The cycle of the holidays gives a feeling of consistency to life. Now that it is almost the Jewish New Year, the choir is preparing the same songs we sing every year, for the most part. Though we don't have many days to get ready, we aren't sounding too great at the moment. Many of the usual people who sing with us at the holidays have not been coming to rehearsal. Everyone seems lax and unconcerned. Sometimes, I should say, the choir director seems paralyzed with anxiety over the idea that things will not come together, but since we are mostly (not all) old hands, and have sung these things very well a number of times before, and since she works a difficult and time-consuming job, she is not as worried this year. I think she decided that being anxious didn't help, so she wasn't going to allow herself to panic. A good idea if you can manage it, I say.
But oddly, I was suddenly struck that I feel precisely the same as I did the year before my parents came out to California, back in that same exact place, singing the same songs, feeling the same way. I wasn't sure that was a good thing, but there it is.
3 comments:
Ritual is so meaningful and beautiful in your life.
Yes. It gives my life a shape, and that is why I so appreciate it. But in this instance, the way I was feeling was stuck, in between. I was stuck then, and now I am stuck too, for a different reason.
What I mean is that I was stuck 5 years ago, before my parents came, not knowing how to proceed with my life, and now I am again stuck.
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