It is definitely Shabbat. Last evening, Arlan and I lit candles, chanted Kiddush, and blessed bread together over the phone. Then I went downstairs to feed the stray cats.
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| Shabbos candles and disposable gloves |
This morning, my alarm rang a little before 5 a.m., and I logged onto Zoom to join a Reform community, Beit Haverim (House of Friends), in Oregon for Kabbalat Shabbat (Receiving/Welcoming the Sabbath). The birds began singing outside before the call ended and the sky beyond the hills was just beginning to lighten when I went back to bed. When I woke again, around 8 a.m., one of the melodies that the cantor had sung was running through my head.
Although it was beautiful outside, as only Eilat can be just prior to the extreme heat of summer, I puttered around my new place. It takes an extraordinary amount of time to turn the bed back into the appearance of a couch; it’s a process that I’ll have to streamline sometime before work resumes.
Eventually, I put on a pair of black, disposable gloves on, hung my key around my neck, and carried my drum across Derech Harim (Hills Way). A gentle breeze and the perfect blending of sun and clouds were caressing the day.
There is an archaeological site, the world’s oldest above-ground burial, across the street from my new home. It is possibly more than 100 meters from my building, so at first, I only went as far as the bottom of the path that goes past the site and into the hills. I wish I could describe the the bare naked hills and all their colors that Arlan calls the Bones of Mother Earth.
I drummed as a few families and individuals passed me on the dirt strip that parallels Derech Harim, walking their children or their dogs. Here and there, a couple walked through the valleys or climbed the hills.
After drumming the seven directions, I kept drumming and became caught up in the rhythm as I never have before, and when I finished, I climbed the path to the archaeological site.
The bases of small, stone structures survive: individual circles, paired circles, some paved, pairs of standing stones, and one that looks, to my imagination, like the lower half of a torso and legs. I looked out at the Gulf and the city of Aqaba to the east, at the hills to the west and north, and down to the east and south at the outdoor gym and buildings of my new neighborhood, Mitzpe Yam (Sea View).
I found the circle that I’d sat near, for a ritual in November 2017, three months after I moved to Eilat. I had completed the ritual on Friday afternoon before Shabbat came in and walked all the way back to my old apartment in the Yealim (Ibixes) neighborhood just at candle-lighting time. The site for my ritual had seemed so remote; I’d never imagined that I’d eventually live in the building nearest it.
I returned home, stripped off my disposable gloves and struggled a bit with the lock on my door. Since I don't know how to work the mazgan (air conditior/fan/heater), I left the door open so the breeze could flow through my studio; the paper lanterns I'd made for the bare bulbs rustled cheerily. I drank a couple of glasses of water because it's important to remain hydrated in the desert.
Arlan texted and asked me to call him. It was nice to hear his voice. He had already walked down to our friend Jude's house to get her Macabi card so we can go to the pharmacy for her tomorrow and also get gloves for her mitapelet (caregiver). She had offered to let him borrow her car, but it wouldn't start.
We've decided to walk both ways, even though a few buses will be running. We won't go to the grocery store there because Arlan is sure that our little market will have matza and other Pesach foods soon.
Around 2:30 in the afternoon, I walked to the market to get more cat food and some more food for myself. I ran into Isobel, another Anglim who lives nearby, and we chatted for a while-- at a distance, of course. We must have been standing very still: at one point, a crow flew right between us!
When I returned home, I did my laundry and accomplished nothing else!
I'll go downstairs and feed the cats in a little while, and perhaps watch a movie, but I'm eager to crawl into bed and block out reality.
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