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Falling Forward

Anticipating the future can be sweeter than living in the now.

by Natalie
posted on October 22, 2007

Credits: Zela Lobb

No news is allegedly good news. But when your job consists of writing a monthly column about your life, no news is writer’s block, which is not good news at all. And yet, as I sit down to write this column for November, I am knee-deep in September, and aside from the angst caused by my impending deadline and curiously headline-free social life, this time of year makes me inexplicably optimistic.

The first weeks of autumn are my favorites: the time when it’s still sunny at 6:45 p.m., but there’s also an ashy romance in the air courtesy of fireplace owners jumping the gun on the season, and that wisp of crispness that makes me feel as if this year the leaves in SF might be cajoled into changing color. The days seem to crackle with anticipation—as if something exciting is about to happen. But having no such evidence to support my seasonal hunch, I decided to enlist my friend Tara in a night on the town in an attempt to speed the process. Since moving in with her boyfriend, Tara had been hounding me for a girls’ night out.

“I’m afraid your timing’s bad,” she told me when I explained my motives for booking her for the weekend. “I’m not exactly in a party mood this week—which is ironic, because my birthday is on Saturday. It also just so happens to fall on Yom Kippur this year, and Jack has a last-minute business trip he can’t reschedule. But you’re welcome to join me at temple—you can have his ticket!” I could sense she was joking about the invite, but I was so desperate for column material that I decided to take her up on it. “But you have to buy a ticket to go to temple?” I asked, confused. “Is Madonna going to be there?”

“Probably not,” Tara said. “But Winona Ryder might be.”

When we arrived at the temple, Noni was nowhere in sight. There was, however, a group of well-dressed guys walking leisurely toward the entrance. Maybe this is where I should be looking for dates, I thought to myself, before wondering whether non-Jewish me should be feeling guilty for having impure thoughts in such close proximity to a place of worship. Once we were seated and the service was under way, however, I was entirely focused on the matter at hand.

While the new year I’m familiar with is traditionally ushered in by anticlimactic parties and the inevitable holiday-season hangover, the Jewish new year begins solemnly, with repentance for one’s wrongdoings, and functions as a sort of “RSVP” to God for next year’s services—in the hopes that one’s self and loved ones will still be around to attend. The rabbi led the congregation in a recitation that elucidated the potential pitfalls—on Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed: who shall live and who shall die, who shall perish by water and who by fire … who by earthquake (at this point, I sensed the assembled collectively engage in a mental knock on wood) and who by plague, who by strangulation and who by stoning … the morbid list went on and on. Then things took a turn for the less specific: who shall have rest and who shall wander, who shall be at peace and who shall be pursued. Heavy stuff, to be sure. But there was something moving about a cross section of a community coming together for a spiritual cleanse and a “fingers crossed, we’ll all be here next year” team effort. After fasting all day, ostensibly armed with a karmic clean slate, we decided we’d more than earned a feast at Mangarosa.

“Happy birthday!” I said, raising my glass of Prosecco in Tara’s direction. “Thanks,” she smiled half-heartedly. I couldn’t tell whether it was the strain of the day or the unorthodox nature of her celebration, but it was obvious she was less than enthused. “Low blood sugar getting to you?” I asked tentatively.

“It’s not that. For some reason, this birthday is sending me into a bit of a tailspin. It’s like, I’m 29 and things are going great—and I know people usually get to my age and are disappointed that nothing is the way they pictured it, but things actually are the way I pictured them. I have a great boyfriend—Jack and I spend almost every night cooking dinner, with a bottle of wine and a fire and the works, and it’s really nice—but things are routine. With no sign of change. And I couldn’t even tell you what I’d want that change to be. I mean, I’m not ready for kids or marriage. I don’t want to move. I like my job. But I look at you and I can’t help but envy the fact that, romantically at least, there’s a giant fill-in-the-blank in your life. Does that sound crazy?”

My initial reaction was that, yes, it did sound crazy. And a little annoying too. The domestic bliss Tara was unenthusiastically describing was, in fact, what I found myself increasingly longing for. It seemed that for her, no news was not necessarily good news either—it was cause for an existential crisis. The line I’d heard hours ago about “who shall have rest and who shall wander, who shall be at peace and who shall be pursued” took on a different meaning in this relationship context. It seemed for Tara that the “wander” and “be pursued” option was looking preferable to her current “rest” and “peace” one. I attempted to comfort her with a grass-is-always-greener speech, while trying not to be distracted by the deliciousness of the meal at hand—which, following the fast, seemed like the most amazing one I’d ever eaten.

After dinner, we ducked around the corner to grab a drink at the North Star. The crowd was on the punchy side, but it was just what the life coach ordered—a welcome levity to the day’s introspection. We ended up chatting with a touring British band called the Dirty Needles. (“It’s not what you think,” the boyish lead singer insisted in his thick South London accent. “See, our logo has a knitting needle on it. It’s ironic. We’re taking the piss. But no one will book us because they think we’re a bunch of junkies.”) In the same way that dinner had had a heightened sense of deliciousness, it seemed that the night took on a heightened sense of fun. The Dirty Needles turned out to be the gateway drug of social entertainment, introducing us to a series of characters bent on supplying us with birthday shots and random anecdotes. It was the kind of night that only happens when it starts off looking as though it will go in the opposite direction.

After the bar closed, Tara and I shared a cab home—conveniently, we live four blocks apart. “Tonight was ridiculously fun,” she said. “Don’t tell Jack, but I think the belated birthday party he’s planning has a lot to live up to.”

“Listen, it’s not always like that,” I reminded her. “Your memory deceives you. SF’s singles scene was just showing off for you because it sensed your weakness—trust me. The second you’re single, nights like these vanish into thin air.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” she smiled. I thanked her for including me in the day’s cultural immersion and walked the few blocks home, inhaling the night air on the way. In the spirit of the day’s confessional tone, I’ll admit (earnest though it may sound) that I suddenly felt genuinely lucky for my life: the life that leaves me hungover a bit too often, without a ride to the airport most of the time and lonely on Sunday nights—but will sometimes surprise me with a totally unexpected “anything can happen” sort of evening. It wasn’t that I didn’t want what Tara had eventually. But if I were inside—enjoying an intimate fireside nightcap—I wouldn’t get the chance to breathe the smoky promise in the air.

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