Paris, je t'aime!

Mon Petit Ami avec Moi a Paris! 

Ah, Paris. It's everything a city should be. Breathtakingly beautiful, romantic, cultured, diverse, and oh-so-delicious. I visited Paris with my family in 1997 following our ten-day trip to Israel. And I was incredibly fortunate to return this past weekend for a rendezvous with my beloved Adam. The trip came at precisely the right time. My feet have finally started to heal properly, and I was able to walk around Paris with almost no issue. (Had to sit down and rest from time to time, like all eighty-year-old women) And, it was just the most incredible feeling to be wrapped in the love of my Adam, having not seen him since my January trip home two months ago. I adore the man, I love traveling with him, and it was so delightful to just be together in the City of Lights. 

It was an incredible four days, though they were simply not enough. I don't think a lifetime would be enough to explore Paris. But we definitely got a hefty dose of France, and I will attempt to summarize the adventure through the following pictures.

Our trip began at the Eiffel Tower, where all decent Paris trips should. The Eiffel Tower is every bit as romantic and captivating as people say. It's really an amazing thing to behold, and to kiss in front of. 

On our final day, Adam convinced me to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. While the view was intense, my fear of heights was almost more so. So I spent a considerable amount of time grasping the rail and breathing heavily. Still, it was pretty gorgeous! 

The Seine, which splits Paris in two (Left and Right bank, respectively) is a sight to behold. Almost every single building along the river is ornate and gorgeous, and espouses Parisian architecture. 

 Here's the River again, postcard-pretty. 

The Paris Opera, which, I believe, is the setting for Phantom of the Opera, of which I am not a fan. Still, from the outside, the Opera is freaking beautiful. 

This is the Basilica de Sacre-Coeur in Montmarte. It's a really beautiful hilltop church that looks out over all of Paris. It's in an area that's very quaint and lovely and special. We ate dinner there on our final night, at a little hole-in-the-wall called Jardin d'en Face. It was delicious! 

This, dear friends, is Notre Dame Cathedral. It's impressive, it's built on an island, and the interior looks like every single European church we've ever visited in our travels. Still, the exterior is pretty awesome, and the famous gargoyles are terrifying. 

My partner Adam manages to turn his jumping pictures into works of art. Here, he's jumping at the Musee d'Orangerie, a lovely little museum near the Louvre (which we didn't visit, because it's boring and overrated)

However, you bet we took a picture in front of the Louvre! For the memories, y'all. 

Trying to get in on the romance with a statue in front of L'Orangerie. 

This is the Musee D'Orsay, one of the coolest and most fantastic museums I've ever visited. It's housed in a former train station, has dozens of different levels, and lots of fantastic art from all different genres. Definitely the cultural highlight of our visit! 

Each time Adam and I visit a foreign country, there's inevitably at least one long-lost cousin thrice removed who Adam's mom has been in contact with for years. It's uber impressive! Paris was no exception: here we are with Adrian Bondy, a mathematics professor at the University of Paris, connected to Adam on his mother's side. 

Here we are at the Arc de Triomphe at night. I don't know the history of the Arc, and am too lazy to Wikipedia it. So if you're curious, take yourself over there. 

This is the Metro, Paris' intricate and incredible subway system. We basically took it everywhere we went, and it was really convenient and easy to use. But what we really liked was observing all the different kinds of Parisians that live in the city. Taking the Metro proved that Paris is an incredibly diverse city: ethnically, financially, stylistically. The subway provides an excellent view on the culture you're visiting. 

Adam and his cheese! The fromage flowed like water at every restaurant we went to. Here's Adam at Les Ancetres Galouises, a restaurant on the Ile-de-St.-Louis that gave us one of the most incredible meals of our lives. And just before the dessert course came our cheese, making Adam a happy camper! Too bad I'm just not a cheese fan. But thank goodness for Lactaid!! (For Adam's benefit, and for mine!) 

So that was our adventure! It was truly memorable. I'm glad we could share it with all of you. In the next couple of weeks, I'll be finishing up a ton of work, celebrating Pesach with my parents in Israel, then heading with them to Greece for five days, and culminating the travel extravaganza with a trip to Petra, Jordan. It's a definitive highlight as I look to these final two months in Israel.

Until the next adventure, I'm sending all my love from Jlem. 

Jaclyn

On Love, Loss, and Healing

Sunset in Tel Aviv 

These past few weeks have been emotionally turbulent, to say the least. My health woes have found me bouncing back and forth between four separate doctors to figure out what exactly was going on with my legs/ankles/feet. It has finally started to improve. After finally seeing a rheumotologist this afternoon, it has been declared that my immune system, while fighting off a head cold a few weeks back, started attacking the joints in my legs and ankles. It happens sometimes, and people are fine. I'm healing, and I'm fine. I feel like an eighty-year-old woman, but I'm fine. 

However, the emotional scar of four weeks of fear and anxiety has left me exhausted and extremely pensive. From the very beginning of this whole thing, I convinced myself that I had something terribly serious and incurable. Nothing else seemed to make sense in my head. My legs literally were not working - certain days, I could not walk further than eight steps without the joints below my knees starting to hurt and pull and stretch painfully. I would wake up in the morning and my Achilles would be so sore I could barely walk to the bathroom. The pain would occasionally dissipate, or change, or become nonexistant. But then it would come right back, scaring me into fearing the absolute worst. 

The necessity of getting around Jerusalem - arguably one of the more hilly, busy, chaotic, and handicap inaccesible cities of the world - frustrated me to no end. I've spent the past eight months without a car, and I've come to depend on my body to get me just about anywhere. Having that taken away from me, and having to deal with the abusive and at times cruel cab drivers of Jerusalem, was a little harder to bear than I expected. I truly came to understand the necessity for accessibilty - for all people, with all different kinds of transport issues. 

As the healing process has continued, albeit slowly, I have come to realize certain things about myself. While this whole thing was indeed incredibly scary, I became so overwhelmed by fear that I let that fear run away with my sanity. I lost my head a little bit, I made my family and Adam crazy, my roommate thought I was nuts, and my school probably had no idea what to do with me. And now, here I am four weeks later, feeling totally and utterly exhausted. I've finally started to regain my smile and sense of humor. (Baruch Hashem for that)

It has made me all too aware of how much I need to return to meditation, focus, and calm. It has made me realize how much I need to harness my anxiety, and conquer my fear that every little health woe = impending death. I know the root of this particular anxiety, but that doesn't necessarily make it okay. So, my goal for the next few days/weeks/months/eternity is to start working more dilligently on my emotional response to the unknown and the scary. It's part of the healing process for me, and it's part of coping with what I cannot, and will not, control. 

The DAJJ, or rather, the DJJA, at Funkbruary 2005: Daniel, Jordan, J.Fro, and Adam

The (hopeful) end of my major health saga coincided with some tragic news. Many of you remember that my junior year of college, I lived with, hands-down, the most awesome three people in all of Davis. All of Yolo Country, really. The DAJJ, comprised of Daniel, Adam, Jordan, and myself, inhabited The Colleges #122. Daniel and Adam have gone on to great things in Washington D.C., and Jordy joined the Peace Corps in Benin, Africa in July 2007. 

My dear Jordy emailed her listserve yesterday to inform all of us one of her closest friends, a fellow Peace Corps worker in Benin, had been senselessly murdered. I immediately called her to reach out and talk, to help her heal, and cope with such a tragic loss. Her friend Kate sounded like a truly amazing human being, a selfless and giving young woman; just like Jordy. 

The news has been sitting in my stomach like a rock, reminding me how far away I am from my loved ones and how strange and sick this world can be sometimes. I keep thinking of Kate's family, shocked and in mourning. I keep thinking of Jordan's family back in Castro Valley, who are undoubtedly worried about their daughter and wishing for her to come home. 

I keep thinking about the responsibility we have as people, as close and as extended community, to rally around those who experience unimaginable loss. We have an obligation, be it religious or spiritual or just plain human nature, to lift those people up and support them with all we have. It's part of comforting those who face tremendous loss; it's part of being a member of the human race. We reach out, we send our love, we try to help in any way we can. 

As a rabbi-to-be, and as a paranoid android, death is on my mind more often than I care to admit. The rites and rituals surrounding Jewish mourning, death, and burial are topics I've explored in classes and discussions. And right now I am researching and writing a paper on Kaddish Yatom, the prayer for mourners that comes at the conclusion of a Jewish service. Thus, with the backdrop of my own illness, I've spent a great deal of time thinking about this tragedy, about grief, about loss, and about moving forward to keep living. 

I guess the one thing we can always do, and always remember, is to tell the people we love that we love them. Never go to bed angry. Remember how fortunate we are, even in the midst of something terrible or frightening. Always count our blessings. And take advantage of the opportunities we have to do something good, even great, for ourselves and for others. It may be a recycled message, but it's a good one. And recycling is great. 

So with that, I leave you. Take care of yourselves, look out for each other, and be well. 

Love,

Jaclyn

בעיות בריאות

For the past three weeks, I've been quietly battling what can only be described as a paranoid person's worst nightmare. 

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I've been having some trouble with my legs and feet as of late. About three weeks ago, I spent the better portion of a week exercising far too much, and too strenuously. (See everyone? Exercise kills.) And following that week, my ankles and my feet and my shins just started bothering me. They were sore, but also in pain, and they felt funky. It was hard to walk around. And it was vague and unspecific. Was something sprained? Was it an infection? Was I falling apart at the seams? It was all very unclear. 

And then this past weekend, it got really bad. Really hard to walk. Lots of pain. Lots of freaking out. And nothing really made sense. Nothing except the story of the Brazilian supermodel that scared the living shit out of me three months ago. It seemed to be hitting too close to home.  

After eight and a half months of living in this country, with just eleven weeks left until my return to the states, I thought the finish line was in sight. I thought I had just about made it through. And, I thought that I'd done pretty well with the paranoia. But then this thing started, and I found myself back at square one. And by square one, I mean my first day of seventh grade at Windward, when I literally had a panic attack in the administration office and cried to the school counselor for two hours about missing my elementary school. (It was then we discovered my slight lack of coping skills) 

The thing is, I'd never really thought about what it would be like to not have use of my legs and feet. I complain so much about the whopping size of those suckers, and joke so often about how difficult it is to find shoes. But my body-paranoia usually centers on the loss of my eyesight, or hearing, or losing a finger. It never crossed my mind that something horrible might happen to the very foundation of my body; the very things that I so often wish were different, or smaller, or at least more manageable in shoe stores. 

For the past two weeks I've walked/hobbled around this fair city, taking cabs from place to place, experiencing what it's like to be somewhat disabled. I've learned that Jerusalem is absolutely one of the worst places in the world to be handicapped. There is almost no way someone seriously injured or wheelchair-bound could live here. Aside from the ubiquitous hills, there's a huge lack of elevators, slippery Jerusalem stone everywhere, narrow sidewalks, and horrible drivers that will run you down if you take more than three seconds crossing an intersection. It's kind of appalling. 

I must admit, as scared as I am to receive the results of yesterday's blood test post-Purim, I'm looking forward to getting some sort of resolution. And as scary as this has been, and as much as I've withdrawn from loud, crazy, laugh-y spotlight-hogging Jaclyn, I am somewhat grateful for having this little, horribly scary experience. 

Today in T'filah I felt myself praying with greater intensity than I can remember in recent memory. I felt myself connecting with the prayers about our bodies and souls, speaking and chanting the words with greater fervor. And, though I did not stand during the Amidah, I attempted to release my tension and breathe into the sacred words. In a way I guess I was petitioning God to help make me better, but also thanking God for giving me a body that works most of the time. I think moments like this can either make you totally angry and disconnected (which, to be fair, happened during Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday) or they can make you think deeper about what you do have, and what you're fortunate for, and how disappointing it would be if you didn't have that anymore. 

So, on that note I leave you. Tomorrow is Purim, and we have two days off from school! (The second day is, in all seriousness, is supposed to be for getting over a hangover) Though I'm not particularly in the costume-party-make-a-fool-of-yourself mood, I do look forward to laughing a little bit and not taking myself, or my peers and faculty, so seriously. 

Until next time,

Jaclyn

Slumpdog Millionaire

It's been a weird past few weeks here in Israel. The majority of my class, including me, has completely checked out of this year. We're ready to go home. Been there, done that. We're over it. Finito. גומרים. Nothing more to see here, folks. Peace Out, Yerushalayim. 

And yet, I know there's more to come, unfinished business, and more adventures to be had. I don't want to accept it, because that means the 81 days before I fly back to California are actually real. The fantasy of going home tomorrow is delusional, but it attempts to assuage the general malaise I've been feeling. 

The weather has been awful recently, too. We had a disconcertingly mild winter. One where not a single Israeli could get through a conversation without complaining of the Galilee drying up. And now, for the past few weeks, it has rained nonstop, (presenting us with a mild little flood in the apartment) and it's been freezing and bitter. No one could be in a good mood with that shit raging outside. 

I've been dealing with a weird host of health woes recently, too. Last week, it seemed as though representatives from various parts of my body decided to hold a meeting in my liver and say, "okay... let's really freak her out." Random disconnected things - but most prominently some really annoying leg soreness and pain - started happening to me last week. Though I've come a long way with my paranoia and anxiety, let's just say I wasn't the easiest patient at the medical center to deal with. Not being able to walk properly was really scary. I'm doing better, but you know what? Being sick sucks. And being sick in a foreign country really sucks. 

The February 10th election is still unresolved. Israel doesn't have a Prime Minister yet, or a Coalition in the government. And every day, when I click onto "Haaretz" and "JPost," I'm greeted with the same parade of messages: Bibi meets with Tzipi, Peres meets with Bibi, Lieberman is wackadoodle, NO coalition reached. It's hard to take the whole thing seriously when it seems like nothing is moving forward, or ever does. 

However, Israel doesn't seem like a foreign entity to me anymore, and hasn't for awhile. I'm so accustomed to this way of life, to the way people treat each other, to the problems in this society, to the way people carry themselves, and to the daily rigmarole of Jerusalem, that it's become engrained in my way of living. It's not a surprise anymore. Nothing in this country throws me. I just get it. I don't like it, but I get it. That's something that comes with living abroad for eight months. 

I'm in a slump. I know it. I've been going going going for eight months straight, with some serious ups and downs, and now I'm just pooped out. Eight months is a long time to be in a country that isn't yours; in a program that demands every inch of your soul every day of your life. I'm a bit suffocated here in Jerusalem. It's the intensity of the program coupled with the intensity of this city. Gam v'gam. 

Anyway, because I like this blog to have a positive spin, and don't want to come off like some big Negative Nancypants, I will say that there's much to look forward to. Next week is Purim, and HUC has a ton planned. Then in two weeks I'm meeting Adam in Paris (hooray!) and then immediately after heading down to the Negev with school. I love the Negev, but haven't spent any time there on this particular trip. So I'm excited. Then there's Pesach, and the parents will be here, and then the end of school. It's hard to believe, but it's happening. 

So perhaps the weather will lift, and perhaps my legs will be back to normal again, and perhaps I'll remember to see the silver lining in all these adventures, and perhaps I'll be reminded of what I'm doing here in the next few days. Until then, I'm just a lonely Slump-dog. Sitting in a chair. Of a Millionaire. 

-Jaclyn