a scrap of paper tucked into a wall // thoughts from the airport

Coming back to Jerusalem two days ago felt weird. I hadn't been back since the first weekend after Birthright ended. Yesterday and today, I wandered around the Old City- admiring the painted pottery in the shop windows of the Armenian Quarter, walking the Via Dolorosa surrounded by eager Christian pilgrims, watching as women in floral headscarves did their grocery shopping amidst the twists and turns of the Muslim Quarter- and I wandered around East Jerusalem just outside Damascus Gate, through the stores and cafés of Center City at the triangle of Ben Yehuda, Jaffa, and King George streets, around the spice stands and dried fruit tables at Machane Yehuda, and around the Hasidic backstreets of West Jerusalem.

Yesterday afternoon, I made my way around the perimeter of the Old City and through the Dung Gate security line to pay a visit to the Western Wall. It's hard to believe its been 8 weeks that I've been in Israel, over 6 since I last came to Jerusalem, and 7 since I last visited the Kotel and left a message. I stood at the Wall for a while, remembering the prayer I had written the last time I came. Along with the cursory hope for good health and happiness for those I love, it had had something to do with wishing my life to continue on its current fascinating trajectory of memorable experiences. It was a prayer of looking forward. 

And now I'm looking back. Back at driving through the hills of southern Jordan, so foggy outside that I couldn't see anything through the bus windows. At witnessing a baby goat being born. At seeing the Big Dipper, Orion, Casseopeia, the North Star in the vast emptiness of a desert night, clearer than I've ever seen them. At staying up late enough to watch the sun rise over Tel Aviv, freezing cold and exhausted but happy. 

I don't think I believe in the power of prayers but I believe in hazy Jerusalem sunlight, in small Orthodox children walking home from school trailing their rolling backpacks behind them, in the bustle of the souk as elderly Arab women sell vegetables from wooden crates. I believe in standing on top of a hill in the desert and feeling invincible, and I believe in sitting alone at a rural bus stop in the Galilee, out on a limb and unsure of what's to come. 

I've learned to believe in the importance of being alone, in the value of being lonely, and in the value of figuring things out for myself. Instead of wishing for more, more, more incredible experiences- of course I do want those, but I trust myself now that I'll make them happen- I find that my wish now is to continue to have the wisdom to reflect upon all that I've had (and continue to have) the privilege to do. I like to think that spending time by myself on this trip has lent me greater perspective, a heightened appreciation for things. 

I've grown up a lot since I last came to Jerusalem, and it took returning there for me to fully grasp it. Is a gratitude a prayer? I guess what I'm saying is: 

May I continue to learn from all the places I go and people I meet and things I do. 

Because right now, I can't think of anything I'm more grateful for than that. 

It's been a great two months. 

אהבה 

M