Day 3 of My War Diary: Welcome to….Nothing

Welcome to Day 3 of my war diaries. Historic events are still unfolding while the emptiness and fear kick in.

And welcome to ….nothing. I could perhaps write a piece about all the things I’m not doing. I haven’t applied make-up in a few days, I haven’t seen my beloved children or parents and, after spending a year bemoaning the stress of being a teacher, I’m suffering from the strange withdrawal pangs of not being at work. It’s no man’s land: a post-COVID landscape of PC screens, endless kitchen sorties, check-in calls where there’s nothing to say—always with the faint taste of fear.

My mind is working as a strange autonomous entity. I surprise myself by falling asleep easily; I shock myself with the indifference of my marches to the safe room.

I might feel very connected to the ten million that inhabit this tiny country, but I’m simultaneously plagued with unique sense of loneliness. After all, it’s not as if my house is filled with the voices of family on a regular basis, but knowing that there will be no family around for the near future is unsettling. It’s as if somebody removed your usual familiar furniture without telling you and now you have to gaze at the open spaces of your living room. 

There is a need to fill the nothingness with distractions. My TV, however is not switched on. I will not fill my personal space with any of the news channels. This, in itself is strange. I mean, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do when we’re at war. Isn’t ‘being glued to the news’  part and parcel of the new routine when in a national security criss. But there is such a dearth of information online that what I see and hear becomes both confusing and meaningless at the same time. 

I want to be informed, but I know the present doesn’t predict the future. I imagine piles of rubble where buildings once stood, soldiers sifting through the shredded pieces of what once was a life in the hope of finding a few survivors and I think, imagining is quite enough, thank you.

It could perhaps be that since 2020, we’ve been overdosed with statistics. They are now cloying. They are nauseating. They don’t console – they don’t even scare. They just are. In 2020 I checked up on the worldwide COVID stats every day for an entire year. What good did that do me.

After October 7 2023 we did a statistical retake – the figures could have been so much more if. We have to be grateful for this number. We did a recount of murdered and realized that it was actually less than initially predicted. We were told that Hizbollah were ready to attack at the same time and then it would have been on an entirely different scale. 

What makes a number good, anyways? Do we really need to put numbers next to numbers in order to find the inner strength to march on? But the issue is that if you are remotely human, one life snuffed out due to pure evil, malevolence or sheer negligence is a tragedy in all it’s totality. Whatever you do, don’t shove numbers at the mourners. Don’t shove numbers at someone who’s home is now a gaping hole.

My writing may have a tinge of despair to it. Well folks, if someone tells you to knuckle down and get on with it and cancels all your plans for the near future, if you are woken up 4 times a night to ‘get ready to enter your sealed room’ warnings, if you purposefully push the thoughts of where the missiles are going to land after the alert has sounded in order to stay sane, if your chosen news website alternates between images of rubble, firemen and policemen and ballistics shooting through the sky over Tel Aviv and Haifa, you might find yourself drowning in a sea of doubt and pessimism. It’s a natural progression. I know they haven’t done studies on this one yet, but I can assure you scientific research is unnecessary.

And then you do the crazy reasoning that it could be worse, that your loved ones are safe for God’s sake blah blah. And these platitudes work just as well as the odd stolen cigarette on a balcony: you might feel faintly relieving after the first inhalation, but then the tar sets in and the flavor soon gets disgusting. And then you ask yourself why you’re smoking it in the first place.

And so you dive into a kind of routine. You nap- a luxury reminiscent of the COVID days. You think about what you’re going to eat for dinner. You try not to worry if the supermarket shelves are going to empty out, given there are practically no trade routes here at the moment. You put on a spotify playlist with light pop music that isn’t overly optimistic, but not heartbreaking either. You make plans to take a walk, to get some fresh air for God’s sake. 

And you try not to think about the future. The calibrations. The fact that Iran is a gigantic country with a gigantic population. The fact that people there value death rather than life. It’s a little too daunting for one small person trying to live their life to digest.

So let’s stretch our optimism muscles as far as they can go. Let’s try to reach the limits of happy thoughts against all odds. Here we go. Deep breath. The birds are singing. My laundry is drying gently in the legendary Jerusalem breeze. The dishwasher is humming with remnants of meals that were both tasty and satisfying. And my recently lacquered nails are tapping gently on the keyboard of my laptop, creating something, even if it’s full of tears and doubts – something that is about as real as it gets. I can offer a money-back guarantee on that.

After all, nobody ever promised me a life of roses and champagne. 

If the soil of this land could speak, it would sigh—this fight is old news. Get a grip, it would say.

So I’ll take my shoes off and spread my toes in the earth beneath my feet. This simple act of grounding might give me strength. And connection.