Column on Freedom or A perfect day starts with sunshine

Not nice

We already said tropical

Passover night

A little more running

I missed the balls in the air

Santa Marta here we come

Not nice

As time goes by, the feeling we receive from the land becomes increasingly negative and despondent. A sort of ominous silence, everyone is withdrawn into themselves. It's not nice because for me, things are getting better and I want to share that... It's also not nice for Yoala who is a bit down. The intensity of work leaves her no room for anything else but errands, always feeling stressed and out of breath (we switched - I already said). It's also not nice for Michael who has been sick for a week - a tough sinusitis that comes and goes. A tough kid who doesn't break easily, and takes it upon himself. It hurts to see him suffering like this. It's not nice for Mati who is in a status quo of bummed out, and tries to be cool. Actually, Ofri is doing great now since he got his holiday - enjoying the break and complaining in his cute and annoying way

 So overall, it was a good week for me. Even very good. I finished it yesterday physically broken, but uplifted, even euphoric

We already said tropical

This week started smoothly, Michael was sick on Saturday, so we stayed home. On Sunday, we had a completion visit at IKEA. Mati claimed there was a Ferris wheel on the roof. We went up and discovered a huge playground with a Ferris wheel, roller coasters, and various attractions (which turned into a gift of the Afikoman for all the kids two days later). On Monday, everyone went about their tasks - Yoala to work, me to woodworking, the kids at home on holiday. Michael, who felt a bit better for a moment, and Mati shared the responsibility for Ofri, two hours each and the last two hours were Smurfs. In the evening, I started preparing for Passover night - planning the menu, cutting and pasting a new Haggadah: 'The Haggadah of the People of Israel - The Churatos Version' ('Los Churros' in free translation from Spanish - a nickname given to us by the school secretary). Six pages of A4 half sheets with the texts that feel right to me, neatly secured and decorated in the best tradition with block colors - Michael taught Ofri what a Daddy Bear, Mama Bear, and cuddly Bear are

On Tuesday I took Ofri with me to Medellin for holiday shopping and we returned in the afternoon, planning the cooking for the upcoming day. In the middle of the way, I heard a huge explosion and saw an interception above my head. After a moment I realized it wasn't an interception but an exceptionally strong lightning strike that turned a pleasant sunny day into a crazy storm all at once. At first, light rain, then heavy rain, and then hail that gradually felt like stones were being thrown onto the roof of the car. I could see only a meter ahead and drove at 20 km/h. I wondered if the storm was also in our neighborhood. As I got closer, the situation worsened. When I arrived at the parking lot outside the house, it was impossible to get out of the car, the rain and hail were pouring from the sky, and the lawn of the house was covered with a thin layer of hail. Mati called me and shouted - Dad, the house is flooded. Suddenly, Yoala arrived to rescue us - opened the door of the garage which had been unused until then. I drove in with the car and from there into the completely flooded house. The house, which is located on a very steep slope, is surrounded by an open drainage canal so that the rain doesn't enter the house. But the conception collapsed, the canal filled up and flooded the house. Mati, Yoala, and I took brooms (there are no squeegees in Colombia) and started moving water from side to side while Michael and Ofri ran in the rain and collected hail in bowls - to keep as a souvenir. Half an hour later the rain stopped. We continued to sweep and spread towels on the floor for another hour afterward. The house looked terrible, a day before Passover. Luckily, we managed to get a new cleaner, Lily, and arranged with her in advance for Wednesday - 8 hours of work, 100 shekels. Finally, something cheap here.

Passover Night

We woke up in the morning to a new day, a nice sunny day. A perfect day starts with sunshine! I spent the entire day in the kitchen: matzo ball soup - chicken version and vegetarian version; fish in harissa and fried zucchini harissa, served with mashed potatoes; broken ceviche for self-assembly: tomatoes, mango, avocado, two types of fish, onion, cilantro, chili, salt, pepper, sesame oil, soy sauce, and lemon, on a base of fried bean noodle cloud; matboukha salad; pickled vegetables; stir-fried broccoli; a surprise for Yoala: gefilte fish with horseradish; for dessert (Yoala made) tapioca in coconut cream with pineapple. I took my mother's role to the end... the cleaner was shocked - she told me I was working too hard ('tranquilo'). At least I didn't clean the entire house with bleach for two weeks. At 4:00 PM, I decided I needed a nap to not arrive tired and cranky for the Seder. I managed to fall asleep for a quarter of an hour and returned to work

In the evening, the glowies came (named after the dad - Zohar, who was matched to Yoala back in Israel. Later we discovered that they call us the Yoalas...). It was a fun and family evening, the Seder was exactly as I planned, everyone cooperated with my nonsense - laughed at the right moments in my opening words about order and chaos and about making order in thoughts; the adults shared stories from childhood; instead of Rabban Gamliel, we told the story of the Exodus from Egypt as a rolling story, each in turn (Michael, of course, knows every detail from the book of Genesis), the kids turned the house upside down for more than an hour looking for the Afikoman, and even went along with the eating ceremony that included a personal blessing from each of them to the area they want more freedom in the coming year - Mati and Yoala took it upon themselves to go back to doing sports, Michael took it upon himself to stop arguing with Ofri, I took it upon myself to learn Spanish and Ofri - asked for a gift even though he didn't find the Afikoman (the sweet one washed all the dishes in the sink in exchange for a hint and as soon as he finished washing, someone else found the Afikoman); and there was a bit of food here and there...and lots of wine. It was so nice to share this evening with another family. We finished by watching the movie 'Operation Grandma' with the kids and went to bed pleasantly buzzed. In the morning we celebrated Zohar's birthday and they set off on their way. I entered my first Zoom class with Dub Elboim - counting the Omer according to Kabbalah. I embarked on a new spiritual journey of 49 days, with the interpretation of the Book of Zohar to God's command to Abraham: Go forth - go into yourself. When the class ended, I was full of inspiration and energy and set off for my longest run yet. I returned broken, but on cloud nine.

I haven't talked about running in a while

This week was a week of achievements in running. Last week I reached 10 km for the first time and this week there were two runs - the first with a trance party playlist from Goa that brought me to my fastest run yet - 10 km per hour. The second, a playlist with a cool groove that Ziv prepared and sent to Yoala as a holiday gift. I listened to it and ran slowly and enjoyably, and the run went on and on. While running, I thought about Ziv sitting and preparing the playlist, putting thought into each song. I wondered if it was built gradually or all at once. Did he listen to each song to the end or did he connect songs he knows and loves. Little by little I felt as if I had brought him along with me for the run and as if I were sitting with him in the mixing room. I went with the feeling and started to sense the Jamaican singer sharing the run with me as I sat with him in the recording studio, alongside him a backup singer singing to me in some African language, trumpet and trombone players, the guitarist and keyboards, all participating with me in this run and I was reviving their creation. One lap around the lake turned into three. I ran for an hour and forty, 13 km. What a spoon-bending moment. I got home and couldn't hold back any longer, I've been holding back for quite a while with setting ambitious goals and making declarations (I already know about the Medellin marathon in September and there's a half marathon in mid-April). So I signed up for the April race, in two weeks, a modest 15 km segment.

I missed the balls in the air

In recent weeks, I've been brewing various thoughts I'm debating whether to write and I think the time has come. I think what made this week so good, beyond the holiday and all that, was the feeling that I'm in my element. After too long of not doing enough, and after several weeks of gradually building an active routine, my body finally got to experience what it's so used to and misses - a lot of balls in the air not sure if I'll catch them all. I have always lived this way, even before the holidays, when work didn't fill all of my life, I always looked for more engagement until I brought myself to the brink. When I worked at the Bank of Israel, I worked two other jobs simultaneously, studied for a master's degree, played trombone in a band, ran marathons, took a winemaking course, brewed beer, took philosophy courses, and started physics at 30. Run, run, run. In the holidays, the need for leisure evaporated, and all the energy was directed in one direction. Now I need to figure out how to refill my time. I’ve known for a while that it’s not a bug, it’s a feature, after living for many years feeling that I just need to survive this burden that was imposed on me and just let me be until it passes. But actually, that way is good for me. Only on the journey to the desert did I realize that the anguish that accompanied this was not related to the load but came from another place, more existential - a deep sense of alienation (the song from last week - a person within himself was the introduction..). When I returned from the desert, it perhaps told me about an image of this feeling from the world of Buddhist meditation: imagine that all the existing consciousness is one big complete and united sea, and in this sea, there are waves, and the waves crash into the great sea and splash everywhere, and the splashes are made up of millions of small drops flying in the air. Each such drop is a consciousness temporarily separated from the great sea, embarking on a journey through life and needs to go through a complete life course in solitude until it returns to the great sea, loses itself, and returns to being part of it. The tragedy of the drop is that to gain its uniqueness, it lost the memory that it is part of and is therefore doomed to go through its life course in solitude. Ironically, the journey that led me to liberation from the feeling of alienation brought with it a new freedom and liberation from a heavy burden, but also in some way enabled the current journey, the most challenging part of which is the feeling of alienation and loneliness. Since we got here, I’ve been trying to practice this, looking at those foreign faces, I don’t understand what they are asking me - in the store, in the restaurant, or on the street, whom I feel threatened by, looking them in the eye with a smile, remembering that we are just two drops trying to remember our connection to one another. It doesn’t come naturally to me, despite all the insights, the element of fear within me is still greater than the element of curiosity. But I try.

Santa Marta here we come

No dull moment, we finished the Seder, packed up and flew for a vacation in Santa Marta - the oldest city in Colombia. We landed this morning and there's already a lot to tell, but we'll leave something for next week. To conclude, this week's song, In One Head by Dani Litani and Yehudit Ravitz:

Come, come, come, come sing with me

Maybe we can get a little comfort out of this

Come, come, come, come align with me

It could be nice to sing together

See you next week