Wedding Blues (and Pinks)
Yesterday, went to E's wedding, which was a non-stop all-day extravaganza, culminating in the groom playing a fabulous medley on violin to his bride.
I bumped into an old friend of my Mum's, who about eighteen months ago, had called up my Mum and told her, for some reason, I was a lesbian. There aren't many times I'm speechless, but when my Mum called me and told me this, I was truly lost for words.
Anyway, C was there yesterday, and was carefully avoiding me, as she probably didn't want to get into a conversation with me. Which is odd, because for the rest of my life, whenever I've run into her, she's reported back to base (telephoned) - "saw Sasha, she looked good", or, more often, "saw Sasha, she could do with losing some weight." After a couple of hours, I went to speak to her; I just felt I couldn't let this opportunity lapse.
me: Hi, C. I gather you told my Mum I'm a lesbian. If you have anything to say about me in future, I'd prefer you to say it to my face, rather than gossip about me
her: I didn't say you were, just that S had heard from P that you were -
me: So it was gossip, then. And untrue.
her: Well, it was a long time ago
me: Yes, but you upset my Mum
her: She hasn't spoken to me for ages
me: I think that's because you upset her
her: er, er
By this time she looked truly embarrased, so I said my goodbyes and left her to it. As Z pointed out to me this morning, it's amazing that she's such a close friend and didn't know all my secrets. When I saw C at the ceremony yesterday, I whispered to (female friend) J, who I was sitting next to, the story, and she said "Is she looking in your direction? Let's hold hands". We refrained. After all, she's a married woman.
This is bad on so many levels. First, presuming a single woman of a certain age must be a lesbian - it's insulting to me, to my advanced years (!), it's insulting to lesbians, and it's no joke to my Mum. Secondly, the whole idea of people talking about me in such detail isn't that great either. I gathered from her that the gossip had come from three sources before she passed it on.
Reminds me, when I was about seventeen, and taught in Sunday School, the headmaster was a well respected teacher in the local community. One Sunday, my class of ten year olds were giggling uncontrollably, and I remembered that the previous day in synagogue, the mother of one of the key gigglers had looked at me oddly. I took J outside.
"What's going on?" I asked her.
"We all know you're having Rabbi Zilberg's baby," she giggled.
I've never really got the hang of gossip, myself.
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