ben
Originally uploaded by nostalgist
Monday, March 30, 2009
ben
ben
Originally uploaded by nostalgist
Ben prepares a face to meet the faces that he meets.
Passover break starts today...yes, today. And Benjamin is so excited. He woke up early and was dressed before I was awake - oh, if such early-morning rigor applied to school days. And he said, "We are finally free from Egypt!"
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
war is not cookies
war is not cookies
Originally uploaded by nostalgist
A few weeks ago I saw some graffitti that said "Milchama Lo Chumus" - war is not houmus. I wasn't really convinced that I'd read the graffitti correctly until I saw this today, which must be part of the same series. "Chayalim ze lo Ugiyot" which means soldiers are not cookies. It must be part of a whole war/snack series. Make pastry, not war, that kind of thing.
other side of mechitza
other side of mechitza
Originally uploaded by nostalgist
I went to a brit this morning in North Jerusalem. They had separate staircases for men and women - I should have taken a picture of the signs. The ceremony was also separated by the "mechitza" - this picture is taken through the grid. The man on the left is definitely on his cell phone.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
lev
lev
Originally uploaded by nostalgist
I went to a lecture last night and the speaker (Aviva Zornberg, an English PhD/Bible guru) talked about Keats and his idea of art as "diligent indolence". I have decided that will be the motto of my last few months of sabbatical. Diligent indolence begins now.
Friday, March 13, 2009
monkey mind
IMG_9924
Originally uploaded by nostalgist
We've had a crazy few weeks, visitors and travel and sickness and adventure. It's been wonderful and chaotic and tiring. This picture sums it up, I think.
Here instead of throwing out their old books - or selling them, I guess - people leave them out on the street. Walking home last night in the mist I found a cardboard box of books, and a fellow reader shuffling through them. I took home a copy of Dr. Zhivago and a funny little book of English essays. The moon was full and every so often little explosions went off, firecrackers marking the very end of Purim.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
the boys
the boys
Originally uploaded by nostalgist
At our hotel there was a floating pier - you could go out on it and watch the fish. The first morning the water was full of purple jellyfish. They are so lovely - frilled, pulsing, big as a heart. I thought they were poisonous but when I went diving the guide had me stroke one - they felt like wet silk.
rainbow ramon crater
rainbow ramon crater
Originally uploaded by nostalgist
Near the bottom of the crater the rain finally stopped and we saw this rainbow. I couldn't get it all in this picture - it stretched from end to end of the canyon. For a few minutes there was a double rainbow, a fainter echo of this one behind it.
jeremy and lev small crater
jeremy and lev small crater
Originally uploaded by nostalgist
The scale in this picture is messed up - you have to look behind Lev and Jeremy and imagine vastness.
we're back
beit guvrin
Originally uploaded by nostalgist
I'm sorry for my long absence - we've had a few weeks of visitors, and have been away the last week, "rolodexing the fun" as my friend Debbie says. We left last Sunday to drive down South, through the centre of the country since the weather was downright tempestuous. We still ended up driving through vast puddles on the road that goes through Ramon Crater. We stopped at Beit Guvrin, site of a town from about the third century BC and known for its strange, double-cross shaped columbarian, with about two hundred niches where pigeons were kept for food and fertilizer and "ritual purposes." There are also majestic, bell-shaped caves formed by people quarrying limestone. Because of the rain, it was lushly green and very muddy. There were tiny flowers in the grass, and when we got back to the car we were completely filthy.
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