I’m wearing my awful, black lace-up shoes today. That’s the first thing I do when I’m having a bad back day. I look like Miri’s 60-year-old ganenet, in a neighborhood where everyone’s walking around in ballet flats, right up to their ninth month. These shoes are somewhere between a sneaker and a men’s shoe, but it’s fine, because I wear them mostly at home, in front of my computer. And they feel amazing.

The back pain book is still in my drawer, though; I sort of believe in it. And I still go to the chiropractor every so often and let him convince me that he aligned me. But today my back is in bad shape. I’m running around, trying to get supper ready and myself dressed for this wedding tonight. Not the type of wedding where you pull on a beaded sweater with your black weekday skirt, put on makeup in under 12 seconds, and run into some fluorescent-lit hall to wish mazel tov.

This is the type of wedding where you really need to get dressed — at least if you’re one of the only frum cousins represented. It’s the type of wedding where you watch food and conversation fly without really taking a part in it. So if you stick out like that, you’d better be well-dressed, and well-adjusted. And well-fed, I guess. I sit down and eat a quick bowl of spaghetti with ketchup. A pretty lame supper, but the meatballs are still frozen. Avigdor will warm them when he gets home.

I pull the black silk heels out of my closet and dump them next to the couch. I find my black evening bag with the beaded tassel, throw in my cellphone, money, a box of gum, and place it on the dining room table. Let them see that frum people look good. We know what elegance is! I set out the kids’ fleishig dolphin bowls, ready for when the babysitter brings them back from the park, and run to get dressed.

I find my other makeup bag — the one that has the serious makeup I hardly ever wear. I will not allow Renana’s searing gaze to show me up as an overworked and underdeveloped frum mother. Which I know I’m not, by the way, whether I wear good makeup or not. It’s just that as the live frum specimen, I have to present myself in the best possible way. At Dikla’s wedding last year I told Renana about my dissertation, and why I chose to do my Masters in Education as opposed to Special Ed. I know she was impressed because we carried on a decent conversation for five minutes. Then she found her voice and asked how kids can respect a father who doesn’t work.

The phone rings. I fumble in my evening bag; it’s Toby.

“Gitty? Hi. We’re stopping by Chava Leah, then the cab’s going through Ramat Eshkol. Like five minutes?”

My stomach lurches. “Um, okay, I guess, yeah. Fine, I’ll be down in five minutes.”

I pull out three cucumbers and slice them. Then I run to move the linen to the dryer. My back is killing; I bend at the knees. Please tell me why I choose the busiest days in my life to change my linen? I hear the taxi honking outside as I run down the stairs.

“Hi,” I breathe as I squish into the back with Toby and Chava Leah. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Toby, my goodness, you’re really on time!”

“Yup, I am.” She smiles a Toby smile. “I tried to be very organized about this.”

My back hurts.

Chava Leah turns to me, her eyes radiating humanity behind her perfect newlywed makeup. “Hard to get out, no?”

I could hug her.

Toby is impervious. “I doubled yesterday’s supper and put it in two pans.” She’s motioning with her hands. “I make sure my kids are fed before Yossi comes home. He doesn’t mind putting the kids to bed but doesn’t like to do supper.” She nods to both of us, as if imparting pearls of wisdom.

I make some sort of noise and look out the window. Avigdor doesn’t like to do supper either, but whatever. Toby is just Toby. Simple in her personality, simple in her outlook on life.

We head onto the highway and I start to relax. Something about the highway does that to me. I let out a deep, quiet sigh. What a day. Work, errands, kids… but here I am, finally — glistening with make-up, fitting nicely into my black top and knit skirt, clutching my beaded evening bag. I can breathe again. The pain is receding slowly from my back, all that’s left is a slight burning sensation on my lower left side.

I sit back, feeling my body unfreeze slowly, limb by limb. We’re passing Mevasseret. The road is wide open, with the occasional car whizzing alongside us. I stretch my feet out, all the way under the empty passenger seat in front of me, when something makes my breath catch. It’s the surprising sensation of rubber hitting the fabric underside of the seat. And then, I feel the squeeze of laces.

I freeze.

I am wearing my sneakers. Blood rushes to my head and I close my eyes for a long minute. I open them up with a slight pounding in my temples.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” I say with a forced laugh. “But I’m wearing my orthopaedic shoes! I left my house without changing my shoes.”

Chava Leah puts a hand to her mouth. “You serious?”

Toby waves. “Oh, nobody sees your shoes.”

Right, these shoes are going to blend right in with my wedding attire.

I take a deep breath. “I know this sounds crazy — but do you think we can still turn around?”

Toby wrinkles her nose. “For your shoes? You’re serious?”

Chava Leah shrugs.

“Yeah, I’m really serious.” I lean over to the driver. “Slichah — do you think we can go back to Yerushalayim? I left something very important. Meod chashuv.”

He turns down the radio. “Giveret — we’re on the highway. You want to pay another hundred shekel?”

Yes, I do. But I can’t. I know I can’t.

This can’t be happening. Not after I put my sheitel in rollers last night so that I convey being frum as something beautiful, spiritually and aesthetically. Not at a wedding where I am the one who can skilfully impart the message that being frum feels good and looks good too.

“Wait.” My mind is turning, “Isn’t there a mall around here somewhere?” Toby and Chava Leah look at me curiously. “I mean, I would go into Payless — I don’t care — and buy the nerdiest black shoes. Anything is better than these.” I wiggle my feet, snugly ensconced in thick black leather and hugged by arch supports.

My words hang. No one responds. I know I’m sounding ridiculous. Besides, the stores must be closed.

I wrap myself in silence for the rest of the ride, coming out occasionally so that I am not downright rude. But I am lost. Dreading this evening. And my back hurts so bad that I try sticking my evening bag behind me as lumbar support. It doesn’t help.

***

Tova stands at the side, one hand on her mother’s wheelchair. Seeing Doda Perel makes me sad. Partly because she’s aged recently, and partly because I think of all that Doda Perel is missing. Here she is, a woman of noble descent … and she sits, hair exposed, surrounded by generations who shun her past and refer to her casually as Penina. I know she regards her older sister’s grandchildren with wistfulness.

Babby always said how she’d begged her to join her in Williamsburg, but Perel was so young when the war ended. She settled in Haifa with Dod Avraham and that was it. She had her son and daughter; Tova, who really shares my name of Gittel, and who is marrying off her first grandchild tonight, and Dani. My mother always said that Tova was the nachas.

Tova’s kids feel close to us, though we are worlds apart. Dani’s kids are less family-minded.

Toby and Chava Leah linger next to me. I’m the one with good Hebrew, the one with the social graces.

I shake Tova’s hand warmly and bend over the wheelchair.

“Mazal Tov, Doda Perel. I’m Henny’s daughter.” I smile at her, though I don’t expect her to really follow anymore.

She takes my hand in her thin, freckled one, and her eyes get teary. She squares her shoulders. “You learn here?”

Ah, someone thinks I look good.

Tova talks loudly in Hebrew. “Ima, you remember Gitty! She has four children!” Her voice is chastising.

Doda Perel just squeezes my hand.

We find three seats together at the cousins’ table and we sit — Toby, Chava Leah, and me. The salmon appetizer is magnificent; of course, we just busy ourselves with the Sprite. Luckily, I’m next to Noa and her husband Ofer is next to her. I like Noa; she’s sweet and homey and we always have pleasant conversations. She is so Tova’s daughter, and I think she even has some religious sentiments. I know she did a research paper about Doda Perel — it held her religious, Holocaust survivor grandmother in a positive light, which is more than I can say for some of the others.

Directly across from me is Renana, seated next to her husband. He always looks a little voiceless next to her. She passes around a bottle of white wine and tilts it in our direction.

“No, thank you.” Toby holds up a hand. “I only drink wine for Kiddush.” She pronounces it glibly in her American accent, as if they all know what “Kiddish” is. Come to think of it, they probably don’t know what “Kiddush” is either.

Renana gives a polite smile, then looks down at her phone.

She holds it up a minute later. “This is from our trip to Italy last month.” She passes it around and the comments erupt. “Awesome!” “Unbelievable!” She flips to one shot of a bushy old man lifting pizza out of a brick oven. “To die for…” she closes her eyes and shakes her head.

Noa turns to me. “Are you doing anything over the summer?”

“Well, my boys have limudim for another few weeks. When they’re off we usually go up north for a few days.” I’m careful not to say cheder; they most probably wouldn’t know what that is.

Noa’s eyes widen. “Another few days or a few weeks?”

“Weeks. Yeah.” I give an overly enthusiastic smile.

Renana shakes her head tiredly. “So how long do they have off in total?”

My fingers are cold. “Three weeks.”

As soon as it’s out I want to kick myself. I could have said “about a month.” Sounds so much more normal!

Renana doesn’t say anything, but the look she gives speaks louder. I swallow hard. I am burning to defend myself, my community, my choices… but I am voiceless.

I shift my feet under the table. They feel like bricks.

The wind is out of my sails. I don’t think my presence exudes anything convincing or compelling at the moment. Tonight I am not an ambassador. I am a nerd.

Noa changes the subject which makes me feel even worse. I must have really looked dumb.

They are discussing the health ministry’s proposed changes for school lunches. Renana’s discussing Noga, her preschooler, who spends a full afternoon in the Tzaharon since Renana works until four thirty. She tells how the mothers petitioned to cut nitrates out of the lunch menu. Noa nods, sharing her own victory over the school-vending machines.

Toby is telling them how her kids love cucumbers.

And I experience a curious sensation. It is the wonder of sitting back… and listening.

The wind might be out of my sails, but my fight is gone too.

I’m not calculating my next line, not thinking how to make sure that my every word convinces and compels, not trying to inflect my response with the perfect blend of anything.

This is not about me. Not about my kids’ eating habits, and whether people in my circles consume enough fruits and vegetables. It is not about whether I secretly think my son’s cheder hands out more Bissli than I’d like, and whether religious women get enough exercise. It is not about protecting, erecting, defending.

I am grounded, taken down a few notches, and forced back into my genuine self… and now I can just be normal.

“Really?” I respond with unaffected interest. “Your kids know how to read the sodium levels on a snack bag?” I am impressed.

Noa nods earnestly. “Of course.” I return a respectful nod, feeling not a trace of defensiveness.

It is liberating, this reprieve I’ve been granted from playing perfection, from working so hard to exude invincibility.

The waitress comes with our glatt kosher double-wrapped meals, and I feel silly at the production it is making. Thankfully the music is loud.

I pull off the foil as unobtrusively as I can and find a piece of light brown fried sole with wilted string beans. I am hungry. Toby and Chava Leah are checking it out as well.

You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to make things look perfect.

I pull out the little plastic fork.

All you have to know is that He is perfect. That’s enough.

Noa’s eight year old hobbles over from the children’s table with a broken sandal. He pushes his glasses up his sweaty nose with his arm and stares at us with youthful candor. “He’s so cute, Noa! My goodness, he’s adorable!”

I really mean it. She smiles and gives him a squeeze. Then she tucks his shirt into his slacks and bends down to fix his sandal.

The waitresses are clearing the plates, but we wave them off politely as we maneuver our cheap white cutlery into rubbery sole. Chava Leah is barely picking at hers. Toby is off to the side speaking to her babysitter. I take small bites and chew politely, eating only because I am really hungry. It’s awkward. I feel like I am in everyone’s line of vision.

“Seriously,” Renana looks up, picking up the thread I thought we had dropped. “Your boys have an insanely long school day, they don’t have a gym or anything like that, chas v’shalom”— she waves dramatically— “and then they have three weeks off? Is that normal?” She looks around the table for support. I don’t know if she’s garnering nods of validation, but no one is rebuffing her accusation either.

She gives a delicate sigh. “I would bring those principals to court.”

Chava Leah busies herself with finding a tissue. She’s too fragile for this.

I am stuck halfway between inhale and exhale. I feel myself flush. We are fine! We are healthy! My boys are doing great! And by the way, they go to a swimming chug. And we took them horseback riding last summer, and to a zip line, and to a moshav where they got to—

I sigh in defeat. A liberating kind of defeat.

“Yeah, it’s true. It does sound like a short vacation.” I look up with a secure nod. “But I don’t know — somehow it works.” It does, it does. My voice picks up. “My boys are always excited to start school again in September.” I smile. We are happy.

Renana shrugs. And I’m not so sure I even care anymore if she is convinced.

We are happy and we are lucky.

And I find I am breathing again. Freely.

And believing that I am lucky is more compelling than anything I can say or do.

Toby comes back at the tail end of our conversation. She looks around in question, then cocks her head as if she wants to say something. Instead she sits down and eats a bit before the waiter collects our heaps of foil. I am relieved. Nothing she will say will help anyway.

It’s ten o’clock and we have to leave. We give warm goodbyes, then head out into the balmy evening.

The ride back home is quick. I know I will come home to a tired husband, to bare beds, and to linen in the dryer that is partially wet. I couldn’t ask Avigdor to check on them, it would have been too overwhelming for him.

But I get out of the taxi with a carefree wave and sprint up the stairs.

And my back doesn’t hurt. Sometimes it feels good to wear sneakers.