An Incredibly Jewish Day
Hine ma tovu manahim,
Shevet acheem gamyachad.
I woke up with that old Jewish round in my head, and it hasn't stopped. Guess that's a cue to write about the Shabbos dinner.
February 16-19 were some of the hardest days of my recent memory. Really, really tough, taxing me somewhat physically but mostly mentally. I'm not ready to talk about it yet, not remotely. But on the 19th, I felt so heartbroken and raw and in need of reminders that I'm loved and it's a worthy pursuit, to care for others and be cared for in return, that I did something I very rarely do. I vaguebooked.
"I keep trying to post a status and then erasing it. Coyote and I are boxes with "fragile" stamped on us, all over. Please be kind. Sorry for vaguebooking. We are 100% physically healthy. Digital or real-life hugs graciously accepted."
I didn't write that to the subset of friends who I gently let know about each LJ post I've written since the start of the NaBloPoMo thing, I wrote that to all my friends. Which means, I did get the outpouring of love I very badly needed, but I also worried the hell out of some people. Including my Mom. >.<
Right, so. Lesson learned amply, make sure to block Mom from seeing that sort of thing.
But I did also get two "hey, let's have dinner" offers, and I happily took both. The first was from doompuppy, and the second was Amanda inviting me to Shabbos dinner with her family.
Amanda's a friend from Occupy Providence, easily the best friend I made there. Whenever our paths cross, we'll talk rapidly for a long time. We have a lot in common: both Jewish, raised very very Reform, both became more religious in adulthood, very close in age (I'm like six weeks older), both caring people, both feminists, in our men-are-people-too liberal feminist ways.
But she married another Jew and decided to become "Modern Orthodox" with him. They have two kids and a nice house. I'm not sure if she works, but her husband definitely does. She dresses in jeans and shirts that cover herself modestly, but I've never seen her in a skirt or hiding her hair. The kids and husband also dress modernly, the only obvious Jewishness being the male heads both being covered, the white fringes of the ceremonial undershirt worn by the boy, and he seems to be growing out the hair over his temples. But that's clearly his own decision, and made fairly recently.
Anyway, Amanda invited me and Coyote for Shabbos, and I tried to gently tell her that he's not the type to come out and meet new people. Even nice, nonjudgemental people. He's really quite content with his social life as it is, and while I would of course let him know he's invited, I wouldn't push hard to get him to come.
I guess I messed up, because Amanda thought that my vaguebooking had to do with something happening to my marriage.
The whole night was nice but a little weird.
Scratch that, the whole day was nice but a little weird.
Leonard Nimoy died, and I found out by reading Coyote's Facebook post about it- twenty minutes before I had to leave to go walk 2.2 miles through the snow to Amanda's house.
I felt numb and sad all night, and I think it was my grief overshadowing everything else. Leonard Nimoy, besides being a gifted actor, was such an outpouring of love and generosity. He was the best Twitter user I'd ever seen, utilising the platform to give constant love and support to his thousands of fans. He invited everyone who wanted to adopt him as a spiritual grandfather, and I eagerly joined the many who did. I love Spock, and I'm grateful for all the Spock I can watch, (that Zachary kid, and the current writers, just don't get Spock) but I love Leonard Nimoy more. RIP.
But there were other oddities, and I guess I don't mind using Amanda's real name here because I feel like it's unlikely we'll become close friends. She's a curvy woman herself, but nowhere near as comfortable with her body as I am with mine. Some of her own poor body image was flung around in such a manner that I felt somewhat insulted.
I was going to specify, but I think I'd rather not. I left the house feeling full and mostly contented but also, well, feeling fat. Feeling sad that I was so huge that I warranted some specific commentary about it, though none of it was said with hurtful intentions.
There was another weird moment after dinner, where her son and I were sitting at the table and she tried to teach me a Hebrew song that goes in a round. But it wasn't the one I knew by heart, it was brand-new to me, and after a few minutes of trying to do the three-part round she chuckled and said that I didn't know the song well enough yet to do it properly. I don't know why, but it felt like a rebuke of my singing abilities. I was also called upon to praise her children- I dunno, maybe that's a thing proud parents do. I guess my brother does. It feels strange and interrupts the flow of conversation.
Earlier in the night, I did tell her and her husband the whole story of my awful few days. But Amanda had already convinced herself she was having me over to help bolster me for dealing with a troubled marriage or something, and seemed . . . disappointed. I kept getting the sensation throughout the night that she'd really wanted me to be a baby bird with a broken wing, and when I showed up as a baby bird with just a sprained leg, she didn't know what to do with me.
I dunno.
I'm telling this all out of order, but it was my first Shabbos, and there were Orthodox prayers and customs I'd never heard or seen before. Hands were ceremonially washed, and bread and sparkling grape juice were blessed. There was a period of silence, and then once we were eating the (fresh-baked! From scratch!) bread, it was broken.
The food was yummy, Kosher cooking meant that since meat was served, there was no dairy, not even in dessert. I tried to contemplate a yummy dinner menu that was either meat or dairy, and couldn't manage it: I'm so used to adding cheese or anchovies for a punch of flavor.
We ate baked chicken legs and thighs, a vegetable kugel, roasted veggies soaked in vinegar, and the bread, which was round loaves of some kind of olive oil-infused Italian bread. From-scratch challah happens some weeks, too. For dessert, a spice cake with cranberry filling and coconut oil buttercream frosting. I discovered that I really don't at all mind the flavor of coconut: it's the texture of toasted coconut flakes that I can't abide. Fresh coconut meat is yummy, or so I remember thinking when I was living in Hawai'i.
So, I'll have to do some experimenting with coconut oil myself. And yes, I enjoy time with Amanda and her family.
But I don't think I'll be a frequent Shabbos guest, and it'll be a more pleasant walk in any season but the last few gasps of winter.
I'm contemplating coming out to Amanda about polyamory, so that I can invite Tiger. He'd probably be intrigued enough to come along, and Amanda is quite a good cook. I wish she'd let us bring food, but I can understand why that's forbidden. When everything is made by her, she can make sure it's both healthy and as Kosher as she wants her family to be.
I was left with a big pile of reasons to try on Coyote to get him to come next time, and an open invite for Pesach. But this year Holy Week is the same week, so I think I'll pass. Honestly, my family did Passover seders, and did them as painlessly as possible. I still found them boring, both as a kid and as an adult. I'm sad the Zacks don't invite us to Thanksgiving anymore, but there's nothing I miss about seders there, either.
Holy Week is so much more interesting. I'd like to invite all the Jews I know to check it out, but I know that'd not go over well.
Anyway, speaking of Holy Week, I'm nicely warmed up and will now turn my attention to my Lenten project, a writing project I started in December. It's coming along well, finally!
Shevet acheem gamyachad.
I woke up with that old Jewish round in my head, and it hasn't stopped. Guess that's a cue to write about the Shabbos dinner.
February 16-19 were some of the hardest days of my recent memory. Really, really tough, taxing me somewhat physically but mostly mentally. I'm not ready to talk about it yet, not remotely. But on the 19th, I felt so heartbroken and raw and in need of reminders that I'm loved and it's a worthy pursuit, to care for others and be cared for in return, that I did something I very rarely do. I vaguebooked.
"I keep trying to post a status and then erasing it. Coyote and I are boxes with "fragile" stamped on us, all over. Please be kind. Sorry for vaguebooking. We are 100% physically healthy. Digital or real-life hugs graciously accepted."
I didn't write that to the subset of friends who I gently let know about each LJ post I've written since the start of the NaBloPoMo thing, I wrote that to all my friends. Which means, I did get the outpouring of love I very badly needed, but I also worried the hell out of some people. Including my Mom. >.<
Right, so. Lesson learned amply, make sure to block Mom from seeing that sort of thing.
But I did also get two "hey, let's have dinner" offers, and I happily took both. The first was from doompuppy, and the second was Amanda inviting me to Shabbos dinner with her family.
Amanda's a friend from Occupy Providence, easily the best friend I made there. Whenever our paths cross, we'll talk rapidly for a long time. We have a lot in common: both Jewish, raised very very Reform, both became more religious in adulthood, very close in age (I'm like six weeks older), both caring people, both feminists, in our men-are-people-too liberal feminist ways.
But she married another Jew and decided to become "Modern Orthodox" with him. They have two kids and a nice house. I'm not sure if she works, but her husband definitely does. She dresses in jeans and shirts that cover herself modestly, but I've never seen her in a skirt or hiding her hair. The kids and husband also dress modernly, the only obvious Jewishness being the male heads both being covered, the white fringes of the ceremonial undershirt worn by the boy, and he seems to be growing out the hair over his temples. But that's clearly his own decision, and made fairly recently.
Anyway, Amanda invited me and Coyote for Shabbos, and I tried to gently tell her that he's not the type to come out and meet new people. Even nice, nonjudgemental people. He's really quite content with his social life as it is, and while I would of course let him know he's invited, I wouldn't push hard to get him to come.
I guess I messed up, because Amanda thought that my vaguebooking had to do with something happening to my marriage.
The whole night was nice but a little weird.
Scratch that, the whole day was nice but a little weird.
Leonard Nimoy died, and I found out by reading Coyote's Facebook post about it- twenty minutes before I had to leave to go walk 2.2 miles through the snow to Amanda's house.
I felt numb and sad all night, and I think it was my grief overshadowing everything else. Leonard Nimoy, besides being a gifted actor, was such an outpouring of love and generosity. He was the best Twitter user I'd ever seen, utilising the platform to give constant love and support to his thousands of fans. He invited everyone who wanted to adopt him as a spiritual grandfather, and I eagerly joined the many who did. I love Spock, and I'm grateful for all the Spock I can watch, (that Zachary kid, and the current writers, just don't get Spock) but I love Leonard Nimoy more. RIP.
But there were other oddities, and I guess I don't mind using Amanda's real name here because I feel like it's unlikely we'll become close friends. She's a curvy woman herself, but nowhere near as comfortable with her body as I am with mine. Some of her own poor body image was flung around in such a manner that I felt somewhat insulted.
I was going to specify, but I think I'd rather not. I left the house feeling full and mostly contented but also, well, feeling fat. Feeling sad that I was so huge that I warranted some specific commentary about it, though none of it was said with hurtful intentions.
There was another weird moment after dinner, where her son and I were sitting at the table and she tried to teach me a Hebrew song that goes in a round. But it wasn't the one I knew by heart, it was brand-new to me, and after a few minutes of trying to do the three-part round she chuckled and said that I didn't know the song well enough yet to do it properly. I don't know why, but it felt like a rebuke of my singing abilities. I was also called upon to praise her children- I dunno, maybe that's a thing proud parents do. I guess my brother does. It feels strange and interrupts the flow of conversation.
Earlier in the night, I did tell her and her husband the whole story of my awful few days. But Amanda had already convinced herself she was having me over to help bolster me for dealing with a troubled marriage or something, and seemed . . . disappointed. I kept getting the sensation throughout the night that she'd really wanted me to be a baby bird with a broken wing, and when I showed up as a baby bird with just a sprained leg, she didn't know what to do with me.
I dunno.
I'm telling this all out of order, but it was my first Shabbos, and there were Orthodox prayers and customs I'd never heard or seen before. Hands were ceremonially washed, and bread and sparkling grape juice were blessed. There was a period of silence, and then once we were eating the (fresh-baked! From scratch!) bread, it was broken.
The food was yummy, Kosher cooking meant that since meat was served, there was no dairy, not even in dessert. I tried to contemplate a yummy dinner menu that was either meat or dairy, and couldn't manage it: I'm so used to adding cheese or anchovies for a punch of flavor.
We ate baked chicken legs and thighs, a vegetable kugel, roasted veggies soaked in vinegar, and the bread, which was round loaves of some kind of olive oil-infused Italian bread. From-scratch challah happens some weeks, too. For dessert, a spice cake with cranberry filling and coconut oil buttercream frosting. I discovered that I really don't at all mind the flavor of coconut: it's the texture of toasted coconut flakes that I can't abide. Fresh coconut meat is yummy, or so I remember thinking when I was living in Hawai'i.
So, I'll have to do some experimenting with coconut oil myself. And yes, I enjoy time with Amanda and her family.
But I don't think I'll be a frequent Shabbos guest, and it'll be a more pleasant walk in any season but the last few gasps of winter.
I'm contemplating coming out to Amanda about polyamory, so that I can invite Tiger. He'd probably be intrigued enough to come along, and Amanda is quite a good cook. I wish she'd let us bring food, but I can understand why that's forbidden. When everything is made by her, she can make sure it's both healthy and as Kosher as she wants her family to be.
I was left with a big pile of reasons to try on Coyote to get him to come next time, and an open invite for Pesach. But this year Holy Week is the same week, so I think I'll pass. Honestly, my family did Passover seders, and did them as painlessly as possible. I still found them boring, both as a kid and as an adult. I'm sad the Zacks don't invite us to Thanksgiving anymore, but there's nothing I miss about seders there, either.
Holy Week is so much more interesting. I'd like to invite all the Jews I know to check it out, but I know that'd not go over well.
Anyway, speaking of Holy Week, I'm nicely warmed up and will now turn my attention to my Lenten project, a writing project I started in December. It's coming along well, finally!