[OPEN] let the year and its curses conclude

[tehilim127_1]

Who: Zivia (tehilim127_1) & all comers
What: Autumn and the High Holidays
When: Late September through October
Where: All over
Warning(s): To be added as relevant

1. closing the year

Early in September and Elul, Zivia wrote a letter.

A few days later, the Visitors' Center went up, and among the visitors were two of Zivia's dead. No one else was present for her conversation with one of them.

The next week, she went to a certain shady merchant, grimly determined to speak to him about procuring certain items and to pay whatever he asked. She did not expect him to already have them on hand, nor to insist on giving them to her without payment. Perhaps that should have felt like divine providence of some kind; for some reason it did not make her feel any more certain that she was doing the right thing. Nonetheless, she brought the items home and sent word to Anzu and Lyubov that she had, baruch Hashem, acquired a shofar and a lulav -- with accompanying willow and myrtle twigs but not, unfortunately, with an etrog. Which meant pinning their hopes on the Paradesium expedition. (Where they were to begin with, so that's all right.)

During the last week of September, Zivia went out to the old Starr farm to gather a basket of apples and some honeycomb from the hives; talked to Captain Dominguez of the Limoncello and gave him a long and detailed list of requests, heavily featuring kosher meats and cheeses, to be compensated in all the citrus fruit she can carry when the expedition returns; talked to various people at City Hall about the time off work she would need in the coming month; found a source in town for canvas sheets and wooden beams; and put up a notice on the town bulletin board: Help Wanted with Minor (Temporary) Construction Project.

(She also kept her ears open for the general mood of the town in the wake of Dahlia Leeds' party and its shocking revelations. Any angry talk that grew vicious, she did her best to quietly defuse; any fearful talk that verged on panic, she did her best to subtly soothe. She knows too well that this could easily get ugly, in ways that could be much harder to fix than to prevent.)

It's now the first week of October, the last week of Elul. Zivia can be found at home whenever she's not at work, either working on the mysterious construction project or seemingly endless baking: cakes, cookies, tarts, a half-dozen round braided breads. She'll happily explain what's up with all of this, should anyone ask.

[Tag Zivia here for anything in late September or pre-holidays October, including if you want to help with the construction or talk about last month's events!]

2. days of awe, days of joy

And then it's second week of October, the first week of Tishrei.

Rosh Hashanah: two days of feasting and prayer, bringing in the New Year, beginning the Ten Days of Repentance. Lyubov blows the shofar at their little communal prayer services, where they say what parts of the liturgy they can without a full quorum of ten, and maybe a little more besides. They each host meals, with the round challahs and the apples and honey (from the Starr farm and from Angel's gift) and other traditional symbolic foods; Zivia is particularly thankful that they've been able to get pomegranate. Cecil Palmer is invited, and Hawkeye Pierce, and anyone else who's shown interest in participating in Jewish traditions.

Ten days later, Yom Kippur: fasting and prayer and atonement for sins. Again the little prayer group congregates, and Zivia recites the familiar words through an unexpected struggle with tears. Do not cast us away, Lord our God, do not distance Yourself from us --
(She still doesn't know if trying to speak to the local goddesses is something for which she should be asking forgiveness. She doesn't know who to talk to about that, or how.)

Five days later, Sukkot: a week of feasting and celebration, with festive meals in the completed sukkah. If you've befriended Zivia, or if you work with her, or if you answered the bulletin board request to help build the thing, or even if you're just passing by and want to know what the deal is with the weird little structure with canvas walls and a roof of Paradesium greenery, you will get an invitation to come hang out. Inside it's decorated with ribbons and paper chains and fruit (including tiny gourds) and colorful fall leaves, and there are snacks and both cold and hot drinks and occasionally a friendly cat winding around people's ankles, and at the slightest provocation there will be stories and anecdotes about the holiday. You've been warned.

At the end of that week, Simchat Torah: the last of the holidays and in some ways the hardest to observe in their current circumstances. No Torah scroll has shown up at Calloway's, so the best they can do is read from Lyubov's chumash, the end of the final chapter and then the start of the first, beginning the cycle again. There's too few of them to dance properly, but they can and do sing.

[Tag here for religious holiday celebrations if your character would have been at any of them, or for hanging out less formally in the sukkah!]

3. back to the everyday

And then, as every year, the holidays are over. Time for taking down the sukkah, putting away the components in case they need to be reused next year, carefully storing the shofar wrapped in cotton in the china cabinet, planning future meals around frozen leftovers: an end to the celebrating of life and a return to living it.

For the rest of October Zivia is back to her usual routine. Find her at work, or shopping downtown, or having a drink down at the Oak & Iron on occasional evenings -- or, once in a while, taking a walk on the beach while it's still warm enough to do that.

[Tag here for after the holidays, at any of the named locations or your choice of wildcard!]

Comments

:3

[preacher_in_reticence]

It is not the first night of Sukkot, or even the second. But the third, the third afternoon Degas shows up with a carefully prepared pumpkin bread and an uncertain smile, entering the sukkah and waiting for Zivia to be free so he can offer it over.

[tehilim127_1]

As luck would have it, she's alone in the sukkah at this particular moment, sitting with a book and a faintly unfocused expression that suggests she's thinking rather than actually reading it.

When he steps in, she looks up in startlement that rapidly turns to a smile. "Hi! Welcome."

[preacher_in_reticence]

"Hi." He hasn't caught her one-on-one, he hasn't talked to her in depth since meeting her loved ones. Which is complicated emotions for him. But that's part of why he's here, right? Just...part.

The rest is offering over this bread.

"Here. It's...pareve? Or, well. I know my kitchen isn't fully prepared, but I didn't want to show up empty handed."

[tehilim127_1]

She sets aside her book, and reaches to take the pumpkin bread with another smile. "Thank you. Oh, it smells delicious."

There are several other chairs in the sukkah -- the same sturdy set that are usually around her dining room table. She gestures to them as she moves to set the bread down next to the plates of cookies and fruit, crackers and dip. "Have a seat?"

[preacher_in_reticence]

He does sit, as invited, glancing around the homemade decorations thoughtfully.

"So, this is a harvest celebration? Celebrating the bounty of the earth by eating outside-ish?"

[tehilim127_1]

"That's part of it, sort of. This time of year was one of the three main harvests, back where we used to live, and some say the sukkah is to commemorate the harvesters' huts out in the field. The other part is -- remember the Pesach story that I told you, back in spring? Well, after we were brought out of Egypt, we wandered in the wilderness for forty years, and we lived in temporary structures like this. So this commemorates that time too. We're told to live in sukkot for seven days, and that's generally understood as meaning we should take our meals there, and some say sleep there too, if it's safe to do so."

[preacher_in_reticence]

"It should be pretty safe here, if you wanted to. We could even find a few volunteers to stand guard. Enforcers or...heck, I bet Angel would be glad to. He's done night watch for people before, at the temple."

There's something proud and fond in his voice, talking about Angel. A 'such a good boy' kind of tone.

[tehilim127_1]

"I thought about it. I might if I were younger, but my back's only just got used to the bed here, and it doesn't do so well with change these days."

She smiles at the mention of Angel. "Did he tell you he helped me with the roof beams here?"

[preacher_in_reticence]

"He did. He told me I should visit while the structure is up." There's some amusement there. "You do this sort of thing every single year, then? I suppose there's more members of your community to help."

[tehilim127_1]

"Every year," she agrees. "And yeah, in some neighborhoods there's younger people who offer their services to help put up the sukkah for a little extra income, same as you might offer to mow lawns or rake leaves or shovel snow, whatever seasonal chore needs doing. But there's also ways to make it easier -- some people have a base structure that stays up all year round, and all they have to do is put the s'chach on -- that's the temporary roof. And you can buy kits with prefabricated parts to put together, though I think that's really only in the last half-century or so."

[preacher_in_reticence]

"How clever. And...it's okay to use prefabricated parts? That doesn't lessen the 'oomph' of it all?" He has yet to understand that being clever about the how of things is integral to Judaism.

[tehilim127_1]

"Oh, sure. I mean, some people really like building their own from scratch, for the experience or the effect, but so long as it's in accordance with the parameters it can be anything. There's a whole discussion in the Talmud about how creative you can get and still keep it valid -- can you build it on a boat, or on the back of a camel, or up in a tree." She pauses. "If I recall correctly there's a disagreement on all three of those, some say it's valid and others say it's not."

[preacher_in_reticence]

"What does your god have to say on the matter?" To him, it's a pretty obvious, simple question. After all, before the barrier, scholars could just consult the Mothers.

[tehilim127_1]

"Well, that depends who you ask. Prevailing opinion in my time and place is He gave us a few details, and said the rest was up to us to decide."

A pause. "Unless you're asking if I've ever posed this question directly, which ... I haven't. Never seemed quite the thing to do."

[preacher_in_reticence]

"But how do you make the right decision without consulting Him?"

It's a very different view on everything. Someone has never heard the story of the Oven of Akhnai before.

"What if someone is sure that a sukkah on a camel is okay, but it's not, actually?"

[tehilim127_1]

"Well," slowly, "if that someone's sure because they've studied everything on the subject, and there's enough of a consensus about their reasoning among everyone else who's studied the subject, then it's a valid position. Like, there's an understanding that this is our job now. He gave us the starting points and handed it off, and now it's in our hands to interpret as best we can. And if that understanding is wrong, well, He's had plenty of time to send us prophets to tell us so, and as far as I can tell that hasn't happened."

[preacher_in_reticence]

Degas almost seems to need to chew on that for a moment.

"Well. It's a very different sort of relationship than we have with the mothers, but if it works for you..."

[tehilim127_1]

"Yeah." Her smile goes a little pensive. "I find it does, most of the time."

[preacher_in_reticence]

"Then I suppose...that's what matters, right? Far be it from me to tell you how anything works."

He can be at peace with knowing her G-d just works different.

[tehilim127_1]

On the heels of those last words, almost but not quite interrupting: "Did I ever tell you --"

A pause. "No, I don't think I did. About how I first started having this kind of relationship with Him. I think I was going to, back at the beach party, and then the moment kind of passed."

[preacher_in_reticence]

"Now's a moment, too. If you want to tell me." Like, he doesn't want to pry, that'd be Bad, but he does want to show he's open to listening to her. It's a weird tightrope to walk.

[tehilim127_1]

"Yeah." Quietly. "Yeah, I think I'd like to."

She picks up a cup, starts pouring herself some cold tea.

"You met Yoni at the Visitors' Center, right?"

[preacher_in_reticence]

"I did. Under other circumstances, I think we'd make great friends. I can see why you loved him."

Degas somehow says all of that without feeling too weird about it.

[tehilim127_1]

Her heart twists a little at that, and it's a moment before she can say it aloud: "I think you would have, too."

A breath, and she continues. "We lost him very suddenly. In an accident. The shock of it just kind of ... I didn't deal with it very well, for a little while. But when we --"

Something like a wince. "Sorry. More background. I don't know what you usually do here, for ... do you have a mourning period, when someone dies? I mean. What you usually did before the barrier, I guess is what I'm asking."

[preacher_in_reticence]

"We do. It goes in stages--deep mourning, second mourning and half-mourning. Slowly, we go from the starkest public demonstration of grief to allowing color back into our wardrobe, becoming part of society again."

It's all very Victorian.