Last winter, I was helping my Christian roommates find Christmas decorations for the mini-tree that they had set up in our kitchen. As a Jew, this was a first for me: I had never approved of lusting after Christmas decorations like some of my Jewish friends in the States once had. But now that we were living in Tel Aviv, I deemed it ok to help my roommates with their decorations.
It was a December night in Jerusalem and I was surprised to find that it felt much like a December night in Virginia; cold and windy. The Old City at night can be a little scary - much of it is closed and there aren't many people around. In the Christian Quarter, we managed to find an American-style Christmas store, and I waited for my roommate to find the decorations that she wanted.
Once she had gotten what she deemed enough, we walked from the Old City up Jaffa Street and detoured off onto Ben Yehuda Street. Who knew that they decorate Jerusalem the same way that they decorate DC in December? Ben-Yehuda Street was covered in strings of white icicle lights much as the streets of DC always are in winter. And the lights, combined with the freezing night, reminded me entirely of being back on the East Coast in December as one of the few Jews in a world of Christians. But here, as part of the majority, the sensation was simply odd. This is not a Christian country, yet here it felt like the Christmas season that I was used to in the States.
Nonetheless, it was quite beautiful - one of the few times that cold air feels good. And this was all on a "school night." The hour trip either way got us back home quite late, but watching my roommates put up their decorations turned the house from a nearly-empty apartment to a place that had some character and some style.
In this industry, you must look the part. The skirt was short and black, offset by black tights and red heels of the kind that professional Latin dancers wear. The top was a diagonally-cut piece of red fabric, with tied straps over one shoulder and nothing over the other shoulder. Earlier in the day, I had cut a red flower from my own yard and managed to arrange it so that I could clip it into my dark hair. My skin is quite pale, my eyes are dark blue, and my hair is nearly jet black. I knew that this was a dramatic combination, so I went with a lot of red in order to accent it. The top was red, the shoes were red, the flower was red, and I painted my lips red as well. CoverGirl makes this amazing lip-gloss called WetSlicks, in all shades of pink, red, and more. The beauty of this lip gloss is that it gives the lips incredible color, it doesn't come right off, and it smells like candy.
The announcer calls the heat: the dance itself, the level, and the numbers of each couple. My partner has his number pinned on a white paper card on the back of his jacket. As our number is called, we walk gracefully hand-in-hand, with arms out, onto the floor. He pushes my hand slightly - my cue to spin a slight distance away from him and then come back. We bow to each other as the music begins. as is customary, even in Latin dance (in the ballroom world, that is - if you do it in a club, someone might think that you are crazy). The music starts...I love salsa. There is nothing more exciting in the world. A quick-tempo dance with syncopated rhythm. The trick here is to stay close to your partner and always maintain that eye contact. The eye contact is essential: that is what will make clear to an audience or a judge that you are dancing together.
Remember that last scene from Dance With Me in which Ruby and Rafael dance to "Yorbu Lindo" at the club? Remember what made that dance so great? Communication between partners.
It was one of those days; somewhere between winter and spring, comfortable enough without being either too hot or too cold, and not a cloud in the sky. We were wandering aimlessly in the city, somewhere between Adams Morgan and DuPont Circle. The city has quite a lot of green space for a city; there are parks in almost every neighborhood. In one such park, closer to DuPont Circle, we heard noises; it sounded like percussion. As we walked closer to those sounds, we realized that there was a drum circle set up on the grass in the park. There was a sign above them: the King David Peace Drummers. I knew of these guys. They are Israelis, peaceniks who dress like Bedouins and take their drum circle around the world. They usually set up in a public place and anyone who wants to is invited to take a drum and join in.
Having had some experience in playing Arab-style percussion, that is exactly what I did. My friends were a little more reluctant; the culture of this city (and, I would argue, that of the entire Northeast) does not encourage paying attention to other people. However, when people started dancing in the center of the circle, I forced my drum on one of them and got up to dance myself. Look at us, I though, a bunch of hippie peace-nik types playing drums and dancing on the lawn in the center of such a conservative city. Yet maybe that was the point: to slowly melt the ice of conservatism and draw people in to each other. And after all, we were just making music and dancing - a far cry from anything illegal or even anything scandalous. So why not?
Liyana is a Palestinian-American high school student born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri with her Palestinian father and her American mother. At the age of 14, her parents move her and her brother Rafik from their home in Missouri to a new house on the road between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
As she adjusts to her new home, Liyana likes to notice the small things first. She likes to notice the colors of the grass and the shapes on the leaves of trees and the shapes of buildings before moving on to people.
It is Liyana's new Israeli friend Omer who tells her mother that he likes to wander inside and outside his own head. She understands instantly what it is that draws them together.
People like Liyana and Omer make the world a far more interesting place. Go someplace - alone. Find a place and sit and quietly observe what is around you. Keep your eyes open - look at colors and shapes. See if you can find something that looks like something else - or that could look like something else if photographed or drawn from a certain angle. Consider yourself, consider your family...what does this place evoke? Take out your camera, take a few shots and see what comes out.
It's something like meditation, but without the mind-clearing exercises; some of us were never capable of those, anyway. This is the easy version - start with something simple and build on it. No need to contort oneself into weird positions - just sit. Or stand, if you prefer. It's a different kind of quiet - the kind of quiet in which the mind works at an interesting pace, but the person says little to nothing.
The effects of such an exercise are surprising, refreshing - and perhaps more significant than partying or clubbing.
