I was coming back from Tel Aviv recently, and we had forty minutes of bumps. I got so scared I grabbed a paper and pen and put them in my pocket, just in case we crashed and I needed to write a letter from wherever we landed.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
You learn a lot more from those bumps than from when things are going great.
Even when I have to write a simple letter I'm scared stiff as if faced with looming seasickness.
I went to Israel when the missiles were falling there.
Once I fell out of a tree and was hit by a motorbike. I still have the scar on my head now.
After my grandmother passed away, I felt the urge to take my camera to her flat. I knew this flat from my childhood in Tel Aviv. Going to this flat was like going abroad; there was a real feeling of traveling across Tel Aviv and ending up in Berlin.
I remember the moment when it hit me. I was walking down Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side, and it felt like I was literally walking out of a jail cell that I had been in. At that moment, I realized I could shave if I wanted. It was up to me and no one else.
One or two of the trips were a bit scary. Soldiers had me at gun point on one trip, locked me in my van all night and escorted me in and out of buildings when I wanted to wash.
When I was a kid it was big news when someone flew around the world in a little aeroplane, but nobody cared when I did it. Then, to rub salt into my wounds, the customs people ripped my aeroplane to pieces, looking for stuff.
When I broke my leg on the dirt bike, fear got the best of me that day. I hesitated. I didn't hit it as fast as I could have, and I came up short. It was the first time in my life I couldn't get back up.
It was the first time I traveled alone, but I was not scared.