Jeremy

Jeremy
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

And here is Jeremy astride the old city like a conquistador.

old city ramparts 4

old city ramparts 4
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

This is a view from the ramparts - the dome of the rock but also antennas, laundry, satellite dishes, the mundane mixed up holiness of the old city.

old city from the ramparts 3

old city from the ramparts 3
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

Me and Jeremy walked on the ramparts yesterday morning. It is an incredible walk - history and religion and aesthetics and voyeurism all at once. This view of the rooftops makes me think of the very end of Speak Memory, when Nabokov sees the city as an optical puzzle. In the distance, those grey domes belong to the church of the holy sepulcher.

grafitti wall jerusalem

grafitti wall jerusalem
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

And here is the security wall and all its multilingual graffitti. It is such an ugly thing - even from the glorious promenade you can see it, snaking across the landscape. For all it may or may not have done to improve security inside Israel, it has divided people from their work and their families - Jeremy said the hope and flowers school in bethlehem, devoted to co-existence and teaching values of peace, has seen its enrollment drop to a quarter of what it once was because the wall has made it so difficult for so many former students to get there. Samar said when the wall was built here (where the photograph is taken) the Arab residents of the neighborhood on the Jerusalem side were happy because their property values went up - until then, they'd been considered not inside Israel since their neighborhood was outside the 67 borders but the wall has redrawn the borders in some flagrant ways.

niqab

niqab
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

I took this picture a few days ago in East Jerusalem. It is another city there - you can see the mountain of garbage behind this woman. Parts of the city are glittering and glorious and parts are squalid and run-down. Even the roads are haphazard and unsafe. I saw this woman standing on a corner in her niqab and a ten minutes later when we turned around she was stilling standing in that same spot. Waiting for someone, maybe? Waiting for something? In Arabic class our teacher taught us a saying that means basically never - "Tomorrow, in Apricot season." Because apricot season is so fleeting. In apricot season, I'll know what this woman is thinking in her niqab on this hot corner of East Jerusalem.

lev haircut

lev haircut
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

I took Lev for a haircut despite my hesitance, because he had started complaining that his hair got in his eyes. I keep looking at him - he looks older, but younger somehow too, because he looks so new. Jeremy thinks he looks more like Benjamin now.

view office window

view office window
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

I have an office - finally - shared with two colleagues I have not met. There is an old computer that doesn't work and two desks and a lot of good books that don't belong to me. Someone has left tea and coffeee and a kettle on a shelf and someone else has put up printouts of poetry on the wall. Oh and there is the window and this view. Unreal.