Serendipity

One of the times Y. and I were living in Utah, he put up signs around the city advertising himself as a Hebrew tutor. The first call he got in response was from an Israeli who didn't need a tutor in Hebrew, but wanted to know who this other Israeli was and what in the world they were doing in Salt Lake. Her name was Yaella and she invited us to Shabbat dinner with her three children. She was a single mother who was finishing up her doctorate while raising three children in a foreign country. I was amazed by her. Since I have been back, I have been meaning to look her up. It's been about 8 years since I last saw her and we lost touch that long ago, so I wasn't sure how to track her down. I couldn't even remember her last name.

I went to the arts festival this weekend in downtown Salt Lake. I saw as artist with an Israeli name, and hung around his shop deciding whether I should try my Hebrew on him. I heard another woman behind me say to him, "Are you Israeli?"

He nodded.

"Naim mayod," she said. (Nice to meet you.)

Oh great, I thought. Everyone wants to do what I am doing.

So, I turned to go, rather than bug the guy. When I turned around I saw that the woman was Israeli too. Not only was she Israeli, she was Yaella.

"Wow," I said. "I've been meaning to look you up. I'm Linsey. I used to be with Yuval years ago. He played at your son's bar mitzvah".

The confused look on her face slowly cleared. "Oh, yes!"

"I've been meaning to look you up; I guess this means you are still in Utah."

"No, actually we live in Israel now. I am just here visiting for the summer."

"Wow. That makes it even weirded."

The Israeli artist, it turns out, was thrilled to practice his Hebrew. He started playing the connect-the-dots game that rarely fails to disappoint Israelis. Sometimes it seems like the whole country must be connected. It turned out that he lived in the same kibbutz as Yaella's parents. Not only that, he lived at the kibbutz when Yaella was born. Not only that, he actually remembers her being born since she was one of the first children born in that community.

We chatted a little more; she gave me some numbers of other friends we had had around the same time. She offered to have the friends she was with adopt me if I needed a set of parents in Utah. I explained that I did have parents here and that it was the reason I had come back to Utah. "Oh, alright then," she said. But maybe I should have taken her up on the offer. I am on the look out for a Jewish family that would like to include me for the holidays.