You know, I love Passover. I think I actually love everything about it--even the pre-Passover cleaning (much easier now, thanks to my new super-vac). While I'm not the biggest fan of matzo, yesterday I realized that I even love that first Passover matzo, spread with butter and sprinkled with coarse salt.

I love looking for new recipes to try, and making dishes that I don't make any other time of the year. I love knowing that Jews all over the world are celebrating Passover RIGHT NOW. I love hearing and thinking about Passover's significance and the story of the Exodus--the redemption, the hope. I like being part of the whole thing, part of the "we" of the story.

In the rest of my life I feel totally separate and alien. I feel like I'm not wanted or needed anywhere I go--here in Diaryland, over at Digs, at work, pretty much everywhere. But sometimes when I'm doing Jewish things, I begin to feel like maybe I'm part of something instead of a random mark in the margin. There are moments in my Jewish life when I begin to think that maybe someday I'll have something to offer. Something besides macaroons.

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