Cool Kickin' Up In NYC

The previous flights i've taken back to the States from The Land were all more-or-less midnight flights, that left Ben Gurion airport at midnight or 1:00 AM, and arrived in New York at around 5 or 6 in the morning. Almost all of the flights i've taken in the other direction, from New York to Israel, left in the early afternoon and arrived at around 5 or 6 AM Israel time.

The first picture in my 62-roll series of Israel pictures is titled Sunrise at Ben-Gurion Airport, and is then subtitled:

Or ‘oleh min hamizrahh, yom hhadash higia‘;
shneinu nitgabeir ‘al ha’eima...
(light rises from the east, a new day has arrived;
the two of us will overcome fear...)
  — "Tutim" by Etnix

It's sorta poetic, ya know.
Sunrise.
The brilliant start of a bright new day.
Arriving in a new place.
Embarking on a new stage of life.

This trip, though — my final trip home from Home at the end of my two-year stay — began at 4 AM. The sheirut 'service taxi' picked me and seven others up from around Jerusalem and Mevaseret, and as we drove down from the Central Mountain Spine of the country into the hills, and down from the hills onto the Coastal Plain, the sky was slowly growing lighter. White and the sky-blue color of tekheilet became recognizably distinct; sky blue and vegetative green asserted themselves; and as the pillar of dawn spread across the eastern sky we arrived at the airport, and i recognized a friend who was taking the same flight back to New York as i was.

As we waited on the security line, the sky got lighter. Hazy dawn colors sharpened and came into themselves, and the sun rose into the sky from back in the direction of Yerushalayim, ‘iro shel Haqodesh. Back in Jerusalem, friends were waking up; taking showers; going to mínyan, school and/or work.

Life went on without me.

The plane ride was uncomfortable. The food was good, as usual, though, and aside from the friend i met at the security lines i had two other friends on the plane who had just married each other (mazal tov and mabrouk!) and one of the flight attendents was a classmate from the university! I saw the movies "Robots" and "Sahara", and took a number of short naps in the awkward airplane seats.

At 1300 hours the plane landed in the Greater New York Metropolitan Area.

It was midday. People were at work, or school, or doing whatever else it is that people do when they do things.

We had landed in medias res.

The world had already been chugging along fine without me.

Time to get back into gear!

Plans (in no order):
 — meet R' Natan Slifkin in Queens
 — get another job interview or few
 — make some money to pay bills before that job thing kicks in
 — hang out with friends and family
 — work on curricula for classes
 — write papers
 — meet some of these NYC area bloggers i've read so much about?