Today I decided that, once and for all, I was going to sort through my Israel journals, in order to figure out what exactly I wanted to put into the book I'm "going" to write about my four months there.
And then, suddenly, I was struck by the futility of such an undertaking.
For a good story, you have to have a beginning, middle, and end.
But where does my Israel-story begin? In a history lesson at age twelve? In the myriad conversations about fear and hope and courage during my last year at university? And where exactly is its end? In the wracking sobs at the Tel Aviv departure terminal? When I last glimpsed the Yad HaShmona sign, fading out of sight into the darkness? Or at the moment my passport was checked at Boston's customs?
In my opinion, actually, this story will never have a proper end until I am finally reunited with all those I knew and loved in Israel. And that reunion will probably never take place on this earth, but in a New City . . .
I think I'll probably write it anyway, and add an "epilogue" that drives Americans crazy.
(Did you know that Europeans and Middle Easterners and Asians and, well, probably everyone else in the world, have no need for their movies to end in a neat wrapped-up wedding-dress-and-honeymoon kind of way? Just saying. We've got a complex.)
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