A Brief Unwondrous Update

Yes, so it's been a long time, right? Needless to say, much has happened over Scotland way - including various hillwalking adventures, trips to Italy, London, and Berlin (where I am currently stuck until Edinburgh airport reopens), finishing the (very) rough draft of Novel #1 and writing 38,000 words in Novel #2, one very yucky case of conjunctivitis for Jack, said boy dressed as a friar (after an unauthorized haircut from granny) for Halloween, a great big bonfire for Guy Fawkes night, a huge Thanksgiving Celebration, the first night of Hanukkah, and so on and so forth. And none of it documented on the Internet. Did it really happen then? Hmmmmmm....

Just have to get ONE post in for September!

If you look back on my archives, you'll see that I blog in cycles. Sometimes I feel a compulsion to write every day, other times I don't feel the need to blog for months (years, at one point). I feel guilty about it sometimes--stupidly, I think, because I doubt I actually disappoint anyone by disappearing, though I hope people at least wonder about me sometimes--but, if you've read my Blogging Manifesto, then you know I am trying to give myself a break about it. Because I blog for me, right?

But I am still here, and do have some lovely pictures to post of all the things I've been doing here. I am tremendously happy. There were a few pretty bad days a few weeks ago, brought on when I ran out of my medication and fell into melancholy, but David convinced me to call up the doctor here and get more medication. I didn't think it was possible. Even in America it's a huge process to get antidepressants sometimes, seeing as you have to go through a psychiatrist and be assessed and all that. But GOD BLESS THE NHS. I don't care what anyone says, I have never had a bad experience with the Universal Health system here.

I went to the doctor--a GP, not a shrink--told her what I was on, she asked a few questions and wrote me a prescription right there. For free. FOR FREE. And I paid only three pounds for the drugs themselves, drugs that cost me a $15 copay at home, where I have insurance. It was like a small miracle.

So I am much better now, and after a few stilted writing days I'm back on the old word wagon. Plus the weather's been really lovely, and David's mother has been taking Jack and I for long walks through the Scottish countryside almost daily. Something about spending that much time outside, surrounded by green, is more therapeutic than a mountain of medication.

The Festival Season is Upon Us

So I've been absent for the past two weeks, mainly due to the fact that I am having a wonderful time. It is festival season in Edinburgh, which for those of you who don't know means 250,000 people from all over converge on the city for a month to take part in what must be one of the most unique events in the world: the Edinburgh Festivals.

There are actually several festivals. The first is the International Festival, the original festival that brings in twenty(ish) incredible international performances from all over the world, including opera, ballet, theater, and modern dance.

But it's what has grown up around the International Festival that is truly amazing: the Fringe Festival. Basically, anyone from anywhere can put on any type of show they want. They just have to find a venue, pay a small fee, and bam, they're in the program. The program this year is 350 pages long. There are 2,450 performances. Let me just say that again: There are 2,450 performances. In something like 368 venues, including large playhouses, churches, community centers, pubs, street corners, schools--wherever. One show takes place on a bus that travels around the city. A show can happen anywhere, and there is a show happening basically at all times. Pick up the brochure, and you'll find something to see even at two in the morning.

Many of the shows are standard productions like plays, musicals, ballet numbers, stand-up comedian acts, etc. But a lot of them are not. One performance that ran for the first week was a one-on-one show (as in one performer, one audience member) that took place in a busy coffee shop. Another performance outfits the viewer with an ipod and sends him or her out into the city with a series of directions, ending up with the viewer unsure whether passersby are just people walking down the street or part of the performance.

Basically, it's a breeding ground for experimental, avant garde theater, and there's nothing quite like it. Performers typically put on one show a day, then spend the rest of the day advertising, so that when you walk down the Royal Mile, it is heaving with people in elaborate costumes passing out flyers, musicians busking to the crowd, mini-performances being put on everywhere in order to get people interested in a show. The atmosphere is electric.

So far I have seen a music-and-dance show from Zimbabwe with a cast of thirty extremely talented, extremely energetic singers and dancers; an early morning comedic interpretation of King Lear; four different stand up comedians; the meditative chants and dances of the Tashi Lhunpo monks of Tibet, and a few other random things for good measure.

So yeah, I've been busy. To top it off, the Edinburgh International Book Festival (the largest in the world) also kicked off last weekend, so 750 authors from all over the globe are traipsing across the city in between giving talks and signing books at Charlotte Square. The Literati Glitterari, you might say. Philip Pullman, Tess Gerritsen, Jeanette Winterson, Fay Weldon, Alexander McCall Smith, Louis de Bernières, Ian Rankin, Andrea Levy, Zadie Smith, Jasper Fforde--the list goes on and on.

So my days are full at the moment, and I'm happier than I've been in months. The activity and the happiness have been inspiring me: As of last week I've got 80,000 words in my novel. Only two scenes left to go. So please excuse me if my posting is sporadic. For the first time in a long, long time I'm too busy living life to actually write about it, and while it couldn't last (I'd burn out!), it feels really good right now.

Back in the 'Burgh

Thanks to everyone for all your kind words after last week's tragedy. I'm feeling better now, but it took a while. Thankfully I had much to occupy my time as we had four days to finish packing everything and hop onto a plane to Scotland.

So here we are, back in lovely Edinburgh, and I'm feeling better than I have in months. Nothing like new adventure to jolt you out of stagnation. I move to keep things whole, right? Anyway, we're here for nearly five months and I am ready to dive into life again. Wish me luck :)

It's very sad around here.

We just got back from our family vacation in Hilton Head, and what I wanted to be doing was posting pictures and gushing about how fun it was. But I just don't feel up to it. My sixteen-year-old cat, Koty, died while we were away. Alone. In the basement.

I know it's a bit self-indulgent to grieve so greatly for an animal when the blogosphere is full of people dealing with losses so significant and terrible that mine pales in comparison. But I am just so wrecked I have to write about it.

It's not so much that she's gone. She was sixteen years old, and her last year was full of health problems. She developed a mammary tumor in November that constantly opened up into a bleeding wound. Due to her age, we weren't sure if we should spend $1000 to fix her, as she wasn't in any pain and still ate like a horse. But she had to remain in the basement of my parents' house to keep from bleeding everywhere. Eventually, the thought of her living out her days in the basement was just too awful. So in May we sprang for the surgery. The vet almost didn't do it, because her blood tests revealed that she was in kidney failure, relatively common for older cats, but in the end the pros outweighed the risks.

She made it through, and David and I took her back to our house. For two months she lived there with the roam of the house, on our laps every night while we watched television. But she wasn't entirely well. Not in pain, but vomiting and urinating all over the house. Exceptionally gross.

Two weeks ago we moved back in with my parents in preparation for our departure to Scotland, and Koty had to go back to the basement. I was so busy and preoccupied that I basically only saw her when I fed her twice a day. She barely moved from the same spot in the corner of my Dad's office those two weeks. But she was still eating like a horse, and seemed perfectly fine.

When it was time to go, we couldn't find anyone to come and take care of her. Finally our housekeeper agreed to come on Wednesday and Thursday, but as we were leaving on Friday, that would mean she was alone for four days. We have an automatic feeder with hard food and an automatic waterer, so foodwise she would be fine, and she'd been alone for three days before. I felt bad, but honestly I was just so busy and stressed that I didn't think about it much. It never occurred to me that what happened would ever happen.

On Thursday, the housekeeper called to say that Koty hadn't eaten any of the food she'd put out the day before, hadn't used the bathroom, and appeared very sick. We were all worried, and thought about calling someone, but weren't sure what to do. The craziest thing, what I feel so so awful about, is that we did nothing. I'm not sure why. I must have been in some serious denial. She's gone through periods of not eating before, but she's a resilient cat and I guess I just never thought she could be that sick. We would be home in two days, and then I would take care of her.

Only when we got home it was too late. We found her lying in the same spot in my Dad's basement office, eyes closed, cold and stiff. This was, no joke, one of the worst moments of my life. Finding my faithful, loving cat, whose favorite place in the world was on my lap, dead on the floor--where she'd spent her last week of life alone and sick, abandoned and helpless while we played on the beach--just kills me with guilt and shame.

I have no doubt that she died because of me. I know that if she were a healthy cat, obviously she would have been fine. But I didn't realize how sick she was, and without the wet food that she loved her kidneys probably shut down and she died of dehydration. I've heard that this isn't agony, more like a hangover that you spend a lot of time sleeping off, that she probably slipped into a coma and died peacefully. But I just picture her hurting and wondering why no one was coming for her. I honestly don't know how to get over my part in her horrible death. She deserved so much better.

If you've read this all the way to the end, I appreciate it. I haven't been able to sleep and have barely eaten since we found her. I know she was just a cat, but animals have such innocence that their suffering is all the more horrific. Anyway, I hope one day I can forgive myself. But for now, wow, that day seems far off.

Ah, Cleveland

Once again I am getting nostalgic about leaving Cleveland. This city holds a paradox for me: I love it so much, and miss it while I'm away (often I can't imagine settling anywhere else), but within a few months of living here, I am inevitably desperate to get out.

It's not Cleveland, it's me. Something about coming back to my hometown regresses me into utter complacency. I can't seem to see it with the fresh eyes I wear in other cities I've lived in. Tourist's eyes, I suppose you could call them. I lose the energy to actually go out and do things here at a shocking rate, and end up doing nothing even though there's so much to do. This doesn't happen in other places. Maybe it's my history bogging me down here. Maybe it's the fact that I already have old friends, so don't bother making the effort to make new ones, even though my old friends are busy and, for the most part, a fractured group that doesn't form a cohesive whole (I know a lot of people who don't know each other, that kind of thing). I honestly don't know what it is, but living here erodes me. Which sucks. Because I love it here.

Before I leave, I should really do a Cleveland post that gets into the meat of what makes this city so awesome. But until I do, here's Anthony Bourdain talking up Cleveland in the wake of Harvey Pekar's death (RIP, Harvey):

The Original (Goodbye Splendor)

We interrupt this blog to talk about Lebron James.

So it's no secret that I'm from Cleveland. I grew up in this town and I live here now. And I love it. It's a great city, hugely underrated a far as I'm concerned, with a stunning amount of diversity, a world class arts scene (one of the top seven orchestras in the world, an amazing art museum that is always free, the largest theatre complex in the nation outside of Broadway, just to name a few), some of the top-rated restaurants in the country (Cleveland has recently been named a top culinary destination by a variety of magazines), a library system that is unrivaled by any I've seen (New York's libraries pale--I mean pale--in comparison), and a true Midwest friendliness.

But it's a sad town. People are leaving in droves, people like myself who love it (and nearly everyone who was raised her loves it), but can't stay in a place that constantly feels as if it's on the verge of dying. The school system is in a shambles. Unemployment is everywhere. Our economy is balanced precariously on the medical field and, until last night, on the Cleveland Cavaliers.

We're a city of perpetual disappointment, eagerly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory every chance we can get, and in no other place is this as true as in sports.

In football, baseball, and basketball, Cleveland has fairly consistently made it to the championships (with the exception of the Browns, who once were great...in the eighties). We play better than anyone else. But we always, we always, lose in the end. It's a metaphor for the city itself. So much potential, so much to offer, but not enough to make the difference between a city that is thriving and one that is dying. It's sad. It's really, really sad.

And now Lebron. Lebron Effing James. I am speechless about it.

Because it's not just a game in Cleveland. In a lot of ways, it's all we have keeping us afloat at the moment. He's brought hundreds of millions into a city that desperately needs it. He's provided a role model for kids in a going-nowhere educational system (though whether a ballplayer should be a role model for schoolkids belongs in another post). Most importantly, he brought hope to a city that had none. He was one of our own, born and raised, and he promised us--he actually promised us--a championship that he failed to deliver in seven years. And then he turned his back on us.

It's not just that he's leaving, though he shouldn't have left. I honestly think the best choice would have been to stay for five more years. To give five more years to the city that nurtured him and loved him, to try and give them the championship he promised, with the understanding that when that five years was up, he would be free to move on with no hard feelings. That would have been the gracious, some-things-are-more-important-than-Lebron decision. That would have been a show of true greatness.

But I know it doesn't work like that. Though it baffles me, I understand that the only loyalty that exists among sports players is to themselves. I hate this system, where people follow the money and the winning, rendering the teams they play for meaningless beyond being the economic engines that drive them. I don't get it; I hate it; but that's how it is. I know that.

So leaving is one thing. Fine, leave. He has to do what "makes Lebron James happy." (Is he always going to refer to himself in the third person now? What's next, the royal we?) So it's not that. It's how he did it. It's as if he set things up to provide the greatest possible humiliation to an already cowed region. He waits until the last possible moment, then he sets up a nationally televised Lebron Show to announce that he's leaving, only letting his team know a half hour before. He draws it out for dramatic effect, for maximum media attention. It's like breaking up with someone from Oprah's couch. Not only am I leaving you, but I'm going to disgrace you in the process. It's as if he has only contempt for us.

But of course Lebron wasn't thinking about that. Lebron was only thinking about Lebron.

So like I said, it's not that he's leaving. It's that he could have left with grace, and instead he leaves with shame. If this were a movie, the entire audience would be rooting for the Cavs to take the title next year and for Lebron to have his comeuppance. But sadly, this is not a movie, and the underdog seldom wins. Real Life doesn't reward loyalty or grace, Real Life rewards talent alone. And he took it all with him.

Good riddance.

Enough with the whining already!

Yeah, so that last post may have been a little complain-y. Every once in a while I get so passionately unhappy that I lash out at the keyboard. But I feel better now.

The problem is not 'normal life,' it's not the suburbs, it's not being a housewife--it's not any of those simple things that are so easy to blame. These are just surface things. And when I'm honest with myself, were circumstances different, I could easily love all the things I complain about.

So I'm trying to delve a little deeper to find the true source of my dissatisfaction, and, more importantly, to resolve it. I'll let you know what I come up with.

I'll be back soon. Hopefully.

I realize my blogging has been very sporadic lately. The main reason for this is that my life feels like it's on hold, and meanwhile I'm spending all my energy just surviving the transitional phase (I am crap at transitions).

We are moving back to Scotland. In a month. Plans have been in the works for a while--we've found renters for the house, bought our obscenely expensive tickets (which cost more than any trip I've ever taken--and that includes far-flung places like Fiji or the Cook Islands), and begun packing. Meanwhile I am so ready to be gone from here that all routine maintenance has fallen to the wayside. The house is ridiculously dirty, I can't be bothered to even do laundry, and I just cannot, cannot, cannot wait to be out of here. GET ME OUT OF HERE!

The suburban life has been an utter failure for me. I'm glad we came here, glad we bought a house that has proven to be a savvy investment, glad that Jack spent the first year of his life close to his grandparents. But I just cannot handle the boring, pointless, repetitive nature of my life right now.

I get teased quite a bit by my friends who wonder when I'm going to "grow up and live in real life." Not all of my friends, mind, but a select few who have viewed my vagabond, nomadic lifestyle as some kind of immature Peter Pan quest to never grow up. I dispute that. My lifestyle has always been the result of conviction, from the time I was in high school and decided that I didn't want to live a Normal Life. (What is a Normal Life anyway? What is Real Life? What the hell does that mean? But I digress). Well, if this is Real Life, people, then I want no part of it.

I didn't intend to write this post just now. It's meant to be a longer, more thought out post about the competing desires that control my life choices. But as you can see, my frustration with feeling trapped in my home (remember that I have no car? Yeah, it sucks), and my impatience to be in a new place, doing new things, is particularly overwhelming now. Hopefully I will find the time and energy to expound tomorrow.

For now, I'm off to purposely not clean my disgusting hovel.

Jack's Daddy

My boys. Pretty damn handsome, the two of them. Wouldn't you say?

Where she been at?

I know my blogging has been a bit sporadic of late. It all started when I watched the final episode of Lost a little over a week ago. It was so terrible, such a huge disappointment, that I was severely depressed and angry. Yes, I take my fiction very seriously, and as far as I'm concerned this was the biggest narrative failure since the Star Wars prequels. I'd like to pretend it didn't exist like I pretend they don't, but unfortunately this failure happens at the end of the story instead of the beginning so I can't really allow myself to unimagine it in the Lost corner of my brain.

Anyway, then I spent many days attempting to write a post on just how awful it was, which I have saved in a draft but which never quite achieved the level of outrage I was going for but may still get published on this blog one day, and then I sort of lost steam and sat on my arse for a while. So here we are.

For a post that almost perfectly describes my feelings on the epic awfulness that was the writer's total screwing over of their characters in Lost, you can go here.

Waiting for a good day

So I have good days and I have bad days. And by that I don't mean some days good things happen and some days bad things happen, but rather some days I feel good and some days I feel bad. It dominates my life, really, this feeling good or feeling bad. Tragically, irritatingly, frustratingly so.

On a good day, I wake up and get straight out of bed, because I am anxious to greet the day. I have energy, hope, expectations of goodness. On days like this everything feels effortless: I make sure the house is clean, because it makes my mind feel in order, I write at least a thousand words, I update my blog, I work on projects. I get stuff done. I exercise. And I still manage to have plenty of attention to give to Jackie, slobber him with love and affection, and even cook dinner. I feel happy. I feel alive. I feel normal.

On a bad day, I have to work really hard to drag myself out of bed. I feel bone-weary, so tired I can't keep my eyes open. When I walk downstairs I feel overwhelmed by all the tasks that lay before me. I don't want to do anything. I can't. I actually can't do anything. I make sure Jack eats and naps and is taken care of, but that is all I can manage. The rest of the day I sit on the couch, staring, wondering why in the world I feel so bad. Just so, so bad. Everything feels hopeless. I can't write a word, because walking to the computer feels like an enormous chore. My life feels stifling. The feeling is one of flatness, boredom, and mostly just an entire lack of energy.

On those days I can take emotional stock, can step back and look and realize how incredibly weird it is that just yesterday I was a whirling dervish of happiness and activity, and today I can't. I just can't. I can't tell you how strange it is to recognize that this is just a mood, a feeling, a rogue chemical emotion, and to still--still!--be powerless to change it.

So on a day when I feel good, I rush to do as much as I can. I am depressive, not bipolar, so this feeling good is not mania. But I still feel the need to take advantage of it, because who knows if I'll feel this way tomorrow?

Today I feel okay. It's not a good day, and it's not a bad day. On days like this I can make the choice. If I start moving, I can make it a good day. If I take the lazy route early on, it will almost certainly turn into a bad day.

So I'm posting. Taking the bull by the emotional horns and claiming this day as a good day. Already I am starting to feel my spirits lift, just from having accomplished one small thing, just from the joy of a few quiet moments to myself while Jack naps. Good day, I will it to be. Good day, good day, good day...

Deep Breath!

It has been a long, long time.

My excuses are as follows:

1. I spilled coffee on my macbook pro the first week in May. I was feeding Jack, drinking coffee, and surfing the net (a dangerous trio), when I bumped the mug and several tablespoons of sticky-sweet coffee landed straight on the keyboard. Having lost a computer (or, rather, a thousand bucks for repairs) to a glass of red wine a couple years ago, I took quick action. I flipped my beloved laptop over, tearing out the plug, and removed the battery within seconds. I didn't even bother with a shutdown. For 24 hours she sat, upside down in a tent position, before I took 'er apart. Oh yes I did. I opened her up and cleaned the inside out with rubbing alcohol. Then back together she went, with a couple packets of silica crystals on the keyboard, and into a plastic bag and then a drawer for many more long, painful days. Finally I turned it on, and thought the keyboard still smells faintly of coffee, all seems to be in order. Biiiiig phew.

2. Right after that I went down to Hilton Head in South Carolina. My parents, bless them, recently bought a beach house on the island. They, along with myself, Jack, and my sister Anne went down to get the house in order before the stream of summer renters hits next week. The house, by the way, is too beautiful to post pictures of without seeming like an asshole show-off. I am very lucky to have parents who can afford things that I will never be able to afford in my lifetime.

3. After a week of home improvement madness, my parents took Jackie home (again, bless them) to deliver him to his waiting Daddy, and three of my girlfriends came to stay at the house for four days. My friend Molly, who I met years ago when I spent three months working on a dude ranch in Colorado and who has been my soul mate for 15 years, my friend Luise, who I studied with in Israel and who flew in from Berlin with Julia, a Barcelona native I'd never met but who was a lot of fun. We ate. We sat on the beach. We rode bikes all over the island. We ate fresh seafood. We drank margaritas and played in the pool. It was my first time away from Jack and I had too much fun to miss him!

4. The day after I got back from the beach, I packed Jack up (he looked so big!) and my mother and I headed out to the Poconos mountains for my aunt's wedding. She has been a widow for four years, and fell in love in October and was marrying the best friend of her late husband. It was so good to see her happy. Th entire family descended upon her house at Poconos manor, and there was much eating, drinking, and Townley story-swapping. I got back last night.

So as you might guess I am exhausted. And found precious little time to write. The next few days will be devoted to catching up on my blogfeed and recovering from the insanity of the month. Hope you're all well, and can't wait to hear what's going on in your lives!

One year ago today....

I am actually halfway done.

I currently have 51,000 words in my "novel." A few thousand more and I may even drop the quotation marks! In all seriousness, I am proud of myself for getting this far and not giving up. And reading over it, there's a whole lot of crap there, but there are also a few nuggets of pretty decent writing. It's a muscle, it really is, and it's been out of shape for a long while now. But I've been working it out again, and it's coming easier at last.

It's not all roses and sunshine over here though. So apparently my son, my beloved son, has decided that I am persona non grata around these parts, at least compared to Daddy. If Daddy leaves the room, and he's stuck with me, he cries. If he bangs his head and I pick him up, he reaches out his arms to Daddy. When Daddy's not home, I get his sloppy seconds, but the second that key flips in the lock.... Bam. Chopped Liver.

I know this is normal, and sometimes I even find it amusing, but it's happening so much these days that it's starting to hurt my feelings. Any thoughts?

Today I am 33...

...Which sounds really, really old and yet feels really, really young.

Wee Jack

While we were in Denver, my sister's friend Julie Harris, who is an amazing photographer, took pictures of Jack. I love how they turned out:

Why Today is a Good Day

1. Jack did not wake up at all last night

This was normal, up until we went to Denver. Suddenly, if he heard a noise at all (he only ever woke up while we were still awake and moving around, never in the middle of the night thankfully), he would wake up and howl and howl until I came and cuddled him for a little while. Then he'd go back to sleep. The trouble is, he got used to waking up and having a cuddle.

We did cry it out with Jack, only because he never really got hysterical. We just let him fuss and minimally cry, going to check on him every ten minutes, until he went to sleep. We got lucky, because it worked well, was only nominally uncomfortable, and he became a stellar sleeper. But this crying that he does now is different. He screams and screams and I hate it. I know he's not in real distress, that he's actually just angry that we're not coming and he's throwing a little tantrum, but I cannot stand to listen to it. It makes my insides ache. So we've just been making it worse by giving up and going in and picking him up. A few nights ago we made the stupid mistake of actually bringing him back downstairs for a while. I know, I know, stupid. A couple hours later he was awake and inconsolable. Even picking him up didn't work, because he didn't want to be picked up, he wanted us to take him downstairs again.

I didn't give in this time. But I didn't leave him to cry either. I just held him while he sobbed and sobbed and gestured for the door.

I believe in not giving in. I believe that teaching him is more important than comforting him sometimes, that learning to have a good night's sleep is one of the most important lessons I can teach him, that letting him know the boundaries from the outset is as crucial to his sense of security as are my arms around him. So even though he cried for well over forty minutes, until his voice was hoarse, I didn't bring him downstairs. He got the boundaries and the arms at the same time, and finally, after a tiny bottle to calm him, he went to sleep.

Last night he didn't get up at all. This makes me very, very happy.

2. I got up early and knocked off 1,200 words before 7:00 AM

I now have almost 44,000 in my "novel." I cannot express how arduous it is for me to write sometimes, but this morning it flowed and it felt good. I'm going to try and get up at six a few times a week, before Jack gets up. When I try to write at night I am just too zonked. It doesn't work unless I drink. and because I'm down to only three times a week of my red wine fix, that's not going to work.

But this morning was great. Never mind how exhausted I am right now. I feel good.

3. I lost three pounds

It's not really a huge celebration, because anything less than five actual pounds may just be a fluke, but hey, I'll take it. I've been eating so much better these days, drinking less, and working out more. Again, I feel good.


4. We've done, like, a bunch of big home projects in the past two weeks

Finally, with the help of David's cousin, who is staying here and is an angel from heaven, I'm getting to all those things that I've been putting off. We've organized the office and the reams of paperwork. We've cleaned the basement. We've laid new grass in the backyard. We've reorganized all the kitchen cupboards. We put up brand spankin' new shelves in the pantry. Damn, it feels good.

I feel good. Life is good. All is good.

I have tapped into the zeitgeist

Just when I thought I was original, snapping a photo of everything I eat for my fat blog, the New York Times reveals that, once again, I'm just like everyone else. Only fatter, obviously.

"First the Camera, then the Fork," NYTimes April 6

Celebrating Pesach

Passover is, without a doubt, one of my favorite holidays. It is a time of renewal and remembrance, a real spring holiday in which we gather strength from the winters of the past and move forward into the summer of the future, if you'll forgive my grandiose description. But Passover is grandiose. It is a celebration of the single most important historical event int Jewish history, the Exodus from Egypt, when the Israelites went from a ragtag bunch of slaves to an enduring and powerful people. The seder celebration is thousands of years old. The last supper of Jesus was a passover seder. He celebrated it much the same way as we celebrate it today, with wine and unleavened bread and feasting.

I'm not going to get into the "truth" of the Exodus or not. Whether or not it actually happened, believe it or not, is not all that important to me. So much of history is simply storytelling, collective myth-making, the creation of a cultural identity through a shared past. And that is enough for me.

Passover starts with a massive Spring Cleaning. Every corner must be emptied and cleaned, lest some "Chametz" be found there. Chametz is basically any leavening agent, or anything that has been leavened: bread, pasta, any wheat product that hasn't specifically been created for Passover under strict supervision. So we clean our houses, our cars, our closets, our offices, and we clear out everything. Kosher Jews bring out an entirely different set of dishes and pots and pans just for Passover, items that have never touched Chametz and never will.

After the cleaning, there is the seder on the first evening of Pesach (those outside of Israel have two seders, the first two nights). How can I describe the seder? It is a long, ritualistic commemoration of freedom, in which we who were once slaves are meant to lounge and feast like royalty.

The table is set with fine china and the seder plate, which contains the symbols of passover: Maror, or bitter herbs, symbolizing the bitterness and harshness of the slavery which the Jews endured in Egypt; Charoset, A sweet, brown mixture representing the mortar used by the Jewish slaves to build the storehouses of Egypt; Karpas, or parsley which is dipped in salt water to commemorate the tears of the people in Egypt; Z'roa, a lamb shank bone symbolizing the ancient Pesach offering; and Beitzah, a hard-boiled egg also symbolizing the offering. We eat these things, and follow many other rituals: washing of the hands at the table, breaking and eating the matsoh, drinking four glasses of wine throughout the meal, each one symbolizing one act of God's redemption. From one glass we remove ten drops to remember the plagues visited on Egypt, and to remind ourselves that our joy is lessened by the suffering of others, even our enemies.

But the most important part of the night is telling the story. We tell the story of the Exodus, however we want. I've been to seders where the children put on a play; I've been to seders where each participant was given a piece of the story to tell in whatever creative way they chose; I've been to seders where the story was simply read from the Haggadah, which is basically the program for the evening. We tell, we laugh, we ask questions--questions, in fact, are very important--we sing songs, loudly and late into the night. We discuss tyranny and how and where it still exists in the world, and how we as individuals can further the cause of freedom today. And somewhere amid all the ritual we eat until we feel sick. At the seder I went to last week there was course after course, and wine flowing freely, and we were there for five hours, singing and arguing (as Jews do). How could anyone not love this holiday?

After the seder, the festival lasts for eight days. Eight days in which we consume no chametz, only matsoh. At the end of the eight days we are free to eat bread again, until next year.

I love ritual; I love tradition. I know in our age that most people look skeptically on ritual, but I love it. I feel like it connects me to things that have been lost to time. It grounds me and roots me and makes me feel like I belong. It was the seder that first made me want to convert. I was in Israel, and my roommate brought me home with her family. They were all secular, not religious at all, and yet every year they got together and performed these rituals. There were at least thirty people there; it was warm chaos. I loved it. I wanted me some a'dat.

So just add Pesach to the list of Jewish holidays that are awesome. Anyone who wants an invite for next year, let me know. We'd be happy to have you!