Family memories take crayons, salsa and time
My parents are salsa dancing in my living room. “Lilly” by Pink Martini is playing out of my father’s iPad.
He spins her and spins himself, throws her arm around his shoulder and slips out of it. My mother has a perma-smile plastered on her face.
They finish their dance and she tells him, “Come on, let’s do the rumba.”
It makes me laugh.
“Quick, quick, slow,” they both say to themselves and each other. They concentrate and what can I say, it’s pretty darn cute.
But they fly home today (Monday), and that makes me a little sad. It’s funny how far I’ve come since my little just-left-the-house self. I used to cringe a little at the thought of seeing them — not really necessarily seeing them, but having to discuss my life’s decisions with them.
I think it prevented me from enjoying my time with them. Now it’s a treat to see them. And I think in turn, rather than arguing with me about my life, they want to share theirs with me. (Although, of course, the occasional life choices argument does eventually pop up)
Which is why, as I type this up, they are still dancing in my living room.
Now, it’s the hustle to “You Sexy Thing” by Hot Chocolate.
They’ve been taking dance classes for the last year-and-a-half and are Bronze 1 certified. Certification tests take place for levels 1-3 from bronze to gold. They are going for their Bronze 2 in October.
Foxtrot, rumba, salsa, the hustle, and samba are their fortes.
I think I would be happy to just know how to do one of those well and they are learning to master all five. It’s pretty sweet.
They came up here from California on the newly infamous Allegiant Air flights from Oakland for my graduation from the University of Montana Journalism School.
Yes, I just graduated, and I’ve worked for The Eagle since December, which was when I was actually done with school.
My folks have waited at least 10 years for my graduation to happen. My grandparents drove up from New Mexico for the occasion as well. Having three generations of my family under my small Kalispell apartment roof was pretty special. I don’t think I’ve ever had five guests in my house, least of all my family members.
With family came those memories from my youth that were backlogged behind the worries of today.
The summers spent in Albuquerque, N.M. The baseball-sized hail that fell in the middle of the summer. The red crayon my sister and I left to melt in my grandparents’ Oldsmobile seats, only to have to scrape it out of the velour. My grandfather’s voice, loud and clear, reigning in the small church’s attention span to his preachers pulpit. My grandmother’s saying, “Of all things.”
The times we see each other now are few and far between. And as we all get older, it seems like the time we spend together is more precious.
Sometimes I wish we all lived close together rather than thousands of miles apart. But then maybe the time spent together would be taken for granted. I’m not sure that’s the kind of attitude I want to have when spending time with my family.
It makes me realize how much of my time is taken for granted, spent working and worrying, stressed out and coffee’d up. Always running from one thing to the next without gratitude or pleasure spent on the life I get to live.
Maybe someday I will move back home, but for now I’m here and they’re there and the least we can do for each other, I think, is spend our time doing the things we love to share with one another. And perhaps we can look forward to the next time we’ll get to share those things in person.