Diary of Surrender, Week 10: Giving up on Ritual
No Passover seders for me, and I’m tired of thinking about it.
I’m writing a diary about my year of giving up, although I may give up on this too. Who knows? You can read about why I’m giving up here, and the previous week of saying fuck it here. (The term “week” is used loosely).
My parents were great in a lot of ways, but they sucked in a lot of ways too. One of the biggest ways was their indifference to holidays, to tradition and ritual. I remember waking up as a four-year-old to a pile of gifts in the living room, and being told they were all for me. There’s a photo of me, with a 1970s androgynous bowl cut, peeking over a pile of gifts on the coffee table, looking both thrilled and utterly confused. It was apparently Christmas, but no one had explained the concept to me, and it was jarring. There was no tree, no warning. It was as if my parents made a game-time decision the night before to rush out and get some gifts, in case the kids in my pre-school started bragging about their Christmas haul.
If true, this was a bizarre calculation. My pre-school was at Jewish temple, so none of these kids were likely getting Christmas gifts. They were, however, getting Chanukah gifts, so a few weeks later my parents broke out a menorah and tried their best with the prayers. My…
