This is the first Christmas we did not travel to see our extended family. I could say this was on purpose; I could say that we wanted to start making our own holiday memories as a new(ish) family. That we're trying to stand on our own two (four?) legs. Drawing lines in the sand. Setting boundaries. Duh duh duh. La la la. Bah.
See what I did there when I ran out of points to support my argument? Scholars and politicians, take note!
The wind in the trees outside was making shadows dance against the powder blue pull-down shades. Mottled light played over unfolded clothes spilling from the plastic basket on the floor, across the green shag carpeting, up a gold-flecked french provincial-style dresser, and off a silver tray that cradled a matching mirror and hairbrush.
The room was hot, heavy, and still. I sat gingerly on the edge of my grandmother’s bed, unsure of what to do. She lay on her side next to me, breathing audibly, staring straight ahead. I tentatively put my hand on her arm. "I hope you feel better soon, Grandma," I finally told her, smiling, as I got up to go.
Visiting my family in Michigan always leaves me feeling a little bit like I’ve slipped the fragile bounds of reality and wound up in an alternate universe entirely.
For instance, one day while I was there I found myself tussling with logs. Like, the wood kind of logs. That come from trees. I don't know about you, but here in California, I never have any kind of interaction with trees that strays outside the boundaries of looking at them. Sure, we have regular old normal trees in the Golden State, which will certainly come as a surprise to those who think California is one giant tropical beach caressed gently by the shade of palm fronds and overrun by the supertanned gay Hollywood liberal Jewish media elite. And if a tree were to fall down here, where I live, well, I would simply wait for the proper authorities to come and haul it away.
But in Michigan, when a tree gets sad and falls down? Well, ma'am, the proper authority is you. You can't just leave it there splayed across your folks' property, you have to go around helping your dad pick up all the branches and twigs that broke off and then sawing up the tree into logs and stacking them. To use as firewood, or something. Or possibly contests involving brute strength. Or maybe you can set up a lawn chair nearby and just hang out. Have a drink. Hi, logs. Hi. What's going on with you? Feelin' a bit sappy lately, eh?
Ha ha! Ha! Ahh.
I was on my seventh circuit around the kitchen table. Past the rotary telephone mounted on the wall; below the tiered wire basket holding one lonely and very overripe banana; making a hard right at the cupboard where the off-brand Cocoa Krispies bought especially for me were kept; steering wide of the sink that reeked of loamy well water; past the stove you had to light with matches and the rusted refrigerator; and under the dangling fly strip.
Eight. Nine.
Stop.
“Grandma, I’m gonna go outside,” I announced to her back as she hunched over the sink with a vegetable peeler in hand. “Don’t stay out too long,” she replied. “We’ll have Popeye when you get back.”
“Okay!” I called, already bounding down the steps, through the breezeway, and outside. The screen door had just whooshed shut behind me when I stopped dead in my tracks to wonder: Popeye?
“So, this is your first married Christmas!” my father-in-law informed us cheerfully.
Yes. Yes, it was.
“So, does this mean we can hang it up this year only?” the beau asked dubiously, holding up a heavy silver heart-shaped ornament inscribed in script with Our First Christmas.
No. No, it doesn’t.
Holidays with the in-laws feel different. Maybe it’s because my aunts aren’t sitting around drinking rum and coke and white wine and play-quarreling about things that happened when they were teenagers. Maybe it’s because my dad isn’t spending dinner casually alluding to evidence he’s found that the planet is actually cooling, not warming. Maybe it’s because my mom isn’t talking in strange voices to the dog. Maybe it’s because my grandmother isn’t derailing the conversation to announce to the room for the seven thousandth time that I look so much like her cousin did. Whatever it is, it’s just not quite the same.
On Thursday we leave for Oregon. Because we are intelligent people, we opted to fly out of Oakland. Here is where I remind you that I live in Santa Barbara. Here is also where I inform you that Santa Barbara is about five hours from Oakland, provided the traffic is good. See? Intelligent people.
In our defense, we thought we'd combine Christmas and New Year's into one extended trip. Being that many of our friends have moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, we thought there'd be a good chance of being able to crash somebody's NYE party up there. We reasoned that we'd just fly back into Oakland after Christmas with the beau's family, pick up our car, and be ready to celebrate without having to drive very far. Right? Sounds reasonable. Except we forgot all of our friends are now 30 years of age, too, and that we have collectively undergone a transformation in which the only thing we are motivated to do after sunset is park our asses on the couch and watch House Hunters. Oh well. Whomever we hang out with, we will all probably be crowded onto one couch and dozing by 10:30 p.m., and it will probably be the best New Year's Eve in the history of forever.
I’m afraid to have babies.
I kind of don’t want to.
But there was a moment on Friday night at our friend’s father’s house during her 30th birthday party. It was the day after Thanksgiving and the house was packed with family. It was a family and a house I was familiar with, for these were our officiant Randall’s uncle and aunt and cousins, and their backyard is where we’d gathered to watch Randall get married two and a half years ago — to watch families merge and expand.
And the moment happened when we were jammed into a tiny den. Our friend Steve-o was jamming on the guitar and everyone, young and old, male and female, was dancing to Wilson Pickett's "Mustang Sally." All the younger cousins, drunk on wine, were hollering and laughing and spinning one another into each other. Our friend pulled her mother, who’d suffered a stroke a few years ago, out of her wheelchair and held one elbow as her sister held the other, and together they staggered forward half a step, then back again. Dancing.
