family

I've been doing writing on my family for a "research project" on and off for the past few months. I thought I'd share some interesting moments during this research with all of you / reflect on my findings. The reason I chose to write about my family was because I felt distant from them in certain ways and hoped this project would provide some kind of a means to a stronger relationship. I also wanted to clarify some of my thoughts on family members by writing these thoughts down - I had never been able to write about my famiy in the past, at least in any coherent manner. I started the project thinking I would love to know about distant relatives and what they did - research areas in New England where my family came from - research Fall River, Massachusetts mills and the rise of industry in Pennsylvania. I lost interest in this immediately. Shifting to direct conversation with living family members, I quickly found that this was often awkward, forced, and frightening (definitely for me, if not also for the given family member). At the end of a phone call to my grandfather, now living in Pennsylvania, he said "have a nice life" provoking serious confusion in myself. After writing my grandmother about a recent trip to New York, she got defensive in her response letter (at least that's how I read it) citing all the things she had done in her past trips to New York and asking me if I had done the same. "I climbed the Statue of Liberty...did you?" After talking to my father about his grandparents, he remarked "any more questions for your writing???" This all makes sense because, throughout my entire life, I have had only limited contact with family members outside of my immediate family. I think these initial conversations and questions felt a little strange and foreign for everyone; either because we weren't used to talking on a personal basis or because I felt uncomfortable doing what, despite my best intentions, seemed to be nothing more than harvesting information from loved ones for a "research project". All of that aside, the project has helped me learn that sustained contact with many members in my family somehow makes me feel more healthy than a lack of contact does (and also, I think most of these relatives appreciate the contact). As a side note, I find it frightfully easy to prioritize other things, anything, over calling a distant (even intimate) family member. A habit I hope to break. Some fun facts about my family include: 1. my father and both of my grandfathers are / were electricians 2. my mother's brother died attempting to rescue a downed ship in the blizzard of '78 3. my father's father is one of 11 kids in his family; all 7 of his brothers were in WWII 4. my grandmother eloped with my grandfather out of high school 5. my grandfather built a house (for himself and my grandmother, right next to my grandmother's parent's house in Salem, MA) with his father in law as a means of winning him over after said unsanctioned eloping with my grandmother 6. my uncle drag raced for a living instead of college 7. my parents stole a dog from the Humane Society kennel because they couldn't wait til it opened the next day 8. my cousin is a gay opera singer who leads professional bird watching tours all over the world 9. my dad described me as "the mummy's curse" in a home video from when i was about five 10. half of my family came from Germany. the other half's back story will probably forever remain a mystery as my mother was adopted at infancy. *the picture is of a miniature card my mother wrote to her grandparents when she was a child, informing them of her loose tooth*