Family

Here I am at the family Christmas reunion. This is a single room. There is a lot of food here: four kinds of salads, five kinds of cold cuts, a variety of sushi, field mushroom soup with rolls and butter, lamb, fish, prawns, beef, mixed vegetables, sliced fruit, seven kinds of Christmas cookies, a pudding, longans with almond jelly, a log cake.

Suddenly, I am filled with the odd sensation of knowing that most of what I am depends on my relationships with others. Who is here with me? Who are they in relation to me? I try to think of these relations first in their simplest terms - bonds of siblinghood, parenthood, marriage.

I am here. My wife is here. My father (+ wife (my mother) + second son (my brother)). My father's eldest brother (+ wife + eldest daughter (+ husband) + third daughter (+ husband + son + daughter) + son). My father's father's brother's son (+ wife + son). My father's mother's third sister's eldest son (+ second wife + third son). Some family friends. It is an odd gathering because so many are away. My sister (+ husband) on the phone. It's difficult to think of how much these people mean to me and still reduce them to simple data structures.

And so, this is my family at Christmas. And yet, not.