Jane. Our origin story
For my twenty-fifth birthday, January 8, 1995, I decide to celebrate by getting stoned for the first time. I figure it will be fun. A laugh. A memorable escape from the cerebral, constantly thinking, thinking, thinking in rabbinical school in Los Angeles.
I ask my study partner to help me make it happen, and she does. She scores some marijuana from a native Angeleno classmate, who joins us.
Before the three of us gather in my LA apartment, I bake a batch of chocolate-chip cookies.
Though I have no experience smoking pot, I planned ahead for the munchies.
My newfound supplier fashions a pipe from the cardboard tube of a roll of paper towels, a piece of tinfoil, and a safety pin. We smoke.
Soon thereafter, I find myself on the tan carpet of my living room, munching cookies under a woven blanket.
Bull Durham, the Kevin Costner baseball movie, is playing on the old console TV I found on the street when I moved in.
“When’s Rocky the Squirrel going to show up?” I ask.
Laughter from my friends.
“Isn’t this Bullwinkle?” I persist, confused.
More laughter.
“Say, how long have I been eating this cookie?” I ask. “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t eating it.”
For the rest of the semester, one of the witnesses refers to me as “Winkle the eternal cookie.”
—
Late summer of 1995. My study partner is ill with mono. I coordinate with her friends to bring her meals. One of them is her former classmate from Brown, Jane.
We meet on Labor Day, when I bring enough food for the three of us.
Jane and I date a while. Then terrified of where this is heading—commitment, marriage—I break up with her,
Putting the blame outside of myself, I tell her it’s because she’s not Jewish.
Nonetheless, she wants to be friends, and I do, too. We continue to hang out. And, the less we try to date and the more we just are ourselves with each other, the deeper in love we fall.
Not that her not being Jewish isn’t something. It is. The “only marry a Jew” message was something ingrained in me.
The first time I kissed Jane after finding out her middle name was Marie, it was weird.
—
Thursdays after school, I drive to Brentwood, get the No. 4 at Sak’s Teriyaki Chicken—dark meat, rice, a cold salad with delicious dressing, and a side of fried oysters—and then walk to my therapist’s office.
Dr. Victor Morton helps me deal with matters academic, vocational, and personal.
When professor Rachel Adler assigns an exegesis on a Bible passage to pull out the original meaning in the text, Victor gives me the courage to write that there is no such thing—that all meaning is brought in. He helps me stand my ground and not comply with the professor’s request for a rewrite.
He also helps me figure out what to do about this girl, Jane, the intoxicating, fabulous, blonde shiksa goddess whose heart I broke and who still wants to be my friend.
Victor tells me to take the relationship a week or two at a time, not needing to know if it will work out.
“Let’s just date for two weeks and see how it goes,” I suggest to Jane
We keep adding weeks.
Kissing Jane Marie is no longer akin to pastrami with mayo on white bread. It’s more like a perfectly warm potato knish.
My two years in LA are winding down. The next school year is in New York.
One evening, outside the Koo-Koo-Roo, a chicken joint on Beverly Boulevard near my apartment, I up the ante. “Let’s experiment with living together next year in the Village.”
We do.
Months later I propose and we plan our wedding for 02.15.1998.
—-
The doors open on Jane, veiled in white. Her proud, gentile, yarmulke-wearing father, Phil, is at her side.
We are on the top floor of the seven-story landmark Puck Building in SoHo, NYC.
Jane and I chose the room, in part, because it was the location of the wedding scene in When Harry Met Sally.
Jane will forever tease me that I selected the date, the day after Valentine’s Day, so I could always buy anniversary flowers on sale.
The wedding is tailored by us, for us, starting with a makeover of the traditional Jewish ceremony. My boss, Rabbi Don Goor, who flew in to officiate, carries out the plans we designed back in his office in Tarzana.
It begins with Jane and me under the chuppah (marriage canopy). But, instead of the bride circling the groom seven times, Jane circles me three times, I circle her three times, and we make a seventh circle together.
Don loosely translates the Hebrew, sprinkling in the word “fabulous,” and notes the fourth pole of the chuppah held in place by a flag-stand instead of a guest, as a symbol of Betty, Jane’s mom who died three weeks earlier, supporting our union.
We invite seven couples we admire to, in turn, join us under the chuppah and offer a blessing on qualities Jane and I hope to exemplify in our union. Hiawatha Johnson, Jr., my mentor at magic camp, wearing a black and white dashiki, gives a blessing for creativity and endless artistry. Brings me to tears.
The ceremony ends with each of us—not just the groom—breaking a glass.
A traditional Jewish reception follows.
We dance the night away.
And rub Ben Gay into each other’s feet before going to bed.
