On Rothschild outside Independence Hall she sits and waits

My heart bleeds for my country and my youth. For memories that are so sought after it stings. It seems like ages ago when I was a kid at barely 21 in Israel for the first and second time and even then my soul remembered. I can almost touch everything I had forgotten that now my photos remind me. How I wish I could dive into each one and tap into my 6 senses - smell, touch, listen - truly FEEL textures, streets, I was on Rothschild before I knew what it was, will I ever taste falafel as that which I had in Tsfat - still best ever to this day but was it because these were made on Holy ground?

Tel Aviv of my youth, how different you would have been had I not been so committed, so strict to another's convictions. I don't even recognize myself, my hair the longest it had ever been, curly, wild, stomach flat, 10 - no 15 - pounds lighter, and that spark in my eyes...

All of us were so different back then, how we've changed and yet how some things never will.

I gaze at these photos, memories frozen in time and re-live them with the knowledge of how it truly feels to be in Nachalat Binyamin on a Friday afternoon and eating falafel on Allenby, what it's like to feel like Tsfat belongs to you and only you for one day, how every new site is worthy of a bracha...in these photos I look the part of Israeli beauty, Malkat HaYofi I never knew I was. How I wish I knew what others knew then that I am only realizing today - a little bit older, one hair grayer, 15 lbs. curvier. And I know how it feels when you've realized you've just had a full conversation in Hebrew, or even better - your first dream.

The photos continue. Something's missing now. It's him. And it doesn't feel okay but I know deep down it does. More Israel. I remember the corner where I photographed "K'mo b'America?" spray painted on the concrete - the beginning of my fascination with Tel Aviv street art. And was it really like America? It wasn't then and isn't now, but even then sparked questions of identity. Israel - who are you trying to be if not yourself?

Old streets, old memories, the photos stop and I am back in New York, a girl at 22, a girl at 25 - 3 years have passed and yet some things still never change.