The Bubble

More about home

And then there’s one’s parents’ home. Where one grew up. This is a very special house. Every scratch on the wall holds a memory. A life- time was spent within these walls. It feels warm and safe, embracing you from the moment you step inside and close the door behind you, like a chick in the nest that was carefully assembled by its parents; thread by thread, twig by twig. It has a special scent; that of sugar and cinnamon. A pinch of clove, perhaps.
You are not aware of the qualities your parents’ home possesses, and they are taken for granted. It is only when the safety, or the existence of this house is endangered that you become acutely aware of them. 

Home sweet home

West 19th st, New York, circa 2002

Elsbeth, my dear lost friend, in one of her adventurous visits - all the way from faraway Amsterdam (I miss you: where are you?).

I'm in a waiting mode. Countdown: 4 weeks.

I thought I might link an old post here, from two and a half years ago, to describe this period of waiting, to add a sense of repetition, or a closure of some sorts. I looked at the Exodus section of this blog, searching for the right link, and realized this is a totally different experience; without remorse, without regrets, without guilt; only excited anticipation. We hardly have anyone to say goodbye to (amazing how little human connection/interaction did we have in the past two and a half years, and a bit chilling, too).  The sorting was done back then, in Tel Aviv (Uri insisted that we should move to Toronto with our belongings, he said it means we’re really going to settle down this time), the moving company will do the packing, so it seems there’s not much to do. This little life we lead over here seems more a charade than ever – with the knowledge that this “routine” which constitutes it will be shuttered in a few weeks and turn into a far away dream. It already looks a bit like a far away dream, actually.

I saw a short video in the New York Times online about a homeless guy who lived for many years at an improvised underground shelter in an old train station at the Bronx that he called "The Cave". A newspaper article about him helped him move to an apartment sponsored by the city and the Catholic church. The NYT reporter follows and documents his adjustment to his new life. After four months at the apartment the homeless guy (I think his name is John) decides to return, on his own free will, to “the cave”. He misses his old neighborhood where he lived all his life and was a familiar figure - where people recognized him and where he felt he belonged. He also found it incredibly hard to live in a building with neighbors that he heard through the walls and thought they were spying on him.

“Only here I feel free”, John declares after returning to "the cave". Only he does not wish to call it “the cave” anymore. “This time I'm gonna call it Home Sweet Home”, he happily announces.
Home sweet home.

Cormorants

Wandering Cormorants at the Mediterranean Sea.

Going back to the routine is hard and tedious. Daniel is having a difficult time in school screaming like a mad dog when I leave him there (well, at least yesterday) thus causing my heart to sink deep into my belly as if it weighed a ton. It’s always difficult coming back from vacations but this time it seems harder than usual and I wonder whether it’s because of its length (more than a month!) or because we returned from what feels so much like home to the place we inhabit that alas, bears no resemblance to home whatsoever. “It takes time getting used to the routine”, Ms. Tuff, Daniel’s teacher tried to analyze D’s screaming episode yesterday, “It’s been a long vacation and he was with you all the time and I’m sure that he saw a lot of his grandparents and his extended family, and all of a sudden all of this is gone and he has to go back to the routine and he says to himself: is that it?”

My mind is set on returning to Israel. The time-line is two years from now. As difficult as things seem to be back there, with the ongoing war, it is where Daniel belongs, in a very deep tribal sense. And if that’s where he belongs – it is where we belong. I would never have speculated that I would feel that way before having a child – I always felt an outsider in Israel, and unless we were kicked out of New York (with the explosion of the high tech bubble – and not literary, of course, but a prosaic matter of an expiring working visa) – and spent a year and a half together with Daniel in Israel, I never would have guessed.   

Mother

Praha-Zizkov, a family portrait.

She had been diagnosed, and rightly so, as feeling homesick. “Or is it that Toronto was so boring?” – she was asked. And she did find it peculiar - her story - about a woman who chooses to live in a bubble in her motherland, only to find out that all she does in her adopting new country, is read and write and talk about her.

Instead of the umbilical chord, connecting the child to his mother, she has an ADSL cable.

Hummer

The lights dim and the audience becomes silent. The titles appear on the screen, and then the landscape. So familiar, yet so distant. The sight of this landscape tightens her throat, as if she swallowed a pebble. It is hilly and bare, a few desert plants scattered here and there. The parched land is scarred with wheels’ tracks. A sound of a roaring engine is heard, almost deafening. An armored, monstrous looking army Hummer is riding frantically up and down the hills.
Zoom in: An old man wearing a galabiya approaches the Jeep; his walking cane guides him, leading the way. He stands in front of the armored vehicle, trying to speak to whoever is in it.
“Ruch, ruch min hun!” (go away!), “Ruch min hun”! The metallic voice of the speakers commands, as if speaking to a stray dog.  The Jeep continues his frantic dance around the hills, circling the old man with the cane.

Zoom out: a small group is climbing a hill. Two men, two women and a young girl, about 12 years old. One of the women hardly walks. She seems to be in great pain. “Ruch! Ruch min hun”, the speakers are roaring at them. The group’s members consult among themselves as to their actions. The sick woman is sitting on the bare ground, moaning. One of the men approaches the Hummer, trying to explain something. “Ruch, ruch min hun” the mantra repeats itself through the speakers.
We do not see the people inside the Jeep. The distorted voice coming out of the speakers is the only evidence to their existence.
The man returns to the small group. The girl starts sobbing, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. The healthy woman hugs the girl, trying to comfort her. “God will pay them back”, she professes; “God will humiliate them, just like they humiliate us!”

The small group parts from the sick woman and starts descending down the hill.
An ambulance arrives and the lonely woman is taken into it. The metallic sound of the Hummer scratches the air: “Ruch min hun!” It now orders the ambulance, hastening it the leave the scene.

Silence.

A man approaches the Hummer, possibly the film’s director. The Jeep’s door opens revealing two young soldiers, who’s faces seem to have lost their youth prematurely, toughened by the dry air, perhaps. They instruct the man to show them his journalist permit. They disrespectfully check it and order him to leave.

The End.

Equilibrium

Our first stop was to see our apartment, when we returned to Amsterdam for a short visit. We loved this home so much, all cozy and warm. It felt ours from the first moment we saw it. It was in a 16th century building built on a lovely canal. Half sunken, with diagonal floor and windows and two Rietveld chairs. We loved it so. It felt like our home from the moment Ruth opened the door to show it to us.

When we left, and we had to leave because our visa expired, I was sure we’d be back. I thought it was my home. I asked Ruth to keep it for us, but she refused. “I feel as if it is my home”, I said. “No, it isn’t”, she said softly.

We returned for a visit and our home was our first stop. Ruth wasn’t there so we said hi at the Kinderkookafe and felt too shy to ring the bells of our apartment, fearing to bother the new tenants, with whom we briefly met when they came to see the place. They were foreign students, like us. He was from South Africa and she was from Portugal.

On the same evening, of our visit to Amsterdam, we went to see a modern dance performance at the old theater house. We sat in a private booth, in the old splendid theatre, all decorated with plastered ornaments and frescos, imagining ourselves wearing crinolines and monocles, gesturing graciously to the crowds.

We looked at the audience, hoping to see a familiar face. A clue. Something to tell us it was still our city. We looked around and saw them; sitting exactly opposite of us, in their own private booth, were the new tenants. The couple who lived in our old home, that we wanted to visit that day but didn’t.

We waved to them and they waved back. During the intermission we met outside and chatted. They told us about their life in our home, about volunteering at the kinderkookafe, about Ruth and our old neighbors. When they shyly suggested meeting outside the theater at the end of the show, we gladly accepted their offer.

We spent the night talking. Our perceptions of life in Amsterdam were very similar. We discussed the experience of solitude, living in a foreign country, and compared life in our homelands. The guy was an avid reader of biographies and autobiographies, just like me, and I promised to send him Che Guevara’s biography I had, which he couldn’t find. Being South African, he was hoping, just like we did, back then, to stay in Amsterdam after completing his studies. His girlfriend, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to return to Lisbon. They visited Ruth’s island, (“how did you manage to do that?” We jealously asked) and told us how small it was and how she was growing her own vegetables there.

We talked all night. It was as if a spell was cast upon us. I felt their loneliness, their craving for human connection.

It was morning when we said our goodbyes. We’ve exchanged addresses, but I knew that we would never meet or talk again. That evening belonged to the magic realm. In that evening we met our reflections in the mirror.

Homeless

"You'd be surprised how many advantages there are to a homeless lifestyle. While there is an aspect of difficulty and hardship, there is also an element of easy living. I was made homeless by circumstances, but I stayed homeless by choice.

Imagine working two weeks to pay for your expenses for two months. You can easily go to college with an income requirement so low. My expenses, excluding food, averaged $300 per month for the five years I was homeless. That included storage, mailbox, telephone or pager, gasoline, vehicle insurance, health club membership, dry cleaning, laundry, new clothes, and entertainment. I went to the movies a lot. Imagine what you could do with the time if your work week was two days and your weekend was five.

I went to museums, libraries, volunteered, went to concerts, went to college, watched trials at the local courthouse, spent time with friends, played chess, practiced yoga, read, went to movies, and spent time just thinking.

The freedom is awesome. It is also somewhat daunting. It is hard to be prepared for so much time on your hands. In a strange way I felt a kinship with prisoners. The time can draw out and overwhelm you, so don't be surprised by this experience. Depression can sometimes attend this amazing freedom. In the end, the freedom to do as you please is addictive.

There are advantages to homelessness. You are no longer slave to a wage."

Survival Guide to Homelessness. Thanks squarepag.

House

Her daughter goes to the same nursery she went to, 42 years ago, and has the same teacher she had. Her mother has been living in the same neighborhood her whole life. For her, a visit to her daughter, who lives in a different neighborhood, is a real adventure.

"There are two ways to learn about the world. One way is to travel all over the planet and see all the different lands. And the other way is to stay in the same place." Josh Pais – 7th street.

Citizen of the world

Palisades Park – Santa Monica, California. A postcard.

She said that she doesn’t have a homeland. She doesn’t need one. She could live anywhere. Her home was within her. She said that while gesturing to her heart. After she moved to Toronto from Israel, she lived for a while in Romania – she got a job there. It was very easy for her to adjust. Romania became her home. Back then.
She said that she didn’t feel Canada was her homeland. If one day they would get a job, say, in a warmer country, she might choose to move. She didn’t feel she lacked anything. Her home was in herself, her home were her children.

Then she said she didn’t think much of friendships either. “It’s nice to have friends”, she said, “but friendship is transitory". You cross paths with someone, you click, you become friends, but your situation might change, for this reason or that, and you will choose a different direction. "It’s perfectly fine”, she said. Friendship, for her, was ephemeral. Friends come and friends go. Before she had kids, all her friends were bachelors. She would go out with them, sit in bars and cafes for hours and talk. They were all interested in things that back then seemed very important. After she had kids she couldn’t do it anymore and her interests changed. What seemed so important, lost it’s allure. Her friends, on the other hand, didn’t find much interest in her new attraction – her children. That’s how they took different paths. “And that was just fine”. She concluded.

Home

Izhar.

Before they left he told me: “I wanted to go home for a long time now. I feel that only there I can lead a meaningful life”.
When they returned he said: “It’s a very odd feeling, to be back. You’re returning home. In a certain sense, it is your home; it’s where you live, where your belongings are, and where finally, after three weeks, you know where your toothbrush is. But in the deeper sense, your home is there. You feel as if you’ve left it behind”.