We are all here.

You know, this blog has been hard to keep up. I am not getting a lot of new material. The time I’ve spent in person with my husband’s family amounts to four trips. (We’ve been to Italy twice and they’ve come to the U.S. twice.) Sure, we Skype about once a week, but it’s just not being in a room together. And Skype sessions don’t teach me so much about my Roma family as they do about the weather in Italy, etcetera, etcetera. 

I can think of some stories that have yet to be told (our Roma wedding celebration, for example) but it’s hard to delve into my memory of things that happened over two years ago and to get inspired enough to write about it in a way that’s worthwhile. 

One day they all might move here, I imagine, and then I’m sure I will have weekly if not daily interactions with them which will give me all kinds of material with which to educate others on my Roma family, or maybe just motivation to vent. 

The idea thrills and scares me at the same time. You see, I’m a bit of an introvert and sometimes feel more comfortable with books than with people. But I crave that feeling of family togetherness and community. My in-laws are really good at creating it. It’s the satisfaction you feel when every seat is filled. “We are all—all here,” was the conclusion to a poem my mom had copied in her pretty calligraphy handwriting and hung on the wall of family portraits. “We are all—all here,” I wish I could say. 

Longing for togetherness is a resounding theme in the conversation of my parents in law. They talk about the old days in Pristina, when cousins, friends, and neighbors were all the same and had been for generations. Before a war came, before the kids grew up. Before they lived in different countries, speaking different languages, eating different food, practicing new religions. 

The splitting up and spreading apart isn’t some archetype. I think it’s unique to our age. I don’t think we humans are made to live this way, seeing more of our families on facebook than in person. I wish we lived together in a village, the baker and the butcher and the librarian, with only cobblestone streets and whitewashed stucco walls to separate us. 

But anyway, I’m grateful, because although our family is distant, I’m finding a wonderful feeling of community with the new friends and neighbors we’ve acquired since buying a house. I’m grateful that I live within driving distance of many relatives and I’m grateful for the time I get to spend with them. I’m grateful that I know that wherever our paths may take us in mortality, my family (my parents and siblings and my husband’s parents and siblings and our future children and all the parents that came before us and all the kids that will come after) have yet to experience an even more sublime sense of togetherness which will be ours in what comes next, which is eternity.