The Blogs: Women. Eyes. Smile.

At the bus stop.

A woman wearing a baseball cap is on her phone speaking loudly.

I am generally unhappy when people do this, sometimes even conduct such conversations on speaker, and before I pay attention that it’s Arabic, turn around with a look that says, what?

In this case, however, I am glad I then heard that it was Arabic.

We wait, it turns out, for different buses.

I turn around occasionally to see if my bus is coming from the other direction.

Our eyes meet. Hers study mine. I smile. She smiles. Little smiles but a message has been conveyed.

Her bus comes, she gets on, an older, hair-covered woman using two walking sticks gets off, the doors close.

The woman realizes she’s left her purse on the bus and turns around, raps on the door but it is already opening. The Arabic speaking woman has stopped the bus and hands the woman her purse.

The bus pulls away but I seek the woman, see her, seated at the window, looking out. She is seeking my eye, too. I smile broadly, she smiles back, broadly.

We wave to one another.

I am in tears.

We will make this normal.

*In case it’s not clear: normal will be when Arabic speakers do not have to think for a milli-second about speaking Arabic in public space, that someone could be giving them a look for speaking Arabic. Normal will be when Jews do not have to dread being misunderstood as having sent a racist signal.