Winter in Tel-Aviv. Looking out the window, the sky is grey, it's raining,

the wind is playing with the tree tops. This is winter as I remember it,

when I used to go to my grandmother's house. She lived in the middle of

Tel-Aviv, and I always loved staying at her house during winter, since it

brought its special scenes. She would put me in the room facing Dizengoff

street. The bed was made with crisp, white linen that had the fragrance of

clean fields. The room was kept warm with a small, spiral oven, the kind you

can find these days only at flea markets. I would crack open the window,

inhaling the strange combination of the fresh, tingling smell of oranges

that climbed up from the garden below together with the smoke of rushing

buses. Freshly baked apple cake accompanied by a large glass of hot

chocolate were guaranteed to put me straight to sleep...and the only thing

thaht would bring me back from the sweet dream would be the sound of the

pounding rain on the window.

Many years have gone by since I last had that experience. it's winter again

in Tel-Aviv. The trees are still standing in the wind, the sky is still

gray, the buses are still running, and some other child is sleeping at her

grandmother's house, dreaming sweetly in the rain, not knowing that she is

building memories to last a lifetime, that she is doing what her own

daughter will probably someday do.

Looking out the window today, my mouth filled with oranges, diving happily

into my nostalgic thoughts, there was something very comforting that I was

doing it here in Tel-Aviv.

Somehow, I knew, the orange and the memories wouldn't be the same anywhere

else.

Shabbat Shalom,

Liat