Friday, July 28, 2006

Friday

We're off to Jerusalem today for Shabbat. We're going to meet some friends who are visiting from abroad and I'll get to see an old friend I know from school. Looking forward to getting away. Though we've settled into a nice little routine here on the Moshav - Maggie's Farm, as it were - the situation still makes me feel a bit closed in.
Last night we went to the nearby beach. It's a real beauty, part of a nature reserve. Several families had set up tents together and we wondered if any of them might be refugee families who had settled on a cheaper solution than a hotel in the center. We ran into acquaintences from MegaCorp who invited us to stop by their house, a short walk from Maggie's.

I guess I do feel calmer now. The whole thing starts to become a bit of a routine, and not an entirely unpleasant one for us.
But some days are better than others.

In Cholent news I managed to call a nice English woman, Wendy Blumfeld, who is a local birthing and nursing coach. I signed us up for a birthing class after discussing with her the fact that I will most likely require a planned C-section. Unlike some of the natural-birth zealots I've heard of, Wendy does not shy away from the subject of C-sections. She even includes a film of a C-section in her class and observed that these days, some 20% of births end up as C-sections, plannned or not. She told me that she would always let us know what subject was up next and I could feel free to skip natural birth parts if I felt they'd bum me out.

Excelently, the classes are held very close to our house. Of course, we will have to have Nasrallah's cooperation to get started, but as Wendy said in her charming British accent, "The babies don't wait!"

She wrote an article in the Jerusalem Post recently about cloth nappies as a greener, cheapr, healthier alternative to disposables.
"Oh yes, a lot of people saw that!" she exclaimed cheerfuly when I told her I'd read it.

Jerusalem
I am interested to see how I'll feel when we enter Jerusalem. Usually the the Holy City hits me with a vicious wave of tension as soon as I enter its limits. Today it may feel like a comfortable old friend. Of course there is nothing like the peace of the sabbath in Jerusalem and I'm eager to connect with that, may even try to go to shul tonight.

Our friends are the founders of www.jewishmosaic.org, the center for Jewish Sexual and Gender Diversity. One of their orignial travel goals was to attend the International World Pride Day, scheduled to be held in Jerusalem. Given the current situation and ugly threats from Jewish extremist leaders before it, the Jerusalem police in a sad but responsible decision said they could not ensure the saftey of participants and the parade had to be canceled.

I will probably not post again until after Shabbat or even Sunday morning, so don't worry about us.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Laura,

Keep your head down! At least little Cholent is more portable than Nadine, and you can leave the strike zone for a while.

Gill and I send "dash cham" and hope for quieter and more peaceful times for all.

--Leah G.