Chapter 39 we found

I left the Archmage's house and went to the synagogue to check information on the original building in the 1940s. There may be in the file.A woman told me on the phone. I didn't know there was an archive.I said. We archive everything.We have a profile on you. Just kidding.May I take a look at it? If you want, I can send you a copy. I go into the hall.The church school is still in session, full of children.Girls who have not yet entered puberty walk slowly and dignifiedly with a little embarrassment.The boys ran down the corridor, holding their heads so that the beanies wouldn't fall off.

Nothing has changed, I thought.Usually, this kind of mood makes me feel superior; I fly away, and the poor children in my hometown are still doing the same thing.But this time, for some reason, I just had an empty sense of distance. Hi, I said to the woman behind the desk, my name is Come on, we know you.The archives are here. I blinked.I almost forgot that my family has been here for forty years. Thank you, I said. You are welcome. I took over my files and headed straight for home, or should I say straight for the place I currently call home. On the plane, I leaned back in my seat and pulled the rubber band around the file.I recall my life beginning in New Jersey.My childhood life plan, my dream of becoming a citizen of the world has more or less come true.I have friends in every time zone.My books are published in many foreign languages.Over the years, I have changed many different addresses.

However, even if a person touches everything, it is very likely that he has nothing to do with it.I am more familiar with the airport than the neighborhood near my home.I know more people in other ZIP codes than on my street.The communities I joined were workplace societies.My friends are all from work.The content of my conversation revolves around work.Most of my social life comes from work. These pillars of the workplace have crumbled one by one in recent months.Friends are sent away.The company streamlined personnel.was acquired.Offices closed.Called a friend who had been somewhere before and was nowhere to be found.Exciting new possibilities are being developed, they email.I never believed in the adjective exciting.

Work connections are lost and relationships loosen, like magnets that lose their magnetism.We promised each other to stay in touch, but no one kept their promises.Some people act as if unemployment is contagious.Anyway, how much talk is there without common ground at work, complaining and gossip? I dumped my personal files on a small open fold-out table, and saw report cards, old homework, and even a children's religious play I wrote in fourth grade, based on the story of Queen Esther. Blueprint: ∮ Mordecai: Esther! Esther: What's the matter, Uncle? Mordecai: Go to the castle. Esther: But I have no clothes to wear!

There are also copies of congratulatory letters written by the Archmage, some handwritten congratulations on my college entrance, congratulations on my engagement.I feel ashamed.These cards show him trying to keep #in touch, but I have no recollection that I ever received them. I think about the connections in my life.I think of friends at work who have been fired, or quit because of illness.Who comforts them?where did they goThey're not coming to me, they're not going to their old bosses. They usually seem to get help from churches or temples.The congregation collects donations, they cook meals, and they fund daily expenses.They do these things out of love and compassion, and because they know that this is the fundamental work that sustains a sacred community.It was the same holy community that the Archmage spoke of, and of which I was a member, though I didn't know I was in it then.

The plane landed.I gathered up the papers and tied the file with rubber bands again, feeling a faint sadness in my heart, like returning from a trip and finding that something was lost during the trip and could never be found again.