Family Matters

" A dysfunctional family is any family that has more than one member in it. " 

- quote of a beloved Chang family friend

Family comes in many forms

Sigh. That cheeky friend of my family, who as a social worker has likely worked with every kind of family configuration possible to assemble, gets it. There is nothing like the word "family" to launch any range of possible reactions. I mean, think about it, what comes to your mind when hearing that word yourself? Who appears in your minds' eye, what are they doing, how old are you, and what does your physical reaction tell you? As a typical human, there is probably the expected flood of emotions: memory, nostalgia, a mental smile, pangs of regret, loss or wistfulness. Feelings of happiness, gratitude and optimism for more times to come. Maybe feelings of missing someone so much it pokes at unexpected places. Maybe its a reminder that its someones' birthday today and/or its time to call them back. Perhaps its time to unclench those fists and/or stop swearing.

In this year of transition, a significant amount of my life has been devoted to reconnecting with my immediate nuclear family, my extended family and all the loved ones in that campsite. I'm lucky to have my Mom and Pop around to enjoy them, and to have them, as Pop Chang says, "live for bugging you from morning to night" be it in person, skype or cell phone. Such fun to be part of the Aunty brigade to my delightful 5 year old niece and nephew. Hillary Clinton was right --it does take a village to raise a child in that there are all kinds of support systems available to my brother and his wife due to having their families within very close proximity. And they generously envelop us all in their sprouting unit.

One thing about being back home around family is that, well, you are around them. There is a breathing room that provides a more relaxed environment of really actually getting to know people again, to see who they have become and how that reconciles with the memory of who they've been while I've been overseas. For example, my brother has always been a natural athlete. He was the one who, when we were in early elementary school, would dash towards our backyard fence, leap towards the top and just amble over it. I, on the other hand, would skip towards it, stop, and look up and down the fence to see where there might be a gate entrance to pry open. Not a fan of the "leap and lower" method. Kai just dashes into the gym and gets going. I approach, consider, and then make my move after contemplation. No pure diving into the spin class for me. I ask about the instructor's general level of torture first. Kai has already completed his lower body workout by then.

Fast forward several decades later, and I again appreciate that natural athleticism in my brother. How? Let's see...as a school principal, his workday starts about 7am. By that time, Mr Kai Chang Principal has already likely done the following: gotten up about 345am, skipped off to the gym for a good hour long weight workout, showered, dressed, maybe baked some salmon fillets for lunch (yes, you read that correctly) and is ready to help his kidlets get ready for school etc.  Come weekend, well, the surf is best usually around 6am so he can be found peering at the waves in the beach pier parking lot, looking for the best spot (and very likely rode his bike down with his board strapped to his bike...what's a little more cardio in the grand scheme of things?!)  On a weekend in So Cal, lots of folks are calling it a night around the time he's dropping his board into the water.  So at least my brother is still himself. It's good to know with all the change in the world, some things stay safely predictable.

There's such a nice pacing to reconnecting with family again after years of condensed and intense home leave visits. No longer do we need to jam everything into a few weeks of high impact sprints before the long haul trots of waiting 6 more months to see each other: nope! No more last night nostalgic dinners before checking in the next day for a trans pacific flight and managing skype calls. No more pangs of somehow feeling like I'm missing out on some undefined broader sense of my own personal development and experience, of being the only one not part of the larger family unit that is literally in the same place. 

How lovely it is, to just say, "see you tomorrow " and to have it be true day after day.

And of course, proximity breeds even more familiarity and those chestnuts of family dynamics. We all know how someone can just call us and have *that mood* conveyed over the phone in about 10 seconds. People around us, well, they also know us. I am sure that for my family, having me back is also a transition due to seeing who I have become, on a daily basis. Remembering our individual pacing styles; Mom takes 3 seconds in between questions, Pop takes many more and my pacing depends on the time of day. I can at times think my brother's not been listening to me at all, then he pipes up with a gem of an observational statement that lets me know he's been tapped in the whole time. He's just been quiet --which some people would call good LISTENING! How's that for a newsflash!

Are there flip sides to such proximity? How much time is there to discuss that. Boundaries get challenged, life and little choices get evaluated with "a look" ... ("oh, you're wearing that to the cold beach tonight?"..."Do you think it's a good idea to do that?"...love those non questions!), Do I miss what I used to nebulously used to refer to as my "old life"? At times and only certain aspects. But I have to be honest - to come downstairs and have my Pop say, "Hey (Pop-speak for "good morning"). Want to go over to Little Saigon for dim sum breakfast?" and to travel with him to his first home town when arriving in America....to speak german with my Mom all the time as we reflect on her WWII Berlin childhood with the ease of knowing that we're sitting on the couch together instead of talking over skype...and to grab dinner and a movie with my brother and sister in law and just yak afterwards....well there's nothing like it for me.

For a long time I missed my family --including my family of friends --in ways that felt like a dull ache. I felt like I was not just missing them in terms of wanting to be with them and have them near. I felt like I was also literally missing them --meaning, missing being a witness to their lives, and felt too like they were missing out on experiencing me more directly in their lives.  This intensified the pressure for my overseas life to be infinitely more satisfying and fulfilling in order to be worth what it felt I was missing in life currency and experiences. To be sure, I loved my life then, and I love it now. There are people who have come into my life during those years for whom I care deeply. And it was time to regroup and dive into those home grown missing moments. Those moments have been attended to, have been something that has drunk deeply and richly this year. Another step of re balancing and recalibrating. 

Dorothy was right. There's no place like home, in whatever shape it exists.

May 2013, Huntington Beach, CA. Sunset. Perfection.