Moldy Talk

Mold, yuck! Anyone who has suffered through mold issues will know my deep seated lament.

Our home in Montreal has three floors, but our problem was...our problem is...the basement. The inspector of the house noted that there was minor water damage in the spare bedroom in the basement. Wisely, we removed the carpeting that the previous owners had placed down there (with many speculations between us about why one would put carpeting in a room that sometimes gets water). Beneath the carpet was a beautiful hardwood floor, and it appeared to only be mildly damaged.

My husband, being the handy guy that he is, cut out and replaced the damaged wood. He sanded it and varnished it. He did a beautiful job.

Never having been homeowners, however, we were unfamiliar with the insidious nature of mold. The next summer, July brought forth torrential downpours...crazy storms that taught us exactly why there had been water damage. Both ourselves and the attached house suffered tremendous damage (although the neighbors had it far worse since they had not been home at the time of the rain and we had been unable to reach them so the water sat for 24 hours).

The saga of the basement was similar to my becoming Montrealers. Just as he did with his work fitting wood to the basement, he appeared to be finding ways to fit in to our new community. I was more like the warped wood that he removed. I had made a few friends, but I felt as if I would never quite fit in. Most of the mothers of my childrens' classsmates did not work. Many of those who lived here were from families deeply rooted in the community. Most of the women who were my age were making bar mitzvahs, my oldest was turning 4. But every time I felt as if I had made an inroad into the neighborhood, something would set me back and make me feel again like a stranger in a strange land. And of course, each time I would let my husband know all about my difficulties.

A year and a half after my husband’s incredibly hard labor, we realized that the floor would have to be pulled up. Mold inspectors told us what we needed to do. A huge chunk of change later, we were declared mold free. Our once lovely guest room was now a very spare room with a cold concrete floor. It took another year and a half (and the possibility of a border) for us to complete the room. Once again, my husband did a beautiful job.

In that time, I grew accostumed to the neighborhood. I joined a monthly learning group, and it opened up a new perspective on the women in my community. Some of the women, most of the women, in this group were women whom I had written off as those who would not befriend me. We may not be buddies, but I would say we are now friendly.  And now my husband has started attending a different synagogue, a synagogue about which I had said to my husband that the wives were those women who would never accept me.

This past Friday afternoon, my husband called me to the basement and pointed to a small tear in the wallpaper in the laundry-room. Beneath the paper, was mold. (It turns out that the condensation was leaking out of the dryer vent pipe.)

Ok, so perhaps you are bored now and wondering what possible connection I could make between mold and becoming part of a new community. This past Shabbas, the Torah portion was Tazria-Metzora, which is a lengthy discussion of a Biblical skin disease that afflicts more than just one’s skin. It also afflicts inanimate objects. According to tradition, these afflictions are the result of lashon Harah, speaking ill of others and gossiping. And so my holy husband said that perhaps our latest outbreak of mold being discovered during Tazria-Metzora is something that we should  keep in mind.

It was a lesson for me. A reminder that I had to judge more favorably those whom I felt were judging me.