"It's okay to cry; that's why God gave us tears."

Mom

I'm a Chameleon

There was a girl that rode the bus my brother Barry and I took home from high school. She was a mother hen that ruled her flock of rowdy roosters like a tyrant until we got off at the bus stop where we transferred to northeast Portland. She was argumentative, contrary and critical; so naturally I was attracted to her.

All in all, I was a pretty good kid, a square, but she treated me like a drug dealing pervert; she knew how to make me feel good about myself. She had this thing about "character". Character, by her definition, is what we were and what she had. Of course I gave her a hard time all the way home and she scolded me, but deep in my heart I was eating it up. I can only recall one thing she ever said that got under my skin. She called me a chameleon.

I didn't know much about chameleons because there aren't very many in Oregon. I knew that they are ugly and bug eyed, but she was referring to their ability to change color to match their environment. She was saying that I was a fake, a phony that changed my appearance and behavior according to the people around me. I think the reason that chameleon label stung while otherwise I enjoyed her abuse, was that it was true. I would be the bad boy to impress her and be the good boy when it suited me, but she saw through me and knew that none of these were my true colors.

Barry was here in Israel for Hanukkah with his daughter Brianna. He tagged along with me and remarked that everywhere we went, people liked me. I don't know why he thinks that's so remarkable, but maybe it's because I mix with a lot of different kinds of people. Right-wing settlers and Arabs, the ladies of the English staff and the rough crowd in the teachers' smoking room, native born Israelis and Russian immigrants, you name it. I'm not like all of the people I hang with, but I like them all and they like me. It's true; no matter where I go or who I am with, I fit in. I'm a chameleon.

We have chameleons here. A chameleon can be as yellow as straw or as brown as turned over earth, but most of the time they are green and live in trees and bushes. They climb the branches slowly and when the wind blows the leaves they sway along. They are barely visible to the untrained eye, protected from predators and invisible to the bugs they prey on. They look like just another leaf. Chameleons are very observant. They have bug eyes that swivel around independently of each other like security cameras detecting threats.
I think that if you were to ask the leaves, they would tell you that they like chameleons. In fact, they would be very surprised to find out that chameleons are reptiles. The leaves think that the chameleon is just another leaf. In a way, it's good that chameleons don't try to really be a leaf. Leaves don't see the bugs and certainly can't gobble them up. It's okay to be a chameleon.

I think the reason people like me is that when they look at me, they see one of themselves, the way leaves look at a chameleon and see a leaf. I sway in the wind with them, but because I'm not really a leaf, I'm me, I can see them. Even though I can mix in with the people around me, I'm an outsider and can observe. I don't have bug eyes, but I can see their bugs even if they can't see them for themselves. I'm a chameleon; that's what I do.

I didn't stay in touch with very many of my high school friends, not even that self righteous little goodie two shoes that ruled the bus home from school. I would like to tell her that she was right, but that she was wrong about me. Just because someone is a chameleon doesn't mean that he doesn't have character. Chameleons aren't phonies; they are chameleons. It's their job to mix in and observe. They don't harm the leaves and those around them. In fact, it's good to have someone in the tree that can see the bugs and catch them with their lightning quick tongue.

It isn't so bad being a chameleon. I guess I can live with that, bug eyes and all.

Shakespeare on Education

Since Shakespeare's day either love has changed a lot, or kids haven't changed at all….

"Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books;
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks."
Romeo and Juliet

Morning

I open my eyes, and where and when and who materialize as the mist clears. Memories of dreams haven’t faded yet and tempt me to linger, but the day awaits me, beckoning like a new playmate, and I hasten to meet him.

Last night I woke from a bad dream, covered in sweat and confusion. For the longest time I lie there dazed; too tired to rise and wander off into the darkness, too disoriented to discern past from present, nor tell shadow from shape. Finding no harbor for my thoughts in the night, I pushed off and drifted back into the silent stream of slumber.

Morning. The first day of the rest of my life is waiting for me like an unopened gift and my spirit is impatient to unwrap today's surprises. Rested and rising, I wade ashore as the the dreams slip off away into the depths of last night until they disappear.

Desperately Seeking Koby

For me, like many English speakers in Israel, Sherri Mandell was a familiar name by the turn of the millennium. She was a kind of Israeli Erma Bombeck that wrote short and light stories for the Jerusalem Post, spinning well written tales of children and life, and always wrapping it up with a cheerful moral.

One story in particular caught my eye. It is an account of how her son's canary escapes and just when all is lost, Ibrahim, an Arab construction worker that is barely literate but with good hearing, helps them find the canary. She ended with, "Maybe this is how peace will come, I thought. Slowly. People learning to listen. One bird at a time."

Sherri wrote that shortly after the Palestinian Authority had declared war on Israeli commuters, school children and innocent bystanders; so I didn't buy her optimism. But I liked the story. I cut it out of the newspaper and saved it because it was written well and pleasant to the ear.

One spring morning Sherri's oldest son Koby cut school with his best friend and hiked down into the wadi near their settlement that is halfway between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. Search parties found the boys at dawn the following morning. They had been stoned to death in one of the caves in the canyon walls.

The Blessing Of A Broken Heart is Sherri's journey after her son's murder. We follow her as she chooses to enter that land of shadows parents fear the most, a cave so dark that "you can't even see your own hand, but have to trust that when you step, the ground will still be under you."

I say she made a choice because she could have collapsed, paralyzed by grief; but instead she decides that if Koby has been taken into the darkness, then she will follow, regardless of the pain.

"I want to feel the pain – for if I go into my pain and truly experience it, swim in it, there is a chance I will emerge on the other shore of my loss, still pained and struggling, but with a different vision. I will always be living in the land of suffering. One who enters this pain understands that death is part of life, and is here, always. Death now is something that will release me and allow me to see Koby again. Death no longer scares me."

Writing during an unparalleled period of violence and hatred, Sherri doesn't settle accounts with her son's murderers or voice her opinions. She doesn't seek revenge; she seeks one thing and one thing only – Koby. She finds faith along her way and emerges with hope; "…many of us live with broken hearts. But when you touch broken hearts together, a new heart emerges, one that is more open and compassionate, able to touch others, a heart that seeks God. That is the blessing of a broken heart."

She has gained hope, and she has been transformed from a woman that wrote well, into a writer, perhaps a great one. You can find an excerpt, "Koby's Death", on the Jerusalem Post's website. It is one of the most powerful pieces of prose I have ever encountered. Before, she wrote things that sounded nice, but didn't ring true. In The Blessing Of A Broken Heart there is sincerity, truth and meaning. That too is a blessing, but at what a price.

The cussing Catholic

Stephanie is my old girlfriend from high school – obviously she's old if she's my age and she doesn't deny having been my girlfriend. Sorry to disappoint you, dear readers, but there's no spicy story here. Gentlemen never kiss and tell, and I'm no gentleman; so if I'm not telling, then you can trust me that Stephanie has nothing to be ashamed of.

My brother Barry calls her a "cussing Catholic", probably because she's taken to using four letter words lately. The one she uses on me is "INFP". Back when Stephanie and I were both Evangelical Christians it was common practice to sign our letters with "ILYWTLOTL", which stands for "I love you with the love of the Lord". Heaven forbid that we would use just "love"; love sounds like dove, which starts with "d" and that sounds like "b" and that stands for beer.

Now she calls me an "INFP", which is probably the initials some really juicy Latin swearwords – God forbid she just call me a smartass.

Stephanie is the reason I started blogging. About a month ago I discovered her blog and of course I'm not one to be outdone by a cussing Catholic. In spite of myself, I have to admit that she writes some pretty good stuff. I read one of her stories that I really liked about how she was inspired while washing the dishes. I made the mistake of telling the librarians at school about my friend that found the holiday spirit in the soap bubbles in her kitchen sink.



They rolled their eyes.
"She found the holiday spirit in soap bubbles", they repeated me dryly. They looked at each other sagely. It must be some American thing.

Well, I'm not a cussing Catholic, but I'm sticking to my guns. I like Stephanie's story. Click on the link below and judge for yourself.

http://recollectedlife.blogspot.com/2007/12/i-found-it.html

Tranquility

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My battalion, the 670th Artillery, has a mascot. His name is Shalva, which means "tranquility" in Hebrew. It's hard to imagine what Shalva's dad was thinking but easy to guess what he was drinking the night he named his boy; because tranquility isn't what comes to mind when you think of Shalva.

His story is that when he was a young man in Russian Georgia, he vowed that if the good Lord would allow him to live in the holy land, he would serve in the Israeli Army until the end of his days. God kept His end of the deal and Georgians are men of their word. The scuttlebutt is that Shalva is 61 years old and he has never missed a tour of duty since the 670th was formed in the late 70's.

Shalva swore to serve, but he never said how he would serve. When I first encountered him in the mid 80's, he was the terror of the battalion. You had to go through Shalva to get uniforms and gear. About 50% his limited vocabulary in Hebrew was swear words, which he reserved for those of us he liked, and he used his huge, shaved belly to literally bounce everybody else out of his way. Sometimes it was easier to go a few weeks in uniforms big enough for two of me or so tight that they crawled up to my knees and barely reached my elbows than to try my luck with his temper.

Wisely, our officers usually didn't trust Shalva with any duties involving weapons, but from time to time he was needed to do guard duty and he would show up fully loaded and with two water canteens full of vodka. Fortunately, he was always assigned to posts chosen for their distance from anyone he might harm. Relieving him of duty was a risky business and done with care.

The 670th finished another tour of duty this week. I had been released this time, but showed up on the last day to see how my friends had fared. I found Shalva for once living up to his name, fast asleep on a pile of winter gear. Time has taken its toll on Shalva and he's not nearly as fearsome as he used to be. You can find him in the mess hall at the officers' table; he cusses them out even more than he does the rest of us, but they know that just about the only thing he fears more than the Almighty is rank, and they know that he will be in the battalion long after they're gone.

There are many legends about Shalva in our battalion. To this day, nobody knows his last name, or even if he has a last name. Maybe he is an angel; a drunken, smoking, foul mouthed, grumpy angel, but our guardian angel nevertheless.

Perhaps Shalva's dad named him well after all. Because in the close to quarter of a century that I have been in the 670th, we have know tranquility. We have made lifelong friendships, served our country and without exception returned everyone, every time safely to our families.

That's tranquil enough for me.

Ami's Profishuncy Test For Teachers of the English Langwitch

Except for one native born Israeli of Moroccan ancestry and a French lady, English speaking countries from all over the globe have representatives at the English staff's table in the teacher's room of our local high school. While we maintain the pretense of solidarity among ourselves when in the presence of our students, we often carry on fierce debates over the rules of grammar and the proper definition of certain words and expressions. The following proficiency test is a product of some lively discussions at our table.


1. English is not spoken properly as the mother tongue:
a. west of the Atlantic Ocean.
b. west of the Mississippi River.
c. west of 24th Street, Portland, Oregon.

2. The expression "your ass is mine" means:
a. Your ass belongs to me.
b. Your ass and my ass are one and the same thing.
c. You are in a lot of trouble.

3. The expression "my ass is yours" means:
a. My ass belongs to you.
b. My ass and your ass are one and the same thing.
c. I am at your service.

4. When in doubt about the proper spelling, pronunciation or meaning of a word it is best to:
a. ask Sharon because she's from England where "real" English is spoken.
b. ask Martine because she's from South Africa and when she says "here" it sounds like "hee-yah".
c. ask the principal because even though he doesn't know a lot about English, it's always a good idea to suck up to the boss.

5. In which of the following words can you hear the "invisible R"?
a. Wa(r)shington
b. idea(r)
c. hee-yah(r)
d. All of the above.

6. When the ladies of the English staff say that they're "hot", this means that:
a. They think that they are irresistible to all members of the opposite sex.
b. They are experiencing the effects of hormonal changes that are normal in the female life cycle.
c. Maintenance needs to fix the air conditioning.
d. The male members of the staff should think of something urgent that needs to be attended to in the library.

7. When the ladies of the English staff get cranky this means that:
a. They have finally realized that they are no longer irresistible to all members of the opposite sex.
b. They are experiencing the effects of hormonal changes that are normal in the female life cycle.
c. Maintenance still hasn't fixed the air conditioning.
d. The male members of the staff should immediately attend to something urgent in the library.

The Suitcase

I found this big ol' suitcase a while ago. It was in our basement, which is actually a bomb shelter, and at first I was puzzled because I didn't recognize it, but then I remembered how this guy I worked for had given me the suitcase when I was a kid. I guess somehow it had been thrown in with the things I brought over with me from the States and I hadn't noticed it before.

I mentioned the suitcase to a lady at work and she pointed out that it's probably a good idea to get rid of it because it's just taking up room we might need if there's a war. She was right of course, and I got some friends to help me move it upstairs because it was pretty heavy, more like a trunk than a suitcase. The lock had rusted and it wasn't easy to pry open and when I finally succeeded I found some stuff I thought I had forgotten about. Something must have crawled inside and died, because the odor of rotten flesh and age old mold filled the house.

It took me some time to sort through all the odds and ends of my childhood in that suitcase and meanwhile it migrated through the house as I tried to find the right place for it. Sometimes my friends would come over and we would go through the stuff in my suitcase together and sometimes I would stay up late and do it alone.

My wife Yael is very patient, because a lot of women would have thrown out the stinky old suitcase and me along with it, but she knew it was important to me to make sure there wasn't something important or valuable tucked away inside. The smell of mildew filled the house and it was always in the way. Living around the suitcase almost became a way of life; opening windows to air the house out and tripping over it.

Then, last week a friend of mine sent me a huge bouquet in a beautiful vase. I put them on the suitcase and arranged the flowers and our house was new. Every morning I was greeted by fragrance and beauty instead of that stinky eyesore I had gotten used to. With the flowers concealing the suitcase and covering the smell, I remembered how nice it used to be before I discovered it in the basement. The flowers didn't wilt as I expected and here is Shabbat and they warm the heart and delight the eye.

Next week I will move the suitcase out of the house and perhaps even throw it away if I can bring myself to do so. I will some need help; the suitcase is very heavy. But it was also very valuable. Now I know how lucky I am. God gave me friends to help me lug my suitcase around the house, always ever closer to the door. He gave me friends who helped me sort through the souvenirs from the past and to brighten my day. He gave me a wife that knows that I hang on to old things and loves me anyway. I would have had all these treasures even if I didn't have a suitcase, but I would have never known how precious they truly are.


God bless Anat, Barry, Sharon, Stephanie, Tracy and most of all Yael, and double the blessing they have been to me. Amen.