The grass was green, the sunlight was slanting through the trees, and the afternoon at my childhood home was idyllic. Andy and I drove to Amsterdam for a Memorial Day dinner with family. The lighting was perfect for a bunch of photos with the twins – these will show up in the Christmas calendars at the end of the year, but a fun sneak-peek is on preview here.
The unofficial start to summer was surprisingly filled with sun – a rarity this spring – and we took advantage of it with an outside dining experience. And this photo shoot. I’m not sure which we enjoyed more.
While Andy talked with Mom and Dad, I entertained the twins, first with these i-Phone pics (they also insisted on video, which I will not be posting on my YouTube channel because I hardly post anything on my YouTube channel, and it’s rather ridiculous that I even have a YouTube channel, but I digress…)
Following dinner, instead of letting digestion work its time-honored magic, I got roped into a game of tag with the twins. Thanks to all of us getting a little older since we last played, it was more and more difficult to get ahead of them. I no longer had to slow down to even the score – they were quick and relentless enough to genuinely give me a challenge.
Thus summer began at the Ilagan house.
A happier start I could not have conjured.
We left satiated and spent – the best way summer can close a day.
The twins are at a perfect age for summer memories, and I often wonder when that line of memory demarcation will solidify for them.
Will they remember the day that they started to catch up to Uncle Al as we raced through the grass together? Will they recall the way the sunlight filtered through the oaks and pines, lighting up the last of the lilac blooms and the bleeding hearts?
I hope so.
If not, maybe this Memorial Day post will memorialize it for the future.
Every good weekend getaway begins with a proper itinerary, at least when you’re a Virgo. This year’s Mother’s Day weekend on Broadway was an ambitious 1-2-3 punch that started with the bang of ‘Hamilton’ and didn’t let up until ‘The Cher Show’ ended things with a rousing cry of “You haven’t seen the last of me!” In between were a few beautiful days in New York City, where we managed to dodge the rain and wind until the last possible moment, and by then we were ready to board the train to return home.
We stayed at the Park Lane Hotel, right on the southern border of Central Park, and thanks to the extra Standby Upgrade charge for each night we eked out a room on the 37thfloor, which afforded us the magnificent view you see here. I always forget the sprawl and expanse of Central Park until I see it laid out like this. A certain magnificence of foresight was required for such a lasting endeavor, and it’s a testament to the importance of proper planning that we have it like this today.
There is always a sense of excitement and spring happiness when we come down on this weekend. The Met Gala has come and gone, leaving the new exhibition behind to peruse. (In this instance it was a must-see show: ‘Camp: Notes on Fashion’ which we’ll get to in a couple of posts.) The store windows at Bergdorf Goodman teased at the theme, dripping with their customary over-the-top decadence. A bouquet of orchids near the elevators of our hotel greeted us in shades of chartreuse. All in all, beauty was conspiring to start the celebration off in the best possible ways.
For our first show, I splurged (and emptied my account) as a Christmas gift to Mom ~ ‘Hamilton.’ It was even better than I recalled it from the first time I was lucky enough to see it, as this is very much a show that benefits from some background listening and research beforehand. You can still get a lot out of it from a cold viewing, but there are so many layers of complexity and storytelling that you lose something if you’re seeing it for the first time. Luckily Mom does her research and I’d given her the soundtrack a few months ago so she knew what was going on both sonically and historically. We had an early dinner at Sardi’s, which was a comfortable, classic, old-school haunt we’ve done whenever we need a place in a pinch.
In the middle of the greatest city in the world, the shows were about to begin…
From our family to yours, here are some scenes from Easter Sunday before the week is over. Perhaps even more-so than Christmas (because Lent is a much longer and more arduous build-up), the anti-climactic nature of the Resurrection sets itself up for a let-down. Thankfully, that didn’t happen this year because we no longer place much hype into the whole holiday. Maybe it’s all those run-ins with various frightening bunnies, or just the realization that the archaic Catholic constrictions upon which I was almost destructively raised were man-made rules of arbitrary nonsense – whatever the case, we enjoy Easter as a spring holiday designed to bring the family together. I suppose that’s what the underlying importance of any socially-constructed holiday is, and I’m not unhappy that it should be so. Any excuse to party, if you ask me. Here are just a few photos from our gathering. Hope you enjoyed yours too.
Today marks my mother’s birthday, the number of which shall remain private, not that she would mind, but a lady never reveals her age or weight, and everything I know about being a proper lady I learned from my mother. The lady part is a joke, but the sentiment is true: so much of what I know about honor, honesty, deportment and class was taught to me by my Mom.
I remember going to the supermarket with her when we were little kids, riding in the little seat of the shopping cart, and watching as she went about her routine. I’d see various people recognize her, but more often than not she wouldn’t even notice, too preoccupied and focused on getting everything on her grocery list. It wasn’t that she was rude or intentionally ignoring anyone, she simply had other tasks on her mind and went about her business blissfully unconcerned with other people’s watchful eyes. That was a powerful lesson: if you focus on your own stuff it’s much easier to stay out of trouble and play no part in local gossip. I don’t know if anyone ever thought her aloof or unapproachable because of it. I do know that I’ve been tagged as such over the years, and it always tickles me. I learned it by watching her.
My brother and I will bring the twins to select my parents’ Christmas tree next week. It’s a holiday tradition that goes back to an impromptu trip to Bob’s Tree Farm when I was home from college in the mid-90’s. Somehow, we’ve managed to preserve this rare moment of brotherly bonding, as we wind along the curving roads of Galway in the dark of an almost-winter night. The holidays, at their best, bring out the better sides of brotherhood, and this is one ritual to which I always look forward.
I paused in my brother’s childhood (and, well, adulthood) bedroom at my parents’ home. We had finished Thanksgiving dinner and I was lolling about upstairs in a turkey-trypto haze when I noticed the sunlight pouring into his room. At first, I couldn’t remember the afternoon light streaming in like it did. I have vivid recollections of the morning sun peeping in my bedroom at the northern side of the house, and of the moonlight coming through my window as well, but I couldn’t place this bright warm scene in my memory bank. Puzzled, I sat down on the bed and almost spoke aloud the words ‘I don’t remember this…’
I remembered dancing to ‘Dress You Up’ in this room, jumping up and down on the bed to Madonna’s early music. I remembered sneaking through the rust-colored shag carpet that used to be here in order to get to the guest room when our Gram was staying over for the holidays. I remember the whispered stories that my brother and his friend would tell when we would have sleepovers. But I couldn’t remember this sunlight.
As much a test for my failing memory and middle-aged forgetfulness, I forced myself to think back to my youth, but nothing was coming. I simply did not recall a time when the sun was this strong. It flowed through the window, in spite of the frosty panes. It roamed over the warm carpet, climbed atop the bedspread, and rose all the way up the wall. In spite of the cold, the sun heated the room. It was always warmer in my brother’s room. I wondered if that informed his disposition, whether that explained why he was sometimes sunnier than me. Cool and reserved, like my bedroom, which only saw the morning sun or the moonlight, I held my emotional cards closer to the vest. It was safer that way.
Then, as I watched the dust particles floating through shafts of sunlight, I began to remember. An old television, with the knob you had to manually turn to switch channels, once sat in front of the window. It didn’t broadcast anything but static, yet we still fiddled with it, hoping for a station to come in eventually. One never did. A box of stale dog biscuits, which we dared each other to bite. These were distant and dim memories, but still largely intact. Images and scenes without plot or point, they were there buried deep in my memory castle, and instantly I warmed at their presence.
Outside of weddings and funerals and the occasional trip to Ogunquit, Andy and I don’t get to travel that often with my parents, so last weekend in New York City was a rare delight. We weathered the crazy snowstorm to arrive in a city that was just turning into a holiday wonderland, giving everything a sparkly glow of anticipation and excitement.
When my Mom and I were last in New York for our Broadway Mother’s Day weekend, the only thing we saw on ads all over town was ‘Come From Away’. Since my Dad had lived in Nova Scotia and remembered it as one of the friendliest places on earth, she thought he would enjoy the show. I haven’t seen a show on Broadway with my father since the 1990’s, so this seemed a good time to return.
Traversing the crowded streets of Times Square is no easy feat for those of us in relatively decent health; doing so with two elderly parents and a disabled husband seemed like a daunting task, but everyone managed remarkably well.
Staying at the Kimpton Ink 48 Hotel in Hell’s Kitchen was a treat, with the one glaring exception of a raucously loud nightclub across the street that kept Andy and my Mom (in the adjacent room) up until well past 3 AM. My Dad and I somehow slept right through it, thankfully. The rest of the hotel stay was fine. I commandeered the remote and for once we steered clear of all the news and political yammering, sticking with the Food Network and Cooking Channel, where Ina and Giada and Martha showed us how to do various Thanksgiving dishes. (I’ll be trying a new twist on my candied yams, inspired by a sweet potato recipe from the Pioneer Woman.)
It was a key component to enjoying our downtime while in the hotel room, and a change of pace from the relentless stream of disappointment and chaos that usually pours forth from the television.
For my fragrance, I chose the sweet-tinged New York Oud by Bond No. 9. It’s an indulgent jewel – rich and opulent and decadent – the perfect embodiment for a quiet but sparkling New York City weekend. I made up for Tom Ford withdrawal by splurging on his just-released line of underwear. Somewhere in the midst of it all we bargain-shopped at Century 21, where Andy and Dad mostly just waited for me and Mom.
The show (‘Come From Away’) was amazing – I wasn’t expecting to be so wholly moved on so many levels. To be honest, I’d steered clear of it when planning our Mother’s Day weekend because I didn’t see how a musical could ever deal with the aftermath of 9/11 in any meaningful way. This transcended that by expounding upon the situation of those stranded in Canada when their flights were diverted out of America. Everyone who was alive and old enough to be cognizant in 2001 remembers where they were on that September day.
Whenever you go through something profound with a group of people, particularly people you have never met before, it brings out the primal and basic essence of who you are. Free from the burdensome expectations and established image that friends and family have, one is liberated to reveal oneself.
I’ve often felt this freedom in airports or train stations when traveling alone. I don’t have to be anyone other than who I am. There is no weighty history of four decades bearing down on me, no shared experiences where I behaved badly or hurt someone, no one who has seen me at my worst, no one who has witnessed any shame I once felt, and in some strange way I can be more of myself than I usually am.
Luckily, I have a similar sort of freedom with those who know and love me best, and surrounded by my parents and Andy, I felt fortunate to have such a loving family. They will always be better than a Broadway show, a bottle of cologne, and a pair of Tom Ford underwear any day. Here’s to the next adventure… maybe Maine in the winter.
Happy Thanksgiving to all who dare to enter here, especially those who have stopped by before and are brave enough to come back. You have my eternal gratitude.
Of course, Thanksgiving is about more than that, so I’m going to suspend the snarkiness for a moment and give a few significant shout-outs to those who matter the most in my life. It’s not shoes or coats or bags or even cologne for which I am most grateful. It never was and it never will be. It’s always and only been people: my family and friends.
This has been a rough year for some of us. The older we get, the more we seem to lose. Those who remain are a little broken, but being together makes those breaks easier to bear. I’m thankful for Andy and my parents- my main support system when life gets rough and no one else seems to care. I’m thankful for my brother and niece and nephew, and his girlfriend Landrie, who unexpectedly brighten my days when it’s most needed. I’m thankful for my friends – and the chosen family we have forged together. I’m lucky to have such circles of friendship and love, and the way they overlap and intersect makes the world feel so much warmer.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones too. Hug them all a little tighter this year – we need it.
Last weekend we attended a dinner party at my brother’s house – a cozy rendezvous with a few moments by the fire pit. What does one wear to such a thing? None other than this fabulously-rendered knit poncho that I found in some hidden store in Portland, Maine a while back. I bring it out for fall days like this, as much for its layer of warmth as for its ridiculous form and style. We all look foolish in a poncho, let’s be honest.
Before dinner, Paul got the fire going, and Andy and I posed before the guests arrived. We would return to it at the end of the evening, when all was dark and the fire had softened to a pile of glowing embers. Sometimes that’s the best part of a fire, even if it takes some howling and crackling to get there. As for the dinner, it was a lovely gathering of friends old and new – the perfect fall escapade – and one of those rare times when I felt I was on the inside looking out instead of my usual vantage point on the periphery. Or maybe I just felt like one of the group instead of being the elephant at the zoo.
Whenever the world grows cold, and I feel the need for reassurance and warmth, I think of my grandmother. She seemed to come more regularly into our orbit every fall, as the days began the march to the holidays. My Mom would bring us into her hometown of Hoosick Falls to spend the weekend with Gram just as the fall ascended to its apex. In preparation, I would make a batch of apple cinnamon muffins. They filled our house with the comforting smell of cinnamon and spices. Nestling them into a cloth-lined basket a la Little Red Riding Hood, I loaded them carefully into the car and we made our way along the backroads into the little town where Gram spent most of her life.
In close proximity to Vermont, Hoosick Falls was a sleepy village, through which the Hoosick river flowed. Water played a part in our journey there, as we crossed bridges that went over streams and said river. “Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go” was an apt musical cue, and we would sing it out loud as we entered the town.
That first night we would settle in to an old-fashioned meal cooked by Gram, accompanied by apple-cinnamon muffins for dessert. We went to sleep in spite of our excitement over the next day’s travels.
Some years the leaves were in the midst of their glory; others they had already been rendered bare. The sky was usually gray, and the air damp, but the scent of fireplaces made it all feel more cozy. Along with the rustling of leaves, the sound of rushing water came to signify fall, as it ran behind one of our favorite places to stop: the candle mill.
As one of the main destinations for me and my brother, its two-or-three-story building stood on the edge of a roaring stream, always full of fall rain. Before we got outside to inspect it closer, however, we had candle work to do. There was one small section, on the landing between floors I think, where they offered a pair of pure white linked candles which you could dip in various wax colors which were heated and smelled deliciously of light, if light could have a fragrance. We would dip and make our own designs (I always tried to make an entire rainbow on the candle, but after the third or fourth dunk it was futile, and the yellow never got as light as I wanted it.) That wasn’t the point – we loved it, being able to take part in something like that, putting our own little spin on something as wonderful as a candle.
Afterward, we would go behind the building and look over the bank onto the rush of water. A little waterfall crashed further up the stream; it was noisy there, in the best way. We wanted to get closer, but there was danger there too. Childhood verges ever on the dangerous. We gripped our paper bags of candles tightly, as we edged nearer the ledge. Mom and Gram pulled us back and then it was time for dinner in Manchester.
Those weekends were why Gram would come to symbolize the coziness of fall to me. Together with my Mom, they crafted a sense of warmth just when the world began to go the opposite direction. Later, Gram would teach me to crochet, another act of creation that would see us through the winter as well. But that’s another story to tell, and we’re not quite there yet.
Our as-annual-as-we-can-muster-it Treasure Hunt for the twins was staged a couple of weeks ago. That’s when we have our niece and nephew over for a fall treasure hunt around the backyard followed by some hot chocolate with marshmallows. The turning of the seasonal clock finds us inside for the rest of the time, since the pool is too cold to swim and the air and lawn are too damp to play. This year we found an old spell that actually worked, as when we returned to where our Treasure Hunt began, the empty box over which we chanted our incantation was filled with a Halloween surprise. (I’ll let the twins tell that tale themselves.)
As is always the case, the hunt for Halloween treats took far less time than anyone expected (hoped) and soon we were left with sugar-spun kids looking to fill three hours with non-stop entertainment.
The Halloween trick-or-treat bags were a hit, as were the rubber-ball eyes that glowed when they bounced on the ground. These too, though, were forgotten as quickly as the Treasure Hunt and soon more distractions were needed.
As the fun Uncle, it was up to me to occupy the twins’ time with magic and make-believe, and no other place on earth is more amply stocked for just such a demand than our attic. Costumes, accessories, decorations and dreams were all to be found if one took the time to look carefully. The twins are still at an age where those things matter, where a few magical turns in the proper outfit can lead to corridors of enchantment and mysticism, where the land of imagination reigns supreme over the dull trappings of reality and adulthood.
Sometimes that magic finds its way downstairs and onto my own head. If the top hat fits…
If you happen to see Andy (or, even better, if you have his cel number) be sure to wish him a Happy Birthday today. There is enough sorrow and darkness in this world; we need more happy days like this, and we need to make the most of them when they’re at hand. He’s had a difficult few months health-wise, and this is also the time of the year when things get a little sadder with the closing of the pool, the end of the summer, and the anniversary of losing his beloved Mum.
Still, we forge ahead. I’ll do some fall cleaning and make him his dinner of choice. He’s indicated he wants to lay low and not go out, which sounds practically perfect. Quiet birthdays are woefully underrated. Andy has always preferred a non-scene like that. Preparing for winter brings out the meditative mode in us; it’s one of the first things that attracted me to him. On this birthday, I wish him a year of better health and more happiness. I love you, Drew.
The featured photograph was taken twenty years ago, as my ‘Aunt’ Elaine turned sixty. Impossible to believe that she’s turning eighty tomorrow, mostly because she’s ten times more active than I am, and I’m getting tired just writing this. A lifetime of community activism and work is impressive; that she has barely slowed down in all this time is the veritable mark of legend. After making Amsterdam her home in the early 70’s, she not only set down roots, but crafted a legacy built through hard work, endless volunteering, and transformations that saw her evolve from wife and mother to Montessori school founder and teacher, to various Presidents of organizations (I lost count of all the Presidencies which she has earned and served as).
She has played an active role in the General Federation of Women’s Clubs since 1979. Aside from basic life functions, I can’t think of anything I’ve done since 1979. As we gathered for a joint celebration of her birthday and her son Stephen’s marriage to Hye Sun, I was once again happily astounded by how she managed to elicit such a collection of people who have loved her all these years.
No one else can bring people together in such a way, and she is the living embodiment of the old adage that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. It’s but one of the many things I have learned from watching her over the years.
I always wondered how she found the drive and energy to do all that she does. I’ve seen her traverse New York City and Europe in the span of three weeks, then return and have a pistachio cake on the table for an impromptu dinner. Her indefatigable spirit, even in the face of hardships and tragedies, is the stuff of hyperbolic myth, and events which might otherwise have derailed persons seemingly less-frail were surmounted in almost super-human fashion. Yet through all her personal pain she’s always devoted her life to serving her community. In a way, that became her purpose in life. It emboldened and fulfilled her in ways that the traditional confines of a stay-at-home Mom and widow could never allow. It never sacrificed her family life, not in any way I could see, and her example, coupled with my Mom’s, helped me become a person who never saw gender roles limit what any of us could become. That didn’t mean it wasn’t difficult – it simply meant they worked extra hard to make sure none of us noticed.
A very modern woman who values history, she is the living embodiment of how we keep the stories of our families going – these stories that told us where we were from and how we got to be where we are today. Those stories are no longer being passed on as much, but she continues to do her best to ensure that they are not lost. Tomorrow, we pause to honor all that she has done, and also to celebrate how lucky we are to have her in our lives. Happy Birthday, ‘Aunt’ Elaine!
My memories of Stephen are like those that come from a distant relative forever on the periphery of family events. I was rarely directly involved in his world, but got to see some of it in glimpses and passings-by. Holidays and birthdays and simple summer days, I was there for most of the major events thanks to our family’s friendship with the Ko family. As the third of the Ko children, nestled in between the dominant older boys and the youngest baby girl, Stephen somehow managed to shine as his own star, impressing both mother and father in the manner that everyone else tried in their own various ways to attain.
He’d avoided the brunt of being one of the first-two born, and the competitive destiny that befalls many of us brothers no matter how hard we fight against it. He was also several years removed from the baby girl of the family, Suzie, with whom I would grow up. As the youngest kids in most situations, Suzie and I went largely unnoticed. Maybe because of that we got to see a little bit more. Even with such cover, Stephen glided more or less outside of my radar, and the few memories I have of him are rather ephemeral and innocuous.
One day I was playing with the Barbie dolls in Suzie’s bedroom. That glorious room, with its pink gingham canopy bed, lost completely upon Suzie but absolutely adored by me, held a large collection of mostly-ignored dolls and doll houses, and every time I went over to visit I’d find a way to play with them. Suzie would be supremely bored and usually slip away to find something – anything – more exciting than dolls. I’d brush their golden hair and arrange them by the pool. I’d set them in a car and send them on a summer drive. I’d seek out the fanciest ball gown and change them into it. They simply didn’t get the proper treatment they deserved while under the careless watch of Suzie. Just as I was doing this, Stephen walked by the room and asked if I was playing with Barbie. I’m sure I said absolutely not, even if I wasn’t quite socially cognizant enough to feel shame. He passed on, heading out to play basketball or something, and never mentioned it.
A couple of years later he took us to see ‘The Sting’ when he was supposed to take us to a children’s movie. He told us not to tell anyone, and I hope I didn’t, but I was angered that we had to watch some boring adult movie, and greatly unimpressed with the selfishness of young men even when it came to their baby sister and her equally-selfish best friend.
There was something more sensitive about Stephen though, and while he would tease my brother and I as much as his older brothers did, we never felt the same fear that they could inspire. There was something gentler about him, an artistic temperament that seemed to feel things a little more keenly than the average person. He lived a charmed childhood, from my limited vantage point, and he had the kindness, confidence and laissez-faire attitude that may have been a result of his cushioned position in the family.
The world isn’t always kind to those who feel things more keenly, however, and I occasionally imagined his moments of torment and pain, especially when his father died. Everyone died a little on that day, and I don’t think anyone has fully recovered. There is no recovery from such a swift, gaping loss. A bit of it heals, a lot of it scars, and in the end it’s with us for life – the constancy of which may be the slightest bit of balm on such a sea of hurt.
Families survive, somehow, and those who live hopefully find happier moments with which to build new memories, which is the happy ending of this post. After marrying his fiancee Hye Sun earlier this year in South Korea, Stephen has returned to celebrate with those of us unable to make that journey. He and Hye Sun are sharing a grand party both for their wedding and his Mom’s 80thbirthday celebration (another post for another day). We will be joining them in our hometown of Amsterdam, NY – the city where we grew up – and for one of those rare moments our families will once again be together. That hasn’t happened in a very long time, and we’ve all missed it.
For most of my childhood summers my brother was my best friend. Away from the daily circumstance of school, and without cel phones or the internet, we lost touch with school friends that we had grown accustomed to seeing daily. Stranded in the same house, raised by the same parents, my brother and I are the only two people in the world who shared almost the exact same upbringing. No one, not even Suzie, has a keener understanding of what it was like to grow up in the Ilagan household, with all its requisite glories and flaws and luxuries and discipline. My brother shared all those things for the first decade and a half of our lives before we went our own ways and forged our own paths.
Back then, it was just him and me, and I didn’t mind in the least.
TONIGHT IT’S VERY CLEAR, AS WE’RE BOTH LYING HERE
THERE’S SO MANY THINGS I WANT TO SAY
I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU, I WOULD NEVER LEAVE YOU ALONE
SOMETIMES I JUST FORGET, SAY THINGS I MIGHT REGRET
IT BREAKS MY HEART TO SEE YOU CRYING
I DON’T WANT TO LOSE YOU, I COULD NEVER MAKE IT ALONE.
We had friends in the neighborhood that we’d play with ~ Michael and Eric and Jennifer ~ but I was more content when it was the two of us, riding our bikes across town to grab baseball cards and candy, or down to the small corner aquarium store to see the fish. There was a huge 100-gallon tank of freshwater fish near the back of the store, filled with colorful decorations and large denizens slowly swimming above its graveled expanse. I remember the owner of the store, Linda, and how we could mark the passing of time in her hair and, later, her pregnancies. She had a short hair phase, then there was a tragic perm moment (from which she never quite recovered) and finally ~ thankfully ~ she started to grow it out. By then we had almost grown up.
I AM A MAN WHO WILL FIGHT FOR YOUR HONOR
I’LL BE THE HERO YOU’RE DREAMING OF
WE’LL LIVE FOREVER, KNOWING TOGETHER
THAT WE DID IT ALL FOR THE GLORY OF LOVE.
This song, an unabashed love song, is a strange one to intertwine among memories of my brother, but its essence could be read on a grander scale than finite romantic love. It was part of ‘The Karate Kid’ ~ a movie that I saw with my brother, and it filled the radio of one of those childhood summers. In the hot and humid nights, back when heat and humidity didn’t bother us (childhood has a way of making us weather-resistant), we’d listen to this on the radio, caring not a whit for Peter Cetera’s cheesy delivery or the banal cliches of knights in shining armor and castles far away. What did we know of romantic love at that point? Nothing, and we didn’t want to know. Sometimes children have all the wisdom.
Instead, we reveled in brotherly love, even if we would never say or acknowledge it. We emboldened one another. It’s often been assumed that my brother was more of a risk-taker than me, that he would make questionable choices and do occasionally-foolish things, acting as daredevil to my more sensible angel. That wasn’t really the case when we were kids. My brother was most often the voice of safety and reason when I wanted to do something really stupid. He was the one concerned about Mom and Dad and what they would do to us if we got caught. I just had the confidence to assume we wouldn’t get caught, and most of the time that carried us through. Like when I stole an expensive (or so I thought at the time) baseball card from one of the local dealers. We were browsing with a friend, and on a dare or desire to impress my brother (I could do crazy-ass daring things too!) I stuffed some rookie card down the front of my shorts into my underwear. I thought I did it furtively, but the owner, a cigar-chomping rotund gentleman with straggly yet curly hair that was running away from the top of his head, must have seen me, and immediately stopped me from leaving the store. Alerted at this point by the accosting, but unaware of what I had done, my brother looked at me and waited. The owner said he saw me stuff a card down my pants. I denied it, and through sheer force of will and defiance, one of the only times in my life when I have been so bold, I stood my ground and dared him: “If it’s in my pants, why don’t you come and get it?” (I didn’t watch all those soap operas for nothing.) He backed away and just yelled at us to get out of his store. We got on our bikes and quickly pedaled away. Amused and a little irate, my brother asked, because he didn’t quite believe me, whether I had taken the card. “Of course not,” I replied. Then I rode ahead of him a little, pulled the card from my underwear, and waved it in the air to show him without saying a word. Older brothers have been doing stupid shit to impress their younger brothers since the world began. Most of the time it doesn’t work.
YOU KEEP ME STANDING TALL, YOU HELP ME THROUGH IT ALL
I’M ALWAYS STRONG WHEN YOU’RE BESIDE ME
I HAVE ALWAYS NEEDED YOU, I COULD NEVER MAKE IT ALONE…
We had our arguments, like all brothers will, and at the end of them we’d separate for a while, cooling off in our respective corners. The world would turn a little dimmer whenever that happened. I remember one time we were building a fort in the forest and we got into a ridiculous fight about how to make it or something, and it ended with us going off to make our own separate forts.
We eyed each other suspiciously, scrambling for materials before the other could get them, racing to see who would finish first and whose would be the better. Neither of us ever won then. We were better as a team, stronger when we were together and on the same side. But sibling rivalry runs deep. We did not see that then. Our forts, and the loneliness that resulted from erecting them on our own, were emblematic of our struggle. We abandoned them. The summer storms ripped their walls of twigs apart. Every time we’d return after a heavy rain, more had washed away. The floor, which we had raked and swept and kept free of debris would be littered with leaves and branches. Deciduous boughs, bent and tied to form a canopy, broke free of their string and returned to their natural form, taking the make-shift ceiling with them. Summer could be as destructive as she was sunny.
I AM A MAN WHO WILL FIGHT FOR YOUR HONOR
I’LL BE THE HERO YOU’RE DREAMING OF
WE’LL LIVE FOREVER, KNOWING TOGETHER
THAT WE DID IT ALL FOR THE GLORY OF LOVE.
For a summer best friend, one could do a lot worse than my brother. He had the qualities I lacked but so often admired. He wore his sensitivity on his sleeve; I kept mine hidden. He was more open and raw about getting hurt, emotionally and physically; I kept my pain quiet and private. He was quick to play and please; I was quick to run and hide. Yet for all our differences, for all our childhood summers, those differences bound us together in ways I still don’t completely understand. We each seemed to supply what the other lacked, whether we realized it or not. But maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe we just wanted a playmate. When the sun was out, and the summer beckoned, the best thing to do was share it with someone.
IT’S LIKE A KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR, FROM A LONG TIME AGO
JUST IN TIME I WILL SAVE THE DAY, TAKE YOU TO MY CASTLE FAR AWAY
And so we carved out our summer adventures. When my brother would journey out on his own or with a neighborhood friend, I’d sometimes stay behind and immediately regret it. At those times I’d stay inside, watching out the window like a dog waiting for its owner to come home, hoping they wouldn’t be gone for too long. Solitude was my resting stance, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be alone all the time, and certainly not on a sunny summer day.
It takes me a long time to feel safe and comfortable enough to make friends, so my brother was often my conduit to social interaction in those days. He was a talisman of sorts whenever I felt anxious about being accepted or part of the group. In that way, he was more like an older brother, and me his younger charge in need of a little help. He was better at talking to people whereas my shyness was crippling. He probably did more to bring me out of my shell than anyone else, and in his company I could feel bold and brash (and apparently bodacious enough to steal a baseball card). Without knowing it, my brother was the protective hero that I would so long for when the world turned its back and closed its doors.
I AM A MAN WHO WILL FIGHT FOR YOUR HONOR
I’LL BE THE HERO YOU’RE DREAMING OF
WE’LL LIVE FOREVER, KNOWING TOGETHER
THAT WE DID IT ALL FOR THE GLORY OF LOVE.
All these years later, summer is still the season that seems to bring us together as brothers again. Christmas does that in quicker and shorter fashion, but summer, for whatever magical reason, finds my brother and I able to see each other more, to visit and hang outside while his kids swim, or have a sleep-over without having to worry about anyone getting up to go to school. We’re able to travel easier and get to see each other more in the summer months.
