Weekend wedding in Berkeley.  Julia and I spent four days on the west coast.  It was the wedding of a cousin -- second or so.  This is someone who David has been in touch with since we were all young adults.  When I was at Sarah Lawrence, David went to Berkeley to explore the film scene.  Rita put him up for awhile and they began a friendship that lasted until his death.  The cousin, Rita, was born in Australia to immigrants from Germany via England for a generation or so.  Her family moved to the US when she was a young child but she held onto ties from her first home.  Added to that, the is another Australian cousin who has always been wild about the family tree since he was a young man.  He, Scott, has travelled extensively and makes a point of always going out of his way to visit any bit of family where ever he goes.  And he keep in touch.  

Many, many people have been in some kind of touch for years and Facebook has enabled this far flung group to blossom.  Something to note: common language has really helped this blossoming.  I don’t think I could do this with my family and certainly not with any of Julia’s birth family even it is was possible to find them.

Rita and Joel’s wedding presented a reason for many of us to gather.  Wedding guests flew in from all over the US, from England and from Australia.  I decided to make the trip, David’s stand in, curious to meet people only heard of and hopeful that being an in-law, now widow, would not exclude me completely.

It was quite unlike anything that I ever experienced before.  There was a pre-wedding dinner on Friday evening for out-of-towners followed by the wedding on Saturday and brunch on Sunday morning.  I came knowing only Rita, the bride, and Ron and Linda, one of David’s first cousins and his wife.  It was exciting, wonderful and very nice to meet so many new relatives.  Now we are all Facebook friends!  

There were challenges for me.  This is an older crowd.  People with grown children who have the time and inclination to travel for a far away weekend party.  It was uncomfortable at times to have a child with me, to have a child with significant challenges with me.  Julia is no Cheshire who as the only child at many gatherings worked the room and charmed crusty old artists.  Many times Julia did not even respond when people went out of their way to talk to her -- of course, this is not uncommon for her.  The parties were in small, sometimes precious, spaces, lots of noise, no kid diversions apart from what she carried, and generally just lots of sitting and talking.  Considering all, she did well but the two of us did not completely melt into the crowd.  

And, although everyone was very kind, at times I could not help but feel that it was not really my family and that there was a very large hole beside me.  No one made me feel that, I felt the separation.  I was with all of those people, meeting family that David had only begun to be interested in in the last year of his life.  David was not part of so much of the life that I now lead in Madison, and in Berkeley, I was meeting people who only know of David as a distant cousin who died but still, each time I had to explain my membership in reference to him, he was present, then absent.  I was still the amputee. 

And then there was my anxiety.  I was in a place that I’ve only rarely visited and really had no idea of how to get around.  Because the wedding parties took up most of the time, I did not plan for extra time or visiting museums or doing outdoor things.  I did not have the heightened ambivalence that I suffered from during summer vacation but the result was similar -- just not planning much.  And so, I became very anxious about what I had not planned.  I had addresses and phone numbers, but I did not have a good lay of the land.  To my credit, I was flexible -- when I found that I really needed a car to get around I rented one on Saturday morning.  When we were finished with wedding partying on Sunday, Julia and I went hiking in a park and then to SF Chinatown on the BART.  But throughout the weekend, I felt like I could jump out of my skin.  I was scared, nervous about each part of the days (many what if’s).  There was a sleepless night.  That, after a day of a lot of physical activity, including walking up and down the SF hills (shades of La Paz).  As I lay awake, I tried breathing into the uneasy feelings of the weekend and realized how hard the changes that travel bring were to me have been making me feel.  (OY, this is not articulate)  Travel is something that I love to do and that I always lament not doing more of -- held back by Julia or circumstance or economics -- but I am really, very, very afraid of diving into the unknown, venturing into places that I do not know or understand.  I think the last time I travelled comfortably was the England trip after David died, but now when I think of that time, I see that I was under the spell of sudden tragedy -- shock!  I was not feeling much of anything.  I was just doing.  

Do I crave that much familiarity?  Perhaps so.  Doing what is at the edge of my comfort zone be that physically as in place or intellectually as in challenging learning or perhaps spiritually, as in the long sit, is harder.  This last weekend, I felt it physically.

Why?  There is less to lose now, less to worry about pleasing, less to strive to succeed, but lots of anxiety.  I don’t think I can unravel this now, but I don’t want to back down.  I want to push beyond and dare more, not less.  There is a slight pull to acknowledge the anxiety and consider diving beneath the covers and never coming out, but that is a very small part of me.  Writing solves nothing, but I am comforted by the acknowledging.