meeting writers-a celebrity story

Here goes mine:

I love writers..i used to go to every writer giving a lecture at Harvard when i went to Lesley college. back in 1993-4

 I met Amos Oz twice and had asked him a question he did not like.

I had always loved his writing, i am not sure how familiar americans are with his writers as he is an Israeli writer whose writings have been translated to many languages..i had cut out his photo from a magazine article and put him on the wall of my dorm room at university in jerusalem where he had also gone to school..

Some of his lines made me identify with his heroine like the one in "My Michael"  about a sensitive woman who meets a man called Michael,

she says"when i was young i had a lot of strength to love, now my strength  to love is gone, i don't want to die"

he writes about women in a deep way as if he knows them inside and out .. i had asked him a question about his political involvement as he is a peace activist, he did not like the question..at all ..

I was squeezing in to the Harvard Hillel building where he was invited after giving a speech at harvard, he was a short man, and i felt disappointed ,in  his photo he  was so good looking..he just gave me a short answer, and disappeared in the crowd, hardly the tete a tete i was expecting..

About 15 years later i had met him In Zurich ,it was a cold  rainy night, i wanted to ask him a question..he talked about how a writer is like a fly on the wall of a family, how he listens to what is going on and writes about it..that for him a family is more interesting than going to the moon..this time i became afraid to ask a question..i just said, could you sign this for my mother? and gave him his latest book "tales of darkness and light", then i could not help him, he had mentioned my family in the book which was about his life and his childhood in Jerusalem too , my fathers' second cousin is a famous politician in Israel , his father had translated the Koran to Hebrew and was a well known professor in Jerusalem.  you know my family, i had mentioned by the way, his face lit up, he smiled to me, sure i know him, we were together at the same class in high school! He had signed "To the family!"

Well, i had wanted to talk to him about writing and what advice he could give to someone who writes to the desk drawers, this was before i joined Gather...but well if this was the way i could get his attention, i got it, i only wished it could have been thanks to my magnetic personality  instead of family relations...

Another meeting i would like to mention is Maya Angelou, a well known figure in the U.S.A.

She had written the book "Now i know why the caged bird sings", i had read it in one sitting, and remember it getting dark before i had noticed  i spent the whole afternoon reading without stopping, she had been abused as a child and writes about her experiences and how she had gone on to become the self made woman she is today..

I stood in a long line waiting for her to sign her latest book, a children's book called "Life doesn't frighten me at all",

once more i did not get a chance to talk to her, people were waiting in a long line after me and she talked to each person, but i will never forget her radiant smile, she lit up the room like the sun, she looked at me as if she was meeting her best friend, took my hand and had written inside the book in big bold letter "To sigal, JOY!!"

i have always thought that was the msot precious thing i own, that book with her word in large bold letters...she was like a psychic ,able to see into my heart and know what was missing, that is how i felt, for a long time afterwards i felt her glowing  halo, she is for me a special person with the gift to touch people's lives and change them just with one radiant smile..

I will always remember that time i had met her in Boston as one of  light in the face of darkness ..

That's all for now, i have to go with my daughter to the doctor, she has an ear infection but everytime i feel scared or not sure of myself , i think of Maya Angelou and think :Life doesn't frighten me at all!