I'm reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Remember when your birthday or Christmas or Halloween anchored your childhood? I'd forgotten until I read this passage in ATGIB.
And now that I’m reminded of that time in my life, I don’t understand how I could’ve forgotten, unless those special days were just plain swamped out by everyday having to be up front in my mind: M-W-F, class starts at 9:00 am, get to work early to review lecture, by 8:10 am at least. Start dinner at 5:50 pm if you get home on time. and the kids have soccer/softball/band at …
Swamped. Time to clear your mind and think back.
Francie counted the year’s passing not by the days or months but by the holidays that came along. Her year started with the Fourth of July because it was the first holiday that came along after school closed …
The next holiday was Halloween. Neely blackened his face with soot, wore his cap backwards and his coat inside out …
Francie, in company with other little girls, roamed the streets carrying a bit of white chalk. She went around drawing a large, quick cross on the back of each coated figure that came by. The children performed the ritual without meaning. The symbol was remembered but the reason forgotten.
—Ch 24, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943)
Sacred Ghosts
That lost meaning of rituals comes into the science and history I’m weaving into a book I’m writing now, Sacred Ghosts.
Some of the early European immigrants (from Spain and Portugal) who settled in New Mexico brought Jewish rituals with them that had to be hidden because of the Inquisition. Recent generations recall some of those rituals, but, at the time, didn’t realize their roots. We call these Spanish settlers and their descendants Crypto-Jews or conversos.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was my mother’s favorite book growing up. I’m finding it’s one of mine now, too.