“This is安静的时光!” I yelled at my children, who are 6 and 8. As a 41-year-old mother of two in Boulder, Colo., I experience rage more often than I’d like, especially when I feel powerless.新冠病毒没有帮助。
“Wearebeing quiet, Mama,” countered my youngest.
“No, you’re not. You know how dad is downstairs inhis office，工作？我的工作了。我有最后期限。给我一个小时。停止尖叫，”我尖叫起来。
Like parents all over the world, overnight I becamemy family’s teacher, kitchen staff, tech support, and full-time referee. As coronavirus upended just about every aspect of our lives, I worried I’d lose the momentum I’d built in my freelance career.
I wish I could say I was never a yeller until the stress of aglobal pandemic得到了我，但我一直有一个倾向提高我的声音当我感到沮丧或感到闻所未闻。我不自豪地承认，我已经知道在无响应的笔记本电脑，一个挑剔的门，和我的孩子们大喊。
在东海岸的犹太家庭我长大的地方，大家讨论了对方，并提出他们的声音。我们可以争论任何事情，包括是否有安息日晚餐. Although my parents sent me to aJewish day school, Friday nights in our Rhode Island house were typically not holy. I would watchSolid Goldwith the babysitter, stay up late, and sprint to my room when we heard my parents’ car in the driveway.
Once I got my driver’s license, however, my mom invoked Shabbat as the reason I couldn’t go out with my friendson Fridays. This made no sense to me as we’d always been very lax when it came to observing Jewish law. Every summer, we had lobster races on the porch before throwing the crustaceans in a pot of boiling water and eating them for dinner. After Yom Kippur services, we’d always stop at我祖母的房子，在那里我爸享有舌头三明治。
In other words, we were不信教- 但突然安息日成了一个大问题。我想踩我的督马滕斯我的房间，大喊：“既然你什么时候成为这个超级犹太人！？”并踩住我的门。
Still, when I got to college, I sporadicallyattended servicesand Shabbat dinner at Hillel. In graduate school, I went to Hillel almost every Friday night. I appreciated the community, but I was mostly interested in meetingeligible Jewish men— specifically the medical students and MBA candidates.
我从来没有想过我会的人结婚谁从来没有这么多的参加一个成年礼, had no idea what Shabbat was, or how to pronounce the “ch” in challah. I met my husband at a bar — he is a fourth-generation Coloradoan WASP whose family is polite, never teases one another,且很少争辩. Also, their conversations includepauses.
作为后on lockdown两个月，我意识到我不能责怪我的急性子在我的成长经历。检疫正在转我变成了一个怪物。我最小的有finally started kindergarten，得我整个天不间断七年来第一次工作。试图与我的孩子家庭作业，我觉得我是一个小吃请求远离精神崩溃。
I squeezed my work into the 20 minutes when my kids’ online classes overlapped, the 30-minute blocks when they played in their imaginary worlds, or “recess,” when I banished them to the backyard. Working in bite-sized spurts was driving me nuts.
“I think I’m losing my mind,” I told Dan in bed one night.
While I felt lucky that no one we knew was sick or dying because of coronavirus, I struggled与不确定性. I didn’t know when we could have babysitters again. I didn’t know when I’d see my parents. Living thousands of miles away, I missed them. I’d hoped we could still fly out to visitthis summer, as we’d planned, until they told me they weren’t comfortable hosting us. “Better safe than sorry,” my dad said.
我挂了电话，想在海滩散步小道，我不会跟我爸走，故事妈妈不会看我的女孩，和鸡尾酒，我们不会尝到门廊上的阳光照在纳拉甘西特湾。我想坐下来我父母的表我的兄弟姐妹和他们的家人分享我的妈妈的面包homemade challah在安息日晚餐。我没有意识到我多少是多么看重我家的安息日晚餐直到现在。它发生，我认为也许是我妈妈的目标不是要禁锢我上周五晚上but to create some connection.
Dan and I had discovered Shabbat was an easy but meaningful way to wrap up the week and welcome the weekend. On Friday nights, even during quarantine, I prepare a “real” meal — not frozen pizza或剩菜, which we rely on most evenings. Dan attempts theHebrew prayers, his enthusiasm more than balancing his tendency to mumble through some of the words. While he has no intention of converting, he appreciates the rhythm the Jewish tradition brings to our week.
After we say the traditional blessings, we perform our own weekly ritual: Each person shares the highlight of their week. As an extrovert, many of my opportunities for joy have gone the way of yeast and消毒洗手液因为流行就扎下了。然而，尽管亏损，未来的不确定性，并就地避难的单调，每个星期我很难只选择一个亮点。就在上周，我挣扎着我的选择：是不是在完成了500件我无与伦比的（也许是夸大）的喜悦难题我们一直在努力为天？开始开花的水仙？或时间我的女孩让我在与他们的浴缸得到什么？
According to the late Jewish scholarAbraham Joshua Heschel，安息日的目的不在于比前一周恢复，或者对提前一周做好准备。“安息日是为生活着想一天，”他说。
当太阳周五蘸了山背后上，我想起了一切仍尽管美 - 并因 - 不得不呆在家里。我已经完成projects in the yardand puzzles with my family. Instead of our daily sprint to the bus stop, we take leisurely morning walks.
我没有很多的安静时间，因为冠状翻转的世界颠倒。但每星期五晚上噪音感觉就像少混乱，而更像a blessing.
Header image design by Grace Yagel. Original illustration by UnitoneVector/getty images
