I had a really boring, normal day. I woke up, having slept a bit poorly because I was stressed about work. I drank a coffee. I packed my lunch (a turkey sandwich, could it be anymore boring??) and walked to work. I ate Special K cereal and a banana. I worked. I ate lunch at my desk. I had an afternoon coffee with a friend. I worked some more. I packed up my laptop and walked to the gym for a Body Pump class. I suffered through class. I tried to stop sweating. I walked home.
I was sort of plodding along at this point, in the middle of a content but pretty boring Anywhere Day. Then the magic set in. I was walking my daily route, past the sweet shop where my Palestinian grandpas hang out. All of a sudden I hear my name being called. Here we go, readers.
Let me just try to describe this scene: it's a typical Arab sweets shop. Piles of baklava and knafe (Oh Lord, look knafe up on Google if you haven't, it's glorious) behind a counter, a teen lazily texting his friends while smoking an illicit cigarette leaning over the case. The shop is empty of crowds, as it's not a sit down sort of place. Tucked into the back corner is a circle of four plastic picnic chairs around a tiny folding table topped with a carafe and tiny cups. Four old men are sitting in them, leaning over, talking to each other over argileh and Arabic coffee, as they have for the past half-century. They beam at me as they call my name and wave me in. Somehow, somehow I have been lucky enough to ingratiate myself with these incredible gentlemen. All are educated, worldly, honorable, with children in the US or Canada but hearts firmly in Palestine. They sit in suits and tell stories and gently rib each other about jokes that have unfurled over decades.
J., my best buddy, cannot be less than 80; his watery blue eyes glow as he tells me about his recently passed wife, how she lived a life 'free of sin' and taught all the children here music and arts. He visibly fills with pride as tells me 'everyone knew her', they 'praised her even more than me'. He ventures off into the past, taking me along, telling me half-parts of stories that are busy living their other half in his mind.
This, dear readers, is magic. It is just nothing but unadulterated joy to sit with these men, to listen to their stories, to eat the piece of knafe they offer me, to ask thoughtful questions and laugh at their jokes. J's love for his wife drives me to silent happy tears...in the end, he says, he and her sons treated her like 'royalty', rolling the r slowly to get the full effect of the word. And he means it. This is a man who loved his wife. Loved. His loneliness cloaks him and he wears it so beautifully.
I sit for an hour, leaning over a bench, wrapped up like a child with my head on my arm as their conversation swirls around me, each competing to draw attention from and yet add something to the other. Upon my departure, it's been decided that J. is in charge of finding me a husband (these men are just horrified I'm not married, they think it's a travesty which needs immediate rectification, I am somewhat curiously playing along) and J. and I will have lunch on Thursday.
We'll dine outside if it's nice out. He wants to show me his garden.
My heart just may explode.
What love! What desserts! Boy.
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