So F#*king Special

My daughter, the fairy child with the shining eyes loves dancing. Doesn’t matter what it is: From Natasha Atlas to Tupac, from Bob Dylan to Ylvis she is moved.

Transformed from the girl of the earth with the scrapes on her knees, who crashes into you for a hug, she becomes transcendental.

And yesterday, we walked the old ways of Yafo in the gloaming between dust motes, and she followed the sound of a guitar from far away.

I’ll be real with you: Poetry does no justice to the way the air changes when you’re within the walls of the old city, to the way sounds echo softly from all sides.

“OMG, this is so f#*king awesome,” would cheapen that glimmer of sea through the cracks in the walls, it would weaken the strength of the sunlight that streams off the water. But music? Music gets it SOOOO right… and so does moving toward it as my daughter did.

We found the man and his guitar: First the Beatles. Then Idan Raichel. Then Oasis. Then Shalom Chanoch and finally this:

“But I’m a creep

I’m a weirdo

What the hell am I doing here?

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I don’t belong here.”

She stretched her arms out and drifted in the dusk, my mermaid girl on land a denizen of two worlds — ours, and hers.

I gave her ten shekels to put in the glass jar by the musician’s left foot.

Suddenly shy, her cheeks pink and her eyes on the stones below her feet, she dropped the coins into the jar, and missed his smile.

She danced again, in circles floating while the music played, and meanwhile he sang.

“Whatever makes you happy… Whatever you want…”

She looked at him. He looked at her:

He was singing to her, only her and his eyes glittered as he sang these words .

She threw her head back and laughed. We all did, all of us there gathered in that half-light where the walls meet and the sun has more meaning….

“You’re so f#*king special…. I wish I was special…”

And while the echos of our laughter faded into the stone, my daugher smiled as she twirled around: “We’re all special!” she said as she flittered toward the light.