Family Reunion
by Titus Gee
My uncle was in Fresno just for the day. I hadn’t seen him in a decade, and the last two times we tried to meet it didn’t work out. So I hit the road about 6:45 on a blustery winter night, headed north from Palmdale over the Tehachapi pass.
We met at what turned out to be the happening night spot in a city known for two things — a state university and the smell of a million diuretic cattle.
The club offered a warmth beyond temperature, something I eventually noticed after my core temperature rose enough for my guts to stop shaking.
My uncle also has a Honda from the CB series, has had it since I was a teenager and he was in his twenties (though he wisely chose a truck for his side of this escapade). Could be his was the first motorcycle I ever saw up close. Come to think of it, that might be part of the reason I fell for the Nighthawk at first sight. It just looked right.
He apparently had read all my blogs (Hello, Jon. Here you go, your very own.), a fact which he revealed by oblique references to anecdotes I hadn’t mentioned yet. We ate crab sandwiches and chatted about our motorcycle adventures, among other things.
While we talked, I became very self-aware. Not self-conscious really. I didn’t feel nervous, but . . .
Ok, here’s the thing: The last time I really interacted with him I was ten years old and he was 16. We built a zip line in the front yard of my grandparent’s house in West Virginia, and I was the last to ride . . . because I fell off the downhill end, flew nine feet further down the hill without touching the ground (I swear), then broke my arm landing on the road. I saw him after that, but I can’t think of many things we did together, really.
That was 18 years ago, and now here we were on the other side of the continent eating seafood and swapping war stories. I couldn’t help reflecting on how far we’d each gone in the meantime — no longer kids, no longer known to one another and yet palpably connected, as though whatever we lack in shared experience fades under the force of our genetic link.
We are similar on some deep level that comes not just from lineage, but from heritage. Sure, we have in common my father and grandfather, uncles and great uncles, but we also share the experience of growing up under their influences. (We won’t bother to mention the dashing good looks ::ahem::)
And then, of course, there was the dawning awareness of being a memoirist who writes about living, reading people — a fact which confronts me now, as it confronted me there in the middle of the late-night adventure. My mind followed its usual patterns, noting details and sort of pre-writing the essays that would come later. Meanwhile, there he sat in front of me, looking back with his own musings percolating behind his eyes.
I have written about my family before, but still it seemed like the beginning of something. Maybe because I suddenly felt so strongly aware of the dynamic. The more I write about my life, the more other characters will appear in my writings – not as themselves, but as they exist once filtered through the lenses of my eyes and restricted to the confines of whatever essay I’m working on.
How can I write clearly and openly having swallowed this red pill of revelation?
I don’t know.
This musing has no conclusion.
But I plan to go on trying.
