Independence 2013

Running on fumes, I’m on a bus on the way to Tiberius. A couple of weeks ago I moved to a small apartment in a kibbutz by the Sea of Galilee. Tonight is Israel’s Independence Day 2013 and the sunset is stunning. I mean, stunning. I wish the holidays in this country were national and not religious so busses would run all year long. It’s been nearly seven years since I’ve joined in these celebrations.

All that’s occupying my thoughts tonight is gaining one more working-day this week. Shouldn’t I be celebrating right now? Nice meeting ya’, I’m a wandering emigrant on the galaxy’s free-ways. Exhausted, today was the one day this week that I helped a friend of mine do some hard-core gardening in Tel Aviv; a privilege. Had I stayed to crash instead of taking the bus up north, my entire week’s work-momentum would’ve gone bust. Got a lot of writing to catch up on before the weekend.

In Israel, happiness is mixed with pain; celebration with mourning. Last week was the Holocaust Memorial Day. Last night and today was the Memorial Day for War and Terror Victims. At 9p tonight on the dot, grief turns to ecstasy as Independence Day begins. I saw vendors setting up food-stands in the streets today and realized that Vancouver’s Canucks took over that piece of memory. These days, while people weep the lost and celebrate the living, all I can think of is work and Mad Men.

During Israel’s memorial days there’s a loud horn playing for a minute or two; once in the evening and once again the morning. An entire people stand for a moment of silence to pay respect to the lost. Radio stations play nothing but sad songs and local TV channels broadcast bravery stories that frame the collective melancholy. The people mourn those who have died so we can live here today. Spending a chunk of years on the other half of the planet, has made me wonder. Will commemorating the lost this way ever break the pattern of parents losing their children? Some people would call me a traitor just for this thought.  

If it was me who had died for this land, an eighteen year old boy with an M-16 toy or an unfortunate passerby in a terror-bombed street… if I were the parent of this murdered person… how would I wish to commemorate the lost? Each one of those 23,085 unfortunate souls who have died over this land throughout the past 65 years has a story. Would I be sitting in this bus right now if it wasn’t for them?

The bus is passing by the McDonald’s restaurant where I had my last McDonald’s meal, on January 1^st, 2009. Tonight and tomorrow Israelis are going to BBQ under every tree and in every park, but I won’t be a part of it. Individual independence verses collective independence. What can I do to have found independence back in North America? I stopped eating meat, I lowered the volume of my voice and I stopped living in fear that the person next to me will take over my place unless I hit him first. A Mediterranean pickle.

Night has fallen. Lights of cities and villages are flashing in the distance alongside the country roads outside my bus window. Some Jewish, some Muslim, some Christian and maybe even somewhere out there, a village that is shared by all three. I know Israeli Muslims who feel most grateful for living under a Jewish majority rather than in an Arab country. I know a few who don’t stand up while the memorial horn plays, to protest on an illegitimate occupation. Each person has a story. The night’s lights are surreal. A moment with God no one can fight over. Fireworks are starting to show above some of the villages; let the celebrations begin.

I made it. I’m in the kibbutz now, having dinner, watching Mad Men and suddenly it hits me… I forgot how fatigued I was only a few hours ago. The kibbutz smells like a dairy-farm tonight and people are going berserk underneath my window in the name of patriotism. By midnight it’s becoming quieter. I’m excited for tomorrow, and could really use a foot massage.

Early in the morning, two pigeons on my windowsill are waking me up. The cock is warmly courting, almost attacking. The hen is warmly surrendering, but isn’t giving up. Once she successfully rejects him and he moves to a branch nearby to coo some more, she’s left puzzled, looking at him like, what do you think you’re doing? Get back here! And he does. Dozens of other pigeons are cooing on the windowsills and trees all around.

Last week during Holocaust Day, a friend of mine posted a facebook status I’d like to share: “Wouldn’t it be just fun if instead of a sad memorial day for the Holocaust we’d have a joint happy day with Germany? We could perpetuate the positive change that exists now, and not the horrific catastrophe that once was, alongside all the hate and frustration that comes with it…”