Morning window

This is the view I snapped from my bed this morning. I lay there thinking about how much it had changed in less then a year. How the one before had been my view for 11 whole years before I moved. The window then hanging over to my right, shuttered against the sound of West 60th and Broadway, and covered by almost always closed dark green Venetian blinds. There was no point in opening them, as the only thing to see was the Time Warner building blocking any glimpse of the park (though sometimes I did lift the shade to see if people were carrying umbrellas). Walking up in my shuttered room was like waking up in a dim cozy cocoon before descending 11 floors down to face the city day.

Now my morning window lies over to my left. And is almost always at least a little open so I can feel the breeze and hear the birds in the trees right outside. Our window points towards the sea and even though our apartment is too far and too low for a view, you can still feel it in the air. But  my favorite thing about the window is the birds. If I peer out I can see them in the branches, nonchalantly looking about as they make their festive noise.

The new window is indicative of everything else that has changed too. The rhythms and patterns of my days. The constant sunshine with which they begin this time of year in Tel Aviv. The way I move laterally to get to work across the apartment instead of down to the street and then the subway further below. Everything is quieter now too, the forever longing of New York replaced with the calm contentment of knowing better where I belong. There is still so much I need to do to feel truly settled here but I know that it will come.

In the meantime, there's the view. 

On Planning My Wedding

The wedding is now in three weeks minus a day. People keep wanting to know: how is the planning going? are we getting excited? nervous?

Oh fine, fine, I tell them. We have a list. Slowly we are checking everything off. As of early this week, we even have a rabbi!

I'm still enjoying a mild disconnect between everything that's going on and the fact that it's happening to me. The whole concept of a wedding on the cusp of turning 40 still a bit difficult to grasp as someone who had stopped really imagining such a chapter existed in her personal storybook.

Nevermind a floor length white gown custom tailored and sewn. Or a hall full of ~400 people I will mostly still only marginally know. And a person who will charge a small fortune to style my hair that day so it will look bridal when I myself barely even ever brush it.

But so it is. I am getting married. It's amazing to me still how I've gotten so swept along and up in the momentum of it all. Weddings in Israel are a very big deal. For such a small country there is an extravagant amount of boutique wedding dress, jewelry and shoe shops lined up in a row on Dizengof Street. Everybody knows a good bridal hairdresser or makeup person they are dying to recommend. And money is no object, although the whole affair usually costs a disproportionate amount of most average Israelis' income.

It wasn't so much that Tzury and I picked this particular way to get married as we just followed the steps that seemed set so clearly before us. Ironically, as intense as it's been, having a proper Israeli wedding was actually the path of least resistance and also what felt most naturally right to us both. When in Rome.

And so the invitations have finally all been sent and the catering has been sampled and set. Tomorrow we go ring-shopping and next week we meet with Danny, our famous Israeli DJ to pick a soundtrack. The week after that our friends and family will begin to arrive from all over, starting, most appropriately, with my mother. I am good with it all and I'm even beginning to get a little bit excited.

Still, I laugh a bit when I think of what awaits on July 3rd. Lying in bed at night I wonder what was I thinking? and have small fantasies of wearing a casual white pantsuit instead and just brushing my hair. There is no rabbi and we simply exchange vows (mine is poetic and long and in English). Our friends and family are happy for us and we dance. It is a night we will remember forever.

And we will.