My Year 2015

A lot of really good stuff this year, but something tells me that 2016 is gonna be a real knockout year!  This is a compilation video of my year in photographs  https://youtu.be/XGF_KyqVG4g

15 YEARS

I was looking at some older pics and wondered about doing a sort of time lapse of myself over the past 15 years, so I created a video. Maybe I can someday have the time to create a life history, but in the meantime...

https://youtu.be/lK5ZA3bd5_4

Just In Time For Fest Season

It seems like I spend a lot of time looking forward to things that always end too soon. As I embark on a new adventure, I get sentimental again after 6 months in Japan that blew by too fast, following an intense few months living in Israel. In Japan had the excitement of meeting up with my old friend Clyde and reminiscing about the “good old days”. I met my brother’s long time friend Brad, and got to spend a little time with him, talking like old friends about different memories of the same space in time. Taking three weeks in August to take care of personal business, see some friends, and visit my family, including Blake and John and John’s son Cayden was a welcome but fast break. And now I am in Baumholder, Germany having recovered from my wrist surgery in July and my back balagan in August.  My year in Germany is starting off with some cool new adventures with a new and an old friend. Baumholder is a small village on a hillside that I can pretty much walk around in an hour. The US Army installation here is quite big, so to coin a phrase, you can’t throw a rock without hitting an American, but I just try to blend and get away when I can so I feel like I am actually in Germany. Fall in Deutschland is a very festive time of year with trees changing colors rapidly, new wine being sold at every venue, wine fests, beer fests and pumpkin fests. 

This past weekend all of Germany was celebrating German Unity Day marking 25 years since the reunification of East and West Germany. Look it up folks, Germany used to be 2 countries, and before that it was one country and, well, the center of a lot of the world’s energy. Anyway, I have enjoyed some Autumn festivities and now thinking I am gonna chill for a week or so, before I indulge again. I was planning to go to Munich for Oktobefest last weekend, but after the fest in Stuttgart, I decided that I could not handle Munich.  I just contented myself with throngs of quite drunk, mostly happy and intensely celebratory people in lederhosen and dirndlen singing Take Me Home Country Roads at top volume from the table tops and lampposts, spilling beer and laughing, throwing up on the sidewalks, urinating anywhere there was something to lean against, and eating bratwurst and pommes frites.  If that doesn’t tell you why I didn’t go to Munich, add in the fact that the train was the best transportation to the Stuttgart Volksfest which was crammed with people of every ethnicity, size, age and degree of inebriation. Once you are in the mob moving to or from the train, you are going where the mob goes regardless of your agenda or itinerary. When the fest closed Friday night it seemed like EVERYBODY in Stuttgart moved as one throbbing organism, heaving forward, then to the side with no room to turn around, fall down or exit. We had a colorful term for it in Boot Camp, but here I will just say that I got to know the people in front of and behind me very well…all while singing Country Roads or Sweet Caroline or Ein Prozit…loudly.

Then it was Saturday, Unity Day and my friends and I went into the city for a little while before attempting to go back and enjoy more of the Volksfest. It was an incredibly beautiful day and despite the heavy presence of Polizei in riot gear surrounding an event that resounded with shouts by angry white guys trash-talking America and Israel while waving a hodgepodge of Middle Eastern flags. It was a small but hostile crowd that I was able to walk the long way around and visit the Palace grounds and enjoy the weather and scenery. Since then it has rained everyday, which local people affectionately call Baumholder sunshine. I love Germany.

Photos are from top to bottom, left to right: Clyde; Brad; Blake; John and Cayden; pumpkins everywhere; Volksfest table dancing; my bodyguards/entourage; Stuttgart and Stuttgart Schlossplatz. Tschuss!

Endings and Beginnings; Israel and Japan…again

 

 It is hard to believe my time in Israel ended a month in the past. It confirmed so much for me and left me undone in other ways. The problem with new experiences is that they always teach you something new and sometimes don’t really know what to do with that new stuff and often it is not something you can prepare for. You just have to be patient and wait for the revelation to hit you. In struggling to find the right words, I am keenly aware of how sensitive words can be. I don’t even know what I need to say, but I think I have to write something. I have been trying to write this blog for over a month.

I just want to say also that a diverse group of people have made an impact on me, from Bethlehem to Baga, London to Lublianja, Germany to Jerusalem.  To quote the song: what a long, strange trip it’s been. But one I wouldn’t have missed for the world.  I did graduate from ulpan (language school), so now I have another language to butcher.

I have been to many places, and always with a little insulation as I had a job and the blanket of protection provided by being on a military installation. Being on vacation somewhere is always nice, but still there is the knowledge that in a few days I can look back at the little annoyances as part of the experience of being a tourist. For me, this was different. My Dad and I immersed in the local life, renting an apartment, taking public transit and meandering the streets searching for the best falafel shop and best place in the shuq to buy nuts and vegetables, while studying Hebrew and trying to get everything done and be home before the Shabbat horn. Then after he went home, and I moved to a new neighborhood. I struck out on some adventures of my own, taking the Arab bus to Bethlehem, learning to navigate the 4 quarters of Jerusalem – day and night, staying out too late and having to walk, and hanging out with some awesome people. There are too many people who made the time in Israel amazing and I cannot name them all and if I tried I might leave someone out, but you know who you are and I place high value on our friendship. I read once that the measure of life well-lived is not how many breaths I took, but how many moments took my breath away.  The measurer is gonna need a bigger ruler.

After a wonderful time in Tennessee with my family for a whole 8 days, once again I find myself in Japan.  One of those magical places I keep coming back to and cannot get enough of. From Okinawa to Misawa and points in between…I like it a lot. Now I am at a point in between, again, and making new friendships and re-establishing old ones.  6 months from now I will be at another crossroads, but a great American philosopher once said “I'll think about that tomorrow.”