The trip was originally for two weeks, but the first week was solid travel for work; Boston, New York, and Woods Hole. This week has mostly been talking to family about the future; mostly about my father and his health, but also of property and family ties. K said:

you should do this
you have this place
that sounds really amazing
with your history already there
that’s a rare opportunity

I dug through my box of old photos here, which roughly covers the time period from ten years ago to five years ago. It contains reminders of people and road trips that I hadn’t thought about in years, and people I used to think about differently. As I wandered between members of the family, some clarity came about parts of me, the parts of me that bind people together, or at least form a bridge between them.

A couple of friends came out to visit last night. It was meaningful that they did, as nobody goes through the trouble to come out to see me. That is, I am always driving around trying to see everyone myself on their time.

Time flows. As I search my email for an old note to myself, I periods of time in the form of relationships go by as the search results aggregate entire periods, past loves, into a few emails.

My mother texted me that my aunt was feeling down about missing her family as they are currently estranged. I went out to see her unannounced and she cried when I arrived. Another Aunt mentioned a rumor about how I felt about this estrangement. I shrugged, indifferent. Where did this indifference come from? She offered that it was part of growing up an only child.

I stopped and talked to M’s mother for an hour. It was good to see her. We had strangely frank conversations about how Seattle treated M and I differently, and how that reflected on the kind of people we were. She brought up my being an only child as well.

My father was 28 when my parents married, and 30 when I was born. As his health wanes, as he dies, this narrative feels heavier, solid. I walked Bean Field Point on Thursday and was reminded a lot of Lunkasoos. I grinned at how I was grinning. I was wandering through the woods with no particular destination but for the region and the time there. Maine holds secrets, my past, to who I am. It is a shame that few ever get this, because it’s shadows otherwise. Reflections of glimmers of another time and place.

My grandmother and my “first cousin once removed” (only 6.25% genetic relationship?) found one of my old forts. I got laughing about it’s history. It as a small firepit made of spare concrete from the chimney of the house. We didn’t so much have camp fires here as we just had fire though, as “boys will be boys.”

Dad mentioned that next year this house is twenty years old, which reminded me that nineteen years ago our house that formally stood here burned to the ground. What of that? Another shrug.

How did I achieve so much without a strong direction, without particular desire for property, wealth or success? Any desire for approval was subtle beyond that of those I loved.

Which will likely never make any sense, but that I loved them. Every day life becomes more about embracing the consequences of the choices that I make under much consideration.