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

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