After a day of cooking and hosting lunch for the family, we weren’t ready for the steady stream of alarms in the evening. I had promised to do a whole bunch of things this evening, and now I can’t concentrate on anything.
not tonight josephine – oct 28, 2023 Read Post »
I feel like i have to keep writing so you will know we’re okay. There have been a number of bombardments on Tel Aviv today, and people have been injured. I’m waiting for another one tonight. but so far, all is well. Of course we sleep in our clothes and run for shelter when sirens go off in our neighborhood. (and my neighbors denied that I push – they agreed we’re all behaving with great care toward each other.)
so far, so good -oct 27, 2023 Read Post »
We have always known it – that Gaza hides their terrorists under hospitals. This time the terrorists who ran from Israel back to Gaza went straight to Shifa hospital because they knew they were safe there. And now they have to be captured, somehow. Actually, I can think of ways.
But since I know what it is like to be a patient in a hospital, the total dependency on the regular functioning of the staff, the medications, the quiet, I cannot imagine doing it.
Oh, yes, and we’re apparently being targeted for bombing in our area so I’m not planning on anything but a fast sandwich close to the door that takes me to the shelter. No long games of monopoly for us tonight.
hospitals and terrorists – oct 27, 2023 Read Post »
Roy Liran came for a short visit from the north to give me his new book, but we spent half the time running down to the shelter. I was particularly anxious to get down there because I felt responsible for our guest, but suddenly I realized I was pushing everyone else out of the way to make room for us, as if poets deserve extra protection. I’ll have to be more careful of my manners in the future.
But it’s a beautiful book and I can’t wait to hear him read and discuss it. He’s one of the only people I know that can write in two languages.
And oh yes, there were three people injured in the last rocket attack on Tel Aviv.
barrages – Oct 27, 2023 Read Post »
This has been a day of rockets to the left, rockets to the right. We’ve been dodging them and now I’m past going to sleep. Night
when I dance with my husband of almost 44 years, he does everything to ensure that I don’t know the next step, to keep me on my toes, so to speak. He doesn’t do that with other women, and he doesn’t do that in our life, so I think he’s training me for war.
“There’s going to be a war at the end of the holidays!” I’ve said to friends, who didn’t even acknowledge my cry with a question. “Don’t go into Gaza,” I’ve been screaming for the past three weeks, and now I’ve begun to breathe because I see just a bit of logic in our movements. I kept thinking we were like the British Army in the American Revolution, standing in formation to shoot while the wily Americans shot from behind.
All this I learned from getting caught up in the music while getting my foot stepped on repeatedly while dancing with my husband.
I still love dancing with him!
What a great evening! It began with a siren that Ezi assured me was not worth hiding from – “It’s pretty far enough away,” and I went into Bob McBarton’s zoom meeting with Adam Mansbach with my heart still beating double time.
But the meeting about “The Golem from Brooklyn” was so much fun and yet so profound I forgot about the world outside, even when we spoke about the moral responsibility of power.
Then the meeting was over and the news was on and another few barrages brought me back to reality.
For the past 18 days, my life has been governed by rockets. It’s not like Gaza – we have warnings – 90 seconds to get to a shelter. And the way I walk I make sure to stay nearby. Yesterday, as I was walking home from the hairdresser, I was thinking how beautiful the neighborhood is with its fruit trees in the front yards – but suddenly I realized that most of the houses are closed, and even if there are people at home, they’re probably in their shelters if the alarm goes off, so I’m on my own in the middle of the street.
And then I got close enough to home where our apartment is, and the relief was unbelievable. But before I got to the bathroom, the alarm went off and we were down stairs in the shelter – grateful for the shelter, but unable to go back to living after that.
Funny, no one mentions the rockets we’re getting every day.
It’s like this all the time – nothing like the bombing in Gaza but constant and extremely nervewracking. The thing is, if they’d just return the hostages, we’d stop. It’s as simple as that.
rockets – oct 25, 2023 Read Post »
