Ride of Shame

I was talking to some people over dinner Friday night and “A-“ suggested I “blog this”. So I thought it would be worth pointing out:

After the long Jewish holidays, like the first two or three days of Succot or Pesach, and even after Shabbat, if you go at the right time, you will see a whole bunch of Orthodox Jews, returning home.

These are mostly women and a fair percentage of men who have their little suitcases that they are wheeling along, and perhaps a garment bag too, and get on the Q train not long after the holiday is over and return to their apartments on the Upper West side. They get on mostly at Kings Highway, Ave M, and Ave J. They all look spent, like they just had to spend the past three days with their religious families doing holiday things and explaining to their parents why they are still single. Some of them must have enjoyed it, and others clearly did not. Mostly theses are single individuals, though sometimes you see a pair of girls returning home.

They are all returning to their ordinary lives which may or may not include religion, but it certainly does not include their parents’ kind. It is a life very different from their families.