Miki Shilor
My favorite memory with Jac might sound a bit funny, because it wasn't the Park Run tthat Neil finished an entire cycle before us or seeing the London Guards like the tourist that I am or even running after birds and feeding squirrels with Hallel. It was the first time I came to London to reconnect with the Holloways that I had met in Arcosanti, and the first time I met Jac. It was at the big house you used to own out in the country, it was late at night, just Jac and I sitting in one of the living rooms or whatever you Brits/New Zealanders call them. Jac had only just met me but we had already delved into a conversation about boys and life and it felt like a mother-daughter conversation in a way that I had never really had. And I just felt completely at home, I felt warm and welcome and that even though I had only heard about you before then, and even though Neil and I had been on-and-off and mostly-off touch for such a long time before that visit, and even though since that visit we are on-and-off communicating through Neil's emails - it was a moment that I knew that we just had this connection, that crosses borders and internet waves, and that maybe not everyone gets to have.
Added by Jac:
We have been to Israel twice. The first time was for a holiday in Eilat on the southern tip of the country on the Red Sea. It was unbelievable that we could see people walking about in Aqaba which in in Jordan and at that stage a recent enemy of the Israelis. In the 1987 war Israel had taken over a big chunk of Jordan so as to get access to the Red Sea. It was amazing to see all sorts of people wandering about Eilat heavily armed including a school teacher with a rifle herding kids into a café and plonking the rifle on the table while he ate lunch.
There were many standout events from that trip. I was persuaded to do a scuba dive with an escort who took me to swim with dolphins. That whole experience of being completely underwater with beautifully coloured fish swimming all around me was both thrilling and terrifying. And when the dolphins appeared they were huge. One day we took a coach trip to Jerusalem. On the way we saw Lot’s Wife whom God had turned into a pillar of salt and Masada where hundreds of Jews committed suicide by jumping over a cliff rather than be captured by the Romans. We stopped off at the Dead Sea and floated in the very, very salty water and later at the Mount of Olives, which has been used for thousands of years as a cemetery, and the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus was arrested before his crucifixion. In Jerusalem itself we walked the Stations of the Cross (points of note where Jesus carried his cross up the Via Doloroso) eventually reaching the church erected on the site which is supposed to be where Jesus was crucified – Golgotha or Calvary. Later that day we were taken to Bethlehem to visit the Church of the Nativity, built of the site of the manger where Jesus was born. The church has a very low – you have to stoop to enter – door to stop people riding horses into the church. Up near the altar is a winding staircase that goes underground and gives access to the manger itself – well maybe! We flew back to Eilat after an amazing day.
One of the things I remember about that trip was how young the people were who were responsible for security at the airport, on buses and in the cities. We were told they are ‘Sabra’ which means that they were born in Israel and tend to be very fervent about their country. They also tend to be very aggressive, particularly with foreigners.
On another day we took a bus tour to Petra, a valley settled some 1500 years ago. To get into the village we rode horses down a gorge which was the setting for Indiana Jones when he was searching for the Goblet of Fire. He entered into the Treasury, so called because there was a rumour that the huge urn above the entrance contained treasure. A young Arab man took us around the village and sang a Call to Prayer, before taking us to see the amphitheatre.
On our second trip we flew to Tel Aviv. This is a very cosmopolitan city and recognised as the gay capital of Israel. We were able to walk along the beach to Jaffa which is the port where Jonah embarked on his adventure which included being swallowed by a whale.
After a couple of days Miki collected us and drove us to her parent’s house very near the border with Lebanon. When I asked them if they were worried about missiles fired by the Hezbollah they said that their village was too small to waste rockets and instead they fired over the village on the way to larger towns and cities. They took us to see the Sea of Galilee, the Golan Heights and to see thousands and thousands of Cranes (birds) that over-winter in northern Israel. We ate in Arab restaurants and in a kibbutz.