Happy Anniversary, Morty
Last week I had the tremendous privilege of celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary. It was a small celebration with just me and my dear wife in attendance. Oh wait, correction. Morty was also there, how could I forget? It was just myself, my bride and Morty. True, our original pans did not include Morty being together with us but then again, our original plans looked nothing like the final version anyways.
Let me back up for a moment.
A few months ago I was sitting at the table when my wife, Miriam, called to me from the computer. “I want to go to Mexico for our anniversary!”
“No thanks!” I replied. My perceptions of Mexico are that of a third-world country, water that I can’t drink and fear of being kidnapped. “No,” she explained. “Come look at this resort I found online!” I went over to the computer and we looked at it together. Indeed, it was a magnificent resort complete with all sorts of amenities, including kosher food. I began to get excited about the idea but I saw the cost was quite steep.
Being that it was a milestone anniversary which we were celebrating, we decided we would celebrate in a more lavish way than we usually do (I guess she doesn’t consider my annual Hallmark card and flowers particularly lavish). Thus we decided to try saving up some money in order to celebrate appropriately.
As time went on, the daily expenses began piling up at a quicker rate than normal. With the onset of summer we had two children attending sleep-away camp, another child heading to Europe for a tour and several children attending various day camps in town.
Our anniversary plans and aspirations, along with our anniversary savings, were shrinking faster than you can say “Acapulco.” Destination Mexico was modified to Colorado, then to Chicago, then Akron etc. As the anniversary loomed closer and closer I remarked that at this point I'd have considered us lucky if we were to make it to Parma.
Our anniversary was July 20th, and with that date just days away I realized that our budget wasn’t going to allow for too much. At that point I pulled out one last-ditch effort, used by Jewish husbands throughout the millennia when they wake up on the morning of their anniversary or wife’s birthday and realize that they did not plan anything. “We are going to celebrate the HEBREW anniversary this year!” (Thankfully the Jewish calendar is different than the secular calendar so we have two cracks at getting these occasions right.)
I had hoped that by pushing off our celebration a few weeks we would still manage to replenish the “Anniversary Getaway Fund.” Alas, it was not meant to be.
So last week we celebrated our Hebrew anniversary in the exotic city of – wait for it now – Tremont, Ohio. We sent the kids to camp and took the day off to hang out together. We then decided to go to the West Side Market as we had heard about it and had never been there.
Typical of the way this whole celebration was evolving, we parked the car and walked to the Market, only to discover that they are closed on Tuesdays! (Why?!)
We walked around Tremont and saw a bunch of bars and restaurants but, believe it or not, Tremont does not have any kosher eateries so that was of no help to us. A store that offered glass-blowing classes caught our eye, so we went in and asked to sign up for a class. The lady in the store, Cindy, told us that they did not offer glass-blowing in the summer but that they did offer a class in which one could make a wind chime. Faced with the choice to have done absolutely nothing for our anniversary or at least do a joint project we signed up. (Besides, who wouldn't want a wind chime? I know it’s on everyone’s list of essentials.)
As we were waiting to begin we saw a rooster casually walking around the store. “What is a rooster doing in your shop?” we asked Cindy.
“Oh, that’s Morty. He lives here in the store.” Nothing unusual there, just your typical, everyday glass-blowing/wind chime workshop rooster.
The class took about 2 hours and, with Morty strutting around the store and between our legs as we worked, we each created our own wind chime.
I will be perfectly honest. I have a lot of good qualities. Art, however, is NOT one of them. In fact, I am absolutely TERRIBLE when it comes to anything related to art. Oh, I am really good at creating a vision in my mind. The problem arises when I try to transform that vision into something physical. It never looks anything remotely like I had envisioned.
My wind chime was no different. While in my brain I conjured up a pretty funky looking creation, when it was complete it looked less like a funky piece of art and more like something my 4 year old daughter would bring home from preschool. When our instructor saw my creation she was very gracious. “Oh, I like how you made yours on a slant! It kind of gives it a unique look!” (as if I was a brilliant artist a la Pablo Picasso and I had some genius flair for creating my art in a purposefully skewed manner). She shared with me other platitudes of encouragement such as “there is no right or wrong in art, it’s all about expressing how YOU feel about what you are making!” Riiiggghhhtttt.
I appreciated her trying to make me feel better but in all honesty I did not need it. I am very comfortable in my own skin, I know where my strengths and weaknesses lie, and if my art is indiscernible from that of my toddler’s artwork, so be it. It was on a slant because I stink at art, not because I was trying to be “unique.” I got to thinking that this whole anniversary experience had a common thread running through it.
In my MIND I had a beautiful wedding celebration planned involving a resort in Mexico. The REALITY was two hours spent in a hot glass-blowing store while trying to avoid stepping on a rooster named Morty as I created a wind chime which in my MIND was going to look nice but in REALITY looked, well, weird.
I guess this happens to everyone at different times in their lives. We envision how we want things to be, but oftentimes the actuality doesn’t match up with what we had hoped for.
There was one more thought which really put things into perspective for me that night. True, things may not have turned out the way I had planned, but the most important thing, the thing which I had set out to celebrate in the first place, was the gift of being married to my wonderful life partner of so many years! A resort in Mexico would certainly have been the cherry on top of the icing but I learned not to overlook the entire “cake” just because the “cherry” was absent.
Too often people get hung up on the small trivialities that go awry instead of focusing on the main parts of life, which are richly blessed with all kinds of good. We need to step back and reflect on all of the good we have instead of being dragged down by the small things which we may be lacking.
Anyway, for now I will bask in the appreciation of being blessed with such a terrific wife and family. Mexico isn’t going anywhere. Perhaps next year we can go there to celebrate our anniversary.
I just hope they don’t give us any trouble at the border for attempting to import a rooster. There’s no way I’m celebrating my anniversary without Morty!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yosef Koval
