The Traveling Day
The day begins early on Wednesday with one last re-pack and one more tearful good-bye with my boys. Buy some sheckles, call the accountant and suddenly I am at the airport. I am going to Jerusalem!

On our Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt we receive amazing service. I sit beside a lovely Romanian/Canadian gentlemen with whom I pass the time as the TV and audio sets in our few rows blew a fuse. For some reason a steward on this flight has taken a shine to me so he brings me an extra-large coffee cup – and then refills it from a silver tea service. Towards the end of the flight he makes sure to tell me that he has three days off coming up in Frankfurt and for some reason shows me his legs (something about this job keeping him in shape). He was so shamelessly flirting and I was so shamelessly laughing as my seat mate keeps saying “she’s a Priest! She’s a Priest”. Just before we disembark the steward brings me a lovely yellow flower in its very own vase and wishes me a pleasant journey.

In Frankfurt – the airport that goes on forever – we ready ourselves to go through Israeli security before boarding the plane. I did not have a good experience the last time so I was a bit nervous. I went into a smoking room – a glass enclosure – and met a man from Ottawa who said that we were like a side-show at a circus and we should charge people to stare at us smokers in a cage. When he found out where I was traveling to he threw his arms open and embraced me, kissing me once on each cheek. It was as if we were long lost friends coming together after a long absence. Originally from Egypt he told me of a play that he wrote in the 70’s that was too controversial to make it to the stage. In it a young enthusiastic new member of the UN entered a meeting and declared that all of the Jews had agreed to leave Israel in two weeks and needed help packing. “Hey you”, as he had introduced himself, insisted on it having been a comedy but I understand why it was not endorsed by anyone to get onto the stage! We laughed, shared stories and eventually solved all of the world’s problems over inhaling two cigarettes a piece. And suddenly he was off, with another embrace and two more kisses. It’s amazing who you can meet when you say hello.

Thankfully I make it easily through security after having been touched and frisked in places that only a husband should go. As I stood there with my arms spread facing the line up of people coming through after me I had some overwhelming compassion for the middle-aged nun standing nervously in line. I can only imagine what that kind of going over was like for her....

I doze and wake, doze and wake so by the time I arrive in Tel Aviv about twenty four hours after I left home I have only slept a total of may be an hour. Giddy with sleeplessness I board the awaiting bus to enter the land that has been calling to me since I left it four years ago. I am here and I am home.

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem