But the picture represents how I feel. A blur. Moving fast. And then wondering why the only people who are keeping up with me are the ones who are trying to slow me down.
I stuck Aretha in the CD player and cranked her up. My homework could wait.
Walls of boxes lined most of the rooms. Although we'd had an interior decorator get the house ready before we'd arrived, and even though we'd delayed moving in just to make sure that everything was right, we still hadn't unpacked most of our stuff. Mom had plunged back into work even more vigorously than ever. (Her recent big promotion meant that we could move to Stoneybrook, and into a big new house). Anna had resubmerged in her music, particularly her violin studies, and I just haven't been motivated.
As for my father ... he died in a car accident when I was nine years old.
So that's our family. Absent, mostly.
It wasn't always this way. When my father was alive there were only four of us, but somehow, it seemed like more. We were always cooking. Literally. My mom liked to cook. She had started training as a chef at this place in New York called the Culinary Institute of America. When Anna and I were kids she taught cooking at a local college. My father was deeply involved in environmental engineering and urban planning. (Believe me, Long Island could use all the environmental help it could get. Like it has this incredible stretch of land called the Pine Barrens that some people still want to turn into parking lots!) I remember my parents used to joke about designing an environmentally correct restaurant and building it in a tree.