I have three brothers...
...and I adore them all. My relationships with each one is distinctively different than the other two because they are very, very different.
Of the three of them, I have characteristics most similar to T.R., birth-order personality traits most like Jon, and in almost every way I'm the least like David, my oldest brother. He set the standard for cool in our house growing up, while I was always a little on the dorky tip. He ruled most of the us younger siblings with an iron fist, but that's a story for another day. I don't think I'd be out of line in saying that we all sort of idolized him, even when he was chucking hunting knives into his bedroom walls. For the last decade or so he's been living in beautiful Colorado mountains where he works as a meticulous craftsman of sorts, raises alpacas, and snowboards in his backyard. He's still very cool; I'm pretty sure he's outgrown the knife chucking, but I can't verify with documentation or anything.
A few years ago my sister asked me if I'd trek across part of the country to spend a week at his house with him and his wife and the sweet alpacas. I was hesitant, pregnant with Leila, working full-time, trying to juggle four kids while Dale was in school; I couldn't see how it was going to happen, but somehow it did. She and I loaded up her little car and headed out into the great wild blue yonder. It was the month of April, and when we got there, it was snowing. It snowed the entire time we were there. As a matter of fact, it snowed so much that we didn't leave the house until we were leaving to drive back to Missouri.
Now, let me tell you something about this life. My brother is an artist, he always has been, only by some cosmic act of fate he has been able to translate his craft into tile works and makes a living laying tile for people with extravagant taste in and around Denver. By doing what he does he has been able to establish a life for himself and his wife in the mountains. His house is up a curvy mountain road, tucked away in what I would consider a cleft. There are a few homes around them, but they don't have neighbors like we have neighbors. I mean, we live in a duplex for Pete's sake. He rides his snowboard down the mountain after parties at his backyard neighbor's house. Across the valley on the top of the mountain there is a castle, a real castle, complete with a legend, that you can see from their living room picture window. All that to say, their home is quite a refuge from life in the real world.
We spent the week spinning Alpaca wool in to yarn and felting wool into hats and purses. It was like a scene from Little House on the Prairie. I loved every minute of it. But what I loved more was spending the precious quiet hours with my brother as the man he's become, not the mean kid he used to be.
After dinner one night we were eating strawberries and ice cream and talking about our lives, and David said, "Sometimes I am great at multi-tasking and other times I can't get a single thing done. It's all or nothing." That's what we have in common, besides having the same biological parents and generally the same roots. And that, my friends, is what I was thinking about when I rolled out of bed this morning. Some days I am running around here like a machine, getting all kinds of projects and cleaning done and at the end of the day I feel like a million bucks. Other times I can't drag myself away from "It's Me or the Dog" and by 8:00 I have a million things to do before tomorrow. I guess it's all about the balance, but man I wish I could just find a middle ground. Let's hope today is one of the good ones...
Of the three of them, I have characteristics most similar to T.R., birth-order personality traits most like Jon, and in almost every way I'm the least like David, my oldest brother. He set the standard for cool in our house growing up, while I was always a little on the dorky tip. He ruled most of the us younger siblings with an iron fist, but that's a story for another day. I don't think I'd be out of line in saying that we all sort of idolized him, even when he was chucking hunting knives into his bedroom walls. For the last decade or so he's been living in beautiful Colorado mountains where he works as a meticulous craftsman of sorts, raises alpacas, and snowboards in his backyard. He's still very cool; I'm pretty sure he's outgrown the knife chucking, but I can't verify with documentation or anything.
A few years ago my sister asked me if I'd trek across part of the country to spend a week at his house with him and his wife and the sweet alpacas. I was hesitant, pregnant with Leila, working full-time, trying to juggle four kids while Dale was in school; I couldn't see how it was going to happen, but somehow it did. She and I loaded up her little car and headed out into the great wild blue yonder. It was the month of April, and when we got there, it was snowing. It snowed the entire time we were there. As a matter of fact, it snowed so much that we didn't leave the house until we were leaving to drive back to Missouri.
Now, let me tell you something about this life. My brother is an artist, he always has been, only by some cosmic act of fate he has been able to translate his craft into tile works and makes a living laying tile for people with extravagant taste in and around Denver. By doing what he does he has been able to establish a life for himself and his wife in the mountains. His house is up a curvy mountain road, tucked away in what I would consider a cleft. There are a few homes around them, but they don't have neighbors like we have neighbors. I mean, we live in a duplex for Pete's sake. He rides his snowboard down the mountain after parties at his backyard neighbor's house. Across the valley on the top of the mountain there is a castle, a real castle, complete with a legend, that you can see from their living room picture window. All that to say, their home is quite a refuge from life in the real world.
We spent the week spinning Alpaca wool in to yarn and felting wool into hats and purses. It was like a scene from Little House on the Prairie. I loved every minute of it. But what I loved more was spending the precious quiet hours with my brother as the man he's become, not the mean kid he used to be.
After dinner one night we were eating strawberries and ice cream and talking about our lives, and David said, "Sometimes I am great at multi-tasking and other times I can't get a single thing done. It's all or nothing." That's what we have in common, besides having the same biological parents and generally the same roots. And that, my friends, is what I was thinking about when I rolled out of bed this morning. Some days I am running around here like a machine, getting all kinds of projects and cleaning done and at the end of the day I feel like a million bucks. Other times I can't drag myself away from "It's Me or the Dog" and by 8:00 I have a million things to do before tomorrow. I guess it's all about the balance, but man I wish I could just find a middle ground. Let's hope today is one of the good ones...
i hope its a good one too!! talk to you soon.
ReplyDeleteI always thought you were the cool one. :) hehe
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