Tears from Palestine – My homage to a friends wedding

Sometimes when I’ve been on the road for a while I get so used to living in the moment, day in day out, that I don’t even realise what I am doing at the time. It’s just a spontaneous action that creates memories.

When I woke up that morning, I knew where all my mates back home were going to be that day: at the wedding of two of our friends. I always enjoyed the big events, but I wasn’t going to be there. Instead, I was taking a tour through Palestine. Months of planning had gone into this four week trip around the Middle East.

All day I had my eye out for a gift for the happy couple, but it wasn’t until we stopped at the dividing wall between Palestine and Israel, and the tour guide handed me a can of spray paint, that the idea hit me.

So without much thought, I got to work. I only had a small window of opportunity to create my own little piece of art and I finished it in a few minutes. It wasn’t my best work, but I still stood back proud of what I had created. I snapped a photo, posted it on the wedded couple’s Facebook page, and was back on the bus ready for the next stop on the tour.

Not until later that evening did I realise the moment I had created. Sitting at the backpackers bar, I read their response to my photo, and a tear drop fell into my glass of whisky.