Soul Searching

March 8, 2002-Clarification

I’ve been a bit introspective the last few days & would like to share my thoughts privately with the sixty-nine people who get this email & with all of their friends & family to whom it is forwarded.

I think I’ve clarified & synthesized some of my thoughts & feelings about our stay. There are two aspects of our time in Australia that bear examination. For the first, I need to share with you an experience I had when I was nine-years old. Pay attention all you shrinks. My father had sold his business in New York & we moved to Miami Beach, Florida. I went from the only neighborhood I’d ever known, lifelong friends, & a close extended family to an alien place. I quickly learned that it was pointless to make friends at school since the children were primarily there for the “season” & the friendships would not be lasting. We eventually moved to Orlando & a more stable environment. I’ve had a hard time moving ever since.

I have envied people who have stayed in a community & who have deep roots & family ties to that community. It amazes me that some of my friends are still friends with people they knew in kindergarten. And so, I approached this experience a bit like my nine-year old self. I saw it as a wrenching away from people & places that were familiar & loved. When we arrived, we really did toy with the idea of staying on. Even though it was appealing, it did make me a bit anxious. I had a sense of displacement here. Actually, it was more a feeling that I’d been misplaced. I was “other.” I didn’t try too hard to learn how to recognize the money since VISA seemed to work just fine. Now I can recognize that the pasta colored scraps that emerge from the ATM are $A 50 notes. I was hesitant to speak to sales clerks in stores or, at least, self-conscious because there were always misunderstandings due to language differences. This became even more discomfiting after 9/11 when my American accent seemed to stand out like a beacon. Even today, I just noticed that a “goods lift” was a service elevator. When I took the $A 890 check from the medical insurance company (yes, we’ve already been reimbursed) to the bank, I told the teller I wanted to deposit $A 790, & take $A 100, in cash. She looked at the check & said that it was non-negotiable. I couldn’t understand what the problem was. The insurance company account was with the same bank & the check was made out to me. To me “non-negotiable” is just that. I’s funny money. It’s not cashable. It’s not legal tender. The teller went on as if nothing was really a problem as she told me I could deposit the check in its entirety & then withdraw $A 100, from my account since we had more that enough to cover the $A 100 without the $A 890. So, I learned that in Australian banking lingo non-negotiable means “depositable” but not “cashable.”

Now I would like to address the second aspect of this dilemma. Last night David said he was so ready to leave. When we discussed it further, he said that, if asked, he would say he liked Australia, but not the people. That’s absolutely counter to every stereotype about this country we’d absorbed. We had pictured Aussies as open, friendly, warm, & fun loving. Except for the Bruces, the people at temple were far from that. Then we realized that most people at temple weren’t Australians, they were Brits. The Bruces however, are native Aussies. For the most part, the people in the congregation are hospitable, welcoming, & polite, but more distant & taciturn. I feel more at ease with the dry cleaner or my manicurist than I do with them. We feel a warmth radiating from the lady at the kebab stand that we don’t get from the people at temple. I knew she was Kurdish, but I never knew what religion she was. I asked if we could take her picture & she declined. I asked her if it was a religious issue. She said it was more cultural & that she’s a Zoroastrian. What it boils down to is that we really do like Australia & Australians. It’s the Brits that aren’t any fun.

We ran into a very considerate agent at Cathay Pacific when we had the dates on our tickets to India changed. She rang us the next day & left a message that due to the nature of our tickets, we weren’t eligible for frequent flyer miles on American Airlines. She rang back the day after & left another message asking us if we wanted kosher meals on the flight. I couldn’t figure out how she knew we were Jewish. People here aren’t that aware of ethnic clues to Judaism, like last names. We even had a passport control worker who didn’t know what a rabbi was. David finally remembered that on our out-going message at the apartment it says,” You have reached Rabbi David & Toby Horowitz.” I guess this worker knew what a rabbi was. I thought that it was very considerate of her to make the inquiry.

Finding kosher for Passover food here is another story. Passover is the holiday when we don’t eat leavened foods ( e.g. bread) to remember when the Children of Israel led by Moses, escaped Egyptian slavery & wandered in the desert for forty years. We ordered matzo through the Temple, but when the Bruces invited us for the first Seder (ritual meal to commemorate the escape to freedom & desert experience), I offered to make dessert. Not having any of my recipes here, I thought I would rely on a commercial boxed brownie mix. There are no, zero, zip displays of Passover foods at any of the grocery stores. They don’t even have the stuff hidden on the shelves of “gourmet” foods where they keep the taco sauce. We had to go to a gourmet store that carries a few boxes of matzo for Pesach ( Passover) & have them order the mix for us. They will let us know if they can get it.

When Karen & Ron were here they bought a box of Tim Tam biscuits (cookies) for an English friend of theirs. He raved about them & that’s all he wanted from Australia. A Tim Tam is two chocolate cookies covered with a layer of chocolate. I’m not overly fond of them, but perhaps that’s because I didn’t know the true secret of the Tim Tam. I learned that it’s best eaten by first ritualistically nibbling off each end. That leaves the majority of the cookie, which is to be then used to suck up coffee as through a straw. It’s akin to the Oreo cookie separate & lick principle.

Some of you have accused me of being “nose obsessed.” How can you say that when it has always been my most prominent, if not my most flattering, feature? I’m happy to report some noticeable improvement. The stitches came out on Monday & I’ve been out on the streets with it in its uncovered (not in the biblical sense) natural state, & no children have pointed or gawked. I do think that because most people are shorter than I am, many have not even seen the area concerned. I should have had David take a photo of me with the bandage on it. I’ve always remarked that we see more people in overseas venues who walk around with sloppy gauze wound coverings or crutches than we see at home. I had joined their ranks. My favorite memory along these lines is from the isle of Rhodes. A man was walking down the street pushing an IV stand with the bottle swinging & jiggling & the IV line firmly planted in his arm.

Toby