They just walked up to me while I was working. Four of them just stood there and stared at me. I was minding my own business, sitting at the table in front of my apartment, working on my laptop when four goats came walking up and stared – as if I was the one out of place. In Bali, I had a fair number of creatures approach or enter my house – frogs, geckos, chingchoks, a variety of insects, chickens, birds, a couple of bats, dogs and one time there was a rumble on the roof which culminated in a coconut falling to the ground in the front yard and a snake slithering out of it and off into the distance. I still wonder how that was even possible. But I had no working plan for four goats in my front yard.
After they sized me up, the goats went about their business, exploring the compound, nibbling on shrubbery and trees. They liked the cottage across from my place and explored the staircase and the railings. They knocked on the cottage door. The ate of its front tree. One stood lookout on the stairs seemingly providing cover for the others who quickly and greedy ate the landscaping. Eventually, they lined up in procession for a walk along the far retaining wall closest to the ocean. Two leaned over and nibbled the tall grasses along the way then realized they should probably stay focused. I'm not sure what their goals were, but those goats had focus – there was something at the back of he compound they wanted to explore. Whatever it was, I think it disappointed and they switched to exploring the patio of the closest house to that corner of the property.
At first, I thought to do nothing. Live and let goat. But they weren't going back to wherever they came from and they were doing considerable damage to the landscaping. The owners deserved better. So I called George, the property manager and said I'm happy to help, but I didn't know what exactly to do.
"I don't know either! I've never had goats on a property before!" he responded.
"So, would you recommend I do anything???"
"No, it's not your problem, I'll come over."
George is a tall, strong guy who used to be an investment banker and looks like he could have been a model at one time. He seemed an unlikely goat handler unless the goats really like I Can't Believe It's Not Butter…Spray. When he arrived, he stood there, watching the scene as our friends were working the patio of the owners' personal house – looking like he was searching for a game plan. With absolutely no confidence about him, George walked toward the goats and then around them. He clapped and yelled. They moved to the middle of the yard and sampled its delicacies. Then a series of clapping, yelling, moving, nibbling events occurred until the small pack rethought their plans and exited the property, heading down the hill from where they presumably came.
"Do you think that's where they came from?" I asked George – assuming he might know which farmer in the area had a trip of goats.
"No idea."
"Do you think they'll find their way back?"
"I don't know."
"Are they likely to come back given they knew how to get here?"
"I don't know."
The uncertainties weren't bothering George. The goats were gone and since it had never happened to his knowledge before, it was unlikely it would happen again. He seemed to feel it was a one-time anomaly. I was in no position to argue otherwise and in the end, it wasn't my landscaping and they weren't my goats. There's only so much you can do to help a negligent goat herder and an unworried property manager.
"This is high season for goats!" Melanie the cleaning lady/property caretaker told me today when she came to clean. "But most of them will be gone next week."
It seems Easter festivities go on for a week with each day having some special activity – washing of the feet at the monastery, a procession through the island and on Thursday grilling goat.
"They sell it to you as lamb and everyone says it's lamb, but it's the goats. They're roasting and grilling it everywhere. On spit roasters at the restaurants, people set up barbecues. In past years people come on boats and yachts from other islands and even from Turkey bringing grills. They buy goat too and grill – whole families of them! I can't stand the smell and stay inside and close up all the windows and doors," she explained.
So perhaps the reason for George's unconcern is the upcoming goat population reduction.
Easter here lasts a week and involves sacrificing and roasting "lamb" for which they actually use goats…. feels a little Passover-ish and the holidays overlap exactly….Interesting…..
Especially on the Friday leading up to the first night of Passover. Normally, this would be a busy day for me. We usually host first night seder and the meal is my favorite all year. By the day of seder I will have been cooking for two days prior and working on my day-of dishes such as the spinach soufflé's, chicken and either brisket or leg of lamb. The house smells like Passover and the long table has usually been set the night before by Emily. For me, it's one of the busiest days of the year which I also so love. It makes me miss home, our family and the holiday and is one of the sad losses of this time.
Hosting seder, holidays, brunches and dinner parties in general have always been my favorite form of socialization – one which Emily and I have always done well together. Making our home a place we share with friends and family – even when we were in an apartment – was part of our shared values. While no hosting goes off without some anxiety or tense moment, Emily and I have always agreed and done very well. Over the years, we have had interesting menus, often choosing a culture and cuisine for our theme – or going traditional for the Jewish holidays. One year, we decided to "keep it simple and cheap" and do our own cooking for the kids' birthday party. We did a Jewish brunch with bagels and lox, kugel, blintzes, eggs… and somehow the list grew until we spent more money on that party than any other. Still, it was good and we were happy with it – in part because we made it. It was a real act of hospitality. Passover, of course, is the most expensive hosting we ever do and is several times my college rent. It is also the most heartfelt and enjoyable too – well worth every dime.
For many years, we made inviting other couples or family members over a major part of our social world. We also met friends at restaurants and planned get togethers. I was also very happy with that. Our weekends had a decent pace – at most one social event per day and often just one per weekend. The weekend was both fulfilling and restorative.
I'm not sure exactly where and when things changed, but definitely before COVID. Maybe three or four years ago, weekends started filling with two and sometimes three social events per day – and if not three per day, then three per weekend. Even before the basketball and baseball games that over my objections have started occupying weekends during the past two years, it was birthday parties, dinners out with friends, a family get-together, a temple event. None in and of themselves problematic (although I hate the endless string of classmate birthday parties at which parents were – and often still are even at this age – expected to attend). I began imploring Emily to say no to more things. It was hard to enjoy anything when there was too much of everything. To me, the weekend needs some unstructured, relaxed time when no one needs to be anywhere and there's room to let things unfold. Maybe we do stuff, maybe we just lay around the house. Sometimes that's when we suddenly decide to do all the little things that need doing and other times, sit and read the news while the kids play – or spontaneously decide to take a family walk, make banana bread or watch a movie. Life needs some breathing room.
Emily would argue that we couldn't miss so-and-so's birthday party. And that kid's parents are really nice, so we should make an effort to attend the birthday party. We can't reschedule – we said we would do this. We made these plans months ago before we knew the weekend would be so busy and it would be too hard to reschedule. She would feel badly not to attend. None of it was wrong or bad. Sure, I thought some things could be let go or cancelled – but a lot of it was stuff that made sense to do. Only it became harder to enjoy when there was so much of it and the weekend was not only not refreshing, but just another schedule with another set of obligations. About three years ago, I told Emily that I felt like my life was just a heavy series of obligations. She said she understood, but it never changed anything.
At first COVID was the natural antidote. Lockdown meant lots of free, unstructured time. While there was the stress of not knowing what was happening to our world, what amount of danger we were or weren't in and how things would change – there was suddenly a blank slate of time and relaxed weekends. Being social animals, people were looking for ways to get back together and reconnect. Our neighborhood is blessed with a greenbelt between the houses making it so there's essentially a park running the spine of it. Organically, several families began gathering on the greenbelt lawns with beach chairs and letting the kids play outside. Our end of the greenbelt has several families with kids in Sennen's grade and so we found ourselves part of a group of neighbors who would periodically get together outdoors – people who probably otherwise would not have socialized or fit together.
In the beginning, it was great to socialize and feel more sense of connection in our community. People's differences could be amusing and quirky – which was fun and novel. Eventually values started to clash. Being shamed for not wanting to move the party into someone's house became an issue with the group. It was great to have a group that could be friends despite a range of political outlooks, until there became an ideological tug-of-war. At this point in my life, I'm not a fan of blind allegiances and ideology on any side of the political spectrum. COVID was/is a complex time with fewer answers than questions. Information evolved, situations changed, things needed to be evaluated in contexts and risks needed to be weighed. I'm a fan of inclusivity and respect. If someone's uncomfortable and the weather's fine, there's no need to challenge one another – friends can support and accommodate reasonable differences.
After awhile, I realized that I didn't find depth of connection with most people in this group and as the underlying tensions and sometimes rude or irresponsible behavior began, I didn't need to be part of the group. I began skipping more while Emily still went and usually brought the kids – which was fine with me. Eventually, she increasingly pushed for us to attend birthdays and events of this group, while I wanted to pull away. I didn't always care for the influence of this group on my kids – or the lack of safety. In the middle of summer, keep the party outdoors and don't let them sit around and play video games when swimming pools and greenbelts are options.
Suddenly, not only was our social calendar getting fuller than I'd like, but my choice became to either socialize in a group I didn't like, be without my family or be the guy who demands we no longer see those people. None of the options seemed good and Emily was not of the mind to meet me in the middle and go sometimes to some things and other times pass and be a family. She often resented that I didn't want to be part of the group, until later when many of the parents would sit outside drinking until 1 or 2 am and I would stay home with the kids, letting her go drink with the neighbors.
Despite all of that, when she and one of the other women in the group had an incident, the husband confronted us both at an outdoor community event about it. Emily managed to slip away while I ended up being the peacemaker for her. The prior week at the gym, Emily essentially told his wife that she didn't care about her political perspective nor whether they moved away or not. The woman had considered Emily a friend and was deeply hurt. Why her husband needed to get involved, I don't know – but there it was like 1952, with the husbands working out their wives' differences and me in a situation I would have preferred to avoid.
As the world increasingly opened up, "the greenbelt crew" got together less and our social calendar began to diversify again, causing tensions about this group to lessen, but the weekends to once again become overbooked. Naturally, in the in-between space where things were reopening, but life wasn't back to normal – waiting for vaccines, Delta, adults vaccinated while kids weren't, different people's different feelings about gathering – entertaining at home was not as easy or frequent. Meanwhile, social engagements outside the home began to increase and for Emily any social occasion was now an opportunity to drink – which created more social distance between us since I don't drink. Now, when we had people over, she would buy lots alcohol and different things with different drinking buddies in mind – something that was not a focus before COVID.
I found myself not only back to overbooked weekends, but often in social situations I liked increasingly less. At the same time, when something came up that I found important – it was hard to find an opportunity for it because we were usually booked up months in advance.
In the end, tensions over social preferences and calendar issues aren't terribly unusual. I think most couples have a split where one is more and the other less social. There's also nothing unusual about the tug between wanting to maintain good, healthy social relationships and to have some peace and quiet on the weekends. However, there has been some indescript shift in the values around our social life. The sense of working together to host and entertain was once a shared space that brought us joy somehow became scarcer, devalued and changed in its quality of togetherness and cooperation. The desire to strike a balance in our schedule that worked for us both diminished. The agreement on what matters for our family and children weakened. Suburban baseball games and the shallow relationships with other parents doesn't fill me – it's not the depth and connection I'm looking for and therefore becomes a chore or a weight. Emily seems more drawn toward it. Life seems too busy and short to fill it with meaningless chit chat and relationships with people with whom I have little in common aside from our kids being on the same team. I'd rather have unstructured time with my kids or invest myself in relationships of depth and substance.
I suppose this all goes back to yesterdays' Shared Values post.
Nonetheless, in a divorce scenario, I could return to entertaining. Sure, it will be more work – but being hospitable and my home and meals have always been important to me. It's hard to know if I could keep Passover seder and who that would and wouldn't be able to include. Yet it's equally possible it could be made bigger and more inclusive. I am not easily deterred, especially when it comes to Passover.
The haziness of the future is disheartening, especially at a time I'd like to be celebrating.
I'll miss seeing so many family members and friends at the long Passover able. I'll miss my Cousin Amy who I sat with at all our childhood seders - entertaining each other during all the boring parts. I'll miss the celebration of freedom, remembering where we come from. I'll miss my Bubbee's china on the table and the little reminder of all the family events and holidays she proudly hosted using that china. I'll miss bringing out foods made from recipes that have been passed along through the generations – gifts from ancestors whose names I don't know but who I suspect would be happy to know that their descendants continue the chain.
This year in Patmos, next year somewhere with my family and friends. Where we can say kaddish for the goats.
