While I am procrastinating about finishing some new pieces that I have been working on for a while now, I have been reading some old stories I wrote about nine years ago, just after I got back from Israel. This is one that just happens to be timeless, as it is a love story of mine that will never end or go away. Thankfully I don't live too far from the ocean nowadays, but I would love one day to live right by it, so close that every day when I wake up it is the first thing I see and hear.
(Written in August 2004)
What is it that draws me to the sea? I wasn’t born near the
sea, I’ve never lived by the sea, well not until I went to Israel anyway. I
just have an immense love for seas, oceans and beaches. The constant waves
soothe me, the sand under my bare feet massages my unsteady spirit, and the sun
making its way over the water releases a feeling of utter freedom in my heart.
If I stay away from the beach too long I miss it terribly, I dream of sitting
on the sand watching the waves, of searching for shells along the edge of the
water, of making gigantic sandcastles with walls and moats.
The first two months I was in Israel, I spent them in the
middle of the desert. On a beautiful moshav literally in the middle of nowhere,
a kilometre off the main road, bang in between Be’er Sheva and Eilat. Oh yes, I
developed a love for the desert, miles and miles of sand, mountains looming in
the distance, a dry bush or tree here and there and a pounding, relentless sun,
but I missed the water and waves.
So when I went to the Kibbutz Programme Centre in Tel Aviv
in the beginning of September (2003) I knew I wanted to go north. Preferably by
the beach. That’s what I asked for, and after being told there was room on a
kibbutz on the road to Jenin the lady brought out another folder and handed it
to me with a little smile.
There was no choice to be made really. Evron is situated 1km
or so south of Nahariya, right up north, a very short distance from the
Mediterranean and the train could take me all the way there. An hour and a half
from Tel Aviv, a ten-minute walk from Nahariya and the station, 6 hours from
the moshav, but no need for endless bus rides. A short phone call and it was
all arranged, I was off to Evron. And for 7 months I lived on a beautiful
kibbutz 10 minutes by foot from the sea. When you’ve lived by the sea once, you
just dream and dream of living by the sea again.
I worked in the Dining Room most days, and there was a
special part on the path going from the Dining Room to the Volunteer House
where the sea appears suddenly on the horizon. Every day, rain or shine, when I
got to that part of the path my heart would suddenly lift and everything would
seem so perfect, even if only for a moment.
The first time I went to the beach I went alone. I had
arrived in Evron the evening before, worked in the kitchen on my first day and
was ready to explore the area. I walked into Nahariya, along the main road (I
love walking, I’ve never seen the point in using a car or bus for short
distances) and strolled along the main street, knowing that it had to end up at
the beach at some point. There is a “river” running through Nahariya to the
sea. It runs right down the middle of the main street and it was never really
more than a trickle if not completely dried up (it did overflow once during a
flash flood though).
I walked along the beach for a while, kicking off my
flip-flops and rubbing my feet into the hot, coarse sand. The sand in Nahariya
is unlike sand on most beaches around the world, its grains are big and coarse
and stick to your skin like glue. Many a time I would come back from the beach
with it stuck all over me. Knowing my love for the sea it was pretty obvious
after my first contact with the beach in Nahariya that I wasn’t going to want
to leave very quickly.
The weather was hot all the way until November, and I made
many trips to the beach. Often with other volunteers. On Yom Kippur Andrea,
Erica, Lotti, Haun and I walked in the middle of the empty main road, even
sitting in the middle of it at one point for a perfect photo moment, and spent
the whole afternoon sunbathing, paddling and searching for shells. It was on
the beach that Andrea and I really bonded, and we would often walk along the
water edge, chatting away for hours, making these outings into our own special
moments together. I have to say that the friendships I made in Evron are some
of the most special friendships I had made that will always be a part of me,
even if we never meet again.
During the short winter months I made less trips to the
beach, but still often enough. After my trip to Egypt in January, Isabel
arrived in Evron and I made it my job (and pleasurable it was too) to take her
under my wing and show her all of the things I loved. When I learnt she had
never been to Nahariya I rounded up Fernando and Helge and we took her into
town, along the “river” that had risen so high it had flooded the pavements and
left them full of mud. We walked all the way to the sea on the little walls so
as not to get stuck in the mud. The sea was particularly rough that day; I’d
never seen the Mediterranean like that before, waves crashing onto the beach,
the wind roaring. We walked along the mini pier, getting splashed by the salty
water and took a picture of ourselves with the lights of Haifa in the
background.
Another time we were all sitting on the beach, and both
Fernando and me remarked one after another, without having heard the other say
it, that the sea was more like a lake, the waves pretty much non-existent, just
slight ripples from the breeze. The fact that the water is so unpredictable,
calm one day, rough the next is uplifting to me. Whereas I crave stability in
some ways, I enjoy the instability of nature as I find it soothing. If nature
is unpredictable then I can be so too without having to worry about conforming
with the rest of society. I need to be free and water makes me feel as if I
have the right to be.
The weather changed suddenly in February and we were faced
with a heat wave that went on for a few weeks, into the beginning of March. One
Friday Fernando and I decided to forego the usual Friday night partying and
headed off to the beach instead. We got Isabel, Helge, Indy and Maor to go with
us and set off wrapped up warm, with the radio and the narguila. Fernando and I
spent the whole walk ahead of the others, talking and joking, and when we
finally got there we installed ourselves near the edge of the water, smoked
narguila and looked at the stars. Nowadays every time I look at the moon and
the stars I often think of that moment on the beach, a moment in time that will
always be part of me. We cranked up the volume of the radio and danced like idiots
in the sand, play fighting, singing, relaxing. Not really a beach party, but a
special evening nonetheless.
If you went a different way to the beach, past the Kanyon
and the newer housing estates then you would come across an inlet I discovered
with Erica, a little cove-like area protected by rocks that I proceeded to call
“my beach”. It was quieter than the beach area in central Nahariya and there
were many shells and slimy rocks to climb on. I would go there to read and to
think, alone, with Isabel, once with Maor too. That’s the beach I miss the
most. The sun setting over the endless looking water, casting coloured
reflections everywhere. Images cloud my memory, sharp as it is, Fernando
finding sea glass for me, Isabel and Helge making an intricate sandcastle,
falling asleep with Erica under the sun, walking along the water edge with
Andrea, collecting shells with Isabel…
Tel Aviv must have one of the most beautiful beaches in the
world. You can walk all the way up the beach to Jaffa, look at all of the
weird, beautiful, normal and downright crazy people chilling out. Strolling
along there with Judith, Ella and Eden very early one Shabbat morning; sitting
there on Christmas Day with a hangover with Nick, Kirsty and Lotti; Sunbathing
with Fernando in May before going down to Eilat… If I close my eyes I’m there.
My dream is to live right by the beach, to be able to hear
the noise of the waves every morning when I wake, every evening when I go to
sleep. I would like to be able to look out my window and see sand and water.
One day I will. You can take me away from the beach but you can’t take the
beach away from me. One day hopefully. One day I will sit on my little porch
and write stories in the sun, above the ocean.
Memorial Day weekend always reminds me of moving to NYC –
the heat, the humidity, the laziness of the first holiday of the year since New
Year’s Day in the middle of the bustle and noise of everyday life. Subsequent
years bore beach days and hungover days; brunch times and walks in the city; Long Island days and barbeques in Bushwick.
Every year I longed for Memorial Day weekend to arrive so that I could
celebrate the beginning of summer, my real favourite season in NYC. This year
it crept up on me, my first Memorial Day as a family: a day where no one needed
to work, a day to spend together as we see fit, no plans, just mother, father
and baby time. 
Nowadays it’s really just the simple things that matter: a
walk in the park, watching the turtles watching you with their little heads
sticking out of the water, looking at the squirrel scampering away with the
acorn in its mouth, relaxing on a blanket under a tree and closing your eyes.
Choosing a pretty spring outfit for yourself and your daughter, knowing full
well that she doesn’t care if you are in a dress or pyjamas, or if she is in a
onesie or a dress, but doing it anyway because it is fun and because you can. Walking
along the sidewalk as a unit, mother, father, daughter, altogether as one,
making jokes and gazing at the pretty houses and gardens, imagining together
what our next home and garden will look like. Tickling your child under the
chin with a blade of grass and listening to her laugh and hoping that you will
hear that beautiful sound every day, forever.
Flushing ended up being a good choice for us, because
despite the commute into Manhattan, it really is beautiful here. There are
parks and gardens and trees and flowers everywhere and a happy alternative to
the race of the city and all that it entails. As I was walking around the
neighbourhood yesterday I realised just how much every single priority had
changed for the better. A walk in the park is just so much more enjoyable now,
as are all of those little things that we take for granted most of the time,
the turtles and the squirrels and the naps in the grass, the smell of concrete
after a rain shower, and the lilac bushes in bloom on the street corners. I
guess this is what my real happiness is… 
