Jump Back, 1999

I just read that it was ten years ago that JFK, Jr died.

I remember that summer with clarity I don’t have for any previous seasons (or really any since). When I read that it had been a decade that summer flooded back in full-color flashes.

It was 1999. I was leaving for Syracuse in a few weeks. I’d lived with my father for exactly one year and was still getting used to freedom. I was saying my goodbyes to friends I’d known my whole life, shedding my family and the person I was sick of being. It was a typical Virginia summer of suffocating humidity and days of nonstop 90 degree sun. I was working at the environmental consulting firm as an intern and I dressed up every day and made ridiculous amounts of money. I shared an office with a guy who looked a lot like Charlie from "The West Wing". One of my best friends from high school worked in the office with me. I drove us to work everyday in the little blue Mitsubishi that I borrowed from my grandparents while they were summering in Maine. We took long lunch breaks and loved the feeling of pretending to be a grown up and having the money to back it up. Every morning we stressed about what we'd do that night.

It was the same summer that Blair Witch Project came out and I distinctly remember reading an article in the Washington Post about how it was allegedly based on actual footage. Burkettsville is less than a half-hour from my house. I saw that movie during a rainstorm. Seth and I drove back home in his pale yellow Mercedes and we were frightened of the endless forests and gravel roads of our home town. Ghosts and witches could be anywhere.

It was the summer of Woodstock ’99 and the chaos there. I remember friends considering going but never getting around to it. It was year of the final Lilith Fair; I went with friends from work.

I remember the overwhelming sense of sadness at the loss of JFK, Jr and I didn’t even know much about him. I was saddest for the Bassett family. It was just so abrupt.

Ten years. It went by at a speed I am just beginning to process.

Dual Citizenship

I have ten cousins and five siblings.
My mother is one of four; father is one of five.
So far this sounds like the beginning of an SAT word problem.
Ten cousins. That's it. My siblings and I double their cousin numbers.

I'm not close to cousins on either side. I didn't grow up near cousins; I saw them on holidays or random weekends or not at all. I have cousins I don't recall ever meeting; cousins I couldn't pick out of a line up, cousins I haven't seen in over five years. I don't know my extended family past a perfunctory point. And there are only ten of them.

But Facebook has done its best to bridge all distances.
My final sibling joined FB the other day. The five of us are now like Captain Planet & the Planeteers; I'm making my brother be Ma-Ti, the stupid kid with the power of heart. That kid was lammme.

With this fun coming togetherness crap the inevitable reunion banter begins. A cousin (one of the ones I don't quiiiite remember meeting) sent out an email to the rest of us, enthusiastically declaring we should have a big ol' family reunion because look at us, we are all on FB and it's high time we hung out. I don't think our parents have even attempted a family reunion since 1984. I saw my aunt for the first time in 20 years at my grandfather's funeral.

I understand the idea, I really do.
Family is family; blood is thicker than water, and on.
Sorry to be Debbie Downer here, but I don't know you. What we have in common is our parents are siblings; you know less than nothing about me and I can't say I know a thing about you. If you can't tell, I'm hyper negative about the idea of getting to know my cousins and I've been racking my brain as to the why. I usually thoroughly enjoy meeting people and making connections but to this I have a visceral heel-digging reaction. This is my theory as to the why.
When my parents divorced, my mother's family rallied around the flag of the country YourExIsABigFatBastard-ilvania while my father and his family choose the smaller country of NoGoodCrazyChristianBitch-instein. While two very worthy countries on their own, those who were born holding both those passports were unfortunately stuck like Tom Hanks in that equally unfortunate movie, “The Terminal.” But the viewers of that movie had to suffer for two hours; my siblings and I suffered...well...I think I still do. My aunts and uncles and grandparents fought bravely for their respective countries, and so family visits consisted mainly of listing to my family load cannons of hate and fire them, aiming them to destroy one who was half of my genetic material. I was eight years old. Didn't make me like my extended family much. I felt like I was evidence of a past mistake made by my parents; “look there's that reminder of that marriage implosion to the spouse we never thought was good enough for our kid/sibling. Maybe she'd like a popsicle.” With the exception of one fabulous uncle & aunt, not a single one of my parents’ siblings has ever tried to know a thing about me and that tastes a bit like bile. So, strange cousins, why now? What is so great about our genetic material that we should come together to see the ways in which it manifests itself? There were years and years when I needed family so badly and it wasn't anywhere to be found; why the hell should I give it audience now?
I'm happy with my siblings; our personalities and dramas and personal universes make five seem all the larger. Though the five of us have never lived together under one roof, we still manage to make weather systems whenever we gather. That is enough. I've seen their two passports; that's all the family I need.

This is not meant to knock any cousins. I'm reflecting on my reaction to the invite, not to the people themselves. I'm sure the ones I do not know are very nice.

When I was Younger, So Much Younger Than Today

Ahh yes, the station wagon. My first memory of our family car was a 1970s solid chocolate brown Ford wagon, an 8-person land yacht with that way back seat that let you look at the people driving behind you and create elaborate games as to what they will do when you:

(1) Smile

(2) Wave

(3) Give them the peace sign

(4) Flick them off

And got approximately 8 miles to the gallon. Ah yes, the early Reagan years...

Well our awesomely American beast was so 1970s cool that it didn't have one of those new-fangled cassette players, no. We had an 8-track player. Booyah.

I distinctly remember one of my mother's favorite 8-tracks was "The Best of the Carpenters" in all its schmaltzy glory and the one song in particular I recall is Karen Carpenter covering The Beatles' hit "Help!". My mother, being my mother, did not hide the fact that Karen Carpenter had recently essentially committed suicide and my impression of that song is sitting in that very back seat with my sister, "Help!" playing on the sweet 8-track stereo and being totally baffled how no one could have helped this poor girl out...I mean she sang about it. Did no one get it? And thus the song is really freaking morbid to me and I kind of hate it. And I think my mom also had an 8-track of Buddy Holly so for a long time I thought that if you were a successful singer you probably had to die first.
Here's to you, early 1980s.

Meat n' Potatoes

'Children are our model because they have no claim on heaven. If they are close to God, it is because they are incompetent, not because they are innocent. If they receive anything it can only be as a gift.” -Brennan Manning, Ragamuffin Gospel

Stewing on that these past two days. Lessons are like magic eye drawings. The situation is a blur, a mess of color and incongruity until suddenly order and purpose burst forth (though lessons usually aren't in the shape of dolphins or a pirate ship) and an “Aha!” escapes. This whole year has been a lesson in accepting love, not in a form that I am typically comfortable with but in the messiness of imperfect life. I like love when I feel like I don't need it; like love to be a nice bottle of wine brought to a dinner party, rather than bread and potatoes given to a starving stomach. Because unearned love has no paybacks, doesn't have a running tally of “first you, then me, then you” fairness and that scares me, makes me feel very self-conscious and naked. Looking back on literally all of 2007 I see situation after situation were love was given freely in ways in which I am least comfortable. I think my removal from the intern program and yet staying on at Windy Gap is the greatest example. It was a hard realization to discover that that staff loved me enough to make a tough call, and in hindsight it was truly for the best. They loved me enough to say no.

And then there has been this business of this Fall. This is probably the closest I've been to a starving stomach since high school and there are people whom I love dearly loving on me in the ways I desperately need but can't fully express. I have been loved so well through all of this. What I receive is nothing I have earned; it is given. And what a gift it is.

(And Robin, there are things I'm not good at. I made a list earlier this year—it's right here)

(Yesterday was also my weird day. I think everyone has at least one a year, a date that is too full of memory. I creep around, pausing at every creak and sigh. There is much to think about)

Mosaic

I've been busy lately with things outside of work and I love it. Last week I spent Monday with friends who came out to camp to enjoy the nice weather with kids and dogs and then back to their house for a big dinner and games, then Tuesday I missed a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese b/c my nap turned into the previous post titled "Could", Wednesday was a impromptu trip to Greenville, SC for some BBQ at a place that ended up being closed (BAH!), Thursday was watching "Lost" online at Caroline's house before racing back to catch "Grey's" at Eva's. Friday was another big dinner night in West Asheville and talking with friends about nerdy topics and a sleepover. Saturday was a big breakfast, a great hike just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, a late lunch at the Bakery and "Waiting for Guffman" over freshly made pizza. Sunday church was such a refreshing experience and the lunch afterward went right along with the community. Sunday afternoon was time to rest, read and...wait, I have no recollection of yesterday. None. What did I do yesterday afternoon? Last night? I feel like the guy from "Memento" all of a sudden...

There are days when my life has the feeling of a mosaic; a collection of overlapping stories and punchlines: the poignant and the pugnacious, the preposterous and the petty. Sometimes I feel like all I am are stories. I simply tell them because they are mine, not because they free me or offer others any insight. I give them in place of me. Does that make sense? Instead of giving who I am I present stories.
I guess I'm thinking on how I define myself to others, both consciously and unconsciously, and how I'd ever learn to go about it differently.