Kaddish

I met today with a longtime friend of mine in the hopes that he would be the first among my interviewees. Why after all, should I not figure out the shape of this project through some known thing?

For that is the problem I am running into, after all: knowing the shape of this project.

Rav From Whence came to me with the vaguest of suggestions, and the proposal document that she offered the next day clarified little. Her suggestion was that I ought to interview those within the congregation first, then those without and yet who might have some thoughts on just what life after the Century Attack might look like. In particular, she was suggesting that I collect for her not just the interviews but also my very particular take on them. A Jew's take. An autistic woman's take. The take of this disaster by someone who might very well be called a disaster, herself.

But why?

Not just why me — though also why me — why is my down-tree interested in a project like this? Why does she want this thing from me? What purpose would it serve?

I ran through the list of associations that I know she has.

She is the rabbi here at Temple Beth Tikvah She is on several committees with the Association of New Reform Congregations, and heads up several. She was for several decades, the chair of the ANRC. She is well connected. She is well collected. She is who I was. I remember being this person. I remember being the type of person who could change hearts and minds through this very Odist mode of interaction. She is the type like so many of us to speak in accidental five paragraph essays. She is the type to deep canvas without thinking, to show the world what it is doing to those within.

None of this tallies with this project.

I am to speak with people about this broad topic and pull together their responses and my impressions in a report. More than that, I am to be entirely myself throughout this process. I am to...be seen? Is that it? Is that the subtext of what she told me in front of the synagogue? Her document told me that it was to be “a chance for outreach as well as research”, which tells me precious little and yet which hints at much the same.

I am to be seen. I am to remain this version of myself that is cherished by me and tolerated by others, and I am to place that self in from the bereaved and...I do not know! I do not know. Why am I to be as myself as possible in front of these mourners?

I asked, thus, this of my friend.

“I imagine there are a few takes on that,” he said. “One is a strange sort of outreach like the proposal says. You go out and chat with the people and they see a skunk furry with a tic disorder and a double helping of anxiety.”

“Yes, but...ah, but what does that accomplish?” I asked

He shrugged, a wry smile on his face. “No clue. That's where the supposition stopped. Is she asking you to do this so that the temple is viewed in a certain way? Is she hoping that you'll straighten yourself up in some way without realizing it? I really haven't the faintest.”

I pulled a sour face and glared down at my coffee. “Straighten myself up. She...ah, that is, I cannot imagine what I would straighten up into. Would I stop speaking so immediately that my thoughts race ahead of my words? Would I look my interlocutors in the eyes? Would...ah, would I fuss with my shirt less?” I gestured down at myself.

He laughed, waving his hands disarmingly. “Like I said, no clue. You're all so...so tricksy that–”

I giggled. I could not help myself! I giggled and clapped my paws. “'Tricksy'!”

Once more he laughed. “Yes! You always have all these schemes, planning things that have layer after layer of meaning. It's...well, I was going to say it's a wonder you all can even keep it straight, but clearly it's an individual thing, rather than a collective thing, if you're this confused.”

I like him, Joseph Chace. He can poke gentle fun at me and it feels like no cruelty is behind it. Doubtless myriads of such people exist but this one is my friend, and I am glad for it

We met some century and a half ago when he came to visit an evening Shabbat. He, a Quaker, stated that he was interested in sorting out his feelings over a whole set of beliefs not his own, that he had plans to visit all sorts of congregations of all sorts of faiths, that he was out about about several times over that night doing just that.

So ebulliently strange was he, so well read and delightfully weird, that he was nudged my way by From Whence. Strange, bookish man? Point him at the strange, bookish skunk!

It was a good estimation, for we have been friends since.

I am realizing as I set these words down that I must sound terribly bitter about my existence. I must sound like I resent my cocladist, or mistrust her, or suspect her of unfairly coddling me.

I do not think this is the case. Not usually.

She loves me and I love her. We love each other dearly, as ought to be clear from our plain affection for one another. It is not a romantic love, though it has at times in the past drifted into such a territory.

There are just times — and perhaps with this project more than usual — when this does seem to be the case, that she is looking down piteously at me and saying, as did a teacher in grade school, “Ay, pobrecita...” The poor little girl cannot quite handle the world...

There are times when I feel she pities me, but those feelings never quite stand up against reality, and so I am left wondering where it is that I am picking up such feelings. How is it that I trust myself so little that I expect others, even those who are in some way myself, must feel this way about me?

No one likes the feeling of being patronized, and yet the defensiveness within me prompts me to read such into every little interaction. It is a thing that am realizing perhaps I ought to watch out for, to approach consciously.

But, ah–! I have lost track of the thread. I was speaking with Joseph today, and so I asked him, “Well...ah, would it be alright if I were to interview you, then? Perhaps there is some goodness that I may yet find in this project, and who better to seek that with than...ah, than a friend, yes? Perhaps you may nudge my questions this way or that, that I may find more...mm, I suppose edification in the act of asking.”

While he often bore a slight smile on his face, the tenor of it was labile and his moods discernible through its intricacies. Now, it slipped closer to a smirk. “Edification?”

“Well, yes. That is what we are discussing, is it not? That...ah, that perhaps From Whence has some ideas as to the fact that I might do this project for myself, rather than for the world.”

“You're just being very you about the whole thing,” he said, laughing. He sat up, shooting imaginary cuffs and straightening imaginary tie. “Alright. Ask away, What Right Have I.”

“Very well. Can...ah, can you tell me what you were doing on that New Year's Eve? The night of the Attack?”

“You know, when you brought up this whole venture, I was imagining that'd be the first question you'd ask.”

“Is it...ah, perhaps I should change it?”

He shrugged. “It depends on the vibes you're going for. If you're looking to lead people into an interview where they can give the same answers they've thought of in their heads for a year now, it's a great one.”

I frowned. “Should I not, then?”

“No, no, that's what I mean. That's valid and useful, too, because you can get the things that people have been cycling over for a year. That tells its own story.”

“And the alternative?”

He laughed, not unkindly. “No clue, What Right Have I. You tell me.”

I did my best to cover a tic, a release of slowly building anxiety, with a dramatic eye-roll. “Humor me, Joseph.”

“I really don't know, is the thing, because I don't know what you're going for. Are you going for making them cry by the end? Do you want them to express hope for the future? Are you aiming to rouse righteous anger?”

Here, I must stop to put a pin in something. The conversation continued, and is worth recounting, and I will recount it, but I have to put a pin in the final question there: are you aiming to rouse righteous anger? Joseph's habit of alliteration aside, this was an astute question that raised my hackles in the moment, raises them even now as I put these words to memory.

I must put a pin it to speak of later, because there is an essential anger in me that only at times feels righteous, and that is perhaps why, above all other reasons, I am undertaking this exercise.

Now, though — as I did at the time — I must swallow that anger until I am through with the moment.

“I am...ah, in this, I am directionless,” said. I knew that my tone was clipped, that my lips were threatening to curl, that my tail was bristled and hiked. I know that I have said that I exist to unmask, but I am not ignorant of the realities of communication, the little lies we tell, both verbal and non. I spent a moment quelling this sensation. I sat up straighter. I un-splayed my ears. I with a sweep of the paw brought my tail up into my lap that I might comb my claws through the stiff fur, there, brushing out imagined accumulated dust. Self-soothing. “I am sorry. That I am directionless is...ah, it is stressful, yes?”

He smiled most kindly and nodded. He knows me well, Joseph, and I am pleased that he is in my life. Despite my abrasiveness, despite when I have at times snapped at him — as any friend might after centuries — despite the end of the world, he is still in my life.

“If I were to perhaps...ah, well, let us say that perhaps I switch it up with each interview, yes? Perhaps I wrong-foot some of those with whom I speak, and with others, I walk the straight and narrow path? Perhaps with some I will play twenty questions, yes?”

“Twenty questions? Like the game where you have to guess what someone's thinking of, and you have twenty questions to do so?” He raised his brows, an expression that somehow involved his whole face moving in opposite directions. It is quite charming. “I hadn't considered that as an interview technique.”

I laughed, waved a paw, and set back to the self-soothing grooming of my tail. “No. There was a time when...ah, when Michelle was invited to play — this was early on after uploading, you see, before our sensoria were locked into consensus — and she had forgotten that such a game existed. She decided, instead, to offer twenty questions that pushed primarily discussion. We as a clade have...ah, we have kept a list of such circulating.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Perhaps...ah, perhaps you may tell me this: what is your most treasured, and yet completely inconsequential memory?”

He sat up straighter. “Inconsequential?”

“Yes. What memory that...ah, that others would find completely mundane and unimportant is a joy to you?”

There was a moment of silence before he let out a baffled chuckle. “You're all very weird, you know that?”

I smiled smugly, nose poking up in the air with a bit of haughtiness. “I do, yes.”

Where before he had raised his brows, now they sank in concentration, and once more, I was struck by the way that this involved his whole face coming together. “Alright. Well...I suppose that, if we're talking about the Century Attack, then I'll restrict my memories to around that.” He settled back in his seat once more. “I lost two up-trees in the attack, Epsilon and Mu. They–”

“Do you then have no more than...ah, then twenty-four up-trees?”

“I only have thirteen.” He winced. “Had. There are eleven Josephs Chace now.”

I nodded, silent.

He continued, more slowly now. “We lost Epsilon and Mu. And I say we, here, deliberately. We may all be our own people, but we are also a unit all together. I'm Prime, and Epsilon and Mu were each their own, but we are still all Joseph Chace.”

“Were.” I winced as soon as I said it, though if Joseph felt any pain by it, he did not say so.

“We're all together in being Joseph Chace, and we're all members of the same meeting. Some of us have fallen away from regular attendance of course, not everyone has maintained the same interest in Quakerism — or even spirituality — that I have, but we're all still members of the Brookside Friends' Meeting. First Days come around, and so many of us see each other there. Some First Days, we'll even get the whole clade there. You can tell at a glance that that's the case if you count the empty chairs.

“I'm like you, you know. I'll always merge down to be singular for meeting for worship, if I can. I like the feeling of living life in parallel as much as any dispersionista, so it feels almost titillating that I take this time to live so singularly.”

“I think that...ah, that you may simply be a nerd.”

He laughed, waved a hand dismissively. “Pot. Kettle. Black.”

I preened.

“Anyway. The 11th was First Day, the day after we got back, and everything was so crazy that a bunch of us met at the meetinghouse, and that's where we learned that Epsilon and Mu were gone. Lots of tears, lots of big feelings. That was before we knew it was an attack; we just thought some huge crash had happened. Still, we all agreed that we'd meet on the 18th, the next First Day, and have an actual, honest-to-God meeting. We could figure out a memorial meeting later, but maybe we could actually just...fucking...pray.”

He was getting heated. This was not new. He is a passionate man, and I have seen him soapbox gleefully and angrily both. This was not new, but what was was a brightness to his eyes that I'd never seen before, and so out of place was it that it took me some few moments to realize that they were tears not yet shed.

“The 18th comes around, and we all gather at the meetinghouse, and the mood is, obviously somber. We're all pretty fucked up by the ceaseless torrent of news.” He laughed, and bitterly so. “I don't remember the news cycle from phys-side with any fondness, but it was so easy to fall back into. Checking the feeds every few minutes, just in case something new had come up. It was so easy...”

I was rapt by now, and my tics had ceased.

He took a deep breath and continued. “We were all messed up, and I was wondering how we'd be able to leave any room for silence. Surely we'd all be clamoring to speak, trying our damnedest to wait a minute or so between each message.

“But no. We just...sat there. Twenty-fucking-five of us, two clades, and we just sat there in silence for the whole damn hour.”

He scuffed the heel of his palm against first one cheek, then the other.

“That's not even that rare. Once every...I don't know, fifteen, twenty meetings or so, we'll have a fully silent one. No messages. No speaking. We all just sit there like a bunch of fucking idiots and it'll be the most impactful thing to happen to us for months to come.

“You don't really think of it, but fifteen weeks is a long time. More than a quarter of a year! And here we are, spending months thinking about sitting, silent, in a room for an hour or more. This is why I say idiots. You put it into perspective, and it seems so stupid.”

“Inconsequential,” I offered. I am ashamed to admit that there is a part of me that remains proud of this single word offered at just the right time.

He smiled, and shakily so. “Yes. You see? Eleven Josephs Chace sat in a room in silence for an hour and fifteen minutes. I haven't spoken with the Kanewskis — they're the other clade at Brookside. I haven't spoken with the other Josephs. This is just my memory. Maybe it's also theirs, I don't know.

“My most important, least consequential memory is sitting in a dead silent room with twenty people, counting empty chairs over and over again.”

I bowed my head, both in thought and in politeness. The politeness ought to stand evident, but the thought was a picturing of the tableau that Joseph offered.

I have been to two of his meetings for worship. The first was because it felt a fair exchange that, being his connection for a visit to Beth Tikvah, I also visit Brookside. Neither of the meetings that I attended were silent. In both cases, yes, we began in silence. There was a call to the egregore, in a sense, that we join together in prayerful silence until one of the members was moved to speak, to share some thought or feeling borne out of that of God within everyone, within those present. And, in both cases, someone stood and spoke. They shared an idea–

Or — and this is a point that I bear some shame over — what felt like some head of an idea. Some very beginning of a thought, with the expectation that we ought to simply fill in the rest.

I will ever be as I am, though. If you provide me with an opening for anxiety, I will simply fill that opening with anxiety. It was not just a space that I might fill with anxiety over these half-truths, but an invitation to do precisely that.

One of them might say, “I was thinking this past week on the idea of community and the ways in which this has shifted to include our cocladists as well as those who are from other clades,” sit down, and, five minutes later, I am fretting, “Do I treat my up-trees with the respect owed any member of a community?”

I am not built for this.

Give me, instead, the pillowy comfort of ritual. Give me the mumbled and, at times, indistinct chanting in Hebrew. Give me the rising, the sitting, the lifting of my paws. Give me the silence only when it is warranted: when the hand of the rabbi drifts across the congregation asking us to recite the names of the living in need of prayer or the names of the dead in need of remembering. Give me L'cha dodi. Give me Barechu. Give me Amidah, Aleinu, Kaddish. The rhythm of Shema, Shema, Shema...

Ah, I grow overwhelmed. This bodes ill.

And yet, I am not so bereft of mysticism that I do not understand the draw of silence, of the egregore of such a space.

So visceral is his telling that I feel it now, even some hours later, the sitting in silence, with tears held at bay or not, looking around the room and counting empty chairs.

Our conversation wound down from there. There is little of note — or what is of note is that which belongs between merely Joseph and me — and soon we parted ways with a hug, as has long been our custom.

I returned home, then, and sat for a while at my desk, trying and failing to read, and then went for a walk, where I sat beneath my Jonah tree until I started to feel warm despite the chill air, and then I returned to my room, where I languished in bed, which is where I remain even now.

And, now that I have finished this telling, now that I have had some space from the initial memory, I may speak about anger without tears or that disgusting way in which I know my face contorts.

There is in me, as I said, an essential anger which does not always feel righteous. We are all beholden at times to our frustrations, and oftentimes, this is the extent of such anger. I will grow frustrated at the world around me, at the way that I am treated, at the ways in which inanimate objects seem to at times disobey me or act counter to the way I think they ought.

Most often, however, I grow frustrated at myself. I grow frustrated at my own anxieties. I grow frustrated at my shortcomings. I grow frustrated with the fact that I have leaned so hard into this identity of unmasking and that unmasking is not necessarily any more comfortable than masking. More liberating, yes, but not more comfortable.

And yet sometimes that frustration rises to anger, and, at its most righteous, I find it often directed towards some inequity. How dare the world be so unfair? That is what I might say, yes?

At its least righteous, that is twisted around into: how dare the world be so unfair to me?

How uncomfortable!

Yes, the world is unfair, and yes, I am part of that world, and yet, whenever I find myself veering perilously close to 'tantrum', there is a part of me that cannot help but watch, helpless, in horror. Why is the skunk crying? What is she doing? Why is she like this? What right has she to be so unaccountably upset? Why is she broken?

Seeing myself fuss and cry and hide away and leave interactions because of my own shortcomings, feeling that I was not being heard, that I was cycling through anxieties and wrapping myself up in them as though that would somehow give me comfort or greater room to process... Well, it was uncomfortable.

Worse, when I would latch onto some slight, real or perceived, and be unable to let it go: I loathe this about myself. Why is it that so often I fall into consternation with my down-tree? Rav From Whence loves me, and I love her. Why is it that we occasionally fall to snippy comments at each other? Why do we both wind up in tears, sitting in some courtyard or hidden room or the synagogue itself, litigating and relitigating and relitigating yet again the same misunderstanding, talking over and past each other? Even now! Even these decades and centuries later!

Yes, we will always sort through our feelings. Yes, we will always return to our friendship, will hug and take the other's paw in our own and vow to be better. And yes, we will be better! We do better by each other every week and every month and every year.

It is just that, yes, there is always some new thorn.

Why, why, why, I ask myself. So many questions, and there are indeed so many answers.

My therapist has brought up several over the decades. She has spoken of various ways to label these cognitive distortions and disordered thinking, and offered them not as some cruel diagnosis, but as frameworks through which I may understand myself and thus progress. My habit of relitigation falls out of perhaps some obsessive thought patterns, a ritual of attempting to say what I feel I must in the correct way in order to be best understood, and so perhaps I might think of this as a form of obsessive compulsive disorder. Walk through the ramifications of this as a framework, consider how it fits, draw from it lessons but not a label.

Or perhaps it is merely generalized anxiety. Perhaps I am more than just anxious, I am pathologically anxious. Perhaps the anxiety is the type that ruins a life rather than the type that keeps one safe, and so consider what lessons one might take away from this understanding.

Or perhaps this, or perhaps that.

I worry that perhaps I have gone down some blind alley and gotten lost. I worry that I have made myself into not just someone who has relinquished her grasp on herself that she might revel in unmasking, but into someone who has lost control of herself and thus spirals. I worry that all of this anger is pointed inward, in the end, and that its effects merely radiate outward in waves.

I have thought on anger a lot over the centuries, and yet it is this last thought that is new in these last three hundred seventy days.

Do I merely hate myself?