Recently a friend pointed out to me that my mother has a lot of real estate here on the blog.  (Hi Mom, I'm working on Thanksgiving, calm down.)  I figure the widespread having of mothers makes it a universal topic, but you know what's more universal?  Brothers.  Because brothers you can pick up along the way.  Most of us have lots, if we're lucky.  My first brother, Luke, was born when I was 2.  He's a big giant man now, and lives in Mississippi near bout my mama.  He's the best mechanic in the South, and holds the Guinness for Most Efficient Use of the Spoken Word.  Dude can lead 10 men in the emergency repair of a hydro-electric precipitator without uttering three syllables.  He's that good.  I've seen the house he built with his two hands, and when I gushed to him in amazement at the perfect mitres on every oak moulding, he stunned me with a full sentence: How the hell you know what a mitre is?  Luke is not on Facebook.  He got married in jeans.  I've never had his phone number, but I'd bet my last Pellegrino that if I asked him for a hand, he'd rub one cleanish and offer it to me.

Luke's my only blood brother, but there are more Other Brothers*.  Of those, Bill I actually grew up with.  He had about 5 years and 20 inches on me, called me Half Pint, and regularly spun me in the air against my will.  We all remember the story differently, but to me it was something like, some kid from church kept showing up at our house round dinnertime. When we started picking him up for school, I knew he was ours.  When we started getting him out of bed for school, I knew we were his. 

My sister and I had a little singing group at church with a girl who had Bill by the heartstrings, so Bill joined my very front-and-center family by teaching himself to rap about Jesus.  Now I mean rap as in the language that black people** speak. Bill is more black now than he was then, given, but Bill now is white like a golf ball**.  (In the spirit of David Letterman, I would like to announce, preemptively, that there is a VHS tape of this, of Bill rapping for Jesus, and me, Karen, singing a Michael W. Smith song in a straw hat and stonewashed jeans.  It is not ironic.  It is sincere as all get out.)  Lucky for Bill, Dena didn't mind his bad rap, and married him anyway.  This was long before I began greeting engagement announcements with an "Oh. Weird. Why?" (later shortened to "Oww"), so I gleefully led a team of girls in the blessed practice of tossing flowers day of.***

Things went haywire when Bill went to college, and we lost touch. Last week I had dinner with him at Italian Village downtown.  He was in Chicago speaking, presumably without the aid of a backbeat, to some youths.  He does that now, speaks to youths.  The plan was to get as up to date as we could, after more than a dozen years of quiet.  Anticipating a lift and twirl over Bill's head, I arrived in pants, to avoid a 360 degree view to visitors of Millennium Park - one that could turn parabolic panorama if he chose to do it in front of the Bean.  He waived from the East side of Michigan avenue and I checked my bag was zippered shut as his towering figure came toward me.  Hugged.  Feet lifted 6 inches, and... no twirl.  I was saved.  But not because of the pants.  I was saved from centripetal face-flushing because Bill crossed the street having already done something that very few long time loved ones do: he had allowed me to grow up.

Bill did not expect me to be the girl he remembered.  He didn't talk to me like he knew what I was going to say.  And he didn't express shock at the gap between the present and the past.  What I want to know first of all is: who taught him not to do that?  It's tough business, allowing our friends and family to change, and although its probably the only thing we can count on them to do, I know of no structure which teaches us to make room for it.  What a gift it was to be honored with the space to become completely and utterly myself.  Bill made no assumptions, no judgments and no recommendations for improvement.  In my last post, I implied that unconditional love is only possible when we know every square inch of a person down to their closeted ugliness.  I'd like to amend that by adding that it could also happen in the case that we let ourselves know nothing.  I sense that I could have been the most unmannered A-hole or superfreaked babbler Bill had ever seen, and he would have chuckled and said, "it's so cool to see you."

Bill's welcome taught me two important things, one old and one new: that everything changes, and that letting it do so is pure love.  I've been looking at my older relationships, checking to see if I'm trapping my loved ones in gripping an outdated version of who they are, and I confess, I'm guilty of asking some to replay long-dead characters just to interact with my fantasy of what used to be.  I'm gonna take a pencil and just make a note on the do-to list right here and now: cut it out.  My friends and students and dearest dears each deserve the opportunity to grow out of the suit I met them in, and THANK GOD my oldest friends have all done that for me.  The holidays are coming (I said it, I'm sorry) and I'm (almost) looking forward to trying this out on my relatives.  What would happen if I got to know them fresh, as new people?  If I allowed myself to be surprised by something I've never seen before?  I mean, Luke could be leading focus groups on cosmetic dentistry by now, really.  (Will report come January.)

In the meantime, one way to get skilled at surfing the changing current is to practice our practices, watching the breath, the body, the mind and the heart rise and fall and rise again.  Each cycle is different, each breath unique.  If I get bored, I'm probably not really watching.  Your inner workings may not be a 3-ring flea circus****, but they're still a pretty good show.  If you're into watching your tiny brain wiggles go back and forth, join me this weekend in Oak Park for Sound Mind Acupuncture or Happy Hour Yoga in PIlsen at our !NEW! location. (Thanks, Megin!)  Wednesdays 6:30-7:30pm through the double doors at 1856 S. Throop, $5-15 (or not), for a grand ole time with other breathers.  I am also available for private yoga sessions anytime you like.  Maybe.

Love to my brothers and sisters too numerous to count.
PEACE





*Lucas, the brother I met in college, is a story that will one day be rendered in novella format.  Love you, man.  Another Bill, first love turned brother, is a someone I will soon be loosening my past life grip on.  Working on it.  Jose, the gay roommate brother, is a prize-winner in both tolerance and endurance.  Several others currently undergoing brothering initiation.
**Eminem and Tiger Woods notwithstanding.
***Instead of outgrowing, traumatizing or divorcing each other, Bill and Dena made a little girl and are living happily ever after, by all accounts.  A miracle if I ever saw one.
****mine are, by the way.