Early Morning. Israel

I am jetlagged.

This is new for me. Though I have twice made the trip across the country to New York, even reached as far as Amsterdam and Prague last summer, I managed to keep my inner clock from ever interrupting my sleep. Yet this morning, after retiring at 12:30, I awoke in a state of unquestioned assuredness that the hour was, in fact, 7:30. A number I all but pulled from the air. After attempting to convince my phone that this was indeed the time, that Israel was on a different zone, it eventually informed me (with a smug look), that the time was in fact 2:30. I returned to bed.

It is now 6:04 and I have settled on the fact that my wakeful state, insistently accompanying me for the past half hour, will not be denied. Taking advantage of my solitude in the early hour, I left my dorm for the family room across the way and fixed myself the worst cup of coffee I have ever had. I sat outside watching the campus wake up. I had abandoned my first cup down the drain and was now attempting to enjoy its replacement, a thick brown instant mix who bumped against my lips carrying the distinctive flavor of salt leftover from its persistent predecessor. I had mistakenly picked the latter of two identical white bags, both containing fine white crystals and marked only in Hebrew to give hint at their contents. The coffee warmed me, though strangely unnecessarily, as I watched one of the camps many cats recline lazily on a bench.

Finally, after waiting nearly all of yesterday, it dawned on me just where I am. What I'm doing. The sky feels different, warm like a blanket. The ground, even in this controlled place, is dry and desert. The moon smiles down at me with its familiar face and I can't help but think about its placement in the sky, where and when my family must see it on the other side of the globe. I am in Israel. I made it.

Bedraggled and groggy from my night of sleep, I sit at my monitor, trying to stretch out the hours of the morning until seven, when the school will be woken and I can wash the grease and sweat and exhaustion out of my hair without the shower making too much of a fuss. My skin feels oily and heavy. I need to start fresh and allow the first day of Israel to wash over me.

I am excited.