Anyone else feeling a bit lost lately? Uncertainty has become the order of the day for me, the order of the summer—actually, the mantra of 2025. In A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit talks about the word shul: “‘a mark that remains after that which made it has passed by […] the impression of something that used to be there’” (48). Like a tire track in the dirt. Or a handprint in the soil.
Interestingly, shul also means synagogue, which makes me laugh—I can practically hear my Jewish ancestors crooning, “See, all roads point to Judaism. You can’t escape it!”
I have a complicated relationship with Judaism. Like Rebecca Solnit, I grew up opening the door for Elijah on Passover, but didn’t connect with the gesture on a deeper level. I didn’t see it as an act of leaving the door open to the night, to prophesy, to the spirit world, as Solnit describes in her memoir. Being Jewish is more of a cultural affiliation that I lean into once or twice a year for holidays. I feel guilty about my lack of enthusiasm. (And here my ancestors might point out, “See? You’re more Jewish than you realize!”, because guilt comes with the territory.)
My dad’s side of the family embraced Judaism wholeheartedly, while my mom’s side denied it—at least the one member who survived the war (that we know of). My grandmother buried Judaism with Catholicism. She left behind a single, tiny mezuzah charm and a shoe box’s worth of Christmas cards, Catholic saint cards, and rosary beads. The shul left by her is a depression, a dented Jewishness that I still carry, like a single footprint in the mud without a trail to follow.
In her essay “Being Taken for Granite” from The Wave in the Mind, Ursula Le Guin says of mud:
“I am not granite and should not be taken for it. I am not flint or diamond or any of that great hard stuff. If I am stone, I am some kind of shoddy crumbly stuff like sandstone or serpentine, or maybe schist. Or not even stone but clay, or not even clay but mud. And I wish that those who take me for granite would once in a while treat me like mud. […] People make footprints in the mud. As mud I accept feet. I accept weight. […] I am […] all full of footprints and deep, deep holes and tracks and traces and changes.” (8-9)
I’ve been craving a grandmother figure lately, someone who’s seen and lived through it all and doesn’t have any more F’s to give. Someone to look up to as I weather uncertainty. In my mind, she has a face of granite and looks a bit like this lady.
Minus the black (mourning?) clothes and spectacles, this is pretty much how I’ve handled the past few months of personal and political uncertainty: with my head down, keeping extraordinarily busy—except when I’m wandering the Metropolitan Museum of Art, staring at portraits.
I wonder if Mrs. Mary Arthur, painted by Thomas Eakins in 1900, could’ve imagined that over a hundred years after her death, some woman in her late thirties would be staring at her, longing for guidance. I’d like to ask her what she thinks of mud. I’d like to ask if her needles poke shuls into her fingertips, dents that last long after the knitting is done. If she could look up and see me staring, I bet she’d say something like, “Sit down and make yourself useful.” And to that I’d say: I’m trying!
*
At this spot, I stopped writing for a few days, because I felt lost—it’s important to me that you know that. I didn’t know where to go next. Then yesterday, my mom called out of the blue. We don’t speak very often, so I knew it was important.
“Honey, I think my mom was Jewish,” she said. This wasn’t exactly news to me; I’d always assumed that Grandma was Jewish—why else have a mezuzah? Why else be interned at a Camp? (There are other reasons people were brought to Camps, but being Jewish was the most likely reason.) The details of Grandma’s life and family have never been confirmed. When she left Europe, she left everyone and everything behind, except for my mom—at first. Grandma was pregnant when she came to the U.S., and my mom was put in foster care with a Catholic family. Grandma maintained visitation. She also maintained that she herself was Catholic. But the surname on her birth certificate and the area where she was born are glaringly Jewish.
After sifting through Grandma’s memorabilia and scant records yesterday, and refamiliarizing herself with it, Mom felt newly enraged. “My mom was probably Jewish. I’m probably Jewish. Think of the rituals and celebrations I missed out on! Betrayed isn’t the right word for how I feel. More like…” she trailed, and I suggested, “Cheated?” and she said, “Yes. I feel cheated. I’ve grown up my entire life without family, without a sense of ancestry. I could’ve at least had Judaism.”
I wanted to tell her, you still can, but was distracted by the fact that I was sinking into the ground. I’d been pacing the backyard, and my toes had found the edge of the lawn where sprinkler water turns into a rivulet of mud. The ground was oozing onto my skin and squidging around my toes. I enjoyed its cool touch, which surprised me, because I don’t like getting dirty, and I don’t like mud. I want to like it, the way Ursula Le Guin does: to celebrate the weight that I carry and recognize the imprints that the world leaves behind on me, but I tend to prefer stone.
I choose to walk on the flagstone when I can, rather than the grass, because grass hides bees and burrs and other hurtful surprises. I choose to live in a brick house thousands of miles from where I was born and raised. I choose to put up a huge Christmas tree and spoil the people I love on December 25th. I choose to light candles on Chanukah, but not to Behave Jewishly when I don’t want to. And what a tremendous privilege it has been, getting to choose these things.
Last week I sought a grandmother in Mrs. Mary Arthur at the Met, and this week, my actual grandmother answered through synchronicity, or random chance, depending on what you believe. I was here, she said to me across time, through my mom. Grandma’s story is muddy, and and she left behind bizarre footprints, but the important thing is that she left them.
A shul necessitates absence. If Grandma were still alive, the weight of her presence might’ve blocked the impression she’s made on mom and me. There wouldn’t be so much room for us to explore and make sense of things for ourselves. That said, I wish for my mom’s sake that Grandma had been clearer and more honest. And less crazy and erratic. And so many other things. While I’m at it, I also wish that mud wasn’t dirty.
I love this so much