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April 11, 2004

Cute and fuzzy bunnies

Preface: It is no secret that Girl-E has a severely conflicted relationship with the church, so days like today tend to push her crazy buttons and how. Our apologies in advance to any of the faithful who might take any offense whatsoever. Not that we're terribly worried about you people, but just in case.

When Girl-E was growing up, Easter exclusively meant the following: Chocolate-- shitloads of it; egghunts, and her rabidly competitive need to win them; toys-- when you're an only child, the Christmas/birthday presents that would have been given to siblings go to you at Easter. It was a while before she found out that the Easter Bunny doesn't put Barbies in everyone's basket. At any rate, besides maybe one or two Easters that her father was alive, she doesn't recall church playing any kind of significant role; she and her mother lived as would any nominal Quakers in Southern California (hint: Quaker migration from Philadelphia really went only as far as the Underground Railroad would take them).

Of course she was aware that Easter had something to do with Jesus, and we'd guess she gleaned the whole story at some point in high school. In college, her new love affair with singing motivated her to join the University Chapel Choir, which allowed her to sing some of the prettiest stuff ever, and paid $5.50/hour for rehearsals and Sunday service. Able to drag her sleepy or hungover ass to the chapel probably 7 out of 10 Sundays, it was a smallish price to pay for Brahms, Britton, and free bagels. She and her roommate kept themselves groggily entertained in the chancel, writing notes on the bulletin or repeatedly poking their friend Boomer.

For the last several years, however, she has had to adjust to the reality of having married into the Christian Left. Which means, in case that's less than clear, that while her second family attends a church that stands only for peace and tolerance and is about 60% gay, they do infact attend church. Her attendance has decreased to pretty much zero now that she's cashed in all her brownie points, but holidays, as family time, do usually involve a service, which she attends for reasons of her own brand of peace and tolerance. Last year, they were on the southern coast of Turkey, so needless to say there were no issues. This weekend, the fam chose not to stay in the city for Easter but to spend a few days at the vacation house in New Hampshire. Which ended up meaning that today's Easter service was taken not at hippie church, but at church-in-the-middle-of-cute-little-Americasville-New Hampshire.

This of course shouldn't be a big deal, not every hour in one's life can be thrillingly right up their alley. But for some reason, today was reminiscent of what it felt like to wake up in the middle of the night at a slumber party and forget momentarily that you are in a zipped-up sleeping bag on the floor instead of your own bed.

So what is the point of this story? Not much we can think of, besides the following: 1) In the future, if you know you're going to be attending a traditional Easter service against your deepest inclinations, do not spend all day Saturday reading about Zen Buddhism; the contrast will transform minor irritation into frantic rebellion. 2) If at all possible, have the mimosa first.

Posted by The Twins at April 11, 2004 07:54 PM

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Comments

Posted by: bryan at April 12, 2004 02:14 AM

Posted by: snowy at April 12, 2004 04:32 PM

Posted by: snowy at April 12, 2004 04:33 PM