The Triumphant Return!

At long last, the Pea Pod Blog is back! Recently, at Ruach Nashim 2009, I realized how much I love to write and how amazing it is for me. It turns out that I also received a lot of really positive feedback on my ability as a writer. This is very exciting because while I knew writing was helpful to me, I didn't realize that it actually affected others. Cool! Anyway, below are my musings from my first night at Camp Ramah Darom...

New Beginnings

It’s incredible just how quickly things can change. I left LA feeling hyper and excited, thrilled that I have the opportunity to teach Torah to high schoolers at New Jew and finally getting to go to Ramah Darom to see what Aaron has been talking about for all of these years. Our flight to Atlanta was pretty good as flights go. We got to watch satellite tv and buy food and drinks and have extra room since the flight was not full.

But getting to Atlanta, I suddenly felt like a fish out of water. I am in the south now. I don’t really know what it means other than I feel different. It’s like the air is changed just like the accents. I feel self conscious of myself much more like I have to prove that I am ok too because I come from LA, land of pretentiousness, (or lower Alabama as the gentleman at Waffle House told me). I learned that southern people are nicer than Midwesterners and that they always ask about your mother first: how’syourmamaandthem? (how is your mama and them?) They like pecan pecans and have a good sense of humor. Groundskeeper Anthony introduced himself to me as Billy Bob and told me how he scared a bunch of Israelis by wearing overalls and no shirt and racing over to them with a limp. Anyway, the snow here is really throwing me off and all I want to do is huddle in bed. This might not even be our bed as there is a good chance we need to vacate Aaron’s room (clearly, someone didn’t get the memo) to make way for the massage guy. I am hoping that tomorrow is nicer and that the sun will come out in order for us to bless it since it will be in the same position it was at the time of creation. Pretty amazing!