We Are Ten
Three are married, five are divorced, one is separated, and one is single. Two are grandmothers, one is on the way. Four have married children. Two don’t have any. One is a lesbian. Three take hormones, two have lovers. Two married Israeli men they met volunteering on a kibbutz when socialism still felt like something worth experiencing. Three met their husbands overseas. Two converted to Judaism. We are all white, we are all female, we have not bled from our wombs for some time. We call ourselves queenagers.
Some are younger than others, and some feel younger than others. I feel in the middle. Maybe older, even though I take vitamins and fish oil, and magnesium, and sometimes I eat a banana for potassium. It’s the deep lines in my face and the thought of a lonely future that makes me feel older these days. And the death of my parents. My mother never took estrogen, and she died from cancer. My aunt did, and she didn’t, so I do.
We meet occasionally, at a body of water or an Indian vegetarian restaurant, though none of us are vegetarian. Some turn up, not all. One is in India. One is in Tel Aviv. One has a father who just died. Four smoke weed, the others smoke tobacco, except for two. Three drink alcohol, some occasionally, some more often. One massages soldiers on the border of Gaza so she can be close to her son, who has been in for two years. In, is the word we use. Mothers who have sons who are in are a different caliber of human. Their resilience is heroic. What else can you do but endure? We sigh, we pray for their safe return — without too much damage.
We talk about our children. We talk about our lovers, past, present, and imaginary. We talk about our dreams; we talk about our crafts. One weaves, two crochet, one ferments sauerkraut, and makes sourdough bread. One makes cashew cheese. We all love to dance. One is a priestess. One is an artist. One does Reiki, one hangs upside down.
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During COVID, we split. The fearful and the paranoid. Some wore masks and wiped down their shopping bags before bringing them into their kitchens; they tested and vaccinated and had their papers ready so they could go see a movie. Mass psychosis is powerful. Some went down the rabbit hole into conspiracy. I like to think I sat in the middle. It’s hard to know. I had a fake digital pass made when I went to visit family in the US. It was a close call at Newark airport.
When we met, after two years, we never really spoke about it. The fault lines were too fragile. And by then, it was post-October 7, and we were in a war. Relieved to have this short respite between lockdown and sirens, to meet for a coffee or a shared meal. In the face of one’s children, (both personal and collective), on the frontline, covid differences, once divisive enough to break up marriages, seemed less important – though there were glances.
There are things you say in friendships, and there are things you don’t say. Nobody told her that her husband was a narcissist and that she should leave before he poisons her children and her community against her. Perhaps nobody knew. Nobody told her that her husband was an incompetent ninkampoop. But do you think she didn’t know, while she worked two jobs to keep him on the couch? Nobody told her that she smoked too much weed, or that she wasn’t eating enough, or that she was drinking too much, or that she stayed with that stupid man for way too long. Nobody told her that she looked like death, or that her tears drowned out everyone’s joy, or that she loved too easily, or that she complained too much.
Friends don’t tell you that your sad little life is only going to get smaller and sadder, or that your dreams of being an astronaut will never come true, or that you look ridiculous in those filtered TikTok reels you keep posting, or that your Botox is showing
Maybe they should.
Four were born in South Africa, two are Australian, four are English, and one was born on a boat on an Island off the coast of Spain.
