One of Those Days

Today was one of those days. You know, Those Days. Those

"I don't have an apartment still after three weeks of looking, and...

I haven't found my friends or community here yet, and...

I got yelled at by not only my students but also another teacher at school today, and...

How much money do I have left for this whole adventure anyway? and...

My head hurts and my back is sore and my belly aches and my nose is runny, and...

I am hungry for miso soup and getting sick of humus, and..."

kind of days.

Even if you have never had *this* day specifically, you probably understand what I mean. So what did I do? The most productive, efficient, reasonable thing I could think of given the circumstance: I went up to the roof, sat down on the ground and cried.

Where is the adventure, the romance, the beauty, the insight that comes from being on a journey? That is what authors describe and movies depict, a completely revelatory experience...which I am sure I would be having right now if I were not spending hours each day on the bus going to see apartments halfway across town that are either completely out of my price range or a million miles from everything. I just want to amaze myself with all the new things I'm doing--like Rebecca with her writing and her ballet slippers and her sewing machine and her fire-dancing--but I've ridden the bus countless times before in San Francisco, I didn't need to come halfway around the world to experience the delight that is public transit. Did I really risk almost everything to find my way here, only to sit on my roof and cry?

Actually, maybe, yes. Some do say that there are clues everywhere, you know. I recognize that traveling can be exhausting sometimes, in every sense of the word, and today was just very tiring for me. If I could only get one of these things under control--housing, work, community, finances, love life, health, appetite--I would feel much more powerful right now.

Did I mention the recent unrest in Gaza? No, I don't think I did. Because that is not a factor in any of this at all.

*sigh*

Lailah tov m'Yerushalayim, kulam...good night from Jerusalem, everybody. As Bob used to say, "everything changes with the passage of time." Will everything get fixed overnight? Maybe not, but likely things will improve sooner than I think. That is what I am telling myself, anyway.