we've come a long long way

where were you 10 January 1995?
i was on a plane to Israel making the big A.

hard to comprehend but somehow I'm coming up to my 10 year aliya anniversary.

in the words of fat boy slim, "we've come a long long way together through the hard times and the good."

and i'm here to tell the tale - not originally a tale of rebellion,aliya is a pretty acceptable and even expectable move for a modern orthodox young woman in north west london, but somewhere along the way, israel has allowed me to discover stuff about myself that i think might have been left deep and buried had i not made the move.

so the big anniversary essay is not in this posting but i'm starting to think about it.

i think it was triggered by yesterday's shabbat walk from nachlaot to the old city, through ben yehuda. this calm and easy walk physically, evoked much emotionally in me as i was confronted by a ton of nostalgia and a detailed backdrop to my life that felt as if it was from decades ago but really only dates back to the last ten years. amid all these spontaneous trips to rehov memory i couldnt help compare my path with that of where i now really call home - jerusalem.

sounds poncey i know but its actually really incredible to me. we share lives that have been shaken unpredictably but we also share re-emergence on the other side, stronger and more alive.

this analogy may only make sense to me (and no-one else) unless i choose to explain it further. i will try and do that in the lead up to the "big day"but for the moment all that seems proper is to continue the song and say

jerusalem - "i need to celebrate you baby i need to praise you like i should"