Anna's story

 I don't know why exactly the story of Anna, one of my grandmother's ten sisters, has been asking to be written for several days. It's been going on in my head for a few days since my granddaughter played the song about Alabama when I was driving her to school. I found myself telling her about the fact that we have family in Alabama, something I discovered during the days of the Covid closures when I found and united all the descendants of the sisters and the brother in the whole wide world, where they were scattered.                                                                                                                                                                           One of the sisters, Ida, lived in Oslo with her husband Jacob where they ran a Jewish orphanage, apparently, Jacob had a brother who lived in Mississippi and 

had a farm of some kind, he sent Anna a picture of his brother and a picture of Anna's brother. They liked each other and it was decided that Anna would travel from Leipzig in Germany to marry Jacob's brother in Mississippi. In 1922. The brother sent Anna first class ship tickets but she changed it to something simpler and gave the remaining money to the sisters.                                                                                                                                                                          They got married there and had two children, Simon who was killed in World War II and Esther who was a well-known folk singer there.

From the letters found by her grandchildren, it becomes clear that she was very unhappy there and wanted to return to Germany shortly after arriving in Mississippi, but the brother in Oslo wrote to her and convinced her to stay.                                                                                                                                                                At some point they moved to Alabama where the family has remained until today. The granddaughter Diedra, with whom I am in contact after I found her, says that one day she was walking with her mother in the small town where they lived and her mother complained that she felt very lonely with such a small family. Deiadre suggested that they enter a small restaurant that they used to go to in the past, where she suddenly saw a group of people and said to her mother, "They look like us", a short inquiry showed them that it was a family gathering of family members that they also had relate to  and they didn't know about. And so her mother suddenly felt less lonely.                                                This is the story. Maybe I've been thinking about it a lot lately because I wonder about the choices we make and how they determine our destiny. What would have happened if my grandmothers had chosen to immigrate to Australia, South Africa, America or anywhere else in the world like some of their sisters did. Of course, underneath all this lies the anxiety, what will happen to us here.

And there is also the romantic story of a girl traveling with a picture of her future husband, for several weeks, into the unknown, to the Alabama of 1922, another world.                                                                                 Jacob the brother who sent the photos was taken from his home in Oslo along with fifty other Jewish residents of the house in Oslo, they were taken on the ship "Gotland" whose terrible story can be found on Google, and died in a concentration camp. The woman Ida, my grandmother's sister, was left behind because she was disabled. Of course I didn't tell my granddaughter that. Only the romantic part of the journey to the husband.                                                                                                                                                                                         

This also happens here

 I went to pick up my granddaughter from school because my daughter thought she was crying on the phone. It was a mistake but the girl was happy to see me and we decided to take advantage of these late morning hours for some shopping that we haven't done together in a while. She already went shopping with her mom this year in Barcelona and twice in London and I thought the days are gone when she was so happy to spend time with me in the small shops of our small places. I was wrong.                                                   The picture here is from other days, she will be 14 next week and we went to buy a ukulele because that's what she wants for her birthday. She got into the car and immediately connected via Bluetooth to her phone and the whole way we listened to music from the sixties, I praised her for her technological ability and good taste in songs, I knew all of them. I think the Tiktok girls today are going back to the old songs for some reason.                                                                                                                         The pleasant young seller in the store said that in two hours a ukulele delivery would arrive, we said we would come back and went to other stores, today's girls buy things that I and others bought in our twenties, if anything, mostly beauty and makeup, and so we moved from store to store when I pay but she operates the cash registers For self-service that I don't dare to use them normally.                               The ukulele did arrive when we returned to the store and it was happily bought. The day before I didn't know what a ukulele was, when my daughter told me it was what the girl wanted for her birthday I thought it was something like the Australian didgeridoo and I was amazed.

It is indeed a cute musical instrument and pleasant to the ear.

The story of the garden gnomes

 The garden gnomes arrived here from Germany at the end of the seventies or maybe the beginning of the eighties. When we went with the children to visit their German grandmother, a world that I did not know opened up before me. Here everything was still young, simple and modest and Europe was a world of wonderful things.

Ikea, who even thought such a wonderful place existed, there was a ball pool where you could leave the children and I was exposed for the first time to beautiful and simple Scandinavian design. and meatballs.                                                                                                                                                                       That's where I discovered the garden gnomes. I had never seen these before and they immediately captured my heart. Maybe it was my genetic memory from previous generations who lived there and also knew them. They looked lovely to me. I brought a few of them with me, I think I bought one on every visit, it's been more than forty years and I don't remember anymore.                                                    They moved with me from house to house and even lived for several years in the lowest place in the world, near the Dead Sea. For many years I neglected them and was busy with other things, only recently someone who understands some things told me that they are numbered and have some value, but they already look too tired.Although they keep smiling.                                                                                                        They have seen a lot in their lives. The cats fought near them, dogs stole them sometimes and I had to look for them in the neighbors' gardens, they heard alarms and saw missiles flying right in front of their eyes but always kept smiling.                                                                                    When I read about the movement to free the garden gnomes in Europe, I was afraid that here too there would be someone who would adopt the idea, but happily it didn't happen.                                              For the purpose of the photo, I put them on an ancient stone that has been here for hundreds of years, among fragrant moss plants and next to plaster mushrooms and some artificial flowers that testify to the terrible taste I have recently developed. Yes, sometimes I plant fake flowers in pots just for the color. The garden gnomes don't care.

They keep coming

 This morning I found another feather. I know that in a rural area like mine the chance of birds simply losing their feathers is very high, but there is always a chance that some angel has also passed by.                               When I couldn't find the picture of the feather, I remembered another superstition about black cats, (in the meantime I found the picture), when I was a child we were afraid to pass by black cats, some said it was dangerous to cross their path and some said you shouldn't pass by them, as a little anxious girl I chose Either way, when I grew up and learned to love black cats I discovered that the Japanese believe they bring good luck. Here in the picture is Philip the cat in a lookout position at home.                                                                                                                                                                       

I found a feather

 I found a feather. I remembered that some say it's a sign from angels and I love signs. I also love angels. I decided to see if Google also knows anything about it and indeed - the best is a white feather, mine is small and gray, I was a little disappointed at first but cheered up when I found this explanation - "The angels know that this is a difficult time for you, but they are telling you that a calmer period is about to enter your life , hold on."                                                                                                                                    In these times I am ready to believe anything that will bring good news.                                                                                                                                           

The small details on the side of the road

 I always envy people's amazing ability to find the small details along the way. And here today I also found such a thing. A soft pink fish that probably belonged to some baby and found its way into my driveway.

And what now?

 What to write about?

Chapter heads for posts-

The good deeds - the women who cook for the soldiers and bring them the food, the women who do their laundry and send them their laundry with children's drawings and sweets, the people who advertise on Facebook about a reservist's private business and immediately dozens of people come to shop there, the people who stand with flags along the roads at the soldiers' funerals, And many more good deeds because of which I am so happy that these are the people I live with.                                                                                                  

the animals at war-

The dogs that already know the sound in the app that announces an alarm that will come shortly and immediately run to the protected room, my daughter has a dog like that, the cat that stands in the small hallway during the alarm and after the explosion of the iron dome is heard it runs under the couch, I have a cat like that.

The neighbors' dogs howling during the alarms, I heard them on 31.12 at midnight when 30 rockets were fired here instead of fireworks.                                                                                                                                                       

my neighbors-

Women aged eighty and over, one of them a Holocaust survivor, ask me when is the best time to shower, still afraid of being caught by the alarm while showering. None of them have a safe room at home.                                                                                                                                                                           

All these and more are the heads of the chapters I am writing in my head, maybe soon I will expand.