Frustrated Shabbat thoughts

[ETA: at least done with essays and will be able to submit grades tomorrow afternoon I think. Whew.]

Alarm goes at 7:30. Doze till alarm turns off at 9:30. Doze again. 10:16. Earliest we’ll start davening is 10:30. Daydreaming Armitage. 10:45 up, 10:55 out, 11:00 at shul. I’m the only woman. They’ve just started P’sukei d’Zimrah, oh good, I haven’t missed Psalm 19. Cleanse me from hidden faults. Cleanse me from hidden faults. Nishmat kol chai, let the breath of every living thing praise You. Doesn’t look like we’ll get a minyan. El Adon al kol ha ma’asim, I don’t like the melody we’re singing, I want to sing this one

Blessed is He and praised by every soul. Still the only woman, Daven praise, Daven, Daven. Will we get a minyan? There are 8 men as we begin the silent Amidah, then the ninth walks in during the standing. We pray for peace and the shliach sends his son dashing down the road to knock on the door of someone who is still sleeping, but not before making sure his pockets are empty. But we don’t wait long, the sleeper was already on his way. Torah service. Vayehi binsoa aaron, vayomer Moshe. Acharei-Kedoshim. He’s reading like wildfire. How to celebrate Yom Kippur, prohibited contaminations, prohibited sexual relations. Leviticus 18:22 inter alia. The d’var Torah is not what I am expecting: a funny story about what happens if you disobey the commandment to leave a tree alone the first three years and not eat from its produce, live in the physical world, let your body permeate the physical world with holiness, bring Moshiach, if you disobey a negative commandment, cry out to Hashem on Yom Kippur and if you are really sorry, Hashem will forgive. Where does this very simple man get this simple message of redemption? When I with all my complications can’t believe? Pesky carries the Torah both times and makes sure I get to touch. Prayers for the sick, I think hard of my father. We discussed this last week, when I was learning I was told one cannot say misheberach for a non-Jew, not least because a non-Jew does not have a name in Israel, Pesky thinks this is nonsense, he wants to ask this shliach to posek, but that will automatically out me as born a non-Jew. Pesky’s praying for his son, I am praying for his son, too. For healing in body and mind. Pesky catches my eyes across the mechitzah and I shake my head, though my eyes must look anguished. I’ll be in a place where I can pray for a Christian all too soon, anyway.  Haftarah. Ashrei. Still enough men for mussaf, a minor miracle. The schnorrer seems to have replaced someone else who’s left. Ein Kelohenu.

Still the only woman; if I stay Pesky will feel obliged to spend the kiddush with me instead of sitting with the men talking about Torah, and I will be annoyed by helping the shliach’s wife serve the learned community. And I might get seated next to the schnorrer, and I am not a very kind person. Bad for the shliach’s wife but I decide to go now. Possibly last davening until September, uch, this lies heavy on my soul.

In the car, Keane.

Who ate your heart, you’re cold inside. An accurate indictment. The inexorable motion of traffic on graduation weekend slams into the motionlessness of Shabbat and shatters it. This is why you’re supposed to wait till Shabbat ends and end it ritually and slowly, so the whiplash isn’t so bad. Starbucks is closed, plumbing problems. Lunch. Soup, salad, internet. Armitage! He’s back; he never goes to shul; I’m glad to find him again, though. I spend some time musing on the line of his beard. Email: Students annoyed with grades from first section already given and posted. TA is almost finished grading her part of our shared grading before her M.A. graduation. She will marry next weekend. A world of stone. A door that once was open, an empty face and empty bones. Off to office to grade. Stop at vending machine, buy Coke since no latte macchiato available. Hoping not to become so disoriented in the windowless, cinder-block space as I did last night.

Turn the computer on again. But I can’t settle, too much roiling around in my head. El Adon. Nishmat kol chai. The wind wouldn’t blow me home. You shall be holy as I the Lord your G-d am holy. The last section of essays to grade. Only a few hundred more pages; I can do this today and have tomorrow off from this awfulness if I can just get to that concentrated place. I decide for relaxation first; facebook friends writing about NC Amendment 1. Lev. 18:22. The poem I read this week about kindness, “You must see how this could be you / how he too was someone / who journeyed through the night with plans / and the simple breath that kept him alive.” Crazy stuff from the fanfic I read this week where the author seems to have been diagnosing all of my emotional problems. Finally having read Blankets this week, and having recognized the existential games the extreme weather plays with my soul. The shock of recognition; I just told my parents, I didn’t have to draw them a comic book. Is this dithering all about my fears of going home, of the whole impending Christian summer? Why am I afraid? Have to concentrate, have to concentrate, have to grade. Concentrate, put yourself in that place where you can be purposeful.

G-ddamnit, why do I think I have to mean everything I do? Pesky would say, don’t tear yourself into pieces over this, why do you care so much more than they do?

I decide for Silly Sisters, “Cakes and Ale,” to start building the right mood, “Seven Days are the Week in Almost Every Circumstance,” but when they get to the Agincourt Carol I start wondering about my student in Afghanistan. Do I give in and write an email and tell him I am worried? Facebook also tells me about all the students who finished classes this week at my last campus. Messages saying I’ll be missed at commencement, but I’m glad not to be descending into that particular emotional morass this year. Grade, grade. This is so awful, another indictment. The students who were good, were good before they reached me, the ones who were poor have made no progress under my supervision. I have to file these grades and I have to think again about what I think I’m accomplishing here. Teach the students you have, teach the students you have. Despite the stuff about stroking beards, the Silly Sisters are making me sad, maybe the way to go is just to open that dangerous place in my brain where all the sad gets poured, all the failure, all the non-consummation.

“Sometimes I hear my voice / and it’s been years.” And that’s it, isn’t it? What do I accomplish with teaching? What do I hope to accomplish? What do I get? Why do I expect to get anything? What hast thou, that thou didst not receive? If I’d have been good at something else, I’d be doing it already. And by writing? If that’s the the thing I’m supposed to be doing? What am I supposed to say? Why don’t I have the guts to say it? Why am I trapped between these cinder blocks grading these damned essays? Is this my final purpose? Is this any different from waiting table on men discussing Torah, wiping up after them while they pray for Moshiach?

Why don’t I just say it? Why don’t I just speak?

~ by Servetus on May 6, 2012.