On May 18, 1980, 8:32 AM, an earthquake on Mount Saint Helens’ north slope caused the volcano to violently erupt, spewing pyroclastic debris across the state. My father’s parents were living in Selah, near Yakima, Washington, when the eruption blanketed the town in sand and ash. My grandfather Merle remembers getting the news over radio after church (Merle and his wife Dorothy have been attending 8 o’clock church for decades, so it’s likely they got the news around 9, in the garden courtyard, which, by the time I was born, had been covered and fittingly renamed the Garden Room), driving home as ash began to fall (and the inability of windshield wipers to clear away volcanic ash), and the darkness of the bright spring day turned night.
On May 18, 1995, I was born to Kay and Derek Smith at Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital. My parents had been married for almost 6 years, a period through which they struggled with tragedy and infertility. They don’t talk about it much, but I know they almost had a son named Cooper, and were considering adoption. But their luck changed, and they had me. My mother says I was a miracle baby. When I was 2, my sister Karly was born. At around 4am on June 24, 1997, I toddled into my parents’ bedroom, looking for food or attention or whatever it is a 2 year old suddenly needs at 4 in the morning. My mom settled me down, and on returning to her bed noticed a large pool of blood where she had been lying–generally not a good sign. Derek got me clothed, sat me in the car, called his parents, and drove me and Kay to the hospital, which we happened to live about 2 minutes away from, and my sister was delivered via cesarean. My dad remembers seeing (and does a good impression of) Karly’s tiny arms raised to her tiny scrunched-up face as doctors held her above the operating table. Things might have gone worse if I hadn’t woken up my mom–as it was, Karly had to spend months under glass, in an incubator, in a neonatal intensive care unit, until she was strong enough to leave the hospital. My mom says I saved their lives. My earliest memory is in that house by the hospital (although the lot where it stood is now just a half-acre of grass) sitting on my mom’s lap in a chair in the living room, my dad bringing Karly over so she could breastfeed, me staring back from my dad’s arms and feeling pretty indignant about the whole switch.
My sister and I both have memories of dreams where Derek lost his head. In my sister’s dream, Dad came into her room with a rose in his mouth, his head toppling off and landing on the floor in front of her, rose and all. In mine, Dad dropped me off at my elementary school for a choir event, and when I came back out, sipping on silver-colored juice, his head had shrunk down to a nub, and I worried about his brain but we could still play checkers. Talking with my dad revealed he had worn a moustache up until a certain point in our childhood. Maybe its shaving kept us from recognizing his “new head”, and so we dreamed about the old one falling off and shrinking away, or maybe our childhood memories are so far away from us that when we look back, we mix them with dreams, or can only recognize them as dreams–or maybe we remember as we experienced the world as children, in surreal dreamy strokes where Dad’s head comes off along with his moustache.
In growing up and leaving home, I’ve begun to experience the phenomenon where my parents appear less and less as the omnipresent guardian denizens of Mom and Dad, but as Kay and Derek, as people, with identities and memories and fears and triumphs, who have lived through life at my age and whose situation I might one day be in. Additionally, as time continues to drag on, the older generations of my family become smaller and smaller, and I realize that family isn’t a permanent fixture, but a structure of relationships that constantly changes as people are born, die, and move about in between. Winter quarter this year (my freshman year) I got to know and interviewed my partner’s grandmother, and used her testimony to create a life history portrait, which made me eager to turn the lens on my own family. When my mom’s father passed away in 2011, I learned more about him after he died than I ever did when he was alive, so this project is a way of preserving my grandparents’ legacy and family memory when I can still hear it from their mouths. It’s also a way for me to understand my position in my family, which–ironically enough–I feel the most connected to after moving out.
To conduct research, I used a weekend to take a visit to Yakima. It’s a long way by bus–6 hours in total from Olympia to Tacoma to Seattle to Yakima–but I enjoy travel. Sleep-deprived and semi-delirious, I chugged a cup of coffee and scratched in my pocket notebook:
Tacoma loves vapes and titty espresso drive ins. The sharply slanting city, situated between legs of my journey like a groin, used to be in my mind the most populous city in Washington, although minor reference proves that was practically never true. Today I passed through rapidly, taking a second to loiter in Starbucks from bathroom rights, no companion save my wits to show me around. Someday I’ll savor long moments and afternoons sipping tea in Mad Hat, poring over thick texts, but today my destination lays on further horizons. I’m going home, to do fieldwork. Networked buses ferry me over desert, mountains, wetlands, 200 miles from the Evergreen State College, to the east, where the verdancy of the Sound recedes and greybrown foothills fold into the waste. I was born in the Valley and again the Valley I return, to creaky hardwood floors where I slid and stomped my feet, to 100-yr-old concrete pavers and innumerable taquerias. Home is the darkness and silence of a basement bedroom and the passive animosity of territorial cats–mom and grandma discussing celebrity TV dance drama–dad wafting banjo-plucked-bluegrass up the stairwell–sister camped out on living room couch watching Netflix with the subtitles on and headphones in, screen tilted so no parent bears witness. From one life to another in the span of a morning.

At home things have changed very little. I learned my sister has decided to attend the University of Washington next year. I watched my dad mow the lawn while my cat cowered on my lap. My family went out for burgers at a local chain (our traditional christmastime candy cane shake location, although we missed the trip this last December) and drove around town. My mom pointed out the house she had lived in while single–a pueblo-ish duplex–and was unable to locate my dad’s first apartment, although the impression I got was of someplace uniform and grey.
The next day I interviewed my grandparents and my parents, starting with some questions I wrote down in my notebook:
Where did you grow up? What was it like? What were your parents like? What were your siblings like? How was leaving home? What was the first place you lived away from your family?
Which kid was easier to deal with? What were the challenges of being a parent? The rewards? How did you feel when your first kid left? When they were all gone? When they started their own families? The first time you met your grandchildren?

First off was my grandmother Joanna. Grandma Jo is my mom’s mom, an elegant lady with silver hair, an affinity for cardigans and Dancing with the Stars, and an intense dislike of cats, especially on her lap. She has a little place several blocks from our house, but she’s been living with our family for the last 4 years following the death of her husband Bob. She volunteers at the Yakima Union Gospel Mission along with my dad’s parents, serving unhoused people in the community. She does not drive, but regularly walks over to her condo a few blocks away. My grandparents used to stay there a few times a year–during holidays we’d have Swedish dinner with homemade potato sausages, and during summer my sister, Grandma Jo and me (and on very rare occasions my grandfather) would have tea parties and play hide-and-go-seek.
Although Joanna didn’t speak at length about her childhood, I gather it wasn’t very easy. Her father was an entrepreneur and aspiring pastor, and didn’t have much time for family. Her mother was chronically ill, and her older brother was physically abusive (according to my mom. Joanna mentioned her brother’s name during the interview, trailed off, swallowed dryly and changed the subject), and so Joanna was left to take care of her younger sister. They still have a strong bond–Joanna visits Kathy in Bellevue regularly. When I asked my grandmother what she had wanted to be when she grew up, she told me she had wanted to start a family, but placed that desire within the context of her time–the 1940s and 50s. She met Bob in a car on a trip to church camp and they hit it off, getting married about 5 months later–she attributed this decision to the period and circumstances of their relationship. Bob enlisted in the Navy and served with the Seabees (a military construction unit). Their first child was born two years after their marriage–a boy named Karl. (My uncle Karl now lives in Vancouver, WA, with his wife June and their son Kyle. Karl gave me a Weird Al mix CD which I credit as my introduction to popular music. My mom used to tell me about her brother blasting Pink Floyd through their house speaker system, which Bob had wired himself. Bob did a lot of things himself. He assembled the first color TV on their block.)

Todo- write the rest of Joanna’s life portrait, as well as Merle’s, Dorothy’s, Kay’s and Derek’s–with focus on episodes of overlap (like kids leaving home, parents coupling up)–insert quotes from transcript throughout–more themes: death and birth, moving around and staying in one place, what are the effects on a family?–more testimony from my sister–one more interview for each person (or maybe a phone call to clear things up)–exact dates? does it really matter–conclusive thoughts, lessons learned, changes in how I view my position in my family (or maybe how my family members view it)