My friend Seth has this cheer for before an ultimate frisbee
game. He’ll come running into the huddle and start a story. The story escalates
in absurdity and so does the team’s response with alternating “YAAAY”s and
“BOOO”s. Something along the lines of:
“Guys – I’m so sorry I’m late – it’s because we had SUCH a
great tournament party last night!”
“Yaah!”
“But now I’m really hung over.”
“Boo!”
“But I’m ready to play defense anyway!”
“Yaaaaay!”
“But I can’t play because I threw my cleat in the ocean with
a message for the people of Indonesia last night…”
“Booooo!”
And so on and so forth until either our team gets fired up
to play, or the story becomes so outrageous that the other team gets engrossed and
comes over to join us.
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| We also bring a couch to the fields...and bacon |
This cheer is analogous to my experiences since returning to
the Middle East from a few weeks in the States. Take any aspect of it. The war,
for example: a real ceasefire (yay!)
to the following land grab by Israel in the West Bank, thus continuing to
ostracize international alliances or even compassion for the Jewish State and
its cause (boo!). Or moving into a wonderful new apartment (yay!); and having
the faucets and the stove immediately fall apart (boo!); but getting them fixed
with the kind support of our landlady (yay!); who then proceeded to scold us
like little children for getting overcharged (boo!). (I swear, dealing with
Israelis is like eating Sourpatch Kids or Warheads – you just gotta pucker up
and hang on for the ride ‘til the outer layer dissolves.)
Or how about going to play in a frisbee tournament on
Saturday: I found out on Thursday that my toe had only been dislocated instead
of broken, so I would actually be able to play (yay?); I woke up at 5am to
catch a sherut (mini-bus) at the central station, only to remember after my 40-minute walk that they don’t
run from that side of town on Shabbat (boo!). Huffing it back to the East side,
I found many sheruts waiting to leave for Tel Aviv (yay!) and got juggled by
six shouting Arab men into four different sheruts over the span of 30 minutes.
Each time, I was the first passenger in a bus that must be full before it
departs (boo). I returned to the shouting men and kindly declined one offer to
drive me to Tel Aviv directly for 300 shekels (boo!), but then got in a cab to
the secret sheruts (and by secret I mean
the ones I just didn’t know about) – a ride for which the kind old man, Rami,
did not charge me at all (yay!) (I may leave the part out where he kept patting
my knee…grandfatherly or creepy ? The ride was short enough that I did not need
to make a clear distinction or assess the speed at which I could leap from the
car, which was great because he seemed nice and it was still too early in the
morning for a dive-and-role). I was the second-to-last person on the bus and
was immediately whisked away to the big city very, very quickly (yay!)…on a
speeding bus ride of death (blarf).
The latest in this proverbial roller coaster (were there
roller coasters in Proverbs? If not, what would they have said instead? A
Judean hill chariot race? Fishing boat on a stormy Galilee?) – anyway, the
latest escapade of this sort was navigating the medical system. I’ve recently
diagnosed myself with a deadly, flesh-eating bacteria (boo!) but had a not-so-painful
appointment yesterday during which the doctor actually answered my questions
and even drew me a map of where to go to the pharmacy. I found a receptionist
who told me where to go to drop off my packet and then encountered a super
friendly pharmacist (all yay!)
And by comparison, I’d much
rather be at the doctor than the bank. My roommate and I returned from our
respective life errands at the same time, but her simple chore to remedy a
wrongly dated check spawned treks to two separate branches, a series of blank
stares accompanied by completely fabricated fees with multi-step transactions,
and hostile rebukes for messing up the check in the first place…none of which
resulted in any clear way to solve the issue because that task is just too
tricky to tackle. My tough-as-nails Brit cried in public. She has never cried
in public, at least not since England lost a war (oh, wait – yeah, she’s never
cried in public.) They gave her a glass of water and asked her why she was
crying over a silly piece of paper. …boo.
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| New roommate Lucy and I bonding over Proverbs, roller coasters, and cactus fruits |
Lately my life has felt like playing he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not
with the flower petals of my sanity (which is, ironically, a not-so-far-off
analogy to be frank). It’s a gentle roulette that turns me to meditation and
chocolate. But I am not so blind or narcissistic as to not understand that this
is all a hyperbolic anecdote of what every other creature is going through:
that is, simply life itself – a cosmically balanced cycle of ups and downs to
which we are intended to respond with grace and an open mind and perhaps
someday even influence through positive intention. And like the freezer door
that falls out every time we open the fridge, it’s actually quite funny when it
doesn’t make you cry. But when you are in a foreign land and everything is just
a smidge more complicated and those cycles come in large waves that coincide
with a particularly emotional other cycles in the month (which is not an excuse
but simply a reality), then this life roller-coaster-ancient-fishing-boat-on-the-stormy-seas
makes me want to curl up in the fetal position or barf - depending on how much
chocolate I’ve eaten already.
Frankly, I usually enjoy these free-falls - the moment of
seeing that huge drop in front and reaching the realization that it’s coming
whether I want it to or not - so I might as well commit and enjoy it. (Let’s
define “commitment” at a surface level for now, though. We’re talking small
decisions - not life choices - for the time being. Yesterday I spent quite
literally 10 minutes in the baking aisle trying to figure out which chocolate
to use in the brownies I was baking for my friend in the hospital. Didn’t
matter I guess – I burned the SHIT out of them anyway (boo). But my point is
that decisions are not my strong suit (yet), so I’m taking one small commitment
at a time). I acknowledge this about myself and so I think that leaning into
these drops is actually a healthy thing. I can’t change the banking system or
predetermine which sherut driver doesn’t have a death wish, so maybe the best
thing to do is to get out on the field and tell the story with vigor; to sob
when it feels right and to cheer when the heroine conquers the flesh eating
bacteria and gets new faucets in the bathroom.
