In the Air

Morgan Spurlock stands on a street corner in Anytown, USA, with a boombox. "What do you think of when you hear this?" he asks, and presses play. The Muezzin calls out from the speakers. The "man on the street" smiles uncomfortably.

I close my eyes.
I know what I'm thinking of.

It's my first week working in the theater and already I'm in love. I'm taping down some microphone cables for the show later on, when all of a sudden, I hear the Muezzin begin the afternoon call to prayer. It sounds as if it's seeping out from the stones of the theater's vaulted walls. And then, another sound: a voice singing, passively. "Allah hu akbar..." Ziv, my new boss, technical director at the theater, has joined in as he changes gels from the top of a ladder. I smile to myself. It's my first week working in the theater and already I'm in love.

"I don't know," says Man-On-The-Street. "I'd say it sounds like you've got it on rewind."

It's a scene from Spurlock's television series, 30 Days, in which he challenges someone in each episode to throw him or herself into the life of someone totally different for thirty days. In this episode, a good God-fearing Christian boy from West Virginia is sent to Dearborn, Michigan to live with a Muslim family and study the Qur'an for a month. While he's not entirely cured of his prejudice by the end, he does a convincing job answering some of the more common Islamophobic questions on a local radio station and even canvasses the locals to sign a petition against racial profiling. He didn't seem to get too many signatures, but experiencing the negative reactions left him questioning his own preconceptions. In the end, he proves what Spurlock says at the close of the series's first episode in which he and his fiance try to make ends meet living on minimum-wage jobs:

I encourage you and I challenge you to let your guard down. To strip down your life and put yourself in the situation of someone else. Because you will be changed. You will walk out of this a different person. A more understanding person, hopefully a much more caring person. You will be affected, just like I've been affected. And I'm better for it. I'm better for being here.

I've seen the whole first season of 30 Days, which are all the episodes available on my personal in-flight TV touch-screen system, but these episodes warrant a second screening. Two hours and nine minutes remain until we land in Tel Aviv and it still hasn't sunk in. Despite my trusty flask and the glass of red wine I had, courtesy of the teetotalers with coupons sitting next to me, I didn't manage to sleep. The people on my program are, from what I can tell, mostly what I expected. I still won't see Yonatan for another week at least (!) and since this ten-hour flight has begun to feel like days, next week seems impossibly distant. Yet there it is, the green circle marking Tel Aviv, situated between Cairo, Damascus, Beirut, and Amman. Interesting that I'll be closer to Beirut than Jerusalem (I think) for the next week. And I still have that fucking paper to write. The sun is shining brightly now over swirling lakes of cloud as we fly to the east, but my internal clock is saying it's 2:37 am, which, in my universe, means bedtime might be soon. It's happened again. Time and space have stopped making sense.

So here she is: the now Ever So Experienced World Jetsetter, taking off again, ready for the bizarre and ironic moments to ensue so she can sardonically transpose them here. The adorable baby three rows ahead has remained adorable for most of the flight, but just let out a yell which woke up a less adorable baby who has started up being annoying once again. Cabin fever. I think, after all, I don't actually prefer the nonstop. Somehow, transferring planes in Paris, visiting another country via its airport for a few sleepy hours, being subject to further security screening and yelled at over the intercom by irritable French people seems to make more sense.

Watching these thirty-day adventures into the unknown, the uncomfortable, has got me thinking about my own thirty days to come, how I've been changed in that way in the past, and how I might be changed this time. Over the last few weeks I've found myself drawn to the uncomfortable positions, the gray areas, those questions we don't ask because there's no true answer that gives us what we want to hear. I'd like to say that I'm totally open, that I have no prior judgments, but if I'm honest, that's not the case. Then again, I guess that doesn't mean I can't still be changed.

An hour and forty-five minutes to wheels down. Just another night of insomnia in my book. I wish Yonatan could pick me up from the airport.

30 more days.

Labels: israel