Fasting

I grew up fasting for Yom Kippur. We were not particularly religious, but we followed the traditions. I like the idea of the New Year being a new start. You celebrate, then have ten days to really think about what to change about yourself and what things you should have done differently. Then you seal it with a fast. It says that you mean it, that we are all imperfect, all have something to change and something to be forgiven for.

When I was a child, I thought it would be much cooler to have things like Christmas trees, and I was aware that Christians didn't all do full-tilt fasts. I knew about no-meat Fridays, because the calendars given out by our neighborhood businesses had a fish printed on every Friday. I don't know if all free calendars were like that, or it was just that our neighborhood was Jewish/Catholic, a typical NYC combination. I think there was a time when the Protestants mostly didn't want to live with either one of us, so we ended up together.

Kids did a half day fast. The service seemed endless, but we could eat afterwards. The adults didn't. Usually, the full day fast (no food or water) began at age thirteen, but I was very tiny and thin, and went until mid-afternoon my 13th year. Nobody pushed it. I wasn't physically big enough. I did do it when I turned 14, and had trouble being able to eat afterwards. I still sort of do, but know I will get past it.

I was one of these people who didn't put on adult weight until my late 30s. Until then, I never understood how the rabbi, the cantor and all the other people doing blessings and readings could handle running a service on no food. I took the children to evening and then the morning service (which is when the kid service was, also), but didn't go back for the afternoon service. I didn't feel safe driving.

Then it clicked. Other people had extra weight. I'm still small, but now I can go all day without food. I get a headache, but I can also reach a meditative state that I couldn't at 95 lbs. (I'm 4'11", so that's not a drastic as it sounds.) I still don't like having extra body weight, but it's a cushion I didn't have.

Each year is different. No great revelations this time, but I reached an inner quiet I have been unable to find, even after my job ended. In fact, I tried to write and found that I had nothing to say.

This is not a bad thing. I think that the first step to understanding Something is understanding Nothing.