Cleaning out my office yesterday, I stumbled upon a decade-old stack of printed out emails and photographs. Ten years ago I was living and working in Jerusalem, my hair was long and black, and wearing a tank top was a subversive act. Here’s a little snapshot of a hot June morning, and for the record, my shoulders were bare.
From: Nancy Schwartzman, Jerusalem
To: Ex Boyfriend, Brooklyn
Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2000 9:50 AM
Subject: Jerusalem Morning
We’re all jaded. Ears Accustomed. Eyes averted.
We’ve heard it all before:
Cat calls and whistles up and down Atlantic Avenue-
Little boys too young to call you beautiful, men too old to even look at you-
Spanish, Spanglish, Chinese, English, whispers, shouts, hisses…
Canal Street, Houston, Park Ave., 4th Ave., Douglass, Amsterdam, the A, B C and D.
But this one was different:
9:00 am. Blazing Sun. Pale, pale me. Stumbling along through the park to my office – no coffee, too vain to wear a hat, shielding my eyes from the desert sun searing over the Hinnom Valley. Dressed in New York black, red Kenneth Cole Slides. Feeling Fierce.
From between the cracks in my fingers, a vision of the tiniest, most wrinkled man, appears out of a cloud of desert dust, a scarf flapping carelessly over his shoulder. A brown grisled hand clutches his crotch as he hobbles toward me.
I avert my eyes.
He continues on his bowlegged path, crotch in hand, destination unclear.
No, not him. He needs to relieve himself. He’s a grandpa! Not him, not now. So old, so small, too early in the morning, and I can’t run on slippery Jerusalem stones in my sloping Slides.
The inevitable happens. Crotch grabbing, scarf flapping, legs bowling, teeth missing -leans in real close, reaches out to touch and asks:
“do you speak English? I love you.”
When I’m no longer living in the Middle East, am I gonna miss mornings like this?
love,
nancy
And to try and answer that question now, I can say that yes I miss hot, desert mornings and no, I don’t miss feeling intimidated by a wrinkled old man. Next time, I’ll have my camera with me… Anyone wanna start a HollabackJerusalem?
