Swallowing An Elephant

My husband asked me the question the other day, "How do you eat an elephant?" The answer: "One bite at a time." Today I feel as though I am a boa constrictor, trying get my entire mouth around an elephant in order to eat it (have you read The Little Prince?). That's my metaphor for packing. We have 6 suitcases, and we are not only overweight on 5 of them ($50 each on Lufthansa, ouch!) but we're not really sure how we're going to have enough space for everything. We're almost there, but it's going to be tight. Hopefully none of the suitcases will burst at the seams before we take them off the baggage carousel in San Francisco. We entertained the idea of repacking from scratch and taking out stuff we don't need. But that would completely push me over the edge of my sanity - no doubt about it. Sometimes there is a small price to pay to keep one's sanity relatively intact. No matter how tight money is going to be as the months unfold, my sanity is worth $250 today.

I am so ready to get on that plane, and I think I will cry a lot when we take off. Mixed tears of relief, grief, disappointment, fear, happiness, and deep faith despite all the unknowns ahead. What I do know is that it is time to leave Jerusalem. The jackhammers at the construction site returned today to give us a proper send-off, just in case we were doubting that it is time to go. It had been a while, and we were blown away by how annoying they are, and that we put up with them almost every day for the first 4 months we were here. I look forward to the quiet of Marin, then the serenity of San Francisco's Outer Sunset. Quiet amid the storm helps to keep me sane. I'm tired. Dave is sick and exhausted. Dahlia fell asleep on the couch sitting up while watching Sleeping Beauty. Tikva continues to kick and wiggle happily in my belly. We're getting there... one foot in front of the other.