When evening comes, the house is upside down and the kids are not even showing signs of tiredness, I squeeze out a faint smile and say to Neta:
“We are simply in the Kasbah of life.”
Kasbah. The dense quarter at the heart of the traditional village. In the village’s outer ring there are spacious houses and fields, in the inner ring the houses are more scattered, and at the center of the village: the Kasbah. Narrow alleys, chaotic construction, a bustling market, shouting, and laundry lines heavy with washing above the streets.
And right now I feel I am in the Kasbah of life, in that bustling center where everything is messy and crowded. Making a living, and caring for the kids — each with their own need, each one unique and special — and marriage and self-fulfillment and forms and bureaucracy, and Neta and I feel like every day is a charge into battle with very little time, but at least we fight together and most of the time we win, but there is always one more thing and more laundry and another form and another meal to make and more calls to make and more work on the side to scrape together a few more shekels, and taking care of that insurance and this fine and the extended family, and inviting Amrani for Shabbat, and learning a little, and…… whew — a deep breath, deep into the lungs. We are in the Kasbah of life.
I cannot say exactly when I entered the Kasbah. Maybe with the first child, maybe only with the third. I can only say that I am now deep inside the alleys. Cutting zigzags. Navigating under the arches.
And I do not know when we finally get out to the wide neighborhoods on the edge of the village. When the eldest enlists in the army? When the littlest ones are in school? When we win the lottery I never play?
But I do know one thing. That perhaps a day will come when I sit with Neta under the tree on the hill at the edge of the village, the fields will be spread out wide, it will be quiet, the house will be roomier and the worries fewer.
And then: I will look at the Kasbah at the center of the village. I will hear the voices and the shouts of those who are right now deep inside the Kasbah, and I will miss it.
I will miss the crowded laundry lines above the alleys, I will miss the smells of cooking drifting out of the windows and mingling together, the rascal teenagers hurling water balloons at passersby, the bustling, teeming market, the excited children starting school tomorrow, the tasks that begin at six in the morning and never really end, this colorfulness of life.
So I picture myself now under that tree, and fly back to the present — this bleary-eyed present, this colorful present, this wonderful present. And I share the excitement of the sweet ones starting school tomorrow. And I am glad to be here now with Neta, deep, deep inside the Kasbah of life.
