The Wheels of Fortune

It is apparent that we are all surrounded by occurrences that surprise us, taken unaware and unsuspecting for the good or ill they afford us.My husband & I do part of our weekly exercises in a Community Centers thankfully largely subsidized by the city municipality here in Eilat.

The people we associate with are there are 50 and up.There are also large nursery groups and teen dance programs for after school hours.

After two years of attending a wonderful program there, speaking in several languages to communicate (this is by choice since everybody gets along most comfortably in Hebrew), I was talking for the first time with a woman I had been seeing on a "hello" basis a few times a week.

She was sharing some deep life experiences with me of her young adulthood and arrival in Israel.As just about the whole adult membership ( my husband and I are an exception!)has done at one time or another in the coffee room before class.

She mentioned that she left Morocco with her young husband not knowing she was pregnant, and lost the baby on the ship.She was deep into sadness while recalling this event in her life as well as the mistreatment she had experienced in Morocco as a Jewish person.As we talked further, I asked how she was able to get out of Morocco given that I had worked as a spy in the early sixties to get the Jews out of the three North African countries (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) under French rule at the time.

She said the magic word "HIAS"(which stood and still stands for Hebrew International Agency--the"S"???)

I repeated her words as my body become numb. "That was my agency.I worked for them.I was hired in Paris where I had been living, and , ironically, learning Hebrew on my own at home getting ready to spend a long term stay in Israel. I figured that I had never been attached to my Judaism, only attached to my love of all that is and was French speaking until that point in my life.

Why not excavate a little, and go back to the source.This was 1962,fourteen years since the Israeli independence had been established.My  live-in boyfriend at that time met a few Israelis in the Post Office, and talked to them casually, in French of course.He felt proud, evidently,that his smart American girlfriend was studying Hebrew at home. They were looking for a spy to submit secret papers about debarking ships full of Jews without passports, or at least false ones.They gave him an address of an apartment where I was to meet them for the plans.

I arrived alone, in the apartment the two of them were occupying, with my American passport  and my temporary  French carte d'identite permitting me passage in and out of France as a foreigner.The interview was conducted entirely and comfortably in French. I was hired! I had to stay for 5-7 days in each location so as to appear as an American tourist.I had to pretend NOT to speak French!This was a woeful situation.Foreign travel, though completely free, and a beach stay, and whatever sightseeing I chose for myself.A Bassia dream!

 

During the course of conversation with this woman, 55 years later(!), tears welled up in both of our eyes.My husband was present. "You were probably part of the team who helped her leave Morocco", he said. "H.I.A.S.", I said. We all smiled. Finally, I got to see and meet someone whose name I may have carried on a list that was all secret coded for secret departure to Israel one night after my arrival. A true wheel of fortune!I enjoyed my stay, not knowing the importance of my secret mission!

What a trip----in both meanings of that phrase.

Ah, sweet mystery of life!

To think that I meet and talk with so many at this place (name of it :COULIER) several times a week, and have done so for coming on two years next month, and I never tied the two parts of my life together.I continued to be amazed at the number of older people who had spent the better part of their lives right here in Eilat, and raised their families here.So many speak French-not perfectly any more, but with fluency and Ease in understanding.

There are those form Turkey as well as the North African countries.They speak Ladino, a cross breed of Spanish. There is a part of me that feel very much at home with these people!

Miss Rheingold----

DOWN WITH CLICHES

DOWN WITH CLICHES

I   have been thinking that all of the good advice that has been handed down or more accurately voiced down is pretty useless after one pronounces the syllables.

The usual reaction is “Oh boy, that is so true!”Thereafter, one promptly forgets it until seeing it in print again, or hearing it in voice, and repeats it to someone close by to share its deep wisdom. These statements are forgotten almost as instantly as they are recalled. So how do we develop the real wisdom to guide us through life? We don’t! We just continue to live until it all comes together as does a well fashioned outfit after several or sometimes more than several matches, try-ons, and discards.

As I look back (which I do not often, but from time to time when asked to) I see that every misstep was a step in the right direction. I was after a deep love for a man who would be willing to reciprocate. I wanted all of him and for him to have all of me. OK the cliché song, “All of me”, that merits staying up while most other clichés are to be shot down. That may have something to do with the deep and binding love I felt for my father (his Yahrseit, anniversary of his death, is tomorrow, January 23^rd).I loved spending time with him while he played endlessly and effortlessly on the baby Spinet piano for hours. I stood by and sang or danced to the music. Most of these sessions were after my parents were divorced. I was nine years old when he had to leave to be hospitalized for a whole year. When he got out his visits were steady and regular.

We went camping together. We huddled hours over dictionaries, pouring over pages of words selected at random. He   enjoyed my funny acts and my linguistic interests .In fact, I believe he enjoyed all of me (whoops, once again).We saw Laurence Olivier in “RICHARD the THIRD” on 53^rd St. He took me to my first French restaurant in Manhattan (MAISON de WINTER).

When I graduated Jr. High, he allowed me to invite a girlfriend to the French Café on one side of Rockefeller Plaza’s ice skating rink. I can remember so many details of that day. Although he was an alcoholic, he remained sober for all of our outings. .I never thought about wanting to marry him in any conscious way. I just knew that I loved being with him whenever I could.

When I was 16 years old he remarried, and a year later they had a baby boy. This was and remained my only sibling. I adored him, and told everyone who would listen that I had a brother!

I kept on marrying in order to feel the closeness I felt with him. This was not a conscious thought. There was always something missing, or as we say,”off”.

Almost 23 years ago, I met my new roommate who was put into my apartment while I was staying in Mexico for a three month period. My existing roommate wanted to move on. When I returned home to Los Angeles, I found my new mate in my apartment. Another cliché, a song title, ”The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”. He was to become my mate after eight weeks of living together as roommates.

I firmly believe each of us   is seeking to duplicate a beloved adult from our childhood as an adult mate. Mine was delivered to me. It took me some years before I realized the truth and wisdom of this selection.

A deep thinker, a really good cook a fine musician and artist who appreciates my wild humor, my antics, and above all my acting and linguistic ability-----besides being a man of style and good looks! Who could ask for more?

He even loves his moccasins! I do not believe in afterlife, except when it comes into this one! My search ended when I met David. He was placed into my life.

Our love has grown with pitfalls, yes, and humps to climb, yes, would I repeat this choice, oh yes, without reservations. I have big needs. I am a sexy attention junkie.

I am a devout Yoga lover. I am a wanna be beauty queen. I am a committed planner and driven to execute social interactions! I love travel-----wild, unpredicted travel, and carefully selected travel and any mention of the word drives me to fantasy and to realization! I love restaurants and plays; I am a New York chick after all!

There are some things we do not share, but they are few. Some diversity is necessary. Oh! May I add another cliché that just popped into my mind and seems to fit my life perfectly?

“IT IS NEVER TOO LATE”---then a line from a poem of W.H. Auden

 they run like rabbits”----this line has not yet become a cliché---a pity!

Love from MISS RHEINGOLD

CLOUDS, CLOCKS, and CALENDARS

I am not quite sure why I have entitled this week’s blog with the above title. It came to me at night as things sometimes do to all of us.

 

Clouds, I suppose because things are often not absolutely clear to understand or to figure out. Clocks, this must be because I have been feeling the push of time, the chase against the clock to complete all I still have the desire to complete.

Calendars, because I am so married to mine and to my daily and longer term plans that I often refer to my personal calendar to make sure I have not forgotten any task or phone call. So, at least two out of three are down to earth!

I omitted some of the most important job details last week when reviewing my work. This is not to amplify a resume, but rather to illuminate my life choices and decisions (Is there a difference between choices and decisions?)

While completing my college undergraduate studies and beyond, I worked as a camp counselor for six years, specifically a Dance/Drama counselor and LOVED it!

There were a number of small and not so small successes as well as new boyfriends.

I worked part time at a Jewish Community Center all through undergraduate college (my graduate studies came two years later).

After living in France for 15 months, I returned to New York and landed a challenging position at Goldwater Memorial Hospital as Recreational Director for the Polio Ward. I hoisted young dying Polio victims onto a hospital van on trips.

One was to Pacific Palisades---to see all of the amusements. Another was to Radio City Music Hall to see the show. They were connected to chest respirators and all strapped into wheel chairs. This was a very trying time, having to witness the end of young lives and their plea for life!

I developed a monthly magazine of their poetry and titled it SCOPE. It was a big success.

So the clouds   of unseen desires, the clocks of their short lives, and the calendar at that time to mark the months of my developing pregnancy. They arranged   a beautiful baby shower for me before I left .

Before the pregnancy and before this job, I was in a professional theatre performing in CLERAMBARD at Rooftop theatre in lower Manhattan. This was after returning to France for over a year and a half. This was a highlight which opened quite a few doors which I summarily slammed shut out of a deep lack of self confidence. An all professional (Broadway) cast starred, and I had excellent publicity! I had starred in several college plays prior to this opportunity, and knew that the stage was my haven.

After these deletions of opportunities, I moved on to do what I felt and knew to be my destiny. Calendars of far travel, a baby, an uncommon alliance with a partner, formation of a French Language nursery in my neighborhood, and all to culminate in a special two year assignment  as Parent/Teacher coordinator to align the public school teachers with the low income minority parents (mostly mothers) for  the New York Jewish Federation.

Ithaca College was considering hiring me for a similar position following that assignment until the black mothers of my neighborhood took some very strong action against me and the college offer. It was cancelled. I was not black!!Even though my daughter was not 100% white!!

After relocating to Los Angeles when my daughter was 10 years old, I worked very successfully as a head hunter .I was also selected for a six month program by UCLA to participate in a program to help alcoholic mothers who had children under age 18 at home.

In order to apply one had to be a reformed alcoholic or an adult child of an alcoholic  That was me! My father was a self confessed alcoholic until late in life. (He passed away at age 63).We worked in their homes and in hospital   family groups who were in rehabilitation. This was a very rewarding experience indeed which culminated with a formal UCLA graduation ceremony especially for this program’s participants.

At one point while living in Los Angeles, I developed a small business which I called: BASSIA’S  LIFE REPAIRS. Individual women responded to an ad I put in Beverly Hills People. I helped them with whatever they needed to handle in their lives. There were emotional problems, agoraphobic issues, need for companionship and the like.

I was also a wardrobe helper, shopping and selecting outfits to suit their life style and suggesting appropriate items for their figures. Yeah! This was a real adventure while I was receiving unemployment

There have been many life events in clouds and clocks and calendars since all of the above. My present marriage is reaching 23 years of the strongest bond of my life. The first five of these were living together without the ceremony.

The end portends clouds----the end of a life so well enjoyed, so well enacted, so fully lived. Then,  why clouds? Clouds are often a sign of rain or questionable weather. My calendar   now is not fully mine. Calendars never are though. The thought of not being here once an event on my calendar appears is unsettling and sad.

Perhaps sharing these words with you from week to week leaves me filling in a calendar of feelings rather than events.

I do appreciate your comments and questions. I also appreciate your reading Miss Rheingold .I have carefully selected the names on my send list. They are now in alphabetical order as I wrote last week.

France will always be my heart’s location. The event of the stabbing two weeks ago in Eilat created a heavy black cloud.

MISS RHEINGOLD

A Cat Has Nine Lives, Huh?

I feel as though I am having a weekly visit with the recipients of my weekly blog.

True, there is no repartee as there would be in a live visit, but I continue to welcome your comments and questions.

In reference to the above title for this week’s report, I identify with the nine lives!

I have not actually counted mine, so I am using the phrase loosely. I am no cat, but I have similar resilience and flexibility of body, and am able to rebound after a fall.

I have had many partners, many dwellings, many visas to dwell in different countries, many friends of different persuasions, and several languages to express myself in which have allowed me to experiment with my personal style and tastes.

With each jump, I have landed on my feet—true, there are only two of those instead of four, yet the jumps have been smooth and without specific knowledge of where I would land exactly, what and where I would eat, who would come to pet me or keep me out of danger!

I have had publicity, exposure, and inadvertent daring leadership in a few causes.

I have been a serious educator and chairperson in a New York prestigious private school, as well as an innovator in a Mexican language institute. I have innovated and taught Torah Drama to all female groups  in Israel. I have analyzed several screen plays for a professional  film studio.

 Currently, I offer translation and editing services in several languages as well as private tutoring for adult students in four languages.

Why the resume? Actually, to encourage dismissal of trepidation of new avenues to all of you who may feel as though your choices have been selected ------your bed to lie in so to speak---unless you are thinking of who will lie in it with you!

Speaking of bed (or beds)  that is the one refuge place I have relied on to renew my spirit, my imagination, my physical ascent, and my imagination!

I have fought for unpopular causes, especially full rights for gay couples. Now marriage, adoption, and shared income taxes are recognized by the national USA government. 

There are bits and pieces I have chosen to cover in my books which may be of interest to some of you. This is a brief composite of those which will allow for any questions or details you may want to uncover. They are to be ordered on Amazon.

The message of my long life is do not try to think too much through!

THERE IS A DESIRE—follow the path of your desire-----and read, read, read!

Of course, if you are on a path to self destruction---it will take time to mend.

However, it may be the biggest turning point in your life.

My goddaughter once offered me really sweet advice after I told her how my life had come together and how happy I was. She said upon my departure of a visit,

“Bunny (my nickname for years), D.F.I.U.”

I asked what that meant. She decoded: ”Don’t fuck it up!

I offer that to my dear blog readers.

MISS RHEINGOLD---MEOW!