Note to the reader:
Sunday
My brother and I went to lunch in Ellicott City, a small . It was a pretty cool brewpub, and their Rueben was on point. Hard to pass up a proper Rueben. We had great conversations and it was really nice to just chat as adults with the new perspectives we've gained as we get older. His involves becoming a father, and mine involve becoming an empty nester. Being the younger brother he always did everything before me, so this is strange to be ahead of him. His daughter is cute as a button and smart as a whip, as is mine. They just happen to be 15 years apart in age. But I think we're both appropriately proud.
We walked around Ellicott City for a bit. While COVID has claimed some businesses, they had flooding in recent years that has been hard on the downtown also. Coming from flyover country, flooding isn't something I'm very familiar with, so it was interesting to me.
I was going to my sister's place in Connecticut Monday, and was looking forward to it. As we get older we somehow get closer to our siblings, and she had been particularly supportive in recent years. I thought if I was going to start slowing down or getting bummed out about seeing Lily off, her peaceful house, smart and interesting husband, and old and friendly dog would be a good place to do it. Except there was a hurricane coming. Right off the coast, everyone is freaking out and preparing for power outages, etc. Their power company braced them for 8-21 days without power in the event of an actual hurricane. Even more, I was supposed to take the train back to Minneapolis from Stanford, and is the weather blows up their schedules, that's just so many different kinds of trouble. So it was "stand by to stand by."
That evening Lily came over from school as she had a few hours off, and just needed a bit of a break. And she wanted to see me before I left. We sat with my brother and his family and chatted. She has grown to be such a smart and mature young woman, it was more of that pride for me. And Seeing her niece toddling around reminded me how quickly they go from yelling colors at toys to being able to shop for their own food. She leaned into me and cuddled for an hour or more, and she hasn't done that since she was much younger. I could tell she was a bit overwhelmed and wanted to get some quality time in before she truly was set loose in the world.
As the time for her to leave rolled around, there was much hugging, some tears and more hugging. A few more tears and she was out the door. I didn't envy her drive back to school. So many times I would go over to my mom's for dinner or some event, and at the end of the evening I had to get in a cold car and drive from my old home to my new home. It's a cold that just cuts through you, no matter how warm a summer night might be. And sometimes those drives involve crying with nobody to hug you or even witness it. So when she went to her car I just wanted to run out and fly her to school in my arms. But that wouldn't really help, just delay the inevitable. And by the time she gets to her dorm the crying will be done, the focus will swing around back to the new school and friends, and she'll be fine.
I didn't cry like I did with Eli. Mostly because with Eli we were launching him into the empty void that is "college" with no understanding of what it meant, how he or we would handle it, much less see him again. I know more now, but it didn't make sending her off sting any less. And to add to the sad, I was jealous of her starting her adventure, and knew she was about to start doing amazing and fun and hard and tiring and great things. And I wouldn't get to see it.
I bailed on writing a long winded and witty blog post, and went to bed. Sunday I had been tired.
Monday
Monday was much more difficult to get started. After a leisurely morning my sister-in-law took me to the train station, toddler giggling in the back seat. They saw me off and I got one last fist bump from my niece's dimply little hands. When you're little you never think of when you'll see an uncle again, but when you're the uncle you worry if you wait to long to return, they'll grow up too fast. So I tried to enjoy the simplicity of the age.
As it happens, the weather broke milder and no hurricane. Rain, maybe a whisper of wind, but nothing catastrophic. But the previous day apparently a bunch of trains had just been flat out cancelled for flooding and such. So buying a train ticket up the coast proved a bit of a chore. I was playing whack-a-mole with available trains, and finally just bit the bullet and went business class, thus guaranteeing a seat of my choice. As long as my choice was 2F. It took the edge off the stress of navigating a travel method I wasn't used to. And it turns out my seat was directly behind the wheelchair spot, and the seat next to mine was designated handicapped. Even though the train was full, apparently nobody wanted to risk taking that seat from someone who needed it - so I didn't have to sit next to a stranger! Score!
It was a four hour train ride, and I got to see some of the bigger east coast cities and everything in between. The time passed quickly and before I knew it I was at my destination. My sister picked me up at the station and we headed back to her place. I was already getting more and more tired, but being at their place was very relaxing. They live in a beautiful old-ish house (1920's? 30's?) that had a ton of natural woodwork, art they had collected over the years, and somehow no matter what time of day it was, you could always find sunlight streaming vintage yellow through a window onto a hardwood floor. Whenever I experience that it reminds me that people have been seeing that light for decades in that house, and that time just didn't move very fast from some perspectives. It feels like it might be autumn, and I should smell burning leaves and hear the engines of proper old cars driving by.
We ate homemade pizza out in the tiki styled screen porch, listened to the katydids create their racket in the wooded areas in the back yard, and talked. And talked. And talked. I told stories, some were funny and some were sad. She told stories upon my stories, and we just played "oh yeah? what about..?" for hours. As I've mentioned, now that we're older we share more with each other. I talked about some things from our childhood that I was trying to work out, and she gave me her own stories to match. It helped give me support, sympathy, perspective, and a new respect for the different lives children live - while growing up together.
My wife's family communicates via logistics. They'll discuss upcoming plans, rehash how previous experiences could have been done differently. That's not all they do, but it seems to be the backbone of family conversations. Nothing wrong with it, it's just not how my family does it. I don't know what the root cause is. Maybe it's because we have a lot of Irish and "the gift of gab" or maybe it's a love of words and the romance of a past adventure or humor, but we communicate by stories. Much to my wife's boredom, we will tell the same stories over and over again. As time goes by they might become more poignant, a bit funnier, or just a little more incredible. I think part of it was growing up and seeing my father's family getting together and doing the same thing. And to see your father and his siblings rollicking with laughter when you're very young - well, it makes an impression. So we told story after story -- getting so far off the original track that one of the targeted topics never even got addressed. Her husband would say "But what about Evan Wolfson?" and I'd say "I'm getting there - but I have to explain *this* part in order to explain that part!" Pretty sure I still owe him the story about the obscurely famous lawyer. Next time!
The wine flowed easily, and it kept coming out to the porch. I don't usually drink wine, but if it was in front of me, I was going to be a good guest and drink it. I think by the end of the night there may have been Irish whiskey shots? It was pretty late. My poor brother and his wife are so tired from chasing the toddler that our evenings never really went past 11, if that. But up in Connecticut the humid evening air just kept us talking and talking. I think it was 2 or 3 by the time we called it quits - never being able to come to the end of our stories, of course. Because they kinda don't have ends, we just keep living them on and on. But the vino, the late hour, the exhaustion of dropping the daughter at college, and general life caught up with me and I opened up to them about how things were going, and got a little morose, but felt all the better for giving them a better understanding of some of the things that I'm working on these days. The evening as a whole was a hugely cathartic and supportive and an experience I will remember fondly for a long time. The next time I tell the story, I'm sure it'll have another interesting element.
Tuesday
Goes without saying the next day was tough. Not enough sleep, dehydration, the fact that I don't eat much anymore, and the general exhaustion really caught up with me and I spent Tuesday as a total lump, just relaxing. In the sunbeams. And the silence, except for the occasional tapping of the dogs claws on hardwood as he went to the door to watch something outside, or heard someone in the kitchen getting ice cubes. He's a total fiend for ice cubes. So they give him one or two from time to time as a treat - an inexpensive and healthy low calorie treat. Lucky! Anyway, I lounged for the day. It was a wonderful place to do it, and it was a nice quiet day.
Wednesday, Thursday
Wednesday and Thursday both kept up the relaxed and peaceful atmosphere. We went to the coast and had lunch at a great safe on the beach, and strolled a bit along the coast as well. Went one night to a Very Nice restaurant and my sister and I played "what's the story with those patrons?" where we go into exasperating detail about how their date is going, or if it's a family or just friends, etc. All of it made up, of course. Both my sister and her husband are on hiatus and they had all the time in the world to waste with me, which I absolutely appreciated. There were more stories, more chats both heartfelt and hilarious.
One night we watched "The Dig" which was really wonderful, but a bit of a downer. And the other we watched "Bottle Shock" which was hilarious (Chris Pine's wig as the Maguffin) and had a whole romantic story arc they completely abandoned - that we all called out.
Friday
And Friday had me going home. Not directly of course, but leaving my sister and her husband and their soulful eyed dog until the next time we or the family get together. It was such a healing and peaceful and restorative experience.
1 comment:
Come back again. We fully enjoyed having you, as did Guinness. We truly love you to your core, My Brother. Never too much, we share a past, even if it's not completely the same past.
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