Family, Spring, and the Call of the Road

Families are interesting sorts. Just when you think you know all the people who make up your family,  met them all, there are a few stragglers that pop up in someone’s memory. Not just because Ancestry.com tells you there are more, but more people that you knew about, but never quite made time to visit with. I have been married for almost 9 years now, but I have not met my husband’s half siblings. Two of them, I am afraid, is too late to meet, as they are gone. But this weekend, I met one of his half brothers, his wife and his only daughter and her family.

It was like Thanksgiving in … March. Just a big ol’ dinner and lots of family stories, laughs, and memories. It felt cozy and warm. You know, when the hugs are meaningful and the warmth you feel is real, not contrived, and you feel like you belong. Or rather, he acted like he found his pack.

I am still to meet lots of extended family within my relatives’ ranks, but I was still happy to witness their reunion and watch their jokes and unraveling of their common memories, and some not as common but always shared, in some ways: by the same places or other relatives or common stories told by people they both knew.

The trip we took for this reunion was around the Norfolk – Chesapeake, VA area. I had been there before, but I obviously was not paying too close attention to it. The cities are like postcards of The Old South, with hundred year old houses, bothered here and there by modern condo buildings.

This is for those folks who think America is the land of sky scrapers: this is the tallest building in Chesapeake, VA - the headquarters of Dollar Tree. In a sandy, salty, flat plane, it does not take much. 

Neighborhood pubs and hangouts are at every corner. The whole area (Norfolk, Suffolk, Chesapeake, VA Beach, Portsmouth, Newport News etc) is so big, and spread out and in square footage it does feel like a  metropolis. Flat and sandy with the ocean invading the land here and there. But the corner pubs, and bike lanes and hippy joints, like Yorgo’s Bageldashery give it an extra cozy and small-town feel.  The container ships in Norfolk offer a skyline like no other city’s. The juxtaposition of old, new, and industrial is what characterizes these parts.

We found a park (Oak Grove Park) to stretch our legs and burn off the beer calories we gained from The Public House in Ghent the night before and that was pretty much the extent of our sightseeing. Spring was peeking shyly through the few popped buds and in the spring in the walking dogs’ step. But it was still windy and chilly. The bright, cloudless, sunny skies did not do much to warm us up.

Buds popping for spring

After the walk and a stroll in the bookstore, we went to lunch with my husband’s niece and her husband. Then, we drove to their horse farm. That was a treat! I had only seen horse farms in movies. The way the land is partitioned and the barn and the place for the horse trailer – everything was like out of a picture film. I loved it and was grateful for the opportunity to experience it.

Sun setting on the farm

It was only a two night trip, but with the roller-coaster of emotions and new-ness, it felt like a lot longer. Neither one of us wants to go back to work tomorrow. We want more time with people who get us, more good food, more story telling, more driving around and finding small, off-the-beaten-path places to eat, walk, or people watch. If only someone could pay us for those activities, too! Life is indeed too short.

On the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp. I could only imagine the snakes in there in the summer. Those, and the mosquitoes! But the peace and the quiet this time of the year were true tonics. 

An ancient tree rotting but still standing massive and stern. I wish they measures trees, not buildings. This one would win my vote.