Blooming in Palestine

My mom always says to bloom where you're planted. It's a cryptic life instruction; I think it's somewhat akin to the superficially obvious unattributed quote, "Wherever you go, there you are." Nearly a year ago, I left my friends and family in Los Angeles to pursue some sort of ambiguous higher calling. I never expected to wind up in Palestine. It's amazing where a random email through your graduate school listserv can lead. I suppose we all wind up in unexpected places. These sometimes-serendipitous-sometimes-scary digressions frequently compose more of our lifetimes than the stuff we planned. And while it's always experience, living impulsively is not always easy. I've recently been hit, as I think many TYO interns are at some point, with a wave of homesickness. Perhaps this was spurred on by blackberry season in Wooster, Ohio, the small midwestern town where I was born and raised. My mom's blackberry pies are otherworldly.

But something funny happened last weekend. Some of the interns went to Ramallah to sample exotic new flavors of iced coffee and explore another area of our new home in the West Bank. Upon our return to Nablus later in the evening, I flopped down in my room and listened to the confused rooster outside my window who starts to crow at 11pm. I walked out to the balcony to take in the Nabulsi breeze and fantasize about the kunafa I'd eat in excess the following day. It was good to be home.

In that moment, I realized that unbeknownst to me, I had taken mom's advice. I liked it here. Actually, I loved it here. I realized that Palestine had gotten into my blood, and perhaps it would be a little harder to leave than I originally anticipated. I still miss my family and friends - mom's blackberry pie, my dad's high pitched giggle when he plays with the dog, the dimples in my nephew's cheeks when he does something his mother JUST told him not to do - but there are just as may things about Nablus that I'm going to miss when I'm gone.

So, whether it's the kunafa, little Rida's subconscious habit of pushing his glasses up during a soccer game, the "secret hi-five" we have with the neighborhood girls, or the friendships I've made with the other interns, I'm going to spend the last three weeks here taking in every single moment of it. Well, maybe not the kunafa part - I'll stick to every other day with that.