family politics

Morning notes: From Eden to Exile; Alexander the Great.

Then a morning call from Ev, Kimmie's widowed sister-in-law, set off a discussion or argument about family politics. I just looked up the word dysfunction in my Webster's. Here's what I found:

impaired or abnormal functioning

I believe that Kim's family, in general, qualifies to be categorized as, technically, dysfunctional (this term is now widely and jokingly used, but it still has a technical, clinical meaning, I believe). If we take the term abnormal and consider how it is used in the term abnormal psychology (according to my Harpercollins College Outline text Abnormal Psychology by Timothy W. Costello and Joseph T. Costello), it applies to people whose behavior is more or less maladaptive. This in turn is defined by the presence of 4 kinds of maladaptive behavior:

1. long periods of subjective discomfort
2. impaired functioning
3. bizarre behavior
4. disruptive behavior

Well, if we look either at the family as a whole, or at individuals within it, I think we see these things aplenty (not in every case, of course).

"It's all the scheming," I said. "You guys are addicted to scheming."

Ev's daughter Lisa had told Ev about certain things said and done by her husband Paul. Ev called Kim to ask her to talk with Paul, and persuade him not to do those things, or at least to influence him in some way. Look how many links are in that chain!

"It's like some kind of trick pool shot," I said. "You want to bank this ball off that ball to pot that other ball over there. Freaking Rube Goldberg setup."

It's politics. People seeking to control other people through indirect or even covert means; forming coalitions; creating "sides".

"I know," said Kimmie, "it's awful. I hate it. I wish it would just not be here."

Without going into the details, it's all fallout from the events around Freddie's death in February. There is a lot of neurotic family agitation, much as there was when their father Fred died in 1992. The inability of the family to cope sanely with the death of its members (at least its senior male members) is itself a sign of dysfunction, I think.

This afternoon we finally decided to go to English Bay downtown, and walk along the shore as we did a couple of weeks ago when we went to see the tall ships. It was glorious to feel the salty breeze blowing in from the green sea, with the blue mountains in the distance.

Maybe I'll close out with the prose sketch I made there:

SUN. 7 AUG. 2005 2:50 pm ENGLISH BAY

We're on a sundrenched bench. The old pavement walk in front of us is uneven, cracked. Smells: frying, garbage, marijuana. The busy urban beach: tanned: concerted high-pitched screaming from the water as kids run in the waves. A heron flaps heavily by (K. just pointed it out--she's ever alert for birds). Couples: Germans; a bulked-up black guy with his darkly tanned but white girlfriend (saw him shirtless earlier on: has a verse of the Koran tattooed across his back); gray-haired pairs; white guys with their Chinese girlfriends; braces of gay men.

Pale-blue sky over all, with faint clouds laid like feathers along the southern horizon, over the flat mass of the West Side--just a fine-toothed jaggedness of trees. Sloops nod by. Motors rumble hollowly. Exposed wet sand, painted over with green weed around tidal puddles and streams.

Asian families, barechested guys, loners striding purposefully, canebound old men, stoned hedonists, phone chatters, a pot-bellied guy with a headset.

But Kimmie was quiet, unhappily turning over her conversation with Ev and thoughts about her family.