Leaving Rhode Island: Israel

An old friend called me from Brooklyn today

Siblings in exile, we were

We met at TF Green the last day

Before they were going to throw everybody was lagging behind

Into jail

There were three of us

Although, I only stayed in touch with one

I was headed to Europe

So I could get on another plane

And go to Israel

‘Israel,’ my friend, stranger to me at the time, said

‘Boy, you’re really taking this exile thing seriously, huh?’

He was only going to Brooklyn

I called him a wimp, he laughed

The beginning of a five-year friendship

Isn’t that funny?

The other man in the airport with us

Was headed to Seattle

And whereas my Brooklyn friend did not seem to be too…

Interested in the fact that I was, well, a woman

The man heading to Seattle was…quite interested

‘Who was the woman who saw you off,’ I asked him

Referring to the crying lady he had been embracing ten minutes earlier

‘And don’t tell me she’s your wife,’ I said

‘A wife wouldn’t cry like that.’

That was when the announcement came on

Flights cancelled, next one in six hours

‘Uh oh,’ said my new friend soon-to-be-from Brooklyn

‘One more hour and we’ll be going to the ACI’

He then promptly put his head down

And fell fast asleep

Leaving me and the Man Soon to Be From Seattle

Noticeably…alone

We went and got a few drinks at the airport bar

And then we checked into the nearest hotel

And spent five hours…enjoying each other’s company

He asked me ‘Why Israel?’

I said—I want to be somewhere where people are proud

Of where they’re from

Having lived in a state where so many people hate their surroundings

Just because it’s the official state pastime, I thought—

I don’t want to live somewhere like that

Not anymore

So yes, it’s dangerous, in a way

And there’s a certain amount of fighting you have to do

Because people don’t think you have a right to be where you are, who you are

But the passion—the passion born out of love

To want to live somewhere that badly

To feel so strongly that you—that you—uh, uh—identify

With a certain place, like that, it’s—

When I left I hated myself for a lot of reasons that I won’t go into

Because, well, who has the time

But suffice it to say

Sleeping with a married man I’d only known for an hour

Who was already sleeping with somebody other than his wife

Was not the worst thing I did

Before I moved to Israel

Now, I’m not blaming Rhode Island for me being the way I was

But I felt…that as long as I was going to start a new life

I might as well start it in a place

Where it was going to harder to hate myself

Because hating yourself is unproductive

And here, in Israel, it’s all about being productive

Being active, helpful, useful

Embodying this place—where you live

Being of it and in it and really treasuring it

Because at any moment, it could be gone

It could be all gone

Am I sometimes afraid—being here?

Yes

But I’m proud too—always proud

That man in the hotel wasn’t the last one to ask me why

Why Israel

But at least now, when people ask

I know my answer

Because it’s a place that’s sure of itself

And I want to die here

In all the places you’re going to be in your life

When you find the one that makes you feel like…

Yes

Yes, this is where my tombstone should go

That—is the best answer I can give