Podunk

Bsd
I grew up in a podunk little town, which some of you (a rare few) may have heard of: Berkeley.
Home to one of the most respected universities in the world, a continuing source of social revolution and ground breaking liberalism, centered in one of the most culturally and economically active areas in the United States, it is a still a podunk little town.
Jewishly speaking, that is. To be more accurate, Lubavitchly speaking.
I read Jewish books as a young girl, and certain aspects of those mystified me as much as certain aspects of books I read about public school did. Walking to school? I sat in a car for a minimum of three hours every day. Class elections? By the time a president, vice president, and secretary would be elected, we would have exceeded the number of students in each class.Both The BY Times and Sideways Stories from Wayside School portrayed foreign worlds.
But I didn't know any better, and so was completely content in my little bubble of a world, neither here nor there. I was a cheerful child, and played well with my classmates, and read a whole heck of a lot, and never learned how to ride a bike, although that isn't really relevant to the point I'm going to make (and as a public service announcement: I did learn how to ride a bike this summer. More on that another time.).
But the idylls of our childhood can never remain. My sister went to school.
We'd go visit her, and she knew people. People from summer camp, which I never attended, being too content at home, in the Gan Izzy I knew well and loved, to leave. People from high school. People from seminary.
I'd go visit her, and walk behind her, sticking close to her shadow as she introduced me to her friends. We'd be in Crown Heights, and she knew people on the street.
She knew people.
I eventually followed in her footsteps, and went to high school, where I experienced the joys of having a group of friends for the first time. But I still didn't know people. I still returned home for the summers, rather than venture off to exotic parts of the US.
I went to seminary. Everyone there seemed to know people. We'd be on buses, in Yerushalayim, hearing engagement announcements, and the girls I was with knew people.
I knew my friends.
And then Crown Heights.
Can you imagine what living in Crown Heights was like for me, this little girl from that little podunk town?
Stars in my eyes, I was terrified. And then delighted.
Then I left.
Three months is like a blink in the eye of a lifetime, or it's a lifetime in the blink of an eye. The month and a half that I spent in Nashville was itself an eternity.
Nashville is even more podunk than Berkeley.
A month and a half.
Suddenly! I'm back! Crown Heights! My apartment! BunchoBagels! Parties!
I went to two l'chaims and a wedding, walked all across town in stilleto sandals, drank a rum-infused slushie, and saw people.
What better way to announce my (temporary) return than to traverse the social circuit?
And what I realized tonight was that I know people.
I 'm that girl, who pauses in every conversation to shriek and hug, or to be shrieked at and hugged, who can chitchat with the best and rest of em.
I know so many frickin' people.
I - from that little PODUNK town - I know people!