Once again, my "luggage" arrived late...

The mug a potter friend gave me right before I left for Abu Dhabi.


I have a rocky relationship with luggage.  My luggage has not arrived with me at least a dozen times over my lifetime, including 3 times last year alone (Dallas, Nepal, Abu Dhabi). My belongings were no different.

At first I wasn't going to ship my stuff...school in Abu Dhabi ended the last week of June and I had to be in Israel August 1 to begin quarantine. I thought I would use my shipping allowance [read: defrayment] to check a bunch of extra suitcases and stay in the UAE during the month. As the lockdown restrictions and the heat increased, however, my longing for home also grew. I met a woman in Abu Dhabi also moving to my new school in Israel and decided to ship my stuff using the same company she had hired. We ended up combining our stuff with that of a 3rd woman moving to the same school from Dubai (who also happens to be from the same place in Dallas I'm from, but that's not really related here).  

Off our stuff went to Dubai to wait for transport to Tel Aviv, presumably via Istanbul or Amman, Jordan because of the travel restrictions then in place from the Gulf countries to Israel, and off we went to America. Best case scenario: our stuff would arrive a week or so after us.

A few weeks after we arrived the shipping company contacted us to ask if we wanted to send our stuff by ship instead of airplane, as airports were still closed and no opening dates had been announced. We agreed. About 4 days before diplomatic ties were announced between the UAE and Israel.  Thus began a sightseeing tour of Cypress for our belongings before they arrived in Israel over a month later during the high holy days of Judaism [read: when everything is closed] to spend a few weeks collecting storage fees that we had got to pay to release our stuff.

Finally my stuff arrived on Tuesday, October 27! It was wicked expensive, I had begun losing hope in living here, my apartment felt icky and stifling. But then these boxes arrived and I saw my own stuff! The wave of relief and familiarity was astounding. Perhaps this is the very definition of materialistic - that stuff can lift or deflate one's countenance - but I don't care! Genuine joyfulness fills my heart to be surrounded by my own, familiar stuff.

Here are just a few of the comforts of home I've missed:
I love analog clocks!

Forest

Mountains

I've missed my sheep from Ireland (not to mention that pillow case)


And of course, artwork!

and of course, the scrapbook supplies


Location: Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

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