There seems to be endless scope for bizarre and fantastic human interaction. i wonder if that will always be the way, or if i'll appreciate things in the same way when i'm 57. My week so far goes a lil something like this:
Took a sherut from the Tel Aviv bus station back to my house. Before we pull out of the bus station, a young girl runs over and explains to the sherut driver that she has 10 minutes to find and catch her bus to another city, from central TA. She asks him, wide-eyed and hopeful, if he thinks she'll make it. He says he can't promise anything, but hop on. 12 minutes later we're on Allenby, central TA, pulling up next to bus no.24. "Are you heading her way?" our sherut driver shouts across to the bus. "No, but the one behind me, no.247, is going there! Signal him to wait!" Our driver thanks the bus driver like he's his cousin, reverses back down the road, finds the right bus, and as the rest of us smile at the lengths he is going to help this little girl, opens the door for her - somewhat aanxious but by now very amused - who proceeds to jump off with a "Good week to all of you!", leaving us with a hero of a driver who receives his smattering of applause modestly and continues his journey across another Tel Aviv evening.
On my way home from work yesterday, giant headache and winter coat in tow, i found myself seated next to a paratrooper with a giant bag. Soldiers, navy seals and the paratroopers in beige form part of the everyday scenery here, so i didnt take much notice. Alright, i noticed that he was super cute. Across from me, a fellow Herzlya-TA commuter had whipped out his laptop, now balanced precariously on his knees between me, the tzanchan, a very pretty girl (who i thought resembled MJ in his early years) and the giant bag. When it came time for the paratroopers to get off, they got up early. Too early. i stood in the aisle, waiting for them to make space but they didnt seem to want to move further down the bus. Head pounding, clutching my work bag, i tried my best not to fall over for about 2 minutes when suddenly Laptop boy came alive. "Bro, she's waiting for you to move", he called out, but was ignored. Looking up again, he says "hey, she's standing here, holding on, waiting for you guys to move!" Finally, i get to climb back in my seat, with a thank you to Laptop boy. i got a wink. i didnt really need to be rescued, but who said chivalry was dead?
i joined a new dating website(as a midyear pledge, have decided to increase the effort i put into "networking") and have started exchanging messages with a brilliantly funny man who seems to get my sense of humour/lack of people skills. in case it doesnt work out, i wont mention his name.. but it's a good one. We spoke tonight for the first time, which is usually awkward and strange but was fine, this time. keep your earlobes crossed.
Thinking a lot about yael stemmer (pearlman) these days, who is undergoing intense chemotherapy and stem cell treatment. Take a minute to think about her and pray/hope for her full & speedy recovery: yael chana hadassah, bat rivka.
night all xx
March 30, 2009
March 24, 2009
This '25 Things' malarky had been doing the rounds on Facebook for a while. Over the course of a few long bus rides to and from work, I came up with my list. I enjoyed the process of toying with memories, deciding which were actually about me and which were things that just happened to, or around, me. It seems kind of bloggy, so am posting. Enjoy.
25 Things
1. My initials spell DMB, something my friend MBD finds hilarious
2. I’m number 3 of 4 siblings, and have sandwich syndrome, i.e. - i think i’m Nutella.
3. I love Nutella
4. I used to waste my birthday-cake wishes on cute boyfriends and being skinny, now I wish for financial stability and a 2-state solution.
5. My Dad records my favourite TV shows from England and sends them out to Israel for me, and my Mum sends us each a Valentines Day card every year, without fail. I know parents are meant to love unconditionally, but the little stuff lets me know they mean it.
6. I actually believe in the god-like power of a strong cup of Tetleys
7. The first boy I ever loved was called Josh
8. The last boy I loved ... was quite a while ago, and ate too much falafel.
9. I lived in Japan for three years but didn’t try squid or fried locusts, despite their supermarket availability. I do know how to bow really nicely though.
10. If Sweet Valley was my life, I would be Elizabeth...always secretly hoping to morph into Jessica.
11. The bedroom mirror is my ally, the hallway mirror can suck it
12. In my dream grown-up house, I have a library with floor-to-ceiling books that requires a ladder on wheels to get to the ones at the top
13. I will happily watch The Wizard of Oz over and over, without shame or biscuit breaks
14. I love and adore my nephews and neice equally, they are all fantastic and beautiful.
15. My secret favourite is Jack. I would buy him if I could.
16. Strange, well-written books are my happy place; sometimes I disappear inside them and need a friend to pull me out.
17. Four different driving instructors, no license yet.
18. One Shabbat afternoon, I stuck purple tissue paper up my little brother’s nose and then panicked when it wouldn’t come out, and cried.
19. I am a Lorelai, not a Rory
20. Maths homework used to make me hyperventilate, until I discovered Counting Crows
21. I don’t like when diet coke fizzes up my nose, it makes me think of swimming lessons and learning to put my face in the water.
22. My hands are tiny and plump, like my Bobba... and her hands
23. I want to spend a year in Amsterdam, ringing my bicycle bell, eating cheese and learning to play piano in someone's loft.
24. I saw Dirty Dancing too young. I didn’t know Penny needed an abortion, I thought someone had ruined her dress and Robbie wouldn’t buy her a new one.
25. If life hands you lemons, you should indeed go make lemonade. But my parents taught me to add the metaphorical sugar; otherwise it just tastes disgusting.
25 Things
1. My initials spell DMB, something my friend MBD finds hilarious
2. I’m number 3 of 4 siblings, and have sandwich syndrome, i.e. - i think i’m Nutella.
3. I love Nutella
4. I used to waste my birthday-cake wishes on cute boyfriends and being skinny, now I wish for financial stability and a 2-state solution.
5. My Dad records my favourite TV shows from England and sends them out to Israel for me, and my Mum sends us each a Valentines Day card every year, without fail. I know parents are meant to love unconditionally, but the little stuff lets me know they mean it.
6. I actually believe in the god-like power of a strong cup of Tetleys
7. The first boy I ever loved was called Josh
8. The last boy I loved ... was quite a while ago, and ate too much falafel.
9. I lived in Japan for three years but didn’t try squid or fried locusts, despite their supermarket availability. I do know how to bow really nicely though.
10. If Sweet Valley was my life, I would be Elizabeth...always secretly hoping to morph into Jessica.
11. The bedroom mirror is my ally, the hallway mirror can suck it
12. In my dream grown-up house, I have a library with floor-to-ceiling books that requires a ladder on wheels to get to the ones at the top
13. I will happily watch The Wizard of Oz over and over, without shame or biscuit breaks
14. I love and adore my nephews and neice equally, they are all fantastic and beautiful.
15. My secret favourite is Jack. I would buy him if I could.
16. Strange, well-written books are my happy place; sometimes I disappear inside them and need a friend to pull me out.
17. Four different driving instructors, no license yet.
18. One Shabbat afternoon, I stuck purple tissue paper up my little brother’s nose and then panicked when it wouldn’t come out, and cried.
19. I am a Lorelai, not a Rory
20. Maths homework used to make me hyperventilate, until I discovered Counting Crows
21. I don’t like when diet coke fizzes up my nose, it makes me think of swimming lessons and learning to put my face in the water.
22. My hands are tiny and plump, like my Bobba... and her hands
23. I want to spend a year in Amsterdam, ringing my bicycle bell, eating cheese and learning to play piano in someone's loft.
24. I saw Dirty Dancing too young. I didn’t know Penny needed an abortion, I thought someone had ruined her dress and Robbie wouldn’t buy her a new one.
25. If life hands you lemons, you should indeed go make lemonade. But my parents taught me to add the metaphorical sugar; otherwise it just tastes disgusting.
March 23, 2009
This past weekend, I went to stay with my Grandma and her sister. This may not seem monumental news, but even as I went through the rituals of experiencing shabbat with my grandmother, I wanted to write about it. As a little bit of background, my Grandma Renee is 86 years old (may she live until 120), lives in London for most of the year but visits Israel for festivals. Until a couple of weeks ago, Grandma Renee lived with her younger brother Bernard in a corner-house on the Finchley Road - the home owned originally by their own parents. My great-uncle Bernard, and another brother Michael, had never married. So when my grandma divorced my grandfather, in an era when divorce was rare in the orthodox Jewish community, she moved back into her childhood home, now with three children in tow. My mother was the middle of these three children. (Yes, the psychological issues you're now imagining that my mother has, all of them probably exist.) Both great-uncles, Bernard and Michael, were still living at home, which is where they remained, for the next 50-odd years. Odd in all senses of the word. Then three weeks ago, my great-uncle Bernard passed away suddenly. As if death is ever un-sudden. Amongst the youngest and fittest of the remaining siblings - 4, out of 8. My grandma had been worried, that Tuesday morning, that he'd been in the bath an awfully long time. She called my mother to say she thought that maybe he'd fainted. My mum came round. The details are blurry, nobody wants to talk about it. They got the door open, and there he was. They told my younger cousins he'd passed away 'in his sleep'.
'Uncle Ben', wrapped only in a tallit, was buried here in Israel, in the burial grounds of the prestigious Ponevezh Yeshiva, in the tradition of all of my mothers' older relatives. At the funeral, under a hot sun bouncing off white, Jerusalem-stone tombs, my grandmother stood weeping by her younger brother's grave. "I didn't want you to leave me," she wept, "...I didn't think you would go first."
Fast forward three weeks, to this past shabbat. In almost 50 years, my grandmother had never had a shabbat without Uncle Ben. Although I was there on the first shabbat after he passed away, I had my mum, my aunt and my cousins there as back-up. We tried our best to make two devastated, bereaved sisters laugh, to tell stories about Uncle Ben, to explore their feelings - with us there as their safety-net. This shabbat, I would be going it alone.
Of course when I arrived, they wouldn't let me lift a finger to help prepare and so I stood on the balcony, gazing out over the Jerusalem forest, wondering how they had become so strong. The idea, just the briefest of notions I don't even dare to explore when I think about losing a sibling, G-d forbid, made me shudder through to my core - an expression I never understood until it tore through me on my grandmothers' balcony, under the gaze of a setting Jerusalem sun. I turned to watch my grandmother and her sister Sylvia, pottering in the kitchen. My grandma called across to me - "You should wear your hair down, darling, it doesn't suit you up like that." I had forgotten that shabbat alone with them also takes a metaphorical suit of body armour, to bounce off the ego-bashing that comes with their loving commentary. At 5.09pm, I watched my grandmother light 8 candles - for her parents and siblings no longer with us. I watched her 'bentsch licht', reciting their names, asking G-d to make their 'gan eden' - their paradise - an easy one, to keep them all together. I watched her, tears gathering in my eyes, praying for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren; beseeching G-d to keep us healthy, to prolong our lives. I wondered how many more opportunities I would have in my lifetime to watch my grandma bentsch licht. I pictured myself telling my future children how Grandma Renee used to recite a passage in yiddish after lighting her candles, how she focused on each person in our family, wishing only good things upon them.
Later on, after a hearty meal, I watched her during Grace After Meals. During the short section where, silently, you bless those at your table and in your family, I saw my grandmother wince as she said ' achi' - years of blessing her brother, sat to her left-hand side, the shock of losing him, all wrapped up in one word. She closed her eyes, as if in pain. She finished bentsching, and then she began to talk. To tell stories about my Uncle Bernard, how she felt without him around, how terrified she is to return to the house in London and realise that he is, really, gone. Without my siblings to hide behind, no cousins, no other grandchildren around, I bore witness to my grandmother's fears, feelings, memories, a moment of pain, and her laughter. Her laugh, that causes her whole wrinkly, pale face to fold inwards, her eyes screwed up tightly, holding in peals of laughter that cause her body to shake in amusement.
I don't know if the person I end up with will come along anytime soon, or if they'll get to meet my Grandma Renee, my last living grandparent. There's no doubt that my children will not be priviliged to know her, as they will not have met my lovely Bobba, or funny old Zeida. I wish I could have bottled the feeling of my shabbat alone with my Grandma Renee this week - to be able to take it out and breathe in deeply... in future years, when I can only miss her.
'Uncle Ben', wrapped only in a tallit, was buried here in Israel, in the burial grounds of the prestigious Ponevezh Yeshiva, in the tradition of all of my mothers' older relatives. At the funeral, under a hot sun bouncing off white, Jerusalem-stone tombs, my grandmother stood weeping by her younger brother's grave. "I didn't want you to leave me," she wept, "...I didn't think you would go first."
Fast forward three weeks, to this past shabbat. In almost 50 years, my grandmother had never had a shabbat without Uncle Ben. Although I was there on the first shabbat after he passed away, I had my mum, my aunt and my cousins there as back-up. We tried our best to make two devastated, bereaved sisters laugh, to tell stories about Uncle Ben, to explore their feelings - with us there as their safety-net. This shabbat, I would be going it alone.
Of course when I arrived, they wouldn't let me lift a finger to help prepare and so I stood on the balcony, gazing out over the Jerusalem forest, wondering how they had become so strong. The idea, just the briefest of notions I don't even dare to explore when I think about losing a sibling, G-d forbid, made me shudder through to my core - an expression I never understood until it tore through me on my grandmothers' balcony, under the gaze of a setting Jerusalem sun. I turned to watch my grandmother and her sister Sylvia, pottering in the kitchen. My grandma called across to me - "You should wear your hair down, darling, it doesn't suit you up like that." I had forgotten that shabbat alone with them also takes a metaphorical suit of body armour, to bounce off the ego-bashing that comes with their loving commentary. At 5.09pm, I watched my grandmother light 8 candles - for her parents and siblings no longer with us. I watched her 'bentsch licht', reciting their names, asking G-d to make their 'gan eden' - their paradise - an easy one, to keep them all together. I watched her, tears gathering in my eyes, praying for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren; beseeching G-d to keep us healthy, to prolong our lives. I wondered how many more opportunities I would have in my lifetime to watch my grandma bentsch licht. I pictured myself telling my future children how Grandma Renee used to recite a passage in yiddish after lighting her candles, how she focused on each person in our family, wishing only good things upon them.
Later on, after a hearty meal, I watched her during Grace After Meals. During the short section where, silently, you bless those at your table and in your family, I saw my grandmother wince as she said ' achi' - years of blessing her brother, sat to her left-hand side, the shock of losing him, all wrapped up in one word. She closed her eyes, as if in pain. She finished bentsching, and then she began to talk. To tell stories about my Uncle Bernard, how she felt without him around, how terrified she is to return to the house in London and realise that he is, really, gone. Without my siblings to hide behind, no cousins, no other grandchildren around, I bore witness to my grandmother's fears, feelings, memories, a moment of pain, and her laughter. Her laugh, that causes her whole wrinkly, pale face to fold inwards, her eyes screwed up tightly, holding in peals of laughter that cause her body to shake in amusement.
I don't know if the person I end up with will come along anytime soon, or if they'll get to meet my Grandma Renee, my last living grandparent. There's no doubt that my children will not be priviliged to know her, as they will not have met my lovely Bobba, or funny old Zeida. I wish I could have bottled the feeling of my shabbat alone with my Grandma Renee this week - to be able to take it out and breathe in deeply... in future years, when I can only miss her.
March 08, 2009
Stability
7 months. What a naughty, neglectful blogger I am. 7 months ago, I was different. The world was dfferent. The full and horrible meaning of "credit crunch" and "world financial crisis" had not quite hit wth its full force yet... the Lehman Brothers closure, we thought, was an unfortunate singular incident.
And, 7 months ago, I hadn't yet moved house, to move in with myself - quite the crazy experiment. I am now what the rest of the world considers "Quite-Grown-Up". The Quite-Grown-Up me owns things. There is a fridge, an oven, a bed, a washing machine and a cholent pot among other acquisitions. Somehow, I have found myself in gainful, full-time employment. A Single Quite-Grown-Up, making her way in the world/Tel Aviv, living in the heart of a vibrant city that never sleeps.. By the beach, I would add, just so you'll come visit me... it all sounds objectively good and normal.
Well then of course secretly - oh and, for example, not SO secretly because I will actually tell anyone who will listen - I Want to Break Free("eee").
I want to sell my things,my oven, my cholent pot - pack my bags and run off to a European location, to start all over again. Because beginnings are the best bit. When I first moved here, people kept patting me on the back, crooning "all beginnings are hard." Not for me, no sirree. Am just a bit bored by repetition, by sameness. Can a person actually be bored by stability? is it stability thats boring, or routine? why are they tied together, in my head? After a year, my job has become mind-numbing, I'm antsy and I keep looking for the neon green Exit signs. Then, for the first time in ages, a guy i was on a date with last week actually asked me about israel and "my intentions." Yes, i replied, i plan to make an honest woman out of her. As an israeli on a date with a new immigrant he, quite rightly, wanted to know if i saw myself staying here, raising children, building my life here. Evidently my talk of running away to Amsterdam, riding a bicycle around and learning to play piano for a year had not assured him of my own stability. Which, in turn, is not the impression i want to give off. Where does this leave me? Somewhere between bored, hopeful and frustrated. A complicated place to be, on a Sunday morning.
7 months. What a naughty, neglectful blogger I am. 7 months ago, I was different. The world was dfferent. The full and horrible meaning of "credit crunch" and "world financial crisis" had not quite hit wth its full force yet... the Lehman Brothers closure, we thought, was an unfortunate singular incident.
And, 7 months ago, I hadn't yet moved house, to move in with myself - quite the crazy experiment. I am now what the rest of the world considers "Quite-Grown-Up". The Quite-Grown-Up me owns things. There is a fridge, an oven, a bed, a washing machine and a cholent pot among other acquisitions. Somehow, I have found myself in gainful, full-time employment. A Single Quite-Grown-Up, making her way in the world/Tel Aviv, living in the heart of a vibrant city that never sleeps.. By the beach, I would add, just so you'll come visit me... it all sounds objectively good and normal.
Well then of course secretly - oh and, for example, not SO secretly because I will actually tell anyone who will listen - I Want to Break Free("eee").
I want to sell my things,my oven, my cholent pot - pack my bags and run off to a European location, to start all over again. Because beginnings are the best bit. When I first moved here, people kept patting me on the back, crooning "all beginnings are hard." Not for me, no sirree. Am just a bit bored by repetition, by sameness. Can a person actually be bored by stability? is it stability thats boring, or routine? why are they tied together, in my head? After a year, my job has become mind-numbing, I'm antsy and I keep looking for the neon green Exit signs. Then, for the first time in ages, a guy i was on a date with last week actually asked me about israel and "my intentions." Yes, i replied, i plan to make an honest woman out of her. As an israeli on a date with a new immigrant he, quite rightly, wanted to know if i saw myself staying here, raising children, building my life here. Evidently my talk of running away to Amsterdam, riding a bicycle around and learning to play piano for a year had not assured him of my own stability. Which, in turn, is not the impression i want to give off. Where does this leave me? Somewhere between bored, hopeful and frustrated. A complicated place to be, on a Sunday morning.
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