Saturday, September 16, 2006

play by play: part 4, the people we see

On the second full day of my visit, my "favorite" aunt and uncle drove up from their home in suburban Atlanta, bringing along my two "favorite" cousins, who are now sixteen and eighteen years old. I remember my aunt and uncle as a young couple, when I was just a kid. My aunt had just come back east from living a few years in Arizona and, in my mind, that made her pretty worldly. She met and married my uncle, a vietnam vet with a wicked sense of humor and a beard, and to me they seemed like the best kind of couple. They wore matching fatigue pants and t-shirts and went on adventures together, traveling and camping and talking about books. They seemed casual, adventurous and smart. I thought they were great.

Now that they are in their 50's and have two nearly grown kids and now that I am in my 30's and have a slightly different perspective on life, I think they suck. It turns out that, in addition to being funny and outdoorsy, they were also fundamentalist christians and really conservative, more and more so with each passing year. Wow. I spent a little time on this trip arguing with my uncle about taxes (he supports a porposal to do away with all taxes and the IRS, and to impose a flat, 26% sales tax on *everything* to make up the difference -- he does not see how that disproportionately screws poor people and disproportionately boosts rich people), and I got to listen to my bug-eyed aunt cackling about how "stupid" and "shortsighted" these liberals are who want to "negotiate" with terrorists rather than continue our military presence in Iraq. What she was saying made so little sense, I couldn't begin to argue, but I did wonder how a woman married to a Vietnam Vet could miss the parallels between Iraq and that other unwinnable "military operation" (or whatever euphamism they called it at the time).

Then my enormously obese cousin Cathy came over with her brood of illegitimate children and left one of them behind for us to hang out with. The one she left, Katie, is seven and medicated with ritalin because she is supposedly hyperactive. I guess, compared to her mother, she might be. But compared to any other seven year old, she seemed pretty normal. She's very smart, very precocious and probably hard for a lazy, lethargic mother to manage. So the obvious solution is medication. We all piled into my grandmother's ancient mini-van (a relic from the days when my grandfather was still alive and needed something big to drive his giant oxygen unit around in) and drove a couple of miles up the road to the Black Rock State Park, which is up on top of Black Rock Mountain and provides a gorgeous view of mountains and the valley below. Margie forgot her cane, so I walked around with her arm-in-arm and we had a pretty decent time.

Later, more aunts and uncles came over and we went out to dinner at a new restaurant featuring, of course, hearty Southern fare. I ate a hamburger. So much hearty Southern fare was already backing up in my intestines and refusing to proceed. The next morning, my aunt made biscuits and chocolate gravy (a family favorite) for breakfast and that only added to the cement in my guts. But, if you've never had it, biscuits and chocolate gravy is quite a treat. I learned that morning that my aunt is on anti-depressants which she believes are necessary because her chemicals are so out of balance she can't, otherwise, be happy. I think it's her fucking conservative, fundamentalist, consumerist *life* that's so out of balance, but what do I know? I know it takes more than a pill to cure misery.

A couple of days later, my dad and stepmother drove me up to the top of another mountain to see my stepmother's family. As much as my stepmother is an evil snake, her family is sweet and kind. They're all just simple mountain people. Hillbillies, in fact. Like the Beverly Hillbillies, but w/o the Beverly. My dad and stepmom dropped me off in her mother's kitchen while they went out to mow the yard and I sat for almost an hour trying to keep up conversation with a very sweet woman who had never been further than fifty miles away from that house her whole life. Fortunately, my stepmother's brother Doug was there too and between the two of them they managed to keep each other entertained and they didn't ask me too many questions. Doug had a huge bucket of grapes from his vines and was working on picking them off their stems and collecting them all in a giant glass jug to make wine. I used to have a little crush on Doug when I was really young and I watched him with his shaved head and his uber-fluffy, Sam Eliot moustache, and laughed to myself at this man who is apparently the origin of my attraction to the kind of guys who hang out in leather bars -- this sweet mountain man who would be a big hit at the Dirty Duck back in Portland.

He got up after a few minutes to get himself an ear of pickled corn. He offered me one and I gladly accepted. I'd never had pickled corn and it was really tasty, though I knew they were both watching me, the city girl, to see if I'd really like it, if I'd really eat it. I did and I did. Pretty soon it was time to go and I wasn't sad to leave them. They're so sweet but there's absolutely nothing for me there and I have no idea why I keep agreeing to go back to visit. That's a feeling I'm starting to have about the rest of my family. Why bother? What do I get out of all those visits? I learn more and more how hopeless they all are, how different I am from them. Why keep torturing myself and wasting a lot of money on airfare to do it? It doesn't make any sense.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your "play-by-play" analysis of your trip to Georgia is a lot less interesting than I expected. You come across as a whiner and malcontent, and if you dislike these people so badly why the hell did you visit them in the first place? Grow up.

11:47 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The reason you go back is because on frighteningly basic level, these are the only people who really know/understand where you come from. They're family, and they're fucked up, but they're *your* family. At least, this is why I keep visiting mine.

And anonymous needs to go pound sand.

1:42 PM  
Blogger reasonably prudent poet said...

thanks shelley. :-) though i'm not sure what "pound sand" means, it definitely doesn't sound fun.

i go back for three reasons: 1.) because as crazy as my grandmother is, i love her a lot and she's old and i'll be sad when she's gone, 2.) because i still feel guilty for disappointing my dad who has been waiting for me to come live with him since the day he and my mom divorced (but not guilty enough to actually go live there), and 3.) to try and "figure it all out," whatever "it all" is -- to try and figure out how my experiences there shaped me and also to try to understand certain things about those people who seem so far away from me, my beliefs and my experiences.

in the liberal utopia of portland, lefty type people are pretty isolated from their red-state brethren and i consider my family a pretty good window into the hearts and minds of red-state type people. what i see through that window is scary. but most scary is the possibility that i will realize i am exactly like them, only liberal. the more i learn about them and why they drive me nuts, the more i learn about how i can be a better version of the person i want to be.

1:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As I said, grow up.

2:49 PM  
Blogger stumptown dreamer said...

"grow up"
grow up
grow up

seems so simple when written or mulled over like a mantra
it implies there is potential, an estimated size of maturity, a span of branches, a quantity of fruit...

i like the seeing of potential - the hope for "interesting" as part of the analysis of any of our trips through life...

there is so much potential locked in all of our stories, understanding "where we are coming from", where we are going towards, these are questions and dreamings beyond any linear travels or family systems.

nice discussion

9:07 AM  

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