The Guy's All Heart

beanie,


whatever you need if I have it to give it's yours

breathe

xo


It would require multiple posts for me to list all the fine qualities of my brother, Rob. 


His short note from last week says it all...


The guy's all heart ~


We should all be so lucky to have a brother like Rob.


Happy Birthday, big brother.


Thanks for always saving me a seat on the school bus...


and so much more.


xo beanie

I Didn't Know Anything

Memoir Notes III

Mom's in her garden in the backyard of our red brick house with black shutters and the white picket fence. The yard, an explosion of snow-white dogwoods and the lone crabapple. She's on her knees, green garden gloves on her hands, smoothing and clearing around the irises. 


Mom loved to garden. She had a very green thumb. Everything came to life under her fingertips, lush and colorful, but with a sense of order. Knees in the dirt, she'd push her face deep into the flowers, eyes closed. 


I remember the snapdragons; tiny fists of yellow and pink flowers on long green stems. I was little. Maybe four, five? 

In those days, I didn’t know about Bill, my brother. I didn’t know anything about Mom losing her son, about her other life in Canada, how she probably thought about her son every day. How Bill was living with his mean cousin, Murray. How his Dad was dead. How we were here and he was there. I didn’t know anything about my brother until I was older. Nine, ten? 

   

My brothers and I were always running around the yard, swinging on the swings, 45’s playing on the portable turn-table, Build Me Up Buttercup, crawling along the ground in a game of army with the Ashby and Trexler boys who lived just beyond the canopy of pink blossoms through a small opening of fence.

Every night Mom had dinner on the table for us; her one girl and three boys, and her preacher husband. I didn't know that somebody was missing. I didn't know anything about her other life.

That Is Not My Story

I wrote in my journal this morning about feeling holy. I am divine. A holy spark. I’d read this somewhere and thought, let me try it on, see how it feels. 

I felt holy for about three minutes. Then the dog laid his head on my knee and began to whimper. And Claire, sweet Claire, came in, rumpled from sleep, sighing about going to school. 


I made oatmeal. The dog needed walking. Claire needed a lunch packed. Nothing difficult, not like people being shot in the streets of Libya, or the man lighting himself on fire in Tunisia, the fruit seller who sparked a revolution. No, nothing like that. 


My life is charmed, luxurious. Divine. But I felt the spark sizzle out, a drop of water from an icicle had landed on the ember. I was a crabby woman, spreading peanut butter on a piece of bread. I felt Claire reacting to me, oh no, Mom’s slipping. I tried to pull myself back. 

What is it that I’m looking for that I don’t already have? Maybe the holy spark is the peanut butter. And the dog whimpering. And Dad lifting the lid off the pot of oatmeal I’d made for me and Michael and Rob, saying, “Hmmm. Maybe I’ll try some of yours this morning.”

He always makes his own and now he wants some of mine? 

So protective of my pot of oatmeal. Nothing holy in that.

“Go ahead, Dad,” I said, “Have some. I can make more.” 

But I felt let down; another person, dog, wanting. 

My brother, Rob, got up from his seat and said, "Where's the oatmeal, Bean? I'll make you some."

"No, no! Eat yours, it'll get cold.

"But I want to," he said, "I want to make you some oatmeal." 

This is so embarrassing, my crabby unholiness, my divinity lost under a pile of winter coats in the laundry room. Three minutes?

By midmorning, I was home alone, writing at the kitchen table when this shot through me, Maybe I should write about one-night stands and how much I love vodka. That would sell millions of books. 

But that is not my story. I am so grateful for that.

Count Backwards

My brother, Rob, was having lunch with a woman named Debbie whose boyfriend had left her after 15 years of being together. Debbie was devastated. That’s what she told Rob. 

"I'm devastated," she said.

And then she said, “Want some good advice?”

Maybe he nodded or said yes, or maybe she plunged right in. 

She said, “Stop talking about it. Just stop talking about what happened to you or how sad you feel or how you cannot believe you had to move out...This is what I do,” she told him. “I count backwards by seven. Let’s say you start at 357, you can pick any number, really. but let’s say you start there. So, you start... 357, 350, 343, 336...and just keep counting. Stop talking about it. That doesn’t help at all. Count backwards.”

March Madness?

Saturday night and I'm watching NCAA basketball with Dad, my brother Rob, and Claire, who's snuggled under a blanket wearing her bunny ears. Michael is upstairs playing his saxophone. I rarely watch basketball, or any other sport on tv, but there's something about watching a championship game that's feels exactly like a cardio workout. The Butler Bulldogs just won a very close game against Michigan State. Heart pumping.

Now, we're into game two; Duke vs. West Virginia. I know it sounds like I know my teams but I haven't got a clue. My usual rule is: root for the underdog. So, West Virginia it is.

But the best part is sitting between Dad and Rob; elbow to elbow. Clapping and shouting, and just carrying on.