Read Online Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin by Adam Byrn Tritt - Free Book Online

wall
    with a large pane of glass, door to wall, on
    either side. The second room, twenty by forty,
    was solid wall on the north and east. Sepa-
    rated by glass from the front room and, on
    the south side, made of century old wood,
    plaster and glass. Mostly glass.
    The windows were high and wide with
    broad sills. In the second room, three of them
    stretched from the front to the back. As one
    looked to the lower edges of any of the win-
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    dows, as one looked to the grass below through
    the bottom of the pane, the world stretched,
    became bulbous, swirly. If you put your hand
    on the glass, you could feel it thicken as one
    got closer to the sill. Thin at top and thick at the bottom. Old poured glass windows—a
    super-viscous liquid that slowly, over nearly
    one hundred years, poured towards its own
    bottom. Kids would love to sit there and stare
    though the bottom and watch the world wig-
    gle, fatten, and wave. So did I.
    This was the room we used for classes and
    workshops. Around its perimeter, it held rugs
    and t-shirts, dresses and scarves as well as
    other textiles, folded on tables, hung from
    frames, and tacked to the walls. So large, it
    was, we never had to move anything much
    for a workshop or fair.
    We had bands too, and we’d serve coffee.
    We’d be open until eleven and many of the
    coffee drinkers would not purchase anything,
    so we figured the coffee would pay for the
    electric that evening, at the least. The coffee
    was in the small kitchen area off the large
    room and it was self-serve, as we were neither
    set up nor licensed for food service.
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    At first it was by donation. When we found
    the donation can with little money but filling
    fast with empty sugar packets and gum wrap-
    pers, we decided the honor system wasn’t
    working and charged a dollar for the cup. Not
    the coffee. Just the cup. All our mugs went
    behind the front counter. Folks could ask for
    one, pay their buck, and drink all night if they wanted. On an average night we should have
    made thirty to fifty bucks from the folks who
    otherwise would not have spent a cent. Folks
    who came in and bought books and such, we’d
    happily hand a cup to. Everyone gets to do
    their share.
    It wasn’t long before I started seeing people
    walking around with coffee in vessels I had
    never seen before. Little ones. Big ones, Even
    stainless steel thermoses and double-size
    travel cups. I’d ask for the buck for the night’s coffee and they’d show me their one quart
    mason jar, telling me they had brought it from
    home so no need to hand any cash over to
    me. I suggested, along with the cup, next time
    they should bring their own coffee, too. Late
    nights at the bookstore ended soon after that.
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    But the workshops continued. Authors,
    therapists, artists. Book talks, dances, song-
    fests. I taught a few myself, on occasion.
    I had, over the few years prior, been doing
    a workshop on chants from the Kabbalah. I
    had been doing them at the local Unitarian
    Universalist Fellowship, at churches as far
    away as Greensboro, North Carolina, in the
    forests of Ohio, and even in a hot tub. So why
    not do one at my own store?
    The night was set and we had a very nice
    turnout of over thirty people. Someone vol-
    unteered to watch the register and I set to
    work. Three rules only. These rules, along
    with the chants themselves, were taught to
    me by Rabbi Shelly Isenberg, who was the
    Chair of the University of Florida Depart-
    ment of Religion. They seemed to work for
    him, and they work for me.
    Three rules:

    ƒ Everyone stands who is able to stand.
    “I’m tired” is not a reason for not stand-
    ing. We always lose a few at this one.
    People walk out in a huff because they
    aren’t going to be able to sit and chant.
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    No full breaths from a full body while
    sitting curled in a chair.

    ƒ Everyone singing. No gawkers. We
    always lose a few more at