Diversity

Lillian has been getting car sick, so we have not been taking her on our weekly visit to the Shrine of Baha'u'llah at Bahji, and are taking turns going. The trip is almost an hour by Sherut (shared minivan taxi). Although I'm sad not to take her, it has been really nice for me to visit the Shrine on my own with my thoughts (and arms) free. I went yesterday, Saturday afternoon. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm after a few days of rain. The Mansion of Bahji was open too, where Baha'u'llah spent his last years, and I visited the room where he passed away. It was so lovely and uplifting.

But what I wanted to blog about was the sherut ride. It was such a fun people-watching opportunity. When I got on there were two Arab girls sitting in the front. They were dressed similarly as best friends sometimes are, when you can tell that their tastes coincide. One had on jeans and layered knit tops, a long, brown one and a cropped one with brown stripes, and boots with long cowboy boot-like toes in brown snakeskin. The other had the same body-hugging silhouette with variations in color and texture: black leggings and black boots, grey heather tops. Both had long, straight, dark hair, bulky glittery rings, dark eyeliner, outlined lips and long nails encrusted with irridescent glittery ornamentation. They chatted to each other, the driver and cell-phone friends in Arabic.

We drove along picking people up. The Shabat prices, which are normally higher than weekday prices, have gone up recently. A Russian lady got on. She was slim and was wearing a bright purple sweater, sunglasses, and dark make-up. Her hair was cut short and died black. She objected to the price in not-quite fluent Hebrew. The driver explained. A slightly heated discussion ensued. The girls ironed it out at the end by explaining to the driver in Arabic what the woman had said.

A while later another Russian woman got on with two pre-teen sons. She was more motherly looking, but also had the snazzy short haircut plus blonde highlights. She was wearing a black top with long sleeves slit from shoulder to wrist and held together at the elbow with rinestones. She also objected to the prices, the driver said something, the girls added something. The price list was passed back, consulted, and passed forward again. She asked how much she owed and the driver replied some number times three, what was that? He started muttering calculations, first in Hebrew, then Arabic. One of the Arab girls lazily said the number and the other repeated it back to the lady. They passed the money back and forth and we drove on.

Later we picked up a third Russian lady. She was wearing a pink leather jacket, pink shoes with the same pointed cowboy toe, over white socks with red stars, and had pink highlights in her blonde bobbed hair. When she got her change, she passed it back up with a complaint. The driver explained and the girls passed back the change with more of an explanation.

A young girl got on wearing a short, grey tweed blazer with floral embroidery on the back over a top with a yellow and white polkadot hood, black jeans with bulging pockets (no purse), and gold lame lowtops with velcro closures. She paid at the front, and discussed the price pleasantly with the driver. The Arab girls checked out her outfit with mild interest.

Then we picked a middle-aged couple. She was in black with died black hair and he was wearing weathered jeans with embroidery, a blue cotton sweatshirt with a 70's fit, and a gold chain. They passed up their money, and as they sat puzzling over their change, the girls started the explanation.

The girls got off before me. "Yala Bye Bye," the driver said to them as they ducked out, flashing a wedge of lower back. I thought that in order to fully use their talents and capabilities they should either run large corporations or big families.

I was bewildered by the outfits everyone was wearing. I honestly am not saying this critically; I'm no one to do so. If my sister were here, I would never have left the house dressed in tights with socks over them under a skirt (ouch! I don't think it looked as bad as it sounds, but I could be wrong). What are the worlds my fellow passengers inhabit, where it makes aesthetic sense to dress as they did. What messages were they giving, and why can't I read them? If our worlds, clothing-wise, can be so differently constructed, what about the rest of our lives? And it also made me realize that although so much tells us the contrary, there is no list of answers at the end of the book. Even the word of God must be interepreted to be applied, to dress or anything else. It's really what's in the heart that matters, isn't it? That's something we can understand about each other.