Departure, Return

I wanted to buy my husband a Mezuzah for our fortieth wedding anniversary. We had left more under used Mezuzahs on more houses and apartments than anyone else I knew. It was time for self-improvement of a spiritual nature. I wanted it to be expensive. I wanted to show him how much I respect our “mixed” power sharing type marriage and to applaud our keeping on, keeping on. I am an ordained Christian; he an admiring Jew. Neither was very good with the Mezuzah.

I went online to shop. For an average of $29.99, I could get a cheesy looking one. We always spent a lot of money on Christmas trees; why cheap out on the door?

My first disappointment was practical. Now what was I going to get him? He wouldn’t want one that lacked elegance. Disappointment turned to dismay. Dismay turned spiritual. How come something so richly dense in spirit matter could only be $29.99?

Why did we have so much of so much of so much? Why so many things we don’t use? I wondered why I had turned a mezuzah — a religious ritual — into an obligation and then into shaming myself for not using it regularly. How had I also managed to include the matter of expense into the spanking? Would I use a more expensive one more? Why did I want one in the first place? My spirituality was a sham of shoulds.

We had left one at our city place when Covid started. It was French blue, pottery born…