Haifa So Beautiful

decaffeinated — Fri, 8 Aug 2014 15:09:00 GMT

August 6, 2014

It's seems subversive, almost, to be planning a sabbatical in the midst of war. Haifa has been spared bombardment, but the mayor did order the shelters opened. My neighbors prepared our shelter, and until we in Haifa understood that our city wasn't a realistic target this time (although we were targeted!), at night I put slip-on shoes by the door with the apartment keys inside, and slept with a flashlight. Just in case we had to make a dash down those steep, dank-smelling, raw cement stairs to the shelter at midnight.

I had to visit the mall one day to purchase luggage and health and travel insurance. The streets were nearly empty, the mall empty of customers, and the mood grim. The sales force of four youngsters clustered around me, having no one else to attend to. It's a store for young backpackers and although they were friendly and charming, they seemed to relate to me as if I were from a different species (moms).

Every day, I do something to cope with unemployment and/or prepare for the sabbatical. That day, I bought a backpack, sleeping bag, walking stick, and sun hat with vents, UV protection, and fabric nape guard. Mostly I've been running from office to office though, renewing my passport, freeing my severance pay, cobbling together additional funds from various nest eggs (from past jobs) that I'd fortunately forgotten about over the years.

Today, I had offices to visit downtown. Ah, Haifa was so beautiful despite the heat and mugginess. A cruise ship's white bulk was pulled up alongside the train tracks, a long blue and red and silver train roared past, and the cranes towered above the port. They say here, "Jerusalem prays, Tel Aviv plays, and Haifa works." That's why I like Haifa so much, probably, because I'm not much of a consumer, and during these many years of hard work, I've been in touch with a huge amount of productive professional energy.

The life-work balance had, in fact, become an issue, not that I've known how to solve it. I don't currently have a chance to experiment with correcting the imbalance, either.

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Free Spirit and Doer?

decaffeinated — Fri, 8 Aug 2014 14:16:00 GMT

July 23, 2014

Welcome to my Sabbatical. I’m not really Decaffeinated, just Unemployed, but I don’t care to be that person.

Decaffeinated is my metaphor for Unemployed. My professional engines have been maximally revved for seven years, during which I’ve paid off debts, saved enough for my daughter’s education, and developed well beyond my career dreams.

Losing this job has forced on me an unwanted early, or temporary, retirement. I had only a little breather before the war started, and during that breather had some difficult days--at a loss regarding where to channel my career energy, how to de-rev the engines for now, how to handle the sudden loss of social life in the workplace. I also had some good days chilling on the beach.

In wartime, it seems almost subversive to enjoy the beach, but here is where I live and it's so beautiful!

I 'd hoped to go abroad in the framework of vacation days, and with a job to return to. These stable and familiar circumstances no longer exist, but perhaps this is a chance to take a longer, more leisurely journey. A Sabbatical.

I’d like to do that before any snarky genes lurking in my genome flip the ON switch and start expressing themselves in ways contradictory to my desires.

I’ve started thinking about circumnavigating this globe that is our only true home and not worrying too much about the Day After, which after all may never come.

I’ve been so quiet for so long –Gosh! For decades!-- after having sated my wanderlust. This urge tugging at my insides feels less like youthful wanderlust and more like a compulsion to undertake a spiritual and creative quest in maturity, which for whatever reason apparently won't happen if I stay here meditating in lotus position in this apartment or on this beach.

N has said that she thinks of me as a free spirit, and her words have given me courage. D has said that I'm a doer, and her words have given me energy.

I love this perfect, simple apartment, and I’ve a visceral love for Israel and the Near East. To leave for a while this addictive country and my home will take me well outside my comfort zone! That’s why I want to travel by ship and train, but especially by ship so that the Mediterranean Sea beyond my apartment window will keep me umbilically tied to the Holy Land (the mother ship).

When I get back, I’ll seek another NGO-sector job on behalf of social change in Israel because that is where my heart is. Meanwhile, exploring the concept of a Sabbatical––seven days, weeks, months of Shabbat Unemployment in which to seek and grow––is perhaps the best way to wrap my mind around this beckoning adventure.

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