Family time

The two weeks in the Midwest is drawing near. A blend of stress and calm engulfs me as I ponder the itinerary and how it represents my life. I'm flying into O'Hare -- an airport I have transited through at least a thousand times as I've criss-crossed the country for research, family visits, and other purposes but almost never left to enter Chicago. From O'Hare, I'll take the "El" -- at least I think it's still called the El or Elevated train to downtown Chicago, walk (only I need to keep this walk, my exercise for the day, a secret from my extended family) to Union Station and board a commuter train to the western suburbs. There, a good chunk of my Indian family in America will gather for my young cousin Shikha's wedding.

Just these details alone are heavy with significance. For now, let me continue with the itinerary.

The wedding will last three days. For two nights, we'll stay at my uncle's home and engage in family festivities. Saturday, we all relocate to a Hilton, in preparation for the nuptials which will take place Sunday morning, afternoon, and evening. Shikha -- like I did eight years earlier -- is marrying a non-Indian. However, Indians know how to do weddings better than anyone else so when it comes to the festivities, let the Indians run the show.

My father, who is 81, and my mother, who will celebrate her 77th birthday on the day of Shikha's wedding, want to drive to Iowa following the ceremony. They emigrated to Cedar Rapids in 1961, and moved to Iowa City shortly thereafter. My father completed his PhD in Iowa City, where I was born in 1962. We left Iowa in 1965, and I did not return in any significant way until 2003 when I enrolled in several workshops as part of the Iowa Summer Writers' Festival. I remember the bus from the airport dropping me off near the campus. I saw the massive river that flows through its grounds, and felt somehow that I knew this place intimately, that I had been here before. Was it the photographs in the baby book my mother kept of me? Was it stories that my father and my mother told, sometimes to me, sometimes others with me eavesdropping? Or was it DNA?

My mother told me about my father's desire to make the trip. Almost immediately, it became my desire, too. We will stay in Iowa City for one night and in Des Moines for one night, where family friends from before my birth reside: Lee and Penny Ferguson. Penny is of Indian ancestry; Lee is African American. The fact that they had an interracial marriage north of the Mason-Dixie line before the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act became law still astounds me. They had three boys, whom I remember vaguely from childhood days as visiting us in Muncie, Indiana, where my parents ultimately settled. Penny and Lee visited me once in Seattle, and we had a marvelous salmon dinner while arguing Clinton versus Ross Perot.

From Iowa, we will drive to Muncie, the town where my parents have lived since 1966 and the object of my research on race, ethnicity, and religion in small-town Middle America. I am looking forward to being there, though part of my purpose in going is to help my parents downsize their possessions and to arrange for movers to transport several pieces of heavy furniture and other items (including, I hope, all of my mother's photo albums and newspaper clippings) to my home in upstate New York. They are moving into a smaller, more efficient senior living space in Muncie -- their fifth residence in forty-seven years. I am just grateful that they did not follow through on a fleeting idea to relocate to Bloomington, because Muncie -- the place that as a teen I couldn't wait to flee -- has grown into a very dear spot for me. If my parents left, how could I call it home?

The stress. It emerges from the sensation of what I like to call the post-industrial condition. I am leaving with a major writing deadline unmet (and hence a big stack of papers, photocopied book chapters, and copious notes) as well as other twittering projects calling out to me, student papers and projects, and adjunct questions associated with my college's new learning management system. On top of all that, I'm running a marathon in 3-1/2 weeks. How to get it all done?

"Is there any way you can cancel?" my husband asked, as I fretted earlier this evening on the deck.

Truth is, I considered the possibility numerous times this afternoon as I drove to the bank, arranged for a heating oil delivery, staked tomatoes, harvested cucumbers and squash, and checked my e-mail every hour to deal with questions related to my day job. It would be so much easier to stay home, not to mention cheaper. But the value of family time and sentimentality trumped anxiety eventually, as it should.

I also remembered something Shikha had said to her mother during my wedding eight years earlier. Her mother passed it on to me. She said Shikha wanted her wedding to be like mine. Mine was laden with stress, strife over religious differences, and irresolveable family tensions. But it was creative, integrative, and ultimately, I think, fun. I am looking forward to being a part of hers, of perhaps writing about it, of reliving mine.