37 Carly Marks the 4th September

Carly has decided she is going to make Aliyah on the 4^th September 2023. Making Aliyah is the process for Jews from anywhere in the world to ‘go up’ to live in Israel as a citizen. Carly has chosen this particular date for a number of reasons. It is a Monday which is the first day of the week in the UK – a fresh start. But in Israel it is the second day of the week. Carly is trying to rebalance and to live her life at a much slower pace. So best not to hit the ground running but rather try a more sedate walk. So, what is the first day of the week in the UK is second and means she can try to slow down. She is keen to live more mindfully. To savour her surroundings, enjoy nature and find love. This is another reason Carly is considering living in hippy, dippy Pardes Hanna rather than Tel Aviv where she has friends and Jaffa where she owns an apartment. But the Tel Aviv/Jaffa conurbation is like London on speed and Carly has committed to at least trying to slow down. And the 4^th is the first Monday after she has finished her stretch of intense clinical work. And the numbers work out for her.

4.9.23

Is really 2².3².23. Almost prime number 23 twice. She had read a riveting series of murder mystery books by Linwood Barclay (Parting Shot, The Number Twenty-Three, Broken Promise and Far from True) all based on that particular prime number. Carly feels a bit like a young adult in her reading. They like series of books, TV programmes etc. So does Carly. She and her mother are working their way through the Peter James detective series. They have iconic names like ‘Dead This, Dead That and Dead the Other’. She has just started the ‘Seven Sisters’ series by Lucinda Riley although there were only six books. Grrrrrrrrrrr. But what she really loved were the knitting murder mystery series by Maggie Sefton such as ‘Knit One Kill Two, Dyer Consequences, A Deadly Yarn, and Needled to Death’. The list carries on in the same vein.

Exactly one year before Carly planed to make Aliyah, Ades is getting remarried. On the 4^th September 2022. The day started with cycling. So that was good. She loves cycling and especially on her purple Ribble pedal assist e-bike. Carly was going to Bushey Old Cemetery for a Stone Setting to commemorate the life of the father of a good friend of hers. It was an appropriate place for Carly to cry. And she did.

Back on her bike later on she went to a local plant sale. Rather eclectic and pretty low key. But she supported the growers with three outdoor plants for £6. At least it wasn’t going to break the bank. And she went via Born within a Whisker to buy some of their delicious focaccia. Yum!

Back at home she had to prepare for her shamanic journey with her friend in Epping Forest. She was going to bring things of significance to make an altar as part of this ceremony.

1. Her yoga mat from India was given to her by Meenaxi made from water tulips.
2. Her fire pit which she bought when she was still with her boyfriend of one year David and had a hole from her son Haz’ over exuberant use of it.
3. Pebble shaped crayons – 16 of them laid out in a rainbow colour order to remind her of gay pride and Brighton as well as the NHS.
4. The shamanic rattles she’d just made from fabric from Senegal she bought when staying with Joe and Libby, with glass beads in one and stones from her mancala set for the other.
5. One of her small plastic purple bottles for breast milk she had for her exhibition (in Highbury) of her sabbatical (in India) with a balloon still inflated exactly a year on.
6. Loads of purple incense sticks – she takes them everywhere.
7. A lilac shell spiral hanging she made in Goa when Boo was there.
8. Small pieces of fabric from a sari to tie onto a hammock and make a wish.
9. Feathers – to remind her of her godson Tom.
10. 3 wooden luggage tags, highly decorated and over the top. She had made them in Pune, India and they reminded her of Johnny – the dog there that she set free, only for him to find poison, eat it and die not long after Carly left – oh dear.
11. A large sliced purple stone from her father that she had had set in a fluid silver casting as a necklace on a purple ribbon.
12. A rose quartz stone which reminded her of her nannies Tash and Stephanie.
13. A stone saying ‘contentment’ from The Bridge Experience (a personal development programme) in Froome, Somerset.
14. Sage to burn to ‘smudge’ the area from Bless in Hackney where she sometimes went for Death Café meetings.
15. A lilac yoga mat to sit or lie on.
16. Wood and firelighters for the firepit.
17. But she forgot the shared food – whoops. Well, she brought the focaccia. But her friend is gluten intolerant – how thoughtless Carly can be – probably just plain forgetful.

All these objects connected her to important people, relationships and these things were ways to ground her. The journeying was really both revealing and healing. Carly is so grateful to her friend for spending the time with her, preparing so carefully and with integrity beforehand as well as being tender and loving with her on the actual day itself. She felt very well supported and indeed special.

In the evening, she went out for supper with a good friend. At home she then waited for Tobes and Boo to return from their father’s wedding. The wait for their reappearance was excruciating. Carly had tried to busy herself but by 10.30 pm she’d run out of errands and just waited by the window to hear them coming up the street. They clearly had had a good time, and Carly didn’t really know what to think.

Unsurprisingly, Carly has found it very difficult to move on. She hasn’t been lazy about trying to get there. She is busy at work taking on any extra shifts (paid) or tasks (unpaid), sorting out her new home in Walthamstow, getting a puppy (enormous amounts of work but endless and hilarious fun), seeing a therapist, going on Shamanic journeys and holidays to the Mediterranean.

She has joined a choir called natural voices. They don’t audition as a principle as that would be the end of that activity for Carly. And what about the ukulele? That would be fun, and they have them in purple too. Of course, shouting in the swimming pool (under the water so as not to worry fellow swimmers) and in the sea. But mostly Carly does buckets and bath loads full of crying. Luckily this is finite, or Carly could get seriously dehydrated.