conflicted....

ok, so.....i have spent the past 3 days doing little but read kavalier and clay by michael chabon......a tremendous work of fiction....and the timing of this next bookclub assignment made for an unsettling experience as i read.......our family has re-established ties with 2 separate branches of our aryan kin.....through both letters and visits....and while i am pleased about this, it is with the complete understanding that i am related to people that have made hard choices.....i am thinking at this moment of standing inside the family house in lambsheim, and edwin showing us the photo of he and his father, who happened to be wearing a uniform that looked vaguely like the s.s......cannot recall if there was a swastika involved......i may have blocked out that part.....and is that not how we live our lives, to a great extent......remembering the best parts of our collective experience (ourselves and our kin), and trying to forget our collective faults.....i was pondering this last night...in the middle of the night...after i woke up and had trouble falling back asleep......pondering all of the family faults i would try to forget...in addition to being related to people who might have been nazis... i am related to at least one person known to be in the kkk....the white robe getup found after his death was destroyed, though it probably should have been donated anonymously to a museum.....i am related to republicans.....to women who have chosen to terminate pregnancies......to people who have been unfaithful in marriage.....to people who shot guns during wartime......and at some point before i fell back asleep, i tried to focus on the positives of this little game...i am related to missionaries....and ministers, including one minister unafraid to intermarry......and i am related by blood to a woman who never learned to drive but had the courage to get herself to the polls to vote democrat.....i am related to someone who has parachuted into alaska......to a man who has has been to all 50 states and 14 foreign countries, to folks who rode their bikes across america, to a man who has more than one novel in him, to folks who can speak more than one language with ease, to folks who know 100 point scrabble words, to folks who make diapers for aids babies.....curious how a book about superheroes inspired such an inner dialog.....but i digress from the book itself, and its crisp prose.......here is one of my favorite lines: The natural fragrance of her body was a spicy, angry smell, like that of fresh pencil shavings. wow......imagine an entire book of such musings........this book will be on my mind for quite some time.....