Migration Patterns (January 7th, 2024)
People, if one takes just the right perspective, are much like migratory birds. Of course anyone can make such an analogy in his more poetically-inclined moments, and emptily conflate arms with wings, clothing with brightly-colored feathers, or speech for birdsong, but broadly speaking—and this depends on one’s talent for metaphor and proclivity towards verse—these reflections often fall flat upon a second or third reading, once the spray-on-glimmer has rubbed off their surface.
The “right perspective” with which I so nonchalantly opened is not so limited as to liken humans with birds, but rather refers to a narrow state in which certain qualities of the universe, such as irony, confusion, and luck, (oftentimes wrongly mistaken for metaphor) become heightened, and from which one feels at a certain liberty to draw conclusions about his surroundings, with an authority granted to him by the revealed qualities themselves. In my case, the conclusion being that people exhibit similar migratory patterns to birds.
This state is not so frequently encountered (and here I can only comment for myself; previously I had been speaking in hopefully more universalist tones) yet seems to be brought on, at least in this particular instance, if one would like to try and replicate it himself, by a large glass of coffee, a bright January morning, and a direct beam of sunlight to the face. These three, among many other noteworthy phenomena that I will leave out of the spotlight for now, most commonly coincide in and around cafes; as it turns out, caffeine, if you allow it to—and not abuse the poor alkaloid through blind, inconsequential consumption—can precipitate many strange sensations.
In front of a Jerusalem café, off to the side of the light-rail tracks (the city’s endearing name for an, in actuality, much clunkier cross between an above ground subway and trolley car) had been placed a handful of tables; I sat down with my aforementioned coffee and opened a book with little-to-some intent of doing any serious reading, and more so just to sit and enjoy the clear-blue morning, the type of which has been so rare during this country’s rainy season.
At the table across from me sat a uniformed soldier smoking some type of mechanized cigarette (with three distinct pieces excluding its case, one begins to wonder exactly what the benefit is of these banana-sized contraptions), his uniform wrinkled and heavily stained, at the bottom third of an equally large mug of coffee as mine. He had cropped, curly black hair, equally covering his scalp and face in a thick layer, and a weary pair of deep-set gray eyes. We exchanged occasional glances, and he looked nervous and tired enough to dart at a pin drop.
To my right sat two other American Jews, and from their conversation and their clothing they must have been seminary students. To address the latter first, the clue-in was obvious, as they shared the same unofficial outfit, along with most other foreign seminary students in Jerusalem, of a black, long sleeved top and jean skirt. The former, which also often seems to me an unofficial outfit shared by many of their jean-skirted counterparts, consisted of small talk of day-trips and gossip.
I tuned in and out of this conversation, which had something to do with an outing later in the day to the Western Wall and one of their current assignments (online, pre-recorded lecture; no real learning going on there). One of them, slightly larger, deeper-voiced, and face covered in lip-gloss, sparkles, and blush, relayed to the other how much she hated being in Jerusalem:
“I mean, I’m from New York City,”—to which the other girl nodded affirmingly, she too was from New York, and gave a quick “hmm!”—“Jerusalem is like basically the same thing.”
Another quick exhale-hum from the other girl.
“I’d much much rather be in the countryside! Like in the Gush. There at least you can take your shoes off. Here there’s nowhere to take off you shoes!” (Later, prompted by my many previous overhearings of this magical ‘Gush’, I looked it up—Gush Etzion is a settlement in the West Bank with many yeshivot and seminaries for Americans).
The other girl looked down at her Blundstones—another essential piece of the unofficial seminary uniform—“you know what? You’re so right!” She wiggled around her toes inside her black boots.
Meanwhile, the soldier had continued to look at me with increasing frequency. He had large creases around his eyes and bright red cheeks that together gave him the appearance of a man who had not slept in two days. I’m sure that the near constant puffing on his device did nothing to alleviate the situation. I wondered if he spoke English, and if he did, what he thought of the girls’ chatter. Surely he could hardly stand Jerusalem any more than the glossy-lipped girl. I had the sense too, from his sunken gray eyes that he could hardly stand anywhere in Israel (standing, sitting, lying down—he was tortured equally by all of them I’m sure).
He gulped down the final dregs of his coffee, and standing up, his uniform looked to me even more wrinkled and unkempt. I felt acutely pitiful for the soldier in his olive-green, and wanted to thank him for his service. Only I didn’t know how to say exactly that in Hebrew, so I said instead, “ani modeh lecha” (meaning, I thank you; I am indebted to you) with a smile and accent I’m sure signaled to even the tables and chairs that I was an American.
The sun was now directly overhead. “Why?” he returned in Hebrew—“Lamah?”
“Sorry. Thank you for your service,” I added in English after a long series of less-than-half-intelligible Hebrew attempts at explaining myself.
“Oh.” He finally replied in English. He continued with his coffee mug in hand towards the door, hesitated, and turned back around towards me. “You look familiar.”
“Really? I don’t think we’ve met before,” I attempted to recall his face from somewhere far off in my memory, but failed.
“Are you sure? Are you on any of those apps?” He clarified himself, and I knew that he had never seen me before.
“No, no, I’m not… sorry…”
“So then you’re not into… ah, alright.” He turned back defeated, and then scurried off, still emitting large, white clouds of smoke on his way down the light-rail tracks. At some point during this exchange—I hadn’t noticed when—the two girls had flown off too; perhaps they had gone to a warmer, more luscious pasture, one where they could take off their boots and wiggle their toes in the grass.