Part I: First Contact

I began my day bewildered. Roughly two weeks before my birthday, which historically is about the time that a black cloud begins its yearly formation above my head, I found the back of my office chair resting on the top of my head. The fattiest part of my bottom suddenly ached and it was several moments before I realized that I was sitting on the floor, my legs straight out in front of me, the seat of the chair at my back.

I belatedly remembered hearing the crash as the chair tumbled. It came back to me like an echo. I felt disoriented and confused. Disorientation is an interesting word. It amply describes the feeling of not knowing which way is up or down, yet it is so subdued a word as to be inadequate as a descriptor. In a way I knew where I was, the familiarity of the place and the space had altered enough that for a moment I questioned my understanding of my little world, and for a briefer instant I questioned my sanity.

Not the best way to begin any day at work. Certainly for me not a great place to find myself in the middle of June. Sitting under the umbrella of my chair suddenly, I wondered if this was an omen of things to come.

I had been stretching my legs out in an attempt to soothe some back muscles while sitting in front of my work computer. The desk is much too large and deep to comfortably use while typing on a keyboard that won't move more than a few inches away from the monitor located at the back of the desk. The result is that in order to type or use the mouse it is necessary to hunch forward in the office chiar. Apparently the stretch went too far and the wheels of the chair rolled out from under the seat’s bottom as well as my own.

A few hours later the feelings of disorientation returned.

My drive home from the community college I am working at this summer is actually quite a beautiful way to spend an hour. The stretch of pure freeway is only about ¼ of the drive; the rest is over or beside water or rolling hills or a road whose eucalyptus sentinels hold their leaves protectively over the road.

Like many people who live in this age of technology, my email, twitter and facebook updates arrive on my cellphone accompanied by a small icon. So at stoplights I usually glance at my phone for a very brief update. I wasn’t surprised to see a Facebook message. I was, however, stunned that it was from my sister. A sister I have not seen or spoken to in twenty years.

This particular sister is not family by choice; she is family by birth. We share the same mother and the same abandonment issues. I was a toddler when my mother left me with my grandparents. My sister was eight when Mom left her. We also share a brother; he is the middle child of the three of us and so was equally abandoned.

The three of us were fairly close when we were young; as close as kids can be who aren’t raised in the same house and who see each other irregularly. I already had my two children when her son was born a few months after her eighteenth birthday. She came by our house to borrow money several months later. That was twenty years ago.

I know a bit about her life, although not a lot. Her son ended up with his paternal grandmother. She had two other daughters. One lives with the father. The other lives with our brother.

The FB message was in response to one I had sent her three weeks before. I have been searching for information about her on the internet for several years. I occasionally find a tidbit of information on sites such as MyLife or Spokeo. I don’t trust most of the information (such as one site listing her as male) so I don’t bother to follow up. The last time I did a FB search, I came across a number of women with her name. For some reason I fixated on one person who had no picture posted and less than a dozen friends and sent a message that said, “I'm looking for my sister who is originally from Sonoma, CA. (or Boyes Hot Springs, CA). Could that be you?” It is easy to become conditioned to nearly instant responses when communicating online, so when I heard nothing in the first few days, the attempt at contact floated quickly and easily to back of my mind.

The response was clearly sent that afternoon, “yes its me call me its me bambe your sister.” It was accompanied by a phone number. I have a strict personal policy that happens to align with law enforcement: I don’t text or email while driving. My head set was lost so I couldn't call as I drove. So I had to put my phone down as soon as the light turned green. My first impulse was to cry, which I managed to stuff down. My second was to pull over and call her immediately. This was stuffed down as well.

Instead I drove home while a very large and growing cloud of thoughts and feelings swirled around me; it surrounded me and wrapped me in a blanket of emotion. Old pains and memories filled my head and my heart as I tried to imagine who the little girl I once knew had become. I ended my day much like I began it, disoriented, bewildered and not a little lost in my own body.