A new Hanukkah era

I am on an early morning flight to Christchurch to go to the New Zealand Association of Research in Education. I’m hoping to meet new colleagues, give a couple of presentations with people I like, and see a little bit of Christchurch. Right now I’m flying past the Kaikoura range of mountains, still snow-capped here in early summer, framing smaller hills and leading down to valleys with farm land. Have I mentioned that this is a magnificent country?

Last night was the first night of Hanukkah, our second first night of Hanukkah in New Zealand. We had Melissa and Ayla over, and it was a magical night. Dinner came after a somewhat stressful day at home where I had to deal with a wide variety of house issues. The kitchen guy needs a heap of money instantly, as does the roofing guy, the plumber, and the fellas who are working on the job. All the flooring for the second floor arrived yesterday to that’ll have to be paid for too. And the plumber, the electrician, and the window guy all gave quotes—some of them three times what we’d expected (the others sliding down towards what we expected). I spent the day trying to stop the hemorrhaging of money.

But after all we live by the sea and it’s December—summer time (?). I took the three kids (mine and Melissa’s) to the beach after school and watched as they rode their boogie boards, bobbed in the gentle waves, and built sand people on the shore. The sun was hot and the breeze was cool and, if I had counted I would have found at least 100 different blues in the water and the sky. I could feel my blood pressure lowering.

We ate dinner on the front porch, latkes and frittata with Melissa-made apple sauce. Rob made chocolate sorbet to go along with the peppermint ice cream he made the day before. We pulled out the two menorahs to light them—Naomi’s small one, which I carried in our luggage last year so that we could have Hanukkah even before our things arrived—and Michael’s big one, which I bought for him nearly 20 years ago and which we’ve lit every year since.

An aside about Michael’s menorah. Rob and I bought that menorah at the Rockville JCC in 1989 or so. I gave it to Michael for Christmas as an interfaith gesture while we were dating. Never did I imagine he’d light it every year for nearly twenty years, and even less did I imagine that he’d have me next to him as he was lighting it. When Rob and I went to buy it, I always pictured Michael lighting the menorah with his nice Jewish wife and surrounded by his nice Jewish kids (who in my visions always had wavy dark hair). Every year I get this sort of shock of surprise that the one he married was me and that it is my little blonde children who light this menorah each year. Last year was our first since 1989 not lighting it because it was on the slow boat from the US, and so this year we took it out with the anticipation of an old friend. To every season there is an ending, though, and this menorah was not, apparently, destined for life in New Zealand: it was the only thing broken in the move. We pulled the shards out of their oodles of packing material in stunned silence. Somehow it felt like the end of an era.

And so it was an end of an era, all of us eating on the front porch in a summer December Hanukkah night, the three children and four adults finding our way through this new world. The adults are all American, half of us are Jews, all of us in love with this New Zealand life. We opened presents to the squeals of delight of the children. For the kids there were three kites from Bangkok, and beautifully drawn set of coupons from Rob with promises of things like a piggy-back ride to school or a boogie-boarding session. For all of us from Melissa there was a song about friendship, written and performed for the occasion (and soon to be posted on the blog). We walked up the hill to the new house, and the kids flew their kites in the park. I suppose there’s no mistaking that it is a new era. We’ll need a new menorah for the next twenty years.

(pictures from today: Melissa playing the guitar in the sun--with help; two pictures of the new house--one with the upstairs room and one without (notice the new window above the new floorboards in what used to be just the attic; Naomi standing in the new upstairs room, looking out that new space which will be the new upstairs window)