Thunderstorms and Sunshine

Summer is officially here, though it kicked off in a singularly ominous fashion. A long-awaited trip to see my family at their yearly timeshare in Hilton Head, SC began with an absurdist comedy of traveling errors, which was followed by Z getting Strep Throat. An ER visit in the humid sunshine of South Carolina fixed my ailing boy, but a poorly timed tickle in my throat promised that I was going to return for an ER visit of my own. I was getting to be on a first name basis with the intake clerk. 

This cast a pall on the start of the vacation, and Z didn't help matters by being cranky and whiny for the majority of the trip. Worse, I had to finish a week of sickness and stress with a three day stay with my soon-to-be-ex-in-laws. The ex is currently estranged from her father, a man who doesn't seem to notice an odd trend that both of his children have gone long stretches without talking to their father. Interestingly, his own brother has barely spoken to his parents for the past 30 years. What's wrong with this picture? 

Fortunately, we avoided all delicate topics for the visit, and my sister-in-law showed a sweet solidarity by traveling with her daughter to come see me and Z. Perhaps the highlight of the whole trip was getting roaringly drunk, dishing dirt on just how tremendously fucked up my ex's family is. Not that everyone's family isn't a mess of neuroses and petty grievances, but the ex's family seems to make an art of it.

Throughout the trip, I veritably itched with loneliness for my love, L, who was similarly gripped by her own sense of loss and boredom. Perhaps our constant synergies went too far, however, as she was sick on the exact same day as me, also with a throat ailment. For a pair that is rarely apart for more than 24 hours at a stretch, this was something of a strain, with both of us trying to buoy our emotional neediness with a steady stream of text messages, emails and plaintive wails that would probably cause the average 15-year-old girl to cringe in embarrassment. Yes, we can be that kind of sickening couple. 

The trip wasn't all bad, however, as I closed a major loop in my life by having an in-depth talk with my father about my dead mother, a subject that he's made an art of avoiding for most of the past 30 years. I learned many things about her that I didn't know, such as how she reacted to the onset of her mental illness, how much she loved my brother and I, and how my father was advised to divorce her, ostensibly to give her the life choice of descending to rock bottom and dying, or to find a way to crawl from the hole and live. She died anyway, and who's to know what would've happened if he would have divorced her. She probably would've died, which would've made him feel an even greater, heavier guilt all these years. Wonderfully, the whole talk was cathartic for my father, who I believe appreciated my reaching out to ask those questions that I had always respectfully avoided, and he was too pained to bring up on his own. It was probably the highlight of the trip.

The night before we left, Z was treated to bone-shaking thunderclaps that shook the entire condo. He's never heard such sounds before, having grown up on the West Coast. Strangely, when we returned to Los Angeles, we were treated to thunderclaps and rainstorms of our own. Strange how so many things of the last week - illness on both coasts, two cases of Strep Throat, thunderstorms west and east, family secrets and histories being exposed - seem to feel circular and complete, as if things are being resolved. The most satisfying resolution was falling into L's arms at the airport, embracing with such relief and joy; we were both positively aglow. 

This leaves me feeling that the summer has now officially started. Memorial Day was just an unfortunate tease, but now the summer sun is arriving, with all sorts of treats and pleasures in store for the next few months: whitewater rafting, golfing in the evening, concerts at the Bowl, and lots and lots of rolling around the sheets... 

It's great to have the thunderstorms behind, and to be looking forward into the sunshine.