11:44 a.m. 15 July 2002
I’m not sure whether I had an eventful weekend or a normal weekend. Considering that the only other ones I’ve had so far have been occupied with settling into a flat and arriving in England, I don’t think I have an adequate basis for comparison.
All I know is that right now I feel very tired and sort of low, but that could be based on any number of things.
One of which probably being that I’ve realized how little time I really have. I was sitting at work back on Friday and I began thinking about the following: I get up at 6:30 every morning. I am out of the house at 7:30. I arrive at work at 8:45 or 9:00. I work from 9:00 until 6:00. I get on the train at 6:15 or 6:30. I arrive home at 7:30 or 7:45. As I get up at 6:30 (see above), I am in bed by 10:00. Calculate this up, and it leaves me precisely two hours and fifteen minutes of free time per day. That’s it. That is all the time I have in which to communicate with friends an d family, hang out with Carrie, meet other friends in the city, write, exercise, watch t.v., keep a record of what I’m doing, pot plants or tidy up the apartment, see museums or plays, or go shopping. There’s no way I can get all that done in such a meagre amount of time. None.
So what am I going to do? I don’t know. I’m going to seem like such a terrible person if I come back without writing any fiction, but I don’t know how on earth I’m going to, unless I learn not to feel so tired on four hours of sleep. (I can do it, sure, but I don’t like it.) And I have to admit, with the amount of lonely I’m feeling a lot of the time, I’m more inclined to spend any extra time trying to communicate with those around me or across the ocean than I am secluding myself with my laptop or a notebook. (Laptop, by the way, is still not operational, after three attempts to find a correctly configured adapter.)
Anyway. So I thought about all this at work and on the train home from work, and it somehow led to me conceiving a great longing to go to synagogue. (Great! Another thing to do with that pesky 2.25 hours of free time!) So I spent a precious 50p. on internet time and briskly attempted to find the synagogue closest to me.
I found one: the Walm Lane/Cricklewood synagogue, listed as "mainstream orthodox." So I went. It’s about 10 minutes from the tube, thus 20 minutes from my house.
I was, I admit, pretty nervous. I walked past the synagogue three times before I could get up the courage to go in. This is not because I think God hates me. This is because I think other jews hate me. I am neurotic about this. Long story. But I really wanted to go in, so finally I went.
The Walm Lane synagogue is this tiny, old synagogue, probably constructed some time around the turn of the last century. You almost wouldn’t see it if you didn’t know it was there --perhaps on purpose, considering the feelings of most of the world towards Jews at the time of its building. The entrance is a little, dank alleyway leading to an unmarked set of wooden doors. No fancy Hebrew script above them, not even any bulletin board advertising times of services. It is as if you are entering some building in the shtetl of old, finding your way through a cramped, Eastern European street in the dark parts of town where no surveyor ever goes, even though the synagogue is in fact located just off a busy street in Northwest London.
During the time I’d been walking by trying to convince myself to go in, I’d noticed that there only seemed to be men standing outside, and had worried that, being Orthodox, this synagogue would not only have a separate seating area for women, but a separate door as well. Still, I didn’t see another place to enter, so I gathered my courage, told God this was all His fault if I got clobbered by some ancient, orthodox man, and went in.
There was not, in fact, a separate door for women, but there was, as I mostly expected, a women’s gallery. In Orthodox Judaism, women always sit separate from men. We aren’t allowed in the portion of the synagogue that holds the ark (the cabinet or hollow in which the Torah is kept). Depending on how orthodox the congregation is, the separation may be complete, with a screen keeping the women from even seeing the Torah or the men’s section, or it may be only nominal: a wooden banister, like this synagogue turned out to have.
I didn’t find the women’s gallery on my own, though. My entrance did not go unnoticed by the one, incredibly ancient man standing in the hallway. Wordlessly and with the annoyance given only to those suffering the great injury of being ninety plus years old while everyone else stupidly persists in being younger, this relic of times past gestured me urgently towards the door marked for women, which I slipped through as fast as I could, not wishing to perpetuate the apprehension he seemed to have developed that I would, like some sort of radical, offensively young feminist, storm the men’s gallery and bring the synagogue down around everyone’s ears. (I wasn’t planning to.)
So I’m in. Expecting to find a small congregation, maybe, services about to begin or already in progress, expecting perhaps to be able to sit in the back or observe, or, if services haven’t yet started, to introduce myself to the women who, I tell myself, will undoubtedly take a friendly interest in a pious young American student.
Instead, I see: two men in late middle age, six men who are, if possible, more ancient than the flustered sage in the hallway, and one lady who is perhaps in her eighties, and somehow gives, in her friendly, distracted smile, her wildly mussed hair, and the way she cocks her head slightly to one side, the suggestion that she is perhaps a little mad (though pleasantly so).
Not exactly what I had been prepared for. I’d at least thought they’d have twelve old men. What they have here isn’t even a minyan: unless you have ten Jews (or, in the case of an orthodox community like this one, ten male Jews --so I didn’t count and they were two shy) you can’t start the service. Daunting.
But I was there now. Doing the best I could, I moved over towards the prayer books -- all about fifty years old, at least -- lined up on a rickety wooden table at the back of the women’s section. "Are these . . .Which?" I appealed to the old lady, who had vaguely and kindly wandered towards me as I entered.
"Oh, you want any of these, love," she said, in a friendly, very English voice (think Angela Landsbury, not Julie Andrews). “But I can’t tell you what page to start on, I’m afraid! I don’t read Hebrew, do you?"
“Only phonetically," I answered, glad at least that she seemed willing to talk to me. (A buffer from anciently disgruntled men.) "I never know what I’m saying."
"Well, I can’t tell you, love. I’m just back here saying me own prayers. I say me own prayers! So that’s where I’ll be. I’ll talk to you in a minute, love, but I’ve got to finish saying me own prayers!" And she cheerfully wandered back towards the back pew, where she resumed standing and vaguely humming, which is what she’d been doing when I came in.
Okay. So at least I had a prayer book. And the people here -- at least the one other woman -- seemed friendly, anyway. I’d make it. A Jewish service is a Jewish service, and I’d at least know the main prayers. I flipped through to find the page at which the Evening Shabbat Service started. No page listings for specific parts of the service, I noticed. I’d have to follow along page by page or I’d get completely lost.
One of the two middle aged men approached me from the other side of the partition. (Like I said, in this synagogue, the division is only nominal, allowing a full view of and communication with the front of the small sanctuary.) He introduced himself as a deacon, something which Jewish congregations in the U.S. certainly don’t have, but I suppose it means something over here. Anyway, it seemed to mean that it was his job to talk to me, which he did, pleasantly.
"I’m afraid you won’t find too many women here for Friday night services anymore," he said, (not too many men, either, I thought). "You might try Saturday morning. There should be at least a few! There’s quite a large community next door . . .Don’t be a stranger! But really, everyone’s moved out to the suburbs, you know. A large city like this one."
He asked me if there were many Jews in Virginia, and then spent a good ten minutes attempting to recall the names of some relatives he thought lived in Norfolk (six hours from where my family is). "They’re either called Wallis or Sherman," he finally concluded, cheerfully waiting to see if I knew them.
“"I know some Shermans," I said, "But not in Norfolk . . .though my uncle might -- he lives there."
"Well! Don’t be a stranger, don’t be a stranger! Might find some more women on Saturday," he said, and smilingly loped back to his seat, where he sat stroking his full beard.
The old lady, presumably having finished saying her own prayers for the moment, wandered back over to where I had tentatively seated myself (she, on the other hand, didn’t sit during any of the service. Perhaps a part of her own prayers.) "Did you say you were staying at the Maplethorne, is that what you said?" she asked me in a pleasant tone.
"No, actually, I’ve got a flat in Willesden Green," I answered, wondering how she could have misheard "Maplethorne" for "Willesden." "Oh, that’s fine!" she exclaimed. Looking over at the old men milling around she said "I do think they ought to start right at seven. We’d be out by eight! They have to wait for a minyan, you know. They haven’t got a minyan."
I nodded. She wandered away again.
"The Maplethorne, is that where you said you were staying?"
"Er, no, actually. We’ve got a flat in Willesden Green, my friend and I."
"Oh, how nice for you, dear. Is she Jewish, your friend?" I answered that she wasn’t.
"Well, goodness, dear, how did you find this place? There’s one much closer to you in Willesden. They’ve always got quite a large crowd on a Friday night. Quite a large crowd." (Something in the way she said this indicated that this quite large crowd might be some sort of uncomfortably new-fangled Jew, but, well, to each his own, love!) "I’m afraid I don’t know where it is, though, love. Ask him, he’ll tell you! Ask him! Go on, dear, ask him!" Pointing to the man who’d talked to me before.
I promised to do so, but at that moment, the final two ancient men hobbled in and, as the lady triumphantly announced "There! There’s Bruce. They’ve got a minyan now. They’re going to start." -- and then more directly to me as if I might not have understood her -- "They’ve got a minyan now, they’re going to start!" She wandered back to her place at the back of the pews, and I sat down.
Like I said before, I expected to be able to mostly follow along in the service. Which I think I would have been able to do, judging by the fact that I did remember nearly all of the few prayers I understood. Except that this congregation turned out not only to have the distinction of possessing a high percentage of Ancient Relics, it most likely also -–if I’m any kind of judge at all -- holds the absolute world-record speed for Hebrew-chanting. These old men chant amazingly fast, and very loudly and tunelessly as well, so that it really is impossible, if you haven’t got the whole thing memorized down to the speed of light by ninety-odd years of chanting it, to follow along. Still, I managed to join in on a few prayers which were, for some reason, slowed down, and I did at least hear the service. Sort of.
During it, the old lady came over to me a couple of times, once to loudly proclaim "I’m not leaving, love. Just wanted you to know. I’m going to the loo!" A few minutes after that she came back in and said "I forgot my glasses! Wanted to read the bulletin outside, but I’ve forgot my glasses, you know! I like to go visit all the Jewish cemeteries -- my son takes me -- but I couldn’t read the times out there because I’d forgot my glasses! So I’ll just go and get them."
And she did.
After it was over, the old lady walked me outside, pleasantly telling me her dinner was in the fridge, and that I should find that congregation near me "They really get quite a crowd, but most people have moved out to the suburbs, you know," she said.
All in all, it was an experience. And not nearly so petrifying as I think I could have found it. I’ve located what does turn out to be a Willesden synagogue, and maybe I’ll try that one next weekend. We’ll see if they can beat the old-man and speed-chanting records at the Walm Lane one.
Wow. Long update. Perhaps Saturday night should be left for later. Or summarized as follows:
Went to see play that Nadine’s boyfriend was in (The Cherry Orchard). Was good -- quite experimental. Went out to pub with actors afterwards, had fun, I drank too much on an empty stomach, proving what a colossal dork I am, and was very out of it when marshalled into a cab by Carrie (who whispered to me "It’s a good thing we’re going, because this way they won’t know I’m as drunk as you!" Was rather shamefully sick upon getting home, went to bed. Sunday battled hangover, saw Minority Report good, very pretty, hauntingly and perhaps unintentionally sad -- like a lot of Spielberg recently. Came home. Went to bed.
I’m not sure whether I had an eventful weekend or a normal weekend. Considering that the only other ones I’ve had so far have been occupied with settling into a flat and arriving in England, I don’t think I have an adequate basis for comparison.
All I know is that right now I feel very tired and sort of low, but that could be based on any number of things.
One of which probably being that I’ve realized how little time I really have. I was sitting at work back on Friday and I began thinking about the following: I get up at 6:30 every morning. I am out of the house at 7:30. I arrive at work at 8:45 or 9:00. I work from 9:00 until 6:00. I get on the train at 6:15 or 6:30. I arrive home at 7:30 or 7:45. As I get up at 6:30 (see above), I am in bed by 10:00. Calculate this up, and it leaves me precisely two hours and fifteen minutes of free time per day. That’s it. That is all the time I have in which to communicate with friends an d family, hang out with Carrie, meet other friends in the city, write, exercise, watch t.v., keep a record of what I’m doing, pot plants or tidy up the apartment, see museums or plays, or go shopping. There’s no way I can get all that done in such a meagre amount of time. None.
So what am I going to do? I don’t know. I’m going to seem like such a terrible person if I come back without writing any fiction, but I don’t know how on earth I’m going to, unless I learn not to feel so tired on four hours of sleep. (I can do it, sure, but I don’t like it.) And I have to admit, with the amount of lonely I’m feeling a lot of the time, I’m more inclined to spend any extra time trying to communicate with those around me or across the ocean than I am secluding myself with my laptop or a notebook. (Laptop, by the way, is still not operational, after three attempts to find a correctly configured adapter.)
Anyway. So I thought about all this at work and on the train home from work, and it somehow led to me conceiving a great longing to go to synagogue. (Great! Another thing to do with that pesky 2.25 hours of free time!) So I spent a precious 50p. on internet time and briskly attempted to find the synagogue closest to me.
I found one: the Walm Lane/Cricklewood synagogue, listed as "mainstream orthodox." So I went. It’s about 10 minutes from the tube, thus 20 minutes from my house.
I was, I admit, pretty nervous. I walked past the synagogue three times before I could get up the courage to go in. This is not because I think God hates me. This is because I think other jews hate me. I am neurotic about this. Long story. But I really wanted to go in, so finally I went.
The Walm Lane synagogue is this tiny, old synagogue, probably constructed some time around the turn of the last century. You almost wouldn’t see it if you didn’t know it was there --perhaps on purpose, considering the feelings of most of the world towards Jews at the time of its building. The entrance is a little, dank alleyway leading to an unmarked set of wooden doors. No fancy Hebrew script above them, not even any bulletin board advertising times of services. It is as if you are entering some building in the shtetl of old, finding your way through a cramped, Eastern European street in the dark parts of town where no surveyor ever goes, even though the synagogue is in fact located just off a busy street in Northwest London.
During the time I’d been walking by trying to convince myself to go in, I’d noticed that there only seemed to be men standing outside, and had worried that, being Orthodox, this synagogue would not only have a separate seating area for women, but a separate door as well. Still, I didn’t see another place to enter, so I gathered my courage, told God this was all His fault if I got clobbered by some ancient, orthodox man, and went in.
There was not, in fact, a separate door for women, but there was, as I mostly expected, a women’s gallery. In Orthodox Judaism, women always sit separate from men. We aren’t allowed in the portion of the synagogue that holds the ark (the cabinet or hollow in which the Torah is kept). Depending on how orthodox the congregation is, the separation may be complete, with a screen keeping the women from even seeing the Torah or the men’s section, or it may be only nominal: a wooden banister, like this synagogue turned out to have.
I didn’t find the women’s gallery on my own, though. My entrance did not go unnoticed by the one, incredibly ancient man standing in the hallway. Wordlessly and with the annoyance given only to those suffering the great injury of being ninety plus years old while everyone else stupidly persists in being younger, this relic of times past gestured me urgently towards the door marked for women, which I slipped through as fast as I could, not wishing to perpetuate the apprehension he seemed to have developed that I would, like some sort of radical, offensively young feminist, storm the men’s gallery and bring the synagogue down around everyone’s ears. (I wasn’t planning to.)
So I’m in. Expecting to find a small congregation, maybe, services about to begin or already in progress, expecting perhaps to be able to sit in the back or observe, or, if services haven’t yet started, to introduce myself to the women who, I tell myself, will undoubtedly take a friendly interest in a pious young American student.
Instead, I see: two men in late middle age, six men who are, if possible, more ancient than the flustered sage in the hallway, and one lady who is perhaps in her eighties, and somehow gives, in her friendly, distracted smile, her wildly mussed hair, and the way she cocks her head slightly to one side, the suggestion that she is perhaps a little mad (though pleasantly so).
Not exactly what I had been prepared for. I’d at least thought they’d have twelve old men. What they have here isn’t even a minyan: unless you have ten Jews (or, in the case of an orthodox community like this one, ten male Jews --so I didn’t count and they were two shy) you can’t start the service. Daunting.
But I was there now. Doing the best I could, I moved over towards the prayer books -- all about fifty years old, at least -- lined up on a rickety wooden table at the back of the women’s section. "Are these . . .Which?" I appealed to the old lady, who had vaguely and kindly wandered towards me as I entered.
"Oh, you want any of these, love," she said, in a friendly, very English voice (think Angela Landsbury, not Julie Andrews). “But I can’t tell you what page to start on, I’m afraid! I don’t read Hebrew, do you?"
“Only phonetically," I answered, glad at least that she seemed willing to talk to me. (A buffer from anciently disgruntled men.) "I never know what I’m saying."
"Well, I can’t tell you, love. I’m just back here saying me own prayers. I say me own prayers! So that’s where I’ll be. I’ll talk to you in a minute, love, but I’ve got to finish saying me own prayers!" And she cheerfully wandered back towards the back pew, where she resumed standing and vaguely humming, which is what she’d been doing when I came in.
Okay. So at least I had a prayer book. And the people here -- at least the one other woman -- seemed friendly, anyway. I’d make it. A Jewish service is a Jewish service, and I’d at least know the main prayers. I flipped through to find the page at which the Evening Shabbat Service started. No page listings for specific parts of the service, I noticed. I’d have to follow along page by page or I’d get completely lost.
One of the two middle aged men approached me from the other side of the partition. (Like I said, in this synagogue, the division is only nominal, allowing a full view of and communication with the front of the small sanctuary.) He introduced himself as a deacon, something which Jewish congregations in the U.S. certainly don’t have, but I suppose it means something over here. Anyway, it seemed to mean that it was his job to talk to me, which he did, pleasantly.
"I’m afraid you won’t find too many women here for Friday night services anymore," he said, (not too many men, either, I thought). "You might try Saturday morning. There should be at least a few! There’s quite a large community next door . . .Don’t be a stranger! But really, everyone’s moved out to the suburbs, you know. A large city like this one."
He asked me if there were many Jews in Virginia, and then spent a good ten minutes attempting to recall the names of some relatives he thought lived in Norfolk (six hours from where my family is). "They’re either called Wallis or Sherman," he finally concluded, cheerfully waiting to see if I knew them.
“"I know some Shermans," I said, "But not in Norfolk . . .though my uncle might -- he lives there."
"Well! Don’t be a stranger, don’t be a stranger! Might find some more women on Saturday," he said, and smilingly loped back to his seat, where he sat stroking his full beard.
The old lady, presumably having finished saying her own prayers for the moment, wandered back over to where I had tentatively seated myself (she, on the other hand, didn’t sit during any of the service. Perhaps a part of her own prayers.) "Did you say you were staying at the Maplethorne, is that what you said?" she asked me in a pleasant tone.
"No, actually, I’ve got a flat in Willesden Green," I answered, wondering how she could have misheard "Maplethorne" for "Willesden." "Oh, that’s fine!" she exclaimed. Looking over at the old men milling around she said "I do think they ought to start right at seven. We’d be out by eight! They have to wait for a minyan, you know. They haven’t got a minyan."
I nodded. She wandered away again.
"The Maplethorne, is that where you said you were staying?"
"Er, no, actually. We’ve got a flat in Willesden Green, my friend and I."
"Oh, how nice for you, dear. Is she Jewish, your friend?" I answered that she wasn’t.
"Well, goodness, dear, how did you find this place? There’s one much closer to you in Willesden. They’ve always got quite a large crowd on a Friday night. Quite a large crowd." (Something in the way she said this indicated that this quite large crowd might be some sort of uncomfortably new-fangled Jew, but, well, to each his own, love!) "I’m afraid I don’t know where it is, though, love. Ask him, he’ll tell you! Ask him! Go on, dear, ask him!" Pointing to the man who’d talked to me before.
I promised to do so, but at that moment, the final two ancient men hobbled in and, as the lady triumphantly announced "There! There’s Bruce. They’ve got a minyan now. They’re going to start." -- and then more directly to me as if I might not have understood her -- "They’ve got a minyan now, they’re going to start!" She wandered back to her place at the back of the pews, and I sat down.
Like I said before, I expected to be able to mostly follow along in the service. Which I think I would have been able to do, judging by the fact that I did remember nearly all of the few prayers I understood. Except that this congregation turned out not only to have the distinction of possessing a high percentage of Ancient Relics, it most likely also -–if I’m any kind of judge at all -- holds the absolute world-record speed for Hebrew-chanting. These old men chant amazingly fast, and very loudly and tunelessly as well, so that it really is impossible, if you haven’t got the whole thing memorized down to the speed of light by ninety-odd years of chanting it, to follow along. Still, I managed to join in on a few prayers which were, for some reason, slowed down, and I did at least hear the service. Sort of.
During it, the old lady came over to me a couple of times, once to loudly proclaim "I’m not leaving, love. Just wanted you to know. I’m going to the loo!" A few minutes after that she came back in and said "I forgot my glasses! Wanted to read the bulletin outside, but I’ve forgot my glasses, you know! I like to go visit all the Jewish cemeteries -- my son takes me -- but I couldn’t read the times out there because I’d forgot my glasses! So I’ll just go and get them."
And she did.
After it was over, the old lady walked me outside, pleasantly telling me her dinner was in the fridge, and that I should find that congregation near me "They really get quite a crowd, but most people have moved out to the suburbs, you know," she said.
All in all, it was an experience. And not nearly so petrifying as I think I could have found it. I’ve located what does turn out to be a Willesden synagogue, and maybe I’ll try that one next weekend. We’ll see if they can beat the old-man and speed-chanting records at the Walm Lane one.
Wow. Long update. Perhaps Saturday night should be left for later. Or summarized as follows:
Went to see play that Nadine’s boyfriend was in (The Cherry Orchard). Was good -- quite experimental. Went out to pub with actors afterwards, had fun, I drank too much on an empty stomach, proving what a colossal dork I am, and was very out of it when marshalled into a cab by Carrie (who whispered to me "It’s a good thing we’re going, because this way they won’t know I’m as drunk as you!" Was rather shamefully sick upon getting home, went to bed. Sunday battled hangover, saw Minority Report good, very pretty, hauntingly and perhaps unintentionally sad -- like a lot of Spielberg recently. Came home. Went to bed.
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