Part 2

On the airplane I was just me myself and I. I flew through the night in quiet calm, breathing air that had already grazed the lungs of countless other passengers. The windows were coated in black starlessness and I slept on and off.
With sour stomach and stiff knees, I sat in my seat as the metal crane that contained me descended onto middle eastern tarmac. Between the Mediterranean sea and the desert mountains, we landed on this tricontinental wedge of holy earth as a blue and white flag flapped in the earthly wind. I exited single file into the airport terminal.
"Where is the bathroom?" one of the forty twenty-five year old American Jews from our trip asked me. "Don't we both have the same set of information from which to answer that question?" I silently wondered. "Over there," I answered, pointing to an open doorway beside which was posted the image of a simple lady in a boxy dress standing next to a simple, boxy two-legged man.
I counted everyone to make sure we were all there and ushered them through passport control. I was to be a leader. I was disoriented by this new role and by the time spent in a metal machine above the clouds.
Beyond baggage claim, a man with a black hat, black jacket, and long beard was holding a large cardboard sign with the name "JANNA" written in English on it. I said "Shalom" to him, my cousin's brother in law, and placed the suitcase my cousin had sent with me precariously on the ledge that separated us. I knew that he was forbidden by his interpretation of the Jewish religion to touch my womanly hand and potentially even to pass an object between us. In order to prevent the suitcase full of children's clothing from American corporate bohemoths like "The Gap" from falling, we ended up having to touch it at the same time. He took the bag and left. I assume that his wife and sisters in Jerusalem unpacked the bag that night, excited to dress their holy children in the soft cotton pajamas sewed so cutely by Chinese sweat shop laborors. Off I went to the waiting tour bus and the forty some Jewish young adults that were chattily settling themselves into their carpeted seats.