Group therapy in a blog.
In The Air
In the air, I wonder if love is who you think about during agitated turbulence, as the skies remind you that there but for the grace of tons of steel somehow defying gravity go you. I wonder if love is in the quiet moments afterwards, the serenity of a near-perfect quiet punctuated only by a persistent, engine-hum that vibrates into your seat, which, you remember hearing, may also function as a floatation device. I wonder because I have no idea. I wonder, because up here, there’s only wonder and wondering, because none of this–soaring on wings of hope and metal–should be possible. And in that, it seems just like love. Or so I’ve heard.
These clouds up here look like every cliché ever assigned, but most of all like marshmallow fluff, sickeningly sweet and endlessly, irresistibly inviting. I look to them to re-effervesce my flattened optimism and enable me to believe that someday, there will be an end to this scenario, that it will not endlessly repeat forever the way it always has repeated until now and until now.
Until then, I’m stuck within my circular circumstance, immobile in the unreciprocated and in awe of my infallible ability to misinterpret the words and cues of others is what is dooming me to loneliness. I’m trapped with no egress, like in a plane, a serf in a pilot’s kingdom, doomed to suffer the rest of the journey as a captive witness to the proceedings, bobbing on the wind and whim of weather, or deity, or captain, my captain.
I just learned this morning that no where does the traditional ketubah mention the word “love”. Interesting
Esther-
Beautiful post. I know just how you feel . . .
Anonymous-
The ketubah is a pre-nuptial agreement, outlining what the husband’s duties are to the wife should they get divorced. Why would it mention love? It’s designed to protect the woman in case of the worst-case scenario, not act as a statement of the bride and groom’s feelings for each other.
As far as I know, there’s no reason not to read an additional statement, besides the ketubah, stating your feelings for each other, if that is something you would like to do in order to make the ceremony more romantic or accessible.
Wow, that was one of your most poetic-sounding posts! Funny, too, yet, horribly, unfortunately, sad. It sounds like you had some high hopes gone awry this holiday. I don’t know further what to say/type, but I wish you a good shabbas.
Thanks, guys. Don’t worry about me, btw–often I’ll post these more personal entries on delay, so that by the time I’ve posted it, I’ve already worked through it, come to terms, or am working on coming to terms with the way things worked out.
This post, for instance, was written (shockingly) on a plane, and it’s been a month since I’ve been on one of those…
Beautiful post. I love your poetic ones.
Esther, your post was way too dignified for my culturally-challenged self. I have nothing reprehensible or scatological to add. Maybe, I should give it more thought.