Getting My (Family) Bearings

Wow – interesting that this is hard to define.  I know that, when I was in high school, my younger brother and my mother fought – argued – a lot, basically about nothing much.  And it was really upsetting to me.  So I was I suppose the rescuer in some sense, the good daughter who didn’t cause the same kind of trouble as her brother (and, really, given the vast range of troubles a brother could potentially cause, this was minimal).  Though technically not the oldest, I was practically speaking the first-born, or at least the first-maturing (my older brother is developmentally disabled), and so in many ways I was the one my parents got to hone their parenting skills on.  Or, maybe not.  Maybe they honed their troubleshooting skills on David, and were mostly grateful I didn’t require a lot of attention.  And Brian, the younger brother, did require, or at least demand, a lot of attention.  That’s probably what the arguing was about.  And what was my role in all this?  I guess I see myself as a bearing – you know, a little round thing that makes the turning of this part work smoothly, keeps it from grinding away at that part as it moves.  It was well within my capabilities – I was smart enough to get on well at school, adept enough to keep out of trouble both at school and at home, and generally preferred less attention to more.  That, perhaps, is the key: I preferred less attention to more.

Or, did I just get used to that?

Blue Impala Sun

We were driving, driving, driving, across the country. The blue impala station wagon.  I don’t remember if we were on our way TO visit the uncle in Las Vegas, or on the FROM the visit.  But I do remember that it was hot.  It was incredibly hot.  I was in the back end of the station wagon, and I was so, so very hot.  The sun coming through the car windows.  There was a blanket, so we could sleep in the car.  Maybe I was lying down.  But it was so hot.  I don’t remember the thoughts, just the feeling, the feeling of lying down, of piercing heat, of not being able to get away from it, of being caught by it.  The desert.  Driving through the desert.  My first experience of the desert, in a blue Impala station wagon, just driving, driving through it, as though we could escape experiencing it if we just continued to drive – with the sun holding us.

My Role in My Family

My family classified itself by the scholarly categorization system of the Peanuts comic strip.  My brother was Linus, a quiet reminder of what was important.  My dad, Charlie Brown.  The central character, yes, but also bumbling, unaware, a reminder to us all that his rages and requirements grew out of a place where he was simply lost.  Mom was Sally, although looking back I’m not sure why.  Maybe it was that Sally was unashamedly female, willing to love no matter what came in return.  Me?  I was Lucy, of course.  You can tell even now in how I write this, the one to analyze, pronounce, decree.  Five cents, and the psychiatrist is always in, always ready to tell you what is what and what you should do about it.

Me being Lucy is also about me being the loudest in my family.  My dad tried for that distinction, all that yelling and drama.  But somewhere early I determined that I would not let that win: that somehow, some way, I would have the last word.  I would study, persevere, attack where needed.  I would control the football, happy to snatch it away, to watch him fall in failure in order to right the balance.  But mean and obnoxious and over the top as Lucy was, she was never the bad guy.  Lucy loved every one of them, especially Charlie Brown, no matter how rude or annoying she was.

So, that was me.  The whistleblower, naming my father’s alcoholism when no one else could stand to see it.  The rule maker, setting the terms of how things would go so that I need not risk the terms others would set.  The loud mouth, saying out loud what I was sure needed to be said.  But always, amidst it all, staying one of the gang, keeping something intact.  Loving in the way I knew how.

A Family Memory in a Car

First always is the memory of being 14 or so, getting lost with my mom and brother.  What state were we in?  Where were we driving to?  Did we ever get there?  Those details are washed away by time, irrelevant to the memory.

What matters is that there we were, the three of us, a recently redefined family unit in the wake of my parents’ divorce, making our way through the world.

My mother was at the wheel, of course.  Now there was only one person with a driver’s license, one person in charge, one person carrying the load of this terrible wonderful weight that is a family.

And there I was, awkward in my quest for adulthood, feeling naked and betrayed by the changes, yet loyal and true, seeking a balance between rebellion and responsibility in my stumblings into maturity.

And my brother, quiet and serious, an integral part of things and yet fragile somehow, almost not there, the least of us in age, adrift as the only remaining male in a drama where empowerment of the female was the thread that had gotten us through.

There are two parts to this memory:  the tableau just described, all its tension, all its tenderness.  And the moment something broke through – some giving up?  some silly turn?  the relief when we had found our way?  Again, the details are muted, muddied, irrelevant.

But this comes through strong and clear:  the moment we began laughing.  Laughing and laughing and laughing, unraveling, releasing, laughing until we cried, crying through more laughter, stopping the car because nothing else could exist, certainly not driving, certainly not safely, with such laughter taking over all muscle control, all meaning.

Laughing until the world we had known had dissolved and there we were, still there, laughing, a family.  Driving somewhere.  Still a family with somewhere to go.