I had a fragmented idea of what I wanted to write about today … but I couldn’t find the start, I couldn’t see the picture.  So I began browsing the drafts that have been stored & forgotten (some for a very long time); begun and then neglected as my brain became hooked on something new.

I wrote the following in the wake of my cousin’s wedding (not especially long ago ~ the beginning of November 2013).  Re-reading it struck me, so I thought I’d share it as is, without adding to it, or fixing it.

“I was thinking this weekend ~ for various reasons ~ how little I know so many of my relatives.  My immediate family is fairly close ~ a nucleus including my parents, my mum’s twin sister, my brother, myself and my husby.  My father is an only child, and our tenuous relations with his side of the family ~ a huge web of Italian Americans ~ basically disappeared when my grandmother died in 2007.  My mother, one of five, but also a transplant to the United States, stays in relatively close contact with her siblings via email, but there’s a huge ocean and several seemingly insurmountable obstacles (such as vastly different cultures) that lie between our family and hers.  Add to this mixture the fact that we moved every two years (on average) for the majority of my youth, and it makes sense that we are close as a unit, but not as part of a larger tapestry.

Then consider other factors: age, religion, lifestyle … and all of a sudden, people who share your DNA look like strangers.  And feel that way, too.

My youngest cousin on my mother’s side was married last weekend ~ a much more traditional affair than the man and my celebration earlier this year.  She was a stunning bride, and I’m sure it was a hell of a party.  I’m sorry to have missed it.  But journeying to the UK, in this economic climate, while dealing with other (sort of big) factors just wasn’t in the cards.  I flipped through the limited pictures available, seeing my family all dolled up in their Sunday best, and I thought -not for the first time- that I barely knew them anymore.

Family is an interesting thing.  Mine -this side, obviously- is very, very English.  I looked at them, my mind full of our joint history, memories and conversations and correspondence.  And I thought how they didn’t know me at all either.”