45 / Doorposts

מזוזות

I.
At lunch yesterday with an alumnus. "I'm not religious," he stated more than once, preface to moments that seemed religious. Or were they simply transportive? In Cuba, he was hanging a mezuzah on the door of an elderly Jew. The man dwelled far from Havana, in that countryside tourists seeking the Buena Vista Social Club are satisfied to ignore. Both men cried at the sound of the hammer, at the yielding of the wood. Not because the sh'ma on the parchment meant all that much. I do not believe that either reads Hebrew, or cares about reading Hebrew. Something about the improbability of this Jew of no faith having arrived in rural Cuba, his mission to affix mezuzot to forlorn doorways, something about the utter necessity of this useless ritual moved both men profoundly. And moved me to hear it.

I told the story teller he had given me a gift, that I was in his debt.


II.
"Given the senseless of this world," a friend asked, just after the lunch of the story that was a gift, "how do you hold to optimism?"

How can anyone grasp anything that flees so constantly? I have no answer. But I did say, by choice. The last few days have been limned by stories of catastrophe. The world bears sadness to the people I love. It is possible, it is easy to yield to despair.

Small things mend. Last night, the end of a long day, Katherine and I alone. We were ready to depart the car. Wendy was at the PTA, Alex at Hebrew school or fencing practice, tiredness urging me to think of nothing more than putting my daughter to bed. We sat in front of the Six Month House. She climbed over the seat and into my lap, and we listed to her favorite song in crescendo (Semisonic, Closing Time -- but every song that Katherine knows is her favorite song, while it plays). We "accidentally" blew the horn and turned on the wipers. Small moments, little whiles of being together even on dark cold weary nights: for these I hold my optimism. But not securely.