Catch a Dream

© 2018 Wendy Brown-Baez

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN 978-1-54392-556-2

eBook 978-1-54392-557-9

Dedicated to all those who dream of peace

Table of Contents

Shabbat Song

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

Acknowledgements

About The Author

Shabbat Song

In the sudden Shabbat silence

the air turns thick with

holiness and longing,

prayers rise like the smoke

of candle flame, challah

hot from the oven.

If only I had a Shabbat home

to return to, slipping

inside my white dress,

my neck garnished with lace

reminding me of the purity,

the winged grace of the Shekinah.

I strike a match, torch the wick

bless the light, the dark

rose-scented wine,

bless the broken pieces of bread

cherishing the sound of Hebrew

spoken in my shiksa accent.

The boys arrive knocking at my door:

one a solder, one an artist,

one wild with tachlis: Let’s go!

Shabbat nights are for parties,

light shattering over the

vibrant faces of young Israelis dancing.

Moonlight slivers the Mediterranean sea

so that I catch my breath at its beauty.

When we return to my kitchen table

swathed in plastic, cigarette ash

falls until dawn to the melody

of your Hebrew voices, prayers blow

past my window on the sultry

breeze smelling of desert

until I become a prayer

whispered, sung, heart-broken

destined to the brittle

dust of dreams.

I enter her in sackcloth and ashes. Literally ashes. I disembark with my hand covered in ashes. I searched the garbage can for my boarding pass, without which they won’t let me off the ferry boat. As the boat swung into the harbor, my own hand betrayed me. I cleaned stale bread and warm cheese off the table, sweeping up the boarding pass along with apple cores and cigarette stubs, tossing everything nonchalantly into the garbage can. My eyes misted over as the engines steered us towards land: Holy Land, the Promised Land. My inner state of jubilation was tinged with anxiety. I was not paying attention to anything else.

I am not Jewish but I caught a yearning to be in the Holy Land from books. The Diary of Anne Frank and Night by Elie Wiesel opened my mind to the horrors of the Holocaust. Later, the works of Chaim Potok, Sholom Aleichem, and I.L. Peretz gave me a window into Jewish culture. I had studied some Hebrew and a bit of Torah. I wasn’t fluent but I could cross-reference words and I could imagine the painstaking scholarship that comprised the backbone of spiritual life in the shtetl. My best friend in high school was Jewish and I loved the atmosphere of sophisticated intellectual discourse in her home. And then I discovered Golda Meir and Menachem Begin’s autobiographies. I tried to imagine the mountains of Judea, the Sea of Galilee, the gates of Jerusalem, and the self-sacrificing work of the pioneers to coax the land back to life. Something about the fight for freedom, the struggle to return to the Jewish homeland started a blaze in me. Maybe because I felt rootless. Drifting from one place to the next, without a destination or a sense of my own heritage. So I adopted the Jewish one and set sail for the Holy Land.

Outwardly poised as someone who has crossed many borders must learn to be, my hand betrayed my inner trembling. I have little money and I know the requirements for entering the country are strict. The Israelis deal daily with Christian fanatics and Moslem terrorists and are alert to liars, crazies and trouble-makers. The lies I tell must be based on the truth. This imaginary conversation goes on in my head: Purpose of your visit?

The Holy Land is calling me in my journey to know God…

No, no, no. The harbor officials are secular flesh-and-blood authorities in uniform. Even though they are apologetic about sending me back to retrieve my boarding pass, it does nothing to ease the tightness in the back of my throat. I have heard that Israelis are tough, the hardest to pull the wool over their eyes.

For the last two years, I have been traveling with my best friend, her daughter and my son, hitch-hiking in Mexico and across Europe dependent on the kindness of strangers, proclaiming that God loves us all. We even connected to a Messianic spiritual group in the States for a time, before cutting those ties as well, too many rules and restrictions. Before that, a stint in a half-way house and another in a homeless shelter, taking care of household chores. We are flower children, peace-niks with a map to the center of the world, the center we have defined, where we are all children of God. I hide my cross inside a small box of nibs for my calligraphy pen. Maybe the Israelis won’t tear my bag apart.

The boarding had commenced with a wad of deutch marks borrowed from a couple of Germans travelers stuffed in my jeans pocket. Show money. It’s not for spending, it’s just to show. When asked to show it, I dug it out and displayed it as if I had so much money available, a few hundred was just pocket change.

A game worth playing in order to get into the country where my heart is determined to be.

The bright young face of the immigration officer dictates no nonsense. I look her straight in the eye and say yes, I have enough money for a three month stay. Her expectation is that I have access to at least one thousand dollars.

Indeed, besides the deutch marks, I have two hundred drachma, worth about twenty dollars, and a one hundred dollar bill someone had given me for good luck, folded and refolded so many times, that when pulled apart, it crumbles in my hands. And a pocket full of pesetas, worth about fifty cents.

My first miracle is that she unquestioningly stamps my passport.

My son trails behind me repeating the one and only Hebrew phrase he had learned while playing chess with an Israeli on the boat: "Ani rutze mastik, I want gum. I say, I want to bend down and kiss the ground. Mom!" he cries, embarrassed. Unfortunately the ground is covered in unappealing dirty tiles.

But here we are. Thrust from the damp chill of a three day ferry ride into the hot bright sun of Haifa. It is the end of winter, that portion that seems to hang on interminably while the world shivers and hopes for spring. I welcome the Mediterranean sun on my face. I do not dare look behind me to see how my traveling companion is faring in her encounter with the flaming sword of immigration until safely over the dividing line that separates those who had been granted visas from those who have not.

We stand outside the automatic glass doors, basking in the warmth, relieved. As time slips by, though, I start to worry. Why isn’t Rainbow Dove coming out? Of course, this is not the name on her passport. Her passport calls her Helen Reynolds. Just as my passport names me Deborah Anderson and I re-named myself Lily Ambrosia.

The Israeli student who befriended Jonah emerges with his load of luggage and stops in surprise to see us waiting there.

You are still here? Everything ok? You waiting for someone?

I am waiting for Rainbow Dove. She hasn’t come out yet. Perhaps he catches the note of worry in my voice. He kindly asks, Do you want me to see what is going on?

Please, could you?

An hour goes by while I pace and bite my lip. My impatience is tempered by my fear. If they don’t let her in….it is unthinkable after coming so far, gotten so close. I am afraid to move away from the doors, waving farewell to friends we made during the crossing as they settle their backpacks on their backs and walk across the bridge into the city. I know it is my passion, my determination that brought us here. In 1988, we believe we must make a pilgrimage to the land where our Lord spread His message of peace. Instructions of how to travel are underlined in our International Version New Testaments. Seek ye first the kingdom, it exhorts us, and all this will be added to you as well. So far, we have not have all these things added to us. We’ve lived on food stamps and handouts for so long, I can’t imagine going back to waitressing or bar tending or babysitting (which doesn’t pay enough to afford an apartment anyway) or any other temp jobs I have held for as long as it took to get an address and a file at the human services office. We have left all that behind. We’ve been on the road, sleeping bags, backpacks, in sunlight or rain, hoping for miracles and faith enough to bring them.

Finally I see them coming—Amos, Rainbow Dove and her six year old daughter Vida. Also known as Vida Unida.

He had to sign for me, Rainbow tells me breathlessly. They wanted to see my money and when I showed them, sent me to another office for paperwork to put me back on the boat.

Oh no! What happened?

Amos walked in and insisted they tell him what was going on. Finally they allowed him to sign a paper guaranteeing us. It was all in Hebrew. Well, that’s over with. Let’s get out of here. Thank you so much, Amos.

"Toda raba." The Hebrew phrase I have learned: thank you very much.

He shrugs. No problem. I am going, my parents are coming for me now. Jonah has my phone number when you want to see me in Haifa. We can play another chess game, eh? You will call me?

Shaking hands and saying shalom, we part and start our way over the bridge, schlepping our sleeping bags over our shoulders. My first look at Haifa confuses me. There are Hebrew signs on shop windows, shop windows that looked like Downtown, Anywhere. Roaring buses, congested blaring traffic, choking fumes. And yet a distinct call to freedom.

I have been a tourist all over the world, a pilgrim in search of a warm stone to rest against, a hearth where I will be fed bread and wine. Now I know I have finally come home. Little did I know the gift of freedom was about to be handed to me or the cost I would have to pay.

The unconscious gesture of losing my boarding pass: is it because I do not want to admit that I have a past, that I have come from somewhere, the same impulse that made me tear up my social security number when I left American soil? Is it because I don’t believe in borders and want to cross them freely like the birds do, without nationality, without history, without strife and war, the barriers and borders of separation? I believe in the brotherhood of all men and I have staked my way of life on it. We pass in and out of foreign cultures by staying with the common people who take us in and ask questions about America with stars in their eyes.

We are dreamers, dusty-footed wanderers, searching for the Divine spark in each person we meet. We believe in our common humanity. We have taken care of people who are addicted, mentally ill, handicapped, misfits. We have traveled next to fellow dreamers. We are Peter Pan clones, we have not let go of innocence. We own nothing: no mortgage payments, no gold band on our fingers to signal that we belong to someone, and now no country that we owe our loyalty to.

Rainbow Dove and I have been friends for years. We are soul sisters; even through jealousy and hurt feelings, we have forgiven and protected each other. We know each other inside-out, sharing every intimate secret, every moment of doubt and despair, each optimistic discovery. Rainbow is more vocal, intuitive, and gives of herself to those who came to depend on her. I am more shy, quiet, reflective, a poet. We are both single mothers. Our fierce loyalty to each other has not prevented disastrous relationships. At the core of our love for each other is bare-bones honesty.

I feel awed and grateful to finally be standing on Israeli soil after a six month trek across Europe, which included living on the rooftop of a student squat in Athens. We made it! I shout to the clear sky reflected in her snappy blue eyes as she swears at the heap of bundles at our feet. Sleeping bags; nylon duffle bags containing a Hebrew-English dictionary, a Bible, our journals, one change of clothes for each us, colored markers; and extra sweaters bulging from string bags purchased in Mexico. Our only earthly possessions have become a mountain to be moved.

We make a few awkward attempts to get on a bus, but the impatient bus drivers wave us back out before zooming off. A young Israeli girl dressed in her khaki army uniform sees us struggling and suggests that we hitch-hike. She calls it tramping. Everyone does it, she explains. Put out your hand like this. She demonstrates by putting out her hand with her index finger pointing down to the road.

We had hitch-hiked in Mexico, riding in the back of dusty pick-ups; in Spain where we broke the five hour wait between rides with stops at tiny cafes to munch olives while sipping wine; in Greece where you might travel from one end of the island to the other without a word spoken. But tramping in Israel is effortless. Everyone does it. You put out your hand and point, Here is where I want you to stop. No supplication, no useless gestures. This simple ritual of the road tells all about the Israeli character. The only times Israeli civilians do not hitch-hike is in times of civil unrest. Soldiers get to their duty posts that way and it is your obligation to pick them up. Young people do it because they want to save the bus fare. Older people do it because it is fast. Until recently there weren’t many cars in Israel. These days the highways are crowded and dangerous with them. They say the fearlessness of the citizen-soldier makes for bad drivers. The accident rate is high. There is an urgency is everything the Israelis do. Here—you must stop here. And yet, it is a Mediterranean way of living so there is the acceptance as well: So, if not, someone else will.

We don’t know that there were two ways to get to the village of Ein Hod, our first destination that night. There is the old highway, used by local traffic to the few kibbutzim and small villages, and the new super highway to Tel Aviv, which would take us to the junction to catch another lift into the village. The older man who picks us up does not tell us this information. He asks where we were from and where we were going and then goes out of his way to drop us off where we need to be. That is just the way it is. Quick, brusque, to the point, friendly curiosity and then helpfulness beyond what is expected. He is impressed that we had just arrived off the boat and wants to welcome us to his country. He wants to make sure we arrive safely, glad to help.

The sparkling Mediterranean Sea flies by. We notice others tramping at the bus stops. Soldiers dressed in khaki with tanned, handsome faces, guns slung over their shoulders; young girls in short khaki skirts, long curly black hair and pink lipstick; older men carrying briefcases dressed in jeans and sandals. A mixture, a medley, unafraid. A sweet fragrance of freedom immediately wafts to me. I realize I can be anything I want to be here. They are unknown to me and I am unknown to them. And the future is a huge white canvas without one single line yet drawn on it.

Walking through Ein Hod, down winding lanes with strange sculptures in faded gardens, we drag our bags while the children complain of thirst. Once an Arab village, it is now an artist colony. The air is filled with the smell of pine trees. It is refreshing and quiet. We have a friend here, Eliane Tava, whom we met at the hostel in Madrid. If you ever make it to Israel, come and stay with me. She had extended the invitation as naturally as the bottle of wine she shared. We dropped a postcard to her, filling her in on the details of our arrival. We find her name written in Hebrew and English on the mailbox.

Welcome to the land of Abraham! she greets us with hugs. A brightly colored skirt flares around her knees. Tall and slender, she is all energy, all excitement as she sets us to gathering firewood for the evening. Already the rain clouds are closing in again after the interlude of sunshine. Although exhausted from the three days of nervous suspense on the boat wondering if we would succeed in getting in, from the heightened tension when Rainbow Dove almost didn’t, and from the walking and absorbing the sounds of a foreign city, Eliane insists that we gather firewood and the exercise of bending and carrying loosens our tense muscles.

She serves a simple typical meal of pita bread, the round flat bread inherited