MIND WANDERING AND WONDERING

I often get a chance to muse, and to let my mind wander freely  over the past few hours or days, or over years that mattered indelibly.I have no "bucket list"left----not one of any real significance any way.

I do have wishes and plans for tomorrow, however.I have come to love my daily routine---really! This is especially so when it involves activities with my husband, and we walk hand -in- hand.

I cannot get over how different Eilat is from anywhere in Israel or the rest of the world that I have traveled.

It lacks all manners of being! No manners,no modesty, no rules, a kind of end-of-road outpost for has beens, or more accurately, never wases! A loose hodgepodge of drifters and young families raising abundant children, in a muddle of languages, appear cell phone ridden, while a mass of (usually) young tourists mope or stomp by.

Our small airport is smack in the center of  our vacation town.It will soon be removed to a new location half an hour out of town.The oddity and experience of low flying planes right above your head will be gone!

There is little to rebel against here, except for the lack of culture.Ah, yes, after residing in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico,Oaxaca,  France,Italy, and Argentina, New York, San Francisco,  Greece (island of Paros), even Jerusalem and Safed in Israel,it is remarkable to find myself, ( a self proclaimed snob), in a land of middle -of -the -road tourist spots offering middle of the road entertainment, to match the life styles of all the hotel workers and  vulgar visitors!

Almost two years ago now, I started a play reading group for which I alone make all of the selections to be read. It is a small, deeply committed and rewarding group which meets weekly on Sunday evenings .The group has become one of serious reading actors.We have made only one public reading, on high stools (a la Broadway) in costume: Apollo of Bellac., by Jean  Giraudoux.It had quite a bit of approval and appreciation.There is now a request for a second play reading to be presented.WHEE!!

This last attempt at filling up a deep empty space for CULTURE has me spinning on Sunday evenings. We are about to embark on a second venture----another one act play to put forth to the public.

Ages in the group range from 52-90 years old..Even number of men and women.

No one is obese for a once a week look around- in this group---this is an uncanny, remarkable scene for this city where there is enough body fat to feed all of the world's hunger! It is a striking contrast  to the human world I have come to know and recognize.

 

Purim is a holiday in Israel this week where we are commanded (as Jews) to imbibe, dress in costumes, reel at parties that can be endless--and thank Queen Esther for keeping us going! We were to be wiped out!!

It seems that nobody has been able to accomplish that,  but we are intermarrying at a rapid rate, so who knows how and who will represent Israel  in the not too distant future

I lived on a kibbutz in 1962 where there were scruples and a sense of belonging that was like none other. I picked grapefruits, took care of the children's house during their sleeping hours while eating gobs of halvah from their little kitchen! Oh, I also studied and learned Hebrew for three hours a day.

All that is gone, buried,and the Kibbutzim that remain are privately owned!

The one advantage is the free coffin at the end.Otherwise, it is free but pretty reduced in ceremony---into a linen bag you go, into a dirt space where others will be joining you!

Here's to life!

 

MISS RHEINGOLD

Return of Miss Rheingold!

 Remember the song:"102 eyes of blue"? I was impressed with that weight as a symbol when in my teen years. I longer for it so keenly, I began the effort to reach it at 19 while still in undergraduate school.

Lo and behold! I am now (and have been fro quite some time ) 99.2!

No effort, no sweat required, and I can eat pretty much what I want to!I have lost all consciousness of calories.

Once again whatever you really want DOES come to you, if you are willing to wait long enough.

Prosaic, perhaps, but a real discovery once it all comes together.

Some of my deepest desires have been pretty superficial ones, now that I look back.Although I do not judge the desires of others as well as allowing my own to flourish.Desire is personal and allowed to remain private if one wishes.

Today a woman whom I have sought to avoid stopped me short in the street and asked me abruptly in Hebrew,

"Are you an English teacher?" I replied  in Hebrew,"Yes" I added, “Also Spanish, French and Hebrew”

Then she cornered me to ask, "How old are you? "I stood silent. I asked her why it was important. Once again, "How old are you?"My silence felt awkward. I asked her why she wanted to know. She replied with the same question. Then she started to guess--abruptly:"Sixty?"---- I remained silent."Sixty?" once again.

 Finally, after no reply, she came forth with, "Eighty?"---I answered, "82"---and caught myself in the flush of an awkward embarrassment. I have not made my age public-----vanity, perhaps mingled with not wanting the age difference known between my husband and me. Awkward vanity,  I suppose.

I am beginning to accept the end of my days. Disappointments are at once more severe and more tender.My digestion is fraught with pain and problems. I am about to embark on some serious dental repair.

My flexible body still works like a charm. Regular advanced yoga practice has helped my breathing significantly!

OK why all of this personal, perhaps even boring, recounting?

Perhaps it is something to share that is so petty, it is significant!

Perhaps to encourage each of you to look deeply into your desires and your hidden secrets and open their envelopes wider, if only to yourselves! If you really want it, it IS important.

Ah the mighty cliché, "It is never too late."---can this be so?

HUH?? Mmmmm. Maybe not...... just maybe. May be.

MISS RHEINGOLD

Miss Rheingold Finds India Revisited

Hello--a rather bland word for reuniting or gathering interest, wouldn't you say?

All of you to whom I am addressing this week's BLOG know that my daughter's father hails from India. Southern India to be more exact, the State of Andrah Pradesh.

He is very dark skinned, very good looking, speaks Telugu.

He immigrated to the States to study at Columbia University before my daughter was born.

He became a professor of History and Foreign Relations. He remarried after his first wife passed away early in her 60's.They had a daughter together----who became my daughter's close half sister.

In all my years spent back and forth in Israel, I had never encountered nor interacted with any Indian immigrants here. Who ever knew that there were 80,000 East Indians living in Israel, and only 3,000 in India at last count?

It is very common here in Eilat to hear Indian tongues at most bus stops. I have often introduced myself and thereby entered into really interesting conversations about being a Jew and also and Indian----or the other way around!

I have engaged on quick bus introductions---once I see the Indian face or, of course, if I hear  their language being spoken. I have at times been mistaken and asked a Sri Lankan if she were Indian. Such an error is quickly dispelled!

My daughter was married briefly to a Sri Lankan lad, and I just learned that we were mispronouncing his family name. It as Wijawardina, a popular family name-----second syllable stress which we missed by pronouncing the third syllable! They married in China---or at that time independent Hong Kong----the ceremony in Mandarin,(not spoken locally---Cantonese is the preferred tongue). Ironically, my racially mixed daughter has often been taken for  a Yemenite Jew as well as a Hispanic or a black,

I had never met an Indian Jew before relocating to Eilat. I never looked for them during my month in India way back in 1986.No interest, I was learning about India and my daughter's heritage!

So, once again, a deeply hidden curiosity about Indian folks outside of my daughter's family (all Hindu) has come alive with unexpected vibrancy! It has been a highlight of my cultural discovery in the Eilat diversity!

One more time a wish fulfillment---comes into my love lap of cultural diversity---and I have a close Jewish friend from India who comes to Eilat for a few months every year from Goa. She is trying to settle in Eilat, but must sell her apartment there first.

Life has a turn round at a certain age, I have found-----I have been exposed to so many situations I have sought

to be a part of----without any effort on my part. Here I am a N.Y.C. Jew from the Bronx, happily married against all odds, looking and being taken for the actress I have always known myself to be!

Three HAIL MARYS-----and off I go.

MISS RHEINGOLD

WHEN YOU’RE NOT LOOKING FOR IT!

We have all had unexpected pleasant or even joyful or ecstatic   experiences. I just know we have. They may not have been acknowledged or even sought after. Once they are recognized, however, especially later in life, after years of longing, they belong to you without doubt or need for clarification.

Many of my really important desires, those of personal recognition and gratitude for my talents and actions and appearance have all come to pass here in the god forsaken outpost of Eilat, Israel. Rather I should say they have culminated here at a time in life when I no longer continued to seek people’s positive recognition.

I was so enamored of the French language early on in 7^th grade when I met a Jewish girl from Belgium in my Jr. High who had escaped from the Nazi regime after losing both of her parents to that regime. Much of my life, when meeting strangers, I affected a French accent and told people I was from Belgium borrowing this young girl’s identity. I could soon “pass”, for I spoke pretty fluent French, simple albeit, and had a story that was quite remarkable.

One was that I had a brother, named Robert, and left any details about him to be merely surmised. I was an only child and harbored huge regret about that fact of my life. When I reached the age of 17, my father and his second wife had a baby whom they named Arthur .I adored him, and still do .He is a grand Rabbi in   a very old and well known Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He is the reason my husband & I chose to come to live in Israel .

Now, I do speak Hebrew quite fluently, and work on my accent to be native. The irony of being taken for French (of whom there are many here in Eilat!) every third time I open my mouth in speech, is dazzling!”Oh you are French, yes?” 

So I just answer ,”yes” and smile and no, I do not want to be taken as French here, but dwell in the absolute irony of it all!

I am frequently seen as attractive or an important actress here by both men and women. Sometimes, as  a famous and well admired Russian screen actress(now deceased) whom  I have seen in photos,(gorgeous!).I have always felt deeply insecure about my appearance. I have since childhood wanted to be taken for a “movie star”!I am often stopped in the street or at bus stops and asked , ‘’ Who are you?”

Then I wanted to be the “Best Dressed” in the class in Jr. High where such choices were voted upon.I was “the cutest girl”, yes, but never the best dressed.

In Eilat, I am just that!!To boot, I buy 95 % of my clothes at a charity outlet for homeless girls and unmarried mothers- to- be. I am frequently asked where I buy my clothes! I have been asked to organize a how-to-dress seminar, and OH! , how to choose colors!!

I am currently working on a movie script loosely based on my life. Someone requested it. It is herein that I recognized the beauty advanced age can hold.

I recently spoke before a fairly large group of English speakers about the broad topic of language. I opened eyes and ears and raised voices in both approval and disagreement. There are many English speakers here who have not ventured long in trying to learn Hebrew. They think others should speak English! I teach Hebrew privately to older adults with some success. That is if I can get them to overcome the “I’m too old” factor!

Life can be rewarding as older has crept up rather quickly, and I dare say I have more self confidence with each year. There is the dread of the end, yes, not to be denied. Each day has to be lived thoroughly, more so than before.

I feel sexier each day, and wallow in the acceptance I have been receiving here.

So----look back, if you will, and let me know some of your new acknowledgements, perhaps recently discovered that you had been longing for!

MISS RHEINGOLD