Eddy Laughter

I stopped going to Quaker meeting on Sunday because no one was really making me and so I talked about it less.

My Quakerism facts weren't fun or cool things to tell people.

But I could never really get out of going to the Jewish holidays.

They happened so infrequently that I had to be there, and I didn't see my cousins very often.

So it was important that I went, but I got that it was important for my mom.

I didn't get how it was important to me.

I never really saw myself there.

It felt weird and complicated, and I just felt so awkward all the time that I didn't understand what it had to do with me specifically.

And...

In seventh grade, my school took a field trip to a Holocaust exhibit in a Jewish cultural center in Manhattan.

And I had learned about the Holocaust.

We were learning about it in history class, and we were learning about World War II in Germany in the 30s and 40s.

And it was something that happened in the past, so this was a field trip.

And it was just a time to not be in class.

So we're in seventh grade and we enter the museum in a sort of rambunctious fashion, because it's seventh grade and that's just what kind of happens.

And the museum goes in chronological order through timelines.

So we're in the beginning part and we're

Me and my two friends are just sort of like walking around and sort of like making fun of propaganda.

And then the museum takes a hold on us as it is designed to do and my friends go elsewhere and I'm by myself.

And the floor of the museum is carpeted so it kind of eats away at footsteps so you can't really hear anyone else around you.