A Little Matzoh...
Jeff's cousin, Kathy, is visiting from Denver. We joined her at the Brisbane synogogue for the first night of Passover last night. There were about 75 people there (and as many people from Israel as from Australia it appeared). We sat next to two young women (early 20s?) from Israel who were doing some round-the-world travel.
Kathy and the mighty matzoh
They had been up at the beach last week. But, with Passover approaching, they wanted to celebrate with the Jewish community so they came down to Brisbane and volunteered in the kitchen at the synogogue.
It was wonderful to talk with them. They were the picture of groundedness, assurance, confidence, and self-awareness. They had thoughts and opinions on most everything that was discussed and could express themselves -- in English, which is not their first language -- well and clearly.
They both did their 2 years in the Israeli army as 18-years-olds and could talk intelligently about that experience, about Israel's challenges, and about women in the military in general. They were informative about gender relationships in Israel (Kathy's sister just became engaged to an Israeli man this past weekend so Kathy wanted the lowdown on Israeli men). And, yes, I had to compare them in my mind to the young women I wrote about a few weeks ago that I encountered on a city bus.
Because there was no comparison. Same age, same gender but they presented completely differently.
Why is that? Is it culture (Israel vs. Australia)? Is it life experience (university or jobs vs. military service)? Is it family? I don't know. I just hope that the future of women looks a lot more like these Israeli girls than the girls we met on the bus.
A Little Sweat....
Two weeks ago, I signed up for a "bootcamp" being run by a personal training group at the end of my street. Very cheap -- $70 for 12 weeks -- and very convenient -- end of my street at 9:30 in the morning.
Why did I do this? I've noticed in the last month or two that my arms and legs are significantly weaker than they used to be. I noticed I'm avoiding anything that requires me to get down on the floor (like tying my shoes) because it's hard to get back up. I'm also concerned that the weakness in my arms will affect my ability to return to massage when I get back to the States. My friend Angelique loves her bootcamp so I thought "what the heck".
The biggest surprise is how muchI'm enjoying myself. It's a small group -- anywhere from 2 - 7 -- of women and one trainer (a guy). The PT mixes up the exercises, keeping them short and simple. Best of all (and one of the things that kept me from considering bootcamp): no yelling.
Really, what kind of person gets motivated and excited by having a stranger yelling at you at the crack of dawn? Not me!
Yesterday we did all of our excercises in boxing gloves because one of the stations was boxing exercises. I learned that I have both more and less coordination than I thought but at least I didn't hurt myself.
At one point I looked at the woman in the room (30s - 50s I suspect) and marvelled at how comfortable we all were there, sweating and hitting and grunting. My mother was involved in weight loss and exercise efforts from her 30s on, generally unsatisfactorily. I tried to imagine my mom looking as sweaty and disheveled as we did (t-shirts and shorts, for the most part) and wearing boxing gloves and hitting the trainers padded hands as hard as she could.
Gotta say, the image didn't come.
There was a time, within my lifetime, that women just didn't sweat (well, unless they worked on a farm or as a cleaner or in a factory...OK, middle- and upper-class women didn't sweat) comfortably. In the 80s it got a little more popular as long as we were clad in colorful outfits and made it sexy.
Now it's not even a suprise to see a room of women sweating as hard as a man, hitting things, pushing their physical limits, and grunting with confidence. Believe it or not, that's a freedom, to be fully physically present in our bodies, including the messy bits. Yeah, we're still too motivated by trying to look like we're 30 when we're 40 but it's still progress.
That's happened in the course of my life, in the last 50 years. I'm glad for it. I wonder what the next 50 years will bring.
...in all fairness, those lovely and seemingly well-put together women you met at the synagogue could have had just as many drunken, black eye make-up, Smirnoff ice can squashing in the bus seat nights, as the Aussie broads you observed previously. And/or maybe they just got that out of their system before serving in the Israeli army...
ReplyDeleteThe women on the bus and the women at Seder were, as near as I could tell, much the same age. So, maybe they did the vodka can / thick eyeliner / t&a routine in their late teens. But by 22-24, they seem to be over it and the girls on the bus were still into it.
ReplyDeleteThere's the difference. I wonder why. I don't know the answer. Maybe outside of Passover the Israeli women party just as hard as the girls on the bus. Maybe I'm projecting (I'm sure I am to some degree).
If I were a 20-something, I'd love to have the maturity and centeredness of the Israeli women.
All these girls/women represent the 40-year-old women of 2030. I hope the beauty of the Israeli women dominates by then.
You met these Israeli women on a night when they were sure to be experiencing a very special kind of homesickness. While the Jewish community in Brisbane is likely a very welcoming group, it's not their grandmother's home, and the one leading is not the patriarch of their family, and the one asking the questions isn't their youngest brother or cousin.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, you saw the girls on the bus at the opposite end of the social spectrum. They were as out there as they possibly could be (well, they could be more out there if they swapped the 7%abv (at most) Smirnoff Ice for some real booze) with introspection the furthest thing from their minds.
I'm not saying the Israeli women aren't mature and centered, but you did meet them in a situation where that maturity will shine fueled by introspection in a way that it doesn't on a night on the town fueled by Smirnoff Ice (at most 7%abv...your bus girls are lightweights).
It's like comparing the people you meet at Maundy Thursday service with the people you meet on Metro heading to the Pride Parade.
At their core, these women were representing different faces of 20-something-ness. Two pictures, radically different.
ReplyDeleteThe people I sit with at Maundy Thursday services are the *same* people I stand next to on the metro heading to the Pride Parade. But perhaps my church is different from most....
I'm making broad comments about the challenges of being a 20-something woman in 2011 and the different choices available. I stand by my observations.