at the port

Shalom friends,

I hope you’ve had a really lovely week.

Things here are pretty good.

I have memories of crash landing into real life after trips overseas in the past and feeling almost bereft by real life. By the same old everyday routines, the weather and the chores. This time we tried really hard to cushion our homecoming with some new short term rituals that we invented just for these first few tricky weeks back. Amongst other things they included lots of walking through the forest, a coffee date each morning, lots of talking and checking in with each other, drinking lots of water and eating lots of green leafy veg, turning our faces to the sun whenever she pops out, and the start of some plans for the future. I’d say that after 11 days back now that I feel relatively settled and possibly even ready to start moving forward.

This is the place we drank coffee at almost every morning of the two weeks we lived in Jaffa. Mostly just Bren and I, sometimes with one or two of the kids, and on the last day with all of us. Actually now that I think of it, there were days where we popped by again for a limonana (a crushed lemon and mint icy drink) in the afternoon. We found Silvia Cafe one Saturday morning after discovering that almost every other cafe in the area was closed for shabbat.

There was a time in history when the building was the gate house for the port, but now it’s a cute cafe that makes ridiculously good coffee and has the best view.

We visited so often that we claimed the free coffee on our loyalty card about three times.

We became so good at watching out for people getting up to leave and would quickly grab their seats.

We sat there and chatted and watched boats sailing past, we watched millions of fish come up to eat bits of thrown bread, we watched other customers and their babies and dogs, one morning we saw people doing yoga on paddle boards, we shooed away the birds that tried to get a bite of Bren’s pastry, and we felt relaxed and about as far away from home as two people can be.

I guess after some of the feedback from last week’s post, I feel like it’s important to point out that we didn’t have the perfect holiday. Honestly I don’t even know if that’s a reality when five + people spend so much time together. In our case there was the time, the language, the climate, the currency, the culture, and the geography differences and difficulties which made us all cranky at various times. There were the issues that come up when five people who are accustomed to living pretty different and separate lives, all of a sudden have a lot of their independence and personal space invaded and taken over. There was the fact that each of us five came with our own agenda and dreams of what this time would be like, what we needed from it, and what space we’d take up. And of course add to the mix the joys of hormones, and yeah well you get the picture.

I guess looking back there were some teething issues.

But after lots of thinking and talking, some group discussions and check ins, and some precious time, things clicked and we found our groove.

After that we managed to tick off everything on Jarrah’s list. We shopped til we dropped in a mall, we ate sushi, we drank cocktails, we met her friends, we took lots of her friends out for lots of dinners, we watched a movie together, everyone bought rings, we ate dinner at the beach, and we visited all of our old favourite landmarks from past trips.

We caught each other up on all of our news, we told funny and sad stories of times past, and we spent hours workshopping each others’ lives.

And of course we met and got to know her boyfriend Noam.

My mum often says that the best part of a trip is the bit before you go. The part where you’re making plans and imagining how it will be.

We planned that trip for so long. We started dreaming about it way back in January when after a year of not wanting to talk about it, Jazzy suddenly informed us that she would be leaving in three weeks time. We tried not to think about it when we thought that I had cancer and would be spending the year in treatment. We doubted it would happen a few times because of Covid. And then one day Bren got a bee in his bonnet and we booked. And then we pretty much thought about it and planned it for the next six months.

It seemed Impossible, and then probable, and then it actually happened.

Now that we’re well past the planning and on the other side of the trip itself, I’m trying my hardest to enjoy this part of it too. I’m trying to remember the little details; the things that inspired me, the conversations we had, the laughter, the times that I felt the most like me, and the feel of the warm air on my skin.

It’s hard when it’s so cold here and I can’t remember the last time it wasn’t raining, but the days are getting noticeably longer and there are promises I made to myself over there that I have to honour.

I’ll tell you more about them soon.

I hope things are good with you wherever you are.

Next week I think I’ll show you some of the things that we came across that inspired me.

Until then, sending lots of love your way. Please send us a bit of sunshine in return.

Kate x