Southern Hospitality

My Southern welcome.

I’ve just spent my first Shabbat on the road.

I’ve already ranted a tiny bit about how difficult it was to find a place to stay for Shabbat, so I’m not going to go back into that. Suffice it to say that although I had some negative experiences searching for a host, I did get sorted (as I knew I would) and ultimately enjoyed a lovely Shabbat with a welcoming community: Charleston, SC. Home to approximately 10 shomer-Shabbat families.

My first encounter with a Charlestonian was not positive. It started raining as I neared the city, so although I had very much enjoyed most of Friday morning’s drive through the Cherokee and Pisgah National Forests on my way out of Tennessee, and got to see some nice country roads and beautiful views (albeit fleetingly), by the end, I was grumpy and ready to be done with my journey.

The Dor Tikvah congregation in Charleston owns/runs a so-called Shabbos House, which is exactly what it sounds like: a guesthouse for out-of-towners who come for Shabbat. This was where I’d be staying. However, I had the wrong address - it was one number off, but enough to confuse me. So, naturally, I pulled over to the side of the road which is apparently a crime in Charleston, because shortly after a woman pulled up next to me, I rolled down my window, and she screamed, “THIS IS HOW YOU PARK?!?” and proceeded to berate me for, you know, stopping my car on the side of a residential road.

Shaken, I pulled my car up a few hundred yards, because I didn’t really know what else to do. It was really unpleasant. This lady was a full-on asshole, and I had just been sitting there innocently. So not a great first taste.

But once I found the right address, pulled into the driveway (apparently, this is the right way to park), met the rabbi and got settled in the Shabbos House, I relaxed. The house was beautiful, the rooms were impeccably clean and neat, and there was even a welcome card waiting for me. Glory be!

There were two other guests - Neil and Elaine, an lovely older couple from Philadelphia, and we quickly got chummy. They were also road-tripping down to Florida for - you guessed it - a cruise! Oh, we Jews know how to vacation.

The house is right across from the shul, which was a bit makeshift, as renovations were underway. The congregation was - small. We didn’t have a minyan until Kabbalat Shabbat, when the tenth man trickled in. And I was the only lady present. The men were friendly enough, but seemed way more comfortable talking to Neil than to me. Mostly Super Bowl stuff. I found the service very dry; apart from L’cha Dodi, there was virtually no singing. But I found listening to prayers read in Southern-accented Hebrew very amusing.

Afterwards, Neil, Elaine and I went to the rabbi’s house for dinner with his wife and five young kids, all cuties. The food was delish, the conversation was nice. I wasn’t asked too many questions, which I liked. All in all, a really quality evening. The rabbi and his family were all about kiruv (i.e., reaching out to non-religious Jews to bring them closer to Judaism) and accepted my weird life-change story without comment. In fact, everyone I spoke to was super cool about it (to my face at least).

This morning, I got to shul just in time for the kiddush. And wow, was everyone friendly. Again, there wasn’t a huge gathering; definitely more than the night before, and more women and kids, but not more than a few dozen congregants. People kept coming up to me and introducing themselves, and it wasn’t weird at all. I couldn’t help but think about how NOT like a torturous “young professionals” Shabbat event this was. Of course, the community is 99% families, so duh, but the main difference was that I didn’t feel like a piece of meat constantly being sized up and judged. I could just talk to these people like regular humans, not having to wonder what they thought of me, not having to read anything into their excusing themselves to go back to the table for more food. They were all interested in me, and all super-super-super welcoming (of course, could be they’re just desperate for new blood. A few asked if I was shopping for a new place to live). Both single guys (I assume there were only two) chatted me up a bit, but I didn’t feel attacked, and I didn’t feel that I had to escape from the conversations somehow, lest they think I was interested. It was just friendly, normal, easy conversation. I found myself thinking that with such a small pool, it’s actually probably easier to date new people in small communities like this than if you immerse yourself into a huge ocean like New York, where everyone is just craning around for the next thing.

Lunch was fine, with a few other older couples in the community, and then I read and loafed the rest of Shabbat. I started a fascinating book called “The Gene: An Intimate History”, a non-fiction study of how the concept of genetics evolved, by Siddhartha Mukherjee. I luuurrvve reading about evolution (contact me for a list of recommended books on the topic!!), so I find this incredibly interesting. It was given to me by a friend in publishing who warned it was an advance copy, so it might have typos, which I actually find much less bothersome than the author’s obvious and cringe-worthy penchant for puns. I kept thinking of how I would edit his (generally excellent) writing, how I would fix passive sentences and remove redundancies, change just one or two words to give a sentence better flow, and slash the hell out of those terrible puns. It was interesting; I guess knowing that it was an advance copy, still waiting on final edits, made me much more critical of the writing. I hoped that the editor had caught all of the issues that I did in the final version. So I guess editing is in my blood now.

After Shabbat I researched stuff to do in Charleston: tomorrow is my first sightseeing day. I plan to hit the major points of interest and, of course, the only kosher restaurant in town, which happens to be a cookie place.

So Shabbat was really great, in the end. I was speaking to the president of the shul at one point about my travel plans, and he asked if I liked traveling alone or having someone to show me around. The question honestly stumped me, because even though I have technically been traveling alone for a week, I haven’t really been alone at all. Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve found people. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting that at all. Knowing my own introverted nature, and my ability to get through days on end without exchanging a single sentence with a stranger, I thought that I would end up spending a lot of time alone - going to new places, but not really having any conversations, not learning much about the people of the region just because I wouldn’t really have a lot of interactions. But the opposite is true. I’m pretty sure it’s not me - I think it’s them (the Southerners). They’re just a hell of a lot friendlier than strangers in New York, no question. In New York, you don’t say “hi” to your seatmate when you sit down for a show. That would be weird. Here, of course you do! And, contrary to everything I know about myself, I love it.

Usually, I really hate when new people talk to me. I mean I really hate it. When strangers try to converse with me - like on a plane, for example - I shut that down right quick. Even if they’re nice. I don’t want my space invaded, I don’t want my time wasted, I just want to be alone with my book/music/thoughts. It could be that it’s just my state of mind right now - that I’m in such a place of openness and I have such a thirst for newness that even talking to new people seems fun and exciting. I’m so curious about them, about their world, about everything! Usually I couldn’t care less about other people’s stories; it’s why I am so bad with names - I just flat out do not care. I know that makes me sound really callous, but actually it’s a signature trait of an introvert to despise small talk and avoid investing time and energy in forming surface connections with people. We prefer to have deep, meaningful conversations with fewer close friends than chat the day away with hordes of acquaintances. It’s just our thing.

But here, I am just friendliness itself. I say hello, I engage, I answer questions, I ask questions. I bet no one here would guess that I’m an introvert at all.

Gosh! There’s just so much to say. I’m so incredibly happy. I don’t know the last time I felt this way. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this way! Everything is full of possibility, every way is open. I just want to absorb and take in and feed on all of this rich experiential food. I was musing today that I wish there were a word to describe an experience so perfect in and of itself that it requires no description, no commentary, no nothing outside of itself - something that could just exist in some unknown form within you, whole, complete. I know of no such word, because I know of no such concept. But if I did know that word, I would definitely apply it to my night at the Comedy Barn.

I’m kidding! I’m not kidding. The Comedy Barn was perfect in every way. But that word could also be applied to many of the experiences I’ve had this week: making paper angels at the Hirshhorn Museum; sitting on top of a mountain on the Appalachian Trail; meeting new people at Dor Tivkah’s Shabbat kiddush.

It’s just been so good.

I think I started this tangent with the question about my traveling preferences. Do I like traveling alone? I LOVE TRAVELING ALONE! First of all, it doesn’t preclude being with other people, as this week has proved; I can find people wherever I go. But second of all, when you travel alone, you are in control. You alone decide where to go, what to do. You are the captain of your fate. You don’t have to do anything that doesn’t interest you; you don’t have to compromise; and you’ll never have to miss out doing something you want to do because your travel partner isn’t interested. IT’S AMAZING!!!! I love traveling with family and friends, but inevitably there are points when your wills diverge. It just happens. You want to go to that museum, but your friend wants to go shopping. You want to go mini-golfing, but your family wants to read by the pool. You want to rent mopeds, but your friend is afraid of death. ETC! Occasionally you’ll be able to convince the other person to do what you want, but it’s always a conversation.

But when you travel alone, you don’t need to force anyone else to do anything. You don’t need to make them get out of bed for an early check-out. You don’t need to drag anyone along to a sight they don’t want to see. You don’t have to consult them on which hotel to choose. You don’t have to negotiate who gets the first shower. You can just GO!

I’ve never felt so free.

And I don’t regret not planning out a more structured itinerary beforehand. I figured that with a rough idea of where I wanted to be each day, I would be able to figure out the rest as I went along. And that’s exactly what I’m doing and you know what? It’s working perfectly. I like having everything be fluid. I like not being committed to this place or that, I like being able to alter plans if I need to, or do things last-minute. Like tonight. I had been planning on going to a hotel after Shabbat, but then I decided to ask if I could stay at the Shabbos House one more night. Hey presto! A night I don’t have to pay for a hotel! If I had made reservations beforehand, I wouldn’t have been able to do that. And what’s the big deal? It’s so easy to book a hotel last minute. In Pigeon Forge, I booked it at Starbucks and checked in half an hour later.

In general, I’m not a person who stresses a lot about these kinds of things, but it’s cool to realize that I am even more chilled out than I knew.

In fact I am realizing all kinds of things about myself! For example, I realized I hate staying in gross motels! Now that might not be particularly revelatory, but hey, I didn’t know it before - I thought I could lay my head anywhere! But I can’t! Nice hotels only for me! Or tents. Either a hotel, or a tent. I’m happy sleeping on the ground and peeing in the words, and I’m happy in a nice clean hotel room; there is no middle ground.

I’m learning about myself. I’m learning about others. I’m seeing new things. I’m mastering my fate.

In short, this trip, so far, is beyond everything I wanted it to be. And if I knew the word that could describe a perfect experience, I would use it right now.