english letters.

My parents are in Israel. Yes, my mother, age 63, and my father, age 70, are in Israel. Even better, my mother, the rural mail carrier, and my father, the retired teacher, are in Israel participating in an archaeological dig. Things like that are what keep me from worrying that I can't write fiction. I got a message this morning from my mother, the rural mail carrier, age 63, all the way from Israel.

Hi
Posted on 7.21.2005 9:13 AM
I wrote down the exact addresses of special sites I wanted to visit while in Israel. It is so good to read your blog sitting in a foreign country. This computer has English letters like a regular keyboard, but also Hebrew letters.
Love ya,
MOM

I could just picture Mama, sitting in the holy lands, having a cup of kosher coffee and logging onto my journal. I smiled, because the note was from the other side of the world and was still just so very Mama, even down to the all-caps signature. And then I wondered what other sites she wrote down to visit. The Drudge Report? Her stock portfolio? Her hometown weather (just to remind herself of home)?

I never know how to explain why my parents go on trips, even when I used to go with them. "Because we want to" never seems to be an acceptable reason to most people. People thought we were nuts when we went to Australia and New Zealand. Apparently, it's perfectly reasonable to go to Myrtle Beach because you want to, but not the Southern Hemisphere. Okay, so my folks had a good reason to go to China a couple years ago (baby-fetchin'), but even still, why would someone ask for a reason to travel somewhere new and exciting and foreign? When a person asks why we go to Kansas, I understand. Kansas is rumored to be flat and boring and only my loyalty to my family's history will keep me from agreeing. But Australia? Not flat! Or boring!

But anyway, my parents are in Israel. It was Daddy's idea. First he was going to go by himself, and then Mama signed up. Depending on which parent you ask, she either signed up because she couldn't stand be without him or because she didn't trust him to be by himself in a foreign land. I was invited, and maybe I should have gone. For some reason, spending hours digging in the desert sun didn't strike me as my ideal vacation. But now I think, man, Sandra, when are you ever going to get another chance to go dig in the desert sun?

My camera, however, did go to Israel. That's even how I described the situation last Friday after my camera left my clingy little hands. "Well, my camera has gone to Israel. Oh, and my parents went with it, too." I didn't even know my camera was Jewish. Mama wanted a camera, but she didn't decide on this desire until a week before their flight out of the country, and that is not enough time for a practical person to make a major purchase. So she asked to borrow mine. Knowing how I feel about lending things, she even said that she wouldn't be offended if I said no. But even so, there was this subtext of "I gave you life, and you can't lend me a stupid gadget for two weeks?"

So my camera went to Israel. Worst case scenario: even if she loses it and she has to buy me a new one, I will forever be able to say that I lost my first camera when my mother dropped it in the Dead Sea or flung it against the Wailing Wall. And then, I'll have to explain why my camera was in Israel, and subsequently why parents were in Israel.

Because they wanted to be.