How to Drop in on Distant Relatives Who You've Never Met

Letter from Northern California

I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do." — Frida Kahlo

I could tell you about the redwoods - that nearly every structure around here was made from them, and how a few are left who have been alive since the Fall of Rome.

I could tell you about the ravens, who are as big as cats and waddle around Mendocino like 19th century bankers in shiny black coattails. I could tell you about the Taoist temple that was built during the logging rush in the mid 1800s and the mirror that’s still hanging on one of the walls, nearly disintegrated except for the oxidized, top-right corner.

I could tell you about the lively communal hot tub made out of redwood, where I’ve been bathing and meeting tourists and townsfolk in the nude. I could tell you about the night I gave my 12-year-old cousin $20 to run my number over to the town science teacher who I met in a wine bar. I could tell you about the little gray fox who I caught watching me later that same night, hiding between two cars on an inky street, eyes twinkling like a god in disguise.

I could tell you about driving through some of the grower towns hidden in the woods, and how the air is thick with the scent of weed. I could tell you about the sinewy and shirtless hippie men with ever-visible butt cracks and V-lines and body odor dense enough to taste. I could tell you about the goatherd.

I could tell you about lunches and family stories with my cousins Janet and Doug, who are both great photographers, and who I met for the very first time. I could tell you about Janet’s wildly creative life as a writer, musician, painter and art collector. I could tell you about her beautiful home nestled in a redwood forest.

I could tell you about falling asleep every night to the roll of the ocean under the blanket of the Milky Way. I could tell you about how hard it has been to leave and how easy it is to stay, and how it is usually the other way around.

I could tell you any number of these observations and experiences from these past few weeks exploring the Northern California coast.

But who I really want to tell you about is my cousin Florrie.

Florrie is my second cousin on the Isaacs side, my dad’s first cousin, Janet’s daughter. We were born the same year, only two months apart. We have the same color of hazel eyes. We have similar laughs and similar wounds. One Sunday afternoon at an art gallery as we stood side-by-side, peering over the artist’s phone while he explained how to use an app that animated his paintings, he stopped mid-sentence and asked, “Are you two related?”

I was happy he noticed the resemblance. I also thought how strange it was to show up suddenly in a town where I had never been and meet Florrie for the first time with whom I shared so many eerie similarities. Who I didn’t even know existed until two years ago when I asked my sister if we had any distant relations in California to visit.

I’m realizing this is a thing of mine - rustling up the distant relations. Since I was a young traveler in my 20s, I’ve been curious about my aunts, uncles, cousins, and second cousins. I always knew it made for better travel to have a host. I also had a desire to belong to the larger story of my family, perhaps because my immediate family has never seemed to really want to be a family.

My siblings often speak of a different, more idyllic and unified family life before moving to Indiana when I was born. What I experienced growing up was a kind of southern-style collapse juxtaposed against Midwestern suburban homogeny. Our home was messy, our backyard was overgrown and untamed, our animals ran loose, my parents were aloof, quirky and prone to shouting. Most of my peers couldn’t relate. They had normal families. I couldn’t exactly turn to my older siblings for support, who were on a different level. Not adults, but not kids either. They were angry and volatile walkers-between-worlds who smoked, drove cars, and vanished from the house after dark as if they belonged out there in the wild night the way that I belonged to the daytime realms of school and church. Though I had four siblings, I longed for a kindred companion who was just my age and just like me. Someone to go through it all with me. A twin.

My first day in Mendocino, I met Florrie, her son Rowan, and her boyfriend Gabe for lunch. Over soups and salads, I casually mentioned my theory that the Isaacs family was cursed.

“The Curse” was my folkloric explanation for the weirdness of my immediate family compared to the others around us when I was growing up. Later on, I used the word as a more story-oriented way of understanding our ancestral wounding instead of using therapy speak, which often felt dehumanizing. The Curse mostly came from the Isaacs side. It was my father who was the puzzle I could never solve. He was the one full of contradictions. The one who never talked about his past. Most of the first essays I wrote in college were about him. I thought that if I could unravel the mystery of my father, I could unravel the mystery of myself. What had happened to him as a child? I barely knew. What had happened to his father, my brilliant grandfather, who my mother hated and who wore a maleficent expression in all the old photos from the 1920s.

Florrie didn’t balk or cringe at my mention of The Curse. She too had been delving into old histories for answers to old wounds. Her journey had taken her on an exploration of learning Welsh words to see if speaking our old family tongue would conjure any ancestral memories. Clearly, Florrie and I were cut from the same cloth.

The next night we went to the town dive bar for drinks and talked men, witchcraft, and more about our families and upbringings.

“This is just a lot to process. I didn’t even know you existed until two years ago…” Florrie said.

“I guess it is strange me coming here,” I said. “Like this mysterious and previously unknown distant relation suddenly arrives in town who looks like you, was born the same year, and talks of a family curse.”

Later that night when we hugged goodbye I told her that it felt like I had another sister.

Over my stay here, Florrie and I have spent a lot of time together, making up for lost time. She visited me at my van some mornings whenever I was parked in town. We spent a day soaking at the Orr Hot Springs. We met up at the town wine bar, the town Irish pub, the town Italian restaurant, the town cafe where everyone goes for lunch. It’s strange to discover that only having one of everything - one pub, one grocery store, etc. - was not just enough, but a relief. It was strange to discover that in a town where I expected to only spend a couple of days, I was spending a couple weeks. I was surprised by how much the town was growing on me.

It’s a town where I have a beloved friend and beloved family.

I am finally back on the road this weekend, stopping to visit a friend and heading out from the coastline to the desert. I am making my way back to my Dad’s house in Indiana for the holidays and looking forward to spending the end of the year with him. I can finally feel that end-of-the-year October chill that compels me to reflect on the year. I am thinking on how these days, I am feeling more blessed than cursed.

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Rowan, Gabe, Florrie and me at the Italian restaurant, Luna.