Flying Tonight

It's freezing in Jerusalem tonight. For the past few weeks I've been wearing t-shirts to school, and today, thinking it was to be the same, I went out in just a light sweater. The wind was blowing fierce and I ended up running to school blinded by sleet. When I got home this afternoon, it was hailing and thundering, and it got me worried that my flight would be cancelled. Luckily, Ben Gurion's website says all flights out of Tel Aviv on time.

So, now that I'm on my way home to true winter, finally Jerusalem feels like Christmas. Tammy and I threw a party the other night, and around thirty guests crowded into the apartment, most of them new to the concept of Christmas. But they ate our cookies and listened to carols and drank egg nog, and we danced and ate and talked about nothing much, just like a Christmas party should be.

Now, in about five hours, I fly home to my house and my family and this distant other life of mine. I have never felt so completely at home in two different places before. I'm not the first to say that about Jerusalem. Maybe since it's been a part of my life since I was a child, the mythology and the history of this city, but from the moment I arrived here, it has been familiar to me. I will only be gone a week, but I will miss it.