flash to black

So I'd like to begin this post by informing you all of my current soundtrack. It will mean absolutely nothing to about 99% of you-- in fact, I can think of one, maybe two people who will read this and know who I'm talking about. But that's not the point. The point is Will Sartain. The point is In The Dark.

I'm glad I've gotten that out there.

Another dreamy 24 hours halfway across the world. Time passes so strangely here; I can't get over it. In a way it reminds me of AMIGOS, this perversion of moments that leaves me in some places forever and in other not at all. I open my eyes, and I'm blinded by a rush of hot desert sand, and my hips are flexed out so my legs can wrap around the saddle that is wrapped around my camel which is plodding methodically along the train; I blink and then I'm in the moadon, pupils dialted to American movies projected on the wall with my back propped against Danny and the couch; I close my eyes and take a gasping breath and it's morning.

Again and again, all of these tiny fleeting images that blind me and then fade-- no, flash --to black. Lack of sleep has left me with dry eyes for weeks; no number of steamy showers or eyedrops or brief fits of crying can rehydrate my vision. But I don't mind, I don't mind, I wouldn't have it any other way. Becayse every moment gives me something else to think about.

Maybe I am not a Zionist. Maybe I am not a very good Jew, maybe I do not believe in Eretz Yisrael the way I am meant to. But I am thinking about what it means to be the person I am not, and I am slowly constructing opinions of my own, slowly developing an understanding of this strange place that is supposed to be my homeland. Slowly, I am learning what it means to function within the Old City walls. Slowly, I am coming to grasp the complexities that run the bloodstream of this ancient country.