Writing inspired by the SWC creative writing prompt: What Easter traditions do you and your family keep? Are they unique/peculiar?
Easter Week is Also Passover Week
By Tamara Saltman
Sunday. Sing at church All Glory Laud and Honor. Palm fronds everywhere. Stop by butcher for seder brisket.
Monday. Work. Pick up car from repair shop. Yoga class. Practice German, forget to learn Chad Gad Ya off YouTube.
Tuesday. Work. Choir Director wants to start planning summer season, avoid conflict with Session.
Wednesday. Foot gets a surprise cortisone shot, car surprisingly needs to go back to the shop. Work. Practice clarinet sitting down because, foot. Defrost brisket. Clean a bathroom.
Thursday. Foot. Sigh. Work from home. Try Whole Foods for charoset apples. Reminder: wear black for Maundy Thursday service. One alto (in white) and one tenor (in paisley) forget. Cannot sing “thrust,” hope no one hears me “trusting” the Savior from my arms. Start marinating brisket.
Friday. Offload morning grief group onto other therapist in house at the last minute. Get plum torte and then brisket in the oven. Is star anise a seed? One guest is allergic. Parents arrive. Talk. Chop apples. Make a salad, bring it, other therapist, and parents to dinner party in the suburbs.
Saturday. Take a walk, stop by the wine store. Make chocolate salt caramel matzoh. House now out of butter. Set the table. Boil the egg before adding to seder plate! I know there is a shankbone somewhere in this fridge. Guests arrive at 6: wine, Dayenu, plagues, Elijah. Next Year (may there be peace) in Jerusalem.
Sunday. Early call, with brass. Bring leftover chocolate matzoh for choir, they eat it all. Crown Him, Alleluia, Hallejullah and He shall reign for ever and ever. Brunch with parents and Choir Director (so odd!). Goodbye parents, spend afternoon on the couch. Azalea garden walk! More couch. Open leftover Passover wine. Exhale.
Tamara Saltman
Sunday Writers' Club member
Tamara Saltman is an American writer who is becoming Austrian. She found the Sunday Writers Club in the fall of 2022 and has joined several cafe writing sessions in Vienna.
She was trained as both a marine ecologist and a clinical social worker; in other words, she likes looking under rocks. She currently leads organizational health and problem-solving workshops for scientists and engineers at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. She writes lots of emails, poetry, the occasional essay, « translates » scientific information into stories non-scientists can understand, and is a member of a long-running poetry workshop led by Liz Rees.
The every day details interspersed with the religious symbols – and I felt the shoulders relax at the end with the leftover passover wine and exhale.