• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Connect
  • Donate
  • Join
  • Login
Story Circle Network Logo

Story Circle

by, for, and about women

  • Home
  • Events
    • Spain Writing Trip
    • Members in the News
    • Opportunities
  • Classes
    • Online Classes
    • Webinars
    • Enroll
    • Propose a Class
    • Propose a Webinar
  • Book Reviews
    • Story Circle Book Reviews
    • For Authors & Publishers
    • Author Interviews
    • For Reviewers
    • Review Team
  • Publications
    • SCN Journal
    • Our Substack
      • True Words from Real Women
      • StoryCraft: Writers Write About Writing
      • Submit a post
    • Real Women Write anthology
      • 2024 Anthology
    • Member Library
    • Story Circle Books
    • Flash newsletter
  • Book Awards
    • Sarton & Gilda
    • Guidelines
    • Sarton Application
    • Gilda Application
    • Past SCN Book Award Winners
  • Contests
    • The Story Circle LifeWriting Competition
    • The Story CIrcle Poetry Competition
    • The Story Circle Online Writing Competition
  • Resources
    • Circles Program
    • Roundtables
    • Opportunities
    • Member Library
    • Media
  • About
    • About SCN
    • Member Benefits

April 5 – Every Year on Passover

April 5, 2023 by Ariela Zucker

A few minutes into the journey when the train makes a sharp turn and enters the mountain ravine, I am ready. My face pressed to the window, I follow the brook running from one side of the tracks to the other. Maybe, this time, I will see them. Emek Refaim. The valley of the giants. The words, like a mantra, spin in my head. Another sharp turn thrusts me back into my seat, then the piercing noise of the horn, breaking into a hundred slivers against the mountainside, echoing back giants . . . giants . . . gia and within minutes, we are out crossing the open fields.

In the central bus station in Tel-Aviv, lines of buses are puffing and spitting smoke, ready to lurch. A dense cloud of fried food fills the air. The sun is beating on my head, and my sweating hand is clutching my mother's. If I’ll lose her, my mom, like the last time, who will find me?

When the bus climbs the last hill, my mother says, “Be ready,” My eyes are glued to the window and still it always catches me by surprise. She points out, at the lattice of greens and browns, dotted with blue, the valley of Jezreel.

I count the minutes now. The signs at the side of the road are hard to make out, as the bus accelerates on the last section of the road. Yael, Deborah, Heber the Kenite, the Hill of Moreh, images of glorious battles pale in the face of the new coming adventure, running to catch the bus to the moshav.

Now the road is narrow and bumpy. The mountain of Gilboa on our right (“O mountains of Gilboa, Let not dew or rain be on you . . .”) comes alive in the view of the bald patches on the slopes. At the familiar cement brick bus stop, we are let off.

Quiet, just my parents, me and our suitcases. We are waiting for a ride. Yellow fields of wheat, almost ripe and ready to be harvested, and across the street the crumbling walls of the Ottoman, the British station still guarding the train line from Syria to Haifa.

Minutes later, a horse-drawn wagon let us off at the back of my aunt’s house.

We walk inside through the back door and pile into the kitchen. “Surprise!” I scream at the top of my lungs.

It’s Passover once again.

Born in Jerusalem, I spent two decades between the U.S. and a Judean desert town before settling in Maine in 2001. There, my husband and I ran a motel near Acadia for sixteen years. A lifelong bilingual writer, I now devote myself fully to writing in retirement, drawing on a rich tapestry of places, people, and memories that have shaped my journey. I offer online classes and blogs regularly at Paper Dragon (http/:www.paperdragon.me)

Filed Under: Ariela Zucker, True Words from Real Women

Primary Sidebar

hoye-orig

This blog is coordinated by author, photographer, and gardener Linda Hoye. Find her at A Slice of Life.

Subscribe

Get new posts in your inbox!
Loading

Archives

2009-2019 Archives

This blog is written by Story Circle members.


Not a member? Go here to join.

Contributors

  • Amber Lea Starfire
    • February 1 - What Happens When You Write 20 Minutes a Day?
  • Ariela Zucker - View Blog
    • To Walk With Stability
    • Not Doing is a Form of Doing
  • Carol Newman
    • June 26 - Cascade
    • June 5 - Trains, Planes, and Automobiles
  • blatter.carol
    • I Met Nurse Ratched
    • November 8 - My Mother
  • Barbara Scott - View Blog
    • February 12 - LOL Before Divorce
  • christinamwells - View Blog
    • May 31 - The Hairbrush
  • Christine Hassing - View Blog
    • December 20 - Opening
  • Carrie Steckl - View Blog
    • April 4 - Let’s Love the Good in Others
    • Five Minutes on Sundays
  • debradolan1958
    • Wedding Dress Whim
    • March 13 - Museum of Broken Relationships
  • Diane
    • Walking Through Fear
  • Doris Clark - View Blog
    • May 24 - Dad's Home Again
  • Dorothy Preston - View Blog
    • December 6 - The Rutted Path
    • August 23 - Ghosts of Rejection
  • Lisa Droz - View Blog
    • July 27 - The Seat Next to Me
    • June 29 - Pay Dirt
  • Girly
    • November 2 - A Morning
  • Heidi Schwab-Wilhelmi
    • November 22 - Piano Days
  • Judy - View Blog
    • December 12 - Numb and Puzzling Grief
  • Jeanne Guy - View Blog
    • July 20 - Under Water
  • Jeanette
    • A Clouded Mind
  • Janice Airhart - View Blog
    • October 19 - The Broadmoor
  • Joanne Martin
    • April 12 - The Last Time
    • November 2 - Helping Hands
  • JSchecterZeeb
    • D-Day June 6, 1944
  • Kali - View Blog
    • March 29 - When Life Hands You . . .
    • May 10 - A Newfound Friend
  • B. Lynn Goodwin - View Blog
    • August 3 - Notes From an Exceptional Terrier
  • Linda Hoye - View Blog
    • We've Moved
    • September 12 - Just Lily and Me
  • Len Leatherwood
    • July 6 - Love, Color, and a Bit of Surprise
  • LWatt - View Blog
    • October 18 - In-Between
    • January 31 - Hail Oh, Hail
  • Marian Beaman - View Blog
    • You Found Your Glasses Where?
    • June 14 - Right Thing Too Late
  • Marilea Rabasa - View Blog
    • Walking Through Cancer - Part 13
    • Walking Through Cancer - Part 12
  • marthaslavin - View Blog
    • December 30 - Unfinished Year 2020
  • Michele Kwasniewski
    • November 29 - Hanging With The Big Dogs
    • May 6 - Happy Birthday, Mom
  • Melanie
    • May 18 - Infusing Hope
  • Monique - View Blog
    • February 7 - The Answer
  • Nancy Oelklaus - View Blog
    • September 6 - Life Goes On
  • Lisa Hacker
    • August 30 -The Great Book Purge
  • repak.t
    • Switching Creative Gears
  • Sara Etgen-Baker
    • Talking Aprons
    • You Had Me At Pumpkin Spice
  • simonandrea - View Blog
    • February 22 - Words Are My Life
  • srick18153 - View Blog
    • April 2 - Sarah and Wally Go to Space Camp
  • Story Circle Network - View Blog
    • April 19 - My Mother's Kitchen
  • Suzanne Adam - View Blog
    • July 13 - COVID Roller Coaster
  • suzy beal
    • April 26 - The Culling Year
    • January 18 - Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice
  • Wentlin
    • August 24 - Uncommon
    • July 6 - An Exercise in Being Human

Footer

Subscribe to our Substack

Her Stories: Writing Craft & Community

Story Circle Network Logo
  • Home
  • About
  • Classes
  • Publications
  • Book Reviews
  • Growing Together
  • Connect
  • Donate
  • Join
  • Login

Copyright 1997 - 2025  Story Circle Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy