Published originally in Hebrew: Haaretz, Family and relationships section, July 23rd, 2024.
When I was a young girl, I dreamed of dying for my homeland. I embraced Israeli indoctrination with open arms and amplified it. I read every book I could find about Aliyah Bet or about the Mossad itself, and even received special permission from the Ministry of Education to write my literature matriculation exam about Leon Uris's "Exodus." When I grew up, I realized I actually preferred to dream about living.
Long before this dark period, we knew we didn't want to continue living in Israel. It was clear to us that living in a house connected to the ground in such a complex country wasn't what we wanted for ourselves. We both served in the military. I was an officer. My brothers were combat soldiers. We had sons. Enough. I don't want to live by the sword. We've sanctified death enough. I want to raise a generation that sanctifies life; maybe I'll manage to dissolve a few more crumbs of intergenerational trauma and anxiety.
Life can disappear in an instant. When that happens, in the last flash of thought, I want to think that I chose the life I dreamed of. I had a dream that one day, with my future partner and children, we would move to live on a sailboat and sail the world. I didn't think it was actually possible.
"I want to raise a generation that sanctifies life; maybe I'll manage to dissolve a few more crumbs of intergenerational trauma and anxiety."
But years of dealing with complex trauma from sexual abuse didn't make it easier to love a man and learn to trust him. And if I met someone, trusted him, and fell in love, what were the chances he'd be willing to go to sea? And what were the chances that same person would also understand enough about machines to deal with identifying the color of smoke rising from the engine so I wouldn't have to deal with it? That by chance he'd be suited to learning the mechanical systems while I devoted myself to the precision of wind in the sails and map navigation?
Right after we discovered I was pregnant with my second child, Tomer had a serious kite accident. When I rode with him in the ambulance that New Year's Eve from Yoseftal Hospital to Soroka, the radio said a man was moderately injured in a kite accident. It took me a few seconds to realize they were talking about us.
The dream of a man who would live with me on a boat got pushed behind biologically pressing dreams, like having children. I swore that if I wasn't in a relationship by age 35, I would have children alone or in shared parenting. And like in a sticky romantic comedy, on my birthday at that exact age, Tomer walked into my home.
Sailing Their Lives
Right after we discovered I was pregnant with my second child, Tomer had a serious kite accident. When I rode with him in the ambulance that New Year's Eve from Yoseftal Hospital to Soroka, the radio said a man was moderately injured in a kite accident. It took me a few seconds to realize they were talking about us. About the father of my firstborn and my second in my belly, lying in the back of the ambulance connected to horse-strength painkillers. Six months of rehabilitation lay ahead of us.
Today it's easy to say that accident became the best thing that happened to us. It forced Tomer, who had started working when he was about six and never stopped, to take forced recovery time. That same guy who just two years before I had to convince to spend a week with me on a boat, worried he would suffer and have nothing to do, now started watching web series about families and people who sail their lives.
When the decision was finally made, I made it clear to him that it wouldn't be for a week, and not for a few months. It's a choice of a different life, and if you love it, we're talking about years. We decided that instead of an apartment we intended to buy with an exaggerated mortgage, we would buy a boat.
"Life can disappear in an instant. When that happens, in the last flash of thought, I want to think that I chose the life I dreamed of."
Two weeks after we signed the contract, COVID hit and lockdown descended on the country. The lockdown became our training camp. After six months with a child without kindergarten, we were almost ready. At the end of May, three years ago, we raised sails. Tomer and I, then with a three-year-old and a one-year-old, boarded the catamaran sailboat "Deep Flyer" for the first time.
Fortunately, they warned us right at the start, "Don't give up immediately, the first year is the hardest." The first year is a year of many first-time problems. Everything needs to be learned. How to manage, how and when to take breathing spaces. But there's also an advantage to the first year - we don't yet know, don't understand, don't fear.
The third year, which we're in now, is the most enjoyable. I finally started reading books. The children already swim, so falling into the water while anchored is a little less frightening. But with the years, more anxiety has also emerged: emergency scenarios, when to abandon ship, what to take if we need to abandon. Only now, three years after we set out on this journey, am I able to lift my head and start writing about what we've been through.
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