Written Oct 12

I’ve now been home over two weeks. It’s taken this long to feel like I’m part of America again, instead of an un-declared Israeli on the wrong continent.

The first few days back were rough. It wasn’t the jet-lag. The flight back was an overnight one. Take off in darkness, land in darkness. It’s weird enough flying that long. Now add having zero horizon reference except for the city lights you see for the first two minutes after takeoff and the last minute or two before the wheels hit the ground. It took me a while, but I finally found the combination that lets me get a good amount of sleep on a plane:

Get up at 7AM.
Run around an army base for a few hours trying to find something worthwhile to do.
Come up empty.
Pack, repack and re-repack all your bags, making sure everything is in it’s optimal position and you have room for last minute souvenirs.
Clean your barracks. Wander aimlessly. Take off your uniform for the last time. Strip the bed. Put everything into matching piles. Shirts, trousers, belts, sheets. Carry it over to the supply room to turn it in.
Shower.
Check and recheck the barracks for personal items. Mine and other people’s.
Hugs, handshakes, salutes and goodbyes with the soldiers.
Get on the bus.
Wait, quietly stressing as other volunteers make the bus stop three times in Haifa apparently thinking it’s their taxi service.
Talk with the few that are left as the bus starts to make time to Tel Aviv.
Get depressed as I see familiar landmarks pass wondering when and if I’ll see them again.
Hit Tel Aviv traffic.
Get off about 4 blocks from the bus station. Walk there to kill time. Be forced by security to open every compartment of every bag I have. Find the army store in the bus station. Buy stuff. Share dinner with an attractive French volunteer who’s unfortunately dating a childhood friend. (Unfortunate for me. Possibly for the two of them as well. It would suck if the relationship went south and the friendship with it. But c’est la vie.) Get lost in the bus station. Get found again.
Walk five blocks to the train station.
Get on the wrong train.
Take a train back to Tel Aviv, wait for the right train, have to run up and over because they switched platforms. Get on the right train.
Get to the airport. Clear security with suspicious ease.
Walk around the terminal.
Get a grilled cheese sandwich with mushrooms, olives and hot sauce.
Walk down each terminal concourse and back at least once. Look at the pretty airplanes.
Get on my plane.
Eat dinner. Order the pasta instead of the chicken. Red wine (complimentary) to drink.
Use the lavatory.
Plug into the classical music playlist.
Close my eyes.

I got around 6 hours of sleep give or take. Pretty good for me on a plane. So jet lag was not the issue. Neither was the time change. It was something much more personal. It was my bed. It took me a week to get used to my own large, soft bed. Up until this weekend I was sleeping on a 2.5 foot wide section of mattress, rolling within my own width. When my eyes opened the first image I saw before I read my surroundings was that of my last base.

The open window letting light and a cool breeze onto my feet, the long axis of the room taken up by bunk beds, the pile of folded cots in the near corner. I could almost hear the sounds of the five other guys I’d lived with for a week and a half. Well, not all the sounds. The snorer in the bunk below me was absent in sound, but I could still feel his presence. Then a second would go by and it would all be gone.

That’s weird. You wake up sensing this place where you became comfortable, these people you trusted with your life, the fastest friends you ever made. The fist second you open your eyes they’re right there with you, the next second you blink and they’re gone. You’re in your home and you don’t feel like you belong there. That’s a hell of a way to start the day. Now do it every day for a week and see how you feel.

So on top of going to a fairly solitary, albeit comfortable existence after two months of nearly solid social interaction my activity level felt like it went from Sixty to Zero. Not really, it just felt that way. I still went to the JCC to work out, and I had a hell of a lot of running around to make up for being away for so long. Friends, family, coworkers, meeting, greeting, making deals, hoisting drinks, playing catch up, editing photos- all the while thinking, “What the fuck am I doing here? This is not my world anymore. I should never have left Israel. I can make it there, I belong there! I don’t want to fall back into my routine, spending hours watching shows on Hulu, reading internet forum posts, hitting the refresh butting hoping that when the page reloads there will be new posts or a new webcomic strip. I didn’t miss any of it for a second, and now I’m back to it? Fuck that! I’m not some soft cubicle mouse keyboard jockey! I’ve looked into Fatah-Land and seen the face of the enemy! I’m hard! I’m strong! I’m...very,very confused.”

I wondered how it was that it took me about twelve hours to feel like I belonged in Israel and I still don’t completely feel like I belong in America. I almost feel like the Stars and Stripes has one too many colors for my liking. I kept telling myself and other people in ratios how close I was to being inclined to make Aliya. I started the trip 50/50. Then it was 60/40- in favor. 75/35, then back to 50/50, then 40/60. Eventually I got up to 90/10. I never got to 100. I never will. I’m just not a 100% kind of guy when it comes to this. However much I feel drawn to something, however much it sucks me in, catches my interest, makes me love it, makes my heart pound for it, there is always a part of me going the other way.

“Hold it. Even if this is what you really want...Why? Why do you want it so bad huh? What are you running from in the States that you won’t bring with you? Not running from something, right? Running to something? Towards what? What are you in a hurry to do Mr. Herzl mark [really big number]? You gonna be a cause head now? Found something worth risking it all for? Why so eager, Mr. Wannabe Hero?”

Yeah, that last 10% of my is a real asshole. People ask me why I put myself down and I’m not putting all of me down. It’s just that Cpt. Buzzkill, nagging bit of doubt, reason injected into an emotional response that I hate. I know he means well, but he just kills my fun. If it wasn’t for that jackass I’d probably have gotten laid way more.

So I spent a lot of my first weeks back reenacting the War of Attrition in my head. I think there’s an armistice now. I still don’t know what the final answer will be. I don’t feel quite right in the USA. I’m looking at a lot of challenges, but things still seem awfully easy here. And if nothing else, I like the fact that security guards at the shopping malls here are only concerned with shoplifters. Imagine that. They’re worried about thieves. It seems so quaint, and amusing to me. The macho rent-a-cops will let anyone walk in without a second look, but if their pockets have a tag sticking out- then it’s go time!

On the other hand, there was the experience which finally made me look at the flag flying from a building and feel something again. Some “Good Old Fashioned American fun!” I went out to a farm owned by a friend, rode an ATV for the first time. Without any protective gear. Yeah, kind of reckless, but we weren’t going all that fast. The guy I was with had his 2 year old with him, so he wasn’t going to do any crazy stuff. And, I was given the best quad they had. Push button ignition and breaks. Rock on. We rode around on those through some gently rolling farmland, apple orchards and some beautiful woods. Still mostly green even though the leaves are starting to turn. Then on to that most American of activities: the discharge of firearms on private property out in the middle of nowhere. And I’ve got to say, obliterating a clay pigeon on the first try on my first ever shot with a shotgun was really nice. Of course it was beginner’s luck and I missed all the other shots but the very last one.

Before I brought out my old monster I got to shoot a few other weapons. A Colt .45 that dated to the 1940’s, a couple shotguns, a lever action .22 rifle and a single action .22 revolver. I made a holes of various sizes in some old soup cans. One of them even went spinning a couple feet in the air just like in the old movies. I guess I hit it just right. Then it was time to hit the cardboard target out in the woods about 150 yards. The spotting scope was out and the my old Swiss mountain beast was locked on. Not a great grouping, but fun and lethal to that cardboard cutout.

I missed the turn I was supposed to take to get home fast. I didn’t mind. It was magic hour, I was up by the lake and the sun lit up the broken clouds. I drove past farms, orchards, ugly cookie cutter housing developments and I really enjoyed America for the first time since I got home. I still don’t know if I’ll make Aliya. But until I figure it out, letting that dilemma run my life is just about the stupidest thing I can think of.

I still haven’t put up my last couple journal entries from Israel. When I do, I know I’ll edit the hell out of them. There’s a lot in there that seemed good at the time, but looking back probably would just make trouble if it saw the light of day. Then again, why be afraid? Any drama’s going to be 6,000 miles away from me, right?

I went over with a few missions for myself:
1) Have a vacation with my friends. Party, chase girls, get drunk, catch fish.
Success. Not as much partying and girl chasing as I would have liked. And the biggest fish got away. This is described in detail in previous entries. Overall, 95% mission accomplished.
2) Play more airsoft with the Israelis. Act as a goodwill ambassador between the WNY and Israeli airsoft scenes.
Accomplished big time.
3) Visit the Israeli branch of the family.
Done and fun.
4) Successfully complete all tasks associated with the scheduled Sar-El programs I was participating in. (Many of these tasks involved interpersonal stuff rather than the labor component.)
Done.
5) Determine if I can “Hack it,” in Israel if I decide to make aliya.
Done. I think I can, I think I can.
6) Decide whether or not to make aliaya.
Mission scrubbed. Decision postponed pending the outcome of living my life.