But we ourselves, while loved, don’t belong. We don’t live on Planet Normal. We live on Planet Crazy

Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The music swirls around me, the dance steps synchronized. They’re all smiling. They all understand this joy. They understand the rhythm of bringing your children to the chuppah.

First they go to seminary, then they date, then they get married. Then they have a vort, then a shower, then an aufruf and a Shabbos Kallah. And then they wear their gowns and take pictures and have a shmorg and badeken and kittel and ashes and brachos and chuppah and smashing the glass and yichud and pictures and first dance and dinner and second dance and shtick.

It’s like The Fish and The Soup and The Chicken they serve their family on Friday night.

It’s how it works.

Nobody says, “Wait, which fish?” It’s The Fish. Everyone has it.

In the epicenter of this joy is me, and in the epicenter of me is a maelstrom. Because I’m churning deep in the quietest parts of me. For me there is no badeken or glass or dancing and there is no neat linear timeline marching through life. There is often no fish or soup or chicken. It’s sushi or cholent or tacos. Whatever brings the chevreh to the table.