israel

my head is full of nightmares about israel. almost every night when i sleep i dream of panicked, impossible situations at the Baha'i World Centre. sometimes it's epic lists of things that i have yet to get done before i leave the Holy Land, and i have an hour exactly before my cab comes to take me to the airport. sometimes it's being in a Holy Place garden that is being developed after years of falling into dissrepair, and jodie's there, wearing her bandana, telling me i might like to get out of the hammock i've set up in there because Don't i have to pack up since i'm leaving tomorrow? sometimes it's carolina speaking in a french accent because instead of moving to new mexico with her husband and baby, they've been living in cameroon and she can't speak english any more without sounding like juliet binoche, and she's telling me things that make me nervous about still being in israel, even though i can't remember them right now---her foriegn accent only causing more internal dislocation in my grasp of what's normal in the world.

once it was being in a muddy cobblestoned street with faded buildings the colour of the desert crouching over me as i surveyed the unpassable footpath, and i remember thinking Thank Goodness I Don't Live Here Anymore! How Horrid The Hamsin Is! i think because when i left haifa we'd mostly had hamsin and rain on the weather menu, which means that rain is dirtying, but there's not actually enough open earth on the streets to make any mud. i think that this illogic is what bothered me in this dream.

once it was shaun and i living in a tiny italian hovel the size and shape of a multi-level shoe rack, (but on the plus side, it had LOADS of light) paying 300 euros a month, and i had to fetch water interminably from an outdoor well. this scenario was only part of a larger dream that involved my single-handed frenetic packing and moving of our stuff and life from israel to this stairwell.

each time i dream it is the chaos of packing and moving and lists and deadlines and airports and midnights and saying goodbyes and still being in israel and being late---i'm not going to have enough time!---and doing this all by myself, and i'm not going to be able to leave on time, and having to listen to friends with suddenly exotic accents, and i'm dreaming these hideous, panicked Leavings over and over again just with different people, and what i'm not doing is not dreaming about spiritual things like my last moments at the Shrine of Baha'u'llah when i surprised myself by murmuring an unspoken And Please Let Us Come Back Here In Our Lifetimes in amongst my Thank You And Thank You And Thank You, Oh How Can I Give Thanks Enough?

when i wake up my body is sore with tension, like an old wrenched-up cleaning rag, and with conscious antagonism towards my somnolent akrastic self. and when i wake up it is a miracle to me that i am here, in america. i have already arrived in this new life, i am living it. and shaun isn't beside me only because he's already at work, and oh look it's raining. on the maple leaves outside my bedroom window.

but my head is full of nightmares about israel.