Tonight's the kind of Night

Swirling snowflakes filled the sky above the Kortel as we stood in the freezing wind listening to the thunder. The white powder was piling up along the old cobbled stone streets as we walked back to Beit Shmuel. Warm cups of hot chocolate the only things keeping our hands from the dismal prospect of frostbite. 

The wonder of nature and its power to produce something so beautiful and so different from anything else in the whole world, is astonishing to me. The forces of the universe that must go into nights like this sometimes make me wonder about those people who don't believe in anything bigger than them selves. With views and moments like these its hard not to. Looking up at the Kortel wall at 4:30, standing so close with people I love so dearly is an experience insurmountable to anything that will happen in my whole life. 

A part of me want to write this blog post, but the other half, kind of wants to keep it to myself, like my own personal secret. I don't want to ruin the magic of that night, but I don't want to make it anything less special than it was. 

I feel like I've finally been able to charge the Kortel with meaning. Before it was just a wall and now it has some sort of significance. It will always remind me of this night.


Maybe there is a God.

It had started three hours earlier with complaints about those few people who break the only real rule of the Dojo: "No Sleeping in the Dojo". Although, thinking back, if we had been in the Dojo, we might not have gone on out adventure at all. We had been complaining all evening and we were looking for something to do with our time. It started with watching camp videos and progressed to us making a video of our own- like the ones from That 70s Show. It was very bad, and we were very tired and will only be funny because of how bad it is. Out of pure boredom, and the urge to get out of the apartment we stole up to the roof.

On the roof, that we weren't technically allowed to be on, (but it would be a whole night of breaking rules so lets not dwell on the small ones) we all stood over looking the old city. It was beautifully lit. First rain, then sleet and finally, large drops of ice started falling rapidly from the sky, pilling up against the railing and on the ground. My first ever snowball fight ensued. Excitedly, we all ran downstairs, got really warmly dressed and set off on one of the best adventures one could ever have.

On the way to the Kortel we'd stop to write things in the snow building up on the cars, and along the side of the road and to have snowball fights. It was so lovely to walk and sing and talk and just exist.
Together.

The slushy ice melting beneath our feet filled my socks and shoes with cold icey water. The white powdery substance that we affectionately call Sheleg was piling up on the streets, coating everything in a Christmas-y Glow. I felt like we should be singing Christmas carols and not the Shmah, but that's really the beauty of it isn't it? I felt so content with the world, having these people here, going on this adventure and living in this country. It felt surreal and completely normal all at the same time, if I could do this everyday, I would move here. But it will never be the same, just visiting as it would living.


But I do live here now.


Life is such a paradox.