The sky is always falling in this family. In truth, it really is falling, and we do our best to create a forcefield of tension to hold it up. I am made half of love and half of neurosis (and they intertwine themselves so strangely, no?). Tonight my cousins and I laid on the pier and star-grazed, talking about things of importance, talking about non-sense (just as important) and sitting in silence. "I like my silences like I like my uterus, un-pregnant". There are rifts between us, rifts of love, misunderstanding, and just the space of only seeing each other in this one place, this one way, this one element. But there is a closeness that we will never have with anyone else, the knowledge of growing up here, with the people that we know so well. I've been thinking about people lately, and how I can't really describe them to other people, because to describe a person you have to describe the people around them, the group dynamic, the way the function in the group, and I haven't figured out a way to do that. This is why I struggle to write about el cafe because it's magic is not held in any individual, but created by the whole. I want to spend my summer working on this.
I went from one family event to another, my two families so different, in one I move so fluidly know my place, in the other I feel clumsy, quiet, hover around the few people I know best. I love them both though. I wonder if this feeling of being young will ever go away when I am out of my element. My heart is full, but not breaking, it is confused, but not scared, I am trying hard not to be scared or sad, trying to release my tension in my own quiet way.
Sarah and I sat around talking about our feelings, which is all we ever really do, and it was nice, nice to be able to talk about important things without tip-toeing or getting awkward or uncomfortable, and sometimes we just sat in silence thinking about things, about Grandma (one of us trying to quell our fear, one of us trying to muster it up). The down-side of being slightly calmer and happier at all times is that my emotions are dimmed, but when we were laying on the pier shivering I got scared under that big sky, the idea that the circumstances are always changing, that I can love this family fiercely as I want and we could still fall apart for some lack of effort. I am trying hard to stay in touch with everyone, trying to see if I can be the glue. Trying to learn to love everyone in their element, trying hard not to want people to change (and failing and failing where certain people are concerned). But I do love all of you, my darling lions and miss you when you are not around.
Now off to a 3 hour bat mitzvah ceremony, hopefully I have developed a sudden talent for singing in hebrew that I did not have yesterday, and hopefully I can keep myself from giggling, though it will be hard, not because I think the ceremony itself is funny but because the awkward, out of placeness I feel in church makes it hilarious, the people mumbling hymns out of key, and me clumsily following along, feeling like I am 5 when I used to pick up books and sing them instead of reading them. Church is something I did not grow up with, and even though I went for a short time as I child I always felt strange, it makes no sense to me, but I don't and won't knock it.

to remind myself for later:
(last night I dreamt that I got dirt on my grandmother's couch, oh the horror, oh the horror)