I am going to attempt to revamp this blog. To be honest, blogging goes against my disposition. I am drawn to things that are simple and pure, like walks and piano…technology of any sort does not qualify in my mind as either “simple” or “pure.” However, it seems that a blog, if I so chose, could also be an outlet of some artistic and communicative expression, and although it is fundamentally limited in its ability to acquaint the reader with the true internal happenings of the blogger (a separation for which I am grateful), I think it could also be some good.

This summer I travelled alone in Europe for ten weeks. A backpack, a tent, a journal, a kindle, that’s it. I loved the solitude. I was not lonely for a day. I foreswore facebook, I did not take an ipod. I wanted to purge, to distill. It was a spiritual striptease of sorts. Farewell adornments. I, simply, am beautiful. This is not the proclamation of a narcissist, but the hopeful conclusion of a questioner who is oft otherwise convinced.

I do not feel the need or the desire to recount my wander. The point was to search out, alone, myself, God, the world. And I did. I travel differently than some. For me, the priority is not seeing sights, or meeting people. These are fading secondaries and tertiaries. Rather, for me, travel is about one thing: a pilgrimage of ideas. Hence, much of my time was spent reading and writing. I read books, I wrote poetry, I learned German, I learned to be quiet and still; on the train, ships, in my tent, in the woods, at cafes. In the art of taking away, I’ve found, silence is the chisel.

And just a tip, for those who might think a solo wander is a good idea, but are concerned that they do not have the finances for it: Speaking from recent experience, if you 1) camp in the wilderness, 2) couchsurf in the cities, 3) shop for food in markets and cook it yourself, 4) do not buy ridiculous trinkets, and 5) do not feel the need to see every site in a city, but rather commit to properly absorbing just a few….if you do these things, you will be shocked at how cheaply and simply you can travel, and how fulfilling it is to do so.


I am back in Jerusalem now. I work at a heart clinic in downtown Jerusalem for Arab children with congenital heart disorder. It is an NGO named Shevet Achim. My specific job is in the creative PR sphere…if it involves meeting new people and writing about children, I am doing my job. A sweet gig. And a difficult one. Just this last week, a child of ours, a 6-month-old baby girl from the Gaza Strip, died. I visited her at the ICU in Tel Aviv the day before she passed. My job was then to write about it. The work I do, therefore, is meaningful and painful, because it requires me to press personally into the reality of tragic events. But there are many success stories too of children whose hearts are with us made well; it is equally joyous to write on these. When I’m not around Shevet Achim and the kids, I study Hebrew at Hebrew University. אני רוצה ללמוד עברית, אבל אכשיו אני אוד לא טוב. בזמן, לאת.

So, here’s to another year of unknown, an untested orbit, and to the hope that communicating with friends via blogging can penetrate the category in my mind labeled “pure.”

A parting shot:

STONES OF ROME

Stones of Rome
well cut & white,
glowing and placid
through mean ages blight.
born just once,
young you’re ever,
Lings of the gods,
your silence death’s pleasure.
At marble’s fast hewing
ideas long were blooming-
still, seeing:
consumeding beings;
still, knowing:
still growing.
You, washed in years
of blood and of tears
know in the purse
man’s golden curse,
and in holy yarn
bejeweled tarn
of rugged life’s ‘scape,
dread highlands of fate.
Surely you’ve had time to know
as one we come
as one we go.
And cry not you,
nor laugh,
nor warn;
your doctrine
has naught
of real high or real warm.
Simply you watch
well above care,
of mine and our doings
your affections beware;
for you have learned somehow
to live beyond time,
a feat I can only
imagine in rhyme.
I HATE you!
I want to be you!
O Stones of Rome!
You remind me of Home.
You condemn me to Roam.