Winding Up in Florida

After Dunnellon, my journey changed gears: I was heading towards company again. I drove from there to St. Petersburg, near Tampa, to visit Bernice, a friend of my father’s family for about 60 years. She and her husband were close with my Nana and Papa when their kids (i.e. my dad’s generation) were growing up, and she’s always been a cherished part of our family celebrations.

Bernice is 93 now, but she is absolutely with it upstairs. However, her physical limitations mean she can’t live independently. Her kids moved her from her home in New York to an assisted living facility in Florida about two years ago, and that’s where I went to see her.

Bernice and me.

In fact she’d been on my list of people to visit from the beginning, when I first started envisioning what my return trip through America would look like. I saw these road trips as opportunities to reconnect with people I’ve known who are scattered across the country. If I stayed in Israel, and only continued to come home for two-week stretches, in all likelihood I’d never have the opportunity to see them again.

On my list were my college roommates, in upstate New York; my friends in D.C.; several people out in California; perhaps some people in Ohio; my Nana, in Florida, and of course, Bernice. They couldn’t all be included in one trip, so I’d break it up into general chunks.

See, on a road trip like this, no destination is out of the way. Every place I go to is a place I want to be, a destination in itself. It doesn’t matter if it’s not along a strict A to B route. Opposite! What am I rushing towards? Everyone knows it’s all about the journey. So I designed my journey to include the West coast of Florida, and Bernice.

Bernice looked amazing. She was in a wheelchair, but she could still get around. She had been waiting downstairs in the lobby for me for two hours (not my fault! I’d told her the exact time I’d be there). I hadn’t seen her in several years, but she was the same: smiling, laughing, joking, in wonderful spirits. She’s an incredibly special woman. Everyone in my family loves her. Whenever her name comes up, it’s only a matter of moments before everyone is saying something like, “I love Bernice.” “Bernice is the best.” “Ugh, I just LOVE Bernice.”

Bernice was very happy to see me. In fact, my entire visit with her was one big self-esteem boost as she went on about how beautiful/amazing/courageous/special I was. Of course, I kept parrying her praises but they just kept on coming. By the end, darnit if I didn’t think I was pretty great too.

But I was nothing compared to Bernice. She has always made the best of everything, and now is no exception. She doesn’t love the place where she lives - she says it’s too goyish - but she manages to remain the life of the party. She has a million friends and is always making everyone laugh with her classic Jewish humor. (As we were sitting in the lobby near the dining hall, she looked around at all her sedentary co-inmates and whispered to me, deadpan, “They’re all asleep. Or dead.”)

Her family comes to visit her often, kids, grandkids, great-grandkids alike. She’s the kind of person people want to be around: a positive, loving energy surrounds her at all times.

Of course, she asked me about my dating life, surprised I hadn’t found anyone in Israel, but she wasn’t worried. She assured me I’d find someone amazing and that I’d “never choose the wrong guy.” She could foresee that fate for me. Unlike most people, she could talk to me about getting married, tell me how much she wanted that for me, without making me feel like shit.

Maybe I just cut her a lot of slack, but it didn’t bother me. I think it’s partly a reflection of her great good nature, of her sincere kindness and love, but also partly a reflection on changes within myself. If she’d said those things to me last year, maybe I wouldn’t have been as cool about it. I probably would have had to grit my teeth through my smile, I’d probably have said “Thanks” instead of a resounding “Amen!” Because up until recently, whenever people said stuff like that to me, I’d be thinking, You stupid moron, don’t you think I want that too? Do you really think you could want it for me more than I want it for myself? Do you think my being single is a choice?!

But I don’t feel that way lately. Instead of panicked, I feel calm. I feel sure that it’s coming and I’m not afraid of my future. Beyond that - I’m grateful to be single now. If I met someone tomorrow, it would mean giving up on this purely selfish self-exploration, which has been an experience beyond joy. I’m sure I’ll be ready one day soon - but right now, I’m very happy to be where I am, which is a sensation so rare and, frankly, ridiculous that I don’t want to give up on a single second of it.

And besides, having that faith means I don’t have to worry. For the last two years or so, I’ve had serious doubts over whether or not God was really on my side. I almost saw him as an adversary, someone working against my happiness. That was the only way I could understand my perpetual singlehood. It didn’t make sense otherwise. It was the only thing I really wanted and God was withholding it from me. I didn’t want to hear it would happen at the right time. I only saw my friends getting married, and myself getting older.

But I don’t want to talk about that now. I’ve spent so many words, pages, years just immersed in that pain, and I’m not there anymore and I don’t want to go back for a visit. What I’m trying to say is that since I arrived back in America, hallelujah, or perhaps since I decided to leave Israel, I have felt a profound sense of peace and faith surrounding this question. I’m not worried because I know God is on my side.

I’ll illustrate this with a short anecdote that seems meaningless, but that I have managed to turn into a huge ah-ha moment using overanalysis. I had less than a half a tank of gas when I left Dunnellon on Thursday morning, and by the time I reached Tampa, I was running quite low. The warning light had gone on. I really needed gas, but I figured I had enough to travel the last 20 miles or so.

But from Tampa to St. Petersburg, there is a very long bridge. In fact, it is so long that before it begins, there is a sign saying, “LONG BRIDGE CHECK GAS”.

Even though I was pretty sure I would make it, that sign worried me. As I ignored it and continued onto the bridge, I couldn’t help but feel a wee bit nervous. A very long bridge would be a very bad time to run out of gas. So as I drove, I started talking to God.

But I didn’t ask him to help me get safely over, or pray that my tank would last. Instead, I said, “I know you won’t let me run out of gas. I know I’ll get over and it’ll be totally fine. I know you won’t let me get stuck on this bridge.” I kept repeating that as I drove, and of course I made it, and of course I was able to safely get to a gas station without any problems - as I knew I would.

I didn’t think about it at the time, but afterwards, my choice of words struck me. I wasn’t really praying. Rather, I was assuring God that I had total faith in him by letting him know I wasn’t worried, that I knew he’d take care of me. And, seeing that faith, he did his part; he rewarded my faith by proving me right. I hadn’t been looking for a reward; I hadn’t been trying to trick him - or myself - into thinking I had faith so that he’d help me; I really knew I wouldn’t get stuck.

DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THAT MEANS?!

Before leaving Israel, I read part of a book, lent to me by a friend, entitled “The Garden of Emuna (Faith)”, by Shalom Arush. For the most part I hated this book. Not only because it committed the classic Jewish publishing sins of being barely edited and full of typos, errors, and formatting inconsistencies, but because the message seemed to me beyond laughable. In fact it was so ridiculous it was actually dangerous, I felt.

To mangle it into one succinct paragraph, the main message of the book is that you have to have full faith in God at all times, no matter what the scenario. If you have full faith in God, everything in your life will become perfect. You’ll make tons of money, all of your diseases and ills will be cured, you’ll be filled with happiness, and any problem you ever had will vanish forever. It doesn’t matter how you got those problems. It doesn’t matter how deep-seated they are. They will all be cured and everything in your life will be completely flawless as long as you just believe.

Come. On.

Anyone who knows me will understand the cynicism and incredulity with which I reacted to this book. I kept throwing it down in disgust and talking back to it angrily - “Oh, really?! If I have a terrible toothache and I just think really hard about some way in which I don’t have faith in God and decide to have faith the toothache will just MAGICALLY disappear?! REALLY?!?!” -- Cue throwing down of book.

I felt it was garbage. This couldn’t be how the world worked, it just couldn’t. There were so many religious people so full of faith with terrible challenges and difficult lives, so many people who believed fully in God and yet suffered. NO! I just refused to believe it.

Buuuuutttt . . . , some little voice in my head said, but what if he’s right?

No, said another voice.

Buuuut . . . I mean, I certainly don’t know how it works, so maybe . . . I mean, what if I just tried it?

Don’t be ridiculous, said the second voice. You can’t try to have faith, that’s the point. You have to actually HAVE faith.

True, admitted the first voice. BUT STILL . . . I mean, whatever I’m doing definitely isn’t working . . . so maybe I should try something different.

Sure, said the second voice dismissively. Go ahead, try the impossible.

I never finished the book. It was so poorly translated and so full of misspellings and mistakes, in addition to its ridiculous ideas, that I couldn’t get through it. I don’t think I even made it halfway. And yet the message stuck with me. I couldn’t say why, and I couldn’t really figure out how the ideas should or could fit into my worldview, but something in them clearly resonated. Maybe my problem was faith.

Fast forward to today, many months later. I can’t say I now buy into all those teachings. I don’t believe that faith in God can cure a toothache, and I probably never will. But it’s obvious to me that my perspective has majorly shifted.

To make a long story short (TOO LATE!), I have perfect faith I won’t be single forever. And that makes a lot of these conversations easier. (For some reason, every adult in my family thinks it’s appropriate to ask me about my dating life. I mean, I get it, they’re curious, and probably worried. Clearly they don’t have my faith.) I can smile, and nod, and say “Amen!” and mean it, because I know they’re not being insensitive, they’re just adding their blessings into the bounty I’ve accumulated from friends and relatives over the years which will one day all shower down upon me like a thousand balloons waiting in the rafters.

Now let’s return to Bernice. Just in case you’re a little lost at this point, let me quickly review how we got here.

Bernice → asking about boyfriends → having faith I’ll meet someone → faith in God as shown through the gas story → The Garden of Emuna → well-meaning relations → Bernice.

Bernice kept saying how happy she was that I had come, that it was the best best thing, that it was so good to see me, as if I were doing some amazing nice thing, some kind of mitzvah. But I didn’t feel that way. It wasn’t a favor, it wasn’t charitable, it was just my own desire to see her and spend time with her. Once again I experienced that clear chiming moment of clarity and rightness when everything is aligned in the world: I was as glad to see her as she was to see me. Everything had arranged itself so that we two could be happy together for an hour and a half. Another link closed itself neatly in the chain of perfect moments I had experienced since beginning my trip.

After saying our goodbyes, I went back to the car, checked the stupid freaking tire pressure again, and got back on the road to head to West Palm Beach, which was a four-hour drive. It was fine despite the ridiculous local state roads. I liked it best when the road became one lane, so that I didn’t have to constantly stress about being passed or passing other cars, except at one point when I got stuck behind some cars and a truck barely going to the speed limit. On a long stretch, the other two cars managed to slingshot around the truck using the broken line shared with the westbound lane to pass. I’d never done this before, but I had to get around the truck, so I wavered back and forth to the edge of the lane until I saw a relatively clear stretch, and then I went. It was terrifying. I was literally speeding directly head-on towards another vehicle coming from the opposite direction. Once I had swerved back into the lane in front of the truck I vowed never to do anything like that again. Why is that even legal?!

Otherwise, the drive was fine. I’m getting to really enjoy these drives, and I’m genuinely glad I still have a few left before I finish my grand adventure next week. It’s not the scenery, though that can be nice. I guess the feeling of being behind the wheel of my own car gives me a powerful sense of autonomy. When I’m in that car I’m a real adult confidently and purposefully going places (even though I couldn’t get around my own block without Waze).

I arrived at my Nana’s retirement community at seven. I hadn’t seen her since the summer, so we had a lovely reunion and sat down to a dinner of delicious hot dogs. I hadn’t eaten meat since the previous Shabbat, let alone an actual meal, so this was a treat. The food situation had really deteriorated throughout the last few days to the point where every time I stopped at a red light, I was stuffing in every paltry available calorie just to try to fend off the constant hunger. I only had snacks left, and not filling ones.

This brings me to another short tangent (everyone groans) about traveling alone. I’ve already explained how much I love it, but I’ve pinpointed one time when having a traveling companion would be of use (only one, though): when you’re driving and snacking. You can’t imagine how helpful it is to have someone in the front seat rip open a package of cookies or crackers for you, or unscrew the cap of a water bottle, or peel a banana (it’s shockingly difficult to peel a banana while driving) or feed you pieces of a clementine. I didn’t end up eating most of the clementines I brought, because you can’t responsibly peel one while driving. Don’t try it.

Tangent over - told you it would be short!

Over dinner, Nana and I talked about everything: my trip, travel, our family, politics, the Olympics. I don't remember the last time we had such a great conversation, just the two of us. I was glad to have had that opportunity before my parents arrived. I showed her my blog, and she told me that the need to express myself is "in your heart and soul", which I really liked. I found it very apt. Something in me needs to be expressed, which is why I'm plastering my every thought across this web page.

I enjoyed the comforts of home, doing laundry, taking a shower, spreading my stuff out over every surface. On Friday, we went to the community pool and played Scrabble before I headed out for Shabbat in Boca Raton with the local Chabad family, which Randy had helped set up.

Nothing like the poolside view at Century Village.

At first, I felt a bit out of place; the family was speaking Yiddish to each other, and I was awkwardly aware of my short sleeves and sandals. A few students trickled in as Shabbat began, but none of them were too friendly. I was used to people approaching me and starting conversations, which always happened in the south. However, that regional quirk had ended as soon as I got to Florida, and my attempts at conversation were rebuffed. I wandered to the other side of the room, where an older couple and two women were talking. I thought maybe I’d try to get in on that, but there were no takers there either. Everyone was very closed. I read until dinner.

There were about 20 guests for dinner, including an Israeli family. When they came in and I heard them speaking Hebrew, and saw the father, who could have come from the mold they use to make Israeli men, I started having a tiny bit of a panic attack. I went into my bedroom and took deep breaths for a moment or two. I knew I had to avoid sitting next to them, had to avoid speaking to them. I couldn’t bear speaking Hebrew right now, and I could not, WOULD NOT field questions about my life in Israel from Israelis. Luckily, when I emerged, they had taken their seats at the other side of the table. I sat in the small cluster of college students.

I couldn’t. I just couldn’t deal. This has happened a few times since I got back, whenever I hear Hebrew or see Israelis: I seize up, I freak out. I think I might be actually traumatized from my time in Israel. Any reminder makes me panic, as if I’m back there, as if somehow I could be forced to go back. The idea of interacting with Israelis, with their harshness and bluntness, with their mentality and attitude, after escaping from it, and coming here where everyone is so soft, is so painful I can’t think about it.

Enough!

The students were nicer once we were seated and had to look at each other, though I never warmed up to the opinionated girl (I don’t think I was alone there). The other students - all guys - seemed glad to talk to me, which was a relief after the pre-dinner awkwardness. And I was interested in their stories. None of them were religious, and there were fewer students than I expected considering the Chabad house served three schools.

But the food was great, and the people were, ultimately, nice, though not necessarily the friendliest. I’m not saying they were unfriendly - just not THE friendliest. That’s a high bar! They were nice. The older couple had been married 70 years. Yes, 70. The wife had a lot of wisdom to impart, which she did throughout the meal at seemingly random intervals. She also shared a lot of personal things about her family. While at first I found her words wise, after her third or fourth profound speech and/or oversharing session, I started feeling kinda done with it.

Most people had left by the time dinner ended, though a few stayed and chatted (not with me). I played with the kids; the second-grader had some excellent jokes and riddles. Eventually I went to bed while people were still talking, partly because they were talking about Israel being amazing and I couldn’t listen to it. My room did have a door, a sliding one that went into the wall, but as it was fully hidden when I arrived, I didn’t discover it until today, so last night I dragged a piece of wood in front of the door instead. You can imagine how clever I felt when I woke up and found someone had discreetly closed the door for me.

Today was much more chill; lunch was the family, me, and one other guest. I finally got a chance to talk to the rabbi, which I hadn’t the night before, and I felt I was able to rehabilitate my image slightly from the silent, bookish persona I’d exhibited on Friday. I guess I just don’t perform well in big groups. After some games with the kids I fell asleep, and slept the day away, which bodes poorly for my night’s rest.

It was a nice Shabbat. The rabbi gave me many brachot, and he and his wife told me to come back any time. It was another new experience, although in many ways it felt very familiar.

I met back up with my parents tonight; it felt as if I’d been gone months. In a sense my trip is now on pause, since I’m no longer in charge. We leave for our cruise on Monday, and then Friday I’m on my own again for a few days. I’m glad there’s still a bit of adventure left. I’m not ready for it to end.