Wednesday, November 27, 2002

Now I’ve seen everything, and

Now I’ve seen everything, and I think I’m a better man for it.  And by “everything,” I mean major life events.  Weddings have been unavoidable, and generally I’ve enjoyed them.  But they always struck me as somewhat fabricated.  People choose, plan, spend years sometimes on the preparations, usually while living together.  By the big day it’s sometimes hard for me to mark the real significance of the event through the tuille and buttercream and personalized napkin rings.  Same with b’nai mitzvahs and confirmations, which come off as even less relevant due to their toploaded elaborateness balanced on a purportedly spiritual - or at least religious - base.  But those are the facile ones.  Earlier this year I finally went to a funeral.  Maybe my essays on that trip will make it to the ‘hut someday, but here and now let it suffice to say that, despite years - decades - of planning and a clear spiritual focus, it was a moving and profound experience.  I’ve sat with the dead and kept their bodies company.  And I’ve held newborns, tiny balls of life, poppin’ fresh so to speak. 

And now I’ve done a bris.  (I mean, other than my own.) For the uninitiated, it’s the ceremony of covenant, in which an eight-day-old male child is consecrated into a tradition and future of judaic monotheism, receiving a share of the blessing of adonai in exchange for the foreskin off his penis.  I’ve never been to one before.  Till yesterday.  Many good things came together for this auspicious and life-affirming event, not the least of which was getting to see many people I dearly love who should be spending Thanksgiving with me but who, for various reasons, won’t.  Then came the honor of being asked to assist in the ceremony with a critical task: to sanctify and lubricate the event by giving the baby wine.  At the appointed time Jon thrust little Aaron into my arms - Aaron is 3 weeks premature, barely five pounds and still unfolding his face after months crushed in the womb; he’s tiny and light and it was a joy to support him.  I took him into a quiet bedroom with a special pouched pillow covered in satin and pasmanteri, and spoke quietly with him as I set him into the throne of honor in which he would be carried out into the ceremonial space (a kitchen table, in this case).  His eyes opened and wandered over my face and I knew better to think that he was in communion with me, but I knew that I was in communion with him and that was good in its own right. 

During the ceremony I stood at Aaron’s head and dipped my pinky finger into sweet wine, slipped the wet finger into Aaron’s mouth and tickled his palate to make him suck it down.  I kept feeding him drops this way as he was held in position and prepared for the incision.  There was no stone knife; all the equipment was sterile and modern.  I tried to watch while it happened, I didn’t turn away - but it was too quick, I missed it somehow.  First it was there, then it wasn’t.  Just like that.  The child cried, I fed him more wine, and he quieted and sucked it down and kept sucking like a champ.  After it was all over and the crowd was dispersing to the tables of delictables laid out for our enjoyment, I looked again at the moiel’s tools, still on their sterile sheet.  One instrument looked like a hemostat and a tiny spot of crimson had spread beneath it.  Hanging from it was an even tinier strip of pink skin, looking more than anything else like the lox on the platters in the dining room that the others were hungrily scooping onto their bagels.  The child slept.  My pinky finger tingled from the warmth and suction of his tiny mouth. 

Later Charles started vaunting the ribs at Rendezvous Ribs, where you can have the best bbq in Memphis sent to your home for $25 a meal.  The discussion centered on whether that was economically feasible for everybody there, and I suggested that poor people could sleep with a clean conscience but might not be able to eat like Charles does all the time… Charles admitted that his life was one of “pork-filled self-loathing.” That’s a phrase that belongs at every bris, I think. 

Finally, on my way back to the city with Dave, we drove up past SFO where the jets and prop planes approach to land.  There must have been a lot of wind aloft, though where we were the trees were motionless.  Still, two airplanes, a little one and a huge one, were hanging in the sky as if suspended from a hook, not moving forward or down, just dangling in the crisp fall air.  I watched them as we drove beneath them, and wondered what it looked like to be aloft and still.  The world is a strange place sometimes.  And now I’ve seen everything.