My back east family reunion
Hello All!
I am writing from New Jersey where the other half of my family live.
Spending so much time in Oregon with slightly humid/ mostly dry heat type of weather I am having a hard time adjusting to the intense humidity I am experiencing here.
I actually was born and raised in Manhattan, New York but I left still a teenager and moved to California which the heat there is very dry.
So it has been years for me and since I got here last Saturday I do believe I have lost 25 lbs since it would seem I was holding more water than I realized. You may think I am kidding. You take a shower, dry off and then you are sweaty again and so you take a shower and so on. You go outside and you are surrounded by a swirl of humidity that stays with you until the night falls if you are lucky it will leave then.
How doe's one think in this type of weather? Got me all I seem to be able to blog about is the weather. This blog was supposed to be about family reunion reflections but the monster called humidity has grabbed my brain heeeelllllp!
Ok sorry I am back. What was I saying? Oh yeah family. Ooops got to go sit in front of the fan again. I will write more later on.
September 2, 2007
I am back now from visiting my family in New Jersey. Unfortunately I never dried off enough to be able to sit down and blog some more about my adventure there. Thankfully I am back in Southern Oregon where I can breathe and drink water without it instantly sweating out of me. So my focus is back to where it was meant to be when I first starting this blog.
My father, stepmother and little brother (17 year old now on his way to college) live in Montclair, New Jersey and I had not seen them in 7 years. For me it was an emotional visit because there was so much to absorb and understand. My relationship with my father is both loving and tenuous at best.
We both want to reach out to each other but our attempts are painful and we retreat into our polite corners to recoup before the next round.
However my relationship with my step-mother is great and we seem to have a caring understanding relationship that works for us.
Now my little brother is a whole different thing. The poor guy is 17 with brothers and sisters who the youngest one being Me is 46 and yet somehow he handles this with humor and intelligence.
He is a kid yet in allot of ways more mature then any of us and with surprisingly and enviously no issues about Dad or life in general. Ok I did say he is more mature.
He has both patience and tolerance for many things including my evil half sister (her who shall go nameless forever) that he seemingly treats like an annoying Nat he easily swats away. I have to say I envy him.
Now this brings me to her who shall go nameless forever. It would seem from the moment I arrived she had made plans to harass me by any means she could. She made fun of what I was wearing clothes wise and my jewelry and my life in general and she is in her 50s! I tried hard to not get caught up in her stings but unlike my younger brother swatting her away for me was not as easy due to Issues from the past that still have me in chains. Damn it!
My older brother I adore because he is a deep thinker and takes his time coming to any conclusions and truly does no harm in his words. Seeing him was wonderful and I smile.
I also got to go into the City of New York which I had not been there since forever and waay before 911. I could not believe the changes and how Hollywood to some degree it has become. The Subways were cleaner and I felt a little safer actually which is amazing. When I was a child living in the city the subways always smelled of urine and I hated being there after the sun went down. So now to see the clean floors on the trains and the stands was truly amazing!
I had to go to The Port Authority to catch different trains or buses.
Now let me tell you in case you don't know The Port Authority is not a police station! I say this because when I called my boyfriend and his sister in Oregon to tell them where I was they FREAKED OUT! They both screamed Oh My God What did you do!!??
In all fairness to them they both had worked in an airport and they thought instantly about police or security. No I laughed almost choking on my New York style pretzel and I explained it to them as I shall now do for you.
The Port Authority is a place where you catch the subway trains, Am Track trains, city buses or Greyhound buses or taxis. It was always crowded and ugly when I was growing up but now it was clean and they added more stories to it. It is now a giant Mall with tunnels in it to catch the subways etc.
This in itself was overwhelming to me to see my childhood memory gone but the new look is better. Of course it still has its crazy people standing around talking to themselves who I am sure in a different life were business people etc and some ones sweet child. If you are not careful New York can swallow you whole and spit you out looking like a deer caught in headlights.
I got to see my cousins and run around the city taking pictures. I even took one with a wax version of Whoopi Goldberg just like a tourist. I suppose even if you have been born in the city after being gone for 30 years you are considered a tourist and tend to behave like one.
I actually got to meet two cousins that I never met before but was in touch with. That was one of the high lights of my visit. They were the children of my father's brother whom I loved dearly and sadly died of cancer. We had never gotten to meet due to different circumstances in our lives it just never happened and now there we were all together at last. My uncle I knew was watching over us and beaming because we had come to a full circle in our lives and we connected and reached out to each other in a wonderful way.
Oh another high light of my visit was the GREAT SHOPPING! OH my God!
It was as if New York knew I was coming to town and the sales were delicious! Slobber slobber. Ok I will leave that to your imagination because my idea of sales may be different than your idea of sales so just imagine what your idea would be and drool along with me. It was good. For those of you that smoke go ahead and light one up inhale exhale aaaaah. Ok
New York was different and I tried to go to as many familiar places as I could given that I only had a week but I did well and I got to see family and friends. All in all I am glad that I went and even spending the painful yet loving time with my father who did get me the ticket and gave me a great digital camera was wonderful. I do love him and glad he and I are apart of eachothers lives.
Family reunions are overwhelming, painful, and difficult but they are also wonderful and confirming that you do belong to some blood line and were not just hatched out of an egg or planted by some alien. It also helps to know that you are loved and people are happy to see you and your place on this earth matters. So folks this is my rather long winded story about my trip back east for the summer. Why did I blog about this because I could and perhaps for some it will be helpful.
For those of you who have never been to New York City yes I still say go at least once in your life because it is still the city that never sleeps and it is the big delicious apple that one is glad they got to take at least one bite out of.
For now this is little ol me signing off.
