"maybe I've been here before"

In Ulpan today we watched מישהו לרוץ אתו (Someone to run with) a movie, originally a book and once again the insipiration for the title of this blog. Anyways, in the movie (which as a side-note we watched with Hebrew subtitles and with the subtitles and the fact that I had seen it before with English subtitles and read the book, I understood most of it! I'm impressive, I know) Anyways, the story takes place in Jerusalem with the two main characters "running" all around the city. 

And watching it today, I recognized the places they were. When Assaf buys the Pizza, it's at the place on the corner of HaPalmach and HaPortzim. When Tamar is busking, its on the corner of Hazoreg and the street Timol Shilshon is on in front of the guys who sell the Nargilot. And throughout the movie, I noticed more. And I noticed when we saw Assaf on HaPalmach (ordering pizza), the next time we saw him, he was running on Yafo. And anyone who knows Jerusalem knows that those two streets are not a hop, skip, or jump away from each other. It was cool.

And as I was walking home today first from Ulpan then from the after school program (מועדונית) I volunteer at, I realized that Jerusalem is becoming my city. I can give directions and know where I am in the city at any given moment. And though I would not call myself even an eighth of a Jerusalemite (ירושלימי), I feel like I know this city. And by the end of the year, I think it may feel like home. Jerusalem is the place that I (I!) first made a life for myself without family, without someone else doing it for me. 

In twenty years, (I'll be almost forty! what?) I may come here with my own family and children and this will be "my" city. It will be different of course, but nonetheless, I will walk the same streets and see the first apartment I ever rented on my own. The shuk from where I bought the ingredients for my first shabbat meal on my own. The post office (דואר) where I paid my first bills.

And of all the cities in the world, Jerusalem...