That reminds me of a story....
Everyone has stories. I love to hear them. I eat them up. I strain my mind, sometimes, trying to remember dad's funny military stories and tales about our eccentric family. If you tell me a story, I'll listen then and probably replay it in my mind later (less the names 'cause I forget those). However, BE WARNED! If I REALLY like your story and get excited about it, it will get my brain going and remind me of ones to tell.
I don't notice myself telling stories until someone makes fun of me for doing it so often. But they are so much fun! Why doesn't everyone share their stories? What's the point of all this crazy chaotic bumping around through life if you wont share your weird experiences and funny times?
Please, please... tell me a tale. Keep it true. The truth is always crazier than fiction can imagine. If you ask me why I tell so many, I'll only ask you why you don't tell more. :)
I don't notice myself telling stories until someone makes fun of me for doing it so often. But they are so much fun! Why doesn't everyone share their stories? What's the point of all this crazy chaotic bumping around through life if you wont share your weird experiences and funny times?
Please, please... tell me a tale. Keep it true. The truth is always crazier than fiction can imagine. If you ask me why I tell so many, I'll only ask you why you don't tell more. :)
posted by TwistedNoggin at 6:14 PM
3 Comments:
When I was a kid, Mom wrapped us both up in our winter coats. Hers was brown corduroy with metal buttons. After she let the car warm up she drove us downtown to the shoe store in our blue Oldsmobile. On the way she sang, “jeepers creepers, where’d ya get those peepers, where’d ya get those eyes?” We were going to the building that had the big shoe on the roof that hung just past the edge of the building. Inside the salesperson sized me up for my new birthday shoes. Only he didn’t use one of those metal sliding ruler things. They had a big oval shaped thing in the floor with a rectangular shaped hole right in the middle. When you put your sock foot in, two sides would come together and touch your foot, and then go back out. Then the other two sides would come in, touch your foot, and go back out. That’s how the salesman knew your shoe size. After he used a metal shoehorn to painfully apply my brownish-maroon shoes into place, I paraded up and down the aisle in great pain. I didn’t let on because I didn’t want to go through THAT again. As he boxed them up, I was allowed to pick one item out of the treasure chest.
Life is a lot like Mom’s old coat; Smooth to the touch when you rub one way, more resistance when you rub the opposite, and always bumpy side-to-side.
For nearly 15 years, my brother and I hardly said enough words to each other to fill a 5th grade research paper. Being ten years apart in age, and having totally opposite personalities, we never really had much common ground. We lived this way, like acquaintances more than brothers, and it worked for us. Maybe it was fear that kept us from saying more, I don't know. Maybe we were more similar than we always thought.
Anyway, I wrote him a letter once. About four years ago, I guess. I told him that I never forgot the time he let me watch the Superbowl with him, and how he even shared his crab legs with me. I told him that I really appreciated the day he came to pick me up from school when things were happening between Mom and Dad. It wasn't the best of times, but his being there for me - in that small way - meant alot. I told him about how we hugged at my grandmother's funeral. Strangers to each other we were, maybe - but we shared the love of a grandmother who had made our visits worthwhile. That rainy day, we both felt the impending sense that, sooner than later, it would all be up to us. I told him plenty more. Poured my heart out, I guess you could say. Someone can only keep so much in before they start gushing.
He replied to my letter. I read it. There was more in that letter than my brother had ever said to me my entire life. Never thought my brother shared the same fears and insecurities that I call mine. He always seemed to know what he wanted, and was fearless in its pursuit. He always seemed quietly confident. Reserved, more to the point. But closed. Closed, till it was his time to gush, too.
We've never been so open to each other since. It was a one-time thing, I guess. Perhaps it'll happen some time down the road, when we're ready. Some might criticize us for that - that we don't go out of our way to communicate. But I don't think it was ever about communicating, so much as being two sides of the same coin. We face outward, always, but always back-to-back. We're together, even when we're apart. A mutual, unsaid understanding - till we need to touch base (and remind each other that we're still here). Perhaps things could have different. Perhaps things could have been better. But it works for us.
And I'd rather have this brother than no brother at all.
I was a really stupid kid. My parents where getting the storm windows replaced, so there was just a screen in the window in our bedroom. My brother had a neighbor friend over and I was being stupid (I was like 4 or something) and running in circles as fast as I could in the bedroom. I got dizzy...slammed into the screen popping it out of place.
All I remember is seeing the neighbors house across the street, the ground, my house (upside down), sky, neighbors house again, then poof I'm sitting on top of the screen resting comfortably upon an evergreen bush. In my underwear too. My dad came bursting out the front door after my brother said to him "austin fell out of the window".
I was find, but my dad was bug eyed like a frog.
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