Note: In 2009, when this is set, Easter had already occurred by April 17th, and Passover was in progress. -D.
Happy Easter! June and I went to my parents' place for the weekend after I swore up and down that we'd make an extended visit to her parents sometime this year. The problem--the reason why this is an issue--is that her parents live so far away that we can't really make it a trip of less than a week, but June and I almost never have a week off at the same time. After I earn my ring, we won't have this problem. And in the meantime her parents are coming here to visit for a week sometime this summer.
Anyway. Yes, Easter. Nothing unusual happened except that I severely wished I'd stayed home on campus. Not that I wasn't glad to see my family, and Easter is a traditional time for us all to gather now, so I really couldn't miss it, but I've only really been on campus for Easter once and it was lovely. I wish I could do that again--and it suddenly occurred to me, right there in church, that now I never will, not as a student, anyway.
I could almost have wept.
It's a very strange thing to be charging forward to complete something that I don't entirely want to end.
We were able to attend a seder this year on campus, my second one. We're not Jewish, but we have friends who are, and we were invited. It's curious--far more of the campus community were raised Christian than Jewish, and very few remain monotheists of any stripe here. Depending on what definition you use, we don't actually have any practicing Jews, and yet the Passover seder is well-attended, as are several other Jewish holiday gatherings over the year. The non-practicing Christian component doesn't do anything like that. Most like to pretend that they don't even know when the Christian holidays are. I get people asking whether I go to church, though I've been going openly and regularly the whole time I've been here, as if they're hoping I'm going to tell them I've stopped. It's like all religions are OK but that one, and people want to forget they ever belonged to it. Our Jewish pagans want to remember their origins, though, and so they hold seders.
In other news, the forest turned green this morning. The leaves aren't really out, yet, of course, most of the trees are still quite skeletal, and those that aren't have flowers, not leaves. But the leaf buds are bursting, and the tiny tips of the newborn leaves poking out cast a kind of green mist over proceedings. It literally just happened this morning, or possibly over night. I noticed it on my morning walk with Steve.
Steve didn't notice at first, and I didn't say anything because I wanted to see when he'd figure it out. It's a strange thing to be an expert, however relative, because there's this constant temptation to lord it over the less-knowledgeable in one way or another, and there are so many ways. Was I waiting for him to figure it out--or fail to figure it out--so I could say "gotcha, I already know"? I wasn't even sure myself and it bothered me, but on the other hand I really did think giving him a chance to notice the green on his own was the best thing to do.
He didn't say anything. He seemed to be in a good mood, which didn't surprise me because the morning was gorgeous--cool and dew-kissed, with the sunlight on everything a clear, bright sort of apricot just past dawn, and a wonderful smell in the air of flowers and damp earth and growing things--but he didn't say anything. We just walked and looked around.
I was beginning to think he wouldn't say anything, and I was wondering whether I should, and how to do it without coming off like an ass, when we came up the the magnolia on our way back--it's just starting to flower now--and there was Charlie examining one of the unfolding flowers. We greeted him and I asked him what he was looking at, so he gave some smart-assed reply the way he does, and I had to decide whether to argue back or not--and then Steve spoke up.
"Hey, Charlie," he said, "you must be happy, it really feels like spring today!"
And Charlie looked at me, and I looked back at him, and I felt bizarrely as though my teacher had complimented me somehow.
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