Size of a Dime

 

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The History Teller

We have all run into that old woman in the grocery store. "When I was young," launches a thousand words, strung together about days of yore. But not your days of yore. Nor the person next to you. And after the story ceases there is kind of no place to go. Yeah, you can ask them more about that history but because it's a personal history the dynamic is question (you) answer (them.) It is not an actual conversation. And you realize that pretty quickly and are eaten by awkwardness. That awkwardness illuminates the trouble with this trait: it isolates the teller. They feel they are *sharing* something with you but really they are removing themselves from you even if just a little.

Half of my family is story tellers. The other half is 100% not. If you're not careful, paternal family reunions can be one Homer-esque telling of the same stories you heard the last time you got together. As kids I remember LOVING these stories. As an adult I cringe. They leave nothing to actually converse about. It's like attending a lecture of one. On one side Dad at the podium. At the other side you in a soft folding chair watching the wall clock.

Parent Protocal

Interaction with Mom:
Mom tells me a story about this lavish wedding where the family did all this work, it ended up raining...like monsoon type of rain, the bride reacted so horribly that the father (owner of the yard) ended up not even attending the wedding. (And she is in noooo way hinting I will be like this with this story. It's told neutrally.)

Me: That's horrible. If it rains for us, we will put on our REI jackets, hand out umbrellas and take pictures of us laughing through it all.

Mom: You can't find umbrellas this time of year.

Out of Town Guests

My maternal Grandmother is probably boarding a plane right now to San Fransisco. I hadn't realized how old she was. You know how you see those pictures of you as a baby in the arms of some half zombiefied great grandparent you don't remember and you think your grandparents, the ones who played soccer with you and watched plays and ran around in mock dino battle could never share that half conscious expression. And then your grandmother, half hunched, surveys a step and begins the slow decent and you realize, you realize that age misses no one. And you can guess that your Mother is keenly aware of the same truth but for very different reasons.

I don't know if my Grandmother started the knot or is still untangling the fine work of her mother or the mother before that but almost every characteristic that I am working on extricating from myself springs directly from that source. That seems harsh and isn't within the truth of the matter but here, picking and choosing words, I suppose I should be more careful. Grandma is an incredible inspiration. She and her husband built an incredibly successful business with their own hands. They were the ones who had us kids over for weekends. Grandma gave me my first painting lessons and encouraged me to be a dancer after I gave her an impromptu Christmas ballet performance to Beach Boy songs. (I have never taken ballet so, you can bet how good THAT was.) She is part of the family where a lot of my world view comes from. The paternal side always has their heads in the clouds. The maternal side feels the world through their hands and their feet on pavement. If I have work ethic, it comes from the maternal side. My love of the arts is from their encouragement.

Watching a Tea Pot

When I planned my short oh-so-long-ago it was dependent on having rain. B/c it's Oregon, and our winters are wet.

When I planned wedding crafts it depended on the weather being dry. B/c it's Oregon, and our springs can be beautiful and it's usually dry 4 out of 7 days by June.

So to you El Nino or La Nina or global warming, or to God, to whatever you are, I say screw you.

Love,
Kelly

Two objects can't be in the same place: language

One thing I love about language is how it is often used so inefficiently. My family, including me, has mastered this skill. Years of practice to say absolutely nothing. Z doesn't communicate this way so it's been in his reflection I am starting to see the way I communicate everywhere. It's like a linguistic treasure hunt. Unexpected delights around every corner.

Adultness

A high school friend's sister-in-law just died. She had a rare liver cancer. She and her husband had been married for 11 and a half years. They had 3 daughters together. She was 30. I knew both of them (the husband and wife) vaguely through high school choir. They were so committed to each other. So incredibly young.

And yet they had already had such an adult life together. They were adults. Young in that adulthood but still adults. They had traveled together. Raised children together. Changed jobs together. It makes me think about my adulthood and makes me realize that while Zach and I are only a year younger than them, I feel like we are a decade their junior.