holiday of holidays

the weekend before last my mama and i went to haifa to see family. i am proud to report that i dragged the whole family to the "holiday of holidays" downtown which is a not entirely un-hokey celebration of the convergence in december of three important holidays in the muslim, jewish, and christian traditions. or maybe it's more apt to just say - it's the only place in the world where palestinian-israeli christians and muslims, israeli jews, and santa all get together to eat kebab and wander the streets. the only place where, on saturdays in december at least, people aren't eying each other suspiciously and santa is yelling at the cops in arabic and hebrew to let through his procession of drum playing scouts and baton twirling beauties.

in the evening i went with my cousin and his friend to dalyat al carmel, a druze village close to haifa which cascades down the hillsides in small points of light. we bought trinkets and i watched the sunset color the hills in amazing shades of purple and orange. my cousin made fun of me for taking so many pictures like a tourist. his friend said to me, mock impatiently, tania - where do you live? i answered, tel aviv. ok then, he said, you're not a tourist, stop taking so many pictures.

but these and so many things are still new to me - eruptions of conflict, brief semblances of peace and co-existence, sunsets, christmas lights in storefronts and bilingual hebrew-arabic speaking santas. looking at the sunset, i thought to myself, i was born on this mountain and if i had opened my eyes the first thing i would have seen was the sea below, spreading out dizzyingly as it does from so many places in haifa. so what does it mean to belong somewhere, for somewhere to belong to you, to long for a home in a place you have never seen or not long at all for the first home you knew? i am looking, my eyes wide open. the immensity of the sea from that high above is completely quiet.