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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