Isn’t it weird how family works its way under your skin without you ever knowing? Some people I’ve heard put it down to some kind of ‘genetic imperative’, or ‘resonance’, but maybe being around family is just a good thing. Usually. I should of course add a disclaimer that being around family is sometimes like having your nails ripped out. But often that’s only when you’re dealing with an insane Great Aunt or something.
Anyhow. Later in the week I’ll write about hearing Michael Sandel speak at a seminar at The Treasury, despite making the obvious blunder of actually getting up the courage to ask a question. Note to self: never, ever, speak in public unless you’ve already put away a few drinks. It must be the tall poppy thing, because public speaking has always been a major anxiety of mine.
But for now I mention the public speaking thing on account of having attended a huge family reunion this past week. I took off on Wednesday and drove up, through the rain, to the Bay of Plenty and a few days where I didn’t have to wear wool virtually 24-7. It was bliss. Sitting in the heated pools at the Serviced Apartments, drinking beers till 4am almost every day, hauling my backside out of bed at 9am every morning for endless family meals. Not eating a single flatmate-murdered pasta. This list goes on.
Christ I’m knackered though. I actually had to stop the car for a power-nap on the shores of Lake Taupo on the drive back down yesterday. Safety first, after all. Tell you what, there are worse things than waking up and seeing the unspoilt splendour of that Lake. I was also home in time to watch Top Gear, which is always a bonus.
Like I say, family. In common with many families, the Tibbys have taken to globalisation with a passion, and my immediate Uncles all live on various continents the world over. With the Grandfather becoming increasingly elderly, one Uncle proposed that we try to get everyone in the same room for the first time in something like 30 years, and naturally I couldn’t miss out on the potential fireworks.
Much to my surprise, it worked a treat, and all of my mother’s father’s sons put aside various commitments to bring themselves to the Mecca that is Tauranga. Talk about an occasion, as it was the only full-time representatives of my generation were myself and two cousins, but we did our best to remember everything seen and heard in the interests of transmitting the proceedings to the future.
And there was free beer.
In fact, thank goodness there was free beer, one of the things about family is that you just can’t shake them, even when they piss you off. But on the other hand, that’s never really a bad thing. The details of the potential fireworks are something best left for another place and maybe not the public, but let’s say that brothers and sisters the world over have fallings out as a matter of course, and my family is no exception.
It’s rewarding then, and restores my faith in the human condition, to see people restoring ties long since broken, in the name of an unquantifiable link. All those years, and all that distance fell away when the family came together for the Grandfather’s 78th birthday party on Friday, and the representatives of the generation above me stood to pay tribute, to speak about the place in the world they each occupy, and to state the things they had learned from a grumpy old bloke with a passion for golf.
As it happens that anxiety thing kept me away from saying anything, and this isn’t the place to say what I would liked to have said, but I did learn how easy it is to put aside all the things we hold against our family for reasons unspoken.
And what did I learn? Too much to ever easily put into words.