What is Home?

Home of fat sandal tans, fat fruit, but not too many fat people. Home of the marketplace—of produce and of ideas, where ranks don’t stop you from voicing your opinion. Home of homes, where everybody is family, so you can put your feet up on the table and yell at each other, but when push comes to shove—and yes, there is lots of shoving—you will literally jump in front of a grenade for each other. Home of chocolate milk in a bag. Home of deliberately overpriced items; home of haggling. Home of living in the moment—where plans are subject to change because of war. Home of preparedness for war—where life continues as usual. Home of lack of preparedness for snow—where a little bit of flurry shuts the country down. Home—where guns are a more common accessory than purses, and where soldiers are your brother, daughter, neighbor, not just casual bump-ins with citizens in green. Home—where coffees come “upside down” to match the political realities. Home—where flags are hung outside our homes and inside our hearts—where the national anthem is our personal mantra. Home—where the streets are double-lined in blue and white stains of blood, our blood, on the doorposts on our own land, on our own homes. Home of two national languages—Arabic and Hebrew—twice as much yelling, in varied dialects. Home of the Arabs and the Jews, a living story of survival. Home that is real, but the real is sometimes outrageously backwards, that is Israel.