It feels so good to be back here. The air is oh-so-sweet, full of the budding of orange and pomegranate trees, so heavy at dusk, so intoxicating. I hang out the window and dawdle outside the house, just to sniff some more. I think they think I'm crazy. I sniff until I'm dizzy from it.
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Today there is Israeli pop on the radio. I open the fridge to get milk for my Nes and the pungent smell of olives wafts up to me. I spot a little container of shemennit cheese through a clear drawer and it makes me so happy. How to explain why I love it so much here, when half of it is the smell of the air that other people don't seem to notice, and the cheese container I see in the fridge?
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I love Jack answering the phone and saying it's Oren speaking. And how sweet he looks when he says it. It's a softer name than Jack. He steals little pieces of my cinnamon bun while we drink our Nes. The birds are singing away outside.
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Today is the first day. We run errands and then go to his aunt and uncle's house. His auntie makes us tea with nana and it is so sweet and familiar to me that I love Israel more with every sip I take. I look at the green nana leaves hanging in the golden liquid and it reminds me of the first time I was here. It tastes like spearmint but sweeter, warmer.
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Jack's ringtone on his cell is "Jingle Bells," of all things. I'm not sure if he knows what it is, so I sing it for him. He says he knew, but I'm not so sure. On the way out of the house he hums it and the incongruity of it makes me laugh. In Israel on a warm, golden April evening and my Jewish boyfriend is singing Jingle Bells and making up Hebrew words to suit whatever we are doing. He sings it until I can't stand it anymore and I tell him to stop. Then he sings it a little longer.
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Today I learned my alphabets in Hebrew. Aleph, Bet, Gimmel, Daled, Hay and so on. I can remember most of them. The letter for 'm', as in Myra, is called Mem. I like this. This is a word that Jack and I say to each other 200 times a day, for no apparent reason.
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He is snoozing in the late afternoon sun. On the couch, on his back, the golden sunlight filtering in through the open patio doors beside him. All I can hear is the singing of a hundred different birds. It pours in from every window and door, filling the house; countless birds nestled in the trees outside - palm trees, macadamia, orange, pine, pomegranate and a dozen more I can't name. Everything here feels golden - there is no other word for it. The air, the light, my tea, my skin. It is beautiful.
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