Catch a Dream by Wendy Brown-Baez

Author:Wendy Brown-Baez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2020-03-25T14:42:21+00:00

Naomi comes into my life like a burst of sunshine. With her beautiful brown face and dark trusting eyes, she is an angel who takes me under her wings. When I hold her tiny hand in my palm or watch her crawling through the grass in the park or feel her soft cheek nestled against me in sleep, I feel life coming back into me.

A notice at the woman’s center advertized that her parents were looking for a nanny. Ann Blessing, her mother is an American Jew married to Saleh Sarat, an Israeli Arab, and their household is an eclectic mix of cultures. Their law firm is founded on respect and dignity for all people. They are thoughtful, young, energetic, and kind. Saleh is handsome, thin, gentle, with a poet’s sensitivity, yet firm determination. Ann has a blond shag, is robust, with dimples, a zest for life, is focused on making things happen and on getting things done. Naomi is my joy; she is also my full-time job.

Every morning I come to her home and dress her for an excursion to the park, weather permitting. At first I carried her on my back in a backpack. Later, into her stroller, laden with bottles of juice and tid-bits to snack on, sand pail and shovel, off we go, stopping at the shuk to buy fruit, conversing with mothers and grandmothers at the park in broken Hebrew, watching birds and turtles through the windows of the pet store, strolling up and down the mid-rehov, the street blocked off from traffic lined with shops and cafes.

Sometimes we visit Rainbow Dove and Vida at home, after they arrive home from work. Naomi loves playing with other children and Vida is patient and engaging as they make up a pretend world. They play quietly while we drink tea and gossip. We also meet an Israeli mother who invites us for an afternoon play date with her children. Naomi clings to me like a life-saver but it is my life that is being saved.

Kobi, a friend of Shlomo and Orit, is also a good friend of ours. He is Shlomo’s age, with a stocky soldier’s build, black-framed glasses. Often he comes to play chess with Shlomo, and we end the evening by going to the pub for a beer. He is indefatigable; long after my body is craving sleep, he is throwing darts, having loud arguments with people he has just met at the bar, drinking another beer, asking if we want to move to another pub? We drive through silent early morning streets at top speed and yet I do not feel nervous. He too asks me: “Are you happy?” “Quite honestly, no,” I tell him. “Why not?” “Because people are suffering,” I answer. He is not satisfied with this answer and we argue heatedly, then suddenly, unexpectedly, he invites everyone out. I understand then that the discussion is just a way to keep things rolling. He teaches me the Hebrew word “tachlis”, to get it done, “like this,” he demonstrates by snapping his finger.

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