It occurred to me, as Jake ate his lunch at Green Sage today, that having your child drop pieces of pork sausage in your lap may not be the most appropriate way to honor Yom Kippur.
Normally, I would spend this day fasting, meditating, reflecting. Not, I must explain, in any kind of religious service. I tried it once and it didn’t bring to me the same meaning that I took from the holiday — searching for ways to be a better person, to avoid repeating any mistakes I may have made over the past year, and to remind myself of the things that are important in life. Instead, I have started spending the day alone, at home, writing and thinking and just being.
But pregnancy interferes with fasting and a toddler off from preschool for the day interferes with meditation and reflection. I did, Mike reminded me this morning, have both the option and the excuse to bring Jake to the house of one of his teachers instead of watching him myself. He visited her last week when school was closed for Rosh Hashanah and had an awesome time, or so he tells me.
But somehow, today, even though I couldn’t have my usual Yom Kippur of introspection and calm, it didn’t seem right to have someone else care for Jake.
And so, uncertain of why I wasn’t taking the easy way out by sending him to someone else’s house for the day, grumpy that his nighttime cough had triumphed over my attempts to get him out of my bed and back into his last night, I resolved to find fun, meaningful things to do with my child.
Like, first on the agenda, going to the kids’ gym downtown that we have heard about but never before visited.
We arrived 15 minutes into the one-hour session for Jake’s age group, greatly delayed by my inability to find any clothes that fit my not-my-usual-size-but-not-maternity-clothes-sized body. Worse than having to wear pants that are two sizes too big (and therefore add extra room where I don’t need it), however, was choosing the shoes to match.
You’d think it would be a simple matter, pulling on a pair of shoes. But once the days of flip flops pass, I find myself stymied. Tennis shoes or clogs? Socks or bare feet? What on earth matches too-big black jeans with skinny legs?
Not, I concluded, the shoes I was wearing when Jake and I dashed into the gym at 10:15.
Happily, we had to remove our shoes when we got there, so I could concentrate instead on those first moments of utter terror Jake experienced. He clung to my arm as if molded there by plaster of paris before I could coax him to take a walk, hand in mine. Slowly, he ventured onto the trampoline sunken into the floor. And declared that he liked it very much.
This declaration consisted of saying, “Dat, dat,” until I identified this wonderful new phenomenon as, “Trampoline.”
“Trampoline,” he said approvingly before running across it again.
Forty minutes later, when the session ended, Jake was quite loathe to leave the gym, and probably my promise that he was going shoe shopping with me didn’t help much. But I was back in my hated, ill-matching shoes, and I have long harbored an interest in owning a pair of black Chuck Taylor low-tops. I never quite thought I could pull it off, but today, when I should have been reflecting on the important things in life, all I came up with were those Chuck Taylors.
Off we headed, to Discount Shoes, the only place in town I knew I could count on finding them. Miraculously — or perhaps portentously — we went directly to the correct aisle. Jake picked up a hot pink pair for me, but I told him only black would do. I searched for my size. And searched. And searched.
How could there be no size 7 1/2 black Chuck Taylor low-tops?! Was there a god somewhere trying to tell me something?
Jake and I ran (in his case) and strode (in mine) the aisles looking for a suitable substitute. But I’ve waited years for this moment. Nothing else would do.
So we returned to the Chucks. Maybe they ran big, I thought, without much hope. I tried on a pair half a size smaller than I normally wear. And — angels singing and clouds parting — they fit perfectly.
Certain that buying shoes on Yom Kippur was just the right thing to do after all, I scooped them and Jake up and ran to the check out.
Whereupon I was informed that they don’t take American Express.
Like a thwarted consumer in a bad commercial, I sadly informed the cashier that I am between Visa cards — my last one having slipped out of my pocket and onto the street last Monday, where it was picked up by a kind soul who called the bank and left a number where I could reach him. But, as much goodness as there is in the world, can you really with total security not change your account when a stranger has been holding onto your card for more than enough time to, oh, jot down the number?
Hence, I have no Visa for a few days, and no black Chuck Taylor low-tops.
Continue reading ‘Yom Kippur, Spirituality, and a Pair of Black Chuck Taylor Low-Tops’
