Savta in the Promised Land

In The Promised Land, the first in the series, I planted my Savta (my Grandmother) in the middle of the desert. She is wearing her heavy winter coat (what else would you wear in the cold Polish winter?!), her kerchief tightly covering her beautiful orange hair, her stockings on, her shoes big and well-suited for cold days and even cooler nights. The hot desert she found herself in, smewhere in the central part of Israel, in conflict with all she knew.

In The Promised Land VII, I have allowed for the passage of some time. She is still in this hot new land, she is still carrying with her the habits and intangibles of an Eastern European life, she still does not speak the language of her new land, Hebrew, and only communicates in Yiddish or Polish, but she is trying to adapt. The Kerchief is gone. The coat is gone. The arms are bare. The hair is looser. Her coloring starts to reflect the colors of the land. Her expression is bemused, but not alien. In her way, she is morphing.