Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts

Monday, March 9, 2026

Far and Wide, Across the Years

Just a small corner on one shelf among all the bookshelves here . . .

An old-fashioned glass pop bottle (you recognize the brand, right?  Even though it's written in Hebrew?) that I brought home with me from my first visit to Israel in 1974.  It was empty for years but I filled it with pancake syrup a couple of decades ago so that the beautiful Hebrew lettering would stand out.

A small oval icon of the Incarnation (Madonna and Child in western terms) that my Orthodox Christian Godmother brought me from a monastery in Greece a few years ago.  

A glass box full of small white moonstones that I gathered along the shore of a lagoon near my home when I was still in high school about 1966.  

Some books waiting to be finished or started, the authors mostly from countries somewhere across the sea:  Serbia, Russia, Mount Athos in Greece . . .  


 It's a well-traveled little corner, spanning the years of my life, while also wandering across several countries far and wide.  My own international wanderings are limited to Israel, Jordan, England, Wales, and France, all so many years ago.  These days I wander around the world only virtually; my traveling days are over.  But I am quite satisfied with that.  

 

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

A Day in May . . . Long Ago and Far Away


Good morning Israel,
and Happy Independence Day!

Looking at this old postcard 
purchased at the gift shop of our hotel in Jerusalem
. . . quite a few years ago . . .
brings back memories of another Israel Independence Day,
long ago, in May of 1995.

Everyone took to the streets when night fell . . .
. . . there was Israeli music on the street corners
and Israeli circle dancing in the streets.
Someone grabbed me and drew me into one of the circles . . .
. . . I had no idea how the steps went, but it was fun to try.
Those in the know (we tourists were definitely not)
came prepared with inflatable plastic hammers
and went around bopping people on the heads with them . . .
. . . oh yes, and that brightly colored "string" 
that you shoot out of pressurized cans
was flying everywhere.
You had to be quick to avoid it!

It was quite a night.

Our group for that 1995 trip.
I'm the one not looking at the camera . . .
. . . out of step as usual!