Where we were in through the looking glass.

We were eating lunch at the spot we always used to go before shul, sitting outside at a table set up in the parking lane.

You didn’t need a phone notification to know.

Clapping and shouting from the sidewalks and the farmer’s market across the street. The constant, exuberant percussion of car horns. The clang of a wooden spoon on metal pot from a tiny balcony above the restaurant.

H stood in my lap and took it all in, an enormous grin on his face. “More clapping!” he insisted, during a lull. I buried my face in his arm, gave it a kiss.

As we walked, upbeat music from front stoops, giant American flags and dislodged yard signs thrust from car windows, eyes locking and arms waving in solidarity. We took a turn into the park, and the falling leaves, the glint of the sun off the water held a new beauty.

In the parking lot of the shul, we celebrated our friends’ upcoming marriage, car horns still blaring in the distance as we sang: “Yet again there shall be heard in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: the voice of joy and the voice of gladness,​ the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride.”