and(a) family

i was laughing, and you were there, too.

and so were the dogs, the sweet one and the evil one, but both seeming so sweet tonight, with their brown eyes pleading for us to take them home.

but we don't, we can't, instead we play round upon round of Sequence in the basement. sequestered for the moment, by necessity or choice, i can't really tell. maybe a little of both.

we're called for dinner, christmas dinner, and we look at each other. you roll your eyes a little, and i wrinkle my nose. you are my family, and i am yours. and the rest is the rest.

no one else cares for that way of thinking. but it doesn't matter much, because we are each other's family. and the rest is the rest. we make do. you smile and dutifully haul garbage and loads of christmas presents to cars. i smile and try to limit my use of four-letter words.
but in the basement we play Sequence and smile for real and the "fucks" are flying right and left and in between plays we make up rude lyrics for christmas songs.

it's church time, and i let you fight that battle alone. i would go; i brought a brown shirt and skirt and even pantyhose. but you say you won't go; don't want to go. whispering. i can't hear what you are saying, but it goes pretty well. i am not necessarily even christian, you tell me. let's keep that to ourselves for right now, i say. you did. in the hour we're alone, we laugh a lot. and vent. and when they return, we are okay, because we had our own hour of family time.

i am in the spare bedroom reading a book on the bed. my niece walks in, and somehow i start a game of beanie baby basketball with her. soon we are standing on the bed chucking beanies all over the room, off the walls, we giggle and make up rules as we go. i'm not sure grandma will appreciate us throwing beanie babies at her wall, i say, but we don't quit. when we go upstairs my niece announces that she is ahead, 23-20. grandma didn't care at all that we were throwing stuff against the wall; instead she congratulates britta and smiles at me. and i smile back for real.

we play dice for small prizes. i have my eye on a card game and a book. my six-year-old niece is excited beyond belief because a Hannah Montana CD sits on the prize table. i roll doubles on my first two tries and nab the card game and the book. i roll doubles again and again and again. it's almost embarassing. i choose more prizes, an ice scraper, a necklace, a DVD. my niece is looking more concerned with every roll. finally, she scores the Hannah CD and every one else gets a few prizes, too. you are sitting next to the prizes. i ask you to choose for me after a few rounds, hoping you will choose something you want. because even when we play individually, we are still a team. you choose all things you think i will want most and hand them across the table to me. typical.

it snows for the drive home, making the roads treacherous, but the scenery is beautiful. we've always enjoyed driving together. we stop in to see more family. in the ten minutes we're inside, our dog, the sweet one, eats two slabs of roast beef and sixteen christmas cookies that got sent home with us. we laugh. we weren't going to eat the food, anyway, we only took it to be polite.

more family for dinner again, but at least we don't need to watch our mouths with this family. this side of the family is decidedly more crude. our christmas tree looks pretty and the snow keeps piling up outside. it would be a perfect night to stay in by ourselves, just our own little family, but the rest are here, too. it works out okay anyway. we walk the dogs out in the snow and everything has somehow turned out all right.

but we're glad it's over, happy to be back to our simple little life, where we are each other's family, and the rest will always be the rest.

my trip home

the years have gone by

the winters are warmer, but it doesn't feel like it this year

so are we; age mellowed us all a bit

no one skates on the Mill Forte ice rink; maybe there are no kids left in town

maybe they are all inside doing things that were probably not invented yet when i was that age

mom and dad don't really work anymore, but they don't seem old, either

today mom and i go to super one to pick up the bags of donated food for the foodshelf. mom volunteers there on wednesdays. there are only five bags to pick up. they look a little sad sitting in the big box that could easily hold ten times that many. i think about seeing a similar box at a store in saint paul. i ignored it, too. we drive to gilbert. i have never been to the foodshelf. mom introduces me to everyone. she seems to be the youngest person there, by far (she's 61). "you look just like your father," an older man tells me. i hear that a lot up here. his hands shake noticeably from parkinson's disease. "tell your dad the big truck is coming next week," he adds. i didn't know this, but apparently my father comes here too. when the truck comes from duluth, he helps unload it. looking around, i can see why. dad is in awesome shape compared with most of the volunteers, but it just doesn't seem like a very dad-like thing to do. but what do i know? mom talks a little about what kind of stuff they get....things like day-old bread from super one and the italian bakery, and the weird items like a bunch of starbucks frappaccinos they got once. she talks about the people who come....some who are mentally ill, drug-addicted, just needy or down on their luck. i only cry when she tells of the ones who are illiterate; the ones who can barely fill out the paperwork, but try so hard to hide it. i don't think she notices. mom is very matter-of-fact, but not very judgemental. the meth-addicts' kids need to eat, too, she says without batting an eye. indeed.

we meet my aunt and uncle for dinner at a restaurant out in the country. on a blustery wednesday night, the place fills up almost to capacity. it's nice to see all the business. it's nice to see the snow-covered pines along the highway.

5 days ago

in a different town much smaller than even this one, my husband and i sit in the back of a small theater. the elementary school children are putting on a play, and we have paid five dollars a piece that frankly we don't have right now and we don't even know a single soul in town. still we sit there, me with my gloves on for the whole performance, smiling at each other and the kid who wasn't paying attention on stage and the microphones that only worked about half of the time.
what if? we ask each other, mostly silently, but sometimes out loud, too. i like it here because it's snowy and cold and beautiful, and i can wear my brown hat everywhere and still fit in. or at least not stand out. five days after i got married i took a huge chunk out of my wedding ring climbing those rocks down by the shore, and as good as if it were a piece of me i love this place where i left it and somehow it is the home where i've never actually lived.

i stay up very late, which has always been my nature, and i revert very quickly back to it when i'm away from greg. and tomorrow we will talk for hours about what we did while we were apart, and even though it was really nothing at all, it was also everything. then maybe we will finish rocket, who we carved out of wood 5 days ago in the home that we wish could be ours. i carved one side of rocket's head and greg carved the other; neither of us are woodworkers but we made it work, and the prettiest part is the front, the middle, the place where my part and his part meet.

and that was my trip home.