Unmasking, part umpteen-point-three

This morning, I opened my Facebook and found responses to a post I’d left last night.

Here’s what I shared.

I took great comfort in this idea and wanted to share it with friends.  

And while most of the responses were predictably in agreement, one stood out.

“Ben” responded: “Insert ‘Jews can’t quit Judaism’ and it remains true.”

I was a little taken aback at what felt like a bit of a non sequitur. So, after taking a few breaths, I decided to send him a personal message:

****

Hi Ben. I saw your response to my post and felt like responding.

Musician is something I was literally born to be. My musician parents sang to me in the belly. My home was filled with music from day one. Pounding out beats on my sister’s Hoppity Hop to whatever was on the turntable felt like breathing.

Conversely, while I was born to Jewish parents, they didn’t raise me with much in the way of Judaism, or in the bosom of Jewish community. For those who grew up in the mushy center, perhaps your statement rings true. For those of us who’ve spent a lifetime on the margins, it’s true some days and not true on others.

All I’m saying is, as with so many things, Your Mileage May Vary.

Peace.

*****

Before October 7, I probably wouldn’t have responded this way. Before Hamas invaded southern Israel, lots of things remained Not Up For Open Discussion in my world, especially one’s devotion to Israel. I’ve been largely silent, choosing to focus on messages of peace and praying for the return of the hostages. Because of my lack of deep communal connection, I’ve always struggled with developing a strong sense of connection to Israel. That lack of connection has shut me out of certain corners of fellow feeling, of belonging, of missing out on the decoder ring and all that comes with it.

Now I am finding myself in a deep phase of burnout, and finding that my experience of Jewish communal life doesn’t — and maybe never could — match what’s in the brochure. As a result, I find myself less drawn to certain rituals of Jewish belonging, and far more sensitive to the gaps in my Jewish experience, the places where I lost the plot, or never got the memo, or never could have the memo.

Being at the shul on Sunday for religious school, I felt utterly blank. Empty. Unconnected to the folks there, even though a few of them knew me from my musical work on Friday evenings. When I finished my work, I left. It was Just A Gig, and nothing more. And while that seemed a little sad, at least it was a truly honest feeling.

Below, a photo from 2019. I was one of dozens of musicians attending the URJ Biennial, American Judaism’s version of The Show, the Majors, held that year in Boston. I’d been invited to attend and perform a little of my music, in a concert by “new” artists (though I’d been doing the Jewish Music thing since 1999). I scraped up the last of my frequent flier points, begged a spot to spread a sleeping bag on someone’s hotel floor, and the URJ gave me one free day at the event. I had to be gone the next morning. I arranged a gig in a nearby town, which got snowed out. Then I went home. 

But for one brief shining moment, I could be part of The Scene.

It was fun when I was busy. (See photo, below. My head is just below the “N” on the wall behind us.)

When I wasn’t Doing The Thing, it got boring and lonely. I spent a lot of time being left out of informal gatherings, and at the handful of such gatherings I found myself in, I lacked the commonality of communal history so many others shared. While I did engage in conversations (especially about my album The Watchman’s Chair which had just dropped online, or about the creative process of songwriting), I had many, many moments of the experience of watching myself from outside myself as I did the human thing. 

(I now know that this is a common experience of many neurodivergent people, especially if they grew up feeling other and othered as I did.)

I got through the weekend, went home, did another gig, and then the world shut down for four years.

While many of my colleagues found ways to pivot and adapt to the new reality, I struggled. I did a few online concerts with nothing more than a laptop computer and internal mic, and with shaky WiFi that sometimes cut out during a concert. Most of my colleagues got themselves set up with home studios, equipped with several mics, computers, and all sorts of DI boxes for recording online. It looked like they were more secure and comfortable, and while comparison is the thief of joy, there wasn’t much joy in my home. Sweetie and I were both dependent on live music for our work, and when that shut down, we stayed home and lived on government checks and food stamps. Then I got Covid, followed by Long Covid, and nothing has been the same for me since.

My inability to make connections, combined with the difficulties I encountered with my home shul at the time, led to my being sick largely in isolation. The few exceptions were the handful of good longtime friends (many from outside the Jewish community) who came by to sit outside with me while I slowly came back from Long Covid. I am so grateful for those friends and for my family, who sustained me during a time when I truly thought my life might end.

Today, a year and a half out from the worst of Long Covid, facing new medical and emotional issues as I experience the aches and pains of aging and the co-morbidities of multiple autoimmune issues, I find that I don’t really look forward to Jewish festivals as I once did. (To be honest, I’ve never liked dressing up for Purim — as someone who spent her youth in the closet and the rest of her life masking neurodivergence, I’d rather be myself all the time. And I enjoy Pesach, but frankly the month of cleaning beforehand has become utterly exhausting.)

I admit I am feeling my otherness especially hard right now. I am looking long and hard in the rear view mirror at a life that’s been truncated, too often on my best behavior, and for what? Right now I feel like so much is sloughing off me, like a fake skin, like a costume. I don’t yet know what my nakedly real Self looks like, but I am getting more clues all the time. Perhaps I’m meant to hover at the margins and mine the ground for the gold that particular to that place. I don’t know yet, but I’m trying to stay open, and to open more space in which to explore.

So I may be jettisoning some of the faces in the photo above from my Facebook feed, and from my friends list. The faces of the people who wish me happy birthday but from whom I hear nothing else the rest of the year. The faces of those whose trajectories are so far from mine that we share little in common other than a profession or a label. I’m going to conserve my energy now for things closer to home, and for people who have remained my friends this whole time. 

I have a sneaking suspicion that a few of the faces in that photo won’t even notice when I’ve let them go.

And that’s not anger or sadness, it’s just my experience colored by my lack of proximity to the cushy center of the bubble. It’s the way my life has been, and probably the way my life will continue to be until I get smaller and closer to a short list of good people. And this morning, that feels okay.

Peace.