If I could pack for Aliyah

Don't worry, I'm not. But if I were...

One of my favorite Substack writers, Gavriella, posted this post on her Substack today: Packing for Aliyah. Go read it now! She talks about how she bought a one way ticket to Israel and packed. She gave away most of the things she had in Manhattan and moved with very little.

She also tells us about how in Israel, people live in smaller spaces. How people have a different relationship to things than they do here. “This is the generational wisdom: stuff is temporary; building and keeping a homeland is what matters not a larger kitchen.”

I love this. I have always been the kind of person who likes to keep a small, neat home (one reason why though I love my ex-partner and talk or text with him every day, I am very glad we are no longer living together! Love you Giraffe!). I do not like stuff. I hate clutter, and when my little one bedroom apartment gets cluttered, it is a sign that my life is not going right.

I hate home improvement. I have panic attacks in the Home Depot. If I ever have to go to a Home Depot again, I’m taking Mark Judge with me. He’s worked at Home Depot. I am not ashamed to say I want a real man with me if I have to face a big box hardware store. Things might fall on you! There are dangerous objects! There is paint in too many colors! I can’t handle this. Give me an intellectual challenge or a tight word limit - fine. Please do not make me go to Home Depot alone. Even if I go to the garden store, which I really like, I need moral support. My mom comes with me. I am fortunate to be a girl who can always count on her mother in times of trial.

My father and step-mother kept a beautiful home, and for a long time kept two of them. They had a house at the Outer Banks that they bought for very cheap and rehabbed themselves. Well, my step-mother did most of the work. Dad was not handy to say the least but he did what he was told. They enjoyed their beautiful things, dinners out, overseas vacations. I kept a simpler life, and probably always will.

Spending money on stuff or on home remodeling has never been something I wanted to do. Now I’d prefer it if my ceiling never fell in again, as it has done twice in my current apartment, but that’s not exactly a high priced renovation. I’d love to have an apartment with a bathtub, as anyone who has been reading for awhile knows. But overall I am pretty content with what I have.

I can’t imagine actually moving to Israel, and I’m not Jewish so I can’t anyway. But if I did, it would be easy to figure out what to take. Just clothes, a few pictures, my stuffed animals, and my cat. She has nothing to worry about though… we are staying right here. We can do the most good here, and my mother, her grandmother, is here.

Living a simple life has made it possible for me to survive things like the loss of a job that would have been devastating to those with more things, a higher cost of living, and more expectations of luxury. I don’t miss fancy vacations because I’ve never taken one. Not one. When I go to Israel, it will be the first time I’ve taken a trip out of the country (other than to go to Canada to see my ex-partners’ family on Christmas) since 1988. I don’t miss fancy meals out because I rarely went out anyway, not since I quit my six figure job over ten years ago.

What I love is informal meals with my good friends. My cat shelter partner and her husband, along with my good friend and co-author on my first book, are coming for a Memorial Day gathering. I’m going to make something traditional: possibly burgers, potato salad and my Israeli salad, red velvet cupcakes. When they come over I always make something homey and comforting. I miss cooking for big dinner parties… it’s been a long time since I did that. But most of my friends are in New York and the surrounding area or in Israel. They can’t just pop by for dinner at five.

My material life is light. I could easily give up almost everything I have and feel better for it. Mostly I just want my mom and my cat to be safe and healthy. I love some things, like my second airplant, named after a college friend. I love the picture of my cat that one of my students drew in 2019 and the picture of dragons that one of my students drew in 2022. I love my Daenerys print with her dragons. It looks like my friend Marilyn who died way too young and bore a haunting resemblance to Khalessi. My stuffed animals were all either gifts of things I found on the street and rescued, so I want to keep them. But stuff… I don’t care. I just don’t care.

I’m cleaning out closets and getting rid of so much. Things that are worn out, don’t fit, that I’ll never wear again. I just put them on the free table down the street and in minutes they are gone. Someone will enjoy and needs the things I no longer use. I pick up discarded canned goods. I have three cans of chickpeas that will go into a chili today. It’s one of the best things about the neighborhood.

One of the things I could not take to Israel that I love would be my almost seven foot tall ficus tree. I’ve had him for more than twenty years, and he’s more of a pet than a plant to me. He moves with me everywhere I go, and has lived in the Philly suburbs, in Jersey City with his own view of the Empire State Building, he’s summered outside on a Christmas tree farm and grew a lot, and now he lives in my living room with a view of a busy street in West Philly. He gets dressed up for all the holidays. He’s been a Christmas tree, a Hanukkah tree, an Easter tree, a Valentine’s Day tree. He’s even gotten dressed up for Memorial Day with red white and blue and American flags.

There is a tree outside Ari’s balcony in Jerusalem that looks like a giant cousin of Ficus. I asked Ari what the tree was and he said, “A big one with green leaves.” Not a horticulturist. I hope to someday meet that tree in person and give it regards from its far away relative. The Ficus is of middle eastern decent, a kind of fig. He is happy here. He’s an American Ficus. I imagine if he talked he would speak English, as it is most of what he hears, when I’m not playing Gadi Taub videos in Hebrew. How do you say “tree” in Hebrew? What’s the word for “fig tree?” Does anybody know what the giant ficus looking tree that is big enough to be taller than my friend’s balcony is called? Surely one of my readers in Jerusalem knows these trees.

Someday I’ll get to meet that big, beautiful, ancient tree in Jerusalem. For now, I’ll make my Israeli salad and talk to my Ficus, my American cousin of the trees of another world. At least he can say he has family in Israel!

This was Ficus on his first year celebrating Hanukkah.

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