Mayrav Saar

My Dirty Little Secret

Here's a dirty secret: I haven't washed my hair in five days.

I would. I have nothing against shampoo. But I can’t wash my hair because I no longer know how. 

At some point during puberty, my nice, normal wavy locks took a twisted turn. I woke up one morning to find a mass of matted, frizzy poodle fur atop my yiddishe kop, and I had no idea what to do with it.  

Naturally, I did everything wrong: I brushed it. I blow-dried it. I applied product after product to it to make it look less… less… Jewish. But nothing worked. Like a bat mitzvah present I couldn’t return, I was stuck with it. 

Kids being the tolerant beings that they are made me feel totally comfortable with my new look by endowing me with such loving nicknames as “Cave Woman” and “Yeti.” 

Look Who's Shoving For Dinner

Among the childhood episodes Zev will likely recount to his inevitable future therapist, I imagine “the thing at the diner” will come up a lot.

“I’m sitting there between my mom and dad,” he’ll probably begin. “And mom’s furiously cutting up a goat-cheese and Kalamata omelet on my plate while dad is trying to shove half a buttermilk pancake down my throat.”

“Uh-huh,” the therapist will say, her mind wandering off to visions of fabric swatches and yacht interiors.

“And they’re each piling it on, Mom with her lox scramble and Dad with his sugar-coated blueberry muffin.”

“Hmm.”

“My mouth is opened and stuffed like a garbage disposal, grinding away all these incompatible flavors while my parents battle for the bragging rights to cultural dominion.”

After Hubby converted, we thought we had worked out all the ethnic kinks: Any kids we had would, of course, be raised Jewish. All trans-Atlantic travel would include a stop to Israel. And, it should go without saying, no Christmas trees.

But there are subtleties to mixed marriages that we had never considered – bittersweet subtleties that play less on our ideologies, and more on our tongues.

Speechless

I must have re-written my condolence card 500 times.

“I wish there were something I could do…” Too hopeless.
“I’m so sorry for your loss…” No. Sure it’s true, but it sounds so impersonal.
“This is horrible…” Yeah, that’s a great opening line. Why not just say, “Sucks to be you” and tie it to a bottle of gin?

When the aliens land, let’s hope they don’t mistake the rolling green hills of a cemetery for a landing pad. Because if they do, their first impression of us will be that we’re a stupid, stupid species.

After someone dies, we have clearly defined rituals – crystal clear instructions about what to do: Order a quick burial, sit shiva, recite the mourner’s kadish. We know how to mourn, but we have no clue what to say to those in mourning. And so, inevitably, we say all the wrong things.

The Rabbi Is Mightier Than The Pen

I told myself not to look over. Don’t turn your head! Don’t do it!

The rabbi was seated next to me in the audience at a recent lecture. He needed a pen, and I lent him one. Now, as the lecture was wrapping up, I could tell the rabbi was getting ready to bolt. I could also tell, using my superior intuitive powers, that he likely forgot that he had borrowed my pen.

Would he make off with it?

Simple non-verbal communication, of course, could provide the answer. A quick turn of the head, would allow me to get a visual read on my pen – was he holding it out for me, or stuffing it into his pocket? He would see my silent gesture, and respond in kind: Raised eyebrows (oh! I’m sorry, I forgot. Here you go.) or a wink (one step ahead of you.) would tell me all I’d need to know.

Either way, I’d get my pen back and everything would be cool. So why was my brain telling my neck to play dead?

Don’t turn your head!

I have recently made peace with the idea of seeing a doctor who is my age, and I long ago accepted that I could hire a lawyer whom I’m old enough to have babysat. But I can’t get comfortable with the idea of having a rabbi as a peer.

Pretty Astounding

  Zev’s classroom recently presented his teachers with a tile inscribed with the psalm “A Woman of Valor.” You know the one: “A  woman of valor, who can find? Her value is far beyond pearls.”

It’s a nice poem, but not one that was ever recited in my house  growing up. Praising a woman for her domestic and mercantile skills? Sure. We’ll get to that right after Benny Hill.

As Zev and I left the school, we spotted another preschooler in the yard, and Zev stopped to watch her play. This girl was about 4, a year older  than Zev, with flowing brown hair and the most mesmerizing green eyes I’d ever seen on a child.

“She’s pretty,” I said to my son, whose staring seemed to suggest the same. I smiled sweetly at her, but the girl wasn’t going to have any of it.

“No I’m not!” she protested. “I’m human.”