It’s Dec. 31, 1999 and I’m driving from my hometown of Jerusalem to Tel Aviv with my love.
First destination: Nachal Binyamit, to the artist shuk. Objective: To buy a ring that symbolizes our decision to marry.
It’s hard to find a ring my size, small enough for me that won’t look too childish. Everyone suggests that I should order one and come back next week to get it. Next week?? That will be in the next millennium!! I’ve waited over 30 years, I want a ring NOW. We went through every stall, and finally found one. There wasn’t a happier person on earth than me.
Next destination: The Beach. It was getting late and we didn’t want to miss the last sunset of the millennium. On the Tel Aviv beach, we watched a round blazing sun descending for its last time into the sea, into the new millennium. The drum circle that had gathered on the beach sang to me a farewell song to my old life as a bachelorette, and the start of a new era.
Author Archives: Gabriela Vainsencher
Nachalat Binyamin, The Dolphinarium
Filed under Victory achieved
The beach across the street from Hotel Miguel, 88 HaYarkon
November, 2011
I am sitting alone on the beach and it is sunset. I have just spent a beautiful week visiting a friend from my Taglit trip a year earlier. We were staying at Hotel Miguel, a shady little hotel, but right on the beach. He speaks little English and I speak little Hebrew but we shared an unexplainable connection. He has left for work and I am waiting to be picked up by another friend from Taglit. As I sit on the beach I think about the wonderful friendships I formed on my previous trip to Israel. I think about how different our lives are although we are the same age. I am a senior at an American university, studying for a semester in Rome, Italy and they are just finishing the army. In one way, however, it seems that we have all arrived at the same moment in life. We are beginning a new chapter of our lives, and we are free to go wherever our hearts take us. As I sit there I have an epiphany. I think that I can do anything, go anywhere, as long as I follow my heart. At this moment, while I watch the sun set the waves on fire, I feel at one with the universe and at one with these friends with whom I shared two weeks exploring Israel. We come from different places but we are all heading in the same direction.
