188. Arrested as Terrorist

188.

Arrested as Terrorist.

 

Another mosque is nearby, but I don’t pass the entrance examination.

I cracked the crystal of my wristwatch and have wrapped it with tape to keep dust out. It is in my handbag.

When the suspicious guard finds it and points it out to me I see that it does look peculiar. He marches me over to a police station where the officer in charge orders me to unwrap it. When I do and expose the damaged wristwatch he apologizes for the inconvenience but it did look suspicious as I now see and they have been blasted enough around here to make the coolest head edgy.

Before I leave the police station I ask the young officer if I look like an Arab terrorist and he says that of course I do. I am youngish with the light brown hair, blue eyes and very pale skin typical of Northern European ancestry. Me, an Arab terrorist?

I walk through the olive trees to the Israel Museum. Here for the first time in my life I see original paintings by Paul Klee. Even though I have only seen his work in reproduction before, his whimsical and gentle trip has made him one of my all time favorite artists when I was back in school.

There are other curious things exhibited in the museum: a collection of masterfully done photographs, some ancient Chinese paintings and some fragments of the famous “Dead Sea Scrolls”—the old fathers trying to communicate with their great, great, ever-so-great grandselves.

(And, dear Folk of the Future, when you discover this writing stuffed into a pickle-jar in a cave in California, I hope it will bring you a smile and not more argument and dissension. I would prefer to leave you with a cheerful legacy than another complicated philosophy or a “sacred” rock to fight over!)

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