maintain close family relationships and see my family regularly

Most of the people you call friends, and most the people you date will not be around, or care much about you. Family is important, but it’s never an excuse to not follow your heart. Always do what you feel is best for you. Your family most importantly wants you happy.

and one that is much more a “way of life” now. Thank goodness.

When my Mom came to see me this weekend, she brought me photos, including this one, which was taken at my parents 50th wedding anniversary in 2002.

My brother John, who died recently, is wearing the red shirt.

I am directly across from him in the photo, leaning into Mom.

I was talking to a psychic about my out-of-body experience when John died. He said this happens more frequently with twins, but seeing how close we were, I am not surprised I felt that way, too.

It was a very full weekend, lots of time with family – both my small, children-and-myself family and also with extended family. Mom rolled into town on Friday. We had a quick visit before I had to go to the theatre and she hung out with the kids while I did my theatre thing.

Saturday morning we got up and prepared a brunch-style picnic to take into the canyon that we could enjoy as we explored the river. It was PHENOMENAL! I found some great places for future photography (I am thinking possible book cover spot, Muse-if-you-are-reading)…. and mom got some great shots with her simple camera.

I especially love when Sam leans over and makes a big, in the moment, point of sniffing the flowers. I call him John Muir, Jr because he gets upset if we so much as brush against the wildflowers.

Saturday afternoon Mom took Emma out and Sam took a time out and lo and behold, my cousin Darcy called me to let me know she was in town, had checked into the Quality Inn so she and Nathaniel could have a swimming pool, which meant MY kids had a swimming pool, too!

Everyone was VERY excited about this development… and Mom, Emma and Darcy ended up coming to “Streetcar” while Nathaniel and Sam stayed with Katherine. Sunday it was a full cousin-play-date… I hung out before I had to go to my matinee – but it was all simply splendid, we had such fun.

The highlight of this evening was playing a game called “ha!” with my children. Here is how it works. People lie down with their head on the belly of another person. Each successive person says “ha” another time then the person before them. So person number one says “HA!” person number two says “Ha ha” person number three says “ha ha ha!” and so on with the goal being not to spontaneously start laughing.

My children are not nearly the giggler that I am. It feels really funny to feel your head go up and down from your neighbor belly saying “ha ha ha!” and when my daughter Emma “ha haed” to the tune of “Smoke on the Water” I couldn’t stop my laughter for a long time.

I mean, how does a nine-year-old know “Smoke on the Water” much less do the tune to the verbage of “ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…” LOL. Now Sam is reading over my shoulder and laughing.

It is difficult when people keep saying they are super busy and do not have time. I will send an email postcard now to some of those people. You cannot force them to change their schedule for you

It seems like a week and an eon ago that I sat next to John in the hospital, with him not looking very good and my parents arriving in the room looking so much older than I remember them looking before… but no, it has only been a week.

Dad mentioned, “We have seen three of our kids in one day! Wow! That hasn’t happened since our fiftieth anniversary!”

When I saw Jim on Tuesday he said, “Well, Dad DOES have a car, he could drive this way, too….”

I enjoy spending whatever time I have with any of them.

I had to leave the room when Dad spoke with John. I am comfortable with me crying and I didn’t want to “get in the way” of Dad’s process/relationship because I was emoting.

John and I continue to be closer than ever. I am so grateful for this time with him.

Sometimes things get tough and now someone might be very ill. Immediately you start calling and reaching out more. That is good.

What would be better is to make this a habit also when everything is going smoothly.

Katherine, Emma, Sam and I had a splendid time visiting Darcy and Nathaniel this weekend and as I experienced the weekend I was made aware, once again, of the positive ripple effect of setting – and stepping into – our goals in relationship with other people.

I wanted to begin to learn to contradance. My muse started to teach me several months ago, but I felt way to self-conscious to make much forward progress (Sorry, David!) I wanted to not only learn, I wanted to feel the soulful connection I had heard was possible from contradance.

So naturally, I was not one to be discouraged and I decided to search for a place to learn.

Nothing is available yet in Bakersfield, so I thought of largish cities not too far away that might have something. “Fresno!” I thought, not even thinking about Darcy at the time.

I found a dance and called Darcy, to see if she would be interested in attending.

She knew nothing about contradance, but I suppose since we share some of the same blood said, “Yes, let’s do it!” completely not knowing what the heck she was saying yes to, beyond seeing all of us, which we don’t do nearly often enough.

Fast forward to today, twenty four hours post contradance.

The dance itself was ok. I, naturally, have come up with numerous ways to make improvements. (I doubt I will be asked for my creative input, but it is here – - just in case! LOL.) I had some very fine moments with several people in attendance, but my favorite part of it was looking around the room and spotting the smiles on the faces of those I brought along for the experience – my children, Darcy, and her friend, Patty.

Everyone was ear-to-ear grin, almost the entire time.

We all want to go again. Next time, though, I am going to invite along some guys – and I have already started creating a list of candidates.

We also had some deep, evocative conversations afterwards. Darcy was affirmed that “our family is weird like this” when it comes to staying connected – and we were both reminded that even though “the rest of them” are like that, we can choose differently.

Nathaniel was so sad to see us go. I loved the hugging as we tried to get out the door. It felt infinite. No one wanted to let go. And you know, even though we are more than 100 miles apart this morning, part of the ripple effect is we are still connected today.

Part of the ripple effect is all those smiles, Patty showing up – Darcy having a mini-reunion with some of her friends from the Teaching Credential program twenty years ago who just happen to be a part of the Contradance, the sharing of Mary Oliver poetry… and the presence, once again, of My Muse, whose presence was felt there at the dance as he had his own reunion celebration with a dear group of friends hundreds of miles away, I am sure experiencing a different version of his own ripple effect.

The children and I are heading to Fresno to do some Contra dancing with my cousin, Darcy.

Actually – our little boys, Darcy’s son Nathanial and my son, Samuel, six months apart age-wise, will stay home with a sitter and the Girls… (Katherine, Emma, Darcy and Myself) will go to the Dance. I am excited on many levels.

In response to the V-Day invitation.

She is totally excited and wants to make it into a big family get together. I thought, “Umm, Mom, you know this is all about Vaginas, right?” I can see this opening up all sorts of new intimacy in my family.

On a tiny tangent, I told one of my close friends I was cast and he said, “Great, now I can’t go! I can’t hear you standing up there talking about your vagina!”

I said, “Tim! I am going to talk about the sacredness of it, I am going to be talking about childbirth, it is going to be great!”

And then I thought, “Hey, you have seen my photos on myspace” (he told me once how he and his buddy talked at length about one of my “artistic unclothed photos”) you should certainly be comfortable with me talking about my vagina!”

And he got all uncomfortable and replied, “Great, now I have to go watch the show right after this conversation. Thanks a lot!”

Ahhhhh, friends.

Like I told Amy, the Director. One of the reasons I love the Vagina Monologues is it gets people talking…

Good stuff. And Julie will watch as people, in shock, unsubscribe in droves….