Easy to Get to, Hard to Leave

I am swinging to Ella singing All The Things You Are. You are the angel glow that lights the stars, the dearest things I know are what you are....

I am listening to Ella to drown out the song Love The Way You Lie, by Eminem that’s still playing in my head after listening to it, hmm, maybe 5 times this weekend. Angel glow dissipates violence, or so I’d like to think. I rode up North to Alexandria, Minnesota to my family reunion with my oldest daughter, Kathleen, and her two sons, Elliot and Max (ages 13 and 8); and they like Hip Hop. There’s not much music I don’t like, but I don’t like Hip Hop and I don’t like violent song lyrics. But there I was, in the front seat of Kathleen’s White Malibu Maxx, listening to Eminem sing about tying his love to the bedpost and burning down the house. Great. (Ella has now given way to Elton John’s Come Down in Time.)

I was grateful for my daughter to drive, but had forgotten what road trips with kids in the back seat were like. The poking, the bickering, even the exasperated cries of “How many more miles?” Especially on the way home, tired of swimming, boating and fishing; hungry because someone missed lunch due to too much fun. “I will die back here if I don’t get food in 10 minutes.” So we find a drive through Taco John’s, only to not get back on 94 and then get stuck in traffic going back to ‘the cities’ at 10 miles an hour.

At one point, I lost my temper, and swore at Max (the youngest), which resulted in tears (on his part). He had scared me when he opened the car door after threatening to ‘jump out.’ Fortunately, we were stuck in traffic only going 10 miles an hour. Amazing how fast one can lose their cool in the right (or wrong) set of circumstances. I think I was channeling my dad. This was after I’d turned over the driving to Kathleen who demanded her car keys back after I lost them (only briefly) having set them down in the restroom in a Best Buy in St. Cloud. I swore then, too, but only to myself. (Kathleen had promised Elliot we’d stop on the way back so he could use the gift card he’d been hanging onto since Christmas.) Someone had turned the keys in, and we were back on our way home.

Alexandria, Easy to Get to, Hard to Leave the billboard sign claims, on the way in on 94. Mostly true, we missed the mapquest directions for the first turn off, towards Osakis, and ended up all the way into Alex and then had to turn back. The reunion was at my brother and his wife’s home, on Lake Jessie, not exactly in Alexandria, but close. We drove through Alex, "Oh, look, there’s the AmericInn, but we’ll stop there after we get to the lake." Max was more interested in getting to the hotel pool than the reunion.

There were lots of choices for fun at my brother’s lake place. My brother had often invited me and my kids to his home, and I just never found the time before. I’m sad about that, the missed opportunities to have gotten to know him and his family better, to have shown my girls how to have some fun together as a family, back when it seemed like we were so isolated in Owatonna. Back when we could have used some family support and fun. Well, we were there now, with my grandsons in tow.

All my daughters came up, and that was amazing. At the last minute, my youngest, Megan, decided to ride up with us, and my middle daughter, Erin & her partner Andy with baby Audrey, drove up for the day also. Megan rode back with Erin & Andy. This was the first family reunion of only my family. We had a reunion last year, but that included cousins, and even second cousins (people I didn’t know). There are 8 of us kids, and only my mom now, since my dad died 8 years ago. 7 of the 8 of us showed up, with their kids and grandkids, and so there were plenty of people. The only sib missing was my brother who lives in Alaska. He had been in Alex in the spring.

My brother’s home is right on the lake, with a dock for swimming and fishing and three boats. There were small pools for the little kids, and yard games. Plenty of great food. Later in the afternoon, Erin and I took a long boat ride. I am not necessarily an outdoorsy type, but it was fun to be on the water, and when I confided to Erin that I got a bit scared when we went fast, she said, ‘It’s ok to be scared.’ We encourage and support each other as needed. That’s what family does.

This reunion was bittersweet, like life. My brother Steve, who hosted us, has cancer. He’s looking good, and is as sweet and kind and generous as he’s ever been. He and his wife Brenda have a wonderful home, this place on the lake. Beautiful kids, and wonderful grandkids. They’ve lived life the way most of us dream of. Brenda confided to me that she loved my brother more now than she ever did. That was when Brenda, Kathleen and I went to Carlos Creek Winery before we headed home on Sunday.

We tasted wine and walked around the pretty grounds and had a chance to talk. It was good. We talked a little about the things that Steve had shared with Brenda about how harsh my dad had been when we were growing up. It was true. My dad had mellowed with age, but he didn’t spare the strap when we were young. This painful past plays a counterpoint to the beautiful day and the wind in the trees. Brenda had hoped we could stay one more night, “Go home tomorrow, you’re not working tomorrow are you?” Hard to leave, but I had to. Even though I taken the day off, I had two meetings on Monday, and then a full week of work and trying to grow my private practice.

Alexandria, was easy to get to, and hard to leave, like much of life. Like hard and painful memories that get stuck, easy to get to, hard to leave. I am home now, Kathleen on her trip up on Saturday morning had returned my computer that I’d left at her house a week ago. Settling back into my familiar life. Thoughts still at the family reunion, with my sibs, all our lives in different places than when we were kids growing up together. Movin on again, to bluer skies, to ripples on the water. To Ella, singing, “You are the angel glow....”