Due to various circumstances in years past, I hadn’t attended the family reunion on my mother’s side in nearly ten years. This year, all the stars aligned and I made it–late, but better than never.
Perhaps more accurate, “delayed.” Everything about this vacation back home had me wait past the time I expected something to happen: my airport shuttle, the check-in line, the connecting flight, my sister picking me up from the final airport. I’d love to credit the accumulated mindfulness of yoga practice for not being annoyed the entire time, but that was only part of it.
The impromptu conversations I had along the way, truly made the journey, starting with the three strangers who shared the airport shuttle. Apparently, one of them took long in getting her things together and caused the delay in picking me up. Any irritation or anxiety I had about making to the airport on time, quickly disappeared when one of them asked me, “What are the amenities at this apartment complex?”
That innocent question snowballed into a gentrification rant on my part, including the historical context of how people of color were forced to live on the East side with I-35 being the dividing line between whites and POC.
They all turned out to be in the Real Estate business, but none of them were agents. They’d attended a conference in Austin and were headed back to New York. Yet, they shared similar stories of racial divide and gentrification with the bonus addition of family residences, being sold for less than what they were worth to big-time Real Estate developers, changing the demographics of the neighborhood.
The driver, who’d joined in the conversation (after all, we were all POC), had assured me that given the time of day, the delay in arriving at the airport wouldn’t be a problem because there was no crowd at that time. Too bad no one told Delta Airlines.
I rolled up to a self check-in kiosk, typed in my information, paid a ridiculous fee for my checked luggage, printed out my boarding passes, and then noticed the tag for the suitcase was missing. I looked around, saw the line to the Delta counter, heard a cat meowing, then looked back at the kiosk, and back at the line. As my sense of logic wrestled with the reality of the situation, I noticed that half the people in line already had their boarding passes. Logic lost the wrestling match.
I entertained myself by people-watching when I saw a guy who wore the same expression I imagined I’d worn after printing out my boarding passes. “Yes,” I said, answering the question mostly like floating in his mind, “you DO have to wait in this line even though you just checked in.” We both laughed at the illogicalness of it all.
I didn’t exactly race to the security line, but whatever time I saved was negated by the line I chose to stand in to have my things X-rayed. When the TSA worker checked my passport, I joked that I was there to receive wine and chocolate. At least she had a sense of humor.
Even the TSA worker I encountered after going through the metal detector was in a good mood. “Happy Juneteenth!” he greeting me, reading my T-shirt. I bumped fists with him. (Who actually enjoys going through security like that?)
I regrouped, putting my laptop back in its case and my shoes on, then I dashed to my gate after a quick stop to the bathroom. I arrived to the boarding process already in progress. Instead of having group numbers, Delta boards by categories, which seemed over the top, given how small the plane was.
I joined a woman at a nearby table, who happened to be assigned to the same row as me. We laughed at the fact that she was listed as “Main 1,” or some such shit and I was listed as “Basic.” Essentially, “Basic” meant I’d board last. She remained with me until my category was called.
Our conversation leapfrogged around such topics as racial bias, privilege within the deaf/disability hierarchy, immigration injustice. I’d convinced the guy who sat beside me take the window seat so she and I could talk across the aisle, which wasn’t a loud conversation since the aisle was so narrow that two beer-bellied men could scarcely pass one another coming and going to the bathroom. We noted the challenge when one man loudly said to the other, “OK, we both gotta suck in our guts!”
We talked to one another the entire time, but she initially feared I’d talk to my seat partner when he stated that he was a music therapist. Imagine the richness of conversation we could have had if that guy wasn’t so determined to sleep on the plane.
We wished one another well once we hit Cincinnati. I did my usual layover routine: bathroom, bar food, booze. As good fortune would have it, I struck up another good conversation with a guy at the bar. I enticed him into a really good conversation after giving him my business card, which advertised the spoken word and storytelling show that I produce. One theme, “Too Woke Insomniac,” intrigued him.
What an invitation to discuss the extremes of political correctness and the lack thereof. We agreed that both political left and right have become too polarized to be rational. I even included the bonus conversation about how many poor and working class whites consistently act against their own self-interest due to racial resentment.
The only example I had time to touch upon was how white men commit suicide by gun more than any other demographic, mainly because the gun industry heavily markets to them. White men who previously showed no signs of depression, will undergo a crisis–as what normally happens a few times in life–and impulsively reach for their gun. I pointed out that if black people encouraged white men to buy guns, knowing the statistics, we’d be accused of being racist, but the white community says virtually nothing about being targeted by gun makers. Even cigarettes come with warning labels.
Not only did he agree, but admitted that he was a gun owner who believed in common sense gun control and that the most conservative whites have a low tolerance for discussing the bad consequences of guns.
At that point, I had to pay up and head toward my gate. Yet, I enjoyed my delayed layover, thanks to that meaningful conversation.
Once I landed at Reagan International Airport, I had another good stretch of time to sit and read while my sister and her kids worked their way through a traffic jam. What a coincidence that as I read about Siddhartha rebelling against his father and family wealth to live a beggar’s life, I sat outside during a sprinkling of rain without much a care in the world.
At that point, the vacation had truly begun. All the meaningful conversations I’d had didn’t quite seem like the start of vacation since I do that on a regular basis. Sitting outside in the rain, albeit under a shelter, while reading seemed like the vacation.
Once my sister and her kids picked me up, that’s when the family reunion started. I loved the car ride home since I got to first catch up with a few family members at a time.
The next day, my sister’s family and I trekked several hours to the hotel where we normally stay during the Strange Family Reunion. The first day of our 3-day celebration is always the fish fry.
My extended family acted as if I’d been away for a much longer time that it felt to me. Some reactions reminded me of UFO sightings: not believing their eyes at what they were seeing.
One of my sisters and a 1st cousin, who were both members of the Strange Family Historical Committee,
recruited me to help update the family tree during and after the fish fry. Essentially, we snagged one of our relatives to write down as much information as they knew about their branch of the family tree.
My uncle, mother, sister and many others not pictured above,
all hailed from the Floyd Strange branch, which is one of twelve from the Strange family. From those twelve, our extended family has proliferated.
I’m more like my Great Aunt Gracie, who never had any children. I never met her, but to hear it from my mother, I have a temperament just like her. So in a way, I feel that I’m her child. She was married for about a month. By that, I don’t mean that she divorced him; she just couldn’t stand living with him and left. I, on the other hand, have never married, but would be more open to that if I didn’t have to live with him. Aunt Gracie definitely had the right idea.
This was the second year
that an African dance troupe performed at our family reunion. Brought back memories of when I used to take African dance in college and in my 20s.
As impressive as the troupe was,
I loved seeing this young woman holding down the bass line, a traditional male role.
After their performance, they invited members of my extended family to join in.
I tried to get my nieces and nephew to get up and join in. If they were less respectful, they would’ve said, “Hell no, Aunt Teresa!” As par for the course, my mother, who sat at the elder table, sent one of my cousins over to where I sat to relay the message that she wanted to me to get up and dance. I wasn’t about to wear out my gimp leg with some one-off physical exertion that it hadn’t been conditioned to do.
Yet, I redeemed myself hours later when I co-emceed the fashion show. The same sister who’d recruited me to help update the family tree, recruited me for the fashion show. Another cousin announced who was about to walk down the catwalk, and then I said the first thing that would come to mind–minus the curse words.
I kept the audience of friends and relatives laughing the entire time. Since we never rehearsed anything to begin with, even the models had no idea what I was going to say. Several times, my co-emcee would be so entertained by my commentary that my sister had to remind her to announce the next model. The models themselves would start laughing so much they could hardly finish their walk.
I’d love to co-emcee for next year, but I want to up the ante. I’d love to show them a short clip or something that I’ve made as a filmmaker. I noticed a screen at the shelter. I’m going to see how to make that happen–along with the other balls I’m juggling.