November 06, 2004

now here’s the moon, it’s allright

Tonight was the long-awaited family reunion, to honour my father and his 60th birthday. Everyone was there, people I haven’t seen in years, new babies, prodigal uncles, brides-to-be, travelling from afar. As my dad made his entry, his eyes opened wide. It was a surprise. My mother was looking quite beautiful and triumphant, holding the mapquest map I had sent last month for her careful study; “we didn’t get lost! and I kept the secret!” I could hardly believe.

There were red peppers signs next to every item on the menu, but I jumped in anyway. By dessert time I was beginning to doze off margaritas, and just listening to burst of voices, watching cigarettes fly. “Let’s not even mention politics!” “We’ll all be happy when we retire!” My father was looking longingly at the pile of gifts by the table. Like a good cat, I helped him unwrap. Inside we found books about old-time hockey, fishing paradises, québécois assassins, a phone and something for corks… Quite a loot of chocolate too, evenly divided between us two, as is the tradition.

One after the other, aunts dragged their chair next to mine, sighing, then smiling at me. “It’s so nice to see you. Where is your boyfriend?” “At war”, I said, and they wrapped their arms around my shoulders, cups dangerously close to my mouth. They inquired about work, about my brother. “You keep in touch, don’t you?” It was too loud to answer, with the band playing, the laughters. So I hauled a little cousin on my lap. “Nat, your mom just told me you visited Mexico! How was it?” I pointed to the mariachi band behind us. “It’s like this! It’s great.” I asked him how university was going, and I tried on his glasses. There always is so much catching up to do… sometimes I wish time stopped.

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May 19, 2004

bannières de mai

I would give everything to be out swimming instead of having cold sweats over tomorrow’s colloquium-golf tournament, but what can you do. I feel feverish with the splendor of May, a warm luminescent sun and a cool cool breeze, May 19th, my brother’s birthday. We are both spring offsprings, and every May 19th, I half expect my brother to call up from some faraway pay phone and blurt out, “hey it’s my birthday! send in the gifts, plenty of kisses!” - which he does, calling up that is, a year out of two.

Every May19th brings forth a whirlwind of memories. How easy it is to romanticize the one that got away! And to get caught with the stickiest of archetypes, when your childhood is spent mimicking the antics of your ADD-afflicted brother. But what can you do. In the early 80’s, I was forcefed innumerable Ninjas movies, learning to distinguish between what was special effects and what was obviously not, and being the guinea pig of many scary experiments in the Ninja Room, a dark corner of the basement whose walls were covered with aluminum foil, Bruce Lee posters and Christmas lights. This is the room where my brother and I, utterly destroyed after the Canadian Customs seized all of the Chinese Stars and Sarbacane Bullets we had ordered from US catalogues, concocted our poisonous traps out of rubber bands and Ajax cleaning powder. It is the room where I secretly brought my girlfriends to go through my brother’s stuff, while he was out climbing electric pylons or exploring neighbours’ houses in their absence.

“My brother sucks”, I explained. “All he does is stupid boy stuff. He gets bad grades. He breaks things. He makes his teachers cry. He makes other people seem boring.” My girlfriends would understand, they had older brothers too, or older sisters. “We understand”, they said. “But next thing you know, your sibling is gone and you are left with nothing but idealized memories and love and regrets.”

Happy birthday, Stéphane the sailor man! I bet your hair is turning grey!

Posted by nathalie at 03:53 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack