I started writing a book in Israel - the first time I was there - in 2003. Yes, I know it is now 2006 and I am still writing the same book, but I will get there, eventually.

It's not something I can hurry along. My life experiences, even the seemingly mundane ones, are what inspire me.

I got an email from a friend who has just moved to Israel from the States. He's full of uncertainty, bordering on dread. He's terrified he's made an incredibly bad decision to leave America. But mixed in with all the doubt is the total flip side - something he can't really substantiate, or really make sense of. That feeling that deep inside your gut that makes no logical sense, but you know what you are doing is right...

It reminded me of something I wrote when I was back in Israel at the beginning of this year:

It’s hard to believe, but I am back in Israel. Even harder to believe, it is work that has brought me here. Roughly eighteen months ago I boarded a flight alone, and flew to the other side of the world, to a country I knew virtually nothing about. Today I am taking nearly four hundred young Australian Jews with me who have come to Israel to discover something about their own identities.

It’s been a strange, somewhat artificial existence here. Living out of a suitcase, living in hotels for weeks on end. Not having to pay bills. I’ll admit, there is a lot to envy. It’s a great job I have landed. A job that pays me to be in Israel for two months of the year. I could do a lot worse! But it’s not enough somehow. I know that if I lived here, it would be tough for me on so many levels. Tough financially. Tough emotionally. Israel is not an easy place to live, I am fully aware of that. I have many friends who have moved here and struggle on all those fronts. I don’t know why I can’t be satisfied with my life in Australia. I have a good job, a wonderful family and great friends. I live in a country where I don’t fear getting on a bus and I can walk into a shop or a café and not have to show a guard the contents of my handbag.

If I stopped to smell the roses for just a second or two, I might even find someone to share my life with, a partner to share the adventure.

I was in a supermarket this evening, just across the road from my hotel in Jerusalem. I was picking up some hot chicken for dinner and a lady with an English accent asked me if I thought the chicken was good. I told her that I had never bought chicken from this supermarket before, but that it looked good. We entered into a brief conversation. What was I doing in Israel? How long was I here? Was I going to come back to live? I was barely able to answer her because she interrupted me and told me that I must come back. That I would find my bashert (soulmate) here. I told her that I hoped so and she replied most forcefully that, “Yes! Of course I would meet him here.”

We grabbed our respective chickens and wished each other behatzlecha (good luck). Where else in the world do you have random conversations like that over a hot chicken counter?

Yesterday I caught a bus from Jerusalem to Netanya, which is a pretty seaside town on the north coast. The bus ride took maybe an hour and a half and during the journey I looked out the window and stared at the scenery. There is something about the Israeli landscape that makes my heart both sing with joy and ache with such a pain I cannot fathom where it comes from. It is even hard to articulate exactly what it is that I mean.

It’s as if what I see around me is as familiar as my own body. The land speaks to my soul like some ancient language that doesn’t need translating. Whether is it is the hills surrounding Jerusalem or the arid moonscape of the Negev desert. I breathe in deeply and fill my lungs with the clean, crisp air. I can breathe more deeply here. I know that sounds crazy, but I am an asthmatic and I know how deeply I can inhale before I start to choke and splutter. Sometimes I feel like I can inhale indefinitely here.

I know all this romanticizing leads to one very simple question. If I am so happy here and so desperately want to be here, why don’t I just move here and be done with it?
Because I am afraid, that’s why. Truth be told, I am terrified.

I am afraid of a lot of things.
I am afraid that financially the move would kill me.
I am afraid that I have created such a deep and entrenched fantasy that I can no longer tell the difference between reality and make-believe anymore. Do I really truly want to be in Israel, or am I looking for a convenient excuse to run away again?
I am afraid that planning a move here will even further harm my chances of meeting someone special and settling down.

I celebrated my 33rd birthday here in December, not long after I arrived. I had hoped to organise something with my friends, but I just didn’t get my act together in time and so ended up spending it with the particular group I was with at the time. The kids were so sweet though. They had learned to sing Happy Birthday in Hebrew and the madrichim (group leaders) had gone and bought me some little cakes which we shared out amongst the group. To be honest though, it didn’t really feel like my birthday.

This whole cathartic, self-examining process has been going on since the eve of my 30th birthday. That’s where this whole thing began. Can it really have been three years already? Am I any further to reaching my mystery destination now than I was three years ago? In some ways I feel like I have been flung even further backwards, that I am more confused now than I was then. Back when this whole crazy plan hatched itself, I felt so sure, so confident that what I was doing was right. I had such faith in my convictions and now, I feel like am floundering all over again. Drowning in self-doubt.