Making Wes Anderson Proud

For the first time in at least three years, it’s a full house. I’m back from India. My sister (the U.S. Marine) is home from base in California for a couple days. Of course, my mom couldn’t be happier…in theory.

“I can’t believe it! Everyone’s here,” she keeps repeating – while asking for multiple hugs. She’s excited to do things all together like eat dinner or go to the movies. It feels a little strange we're all here; I can’t help but wonder what wormhole I just walked through. I should be 13 with my frizzy red hair, glasses and braces. My sister should be way too cool for everything and always in a defiant mood (okay, she kind of still is). My mom should be packing my lunch and dad should be off at work doing something with computers I never understood. There should be one of our cats stretching in the kitchen, getting ready to eat her morning feast.

It’s 7 a.m. The perfect time to be awake. The light outside is still dim and waking, and snow’s covering the world. The trees are heavy with it and the roads the only pathways in the whiteness of the earth. This morning, even the sky takes up a grey/white hue. I stand by the large bay window just looking out at the picture I haven’t seen in many months, surrounded by the warm colors of the home sipping coffee. Mom’s awake too, drinking her coffee, maybe she’s checking her email. It’s warm and quiet – perhaps the quietest waking hour of the home that holds this little nuclear family. It’s just nice. For now. To be home.

For the first time since I can remember, Mom's happy with her work situation. She got a desk job at a flower distribution company and goes on about how much she loves her coworkers and how essential she is to the company now. She got the last two days off to spend with the family, but planned to bring my sister and I in to the office so everyone can “see us both at the same time. They want to see you together! Compare you and stuff. Ha ha ha!”

I take this with a grain of salt. But this kind of thing makes me feel a bit like a brand new piece of jewelry. I’m not even sure how much mom’s coworkers want to see us anyways. Why would they really care? I do it to make my mom happy and avert more arguments. It’s easier.

Around 3 p.m. we get ready to pile into my mom’s old minivan and go. My sister’s in a bad mood today. Not a particularly bad mood, it’s actually more like the bad mood that is her normal persona. She seems to have hit her breaking point for the amount of time she can pretend to be happy in New Hampshire for my patents’ sakes.

“Fuck! My Pumas are all fucking ruined!” She yells, bending over to lace up the sneakers that are obviously inappropriate for New England winters.

“Well, can’t you wash them?” Mom asks.

“No I can’t fucking wash them; they’re Pumas!” (mom has no idea what “Pumas” are).

“Well, what’s wrong with them, the salt?”

“They’re fucking ruined! I hate this place!” I think the definition of a Marine is: n. someone who swears every other word, has a natural voice volume about five clicks louder than the norm and also occasionally shoots people for the government.

While my sister routinely yells at my mother, my mother instigates it by continuing to ask her questions to try to “calm her down.” This combination results in nonstop highly annoying (borderline unbearable) noise pollution between the two women. My natural reaction to all this is to shut up; I instinctually go into silent mode. Speaking would inevitably make them even more annoying. I suddenly long to be a member of one of those happy, smiling families in the Sears photography commercials or sappy Christmas movies.

Yup. I remember this. This is what it’s really like being home with the entire family now. Forget how it was when I was 13. the family dynamic: one daughter that’s constantly yelling and in a bad mood. A mother that, despite meaning well, just doesn’t know when to just give it up, a younger daughter who would rather avoid it all and write stories in her room alone, and a ex-hippie-radical father says to her without speaking, “I know how you feel." In the car, I go in to quiet mode until we arrive, trying to tune out the voices.

“Don’t tell anyone anything about me. Like, nothing!” my sister says.

“I won’t,” mom replies. “What would I tell them?”

“You can tell them I’m a Marine, that’s it! Fuck! You tell people too much!...”

We arrive at mom’s work. My sister and I do our best to put on smile masks and be friendly and sociable while mom shows us off to all her coworkers. They all smile at us pleasantly and come up with typical obligatory questions like “How was your trip?” and “I bet you must be happy to be home?” It’s one of those encounters for everyone (except Mom) that’s completely contrived in every way.

While mom’s going off about my sister and my accomplishments, she suddenly blurts without thinking, “Samantha has (fill in the secret government information here)!”

Now my mom’s gone and done it. My sister shoots her a death stare like no other and starts yelling about how nobody’s supposed to know that! and how could my mother think it’s OK to tell people that! Fuck!. She gets it together long enough to be pleasant for a couple more minutes until we’re back in the car and going home. Then my sister proceeds to blow up at my mother, also screaming about how hates it here, she only comes home to make my parents happy and she’s going to change her flight to go back early.

All the while they go on and on, sister yelling, mother, good intentioned, instigating her with silly questions, I’m sitting silently in the passenger’s seat, staring blankly out the front window, with a large potted flower arrangement Mom got as a gift from work on my lap.

Picture it.

Really, try to conceive of this scene. It could easily be a scene from Wes Anderson film. I begin to realize that’s exactly what we are. Not the perfect holiday comedy family. We’re the slightly dysfunctional family full of darkly hilarious characters that only works when you look at it from a safe distance. We’re the Tenanbaums. We’re the Zissous.

Suddenly, we make me laugh to myself. It makes me feel happy - not like I wish I had a revolver to aim at my temple.

I should have known. It should have been so obvious. Of course. It all makes sense now. How could I even think we were the “functional” type of movie family? I suddenly don’t feel the compulsive urge to marry into a “sane” family as soon as possible. Now that I’ve cracked the mystery, I feel a lot better.

By dinner time things have calmed down a little. My mom and sister have been in their separate areas of the house so I haven’t had to listen to them. We’re celebrating Hannukah tonight, more than a week late, because everybody’s home. We skip out on saying the prayers but the menorah always looks so pretty fully lit and the latkes taste like memories. My sister and parent’s are drinking wine. There, outside the big dining room window is snowing New Hampshire. Here’s the scene. Here’s the setting. The character’s have been developing for a while now. So has the plot. I wait to see what ridiculous episode going to happen next. It's coming, but like any good movie, it'll be a surprise. When it happens, I’m contently entertained.

Wes would love us. If Wes invented us, I’m sure he’d be proud of his work. I wonder if I could make any money pitching us to him.

Then again, I’m curious as to how many of you are Wes families, too.