Charlotte, NC

We just returned home from a whirlwind trip to Charlotte, North Carolina for my little cousin's bat mitzvah. It was Tom's first bat mitzvah, and elaborate Jewish event, and I was as excited to show him the cultural markers of American Jewish adolescence as to see my extended family. We sat through the marathon Saturday morning service, line danced to Shania Twain at the after-party, and ate lots of bagels with my many cousins. The little kids zoomed around in a pack, the ladies (of a certain age) ate and complained about their weight, my grandma looked downright foxy, and in a moment of either pride or utter humiliation (jury's out) I exchanged party dresses with my eight-year old cousin, Olivia, who in my defense is tall for her age. It was really nice.

We rarely get out to the east coast where most of my family and three of my best friends live (though I didn't get to see them), and we miss so much: little kids grow up, we've become adults...it's hard not to feel like an interloper, albeit one with the same genetics, when you pop in and out of people's lives at lengthy intervals. As a little kid on Long Island, I took it for granted that everyone sees their grandparents every week, and that older cousins (now moms of bat mitzvah girls) always babysit for them. That's one of the reasons Tom and I are so invested in staying in Portland--to afford our future kids the same proximity to all of that grandparental, et al love and companionship. I just wish we could have our lives here, in a place so much healthier for and in tune with my nuclear family than Long Island ever was, and still be close to all those aunts and uncles and cousins and grandmas back east. Family will drive you crazy, it's true (I mean, I do tire of my grandmother's comparisons: "You look just like my mother! She wasn't a great beauty, but..."), but families are also tremendously comforting in their, well, familiarity. There's something lovely about walking into a room and knowing all of the old ladies are going to gush about your figure, and there will be little children to tease and tickle, and the male relatives who still pinch your cheek, and the cousins to gossip with. The outlandish symphony of kvetches and kisses and shrieks and coffee spoons stirring into endless teacups is paradoxically a melody of intimacy. Maybe you have to be born in it to find it soothing, or maybe you have to move 3000 miles away to enjoy brief returns to it; whatever the reason, for all its hectic travel, this weekend was relaxing.

Charlotte itself is a pretty and clean, if somewhat anonymous city. Most of the historic buildings have been razed and replaced by skyscrapers, but there are tons of fountains and open plaza spaces with modern art and restaurants. The cleanliness reminded us of Portland circa 1992--wide pristine sidewalks surrounded by trees and happy-looking pedestrians. Tom and I took a long walk Saturday afternoon with my parents and Lukas, and stumbled upon a little graveyard with fallen soldiers from the Revolutionary and Civil wars. We also walked to the "historic South End," which FYI is a ghetto and should be avoided. But what's travel without (minor) misadventure?