Jerusalem, heartbreaker

More than six years ago I took a walk to the Jerusalem promenade with someone. It was early in the morning, perhaps 3am or later... Everything was quiet, only the lights of Jerusalem, east, west and north, were shining at us the way they always do, ever since they built this promenade, when I was a child. I told him that to me, Jerusalem is the ultimate heartbreaker... You can't help but loving her and being astounded by her, exploring her delicate mix of people and cultures, the history and its underground, simultaneously ancient and young beating heart. The passion and insanity it ignites. That subtle sense of hope, communication and renewal beneath rubbles of aggression whilst sitting on top of bubbling, hot, lava, constantly threatening to erupt. Those simple, small, day to day moments of compassion or creativity that you see in the street. People pushing and shoving, hating and loving. The millions of opinions that can enrich your mind and soul, anger you to the bone and tear you to pieces.

We stared off into the distance. That someone was the someone I married, and happened to have been born in Germany.

Looking back at that moment I realize how much this promenade has been present in my life, from my runaway adventures as a child with my best friend Timora, god rest her soul, and her sister Eliana, to having my scouts group named after a young girl stabbed to death right there. From walking in the magnificent Jerusalem snow with my swedish friend Daniel, thanks to whom I met my husband, to showing the view to my visiting Italian friends days before my wedding or having a mothers get-together with my little baby, my childhood friends and their little ones.

Last night I was trying to fathom it all. Before this latest acceleration of violence we were slowly telling people we are moving to Berlin, Germany, for a couple of years for my husbands' studies. Now packing up and dealing with the move and with all the feelings surrounding it just got that much more intense, surreal and complicated. Our decision had nothing to do with security, but with our own calculations and dreams for the future. I love my hometown. It still breaks my heart when it is this tense, and it still stays deep deep inside my heart all days of the year. You cannot take the town out of the girl, wherever I go.

So I drew this... last night. Then I didn't put it up on fb, I didn't want to "jinx" it, although it was meant to be more metaphorical than realistic. Well, now.... There have been many nights in which we heard fireworks in this neighborhood, they sound like shooting but we know they're not. This time I heard the real rockets. Clearly.