Drawn by Anna Meixler
Anna Meixler (White Plains, NY):
My duffel still sits like someone who’s all dressed up with nowhere to go. It’s a sorry sight, yet I prefer to see its olive canvas zipped tightly, bulging in strange places from the stress of my clothes. I like that my bedroom’s hardwood floor is littered with notebooks, voltage adapters, and toiletries. I enjoy that my jetlagged odysseys to the bathroom or the kitchen during the night are full of tripping and shuffling around the mess, banging my shins on my suitcase. The alternative is unsettling. I don’t want to unpack, to shake the Negev’s sand out of my shoes in fear that doing so will take me one step further from the night we sat in the desert, admiring its stars. I don’t want to wash my knee-length skirts, losing the smells and grime of the Old City in favor of Tide’s synthetic “Sea Breeze”. Unpacking means permanence; a tidy room says, “I’m here to stay and I want to see my floor and perhaps be able to walk in and out at night without risking injury.”
Drawn by Anna Meixler
I’m anxious without the smells and sounds and faces that grew so familiar and so beloved over those five and a half weeks. So I look at photos; I flip through my camera’s insides and am welcomed by waves of nostalgia and the smiling faces of Fellows. I draw people I’ve seen, hoping to solidify the smiling woman in South Tel Aviv and the ancient Rabbi in Tzfat. I try to bring these people closer, burning their eyes into my head and refusing to unpack and clean up as a promise that I’ll return soon. After all, I’d much rather unpack complex theological theories and sticky nutella sandwiches.
