-Irish
Note: names used were changed for the users privacy
P.S.S sorry if I spelled anything wrong, spellcheck was being a fart.
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“Oh,” came her voice next to me. I turned to face her and the brave façade that had been on her face before was now gone. She looked at me, brown eyes wide. “It’s getting closer!”
I laughed and patted her on the shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t worry Gina,” I said, “you’ll do great!” A murmur of agreement went around the small red Honda and she grinned nervously.
“Thanks!” She said. I nodded and turned to the window as her father in the driver seat began to talk about hiding his “onion” under his yamaca, and watched the trees whizz by. North Carolina was so different from my little hometown of Ashland . And even though I’d only been away for about a day and I was so excited to be with Gina on this day, I was already missing my friends and the rest of my family back home and my quaint little town I’d lived in since the day I was born.
I let my mind begin to wander as Gina and her family began discussing things I didn’t really know about, and I had just began to wonder how my dad was doing at the hotel when suddenly we turned into a gravel parking lot and the car began to shake.
Gina looked at me, her straightened hazel colored hair flying as she did so. “We’re here.” She squeaked.
“Yeah,” I said grinning as the car pulled into one of the empty parking spaces in the completely empty lot. Gina, her sister Mira, and I slid out of the car and waiting patiently while her parents got things out of the car. I picked up one of the many boxes that Mrs. Hoseph was trying to carry and followed her across the parking lot.
As we walked toward the door the early morning wind caught all of us girls in our knee length dresses causing us to shiver and scuttle faster into the warmth of the temple. Once inside we all dispersed into doing different things, Gina and her father pinning yamacas into their hair, Mira disappearing to reappear who knew when, and me following Mrs. Hoseph into the actual temple with the boxes.
She set everything on the chairs in the first row and gave me a quick smile. “Thank you Julianne!”
I returned the smile and pulled my shawl closer around me, the temple part was just almost cold as outside. “It’s no problem!”
Still smiling, she looked down and pulled several things out of the boxes and walked out into the front hall, leaving me alone in the temple.
I’d always been afraid to be alone in religious places. There was always something about it that just made me want to cling to someone. But then again, before that day I’d only ever been in a church with the stain glass windows casting eerie colors, and the people portrayed in those windows looking down at you as if you have done something horribly wrong and making you want to just run out screaming “I didn’t do it! I’m sorry God! I’m a bad seed!”
This was different. The temple was not scary or cold, it did not have the icons to stare at you disapprovingly nor did it have the make-you-want-to-run-out-screaming factor. It seemed more open to expression and warmth to my untrained eye. It was strange, the difference between the two and I pondered it for a while as I stood staring at the only stained glass window in the entire place. It was a Star of David with light coming from behind it, God’s light no doubt, and I found the colors very beautiful together.
Gina’s voice broke me out of my thoughts.
“Hey, what do you think of my yamaca?” She said walking up to me, a light blue yamaca placed on her head.
I let my mouth drop. “I love it! I want one!” I cried running for the front hall, my recent epiphany having been totally forgotten at the prospect and excitement of wearing a yamaca for the first time.
I got to the front hall and looked at the yamacas, they were a light blue with teddy bears lightly etched into them. I picked up a random one, and silently watched as Gina rummaged through the small wicker basket filled with yamacas from bat and bar mitzvahs past.
Suddenly her eyes grew large and she held up another a dark blue yamaca with gold stitched around the edge. I grinned and nodded.
“You should totally wear that one!”
“You think?”
“Defiantly! Now, come and help me put this on, I’m a noob when it comes to these things!”
We walked into the bathroom and put on our serious faces as I pinned mine into my golden red hair, and she took hers out and pinned the new one in her hazelnut. Walking out of the bathroom laughing about something I had done, most likely accidentally face planting into the sink, we were met with the photographer and all of a sudden became a whirlwind of colors, introductions, the flash of cameras, and voices as more and more people arrived.
With Gina swept up in the whirlwind of guests and pictures, I was free to wander back and forth from the front hall to the temple, waiting anxiously for my dad to arrive. And as the time for the services grew closer, so did the number of trips I took to the front door, and then back to my seat mumbling something about rental cars.
Finally, just as the services began to start and everyone was taking their seats, my father arrived in his much “loved” race car tie and the same blue yamaca on his head. We quickly scurried to the back and settled ourselves for a good one or two hours of services, Hebrew, and songs we didn’t understand but desperately wished we could for the sake of the moment.
While my dad kept his nose in the prayer book, I watched with keen interest at the entire spectacle, it was the first bat mitzvah I’d ever been to, and I knew it wasn’t my last. As the rituals and songs were performed and sung I began to wonder what the differences between the two I was going to would be.
As I watched, I began to realize that I was a lot calmer about this than I thought I was going to be. As her family members stood up, donned their prayer shawls and read from the Torah, I began to flip through the small booklet they had given everyone to get in a last minute attempt to look try to at least have a sense of what I was reading. I had memorized maybe the first couple lines and some in the middle, but not all of it together.
I was still looking at it when the low thrumming voice of the cantor, Hank, was calling someone up to read.
“Juliane Ha-Handlene” He thrummed, causing the nervousness to finally set in.
I stood up shyly as half the people turned toward me expectantly. I strode up to the small square podium, clutching the tiny booklet with my hand marking the page. I grinned quickly at Gina and then bowed my head, probably not to look up anytime soon.
The words flew by and poured out of my mouth. I stuttered under my nervousness but refused to begin again. “One hundred of you will give chase to a thousand, and a thousand of you shall give chase to a million,” I took a deep breath and read the rest, my voice calm but still stuttering under strain. Once I finished I finally lifted my head and began to walk back to my seat, graced with a smile from Gina as I passed her and a fist bump from my dad when I sat back down.
For the rest of the ceremony I watched Gina with a new found pride, even greater than that I had for her before. I resisted the urge to jump up and running screaming with joy and hug her proudly. I grinned, thinking of the last time I had this urge to do so. At my friend’s Young Marine Graduation and after ward I actually had hugged her, as much as she detests hugging! I smiled deciding to do the same to Gina, when clapping started to sound and the temple rang with the words “Mozel Tov” being sung by a hundred different voices. I joined in and once it died down, ran for the front of the temple as fast as my heels could carry me.
I was met with a tight hug and the smell of perfume.
“You did great!” Gina’s great aunt said, hugging me closely. I smiled at her warmth, even though it was slightly scary since I had only met yesterday afternoon but still I appreciated it. Suddenly Gina walked over and her aunt released her hold on me and latched onto her, grinning broadly. I waited as her aunt held her grip and cooed to her about how amazing she did and how proud her of she was, making all of us smile, Gina especially.
Once Gina’s aunt let her go I quickly took her place knowing I wouldn’t be able to for a while if I didn’t now. She laughed as I latched onto her tightly and said “Congratulations!!” and “Mozel Tov” over and over. I pulled away, and she grinned.
“Thanks! Now we can party!” She said causing me to giggle in anticipation. She laughed again and then was swept away on a magic carpet ride of hugs, kisses, congratulations, and spazzes from her friends who were pushing her out the door of the temple to the bus that waited to take us to the hotel where the party was going to be held.
I sighed and walked out behind them with my dad, grateful for the warm sunshine that rained down on us. He handed him my shawl and my yamaca with a grin, told him I’d see him at the party. I hopped up onto bus that was to take us to a magical land of music, games, lifting people in chairs, singing, friendship, and happiness that would last Gina the rest of her life and cause both of us to smile at the memory of that day for forever to come.
