Peaceful skies

Today was like most others. It was not the same as other days; rather it felt like this is how most people live.

Today, the first day of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, I walked out of the house and around the garden with ease, liberated from fear, released from an overworked and domineering sympathetic nervous system.

The sky was quiet. I heard some cranes migrating above, calling out to each other to pick up the pace as it’s nearly December and Ethiopia is still quite a trek away.

I did not hear fighter jets screeching on their way to Lebanon or Syria, or helicopters en route to take seriously wounded soldiers to emergency units. For over a year, night and day, our usually serene skies have been buzzing with traffic as if this were the La Guardia flight path.

Instead of gut-wrenching booms sent by Hezbollah or the IDF interceptors exploding the missiles and drones, I heard song birds, barking dogs, a garbage truck rattling by, and construction workers hammering: the usual sounds one hears on a typical day when one lives in a peaceful place.

We made a plan to visit my son and daughter-in-law in Haifa, a city that has recently been bombarded with rockets and drones non-stop, including three times yesterday. Because of these circumstances, I would never have considered visiting them even though they had just moved into a new place. Until today, my brain reckoned this trip was too dangerous, reasoning that if there were a siren when we were on the highway out in the open, it would be terrifying and risky.

But today, I sat calmly in the car. How will we get there? The navigational apps in the north have not been reliable for over a year, creating anxiety and confusion. I called my son for directions then joyfully discovered that yes, Waze and Google Maps no longer thought I was at Lebabon’s Rafic Hariri International Airport.

Nope. I was in a car exhilarated to be using a working Waze map, a simple task that most people use without a second thought.

And I did not look at the news once. Today, I felt liberated from reading the news nonstop, when I would desperately scan the headlines, looking for a story about a military victory or a returned hostage. But I only found news of defeat, untimely deaths of young soldiers with beautiful faces, terror attacks on innocents , and senseless bickering within a hopelessly fragile government that cares not for the people.

And I did not open my Tzofar app, not even once. Tzofar, a new addiction of mine, enables me to see where the sirens are alerting people of rockets and suicide drones – especially important if I have to be out on the road and want a panic attack. Like a typical addict, I wake up several times at night and slink into the bathroom to check the latest alerts.

But today I was on a road trip worry-free and even had directions! The skies remained rocket free. I did not even scan the restaurant for their shelter just in case a siren would blare; instead I scanned the menu like most people do in a restaurant.The warm November sun shone on our table as we ate outdoors feeling relaxed like regular people do when they eat out.

We then did a few errands and this was fine for me, unlike previous days when I had so much anxiety I needed to return to the safety of my cocoon at home with a shelter close by. At one store, the salesperson pointed to a plate of syrupy baklava and said, “Help yourself, we’re celebrating!”

She danced happily and I declined, probably because for me, this was not a reason to celebrate. It was not the end of the war but a ceasefire, albeit a rocky one. But it was a reason to go out without feeling dread and terror for the first time in over a year.

It is now bedtime. I have not looked at the news or the Tzofar app all day. Tonight, I will have a hot tea and read a novel like most people who live in peace do. I will then drift off to sleep under a quiet starry sky just like most others are accustomed to in their regular day-to-day. And a regular day is such a privilege.