Cousins

I went to a family wedding this past weekend. Three generations of cousins and siblings--nearly all of us--made the trip. (There were questions about which of us were "second cousins" or "removed" cousins--here is a full explanation of the terms.) Some of us are now our own cousins, I think, since Mom's husband's sister married Mom's brother. Three-year-old Leo met new [second] cousins he didn't know about, and this meant a great deal to him: "Cousins, look over there. There's dog poop over there, my cousins!"
We cousins don't get together as often as we'd like. My brother hadn't seen some of them since childhood. This time there were spouses, significant others, and children who had not met the rest of us. I'm always a little relieved to discover that we still like one another very much, that we delight in our memories of rare childhood gatherings, that we remember enough to recognize how eerily our children resemble their parents. I love my family. I like my family. (I think of my cousins as long-lost siblings; I always have. You wouldn't know it by my poor record, or theirs, of staying in touch.) If anyone would listen, I could go on and on about the interesting lives my cousins lead, the quirky and brave choices they (we) have made, the ways we make one another laugh. I want the children to share in all this, to someday gather for a wedding and discover that they have wonderful, surprising friends in the family.
And I like thinking of how pleased my grandmother would be to witness this gathering. She knew us all, pronounced us each unique and special, and presided over the rare occasions when we all came together as children. From her we each inherited some combination of passions: music, books, wit, wanderlust, education, risk-taking, above all curiosity about the world.
We share family names--surnames, middle names, pet names: today's Gramp and Granzie are named after their own Gramp and Granzie. We've redefined and occasionally mangled some political and spiritual values, thanks in part to the ways our parents and grandparents modified them. It's a long walk back to the world of our great grandparents. But once in a while I look at an old photo on my wall, see my 7-year-old grandmother-to-be grinning mischievously at me, and know that some ineffable spark of personality and energy has come through the past century as it probably did in the century before. So we keep going.

Audience

What we write, as I tell my students, depends partly on our audience. When I was younger, I'd hear people say that I should find out what my teachers wanted and give it to them; that bothered me because it's disingenous; it's pandering. Better advice: find out who my readers are and give them what they can use, as opposed to giving them what they can't even understand. It's not so much about pleasing the reader as about connecting with the reader (which may or may not result in pleasure). And this is the trouble with a blog. I can write to a particular audience--myself, my family, a particular friend or group of friends, or strangers who care about something that matters to me. But I can't guarantee that my intended audience will be the real one. I do keep a journal, privately. I can't imagine posting it on the internet. Occasionally I stumble on a blog when I search for a key word (for instance, a place that matters to me, like Mowana) and I find myself in the middle of some stranger's most intimate musings or rant. I wonder if that person realizes that her father could be reading it, or a potential employer, or a spy. I can understand the impulse to put one's opinions about public issues out to the public, to be heard and possibly to effect some change in the way society functions. I am puzzled by the impulse to pour out one's most private thoughts to the world. It's like leaving your diary lying open on a park bench.
There's something liberating about confessing personal yearnings and anxieties to a stranger--to the lady sitting next to you on the plane or to a therapist. But that liberation comes from knowing the story won't get back to people who really care. (Isn't THAT odd--the liberation of a meaningless audience?) With a blog, there's no guarantee--anyone and everyone might read, or no one at all.
So I'm experimenting with this. What does it feel like to write for an unknown, random audience? What are the odds that someone I know will recognize me in my words or my user name? So far I find myself cautious about content. I might not want my family to know what my colleagues know. I might not want my colleagues to know what my oldest friends know. I might not want my students to know what my family knows. Am I overly compartmentalized, or just wonderfully diversified?