Gabriella :: Personal Narrative Russia Judaism Papers

Gabriella Sometimes I still put your name, erect to hold it in my mouth, to twirl it past the curves of vowels and into the trill of the l, the lilt of the closing a. Gabriella, I still see your sharp, strange face, in street crowds and in airports, the flutter of your long hands tracing my belly button.I merchantmant remember Gabriellas eventually name, something quite Russian and excitingly foreign to the five year old self of mine who last saw her. I dont know which part of Russia she lived in before approaching here as part of a refugee plan for Soviet Jews, never even thought to ask. In 1983, I only knew that Russians were communists, and communists were bad, which was why Gabriella (stop, wait, say the name again, slowly). Gabriieeelllaaa ran away. I am four years old and progress to to read angiotensin converting enzyme whole book with chapters before starting kindergarten next week at Ezra Academy, a Jewish day school in Woodbridge, Connecticut which requires all st udents to read and write both Hebrew and side of meat at a basic level upon entrance. When we met the principal oer the summer, he said that I would be the youngest pupil by more than a year. For my book, I pick Meet Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from a shining shelf at Stop n Shop while wall hanging over the front of the child seat in my perplexs shopping cart, already too round to fit in comfortably. That night, I curl into my pink flannel princess nightgown to read in my mothers big maroon rocking chair. Mommy, were the Jim Crow concourse commu..commm...communin,..cc...communinists?Communists?She smiles, and I understand for the crinkles at her eyes to tell me if she noticed my tangled pronunciation. Are the people who hated Dr. King the same people who hate Gabriella?Who?My mother drawls over the who, dangling the word like the glass in her hand, one sip left of pale rose colored wine so staring(a) I want to place it like dew on my tongue wine is only for mommiesIf Im not al lowed to drink more than one glass of ginger ale why can you drink five spectacles of wine?Because its different for grownups, our stomachs are biggerBig seemly for the whole bottle?Dont be silly. Who were you asking me about before?Remember The girl who is going to be in my degree who you said Rabbi Scolnik helped rescue from the cc.