Junk Drawer

We step from the suburban Boston heat into my Auntie Anne’s familiar, powerfully air conditioned home. We’ve come to Waltham, Massachusetts to introduce Luna to my dad’s side of the family. “Hello little Luna, welcome to the USA!” says my grandma as she squeezes the arm of her first great-grandchild.

A brief family tree. We’re staying with my dad’s oldest sister Anne and her husband David. Their three kids, Grace, Rita and Nick all live nearby. My dad’s middle sister Nancy, her husband, Steve, my grandma, and two of their three kids, Nathan and Janie have flown in from Minnesota. My parents and brother have come from New Zealand, taking advantage of so many relatives in the same place at the same time. Everyone, minus two cousins, is here to meet the newest member of the family.

My two older cousins, Grace and Rita were the coolest. They introduced me to dance class, leopard print and the Spice Girls. Rita is one year older and we were inseparable, constantly concocting plans and potions in the bathroom. Grace was four years older and played our mom when we were mermaids in the pool. We grew up, hung out all together, then grew apart. I used to mourn the closeness between us that has been lost to distance and time. Now I value the new relationships we’re building as adults with the same inner children. And I have an outer child to add to the mix.

The younger cousins who used to scamper behind us aren’t so little any more. The youngest, Janie, turned 18 in March and just graduated from high school.

Daniel and I have started the next generation. Luna anointed a great grandma and a new set of grandparents, great aunts and uncles, first cousins once removed. In the same way our immediate families did, the wider family reorients around a new presence. I watch her impact ripple further out from us and into the larger pool of relatives. She’s the focal point of every room, everyone wants to know her, everyone builds their own relationship with her. Nancy calls her “boo boo,” Anne says “hey there, sugar lumps.” Grandma never takes her eyes off her, “she is so precious! I love her little finger! I love the noises she makes! She sure loves her Mama!”

Grandma moves more slowly and needs more assistance to move around the house. She talks about how many of her friends have died, listing them on her fingers. Everyone shifts in their seats and wants to change the subject, but it’s what she needs to say, the hard and sad reality. Death takes up more space in her life these days, but new life is the centre of attention this week, a source of energy and joy.

Every morning, we’re up before anyone else and oversee the slow trickle down to the kitchen. Each person gets a bowl of cereal or makes a bagel and settles in to watch as Luna plays with measuring spoons on the kitchen floor. She babbles, points and smiles, her two little top teeth peeking out from under her lip. She learned to clap this week, so she claps and then we clap and the cycle of applause never seems to end.

My dad plays the games and sings the songs he sang to me and my siblings. “There was a great hawk, way up in the air,” his palm soars through the sky, pinky and thumb sticking out like wings. “And he saw a little chickadee… right down there!” his hand swoops down to tickle Luna’s soft tummy as she giggles like I used to.

She tucks into my mom’s shoulder like she tucks into mine. They hold each other like this, like they both have held me. A magical melting together of daughter mother each other.

Anne and Nancy both insist that they’ll do dishes, and my dad, the youngest, pleads them to “stop!” I can see the same scene playing out 50 years ago, only then arguing it’s the other one’s turn. Annie the Pannie, Nance the Pance and Daver Doo, as my grandma calls them. They are so clearly siblings, like me and my siblings, no longer The Adults of the family, the parents of my cousins.

My grandfather died before I was born and Grace was the only cousin to meet him. My grandma reminds her of this often, “he would be there for you at the drop of a hat!” Now my dad is grandpa and Grace says it’s nice to have one of those around again. Every time I call my dad Grandpa, Nancy laughs and says “you’re not a grandpa”. Every time I say uncle Emmett, Grace laughs and says “otch a moonie can’t be an uncle!” That’s how Emmett pronounced “watch a movie” as a toddler, and as the second youngest cousin, that doesn’t feel so long ago. Everyone is adjusting to the new roles we have graduated into.

Luna keeps projectile vomiting and hasn’t pooped for the first few days. She seems unbothered, resuming her usual duties once the retching is over, but this is the first time she’s been sick and we’re first time parents, so we take her to the ER. The first thing they ask at reception is if we have insurance. It’s a stark reminder that you need to be able to afford life-saving care in this country. We are lucky—this is not an emergency, just the easiest way to get her seen without a local doctor and, thanks to a nut incident and a £3000 medical bill years earlier, we have travel insurance. But necessary medical care shouldn’t depend on luck.

After an hour, a doctor appears and apologises for the wait. We’re surprised, we’re used to waiting 4-5 hours at A&E. I find myself rushing to explain her symptoms used to NHS staff rushed off their feet, but he listens carefully, asks follow-up questions, cracks a joke. He thinks it’s a virus that will go away on its own, but to be sure there isn’t a blockage, orders an x-ray. We assume that’s another several-hour wait, but ten minutes later a mobile x-ray machine wheels into the room to take a picture of her tiny tummy. The doctor returns to say there’s no blockage, she has a normal bowel-gas pattern, but she does have a lot of poop around her rectum. I laugh out loud. Daniel keeps a straight face, but I can see the giggle in his eyes and I’m furious to be the only one that cracked at the mention of rectum. The doctor doesn’t flinch and moves on. We are reassured and go home. It’s all so clean and fast, but I will take the four hour wait if it means free for anyone at the point of need.

We go to the beach. An older couple next to us with two large umbrellas and separate towel area berate us about how much space we take up: “you’re like 40 people!”We are 12 people. On a long, public stretch of beach. They take issue with how close we are to their space, which is the same distance away as other groups. “It’s the beach”, Grace repeats. “It’s the beach, ma’am” It’s not a trip to Boston without encountering some Massholes.

There are more Trump yard signs around than I expect from a blue state. One house near us has a Trump, don’t tread on me, and I stand with Israel sign out front, while the house next door waves a rainbow and trans flag. I wonder if, while the Trump house worries about imaginary threats to their security and freedom, they ever consider how safe and free their real life neighbour might feel.

We go to a baseball game. I watch the crowd as much as the sport. The players wear a uniform and so do the fans: men wear baggy gym clothes and women style an oversize baseball shirt, buttons open, over shorts and a tank top or a dress, small purse draped across the chest. There’s not a lot of variation or visible gender non-conformity. Daniel can’t believe the fans from two teams are allowed to mix, that would never fly in the UK. I get a pretzel from the man walking up and down the aisles.

We walk around Walden Pond, where Henry David Thoreau lived in a cabin for two years and wrote about living self-sufficiently in communion with nature. Where, while he was busy being self-reliant, his mom brought him sandwiches and did his laundry. Only slight shade to Henry, he was also a fierce advocate for the abolition of slavery and his writing on civil disobedience had a large influence on the civil rights movement. Just give Mama Thoreau some credit.

I used to feel a heightened awareness of every second during these visits, like if I wasn’t having a meaningful conversation or receiving a comprehensive life update from someone, I wasn’t taking advantage of the time. Over time I realised that a quiet walk around a pond means just as much.

We watch the Olympics, go to Trader Joe’s, eat dinner in the backyard. We fight against a low level of worry about Luna. Nick gets Covid so we only get to see him on the first and last day. We can make a plan but we can’t make it perfect.

My paternal family is Minnesota nice and New England brash. Strong-willed, compassionate, and earnest. At the end of weeks like this, I wish we lived closer. The short, intense burst of a boisterous, loving clan always leaves me wanting more. One week gives us a glimmer of everyone. For better or for worse, we don’t get to the messy depths.

On the last day, I ask my mom when we’ll see them again. Maybe next summer? A year feels very far away. It’s longer than Luna has been alive. How different she will be.

I haven’t lived in the same country as my parents since I was 18, and I’m used to that distance. We get to visit them in all the incredible places they get to live, and we never take the time together for granted. But there’s always a searing heart moment towards the end of a visit where I wish it didn’t have to be so long until I hugged them again.