a view from the bridge

Today La Jersild, longtime friend of Clan Monaghan, posted a gorgeous tribute to my family on her blog. Which is named Fiendish Plot, perhaps the most perfect blog name I have yet encountered. Anyway, read today's entry. Then go back and read her blog frequently, because she's a fabulous writer.

Her view of my family is terrific to read. But I know I can never occupy the bridge she views us from. You have to be free of the genetic ties and the cultural matrix that I didn't even realize existed or was truly unusual until people like La Jersild and my friend Sean the Expat started coming along and pointing it out. I'm too much part of the land the bridge rests on, to take in the view from up there. (Okay, Arthur Miller. I'm going to stop torturing your metaphor now.)

Once it was pointed out to me, though, I grew into the idea that it was important to pull my weight. Being blessed to land in one of the last few fully functional families in North America, I knew I should do what I could to keep it that way. That meant things like final elimination of the inevitable adolescent conflicts I had with each of my parents, and instituting the Sib o' the Week calling system -- which I should resurrect, now that I'm out on the wild frontier. But that's for another post.

So even if we're the potential stuff of tweener novels. Even if we're a little Waltonesque. Even if the bridge was built of movie musicals and exclamation points, I'm glad people like La Jersild found it, or built it for themselves, and liked where it landed when they crossed over.