We also wanted to fit this trip in before summer arrives and standing in the sun for half an hour, let alone going to a desert, is a foolish, self-punishing activity. My people are from Ireland. I do not love summers here.
So in three hours we were in Mitzpeh Ramon, a dusty little town that has two things going for it: several surrounding military bases and a ginormous crater 40 kilometers long.
The view of the crater was definitely stunning. Nadav and I took turns admiring it from the lookout point, 1,500 feet above the desert floor, while the other herded the girls away from the edge. When both you and your spouse are terrified of heights, you can do this for only a few minutes. So that was the crater.
(A little embarrassing: we spent the entire visit thinking the crater was made by a meteor, like, 40 billion years ago, and only after returning home bothered to Google it and learned it was carved out by water, like the Grand Canyon. Obviously, we didn't go through the Visitor's Center museum. Things were going too well outside, playing with rocks. One thing we really like about having small kids is that we finally have an excuse for being lazy, uninformed tourists.)
Anyway, Nadav had found one other cool thing for toddlers to do in Mitzpeh Ramon, which was to stay overnight on an alpaca farm. It was a little compound tucked inside some dry, rocky hills. Not green enough to be an oasis, but with a few pockets of trees and flowers. Four hundred alpacas, plus a large number of llamas, some donkeys, horses and a lone camel were the main attraction, milling around in a series of barnyards.
If you've never seen an alpaca face to face, they look like the relative of the llama that couldn't afford braces. Neither are particularly friendly animals. But alpacas chew funny and have a kind of demented look in their eyes and make a weird whining sound, thus are good entertainment if you're 3 or 1, or if your standards have sunk really low due to having had almost no adult nightlife for years.
***
Later that night, while I was lying awake, trying to sleep in what should have been empty silence but for the congested snoring of our daughter, I was thinking about the last time I spent the night in a little compound in the middle of a desert. It was in a monastery on a backpacking trip many years ago. I'd gone because I had always found monasteries intriguing, the promise of serenity derived from a life of repetitive work, humility, reflection. I'd wondered how long it would take to get into the groove. How long before the mind quieted down? Before the traffic of one's thoughts was reduced to a dull hum of memory and eventually, with great discipline, muted so that a greater presence could exist within?
(Answer: more than two days.)
It was into this little reverie that an image appeared of myself back home, cleaning the same high-chair tray and the floor around it six to eight times a day. Wax on, wax off. After you've changed several thousand diapers, you can do it in the pitch-black. Wash, rinse, repeat. It struck me that although being a full-time parent is a lot noisier and chaotic than being a monk, there are some similarities. In both scenarios, you're up at 4 a.m. (however, monks probably sleep through the night). Ultimately, nature--or you could call it God, or the laws of physics--is forcing you, through endless, exhausting repetition and work that constantly undoes itself, to tune out a lot of the stuff you used to think was highly important. Are you being worn down into a washer-woman? Or mentally liberated? Eventually, I guess I fell asleep.
Later that night, while I was lying awake, trying to sleep in what should have been empty silence but for the congested snoring of our daughter, I was thinking about the last time I spent the night in a little compound in the middle of a desert. It was in a monastery on a backpacking trip many years ago. I'd gone because I had always found monasteries intriguing, the promise of serenity derived from a life of repetitive work, humility, reflection. I'd wondered how long it would take to get into the groove. How long before the mind quieted down? Before the traffic of one's thoughts was reduced to a dull hum of memory and eventually, with great discipline, muted so that a greater presence could exist within?
(Answer: more than two days.)
It was into this little reverie that an image appeared of myself back home, cleaning the same high-chair tray and the floor around it six to eight times a day. Wax on, wax off. After you've changed several thousand diapers, you can do it in the pitch-black. Wash, rinse, repeat. It struck me that although being a full-time parent is a lot noisier and chaotic than being a monk, there are some similarities. In both scenarios, you're up at 4 a.m. (however, monks probably sleep through the night). Ultimately, nature--or you could call it God, or the laws of physics--is forcing you, through endless, exhausting repetition and work that constantly undoes itself, to tune out a lot of the stuff you used to think was highly important. Are you being worn down into a washer-woman? Or mentally liberated? Eventually, I guess I fell asleep.
***
It's not every morning you get to open your curtains and have a camel looking in. Or have your breakfast delivered in a giant cooler to your doorstep. Or watch your 1-year-old discover chocolate milk.
I sort of love that with these kids, any agenda we have can evaporate. You can't afford to take your own ambitions too seriously, because at this age playing on the previously mentioned rocks is truly more fun than anything else. By 9 a.m. the girls had, as the Hebrew expression goes, "juiced" the alpaca farm--were tired of having us prod them toward animals that didn't have much personality. They let us put the helmets on them but refused to ride the llama. So we played in the hammock on our porch for a while, let them have their wrestling match on the bed, then packed up and left.
Some days it's a little distressing, all the neurons that apparently withered in my brain due to sleep deprivation and the fact that "Boo-bee-BAH!" now passes as a brilliant joke in our house. Most days, though, the feeling of liberation, strangely, unexpectedly, wins. Maybe I'll think about it again the next time I go to the desert.
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