galilee and hills

galilee and hills
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

All that exposed ground is normally covered in water. We saw turtles.

lev

lev
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

Lev just looked at this picture and said. that's you. Then he said, no, it's me, it's me. Oh yes it is.

the boys

the boys
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

Benjamin liked the waters of the kinneret because they are calmer than the ocean, and he could walk in very deep. He held on to my neck and kicked as we waded in even deeper, and then suddenly let go. He sunk, of course, and after I hauled him up I said, why did you do that? He said, I wanted to see if I could swim. We've been thinking about swimming lessons - this is maybe my cue.

cloud drama

cloud drama
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

As if people were not already too inclined to see the hand of God in what happens in Jerusalem, every so often the sky comes along and does this. Which is pretty spectacular, but not what you would call a proof.

lev

lev
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

Lev is delighted, as usual. I think Noa or Ben were doing something wonderful. He told me the other day " I am useless without my brother!"

ben

ben
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

With the mountains by the Galilee behind him. I can't remember what has him looking so distressed - I think he was just chilly. His hair is looking a little overdue for a cut. Right now, as I write, he is working through a David Grossman book in Hebrew out loud - the whole thing. The book is titled "itamar Metayet al kirot" and is about a little boy who walks up his wall and into the paintings that hang upon it. This is the first time he's read this much in Hebrew, ever -I feel a little like he looks in this picture, watching with bated breath.

silhouette

silhouette
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

We went to the Galilee over the weekend and met our friends David and Ronnie at a hotel on the beach. We drove up past the Dead Sea, alongside the Jordanian border; it is a stark, spectacular drive, and we kept passing caves in the rocks, squatter camps, Jewish settlements and vast stretches of desert and mountain. The drive was a bit stressful because Lev starting manifesting stomach flu about an hour and a half outside Jerusalem. He threw up near the Dead Sea, and kept threatening to throw up all the way through the desert and then the changing landscape of the lower galilee. He recovered when we arrived, enough to see the ostriches, to swim in the lake, to run on the shore and to play the long imaginative games that he and Benjamin delight in and which depend on no setting except their imagination.