Grand Central Sundays

I opened my eyes and inhaled cathedral. A ray of white crept through a folded wooden shutter and shot back through a reflection on the wall. Bay windows consumed the once glamorous parlor in which I now sleep, and I wondered where the people sat when the artists came to play.

This is home - this strip of pre-war New York City; this strip of bodegas and flower shops, straddled by parks and synagogues; this Marais of America. I watch the passersby, their skirts worn long, their skirts worn short, their coffee-dogleash-New-York-Times-JPost-radio morning cocktails in hand, and I smile at the way my tallis crinkles in its velvet green bag as I walk along 86th street.

The high holidays have come again...the way they always do...the way they did when I ducked beneath elbows to catch a glimpse of the shofar... the way they did when I rolled my atheist teenage eyes at a mass of bowing and mumbling. The high holidays have come the way they always do, smelling of clean slates and new chances.

Submerged in the waters of belief, I bow and call out. I call out for myself. I call out for seven hundred selves. The prayer echos within me and within them and I know that this year will be different. Doubt is no longer skepticism, but engagement.

The train lurches forward and I refuse to second guess the direction.