Someone gave me a Balm of Gilead plant, which felt like the sort of gift a person living in Jerusalem ought to be able to keep alive.
I killed it in the back of our new car.
Not intentionally. I put it there, forgot about it, and Jerusalem heat did the rest. By the time I remembered, the leaves had curled brown against the stems.
I carried the pot out, set it beside the gate, and left it there for Matt to take to the trash.
Last Sunday, we were on our way to church for Matt to teach.
It had rained that morning. By the time we came through Jaffa Gate, the stones were still slippery.
I stopped near the New Imperial Hotel to change my shoes.
Matt waited while I sat on the bench and pulled off the pair I had been foolish enough to wear on wet Jerusalem stone.
I looked down at the bench.
Ten years earlier, Matt and I had sat in this exact spot.
Back then, Matt had just started directing the Bible college in Jerusalem.
We spent our days with the students in the Old City and our nights at an inn outside Jerusalem.
It was our first semester with students.
It was also Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
The markets were full of pomegranates, apples, honey, and round challah.
I stopped at one of the stalls for tomatoes.
Before the vendor weighed them, I pulled off the green stems.
He watched me as I pulled them off, smoke curling from the cigarette between his fingers.
I kept pulling.
“Bag?”
“How much?”
“One shekel.”
I shook my head.
On my way into the house, I passed the woodpile with the tomatoes against my shirt. The house was rough Jerusalem stone, with white shutters, potted plants crowded along the wall, and a makeshift wooden gate across the doorway.
The kids were on the couch arguing over Uno.
One accused the other of hiding a Draw Four.
I pushed the door shut with my foot.
Three tomatoes rolled out of my arms and across the pale tile.
The kids laughed.
One disappeared under the couch.
I got down on my knees and reached my hand underneath for it.
The next morning, I walked barefoot into the bathroom.
A scorpion waited beside the drain.
My bare foot hovered above it.
For one second, neither of us moved.
Then I backed out, shut the door, and cried for Matt.
After that, no one put on a shoe without handing it to me first.
I turned them upside down and hit the soles together.
Shirts were shaken.
Blankets lifted.
The kids learned to wait for me.
Usually they kept talking while I checked.
I counted fourteen scorpions that month.
The strange thing is that the scorpions were not the hardest part.
At least I could see them.
I shared the fuller version of this story with subscribers and supporters first because the rest moves into the more personal part: motherhood, fear, surrender, and the things I could not see clearly at the time.
If you want to receive these field notes when I send them, you can subscribe for free.
P.S. The Balm of Gilead comes back later. So does the thing I thought was over.