In my experience, it takes 6 years to feel like a part of a new community. We’ve been living here for, hmm let’s see… 6 years in August. And last night, for the first time really, I felt like a part of this community. Don’t misunderstand – I’ve made relationships and formed bonds long before now. But tonight was different.

My youngest asked if we could go to the Purim event at our congregation. It meant going to services, hearing the megillah and seeing a magician. The other kids concurred – they also wanted to go. (I have to stop here to mention that it is unheard of for a kid to ask to go to services. Clearly, our congregtion has their marketing to kids thing downpat!) So we went. For those of you have never been to a Purim celebration, the kids dress up in costumes. Some adults did too, but not so many. The rabbi was a jester. The board president was Queen Esther (that is the new young queen, not the disobedient/independent discarded Queen Vashti). The choir director was Haman. And the cantor was a very scary clown with a huge phallic nose. I really wanted to ask her what her thinking was, but that’s another subject.

My kids were a comedian, Harry Potter, and a dog. I was (unitentionally) one of the Robert Palmer Girls (without the long legs) and Andrew was a regular guy. Services were quick and a little hard to take seriously. Note last paragraph – the rabbi was a jester. The megillah reading was loud. VERY LOUD. The kids make noise whenever the evil Haman’s name is mentioned. And it’s mentioned a lot.

But then came the magician. Michael Rosman. He was more of a comedy performer. The kids and the parents were engrossed. He had volunteers from the audience. He juggled. He balanced. He was funny. He told bimah jokes. He called me up. Shit. (First, he said he was looking for a beautiful volunteer, looked right at me as if he wanted me & then walked away. My kids howled.) So I’m up on stage looking at hundreds of people. This is an integral part of the community I’ve been working so hard to build. I held the knives while Michael got onto the 6′ unicycle. Lots of jokes & a bit of embarrassment. And then I sat down.

Two things happened. 1) I realized that public speaking is easy for me because I don’t know the people. This was terrifying. 2) People I knew and people I didn’t came up to me after the show. Told me how well I did. How it looked fun up there. That they liked my boots. It was warm and I felt like I belonged there.

For the first time.

And I noticed – really noticed – that the boys really feel at home there. They have lots of friends and know all the kids by name. Well, all the kids their ages. There are 500 families, so knowing ALL the kids would be a bit much. But they have clearly found their places. It’s nice.