![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Friday, July 30th, 2010 01:02 pm
welcome to thunderdome: beach edition
The best and worst things about vacations are family. Which is universal, true: vacations aren't vacations if there isn't one drag-down-knock-out before bonding over crab legs, and I'll be honest, our record is far higher than that.
The more people around the better, as far as I'm concerned. Sure, the potential for explosions rises exponentially with the number of people related by blood or marriage in a given space, but it inverses for the amount of time it takes to get to the cool-off period, and the more people, the more food and the more people to cook it and eat it, which also escalates our meals until breakfast involves three separate meats and five kinds of eggs while everyone argues over the best way to cook the potatoes and someone offers pancakes and sourdough toast. You can't be mad while eating your weight in food; the human condition isn't meant for that kind of stress.
Growing up in a volatile family means personalitywise, you are guaranteed to go through many phases of reaction/counterreaction, from embracing high-volatility yourself to reduction sulks in true passive-aggressive style. I've spent the last couple of years in sulk/appease/avoid (once I owned my first laptop, I embraced sulk/avoid like whoa), but my middle sister, who totally imagines herself the calm, cool, logical one, is possibly the most volatile of us all. Nitroglycerin only looks calm until you light a match, and she lives in a world of open fires.
We don't like each other--there's no way we could, our personalities are contradictory and our interests too different, and neither of us know how to bend for each other--but love has so little to do with liking someone it's irrelevant most of the time. It's one of the things about family that's inevitable and kind of ruefully welcomed; outside of betrayal, abuse, violence, emotional devastation, family is the one place that liking someone is the least important thing about them.
Vacations are no-fault explosions as well--it's hard to hold grudges when you're in the middle of a fantasy sequence, complete with crashing waves and bright sun and surrounded in the detritus of towels and small children, which I think is something we need badly in the family. Child's thirteen and Niece is nearly nine, but Niece2 and Nephew are two and we have many years to enjoy burying them in sand, chasing them in waves, building sand structures for them to fall into, carry them into swimming pools and trying to force into naps. Like my dad, I grew up in a family with tons of uncles and aunts, greats, cousins, relatives untyped, and one of the many reasons I've stayed is that I want Child to have the same thing, with the constant friendship and rivalries and stimulation of being around people you may never have chosen as friends but you have no choice but to love beyond reason, that you may sometimes hate and will always catch when they stumble and help them up when they fall.
We're surprisingly child-oriented as a family, too; it's not something I think about often, because the images it invokes are ridiculously mundane and repetitive, sixties television, child-safe, too-careful, boring. My family, not so much; I spent most of my childhood in a variety of bars before my family owned one, but rural bars aren't city bars; the dynamic is completely different. Sunday turkey-shoots, where the afternoon would be spent with the men competitively shooting pieces of paper while the women stayed inside like sensible human beings and talked about their lives and affairs and the kids ran in and out in screaming, laughing packs, sent on stealth missions for quarters and snacks and sodas, because I was one hell of a tactician and I knew which parents ran open tabs and which didn't (mine did; we were careful to spread the burden out, though). There were few places as a kid that my parents didn't take us, and their friends were the same, and weekend long parties with daily keg deliveries and two day poker and craps were common growing up. We owned some property near a lake and weekends were spent there with sixty plus family and friends filling up the small place and no one was sober at Sunday morning breakfasts. Later, when we moved onto the property, we had the parties at the lakefront itself, fishing and swimming and boating and waving at the people on the other side. And kegs. So many kegs.
Our weddings and funerals were epic; that's when we'd be quiet and listen to our parents as the gossip came out to play, voices quiet or far too loud and only sometimes terrible but all so fascinatingly true.
So today, I woke up to my mom and sister having an explosive confrontation with the condo management people; my sister is nitroglycerin but my mom is C4, and someone put them together and then shook them up but good. I don't remember the complaints and ducked beneath the covers so I wouldn't have to listen. When the voices died away, I smelled chorizo and eggs and potatoes cooking on the stove and realized someone went shopping this morning. I yelled at my sister about upsetting the management; she threatened to throw salt in my face if she could find it. Everyone drew lines and took sides and prepared themselves to be mean, because family isn't family if five unforgivable things aren't said and a lifetime of fights and grudges aren't dragged out and aired.
Then the chorizo was done.
I'm not sure anyone remembers we were fighting, much less what we were fighting about, carrying tortilla-wrapped goodness from room to room as plans were made. Everyone split for beach time or shopping time or rest time while I went outside to enjoy the shade, sunscreen myself until I smell of chemical coconuts, and prep myself for winter-white skin meeting the full strength of a Texas July on the coast. That's totally not happening until dusk, by the way. From my spot on the porch, the ocean glimmers in turquoise with sudden breaks of foam white and fades green when it meets the powder blue horizon and the sky seems to have never met a cloud.
The chorizo, I must say, was excellent. As everyone went on their merry way, no one asked me why I couldn't stop laughing.
The more people around the better, as far as I'm concerned. Sure, the potential for explosions rises exponentially with the number of people related by blood or marriage in a given space, but it inverses for the amount of time it takes to get to the cool-off period, and the more people, the more food and the more people to cook it and eat it, which also escalates our meals until breakfast involves three separate meats and five kinds of eggs while everyone argues over the best way to cook the potatoes and someone offers pancakes and sourdough toast. You can't be mad while eating your weight in food; the human condition isn't meant for that kind of stress.
Growing up in a volatile family means personalitywise, you are guaranteed to go through many phases of reaction/counterreaction, from embracing high-volatility yourself to reduction sulks in true passive-aggressive style. I've spent the last couple of years in sulk/appease/avoid (once I owned my first laptop, I embraced sulk/avoid like whoa), but my middle sister, who totally imagines herself the calm, cool, logical one, is possibly the most volatile of us all. Nitroglycerin only looks calm until you light a match, and she lives in a world of open fires.
We don't like each other--there's no way we could, our personalities are contradictory and our interests too different, and neither of us know how to bend for each other--but love has so little to do with liking someone it's irrelevant most of the time. It's one of the things about family that's inevitable and kind of ruefully welcomed; outside of betrayal, abuse, violence, emotional devastation, family is the one place that liking someone is the least important thing about them.
Vacations are no-fault explosions as well--it's hard to hold grudges when you're in the middle of a fantasy sequence, complete with crashing waves and bright sun and surrounded in the detritus of towels and small children, which I think is something we need badly in the family. Child's thirteen and Niece is nearly nine, but Niece2 and Nephew are two and we have many years to enjoy burying them in sand, chasing them in waves, building sand structures for them to fall into, carry them into swimming pools and trying to force into naps. Like my dad, I grew up in a family with tons of uncles and aunts, greats, cousins, relatives untyped, and one of the many reasons I've stayed is that I want Child to have the same thing, with the constant friendship and rivalries and stimulation of being around people you may never have chosen as friends but you have no choice but to love beyond reason, that you may sometimes hate and will always catch when they stumble and help them up when they fall.
We're surprisingly child-oriented as a family, too; it's not something I think about often, because the images it invokes are ridiculously mundane and repetitive, sixties television, child-safe, too-careful, boring. My family, not so much; I spent most of my childhood in a variety of bars before my family owned one, but rural bars aren't city bars; the dynamic is completely different. Sunday turkey-shoots, where the afternoon would be spent with the men competitively shooting pieces of paper while the women stayed inside like sensible human beings and talked about their lives and affairs and the kids ran in and out in screaming, laughing packs, sent on stealth missions for quarters and snacks and sodas, because I was one hell of a tactician and I knew which parents ran open tabs and which didn't (mine did; we were careful to spread the burden out, though). There were few places as a kid that my parents didn't take us, and their friends were the same, and weekend long parties with daily keg deliveries and two day poker and craps were common growing up. We owned some property near a lake and weekends were spent there with sixty plus family and friends filling up the small place and no one was sober at Sunday morning breakfasts. Later, when we moved onto the property, we had the parties at the lakefront itself, fishing and swimming and boating and waving at the people on the other side. And kegs. So many kegs.
Our weddings and funerals were epic; that's when we'd be quiet and listen to our parents as the gossip came out to play, voices quiet or far too loud and only sometimes terrible but all so fascinatingly true.
So today, I woke up to my mom and sister having an explosive confrontation with the condo management people; my sister is nitroglycerin but my mom is C4, and someone put them together and then shook them up but good. I don't remember the complaints and ducked beneath the covers so I wouldn't have to listen. When the voices died away, I smelled chorizo and eggs and potatoes cooking on the stove and realized someone went shopping this morning. I yelled at my sister about upsetting the management; she threatened to throw salt in my face if she could find it. Everyone drew lines and took sides and prepared themselves to be mean, because family isn't family if five unforgivable things aren't said and a lifetime of fights and grudges aren't dragged out and aired.
Then the chorizo was done.
I'm not sure anyone remembers we were fighting, much less what we were fighting about, carrying tortilla-wrapped goodness from room to room as plans were made. Everyone split for beach time or shopping time or rest time while I went outside to enjoy the shade, sunscreen myself until I smell of chemical coconuts, and prep myself for winter-white skin meeting the full strength of a Texas July on the coast. That's totally not happening until dusk, by the way. From my spot on the porch, the ocean glimmers in turquoise with sudden breaks of foam white and fades green when it meets the powder blue horizon and the sky seems to have never met a cloud.
The chorizo, I must say, was excellent. As everyone went on their merry way, no one asked me why I couldn't stop laughing.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
From:The way you describe the seashore is so vivid and real--I wish you all the sand and sun and surf and sloth you can possibly absorb.
(- reply to this
- link
)
no subject
From:Hmmm. I could count on two hands the total number of times I've seen my cousins (and I'm twenty-eight). Mostly, visiting cousins was trying to be a little polite, trying not to make waves, and waiting until you could get home and just be normal again (not overly polite and girly like Aunty Paula's girls; not wild and free like Uncle Albie's kids).
The hilarious thing is that I remember cousins being these really different kids that had nothing in common with me except blood. Now we're all adults, the differences seem to have melted away and we're all fairly average. But it's not that close, loving, extended family.
When I was younger, I thought I'd want that for my kids -- the big family, the constant contact, the having other adults you can rely on and turn to -- but as I get older, I realise I don't like my life that way (I live interstate from the only brother I have, and I don't go out of my way to see him), so it probably won't.
(- reply to this
- link
)
no subject
From:Then the chorizo was done.
Hahaha this is so true. My husband finds my family utterly baffling, because he's used to everyone more-or-less getting along and agreeing with each other (which is the part *I* find a little weird)
(- reply to this
- link
)
no subject
From:Also, for some reason, I didn't know Texas had a coast. I'm not very well up on US geography.
(- reply to this
- thread
- link
)
no subject
From:I think about the first time I was in Galveston and looking at the water, that not that long ago, my family saw it for the first time, too, and what it must have meant for them to stand on Texas soil after crossing the Atlantic.
(- reply to this
- parent
- top thread
- link
)
Welcome to the coast
From:(- reply to this
- thread
- link
)
Re: Welcome to the coast
From:*sighs* I could sit here forever.
(- reply to this
- parent
- top thread
- link
)
no subject
From:(- reply to this
- thread
- link
)
no subject
From:It's hard to explain, totally, and my family coming from German immigrant stock means we vary between stoic (sulking) and then explosion (shock and awe has nothing on this). Then all is made better with large piles of food. At any given time, if someone will just start cooking something, then it sets off food-related amnesia; by the time the plates are empty, no one remembers what was going on.
I just checked and every pantry here is stuffed with food. *grins* We're totally ready for this.
(- reply to this
- parent
- top thread
- link
)
no subject
From:(- reply to this
- thread
- link
)
no subject
From:(- reply to this
- parent
- top thread
- link
)
no subject
From:(- reply to this
- link
)
no subject
From:Well, but I've got Dragon*Con coming up. Sadly no beach involved, but at least I'll get to run around in a corset wearing fancy goggles and admiring the other costumes.
(- reply to this
- link
)
no subject
From:I would hate it with a passion. My husband's family was always grudge-unforgivable, keep in the hate for years kind of thing. Even with a beach.
Ah families.
(- reply to this
- link
)
no subject
From:(- reply to this
- link
)
no subject
From:but i'm just amazed by big connected families like yours! i think i'd go nuts, though i've often thought that i'd like to be in a relationship with someone who had a big loud family...as long as we had some space between us most of the time *g*. my family vacations were usually to my mom's mom, who lived in a tiny ex-natural gas town in northeast wyoming. just me and my parents and grandma.
a very lengthy way of saying keep the thunderdome reports coming ;)
(- reply to this
- link
)
no subject
From:I'm from a huge, loving, extended family. (I'm - quite honestly - on first names how-are-the-kids basis with my third cousins). my family is HUGE - at 5'7" I'm considered petite - and loud and very huggy. My husband is one of 7 children.
I love family get-togethers.
And I'm glad when they're over, because they're exhausting.
(- reply to this
- link
)
no subject
From:(- reply to this
- link
)
no subject
From:(- reply to this
- link
)