During the past 8 or 10 months, I have dreamt, at least weekly,
that I am at a family reunion. It is
always pleasant and I feel a little sad on awakening to discover that I have
been dreaming. The dream is about a wish
to be with my family, but also to reunite with the human family. We have been estranged from each other for a
very long time.
The dream reunion is with my father’s family. When I was a child, my father and his two
brothers’ families would get together every Thanksgiving. With spouses, children, and grandmother we
numbered between 15 and twenty. We lived
in three different northern states and would stay in one home, all together,
cots lined up in the basement for the kids.
Cousins are a special breed of relative. They are close enough in age to be good
playmates, but because we don’t live together, there aren’t the kinds of
conflicts that emerge between siblings.
I was friends with my cousins the way I would later become friends with
my siblings, when we were old enough not to be quite so competitive and to be able to
appreciate the differences between us rather than to try to exploit them.
The dream is a dream of the present day. The cousins are now grown, with kids of our own, and
even a few grandkids. In reality, we no
longer get together every year, but for occasions – weddings mostly but also for
funerals; first for my grandmother and more recently for my father and for his
brother’s wife, my aunt. We have also
gotten together in smaller groups to celebrate anniversaries or graduations.
So when the announcement of my cousin’s wedding reception
arrived this summer, I was excited. We couldn’t
go to the wedding itself last year because of COVID. We watched it via zoom, which was less
satisfying than kissing through a screen door would have been.
My entire branch of the family was excited by the
reunion. We all made travel plans. COVID looked like it would be vanquished and
we could finally be together. Even the
reluctant stepdaughters thought it would be fun to connect with this fun loving
side of my family.
But COVID, our constant companion, returned. And, since the wedding was in Texas, many were concerned about the lax local approach to managing the pandemic. The numbers did not look good as a third surge raged. My brother, who is selling his house and worldly possessions and moving with his wife to St. Thomas thought they could make it as one final connection with the family, but the crush of moving caught up with them. By last weekend, I was the sole representative of my Dad’s family. Our branch was whittled to a twig.
The irony is that I am probably the one in the family who
least likes to travel. This is also the
busiest time of year for me and I can ill afford to spend time away from work
(though I was able to get a lot of work done on the plane, in a hotel room by
myself, and I was, because we are now in the state we are, able to teach by
Zoom). But my dream was calling me. I could not resist the pull towards
community.
And I am very glad that I went. I had rich and meaningful conversations with
many people. I caught up on family
gossip and had fun just hanging out. We were
careful about masks until the after reception when the dancing started and, I swear, I was the
only masked person in the place. Later I
found out that family members on both the bride and groom’s side were figuring
that all of the guests were vaccinated.
But did they ask about the band?
(It is a week later and, knock on wood, I don’t have any symptoms yet
and have not heard that others do).
A central topic of conversation was the great resignation. A cousin who is a physician had an experience that closely mirrors mine. For the past twenty years, she has worked for one of the top hospitals in the country. When COVID hit, the hospital cut physician’s pay and quit contributing to their retirement and demanded that the physicians (and presumably the rest of the staff) work more hours because of increased patient demands. Unlike me (but like many of my colleagues), she decided to quit working for them, and the family has moved to be closer to my uncle. She is doing locum tenens work until she can find the kind of job she wants – part time with no evening or weekend work. Without COVID she, and many of her colleagues who also resigned, would have continued where she was for another twenty years.
Her husband lived for a year on St. Thomas, where my brother is headed. That cousin is envious of my brother's decision to buy a boat and move onto it. My cousin is trying to whittle down his possessions, and he recognizes that living on a boat means never being tempted to impulse buy anything - because there is simply no place to put anything. He wonders, though, about whether my brother and his wife will like living on an island - it is a small place, he cautions. Kind of like living in our COVID concentrated worlds, I'm thinking.
A cousin with younger kids, quit her job so that she could manage the kid's schooling. First their school shut down without notice.
Then, when it started up, classes were cancelled without notice and then
their kids were sent home regularly when they were exposed to the virus. The havoc that was wreaked in their lives and
in her professional life became unmanageable and she resigned to manage the
kids and their schoolwork while her husband continued to work.
The cousins who were in High School and College were
affected much as my kids have been. One
had his senior year of high school at home, over zoom. He has now started community college and has
only started to meet some of his classmates as some classes have
returned to in person (with masks), though many are still remote. He reported that the in person classes were
vastly superior to those online – he feels connected to his teacher and to the
other students in a way that he does not in classes that are being taught
remotely.
At the same time, many cousins are preparing for a post
COVID world in a variety of exciting and interesting ways. One very thoughtful cousin is thinking about
a career in the performing arts – an incredibly competitive field. I listened to his father have a conversation
with another cousin who has had success in the performing arts. They talked about whether it made sense to
get additional training or to simply try to get auditions, as she had
done. She acknowledged the tremendous
amount of luck that went into her success.
The next morning, the very poised high school wannabe performer talked
soberly about the various paths that could lead to different types of careers
on stage, but also behind the scenes and the risks and benefits of each of
these paths.
As we work to craft dream driven lives, we encounter
obstacles the dreams haven’t anticipated. The triple threat of COVID, climate change,
and the ways that George Floyd’s death have caused us to rethink the structural
(dis)advantages built into our system have contributed to my relational family and
the family of human beings reassessing how we will structure our individual lives. The great resignation – an unprecedented
number of people walking away from jobs, partly as a result of having a safety
net that will protect them as they regroup – is leading to a very broad
re-thinking of what it means to live a good life.
My own life, one that has been led successfully (and
sometimes not so successfully) pursuing a variety of dreams has felt at times
like a high wire walk over the fear that a misstep will lead to financial
ruin. I have been frugal throughout my
life, and, in the last half of it, conservative about pursuing things that might have
involved financial risk. At the same
time, I realize that I have been extremely privileged and much of my anxiety
has been manufactured. I think that I
would not have been in as much peril as I might have imagined if I had struck
out in less fettered ways to pursue self-indulgent or socially conscious goals.
My own resignation is of a different variety. I am resigned to having led the life I have
lived – and to thinking about how best to live the remainder. I cannot undo what has been done, and I don’t
have the wide open field of possibilities that my younger cousins
do. I fear for the planet – in much the
same way, to this point, that I have feared for my financial future. I work to contain my own carbon footprint
where I can, and feel guilty about where I do not (including flying to a family
reunion in the midst of a pandemic).
Will I be more proactive with the last (what I hope to be) third of my
life?
In a conversation with another middle aged cousin, one who is also an artist, he had resigned himself to moving from a position that appeared to be a dead end, to being offered an opportunity within that organization to play a starring role. His performances will occur in March. A number of us will convene to observe and celebrate that performance. He talked movingly about the ways in which he dedicates himself to prepare for an ephemeral performance – one that lasts only as long as he and the audience are in contact with each other. We all, I suppose, do this. Not just within our profession, but within our lives. We perform whatever we do, and leave whatever trace in the world that we do. We leave that trace with our friends and family and in our neighborhood, and collectively that trace seems ephemeral; but, in fact, those actions can have far reaching consequences, for good and evil.
As we celebrate my cousin's performance in March, we will also be
celebrating his marriage. He is marrying
a man who helps him, he says, realize that there is a world beyond the singular
world of the performances to which he devotes himself. This brings balance to his life, but also joy. I know the joy firsthand. I feel it in the presence of his husband and
of their love for each other. I also
feel it in the love – much of it complicated – that my families feel for each
other – both my family of kin and this family we all share – the family of humans. As we become resigned to our limits,
I hope that we also keep our eyes open to the possibilities that lie before us.
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