full circle

so here it is: the eve of rosh hashanah, the jewish new year, and it occurs to me that i’ve done absolutely no soul-searching. no evaluation of the year gone by (the lunar year; the jewish calendar is way ancient and goes by the moon). no resolutions, no commitments to do better, to be better. nothing. b/c my head is full of wedding plans and wedding drama (some of which is quite heartbreaking; something i’ll never go into on this space). we’ll say blessings over apples and honey tonight and tomorrow and the next day, a tradition as we wish for a a “sweet” new year.

it’s crazy what goes on in a year. i sit in services each fall with a prayer book in my lap, trying to think back on what’s happened since the last high holidays…and then i think of the year to come and all the challenges i’m sure to face and hopefully the blessings and we as a congregation pray for the best. who’d have imagined everything that’s gone on this past year?? getting engaged, planning a wedding, preparing to start a whole new chapter in my life. and also turning 30 (!). also that. (but it’s not like i didn’t know that one was coming!)

i named this entry “full circle” b/c of something that happened over the weekend. ok, first a little history. almost eight years ago (eight!!!), the night holly and i met, i went to a sandra bernhard performance on the campus of my alma mater. afterwards (fresh outta college and riproarin’ready to stay out late), i went out to a bar w/a group of friends (we’ve long since lost touch). holly and i met at that bar by chance, we really did. and thank G-d for that. b/c that night in early april 2001 was perhaps one of *the* most important of my life. so, yes, i went out that night, buoyed by ms. bernhard’s rowdy humor, ready for a good time. holly’s friends dragged her from baltimore, where she was living at the time (i was living in what you might call a…roach motel…in takoma park/silver spring). and so we met. and then emailed. and then talked on the phone. and here were are, all these years later, planning our wedding.

so over the weekend, we went to our ceremony site. we’re renting the theatre and honestly, we’ve barely spent any time there. (see this entry for an explanation) so we were excited and a little anxious to finally see the place where we’re going to get (woah) married. we walk into the theatre and it’s chilly and echo-y and the stage is set up down below with band equipment and there’s black tables and chairs off to the side of the stage, the kind you’d see in a comedy club. a woman who works at the facility whispers to us that none other than ms. bernhard would be performing there in a few hours–and i couldn’t help but get a little vaklempt, to think that almost eight years ago i saw her perform and then met holly. and here we are, all these years later, standing here at the top of the theatre (about four blocks from where we originally met), looking down at the very spot we’ll be getting married, the very spot where she’d be performing that night. “oh, i’m sure she’d love that story,” the woman told us, smiling widely. i think she would, too.

full circle.

here’s to a shana tova umetukah “a good and sweet year.” b/c no matter who you are, where you are, what you’re doing, we all could certainly use one.

Advertisement