My Uncle Dan arrived this afternoon for two weeks, just on the tail-end of a visit from our geologist friend Greg (for whom we named two of our chickens - we did this just for kicks and to hopefully get something of a rise out of our laconic friend; it didn't work).
What symmetry the universe has provided! Greg and his field-work friend Bertrand leave for Pittsburgh (and eventually back to school in West Virginia) just as my Pennsylvania uncle arrives after a nearly 24-hour journey from the same airport.
Greg brought with him the incessant yearning for productivity (which happily included scrubbing down my kitchen but sadly did not spearhead a burning desire to finish the shambles of the Chicken Chalet). Bertrand brought with him a curious mix of Texan laissez-faire and an incroyable lack of palate that defied his French heritage. Merci, Bertrand, for your patience with the children and our mess, and your willingness to try halibut. Thank you, Greg, for your abundant charm, your carpenter craftsmanship, and the year's supply of leftover Pilot Bread and Oats 'n Honey granola bars. Uncle Dan seems to have brought fresh produce diligently wrapped in newspaper for the plane, a patience verging on enthusiasm (e.g. HE WILL WATCH THE CHILDREN), and nostalgic totems aplenty.
I'm writing this evening on the deck, while a pink sunset blazes in the east and the dying drips of an evening squall rain down on my iPad from above. A fulsome crescent moon hangs heavy in the south, and the imminent snores of my early-riser husband will soon replace the familiar thrum of the train in the valley.
Uncle Dan, or "Pappy" as he is called by his grandchildren (Theo will stick to Uncle Dan, thank you very much, as "Pappy" seems somewhat strange and too close to "Papa"), brought clothes aplenty for the children, from sequined Pittsburgh-logo dresses for the girls to hip cast-offs from older cousins (thanks, Molly!), as well as albums of old photographs and documents for my mom to look through, and the actual handwritten recipes and hand-sewn kitchen aprons and "French crumb butler and brush" from my Grandmother Kay for me.
The aprons smell of old lady (Oil of Olay and a faint whiff of mildew is my only fabricated memory of my grandma - but sometimes if I concentrate, I remember her sugar cookie and yeast bouquet). The French crumb butler is delightful and Art Deco and I am going to use it every chance I get on this undeserving and falling-apart IKEA dining room table. Not since my father's cousin Jean Richards had sent me a post-wedding gift of cast-off tableware from my paternal grandmother Genevieve, have I felt such a longing for and connection to family. Candleholder, gingham apron, mitochondrial DNA. As a nuclear ion floating through a sea of complex molecules, family resonates with me and compels me to seek others. Uncles, aunts, and cousins matter, rare as rubies.
Which is why - and forgive me, modern world and reality - I sometimes admit to entertaining the notion of perhaps having just ONE MORE CHILD. Oh! Ha. Ha haha ha. That was just a silly little lark I entertained for one moment. We wouldn't REALLY be considering another child (no, seriously, we aren't - there is in fact the very serious and yet quite commonplace matter of a wee small bit of surgery in John's future). But the dream of cousins upon cousins and uncles and aunts aplenty sometimes woos me to contemplate a future where siblings abound for Theo, Nell, and Lula (YES, I KNOW, SIBLINGS ALREADY DO ABOUND) before the incessant demands of reality (ugh, the whining of two three-year-olds) weigh in to sway me from my path.
Which is why - and forgive me, modern world and reality - for beginning two different paragraphs and two completely different thoughts with the same opener - not only am I headed to Seattle in November for my birthday, and again in January for Shostakovich, I am also going to the Mexican Riviera with Jen and Sarah in March. Just kidding, John! I was just just testing to see if you were still reading (Jen - I'll get back to you; John - let's discuss?) ... which is why, maybe my fourth child needs to be something more along the lines of Athena emerging from the head of Zeus, more like the rekindling of a fire project on low charcoal hold - and maybe it's been on hold for more years than I can count. Maybe it's printmaking, which has been on the back-burner like a needy kettle of water for tea since college; or maybe it's music, which has been in and out of my life like a shadow on a blazing sunny, thunderstorm-drenched day. Or maybe I am already saturated in burning words, and flammable like the Osculum Infamé that John brought home in a growler to appease a girl on a day of bitter busy-ness.
