I almost wish I could tell you the flavor of the pain like it was freshly shaved marror, or the flavor of the numbness in my bones, the bubble-gummy remnants of a cavity resolved. I wish I could package the way I stared at the wall – put it into the box like the drive I passed the day before on the street, found myself walking in, asking how I could help, joining strangers bringing toiletries and teddy bears in boxes on the curb, put it into the box like the way I wrote about that, look, I said, look, with all this, there is hope – but maybe instead I’ll tell you about the empty stomach of my eyes as they stared at the wall. One week had passed, the sun had set, shabbat had entered and my body, the same body that had been wracked with sobs and crashing and running and running and pushing out of bed – it sat on a couch and stared at a wall.
I wish I could tell you a flavor. I think the flavor was light grey. I had planned to pray. Really, I did consider it. But I was locked, on that couch, staring.
The meal started eventually, my mom and her husband and me, and my body stood and walked over to the table, sat down again, stared, vaguely aware that time was moving forward, this was the food, this was the ritual, this was the normal, this was the sustenance, the flavor. I could tell you that one taste of my mom’s challah, the doughy sweet with crumbling perfection, one sip of the Jewish penicillin chicken soup filled me with salt and warmth and depth that turned the grey vibrant purples and cobalts and greens and golds. I could tell you that, but I’d be lying. And I don’t want to lie to you. I almost wish I could.
There was a point, though, I can tell you (and I want to tell you too), my body became my own. I started speaking, I wanted dessert. Maybe it was the chaos settling into silent shabbat, maybe it was the small pleasures slipping through the grey. Eventually, things started tasting okay.
