a martian. I am annoyed because I’m not being ridiculous at all, if I said any of those things in my hometown nobody would bat an eyelash. Really they wouldn’t!
Consider the following brief catalogue:
Word
|
American meaning
|
Israeli meaning
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Coke
|
Coca Cola beverage
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The Drug. Must say “Cola” if want to drink Coke.
|
Ice Coffee
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Coffee made with milk and ice instead of hot water
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A blended iced drink of coffee. Cold coffee is what I have to order for ice coffee.
|
Tights
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What we wear under fancy skirts
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Leggings. What the heck?!?!
|
I always mix up words here, and sometimes I get discouraged and frustrated. I am very gung ho about learning Hebrew and improving my vocabulary, but when I get corrected for the seventh time in two minutes I feel like I’ve had enough. I love to read, and I realize how important it is to read books in Hebrew for language development, but when I have to check with my dictionary for more than 70% of the words on the page I get dispirited. People are always correcting my spelling when I send text messages so I started leaving voice notes instead, but apparently I still pronounce words wrong and it is daunting to hear “what word are you asking about? I’ve never heard that in my life!” The old me would only get that response because I used a word of too high a caliber to be understood by my conversation partner, not because I was botching up a word so badly even Dr. Suess would have trouble understanding me.
I keep going all the time, and I’m up for the adventure. The more I spend time with people here, the more different I realize I am. I had theorized that my idiosyncrasies were because I was Israeli, but now living amongst the Israelis I posit that no, that is just me. I’m learning an awful lot about myself. When people ask me about getting married, I’m really hesitant because I only feel like a shell of myself here. So much of my identity is tangled with immigration still, that I would feel like whoever I dated was just in a relationship with a husk of Shira.
Well, that’s the musings for today. A little bit of nostalgia, a drop of complaining, and a pinch of self discovery. Enjoy the rest of your day or night wherever you are!
הייתי בטיול עם חברות שלי מישוב לפני כמה ימים. היה ממש כיף אפילו שרק הבנתי 60% ממה קרה :) שחינו ואחר כך אכלנו פיצה שהיתה טעימה לגמרי (עם תוספות!) בנוף מאוד יפה על יד הכנרת. הרגשתי שסוף סוף יש לי כמה חברים בארץ אבל באותו זמן התגעגעתי לחברים שלי בחו"ל. אני חושבת עליהם הרבה ואני זוכרת ימים יפים שהייתי איתם לדוגמה כשהיינו שתינו קפה ביחד או טיילנו. אני עדיין אוהבת אתכם!
Translation: I went on a trip with my friends from the community a while ago. It was really fun even though I only understood 60% of what went on. :) We swam and afterwards ate really delicious pizza (with toppings!) on a beautiful lookout by the Kinneret (sea of Galilee).I felt that finally I have friends in Israel, but at the same time I missed my friends that live around the rest of the world. I think about them often and I remember great days that I was with them, for example drinking coffee together or going on hikes. I still love you guys!
Yours etc,
Shira
Shira
