Day one of arriving in the States. I’m immensely tired. We had been walking around Jerusalem for most of Thursday. Our flight was only due to leave at 11pm. We ordered a pizza in the Old City. I thought that would put them to sleep. At least the doughy part. It would take more than just a pizza to satisfy my brood.

Thirty six hours later, and a zillion time zones, we arrive home. There’s a ton of things that need to get done – cooking, cleaning, attacking the filthy laundry piles. Plus now an iunwanted bill of fixing a busted pipe. Actually 4 of them.

All I want to do is follow my late mother’s advice and sleep off the jetlag. I know I’m going feel crappy if I don’t.

I don’t.

I unpack. I help my husband tackle the laundry. Slowly, the anxiety levels go down.  Part of me wants to still be on that plane. But it’s not like i can step into a light tunnel and allow myself to be wishked through 15 time zones.

I allow myself to think the first 24 hours though. If I sleep through jetlag, I may need to let go of the need to control the longing – of being in Israel. Tackling laundry and other “essential matters” pulls me back in the here and now of the American landscape. Forget I was praying at the Wall. Forget the acts of kindness volunteering at soup kitchens and traveling and seeing family and all that jazz.

There’s just too much to take in from that first day. Tackle the filthy piles of laundry – first comes first. Of course, if I could choose to sleep over jetlag for the next two days as a family member suggested, I would. But I think it’s probably better to watch the snow melt from the neighbor’s rooftops, and think, remember and long.

In the end, though, I sleep.

We don’t like to be told what to do. We like to do things OUR way.