In Which I Sarah Vowell My Way Through Reconciliation

Any post following or during a trip home, as some or all of you may know either from reading this blog or from blogs past, is likely to be full of condemnations of or reflections on my home life and the people who form the largest chunk of my West Haven experience. Certainly, with good reason. Its normal to not enjoy the idea of being home for an extended period. Generations of early Americans set forth westward, or outwards from their original settlements, traveling farther and farther west fueled perhaps not by religious difference or the arrogance of manifest destiny, but perhaps by a desire to get away from all that nagging.

Of course, I normalize this sentiment by talking about my general dislike for being back in West Haven, how my family is perhaps a tiny bit dysfunctional, and surrounding myself with people who also have a hard time staying back here, of all places. The tyranny of such a placement.

This trip is no different. Of course, I start with a grand premise: I'm going to give it the good old college try, and try to normalize relations as much as possible. You know, create those adult relationships I convince myself I am able to create with my brothers and father. After all, I am an otherwise functional adult with a job and life and relationship. Why should this be out of my grasp? Yet time and again, and this time before I get home from the bus terminal, I find that perhaps I do not have the patience or desire to do so. Oftentimes, this gets justified because I'm 'slipping back' into old habits of interaction, or because this is just how my family interacts. Certainly, this is not how I live my life outside of this house. I don't aim to answer these questions, or solve these problems now. In a few months, perhaps I'll be ready again, after the process of active amnesia that I seem to muddle through in the weeks and months following trips back.

These issues are made only more clear after a delightful visit to K.'s home in suburban Massachusetts. The time has passed for a comparative post on our Christmas experiences. Suffice it to say, there is no Christmas tree here. Those are the 6 words that would have summarized the whole post.

So there have been particular battles, particular issues, and other fine particulates that have more or less clogged up my dream of a trip home with adult relationships. Again, I came to the conclusion that I do not treasure my time here. Again I have resolved that it's going to be quite some time before I'm back. These are matter of course statements. My brother and I parted one year with the statement "Alright, see you when the next parent dies". As though that would be the only thing to bring us back. That is the sentiment that I feel when I drive away.

So today, I spent a lot of time in the bedroom my brother and I share when we're back. It started out going through the bookshelf, where I realized that we own a disturbing number of books. Then I traveled along the wall, and noticed more piles of books and comics. Then, my eyes wandered to the top of the bookshelf, where there were piles of books. Rounding the corner, I find this glass case, where there are spots for a TV, a DVD player, CDs along the side and maybe books in the parts on the side. Except the whole thing is stuffed with piles of books. PILES, so that more can fit inside. Ditto for those ugly Yaffa blocks my mother decided was going to organize life and NOT look like crap. Books under the bed. Everywhere.

In the closet were not books, but rather old family photos from the mid 80's and early 90s. Aside from the astonishing choices in clothing (ie my 4 year old self in a striped blue long sleeve and red running shorts), there was this other trend. Most of the pictures were either my brother and I or the two of us with my father. This is not a suprising trend, considering the make up of my family during the more formative years of my youth. However, something about the pairing, considering that was the occupancy of this house over the weekend, seemed striking.

These things are in some ways not relevant nor related. However, I came to this realization while reading The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell, that perhaps it is this shared love of reading and books that ties us together, at least in interest. It is astonishing the love of reading born of those within this household. There is a legitimate interest in literacy and love of printed material here.

To me, this is fascinating. I have yet, in 5 years of coming back, to find something about home about which I am excited. Something which we share as a family. Something that might actually inspire me back into the voracious reading I did during the summer of my senior year. I'm fascinated, and perhaps inspired, and maybe (somewhere deep in my two sizes too small heart) connected to this.