The hot days are becoming longer, and although the nightmare called a lockdown seems to have gone away, it lurks around the corner and threatens to come back with every spike in cases.
There is also another threat, which threatens no just winter lovers: This summer, rather than go away, many will have to stay in Israel under the scorching heat from July through September, rather than take a breather and enjoy cooler weather abroad.
The torrent of ads converges on my mind. "Now is the time to go on vacation in Israel," one ad says. "Let's help the tourism industry at home," another says. "This year, no vacationing abroad," another ad says. The ads touch a nerve because they harp on our emotions: Zionism, patriotism, the economic importance of GDP from vacationing locally at some bed and breakfast. And I feel suffocated. It's one thing to act with caution in reopening the skies, and it's an entirely different thing to color this caution with stark colors of Zionism.
I have never viewed vacations as some ideological act. In my favorite books, leaving the familiar and protective place is an opportunity for a character to change and refresh, and to get a new perspective. This is what happens in Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals as the character searches for golden fleece and in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice.
This is what happens in non-fiction as well. Leaving the country is for me like dressing up; it's like pretending that I live in this foreign place as you go grocery shopping and buy local shampoo or a special spice as if you are a local, or going off on the proper subway station as if you have lived in the place all your life. And precisely because I live in a small country, my desire to dress up has always been very high.
This week I saw an old photo of myself and my first boyfriend standing at the sea grottos in northern Israel, with the sign behind us saying how far the capitals of Lebanon and Israel are.
My eyes look toward Beirut; he smiles toward Jerusalem. I remember the twitch in my heart everytime I would look beyond the fences. "Ah, if I could only cross these border by foot, and pass through the crossings by car and wander in Lebanon and roam Syria and get lost in Jordan. Israel is tiny in part because you can no longer ride the train on the Haifa-Beirut-Tripoli line, as you could during the British era.
As if that's not enough, as a mother, the tininess of the country is particularly noticeable as the summer approaches and along with the biggest nightmare of them all: the school summer break. The big question of "What are we going to do today?" becomes as important as the question of "What is the meaning of life?"
It's hard to criticize me on this matter. The "precisely now" campaign to encourage the ZIonist choice in my selection of tourist destinations does not mention the exorbitant prices a family has to pay in the simplest of accommodations (not some fancy mansion or a 'comfy motel'). Sleeping under the open sky is not so fun for those who suffer from the heat, and even if you visit a local nature reserve for an hour or two just next to your home, this becomes hell on earth, because even secret ponds that are no bigger than a puddle will immediately become a Mecca for jeeps that would destroy any path and ruin the experience of just dipping in this pristine place, ending the promise of a special experience. Even a family of snakes that lives near the water landmark will flee as fast as it can.
"Until some miracle happens and the skies reopen, I'm not going to leave Jerusalem," my barber told me as I waited in line at the cashier in the local grocery store.
For the time being, until this happens and I can travel to faraway lands and pretend that I am not Galit, I go by foot from place to place, armed with sunglasses and tactics for evading the burning sky. I lift my head toward the sky, which has a lot of quadcopters in recent days, and hope that the lockdown on our borders will be lifted and we can leave and once again pretend, at least for a day, that we are not ourselves.
"So, what about a haircut for this summer," the barber asked with a smile.
