Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-02-02
Hi. I'm Joseph Zitt. I moved from the US to Israel in 2017. This is my newsletter about more-or-less daily life in my city in the shadow of war. You can select these links to subscribe or unsubscribe. There are more links at the bottom. You can also read this email online here. Here we go...
The woman moves gracefully down the hallway at the House of a Hundred Grandmothers. She holds onto the rail on the wall opposite the dining room, though she doesn't need it for walking. She is using it like a dancer's barre, grasping it with one hand as she lifts the opposite leg in the air, then pivoting and repeating the action with the other leg and hand.
She is small and slim, dressed casually in a wool sweater and blue jeans. She has white hair and dark skin. Seeing her out of context, I might guess that she is from India. It's not impossible that she or her parents actually came from there, a long time ago.
I think she's a bit older than me, but not by much. I could be wrong about that. I've been surprised learning that people that I hear about are in their eighties and nineties or even one hundred years old.
She could move faster, but she's keeping pace with a couple of people behind her. The man is inching forward with his walker. The woman is alongside him. I'm right behind them. They and I are each wide enough that there isn't room for me to pass.
The woman in front looks back at them and sees me. "You're blocking the road," she says to the others. "The man behind you is trying to get past. Open a door."
The man with the walker pauses. When the woman with whom he is walking is a step ahead, he shifts to his right, creating a passing lane. I walk swiftly past them, smiling and wishing them a "Shabbat shalom." The woman in front smiles back. She and the other woman pause for a moment. The man slides back to the left. They continue on, moving more slowly than I do.
I come upstairs and talk with my family until it's time to head back down for Kiddush and supper. A recent arrival walks with us back to the elevator. He moves with a cane, so he wouldn't be able to go down the stairs safely. Like my family, he doesn't trigger electrical things on Shabbat. We're with a caregiver who isn't Jewish, so it's OK for her to press the elevator buttons.
We're on the top floor. No one else is on the elevator when we get on. I squeeze toward the back, fitting into the space to the right of a wheelchair. The other man also moves toward the back.
One floor down, the woman who was dancing in the hall gets on, along with the woman who was next to the man with the walker. There's just enough room for all of us.
The elevator also opens on the next floor. Another couple of people are waiting for it.
The dancing woman darts out of the elevator. The woman who is with her steps out and calls, "Where are you going?" I don't hear a reply. The two women who were waiting get on, followed by the second woman who has stepped out.
Someone asks where that first woman had gone. The woman who was with her shrugs. "She's gone. She's going to look for the soldiers." People laugh. That was either a joke or a metaphor that I didn't catch. Or maybe I heard it wrong. I don't think there are any soldiers around.
By the time we reach the dining hall, she's already seated at the table nearest the door. The other woman sits down across from her. I seem to recall that a woman who had sat there had complained a lot. I'm not sure, though, and not sure if it was her.
Kiddush goes well. The singing is strong. A few of the people who had been missing last week still aren't there, but I spot the others.
Dinner is good. There's baked pumpkin, soup, and salad, and the potatoes and the chicken are quite tasty. I'm not sure if they keep tweaking how they cook it or if I just sense natural variations on different weeks, but there's always a bit of a surprise to it.
When we head out after eating, the woman is gone. Her friend is sitting outside the dining hall, next to the man with the walker, but she's not there. I hope to see her again. If my Hebrew's up to it, or we have another language in common, talking with her could be fun.
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You can find me via email, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and, just out of inertia, X/Twitter. There's more about me and my books, music, and films at josephzitt.com.
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L'hitraot.