i am enough.

I know I complain about this place sometimes. About how much I want to go home and how, at times, I feel like this place is pressing me flat into the hard hot dirt, squashing the air out of my lungs and the life out of my heart, clipping my wings and weighing me down with the heaviness I can taste in the corners of my mouth and the way back of my tongue. 

But there are also times when it strikes me how beautiful it can be and how much I’m going to miss it. Like when I’m walking, by myself, through the cool night desert air, and I can’t help but feel completely alone, and completely whole. There’s something inexplicable about the solitude of the desert. I’m generally more of a redwood forested coastline sort of person, to me, that will always spell home, but there is magic in the desert.

The quiet is quieter. The sun, sharper. The rocks, harder.

To survive in the desert is to thrive.

To embrace that feeling of total isolation and insignificance in the world, and then to look up to discover that you still exist at all, is to know a completeness within yourself as solid as the concrete walls of the bomb shelter down the block.   

(Source: terrysdiary, via tiportiff)

one more year. one. more. year.

Dear Students,

As you may know, the university sent out an announcement last week advising that a pick-up point for security kits has been established at the university. Some of you asked if this applied to our students. I wrote to both the the university security department and to the university’s Director-General seeking guidance, and I paraphrase below the reply I received:

The pick-up points are to allow citizens to upgrade the security kits they’ve had since the 1990 Gulf War. Originally, the old kits were picked up from peoples’ homes but the Home Front has now returned to the method of centralized pick-up points. This is not an emergency, nor it is hasty organization in preparations for expected security events. The distribution is being done for all citizens and the Home Front is doing it by region as they only have kits for 60% of the country’s population. The Home Front, at this point has no plan to supply kits to non-residents and tourists, but if the security situation changes, they will find a solution for this population.

We will of course update you accordingly.

Today - morning to lunch; a list:

• today i got up early and sat quietly on a pillow on the living room floor for 10 minutes. it was wonderful. 
• today i made bacon and eggs and toast with butter and jam for breakfast. last week my friend gave me a package of bacon for bringing her back some computer stuff from the states. contraband for contraband. 
• today i took a hot shower and let the scent of cucumber & green tea body wash fill me with a feeling of refreshed clean. 
• today i sat reading toni morrison in the sunshine while i waited for the doctor to pick me up.
• today i drove through the desert looking at the changing gradations of tan, dotted with small outcroppings of farms and unrecognized bedouin villages; reading signs that warned of camels and military firing zones on the side of the road. 
• today i saw a man with unexplained weight loss and abdominal discomfort, a pregnant woman with marked anemia, a teen with an upper respiratory virus, another with nausea and stomach pain, and a south african woman with osteoporosis and high cholesterol. 
• today i got dropped off near the bus station and walked past as a hundred recently processed, undocumented, african refugees shuffled their shackled feet towards a waiting bus that would undoubtedly take them to the special immigration prison they have down here. i turned back as i walked and caught the eyes of several of the men waiting to board. i tried to say “i’m sorry” with my eyes without giving a look of pity. because i don’t pity them, but i am sorry; sorry that they walked all this way, across countries and deserts, past innumerable gaurds with itchy trigger fingers, escaping untold horrors, only to have their ankles shackled and to be loaded onto a blue and white bus down by the train station. as i walked i wondered about their lives and the stories hidden behind the masks of their faces.
• today two kids walked by asking if i wanted to buy an iphone. i resisted the urge to grab them by the collars and search the phone for a little bumble bee sticker, knowing full well that my phone was last seen 50km from here, heading the opposite direction. 
• today i ate salad and lentil soup and a quesadilla for lunch as i watched a podcast of TRMS in my garden with my cats. 

(Source: 1emonade, via loveyourchaos)

jesuisperdu:

nico krijno

sometimes i feel like i might die. 

like the ache in my heart just might squeeze the life right out of me. 

i’m not unhappy here, in fact, in a lot of ways, i’m happier than i’ve been in a long time…perhaps ever. 

but it’s not easy. and sometimes, i just want it to be over. 

i have done, and seen, and heard, and felt, amazing things. inspiring, motivating, rejuvenating things. horrific, maddening, saddening things. beautiful things. ugly things. mysterious indescribable things. 

i am glad i came here. and that i am here. and that this experience is a part of me now - and a part of who i will one day become. i am glad. 

but having my feet on two different continents gets exhausting. and israel or palestine or the middle east or the desert or disneyland, gets exhausting too. and med school gets exhausting. and anticipation of the unknown gets exhausting. and sirens get exhausting. and missing people and things and ideas gets exhausting. 

and my thighs burn from doing the splits across the world. and when my niece asks me if i can maybe stay another day or come for christmas morning or spend the night and i have to say no, no my love, i can’t - it breaks my fucking heart. shatters it to pieces. sharp little shards like the pieces of the vase my brother made for me, (blew out of molten glass, and mailed to me across the globe), after my cats, my fucking cats, knocked it off the bookcase. 

and while i no longer yearn for a yesterday or a once was, i do miss how wonderful that felt. i miss being in love so completely that there was nothing i was more certain of in the world. a love so strong that i knew, not thought, but knew that i was invincible. that i could do and be anything. that all i had to do was try.

not that it was easy. i had to work hard. but working hard when you have confidence in yourself and the pursuit of your dreams, when you are backed by love and support and encouragement, well it’s like running a race when you’ve trained brilliantly and you’re in the best shape of your life; it’s still hard, hills still suck to get up, but it’s fun too, and rewarding. 

i am still breathing though. 

and running. 

and starting to believe again, that i might just get there in the end, and that maybe the crest of the hill isn’t so far off anyhow.

therealkatiewest:

Sometimes I have to be that person for myself.

Gathering her up into my arms and letting her cry and get mascara all over my shirt. Listening to her complain about her hair, and telling her she looks beautiful anyway. Reading the work she never shows anyone and assuring her it’s good. Meeting her eyes in the reflection of a mirror and letting her know she’s got nothing to be afraid of. Telling her, “Baby, it’s okay. Let yourself think. Let yourself fail. Let yourself succeed. Let yourself feel. Let yourself feel. Let yourself feel.”

and in with the sand

blew all of the worries

that had evaporated in the morning sun

My Bed

Is lofted above my kitchen and is impossible to get out of right now.

It’s a cozy little nest and I’m buried under a pile of comforters. It’s pouring rain outside and the sound is calling, “bundle up, stay in bed, listen to the music of the water on your roof.”

I have a “study day” today, which means I don’t have class until Hebrew at 4:30.

Self discipline is not my strong suit. At least I’ve got good coffee…

Downpour in the desert

sign on the bathroom door at one of the bars across the street from my apt. 

caturday - temple kittens at the base of the treasury edition