Hi all,
First, my apologies for not getting my usual articles out these last two weeks. Bill and I traveled to Key West to attend our niece’s wedding on my side of the family.
It was a bit of a big to-do and a big gathering for the family. It was a lot! I kept thinking I would have time when we were there to do work on the article I have been working on as well as working on writing in general.
But, I did not.
So, I am working on a follow up article around The Imperative of Context which I will get to y’all this weekend. In the meantime, though, I wanted to say a quick hello.
And also to write a little bit about the context of narrative and family stories. Because, I don’t know about you, but when I go to a family event, all the old family narratives really do, well, rise to the surface.
But this visit, a surprising thing happened.
In my family, I never thought the family narratives would change. I just assumed that each time I stepped into being with my brothers and the larger extended family, I would be forcible corralled into all the narratives about me, all the narratives of the family, all the narratives of our childhood.
I carried an assumption that this would never, ever change.
So, going to Key West to be with the fam for this big wedding, I carried that assumption and, in the beginning, acted accordingly. I burdened and corralled myself into the narratives before even arriving.
Though, to my credit, I was not as anxious about coming into family narratives as I have been in the past. But I did carry them for the weeks leading up to the wedding and all the way down there.
And then, when we arrived, it was different.
Not fully different and not that the narratives didn’t come into play over the five days we were there. They did. But they were not very robust. Or important. Or weighty.
For example, I went into the trip assuming, as I have always done, that my brothers would not want to spend time with me or me and Bill. I assumed we would be on our own outside of the wedding activities. So, I did not even let my brothers know our arrival date or time, did not even check in with them before we actually arrived.
So, it was a surprise when two of my brothers texted the day we arrived and said, “Are you here yet?” And, “Come meet us at the pub!”
And it continued to be a surprise when the whole weekend was like that. We had breakfasts together, did touristy things, we sat together at the welcome party and the wedding. My one brother even danced with me at the reception.
One by one, I let the narratives tumble off of my body.
And when one would try to reinstate itself, I just stepped aside. There was a moment one night when one brother got angry and tumbled into his narrative about being the outsider. He came to me and wanted me to side with him. Which, in the past, would have been my “job”, especially in this particular argument. But I didn’t take up that one. I just let him be angry and then went back to hanging out with my nephew.
And, my brother, after blowing off steam, didn’t get angry at me.
The moment passed and the hanging out continued.
~~~~~~~~
The most amazing moment was one night at dinner. The topic of our childhood came up and one of my brothers talked for a long time about what had happened in his own experience and viewpoint. It was kinda beautiful. He really summed up our experience, in his words, of what we went through and how he saw how it effected all of us. My brothers rarely talk about feelings, so I was completely floored. I even cried.
It was sweet and poignant. The underlying point of what he spoke about was how there was an assumption of love between us, no matter what had happened.
Now, just to say, none of my brothers have ever done therapy or any kind of healing work. They do not usually speak in this way.
And yet, here we were.
And there I was, being schooled about my beliefs around our family narratives by my brothers.
The night of the wedding was a total blast – Bill and I danced a lot! I felt the joy of the wedding, yes, and I was also dancing with joy about how narratives can change. And how I don’t have to carry them, even when they don’t want to change.
This is not to say that my family is healed and doing deep spiritual work with each other. We are not. My brothers are actually not interested in the kind of work I do.
But it is to say that change can happen. That narratives can change in ways that are utterly surprising. And that this is a lot.