Family

Harry' s family photos - boxes and boxes of them - have taken over a dresser top in our bedroom. His mother was a self-appointed archivist; she assembled and sorted and identified hundreds of old photos and ensured they were passed on. This collection is really remarkable and, unlike albums with captions and cutesy scrapbooking detail; genuinely historical. There are photos, also newspaper clippings, diplomas and other memorabilia. Clearly the work of several people; Harry's mother the most recent. She must have collected these from many of her own and husband's relatives, annotated and identified and passed them on to her sons.

Of course, lots of information has been lost. Harry and I haven't even looked at all of them yet, but already I've seen dozens of unidentified babies (this sent me to my own collection of photos, mainly of my own children, to write names! and dates! Because even if I can tell my baby daughters apart at a glance, their children aren't going to be able to.) What's also remarkable is the extent to which Harry's mother kept the history alive for him and his brother. I loved listening to them talking: "Oh that must be Uncle Sal, because that's in the North Jersey house before the addition. . . " "This looks just like Mom; is this grandmom?"

All this is so unlike my own experience of family I can't even begin to say why. For one thing, I know almost nothing about my biological father - he disappeared before I was two, and my mother seems never to have looked for, let alone kept in touch with, him. She married my stepfather when I was about 3 1/2. She then moved to the US with him and my baby half sister (I was born in Europe) which had the effect of severing ties to my maternal grandparents and their line. . .I do have some photos and a little information. The most striking is a wedding photo where my mother, a six-month-old baby, squirms in her mother's arms - my Omeli, in white satin, the matron of honor for her twin sister. My Opa stands behind her, looking uncomfortable and out of place. ( he was not grata in Omeli's family) All around them and the radiant bride and groom, whose name I don't know, are uncles and great-whatevers. It's a gorgeous photo, too - long before I hung it on the wall next to family photo of Harry's it seemed to echo, I exhibited as art on walls in my several homes. . .

I grew up, and married the father of my children, whose family proudly claims to be descended from a signer of the constitution, and all the time we were married, I took pictures and collected them and made albums. There are some photos in there of my own dysfunctional shards of family (Mom, my sister and brother) but mostly I worked to create a history of my kids (family). I didn't get much support from their father in this. When each daughter was in late grade or middle school, she was assigned to make a family tree, and what surprised me about this was, although my disconnected spouse had no idea; his mother and sister did. They provided reams of information, photos and all; both of the daughter's projects were wonderful and both got A's.

Today I saw an old friend of mine had posted some gorgeous family photos on Facebook. She and her husband live in a network of family connections even more impressive than Harry's, apparently. As they don't have children of their own (my friend and her husband) it seems her motive might be more artistic than what? historical? Familial? But then who am I to say?

I don't yearn to have a lineage like Harry's or my friend's. I cut my teeth on quite another vision of family; for better or worse it shaped who I am and how I feel about "family." My daughters are almost the only FAMILY I own openly - much as I love my brother and his family, my Mom, my sister. But it must be said: I did not feel, as a child or young person, belonging to anything I could call family. I married because I wanted to have a child, and then a second child; all without ever wanting to be a family. (This almost certainly doomed my marriage.)

Now Harry and I live together. We talk about parenting (which we did with other people) our children, and we have our animals. . . 2 cats, a dog, 3 birds. . . we live together brilliantly, as befits the survivors of old and troubled marriages in which we learned much. (Sometimes, in a dream, I think "but when we have a baby. . . " and then I wake and know that for Harry and me, this IS our family.

Our pets

Parrot: Georgia

Georgia is a Genday Conure and is about 10 years old. She came from a breeder in the Media area. She has peach-colored markings on her head, hence her name, because Georgia is famous for its peaches. Her plumage has different tones of green, aquamarine and pure blue. Her colors are brilliant when she is outside in the sunlight. She's intelligent, though a bit ornery. She loves eating pieces of bread and corn chips and Cheerios with her feet.

Georgia escaped once about 7 years ago. I had her outside and her wings hadn't been clipped recently. She sprung from my shoulder and flew high up in a neighbor's oak tree, and my sons and I tried to catch her by knocking her out of the tree. We tried for hours until finally, around dusk, she flew out of range. The family was heart sick. We put up lots of Lost Pet posters and contacted all the local veterinarians and animal shelters. Then, four days later, and about a mile-and-a-half away on the other side of town, a nurse was sitting on her steps around sunset looking at a group of birds feeding in a walnut tree some distance away in a neighbor's yard. The tree was in sunlight and she saw this resplendent green parrot among the other birds. She thought that maybe she could lure the parrot by holding up her hand and making a perch with her index finger, and the moment she made that move, sunlight instantly illuminated her hand and arm, and the parrot flew to her and landed on her finger. She shut the parrot in a small room and bought a cage, and called the local animal hospital and gave them the number on the band. The next day when we called this animal hospital for an update, they told us someone had found a parrot and we took her address and phone number, called, and then rushed over to the nurse's house. Georgia had been saved. It was a miracle.

Old Photographs

Tonight Sally and I looked at my family photographs that were recently left from my mother who died nearly a year ago. There are boxes of photographs. Some were taken as long ago as the mid-1800s, in the early days of portrait photography; sepia toned daguerreotypes with glints of silver when you hold them at a certain angle. The photos span generations, centuries. We were sifting through pictures from more recent times, the 1960s and 70s. I saw myself, a much younger, thinner and more handsome man. I saw my parents, both dead, and my grandparents, also dead of course. One of the strangest sensations was looking at pictures of my parents from the early 1940s when they were children. You can never really think of them as children, because in your earliest memories they are the adults, and in control, and as a child you needed them just that way for your well being. I love seeing baby pictures and kid pictures of my own three children who our now young adults.

Sally is not in any of the photos but yet she is everywhere in my life these days. We have only been together a little over a year and a half. She loves going through the photos and asking about a certain relative, and I enjoy being able to identify them, at least the ones that aren't 150+ years old! Because Sally never knew her father, her family and its genealogy is less documented than mine. But Sally is my family now. Sally and I together in our happy home are a family, along with our children who don't live with us but whom we see often, and our siblings and their families, whom we maintain a relationship with and visit when we can. Really, what more can you ask for?

WXPN

"Harry" and I spent the weekend at the WXPN "Exponential" Music Festival: volunteering, listening to music and trying to find some shade. . . (It was hot!) The venue, on the Camden waterfront, is too beautiful - the Main stage has the river and Philadelphia skyline as a backdrop.

In some ways, volunteering was the best part - I liked checking people in and answering questions; didn't like wrist-banding all that much. Whatever I am doing - answering phones, creating lurid leis - I always like working with the XPN folk - I've had lots of opportunities lately, unemployed as I am - they are smart, funny, no-nonsense and can-do.

I did make a few major decisions about next year: I WON'T volunteer for the first shift of the day - it's WAY too long until the end of the day when the bands I've actually heard of come on. And I'm going to unabashedly specify "out of the sun." Much as I resist playing the elder card, today when I watched teenagers dancing at the top of the hot ! metal! bleachers in blinding sun, 90 degrees - as I fanned myself thinking cool thoughts I realized the elder card exists FOR A REASON.

Anyway, I had fun. I think Harry had fun too although I am not positive he was ready to leave when I hit the wall - all I could think about was THE CAR IS AIR CONDITIONED. I so loved being there with him, but it was time to go!

Part of this is because I am (and so is he) still close enough to Parenting (in capitals) Young Children to appreciate the freedom that not having them entails. . . one of our first dates, a year or so ago, was at the beach, and I remember dozing off a little; as people around us (parents) scurried about, fielding toddler demands: "I wanna go in the water!" " I have to go to the bathroom!" MOMMY, I'm hungry" "Daddy, I have to pee." "Are we going home soon?" "When can we go to the boardwalk?" (Okay, this last from a nascent teenager - these are slightly, but only slightly, less annoying at the beach than their younger sibs.) Harry and I remembered it all (fondly, it's true) and luxuriated in being us, and alone. . .

We finished the Times crossword, read for a bit, had a boisterous romp in the waves and then a nap under the umbrella . When we woke it was cloudy, threatening rain and we had another romp in the waves.

I wouldn't have missed all those beach days as a parent, with my kids and their father, for anything.

But this was heavenly, and no less brilliant a memory as - my first-born running full-tilt into the waves - my second-born refusing to have anything to do with water not delivered in a pail, to her sand castle.

I think Harry felt the same way.

Who?

My Loved One (let's call him Harry) and I at dinner recently were talking about how almost everyone seems to be blogging and how we each thought it might be fun, but. . .

Which was as far as either of us had gotten. It suddenly occurred to me a blog could be a kind of conversation, rather like a teaching practice I have used with adult learners, called guided journaling. The instructor writes a comment or a question, and the student responds to it. It's a way of helping reluctant writers to get over the paralysis of the blank page.

So Harry and I are going to write/blog to each other. Writing is something we both like doing and while we aren't separated from one another for long enough periods to call for long, chatty letters, we do enjoy writing to one another. It's actually how we met, on an internet dating site: writing emails. Of course we also talked on the phone, and had the first in-person meeting at a Starbucks, but neither of those early experiences is as vivid to me as the early emails. . . eventually we moved in together and had less need for written communication. (We do text, whenever we are not in the same room)

(Posted by Sally)