Time to Break Up the Team

The time has come to break one of our family’s most important rules: Don’t break up the team.

As I’ve explained previously, this rule started because separating and getting back together, meshing individual perceptions of times and locations agreed on, anxiety produced when one party or another is delayed, inevitably led to tension and exasperation. Later, it came to express our family philosophy of standing and staying together, so that all of our resources are combined, and whatever awaits us, good or bad, will be experienced by all of us as a unit.

We can’t always do this, of course; ultimately, we would lose our individuality if we didn’t spend time away from each other. Aly must eventually leave to make a life of her own. The rule itself carries an undercurrent of irony, of which all three of us are very well aware.

Nevertheless, we enjoy being together, and part with a certain amount of sadness and trepidation.

Today I leave on the ferry to begin my trip down to Oregon to serve my old friend and college roommate as Best Man at his wedding.

I’ll be gone until June 22nd, passing through Juneau on both legs (connecting to Haines by ferry, flying south). I’ve arranged my flight to allow a couple hours layover in Seattle to visit family. Other than that, I will be entirely at my friend’s disposal. As such, I won’t be updating the blog for the period, so there won’t be any wedding play-by-play, but I’ve scheduled entries for each day.

As for the rest of homestead life, I have confidence that Michelle and Aly will do fine without me. I regret the fish I won’t catch, the whales I won’t see, and being away from home and homestead on the Summer Solstice. But, I’ll be back, and ready to resume the life we’ve chosen. And the team will be united again, at least until Aly goes to Fairbanks for ASRA in July.

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