I was standing on a small round stage in front of the mirror in the Florentine dress shop. I wore a red dress, and the designer asked me to stand on my heels so that I could see how the dress would fit me at the moment of truth. I loved her, she had such a pleasant and flowing fabric, a nice cleavage in the chest and she didn’t reveal anything of my legs, which I don’t like. I didn’t even look at the price, I knew it was a very expensive store, but this is the punishment for remembering to buy an outfit for my book launch – the day before.
To be honest, I did everything quickly. Apart from the Givatayim Theater, where I set a date a month ago, when I decided that my new book “And Each One Separately” deserves a launch and I deserve a grand annual summary for this year – I didn’t set or prepare anything. The ten celebrities, actors and singers who were chosen to read from a spray at the launch did not receive their texts until three days before, when we grumbled in the WhatsApp group that I opened and did not act, that it was not relevant and they did not want to be humiliated there on stage.
I was not excited for this evening, as if something had turned off in me. I remember the previous launches. The first one, to the “Box of Cubes” books, also brought with it the most beautiful evening of my life there in the port of Jaffa, it was amazing and no evening has equaled it since. The second, for my books “Tears of Wine”, dedicated to the late Assi Dayan, was held in central Tel Aviv, when I was a little more well-known. This launch broke records, almost 500 people came to watch me read from my stories, and there is no entertainment program that did not cover it. And since then – I have seemed .
My third book, “The One I Loved”, was written after a great heartbreak and I preferred to publish it and fly to London with my body, to forget all the pain. So there was no launch, but I came back a little less sore. And for my fourth book, “Good Eyes”, a lot of celebrations were held, but at a zoom. I was then in my ninth month, and the corona kept us all at home. Then, the fifth in number, came at a good time, it is true that it is full of emotion and has grief and brokenness, but now that I have collected pieces and life looks a little better, I wanted an event that would seal what was and open what is new. I wanted to stand on a stage, look at a large crowd, my parents, my sisters, my friends and prove to them that I managed, despite everything, this year, to rise above the comfort of self-pity and make the most of myself.
- 2022 elections: all the developments, interpretations, promises and polls | ongoing updates
The dress cost NIS 850. I paid and left the store. I walked around Tel Aviv, I went into the wholesale shops and begged them to sell me earrings, I no longer have time to look for golden hoop earrings suitable for the dress. Only one store agreed, I made up a tragic story to get them to agree, which I won’t share here because you won’t like me anymore – imagine the most tragic story you can think of and limit it.
I drove there to buy a lot of wines, then I loaded boxes of books into my car and drove to pick up Gefen from the garden.
“Vine”, I told her, “tomorrow mother has a party”.
“Ba!”, she smiled, “Popsicle!”, she told me.
We went to buy local food, on a green bench in the park “Gan Sifor” on the first day of Zion. I ate local food and she ate local chewing gum.
“Mom wrote a book, you know?”, I asked her and wiped the popsicle dirt off her clothes until I gave up, they’re going to boil anyway.
“A story,” she said, “a story.”
“Yes! True!”, I enthused, “Mom writes stories!”.
“Banana, a banana story,” she asked, so I made up another story for her about a banana who was looking for friends and finally found them.
There are evenings when I work, give workshops or lectures. Unfortunately, they start during the hours when Vin is still awake, and when she sees the babysitter coming into the house, she clings to me and says “Mommy, Mommy”, and I get dressed and tell her “Mommy is here, Mommy isn’t going”. Of course she doesn’t miss me, from the moment she comes back from kindergarten to the moment I leave, literally half an hour before she goes to bed, I’m all her, there were also days when I left the house nicely dressed and made up but without a shower, just so as not to waste time with her (they are no longer Korim, I learned to jungle, don’t stay away from me).
Still, it breaks my heart. On the evening of my launch I left smiling and proud, the makeup artist and the librarian took pictures of me for their Facebook 30 times. I wore a red dress and I was so beautiful, and then I fell the token that sounds like a walking cliché but when you hear it fall on the truth, everything suddenly makes sense. Gefen sees a careerist mother, a mother who feeds goats and cows with her on Shabbat at the farm, cooks her delicious food almost every day, reads her a thousand stories, rolls with her at the gym (and gasps for half an hour later). But she also doesn’t give up on herself, creates, goes out, earns a living, hosts and sometimes also falls in love. A mother doesn’t have to be a rag for her children to be happy, and this realization did me so much good just before I left.
When I arrived at the hall there were already guests waiting. I took pictures, I signed books, I watched my exes come one after the other and hug me, one of them, whom I love very much, even whispered to me “how nice you are in my life”. I liked him more. My father shook hands and asked me to come say hello to three worshipers from his synagogue who came with him, one woman said to my mother “What a talented girl you have”, and my mother smiled at her and then said to me “Remind me to throw salt on you tomorrow, okay?”. An hour later there were almost 200 people in the hall.
I stood on the stage, I looked at everyone, next to me was a classical guitar player and another player, and ten actors and artists who were waiting behind the scenes for me to call them to dramatize my stories. Lior Dayan, Josh Sagi, Debbie Lombroso, Roni Merhavi, Ohad Knoller (who is also the CEO of Givatayim Theater), Shimon Mimran and many more.
Those were the hour and a half that went by the fastest in my life. The audience laughed, cried, made funny comments, there was a story that when it was over they clapped their hands and shouted “one more time, one more time”, and when the young singer Saar Michael sang “Ya Mama” by Shimon Buskila, there was not a dry eye left. euphoria. I came to my senses, finally.
It’s one o’clock in the morning, the makeup is applied, the red dress is slightly stained with wine, and I’m happy. I have no idea how, but I found myself in Jaffa, my old love, where most of my stories and books were written. And who is by my side? Not a man who covets the flock, nor some intellectual friends willing to speak in praise of the book, but my mother and father. At the end of the evening, each of them will return to their own home, but now they are with me, and I ask them, “Do you want a cake?”, and even though the owner of the shop is about to close, he sees that I am dressed in splendor and asks, “What? Engagements? Mazel Tov.” And I laugh and say, “Why are you cursing?”.
And I order a large knapa tray and an even larger pinjan of black coffee for me and my parents and we sit there, in one of the alleys of the city where I have known heartbreak and also a great revival and hear them proud of me. At some point, they regained their composure and started arguing about my father coming in a button-down shirt with a stain on it and why he doesn’t respect the status, and my father bullied her and said that he is respected because of his name and not because of the shirt, and I laughed my belly off and thought to myself that life has fed me so much crap These, but wow, there are moments of sweet love and pure love.
what an evening it was
what an evening