Places of the Heart

You know how you go someplace you've never been before and just feel like you're at home?

Entrance to Kibbutz Massada

That happened to me back in  November 1989 when on a family vacation we came to Bass Lake. As strange as it sounds, the minute my feet hit the earth--at midnight, after a long day's drive from Orange County--I knew this was my place. I'd loved the mountains since I was a child and recognized that, one day, I needed to plant myself where my soul would flourish. We found a house that weekend, made an offer, closed escrow on February 1, 1990, and I moved up here permanently in April.

What does this have to do with Israel, you ask?

My favorite walk in Massada

I've fallen in love with many places I've been, even considered moving to a few. Mexico City, for one (many years ago). Believe it or not, Peshawar, Pakistan (but not any more, not ever). The wilds of Wyoming. The deserts of the southwest. The Alaskan bush. 

The only ones I could seriously have considered, were it possible, are kibbutzim near the Sea of Galilee (called the Kinneret in Israel), Tzfat in the northern Galilee and Ein Kerem, a village surrounded by Jerusalem. This amazes me as much as it does you. They are all smallish, rural even. Cities are not my thing, although I dearly love Jerusalem and my memories of Mexico City. I could make my home in any one of these places, including Kibbutz Massada, where Betty lives.

I never wanted to go to Israel. In fact, I resented Israel for stealing my best friend and holding her captive. I was afraid because her earlier years there took place during the Intifadas,  She even sent photos of her bathroom turned into a bomb shelter. It took me over 30 years to develop the courage to visit her, until I realized that if I didn't, I'd likely never see her again, and that wasn't an option. 

Honestly, just like Bass Lake, it was love at first sight, and I couldn't have been more shocked. 

At last I realized why she'd left her heart there, why she made aliyah. I've left a piece of mine there, as well. At 77 it's not in my future to relocate overseas, but if I did, these are the places I'd consider:

View from the walk up to the Church of the Visitation
 in Ein Kerem. Forgive the wires.

Ein Kerem -  

• A lovely little video of the Church of St John the Baptist
• A video about the Ein Kerem neighborhood
• Aerial video of Ein Kerem
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwWTbUzQ1Yc
• A video of the Church of the Visitation

Kinneret -

• Kibbutz Massada - a drone view

Tzfat

• See my post here about this town with a storied past  (P. S. Let me know if you can't access this; it was a post in my private Facebook group.)

Wadi Rum - Out of this World

It gets old after a while, doesn't it? Someone saying "this was the most (beautiful)(fascinating)(exciting) (historical)--pick one--I've ever visited." But actually that's what happened on our Israel trip. Each place we visited built on the next, until I really hated to leave.

I had never heard of Wadi Rum until my visit to Israel and Jordan, but what a very special place it is.  I've put links in this post so you can read up as much or as little as you choose since my memory for details has faded in the last 3.5 years

Think lunar landscape dotted with huge sandstone shapes. Think Lawrence of Arabia. Picture Bedouins with their camel-hair and goat-hair tents. If you've watched "The Martian," you've seen Wadi Rum, but there's nothing like being there in person. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Bedouin encampment at Wadi Rum. Tent is made from goat hair.

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom as seen from Wadi Rum Visitor Center

Coffee Grinder

Valley of the Moon

Brewing Coffee the Bedouin Way

T. H. Lawrence - "Lawrence of Arabia" carved in stone

Our Bedouin Hosts

Zac, our Jordanian Guide, 'xplainin' things

Here I Go Again

I discontinued this blog when I got offended because a journalist in Alaska who shall be nameless purloined one of my posts and used it against someone I value. It stopped about three-quarters of the way through my first journey to Israel. My

Bedouin Police standing at edge of
Kings Tomb area, Petra, Jordan

readers (few as they were), were left high-and-dry. But now I'm back to finish where I left off.

Since my last post in 2017, our world has changed radically.

I'm no longer working,  hopefully temporarily. I've been holed up at home except for rare and short trips to the store in Oakhurst (always masked and gloved) and one trip to the family farm, 20 miles away, since March 14.

As a loner, isolation was no big deal. The dogs would like me to get a life, and the cat goes about her business as usual. What was really strange was not having someplace to be all day, every day. Strange how I relished my days off from work, when I was working, and they flew by like magic. Today is a different reality. Retirement has never been an option for me. From the beginning I said that not having a job would impact my sanity. The sanity has always been in question, but what I believed would happen, did. I find myself wandering around looking for things to do, while ignoring what I *should* do--like window washing.

After flailing around for a month trying to answer the question What is my purpose in life? I discovered it wasn't beading. I tried to prepare for a craft fair my pard Sunny and I planned to do in November and was bored to tears. I packed up my stuff and cleaned off my beading table. Done. Over.  And the craft fair has now been cancelled.

We, Sunny and I, talked about going back to writing short stories, but neither of us could think of anything we wanted to write and many--if not most--of the short story markets have dried up. In our "youth," 25 years ago, we sold a number of tales to the "confession" market, which has since evaporated.

Reading. Meditation. Walking. Watching videos. All sound like great plans. Except I'm not doing most of them.

• Gardening - a bit
• Rereading Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon series. I'm on book 10 of 19. His books are worth rereading again and again. Can't wait for his newest, arriving on July 14.
• Watching Israeli TV via Netflix and Prime Video. I tell myself I'm learning Hebrew.
• Watching YouTube videos of places I've been and places I want to go.

The last activity is what sparked the renewal of this blog. For tomorrow, I'm going to finish up my first Israeli journey with a post about Wadi Rum and then commence on the 2018 trip, which I documented on Facebook but will go into more depth here. I'll intersperse the Israel trip posts with places I WANT to see and other random thoughts as they occur.

I found this NPR article this morning (thanks, Nicole Faille) about Petra, the Jordanian site that everyone should visit at least once in their lifetime. Can't imagine what it would be like to be there now with visitors and tradespeople gone.

Here are my posts about my visit to Petra in 2016.

Petra Part 1

Petra Part 2

Petra Part 3 

Petra: The Finale

Please join along, if you feel inclined, and let's explore some exciting adventures together.