Rain of Gold, by Victor Villasenor. It's a novel that tells the true story of two families who survived the revolution in Mexico 100 years ago and made new lives in the US. I just put away almost 600 pages in less than five days and (literally) cried when it ended, because it is one of those sweeping stories full of love and death and familial strength and honor and adventure that reminds you of the power of your blood ties and history (yet at the same time makes you feel like your family's about as exciting as the Cleavers).
It was an assigned book for my Narrative Therapy class, though... which in general has made me put a lot of time into thinking about my family and the stories I grew up with, and the way that those stories shape you and teach you about your role in the world. We talked about family rituals, like the way I get back in bed at noon every year on Christmas when my brother arrives with his family, so that he can come upstairs and jump on the bed, "waking me up" to begin the day (a ritual we continue even though I am nearly 30 and he is 33). And even rituals like the way the boat breaks down every year before our family vacation and how my dad gets frustrated and starts throwing things around and my mom goes in the house until he calms down, and then we get it fixed and get on the road late and there's an awkward tension in the car until my dad cracks a bad joke to indicate he's over it, and then life continues as usual. It's so bittersweet to think about your roots and your history, and to have the chance to take a long, hard look at where you've come from and how it's shaped you into who you are, for better or for worse, but to be doing it more than a thousand miles away from your family, in a new city where your roots are shallow, at the end of a decade of moving around and constantly starting over in which you've created few rituals of your own.
It makes me miss my family, but it also makes me think more about having a family of my own, because sometimes I think you need the impetus of another person to make it meaningful, this business of having rituals. It makes me grateful for the communities that have surrounded me in the places I've been, because they've been my surrogate families, and it makes me realize that as much as I want to figure out how to "be myself" in this new place, I'm never really fully myself outside of a community. And it makes me grateful that one of the functions of a family or a community is to keep rituals to mark the passage of time and the events of life.
It's interesting to apply this concept of "family rituals" to the patchwork communities of the urban metropolis... for example: the Ultimate community, I suppose, would seem quite odd to the uninitiated. We sing strange cheers to the other team after a game, we follow a code of ethics that sets a high bar for sportsmanlike conduct, we speak in a language that leaves others guessing ("That was a sweet layout D; too bad you got stalled before you got a hammer off"), and in place of holidays we have annual tournaments, which develop their own rituals (like Potlatch, where teams give gifts to their opponents and one team always plays naked).
Anyhow, this is all a bunch of rambling, but 30 hours of lectures on stories and rituals gives one lots to ponder in your spare time... what stories did your family tell? What rituals did you have? How did they help shape and define who you are and what you believe you are capable of in the world? What are the rituals in your community? Are you creating your own rituals? If your life was a story, what kind would it be? Comedy? Drama? Art-house indie with random characters, no plot, and an abrupt ending? And, if you don't like where your story is going, can you rewrite the ending?
