Home

Slowly, but surely, I'm transforming things here into something like home. It's both nice, and also very sad. I ordered a cookbook the other day, and had a moment of homesickness -- not I'm-so-far-from-home homesickness, but I'm-on-my-own-now homesickness. Of course I will always have my family, wonderful wonderful family, but I'm here now, and then college, and then... life. And that's all me, not us. I bought tupperware and ziploc baggies and jars and candlestick holders and extension cords. I have a bag in the freezer for veggie ends. I bought these things. I have them. Things that scream HOME to me, what I know a home needs. I need them.

This evening I made borscht and improvised a Shabbas ceremony. I lit candles and had some wine and ate a roll. I even found all the prayers online and muddled through the transliterations. Mom asked if I'm going all Jewish on her. Maybe. Possibly. Certainly a bit. But a lot of it is that "Jewish" is so very much the opposite of "German," at least how I associate the experiences. Of course I don't mean there is no German Jew or German Jewish culture or history. But for me, Germany is the place where people ask me to explain things about Judaism that I don't understand. Where I'm somehow the Jewish expert who explains what a menorah is when we visit the Jewish Museum. Where I'm the one who knows what Channuka is. And at home, Jewish is family. Shabbas candles are Passover dinner at Grandmom Rose's when she and Grandpa Jack lived in the apartment on Belmont Avenue. Shabbas is when I'm at Jeanne and CA's on Friday night and their beautiful challah cloth and backyard table. Borscht is my mom's kitchen and warmth and things we cook so much of that we freeze it for months before we've eaten it all.

So, yeah. Jewish. Homesick. It all comes together somehow.