back from Long Beach....

since 5:30 this morning, my mind reeling from all the e-mails I had to delete from being away from my account for the past 4 days. Still tired, have a meeting this evening, a BAN meeting and i hope to be together for that. Still have to make up sleep---I slept very little on the plane. Efficient but crowded. I amazed that the five hours went as fast as they did.
 The wedding and its environs. So many things that I could say---so many impressions, so many comparisons of the lives of others to my own, I really don't know where to begin. There were four events---a "friends" party at a popular bar in downtown Long Beach on Friday---a pre wedding dinner on Saturday--the wedding and its celebration party on Sunday, and a final brunch on Monday. Also, my first encounter with my brother David since his illness has made him a little more limited, and my "rooming" with him for two evenings. (Saturday and Sunday).  My niece's wedding, her humor and lack of "self love" in this situation--yet a somewhat too"happy" celebration at this time. Then, being on someone else's schedule, waiting around---I feel that I am not doing justice to my whole experience. My brother deals with his illness in a very adult way---he gets a little frustrated at times---but I can hardly blame him. At other times he is extremely mellow and likeable---the highlight of our time together was for me, just reminiscing with him over times we shared as teen-agers, while sitting and talking at the brunch. His memory is terrific---like me, he easily brings back very specific moments that we shared, or that he experienced in his childhood. And yes, we were very lucky to have two highly functioning well adjusted parents---our father, who was the more dominant of the two parents was prone to mini-explosions at certain moments, but for the most part, there was nothing erratic in either parents' behavior for us to deal with---really no "survival" issues as children that we had to face at all. I think this resulted in allowing our imaginations and passions to "explode", that is to be fully explored. So we became baseball experts, theater experts, et al, because there was freedom in the apartment house to do that. And at moments in time, when we were together, I think we got back to that---a core warmth, coming from recollections of the past. David asks for no credit for dealing with his illness---he just does it. There is probably more courage in that then I am capable of understanding. And so it goes.
   The rest of the participants including two cousins of mine who live in San Francisco (Judy and Gene) and their daughter, Barbara. She and I had some interesting discussions the first we had in a long while. There was the group of mostly 70 somethings who were friends or relatives of the grooms' parents, and another group of the bride and groom's friends, mostly in their thirties (the age of the bride and groom) who had either gone to school with one of them, or who had worked with them more recently in California. All were couples, amazingly enough---all seemed complacently happy---not entitled, but comfortable in their lives. I interacted with both groups with varying degrees of success. And my niece, Natalie, who had to wade all through this, did it with aplomb and a little bit of satire---it was impressive that she was not scared to make a little fun of the seriousness of the setting, even at crucial times.
I think that is all for now---many more ideas and visions came out of the weekend, but do not feel like discussing them at this moment---tiredness is setting in, I want to be ready for the meeting this evening, and visit a few more web sites before returning home. Will report more tomorrow.