On a family tradition

Once a year I go to New Jersey for four days to spend the long weekend in a house with approximately fifty other people.  Those fifty other people consist of my immediate family, my first cousins, aunts and uncles, second cousins, third cousins, great aunts and uncles, and grandmother, all from my father's side. For some perspective, my third cousins are the children of my father's cousins and my great aunts and uncles are my father's aunts and uncles.  The house is big, but not big enough for fifty people to comfortable reside, so the floor gets good use.

When I tell my friends about this yearly event they are a bit confused.  Most people, after all, couldn't identify their third cousins in a line-up, let alone snuggle with them on a couch. We're close.  We know each-other's lives.  We get in each-other's business. We've got endless inside jokes. Nothing is sacred.  Nothing is private. For example, I was showering (which is a no-no due to the house using well water) in a shower with clear panes this weekend, when my cousin barged in stating that "she was going to jump in with me. Is that okay?" The only correct answer to that on cousin's weekend (the name for this long-weekend we spend together) is "sure."  So...yeah...privacy is non-existent.  

We spend our mornings sitting around the kitchen table, discussing each-others lives--who's got a significant other, who had a bowel movement in the past day, who was embarrassed by a parent in the last year, whose job is the most difficult--while eating breakfast.   At around noon, the breakfast food is changed out for lunch foods and the conversation reconvenes on the dock (the house is on a lake).  Conversation continues in a similar manner, discussion slightly shifting to that of body hair, vacations, non-present family members and yes, still bowel movements.  By dinner time, we're having these same conversations, congregated around plates of my grandmother's pasta, made with love in her suburban town-home, and some fancy salad created by my second cousin who was assigned the responsibility because even that exceeds the bounds of her domestic capabilities.  

Together we eat dinner. Cousins from white collar, upper middle class families, with second cousins and third cousins from upper class wealth, discussing all the same things over the same food. By nine o'clock we're playing games with the cousins from our own generations and listening to stories of times  passed told by members of older generations.  By one in the morning, the "adults" have retired to their rooms (they get beds) while the "kids" (actually all teens and twenty-somethings now) rush to find spaces on the floors in sleeping bags, and on air-mattresses, and on couches, according to seniority. 

The four days proceed like this--fairly predictable with the odd celebration of an engagement, or wedding, or expected baby.  A lot of talking, close quarters, uncomfortable sleeping, lack of showering, sun, chaos, and food. It's noisy and overwhelming and full of joy and love. A simple weekend, not at all about the entertainment or relaxation, and completely about quality time, maintaining relationships, maintaining family history, maintaining culture.  It's an experience that most families don't get.   An experience that I am privileged to have...

no matter how little privacy it enables me.

Keep on thinking,
Josie