I must have read her autobiography about 53948752 times and at least three times on this trip but I finally left it (purposefully) in my last volunteer cabin. I left the chapter bookmarked in which she is being personally attacked by the government and has been jailed and her husband has left her. Why? Well because she describes this period of her life as a series of humiliating situations where just as she started to sort things out they would get messed up again. She just couldn't get her feet under her and re-commit herself to her cause and so she retreated. For a short time, she stepped back into what she described in an interview I read once (that I can't locate now so maybe I'm just making it up) as the embrace of her family and friends.
So I didn't get into the program I wanted. Peace Corps is still deferred (at least in regards to agriculture in Sub Saharan Africa). I am out of money. Getting a visa has proven unbelievably difficult since I don't magically travel with my birth certificate and a letter from a Rabbi. The job I had would have only been an interim thing and isn't enough. Generally, every plan I've made has fallen apart. Which doesn't mean I need to give up. But it does mean I need to go home. Regroup. Get my feet back under me.
The reason I keep going back to Wangari Maathai in my head is because I know I've told a few of you but I got really really lonely in Netanya. Not homesick. Just. Well I realized that there were very few (at the time I thought none) people on the same continent as me who knew me well enough to even hug me. And I missed hugs more than anything in the world. Just basic human contact. When I told everyone that I felt like a bit of a failure and a mess having to come home in a rush and having "wasted" so much time and money, not a single person even addressed my consternation. In fact, they were completely oblivious to my angst. Instead of telling me I wasn't failing or a mess the overwhelming majority of people just squealed something about being excited to see me soon and how I was welcome with them for a few weeks.
Talk about an embrace. I don't think I'm prouder of any accomplishment in my life more than my friends. I figure that if I can get such impressive people to be excited to see me then I must have actually accomplished something or succeeded at least a bit.
So now I'm in Ben Gurion Airport. I get back to New York City at 8:40 pm EST. I just spent the best four days of my entire trip wandering around Israel (which will be recounted in an upcoming post). I have a trip planned that takes me approximately 3.5 weeks to a month to get back to Sacramento. It includes a newly added detour to Colorado to see my friend Ruth from the Arava. She is traveling to the U.S. for the first time and since she and her family pretty much adopted me for a couple of months, it's the very littlest thing I can do to make sure she gets settled in the U.S.
So coming soon to a town near you....
No comments:
Post a Comment