I remember the Friday afternoon in October 1989 when my father, dressed in a brown plaid shirt, ran into Ms. Volterra's kindergarten classroom and notified my class that "Mom's having the baby!" Several hours later, my brother Andrew was born.
I remember the late summer day not even one year later when my parents sat me down on the porch in our backyard. They told me mom was very sick and needed to have an operation to make her better. I remember how grave their faces were, how worried they seemed. And at the same time, the weather was beautiful and the kids next door were laughing and playing in their yard. At the time I thought I completely understood the situation, and did not like it at all.
I remember the Northridge Earthquake: January 17, 1994. The only casualty in our house was a ceramic picture frame that fell to the carpeted floor in my room. I stepped on it, and it smashed to bits. I remember the four of us huddled in our foyer for hours, waiting out the aftershocks and glued to our handheld radio. Later that morning, my father called his family back east to tell them we were okay; we were informed his father, my grandfather Sol, had died in his sleep in Florida.
And so began a seemingly never-ending period of illness and death in my family. After Grandpa Sol came his wife Sylvia, followed by their son Harvey. It seemed like we were constantly in New York and/or Florida for years; an endless succession of black Lincoln towncars and deli meat trays. I remember the funerals, I remember the eulogies, I remember the cemetaries.
I remember my Bat Mitzvah: February 8, 1997. I remember the feeling that the storm had finally passed in my family. I remember the excitement, the thrill of being on the bimah, the respect I had for my parsha, Mishpatim (the laws). I remember fully engaging in the process and feeling that it was a part of me. And above all else, I remember realizing that this was something I could get used to; something I could love and do for the rest of my life.
The years in between 1997 and 2007 are both vivid and fuzzy. I remember middle and high school; how adolescence wasn't entirely kind to me. I remember the highs, the lows, and the mediocrity. But the one constant in that entire time period was the love I had for Judaism, and Jewish music, and the idea that I could one day take that and make a living at it. I wanted to be a leader in the Jewish community, and felt I had found the right role.
Two years ago this week, I received the letter that completely changed my idea of who I was, and how I would spend the rest of my life. After ten years of working toward one specific goal, everything came to a sudden halt.
I remember the thin little envelope addressed to me, sent from the very school which I now attend, sitting in the mailbox at our apartment in Berkeley. I remember opening that letter with Adam by my side, reading the first two lines, and feeling as though the wind had been knocked out of me, that there was absolute no oxygen whatsoever in our living room, and that the floor had crumbled inward like that scene in "The Goonies" when Andy plays the bone-piano to get to the waterslides. I remember slumping forward, feeling dizzy, and angry, and shocked, and totally freaked out.
In the hours and days and weeks and months which followed February 24, 2007 came a tremendous succession of moments. Moments of excrutiating embarrassment, moments of tremendous frustration and anger. Moments of clarity and hope. Moments where I looked and felt like a lost soul; knowing in my heart that the root of this whole thing was something I could not avoid, and had to confront. I knew I had to re-align myself with myself. I had to search my soul. I had to let go of the rigidly defined vision of who I was going to be. And so, I did.
Exactly thirteen months later, on March 24, 2008, I received a different letter from the school which I now attend. It congratulated me, and welcomed me, and celebrated my accomplishments. The letter informed me that yes, it believed in me and what I could possibly do for the Jewish people. This time around, the air sucked out of me for in a different way. I ran to the phone and couldn't feel my legs. The smile stuck on my face wouldn't go away for hours, or days. After eleven years and two very different experiences, I had finally found the right letter.
I've been living in Jerusalem almost eight months now. I'm fully immersed in a program that I love, learning things that have opened my eyes and my soul in a multitude of ways. I feel that I have found my place, my passion, and a role that I cannot wait to step into.
Not a day goes by I don't think of the process I went through, or how grateful I am that it happened; how fortunate I feel to be here. Not a day goes by when I don't think to myself how much that entire process kind of sucked, yet was kind of awesome. Watching your past flash before your eyes, thinking about it in great detail (whether through a blog, or through talking, or through dreams) always makes me contemplative. The day I was rejected from Cantorial school was a watershed moment in my life, up there with the most major moments that will never, ever escape my memory.
I have three months to go in this program, and they're going to fly by fast. I've already got the itch; a major, major itch to come back home. Some may even say I've checked out of the year already. And... well, they may be right.
But what matters is that I'm here for the long haul; I'm here to come out of this alive and swinging. I'm here - so I can come back there - filled with stories and souvenirs of my experiences, so I can regail all of you with hours upon hours of can-you-believe-that-happened-isms. I'm here so I can come back there with a deepened understanding of who I am. I'm here because my school allowed me to be here, because they said "hey Jaclyn, we think you're pretty great." I'm here because I want to be here, because it's where "here" should be.
With much love,
Jaclyn
Gratefully,
Jaclyn
