46 - Baby Bird

When I was in high school there was the cool mom who gushed about her husband and told us that she married her best friend and they still have the best sex in the world for ever and ever, she was the luckiest girl on earth to have this awesome marriage, vibrant, sensual, satisfying - just look at her and her amazing best friend-husband and the smile on her face and glow on her skin. Years later I heard that she got divorced and my one example of a happy marriage was dissolved.

In college I met an older-than-me distinguished type married couple who whose relationship was based on other than sex and passion. I respected it but totally didn't get it. Didn't want that for myself, I wanted sparks with the friendship and sharing stories and housework and fantasies and love and the kind of lovemaking I imagined would go with all that.

Living in Israel for a year between college and rabbinical school, I became close with a classmate and came to admire her partnership. Finally, I thought I found a loving relationship set in sacredness. I watched them bless each other on Shabbat and wanted that for myself. I observed the calm and respectful way they related, and the deep affection they portrayed. They too have since separated.

I feel like the little chick in Are You My Mother? walking through the world looking for my true model for marriage. Just like the baby bird, I've probably walked right by it, because I don't know what it looks like. Are you my marriage? No, I am the unhappy version your parents endured for 30 years, you do not want me to be your marriage. Are you my marriage? No, you are a bag of secrets and cheating, looks sexy but lacks substance. Are you my marriage? No, you are platonic, stable but dry. Are you my marriage? No, I am a romanticized television version of one, just made up to mess with your expectations, I cannot be your marriage. Are you my marriage? No, I am a lesbian couple, Venus and Venus no Martians in here, I cannot be your marriage.

Even God of the Jewish Bible borrows marriage as the metaphor for the covenant between God and the Jewish people, and that relationship endures drama, betrayal, abandonment and exile. An exception, The Song of Songs portrays the idyllic lovers in the garden with poetry and song, affection and delight. If only we could all stay and play in paradise all day! Not even the Divine marriage is blissful when the partners step out into the real world of stress and temptation. Sure, this covenant is binding and in theory we don't have the choice to walk away. But separation through exile still persists so I still seek the model for reconciliation within the covenant, within marriage.

Baby Bird thought the tractor was his mother until it became scary and lifted him up, up, up off the ground. Oh no! I thought this was my marriage but it is not where I want to be, exclaimed this little chick many years ago.

Oh no! I want my mother, I need my moooothhhhherrrrr, baby bird screamed as the tractor was taking him far, far away. This really is not my marriage, and it is over, I realized way back when in a moment of acceptance.

Please put me down, baby bird cried as the tractor was placing him back in the nest in the tree. I followed my inner knowing through trembles and tremors and got through my divorce. And soon, baby bird was back safe at home. And the little chick flew the coop and found her way back to a new tree top nest, a sweet lake view condo paradise. And it was good, very very good.

I've heard that “remarriage is the victory of hope over experience.” (if you know the original source, please share.) This covenant idea that permeates my Jewish life is so persistant that hope returned eventually. Another chuppah, 4 children, 2 dogs later I sometimes still feel like that chick walking around asking “are you my marriage?” I wish there was a blueprint or an archetypal couple to consult.

Instead there is communication, there is commitment and there is covenant. If, like with the soul's connection to its Divine source, we cannot or do not want to disconnect, we have to keep returning, re-working, re-entering the covenant. Lord knows its not easy. Seriously, God is no expert in relationships and couldn't even write the book on marriage. So I shouldn't feel so bad that mine isn't perfect, there doesn't seem to be a perfect marriage out there. Anywhere. That's life, as they say. That's a shift in expectations, in the definition of covenant. That's a work in progress, always requiring both partners contribution, even when one of them is God.

Covenant is a commitment, an eternal every day choice to connect and accept the blessings and the responsibilities. Paradise is there for inspiration, not to set us up for failure. We count our days, we count on one another, we count on hope that the scary tractor will bring us safely back home to our nest.

After seven weeks of counting, we celebrate covenant with the gift of Torah on Shavuot. Let's consider it an anniversary, time to reconnect and re-enter the relationship however broken or complete it may be today.

Tonight will be the 46th day of the Omer, 6 weeks and 4 days of the Omer. The last Shabbat of the Omer.