This Weekend We

The sea nettles have departed and the sunsets earlier. By some measures, autumn is now upon us. 

I'm ready for routine. For a little structure to our days, but I am hesitant to say good bye to my favorite season.  

As Labor Day approached, I regretted not making plans, felt pangs of jealousy realizing that so many of our friends were off on beach side adventures, that there were no get togethers to be had.  But envy gave way to content, as we settled in to a slow weekend, spending hours on our beach, afternoons jumping of my parents' pier. The kids had a sleep over. We collected a furry friend. 

Any sense of missing out was completely erased when my big sister texted me telling me she was driving up from Florida to surprise my mom, a fact she didn't share with me till a few short hours before leaving, knowing that I am no good at keeping secrets. Since she arrived late Sunday night, I have passed off all cooking duties, and have watched as Sena follows her around at a safe distance, fascinated by her artistic, smart, decidedly crazy aunt who she has had too few hours to get to know. I'm taken back to being ten myself, when I followed Whitney in much the same way, wanting to be a teenager too, to wear wild outfits purchased by the bag full from the thrift store. To sneak off with friends and find trouble every way I turned. I took pride in my flamboyant big sister, despite the fact that she wanted little to do with me then. The patience she pours on Sena as she shows her how to use knitting loom or how to properly cook bacon is an echo of the apologies she proffers late at night while we share a beer on my porch.  "I was evil," she laughs. No, not evil, just older, and yet, not old enough. 

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Family Tribe

Yesterday, on the first day of a new year, my dad looked at his large but still crowded kitchen and remarked with a touch of pride that they need might need a bigger house. It took a very long time for my parents to clear their house of full time residents, but that does not mean that their house is almost ever empty.

We stood around the kitchen cooking black eyed peas and pulling out leftovers from the night before, four sisters, making drinks and talking about plans. Kids wandered through on the backs of boyfriends, a chocolate lab galloped across the floor chased by my mom's ankle biter. It was a warm, loud scene, reminiscent of so many scenes before it.

Sometimes my life feels provincial. I'm a mother, living in her hometown, teaching high school. These simple facts seem like they should belong to someone else. I have always assumed that I was special, and that my life would be something altogether extraordinary. I am, after all, the product of my generation, and we are supposed to be entitled and believe ourselves to be above the mundane. But in so many ways, my life is totally and completely mundane.

I started washing dishes as people continued to eat. Laughter came from the other room. From a distance, I heard a sister complain about my dad's Pandora station just as I was singing along with Whiskeytown, lamenting their breakup so many years ago.

As I scrubbed pots and pans, I thought about the story of Mary and Martha. As Jesus visited, Mary sat at his feet while Martha worked and prepared the meal. I think about how I sometimes feel like Martha, and I wonder how this is possible. I self identify as a rather lazy person, but I am also the one to make most of the family dinners. I am usually the first one up to start cleaning dishes. Maybe I should sit longer, I think. Maybe I'm not lazy enough.

I frequently find myself in conversations with people whose lives more closely resemble the life I once imagined for myself, and they often comment of the demise of the inter-generational family in America. We talk about other cultures, which they are usually more intimately acquainted with than I am because they spent their twenties traveling, while I spent my twenties among an inter-generational American family.  We nod our heads in agreement. Large, extended families are important. The benefits to the children, the parents and the grandparents are immeasurable. I comment that I think it has been hugely beneficial to my marriage to have so many people to rely on rather than to look to a single person to fill all my needs, a single person to help me raise our children to be the kind of people we want them to be. A few nights ago, while caught up in one such conversation, a beautiful art professor remarked that our marriage was most likely a refuge from the chaos of the family and the chaos of the family was likely a refuge from our marriage. I nodded; the thought was new to me and profound.

It seems as though many people recognize that there might be something sort of lonely about each little family living in their individual little box. It seems like lots of people realize that family might be the best form of community, but sometimes they say so with the slightest hint of condensation. It's a great idea for me, but they have important things to do that have led them away from their own hometowns, have led them away from their own families. They have sought communities of like minded individuals, and sometimes I think that it most be wonderful to live among like minded individuals.

How do I explain to these professors, writers, artists, travelers that I am more than the simple mundane, happy life I lead?
Why do I think that I need to?
Why do I want to separate myself from the people they went to high school with, the people who stayed? The ones who had a bunch of children?
Because those people are might be more than their simple mundane happy lives too.

Tomorrow I will go back to my parents house. I'll help my mom prepare prime rib for my dad's birthday. My sisters and their boyfriends/ husbands will come over too. They will likely stay sitting at the dish laden dining room table longer than I will. I will find my way into the kitchen to over hear conversations from a distance while my dad's Pandora station fills in the few silent spaces.

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This Weekend We: Bridal Shower

One of my little sisters is getting married in a little over a month. She's the first in our family to be having a traditional wedding with all the bells and whistles, or at least, most of the bells and whistles. 

I was excited to get to plan a party more elegant than most of the gatherings I put together. Most of my parties are potluck and rag tag, and perfectly suited to how I like things done. But for Claire's shower, I wanted to plan something really special. So we rented tables and chairs, plates and silver ware, arranged dozens of flowers and strung lights in an attempt to recreate this scene.  I was excited to craft a beautiful, perfect evening, and in my excitement I may have lost sight of the real purpose of the party: to celebrate Claire and the beautiful and sometimes overwhelming journey she's about to embark on. 

Because I had so completely lost sight, I did not handle the disappointment of unpleasant weather well. After weeks of nearly perfect weather, Saturday brought rain and wind and grey skies. It sent people inside, and meant that the big, sit down, family style meal I had planned and prepared was replaced with dinner plates balancing on laps and end tables. 

As I said, I did not handle my disappointment every gracefully, but luckily in the few photos that I did manage to get of the evening, I see that most everyone else was able to enjoy the evening as it was, not distracted by what it might have been. 

Although I did not fully appreciate it in the moment, I can now look back and recognize how special it is when people from all walks of life come to celebrate a single person, in this case my beautiful, loyal, strong-willed sister, the embodiment of a fiery redhead if there ever was one.

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My Sister's Birthday

Today, one of my little sisters turns 26. On Friday, we celebrated her birthday, and as usual, I decided to take the opportunity to get a little too introspective while grilling chicken and clearing plates. This is a big year for my sister Claire-- this is the year she is getting married. But she isn't just marrying Andrew, she's marrying a whole other family as well. More people to love. More people to worry about. More people to cause to worry.

When you have a child, your family grows by one. But when you get married, your family grows by many in the single moment it takes to say "I do."

It seemed appropriate that Claire celebrated the beginning to the year she gets married with her family and her soon-to-be family, a family that I personally am already quite fond of.

I went to college with Claire's fiance Andrew and his sister Rita. They are both wonderful and always have been; I was always happy when I would run into either of them at college parties or while lounging at the waterfront. I know that I actually only get to lay claim to Andrew as an in-law, but I have already started to think of the entire clan as a part of ours. 

One thing you learn from growing up in a big family is how to share. So Claire, like it or not, will be forced to share her new family with us all. Gus has already taken to calling Hazel his cousin. However, that could get a little awkward if Arlo's giant crush on her doesn't weaken.

Happy Birthday, Claire. You've got a hell of a year ahead of you.

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Waiting on Breakfast

Yesterday I waited and waited and waited for my sisters to be ready to go to breakfast. I waited so long it turned to lunch and I made myself food. My sisters did not inherit my timeliness gene.

But eventually they did show up, ready to eat. And although I wasn't hungry, I was dressed and my kids were dressed and we had nothing else planned, us Weavers.  It was, after all, the fifth day of an impromptu winter break. So off we went for a noon thirty breakfast at a place no longer serving breakfast. But I drank lots of coffee anyway. And we sat and sat and sat. And as I looked around at my kids and my husband, my mom and my sisters, I realized it was worth the wait.

Sometimes I'm restless, but I know that I'm not going anywhere. Because if I went somewhere else, I wouldn't have so many people to wait on.

If you would like to join a rather elite group, one which basically only consists of people sitting at the table pictured above, you should go over to Apartment Therapy's Homie Awards and vote for this little space and all the other little spaces you love to visit. 

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