A Wall of Light - Edeet Ravel [60]
But here’s something I know I like. Oh this is the most beautiful blue I have ever ever seen in my life. There’s a girl in a big basket tied to a balloon and behind her is the most magnificent blue imaginable.
I cut the picture out and glue it on paper and now I can’t stop looking at it. I’m going to keep this picture as long as I live.
Our First Year
25 December 1949. Yesterday afternoon about forty members rode off to Nazareth to hear the midnight mass choir. I stayed at home and worked in the kitchen, where I succeeded in giving the floor a good scrubbing.
After another crowd of fifteen or so went off to Jish to celebrate the holiday, we decided to have a little informal celebration of our own, so Yona prepared some toast spread with relish and tomato slices, and there was music and folk dancing and the small-crowd cozy feeling that weaves through the place whenever half the company departs.
On such occasions everyone sighs, “Oh, how nice it would be if we were a group of twenty or thirty,” quietly forgetting that if such a tragic condition were to prevail they would go batty inside of a month. With a hundred people I imagine it will take us ten years to establish ourselves.
Dori
Carmella takes us to the forest to cook mushrooms for Lag B’omer. We’re very excited. If only we had a Minder like Carmella everything would be different.
The forest has a heavenly smell and the ground is covered with pine needles and cones. We get wild but no one minds because it’s a forest. The children from Galron tell us there’s a baby buried in the forest. We go to look at the grave but all we see are some stones and no one knows if it’s a grave or not.
Carmella has two helpers today. They make a bonfire and we collect mushrooms and they fry the mushrooms in a pan over the bonfire. They know which ones are safe to eat. Children aren’t allowed to decide.
When the mushrooms are ready Carmella puts them on bread and hands the bread to anyone who wants. I take a bite but I don’t really like the taste. The mushrooms are too smooth. But I love the smell. And I love the bonfire and the forest. We all find branches and the helpers help us make bows and arrows. Some of the boys play Kill the Romans. The Romans were our Enemy long ago. We always have Enemies it seems.
Baby Diary
January 29, 1956
The girl is developing nicely. She sits up by herself and crawls backwards. I nurse her in the morning and in the evening. She’s eating well. Two weeks ago she went on strike and wouldn’t eat anything, maybe because of her vaccine.
The girl is quiet, relaxed and very cute. She babbles in a loud voice.
There are now six babies in the Baby House—three and three in the two rooms. She laughs at everyone and is very social. Each day at 11:00 I come and spend half an hour with her.
This month the doctor gave her a general examination. The doctor said she has an unusually fine body with very fine legs. And it’s true, she really does hold herself up very well.
Dori
I had a bad dream. Half the children in my Group and maybe also Carmella’s Group were standing together on one side and half were on the other side facing them and a huge orange snake was chasing me between the two sides. The children were standing as still as soldiers at attention. As still as statues. I was screaming and running back and forth but the snake wasn’t interested in the other children. Only in me. Maybe it didn’t even know the other children were alive. Maybe it thought they really were statues. I tried to hide with the other children and stand like a statue too but it didn’t work—the snake knew it was me.
Carmella was there too. She was standing nearby and watching with her arms folded and smiling. I was screaming my head off but she didn’t do anything.
I woke up but every time I went back to sleep I had that dream again. It went on scaring me like crazy all night long.
Transcript of the Social Committee Meeting May 1967
Chair:
Juliette
Present:
Shula, Lou, Finkel, Dagan
Juliette:
This is