Purple like RUN!

Dana grinned at me over a stuffed chicken sandwich, tahini dripping onto the grimy concrete floor, as I held my own sandwich over a plate of olives.  We were propped up on stools in the claustrophobic passage between the chicken grill, the baklava stand, and the main artery of the Tel Aviv shuk, right in front of that amazing Costa Rican coffeshop.  Cappuccinos were in our near future.

“So tell me about your trip,” she asked, wiping some spare sauce away.  “What’s it like being back in Israel again after almost a month in the US.”

I sat for a while, orange tinted tahini dripping onto my plate, as the whole journey, the whole feel of it, coursed back through me.  What kind of summary can capture such a thing?  This trip was relaxing and cathartic, and it left me wanting for words.  Part of what I had done on the trip was to deliberately not over-think it.  But when it came down to it, there was a theme even to my half-formed ponderings.  Namely, I had thought a lot on this trip about culture.  

It was the chilled out attitude of rockclimbers living in an old, broken down house in Fayetteville, West Virginia, because it’s the lifestyle, man; a friend transitioning towards family life, deep in the conservative old South, and reminiscing over bygone days not so long gone; the worldliness of some of my graduate school buddies, who have since moved on to new urban habitats; and the various lifestyles that my oldest friends have set their sights on, have grown into, or have grown out of.  And all of this contrasted to the just-beneath-the-skin pressure that pervades Israel.  Like the time a guy slammed on the brakes, honked for ten seconds straight, and then pulled over and took the extra time out to scream at me because I had crossed the street (legally) in front of him.  Culture, and decisions.  And…  back to Israel… 

“Well,” I finally said, “the truth is, I had a chance to become reacclimated to Israeli culture before I even got back here.”  The story had just popped into my head -- probably because it had just recently happened -- and as I looked up, I saw Dana was waiting for me to continue.  So I went for it.  “It all started on the air train in Frankfurt airport…”      

***

It all started on the air train in Frankfurt airport, when a little old lady with curled purple hair leaned close in towards me and asked through a thick accent: “are you going to Israel?”  I had no Hebrew writing anywhere on me and I was nowhere near the gate for my flight, so I was surprised to be suddenly asked that.  But in fact she was right, I was going to Israel.  She sounded Israeli and anyway didn’t seem menacing, so I said yes, I’m going to Israel.  And, being still in America mode, I gave her a smile.  

Now--I have the excuse that I was nowhere near the El Al terminal, so I hadn’t prepared myself yet for encounters such as this one.  But the real truth is that I had been away from Israel long enough that I had become rusty.  It took very little time for me to realize my mistake.  It was as simple as this: one should never smile nor be overly friendly to an elderly female Israeli stranger.   

And here’s why.  With my response, her cheeks bundled up and her eyes sparkled.  I should have caught all of the signs right there, but I was not on my game.  She began with a few softballs.  She asked me where I had been, and I answered: North Carolina.  She asked sweetly what I’ll be doing in Israel, and I said: I’m a scientist, doing post-doctoral research.  And then the barrage came.  Oh, a post-doc!  how old are you?  Which University?  Do you like Tel Aviv?  You live with roommates or alone?  Do you have any family in Israel?  No family?!  Where do your parents live!  How did they end up there?  What do they do?  What do you think of Obama?  

By now she was getting aggressive, and she started interlacing her questions with irrational opinions like: “that Obama hates Israel -- I don’t trust him because he’s a Muslim.”  You see, in the US we’re taught to be polite to the elderly.  We smile and nod and try not to contradict them too hard.  And this is precisely why elderly Israeli women are so goddamned dangerous.  Because while we’re doing our best to be gentle, they’re busy mincing us into strudel meat.  And that’s about how it was looking inside that air train right as we missed the stop for our terminal, and I realized I would be stuck with her for another complete cycle.  I started grinding my teeth.  Now she was narrating the trajectory of our train in real time.  She started talking trash about Germans (I quickly looked around and assured myself we were the only two people in the compartment).  Oh, and now she switched to insulting Americans (they’re not genuine like Israelis, you know?).  And there, she proclaimed that Romney deserves to pay lower taxes than most of America, because he’s a businessman (?!).  Then purple hair leaned in close enough to me that I could smell the garlic on her, and said “I have a daughter.  She’s a doctor, and she’s goooorgeous.”  Her eyes roved over me hungrily.  “It’s too bad that she’s already married.”  When the door to the air train finally opened, I practically burst down the stairs as she went for the elevator.  

But when I got to the gate security for the El Al flight, purple hair was not far behind.  I answered my security questions as quickly as possible, scuttled through the metal detector, and took out a book, but as soon as she came through she plopped down just a few seats away from me and started complaining to me about Obama again, all with a crooked smile on her face that said: “I’m old and sweet, so you’re not allowed to be rude to me.”  Then she transitioned to complaining about the US education system and proclaiming that Israeli rudeness (her words) is good and it’s a shame that American children behave well.  I held my book up in between us, but it might as well have been a sign that said “welcome, please speak to me.”  Finally she stood up, walked around a bit, and then sat down again even closer.  

She was in the midst of trying to convince me that rich people have it harder than poor people (yes, I’m serious) when I saw some movement at the plane portal, and I made an upbeat comment about boarding.  She replied: “Oh, I understand, you’re trying to get rid of me.”  She watched me for a second as I resisted the urge to nod.  “I can’t blame you,” she continued.  “We’re a different generation.  It’s okay, I won’t be offended -- I’ll go sit by myself.” And there it was: the guilt card.  I knew that she would eventually pull it.  Thank god when she finally got up to board.  

When I got on the plane, I hurried past her row, and then was lucky to find I had three seats to myself.  But the situation changed when the stewardesses guided another elderly Israeli woman to one of my spare seats.  About a minute in, the woman tried to make eye contact with me.  In that critical instant, I plastered my face to the window, began humming, and pulled my hood up over my head.  And if that wouldn’t do it…  

***

I had apparently gotten quite into the story, because Dana’s sandwich was done and I hadn’t even unwrapped mine.  I peeled down the wax paper and took a big, juicy bite.  

“Aww, I don’t think you did wrong,” she said.  “I would have acted the same way with that woman.  I can just see it, though, that purple hair… I missed your stories, man.”  She was smiling widely.  

I took another bite and responded.  “Yea, but you’re not a young American guy.  It’s ridiculous.  I learned in the very start to avoid these things.  Do you know how many older Israeli women have tried to set me up with their daughters?”

“Well, anyway, I think you did okay.  It’s hard to resist one of those cute old ladies.”  

I harrumphed through another mouthful of food.  I was a little disappointed in myself, actually, since my story had had nothing to do with my thoughts about culture.  But I couldn’t think of any real insights to tell Dana.  It was all too fresh, perhaps, and I hadn’t been back long enough for my thinking to crystallize.  But during my trip in the US I had also had trouble forming really cohesive thoughts when people asked me about Israel.  I would tell them I was enjoying it, but I couldn’t articulate what it really felt like here, or how it was different.  For example, this quiet hustle in the Shuk just before everything closes down for Shabbat.  You can’t explain this thing, but you can feel it.  

What it comes down to is that culture is a damn difficult thing to describe.  Maybe that’s because it only exists in the collisions between people and places and circumstances, which can have their own weird, indescribable logic.  But trying to describe culture is a bit like trying to describe music.  You kind of have to be there right then to truly grok it, and at its core, culture is composed of countless of these then-and-there instances.  Telling stories is at least a beginning.  Perhaps by describing enough individual encounters, there’s a chance of expressing a bit of the shape of the thing. 

I had finished my sandwich, and I was downing the water that the vendor had finally given me (after I had asked about eight times).  Dana and I looked at each other and we almost simultaneously said “coffee?”  It was time for the best cappuccino in town.  We balled up our wax papers and I picked up my vegetable-filled backpack, and we slid through the thin passage towards the coffeeshop.  

As we walked, and as I started to feel a little bit better about the relevance of old purple hair, I said: “By the way, I just thought of a couple more stories…”