[img]96|left|Shachar||no_popup[/img]Dateline Jerusalem — Of all days, the rails at my train station were being worked on, thereby stranding me in another city. All other stops on the route were okay, and even my stop would be available tomorrow, but I do not have to take the train tomorrow.
It wouldn't have been so bad, since I love to explore Israel, but my arm is in a sling and the pain radiates from my shoulder to elbow to wrist.
One doctor diagnosed me with tennis elbow and golfer's elbow although I play neither sport. Another doctor thinks I have a possible rotator cuff injury, and scheduled me for an xray. In the meantime I have gels and creams and painkillers to keep me company. That is all they seem to do while the pain continues.
Picture my bad arm in a sling, the computer and my purse hanging from the good shoulder, and my good hand holding onto a Passover gift from my employer of two bottles of wine. Not only am I lopsided, but shall we take bets on how long that arm will be good?
All these aches and pains are a casualty of my job, usually schlepping a laptop on one shoulder and my purse on the other from bus stop to bus stop to office to train to bus to home. And the battery on this computer weighs almost as much as my personal laptop and battery combined.
Plotting a Complicated Path
The city I was stranded in had taxis lined up at its train station. But since I had not been to the ATM machine, the taxi ride home was unaffordable. Then there was a sherut (kind of like a mini van and taxi combined that follows the bus route) but it only came about every 30 minutes. Just when it was my turn to get into the sherut, with my leg raised to climb aboard, it closed its doors on me and drove away! I ended up waiting for a bus that finally came about 20 minutes after the sherut departed.
Yet how could I complain when the scenery was so enjoyable?
The train took me through the lush green forest as it snaked its way around the mountain, and the rippling stream followed the path of the train tracks. On one side of the train, the rock formations were similar in texture, color and shape to the unusual boulders of the famous Vasquez Rocks (named after the outlaw who used them for his hideout) that surround the Antelope Valley Freeway, between the San Fernando Valley and Palmdale, in Southern California. Hidden in the rocks, but visible if you looked closely from the train's windows, were tiny caves, probably similar to those that rabbis and zealots lived in while hiding from the Romans and Greeks and other invaders during Israel's ancient history. I wonder what wild animals call the caves “home” now.
Out of the forest and into the flatland, I could see miles and miles of green farms with sprinklers watering the rows of fruits and vegetables. Occasionally there were ancient stone buildings dotting the landscape (no roofs, glassless windows and blocks of stone crumbling into heaps of rock on their sides…definitely ancient structures). In the distance, the sky took on a pinkish hue as the sun began to set.
The beauty of Israel always makes its inconveniences appear minor. Even my aches and pains temporarily seemed to disappear as I enjoyed the view.
L'hitraot. Shachar
Shachar is the Hebrew name of a California-based attorney and former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff who moved to Israel 2 ½ years ago.