No walk to the Nemaal yesterday. Nothing. Totally nothing... I did. Except wash a lot of dishes that had piled up in the corner of my living room a.k.a. kitchen.

And so when I set out this morning (forgot what time but must have been around 07:30 a.m. approx.) I had this renewed feeling - just like having crept out of a dark, suffocating box and stepping into the sunshine. I vividly remember being 6 years old and sitting near the window in our classroom at school. I saw a flower growing at the yard's garden and I felt immensely jealous of it. I knew flowers don't live all that long but I was very much willing to trade my "prison" with that flower. --Granted, I could have easily walked to the Nemaal yesterday and this imprisonment was voluntary - but I honestly didn't have the ooommpphhhh to initiate anything after having gone through a full working week and other other situations I perceive as serious pressure. Sometimes I think I am not strong enough to face life....until:

I step outside (when I leave with the intention of a 'walk' -as in not walking to work or errands) I walk as if through a different atmosphere - I don't care how I look like or what people might think of me and I also don't let what is taken as "normative" occupy me at all: I only have eye for the things I find beautiful, endearing or otherwise touch my heart) .... and I land into my dream world.

Here are some of the impressions I let this diary share with me....

A flowerbud in Abba Hillel... looking like a peppered strawberry:

One of the very few flowers in a tree at the corner of Abba Hillel and Bialik - a tree that's covering up the benches homeless people are spending the night on... I still don't know if I should feel sorry or envy those people. They have 'nothing' and yet.... they have what's most important: freedom.

A Dandelion along the route - looking so vulnerable and yet as if hiding a secret only letting us believe it's vulnerable...

A closer look... Such complexity, sophistication. It makes me always look at what seems 'simple', and thus supposedly not worth someone's awe, with respect. All due respect.

Enter with me behind the gates of FairytaleLand... Of course there's first of all Fairytaletree (and since it's Tu-Be-Shvat today I hummed 'Happy Birthday' to him) -

He's so solemn and magnificent that usually I feel totally humble when standing in front and underneath him - when visiting him..

And a little before that is Rabbit Hill.. though the naughty, playful living toys do much more go to the playing grounds under Fairytaletree opposite that hill:

Slightly further down the 'trail' (mentally having stepped out of FairytaleLand already) I discovered a totally new species of the Bird Of Paradise - well... at least for me it is totally new. These grow on trees and are blue-ish i/o the orangy-red ones I know that grow on 'bushes' or plants:

I decided not to walk my usual route but continue on at Ibn Gvirol to find the address of the Tsa'ar Ba'alei Ha'yim (which I did, but it was closed as was to be expected). I so much want the company of a dog. I know I can't have a dog because I am not at home most of the time and it would be purely criminal to leave a living creature like that alone during that time but.... My emotions and reality (read: logic) have absolutely no contact with each other and I know my emotions will win and I will end up with a great friend living with me soon. I wish I was able to restrain myself :-(

And so - arriving to the Nemaal 'from the other side' I noticed this exquisite beauty resting near Reading power station. He let me take a few photos of him and then thought it was enough and flew away...

The sea was gorgeous as always. Today he was as grey as were the skies. The wind was blowing so hard I sometimes had to hold on to the balustrade. But it was a feeling of pure ecstasy that this wind blew through me. It lifted me higher and higher and at some point I imagined myself to be flying with the numerous seagulls that were performing their acrobatic stunts in the skies over the sea with the agility and expertise I would like to own. Here they're hunting for food... read = fishing. I ended up with numerous 'empty' photos of the skies because my camera just ain't good enough to capture these virtuosos on picture :-(

The last photo is of the Kitty I placed photos of before. She's really growing and this time, like always, made sure I would notice her - somewhere there under the hedge in Pinkas...

Going to face another week of reality. Such 'is' Life...

Not too much to say

Today is my daughter's birthday. After hard 'labor' (and endlessly long as well) I brought a living creature into this world 30 years ago. I can still remember the feeling of disbelief. DID I DO THIS?? Me? Wow.... Such an accomplishment. I never could have thought I was able to fulfill something so magnificent. A tiny little baby - so complete, so beautiful.

Anyway... life goes on and it is only good we cannot look into the future. At least, not me. This 'future' I am in is as alien to me as sci-fi movies about the 21st century were when I was a kid. How one's own flesh and blood can cut the vein she came from. It's not her fault. But it still hurts. So I go on photographing things that find their way into my heart because of their sole existence that's appearing to me.

Like this snail that I found yesterday at the entrance of the building I live in - in the middle of a, for him, HUGE space... all alone... Like a magnet he attracted me and had me lying on my stomach making pictures of him. Because I so much would like to convey that feeling I'm getting when I see things like him. An inexplicable pure feeling, a connection with awe to nature. To the most primitive form of it that's -actually- the most sophisticated as well:

Happy birthday dear daughter - although you don't celebrate it and say you hate presents ...

Sentimental Old Fool

I am. "The Day After" (my birthday). Having realized that I have ended up belonging to those people 'we' (my family and I) always felt most sorry for (namely the people who don't have family close to them) more than anyone else on the world had me in a drunk fit the night before and in a hang-over on my birthday. Must say I gave myself the best birthday present anyone could give me though: hours upon hours upon hours of sleep. And so... this morning I took off on my regular routine....

The sea must have known something had happened to me the day before as well because he put up a show that was so beautiful it is impossible to lay it down in pictures. He was splashing around high and far, roaring loudly and with the rays of the sun penetrating between every single drop he threw over the railing of the boardwalk PURE bliss was the only feeling I could feel there and then.

The funny thing is that even the birds on route and at the shore seemed all to come out and 'congratulate' me - expressly showing their presence. The Warbles, the Palestine Sunbirds, the Pigeons and Doves, the Seagulls (all of their varieties), the Parrots, the Shags and Comrons - they were all there. Ms. Cat also shot like an arrow out of a bow from out of her hiding place to loudly greet me (and luckily I still had a small tin of soft and savory cat-food in my backpack for her). It was perfect. What I lack on close family I find nature makes up for. It's a pity I can't spend more there but are mostly locked up in work-jail....

One morning in January

.............. I was sitting with my daughter in a small 'coffee shop' at the corner of Ha_Tikva and Jabotinsky in Ramat-Gan and we heard the 'news' on the t.v. that was installed there: Ofra Haza.... she was in hospital and terminally ill. Nobody knows the real story - tho I tend to think that real stories don't exist but are the result of confusion...

Now that's my birthday 2moro, I remembered this.

My daughter (of whom I thought she would automatically know how much I loved her -harrey: that comes without words..., I thought - ) and the end of an era of Ofra Haza vs. Yardena Arazi. One had to chose. Like one is always FORCED to chose. Why?? If I liked both am I a cheater? Am I disloyal to any of them... or rather: why is one FORCED to chose when one loves all???

I am who I am. Love me, Like me or Hate me. I am Who I Am. And those are even the words of God.

70 years ago

A wish not come true:

Twice a bug that started showing signs of life after 70 years wrapped in a piece of leather in a tin box:

And the life of somebody who was one of the closest persons to my heart, my being, that hide behind that....

Too much to say, so I'll just say nothing

and place photos only.

Trying to pick up the pieces

After writing the last posting I sank into an emptiness and stayed home from work y'day. It was not a 'holiday' - I'd rather be more tough and less vulnerable. Especially since I think I'm a hypocrite. But OK. That's having a 'chesjbon' with myself. There were other things that made me sad as well. One of those is that my offspring doesn't seem to have inherited any of my characteristics. I love them all the same. Even if one of them chose not to speak with me anymore and the other chose a way in where I think that there is so little left we have common grounds about anymore except -hopefully- the love for each other.

How is it that religion can slowly and without paying attention turn people's mind to believe that true intention and honesty and just trying to be good (to everyone) isn't a good thing if you are not sticking to religious dictation? -No, I don't go on my knees for God and I am sincerely convinced that that also isn't His request or intention for us in this life. This life is to live this life. Not be busy all of the time with worshipping God. God created us for us and not for Him. He doesn't need us. If that would be so he wouldn't have created us. He could very well do without us :

Sorry about the rant :-( I am so hurt. I hope I'll get over this as well...

As for today:

Here's the little black kitten at the tunnel near Arlozorov trainstation again. I first thought another black kitty was

him and was very pleased to see how much 'he' had grown. Hahahahaha. Then, when I gave 'him' a tin of cat-food

the 'real' black kitten came out. The first photo is of the 'real' black kitten (I wrote about before) and the second

photo is of the one I thought was him first:

Before entering Shuk-HaCarmel I stood still watching Miri Aloni. She was the singer that stood near Itshak Rabin when having this peace demonstration on the night he was murdered. She told me not to photograph her - only if I would donate some money. Although this sounds rather negative she seemed like a very positive person. She sang all the songs I know and when it came to "Shir HaShalom" - click here to listen to it - goosebumps were running over my entire body.... She finally told me to photograph her (after I donated some money) - and even posed for me. I am honored...

At Shuk-HaCarmel I saw a T-shirt being sold at one of the bastot (fly the Emirates) that made me think of regular direct flights between "Tel-Aviv - Abu-Dhabi" .. Judge for yourself. Next to it was a T-shirt of Beitar Yerushalayim. It made it all seem even more surreal ;)

This must be one of the more beautiful graffitis about Gilad Shalit. It's near Shuk-HaCarmel. I don't think it matters anyway. I think it's good to believe you're doing something to get a 'son' of this nation home but real influence it won't have in the end:

The following are photos of:

1. some kind of bush thriving on sand (but near fresh water - the taps one can clean one's feet under)

2. Mr. Camouflage Mouse in Alenby. Can you see him? I saw a 'tail' move real fast into a hole from the corner of my eye and waited and waited until this shy creature showed his face around the corner. My hat off to you if you can detect him on this photo..

3. A pigeon like so many pigeons who's beautiful breasts we take for granted. At least that's what I think. Because, usually, people aren't all that pleased about pigeons. I personally think they're awfully sweet and beautiful...

From Hell to Paradise to Hell to Paradise - R.I.P.

This post of a year and a half ago tells about how someone who have known me 32 years reached out to me when I was feeling totally alone in the world. (You'll have to click to read it).

Soon after he himself came to live in Hell when a terrible sickness was discovered in him. He left this world yesterday and I wish for him to be in Paradise now - released from an unbearable struggle - facing sunshine and bathing in warmth.

Thank you Y. for throwing an anchor when I was nearly drowning....

Rest In Peace.

Resisting set-backs

I am. It's not new. Always when I feel I am progressing into a direction that starts to make me feel more at peace with myself and accepting situations, something happens that throws me right back further down the way I have been coming from and into a side-alley thereof and I yet have to search my way back to 'myself' again. It's only peace of mind I'm after. Why is it so hard to find? Does it honestly only depend on me?

Yesterday I stayed home doing NOTHING. I need more days like that. But I don't know what I want. I also want to enjoy from the sea and the Nemaal. I want to watch movies, I want to meditate, I want to get in touch with myself and NO(!) that's not through prayer. I'm sorry but it's not. I'm unique (like everybody else) and what 'goes for' others doesn't necessarily go for me. I have my own feelings, my own soul. Most probably my own purpose in life. What that purpose is is rather unclear to me - but still. Perhaps others connect to God when praying but I feel I don't have to. He's not a Kindergarten nanny. He's not so petty that one has to bow for and praise Him. He stands WAYYYYY above that. I am terribly sorry and have lost my family for that, but: NO(!) that just goes against all of 'me'. Of what I believe in (and there is so terribly little I feel sure enough about that I can actually believe in it).

"we are programmed to receive, you can check out any time you like .... but you can NEVER LEAVE..

And, that's how I feel. This is the song I came to Israel with. The last live concert I went to see before moving here. It has accompanied me all of the way.

And I still can't leave. Always there being something that makes it impossible for me to reclaim myself again. To be ME again.

Photos of today's escape to the Nemaal:

Twice I caught a wasp eating from the stems of flowers. Gorgeous flowers, gorgeous wasps. The sun throwing its rays on their transparent wings making them into fairy-tale objects.

The puddle in the middle of my mezah has its seaweed grown voluptuously now. It's so soft, like velvet. I stroke it with my hand but actually when I placed my hand over it - it was stroking me :)

The sea and skies were nothing like it looked like last Thursday morning. The sea was calm and relaxed - throwing an occasional wave over the boardwalk and some further down the end of my mezah from time to time. Not enough to chase me away from there though :D And, the skies were bare. No clouds except for the strips of different color it showed.

I saw this beautiful looking cat on Pinkas. I knew what she was doing and I recognized the look on her face "don't look please" - but.... her beauty had me mesmerized and I disregarded her pleas. Shame on me....

I passed this tree with a key on a string around it and THIS SONG (click) straight away popped up in my head - except that this wasn't a yellow ribbon but a key-ring, hahahaha

I don't know how many people are actually reading this blog (but it's ranked not too bad for a blog expressing one's personal frustrations) - but, if you're interested you can look up how much I already wrote about the White Silk Floss and its cottonballs. Here's one that's about to break open completely. Right in the middle of the process. Isn't it a miracle?

This was written on a bus-stop in Alenby. There seem to be a lot of people who KNOW it all. I am really jealous in them. I wish I could just join them and follow. However a soul like I am was created to be honest to herself. I CAN NOT. I can not follow what 'men' say. I have to listen to my heart. There just ain't no other way...