Cocreating family

Yesterday was a highly localized celebration of 'Take your wife to work day' in which I rode a blue double-decker bus with my husband downtown and enjoyed the sites, smells, and tastes of the International District. Of particular note was the most delicious baked cha siu bao of all time. Amazing what 60 cents at a non-descript Chinese dimsum/bakery will buy you! I was reminded to at least attempt good posture as little stooped Asians shuffled by with their bucket hats and smell of tiger balm, one of them sporting the most innovative cane/pop-out-stool I've seen yet. And I felt a deep respect for them that, at their age, they were still walking down the city streets - some people of that generation wouldn't be. And I pondered why 5 or 7 blocks down the road the parking lot was full of Audis while the one across from me had old Hondas squeezed beside each other like fingers trying to grab that last pickle out of the jar. It was a really fabulous morning and a much needed break to trying to home-make as a part of this grand transition. It was a morning that reminded me that my husband and I have created a marriage culture that is different and more rich than we'd ever have experienced on our own. After eight years of walking together, it still feels new.

I've spent a lot of my recent life in transition and immersing myself in new. It only hit me recently (exhibiting a self-centeredness that I'd rather not dwell on) that my constant transition forces transition on other people who are close to me and they may not enjoy or appreciate it as much as I do - in fact it may even cause stress. I'm talking about more than updating the address book or punching in a new phone number to the contacts page.

It's been obvious that my husband is doing transition with me - a constant in the ever shifting scenery - and we decide together, so its impact hits us mutually and is mostly expected. My dog's hair falls out in clumps when we transition, bless-his-heart-I'm-going-to-kill-him-for-making-me-clean-so-much, but as a member of our pack he will survive as long as we keep his water and food bowls full and the walks, head-rubs, and words of affection available. The hair is starting to grow back already, so he's emerging alive although I won't lie and say he looks well.

But I've been thinking about the others - friends and family - who have their own hopes of where we'll be when, and how we'll be doing life in any given month. My husband and I come from very different family cultures. In fact, the most serious 'culture shock' I've felt in the last decade was not traveling to another country, or even to multiple countries over a series of weeks/months. The most intense culture shock I felt was one holiday season in which we spent 3-4 days with family at one set of parents and immediately transitioned to  3-4 days with family at the other set. I think because they're 'family', there was this feeling that it should be easy to adapt quickly and just settle in without much thinking. That couldn't have been less true. It was exactly because of the expectation of being able to assimilate easily that culture shock surprised me.

When I travel to other countries, I already know that it's going to be full of new and that as a foreigner I can only blend so much. Anyone I interact with will eventually know that I'm from another context (hopefully guessing Canada or somewhere in Europe ;) ) and so while I work very hard not to be offensive, the pressure to assimilate has its limits. In reality, this same piece is true with extended family but, unlike traveling internationally, traveling 'interfamilialy' hasn't had the natural built-in limits to expected assimilation.

My husband or I didn't grow up with half of them, and even those we did grow up with have changed over time by shaping relationships and life experiences - ourselves included. Even being back in a childhood home doesn't mean that things in that home still function the way they used to or that responses to childhood family traditions or norms are the same. I'm not really the type to think 'if it's not broke, don't fix it'. Actually, I think that, in general, that attitude is lame and lazy because I'm of the opinion most everything can be improved. But that's not what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to say that now, so many miles away from most of our family, I'm wrestling through what it means to live in 'family', and how to negotiate vying responsibilities and desires. But in this particular line of musing, it's striking me that I've been approaching much of my time with extended family all wrong. Instead of viewing it as culture that I need to assimilate to - as if it is a static entity - I should have been viewing it as culture that we are, that I am, co-creating. Culture is alive. It's organic. Family is no different.

I know that I love it when people in the family culture I am most familiar with bring new ideas, new experiences, new ways of living to our family culture. Sometimes that means new types of food, or new activities together, and sometimes it means holding onto a value over holidays that mean they don't join 'the pack'. But with some degree of embarrassment I can admit that I sometimes lack boldness to do the same and find myself reacting to perceived expectations instead of acting into new life.

Kudos to those in my family, on both sides, who have embraced us in the middle of our change (which essentially forced changed on them even though I'd never thought of it that way) - not as something to be tolerated, but something to be celebrated and lived into. In past years I have embraced the mantra: 'the grace to be and the space to become' for everyone I love (which should be everyone). I wonder if I could take the extra step to apply that to how my own life and marriage culture cocreates, instead of assimilates into, the diverse and organic family cultures that I have chosen and have chosen me.