Falafel, Fiddles, and the Feeling of Firsts

Letting people marvel—even when you’ve been there, done that

Photo by Anton on Unsplash

A beaming face fills the screen of my phone. I’m in the corner, down on the right. My friend is in Jerusalem for the first time in her life. Her enthusiasm and wonder pour out in bright waves I can practically feel. She talks about the Kotel (the Western Wall), the reverence she felt there, hearing the muezzin, the crowded streets of the Old City, wandering through the Arab quarter, and the fresh, delicious falafel.

A small part of me—this weathered warrior who’s lived in Israel for almost fifteen years, this veteran of all of it—receives that enthusiasm with a cynical shrug. Yeah, falafel, I want to say. Like that’s what we eat every day*. Uh huh, the muezzin—a normal, daily sound. You can’t begin to understand this place, Cynical Me thinks, until you’ve waited for hours at the Ministry of Transportation or run to the bomb shelter three times a day for weeks. That shine’ll come right off you.

But I don’t say that. In fact, New, Better Me wins that battle handily. Because what my friend is communicating is the sheer joy of being somewhere new—and very, very far from Kansas. And who am I to smother that? I’ve never been to India, for example, but when I go, I’ll be raving about the colors, the noise, the food. And I hope no one tells me, “Yeah yeah, but wait until you get Delhi belly.”

Why do we do that? Oh, you had a baby? Wait until they’re a toddler! Or a teenager! Or fill in the blank. What is that urge to be a killjoy – to cast a shadow on someone else’s happiness because we arrived on the other side to find unseen challenges?

Let people have their joy. You had it once. You’ll have it again.

The first time I came to Israel was in 2008. I, too, was swept away by the sights and sounds of this inimitable place. And I’m still swept away by it—maybe in more subtle ways now. Not a day goes by that I don’t hear the muezzin and think: wow, what a thing to hear. Because that drifting sound on the wind still locates me here, in this wild, ancient, confounding place I now call home.

I like to get swept away by things.

Once, a friend and I took a road trip through Kentucky and Tennessee. We went to Memphis (and Graceland, of course), Shiloh, Chattanooga, and eventually to the Smoky Mountains. One night, we stayed in a little cottage high above Gatlinburg. That evening, as we sat on the porch with the mountains spread out before us, I swear we heard someone playing the fiddle, and the sound drifted in the air like something magical. It was, as my friend and I remarked to each other for the 100th time that trip, off the evocativity-meter. Maybe the fiddle was real. Perhaps it was a recording. Maybe we imagined it. It doesn’t matter. In that moment, it was perfect.

Look, I read Demon Copperhead; I know there’s poverty in the Smoky Mountains, and huge collateral damage; strip mining, addiction, and other ills that are anything but magical. But as a tourist, I appreciated the pretty, romantic, and historic parts, which were beautiful.

It’s good to be swept away with wonder, whether by something new or a detail of something familiar. Don’t let these days of chaos and worry dull your senses to those moments. And don’t steal that wonder from someone else. Let them have their joy.

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*I love falafel so much, and yes, it is the fast food of the Middle East. And it’s delicious.