Day 3: Run for Your Life

Yesterday (since it's 7:30am on Friday, and I'm procrastinating getting ready for work) was rough.  Last night, I reached that point of mental exhaustion where I felt, if there was another siren, I would just lay down on the spot.  I didn't have it in me to run anymore.  I didn't have it in my to push through.  But, I went to sleep, and now I'm feeling mentally better.

Now for the events of yesterday.  The day started quietly, except for the news cast playing a live siren that was in the center of Israel, and I panicked and thought it was here.  Not bright, dudes.  I had to work evening shift, but we are closing the mall two hours early because of security situation (Hamas really likes those evening barrages of rockets).  I scheduled with a friend from work to meet for her English lesson before our shift, and as I pulled into the parking spot, a siren started.  I froze and had to really push myself to get moving again.  Turn off the car.  Get you purse.  Close the door.  Lock the door.  Run.  A man behind me started saying to me, "Run, run, run!"  Friends, I'm not a runner, but that sprint on adrenaline somehow got me inside the mall in time.  I knew that Yagel would be in a close bomb shelter, so I skipped the first one, and ran to the second one with just enough time to spare.  I hugged him so tight and just collapsed to the floor, shaking. 

I'll pause here and start a sort of rant.  There are plenty of Israelis who are scared, and they'll tell you that.  But the vast majority are quick to tell you, "You have nothing to worry about," "You have no reason to be scared," etc.  I have every single friggin' reason to be scared right now.  My physical safety is compromised (not as much as anyone would think, since we have tons of bomb shelters and the Iron Dome which intercepts most missiles).  My mental safety is out the window...that's why this whole game is called TERROR.  I'm terrorized.  I'm scared.  And that's okay.  I'm allowed to be.  I wasn't born here, I didn't grow up here, I wasn't in the army.  These things are scary, and I don't have to pretend to be Israeli tough, because, frankly, I'm not.  End of rant.

Check out this fun picture that Yagel and I took in the bomb shelter:

I guess that makes us part of the trend of "Bomb Shelter Selfies" that have an entire Facebook page dedicated to them.  No, I don't want to put it up there.  I mainly took this to get the weird portable potty in the background.  That's scarier than Hamas...

I continued on to my lesson with my friend, and as we sat at a cafe, and mall very politely announced, "Red alert, red alert, please make your way to the closest bomb shelter."  This time, I very calmly picked up my coffee and my bag and I walked to the bomb shelter, since it was about ten feet away.  I even continued my lesson with my friend while we were standing around waiting for the all clear.

My shift started, and as I discussed earlier, hyper-vigilance takes center stage in this scenario.  We have a lot of responsibility on top of having to care for ourselves.  But, for the most part, the shift was quiet.  We arrived at 40 minutes until close and the sirens started again.  I started herding customers to the bomb shelter, asking them to please not take the clothes out of the store (duh?).  We thought it was all clear, so we came back in, only to be greeted seconds later with another siren.  I called Yagel over and over but he didn't answer because I was sure he was out on a walk with the dog, like most other days.  Ten times, and no answer, and then I had to keep people from coming back into the store because sirens were still going off.  Finally, Yagel calls and tells me that he had been walking the dog in the neighborhood, and he had asked himself, if there is a siren, where will I go?  He then saw a neighborhood bomb shelter and was immediately greeted with the siren.  He said that the shelter is really safe, as he had to go down over ten feet into the ground to get to the room.  He also said that someone was living in the shelter, someone who didn't speak English or Hebrew, and that together they wordlessly counted the booms.  He instructed me to stay put because there were still sirens.  We felt the bombs as they hit, so many, and we all knew that there had been too many missiles at once for the Iron Dome to intercept them all.  Yagel called back and said that there had been 25 in all in the course of 7-8 minutes.  Customers started getting the news.  A house in a neighborhood close by took a direct hit, but thankfully everyone was in their bomb shelter.  Another missile landed in the street.  People were lightly injured.  And, going with my theme, I didn't know it was possible to feel anymore naked than I already did.  Stripped to the bone.

The rest of our night was quiet.  The girls from work convinced me to go have a beer with everyone at a bar with a bomb shelter.  I did, I ate a badass hamburger, but I just couldn't be there.  I was blank.  I was unfocused.  I was broken.  That's when the feeling of not being able to run anymore hit.  I told Yagel, and he looked at me with knowing eyes.  We've both been there.  God, I'm so lucky to have him.

And this morning.  I wake up to the terrible news that, not only did Hamas get rockets to Haifa (friends, that's on the northern border of Israel...it's unheard of), but Lebanon started firing rockets at Israel.  So, we've got rocket fire from both ends.  A woman in Haifa died while running to the shelter...either from shock or overexertion.  I would like to send a big personal fuck you to Hamas, Hezbollah, and especially Iran, for their contributions to this current state of affairs.  I have a lot to say about the politics, and I'll try to make my next post about that.  If today is a quiet day, maybe I'll be able to concentrate enough to organize my thoughts.  Wishing you all health and quiet and safety in these very troubling times.

PS  I've heard from quite a few people:  why don't you just leave???  Friends, I appreciate the concern, but please keep in mind, I'm not traveling here just for fun.  I live here.  My life is here.  I have responsibilities here, not the least of which is to finish writing papers for the end of the semester at university.  I'm coming home in about two weeks (earlier than scheduled) because my dad has to have open heart surgery.  We're all nervous about the surgery but happy that it's finally happened because it is to repair an aneurysm that he has had for 11 years.  It's about time.  So, I'll hold tight here and close things up the way I need to, and then we'll meet Stateside.  I love you all.