ImmigRANT Mama

 My son just turned three.

Three is big. Three collects rocks, and insists on sleeping in his Spider Man costume.  Three rides a shiny blue bike, and sings songs about snails at the top of his lungs. Three plays in the mud and kicks his soccer ball on the big lawn and sleeps with a Princess Tiana doll. Three likes stickers and pens and drawing on paper and coloring outside the lines.

Three likes birthday parties.

So much so, that three hada four birthday parties.

One with his Aba.

And two with his Mama.

And today, oh, today. The preschool party.

With balloons.  And streamers. And a special birthday chair. And a cape. And a crown. And both his parents.In the same room.

It’s a production, these preschool parties. Music, and lights, and a sparkling candle that looks like something a Hamas terrorist would love to get his hands on.

“And make sure you bring cake that’s without dairy,” the teacher reminded me each day for a week.  ”Make sure it has candles on it.”

Immigrant mama, get it right. You’re in Israel now, biotch. This is how shit’s done here.  I’ll call you seven times and say it ve-r-r-r-r-r-y sl-oooooooow-ly because you won’t get it otherwise. And then, even when you say you get it, I’ll call your ex husband and tell him I don’t think you understood.

(But I did. Oh, but I did.)

Nearly two years ago, I had my first nervous breakdown in an Israeli supermarket when I tried to buy ingredients for my daughter’s birthday party. But not this time.

This time, I bought the cake in the store, and covered it with cheerful red strawberries and candles shaped like soccer balls.

“Are you sure it’s without dairy?” the teacher asked me again when I brought it.

I pulled out the wrapper. Booyeah: Parve, biotch.  

“Oh, you didn’t make it?”

Immigrant mama, get it right. You’re in Israel now, you stupid girl. Mothers who love their children bake the cake. From scratch. Sprinkled with love and happiness and unrefined flour.

Immigrant mama, it’s never enough. Even with strawberries and soccer ball candles, it is never enough.

We’re that family. Ragtag and a little frayed. But the kids are alright.

The party was a pageant. I shit you not, I swear the teacher probably spent two days rehearsing with the kids. Either that, or they’re Stepford Babies who get off on goosestepping around the room.

(I’m actually not sure which option I’d prefer.)

Everything. Had. To. Be. Just. So.

Even at the expense of a certain immigrant mama’s feelings.

“No, you don’t sit next to him. I sit next to him,” the teacher said.

“No, you don’t get to lift him up when you’re dancing with him. You have to follow the steps I tell you to follow,” the teacher said.

“No, you don’t get to lift your son up on the chair. His father and I will do that,” the teacher said.

Aw hell no.

Except, aw hell yeah. She DID just say that.

Lady, I’ll make a deal with you. You blow out your vagina pushing my son out, then by all means, feel free to sit next to him. You survive 22 – 22!!! – cases of mastitis breastfeeding this ravenous little beast, then sure, go ahead. dance however you wanna dance with him.  You lose sleep over him – both when you’re with him and when you’re apart, then be my guest: Lift him in the goddamn chair.

But I didn’t say that because my Hebrew isn’t good enough. Instead, I stood to the side, arranged the Spider Man napkins,  and took pictures. An outsider at my son’s birthday.

One Year Gone...

She lit the Shabbat candles.  He blessed the wine.  The oldest sprinkled salt on the challah, and they thanked God for the delicious golden bounty.

Together they sat - faces warmed by candlelight.  The rain outside threw frigged daggers against the windowpane.  

But they were inside - cozy and safe from Winter's last gasp.

Maybe they ate chicken soup.  Maybe vegetable barley.  Maybe they had cholent, and chopped liver and kuggel.

Maybe she baked the little ones' favorite Parve chocolate cake.

And that night they went to bed in the wrapped stillness of Shabbat - in a peaceful quiet, they tucked their children in  -- the youngest one just a baby, born only last month.  Maybe her body still ached from the memory of birth.  Maybe he rubbed her back while she drifted off. 

Maybe they never heard The Terrorist come in -- the tinkling of glass, and his footsteps muffled by the whoosh of wind and rain.  

Maybe The Terrorist killed them first.

Or maybe the children.

Maybe The Terroist’s blade sliced swiftly through their vocal cords, severing them before they could scream.


And maybe just before The Terrorist slaughtered the newborn his hand trembled for a moment as he watched the infant's tiny chest rise and fall.  Rise and fall.  Rise and fall.  


 Maybe they bled out as fast as mercy could allow.

I hope they never woke up.  

My Life in Translation

The first time I went to Israel, I was sixteen.

And from Los Angeles.

And blond.

We’re talking triple threat, people.

I was on one of those summer programs – you know, those Jewish hookup fests thinly disguised as “educational and spiritual trips” where hormonal teenagers hike, swim and share mono together in Israel.

(I think most of our parents imagined that we’d all be  earnestly singing Hava Nagilla or Hinei MaTov around a camp fire, but no.)

It was a great time to be in Israel:  The dollar-to-shekel exchange rate was in our favor, and Ben Yehudah Street was our Post-Sabbath smorgasbord, teeming with other Jewish American teenagers helping the economy.

We’d sidle in and out of shops, duped into thinking our amateur hour haggling actually made a difference in the prices, and inevitably, we’d buy too many t shirts at Mr. T’s.  But hey, you can’t leave Israel without an olive-green IDF t-shirt (in English) or a fire engine-red Coca-Cola T shirt

(in Hebrew.)

During that summer, I spoke Bat Mitzvah Hebrew.  And I was fluent in my mistakes.

                                  
Not that it mattered.

Whenever we would have exchanges with “the natives” – and by “the natives” I mean rich kids from North Tel Aviv who spoke English as well as we did – I’d inevitably end up playing around in their language:  An ingenue tripping adorably over words with “Chet," “Ayin” and “Resh.” But in a cute way.

And every time I’d stumble through the language, the Israelis around me would hold my hand and help me through.

Well, that summer was a long time ago, and things have changed.

While it’s true my Hebrew has improved a little, the language is still new to me.  

In Hebrew, I misplace words, leaving them somewhere buried deep in memory.  

In Hebrew, I’m a time traveler, turning past tense into present, future tense into past.  My passive verbs go running.  My active verbs are stoned on a beach in the Sinai. I confuse my masculine and feminine verbs and nouns so often that it’s as if they’re cross dressing.

In  Hebrew, I’m sixteen again:  breathless and  giddy as I stumble over new words, wrapping my lips and twisting my tongue over unfamiliar sounds. Speaking Hebrew gives me butterflies in my stomach.

And like that summer, as I trip over the language, I’ve found that others are still willing to pick me up and walk me through the nuances of something that is both a little familiar and still utterly foreign.  

(After all, I may no longer be sixteen, but I’m still from Los Angeles, and I’m still blonde.)

But this time, I am not going home in eight weeks.  This is my home.  I’ve got two children who need a mother and not a sixteen year old friend.  They need brave, not breathless.

They need a grownup.

And so, I will practice and learn.

Instead of grunting and pointing at something on a menu, I will speak up and order.  In Hebrew.

Instead of wandering around lost for an hour and a half, I will ask for directions from a shopkeeper.  In Hebrew.

Instead of letting their father do the talking for me when we speak with our daughter’s preschool teachers, I will find out how her day was.  In Hebrew.

And even though I know that I will inevitably fall hard on my ass, I will take these first few steps.  

And somehow, someday,  I will toddle toward linguistic adulthood.  In Hebrew.  

So check it: I'm putting together a series of blog posts for the new "My Life in Translation" series for Babylon.com. If you've tested the boundaries of your linguistic and cultural comfort zone(s) I want to hear from you. After all, in this (too much) information age, why should I be the only one sharing? So, hit me up at sarah@pravdam.com if you're down.