A Very Good Memory: "My dreamy, heartbroken walk through the Old City of Jerusalem."

I have this memory of wandering through the old city of Jerusalem with my brother and his friend; eventually, my friend, too, in a way. I penned a version of this memory some 6 years ago, not long after returning home from two emotionally tumultuous weeks spent in the holy city. That short piece of writing was published in a literary journal (805 Lit + Art out of Bradenton), then later nominated both for a Pushcart Prize and a PEN/Dau Award.

My first piece of fictionalized, personal narrative ever to be published.

And though I’m grateful for the accomplishment and the accolades, what stands out to me most about this work is how I wrote it from a perspective I no longer claim—feeling the victim of an “untidy life,” my pen in my fist and gasping for breath beneath the weight of a proverbially broken back.

And while it’s true that I somewhat inhabited the cliché of the little girl tagging along with the big, strong IDF transplants, not mattering very much to anyone because I’m a girl unfamiliar with not only the language, but especially myself, the value in revisiting this memory (and what makes it a very good one) is in the contrast it presents between the past and the present.

If there’s a constant I’ve observed on the spiritual path, it’s that you must always be welcoming of change. When I feel the contrast between who I was then and who I am now, I feel glad. Joyous, even. It’s from that place of gladness and joy that I would like to offer an alternate take on that walk through the Old City, from the blessed perspective I occupy now:

Though my brother and his friend—my two tour guides in Jerusalem—had wandered through the Old City more times than I could count on my fingers in Hebrew, for they had spent hours, both in day and in night, guarding its inhabitants and roaming its labyrinthine corridors, I’ll never forget the way they would tenderly stop and wait when any little thing of mystery captured my attention: a brass teapot outside a stall that smelled of cardamom and mint; the dangling garlands of fruit and fluorescent lights of a juice-maker’s booth; the way the stoney path underfoot seemed to undulate, built atop an even older city down below; how the sunshine and shade intermingled in mottled pockets of shadow and light.

I had (of course) developed a little crush on my brother’s friend, so tall and handsome and youthful he was, his biblical name preceding the old soul required to keep company with someone like me—battle weary and all out of rope. From time to time, he would turn to check that I was keeping up with their pace. And if I wasn’t, he would stop, flicking his cigarette. And eventually my brother would catch on and he would stop, too. Those were the moments I suddenly got to be a child again, gazing around me in mystified wonder or breathless recognition of distinct and timeless beauty, touching every little thing, crossing my arms to better study the light, pausing to listen as a particularly lively conversation passed me by.

Such a very good memory is this. A beautiful metaphor for the dance and interdependency of the masculine and the feminine: they, standing guard in stalwart protection. And I, going where the wind or the sound of tinkling bells might take me; swept up in a dance between beauty and bewilderment.