Unfinished posts.

I begin this post on August 31, 2010. I promised myself that I must close this very, VERY irregular "blog" in some way. Now I know that I did not try, or put as much effort into this as I could have, I definitely attempted. The attempt of a blog was a small leap within itself. As I looked back at all of my posts, I noticed all of the unfinished posts. At least three posts were started and left undone...

EXAMPLES:

Before this year I would not have described myself as an "outdoorsy" person. My only real outdoor experience came from summer camp, and that experience was quite limited indeed- the occasional camp out, swimming in the lake. Yet neither did the outdoors nor hiking ever hold a significant place in my life.
Before the Mechina began, I spoke to Sara Sandmel, last year's American, about reasons for coming. One of her reasons happened to be the hiking component of the program. "Ok, not exactly my reason for coming. In fact, it does not interest me at all. But it will be a nice addition to everything else that the program has to offer!" I foolishly thought. I could not have been more wrong. One of the main goals of the Mechina is to expose its participants to the country (land, populations, beliefs, ideologies, etc) in every way possible. As much as I gained from my classes and from every encounter with people whose backgrounds i do not understand or do not know enough about, my most powerful way to learn about the land and its people has been to trek across it by foot. Within the structure of the Mechina, we have gone on about one or two full day hikes every month. In addition to that we have a Mechina project to hike Shvil Yisrael (the national trail). I was lucky enough to have hiked parts of the national trail three times. When I reflect upon my year, the progression that I see through my different shvil hikes also reflect much of my progression of the year. With every hike I was more confident with my hebrew, my relationships, my place in the group, and my ability to navigate. On my first hike I walked across the beaches from Netanya to Tel Aviv. The second hike was in the South where I walked through a never ending wheat field for two days. As one of my fellow hikers described it, it was a "physical ohm" just walk through a place where the scenery rarely changes, yet is beautiful because of its simplicity. The second day of that hike was also spent with just one other person, which is an incredibly powerful experience. My last hike took place up North, at Har Tavor, and I spent that entire shvil laughing. On the night of that first day of the hike we were walking near a Jewish city and an Arab village when two people stopped us on the street and asked us if we needed a place to stay for the night. In the spirit of going "to the limit" we accepted, and walked home with them. Turns out that they lived in a commune of 6 people. They had done exactly what we had done: lived together a year before the army. Then they continued together, they joined the army together, and have lived together ever since. At this point they had been together for eight years. It was bizarre to try to place the Mechina in their positions, to think about what it would be like to live with some of the people that I live with now for seven more years. Our relationships and dependency would grow and reach an entirely different place. I was intrigued, yet also felt that I could not continue living in a commune for the rest of my life. Parts of life must (most likely?) be experience alone as well.

While I enjoyed every minute of those hikes--even the waking up at 3 am, the sleeping outside, and the other difficult moments--I never could have predicted that they would turn into one of the most meaningful parts of my year. That drive to hike and explore is something that I hope to take with me.

AND...

Many posts have been started and remain unfinished. When the Mechina ends and I am still trying to grasp all of my experience that quickly slipped through my fingers, I will return and finish every post.

Yet now I will do something monumental: start a post and finish it in one sitting.

We currently find ourselves in the last week of the Mechina, the "Shavua Preda M'Yafo" (The separation from Yafo week.) This week has been a difficult one. For we already ended volunteering and classes, and we already had our concluding seminar...yet we are still here. For most of the week i had a difficult time connecting, yet today was beyond successful. As part of the week of separation, the Mechina had planned a "Flash Mob." (For all who do not know what that is, I have provided a definition for you: "A group of people who quickly assemble in a public place, do something bizarre, and disperse.") Our flashmob took place at Shook HaCarmel, which is a very central location in Tel Aviv--right by the major shopping centers Shenkin and Dizengoff. The Michael Jackson music begun, and most of us pretended to be observers in public. Yet slowly we all joined in as well. True, our flashmob was less organized than most, we made lots of mistakes (well, I guess I can only speak for myself. I made plenty of mistakes) yet the feeling of dancing as a Mechina and looking like fools in front of hundreds of people was exhilirating. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pa71-lJrXI

The minute it ended we all walked in our separate directions, yet converged again a few minutes later to have a large and spontaneous dance party in the middle of the shook. After that Gilad, Sheli, and I walked down Shenkin to sit at a coffee house that we had been trying to get to the whole year. It is called Cafe Tamar, and it was the first coffee house ever in Tel Aviv. We entered, and time suddenly rewound itself about thirty years. We asked for a menu. They don't have menus. Then what is there to order? Coffee, Tea, and toast. Clearly, people do not come here for the wonderful food options. The waiter and owner of the store disliked us for we were the young, disruptive table. Yet as we were leaving to check out, we began to talk to the lady who established the coffee house (her name is Sara actually, not Tamar...) and she told us a bit of the history. She pointed around the room to most of the customers and told us who they were and what their profession is. It was incredible. It is the small adventures like that one to the coffee shop that reminded how wonderful it was to live in and explore Yafo/Tel Aviv. And those moments are the ones that I will miss the most.

SO there you have it, the unfinished posts. More thoughts of mine that help piece together the entire year.