grumpy

I felt the wind up, I felt the tense atmosphere, the stress dripping off people’s foreheads. Finals. Living with eighty other people who are taking the exact same classes as you is not highly recommended. Inevitably you will explode with all the studying you see going on. I had to constantly remind myself that everyone has different study habits and that I could do this even though I didn’t stay up all night making flash cards of the all the Arabic words our techer ever said in class.

I was grumpy. Stressed yes, but also just plain grumpy and I wasn’t sure why. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be anywhere. After a yet another day of useless pretending to study, I threw my backpack on and thumbed down the stairs, trying to push tears back out of my eyes as I opened the door to my room. I shed my backpack, wishing I was really shedding my skin and starting afresh. I walked past my roommates out on to the balcony, the view greeting me like an old friend. I carefully stepped into the dirt, zigzagging my way through thorned rose bushes and hopped over the fence. I sat down in my favorite spot, my feet dangling over the edge of the wall and looking down onto the patio below.

The sunsets are always good here. As I sat there trying to forget my day, I thought about the view that was greeting me. Immediately in front and below me is the little patch of land just below the center. The neighborhood boys like to go there to make mischief, play games and walk dogs. My eyes moved upward and I met the little neighborhood we walk through everyday to get to the city. The little red-headed girl that waves at us each time we pass (why there is a red-headed little girl in East Jerusalem is beyond me), the little pesky boys who poke us with sticks or throw small rocks at us, the horse that eats garbage in the field just down the street, the tour buses lined up along the sidewalk, the school kids all lined up waiting to catch the bus, and row upon row of houses built up the hill. My mind carried me around the bend, just over my neighborhood to the Mt. of Olives where I imagined olive trees without end, endless churches, and the Garden. I turned next to the view directly in front of me. I traced the road I find myself walking almost everyday up past Lana’s snack shack, past the store we dubbed “the Arab Costco” and up to crash corner. There I met by a view now so familiar to me I could draw it with my eyes closed. I saw the Dome, with it’s gold hues reflecting back at me, the Holy Sepulcher, Dormition Abbey peeking out from Mt. Zion, and the wall, standing there as it has for hundreds of years, watching thousands of stories unfold before it. I though about the people that I pass as I walk in the city. Women in sparkly heels, silver tops and head scarves. Men with earlocks and large furry black hats. Little children, so cute I want to stow them away and take them home with me.

My heart opened as I my mind filled with these thoughts. How much I’ve learned. How much I’ve come to love.

Grateful,
m