White Girl: A Story of School Desegregation

Voice of Loneliness

93 In the early 1970s, my mother and my cousins helped start a new, ultraliberal synagogue named Or Ami. Our family membership there gave me a welcome escape from Hill, the school I had started calling, without too much of stretch, “Hell.” The services avoided using the word God and replaced the traditional liturgy with songs by Bob Dylan and quotes from Dag Hammarskjöld. In 1974, when I was thirteen, I became the first member to celebrate a Bat Mitzvah. It was not just a matter of learning enough Hebrew to recite prayers and read from the Torah. I also had to pick a theme for my service. I chose loneliness, in part to avoid what I thought were cliché topics like creativity or friendship, in part because I thought my personal theme song was Simon and Garfunkel’s “I Am a Rock.” “Interesting,” said the rabbi. “I think it has real possibilities. Let’s talk about it.” His eyes drilled into mine. “Do you feel lonely when you think about your father?” I squirmed at the rabbi’s question. Anything I felt about my father was so deeply buried I barely noticed it myself, much less dredged it up to discuss with someone else. “I don’t know,” I said, staring at the white shag carpet so he wouldn’t say something like, “you poor thing,” and make me feel worse. He just nodded, waiting for me to say something. “I wrote a poem about it,” I finally answered. “I can bring it in next time if you want to see it.” In it, I had compared my life to a puzzle with one piece permanently missing. “Yes,” he said, smiling. “I’d like that.” I also began to meet once a week with a tutor so I could learn to decode the mysterious script of the ancient Jewish people. It took a lot of practice, but after a few months, I mastered the alphabet enough to read. I liked being able to run my finger, right to left, along the text. I never learned what the words meant, but their harsh “ch” and “ot” sounded strong and emphatic. The rabbi titled my Bat Mitzvah service “Can I Go with You? A Dialogue with the Still, Small Voice of Loneliness.” On its cover, I Voice of Loneliness 94 drew a picture of a girl sitting under a tree, all alone. “The Glass Prison,” the silent meditation I wrote, captured all of my angst at the time: “I feel like I’m locked in a glass prison. Strangers look in, I look out. No communication is made whatsoever through the wall I wear. There is a key to unlock my captive spirit somewhere. I long to feel your love and gather in your kindness. No one has found me yet. So alone, I am a prisoner of my own mind.” The service ended with a more uplifting quote from Clark E. Moustakas: “Let there be loneliness, for where there is loneliness there is also sensitivity, and where there is sensitivity, there is awareness and recognition and promise.” As the only Jewish girl at Hill, I didn’t feel comfortable throwing a big party afterwards. Billy, Adam, and some of the other Jewish boys I knew in school did have Bar Mitzvah receptions and dances at Richmond’s hotels. They generally invited girls they knew from their synagogues, leaving me out. I planned a simple service and a reception afterwards. I invited about a dozen of my friends from school. My extended family—both grandmothers, my aunt, my cousins—and family friends also attended. As I stood to recite my Torah portion about God answering a cry in the wilderness, my voice was strong. The rabbi stood behind me, ready to prompt me if I lost my place, but I didn’t. I was staring down my loneliness in front of the whole congregation, and I wasn’t flinching. I felt powerful. My call to the pulpit cemented the Jewish identity I had previously wanted to shrug off. After the final prayer, I stepped down, exhilarated. For once, Mom was beaming. I was less lonely because I felt like I finally belonged somewhere. ...