A recent night smack in the middle of the week finds me sitting at a table in a party/reception room at a yeshiva in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY. A cousin’s daughter, brought to new levels of devoutness during her college years and immersion in the Chabad way of life, has become engaged to a young man she fell in love with during a stay in Israel. “It’s a simcha,” says a woman sitting on one side of me, smiling and sipping soup. A celebration. She’s a relative of the groom-to-be, who hails from a family of fourteen.
The sound of the word is far from foreign to me, even if the manner of celebration is. The men and women, following the Orthodox Jewish tradition, do their eating/drinking/schmoozing at tables separated by a divide in the room. It may be a no-no for an Orthodox man to shake hands with a woman, but there’s clearly no sin in passing through for a hello or mingling for a toast. Who can resist a shot of vodka lifted in L’chaim?
Every which way I turn there are children, little girls in the prettiest dresses, boys in smart white shirts and pants, scrambling around like puppies, reaching into bowls of fruit and candy and all manner of goodies. Every which way I look there are young mothers with babies on their hips; some are already showing signs of another one on the way. I remark, in all good spirit, to one mother about the tumult I imagine at a Passover seder, all those brothers and sisters and spouses and children in one place. Her smile suggests it’s not as crazy as I would think. I tell another young woman that this separation of men and women partying – a first for me – does not feel as strange as I thought it would. Premised as it is on Old World sexist notions I cannot abide, there is a joyful energy to a roomful of women that’s infectious.
There is in fact a lot of smiling here, a far cry from my sense that a far-less-than-fully-observant Jewish woman like myself might feel out of place. On the contrary, it’s a spirit much more welcoming than I might have expected. Any temptation to judge – how do women still accept such restrictive ways in a modern world or, better, how does a woman like my cousin’s daughter come to embrace it? – melts away. I could almost envy the assumptions with which they live. Except that my own longings, in both the spiritual and material realms, are not so easily satisfied. Once you’ve seen the world, tasted its diversity, tapped the curiosity that takes you to the edge of wonder, going home is possible only when it’s a wholly new place.
* * *
There are some dreams, yesterday or a year ago, that have staying power. Here’s one: I’m on a stage, singing. The audience is small. My voice is large and powerful. If there’s anything that surprises me, it’s not how good I sound; it’s the way I put myself out there, not a thought at all (in my dream at least) to how I’m being received.
This dream is on my mind as I head into the city just days before the engagement party to a Karaoke party in celebration of a friend’s birthday. When I tell another friend about the party, she jokingly offers her condolences. I have never been to a Karaoke party and it surprises her that I’m looking forward to it.
Yes, I love to sing (it goes with my love of music and dancing), and I can carry a tune well enough. But any fool can see my dream for the metaphor it is. All the little voices in our heads – the ones that tell us we’re good/not good enough, try harder/give up, say what’s on your mind/keep it to yourself – are no match for the Voice that comes from a much deeper place. And those inner voices that keep us in check – are they possibly a manifestation of those outer voices that are so quick to pass judgment on what may be beyond our understanding? They may do their job well, protect us from missteps and mistakes, but a kind heart, I like to believe, gives voice to the right words at the right time.
And a bunch of rock ‘n’ roll hearts (of a certain age) crammed into a Karaoke room at a bar in the East Village cannot be contained in giving voice to a string of old favorites, everything from Sonny and Cher to the Rolling Stones to Bruce Springsteen to Aretha Franklin and Gloria Gaynor. When I send my daughter a clip of “I Will Survive,” she messages back: Old people karaoke. My rendition of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” gets a better review: Cuuute!
She probably would have groaned at the sight of women in their sixties, really warmed up now, lifting their voices, girls who just wanna have fun. She would have asked how many shots of vodka I drank. But who cares? And who’s counting? Besides, it’s never so much the alcohol as the spirit of the friends you’re drinking with that gets the party started. And maybe here’s the secret of it all:
In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence? – Gabrielle Roth
P.S. Singing ;-) the praises of other writers/bloggers always feels more comfortable than singing my own. So now that I have been named a ‘Very Inspiring Blogger’ by Uvi Poznansky, a writer/blogger who inspires me, it’s my responsibility (more a pleasure) to pay it forward.
— Maureen Doallas, whose blog, Writing without Paper, is an absolute treasure (trove)
— C. M. Mayo was an early inspiration for me and forever a model in the way her blog(s) continue to evolve
— When it comes to bloggers focused on books and authors, Claire McAlpine (Word by Word), Diane Prokop, and Deborah Riggs Previte (A Bookish Libraria) are the three I go to most for the way the enrich and delight me, each with her own particular sense and sensibility.
— When I’m In Jayne’s World, I know I’ve come to the right place for a dash of flash fiction with a flair and/or political/social commentary spiced with that Jayne Martin wit.
— And when I’m visiting Ashley Barron’s The Priyas, it’s for the wealth of information and personal insights she brings to the world of indie writers, all of it earnest and hard won and graciously offered.
