I know that sounds like the most routine statement in the world, but it's really not. I have never played mah jongg before, although the sounds of the game were the backdrop for much of my young life.
Two crak.
Four bam.
Soap.
Soap??
Tonight I'll find out just what the hell that means.
A bunch of the women from my book group and I are getting together to learn the game. For some of us, it's pretty much a suburban rite of passage, especially if you are a Jewish woman of a certain age. For me, it feels like a birthright.
My parents moved to Long Island from Brooklyn, New York (via Bayside, Queens) in 1965. For as long after that as I can remember, my mom had a standing date on Wednesday evenings to play mah jongg.
The game would rotate through everyone's home, one week at my mom Sally's, the next at Judy's. On to Alice's, Claire's and Rosalie's.The coffee would be made, the Raisinetes dished out, the Entenmann's sliced, and the card table in the den set up.
One by one, the ladies would start to arrive. Laughter would waft upstairs alongside the cigarette smoke. Sometimes, it would get quiet ... not because the wagering was so fierce, but because the topic of conversation dictated more hushed tones.
Whose husband was cheating? Which parent was sick? From Wednesday to Wednesday, the girls shared everything over the clacking of those tiles. And as I lay in bed straining to listen, I soaked it up, as well. Certainly, my vocabulary of profanity expanded exponentially.
Tonight, I am realizing the depth of what I learned from my mother's weekly game night, which is far less about what you are playing and way more about who is playing ... less about the tiles you pick and more about dealing with the hands you are dealt ... and not really about that one day a week when you are all together but the six when you are not, and yet carry each other in your hearts.
For my mom and her friends, the bonds that began at the weekly Wednesday night mah jongg game stretched into months and then years, through school days for their kids, bar mitzvahs, graduations, weddings, divorces, health scares, and yes, eventually even funerals.
The game and these women left quite an impression on me, and many of my friends clearly feel the same way. It's a connection to the past that binds us together in the here and now.
Which is why it's Wednesday ... and I am playing mah jongg tonight.
