Everyone needs an outlet. Or an escape. Sometimes both. For a long time, mine was prancing around on stage for our annual shows. I’d fallen in love with performance by chance when I was ten, scoring the role of ‘the fat, ugly princess’ in a school play. I surprised myself as much as I did…
“I would marry you.” He was speaking to Lia and looking at me with a sideways glance, silently observing my reaction to this random remark while I stood at the counter waiting for my coffee order that Lia was making for me. “You would totally be my second choice.” Doing my best to pretend that…
Everything was by design… nothing happened by chance. Life was a careful dance of politics and the Ben-avis pulled the strings. Following close behind them were the deputy leaders intertwining their fingers in the goings on of their underlings and so it continued. This dribbling pattern trickled down from the very top all the way…
What happened was that one day I was in and the next I was out. It’s not inexplicable. I know exactly why it happened. The ‘when’ and the ‘how’. The entire order of events. It’s one of those moments of acute clarity. Many memories are smudged and blurred, but this one, it’s burned into my…
Life was a blur of housework, meetings, meals, pregnancies, baby showers, weddings, comings and goings, babies, babies, and more babies. The circle swirled and swelled with little bodies zooming around the fountain on plastic motorbikes. The noise was terrific and of course, we were always on tenterhooks wondering when it was appropriately or inappropriately noisy….
Pregnancy at Alon was a big deal. It was a sign of God’s blessing, of abundance, and progress. If you got married, you had kids. Every woman at Alon bore children, all except one. When you get a group of people together and the numbers start increasing, so too do the odds of becoming a…
It seemed there was a theme. I was dangerous – especially to those I held dear. And the only solution was to provide frequent periods of separation in order to eliminate any long-lasting damage I might inflict. At least that’s how I interpreted it. Anton would be sent away every couple of months for work….
“Did you read the SMS?” I was standing there with Owen in my arms wondering why Gad had called me over. Mario and Paul sipped on their coffees, eying me over the rims of their cups. I had no idea what this was all about. “What SMS?” He smiled; my heart sang. All is well…
Owen was born less than a year after our trip to Israel. Time of birth: 10:15am on a Thursday morning. I remember the time because I looked at the clock in the delivery room right after he emerged into the world and I know it was a Thursday because my husband was fasting and we…
Our trip to the Promised Land began on a promising note. I was greeted at the airport by Anton and the Ben-Avis all of whom had flown up from Cape Town where they’d been spending the past month together. Everyone seemed happy enough to see me and Sara was beaming at Anton when she saw…
