Independence Day

Last week I was trapped with a migraine at a college reunion at a kibbutz outside the city; I finally got to Harel junction and all the buses to Tel Aviv went by without stopping. When one finally stopped after an hour, it was standing room only. I boarded the bus and announced in a loud voice that I was about to be sick and who was going to give me their seat. A woman who was a bit younger than me stood up immediately and spent the rest of the trip sitting on the bus floor, her bags settled around her. She even poured me water from her water bottle into my water bottle, and when I tried to thank her she seemed genuinely offended by such intrusive displays of gratitude. I sank into my seat, looked out the window into the familiar Jerusalem-Tel Aviv landscape and tried to look sicker than I already was. I thought, that's it, I don't want to leave here, I'm home.

I find such moments so confusing; it's as if I recognize home on the cellular level. A familiar song played on the radio I haven't heard since high school. A familiar smell. A familiar way of holding my body -- freely pushing my way into a crowd, not having to perform polite Americaness. I'm scared of what can be erased of my life in such overwhelming moments. All these years of working and reading and writing and talking.

In this week of Memorial sirens and Memorial Days -- that siren calling you into attention, into citizenship, into a feeling of belonging, there's something in me that wants to fight against this feeling. It's not really in my body, this feeling of Israeliness: it doesn't come from my cells or my bones. That's just a metaphor. And stones don't have human hearts. It's how we construct collective memory.

At the drugstore on the Eve of Independence Day, there's a special deal: buy 12 condoms, get a plastic hammer free. The hammers are for bashing each other. That's what you do on Independence Day, right?