Is Anybody Home Away From Home?

I am comfortable here in Israel. It would be a lie to deny that to myself, however startling the realization. My bed is, in fact, my bed. My books, incredibly, fit into my meager bookshelf. My shelves and closet exude an air of chaos cloaked by neatness eerily similar to that of their American counterparts. So yes, I am comfortable here.

And I am happy. I am sad as well, because I miss my mother terribly, along with missing consistent privacy and temperature control. But on the whole, I have little to upset me unduly. My classes are stimulating beyond my wildest imagination, my mentors are infinitely and unconditionally generous with every power at their disposal, and every evening the sunset blazes into my room with an explosion of scouring vitality that brings even my drab walls alive for precious moments. 

I am content, and I am happy.

But I am not at home.

Israel is home, I know. And I do know- I feel it. There is something here that defies expression, an ineffable click of completion that fills you, inflates you, diffuses into you from the very air...it is nowhere else in the world. I can't explain it, but I know it is there.

But still, I do not feel like this is my home, now. I am attached to so much in America that I cannot be broken from. I have relationships, ties that distance, for all it is spanned now by technology, cannot help but freeze.

Let me intercept any thoughts that I feel pressure to move here. It is the last, if it is there at all, of many, many sensations that occupy my conscious and subconscious attention. But I feel stuck in something of a paradox. I live in Israel, but I live in New York. New York is home, but I am at home in Israel. It seems impossible to reconcile the two without denying some vital facet of the truth.

I'm sure I will, with time. For now, though... I feel rather displaced. It isn't unhappiness, just... unsteadiness. A constant glance over my shoulder to find my sister; a jolt, as I realize I am a suddenly foreign. So many small things that suddenly seem so vast.

Back and forth I go. Where I stop...

M.

PS: I receive all comments through e-mail, so I've been seeing the swarms of BlogSpam currently plaguing Ink As Rain. I apologize profusely, but I don't know how to stop it. It upsets me to no end, seeing this worse-than-nonsense clogging up my lines of communication. Please bear with it until I can find someway to remedy it- if you can, surely I can.