Adam Kibbe<\/p>\n
Our family gets together but infrequently. Come high school age, the children of families such as ours were sent to school in the United States from our expatriate home in Venezuela, gone from the nucleus for many months at a time. With college, that gap widened to years, and as if by habit, we now do well to see each other every two or three years. Absurd by the live-near-or-with-mom-and-dad-until-they-die New England standards, but perfectly normal for those of us to whom those last two adjectives can\u00c3\u00adt readily be applied.<\/p>\n
My parents now live in the foothills of the Sandia mountains, which form the eastern border of Albuquerque, where I was born 43+ years ago. Not at this house. Nor even one that we can say exists anymore. We left \u00c3\u00acThe States\u00c3\u00ae when I was three months old, and after 20 years or so in Venezuela with my father in the employ of U.S. Steel, my parents returned to the last stateside city in which they\u00c3\u00add lived, and they\u00c3\u00adve yet to leave again. This is their second — and likely last — house there, a sprawling old faux-adobe house once owned by Berke Breathed (he of Bloom County fame — Opus was often drawn in what is now my father\u00c3\u00ads computer loft). From the entry side, one gazes immediately up at the mountains which give Albuquerque what grandeur it has.
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\nIvan met his \u00c3\u00acsupernumerary\u00c3\u00ae great-grandparents this Christmas, and they he, and for the first time. The Boston Bunch — me, Tricia, Luke, Amy & Ivan — all caught a mid-morning flight out of Logan and were having supper that evening in the Southwest with Jack & Betty (Mark stayed home with his girlfriend, Michelle, and with other plans, and less in debt than he\u00c3\u00add\u00c3\u00adve been had he come — but he chauffeured, godbless him).<\/p>\n
We traded generous presents, stayed up \u00c3\u00aclate\u00c3\u00ae (given the two-hour time difference) talking, especially around the dining table, and had many a memorable (good and bad) meal out. We visited the fabulous Albuquerque Aquarium, spent a night in a charming B&B in Santa Fe called The Four Kachinas, did a fiendish jigsaw puzzle in tag team shifts, and propped up the New Mexico economy with all manner of art purchases in both towns. And we took turns herding the two-year-old whirlwind that is Ivan. It was a visit rich in all kinds of ways, from the interwoven families and generations, and the spice of green and red chiles, to the pack of four coyotes that loped through the yard on their way up into the mountains one morning, much to Ivan\u00c3\u00ads (and our) delight. Hard to say when next we\u00c3\u00adll meet again, and what challenges age and distance will add to the mix, but I feel more in touch with my roots and with all of my family for the experience.<\/p>\n
Should you wish a few more images of our trip, click here.<\/a> And Happy New Year to you all!!! Adam Kibbe Our family gets together but infrequently. Come high school age, the children of families such as ours were sent to school in the United States from our expatriate home in Venezuela, gone from the nucleus for many months … Continue reading
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\nNew Year\u00c3\u00ads eve, after many from-scratch margaritas, but before our sumptuous feast.
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