Mayrav Saar

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.”

A Jewish Ode To Coffee (Or, Is That Matzah In Your Colon Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?)

Steam rises from the placid ebony stillness of my mug, sending the richest aromas to my nose. Just the smell wakes me with sweet little angel kisses to my brain. I’m certain ancient kings did not know fragrances as luxurious as these, scents that have greeted simple lil me every morning of my adult life.

Well, almost every morning.

One year I foolishly eschewed coffee during Pesach. I believed a friend who said that all coffee was chametz (in reality only some of it is – particularly some of the awful instant swill I wouldn’t drink anyway). The Internet was still a new-fangled tool, and the friend in question was dating a guy whose brother was thinking about studying to become a rabbi. Who was I to question such a reliable source?

I hadn’t been drinking coffee long, but wow did I notice its absence. I’m not going to spell it out for you. I don’t need to. Suffice to say that without coffee we Jews “pass over” feeling human, clutching the pit of wet paper and cement where our colons used to be and cursing Moses for not having had the foresight to get a sourdough starter prepped a day ahead of time.

Not Your Mammeleh's Brisket

Long ago, I learned not to be threatened by my husband’s cooking. His culinary skills are far superior to mine, so if he wants to cook, let him. After much soul-searching, I realized that I’m no less a woman for it; and we’re both much better fed.

But a sated tummy can’t always satisfy a fragile ego, and that queasy rumbling of insecurity (jealousy?), overtook me recently when Hubby started making brisket. He bought a slow cooker with the idea that he could fill it with the raw ingredients of dinner in the morning and come home from work to find the fully prepared meal that I am too incompetent to make.

At first I loved the slow cooker. It’s within eyeshot of my desk, and I can smell its savory goodness all day as I work. Then, one day when I wasn’t feeling well, Hubby made brisket.

Through the glass lid, I watched as globules of fat dripped off the slow-cooking meat. The hard outlines of vegetables eventually melted into something blurrier, softer-looking. Even through the glass, I could tell the onions would practically dissolve right in my mouth. The smell was heavenly. It was perfect.

It was infuriating.

Howling Over A Painting

There’s a wolf staring at me, burning a hole in the back of my head with its unwavering gaze.

It’s smaller than me, but it feels like it’s taking up the whole room. That’s the thing about wild animals, and it’s probably why most people don’t let them into their homes. Of course, I didn’t exactly invite this wolf in.

My mom has been taking art classes for more than a year. She’s quite good. Her sculptures are incredibly life-like, and she’s even been commissioned to sculpt and paint a few pieces for friends and acquaintances. But it’s hard for her to create the pieces her customers want because she’s so busy painting wolves.

Snow wolves. Wolves in the forest. Brown wolves. White wolves. Mom has painted lots and lots of wolves. And now one of them is in my house. And I really don’t know what to do with it.

Cry Me A River ... Or, Maybe, A Brand New Car!

I have no idea whether Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire because she choked up after Iowa. And neither does anybody else.

But the implication that women voted for her because they "felt bad," as many pundits have suggested, is simply insulting. Not to Clinton (who cares about Clinton?) but to me.

I have cried my eyes out for things I have really wanted – a pony, my own island, a "free pass" for a night with Johnny Depp. Have I gotten any of them? No.

 

       

Mom Has A Gift For Inspiring Misgiving

For three weeks, Mom traveled around town with three garbage bags filled with clothes. She had seen some below-poverty-line-types outside a synagogue near my house, and each time she came over to visit, she vowed to donate the clothing for the synagogue to distribute.

Two problems: 1. The synagogue never seemed to be open, and 2. She had no way of knowing if they had any use for cast-off clothes.

The latter issue didn't bother her much. Mom has always been a giver. Know the line drug addicts give about just needing "35 more cents for bus fare?" Mom doesn't. She is always ready with exact change. To eat with her at an outdoor restaurant is to dine with pigeons -- winged rodents Mom insists on feeding because, she says, "They're hungry." When I note that they've eaten more of her meal than she has, she gives me a dirty look -- almost as dirty as the mess the birds leave behind.

One Thanksgiving, Mom insisted on walking to the beach after our meal because she'd seen a homeless man there several hours earlier, and she wanted to bring him a bag of leftovers. It was a kind gesture, but -- of course -- the man was long gone by the time we got there. Never mind, she said, we'd just leave the bag of food at the spot on the beach where he had last been.

"Isn't this littering?" I asked.

Mischa, Mischa, Mischa!

Well, I for one am grateful that Mischa Barton was arrested on DUI charges. I mean, seriously, like, all her friends were picked up this year – Paris and Nicole were even put in the slammer – and what do we hear from Mischa? Just that she broke up with that weird-looking singer guy. It wasn't right.

Now, with all of Hollywood's young woman role models safely behind bars or making regular court appearances (shout-out to Brit!), order has been restored to the universe and the rest of us can get on with our burgeoning drug habits and body dysmorphia.

That was a close one, though, Mischa. Everybody who is anybody got busted for being intoxicated in 2007; you just barely missed the deadline.

I had thought that maybe she was just being fashionably late – you know how fashionable the former star of "The O.C." is. But then I got a look at her booking photo.

Holy cow.

I Love My Hairy Monkey

Leslie wanted to know how I did it. How I could possibly look my husband in the eye, tell him some horribly insulting thing and still stay married.

"For instance," she said, "if I were to say to My Man, 'Your teeth are so small, they look like corn nuggets,' he would divorce me. But that's something you say to your husband all the time."

I also tell him he has more forehead than face. And, in my more loving moods, I call him my "hairy monkey."

I say these things because they are true, because they make me laugh and because, if I didn't say them – or if I didn't feel as though I had the space in my marriage to say them – I would lose my mind.

The inner workings of other people's relationships will always be shrouded in mystery. But I honestly can't understand how couples who don'tengage in marital mockery stay together.

So asked one of them.