High Holidays and Family

Well, Rosh Hashanah didn't go so badly- utterly exhausting, and with a few pretty dumb mistakes (when you plan to hand out English readings, write down where they are in your own book, same thing with ark opennings- otherwise, it's awfully hard to remember where they are, and why you don't remember practicing that bit of liturgy...), but I seem to have satisfied the congregants who said anything to me. It's hard to believe that it's easily summed up like that, but really, the details of which ark opennings I messed up, when I dropped the tune or started the wrong one, or that sort of thing just aren't worth recording, except maybe in my machzor so that I work on those aspects more for next year.

(On the other hand, 3 days without talking to H was hard. Really lonely. I'm not looking forward to doing that again for Sukkot, or again so soon thereafter... But we did talk about the contradictory desires that we had to be together for the holiday and for him to be at home for it, which he'd really been wanting. Next year, G-d willing, we'll be together. And then also, provided the gig is ok with it, things could be easier and less exhausting, since we can divide up the work, at least as far as leading and leyning goes. It would make things So much calmer, I think. And he has the skill-set, it isn't like I'd be asking him to learn a whole bunch of things, or vice versa. And I miss getting some chance to pray privately, really- the whole holiday felt sort of surreal, because I was so focused on work and leading things and reviewing sermons, etc. Not like this is an unusual complaint for a rabbinical student.)

Mom and Dad came out to join me for Shabbat, which made for a much less quiet shabbat than usual, which was really what I needed by that point. (Sukkot is going to be interesting in that regard, since that will be another 3 days out there on my own, and with rather less time being absorbed in shul/anxiety/exhaustion. I'll bring lots of reading, and well, hopefully I'll sleep a lot, I guess.) They also meant that we made a minyan both at night and in the morning... It was funny- a lot of my regulars were gone, so they didn't meet many of the faces from my stories, but having the time with them cushioned the change of being back at school, too.

Then, motzei shabbos, we headed out to visit some relatives who live farther in the same direction as my shul. It was a nice visit- we don't see them (or really, any of the relatives on my father's father's side of the family, who are fairly few and quite scattered) very often at all. Mostly the visit was spent eating and talking, along with going with them to a shul program entitled "Shofars on the [local river]" or something like that. It was funny, going to a shul event of that sort- I haven't done that in ages, especially not as an uninterested party. It was a cute event, if a bit silly for me, and not Really what I wanted to be doing with my family visiting time. But it was short, and they clearly had a lovely time.

Tomorrow- first day of school. Wish me luck!