Weekend Warmth

I had a lovely weekend, both healing and empowering [I will mostly write about the healing part here — the empowering part in another post]. 

One of my cousins from the East Coast (who is also one of my best friends) has very recently moved to California and now, after having lived all our lives on different continents or opposite coasts, we live just an hour’s drive away from each other. In one week, I have already visited her three times, and it’s been wonderful! 

My cousin/friend is a few years older than me and a single mother of two daughters, a 14-year-old, and a 9-year-old, who are almost opposites from each other. Apart from our different choices with respect to motherhood, my cousin and I are very similar, we resonate in many ways, and share many worldviews or approaches to life. She and her two girls are one of my “chosen families”. 

On Friday evening I got to their place — which is still mostly empty from their recent move — after a satisfying day’s work and an easy run, and looking forward to a guaranteed weekend of fun, affection, and sunshine. 

After going out for dinner and hearing some live music in downtown, we headed out of the city to see the shooting stars (Friday was supposed to be the last night of the best days for the Perseid showers): it was late, way past the younger daughter’s bedtime, but we were all so excited! And we weren’t disappointed: we saw a bunch of gorgeous Perseids and one specifically amazing one — huge and sooooooo long, its tail changing colors along the way from green to red to purple… the most fantastic shooting star I had ever seen in my life! But a lot of the excitement and enjoyment of the moment came to me from laying there on blankets on the ground, looking up at the sky with my young cousins who are like nieces or daughters to me, sharing the girls’ excitement and feeling their attachment to me. 

Saturday was a lovely, easy, relaxing day: we all slept in, had a late breakfast, walked to a coffee shop for late snack/light brunch, and finally headed to the outdoor pool where I got the workout I wanted (and needed!) and then relaxed with my cousins drying in the warm sunshine (which I don’t usually get where I live, just one hour north, at this time of year!), jumping off the diving-board with my playful youngest cousin, and having some nice heart-to-heart conversations with my cousin/friend. 

Back at home on Saturday evening, dinner and other “normal” parts of family life felt so easy and spontaneous: snacking and taking turns for showers after the pool, grocery shopping, each one of us chilling for a little of our own personal “down-time”, preparing dinner, and finally eating all together. 

I truly enjoyed preparing dinner for all of us. My cousin/friend set the grill going in the backyard but then left me in charge of grilling the food — which I had never done on my own — believe it or not! I really enjoyed the responsibility of grilling, checking on the food so it wouldn’t burn; but I also truly loved doing it for other people besides myself: I was grilling for my cousins, for one of my closest “chosen families”, and with the enthusiastic help of my little 9-year-old cousin. 

And after dinner came the icing on the cake for me: as we all sat in the backyard relaxing, my cousin/friend was tired and needed some time for herself, while her younger, very extroverted daughter was stil hyper and her teenage, more introverted daughter needed some pulling out of her shell. So I somehow, very naturally and spontaneously took both girls into my arms, the younger one literally, the older one figuratively: the three of us sat close to each other under the evening sky and shadows of redwood trees (which are still new to these girls), as I let them talk in turns, and helped them make themselves s’mores. 

I know I was helping my cousin/friend get a break she very much needed; and I know I was also giving the girls affection and attention from a different “adult source” which is at once a cousin, a sort of auntie, and in some ways a buddy. But I was also healing myself, healing my heart; it was a wonderful balm for my loneliness, for my old “family scars”, for my longing of little bits of “family time” (which I need now and then). And for all this, I am extremely grateful.

I definitely found all the warmth I had set out to find this weekend — and got way more than the wish I made with that amazing shooting star!