Marathon thoughts. 2.

My brother.

He is younger, but often growing up I felt he was way ahead. He was an easy athlete. Whatever sport he turned his eye to, he did well. He excelled at all the sports I barely had the guts to try. He was an easy friend. He made many great friends and kept them for years. Crowded rooms were OK. He lacked drama. He just did things: snowboarding, back country skiing, mountain biking, sailing, Ironman, wedding parties, camping, traveling, windsurfing, kite surfing, talking. Things I would love to do in another lifetime.

He was there when my first was born. After her dad, he was the first to hold her. That picture I will hold in my mind’s eye forever. He was genuinely thrilled. For us.

I think he thinks I can do anything. I think he looks up to me, which I often think is bananas. He can make me laugh like very few others. His sense of humour is my jam. His laugh, yup, his laugh, I’m a fan.

He recently went through something big. I thought I knew how to be there for him, but I don’t think I did. I still don’t think I know how. As he moves towards coming to the other side of this, as most do, he is changing. Which of course is both to be expected and applauded, revered really. Yet, what I’ve come to realize is that I’m grieving. Grieving the loss of someone. The someone who was my idea of my brother, my brother I thought I had all figured out. I thought I knew the entirety of him and had a vision of who he’d continue to be. The scruff, the nonchalance, the silly, the ease; all the things that simultaneously could be both endearing and infuriating. That was my brother. Then he started to change, I wasn’t ready. It’s selfish, but it’s true.

This is not the first time this has happened.

So it gets me to thinking, how many of us know and where are our deepest selves? Are we awarded glimpses of it right from the start? Does it change? What is the price of not knowing? When we become lost, how do we find our way back?

I see her most weeks, if not daily. In certain seasons, several times a day. She is sitting there, a little empty, turned in, looking at me for answers. I most certainly never have the answers. She is tired, she is losing her health, she has resigned. We talk about various things: what to eat, what to do. Are you sleeping? Do you get outside? Do you have help? We get no where. And each week she reappears. And each week I wonder if next time I can help. Ultimately, she has lost herself. Her center is closed, snuffed out, a slow ribbon of smoke where a lush valley once was. Nothing will change until she finds her way back. And of course it is much harder to find your way back to a place you’ve never been. I think what I now know is that I can help throw some bread crumbs, but in the end, the steps are hers to make.

I think this happens to most of us in one way or another. I think this is what most of us are chasing. Ourselves. The inside. The way deep inside. The inside that turns us right the fuck on. The part where, if touched, leaves you feeling light, alive, vibrant, ignited. I think you need to touch that spot regularly to thrive. The less you do the harder it is to reach the next time. And when it becomes out of reach we try so hard to replace it, not even knowing that that is our goal: a substance, a person, an act, a taste, an achievement, a thing, a like, an amount. It never works. Or does it?

If I flip through the Polaroids of memories and try to pull out the ones where the fire was glowing neon bright, there are common themes: music, exertion, intimacy, creativity, heat, alchemy, prowess, hard landscapes. But it’s not black and white. I’m not so sure how bright the fire was burning during some of my schooling, but on the other hand, when I walk into a Board room now, people pay attention and my words are heard and I think, just maybe, I can change things. Flame grows. There have been many a long run where I was definitely running away and not towards, but yanking on an oar or covering ground with ease and a deep beat in my head, that’s when the tip of that flame turns a little blue and starts to dance. It’s also not obvious. It took about forty years to find the substances, the pursuits, and the ground that fanned rather than dampened. It’s also not easy. How long did it take to allow another being to reach in, add a little kerosene, and not be afraid of the sparks?

So me, my brother, and her, we are all just the same. We are all just the same. We need the same. We need to feel the glow and the wild of what makes our eyes dance, our pores open, and our insides expand. So when we finally tap into that, I hope you notice it. I hope you make space for us and watch what we can do and then you go ahead and touch that place too.

Grief has a season, I hope mine is over and I can do this for you now, you deserve it. My brother.

xo j

PS. I warned you that was going to be a marathon of thoughts. 😉

PSS. The marathon was great. Consider my fire right the fuck lit.