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Our first is by Christina Gombar
Sober in a Sodden Land
I fell out of love with booze in England. As an American teenager in the 1970s, there was little stopping me from drinking as much as I wanted, whenever and wherever I wanted. By twenty, I’d grown so sick of the lush life I put an ocean between myself and the bars on the Connecticut Post Road.
Word of advice: If you want to create a social life that’s not centered around booze, don’t move to the binge-drinking capital of the world.
I met the Bank Clerk on the street, my friends asking him the way to a pub.
“Oh, don’t go there. If you want a real English pub, come along with us…”
The Bank Clerk’s crowd went to the pub every day of the week bar none, chain-smoked Marlboro Reds, bet on horses, had all slept with each other’s girlfriend — except the Bank Clerk himself, who was in love with his ex. Their sole exercise was walking from pub to pub, and when I moved in later I’d see the Bank Clerk go days without a real meal. They didn’t read Economics, study for the Foreign Service Exam or run in Regent’s Park like me. Just worked all day and got pissed every night — or legless, as they put it: It’s your birthday! You have to throw up! You must throw up!
Back in the states, my vodka and grapefruit cocktails were invariably picked up by some Vinnie or Tony in exchange for a twirl on the dance floor. I invariably told them: I’m not the girlfriend type.
In London, double digit inflation, record unemployment meant only 50-year men, usually married, usually foreign, sprung for cocktails. The plunging dollar, my lack of green card translated into me nursing a pint of that awful-tasting dark bitter all night — so strong I swayed on my Camden Market spike-heel vintage pumps.
Now I was ready to fall in love – but couldn’t get the Bank Clerk alone. Always someone crashing in the next room, heaving over the toilet.
I got a job in the country. The boy I finally fell mutually in love with there didn’t drink much and I didn’t at all. But this Being in Love thing – God, it was hard, Ow! It hurt. No dancing, no mirror ball, no banter, no joints, no jokes, no coke, no dramas in the parking lot nor theatrical apologies the next day. With this English Boy I went on hikes, walked arm in arm down high streets of rinky dink seaside towns, painted on a scaffold, built a stone wall, did laundry and talked marriage.
I got depressed, from the shock of being in love, the shock of life, and also maybe the shock of leaving that drunken ditzy disco person behind — I missed her. I got fat and sad and the English Boy dumped me and I went home.
I dropped the weight waitressing. Atkins, no booze. On my night off I joined my girlfriends at the disco.
‘You know Janice, that fun girl in high school? Dead. Car wreck. And, Oh, Don’t look now, don’t look like you’re looking – that’s Crazy Carla Manfredi – I heard she was paralyzed. I guess not totally.”
Like me, Carla drank seltzer. And I could see in her doped-up smile, her slowed underwater movements, what drunk driving did.
Of course I was lucky to fall out of love with booze in England, before that happened to me. But who was I really, now, without it? I didn’t know — only that the mirror ball held no answers.
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Four Glasses for Four Questions
To life! L’Chaim!
This is the chorus I have heard at every Passover Seder, since I was young enough to be given grape juice instead of wine. L’Chaim! Literally, to life. To a life out of slavery. To a life full of love and surrounded by family. To a life you are excited and passionate to live.
For me, this is what Judaism is all about. Not the wine, but what the wine has come to symbolize.
Passover is a particularly special time. Four glasses of wine. That’s a bottle of wine per person! Now, consider that my Seder table usually seats about 20 adults and that we drink cocktails before the Seder and more wine with dinner, that’s… well that’s a lot of booze for one dinner table. And we do it every year. We slurp matzah-ball soup and read out loud in Hebrew (which only some of us are any good at) and ask questions. Dear God, we ask questions.
Are there ever any answers? Yes and no. My father keeps little notes in his Haggadah (that’s the Passover prayer book) about issues we’ve discussed and even writes down if we ever came to a conclusion. That way if some asks the same question next year, he can read off the minutes. This, of course, means that our Seder carries into the wee hours of the morning, but Quesitons and Wine are what are commanded of us on Passover and damn it, if we won’t deliver.
Traditionally there are Four Questions that must be asked and they are asked by the youngest person at the table… which is me more often than not. There’s a song you’re supposed to sing along with the questions and it’s embarrassing. I, and every other youngest kid in a Jewish family, hate doing it. But we do it.
Four questions.
1. Why, tonight, do we eat only matzah? Why not bread?
2. Why are we eating bitter herbs tonight? Why not other herbs?
3. Why are we dipping these herbs?
4. Why are we reclining while we eat, tonight?
Four questions that feel a little arbitrary if you’ve never been to a Seder. Really, it’s four symbolic rituals at the crux of the Seder that remind us that we’re free. But, as with all things in Judaism, we don’t just celebrate. We remember. It is not enough to say you’re happy to be free, because you must also remember what it was like BEFORE you were free.
Four glasses of wine.
The Haggadah says that the four glasses are for the four times, in Exodus, that God promised to ‘deliver’ the Hebrews out of Egypt.
I have another theory. Four Glasses for Four Questions. This is because remembering, when you get right down to it, sucks. We are a joyous people, but we are people that have suffered. And at the same that time we talk about how great it is to be ‘free’, we can’t do it without thinking of all the things we’re still enslaved to.
I am a slave to my iPhone. I am a slave to my passions. I am a slave to my workaholic nature. I am a slave to my need to please people. I am a slave.
And we remember… and there’s a lot to remember. I remember a grandfather that I’ll never get to meet because he died of lung cancer shortly after I was born. I remember people I’ve hurt throughout my life and people I left behind when I fabulously flew off on new adventures. I remember times I had to pulled out of my own bullshit and brought back to the life of the living.
Remembering sucks. It takes a question to get you started and it takes a glass of wine and the laughter of your family to help you finish.
To life! L’Chaim!
I was 12 years old when I had my first drink. Not my first sip of alcohol or tiny taste, but my first full drink. I was home alone like I was every day and I looked in the cabinet and saw a bottle of vodka. I knew what it was and I wanted to know what it tasted like. I got out a glass and poured some in it. I thought it was disgusting, but I still finished it. I drank only about twice after that. When I turned 13 I started drinking again. I was in 8th grade when I first got drunk and I thought it felt extremely awesome. I got drunk off of a drink called ‘Strip and Go Naked’. I loved it! It was beer, vodka, and lemonade mixed together. I thought that it wouldn’t do anything to me and I would be fine. It affected my friends and I felt bad about, but I was too selfish to stop. I’m almost 14 and I still plan on getting drunk every time I get the chance to be home alone. I know I probably will after school on Monday and I’m looking forward to it. I’ve done a lot of bad things and I’ve stopped all those so it won’t seem so bad to drink. I know it is and I’ll probably do it for a while and eventually stop. It’s too good to stop right now.