Another One!

I deleted my internet search history the other day and had to retype the address for this blog. I made the same mistake I have made more than once, and perhaps you have done the same. I typed www.farfromzion.com. Now, in the past when I made this mistake, I simply received a notice that the website could not be found. Now, and apparently since December 2007, www.farfromzion.com is COPYRIGHTED. I should have thought of it first! Apparently this site belongs to someone trying to figure out the complex identity issues of being a leftist American Jewish man. There are times for him when he could actually be in Zion, but I will always be far from Zion. I was born in the city that Mormons refer to as Zion. It's where I live now. It freaks out Arabs and Jews alike to be in the American West and stop at the Zion's Bank ATM or Zion's park. So, even in Israel, on the days when I was visiting Mount Zion in the old city of Jerusalem, I was still far from Zion.

Here in my current Zion, the New Jerusalem of the Mormons, I suddenly miss odd things about my old Zion. It makes me think of the lines of poetry, "My heart is in the east, but I am in the furthest west." Like yesterday, when I reached for a packet of bath salts and found myself hoping it would smell of frankincense and myrrh, purchased in the old city. I knew there was no way this could be, but the longing was powerful all the same. Sometimes I miss walking down the dirty streets of Tel Aviv. Or I close my eyes and pretend that I am on the floor of my pilates teacher's studio. In just a minute I will get up and join the other girls around the table for tea and cookies and hear their weekly updates.