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.