The Family Vortex

It seems to be a common thing among large families to either give the impression of impossible perfection or of varying levels of dysfunction. Sometimes that depends on which member of the family you get your information from. Or on how badly they wish to make a good impression on you.

Well, be it known, I would be the last person to pretend that I am a perfect person in a perfect family. We have our ups and downs. But so what? I love my family! I love our laughter, our honesty, our drive to be correct, our willingness to take the less-traveled road, our ability to derive immense pleasure from the simplest things, our interest in learning more, etc. And I appreciate our determination to fight through to a resolution, even if we sometimes go about it all wrong. There is a crazy chemistry in a group of so many people so closely intertwined, which may at times be explosive, but which may also be inexplicably sweet... or at least delightfully savory. And I have found that how we are perceived is often based a great deal on (a) the personal "chemistry" and (b) the personal taste ... of the person who finds himself or herself in our midst. That applies both within and outside the family.

But a particular phenomenon that has caught my attention of late is the Family Vortex.

How am I supposed to get to bed at a decent hour when there is still such an interesting conversation going on so far past my bedtime? I try to walk away, but something always pulls me back. Nobody is deliberately trying to draw me in. Oh, occasionally someone might direct a comment or question specially to me just as I was about to try to walk away for the third time. But it isn't from a deliberate effort to make me feel included or anything. They just happened to know that it was a point I might be interested in.

Likewise, how am I supposed to work on my story? Or blog? The afternoon is a good time to blog. Right now the house is pretty quiet, except for occasional bird calls. And I am full of thoughts that are easily put into writing. But that's because everyone else seems to be on computer as well. Bring a few more people home, and there won't be enough computers to go around. Or someone will make a conscious decision to do something else. Inevitably, some conversation will spring up. Something will be said that catches my attention. Soon I will lose my focus on what I want to write here. Or if I were reading a book, I would lose my focus on the book, be it ever so fascinating. My thoughts would begin to flow in other directions. Try as I might to fight against the current and continue with whatever I was doing before, I would inevitably be sucked into the conversation. I could still probably carry on a typed conversation online. But a telephone conversation would be almost impossible to maintain without physically fleeing to another part of the house. And forget any seriously cohesive creative writing!

Certain combinations of us seem to generate this suction force more than others. When every last one of us is home at once, there are often multiple currents, sometimes reinforcing each other, and sometimes creating choppy waves. This may give a distressing impression of a great deal of noise and chaos, without any real sense of purpose. When fewer people are home, we may each carry on doing our own thing, not exactly ignoring each other, but content to pursue our own private occupations and interests. When we are mixed in with other people, away from home, or isolated from each other in another setting, the currents and patterns take different forms and we might find ourselves thinking and acting much more independently. But on most evenings of late, we seem to have just such a collection of people here that one might think we were having a minor family celebration of sorts--judging by the amount of talking and laughing and, yes, good-natured squabbling going on. And as we talk, we push and pull at one another, sometimes teasing and sometimes teaching, sometimes inflicting and sometimes inspiring, but ultimately always loving and usually lingering long after we should have disbanded, at least to our own rooms for the night!