My dear readers, I promise that soon I will post about my recent adventures: I'm visiting Ein Karem tomorrow and I had an exciting trip to the shuk this week, but this is something that I really want to share now.
When I do my homework at the apartment, I will sit at my desk with my notebook and textbook, and I will put my "Folksy Girls" playlist on shuffle and leave it playing softly in the background. This playlist includes the Indigo Girls, Blame Sally, Joni Mitchell, Catie Curtis, Dar Williams, and Vienna Teng, and Ani DiFranco.
Today as I worked on writing an advertisement for Kibbutz Harduf, the song "Finlandia" by the Indigo Girls came on. (Many also know this as "This Is My Song" or "A Song Of Peace.") I first became familiar with this tune when I was about seven or eight years old, and my children's choir at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church learned and performed it. I loved it even then; so simple, truthful, and beautiful. And now, a decade and a half later, the Indigo Girls version always makes me stop in my tracks and just listen; it is a hauntingly beautiful a cappella arrangement. I can't find a version of it on YouTube that I'm satisfied with, but if you're interested in checking it out, it's from their album "Rarities."
Given the current situation in Israel, this particularly resonated today. Everyone here is watching and waiting as Palestine approaches the UN to petition for statehood. No one can predict what the fallout will be (whether the Palestinians succeed or not), but everyone is trying to. There could be protests, demonstrations, violence, or it could stay very quiet. It's nearly impossible to find an unbiased article on the subject; everyone has strong feelings on the topic, and sometimes it's hard to sort fact from opinion.
I'm still not sure what I think; I'm listening when others talk, I'm reading articles, I'm trying to get to know my own mind. (Interestingly, if a Palestinian state is established, the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University will no longer be in Israeli territory.) But what I do know for sure is that my greatest wish is for peace: for their land and for mine.
I liked this post a lot. Very well written. It's cool for you to be living in a place that is undergoing such incredible change. I had a similar experience in Ecuador - they ratified a new constitution while I was living there. It's good that you're keeping your ears and eyes open and your mouth quiet so you can take it all in and see it from many perspectives. I've been keeping up a bit with NPR, but keep telling us how it feels.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I love that you're listening to "lesbian music." :)
Love,
you-know-who (not Voldemort, the other one ;)