Stories and More Stories—A Family Reunion On The Beach In the Wind

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On the second evening of my husband’s big extended family reunion, we met at a burger & bar joint, shuffled into a private room that could house the scads of us, and shared stories.

These were stories told to the person sitting next to you as the wait staff floated around the boisterous crowd, or to the person across the table who’d just made you burst out laughing and needed to hear your version of the same hilarity—a back and forth of the best kind. An explosion of sound waves, too.

Eventually, these were the stories told to the whole room by each willing family member who stood from their chair to reminisce about the decades of family history gathered in the minds of the people there. There were a lot of minds with a boatload of memories.

Speaking of boatload, we were in Florida, land of boats.

What struck me that night was how much history can be present in only one family. We had a gathering of around thirty-five people. As each storyteller got up to relay a narrative rich in detail, the history of experience in that room grew exponentially. What was alive in one person’s mind existed in others, but in varying accounts. I watched how much one person can hold in terms of thought, joy, challenge, and assessment of it all. Then I multiplied that by 35.

Imagine multiplying it by 100+ billion, the supposed number of humans that have lived so far. Vast experience has cycled around the planet. The body experiences a lot, and the perception that arises from it is great, and you’d never know how great until you shuffle into a room at a burger & bar joint and listen to it start to dribble out of the minds that store it.

Over the course of the five days together, my one tiny mind gathered up stories that either entertained or helped. To hear that others were grappling with the same life demons as me, and to listen to what they did to manage them, was both normalizing and instructive. Humans suffer, and humans resolve. Then, we share our journey so others might resolve, too.

My husband’s extended family has always been a lively group with a variety of personalities and life experience. There are tightly bound groups that travel together, family members that keep in touch, some not so much, and a small patch that struggles with each other. It’s like most families, I imagine. The fact that they spent so much effort to fly to the hometown of their common ancestry speaks to commitment.

Most of us coming from colder climates flew to Florida expecting nice weather. It was not to be. There was cold and wind, and our visions of dolphin tours and lounging on the beach never made it past visions. We did do a shark tooth beach comb hunt with a contest for Most Teeth Found and Coolest Tooth. I didn’t win because I missed the judging, but I would have. I’m nothing if not a freak beachcomber and rock hunter.

Mostly, we spent our time gathered around a pool at the hotel, where we caught up on years of life. My kids had to explain what they do so many times—software engineering in the semiconductor field—that they can now do it while sleeping. I talked about the joy of ADHD coaching and the agony of writing my first novel. I could see my husband in the distance talking about something. I suspect it was explaining in shocking detail how to play whatever board game was on the table.

When I arrived home, I fell into bed with barely energy to brush teeth. For me, juggling the countless asks—mental, emotional--when socially interacting with a large group in loud spaces is draining. I was ready for my seven-hour silent meditation retreat two days later, which I figured would have nothing to do with a multipronged reunion.

Not so, and life will do that for you—connect the seemingly disparate.

This was my second one-day silent retreat put on by a teacher who falls into the meditation category I’ve learned from thus far—the psychological interface with ancient meditation traditions. Research on the brain is always hovering in the background of the instructions we receive, sometimes explicitly pointed out. If I were to put it into a nutshell: chillax and notice, and your neuroplastic brain will thank you for it.

We set up in the padded pews of a rented Episcopal church established in 1855, and for seven hours remained silent with little eye contact, listening to an hourly talk on a main topic, then meditating in silence, then walking in silence. We’d go to the bathroom during breaks, and cough in the hallway if anyone had a coughing fit. Snoring was not cool. Sneezing was okay.

This retreat was centered on the topic, Living With Loving-Kindness. The instructor’s talks roamed the far corners of what this could mean, but focused more on the idea of self-acceptance and being a friend to yourself. The focal message was that the path to genuinely loving others is through loving yourself first. Love is all-encompassing, not piecemeal.

I’ve heard the concept explained in various ways—you put the oxygen mask on yourself first to be able to help others, for one.

While I was still so sleepy from the reunion, it took most of the day to arrive at some level of insight from the retreat. The idea that one of the biggest delusions and sources of our suffering is a feeling of separateness—from others, and from ourselves—really hit home for me. While at the reunion, it was never out of reach to see that people made a big effort to be there. This was proof of how much the group yearned to connect.

The silent retreat ended faster than I thought it would. Time is like that. It reminded me of the walk our reunion group did around my husband’s grandparents’ old neighborhood in Florida. The residents who lived there long ago are likely all gone from this Earth. Time marches on like a sprinter. Therefore, before it sprints out of sight, we're wise to come together. We’re all in the same boat, even if we infrequently realize this. We think we go it alone. We don’t.

Since we don’t, we might as well get together and catch up, notice what is there, be vulnerable, giggle, hunt for shark teeth, strain to hear above the noise, accept that others feel high emotion sometimes, accept our own, and cherish what we learn from it. The brain will change from the learning. We’ll love better.

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Hope you're doing well, friends. I appreciate you.