walking makes me happy

for the first time since the beginning of what was a depressingly hot summer, it was cool enough for me to walk willingly down to work - about a 35 minute walk. i have walked one other time, but that was only because I missed my bus, and when you have no money, your options are quite limited.

i stepped out of my apartment building at 7:15 set to go catch the bus. just then a cool breeze swept over me and the city began to actually look quite beautiful - it's quite easy to just focus on the garbage and insufferable amount of cats - but that didn't bother me this morning.

oh, and shana tova everyone! it is the eve rosh hashana, the jewish new year, starting after sunset. which means that even though it doesn't start till later tonight, it might as well have started now as most jewish israelis take the day off which means we don't have many people to correspond with today.

more importantly, i hope that everyone also had a beautiful Holy Day commemoration yesterday. after the commeroration here, the family met up with all the alfords for a wonderfully delicious lunch at tatami's - a sushi restaurant up in the ahuza. it was so so good, and i plan to go there much more often - we will definitely be taking navid up there when he comes. :)

here is something to think about:

Sleeping in the Forest

by Mary Oliver

I thought the earth remembered me,

she took me back so tenderly,

arranging her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,

nothing between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths

among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms

breathing around me, the insects,

and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

All night I rose and fell, as if in water,

grappling with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.