Family

Kelly? I can practically hear his thought after this: Is that you?

I am sitting on a bench, in the woods, on the side of a trail at the park. Almost to the end of my third lap, walking and enjoying the outside. There is a long stick in my hand and I am using it to organize broken pieces of a Corona bottle in to a pile, so that no one, barefooted like I prefer or animal on a leash, gets it stuck in their foot. I should feel more embarrassed, maybe, than I do getting caught out there, alone, seemingly drawing in the dirt with some wood.

It's my cousin Timmy, he is out for his morning jog.

He joins me on the bench and we chat for a while. The winkwinky part is that I had just been thinking about how good it was that even though there are all these outofstate people now who bring this funny new vibe to Ocean City, how great it is that places like this path in the woods still exist, and how not everyone knows about places like this. So it made me happy, of all people to encounter there, to run in to cousin Tim.

I spent the day yesterday with Aunt Sue. It was so hot at home that there was a haze on the bay between here and town, so much so you could barely see the buildings of OC on the horizon. We were nervous about how hot it would be on the beach and figured on spending most the day in the water, but la mama surprised us with the most fantastic off-shore breeze. We talked for hours took two gorgeous swims and a long walk that spanned at least 40 streets. Later, I texted her I made pasta come over for some and so when cousin Mat got out of driver's ed that is what they did.

Family has always held at least a little bit of contention for me, whether the immediate one at home or the larger, inclusive of aunts and uncles and cousins and more. It's just that there is so much of it, and also that the nucleus that raised me, the experience directly of mom dad and Sean when we were young was confusing and not too consistant much of the time. But then there was always the stability of the extended family, both on dad's side and mom's. So family is a huge definitive part of my identity: dad is one of seven and with only one exception, he and his siblings live close. Regular visits are a part of our experience and have been since before I even was a kid. And on mom's side for the past two to three years I've made a personal choice to delve more in to the dynamics of she, her parents and sisters by spending time with them that historically was equal to the influcence the McMullens for so long have had on me. As result I now understand so much more about who I quietly am and how I was raised.

On Monday night, late, I was driving us home from Deck Party in town. Eddie, eyes half-closed and jammin his head along to the music (Two Tickets to Paradise by Eddie Money, chosen with holy exuberance because, of course, Ed was the DJ) and Tim and Sarah all shmoop shmoop cute in the back. My window was all the way down, my arm hanging loose out in the green and salt summer air. I was so, so happy. There was nothing else at all I wanted in the world than that moment, with my cousins, my siblings, my friends. In the morning I leave for Pennsylvania, to see baby Sananah again and cousin Chels, then to take Rt. 30 across the state to Gettysburg for cousin Sarah's wedding weekend.

It has been so rich, of such deep value to me, growing my legs and blood strong by owning the history that grew me and runs in profound wordlessness to this day straight through all of me, and lands and floats in to the air around me and guides and graces, in both blessings and challenges, the me I get to become. I am proud of it, proud of me and my people, and more than anything so, so grateful for the gifts of self and love it's grown within.

When the women get together...

We laugh until we are crying. And often the laughter is from the grotesque, or bizarre, the banal, made by us delirious, and profane. We laugh until we are gasping for air and yelling at one another so hard because ultimately someone has started gagging from laughing so hard, and this will have a chain effect on us all, and then we will be laughing and gagging each of us, and tearstained and sweaty, and praying in the thinness of breath left to us that we dont get kicked out....

These are the women, my women, the women from whom I came. My grandma, her daughter Karen my mom, Karen's two sister Coni and Lori. Lori's daughter Chelsea, my gorgeous cousin.

In our family, it is the women. The men are periphery, we take care of them. We feed them, we house them, and at times it is clear the approach is that we simply put up with them. I never understood this tolerated approach, but I didn't have words or sight for it, either, and took it for granted. But this year I spent the time, and listened, to get to know why, how this started, where it came from, who we are and where we came from. Where I am headed.

In my family it is the women, and we sustain. We raise children and table the home full of food. The men come and go. When they are present they take center, become large enough to not see us chaining things together, keeping it all moving. Rising and falling in our natural undercurrent. We keep things warm. And while we break the air always with our laughter, we also dont raise our voices.

I think back to my quiet writing room in the slanted attic at Mt.Royal. The time in the fall, just prior to creating my little litmag LaCantalma, that I came out of mediation to the St. Francis feel and rosewood and frankincense smell of my grandmother, dad's mom, the smell and buoyant feel of silence and peace and rosaries that she took on when she would come to me after her death. The fall, time of ancestors and memory. And I stayed quiet and from within said, what would you want from me, Grammy? And she said sure as a whisper on my own breath Your job, Child, is to be heard...

In Gram's family it is the men, five of them, my dad and his brothers. Two sisters, one in Germany far away as she could get, and the other the youngest, the baby, married to her sweetheart from 16, he the man the tribe took very early in. My uncles used to coach him in school, and teach him history, and phys ed.

I've always known the McMullens, the overarching Patriarchy, the men.

But this year, the blessed, the broken, the laughing til were sick, the distinct: the women. The women are who, is Who and How I've learned.

The women that shape the other half of who I am.

Later, after that Fall when Grammy came and reitiated my Call, I was coming over the Mexico border in to California when my mom called to say Grandma's sister Mary died. I had befriended this Irish dude Cahall and he wanted to see the Hopi Indian territory and so he was riding along and it worked out because Aunt Mary was from just south of Sedona, and so we drove to Arizona. And Grandma, as I told her of my travels and the spirituality guiding and gracing me--Crow and the Medicine come to me in Colorado, Durango and Mesa Verde--she grabbed me to her chest to say goodnight and held me, she was chesty and her grasp, tight. She whispered in my ear KellyAnn you better write this all down.

The women the women the women from who I Am. That plain straight dicey humor I get from them. That unanticipated eyeroll of sharp wit. The seeing it all, and letting it pass.

I'm going to Gram, Grandma. I'm staking out and finding my self now. I've been watching and listening, laughing and praying for a long, long time. I've been voiceless and crying, too.

But I found Her, the voice, my voice. And the deep Voice, s/he the great I Am.

I found Her. And I'm writing it all down.